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Tesla Museum Gets Funded
- sharkweek 14y agothis has so much potential to create awe and wonder for all it's visitors -- I really hope it's done well.
- ck2 14y agoThis makes me wonder if we could crowdsource the Titan Mare mission which got passed over for another bot to Mars. It "only" costs $425 million ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Mare_Explorer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Mare_Explorer )
- muratmutlu 14y agoI honestly think the guy from Oatmeal carries so much weigh he could generate maybe several million dollars for a cause. If he did a couple of comics about the Mars bot who knows Maybe there's a cheaper Mars project :)
- ck2 14y agoNot Mars - Titan, moon of two planets out, Saturn. The one with nitrogen atmosphere, methane lakes, rain and hurricanes. Way, way more interesting than Mars in some ways.
- tesseract 14y agoAnd speaking of those methane lakes, the lander was designed as a boat that would float around in one of them. To me that seems pretty interesting from an engineering point of view, not to mention Titan being a pretty cool place from a scientific perspective.
- mnicole 14y agoMaybe I'm a skeptic, but I don't think people are going to keep funneling money because of who he is. His fanbase can only allocate so much or deal with so many outreaches and I would wager they only did this one because it was hot off the heels of a very successful campaign. When you know the project is going to succeed because of auto-generated hype and press, it's a lot easier to press submit. Something space-related, while Curiosity is still fresh in people's minds, might work, but I don't think he can keep getting these numbers regularly. I'd like to be wrong, though.
- kmfrk 14y agoIt could definitely hit a huge sum of money, if people who weren't just Indigogo and Kickstarter lurkers got into a campaign for funding it. Celebrities, big names in all kinds of industries could come together for something that's so obviously compelling. I mean, look at what Kony managed to get people to do, and that wasn't even a proper cause.
- dpearson 14y agoNot to be a spoil sport, but it's rather easy to raise money and buy land; it's much more difficult to get a probe built and onto the surface of another world. Plus, does that estimate include support satellites (it apparently doesn't include the costs of getting the probe there)?
- 3JPLW 14y agoNo, the museum did not get funded. The campaign to raise funds to (hopefully?[1]) purchase the land for a museum got funded. There's a long ways to go before this is a reality. [1]: There's another interested buyer. My read on it is that rallying the funds is only the first hurdle in getting the land to this organization. I'm sure there's lots of lawyering and bartering that is yet to be done.
- amirmansour 14y agoYes yes, but lets stay positive. There are still 39 more days to go.
- saraid216 14y ago"Staying positive" does not mean "ignoring reality".
- ThePherocity 14y agoI think in order to stay positive one must ignore reality.
- pessimizer 14y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism
- lhnz 14y agoAccept the bad things and be positive about the good things. There is no need to ignore reality to be happy. One man mines for gold and the other for earth.
- JonnieCache 14y agoMaybe one should view reality as a temporary, transient state, lasting only until one has achieved ones goals? I'm starting to sound like one of those nauseating messianic californian tryhards. Must drink less coffee in the mornings...
- cvanderlinden 14y agoSo many Tesla books out there. If I had to pick one to read, which would you recommend?
- amirmansour 14y agoI highly recommend Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla : Biography of a Genius. http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Nikola-Biography-Genius-Citadel/dp/0806519606/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1345591301&sr=8-10&keywords=tesla http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Nikola-Biography-Genius-Citadel...
- pooriaazimi 14y agoA fantastic read. Don't miss the audiobook if you're into audiobooks (great for long commutes and if you're not English and want to improve it)[1]. It's read by Simon Prebble[2]. I absolutely love his voice. His 1984[3] is probably my favorite audiobook (I listen to audiobooks a lot). He is great. From Wikipedia: In the U.S., he also began narrating audio books,and to date (2012) has recorded well over 450 titles. As one of AudioFile Magazine's 'Golden Voices' and 'Best Voices of the Century', his work has gained him five 'Listen Up' awards, thirty 'Earphone' awards, and in 2005, he was named 'Narrator of theYear' by Publishers Weekly. Nominated fifteen times for the 'Audies' (the audiobook 'Oscars'), he was finally awarded a coveted 'Audie' in 2010, the year he was also named Booklist's 'Voice of Choice'. [1]: http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Times-Nikola-Biography-Genius/dp/1452652716 http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Times-Nikola-Biography-Genius/d... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Prebble http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Prebble [3]: http://www.amazon.com/1984-New-Classic-Edition/dp/B000Q6ZLOI http://www.amazon.com/1984-New-Classic-Edition/dp/B000Q6ZLOI
- LoganCale 14y agoSimon Prebble's narration of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle is fantastic.
- pooriaazimi 14y ago
- ConnorRoberts 14y agoYes, but if they raised only $750,000 how much of that would have been left? Since the things being offered as part of pledges isn't free?
- tobyjsullivan 14y agoWell, since the pledges are being paid directly to the not-for-profit organization, I actually think TheOatmeal is paying for the rewards out of pocket (hence all the limits).
- jack-r-abbit 14y agoI don't know how long it took to get this far but right now it is 31K over goal... and it has 39 more days to go. I would not be surprised if it passed the $1M mark before it is over.
- tobyjsullivan 14y agoIt took 5 days to get this far (if I recall correctly).
- marcoamorales 14y agoIt was posted a week ago actually, but the point still stands.
- 8ig8 14y agoInteresting to note that two people (companies) ponied up the max of $33,333. > If you donate $33,333 I will write a blog post about you, your company, or your product on TheOatmeal.com. My site averages 7 million unique visitors and 30 million page views. In the three years TheOatmeal.com has been online it's been read by over 100 million people and received nearly one billion page views.
- amirmansour 14y agoThe OatMeal facebook page said that second $33,333 donation pushed it to the finish line.
- 8ig8 14y agoOftentimes donation in support of museums would be tax deductible since the recipient in a 501(c)3 non-profit. I don't believe this is the case here. Regardless of status, since the 'donor' is getting something in return it's a moot issue. Edit: Thanks jaredsohn. I wondered as I typed that. One of those words I say, but rarely write.
- jaredsohn 14y agomute -> moot
- sciurus 14y agoThe money is goin gto a nonprofit. http://www.teslasciencecenter.org/about/ http://www.teslasciencecenter.org/about/
- 8ig8 14y agoEven though it is a non-profit, I _think_ the donation is not considered a tax write-off because the donor is receiving something in return: a photo, a sticker, a T-shirt, advertising (blog post).
- 14y ago
- dumbluck 14y agoThe title is misleading. They've raised enough money that with NY's matching funds they could perhaps pay for the property and preserve it as a historic site, but it won't be a museum anymore than my bathroom is a YMCA. They need millions more.
- jusben1369 14y agoI seem to remember what appeared to be a relatively independent academic debunking a great deal of the pro Tesla/anti Edison Oatmeal discussion which resulted in a very animated rebuttal. I wonder if this is just an extension of that challenge in some ways.
- y4m4 14y agoThere goes my 50$, hope to see this through :-)
- RandallBrown 14y agoHow the hell do we give our t-shirt size?
- y4m4 14y agoyou don't its just large now, people payed a lot - t-shirts are sold out.
- AlphaDex 14y agoI grew up a stone's throw away from Tesla's lab. (It's right on Tesla Street if I recall.) I will definitely be making a donation.