

Queen to unveil Bletchley tribute - vColin
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14164529

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jgrahamc
HM The Queen's visit to Bletchley Park is wonderful.

It pays tribute to two different groups of people: those that worked at
Bletchley Park during World War II and those that worked to save Bletchley
Park and honour the memory of the work done there.

The story of Bletchley Park is the story of a battle of minds that supported
and helped guide the physical battles of World War II. It is the story of one
part of the start of the computer revolution. And it is a story of the power
of diversity: the people who worked at Bletchley Park were drawn from all
walks of life and brought together because of their ability.

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defeated
I just visited Bletchley Park last week. It was great to see, especially the
Colossus MK2 reconstruction and the working rebuild of Turing's Bombe. The
only thing that made me sad was the lack of discussion of the way the
government treated Turing; it was glossed over on a sign next to the Turing
statue, but other than that, not a word was said.

Here's a sad little video I took on my phone of the Colossus MK2 rebuild in
action: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziOEFIBZmBk>.

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jgrahamc
This is being rectified. There is a new Turing exhibit being planned and the
official apology from Gordon Brown has been delivered to Bletchley Park and
the people running Bletchley Park fully understand what's needed. I have been
working with them on wording for the part talking about the apology.

I have posted a link to the actual apology document that will be displayed at
Bletchley Park here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2767301>

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defeated
That's great to hear!

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acangiano
Next year is the centenary of Alan Turing's birth. It would be extremely cool
if they issued £100 bills with him on them for the occasion. Of course, this
is not likely to ever happen.

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JonnieCache
There are no english £100 notes. However, Alan Turing would make an excellent
candidate for any new note design, not just a one off special one. It would be
nice to have him alongside darwin on the money, his ideas are arguably as
profound, but much less generally appreciated. Hopefully some of the events
for his centenary will go some way towards teaching people that he did a lot
more than just the enigma machine.

Shame they couldn't hold off the new batch of £5 notes they're currently
putting into circulation until next year.

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btcoal
What I would love to see is a major (Hollywood) motion picture about WWII
cryptanalysis, Enigma, etc. To my knowledge every aspect of WWII has been
depicted except this (Pacific theater, Normandy, Concentration camps, Navajo
codetalkers, and so on).

In fact, just finally make Cryptonomicon into a movie and I'd be happy.

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cadr
A Hollywood movie about the Enigma? Like the movie "Enigma"?

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0157583/>

(If you take the tour at Bletchley, they will point out everything they have
there that was used in the movie.)

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Tichy
Just checked on Wikipedia: the Queen became queen in 1952, Alan Turing died
1954. Chances are she didn't even know about him, but on the other hand she
could be seen as representing the government that killed him.

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jgrahamc
Certainly the case.

The British Government is Her Majesty's Government as she is the head of
state. This means that it was her government that was in power when Alan
Turing died and when Gordon Brown issued the apology.

I'll be interested to see her words today when they are released, but I don't
feel there's any need for Her Majesty to be directly apologize for Turing's
treatment. She should be there to honour the work that was done at Bletchley
Park. Her government has already issued the apology necessary.

Related: [http://blog.jgc.org/2009/10/reply-from-buckingham-
palace.htm...](http://blog.jgc.org/2009/10/reply-from-buckingham-palace.html)

