And by smear campaign he holy shit murdered local peoples' pets! He decided to run a smear campaign against Tesla. AC was, by a long shot, since it didn't require a power plant on every block, and was generally more efficient.īut Edison wouldn't have none of that bullshit. Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla where locked in a war over DC and AC power, and each tried to prove which one was superior. Which he probably would have done, had 80's cartoons been invented yet, so that he could have ripped those off too. This sounds like something so needlessly evil and unnecessary that it's easy to envision Edison building his workshop on top of a skull-shaped volcano. Thomas Edison murdered puppies (and elephants). Granted, the war still wouldn't have been rainbows and puppy dogs, but still.Ģ. The advanced warning it could have provided the Allies would have been an insurmountable advantage. The use of which could have saved countless Allies' lives. That's right, Edison blocked the production of radar. And when Tesla approached him with his proposal, he was met with not so many "open arms," but more, "stiff middle fingers." You see, the head of R&D for the United States Navy at the time was none other than Thomas Alva Goddamn Edison. That invention would have given the Allies an absurd advantage… You know, the thing that lets us know planes and such are on their way without having to position a dude with binoculars on every rooftop. While he was busy doing this, he invented a lot of impossibly useful things, among them, an early version of radar. Maybe you skimmed over it in a history book once.Īnyway, this was about the time that genius and unsettlingly sexy pigeon enthusiast Nikola Tesla was busy being about as awesome as humanly possible without teaming up with Batman. You might remember a small little tiff that some people decided to call World War I. Thomas Edison blocked the production of radar. "This should be practical for the living room, right?"ġ. Oh, and sorry for reminding you about Oz, again. And since I don't have anything better to do this afternoon, I'm going to go ahead and ramble incoherently about Edison for a while, and how much he sucked. Edison never did anything worth mentioning, other than setting records for the multitude of ways one person can be a wad of fuck. Basically he's like, " There was once a man, who was soooooo awesome…" and that's bullshit. And other than making me lose even more respect for two actors that I really want to like (Mila Kunis and James Franco), I was reminded of the scene where Oz references Thomas Edison in order to inspire some bullshit or another. I re-watched Oz the Great and Powerful the other day because I was drunk and lack good decision-making processes after the fifth vodka sunrise. That is to say, constantly, putridly, and with a complete lack of sympathy for anyone caught downwind from the incessant, unceasing filth of it all. Thomas Edison exuded hatred, greed, and asshattery like a dead, bloated walrus exudes postmortem gas buildups. And in these pursuits of knowledge, one thing has become abundantly clear: Thomas Alva Edison was a massive hairy butthole. I pursue knowledge where there is knowledge to be found. I once skimmed through a philosophy textbook, and came out the other side a lot less tolerable at parties. A man with a functioning nervous system and basic access to Google.