Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note • Hacker News Board

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#171

Post by invisiblerobot » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 9:43 PM UTC

headmelted wrote: post #89

Retric wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s poetic, but oddly terrible advice as we can actually build ships. Longer lifespans is already a goal, but aging is unlikely to be “solved” in in the next 100 or even 1,000 years. People took much longer than that to figure out how to fly and we have been trying to solve aging for as long if not longer. Consider buildings age as do diamonds. To fix aging we need to get bodies to do things like regrow teeth and…

And at that point (and I'm venturing into philosophy here so sorry about that) am I still me? If my brain has been downloaded (for lack of a better word) into another, am I living on in that other body or does someone else have my memories? I've often wondered this about Star Trek-style teleportation. Are those red-shirts really moving instantly from one place to the other or are they being incinerated on a coloured…

> or are they being incinerated on a coloured circle and cloned somewhere else?

According to quantum mechanics this is exactly what is happening

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#172

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 9:44 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #66

toomuchtodo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May they live as long as they wish a happy and healthy life, and may they die when they are ready and have made the choice themselves.

What will happen is that you will have a bunch of very rich centenarians who will own just about everything simply for having a couple of decades head start on the newcomers. The same thing is already happening today. Unless you want to cap wealth and property this is not going to end well. It's already at the point today where real estate and other relatively scarce resources are much more available to and owned by…

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Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#173

Post by philwelch » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 9:44 PM UTC

leecb wrote: post #95

iamnotacrook wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got back from a trip to the States and I have to say that US money is very boring by comparison to UK money. How on earth do blind/old people deal with the fact that all denominations are practically the same size, design, colour etc?

To assist people with disabilities, you can request a little electronic reader that clips over the corner of the bill: > the iBill Talking Bank Note Identifier, is now available free of charge from the Treasury Department to any US citizen who is blind or visually impaired. > It can speak the dollar amount; it can produce a different pattern of tones for each denomination; or it can vibrate silently > The United Stat…

I believe the $20, $50, and $100 bill are periodically redesigned with accent colors, along with other anti-counterfeiting measures. The $10, $5, $2, and $1 are not valuable enough to be worth counterfeiting so they never redesign them.

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#174

Post by boring_twenties » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 9:46 PM UTC

beatgammit wrote: post #122

michaelmrose wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin has mainly thus far mostly allowed for some geeks to get rich and some criminals to move around money. It's actual impact on society is best described as it wasted a bunch of electricity.

Maybe, but crypto currency in some form could see widespread use at some point. Perhaps it won't be Bitcoin, but the underlying technology. Turing's machines weren't directly used, but the principles he came up with impact us today.

I'm quite sure that his Enigma-like machines were used heavily and most enthusiastically.

edit: Specifically, this machine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#175

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 9:46 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #20

paulcole wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all we know about climate change, how can anyone advocate for keeping more people around longer? Seems like a real nightmare waiting to happen.

Birth rate has fallen off a cliff. Nothing wrong with less people having kids also living longer if we can drive down our per capita environmental impact. Consider the value lost to humanity each time someone with decades of knowledge, wisdom, and experience passes. Offer me immortality and I shall go explore the stars. https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate

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Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#176

Post by dghughes » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 9:46 PM UTC

menzoic wrote: post #53

johnchristopher wrote: post #6

These announcements always make me ponder about the people we'll put on bank notes or erect statues in honour of in 50 years and are alive and persecuted today but not recognized by society.

We won't be using bank notes in 50yrs. Should be all digital.

People in the path of Hurricane Dorian probably don't agree. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best solution.

edit: Then one second later I scroll down and read about Zimbabwe using Tesla Powerwall batteries to keep their digital currency available.

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#177

Post by gerdesj » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 9:47 PM UTC

isostatic wrote: post #58

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be living in a bubble, fifty quid is much less than $100 and I see those notes all the time. Getting currency exchanged before a trip? They give huge bills. Buying a used phone or furniture from Craigslist? Are you going to pay with 100 twenties? New ATMs even ask you the breakdown of bill sizes you are want.

> You might be living in a bubble, fifty quid is much less than $100 and I see those notes all the time. In nearly 40 years I can't think I've ever seen a £50 note, let alone spent one. €50 notes, sure, but Europe is backwards - I saw a €200 note once when buying a ferry ticket > Getting currency exchanged before a trip? They give huge bills. 1990 called and wants its features back. I haven't been to an airport yet t…

Builders and other trades might want cash and even offer a slight discount for it, for some reason or other (cough tax cough).

I still like to use cash in a pub and I play pool every weds. This enables me to keep a pool of pocket cash which is handy. Cash is still king in some transactions and I'll miss it when it finally vanishes.

I blew a €200 in a bar in Switzerland once. A cash machine spat several out at me when I got my ickeys (forex) in ready for a week up a mountain with the boys. The barman didn't bat an eyelid when it was my turn to get a round in and I presented that beast to him. Mind you given the price for a beer which was roughly €10 for the local equivalent of the metric version of one pint, I was doing them a favour by keeping the paperwork to a minimum! That was about 15 years ago - God knows what they charge now.

I am under the age of 60 ...

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#178

Post by aussieguy1234 » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 9:47 PM UTC

This man broke the enigma code, which helped win the war against the evil Nazis. He built early prototypes of the modern computer.

Your computer might not be as powerful today, or even exist without his inventions. Funny how alt right/nazi idiots are using later versions of his technology to type out comments that seem to imply he's on the note simply because he was persecuted.

But it's easy to see why Nazis hate him. He's not only gay, but he broke their "unbreakable" code. Maybe they'd have gone further in their war if it weren't for him?

Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#179

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 9:47 PM UTC

dghf wrote: post #156

soneca wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently moved to the US and I hate its coins. To the point that I consider all of them unusable. When I get home, I leave all the coins that I received as change on a plate by the door, hoping someday I will bring all of them at once somewhere to change for bills (I believe there are machines that do this). My complaints: i) They do not have numbers on them!! You have to read words to know the value ii) To make po…

> ii) To make point i) worse, they have nicknames printed on some of the coins!! They do not write "ten cents", it is "one dime". They do not write "twenty-five cents", they write "quarter dollar" (even the unit here changes) Those aren't nicknames. They are the official names of the coins as laid down in the Coinage Act of 1792 (though "dime" was originally spelled "disme") and its successors. https://en.wikisource.…

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Re: Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note

#180

Post by philwelch » Sun, Sep 01, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

phpnode wrote: post #93

armada651 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The € bank notes do not have historical figures on them. Only the coins have historical or royal figures on them depending on the country that minted them. If the UK had the euro they could put his face on their coins, but well... that's never going to happen anymore.

> that's never going to happen anymore Give it 15 years...

Breenter?