---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: S Barry Cooper <[email protected]> Date: Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 11:16 AM
Many thanks for all the feedback to the last email on updates - around 70 emails. Just a quick summary, and many apologies for not replying individually to all the interesting suggestions, and nice comments. I specially liked the comment from an editor for Nature: "there will never be too much information about Turing!" First, the 'bottom line' - around 23 votes for a weekly update, a handful of appreciative votes for 'as now', and some for daily, and some thinking outside the box - 'fortnightly', 'twice weekly'. So we'll try for weekly. Mark Cotton pointed out the amount of news will vary as the year hots up - certainly shows below. A number of requests for more categories/organisation (including for ATY website) - mainly asking for separate section for conferences. Various special requests - eg, suggestions for categories, such as 'Schools', 'geographical' - and will start by hiving off conference info (if not of specially wide interest) to section at bottom. Finally, should mention a *lot* of interesting suggestions re use of web - Facebook, RSS feed, Twitter, blogs, calendars, Wiki, Planets (venus) (what is this?). Plus offers of help, many thanks. Have to say, despite the neatness and niceness of various options - I'm not keen to put this info meant just for us - sometimes definitely not yet public, often not meant for the world to see, and not meant to be recorded for ever - out on the web. There are privacy options for some, of course. Also, I don't want to do anything adds to the work! And some of the options I don't know how to do! In the meantime, I've counted around 7 different ATY Facebook pages, at least 3 Turing centenary Twitter users (including @AlanTuringYear which is our official twitter feed, and supplements the update for those use twitter), and a number of blogs. But there are definitely some good ideas here, and obviously things like calendar, RSS, Wiki etc need looking at. Oh, and got a couple of requests for less commentary! so swiftly on to the update ... and as Mark observed, just in a week loads of news, things hotting up ... GENERAL INTEREST: 1) Alexandre Borovik tells us that the Alan Turing Centenary Cryptography Competition started officially on Monday 9th January and runs through until 16 April 2012. There are already over 170 teams registered at the Cryptography website, with over 500 participating students: http://www.maths.manchester.ac.uk/cryptography_competition_2012/ And, from Michael Kolling in Kent, a reminder that "CAS (Computing at School) are running a Turing-themed programming competition to celebrate the ATY": http://www.computingatschool.org.uk/index.php?id=codebreaker 2) Must pass on the news that TCAC member Sue Black (@dr_black on Twitter) was voted 2011 top non-celebrity tweeter in the TECHNOLOGY section by The Independent! See: http://ind.pn/zDs9nG 3) For the Alan Turing commemorative postage stamp, there are now four excellent first-day covers in production by Bletchley Park Post Office: https://secure3.host-it.co.uk/bletchleycovers-co-uk/store/categories_detail.asp?catref=1 And we are told that "Bletchley Park are about to unleash their 'media muscle' " to publicise these. The first print of the 'non-traditional' one designed by Rebecca Peacock has already got a 'global response' and is nearly sold out: http://www.mathcomp.leeds.ac.uk/turing2012/Images/first-day.jpg Here is a nice picture of Rebecca (who also designed the superb poster for the CiE 2012 Turing Centenary Conference in Cambridge): https://twitter.com/#!/Firecatcher_uk/status/159271301335363584/photo/1 And the covers using the lovely watercolours by Steve Williams look great, and should also go very well too. See "Turing sell out" at: http://www.bletchleycovers.com/history/latest-news.asp 4) Robert Horn has told us about a remarkable series of posters on the theme: "Can Computers Think?" - 'an intellectual history of the Turing debate' - see: http://www.macrovu.com/CCTGeneralInfo.html Robert writes: "They were were part of what is believed to be the first exhibit of Information Design as a Fine Art at the Stroom Museum, Amsterdam, and the University of Coventry Museum as well as receiving a review in Nature the same year." There are plans to get the whole series of 7 printed for use by event organisers - please let us know if interested. 5) More news on the "Ingenuity and Innovation" exhibition being organised by Turing Centenary Arts and Culture Cttee co-chair Anna Dumitriu, and opening in Brighton in February: http://www.lighthouse.org.uk/programme/intuition-and-ingenuity It seems that Anna and Bletchley Park are discussing the possibility of this imaginitive link to the Turing centenary being hosted for a period at Bletchley Park. Terry Mitchell from BP Post Office comments that they are "very keen to promote art through Bletchley Park and organise a regular exhibition. The link with computer art is a natural of course." As usual, 'watch this space'. 6) Paul Brown sends more news from the artistic end of the Turing spectrum - it seems February 28, 2012 will see the launch of special issue of Artlink magazine dedicated to Alan Turing, along with the opening of a linked exhibition 'Art, Pattern and Complexity' at the Royal Institution of Australia, as part of the 2012 Adelaide Festival Fringe. See the item at: http://www.artlink.com.au/ 7) Another piece of news in the making: Martin Wainwright of the Guardian, who did an excellent piece on the Turing e-petition for the Guardian Northerner website he edits: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2011/dec/05/alan-turing-universityofmanchester is keen to extend this to a monthly Turing-related blog in the run-up to the Turing anniversary date. This is a brilliant idea, and we will be helping with interesting input. 8) For schools and students - Jonathan Black is putting finishing touches to a Turing year issue of Computer Science For Fun, the brilliant online magazine he edits - see: http://www.cs4fn.org/ 9) Richard Zach in Calgary, Canada, is organising an Alan Turing Centenary 2012 series of events - see: http://www.ucalgary.ca/turing/ Part of this will be a series of talks at the University of Calgary on Turing's work, throughout the Winter and Fall 2012 terms, with the first by Richard on January 24: http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/custom/posters/alan_turning_jan24_2012.pdf The Telus Spark Science Centre in Calgary (http://www.sparkscience.ca/) will also host some events related to Turing as part of their Adults Only Thursday night series and the Calgary Science Cafe. 10) We are told by Benedikt Loewe who spoke at the opening of the HNF Turing exhibition at the HNF museum in Paderborn that it was "amazing". Around 500 people and extensive media coverage, including a 2-page spread in Der Spiegel. Simon Singh has sent us a link to the English Version of the "Eminent & Enigmatic - 10 Aspects of Alan Turing" flyer: http://en.hnf.de/Special_exhibitions/Turing/Turing.asp http://en.hnf.de/Special_exhibitions/Turing/Programm_Turing_engl_9-1-12_72dpi.pdf 11) There was a nice mention for Turing in the Michael Gove speech on the teaching of computing science in the school curriculum, with much media attention. Here is a blog by Alan O'Donohoe on the topic: http://ourlearning.co.uk/2012/01/from-powerpoint-to-programming-teaching-computing-in-schools/ He wrote: "Alan Turing Year, 2012, looks set to be a monumental year in the field of computing science and once again we can restore the UK's reputation as a global leader in the field of computing science. You could almost see Alan Turing dancing with delight, as a sprightly centenarian, discovering first that computing education from age eight was being discussed in parliament, then witnessing the surge in demand for the Raspberry Pi computer designed and developed here in the UK, then upon hearing that the giants of the computing industry Google and Microsoft had joined with The Guardian to encourage computing in education, then rounding the year off with the popular success of Young Rewired State 2012." 12) News of the June 23rd Turing100in2012 event at Bletchley Park has reached the New Statesman! - an old friend Dick Quibell from Greenwich tells us that the next New Statesman challenge (no. 4212) is to "think up a Q&A session with anyone (human, animal or machine) to confound the judge" at the practical Turing Test display - see: http://www.mathcomp.leeds.ac.uk/turing2012/Images/Turingtest_comp.pdf For more details of Turing100in2012, see: http://www.kevinwarwick.com/turing100.htm 13) Rather belatedly (still clearing pre-Christmas email), here is a link from Keith van Rijsbergen from Glagow about the Google support for the Turing exhibition at the Science Museum: http://googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-exhibitions-at-londons-science.html Not sure why this was not featured before ... 14) If you would like to see the Alan Turing Year celebrated in Esperanto, here is news from Federico Gobbo of just the event for you (in China): http://www.esperanto-insulo.info/kurso-gobbo.htm 15) Via Steve, we hear that GAY to Z DIRECTORY have set up a useful page of information on "Alan Turing - Centenary Year 2012": http://www.gaytoz.com/alan_turing.asp CONFERENCE NEWS: 1) SOFSEM 2012, which has a SPECIAL SOFSEM 2012 EVENT: SESSION on TURING MACHINES, runs January 21-27 - see http://www.sofsem.cz/ for details. 2) The deadline for submissions to TAMC 2012 - the Turing centenary 9th annual conference on Theory and Applications of Models of Computation, has been extended to October 20th: http://turing2012.iscas.ac.cn/tamc2012.html 3) And the deadline for CiE 2012 - Turing Centenary Conference, University of Cambridge, 18-23 June, 2012, has been extended for one week to January 27th - but abstracts need to be submitted by Sunday. This has not yet been officially announced, but we hear this on the grapevine - there is a record number of submissions, but many authors still struggling to make the deadline. Webpage: http://www.cie2012.eu 4) Less urgent, but due to go *very public* in the next few months, is Turing100 - The Alan Turing Centenary Conference in Manchester, June 22-25, 2012: http://www.turing100.manchester.ac.uk/ Participation of up to 500 people is expected, with events split between Manchester Town Hall and the University of Manchester. There is an emphasis on the computer science, with a number of Turing Award winners. But there will also be speakers capturing some of the breadth of Turing's interests and legacy, particularly reflected in the panels and presentations connected to the Turing Fellowsip Competition, with something like 600,000 pounds of funding for basic research being awarded during the conference, and supported by a generous John Templeton Foundation Grant: http://www.turing100.manchester.ac.uk/index.php/fellowships Watch for more news! 5) From Toby Walsh (organizer of the Turing celebrations at AAAI 2012): "As the premier AI conference in 2012, I am pleased to pass on news that Alan Turing's contributions will be honoured with a number of events at the Twenty-Sixth Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2012). The planned events include the inaugural AAAI Turing Lecture which is to be delivered by Christos Papadmitriou. AAAI 2012 will run July 22 to 26, 2012 in Toronto. More details are found at http://www.aaai.org/Conferences/AAAI/aaai12.php Can AAAI 2012 be listed therefore in the calendar of events at http://www.mathcomp.leeds.ac.uk/turing2012/ as well as in any other places you see fit." 6) Uli Berger from Swansea writes: "As Chair of MFPS 2012 I would like to suggest to include MFPS 2012 as another event on the Alan Turing Year Event page. June 6-9, Mathematical Foundations of Program Semantics, MFPS 2012, Bath http://dauns.math.tulane.edu/~mfps/MFPS28/MFPS28/MFPS_XXVIII.html Includes special sessions on "Logic, computation and algebraic topology", "Computational effects" and "Computability on continuous data". Deadline for submissions: March 5, 2012. Contact: Ulrich Berger (PC Chair)" All for now! _______________________________________________________________________ ALAN TURING YEAR http://www.turingcentenary.eu Email: [email protected] Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/The-Alan-Turing-Year/199853901070 and http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/Alan-Turing-Year/100000473465821 Twitter: http://twitter.com/AlanTuringYear ________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Logica-l mailing list [email protected] http://www.dimap.ufrn.br/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/logica-l
