Showing posts tagged memento mori

In Honor of Alan Turing: A message from the sponsor - Linux Magazine Online

Today I wrote an essay on Alan Turing and the 100th anniversary of his birthday.

I have made no bones about the fact that Alan Turing is a hero to me. I have had several heroes, among them:

  • Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper
  • Abraham Lincoln (not just because he freed the slaves, but because he was one of the greatest humans of all time)
  •  Hedy Lamarr
  • Theodore Roosevelt
  • Samuel “Mark Twain” Clemens

and many more people that I “respect”, although they do not quite reach “hero” status with me.

Many of those people are still alive, and to mention them here would surely embarrass them, since they tend to be modest people.

Alan Turing, however, is different.

  • He did so much for the industry with which that I have spent the last 42 years of my life.
  • His brilliance helped defend the world against an unspeakable evil that engulfed whole nations, and turned Christian men and women against others seen as different from themselves.
  •  His country (and his world) hated him so much that they chemically castrated him, insulted him, and deprived him of the one thing he lived for, his work.

You can try to sugar-coat the events by saying “it was the law of the time”, but “the time” was not that long ago, and in some places “that time” still exists.

And why this effects me is that I too, am homosexual.

“
All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.
Susan Sontag (via wearebarebones)
(Reblogged from wearebarebones)

c86:

RIP Shelagh Delaney who died on Sunday aged 71

Delaney is cited as the greatest influence of The Smiths’ lead singer and lyricist Morrissey. In 1986, Morrissey said, “I’ve never made any secret of the fact that at least 50 per cent of my reason for writing can be blamed on Shelagh Delaney.” Many of Morrissey’s lyrics are lifted directly from Delaney’s plays, notably A Taste of Honey, which he praised as “virtually the only important thing in British film in the 1960s as far as I’m concerned.” The lyrics of the Smiths’ “This Night Has Opened My Eyes” are a retelling of the plot of A Taste of Honey, using many direct quotes from the play. Morrissey also chose her as the artwork of the 1987 compilation album “Louder Than Bombs” - Wikipedia

(Reblogged from dianebluegreen)

Anne McCaffrey: April 1, 1926 — November 21, 2011

Another one of the elders passes away.

Father Of C And UNIX, Dennis Ritchie, Passes Away At Age 70 | TechCrunch

“
Now Amy Winehouse is dead, like many others whose unnecessary deaths have been retrospectively romanticised, at 27 years old. Whether this tragedy was preventable or not is now irrelevant. It is not preventable today. We have lost a beautiful and talented woman to this disease. Not all addicts have Amy’s incredible talent. Or Kurt’s or Jimi’s or Janis’s, some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill. We need to review the way society treats addicts, not as criminals but as sick people in need of care. We need to look at the way our government funds rehabilitation. It is cheaper to rehabilitate an addict than to send them to prison, so criminalisation doesn’t even make economic sense. Not all of us know someone with the incredible talent that Amy had but we all know drunks and junkies and they all need help and the help is out there. All they have to do is pick up the phone and make the call. Or not. Either way, there will be a phone call.
http://www.gossipcop.com/russell-brand-tribute-amy-winehouse-blog-post-eulogy-addiction-friend-memorial/
Lucian Freud 1922 -2011 So sad when a maker of beauty leaves us.

Lucian Freud 1922 -2011

So sad when a maker of beauty leaves us.