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Bletchley Park Facing Financial Ruin
biscuitfever11 writes "Bletchley Park, the home of Station X, Britain's secret code-breaking base during World War II, is barely scraping by financially, as shown in these images compiled by ZDNet this week. The site has undergone major redevelopment as an act of remembrance for the Allied efforts to break the German Enigma code, but now its future is clouded — among others, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation turned them down for financial assistance (since it doesn't have to do with the Internet). Its director estimates that Bletchley Park's funds will be exhausted in three years. Hungry land developers are circling. This is an insightful look at what's happened to Bletchley Park these days and the pain it's going through."
I know this is /., and there is many a Bill-basher here who would probably take ANY opportunity to blast him, but COME ON.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
"Everything has a price tag. Everything costs something, and everyone should get something hard for everything he does."
This only makes sense if you ignore why we use money. Money is simply an exchange of productivity. I work, get money, and then use that money to buy others' productivity. Saying "everything has a price tag" simply means that people are only willing to offer up their productivity if they get someone else's in return. That's the sign of a properly functioning market. If you want to donate to these causes, feel free, but don't demand the government forcibly take a larger portion of everyone's productivity (in the form of increased taxes) because you have a pet idea and you want easy access to money.
As a UK citizen I'm pretty disgusted that a lot of our landmarks and history, as well as worthwhile projects such as revived steam railway lines and 'sense' centres for severely disabled kids with people putting their own volunteer time in, are somehow getting turn down for National Lottery funding (there never is a solid reason given) and billions are being given to the waste of time and money that is the Olympics, largely because of corruption. Who's going to miss a few million going missing here and there? These are schemes and projects that only want a few tens or hundreds of thousands pounds as well.
This is exactly the sort of thing that the National Lottery was supposed to help, and exactly the sort of thing that has been let down.
Don't worry, the pathetic English hating UK government will spare no effort in wasting £17bn on an 2 week politicians / IOC orgy at the London Olympics games that only the freeloaders want (as opposed to the taxpayers who don't want it).
The things that are important to a nation are discarded, and what gives no benefit gets taxpayers money thrown at it like taxpayers money was going out of fashion.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
I think the most significant act of the Polish cryptographers was proving that the code could be broken. Without that, it's possible that the British government would have directed the resources elsewhere.
I was there a few years ago. Some of the exhibits were in WW2 vintage barracks (i.e. temporary buildings never meant to stand for more than 5 years, let alone 50. In one hut, there were puddles on the floor. The whole place is falling apart.
As for the argument 'you can always move the exhibits to the Science Museum and sell the land': The exhibits are important, but the accomodations themselves make a point that's worth remembering as well. The most vital project of the entire war was being run out of a collection of sheds, basically. To think that 9000 people worked there on the most advanced technology in existence back then, boggles the mind.
That the foundation setup by the man once made the richest in the world by the computing industry, declines to fund the museum documenting the crucible of the first programmable computing machines, such as Colossus.
Ingrates.
TFOAE
"Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation turned them down for financial assistance (since it doesn't have to do with the Internet)"
So Bill, there's no encryption used on the internet & no Microsoft programmer has ever used it to secure Microsoft systems (albeit poorly)?
Bletchley should be preserved, because so much that is important to technology today happened within those walls. Alan Turing worked there. The German domination of the North Atlantic was broken there.
It's hard for us in the US to imagine what the Brits went through during the war. Bletchley, along with the Battle of Britain, was one of their big successes on the home front.
It's all well and good to read about history, but there's something more gripping about a visit to where history was made.
Not to mention the centimetric radar fitted to some of the first ASW planes ever put in action, but most definitely - Bletchley park changed the world.
The few times I've been to the UK in recent times I've tried to visit Bletchley Park. Each time, the hours of the museum didn't work. In checking the website, I now see that things have improved considerably, but with an infant at home I likely won't be back to the UK any time soon :(