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Interesting topic, but so sad to see the Smithsonian blanketed in tacky popups and scrolling ad banners, yikes
by gedy 7mo ago
Interesting topic, but so sad to see the Smithsonian blanketed in tacky popups and scrolling ad banners, yikes
- Mistletoe 7mo ago> The Smithsonian Institution endowment is a roughly $2.6 billion investment portfolio (as of 2024) that provides permanent, private financial support for its museums, research, and educational programs. It acts as a crucial supplement to federal funding, investing in diversified assets like stocks, bonds, and private equity to generate annual payouts, which generally support staff positions I guess $2.6B isn’t enough in the late stage capitalism era to stave off tacky.
- ggm 7mo agoHate to be a party pooper but what kind of income do you beleive is sustaining for a national museum with extensive archives, repositories, conservation costs and ongoing collection needs, quite apart from simple building maintenance, outreach and staffing? $2.6b generates at best of the order $200m in usable funds. I would be amazed if that is even remotely close to the operating costs of an institution like this.
- Someone 7mo agoReading https://www.si.edu/sites/default/files/oa/smithsonian-2024-web.pdf https://www.si.edu/sites/default/files/oa/smithsonian-2024-w..., they’re spending $1.7b a year. Interesting financial report, by the way. Lots of info about what they do with photos, lists of who donated money, and then, the real financials start at page 79 of 87 and end on page 82.
- ggm 7mo agohas "Endowment Payout 7%" which is a fine figure, both of their total revenue and of the %return on investment you get as a sustaining proposition from a long life fund. Half the opex is federally funded. half the costs are salaries. The SI employs a lot of people and costs far, far more than the endowment to operate. the page 80 endowment disbursement distribution is fascinating too. they do amazingly good work across the board, from this money. I have a tiny, weenie functional duty of care on a board over a sum 1/100 of this size and if I felt we were doing as well as them in governance, I'd be proud. I will say, I think they should lawyer up and defend the retention of the shuttle and tell the politicians to F off but I can understand reluctance to be this bald about it.
- throwaway27448 7mo agoHow does our military fund itself? How does the war in Iran fund itself? C'mon let's be serious: it's a public service and it should be funded by the state.
- ggm 7mo agoI think thats the point I was making. I was responding to a post which suggested the endowment should be adequate to self fund. It's clearly not. It's useful, self-directed funds.
- sandworm101 7mo agoFunny, i didnt see any ads or popups. Horray for adblockers!
- fransje26 7mo agoIn this day and age, who on HN browses the web without an ad-blocker??
- gedy 7mo agoI am using blockers! I appreciate my plugins and/or adblock home could have some issue, but point stands about the Smithsonian.
- jrrv 7mo agoI'm using uBlock, and I didn't see a single advert.
- bookofjoe 7mo agoI do. Never have used an ad blocker and never will.
- simonmales 7mo agoWhat's the risk? Personally, I only see benefits.
- bookofjoe 7mo agoIt's not a matter of risks for me. I haven't a clue how to install an ad blocker, being a non-techie geezer. Same for VPN etc. The only code I know is Morse and I've forgotten most of it. Every time I remark on this subject, well meaning commenters tell me how easy it is to install/use an ad blocker. "Just..." — in my experience, statements that begin with "Just..." end up leaving me frustrated once I've tried and failed to follow the "simple"/"easy" instructions. Also, I note that commenters here WITH ad blockers installed sometimes STILL see ads. So why bother? I don't understand the enmity of HN in general for online ads and advertising.
- em-bee 7mo agocommenters here WITH ad blockers installed sometimes STILL see ads very rarely. I don't understand the enmity of HN in general for online ads and advertising i am surprised that you noticed the one but not figured out the other. because that is also discussed at length. advertising enables surveillance, ads cost resources, and they distract from the content.
- pwg 7mo agoBrowsing with Ublock Origin blocking all of the javascript resulted in the article appearing, but zero ads.
- herewulf 7mo agoWhile that is indeed sad, you owe it to yourself to install Firefox (Android?) with uBlock Origin. With that setup, I'm not seeing any of that junk.