Sensible Erection | Let's build a goddamn Tesla museum

Thursday, 16 August 2012

quote [ Tesla's final laboratory is located in the sleepy town of Shoreham, New York. And right now a non-profit is trying to buy the property and turn it into a Nikola Tesla Museum. The property is listed at $1.6 million, and this non-profit has received a matching grant from New York State of up to $850k. This means that if we can raise $850k, New York State will match us for that same amount -- putting the total raised at $1.7 million. ]

[by foobar@6:54amGMT] [+10 Good]

Comments

willrogers said @ 7:17am GMT on 16th Aug [Score:1 Informative]
Woah, what's all this about a new Tesla movie?

It's gonna be hard to top David fucking Bowie as Tesla in "The Prestige." Christian Bale was in that, too.

arrowhen said @ 8:36am GMT on 16th Aug
Oh, shitfuckdamn, I've seen that movie like five goddamned times and never realized that was Bowie!

midden said @ 1:15pm GMT on 16th Aug [Score:1 Funny]
Never realized it was Bowie???

In case didn't recognize him, that was him in Labyrinth, too.

... and that was the Spice Girls in Spiceworld.

pleaides said @ 1:38pm GMT on 16th Aug [Score:2 Funny]
Wait, wait..

That wasn't KENNEDY in the Zapruder film was it??

Libertarian said @ 2:46pm GMT on 16th Aug [Score:1 WTF]
No, it was a body double. It was a coverup so the real Kennedy could later blow up the World Trade Center with nobody suspecting a thing.

bruceski said @ 7:38am GMT on 16th Aug [Score:3 Underrated]
Can the museum dedicate itself to dispelling myths, like "Tesla's wireless electricity plans would have worked?"

arrowhen said @ 8:46am GMT on 16th Aug
So... yeah... totally not an electrical engineer or anything here, just a dork who read a couple of Tesla biographies back in the day and who appreciates the dude as a total nutjob who was afraid of pearls, talked to pigeons, and just happened to invent AC power and radio rather than a dork who read a couple of Tesla biographies back in the day who thinks he invented a death ray that caused the Tungaska event. Would you happen to have a link aimed at someone with a moderately high layperson's knowledge of science who knows how to use Wikipedia to bone up on specifics he's forgotten since community college that explains why Tesla's wireless electricity plans wouldn't have worked?

Barnabas_Truman said @ 9:28am GMT on 16th Aug
From what I've read, they would have worked, but they also would have fried everything between sender and receiver.

damnit said @ 10:06am GMT on 16th Aug
We have that technology now... I think:

Barnabas_Truman said @ 11:11am GMT on 16th Aug
That's different--magnetic induction, I'm guessing, which is useful but only works over short range. Tesla's purported invention was supposedly able to "beam" power across long distances, presumably with radio waves or something.

incpenners said @ 12:26pm GMT on 16th Aug [Score:2 Informative]
You can, with a simple antenna and a few electronic parts, pull ±5v out of the air, today. It's enough to charge a cell phone. (I think there are YT videos out there on 'Tesla wireless' or something, I've seen them)

The ROI on it is quite sketchy, and it remains to be seen if you could push or pull significant amounts of power through the atmosphere

krupa said @ 6:44am GMT on 25th Aug
I guess nobody reads this, but:

Would you kindly back that up with some data? One can get significant voltages, but the problem lies in the power department.

Also, Teslas invention was about tuning the resonant frequencies to match in the coils, and Q values should be huge to get any kind of transmittance. It is a very weird way of transmitting power, but it works.

EPT said @ 8:05am GMT on 25th Aug
USB has a 5V power line, but it's shitty at powering my phone because the current is so small. If I don't turn the screen off (to prevent wasted power), it takes literally hours for my phone to charge...

YT looks to be packed with videos on 'tesla wireless', but on my first skimming of them, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of driving realistic loads. There may be something in the heap-o-videos, though.

mrklipp said @ 5:32pm GMT on 16th Aug
It's been quite a while since I've read anything on this, but wasn't the major issue with this a monetary one?

As I understand it, anyone in the area with the right antenna would have been able to pull electricity from the system, leaving you with a problem kind of like stealing satellite TV, but made more unworkable by the fact that you had to generated extra electricity to cover the freeloaders.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 8:12am GMT on 16th Aug [Score:1 Underrated]
I'm totally in favor of a Tesla museum, as long as it's not designed by The Oatmeal.

Also, can you put this The Oatmeal graphic in a show/hide box? I've already seen it two more times than I need to, and I don't fancy scrolling past it every time I view this thread.

assbastard said @ 1:51pm GMT on 16th Aug
Oh the indignity of using a scroll wheel!

Barnabas_Truman said @ 8:37pm GMT on 16th Aug
Anyway, thank you for the show/hide box.

mrcucumber said @ 1:57pm GMT on 17th Aug
Here's a challenge for those that have the knowledge.

I wonder if those textboxthingies could return you to your original place on the page after clicking the negative button at the bottom.

Know what I mean?

foobar said @ 8:38pm GMT on 16th Aug
Sure.

EPT said @ 8:09am GMT on 25th Aug
I remember visiting the WWII museum in New Orleans and I was amazed at the awesome way it was presented. Gone was all the usual Freedom fanfare that usually accompanies anything military in the US. It was informative and interesting and didn't pull many punches. The 'Propaganda' section quite serenely showed US propaganda posters right alongside Japanese ones.

If someone could make a Tesla museum like that, I'm all for it. But a fanboi one where drawbacks were conveniently papered over because 'they're not so important'... never. I get that comedians get artistic license to make comedy, but when you're presenting something as fact, it's not a sufficient excuse to use.

gunthar said @ 8:23am GMT on 16th Aug
how the hell are you going to tell people that you're trying to make a tesla museum without providing the name of your organization OR the contact info?

gunthar said @ 8:23am GMT on 16th Aug
re: infographic

EPT said @ 8:57am GMT on 16th Aug [Score:1 Interesting]
Weird, theOatmeal usually brands his comics. Speaking of which, there has been much jumping of sharks and one-horse-trickery there lately. Admittedly it was a pretty good trick with the horse, but the general shark jumping can't be ignored.

Mr. Langosta said @ 5:10pm GMT on 16th Aug
It was blocking up the scenery/breaking my mind.

sanepride said @ 3:30pm GMT on 16th Aug
He mentions them in the last sentence- it's these guys. They seem like a more serious, concerted effort (and they're a legitimate non-profit), the oatmeal guy is just trying to be a helpful (if somewhat annoying) conduit, I guess just trying to attract random web comic geeks who just think 'whoa, Tesla...cool'. The Tesla Science Center did tweet a grateful acknowledgement for oatmeal's efforts.

Navier-Strokes said @ 2:53pm GMT on 16th Aug [Score:1 Informative]
Yes, there should be a Tesla Museum.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 8:37pm GMT on 16th Aug
I'm all in favor of calling out The Oatmeal for failing to check facts, but in this case he does specify "...in the United States."

Navier-Strokes said @ 4:30am GMT on 17th Aug
Oh, I'm not saying he's stating any falsehoods.
Only misleading statements.

val said @ 3:55pm GMT on 16th Aug
Considering the development staff that non-profits like museums usually have, running capital campaign on IndieGogo seems like a good way to send a lot of money to IndieGoGo (they take a 4% fee, plus 3% card processing)... (I'm all in favor of crowdfunding, but this organization seems to not be doing any other fundraising!)/

If they're only raising enough money to buy the land, they're going to need to raise a LOT more money to actually make this into a museum (I experience working in a small museum that was only a couple years old).

They'll need millions more to renovate the building and turn it into a functioning space, and will need to hire professional staff. Nothing on the indiegogo or the museums website indicates the extent to which they've developed plans for the site, beyond site visits and names for exhibits.

They've been trying to buy the land for 15 years and have raised NO money for it? Come on. They're not getting my money.

sanepride said @ 4:07pm GMT on 16th Aug
To build a serious museum you need a dedicated foundation with a board of directors that is particularly accomplished not only in the museum field but also in raising funds, promotion, and organization. Dedication to the cause itself is nowhere near enough.
Obviously this is not so easy, as evidenced by this forlorn project, which has gone nowhere despite the involvement of some very high-profile (and wealthy) supporters.

val said @ 4:27pm GMT on 16th Aug
But what's the distinction that makes a museum 'serious?' Any museum needs that sort of foundation to succeed, even if it's a small one.

Even a museum with a small physical plant and only a couple staffers requires a lot more planning than there is evidence offered of here, at least when you're talking about ground-up and total renovation.

They've been to the site and taken pictures, but given that the Oatmeal gives no specifics about how much they need in corporate sponsorship leads me to believe that they have no idea how much they need, let alone what sort of naming opportunities they can offer to potential sponsors.

sanepride said @ 6:18pm GMT on 16th Aug
By serious I mean a museum that operates on a professional level, is fully accessible to the public, and is effective in its mission to educate and inform. Self-sustaining is a big plus.
As opposed to some kind of 'novelty' museum that some fanboy sets up in their basement.
Here are some guidelines.

foobar said @ 8:26pm GMT on 16th Aug
The land is currently under threat of being developed as a strip mall. Buying it now at least allows them to protect it.

sanepride said @ 9:16pm GMT on 16th Aug
"The Nikola Tesla Memorial Strip Mall".

Has a nice ring to it.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 3:59am GMT on 17th Aug
"The Nikola Tesla Memorial Strip Club" sounds better.

mechanical contrivance said @ 4:05am GMT on 17th Aug
So the strippers dance around Tesla coils? Sounds exciting.

Barnabas_Truman said @ 6:30am GMT on 17th Aug
...while slowly removing steampunk outfits.

Navier-Strokes said @ 4:35am GMT on 17th Aug [Score:3 Informative]
The lap dances get charged to you wirelessly.

Space_1889 said @ 5:42pm GMT on 16th Aug [Score:1 Good]
It appears that Elon Musk has agreed to help:

http://jalopnik.com/5935362/elon-musk-pledges-to-support-nikola-tesla-museum-project

maryyugo said @ 8:05pm GMT on 16th Aug
Wardenclyffe was Tesla's largest erection.

mechanical contrivance said @ 12:43am GMT on 17th Aug
He's probably doing this because there's an Edison museum.