Bletchley Park
Oct. 5th, 2006 03:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackLast saturday was Becky's brithday, for which we made pilgrimmige to Bletchley Park (thank you for organising that!) Simont's post probably has a better description.
It's definitely worth seeing, for someone like me. (I did get the impression everyone was old, or a mathematician :)) It's a place that's important to us, that I didn't already live in (cf. Trinity :)). It's like stepping into Cryptonomicon :)
Quotes:
So, how do you know Becky?
The Tolkien Sociey
Hey, that's my line!
Aah... Cambridge?
You know you're old when you walk into a museum and the first thing you see is a joystick you owned new.
I'm sorry for laughing. You just had your "What I'm about to say is a calculation" expression on.
Did you see the GCHQ "continuing the fight" exhibit?
Lies! It's all lies!
Wow, that rounderbout had more cat silhouettes than you normally expect.
Chess gave me a lift down (thank you); the journey was very pleasant, except for some phantom roadworks that didn't seem to exist, but did halve the speed limit and put up large numbers of spurious cones. It's fairly easy to get to BP if there's a decent road to Milton Keynes and you don't mind lots of rounderbouts so much.
We joined the rest of the party in the computer museum, full of clunky 80s boxes, all still working and hackable -- one was pressed into use when Simon's brain ran out of calculation space. I hear it's been somewhat truncated, and for that matter, I can see C64s at home, but it's still cool to see them all being preserved in one space.
We were just in time to join the guided tour. These are never easy, but I thought the guide was good, his jokes were nice and not tedious, he made points well, and he directed a crowd of people with verve and precision. Despite constantly dodging another tour starting at the same time. This covered most of the site, filled in a touch more history than I'd read in Cryptonomicon (and got the different machines straight in my head). And there are little details about the people who worked there that help humanise it.
And when one of the questions at the end of one piece was "My calculator watch disagrees with the calculation you mentioned earlier", he met us at lunch and hashed out the misunderstanding, which it always gratifying to meet someone who does.
The history included the Poles who broke the original Enigma, who so often get overlooked in British histories (for the record, there were also many Polish pilots in the Battle of Britain, etc.) It would be interesting to read a *Polish* history book and see how they describe the era. Of course, I apologise to all the other countries, of which I'm even more ignorant.
Then we hid from the rain for a bit, then went for a further look round, and then I peeled off by myself to have a look at things in my own order. Many huts were shut up, including I think stuff about Alan Turing personally. There were also random inclusions, such as old but shiny vehicles, and a few model railways.
It's definitely worth seeing, for someone like me. (I did get the impression everyone was old, or a mathematician :)) It's a place that's important to us, that I didn't already live in (cf. Trinity :)). It's like stepping into Cryptonomicon :)
Quotes:
So, how do you know Becky?
The Tolkien Sociey
Hey, that's my line!
Aah... Cambridge?
You know you're old when you walk into a museum and the first thing you see is a joystick you owned new.
I'm sorry for laughing. You just had your "What I'm about to say is a calculation" expression on.
Did you see the GCHQ "continuing the fight" exhibit?
Lies! It's all lies!
Wow, that rounderbout had more cat silhouettes than you normally expect.
Chess gave me a lift down (thank you); the journey was very pleasant, except for some phantom roadworks that didn't seem to exist, but did halve the speed limit and put up large numbers of spurious cones. It's fairly easy to get to BP if there's a decent road to Milton Keynes and you don't mind lots of rounderbouts so much.
We joined the rest of the party in the computer museum, full of clunky 80s boxes, all still working and hackable -- one was pressed into use when Simon's brain ran out of calculation space. I hear it's been somewhat truncated, and for that matter, I can see C64s at home, but it's still cool to see them all being preserved in one space.
We were just in time to join the guided tour. These are never easy, but I thought the guide was good, his jokes were nice and not tedious, he made points well, and he directed a crowd of people with verve and precision. Despite constantly dodging another tour starting at the same time. This covered most of the site, filled in a touch more history than I'd read in Cryptonomicon (and got the different machines straight in my head). And there are little details about the people who worked there that help humanise it.
And when one of the questions at the end of one piece was "My calculator watch disagrees with the calculation you mentioned earlier", he met us at lunch and hashed out the misunderstanding, which it always gratifying to meet someone who does.
The history included the Poles who broke the original Enigma, who so often get overlooked in British histories (for the record, there were also many Polish pilots in the Battle of Britain, etc.) It would be interesting to read a *Polish* history book and see how they describe the era. Of course, I apologise to all the other countries, of which I'm even more ignorant.
Then we hid from the rain for a bit, then went for a further look round, and then I peeled off by myself to have a look at things in my own order. Many huts were shut up, including I think stuff about Alan Turing personally. There were also random inclusions, such as old but shiny vehicles, and a few model railways.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 03:23 pm (UTC)No, it wasn't ;-P
no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 03:26 pm (UTC)We often have birthdays a few months adrift from when they *ought* to be, even discounting my plans to have another 21 at some point, and many people's habit of having as many 29ths as they can get away with :)
no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 03:28 pm (UTC)