

The new Alan Turing docudrama is available for streaming - jgrahamc
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/britains-greatest-codebreaker/4od#3261692

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arethuza
I look forward to watching this - I was lucky enough to see Derek Jacobi
playing Turing in the stage version of "Breaking the Code" which was awesome.

There are a few clips of Jacobi playing Turing on YouTube - including this:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV67Sj2jkVg>

~~~
zacharyvoase
Happens to also be the simplest and nicest explanation of Gödel's theorem I've
ever seen—I was expecting such a thing to come from a mathematician's lips,
not an actor's :)

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alx
Available on torrent:
<http://torrentz.eu/d92cb0d2e9339e83996b970205d91e350e7c31da>

~~~
exDM69
Yeah, I was going to ask about this.

A distributor somewhere is left without his advertising dollars because I'm
going to go watch this from torrent without any ads.

I wouldn't mind some ads, but I'm not going to wait until this becomes
available in my region. That will probably take years.

Media producers and distributors: start thinking about worldwide zero day
distribution now or be prepared to go out of business.

~~~
sixtofour
People of the world: be prepared for international copyright police.

------
bad_user

         The document is not available in your area.
    

Great job.

~~~
andyking
A familiar sight to those of us outside the US, of course.

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Geenkaas
Trying to watch this outside of the UK... The irony with this link on HN does
not escape me:

[http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-
whatwg.org/2011-Nov...](http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-
whatwg.org/2011-November/033914.html)

and

[http://www.channel4.com/4viewers/faq/name/i-live-in-the-
uk-r...](http://www.channel4.com/4viewers/faq/name/i-live-in-the-uk-roi-but-
when-i-try-to-use-4od-it-tells-me-that-i-am-outside-that-area-why-is-
this/id/400289830)

~~~
jerfelix
It'd be awesome if there was a plug-in that auto-magically worked around these
blocks, using bit-torrent and crowdsourcing.

Features:

If you try to peer into a walled garden, your browser plug-in notices the
issue and grabs the content off of a torrent (if available).

If you come across an error "not available in your country" (i.e. it's not yet
available on a torrent, or you are the first to report this issue to the plug-
in), you press a REPORT button, and the plug-in communicates with others using
the software (behind the scenes) to see if others have access to the content.

Your participation in the network could be passive or active. If you are
paranoid, then you could set the flag to prompt you before uploading any
content. If you are less paranoid, then behind the scenes, your PC would
automatically help upload "hidden" content for others to see, without
prompting.

There are obvious copyright and legality concerns (be paranoid about kiddie
porn for instance), but that would be a cool, valuable tool for some Hacker to
crank out.

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Graham24
I watched it and was disappointed not to see them taking a stab at explaining
what a Turing Machine does and why it's so important. Instead all we had was
stock footage of old computers and some BlinkenLights.

What was the point of showing the paper Turing Machine model thing, without
even attempting to describe how it works?

Maybe I was not the target audience, as the director was more interested in
the view of that apple tree out of the trick cyclists window.

------
xedarius
I watched the programme last night and it was excellent. I've always held Alan
Turing as one of my all time hero's of Computer Science. If you can manage to
get hold of it I highly recommend watching it.

On a side note I decided to read his paper this morning 'Computing Machinery
and Intelligence'. If you have some spare time today give the paper a read.
Especially the 'Digital Computers' paragraph. As you're reading it think to
yourself he is describing something that does not exist, nobody has ever heard
of, and yet he is perfectly describing the computer I am using to type this
comment. Phenomenal.

link to paper : <http://loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html>

~~~
agumonkey
Turing's interests included mathematical modeling of biology too (surprised me
a bit):

[http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_chemical_basis_of_morphogen...](http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_chemical_basis_of_morphogenesis)

[http://www.dna.caltech.edu/courses/cs191/paperscs191/turing....](http://www.dna.caltech.edu/courses/cs191/paperscs191/turing.pdf)

~~~
arethuza
Can I recommend "Alan Turing: the Enigma" by Andrew Hodges - it really is a
splendid book and covers all of Turing's work:

<http://www.turing.org.uk/book/>

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iambot
Meh, I watched it last night, and it left me wanting more. It delt more with
Turing dealing with homosexuality than exploring his discoveries in depth.

I was disapointed.

~~~
nobody314159265
It's a TV program. What proportion of the TV viewing public are more
interested in the entscheidungsproblem compared to sex and death ?

On the other hand, at least it wasn't BBC. Then it would have somebody on a
bike doing zany things (cos science is fun) that fit in a specific section of
schools curriculum (so they meet their public service quota)

~~~
iambot
I agree, and as such my comment served the thread by warning those visiting
HN, that unless they were looking for a melodrama, it was probably not worth
watching. Just my opinion, but that's (part of) what comments are for.

~~~
nobody314159265
I just assume TV programs about science/engineering, even British ones, will
be disappointing.

Oddly the maths in Derek Jacobi's portrayal is very good - but the human drama
doesn't always work. In one scene he is talking to the commanding officer who
says all this sex business is just youthfulness and it doesn't really matter
when you get older. But a 20something Turing is played by a 50something Jacobi
who looks 20years older than the actor playing the C/O!

------
ggwicz
There's also a documentary made a few years ago about Turing and 4 other
brilliant people.

It's free on Google Video and called "Dangerous Knowledge". It's short but
super interesting and thought-provoking.

Check it out if you're interested
<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5122859998068380459>

~~~
JonnieCache
Short? It's 90 minutes long!

It is also superb, one of my favourite TV documentaries. It deals with Cantor,
Boltzmann, Gödel and Turing, and revolves around how their work eventually
destroyed them, hence the title.

I love showing it to people: it was made for BBC4 and as such it is
understandable by people with little knowledge of maths, but it's always
capable of _blowing their minds._

~~~
ggwicz
Haha, I meant the Turing part is relatively short. But yeah it's really well
put together.

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willvarfar
Sadly seems to only play in the UK :(

~~~
jgrahamc
I have asked the producers to see if they can change that. Don't hold your
breath though as I suspect the rights issues are very complex.

It does appear to be on Channel 4's YouTube channel here:
<http://www.youtube.com/show/britainsgreatestcodebreaker> Is that viewable
from outside the UK?

~~~
michael_dorfman
No, the Channel 4 YouTube channel is also not viewable outside the UK.

Pity, that.

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abhinandh
I loved it! Watched it from outside the UK through a proxy.

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mcos
The entire thing is here: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH4hhX_j6pQ>

