
Let's build a Tesla museum (The Oatmeal initiative) - SanderMak
http://www.Indiegogo.com/teslamuseum
======
icarus_drowning
I'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/>), 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>), so if you're into Tesla, it might be
worth looking into chipping in a few bucks to that project too.

~~~
ryannielsen
From 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/>

------
jerf
"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.

~~~
klodolph
I 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.

~~~
astrodust
When you combine David Bowie with anything it adopts a certain cachet that
cuts across many different groups. Tesla's some kind of hacker hipster, the
patron saint of sorts of many in this generation.

------
DividesByZero
I 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.

~~~
trafficlight
Why can't it be both? What's wrong with using his Internet Fame for something
like this?

~~~
DividesByZero
That'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.

~~~
alexqgb
Also, @Oatmeal is famously nuts about Tesla. His interest is neither casual
nor recent.

<http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla>

------
scbrg
So, 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.

~~~
DigitalJack
His lab is still there. It's not just dirt.

~~~
daimyoyo
No it isn't. The building was razed in 1917. All that's left is the
foundation.

~~~
femto
I 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-
wardencly...](http://www.teslasciencecenter.org/2011/05/visit-to-
wardenclyffe/)

------
atestu
> 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
So 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-i...](http://support.indiegogo.com/entries/20517411-how-to-check-if-
your-contribution-is-tax-deductible)

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._

~~~
soperj
So... did you notify indigogo?

~~~
Cushman
I'm not contributing, and I wouldn't care about the deduction if I were...
You're welcome to, though :)

~~~
soperj
Do they really list their email as @indigogo.com when the website is
indiegogo?

~~~
Cushman
Hah, I missed that both times. That is in fact what they have on that page. I
assume it's a typo.

------
AllTheThings
Tesla 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
Pretty 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
I suspect that's because electrocution was rare at the time, more so than
animal cruelty being rare.

------
marcos123
Awesome, 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
Actually, 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.

~~~
textminer
Have 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.)

~~~
lobster_johnson
Is 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.

~~~
storborg
Most of the exhibits are multi-lingual. Also, the museum is frequented
(perhaps partially staffed?) by university students studying engineering and
physics, who have excellent English skills and are very friendly.

------
andy_herbert
I 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-
tesl...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/05/18/nikola-tesla-wasnt-
god-and-thomas-edison-wasnt-the-devil/)

[2]: <http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_response>

------
SanderMak
The comic introducing this initiative:
<http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_museum>

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
The comic is amusing but it's narrative doesn't match history on some points:

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/05/18/nikola-
tesl...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/05/18/nikola-tesla-wasnt-
god-and-thomas-edison-wasnt-the-devil/)

Also there's a Tesla museum in Serbia. But I like the idea of turning his NY
lab into a museum.

~~~
alecdibble
I 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.

~~~
soperj
It'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
FYI, 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
that oatmeal guy sure does love attention

~~~
alecdibble
Or 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
He loved attention yesterday too. He's a viral marketing guy and this is what
he does.

~~~
eropple
If I get a few good laughs a month out of giving the guy some attention, I'm
okay with that.

------
acqq
Less known details about Edison:

\- The biggest animal for which Edison organized electrocution was an
elephant(!):

[http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/dayint...](http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/dayintech_0104)

\- Edison paid for the development of the electric chair (for death penalty)
-- his propaganda against alternative currents:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair>

------
BerislavLopac
It'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/> (tl;dr: Tesla Roadster
eats dust). ;-)

------
graue
Cool 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.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
I 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
When 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.

~~~
saalweachter
Eh, 70 miles is still daily commuter distance; there are thousands and
thousands of people who commute daily from 70+ miles away in Long Island,
Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Upstate to Manhattan.

A good science/history museum there would still be in range of the informed
tourist (ie, those likely to spend a day at a Tesla museum) and more
importantly of elementary school field trips. Personally I would pair it with
the Teddy Roosevelt museum on Long Island and do a Turn-of-the-Century
Internet Celebrity Day Trip.

------
theotherdude
Well, there's the technical museum in Zagreb, Croatia that features Tesla
vastly: <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>

------
izak30
Oh, now it's ok to alter the titles. Awesome

