Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal (who could, arguably, make more comics instead of being the Internet’s Sarah McLachlan for geek causes) has taken up the ultimate in geek causes: rebuilding Nikola Tesla’s lab in Shoreham, New York. The lab originally held Tesla’s workshop and a giant freaking tower that we was about to send crazy electricity all over the world, powering the universe from a single location on Long Island. Then they they tore it down.
After his successful campaign to shame FunnyJunk and their terrible lawyer, Inman seems to be on a social funding tear. This time he needs to help $850,000 in 45 days and he’s just hit $350,000 so I doubt he’ll fail. You can donate here.
The museum will celebrate Tesla’s life and times. You can read more about the effort here but the gist is that the land is about to be turned into a mall or some kind of retail establishment. New York State will pay half of the cost of the museum land but picking up the old lab and the acreage is only the first step.
The plans, currently, are pretty free-flowing:
However, I would love to have some kind of Nikola Tesla festival on the property on July 10th of 2013 (Nikola Tesla Day), and have some kind of zany Tesla-coil-BBQ-cookout.
He’s asking major sponsors like GE, Google, and Tesla to pony up some cash, as well, to support a museum dedicated to the work of one of the most important technologists of the past century. Lets all chip in and maybe they can rebuild that big tower thing and we can all get free electricity all day long.