4 ms·

> Mr. Inman [author of The Oatmeal], like many comedians seems to be fundamentally unhappy and finds an outlet through humor. Oddly enough his behavior is simil

by rm999 9y ago

> Mr. Inman [author of The Oatmeal], like many comedians seems to be fundamentally unhappy and finds an outlet through humor. Oddly enough his behavior is similar to Tesla's in that he reacts in a nasty fashion if someone challenges his ideas Yikes, got a less biased source? It's 2017, it's sad the emotional feud between Tesla and Edison continues like this.

nulagrithom 9y ago
Wow, the full text of that paragraph is even worse: > Interestingly enough one of the largest sources of exaggerated Tesla history in the last few years was a cartoonist (Mr. Inman) who runs the website "The Oatmeal". A cartoonist (a guy with no engineering, legal or historian background) born in 1982 on the wrong side of the continent felt the liberty of making passionate statements about New York's electrical history based on crap he read on the internet. After a Forbes article by Alex Knapp about the myths of Tesla inspired by this Edison Tech Center article came out, the cartoonist attacks Knapp in the arrogant and cynical style typically demonstrated by the worst of US-born Millennials. Mr. Inman, like many comedians seems to be fundamentally unhappy and finds an outlet through humor. Oddly enough his behavior is similar to Tesla's in that he reacts in a nasty fashion if someone challenges his ideas, even when they mean well.
drzaiusapelord 9y ago
You're cherrypicking the part of the document that addresses the comic and I do agree the tone could be more professional, but it a fairly serious rebuke of some pretty terrible claims. Ironically, when Hawkings, Linus, Dawkins, Hitchens, etc use the same tone, the tech community seems to not have any problems with it. The factual aspects of this page are pretty good and I'm hard pressed to find any issue here historically. I'm something of a amateur Edison-era historian, love this period, and feel that if we want to properly honor history and the lives of the people who more or less helped build the modern world, then we should be honest about the facts and park the fanboyism. I do feel they gloss over the elephant electrocution and even by standards of that time was a bit shocking, even if there were almost no animal welfare laws. To be fair to Edison's group, this PR stunt was tasteless, but the elephant was already sentenced to death. My understanding is the alternative would have been a grisly shooting with an elephant gun which is far less humane than electrocution. Again, the Oatmeal comic is pretty poor representation of the period. I understand its popular and ties in with Tesla fandom and an over-represented demographic on the web, but I think those honest about knowing what these men did should dismiss it and dig into more academic sources. This period is so exciting and interesting, its a shame a lot of youngsters grow up with a simple minded 'Tesla vs Edison' narrative which is such a stupid oversimplification of an amazing and progressive period in US history.
- nulagrithom 9y ago
  > A cartoonist (a guy with no engineering, legal or historian background) born in 1982 on the wrong side of the continent > cynical style typically demonstrated by the worst of US-born Millennials > Disclaimer: The works below are the opinion of the author and not the official viewpoint of the Edison Tech Center That's enough for me to forget this whole article. I'm not buying all the "facts" in The Oatmeal's comic either, but wow, when you have to lash out at someone for being a young cartoonist living in Seattle...
  - jstarfish 9y ago
    Why not? A wide and impressionable audience now understands this part of history as interpreted by an internet celebrity. The ability to publish misinformation on the internet far outscales the ability of anybody to refute it. At some point you have to filter out the noise by appraising the source. If that means dismissing inflammatory history lessons from young cartoonists in Seattle, or dismissing medical advice from has-been Playboy models on the basis that neither group knows what the hell they're talking about, then so be it.
    - nulagrithom 9y ago
      So we should take the word of a random "author" who didn't even bother to publish his name and credentials over Inman simply because this guy blasted Inman for being a Millennial? That's just as wrong as accepting some dumb comic as the authority on history. This guy, whoever he is, goes on about "crap on the Internet" then cites a 3rd of his sources from the Internet, four of those being Wikipedia. Even better, half his non-Internet based sources are museums -- no further information provided. His sources are mostly unverifiable crap, then he stoops to an ad hominem. It's garbage.
      - drzaiusapelord 9y ago
        Its published by the Edison Tech Center which is a non-profit in Schenectady, NY. It doesn't need to publish on a more granular level of authorship. I guess it would be nice, but its own editorial policies are what they are and not outside of norms. I don't complain about the Economist doing the same, for example. >His sources are mostly unverifiable crap There is a source list at the end of the article. Sources: -Electrification in Western Society 1880-1930. by Thomas Parke Hughes.1993 (book) -Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany -Historisches Museum, Frankfurt Germany -The General Electric Story - A Hall of Electrical History Publication.1999 (book) -Archives of the Schenectady Museum: William Stanley files, E.W. Rice Jr. Files -Great Barrington Historical Society -Hawkins Electrical Guides (book series) -Men and Volts. by John Winthrop Hammond. 1941(book) -Folsom Powerhouse Museum. Folsom, California -Biography of Elihu Thomson, prepared by E.W. Rice Jr. -Archives of the Edison Tech Center: Rice Family Archives -Almost Edison: How William Sawyer and Others Lost the Race to Electrification. by Donald Scott McPartland. 2006 Internet Sources: -MIT website: Inventor of the Week" William Stanley -IEEE Global History Network: Milestones: Alternating Current Electrification 1886 -http://profiles.incredible-people.com/galileo-ferraris/ http://profiles.incredible-people.com/galileo-ferraris/ -wikipedia: Nikola Tesla -wikipedia: Transformers -wikipedia: Hippolyte Pixii -wikipedia: Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovsky

by rm999 9y ago

nulagrithom 9y ago

Wow, the full text of that paragraph is even worse: > Interestingly enough one of the largest sources of exaggerated Tesla history in the last few years was a cartoonist (Mr. Inman) who runs the website "The Oatmeal". A cartoonist (a guy with no engineering, legal or historian background) born in 1982 on the wrong side of the continent felt the liberty of making passionate statements about New York's electrical history based on crap he read on the internet. After a Forbes article by Alex Knapp about the myths of Tesla inspired by this Edison Tech Center article came out, the cartoonist attacks Knapp in the arrogant and cynical style typically demonstrated by the worst of US-born Millennials. Mr. Inman, like many comedians seems to be fundamentally unhappy and finds an outlet through humor. Oddly enough his behavior is similar to Tesla's in that he reacts in a nasty fashion if someone challenges his ideas, even when they mean well.

drzaiusapelord 9y ago

You're cherrypicking the part of the document that addresses the comic and I do agree the tone could be more professional, but it a fairly serious rebuke of some pretty terrible claims. Ironically, when Hawkings, Linus, Dawkins, Hitchens, etc use the same tone, the tech community seems to not have any problems with it. The factual aspects of this page are pretty good and I'm hard pressed to find any issue here historically. I'm something of a amateur Edison-era historian, love this period, and feel that if we want to properly honor history and the lives of the people who more or less helped build the modern world, then we should be honest about the facts and park the fanboyism. I do feel they gloss over the elephant electrocution and even by standards of that time was a bit shocking, even if there were almost no animal welfare laws. To be fair to Edison's group, this PR stunt was tasteless, but the elephant was already sentenced to death. My understanding is the alternative would have been a grisly shooting with an elephant gun which is far less humane than electrocution. Again, the Oatmeal comic is pretty poor representation of the period. I understand its popular and ties in with Tesla fandom and an over-represented demographic on the web, but I think those honest about knowing what these men did should dismiss it and dig into more academic sources. This period is so exciting and interesting, its a shame a lot of youngsters grow up with a simple minded 'Tesla vs Edison' narrative which is such a stupid oversimplification of an amazing and progressive period in US history.

nulagrithom 9y ago
> A cartoonist (a guy with no engineering, legal or historian background) born in 1982 on the wrong side of the continent > cynical style typically demonstrated by the worst of US-born Millennials > Disclaimer: The works below are the opinion of the author and not the official viewpoint of the Edison Tech Center That's enough for me to forget this whole article. I'm not buying all the "facts" in The Oatmeal's comic either, but wow, when you have to lash out at someone for being a young cartoonist living in Seattle...
- jstarfish 9y ago
  Why not? A wide and impressionable audience now understands this part of history as interpreted by an internet celebrity. The ability to publish misinformation on the internet far outscales the ability of anybody to refute it. At some point you have to filter out the noise by appraising the source. If that means dismissing inflammatory history lessons from young cartoonists in Seattle, or dismissing medical advice from has-been Playboy models on the basis that neither group knows what the hell they're talking about, then so be it.
  - nulagrithom 9y ago
    So we should take the word of a random "author" who didn't even bother to publish his name and credentials over Inman simply because this guy blasted Inman for being a Millennial? That's just as wrong as accepting some dumb comic as the authority on history. This guy, whoever he is, goes on about "crap on the Internet" then cites a 3rd of his sources from the Internet, four of those being Wikipedia. Even better, half his non-Internet based sources are museums -- no further information provided. His sources are mostly unverifiable crap, then he stoops to an ad hominem. It's garbage.
    - drzaiusapelord 9y ago
      Its published by the Edison Tech Center which is a non-profit in Schenectady, NY. It doesn't need to publish on a more granular level of authorship. I guess it would be nice, but its own editorial policies are what they are and not outside of norms. I don't complain about the Economist doing the same, for example. >His sources are mostly unverifiable crap There is a source list at the end of the article. Sources: -Electrification in Western Society 1880-1930. by Thomas Parke Hughes.1993 (book) -Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany -Historisches Museum, Frankfurt Germany -The General Electric Story - A Hall of Electrical History Publication.1999 (book) -Archives of the Schenectady Museum: William Stanley files, E.W. Rice Jr. Files -Great Barrington Historical Society -Hawkins Electrical Guides (book series) -Men and Volts. by John Winthrop Hammond. 1941(book) -Folsom Powerhouse Museum. Folsom, California -Biography of Elihu Thomson, prepared by E.W. Rice Jr. -Archives of the Edison Tech Center: Rice Family Archives -Almost Edison: How William Sawyer and Others Lost the Race to Electrification. by Donald Scott McPartland. 2006 Internet Sources: -MIT website: Inventor of the Week" William Stanley -IEEE Global History Network: Milestones: Alternating Current Electrification 1886 -http://profiles.incredible-people.com/galileo-ferraris/ http://profiles.incredible-people.com/galileo-ferraris/ -wikipedia: Nikola Tesla -wikipedia: Transformers -wikipedia: Hippolyte Pixii -wikipedia: Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovsky