It's eight years since 2001.

I originally wrote "nine years later" ... obviously it's eight, so now it's changed. I got nines in my head from all this 09/09/09 stuff - thanks for the catch.

Word to that Tom. They should put a giant fucking statue up of Turing right in the goddamn middle of London. The man saved countless lives and was chemically castrated for his efforts.

There already is a statue of him, in central Manchester (where he's from). Been there for a few years now.

But the idea that the government should make special effort to apologize to him because of who he was, and ignore all the other soldiers who went through the same thing, is shameful.

Yeah, shame on them for at least taking a step in the right direction.

It's so goddamn sad what they did to Turing. Without him, we'd all be using Nazi typewriters.

Not exactly our savior from the Nazis, Turing. A great genius, true, and a war hero, certainly.

But he had nothing to do with Lise Meitner's discovery of nuclear fission, or its consequences, which would have eliminated the Nazis, from whom she fled after der Anschluss, had not the Red Army and the western allies finished them off a few months before August 1945.

Our nuclear weapons were intended for Hitler, not Hirohito.

Turing was a genius, but the computer was an invention whose time had come. Turing had several cohorts in the field that were equally as influential, but didn't quite have the tragic tale to make a lasting impression outside of fairly geeky circles.

Well, I think the point is that Germany lost the war in part because it persecuted some of its most important intellectuals for their private lives, and subsequently either lost them or ruined their ability to work (you might even include Heisenberg in that list). To have England turn around and do the same thing less than ten years later is, I think, what stirs people up.

As far as historical "I told you so" goes, I personally think ULTRA was essential for an Allied victory. There's nothing quite like knowing where the enemy is going to be and what they are planning to do.

The only reason I know about any of this is because of Neal Stephenson.

Thank you Science Fiction.

Actually, I believe that should be "sneak peek", unless you snuck up to the top of Mt. Tabor, or something else tall.