http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,390...39163936,00.htm
An op-ed by Simon Moores. It's mostly about Tim Berrners-Lee's comments and about blogs, but Wikipedia is mentioned:

If only we could temporarily resurrect guys like Charles Babbage and Alan Turing to give us their opinions on the whole networked-world information culture in general... I can just imagine what they'd have to say about Wikipedia!

Especially if they read the articles about themselves!

Alan Turing in the book Cryptominicon was depicted as an autistic homosexual who hid out in a submarine and is still alive.

In his Wikipedia article he is depicted as a genius who the government forced him to take hormone pills after they learned he was gay, causing him to turn into a shemale, and then Turing most likely killed himself -- basically a sad story about a genius who did not get the respect in life he deserved.

That's obviously nuts. You don't give female hormones to try and "cure" homosexuality.

It's definitely nuts, but supposedly that's what they used to do back in post-war England. They weren't trying to cure homosexuality so much as cure sexuality in general - the theory was that homosexuality actually involved an excess of testosterone, so reducing that by ingestion of estrogen was supposed to lead to an overall reduction in libido.

Of course, the medical community, even in Great Britain, is far more advanced and knowledgeable about the effects of hormonal imbalances now than they were back in the 1940's. Today, we know that curing "aberrant" sexual tendencies is simply a matter of forcing young men to look at photos of Dave Gerard, telling them "this could be you in 10 years."

I dunno if we're talkin' bout the same pic, but the one I saw I'm pretty sure is really a pic of Alexei Sayle.

Jonny

That website is pure FAIL. Full of flash and crap I don't want to load. Have link to an image?

Let's see. I learned in school once. Testosterone increases the female sex drive. Estrogen increases male sperm production. They need a hormone inhibitor, not more hormones. I also think the excess estrogen will make the body respond with moar testasterone once it's taken away.

Even if they surgically castrate someone, if he's an adult mentally he will still be attracted to whatever he's attracted be it female, or be it male. Or even to furries. Or trees. Sex drive or no, it becomes a mental thing.

Try this neighbourhood --

• BBC : Sayle 1
• BBC : Sayle 2
• BBC : Sayle 3
• BBC : Sayle 4

But the pic I had in mind -- scary image -- was from some years back. Maybe the one where he plays a wigged-out DJ in an old Doctor Who episode.

Jonny

Alexei is some author and he's probably a nice guy, but his pic is kinda bad.

Your link http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/culture/200...exi/index.shtml shows two pics of him with what Maddox called the "pedosmile" decsribed http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c....u=spot_the_pedo

David Gerard on the other hand looks more like a creepy transvestite http://wikitruth.info/index.php?title=David_Gerard

I see no reason to pic on transvestites.

Anyway that was not the pic that I had in mind.

It's the one that you find in this Rouge Gallery --

• Scary Mug Shots

Jonny

Of course, the equation David Gerard = Alexei Sayle, if true, would explain a lot. It would confirm my sneaky suspicion that Wikipedia was never intended to be anything but an e-labored e-laborate e-labyrinthine Wikiparody of a real encyclopedia, and all us duller wiki-wits have simply failed to get the joke yet.

Jonny

Is this the new modality for the Army to encourage suicide in alternative-lifestyle males?

Death by forced hormones was kinder.

In 1985, after I had read Hofstadter's book (Goedel Escher Bach), but before Andrew Hodges' book (Enigma) had come out, I wrote a flight of fancy of my own about Alan Turing. In 1990, I created in MicroMuse a Computer Museum featuring this flight of fancy, The Turtling Test, (which is a work of imaginative fiction, and not a serious theory of why Turing committed suicide.).

ZOMBIE THREAD!

yeah, sorry. I couldn't sleep, and I saw this on the list of things people were reading (last click list) so I clicked on it - responded, and realized it was old. Oops.