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Bletchley Park Museum To Layoff a Third of Its Staff (theguardian.com) 48

Posted by EditorDavid from the home-of-the-Enigma-code-breakers dept.
Long-time Slashdot reader simpz writes: The Guardian is reporting that Bletchley Park Museum is planning to make a third of it's staff redundant. This, of course, the museum of British wartime codebreakers, including famously Alan Turing.

I personally think Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Facebook, Twitter etc should all chip in to stop this from happening. Without Alan Turing and others, they wouldn't have a business, and to these companies this is small change.
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Bletchley Park Museum To Layoff a Third of Its Staff More

Bletchley Park Museum To Layoff a Third of Its Staff

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  • Laying off a third of it is staff? (Score:4, Informative)

    by ItsJustAPseudonym ( 1259172 ) on Saturday August 22, 2020 @04:18PM (#60430235)
    Really guys, learn to tell the difference between "it's" (it is) and "its" (possessive).

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Sebby ( 238625 )

      Really guys, learn to tell the difference between "it's" (it is) and "its" (possessive).

      I see this commonly - and unfortunately it can be confusing.

      People are used to " it's easy to do this ", so it's (see?) natural to go with that instead of " its " (possessive) where it should be used.

      The "it is" vs "it has" trick isn't always easy to remember either, so I tell people to thing of it this way:

      - think of it as his for a thing: "his hair color" = "its cover color"

      - for "it's", think of it as a verb: "he's (he is) going to park" = "it's (it is) going to be hard work"

      • so I tell people to thing of it this way:

        Meant "think", damn it!

        At least I don't claim to be an editor.

      • Stuff that adds to the confusion is also inconsistency: the language makes heavy use of 's for possession:

        Sally's car
        The chair's color

        and of course, it'd be really easy to mess this up:

        The chair's color? Oh,it's green.
        vs.
        The chair's color? Its color is green.

      • Worse, sometimes my spell correct changes it the wrong way. Why? I have no idea, its a mystery.

    • Re:Laying off a third of it is staff? (Score:5, Funny)

      by The Grim Reefer ( 1162755 ) on Saturday August 22, 2020 @04:48PM (#60430307)
      I hole-hardedly agree, but allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. For all intensive purposes I think you are wrong. In an age where false morals are a diamond dozen, true virtues are a blessing in the skies. We often put our false morality on a petal stool like a bunch of pre-Madonnas, but you all seem to be taking something very valuable for granite. So I ask of you to mustard up all the strength you can because it is a doggy dog world out there. Although there is some merit to what you are saying it seems like you have a huge ship on your shoulder. In your argument you seem to throw everything in but the kids Nsync, and even though you are having a feel day with this I am here to bring you back into reality. I have a sick sense when it comes to these types of things. It is almost spooky, because I cannot turn a blonde eye to these glaring flaws in your rhetoric. I have zero taller ants when it comes to people spouting out hate in the name of moral righteousness. You just need to remember what comes around is all around, and when supply and command fails you will be the first to go. Make my words, when you get down to brass stacks it doesn't take rocket appliances to get two birds stoned at once. It's clear who makes the pants in this relationship, and sometimes you just have to swallow your prize and accept the facts. You might have to come to this conclusion through denial and error but I swear on my mother's mating name that when you put the petal to the medal you will pass with flying carpets like it's a peach of cake.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      Or "it has". :P

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Revek ( 133289 )
      You ever notice how easy it is to troll a Grammar nazi

    • Really guys, learn to tell the difference between "it's" (it is) and "its" (possessive).

      Add to your list, in and into on and onto, and ending a sentence with from. Eg. there is 4 x to choose from. Americans have replaced "going to" with gonna. If you allow to end a sentence with from, then there is no difference between it's and its, and it is.

  • Did you mean "a third of its staff", or "a third of IT's staff" (IT department's staff)?

    Pretty sure "it" doesn't need to be capitalized in titles.

    • "Did you mean "a third of its staff", or "a third of IT's staff" (IT department's staff)?"

      Since you ask and you couldn't be bothered to RTFA, it's 35 people.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sebby ( 238625 )

        Since you ask and you couldn't be bothered to RTFA, it's 35 people.

        But... but which department?!?

  • Why can't the staff be forloughed for the lockdown period?

  • The problem it has.. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Saturday August 22, 2020 @04:28PM (#60430255) Homepage

    ... is that's it's on the edge of a small town miles from the tourist trail, hard to reach by public transport and isnt cheap. But if you can get there I'd suggest you dont bother anyway but visit the National Museum of Computing literally just up the road instead which is a geeks paradise plus has some working WW2 computers.

    • hard to reach by Public Transport?

      Really? Bletchley Railway Station is less than 400yds away. That is on the main line from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow.

      But I do agree that the TNMOC is the place to go. It totally relies on ticket sales and donations. There is no support from Government yet it is the only place to see a working Bombe and Colossus.

  • England took apart its computer industry after WW2...in the end it was all a side-note to the real history. Plus if it wasn't for the US, they would all be speaking German.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Plus if it wasn't for the US, they would all be speaking German.

      Russian.

    • Re:Not really. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by tsqr ( 808554 ) on Saturday August 22, 2020 @07:01PM (#60430561)

      It appears that you are unfamiliar with the Battle of Britain, in which Germany's defeat at the hands of the RAF prior to the entry of the US into the war, caused Hitler to cancel the planned invasion of Britain.

      If America hadn't entered the war, the European continent would have been "liberated" by the Soviet Union.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

      England took apart its computer industry after WW2...in the end it was all a side-note to the real history.

      Er.. no... the period after WW2 was very productive for the UK's computer industry into the 1970s, such as LEO, ICL.

      Plus if it wasn't for the US, they would all be speaking German.

      Germany lost WW2 in June 1941.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
      You also seem to have forgotten that your phone is powered by technology from a firm based in the UK.

  • It deserves to die (Score:5, Informative)

    by TechyImmigrant ( 175943 ) on Saturday August 22, 2020 @04:33PM (#60430275) Homepage Journal

    The Bletchley park museum is not the museum of wartime codebreakers. That is the National Museum of Computing, which is literally next door. It's where you will find all the old code breaking machines along with lots of other stuff. https://www.tnmoc.org./ [www.tnmoc.org] They are next door because they were kicked out by the Bletchley museum people who wanted to make it a whole "WWII was great" puff piece museum, rather than a museum of all the computing and codebreaking that went on.

    Go there and you will find the Bletchley museum to be a shallow experience that's had a lot of money thrown at it. Go to TNMOC next door and you will find stuff to warm to cockles of any Slashdotter's heart.

    Google it. You will find the sordid history. I pay my TNMOC membership. So should you.

    • Re:It deserves to die (Score:5, Interesting)

      by andrewbaldwin ( 442273 ) on Saturday August 22, 2020 @05:10PM (#60430345)

      I think you're being a bit harsh.

      I agree that the separation of the museums is a bit strange and regrettable, but it does follow some logic (though the location of Colossus is open to debate).

      Bletchley Park itself focuses on the signals interception and code-breaking activities - from capture to use of electro-mechanical bombes and analyses of text based on likely plain texts to help speed up key finding. It has a lot of information on the whole operation and pays tribute to Turing, Tutte and Flowers. I wouldn't call it a shallow experience, but it isn't a very nerdy technology based one -- remember that the technology was only one part of a complex series of operations.

      The National Museum of Computing is more focused on the development of computers - hardware and software. I found it very interesting. It was somewhat sobering to find the very first machine [Elliott 903] I worked on when starting employment as museum pieces [and finding that I could still recall some operations 40+years later!] - not to mention a slide rule in a display case which was the same make/model as one I still have in my desk. Interesting and very helpful staff there who are happy to engage in conversation.

      Two different, but related, museums serving two (slightly overlapping) purposes. Both (in my personal view) well worth a visit and good value for the admission charged.

      I know there are plenty of other worthy causes suffering in these difficult times, but it does seem a shame that this is happening.

      • I'm a bit harsh because it was so much better when they were both in the same space with a cohesive experience. The Blechley museum people neither knew nor understood what they had.

        • I completely agree that separating them was a mistake. There is a loss of cohesion as you say.

          Both museums still worth a visit though - but for different reasons - and as they're close together it's easy to do in one day.

          I'd be very sad to see either of them die off and feel sorry for the staff affected as you get the impression it's more than 'just a job' for them -- they have knowledge, passion and enthusiasm.

          Given that Messrs Gates, Musk, Bezos... have all made far more money than they can ever spend in

    • I’ve been to Bletchley park. It’s pretty good, but the ludicrous split between it and the next door National Museum of Computing is incredibly stupid.
      I was fortunate, as I quizzed a helpful staff member who said something like “I couldn’t possibly tell you, but you should be absolutely sure not to go down that corridor, not turn right, and certainly not go through the big gate at the end!”.
      Combine the two and you’ve got something amazing. And you could save on staff. And

    • What utter tosh. If you went to Bletchley and all you got was "WWII was great" they you truly did not pay a jot of attention.

  • For those for whom English is not a first language, there's a simple way to find out whether "its" or "it's" is to be used: Replace the word in question with "his" or "her". If the new sentence makes grammatical sense, then the word in question is being used as a possessive [grammarly.com], and "its", without the apostrophe, is indicated. In this case, saying "a third of his staff" or "a third of her staff" makes grammatical sense, so "a third of its staff" is indicated.

    Also, "layoff" is a noun; "lay off" (with the spac

  • Is that one of those ironic nicknames, like calling a fat guy "Slim?"

  • Really? (Score:2)

    by kenh ( 9056 )

    I personally think Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Facebook, Twitter etc should all chip in to stop this from happening. Without Alan Turing and others, they wouldn't have a business, and to these companies this is small change.

    Why? Please, walk me through all the ground-breaking innovations the British Government shared with the computer industry in the late 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s while they considered the technology a state secret.

    Also, as I understand from other commenters here, the reconstructed Bombe is located elsewhere, not at Bletchley Park - what is there at this museum that relates to anything Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Facebook, Twitter, etc?

    I suspect you just think because they have money they need to give it

    • The Bombe and Colossus rebuilds are both at Bletchley Park, housed in the National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) which is located in Block H, a building constructed to house the Colossus machines. TNMOC is outside the Bletchley Park "heritage attraction" which consists of the original wooden huts, the mansion and other buildings with exhibitions on the code breaking and associated intelligence work done during the war. Finding ways to use the information gathered from the intercepted messages without the en

  • "Layoff" is a noun. The verb form would be "lay off."

  • If it helps end the bleeding which will eventually end up with these places unable to pay the bills, and loosing historic artifacts being accessible to the public when they either get sold off for scrap, or end up in the private collection of the highest bidder.

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