The Oatmeal Convinces Elon Musk To Donate $1 Million To Tesla Museum 78
Ars Technica notes (as does Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman) that Elon Musk has agreed to donate $1 million towards the restoration of Nikola Tesla's old lab as a museum, a project that Inman has been pushing for some time now. And if you happen to get there in a Tesla, you're in luck: Musk is also planning to install one of his company's superchargers in the parking lot. (At the other end of the east coast, you can visit a very different kind of Tesla museum.)
Fair enough (Score:5, Funny)
After all he is using the name for his cars.
Next up, the Ford motor company donates to the Gerald Ford presidential library
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Naming rights ploy (Score:5, Interesting)
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The "potatoe" incident was not Gerald Ford, it was the legendary Dan Quayle.
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The "potatoe" incident was not Gerald Ford, it was the legendary Dan Quayle.
Wrong meme. whoosh.
On his Birthday, even... (Score:5, Informative)
Happy birthday, Nikola, you crazy bastard [vice.com]!
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Why can't someone borderline insane be for the sterilization of the insane? Keep in mind that he had no partner or children, by choice... or barring that, that it's pretty common for people with an odd outlook to think of themselves as normal or proper.
Parts of Canada kept sterilizing mental deficients through the 70's, he would have been proud.
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"A century from now it will no more occur to a normal person to mate with a person eugenically unfit than to marry a habitual criminal."
This makes me giggle.. he was not aware of the bad boy effect..
I found it disturbing that as an intelligent college student working a full time job and having all my stuff together, the women often times passed me over for guys with drinking/drug problems that were drop outs, had criminal records, and were unable to hold any employment. Were these guys physically more attra
Damn (Score:2)
I love how this guy just does crazy awesome things to make the world better.
How to get the rest of the $8 million (Score:4, Interesting)
Inman estimates it will take $8 million to clean up the site (lots of buildings from Kodak) and to build out the museum. His web comic plea to Musk was for the full amount, and Musk has pledged $1 million in response.
Here's the next pitch: offer a long-term lease of the non-Tesla-related buildings to Tesla in order to establish a facility of some sort on the east coast and add that revenue to the museum's operating budget. This would increase Tesla's brand image considerably; it would increase the draw to the museum site itself (Tesla can offer tours of whatever type of facility it builds there).
Does it make business sense, though? (Score:2, Interesting)
Son, business is about four things:
1. Blood.
2. Sweat.
3. Tears.
4. Losing all of your peers.
As you can see, "Leasing unneeded office space thousands of miles away that isn't needed for current or future business purposes, for the sole aim of getting basically no goodwill or brand recognition from the 99.9999999% of people who have no fucking clue who Nikola Tesla was." doesn't appear in that list.
Musk pledged $1,000,000 already. That's more than enough. He's got a goddamn business to run, and he shouldn't be
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All I really hear you saying is these four:
1. money
2. money
3. money
4. money
The hero Gotham needs (Score:5, Interesting)
PayPal, rockets, electric cars, solar panels, paying $1 million for oatmeal or something in the name of a Tesla museum. While he doesn't have absolute control of any one of those industries, he's sounding more and more like a modern Andrew Carnegie, maybe with some Benjamin Franklin mixed in.
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Indeed.
He's got crazy ideas, but he seems to be able to make them happen. We'll probably see consumer level electric cars and private space travel due in large part to his efforts.
He's pretty much the only person in the world who if announced had discovered perpetual energy, I'd probably believe.
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Both of those people are dead, their legacies set. You are correct that Musk doesn't have as vast a philanthropic footprint as either of those two at the moment, but he's also very much alive (43 yo, no serious health issues I am aware of) and has plenty of time to make billions of dollars and then donate that to whatever.
For reference, both Carnegie and Franklin were approx 84 when they died. Assuming we don't go all Mad Max, 40 years is a lot of time for Musk to play catch up.
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Hughes' legacy [wikipedia.org] is enormous, too. As a philanthropic institute, it's endowment is second only to Gates.
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Musk strikes me as a lot of things... Carnegie and Franklin aren't among them.
He's an emerging master at PR and managing public opinion, and his fan base (very prevalent here on Slashdot) just laps it up.
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Musk strikes me as a lot of things... Carnegie and Franklin aren't among them.
He's an emerging master at PR and managing public opinion, and his fan base (very prevalent here on Slashdot) just laps it up.
His rockets get to orbit with RP-1 [youtu.be], not PR. You don't get a $5 billion launch manifest [spacex.com] with PR.
Yes, there are delays and difficulties with both Tesla and SpaceX. Now show me someone that is building more compelling electric cars than Tesla. Owner's of Tesla's love them. If it wasn't a good car, it wouldn't have the satisfaction ratings it does. Car magazines wouldn't be raving about it.
Show me a "new space" company that is delivering cargo to the the ISS, returning mass to Earth, developing a manned ca
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Agreed. Despite plenty of unnecessary/unrealistic opposition he continues to Get Shit Done.
Oh, Tesla cars ... yah but let's try to make your dealerships illegal.
Rockets? Welllllllll......we *might* let you launch them from your own space. Maybe. Oh...you might take them out of the country? NVM...here some some approvals.
I'm not saying give the guy carte blanche but his track record is pretty impressive even despite the artificial barriers thrown up in front of his work. I mean...when he's delivering c
So, which is it? (Score:2)
You don't seem to realize that Tesla *borrowed* the funds he used to pay back the government loan - so he's still in debt and still tottering on the edge because he hasn't brought a car to the mass market. That's not envy or ideology, that's a stone cold fact like the sun rising in the East tomorrow mornin
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Yep, happened exactly as it always does, the Musk fan boys have been at it - because they can't stand the truth or anything that doesn't smack of adulation verging on worship.
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So you're saying we should name a deli after him?
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PayPal is not exactly something to be proud of. It's only popular because eBay forces you to use it and excludes all other online payment methods, not because it's good.
But yeah, all the other stuff is awesome.
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Paypal was unique and groundbreaking in it's day. I would certainly be proud of it.
Imperfect? Sure. Still is for that matter. How they managed to avoid getting classified as a bank is beyond me (tin hat: backroom deals to provide info to TLAs)
How eBay's using it now is obnoxious and abusive for sure.
conflict (Score:3, Interesting)
On one hand a FACT based science museum for Tesla is cool. OTOH Inman a rude asshat when you point out some of what he says about Tesla is false.
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http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_response
Jesus does he come off like a stupid asshole in his counter-response.
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IMO the worst is trying to drag up a fight that was silly 100 years ago. It's ok to think that both Edison and Tesla were great men.....because they were. You don't have to choose sides.
No, but it's fun to, because it's just some silly fight from 100 years ago.
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He comes off overly defensive, but most of his points are actually correct. Asshole? I wouldn't go that far. Jerk, maybe. But saying he's stupid is just wrong.
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Indeed. I also find it strange Matt is so adamant that Tesla was shafted by modern memory, when the very unit of magnetic field strength is the Tesla! How many people get units of measurement named after them? Why did Musk name his car company Tesla if nobody had ever heard of him? Why did a heavy metal band name themselves Tesla and use the electricity metaphor in their marketing? There are researchers who probably contributed even more to the development of the modern world such as Steinmetz, Heavisi
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Speaking of Tesla (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a Yugoslavian one hundred billion dinar note from when there was hyperinflation in that country a few decades ago. It's got a nice picture of Tesla on the front.
His birthday is also the same as my wife's.
I'm posting this comment apropos of nothing. But Tesla was one bad ass. And was so cool that David Bowie played him in a movie. And I have no evidence of this, but I'm pretty sure that the huge explosion in Tunguska back in 1908 was caused by Tesla trying to build a time machine. Or something. Here, go read it yourself. I have the day off tomorrow, so I'm already half in the bag. Catch me in an hour or so, and I'll tell you my theory about Tesla actually being the immortal Count of St. Germain, who still lives today developing Android apps and smoking DMT.
http://www.teslasociety.com/tu... [teslasociety.com]
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" Now you're just sounding like an undiscerning fanboy instead of a thoughtful admirer."
Just like Inman.
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Wild Turkey...please. Who's gonna drink that swill when I've got a few quarts of homemade slivovitza under my sink? That way, besides the buzz, I get all the vitamins and minerals from the plums. And, in a pinch, I can run my 1973 Mercedes diesel on the stuff.
If you were a real "thoughtful admirer" of Nikola Tesla, you'd know that. Hmph.
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"that the huge explosion in Tunguska back in 1908 was caused by Tesla trying to build a time machine.
you're an idiot. In fact, that so idiotic I think it rippled back in time and cause bigfoot's head to explode and THAT'S what caused Tunguska. That is just a plausible as your statement.
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I see your 100 billion and raise you 500 000 000 000 [wikipedia.org]
one new (1994) dinar was equal to 10^27 old (socialist yugoslavia) dinar, four years later. I guess a country disintegrating war and embargo will do that.
There's already a Tesla museum, in Belgrade. (Score:5, Informative)
The Tesla Museum [tesla-museum.org] already exists.
Tesla did great work with AC generators and motors. Most common AC motors today still use approaches he invented. That's his legacy.
Wardenclyffe, though, is a monument to failure. From his patents, you can read how he thought it would work. He thought the ionosphere was a conductive layer. The Wardenclyffe tower was supposed to punch power through the atmosphere to that conductive layer, so that signals and maybe power could be received elsewhere.
The ionosphere does not work that way. Tesla's tower would have done nothing useful, although with 200KW at 20KHz going in, it probably could have lit up fluorescent lamps and gas tubes for some distance around. Since the location is now surrounded by a housing subdivision, rebuilding the tower and powering it up would annoy the neighbors.
Re:There's already a Tesla museum, in Belgrade. (Score:5, Interesting)
Tesla's tower would have done nothing useful, although with 200KW at 20KHz going in, it probably could have lit up fluorescent lamps and gas tubes for some distance around. Since the location is now surrounded by a housing subdivision, rebuilding the tower and powering it up would annoy the neighbors.
It wouldn't have done what he envisioned, but it could well have proven to be the worlds' first VLF radio station. I'm sure it would have crossed his mind to modulate the transmitted power at some point, and any receiving equipment on the other end could easily have demodulated this into an audible tone. Other people were already playing with radio, including modulating it with audio frequencies, but even if the idea wasn't original, it could have provided a viable product for Tesla to market and sell. It would have been accidentally useful, but that's exactly the sort of break Tesla could have used.
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It wouldn't have done what he envisioned, but it could well have proven to be the worlds' first VLF radio station.
Marconi already had VLF working, sort of, before Wardenclyffe was built. Marconi's R&D approach was to transmit across short distances, test and improve the hardware, then try longer distances. Over a few years, he slowly worked up from across the room to across the ocean. Less grandiose than Tesla, but more successful.
Tesla is said to have assisted in the construction of the 1913 Telefunken VLF station on Long Island, but the IRE Journal article [google.com] doesn't mention him. Telefunken built a VLF antenna mu
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The Tesla Museum [tesla-museum.org] already exists.
And there is a memorial center in his home village Smiljan in Croatia http://www.mcnikolatesla.hr/ [mcnikolatesla.hr] . Tesla cars are often seen there, as it has a free charger for electric cars (rarity in Croatia), although it's not a supercharger (Elon Musk, what are you waiting for? :D )
Tesla memorial center was a stop during the Croatian EV rally earlier this year, with both Tesla S and roadster models participating (pictures available in gallery on their website)
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Ask for $8 million, get $1 million.
Maybe The Oatmeal should take a cue from the guy who started a $10 campaign for potato salad on Kickstarter. [forbes.com] He seems to get a pretty good return on his requests.
Tesla is soooo yesterday! (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes Slashdot, I even left your gclid in the URL so you get another ad credit for each click.
Tesla Fans (Score:1)
Shit, reading these comments, you'd think Slashdot would take Tesla over Chuck Norris in a fight...
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Shit, reading these comments, you'd think Slashdot would take Tesla over Chuck Norris in a fight
Probably not a good idea, as here are
the results [googlefight.com] of said competition.
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Because it's always about the Oatmeal's founder.
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Um, because the Tesla Museum was the The Oatmeal guy's baby? And because Elon Musk presumably is donating a million bucks at least in part because said Oatmeal guy made a comic a few weeks ago that started off talking about how awesome Teslas were, and then finished by making fun of Musk for being all excited about the museum, but donating an extraordinarily tiny fraction of his immense wealth? How is the title at all wrong?
Electrotherapy "Museum" closed (Score:2)