Alan Turing finally receives pardon - 61 years too late - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Moustacheman;43288552]Fun fact: One of my ancestors, Angus "Old Dog" McCloud, died in prison awaiting a pardon for piracy. He never was pardoned.[/QUOTE] did your ancestor do anything of merit

With him being as ingenious as he was, I wonder if our computing would look differently today if he could have continued his research and development for longer.

[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;43293294]With him being as ingenious as he was, I wonder if our computing would look differently today if he could have continued his research and development for longer.[/QUOTE] Imagine if Turing had lived long enough to contribute to the motherfucking space race.

As much respect as I have for Turing, everyone that was ever punished by the government for being a homosexual deserves to be pardoned. His great achievements don't and shouldn't give him elevated human rights. Just because this was law doesn't mean it was right. We have the power to make a symbolic gesture of acknowledging our mistakes and we should take it. I guess some may say it's not quite the right time but I see this as a nice start.

[QUOTE=Zero Vector;43289895]I don't know anything about my distant relatives and I don't think they did cool things anyways[/QUOTE] Neither do I. Well, except I know my grand mother's both brothers died in the Finnish civil war.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;43293342]Imagine if Turing had lived long enough to contribute to the motherfucking space race.[/QUOTE] and then he does a 360 spin and kicks William Proxmire in the dick

[QUOTE=Helix Snake;43288304]wait a minute, didn't this already happen like a year ago? I remember reading this exact topic.[/QUOTE] The Government officially apologised in 2009, but there's been a debate as to whether it would be appropriate to pardon him since then.

imagine if turing would have tested siri for inteligence they should build a massive statue to him out of old computer bits [editline]24th December 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Awesomecaek;43293294]With him being as ingenious as he was, I wonder if our computing would look differently today if he could have continued his research and development for longer.[/QUOTE] NSAx50 he worked on cryptography remember, so maybe he would have developed some super encryption or some super encryption busting math, we would even still be using it as the NSA was a massive think tank during the 60s and 70s developing the backbone of todays internet encryptions

61 years is so ridiculously late that they might as well not have pardoned him at all, to save themselves from such a public embarassment.

[QUOTE=Whiplash~;43294572]61 years is so ridiculously late that they might as well not have pardoned him at all, to save themselves from such a public embarassment.[/QUOTE] The embarassment is kind of the point.

its kinda like Galileo getting a papal pardon a few years back... its more of trying to save face instead of actually doing anything, I guess there really isn't anything the British gov can do to fix this otherwise but they can learn from their failure and go forwards

To be fair, times have changed and I see this as a way to show it. It's a nice gesture for one of the greatest influences of computer science.

Well, as a pardon it doesn't really mean much. But it's nice as a reference to how far gay rights have come since then, despite the bigotry that still remains. Having studied computer science, it makes me proud to know that I studied at the same university where Turing was programming the world's first stored program computer (off which all modern computing is ultimately based). :D