Category: Follies of the Human Condition

Pardon Alan Turing

There is a formal petition to the UK government to pardon war hero and computing innovator Alan Turing. Turing as convicted for “gross indecency”, aka being and acting homosexual. He was subjected to chemical castration, which led to his suicide at age 41. One of humanity’s brightest candles was snuffed out because of intolerance.

We ask the HM Government to grant a pardon to Alan Turing for the conviction of ‘gross indecency’. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ with another man and was forced to undergo so-called ‘organo-therapy’ – chemical castration. Two years later, he killed himself with cyanide, aged just 41. Alan Turing was driven to a terrible despair and early death by the nation he’d done so much to save. This remains a shame on the UK government and UK history. A pardon can go to some way to healing this damage. It may act as an apology to many of the other gay men, not as well known as Alan Turing, who were subjected to these laws.

If the petition gains 100,000 signatures, it will be eligible to be debated in the House of Commons.

*Hat tip to Cory Doctorow at boingboing.

Tag, or the Springsteen-Smoke Theorem

The adrenaline rush of going fast is undeniable. The fear. The excitement. Yet, there also seems to be something redemptive about going fast, as if we can actually run away from our problems.

Well now I’m no hero
That’s understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl
Is beneath this dirty hood
–Bruce Springsteen, “Thunder Road” Continue reading “Tag, or the Springsteen-Smoke Theorem”

On “gentleman scientists”

It appears that a few gentle readers are concerned that the “for gentleman scientists” bit of our every so pithy tagline implies that ladies are not welcome – that we might, indeed, be sexist pig dogs. Let’s lay this one to rest, forthwith. While our porcine and canine qualities, not to mention their synergistic effects on one another, are certainly open for debate, our sexism is not. Continue reading “On “gentleman scientists””

Cinde-really 4: The Great Slipper Screen

This fourth post, long-awaited by two people, concludes a two-part post based on my having to watch Disney’s Cinderella roughly 17837 times. After a while, you start noticing the little things, or go mad, or both.

Like a Freudian psycho-analyst asking about mom, screens bring up issues[1] for classical geneticists. Screens are what we do. Conceptually, screens are simple. In fact, they are like your screen door. The goal is start with everything and separate it into two groups – one that passes the screen and one excluded by the screen – based on a particular characteristic. Your screen door tries to do this based on size, letting in the breeze, but keeping out the flies, if everything is working well.

With screens, be they in the genetics laboratory or your back door, the devil is in the details. We need to worry about how well the screen works. If our screen door has holes in it or we are opening the door a lot, bugs are going to get in. If the screen is dirty, it might not let as much of the breeze through as we would like[2]. We need to worry about whether we are actually screening for the characteristic we care about. Screen doors separate bugs from breeze based on size. They do not detect “bug” and zap it with a laser, because one house could not contain that much awesome[3].

I’m concerned that the King, Grand Duke, and Prince did not think through the details of their attempt to screen their female subjects for Cinderella – i.e., The Great Slipper Screen[4]. Continue reading “Cinde-really 4: The Great Slipper Screen”

Unironically

You can probably identify the time and place of my birth to an accuracy of +/- 2 years and +/- 500 miles by the fact that I listened to the entirety of Hootie and the Blowfish‘s Cracked Rear View (a time unit known as 1 Hootie [Hty]) this evening while doing the dishes and loved it.

Speaking of which, I absolutely despise hipsters for making it almost mandatory that I qualify this by saying “unironically”. No way. Not doing it. Allow this to be official notice that this boy enjoys everything he enjoys genuinely and honestly, and without shame. Well, maybe with a little shame.