Learning Something New: Alan Turing
I follow a lot of random news. I don’t visit many news websites directly, but I do get a lot of news from tweets on Twitter that sound interesting, and I follow through, and may even repost them if I find them interesting enough for my followers to need to check out. Lately, a lot of the news I tend to get are political (laughing at anti-Obama stuff from Huffington Post, etc), but I recently clicked on this new article on CNN titled “Petition seeks apology for Enigma code-breaker Turing”
From the article title alone, two things sprung to my mind:
- I didn’t know that Alan Turing, the Father of Modern Computer Science, the developer of the theoretical Turing Machine, was also the code-breaker of the dreaded Enigma machine of World War II that was vital to Nazi Germany war efforts.
- What in the world did they need to seek an apology for? I didn’t realize that Turing ever had a fall from grace.
Well, come to find out, Turing was the one that broke the Enigma machine, which is just plain awesome, given the importance of that to the Allies winning the European stage of World War II. He was one of many code-breakers of course, during that time, but the Enigma was definitely a major hurdle for the Allies.
Learning this gave me a higher respect for the man known as the Father of everything we know and use today when it comes to computers.
I mean, come on, EVERY day the majority of users on the internet use something that was originally created by Alan Turing. Every website you visit that uses a “security check” involving looking at an image with words and numbers that you have to type in. It’s called a Captcha and it’s known as a reverse Turing Test, testing the human instead of testing a computer (rather than vice versa. See the wiki entry for more information). The Turing Test was first described by Alan Turing in 1950.
Going back to the article, though. I was shocked to discover he was disgraced simply for being a homosexual. Well, for starters, I didn’t know he was gay before this article. That’s why I didn’t understand why they’d need to apologize. But of course, I realize that being gay was even more shunned upon back then than it is today, but it’s disappointing that someone, even with everything that they did for their nation, can become an outcast simply because of their sexual standings.
He was removed of his security clearance, because for some reason the government had (and still does, in the United States atleast, it seems) an opinion that homosexuals are more likely to be compromised, and more capable of divulging information. Grotesque enough, he was submitted to Chemical Castration for his choice in lifestyle, even if it was a completely private one at that, though he did agree to it in order to avoid a different sentence. It’s rather disappointing that he had to be subject to that. In fact, he committed suicide two years later, probably directly due to this (though this is not quite known).
I have brought this up in defense of homosexuality yet again, I think. I am not gay, but I tend to be a greater advocate for gay rights than even the homosexual people I DO know. I tend to speak out for equality more than they do. I certainly hope the UK Government comes through and apologizes for the way they treated Turing, especially after all of his contributions to their war effort, and what he stands for in terms of the last 50 years of advancement in Computer Science.
I hope you learned something new as well.
Net Neutrality
That battle isn’t over yet? I could’ve sworn it was over a damn long time ago. It certainly fell out of the mainstream media, atleast.
The net MUST remain neutral. Any attempts to control it will cause it’s collapse. The only reason why the internet made it as big as it is is because of the neutrality. The biggest forms of social media that is so popular today is due to the freedom of the internet. So many smaller businesses won’t be able to start. All of those little niche markets online that we know and love will cease to exist. Removing the net neutrality, from what I originally heard, would make it damn near impossible for any new company to spring up online, which is damaging to entrepreneurs and also allow the economy to grow a little stagnant with not enough change happening. Of course, I may be completely wrong about this. I really need to read up on it again, as I didn’t even know it was still around.
I found this interesting blog post on Take Part, a Social Action network. It mentions how much lobbyists are fighting against net neutrality. An excerpt:
Our friends at Free Press created this amazing widget that exposes fake grassroots groups formed and funded by big phone and cable corporations to kill Net Neutrality. These phony grassroots groups (or “astroturf,” as they are very cleverly named!) try to fool the public and politicians into thinking that they represent everyday citizens. Their populist names and vague mission statements misinform the public and fight on behalf of large corporations. But they can’t fool the grassroots, and certainly not the netroots.
The little widget below is about the big internet companies and what they’re doing to try to prevent a net freedom act from passing. Hell, I didn’t even know there was an Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 even in the makings.
Articles like these about Lobbyists working in Congress to resist certain bills just reinforces my opinion that they need to be REMOVED from the government process. They interfere with what the majority may truly feel, and interrupt politicians from really making decisions for the people they were elected to represent.
Learning Something New: Jocularity
I just thought this was amusing. I honestly didn’t know the definition of jocularity before today. My program manager was using it in a conversation to the bulk of us in the office. And he used the word multiple times, so I was honest and said “what’s Jocularity?” and thankfully I wasn’t the only one that didn’t know, hahahaha…
So, another one of those “learn something new” days.
For those that don’t know:
jocularity – a feeling facetious merriment [source]
Now go out and use the word! I’ll probably forget it in a week. hah.
Learning Something New: Boxscores
Well, the first half of my morning has been a learning experience for me. A little frustrating at that.
I actually kept reading about the Red Sox’s horrible loss versus the Orioles on Tuesday (June 30th), where they ended up losing 11-10, after having a 9 run lead (worse comeback against the Red Sox in 20 years). John Papelbon was credited with his second blown save of the season, and I didn’t quite understand why Papelbon was given the blown save.
At first I was confused simply because I was being blind to the fact that they didn’t play in the bottom of the 9th, but I was wondering why Papelbon was credited with the blown save when he didn’t even allow a run in the 9th (again, before I realized they didn’t play the bottom of 9th)… So I jumped to look at the Boxscore. Once I realize that Papelbon WAS involved in the 8th inning (when Sox gave up another 5 runs that gave Orioles the lead), I was still a bit confused.
If we’re looking at Papelbon’s line, it simply shows that he gave up 1 hit, 1 walk, and dealt 1 strikeout. Now, in my mind, reading Papelbon’s line of statistics, and ignoring the rest, I see that Papelbon didn’t give up any runs or any home runs. So I was really quite confused as to how he “blew” the save. So I consulted my coworker.
Of course (for the veteran boxscore reader), it is revealed that Takashi Saito allowed 1 player on base, and Hideki Okajima already had a player on base when he was pulled, and it was John Papelbon’s allowed hit that got those two runners to score, I now understood why Papelbon got the blown save. But again, I looked at the statistics.
I understand (now) where Baseball statistics were going by accrediting Takashi and Hideki with the runs that were accumulated by the runners that THEY put on base. I was under the impression that because Papelbon was the reason they scored (by giving up that 2 RBI double) that the Runs would show up in Papelbon’s stats. I failed to realize that baseball keeps track of what pitcher allowed what player on the bases, and tracks each of them as the responsibility of that pitcher, regardless of how many new pitchers enter the game after them. Knowing that, I can finally understand the statistics, and we can move on.
Upon a second look after the hour long discussion ended, I realized that the ERA actually reveals that Papelbon gave up the runs. I failed to look at the ERA initially, which might’ve been able to help my understanding prior to consulting my coworker.
All the same, glad I finally understand the Boxscore Statistics a bit better 
I’m starting to think I should do a post like this more frequently… showing something new I learned recently. Sure this one made me seem like a bit of an idiot (what doesn’t, right?), but it’s a decent idea.