Monthly Archives: November 2011

The Turing Elves Put On Radiohead Masks

Posted on November 22, 2011 by

Days to Centenary: 214 Turing Elves — to whom I have referred several times on this blog — are those often invisible but near-ubiquitous souls who have no official standing vis a vis Alan Turing, but who nonetheless mount performances, … Continue reading →

Posted in music, Turing-elves | 1 Comment

Turing in Fiction — Greg Egan’s “Oracle”

Posted on November 18, 2011 by

Days to Centenary: 219 There is a small but not insignificant body of fiction which features Alan Turing as a character.  With great good luck it turns out that some very good examples of the oevre are available free online. … Continue reading →

Posted in C.S. Lewis, Greg Egan, Turing in fiction, Turing-elves | Leave a comment

24 Chinese Rooms — Thinking With Meat, Thinking With Metal

Posted on November 13, 2011 by

Days to Centenary: 224 John Searle is an American philosopher who has proposed one of the most commonly cited arguments against the possibility of genuine artificial intelligence in a computing device. His position — to oversimplify wildly — is that … Continue reading →

Posted in Chinese Room Argument, John Searle, Kevin Warwick, Ray Kurzweil | 1 Comment

Touring Turing — Awesome Artists for a Genial Genius

Posted on November 9, 2011 by

Do not miss this: the official Alan Turing Year 2012 is on IndieGoGo.com to raise funds for a Turing-centric art exhibition that will be staged at a number of different venues.  This will be a travelling exhibit entitled  “Intuition and Ingenuity,” … Continue reading →

Posted in Alan Turing Year 2012, art, Turing-elves | Leave a comment

The Desire for Enigma: The Mysterious Theft of the Code Machine

Posted on November 3, 2011 by

Days to Centenary: 234 On April 1, 2000 someone pulled a major April Fool’s prank, stealing one of only three Enigma code machines in the world from Bletchley Park. The Abwehr Enigma G312 machine was valued at £100,000. Police believed … Continue reading →

Posted in Bletchley Park, Enigma machine, theft of Enigma | Leave a comment

On Hallowe’en I Wore My Homo Sapiens Costume

Posted on November 1, 2011 by

Days to Centenary:  236 On  Hallowe’en I wore my homo sapiens costume to hide the fact that I’m actually homo artificialis.  While the streets teemed with kids dressed as giant iPhones and Terminator robots, I wandered the city, for once … Continue reading →

Posted in Boing Boing, Great Pumpkin, Halloween, Linus Torvalds, The Turing-net, Turingator, Xeni Jardin | Leave a comment