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The Oatmeal Begins a Fundraiser for a Nikola Tesla Museum

Posted by samzenpus on from the and-he-knew-that-he-would-never-invent-anything-worthy-of-a-pigeon dept.

Quince alPillan writes "The Oatmeal's Matthew Inman is once again collecting money for a good cause. This time, he's collecting money for the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe to purchase the original location of the Wardenclyffe Tower in Shoreham, New York so that it can be rebuilt into a Tesla Museum. The fundraiser, titled Let's Build a Goddamn Tesla Museum has already started."

20 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. So... by Mitreya · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... who's going to start a kickstarter project to build an Edison museum across from the Tesla one?

    1. Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Just wait a few years and slap Edison's name over top of Tesla's.

    2. Re:So... by GammaKitsune · · Score: 4, Funny

      I wish there were some way to mod you "Funny, but Mostly Sad".

      --
      Gamertag: WyleType
    3. Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Hijacking this comment because it's dumb and what I have to say is more important.

      I won't give any money to the Oatmeal since last time they let an asshole lawyer block the fundraiser.

      The lawyer tried to block the fundraiser, but it still proceeded as planned

      http://theoatmeal.com/blog/charity_money

    4. Re:So... by cffrost · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I wish there were some way to mod you "Funny, but Mostly Sad".

      That's one of the uses for Insightful.

      --
      Thank you, Edward Snowden.

      "Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
  2. Totally in by medcalf · · Score: 5, Funny

    But they have to build his death ray

    --
    -- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
    1. Re:Totally in by pegasustonans · · Score: 5, Funny

      But they have to build his death ray

      I'd prefer cloning him, and then having the clone build it. As long as we're building a B-movie death ray, we might as well have a B-movie story to go along with it.

      After we're done with him, we can have the clone battle an Edison robot, and my life will be complete.

      --
      And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
  3. Re:Buy cheap Viagra? by Dyinobal · · Score: 5, Funny

    2012, browsing the internet with out adblock ya I'm going to have to ask for your nerd license and decoder ring.

  4. Re:Buy cheap Viagra? by jxander · · Score: 4, Funny

    At this point, I was certain that most "nerd-centric" sites were of a similar mindset, and spammed up their pages to keep the Luddites out.

    --
    This signature is false.
  5. No Turing phase for tesla? by ryzvonusef · · Score: 4, Informative

    More Info here :p
    http://plus.google.com/blergasdf1234thimbleturdorgasm99meatpoopypoopxv9donkeypie

    But seriously, in this era of re-discovering and correctly honouring scientists for their hard-work and genius (like Alan Turing is now rightly getting, for example) why is Tesla still languishing? I mean, either, way, it was god-damn American* guy who made the light bulb, who cares which one it was? I think the US govt should buck up and admit they dun goofed, just like the Uk govt did with Turing.

    *Wikipedia says he was an american citizen

    --
    I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
    1. Re:No Turing phase for tesla? by crgrace · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Langushing? Come on. He was played by David Bowie in a movie, and the coolest car company around is named Telsa.

      Tesla has a lot more name recognition in the general public (and certainly among technical people) than scientists such as Shannon, Nyquist, and von Neumann who arguably did at least as much to usher in the modern world than Tesla.

  6. Re:Westinghouse by s.petry · · Score: 5, Informative

    Tesla was not only fucked by Westinghouse, but many others. The PR campaign by Edison is the worst, but JP Morgan pulling his project money since JP could not restrict access to make lots more money, and of course Westinghouse robbing him of personal wealth.

    Greed has screwed us all, and continues to do so today.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  7. Money goes straight to foundation... by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Oatmeal is not getting any money from this kickstarter (not really a kickstarter but you know what I mean).

    I really get way more of a sense, that he's on a real mission here regardless of what it does for income.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Money goes straight to foundation... by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Insightful

      if so, why would he say "Goddamned Museum"? That sounds like his shtick.

      That's how he thinks. And why would he NOT say that if he's really irked at how Telsa has been treated or forgotten over the years?

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    2. Re:Money goes straight to foundation... by Trepidity · · Score: 5, Interesting

      People sometimes forget that this kind of piggyback marketing is his professional expertise, which he's done for longer than he's done the comic. Before he did The Oatmeal, he was an SEO consultant who would get people's domains ranked higher by making infographics to host there that he'd get to "go viral" on Reddit/etc. For example, you have some shady company selling penis-enlargement pills. You hire him, and draws you an infographic along the lines of FIVE CRAZY WACKY FACTS ABOUT PHALLUSES. That gets passed around a lot, and now your penis-enlargement domain has higher PageRank for a bunch of dong-related search terms.

      Nowadays a bigger part of his deal is the actual content (since it's popular in its own right), but he's still really good at this kind of marketing.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    3. Re:Money goes straight to foundation... by MagusSlurpy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The fact that he is good at marketing his work doesn't invalidate the quality of his work.

      --
      My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
  8. Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just as long as the museum isn't filled with as many inaccuracies as the Oatmeal piece was. Otherwise we're going to have a museum filled with "facts" that paint Tesla as a god who would have given the world free power, ended all wars, solved world hunger, and developed the ultimate recipe for apple pie, and Edison as a drooling idiot who couldn't have tied his shoes, let alone improve on the lightbulb, aid in the development of a system to deliver electrical current across long distances, and severely advance the technology of the basis of our modern medical imaging technology. (cue the rants about Clarence Dally, who had been victimized by Edison, despite the fact that Dally was a willing participant and we simply didn't know how dangerous X-rays were at the time. Look into every advance the science of radioactive materials in the first half of the 20th century, and you will find at least one Dally in each of them).

    They both were geniuses. They both were flawed.
    Without both of their contributions to science, I wouldn't be typing this (electricity is efficiently delivered to my house in the form of alternating current. A nifty little device translates that alternating current into direct current, which is what runs my computer).

  9. maybe a Twain monument too? by Penurious+Penguin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From what I've read, Tesla and ol' Sam were fair pals. I actually don't see how they couldn't have been. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Twain_in_Tesla's_Lab.jpg

    --
    Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
  10. It's about time by GuNgA-DiN · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A lot of people make fun of the Tesla vs. Edison thing but, think about it: this man invented the modern world and nobody knows (or cares). I went through elementary, middle, and high school in America. Then, I went to college. I never once learned about Nikola Tesla. I didn't find out who he was until I was in my mid twenties. I read a biography about him and was blown away. This guy helped to create everything that I used on a daily basis and I had no idea who he was. It was sad really.

    It's about time that the geeks and scientists of the world step up and pay this man some respect. He DESERVES a museum in his honor in the USA. He deserves a place in the science curriculum. Children of today deserve to learn the truth about Tesla and all the ideas that he gave us. I just chipped in and I'm going to help to spread the word. It's time to give Telsa the recognition he deserves.

  11. Re:Westinghouse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Tesla was not only fucked by Westinghouse, but many others. The PR campaign by Edison is the worst, but JP Morgan pulling his project money since JP could not restrict access to make lots more money, and of course Westinghouse robbing him of personal wealth.

    Greed has screwed us all, and continues to do so today.

    Except greed is why Westinghouse, Edison and JP Morgan had any money to invest in Tesla to begin with.

    Without greed W, E and JP would have been subsistence farmers and Tesla would have been that crazy old man in the shack in the woods everyone stayed away from.