#Alan Turing

[imagedescribed]

[ID: A comment by chaos-lioness that reads: "Genuinely though I wonder how he'd feel knowing the branch of technological development he set in motion has led to a way for people to be out and find community when they can't safely in real life. I hope it would make him happy." /end ID]

you gotta be as gay as possible on the computer otherwise alan turing died for nothing

[enbycrip]

I will genuinely never forgive anyone involved in making The Imitation Game for their absolute travesty of Alan Turing’s story.

He was intensely autistic, and gay, and *kind*.

He mentored people below him in the programme - including women, who pretty much everyone else was crappy to.

He had terrible allergies and went cycling in a gas mask in the country to avoid then, and when he got overstimulated at parties he pulled incredibly daft elaborate “walking into a cupboard” leaving gags to handle them that left everyone screaming on the floor despite the silliness.

He got on really well with kids and never talked down to them. He gave his neighbours his sugar rations on their kids’ birthdays so she could always make them birthday cakes - even when he was being persecuted after the war, even when he was suffering horrible side effects from the tortures they put him through.

He was such an utterly, genuinely lovely human being, and he deserved so much damn better, and at the very *least* he deserved to be portrayed as who he was in the 21st fucking century instead of falling into a whole slew of horrifically harmful stereotypes that erased the fucking gift he was to us all over again.

[inhumanrobot]

Giving Alan frozen raspberries as a summertime treat

[animentality]

[atheostic]

[thelostsmiles]

Benedict Cumberbatch talks us through his iconic career so far and his approach to breaking down complex characters x

On Vincent Anderson: "I've never read something quite so original. I'm not just playing a man who has a psychotic episode and imagines a 7-foot tall, blue monster puppet named Eric. It was also playing Eric, reimagining what Vincent's interpretation of this id, this shadow self would be in terms of his vocal performance. It's just rich, rich story-telling. Really a complex, dynamic character to play on a really spectacularly loopy journey." On Doctor Strange: "Where to start... I was going to play him and then I couldn't because I had already booked Hamlet. They drifted away and then they, very quickly, drifted back to me. They shifted their whole factory line to my schedule. [...] I'm very much looking forward to Avengers next year. He's cooking up a storm."

[hauntedcats-tales]

[mrmousetolliver]

Alan Mathison Turing

Alan Turing was  was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist and is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science. During the Second World War, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre that produced Ultra intelligence. He led Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised techniques for speeding the breaking of German ciphers, including improvements to the pre-war Polish bomba method, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine. Turing played a crucial role in cracking intercepted messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Axis powers in many crucial engagements, including the Battle of the Atlantic. in 1952 when Turing was 39, he began a relationship with Arnold Murray, a 19 year old unemployed man. In January of 1952, Turings house was burgled, and Murray told Turing that he and the burglar were acquainted, and Turing called the police to report the crime. During the investigation, he acknowledged a sexual relationship with Murray and both men were charged with "gross indecency" under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885. On the advice of his family and lawyer he pled guilty. In March of 1952 he was convicted and given a choice between imprisonment or probation with the condition that he undergo a hormonal treatment to reduce libido, aka as "chemical castration". Turing opted for probation and began the chemical treatments. Over the course of the following year he was injected with estrogen, causing impotence and for breast tissue to form. In a letter, Turing wrote that "no doubt I shall emerge from it all a different man, but quite who I've not found out".

On 8 June 1954, at his house at 43 Adlington Road, Wilmslow, Turing's housekeeper found him dead. A post mortem was held that evening which determined that he had died the previous day at the age of 41 with cyanide poisoning cited as the cause of death. When his body was discovered, an apple lay half-eaten beside his bed, and although the apple was not tested for cyanide, it was speculated that this was the means by which Turing had consumed a fatal dose. Many question whether his death was suicide or accidental but it is officially listed as suicide. In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II signed a pardon for Turings conviction of "gross indencency", with immediate effect. The Queen officially pronounced Turing pardoned in August 2014. The Queen's action is only the fourth royal pardon granted since the conclusion of the Second World War. Pardons are normally granted only when the person is technically innocent, and a request has been made by the family or other interested party; neither condition was met in regard to Turing's conviction. In September 2016, the government announced its intention to expand this retroactive exoneration to other men convicted of similar historical indecency offences, in what was described as an "Alan Turing law". The Alan Turing law is now an informal term for the law in the United Kingdom, contained in the Policing and Crime Act 2017, which serves as an amnesty law to retroactively pardon men who were cautioned or convicted under historical legislation that outlawed homosexual acts. The law applies in England and Wales.

[queerasfact]

Happy birthday Alan Turing

Born on 23 June 1912, Alan was a pioneering figure in modern computer science. He worked during WWII in Britain’s codebreaking centre, playing a key role in cracking codes that helped the British in the fight against the Germans.

Alan was prosecuted for homosexuality in 1952, chemically castrated, and subsequently died by suicide in 1954. In 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown formally apologised to Alan, saying, “On behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.”

[Image source: National Portrait Gallery]

[foone]

You know those terrible people who post shit like "born in 1789, this woman disguised herself as a man so she could be a doctor! She even kept up the masquerade after retiring, went to extreme lengths to keep her secret, and left instructions to ensure her body was no examined after her death, and she was buried under her male name! #feminism #girlboss"?

Where they're taking a nearly unambiguous example of a trans man from history and rewriting his life as a win for women?

I had the terrible idea of someone doing that to Alan Turing. Like, "hey, did you know that the inventor of the computer was a trans woman? It's true! Although she identified as a gay man for most of her life (#slay), in 1952 (after defeating the nazis (#slay) she went on estrogen (#tittyskittles) for the first time! Sadly she died two years later in 1954, but we must stan an early trans programmer! Do you think she had the trans pride flag socks? #girlboss"

My brain hurts from even thinking about it

[themancorialist]

Aytoun Street, Manchester.

[fishingforwords]

machines are human, too.

porter robinson, sad machine || sun yuan and peng yu, can't help myself || boston dynamics || the washington post || new york post || boston dynamics || tumblr || phillip k dick, do androids dream of electric sheep? || plainsight || wikipedia, turing test || kurt vonnegut, breakfast of champions

[inhumanrobot]

Listen, I know this sucks hard and hurts real bad. I remember 8 years ago feeling absolutely hopeless and suicidal.

You know what made it worse, what really tipped it over the edge for me? Seeing all my heroes on social media immediately whip themselves and their millions of followers into a torrent of despair and suicidality.

I won't do that to you and I ask that you do not do the same to me.

I'm here to stay. Stay with me.

I'll continue to post wips and doodles and art and Alan as much as I can.

Love,

Dero

[greenfiend]

I was actually shocked by the similarities when I watched The Imitation Game…

[magnetothemagnificent]

Alan Turing didn't die as a result of the torturous "treatment" he was forced to undergo for being gay for young queers to now go on and say that "art is for the gays, sciences are for the straights".