That was absolutely brilliantly done

It was an excellent film, and Benedict Cumberbatch did a remarkable job as Alan Turing in The Imitation Game. I've seen the two films that were in the previews as well--Philomena and The King's Speech, both excellent. This was even better. All I can say is, wow. I knew the basics of Turing's life, but the film really brought it all to life. And it's so sad that someone so brilliant, who saved countless lives through his work, and contributed so much to what we now consider computer science (which has revolutionised our lives, so much so that we carry handheld computers with us and call them smart phones) was forced choose between prison (which would have interrupted his work) or to undergo chemical castration (he chose the latter) all because of prevailing attitudes regarding homosexuality at the time. Alan Turing died when he was 41 years old--8 years younger than I am--officially of suicide, although some have argued for accidental cyanide poisoning. It's sad, and even though he was pardoned years later and his story came out, I think the important thing is that we have learned that different doesn't mean bad, and that we should embrace differences as very basic to our humanity. Just because someone thinks differently, to paraphrase the movie's dialogue a bit, does not mean they do not think; just because someone has different preferences, does not make them less human.

You'll see something a little different on Google tomorrow (or are, for those across the date line)

Google's impossibly clever Alan Turing doodle: In a doodle celebrating the 100th birthday of Alan Turing tomorrow, Google creates a conundrum that the majority of humanity simply won't understand. This is a good thing.

A Google Doodle for Alan Turing’s 100th Birthday

For more on Alan Turing, his many contributions to computer science, cryptography, and other fields, the prosecution for indecency for having a sexual relationship with another man, and his suicide, see the Wikipedia article or the one from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Turing was younger than me when he died, only 41, and that's sad, especially after his many gifts helped save lives, and yet he was convicted of a crime that quite frankly seems silly to most of us today, but through which careers and lives were unjustly ruined for many years.

Follow up: Alan Turing receives posthumous apology from the British government

Read Prime Minister Gordon Brown's rather nice apology in toto. Kudos for those who petitioned the government to do the right thing. If only things had been different, so that Turing would not have had to choose chemical castration over prison for the crime of being gay, only to end his life two years later. Brown recognises that a huge debt is owed Turing for his work during World War II and that he deserved far better than he got from his homeland. Fortunately that cloud of criminalising sexual orientation has lifted from Britain. Now if we could get rid of prejudice against gays around the world, I'd feel a lot better. No one should suffer just because they love their own sex rather than the other.