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The Oatmeal Begins a Fundraiser for a Nikola Tesla Museum
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."
Just wait a few years and slap Edison's name over top of Tesla's.
But they have to build his death ray
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
2012, browsing the internet with out adblock ya I'm going to have to ask for your nerd license and decoder ring.
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.
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.
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
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).
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.
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
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