HM The Queen's visit to Bletchley Park is wonderful.<p>It pays tribute to two different groups of people: those that worked at Bletchley Park during World War II and those that worked to save Bletchley Park and honour the memory of the work done there.<p>The story of Bletchley Park is the story of a battle of minds that supported and helped guide the physical battles of World War II. It is the story of one part of the start of the computer revolution. And it is a story of the power of diversity: the people who worked at Bletchley Park were drawn from all walks of life and brought together because of their ability.
I just visited Bletchley Park last week. It was great to see, especially the Colossus MK2 reconstruction and the working rebuild of Turing's Bombe. The only thing that made me sad was the lack of discussion of the way the government treated Turing; it was glossed over on a sign next to the Turing statue, but other than that, not a word was said.<p>Here's a sad little video I took on my phone of the Colossus MK2 rebuild in action: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziOEFIBZmBk" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziOEFIBZmBk</a>.
Next year is the centenary of Alan Turing's birth. It would be extremely cool if they issued £100 bills with him on them for the occasion. Of course, this is not likely to ever happen.
What I would love to see is a major (Hollywood) motion picture about WWII cryptanalysis, Enigma, etc. To my knowledge every aspect of WWII has been depicted except this (Pacific theater, Normandy, Concentration camps, Navajo codetalkers, and so on).<p>In fact, just finally make Cryptonomicon into a movie and I'd be happy.
Just checked on Wikipedia: the Queen became queen in 1952, Alan Turing died 1954. Chances are she didn't even know about him, but on the other hand she could be seen as representing the government that killed him.