"Sharx35" <
sha...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>There is absolutely no valid reason to have to PAY to access
>UseNet. LIkewise there is no need to use that fucking awful
>TERRIBLE Google access to the groups.
In just over a decade, Edison's Menlo Park lab had expanded to
occupy two city blocks. Edison said he wanted the lab to have
"a stock of almost every conceivable material". A newspaper
article printed in 1887 reveals the seriousness of his claim,
stating the lab contained "8,000 kinds of chemicals, every kind of
screw made, every size of needle, every kind of cord or wire,
hair of humans, horses, hogs, cows, rabbits, goats, minx, camels
... silk in every texture, cocoons, various kinds of hoofs,
shark's teeth, deer horns, tortoise shell ... cork, resin, varnish
and oil, ostrich feathers, a peacock's tail, jet, amber, rubber,
all ores ..." and the list goes on.
Over his desk, Edison displayed a placard w/Sir Joshua Reynolds'
famous quotation: "There is no expedient to which a man will not
resort to avoid the real labor of thinking." This slogan was
reputedly posted at several other locations thruout the facility.
With Menlo Park, Edison had created the 1st industrial laboratory
concerned w/creating knowledge & then controlling its application.
[...]
Another of Edison's assistants was Nikola Tesla. Tesla claimed
that Edison had promised him $50,000 if he succeeded in making
improvements to his DC generation plants. Several months later,
when Tesla had finished the work and asked to be paid, he said
that Edison replied, "When you become a full-fledged American
you will appreciate an American joke."
Tesla immediately resigned. With Tesla's salary of $18/week, the
payment would've amounted to over 53 yrs' pay & the amount was
equal to the initial capital of the company. Another account states
that Tesla resigned when he was refused a raise to $25/week.
Although Tesla accepted an Edison Medal later in life, this & other
negative events concerning Edison remained with him. The day after
Edison died, the NY Times contained extensive coverage of Edison's
life, with the only negative opinion coming from Tesla who was
quoted as saying:
"He had no hobby, cared for no sort of amusement of any kind &
lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene.
[...] His method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense
ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance
intervened &, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings,
knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved
him 90% of the labor. But he had a veritable contempt for book
learning & mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his
inventor's instinct and practical American sense."
—Nikola Tesla
One of Edison's famous quotations about his attempts to make the
light globe suggest that perhaps Tesla was right about Edison's
methods of working: "If I find 10,000 ways something won't work,
I haven't failed. I'm not discouraged, because every wrong attempt
discarded is another step forward."
When Edison was a very old man & close to death, he said, in
looking back, that the biggest mistake he had made was in not
respecting Tesla or his work.
[...]