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Disentangling Facts From Fantasy In the World of Edison and Tesla
dsinc writes "Forbes' Alex Knapp writes about the Tesla idolatry and confusing his genius for godhood: 'Tesla wasn't an ignored god-hero. Thomas Edison wasn't the devil. They were both brilliant, strong-willed men who helped build our modern world. They both did great things and awful things. They were both brilliantly right about some things and just as brilliantly wrong about others. They had foibles, quirks, passions, misunderstandings and moments of wonder.'"
All that's left of them now is what mattered the most to the rest of the world.
It's the same kind of media attempt to put forth a "balanced" view, even when there's a clear bias in reality. It happens all the time in politics. Just because they want to claim that Tesla not marrying is the same as Edison strangling puppies for sexual pleasure, doesn't mean those two options are the same. Some times, there isn't any reason to search for a middle ground, if one side is simply wrong.
Dennis Ritchie > Steve Jobs too, but which one will be remembered?
Actually, anyone who electrocutes animals *is* a douchebag.
Certainly not by the measure of business acumen, and, therefore, things he personally achieved. Tesla was undeniably greater in terms of "things he was wrong about", and "general insanity".
Of course, sometimes he was out of touch with reality and had no sense of business
If we had more of that sort, instead of the people who are firmly grounded and really good at business, the world would be a better place.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Edison was pretty much the devil. He tortured puppies to make AC look dangerous. That makes him arguably a puppy killing terrorist. Also, the article claims that Edison solved "a very tough engineering problem", when it basically amounted to just changing the filament. That's a relatively minor step that resulted in a major change in commercial viability, sort of a straw that broke the horses back thing, and his choice of filament was replaced in the bulb we know today.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Benjamin "Space-Jesus" Sisko actually was demigod-like. In this context, he is the only choice.
Only in this context, though.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
The groundless assumption that since neither extreme can be true, the truth must be precisely in the middle.
"Business magazine says businessman better than engineer" shocker.
Um... that's not different enough.
They teach us about Thomas Edison in schools. Everyone thinks he's great. Therefore, there must be another way.
To be hip, we talk about Tesla instead. You probably haven't heard of him.
Futurist Traditionalism
It's a lot easier to be socialist when your defense and medical R&D are covered by other countries.
I wish the US would see this and stop doing so for the rest of the world. It's really annoying as a US citizen to be spending 4 times (as a percentage of GDP) on our military as Germany (I think we can trust them now). Yet we pretty much mandate it to be so.
Additionally we pay more for the same medicine because our government refuses to take a stand on this issue, while other governments do. I'd like to see a law that no medicine or medical devices can be sold in the US for over the average price in the rest of the G8.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
After what I saw edison did to the elephants, and the IP agreements he made his
employees sign, I lost all respect for the man both his intellect and his person.
Edison was a dark and troubled person. Killing something just to prove a point -
someone else did that, too...
And AC was originally practical exactly BECAUSE Tessla managed to invent three-phase... single-phase generators would probably need to be custom designed as I'm not aware of anybody building them en-masse for the non-existent market they may fill...
Three-phase generators/motors are fundamental to what made the modern electrical world possible in the first place. Technically a single-phase motor cannot even start without an outside push...
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Edison will always get my disdain for running the most disgusting smear/FUD campaign that I am aware of.
He repeatedly and publicly executed animals to "prove" the danger of AC current.
He fried Cats/Dogs/horses/cows and even an Elephant, just to discredit a fellow inventor.
Why Forbes is attacking some webcomic's exaggerated and tongue in cheek interpretation of Tesla while trying to present it as some kind of established opinion?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
No, because Kirk and Picard are both military starship captains; they do the same job and their job performance can be compared. Comparing Ritchie and Tesla to Steven Jobs and Edison would be more like comparing Cochrane to Quark: one or both may or may not be brilliant, but one is a scientist and the other a businessman, so their abilities aren't really comparable.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I see it as a sign of the times. 30 years ago, in the depths of the Cold War, of course the US would acknowledge one of their own, a born and bred American, over a competitor from a Soviet bloc country.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Bell invented the telephone.
Bullshit. Philipp Reis also invented a telephone and gave the first public demonstraton in 1854 - more than two decades before Alexander Graham Bell. Maybe we all should read Mark Twain's words at the start of TFA again?
It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing—and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite — that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.
Mark Twain
And whoever uses "X invented Y" again, shall be forever banned from ever partaking in a discussion about inventions again.
“If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor.” Nikola Tesla