If Alan Turing Were Alive Today, He'd Probably Still Be Dead

Lunar Weight celebrates Alan Turing's 96th birthday.

Why 96th, you may ask? Well, because for those familiar with non-decimal number systems, 96 translates as 1100000 in binary, and 60 in hex. 1100000 ÷ 60 = 18333 1/3, which according to Kabbalistic tradition, prognostically indicates that Lunar Weight totally forgot Turing's 95th birthday last June 24th, and will undoubtedly forget his 97th next June 24th.

Turing's legacy largely involves being the father of the digital computer (this honor is, in some ways, misappropriated, but the people being robbed of the title are Polish, and they're used to that kind of shit), without which Emily Gould wouldn't be inexplicably famous and the rest of us would be forced to date, write novels, or otherwise exist in real life. But there's another, darker (as opposed to dorker) side to his legacy—Turing was one of the great martyrs to Western homophobia.

Yes, Alan Turing was openly blind, err, gay, possibly out of an activist instinct—the same activist instinct that led him to stand up so tenaciously for the idea of machine cognition as being potentially equivalent to human—or possibly from the same affable cluelessness that makes scientists the Beanie Babies of the ivory tower. Regardless, despite his tireless efforts to break Nazi codes during WWII, and the resultant reduction in British sauerkraut consumption and Jew-killing in the ensuing decade, Turing was tried for indecency and chemically castrated with estrogen. Eventually, disgraced and unlaid and possessing of boobies, he killed himself by eating a cyanide-laced apple.

Now, however, as the United States slowly, grudgingly swings towards the idea that gays are people too (or at least California and New York are swinging that way, which are the bits that count; Massachusetts, too, but no one's given a shit what they did since they got bored with burning witches), it's worth noting that what's at stake is not something as cosmetic as the right for Martha Stewart and Modern Bride to exploit a further 15% of the population. What's at stake is a concerted, legal-system-sanctioned effort to reject one of the most persistent and ascientific interpersonal prejudices in Western history.

Let's leave aside the inevitable gay-brain-difference studies, which are a classic instance of a neuropsychological "finding" completely devoid of practical significance beyond "look! See?" dickery. If the idea of rational thought has one end, it's that immaterial conclusions—such as ones indicating that homosexuality is somehow harmful, in need of "fixing," or, for that matter, inevitably synonymous with sweeping (former LW roomies, you know who you are)—can be debunked, cast aside. If any one facet of the classic '50s ideal of progress is worth carrying, it's that things that make no sense can eventually be revealed to make no sense. Homophobia is one of these; as Turing's story suggest, in at least some small realms, rationality might possibly save a life.

{yet there's a footnote here, a counterargument that is still self-aggrandizing in the way that tickles LW's smugbones: note that the British government kindly tried to "fix" Turing. This, too, was somehow informed by an idea of rationality and progress—albeit based on a model that was already well on its way to being debunked, gratzi Signore Kinsey. If only there had been some outside observers around back then to say, "Well, now, that's fucking stupid..." and then link to BoingBoing}

Roadrunner Renders Humans Petty-Flops

The Roadrunner Supercomputer: a 133 million dollar fuck you to all dumb-as-coyote humans? We who spend our menial lives devoted to computing human dilemmas, only to pick up a few spare tires in the process? It's one thing to perform an ungodly amount of operations per second, predict weather patterns and nuclear whatnot, but does it really have to rub it in that we're slowly writing
ourselves (as a species, not as a blog collective) out of the picture?



I like to imagine the machine operating with a very Betty Boop sensibility. It bounces up and down and while computing, conveyer belts traveling from each hub transfiguring puppy to light bulb, light bulb to Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln to flan. Then it hits the last hub, steam pours out of every opening, and one very stubby, stressed man stokes a fire as another, similarly stressed man rides a bicycle, and a long white sheet of paper comes out reading, "Yep—We're Fucked."

But I fear there's a decided lack of bicycles involved; forgive me for sounding cliché sci-fi/Colbert, but is this the beginning of the robot race? Sure, it's all for the benefit of humanity, but can't we just make 'em a little slower, buy ourselves some time? I can see Machiavellian CompuPower [TM, motherfuckers] escalating just as fast as the battle at Fort Sumpter did. It's only going to take one engineer to program a robot in his likeness and then the robo-cat's out of the kevlar and we're all itching for our own. Soon we'll be our own tamagotchis. How is it that we can have a self-loathing society that eats anti-depressants like candy, yet we're chomping at the bit to replicate ourselves?

So, for those interesting in marketing or making a buck, I invite you to take part in my business venture—The International Robot Registry (NYSE: IROR). We'll give you a little personality test, and write your name in a book (with archival ink, of course), and in 10 million years you'll be happy to know that a robot will be made to look just like you. And—if we finally get a handle on cryogenics—you can even hang out with it!

I feel that I've fallen victim to my own version of the aforementioned Betty Boop sensibility. Taking a nice tale of a Roadrunner supercomputer and flipping it into a Life 2.0 marketing scheme. Your move, Roadrunner. I got ACME on my side.

{from the Los Alamos National Laboratories website, because, gee, a fucking nuclear bomb wasn't scary enough}

Are You There, Carl? It's Me, Laura

You're still half-drunk the morning after watching Cosmos; you snooze again, and wake to the startling realization that you are madly in love with Carl Sagan. By you, I mean me, and by in love, I mean doe-eyed and prone to using words like "shucks".

There really is something simplistic and pure about a man who wonders, no, a man who ponders the cosmos. There's an inherent duality of character; to be into stars and space is very boyish, yet to make a living out of pondering—indeed, to become one of the foremost ponderers—is oh so attractive.

More Yoo-man than Hue-man.
The roots of this love lie purely in the Sagan speech. He talks very distinctively. [At what point do we tell Laura he's dead? Ah, fuck it, she's in her happy place. —Ed.] It often changes in pitch, interspersed with moments of bated breath. There's an awkward cadence to it, an innocence, slightly stressed (i.e. most people say the word human, "HUE-man" where Sagan prefers the ever so unique "YOO-man"), and he has a way of using the term "star-stuff" in ways I never thought possible. Star-stuff, my God I love star-stuff. Dude likes stars, and he so dearly wants you to love the stars as much as he that he makes sure that every single word he says isn't scary but is entirely logical, reasonable and awe-inspiring.

Good Sport
Carl is understanding, patient and kind. He travels in this brilliant "sci-fi" looking space craft that shows up in the universe as a rotating beam of light and seems to be composed of no more than a control panel of arbitrarily blinking lights and a big screen TV. But
Carl, that doll, goes along with it. He takes it so seriously. He sits down at this arbitrary control panel with a look of such stern concentration that you'd think he was performing open heart surgery. He's so into it, it seems like he's partaking of some sort of fantasy in which he really does have a spacecraft and really is finding the answers to all the questions that have been plaguing him, questions that are beyond most of the world but so real and so important to him... and because of him, to me.

There's just something about a guy with a spaceship.
Let this be more than a formal internet announcement of my love for Carl (the internet is a cosmos in itself). I find that there are themes to my love affair that transcend space time [though possibly obviate the possibility of nookie. Just sayin'. —Ed.], just as he does in the space ship. Across all relationships I believe it important to marvel at the other person for one reason or another, and if a space ship and the ability to transcend space-time isn't something to marvel at then I don't know what is.

{illustration by Austin Cho, with help from dinosaurs and maybe beer}

Mister Wizarding: The Science of Subway Stalking

This morning, as Mr. Wizard was slowly rolling in his grave, the L train wasn't rolling at all...

You know that one person you fall in love with on the subway or bus every morning? That random person you've never seen before, can't stop looking at, and swear you'll see again the next morning and maybe someday talk to but then you never see them again or if you do you've already forgotten what they look like and are already staring at some other poor wage ape?

Did this blog just get on Hollabacknyc or what?

Anyway, while you're being a hungover AM creep, try this: rather than directly (or even furtively) staring at the person, look at their reflection in the window. The next part really only works on an elevated train or at a platform, since the tunnels tend to be too dark, but still: look at their shoulder—that perfect shoulder, waiting for you to rest your head on it, if only they'd realize...!—and then try to look through their shoulder and observe the world beyond the window.

Got it? Good. You can see that cold, hostile, uncaring world beyond them, full of toil and pain and loneliness. Yippee!

Now stare at the reflection of their face and try to do the same thing. Way, way harder, isn't it? In fact, if the train is moving and their face keeps shifting around in the glass, it's almost impossible; you keep snapping back to them.

LW's totally unscientific hypothesis as to what's going on: It's known that the brain has an entire visual perception system dedicated to facial recognition, not so much to shoulder recognition. So when you're staring at this person's face, it's not the dreamy pools of chocolate wonderment that are their eyes that keep snapping you back, it's the power of a whole chunk of your perceptual system suddenly engaging. It's more valuable to your brain to keep track of this face, with it's corresponding cues that you're potentially about to get attacked, laid, fed, or arrested in case your crush is a transit cop and smells the Captain in your Starbucks, than to look at billboards and awesome-circa-1972 tiling, so it's far more difficult to shift your plane of focus.

It's another one of those cases where your brain doesn't give a rat's ass what you, whatever and wherever this "you" is, actually want. It's kind of a vertiginous, creepy feeling (so there, you can sort of empathize with your subject) to realize you have far less control over your own cognition than all that 3rd-grade self-affirmation jabber would have you believe. You probably can't be president, and you sure as hell can't look through that face in the glass.

Then try bringing this whole train (har!) of thought up with said stranger. Guaranteed sex.

{Our next Mister Wizarding: demonstrating electrostatic repulsion through pepper spray.}

NASA Shocker: Phoenix Lander Really a 14 Year-Old Girl

The Mars Phoenix Lander has a Twitter account, which seems to get updated in spastic bursts once or twice a day. Presumably, the rest of the time, the lander is too busy eating through NASA's wireless minutes jawing about last night's Gossip Girls re-run.

At least, that's what we can't help but assume, because... Fucking Twitter? For those not in the know (trust me, you're better off—you might consider skipping the rest of this paragraph), Twitter is a "micro-blogging" utility, which allows its users to text-message updates to their blog anywhere, anytime. Needless to say, the service is a boon for unrepentant narcissists and those confident that anything they have to say can be said in two sentences. Which pretty accurately describes both teenagers and publicists.

And space robots. Seriously. Look at today's post: "TEGA "cooks" soil samples until they emit gasses that I can "sniff" to learn what they are. I just hope they smell good :)". Emoticons? Emoticons? This may be humanity's first encounter with a robot that should get carded for cigarettes. (rebuttal)

Well, actually, the Dorothys at the New York Times inevitably ignored the Wizard's advice and paid attention to the man behind the curtain, or woman in this case. It turns out that Veronica McGregor, News Services Director at Pasadena, California's only redeeming feature, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (where Phoenix is controlled), provides the spazzy voice of the lander.

From a compositional standpoint, McGregor's writing is quite impressive: Twitter limits posts to 140 characters, so to successfully convey relatively complicated technical and scientific information while still having room to pretend to wink at people and generally "ZOMG" around is an impressive feat. To put it another way, the woman manages to be extraordinarily well informed while still sounding vapid. True virtuosity.

But LW still believes that, should Phoenix actually achieve intelligence, it would establish a Twitter account anyway. After all, the only logical step after self-awareness is self-absorption.

And somewhere in the Oort cloud, V'ger would cross another 'bot off its Christmas card list.

{from the crimson-shod New York Times}