Steam Punk Chani headed to a Halloween Party

She looks like a compatriot of Finneus Fog. Full steam ahead! We're
going round the world in 80 days.

The Color Purple

The color purple is a trademark of the 3M company?  Really?
That is a nifty Trick but not much of a Treat.
Happy Halloween.
And don't forget to Vote.

Alan Turing Gets an Appology

By Caroline Davies, The Guardian, Friday 11 September 2009

Gordon Brown issued an unequivocal apology last night on behalf of the government to Alan Turing, the second world war codebreaker who took his own life 55 years ago after being sentenced to chemical castration for being gay.

Describing Turing's treatment as "horrifying" and "utterly unfair", Brown said the country owed the brilliant mathematician a huge debt. He was proud, he said, to offer an official apology. "We're sorry, you deserved so much better," Brown writes in a statement posted on the No 10 website.

Turing is most famous for his work in helping create the "bombe" that cracked messages enciphered with the German Enigma machines. He was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 after admitting a sexual relationship with a man.

He was given experimental chemical castration as a "treatment". His criminal record meant he was unable to continue his work for the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) because his security privileges were withdrawn. Two years later he killed himself, aged 41.

Thousands have signed a Downing Street petition calling for an official apology, among them the novelist Ian McEwan, scientist Richard Dawkins, and gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.

Paying tribute to Turing's contribution to "Britain's fight against the darkness of dictatorship", Brown described him as "a quite brilliant mathematician".

"Without his outstanding contribution, the history of world war two could well have been very different," he writes.

"The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of gross indecency – in effect, tried for being gay.

"His sentence – and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones."

The petition, which yesterday had 30,805 signatures, was the idea of computer scientist John Graham-Cumming, who has also written to the Queen to request Turing be awarded a posthumous knighthood. Although an official apology is unusual, the act is seen as symbolic. Alan Turing is survived by three neices – Inagh, Shuna and Janet, from his brother's first marriage – and a nephew, John Dermot Turing, from his brother's second marriage, along with their associated family members.

Acknowledging the strength of feeling, Brown wrote: "Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him.

"Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

"This recognition of Alan's status as one of Britain's most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue."

"But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind … It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe's history and not Europe's present.

"So 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."

Though most famous for his codebreaking, Turing is often considered to be the father of modern computer science, having made highly significant contributions to the emerging field of artificial intelligence and computing. After the war he worked at many institutions, including the University of Manchester, where he worked on the Manchester mark 1, one of the first recognisable modern computers.

In 1999 Time Magazine named him as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century.

RIP Walkman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlhIQYd-qAg&feature=player_embedded

Sony has announced the production death of the Walkman.
A sad day for those of us who were once masters of the mix tape.
The passing of an era.
I like my mp3 player, but play lists are not as emotionally satisfying as mix tapes.
You could hold a cassette in your hands.
You could make custom covers for them.
I spent a lot of time with cassettes playing in stereos, boom boxes and Walkmans (Walkmen).
Play lists are so sterile and file-like.

Oh well....

Double Up Dudes

 Soviet Dudes

 Navy Dudes

 Cake Dudes

 Science Dudes

Get Over It Dude

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Echoes: A Proximity Collage by Jay 'Double Atti-Dude' Larsen

Googlism

Take a quick look at: The 9 proofs that Google is God.

This may not be as much fun as the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but it is more intellectually intriguing.  Is there a Turing Test for deities?  And how would Google do?

Like most religious "proofs" the 9 proofs of Googlism are rather carefully selected to give the results they wanted, and rather circular in nature.  But that doesn't knock them out of the competition by any means.  With over 11,000 religions out there, its hard pick just one as "the one true religion."

I think a better question is "what is the best spiritual path for me?"

And while I find Googlism interesting, I don't find it satisfying.

Pumpkin Pi

Prescription Optics

Does anyone else have trouble buying prescription glasses?

Or is it just me?

The exam always goes okay:

Which do you like better: number 1 or number 2?

It is the buying glasses part that always gets screwed up.

There are hundreds of frames, but only 3 of them fit my head.

And of those only 1 doesn’t make me look like a dork.

I have to wear the frames for several hours before I know

Whether they will give me headaches from squeezing my head too tight.

Or if they will slip up and down my nose like an out of control elevator.

Then they talk you into buying a second pair of prescription sunglasses

For “free” or only a little bit more money.

But by the time you get anti-glare coatings and such,

You are in for hundreds of dollars

None of which is covered by your vision insurance.

Then you wait 3 weeks for them to deliver the wrong lenses

Ground to the wrong prescription.

But they fiddle with the “fit” and tell you to wear them for a few days,

To get used to them.

So after you fall down from being dizzy and confused

By the freak-show distortions and headaches

Caused by the fish bowl optics,

You have to convince the optical department to take them back.

Then you wait another 3 weeks to get a replacement pair.

All the while going blind trying to read and use your computer

Wearing the cheap “free” set of sunglasses

Which somehow they got right, but they are too dark for indoor use

While your primary pair of “expensive” expensive glasses are away

At Santa’s workshop being fixed by the Grinch,

Who will eventually grind the lenses correctly

But Cindi-Loo Whoo manages to charge you an additional 50 dollar fee

For something or another which is somehow your fault.

Is that just me?

Or does this happen to you as well?

Be seeing you…I hope.

Who Wants To See Some Videos?

Echoes: Proximity Collage, Baby Standing in the Shadows

Went hiking on the Stilligwamish Trail

With my girlfriend and the dogs.
Might be the last great weather of the year.

Gotta Love Spock with a Beard.

Even after all these years.

BISHOP GENE ROBINSON: ON THE BLOG Bishop Gene Robinson: How Religion Is Killing Our Most Vulnerable Youth

You can be part of the solution, or part of the problem. Silence is death. If you are not publically defending gay and lesbian children, your silence is contibuting to the environment of bullying and abuse. 

  

		BISHOP GENE ROBINSON: ON THE BLOG Bishop Gene Robinson: How Religion Is Killing Our Most Vulnerable Youth
	It's time for "tolerant" religious people to acknowledge the straight line between the official anti-gay theologies of their denominations and the deaths of young people around the country.

 

Jay Larsen

Sent from my iPhone

In Chicago Again

I'm in Chicago again. Trying to sell a major project to our biggest
client. Hopefully the executives won't be pigs. My team worked hard to
build a great demo.
Stopped by Bass Pro Shops. That's where the pig photo comes from.

Wish us luck.

Jay from the iPhone.

Unintended Messages

I know what they meant.
But that ain't the message I got...
I don't think they are encouraging mafia hit men.
Maybe Onan has been given a second chance?
I'll just have to come to grips with it.

Happy Birthday Sputnik

October 4th, 1957: Sputnik begins circling the Earth.

Centurions, Oh

Tribesmen of my Century


The branches of the logic trees
Bow dangerously with the pregnant
Weight of chattering monkeys
Hurling rotten fruit
And other substances
Fragrant but base


Cohorts of mine enemies
The fortifying walls of the ramparts
Are as thin as the recycled paper
Used to scratch out dispatches
Commanding the weary
To acts unspeakable
Bloody and crass


Elected, appointed or promoted
From the rank and file
They and their one hundred
Despite any inherent skill
Or courage unsullied
Suffer the worst casualties
In these wars


Oh, Centurions


Let it go
Let it go
There is nothing to see here


Let us go
Let us go
If we want to hang out here
We will have to move on


Into the valley of death
Ride the Centurions

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Echoes: Collage and Poetry by Jay Larsen
I don't know if I am modled after Spurius Ligustinus
or Sempronius Densus