Favorite Tech Quotes

[Badtz Maru]

It is not the fault of the inventors, but rather their capitalist masters. Edison and Tesla both were nice guys. Ford and Westinghouse were made of the purest evil. Ford at least did not allow his pet inventor to die penniless. Unlike Westinghouse who stole everything he could from Tesla by conning him into tearing up his contract. Tesla was a trusting man and could not believe that Westinghouse intented to bring him harm.

Edison was not a nice guy. He was afraid that alternating current (Tesla's idea of the best way to transmit electricity) was going to replace direct current (Edison's favorite) and so told people A/C was incredibly dangerous, and staged exhibitions where he would electrocute various animals (I believe he even did an elephant once) to show folks how dangerous A/C was. When electrocution was considered as a form of punishment, and two designs for an electric chair were put forward, Edison campaigned for the A/C chair because he thought that people would not want the same kind of electricity in their homes as was used for electrocution.

Edison was wrong, of course, and A/C is the standard around the world now, and Edison admitted late in life he knew A/C was superior all along.