Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing
Let this be a reminder to all hackers and geniuses out there: protect yourself from your society. You exist purely at the mercy of your physical realm. It does not matter how essential your discoveries, how profitable, how useful to mankind, how breathtaking. If you are perceived as being a risk (through something simple like your sexuality) you will be ground to dust. The decision will be made (perhaps justifiably) but it will be executed by the worst sort of petty human being: bureaucrats, under achievers, jealous men and beasts in human form who have been handed down power by the state. They will unleash a torrent of hellfire in your life.<p>This beast does not discriminate: weather a gathering of Sikhs in a park, tribes of Africans or a sole genius with an arguably significant contribution to the war effort - to the beast they are all one once the order has been given.<p>Always ensure you have some form of protection and a way out.<p>The British establishment should be ashamed of themselves. They have tolerated homosexuality for centuries among the upper classes up to and including the royals. To grind down a man on the level of Turing with for such an absurd reason is an act of criminal stupidity. All the more so after his efforts during the war.<p>The computer science community all the world over should reject this "pardon" and ask the queen to stuff it up her posterior.