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Let's build a Tesla museum (The Oatmeal initiative)
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- SanderMak 14y agoThe comic introducing this initiative: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_museum http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_museum
- jasonwatkinspdx 14y agoThe comic is amusing but it's narrative doesn't match history on some points: http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/05/18/nikola-tesla-wasnt-god-and-thomas-edison-wasnt-the-devil/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/05/18/nikola-tesl... Also there's a Tesla museum in Serbia. But I like the idea of turning his NY lab into a museum.
- evilbit 14y agofyi alex knapp is full of shit: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_response http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_response
- jdonaldson 14y agoIt's funny how Inman criticizes Edison for not actually inventing the light bulb, just making it practical. However, if you make the same observation about Tesla and AC, then you better keep an eye out for the bear-love posse.
- Cushman 14y agoMan, I'm not trying to take a side here -- history is pretty complicated -- but that writing style is seriously aggravating. In general, if you ever find yourself in the position of saying, "I'm a comedian, you shouldn't take what I say seriously," you should probably take a step back and ask yourself if you ought really to be participating in long-form debate.
- broken_symlink 14y agoThat is exactly the problem I have with the oatmeal. A lot of people BELIEVE what he says, no matter what, especially, when he knowingly spreads false information for the sake of comedy. The people who read his site don't know any better. Personally, I think the oatmeal is a bully, and find him to be too arrogant. I will admit some of his comics are good though.
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- alecdibble 14y agoI have read quite a few biographies on Tesla. Unless every single one of them are wrong (they all had citations), the inaccuracies of that Forbes article are not even funny. Do they always post articles that haven't been fact-checked? Edit: Just saw The Oatmeal's response. Good for him, but I doubt many of the people that read the Forbes article are also going to read the rebuttal.
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- soperj 14y agoIt's weird that the forbes article(and that the guy from the oatmeal agrees) thinks that radar would be useless for tracking u-boats in the 1st world war. They couldn't stay underwater for very long at all(because they had to operate on batteries as there was no way to vent diesel exhaust), radar should have been able to see the uboat before it went underwater to attack, and then saw that it had disapeared.
- EchoAbstract 14y agoFYI, tracking items on water with a land (or sea) based radar is very difficult due to atmospheric effects (mainly ducting) and can cause unacceptable levels of false detections. Combine this with the lack of computer processing at the time means that you have a human operator trying to determine from a scope which targets to attack. I think that this makes detecting and tracking u-boats with early radar very unlikely. If you ever make it to Pearl Harbor on Oahu you can see some examples of the radar scope technology from the Pearl Harbor attacks, it was not very easy to use.
- rogerclark 14y agothat oatmeal guy sure does love attention
- benatkin 14y agoThank goodness for that!
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- alecdibble 14y agoOr maybe he is fascinated by Tesla's life and is willing to use his own publicity powers to help a related cause? But no, that doesn't make any sense.
- benologist 14y agoHe loved attention yesterday too. He's a viral marketing guy and this is what he does.
- eropple 14y agoIf I get a few good laughs a month out of giving the guy some attention, I'm okay with that.
- rospaya 14y agoI can't help but hate the guy. I just can't help myself there.
- robertpateii 14y agoI'm curious, in what way is a famous person (made famous by their own creative works) using their existing fame to raise money for a good cause an "attention getting scheme"? Seems pretty common place.
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- marcos123 14y agoAwesome, awesome idea. I find it sad that if you want to visit a Tesla museum you'd have to book a ticket to Serbia, even though the majority of his work was done here in the U.S., and he spent the majority of his life here. "Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla" was a fascinating read.
- markokocic 14y agoActually, the Tesla museum in Belgrade, Serbia, is quite good. Here, Tesla is a kind of national hero, or at least a God of science. I even remember a child song about Tesla inventing electricity back from the early school days, so he's not quite unsung.
- unreal37 14y agoI guess if there's a children's song about a guy, you pretty much have to admit that he's not an unsung hero...
- textminer 14y agoHave to second this. Really enjoyed my visit to the Tesla Museum in Belgrade (and the rest of the former Yugoslavia in general-- jewel of Europe.)
- marcos123 14y agoI wish I could "third" this. I should have clarified that the only thing I find sad about the Tesla Museum being in Belgrade, is that I don't have the time or money to go and visit it. If I remember correctly, those behind the museum had to work quite hard to get some of Tesla's paperwork back from the U.S. government after Tesla passed away. I have the feeling it was stuff that would have never seen the light of day again if it wasn't for their efforts.
- lobster_johnson 14y agoIs the museum (descriptions, films, etc.) presented in English, or in Serbian only? I have to ask because I often find museums to be presented in the native language. In Berlin, for example, which has a bunch of great museums (such as the Pergamon museum), almost everything is in German.
- AllTheThings 14y agoTesla vs. Edison, the age old fight of the Manager vs. the Engineer. As much as Edison seems to be vilified by The Oatmeal, I can't help but think that many of the things Edison did were in the context of the times pretty commonplace. That said, Tesla really is an unsung genius.
- ryanac 14y agoPretty sure electrocuting animals to death was not commomplace, I agree with everything else. :P Telsa: Hey guys all this stuff I've been talking about, I figured out a way to get it all for free! Guys?... Hellooooo? Son of a...
- ori_b 14y agoI suspect that's because electrocution was rare at the time, more so than animal cruelty being rare.
- creativename 14y agoI just finished reading "In the Plex", about Google, where the author pretty frequently refers to Sergey and Larry consciously making decisions early on not to get "Tesla'd". Seems that Tesla's legacy of being an unsung genius (presumably for not taking commercial credit for your efforts) had some lasting impact after all.
- DividesByZero 14y agoI have to wonder how much of this is about Tesla (who was obviously a staggering genius and unjustly forgotten in the US and much of the rest of the world), and how much of it is about The Oatmeal's publicity. I guess good can come of anything though. edit: Having read more closely, the IndieGoGo project is to raise funds directly for an existing organisation, which is a great use of media profile. I think I'm all out of reservations on this.
- dclowd9901 14y agoWell, this is just to purchase the property. Actually turning it into a museum would require an even inordinately greater amount of money that has yet to even be addressed. This idea is half-baked at best, and I'm a bit astounded $380k has already been put up for it. >Even if we raise the full amount and end up with $1.7 million, this isn't enough to build an actual museum / science center. But it will effectively put the property into the right hands so it can eventually be renovated into something fitting for one of the greatest inventors of our time. It's not exactly comforting to know that my donation is to some hackneyed attempt at "keeping the building in the right hands". What about maintenance? Taxes? Revitalization? Who's going to run this effort? Who's going to reach out for donations of materials and resources? Run fundraisers? Curate exhibits?
- trafficlight 14y agoWhy can't it be both? What's wrong with using his Internet Fame for something like this?
- DividesByZero 14y agoThat's kind of what I'm getting at with the line "I guess good can come of anything", but I suppose I'm instinctively wary of 'good causes' with a media spearhead. e: I just read more closely - The Oatmeal is apparently raising funds for an existing organisation, and the IndieGoGo funds go directly to them. In this case I fold, this is definitely a good use of his fame.
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- atestu 14y ago> The folks behind this project are a 501(c) non-profit organization and they've spent the past 15 years trying to find a way to save this property. This IndieGoGo account is linked directly to their bank and all the funds will go directly to them. Does anyone know if this means our donations are tax deductible?
- Cushman 14y agoSo long as they do not accept pledges by credit card, only PayPal, and their PayPal account is registered as a 501(c)3. (It looks like this campaign accepts credit cards, which would imply the answer is no.) http://support.indiegogo.com/entries/20517411-how-to-check-if-your-contribution-is-tax-deductible http://support.indiegogo.com/entries/20517411-how-to-check-i... According to U.S. tax laws, contributions must go directly to a 501(c)3 non-profit organization in order for the contributor to be eligible for tax benefits. Indiegogo offers PayPal as a payment method to ensure that your contribution will go directly to the organization. If you are contributing to an project that offers tax deductions and you are given the option to pay by credit card, please be advised that your contribution will NOT qualify as tax deductible! Please do the campaign and yourself a big favor and notify Indiegogo's Customer Happiness team at support@indigogo.com. We will then make sure that the campaign is set up properly to offer tax deductions.
- graue 14y agoCool idea, but does it make sense to put a museum 70 miles outside NYC on the far end of Long Island? How are people going to get to this museum? It's not near anything.
- dbh937 14y agoIt's Tesla's old laboratory, so it has something to do with Tesla, and isn't just a building. I'm sure people interested will go out of their way to get to this museum.
- daeken 14y agoYou know, that's the problem. They want Tesla's life and legacy to be known -- you don't do that in the middle of nowhere. Much as I would love to go visit this myself, it's dooming it to the geeks, largely.
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoIt's not exactly in the middle of nowhere. It has Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory. It has half a dozen airports, more than 400K inhabitants, and it's the largest town (by area) in the entire state. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookhaven,_New_York http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookhaven,_New_York
- Samuel_Michon 14y agoI agree, let's move the building to Central Park! Will you start the Kickstarter campaign or shall I? PS: Long Island is the most populated island in the US, it has 7.6 million inhabitants. Also, Brookhaven is in the middle of the island (close to Fire Island), not the far end. The Hamptons are way farther out, and yet plenty of people manage to find their way there.
- graue 14y agoWhen you exclude Brooklyn and Queens, which are ~70 miles away from this site, Long Island has only (7568304 - 2532645 - 2247848) = 2.8 million residents. And that 70 mile distance will be far enough out of the way to exclude most out-of-area tourists who are visiting NYC. The site significance is cool, no doubt, but I question how many people will ever trek out to visit this.
- scbrg 14y agoSo, why does this need to be built on a piece of dirt that costs $1.7M? Trust me, I love Tesla, and would certainly like to see a museum dedicated to his genius and achievements, but this seems like a waste of money, thrown on whoever the fuck happens to currently hold the deed to that piece of land. Why not build it wherever, where $1.7M might actually... well, finance a museum, and not just dirt? Somehow, I can't drop the feeling that this whole thing is somehow started by the current landowner, but I know I sound like a tinfoil hat saying that.
- alecdibble 14y agoThere is a lot of history related to Tesla and Wardenclyffe (the place they are trying to buy). After reading the history of Tesla, I believe that it is a historical site worth immortalizing and memorializing. The wikipedia article on Wardenclyffe has some info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower
- DigitalJack 14y agoHis lab is still there. It's not just dirt.
- daimyoyo 14y agoNo it isn't. The building was razed in 1917. All that's left is the foundation.
- femto 14y agoI read it as the tower itself being demolished in 1917, but the laboratory building, which surrounded the base of the tower, and the foundations of the actual tower, being still intact. --- Edit. Found a link to a report of the current state of the site: http://www.teslasciencecenter.org/2011/05/visit-to-wardenclyffe/ http://www.teslasciencecenter.org/2011/05/visit-to-wardencly...
- izak30 14y agoOh, now it's ok to alter the titles. Awesome
- icarus_drowning 14y agoI'm especially confused as I've lived my whole life in Colorado Springs, and already visited a Tesla museum here several times. After looking up their website (http://teslamuseum.us/ http://teslamuseum.us/), it seems like they are in dire financial straights, and not really functioning anymore, but it might be worth considering the Springs as a site, since Tesla did so much work here. Also, (shameless plug alert), I'm currently working on a TV show based on Tesla (http://theteslaarchive.com http://theteslaarchive.com), so if you're into Tesla, it might be worth looking into chipping in a few bucks to that project too.
- ryannielsen 14y agoFrom the Indiegogo page: All the funds raised from this campaign are going directly to a non-profit group. Details about the non-profit behind this project can be found on their website: Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe He's not building a new museum; he's raising funds so the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe[1] can buy Tesla's final laboratory and turn it into a museum. [1] http://www.teslasciencecenter.org/about/ http://www.teslasciencecenter.org/about/
- jerf 14y ago"up until recently he's been an unsung hero in history books" Tesla must be the most sung unsung hero in history. I hear more about him than Edison nowadays, by quite a bit.
- scribblemacher 14y agoI never heard of Tesla growing up, which is either a sign that my school gave a poor education or a sign that we've recently gone back and looked at this part of our history again. (Or a sign that I was a lazy kid who slept in science class.)
- ImprovedSilence 14y agoI think he gets a lot of "street cred" and hoopla among hackers and techies and the like, but you'll never learn about him in elementary school. Every single second grader in the country knows who Edison is. The rest of America has no idea who Tesla is.
- Retric 14y agoI did.
- shousper 14y agoI just mentioned this article to a workmate and he didn't even know who Tesla was =(
- klodolph 14y agoI think part of that is the narrative that his wilder inventions were "suppressed". Things like wireless power transmission, which as designed by Tesla, (1) is ridiculously inefficient and (2) would cause significant collateral damage. The narrative of the competing current systems (AC versus DC) was inflated into some kind of larger ideological conflict between Edison and Tesla themselves, and we like to root for the underdog (even though Tesla won that debate). I suspect that the biggest part of his modern popularity is just due to retro aesthetics you see in video games like BioShock and Fallout, or appearances in media such as The Prestige. He deserves museums, but not hero worhsip.
- acqq 14y agoLess known details about Edison: - The biggest animal for which Edison organized electrocution was an elephant(!): http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/dayintech_0104 http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/dayint... - Edison paid for the development of the electric chair (for death penalty) -- his propaganda against alternative currents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair
- andy_herbert 14y agoI don't want to see this fail by any means, but to me it seems like a slightly immature response to a [very public disagreement][1] The Oatmeal had with a Forbes journalist, which involved a [very unusual retort][2]. [1]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/05/18/nikola-tesla-wasnt-god-and-thomas-edison-wasnt-the-devil/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/05/18/nikola-tesl... [2]: http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_response http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_response
- BerislavLopac 14y agoIt's funny to see all that sudden surge in Tesla fanboy activity. I live about 200km from Tesla's birthplace, I went to two schools bearing his name, and about a block from my place is a technical museum which carries a regular daily show of his experiments in practice. And I especially like the irony that about 20km from where I live there is this being built: http://www.rimac-automobili.com/ http://www.rimac-automobili.com/ (tl;dr: Tesla Roadster eats dust). ;-)
- bluespice 14y agoWell, there's the technical museum in Zagreb, Croatia that features Tesla vastly: http://tehnicki-muzej.hr/ http://tehnicki-muzej.hr/ There's also a memorial center in Smiljan, Croatia, the village he was born in: http://www.mcnikolatesla.hr/english.html http://www.mcnikolatesla.hr/english.html
- theotherdude 14y agoWell, there's the technical museum in Zagreb, Croatia that features Tesla vastly: http://tehnicki-muzej.hr/ http://tehnicki-muzej.hr/ There's also a memorial center in Smiljan, Croatia, the village he was born in: http://www.mcnikolatesla.hr/english.html http://www.mcnikolatesla.hr/english.html