zomg first

Don't forget Von Neuman. While we owe a lot to Turing, we actually program against Von Neuman machines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neuman

He was also one of the original people involved in Game Theory if my memory serves me right.

Wow just reading the wikipedia page on him shows how awesome a mind he was. Cellular Automata, Game Theory, Manhattan Project and the list goes on.

Why does it seem that so many of the greatest minds of history always have to meet a bitter end, only to be truly honored post-mortem?

Alan Turing, I salute you. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have been able to develop my passion for computer science. Instead, I'd be spending my days... I dunno, counting beans, or whatever it is that non-computer science people do.

Well-written as always, Jeff. I was surprised to hear the name Charles Petzold in conjunction with Turing but I should've known. I've gotten a ton of use out of Petzold's Windows books and will probably pick this one up in due time.

Hey, and speaking of Turing tests, is CAPTCHA still dead (long live the CAPTCHA?)

@Rainault
Alan Turing contributed to computer science in a great way.
But passion for computer science is different from passion for computers. The former tells about theory while the later involves hardware/software.
I think the Theory is far more better than the hardware/software. It is far more involving. It is far more powerful, and more beautiful.

Never knew about his death before. Poetic, and so sad.

I'm a huge Turing fan. Unfortunately, his behavior-centric "Turing Test" has misguided a generation of AI researchers into attempting to reverse-engineer intelligence rather than understand the nature of intelligence at a biological level.

I didn't realize this, but apparently the Turing book is a de-facto sequel to Petzold's Code ..

https://www.charlespetzold.com/blog/2007/03/280150.html

.. which I loved:

https://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000761.html

Sometimes it's simply annoying to see this kind of idol worshiping. Sure they made great contributions to the humanity but why should we make gods out of them constantly?

I really don't have sympathy for how his life ended... at least he got the chance to choose, which further disturbs me - if he's of such a great intellect, why off yourself? It would seem obvious that someone of that intellectual caliber would do the opposite of what he did; to further his studies through an extended-lifelong journey of professing the beauty of computing science... live to see new and radical advances in the technology you love. But we'll never really know how that would've turned out or what he would've accomplished.

> if he's of such a great intellect, why off yourself?

Did you read what exactly happened to him?

https://www.charlespetzold.com/blog/2008/06/Gay-Rights-and-the-Prosecution-of-Alan-Turing.html

I'm not saying suicide is ever the right choice, but what Petzold describes there is horrifying. (As is the first comment to that post, but that's a different topic, sadly..)

> why should we make gods out of them constantly?

Where are we doing that? All I want to do is learn from Turing in some small way, and Petzold's book is a fine way to do that.

The documentary...

https://bestdocumentaries.blogspot.com/2007/09/dangerous-knowledge-full-documentary.html

...is an interesting look at the life of Turing, as well as other influential mathematicians, giving context to the work he did.

Patrick, i don't suppose you were a homosexual in those days?... And honoring != deifying.

And don't forget the one, who built the first Turing Complete computer:
Konrad Zuse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse)

Jeff,
Did you read the book? What did you think of the book? Neither of these things were mentioned in the post.

Is there a link with the Apple logo and the apple Turing ate?

Although Turing did work on breaking the Enigma machine, it was Polish mathematicians who actually broke it (Marian Rejewski, Jerzy R?życki and Henryk Zygalski). Only because Brits were managing the project do they get all the glory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine

Thanks Jeff, that was a beautiful post.

I sometimes wonder why some genius leave so soon... If Ramanujan hadn't died at age 33, who knows what kind of revolutionary theory he would have found. Abel received the equivalent of a math nobel prize a year after he died at age 29. Celcius died at 42. Galois (math. topology -> cryptography) also lived 29 years and nearly ended in prison. Carnot (thermodynamics) died at 36. Hertz (waves) at 36. Pascal (most math. theorems) at 39. They all leave in a dramatic or poetic way, creating legends and dreams as to what they would have become.

Jakub Konecki, I don't believe science should be related in any way to nationality.

There's a lot of (fictional) Turing in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon.

Sad story, truly, for such a brilliant mind.

Thanks for bringing up the memory of Turing. I think of his contributions every time I take a cup of coffee, seeing as the 1 year membership anniversary gift from ACM was a Alan Turing cup.

Cheers Alan, may you now have found the compassion and tolerance that you never enjoyed in life.

Enigma was broken first by the Polish and this gave the British cryptographers the start they needed, but when the Poles gave their research to the British the Germans had increased the complexity of Enigma and the Poles methods no longer broke it... Alan turnings breakthrough was automating the decryption... and working on Colossus that was use the break the more secure German code systems (not Enigma)

Charles Babbage designed (but was never given funding to finish building) the first Turing Complete computer ... the Analytical Engine, he also broke the Vigen?re cypher, then thought to be unbreakable ...

"Why does it seem that so many of the greatest minds of history always have to meet a bitter end, only to be truly honored post-mortem?"

Many of them have Asperger's Syndrome, difficult people to deal with.

https://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/spec/CE96C5C608138FABCC25747000784BD0

IMO, Alan Turing is not the father of modern computing science. That role goes to Alonzo Church - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alonzo_Church.

He sounds intriguingly quirky as well. A few years back I visited the museum at Bletchley Park, which is well worth doing if you are interested in the field- some of the guides are people who worked there during the war so you get first-hand accounts of how they operated.

I told my granny about the visit a little while later and she said "oh yes, Alan Turing, a very nice man." It turns out his father was a family friend. Small world.

There was a good biopic of him played by Derek Jacobi ("Breaking the Code")

Thanks for this great post.

The work he was starting to do on morphogenesis (how multicellular organisms form complex shapes) is also pretty interesting.

https://www.swintons.net/jonathan/Turing/turbox.htm

https://www.sfu.ca/~cjenning/toybox/turingmorph/index.html

Yes, it seems there is a link between Turing's apple and the Apple Inc. Logo :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.#Advertising

Turing designed the computer, and Tommy Flowers built it. Given the reliability and availabiity of the technology back then, I think that is just as impressive a feat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers

I remember reading somewhere that Turing was very enamoured of the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and his eating of a poisoned apple may have been inspired by his attachment to the story. Anyone else see this reference anywhere? Can't remember where I saw this now.

A nod to Snow White and Socrates in the manner of his death, no?
And it's 'von Neumann', not 'von Neuman'.

I guess it?s probably fitting that so many computers have been used to tell strangers ?Haha u r so gay?.

Anyhoo, Ada Lovelace FTW. She was programming before Turing was born.

> I sometimes wonder why some genius leave so soon... If Ramanujan hadn't died at age 33, who knows what kind of revolutionary theory he would have found.

Then again, Einstein had published all of his most famous papers by the age of 38. Not to belittle his later achievements, but it?s pretty common to see people have peak achievements long before the end of their lives.

While I admire Petzold's credentials as a writer, what I haven't quite been able to determine is why a new book on Turing's work on the Entschiedungsproblem is called for. Other books exist; for example Jack Copeland's scholarly and comprehensive treatment of all of Turing's work.

However, anything that introduces more people to his work can't be bad. Far too few seem to appreciate just how powerful and important a result the negative proof of Hilbert's decision problem really is - it speaks deeply about what computers can actually do, even removed of practical considerations. The idea that there are some problems that are just unsolvable has significant ramifications for pretty much every area of computer science, and a fair chunk of mathematics as well.

Happily, Alan Turing not only came from my home town, but my favourite football team's stadium is on Alan Turing Way. I get to honour him at least once a week :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_manchester_stadium

He was an accomplished marathon runner as well if memory serves.

An odd application of the Biblical fruit of the tree of knowledge to romantic love. Was the application Turing's, Petzold's, or Atwood's?

I've heard contrary evidence about the connection with the Apple logo. It's worth your owm Google search...

"I really don't have sympathy for how his life ended... at least he got the chance to choose, which further disturbs me - if he's of such a great intellect, why off yourself?" - Erm, did you read the mechanism of 'treatment'? It effectively amounted to human experimentation. If a developed nation did anything vaguely similar today there'd be uproar. IMO, he took the sensible route.

The story of the Enigma is a long tale, that did start with the Polish as Jakub mentions, but there was no one person (or group of people) who solved the Enigma. "Enigma" by Hugh Sebag Montefiore is essential reading if you want to know more about the various types of enigma and how each was broken by the allies.

Meanwhile a few pictures of Bletchley Park can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hotrods/sets/72157603884462565/

Well worth a visit.

In the university I went to there were three on campus restaurants, Newton, Edison and Zip. Newton in the building with mechanics related departments. Edison with the electrical engineering departments. And Zip in the computer science building. Would it really have been too obscure to name it Turing or anyone else famous in the field?

Its a shame how we and the general public lack all sense of history of computer science. All we do is point and laugh at obsolete computes, when we could learn just how old our supposedly new ideas are.

Case in point, here's a guy who programmed robots with rope assembler circa 10 ? 70 AD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heron_of_Alexandria

Nobody should be harrased because of their sexual orientation. It's like killing people because of their religion... :@

I am for gay marriage, as long as both chicks are hot.

Turing was awesome, but everyone knows it's Lawrence Waterhouse who really won the crypto side of the war! :-)

> Rwinston

I read the same thing about Turing adoring Snow White tale in Simon Singh's book "L'Histoire des codes secrets" (in french ; I think english title is The Science of Secrecy).

To those interested in all aspects of Turing's life and work, I recommend the Alan Hodges biography: https://www.turing.org.uk/book/

>> Enigma was broken first by the Polish ...

Pah. Don't you know anything? It was, naturally, captured and broken by the Americans (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0141926/) even before they had entered the war.

:-)

Don't let the long German words scare you. They're always taking long phrases and putting them together into single words. Like massenvernichtungswaffen, for instance. We call them WMD.

"single individual most responsible for breaking the Enigma code during World War II,"

Unfortunetly it isn't true. First decription made polish scientist: Marian Rejewski, Jerzy R?życki and Henryk Zygalski. I suggest you to read more about that ;)

My understanding was the apple was because he loved the story of Snow White, not for the symbolism you list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Prosecution_for_homosexual_acts_and_Turing.27s_death
Look at the last paragraph.

Well It was not Turing who broke enigma!!!

It was Marian Rejewski, Jerzy R?życki and Henryk Zygalski who broke it in 1932.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine

Good one, Jeff. I am saddened to see Mr. Turing died in such degrading circumstances.

Neat. Thanks for this. I may pick up the book and give it a read. I somehow missed the memo on Turing's suicide, having never really looked into his actual life before (and none of my CS classes/profs had even a sentence about it).

Alan Turing is one of my personal heroes. I've already read a few books about him, but I think I may pick this one up after work.

It's amazing that he did so much in his life and died so young.

RE: someone else breaking ENIGMA: My understanding is that, although other people laid the theoretical foundation for breaking ENIGMA, it was Turing's group of mathematicians that actually made it happen. So, saying that someone else broke ENIGMA is a bit like saying that Turing invented software.

Turing's life story really is a coding horror.

This was a shock to me. They don't tell you this stuff at the university.

The Poles were indeed able to break early versions of Enigma (using three wheels), very slowly. This version was used by railways and similar. Turing et al expanded it to the more complex Navy/Air Force/Espionage version, and built machines to break it quickly.

His story is both inspiring and depressing at the same time.

Evan, your understanding is wrong. Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Rejewski

Hey, Jeff, you should check out Claude E. Shannon's work(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_E._Shannon). He formulated the incredibly brilliant Information Theory(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory), which enabled the creation of several things, like say... the internet, cellphones, quantum computing, black hole research... etc.

As well, his Master's thesis was about constructing electronic circuits that were boolean algebraic constructs... basically, he's the guy that inspired people to build electronic computers. I'd say this guy is the real progenitor of our modern computing era. :D

Great post. Turing should be viewed in context of Von Neumann, Konrad Zuse and people who designed the "Enigma" crypto-machine. It is sad to be reminded that Turing's self-esteem was so low that he saw no exit but to kill himself, at the time when he was celebrated as a genius. It tells you a few things about so-called social norms and dumbed-down "users".

I rather like the Apple logo theory, even if it is an urban legend.

Cryptonomicon is the first I'd ever even heard of Turing's preference for men. Standard blurbs don't hint at it at all. And thank goodness - for my sake - we've gone beyond "chemical castration" - at least, in most of the world. In many parts of the world "gay rights" is still a pipe dream.

More on Arthur Scherbius, designer of Enigma:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Scherbius

More on Turing and inside story of Bletchley Park:

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=j1MC2d2LPAcC&dq=who+designed+enigma+machine&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=pyHRcRwyOe&sig=_Ivvj47IRnu5UnaOJM8uZbfrWa4&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result

@Tim Yen: Von Neuman was a fan of Turing's work, and references are cited in the book to show that what we think of as his architecture is really adapted from Turing's work. The interesting point to note, is the paper in which the book and all of this is based on was not set out to design a computer - that is only a side effect. The creation of the programmable computer was merely a needed step to prove there is no solution to the Entscheidung's Problem.

(the reason that's reverent to us today is it also means we'll never have a generic process that can prove our code works - i.e. the "One True Unit Test" is a mythical creature)

Breaking of Enigma was also used to shift the "discovery" to the British, although British researchers were jumpstarted by their colleagues in Poland:

https://www.amazon.com/Enigma-German-Machine-Foreign-intelligence/dp/0890935475

Apples already have cyanide in their seeds...

Damn you Jeff. Every time I think about what we owe that man, and how he was "rewarded", I'm pissed off for days. You just *had* to go remind me. I had work I wanted to get done today too...

The English title of Simon Singh's book is "The Code Book": https://www.simonsingh.net/The_Code_Book.html - highly recommended, btw. It features a potted biography of Turing, including the Snow White story.

Surprising that Cryptonomicon was not mentioned in your entry, Jeff... its a fun (if not fantastic) look at Turing.

Those of you who have not read it - stop reading this and go get a copy!

Having checked the website myself, "The Code Book" is the original book, "The Science of Secrecy" is the name of the TV series and its tie-in book, which is based on "The Code Book". Not confusing, no.

> Don't let the long German words scare you. They're always taking long phrases and putting them together into single words.

Actually, we do this, because we are to lazy to invent new words. The scary look is just a nice side effect.

Nothing in Genesis mentions an apple...

@ rwinston,

You are correct sir. You can find a reference to this fact here:

https://www.studio360.org/episodes/2008/05/23

What is perhaps even sadder are the conditions that continue to exist. How many young Turings die as teen agers, facing the same persecution? Not, it's not instituionalized as it was then, but it can be pretty harsh just the same.

Turning's death is sad not because he was a great mind. Even 'little' minds deserve to not be harassed and persecuted.

@ Bloodboiler,

And, Descartes put together hydraulic automata.

You know there is a difference between automated puppets and robots, right?

"The computer you're using to read this post is based on the mathematical model laid out in that thirty-six page 1936 paper."

Well, yes and no. "Yes" in the same sense that the computer you're using is loosely conceptually based on the Babbage difference engine. "No" in the sense that, no, our computers don't run on the Turing machine architecture in any strict way whatsoever. We owe a lot more to the Von Neumann architecture than to the Turing description. (Yes, Von Neumann was doing this in the context of Turing, but no, it is not a simple step from Turing to Von Neumann.)

(Have you actually read the Turing test paper? It's really quite interesting -- much more bizarre than the version of the "Turing test" as known today. The original Turing test was about distinguishing humans from machines in the context of games in which men pretend to be women and vice versa.)

Colossus is being rebuilt, in the face of the terrible predations of developers (sic) on Bletchley Park. Here is Tony Sale's project:

https://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/lorenz/rebuild.htm

I believe the Beeb had a piece about this recently.

Personally I like Grace Hopper https://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/hopper.htm

She basically invented the first compiler and was a tireless advocate for computers for a long long time.

555 thanks for the note about his new book,

I love charles petzold, he opened my eyes to the internals inside mother board else I'd have had less grades in digital logic class.

i agree w/ you on his patience in writing too. kudos for him

will it be on your recommended reading list as well?

Hi Jeff, the fruit in the first book of the bible is not (at least imperatively) an apple. It just mentions a fruit.

It also doesn't symbolize forbidden love. The fruit itself gives the knowledge to differ between good and evil. It is forbidden for the adam and eve, but they eat from it. They don't eat from it because of love, but because of curiosity and eagerness (the snake/devil promises them the power of god if they eat it). So the fruit symbolizes the rebelling of man agains god.

Anyway: great post, nice to see an homage for a computer pioneer from time to time in your blog.

The Poles broke the early Enigma - showing it could be done at all, but could not extend it to the more complex Enigma, Various people at Bletchley Park then extended this to the more complex variants of Enigma, Turing showed how to semi-automate this process and designed the "Bombes" that were electro-mechanical devices to do this ...

He had a minor role in the design of Colossus - which broke the Lorenz Cypher (much more complex than Enigma) and was the first to realise it was a (near) universal computer (and program it to write (bad) poetry)
Tommy Flowers came up with the idea of a machine with a huge number of valves which would be reliable if never switched off (it's the power surges that blow valves) and is always credited with the design (but knew nothing of the mathematics required and never designed another computer) Max Newman and his team actually designed the system

Babbage's Analytical Engine was Turing Complete, was a Von Neumann machine, before either was born .... it had software written for it (by Ada Lovelace, with bugs in it ....) it influenced Vannavar Bush and the makers of the Harvard Mark I : Babbage died in poverty and only three people went to his funeral ...

On giant German words: how about Schuetzengrabenvernichtungsautomobil, literally "automobile for destruction of defensive trenches", commonly called a Tank.

On "only the good mathematicians die young": Euler and Gauss are big exceptions to the examples you give. How many "Euler's theorem" and "Gauss' theorem" are there? Many. They both lived to ripe old age, and were fruitful all the way into the grave. I read (I think in "Everything and More: A History of Infinity", a great book for anyone who suffered through a Real Analysis course in math) that Gauss actually was so fruitful that he held back mathematical progress for decades: he had so many results worked out that he would "scoop" other mathematicians. Often when someone published a new result he would point out that, in his notebooks, he had already proved the same theorem twenty years earlier. Very intimidating.

An interesting take on Turing is Janna Levin's novel 'A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines' - https://www.jannalevin.com/books.html

It ties together Turing and Godel in a magical realist sort of way - but all the dialog is taken from their writings. It's extensively footnoted, but I'd probably expect that from a novelist who's also a PhD in physics from MIT.

It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I enjoyed it immensely.

"he had already proved the same theorem twenty years earlier..."

This seems to be always true of mathematics? Physicists came to rely on wandering down to the Maths department and asking for a formula for their latest theory and getting directed to an esoteric work by a long dead mathematician, that they were surprised when String theory got ahead of the mathematicians (which is one of the reasons it is not fully worked out yet ...)

Father of computer science? I guess Church, Kleene, and Godel where all schlubs...

Frank,

>I don't believe science should be related
>in any way to nationality.

Here, nationality should be extended to culture. Western culture in Europe and North American fostered a foundation and environment for innovation. For example, Ramanujan, an Indian, flourished because of western culture and would have been irrelevant without it. How much innovation came out of Asia or Africa?

The real father of computer science is Charles Babbage.

I, for one, greatly respect mister Turing (Turing Machines was my favorite subject back at the university) . But I do vote of Edsger Dijkstra as the greatest pioneer in computer science.

As a German I would like to comment that there's nothing scary about the work Entscheidungsproblem. It's no more complex than, say, Fahrvergnuegen and doesn't even have an Umlaut. In some ways the German version is more readily parsed than "decision problem" which throws in semantically superfluous whitespace. I would settle for EntscheidungsProblem but not entscheidungs_problem since German uses captitalization for nouns.

@ Chris,For

"example, Ramanujan, an Indian, flourished because of western culture and would have been irrelevant without it. How much innovation came out of Asia or Africa?"

Wow! You either went to a really bad school, or you are not very curious, or you get all your information ..... well, talking to very badly informed people.

Granted, culture [ namely Western culture ] influences science and the science that we know now is very much Western Science and that Western culture and science was instrumental to Ramanujan's development as a mathematician. However, I have to ask how much history of science and mathematics do you know? Well, I guess it is clear.

China is in Asia. Binary number system came from china. The fact that Gottfried Leibniz makes use of it is only because he read the I Ching.

India is in china. Who do you think came up with the idea of Zero?

Egypt is in Africa. Did you not ever come across anything that came out of Egypt. You know that obscure little city called Alexandria with its obscure little Library?

And, I end with a WOW! I had heard bad things about public schools, but by God ... wait, I went to public shools too.

As it was written above Poles had broken Enigma code long before 2nd World War began (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine).

In the 1939, just before the war, they shared, they new allies, everything French and Britons.

During the war Britons had to read huge number of German messages. Britons just made better and faster machines based on original Polish machine called "Cryptologic bomb" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomba_(cryptography)).

Of course, Alan Turing was genius and it's nice they played on the same side with Poles.

1 - Wikipedia lists some doubts about whether his death was a suicide:

"Most believe that his death was intentional, and the death was ruled a suicide. His mother, however, strenuously argued that the ingestion was accidental due to his careless storage of laboratory chemicals"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

2 - The Apple logo has nothing to do with Alan Turing, that is urban legend:
"a curious urban legend exists that the bitten apple is a homage to the mathematician Alan Turing,"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.#Advertising

I did a report on Turing in college and outlined all of the crazy stuff involved with his homosexuality. His arrest was very controversial, because In England the laws against "buggery" (having sex you know where) went in and out of activity. Unfortunately for Turing he got caught doing it while it was in activity, so they put him on hormones which caused him to develop breasts!

History has brought us many people which we describe as geniuses. It's very difficult to say who is the most important one. In fact it's impossible. From Ada Lovelace to the people writing the history of tomorrow right now, they all deserve our deepest adoration.

But I guess people need some kind of idols. And that's okay. Because praising a person more than others does not necessarily diminish their works. I for my part go with Julien Grenier a few posts earlier and his vote for Dijkstra.

Perhaps he is liking apples because they are healthy

Jeff and Robert,

Trust that I do have sympathy for his tribulations - no one should ever have to suffer what he did(or worse) for what or who they are. At the risk of repeating what that first poster said, ultimately Turing broke a law. No matter how much we disagree with a law, we don't have the right to break them. Laws are in place for a reason - no matter how crazy they appear at the time. Suicide is the selfish way to go and I highly disagree that it was "sensible". In my opinion, he should have done what he could to push his views forward and push for legislation, which is what we do when we don't agree with a law... but maybe that's a naive view of the system considering how hush-hush homosexuality was during this time. He chose treatment over a two year sentence; once again he got a choice.

Why not push for others who were like him, organize and protest for rights? This appears to be the logical route. How great would his story have been if he had suffered what he did, only to have the beliefs of that time reversed years later by his efforts? "Turing, the Father of Computer Science, sufferer of human experimentation, challenger of popular belief - leads to acceptance"... Instead, we're left with a great scientist that killed himself. :(

Turing was obviously crucial to the field, if only for the Turing Test. I for another, vote for Lovelace and Babbage's contributions. Cheers.

Could this be the most devoid of content article you've ever written Jeff?

I don't want to be a hater or anything but the prominent picture of the book promises a review. Yet your post is all about Turing and nothing about the text.

Why should I buy this book? What makes it so great?
As one poster asks above, did you even read it?

"The computer you're using to read this post is based on the mathematical model laid out in that thirty-six page 1936 paper. As are all other computers in the world."

It is hard to prove ALL computers in the world are based on Turing machines, as there are other models for universal computation, but I can understand the over-simplification.

> Why should I buy this book? What makes it so great?

The subject matter!

But yes, I could have written about the layout, Petzold's writing/research, etc. You'll just have to trust me, I suppose: all top notch.

Still -- you have to have some interest in the subject before we even begin.

> But yes, I could have written about the layout, Petzold's writing/research, etc. You'll just have to trust me, I suppose: all top notch.

Could have? Should have! If for no other reason than at least to be consistent with every other book review on this site.

> Still -- you have to have some interest in the subject before we even begin.

I just don't understand why you'd spruke a book whose content you don't regard as accessible enough (presumably) to blog about at length. I know Turing machines are hard but they're cool and very important for understanding computability!

If you wanted to talk about Turing in the general sense you didn't need to so prominently feature the book. Since you did, you could have at least commented on the content beyond "trust me! it's great!" (to paraphrase your post).

I'm trying hard to think this isn't some shameless plug for a book you didn't read but you're not making it easy :(

@Patrick. "No matter how much we disagree with a law, we don't have the right to break them."

If we took that ignorant comment seriously, women may not have been given the vote, apartheid could still be enforced. I suggest you actually read a book about civil disobedience to understand how laws change in the face of protest.

To be consistent you'd also have to condemn the law-breaking of Martin Luther King, Ghandi, and Pankhurst. Such a position is clearly ridiculous, because these people all helped the world become a better place.

Coldly suggesting Turing should some how become a social protestor, without any of the relevant skills or aptitude, is a simplistic, almost childish, view of what was possible for Turing in 1950's Britain.

"Instead, we're left with a great scientist that killed himself." Have you actually considered that his action was so extreme and poignant, that it changed minds? Don't you realise that intelligent people looking at the case decided the law needed changing - which indeed it did.

Thank you Jeff, for bringing my attention to another interesting book.

> Of course, Alan Turing was genius and it's nice they played on the same side with Poles.

Ick. I just got a bad visual of Alan Turing pole dancing...

In response to:

> if he's of such a great intellect, why off yourself?

We can never make the assumption that because someone is a "great intellect", has powerful cognitive skills, or great professional success that they are also emotionally healthy individuals.

For many, logic and reason go out the window when deep emotional scars exist. The treatment that Turing endured because of his homosexuality certainly left emotional scars. When emotional scars are deep enough or the pain strong enough, people become incapable of thinking rationally.

Have you ever known anyone who was very skilled professionally who also had a major life problem? The list goes on and on: Addictions, affairs, financial ruin. Logically, anyone knows that walking down those paths leads to pain and life struggles. But people are made up of more than ones and zeros, inputs and outputs. Often times, logic isn't the driving force. If you are proud enough to believe every decision you make is founded in logic, then you are near disaster.

"At the risk of repeating what that first poster said, ultimately Turing broke a law. No matter how much we disagree with a law, we don't have the right to break them. Laws are in place for a reason - no matter how crazy they appear at the time."

Do we have a right to break or ignore unjust laws? It really depends on who you ask. There are many (e.g. Thoreau, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, etc.) who would disagree with your simpleton approach to the relation between law and justice.

Why would one assume that great intellects couldn't choose death over life?

Let's not forget what they made him go through to avoid jail for being who he was. They made him take hormone injections. They stripped him of his security clearance and branded him a risk, a biological freak. They made it so that he could not do what he loved to do. And more importantly, they made it so that he could not love who he wanted to love.

And let's face it. Things weren't going to get any better for homosexuals for decades. Anywhere.

Turing was in an unjust world that was never going to let him just exist, no matter how valuable he was to his country, no matter what he had done or could do. As his reward for helping win the war, he was branded a biological criminal.

It is disgusting to me how many people implicitly nod with assent and agreement at his treatment. Do you also agree the Nuremberg laws were "laws" that "couldn't be broken", and those who did "deserved what they got"? Maybe we all nod in assent at Dred Scott v. Sandford, too? As if there were no other alternatives -- as if oppression was inevitable, even righteous. It disgusts me. It's one thing to contextualize, it's another to assent.

"I really don't have sympathy for how his life ended... at least he got the chance to choose, which further disturbs me - if he's of such a great intellect, why off yourself?"

You, sir, are a tool. The man was persecuted for being gay (like the Nazis did incidentally), and got to choose between being made a guinea pig for scientific experimentation (another Nazi trait), or doing what he could to make the persecution and torture stop.

I'm gay, and it is painful to be gay in today's society. Most of my 20's were lost due to depression and suicidal thoughts. I can't even imagine what it was like back then. Kindly shut up.

"example, Ramanujan, an Indian, flourished because of western culture and would have been irrelevant without it. How much innovation came out of Asia or Africa?"

Well, without a change from Roman numerals to Arabic numerals, how much symbolic manipulation (math and later computer science) would Western civilization have come up with? It's hard to say, but I can't imagine things would have been the same.

I forget who said it, but I remember a quote of "All great computer programmers are also historians" - it is very valuable to know how we got where we are. Sometimes you're staring at a huge WTF in the system, and if you don't know why it got that way, you may be tempted to change it, exposing some weird problem that was solved many years ago by adding the thing you thought was a WTF.

I had no idea Turing was gay. That is very interesting, and while it doesn't shed any light on his discoveries or achievements, it does shed a huge light on the history of society and where we have come from. In many countries in the world, you can still be prosecuted for being gay. In Dubai it is strictly forbidden, as is cross-dressing in either direction, regardless of whether you are also gay or not. (FYI, crossdressing != gay)

@gex - you lettem have it dude, good for you! Many folks on this board are aware that I am transgender, and I experienced the same issues - depression, suicidal thoughts, self-defeating behavior, and so on. If you are not gay, or have never been persecuted simply for who you are, kindly shut the heck up - you have NO IDEA what it's like to have someone simply look at you and instantly think you are a worthless human being, or want to beat you up or kill you. Until you've been subjected to that, you have no right to comment.

Patrick you honestly think that a law requiring a gay person to be jailed or experimented on deserves to be respected and followed?

The United States decided in only 2003 that gay sex can't be outlawed. And there is still bitter division over this. You'll note, perhaps, that this simple ruling by our Supreme Court inspired a lot of constitutional amendments so that we could keep singling out gay people for differential treatment. I guess instead of being irritated that I can't marry my partner, I should just be grateful that I'm not in jail or being shot up with hormones.

I know you didn't actually defend the content of the law, just that they should be followed. But perhaps you'd rethink this if you were subject to laws that others in society are not.

Grow up.

@gex

I find that homosexuality is gross and disgusting, but I do not want laws or society to discriminate against someone because they are gay. At the same time, I really do not like the idea of homosexual marriages because I find it gross to see two men or two women kissing in public or holding hands. I do not think this is discrimination for me to object to a law to allow someone who is gay to marry. Having said that, no matter how gross or disgusting I make of the whole situation, I don't think that it will keep people from being gay or acting gay so I say "let them eat cake!"

Brian,

I find that straight sex is gross and disgusting. And in public isn't the place for any intimate expression of love, whether gay or straight.

So you don't think I should have inheritance rights for property owned by my partner? You think I should have to pay taxes on my health care benefits where my partner's coworkers' spouses do not? Or that our joint household doesn't need the benefits of joint tax filing to keep things running? We've already had a situation where one of us had to lie about being a sibling to see the other in an intensive care unit. Simply because you think our sexual orientation is icky? Wow. Just wow.

I didn't know that "ickiness" was a compelling state interest that allows for discriminatory laws. Good to know.

Hi Anvar,

I'm well aware of the innovation that came out of other cultures.

My point was that the achievements of western culture, from ancient Greece to ancient Rome, from North America to Russia, are far above everyone else.

China unfortunately kept a lot of its innovation from the outside world.

Chinese agricultural practices are what affected Europe the most.

Also, the concept for zero is from China, not India. The Chinese used a dash to represent zero.

The latter intellectual greatness of Egypt was Greek, and therefore western. Who was Alexandria named after?

Have a great day.

Excellent - the comments have turned into a gay rights debate...

I'll check back Monday...

The proper terminology is "homosexual", not "gay". Just as the proper terminology is "heterosexual", not "non-gay".

>Excellent - the comments have turned into a gay rights debate...

I felt I had to comment on the veritably insane statement below:

>GEX: I find that straight sex is gross and disgusting.

Less competition for us normal guys I suppose.

I did follow up with a relevant post.

@chris: check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions

i don't think it lists all.

@gex:
"I find that straight sex is gross and disgusting. And in public isn't the place for any intimate expression of love, whether gay or straight."

you pretty much lost my sympathy there. you're the product is straight sex. and 2nd sentence pretty much shows you're just as a bigot as the people who oppress you.

Jin,

Yup, my source is The Genius of China (based on Needham's work), which is also listed in your link.

Perhaps if China hadn't been so introverted we might have been far more advanced today =)

He had a terrible childhood too poor chap.
Didn't he marry someone when he was in the US? So i guess that makes him a bisexual

@Jeff
did you reading his theory about the Turing machine and Computability? It is so cool. Maybe you could do a post on that :)
I would love to hear you version of it.

Great post, really enjoyed reading it.

Hi Chris,

O.K, I take back what I said. Perhaps you are not as ill informed as your post portrayed you to be. Now, if I can stretch you just a bit more and ask: when you say, "My point was that the achievements of western culture, from ancient Greece to ancient Rome, from North America to Russia, are far above everyone else.", what is your historical context. From what point in history do you begin to count the innovations of western culture?

Warning: I bought the book because I like Petzold's blog. I knew I did not have time to read it. I cannot stop reading. If you have a real interest in mathematics this is a must read.

Hi Anvar,

No offense taken =)

Ancient Greece is considered the beginning of western civ. That spread to Rome and then Christendom spread it to the rest of Europe, and then to the entire world. As far as I know, every poster here accepts that his post was written in 2008 as designated by western culture, whatever the poster's culture is.

How fitting and ironic at the same time; my ACM anniversary mug arrived today with a picture of Turing. Next to his picture was,

Computing Pioneer:
1) Formalized the concept of algorithms and computation with his universal computing machine
2) The ACM A.M. Turing Award, the most prestigious honor in computing, is named for him
3) Key World War II code breaking pioneer

Not too shabby.

That this:

'their respective partners will not be welcomed.'

and this:

'My kids will be sheltered from this sickness'

can precede this:

'By what standard am I closed minded?'

shows an astounding lack of self-awareness... gex presented a not entirely unreasonable counterpoint to 'I find that homosexuality is gross and disgusting.' So gex's reaction is idiotic and your and Brian's isn't? Nice.

Hi "protected static",

What lack of self-awareness?

I ask again, by what standard am I closed minded?

What absolute standard are you holding me accountable to?

Christianity?

Islam?

Humanism?

Your own made up values?

What absolute is this standard based on and what is the evidence for this standard that I should adhere to it?

On the other hand what does it matter if I'm "closed minded"?

Do I have to be open to everything?

Why do I have to be "open minded" toward homosexuality?

What standard do you adhere to and are holding me accountable to when you say that the statement "straight sex is gross and disgusting" is a reasonable counterpoint to what an earlier poster wrote?

Though homosexuality throughout history has been much more widespread than most people realize, the vast majority of people have a visceral and natural gag reflex when it comes to homosexuality; the lifestyle and the act. That a man can have "romantic" or lustful feelings towards another man is vomitous and most of the world would concur.

Bigots that they are, this is a natural and automatic gag reflex for the vast majority of people, if not blunted through constant exposure and indoctrination.

A trite case in point would be a quite liberal company (albeit small, around 80 people) I worked for in a very liberal Canadian city. A number of my co-workers were homosexuals and I didn't mind them in the least and I still like them. I developed a reasonably close relationship with one, a PhD. This company has a lot of recent female liberal arts (no pun intended) grads from a major, very liberal university. One day at lunch I queer lisped and the girls were disgusted. Not by my "bigotry" but by how realistic I did it. After a little talk it turned out that they were disgusted by homosexuals (surprised??????) and only expressed a reflexive tolerance. I told them that is dishonest. My way is to ignore a person's personal life if I disagree with it. I will not pretend to accept it. The three or four gay friends I've had understood my position and personal life was never brought up. I don't talk to people about my very active sex life with my wife.

While my family was definitely not pro-gay we did have a homosexual couple over for Christmas once. A great couple. I would not tolerate this with my children but these were friends. Personal intimate preference was not brought up, just like with anyone else. Intimate matters stayed private. Perhaps if most people kept intimate matters private "tolerance" would not be a problem.

Don't ask, don't tell.

While I do have views on the morality of homosexuality based on an absolute standard, morality in this case is irrelevant.

What is relevant is that my disgust of homosexuality and its practice is natural and visceral (as attested to by the majority of people in the world) and therefore my reaction to the statement "straight sex is gross and disgusting" is not idiotic but natural.

That being said, I have total disdain for how Turing was treated. His suicide is very sad.

The British government's treatment of Turing was shameful. Especially when he had contributed so much to helping the allies win the war. Hopefully we are a bit more enlightened now.

Betchley Park is well worth a visit BTW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_park

Chris:

"What standard do you adhere to and are holding me accountable to when you say that the statement "straight sex is gross and disgusting" is a reasonable counterpoint to what an earlier poster wrote?"

It isn't based on any morality at all, nor any standard other than conversational English - it's a common gambit. "I am strongly opposed to X, and favor Y." "Well, I'm in favor of Y and oppose X." Just because the subject matter sets you off makes it no less common a pattern.

"One day at lunch I queer lisped and the girls were disgusted. Not by my "bigotry" but by how realistic I did it."

Bully for you - you found fellow bigots. This proves what, exactly? That there are people out there who share your prejudices? So what?

You may believe that your 'disgust of homosexuality and its practice is natural and visceral'; I happen to believe that its mostly social conditioning. As you point out, homosexuality has been far more common through history than most people realize. Your assertion that "the vast majority of people have a visceral and natural gag reflex when it comes to homosexuality; the lifestyle and the act. That a man can have "romantic" or lustful feelings towards another man is vomitous and most of the world would concur." is, however, just an assertion not borne out by the evidence. It only serves to justify your own prejudices by applying a veneer of universality.

While I happen to think that some historians have stretched beyond what the evidence can support, I also happen to think that most of what you call 'a visceral and natural gag reflex' is largely a product of Victorian morality, predominantly English and American Victorian morality. The modern concept of homosexuality rose in large part out of the early modern medical movement, using a disease model, buttressed by mainstream religion. This hardly makes it a universal truth - it makes it a situational one.

And "Chris"? Drop the quotes from my pseudonym, please.

I'm with Gex on this.

I reject Chris' argument about what's natural. Yes, heterosexuality is natural and quite obviously fundamental to species propagation. But more and more science is showing us that homosexuality is natural as well. The book "Biological Exuberance" documents hundreds of animal species that demonstrate homosexual behavior. And a recent study ran MRIs on gay and straight men and women. What they found is that in response to non-sexual thoughts and emotions, gay women's brains activated in the same areas as straight men while gay men's brains activated in the same areas as straight women. Meanwhile, Chris' "natural" disdain for homosexual behavior could be attributed to millenia of religious and cultural conditioning.

Even if we grant that it is unnatural, so what? In what other ways does humanity so thoroughly reject that which is unnatural? Why are you on a computer, discussing things on the Internet if you have such a visceral dislike for human beings acting outside of nature?

Finally, I should point out that a sexual response study of men who are vehemently homophobic exposed to woman/woman, man/woman, and man/man porn predominantly had a stronger erectile response to the man/man porn. Just sayin. Most people just don't react that strongly to things that don't interest them. Explains a lot of the disgraced family values politicians and religious leaders, actually.

Quick addendum:

The decision in 2003 in the Lawrence case hinged on the fact that these "unnatural" acts were legal for straight people but not for gay people. Texas had the choice to make sodomy illegal for both groups, but I can't imagine straight men going back to the days where oral was illegal.

So tell me Chris, do you eschew that disgusting, unnatural oral sex? Or are you a freaking hypocrite? Or is that just too personal for you to allow the community to discuss and make decisions about what you do in private?

Hi Chris,

I am in agreement that all posters [ probably ] are products of western culture. After all, we are using English to communicate. I just wonder, would anyone know about the ancient Greece today if it weren't for the people who came up with the idea of written language. As sophisticated as the Greeks were, they did not have a written language.

Who had written language? It certainly was not the west.

Then again, I wonder if we can split the world so easily when we look back at history, can we. Some steal from others. Some are too introverted. And, at times it is just better to think before we speak, no?

By the way, don't be fooled by my name 'Anvar.' I am very much a product of the western culture. I just don't find it easy to make sweeping, large, general statements so easily without feeling like an idiot.

Anvar - you're mistaken about the Greeks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_orthography

I havenot heard his name before.Is he really?Thanks for the very much good information.

protected static,

So I'm guilty of gambit?

That's all it is, a gambit?

That is stupid.

Tell me, what do you think of the practice of bestiality?

Better a "bigot" than a faggot.

And I suggest you look up the definition of bigot before throwing it around ignorantly. It can easily be applied to you for being intolerant of my views.

Not that I'm too concerned about being called a bigot.

Evidence for the gag reflex? Move out of the Castro district and hang out with regular people.

You can think whatever you like. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority out there are viscerally disgusted by the practice of homosexuality, as has been for millenia all over the world. Religious beliefs against homosexuality didn't come out of a vacuum.

So what do you think of the practice of bestiality?

Explosive Amnesia,

What do you think of the practice of bestiality?

Perhaps it is you that is conditioned? Did that occur to you?

That animals exhibit homosexual like behaviour does not make the practice natural.

The first and foremost unnatural aspect of homosexuality is the lustful desire for a person of the same sex.

Animals have no desire for the other party in the act, but use the other to stimulate themselves. Be it another animal, a sofa or your leg.

And what about mental responses by straights and gays to "non-sexual thoughts and emotions"? The brain adjusts to a person's tendencies. Studies ought to be done on prisoners locked away for long periods of time engaged in homosexual acts who otherwise would be disgusted by the practice. Not everyone is "born" a homosexual. Just like people aren't born attracted to bestiality.

They should have added male pedophiles interested in boys and male pedophiles interested in girls to the study. I wonder what the results would be like. Could there be a result that would exonerate their deviant desires?

I didn't know anything about homosexuality as a kid. Along with every other boy I would have been disgusted if a boy expressed romantic feelings for another boy. I was shocked that such a condition existed. This was something that was never mentioned at home so I didn't know about it.

Being aroused by my dentist's nice breasts when I was five years old in an innocent little town was also not conditioning. Just nature.

I don't understand what you mean by "In what other ways does humanity so thoroughly reject that which is unnatural?"

As for "Why are you on a computer, discussing things on the Internet if you have such a visceral dislike for human beings acting outside of nature?" I suggest reading my posts before replying.

>Finally, I should point out that a sexual response study of men who
>are vehemently homophobic exposed to woman/woman, man/woman, and
>man/man porn predominantly had a stronger erectile
>response to the man/man porn.
>Just sayin. Most people just don't react that strongly to
>things that don't interest them. Explains a lot of the disgraced
>family values politicians and religious leaders, actually.

Perhaps they should come out of the closet.

I watched part of that gay cowboy movie and actually felt sick to the stomach as the tent scene started. I immediately fast forwarded and in a couple of minutes a similar scene appeared upon which I had to quickly turn it off as I felt physically sick to my stomach. No exaggeration. I should have read the reviews. I wanted to see what the fuss was about but was definitely not expecting gay porn.

And you know what, perhaps if I watched it many times I'd grow to like it and perhaps would become a queer.

It's happened before to others.

Joking about homosexuals has definitely worn my disgust. I best stop joking about it before I start finding it acceptable. The human mind can rationalize anything.

Anal "sex" is disgusting with whomever it is done. Exit only. One way. No entrance. Stop and don't proceed.

>So tell me Chris, do you eschew that disgusting, unnatural
>oral sex? Or are you a freaking hypocrite? Or is that just too
>personal for you to allow the community to discuss
>and make decisions about what you do in private?

Learn some logic skills. That some idiotic law interfered with private lives and deemed a practice "unnatural" does not make it so, so don't apply it to me.

Oral sex is mentioned approvingly in the Bible, in the Song of Solomon. Between a husband and wife, where the act of consummation, the first act of sex, is the act of marriage in the eyes of God, and fornication, sex without permanent commitment, is an abomination.

I quite enjoy muff diving my wife and the Bible approves.

Anvar, WHAT are you talking about???

Collosal Squid you are quite correct it is von neumann. my apologies to the von neumann fans out there.

"Better a "bigot" than a faggot."

Nice, Chris. Thanks for making my point for me.

"The fact of the matter is that the vast majority out there are viscerally disgusted by the practice of homosexuality, as has been for millenia all over the world."

Your feelings aren't data, no matter how intensely you may experience them. Again you make assertions of universality, but you can't back them up with anything other than your own disgust and your own flavor of morality - neither of which is going to carry much weight with me.

protected static, I've said what I had to say. Have a great day.

@protected static

Here's the data and even a book

https://atheism.about.com/b/2006/07/28/revulsion-of-homosexuality-book-notes-created-equal.htm

"The decision to regard homosexuality as a species of alien behavior, and to punish it, makes a law of the majority?s personal taste and habits. For most people, the ?sin? of homosexuality is a question of taste. The question embarrasses people not because they can?t imagine it, but because they can and do.

The revulsion many men and women feel at the thought of sexual activity between people of their own sex remains a formidable obstacle on the path of gay rights. This revulsion, which we call the Ick Factor, equates distaste with immorality. It is a child?s vision of life, in which the things one wants to do are natural, and the things one doesn?t want to do are matters of morality: ?I don?t like it; it?s bad.? "

@JaguarJones:

The book is solely about gay rights through an American framework. I won't deny that many Americans, being products of American society, find the idea of 'gay sex' (or more likely, 'man-on-man anal sex') icky - that would be willful ignorance on my part.

There is still no evidence to support Chris' claims that this is a universal belief and has been for millennia. 'Many [Americans]' is not the same as 'the vast majority [of Americans - or, as Chris claimed, of people around the world]' and contemporary American society has not existed for 'millenia all over the world.'

@JaguarJones:

After having looked up the book in question on Amazon, I see it was published in 1995. Attitudes have shifted tremendously in thirteen years, even within American society - further undercutting Chris' claims.

Wow, he helps to save the free world, and we arrest him for buttfucking. I hate human beings.

More web:

https://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2004/jul/22/research.science4

https://www.philly.com/inquirer/magazine/20070625_Carnal_Knowledge___What_fuels_the_hatred_of_homosexuality_.html

@JaguarJones:

I'm familiar w/ this research - but again, it's a 'some people in this culture' result (with which I can't disagree) and not 'all peoples for all times.' From your 1st link:

"Disgust can also fade as it begins, through association and imagery, through positive depictions of once-reviled objects. In the 1960s, most Americans and Europeans disapproved of interracial marriage, and revulsion at such couplings played no small role. This has changed considerably, as has the reaction to homosexual relationships. It is not abstract argument driving this change in cultural values; it is Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."

Again, this tells me that these perceptions are culturally shaped. YMMV.

Oh this is rich :)

You can choose to be disgusted at whatever you want, but you have no right to make laws against it or treat people with disrespect because of it. There are lots of things that 'disgust' me - people with rotten teeth, fat people, bad driver, stupid people, and especially gay-bashers. I don't go around telling them to fix their teeth, lose weight, learn to drive, educate themselves, and leave the gays alone. They have a right to be whoever they want to be, and while I'm disgusted by these people, I also find them beautiful. Life would really suck if everyone was who and what you want them to be - variation is the basis of evolution in the biological sense, and in the societal sense, and without that, we would be really screwed. Monotony is the true ugliness here, and that's the world you want to create? Get real...

I'm puzzled by the opening remark. Turing's articles strike me as being extremely readable, it's hard to believe how much effort he takes to explain his ideas in non-technical terms. Concerning the word Entscheidungsproblem in the title: at the time, knowledge of German was a prerequisite for contributing to mathematics.

I may not completely agree with the idea of two men butt-fucking, but I will defend to the death their right to do it.

I was unaware of the circumstances surrounding Turing's death. The symolism of the poisoned apple is nearly as interesting as Oscar Wilde's last words.

For those open minded enough to even consider taking 28 minutes of their life to listen to this, here's a sermon by John McArthur, probably the greatest preacher in the world.

Listen to him recount meeting a homosexual dying of AIDS, who fortunately didn't die a homosexual.

https://www.oneplace.com/ministries/Grace_to_You/archives.asp?bcd=2008-7-7

Of course, most people are too set in their ways to even consider the above for a moment, and yet demand Christians to adhere to their values.

Though I don't know about McArthur's claim that the average homosexual has around 500 partners in his life... perhaps that's true in the Castro district...

(JA Where is my comment from five minutes back? Was that censorship in action? My comment was relevant to the post and the resulting comments... perhaps you're intolerant of my views.)

Never mind. Next time I'll refresh the page.

"protected static, I've said what I had to say. Have a great day.
Chris on July 5, 2008 08:04 PM"

"For those open minded enough to even consider taking 28 minutes of their life to listen to this, here's a sermon by John McArthur
[snip]

Chris on July 10, 2008 03:40 PM "

I hate liars, Chris.

>I hate liars, Chris.

Perhaps you're dense.

I've said what I had to say but linked to someone else who has something better to say. I wasn't offering any more commentary but that is apparently lost on your little brain.

Jeff,

The UK government seems content to let Bletchley Park fall into ruin. It has got sufficiently bad that 97 leading UK computer scientists wrote to The Times about it. Any publicity you could give to getting proper funding to restore Bletchley Park would be much appreciated.
https://successfulsoftware.net/2008/07/24/bletchley-park-falling-into-negelect/

serch him and ull find him lol lol lol lol lol <3:] luv u allllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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plz sent me this book on my email address.
if is costly then plz sent me a web site for free download for this book.