Friday, June 7, 2024
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Intoxication
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Via Daily Dharma: Practice Goes On
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Via White Crane Institute \\ E.M. FORSTER
1970 -
E.M. FORSTER, English author, died on this date (b. 1879); An English novelist, short story writer, and essayist, Forster is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th century British society. Forster's humanistic impulse toward understanding and sympathy may be aptly summed up in the famous epigraph to his 1910 novel Howard’s End: "Only connect".
Forster was homosexual, but this fact was not widely made public during his lifetime. His posthumously-published novel Maurice tells of the coming of age of an explicitly Gay male character. The film is ravishing.
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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute
"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson
Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org
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Via White Crane Institute \\ ALAN TURING
Died
1954 -
ALAN TURING,
British mathematician and computer scientist died (b. 1912) from
cyanide poisoning, eighteen months after being given libido-reducing
hormone treatment for a year as a punishment for homosexuality. Turing
is generally considered to be the Father of Modern Computer Science. He
provided an influential formalization of the concept of the algorithm
and computation with the Turing machine.
In 'the Turing Test" Turing proposed that a human evaluator would
judge natural language conversations between a human and a machine
designed to generate human-like responses. The evaluator would be aware
that one of the two partners in conversation is a machine, and all
participants would be separated from one another. The conversation would
be limited to a text-only channel such as a computer keyboard and
screen so the result would not depend on the machine's ability to render
words as speech. If the
evaluator cannot reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine
is said to have passed the test. The test does not check the ability to
give correct answers to questions, only how closely answers resemble
those a human would give.
With the Turing test, he made a significant and characteristically
provocative contribution to the debate regarding artificial
intelligence: whether it will ever be possible to say that a machine is
conscious and can think. He later worked at the National Physical
Laboratory, creating one of the first designs for a stored-program
computer, although it was never actually built.
In 1948 he moved to the University of Manchester to work on the
Manchester Mark I, then emerging as one of the world's earliest true
computers. During WWII Turing worked at Bletchley Park, Britain's code
breaking center, and was for a time head of Hut 8, the section
responsible for German naval cryptanalysis.
He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including the method of the bombe,
an electro-mechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma
machine. Turing was Gay in a period when homosexual acts were illegal in
Britain and homosexuality was regarded as a mental illness and subject
to criminal sanctions.
In 1952, Arnold Murray, a 19-year-old recent acquaintance of
Turing’s, helped an accomplice to break into Turing's house, and Turing
went to the police to report the crime. As a result of the police
investigation, Turing acknowledged a sexual relationship with Murray,
and a crime having been identified and settled, they were charged with
gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of
1885. Turing was unrepentant and was convicted of the same crime Oscar
Wilde had been convicted of more than fifty years before. He was given
the choice between imprisonment and probation, conditional on his
undergoing hormonal treatment designed to reduce libido.
To avoid going to jail, he accepted the estrogen hormone
injections, which lasted for a year, with side effects including
gynecomastia (breast enlargement). His lean runner's body took on fat.
His conviction led to a removal of his security clearance and prevented
him from continuing consultancy for GCHQ on cryptographic matters. At
this time, there was acute public anxiety about spies and homosexual
entrapment by Soviet agents. In America, Robert Oppenheimer had just
been deemed a security risk.
On June 8, 1954, his housekeeper found him dead; the previous day,
he had died of cyanide poisoning, apparently from a cyanide-laced apple
he left half-eaten beside his bed. The apple itself was never tested for
contamination with cyanide, and cyanide poisoning as a cause of death
was established by a post-mortem.
Most believe that his death was intentional, and the death was
ruled a suicide. His mother, however, strenuously argued that the
ingestion was accidental due to his careless storage of laboratory
chemicals. Biographer Andrew Hodges suggests that Turing may have killed
himself in this ambiguous way quite deliberately, to give his mother
some plausible deniability. Others suggest that Turing was reenacting a
scene from "Snow White", reportedly his favorite fairy tale. Because
Turing's sexuality would have been perceived as a security risk, the
possibility of assassination has also been suggested. His remains were
cremated at Woking crematorium on June 12, 1954.
There is an urban legend that the Apple Computer “bite out of an
apple” logo is a tribute to Turing. It is exactly that: an urban legend.
But that’s not to say that the idea of paying homage to Turing is
something the creators of Apple were against. When actor Stephen Fry
once asked his good friend Steve Jobs if the famous logo was based on
Turing, Jobs replied, “God, we wish it were.” Hodges biography, Alan Turing: The Enigma is the basis of the film The Imitation Game (a reference to “the Turing Test” which is also referenced in the film Ex Machina.
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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute
"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson
Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org
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Via GBF: Flashback Friday: "F*#ck Coping"
"F*#ck Coping!" with Sister Mary Media & Sister Merry Peter
Has mindfulness become a numbing agent instead of a tool to sharpen our awareness?
In this highly engaging call to action, two Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence explore how our capitalist society has co-opted mindfulness and commodified it. In this way, it has become a means to distract individuals from distressing societal problems that demand our attention.
They explore:
- The fascinating history of SPI, its roots in the Radical Faeries, and its formation in response to Harry Hay’s theory of Queer Consciousness.
- The foundational role of mindfulness and meditation in SPI’s quest to bring liberation to those at the margins.
- The trap of practicing in isolation and believing it is our individual responsibility to internally cope with the suffering caused by the extractive nature of society.
- How our practice of mindfulness can be social and build community rather than foster isolation.
- When situated in context as just one of the Eightfold Path, mindfulness can sharpen our awareness and enable us to actively make a difference in the world.
Listen to the talk on your favorite podcast player or our website:
______________
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are
devoted to community service, ministry and outreach to those on the
edges, and to promoting human rights, respect for diversity, and
spiritual enlightenment.
______________
Sister Mary Media, SPI, a long-time member of GBF, is one of the original Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from
the Order’s founding in 1979 where she currently serves as Mistress of
Grants. She speaks frequently about the group’s history and her vocation
as a secular nun.
______________
Sister Merry Peter, SPI,
is a poet, writer, and former sex-worker who found her vocation through
the Radical Faeries in 1987. Her life-long activism focuses on
HIV-AIDS, queer youth, civil rights and social justice. Her efforts
include partnerships to provide street-level health services to sex
workers, legal aid for LGBTQ refugees and resistance to police violence.
Enjoy 800+ free recorded dharma talks at www.gaybuddhist.org/podcast/
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