Safari Meets Nick

Our last Safari for a while, and we went to visit some old friends who have recently moves to a new - and yet old? - home Confused? Well, that's par for the course on Safari. We were on OSGrid, to see their region dedicated to Nicola Tesla, Wardenclyffe, the HG Address at the end of the post as always.

Yara Eilde: Hello everyone

Alex Salamander: Hello :-)

Max Well: hello

camryn darkstone: Hello Yara and Alex, Max, welcome!

Camryn Darkstone

camryn darkstone: Welcome to Wardenclyffe! This is a reproduction of the laboratory of the famous inventor Nicola Tesla.  Tesla's story is fascinating. Walter and I wanted to build a place that would let people learn about him. You may not have heard of Nicola Tesla. But his inventions affect your life every day. For one thing, he invented AC current, which is why you are able to have electricity in your home. Tesla's arch-rival, Thomas Edison, invented DC current, but it was too impractical for widespread use. The conflict between Tesla's AC current and Edison's DC current is known as "The Current War". There was a recent movie about it, by the same name.

Thirza Ember: best watched while eating raisins

camryn darkstone: Tesla never profited from his inventions; his goal was to make electricity free by transmitting it wirelessly around the world. Edison, on the other hand, worked out a way to control energy resources and charge money for it. In addition to AC current, Tesla also invented radio, although he was not given credit for it because he was not an American citizen. His other inventions led to the development of X-rays, neon lights, MRI, the wireless transmission of data, and many others.

James Atlloud: Not a capitalist for certain.

camryn darkstone: The first thing you'll notice is this giant tower. That was the device through which Tesla planned to wirelessly transmit electricity. When he powered it up, the glow was visible from NY to Connecticut!

Tina Bey[es→en]: wow

Thirza Ember: thanks for putting the translator Walter... it's the final safari so everyone is a little slower today lol, too much champagne maybe

Walter Balazic

Dings Digital: our feet are already aching

Forest.Azure: they are swollen...  /me groans in her tight heels

Thirza Ember: yay we all made it to osgrid!

James Atlloud: I've never had a personal sense of the size of that tower outside.

 camryn darkstone: There is a cool documentary on Amazon called "Tower to the People" about efforts to restore this laboratory and turn it into a museum 

camryn darkstone: There is a LOT more information inside :-) Walter will be able to explain some of the devices that are there

Walter Balazic: I will? LOL  ok.. :) if you say so

James Atlloud: cool

camryn darkstone: Let's step into the lab :-)

Max Well: impressive

Dings Digital: this is a good design for a museum

camryn darkstone: When Einstein was asked what it felt like to be the smartest man in the world, he replied, "I don't know... you'll have to ask Nicola Tesla!"

Walter Balazic: Tesla was a great man. Tesla even gave away his patent fo AC to Westinghouse, so he could get funding for the AC generators at Niagara Falls during the competition.

camryn darkstone: Shall we meet Mr. Tesla? He is in his laboratory in the back.

James Atlloud: yes!

camryn darkstone: If someone would like to flip this switch it will turn on the device. That is known as a "Tesla Coil" but Walter or James will have to explain what that is lol

James Atlloud: Those things are LLOUD!  lol

Thirza Ember: my hair is getting full of static!

James Atlloud: hair static - that would be a cool AO!

camryn darkstone: What is a Tesla Coil?

Walter Balazic: well it's a high voltage resonant transformer, it basically takes standard voltage and ramps it up to incredibly high states

James Atlloud: Coiled wire essentially intensifies the natural magnetic fields that exist in materials like metal.  Coiling a wire can change the voltage.

camryn darkstone: Tesla was convinced that electricity could be transmitted wirelessly.He would hold a light bulb in his hand that wasn't connected to anything, and it would light up

Nara Nook: that sounds dangerous

Walter Balazic: it's actually safe and dangerous at the same time, the capacitor is dangerous it stores the charge, but the output as you can see by Mr. Tesla sitting there is harmless

Nara Nook: what happens when you walk though the beam?

Walter Balazic: nothing really

James Atlloud: Even so, huge static charges feel very strange.

James Atlloud: That's always boggled my mind!

camryn darkstone: Over here is another of Tesla's inventions, the induction motor. Again, I don't know what that is, but I am told that it revolutionized industry.

Walter Balazic: these are a few of his inventions people aren't aware of

camryn darkstone: Oscillation Transformer. And a radio controlled boat... the photos on the wall are of his laboratory

Walter Balazic: yes he created the first remote control system and the center is just a small tesla coil, as you can see that one makes noise LOL

Thirza Ember: he seems to have been really good at articulating to engineers his ideas, and having them go from theory to practical objects....  but not in getting recognition

Dings Digital: you recreated some of the original images. I like that

Eva checks out the original photos

Walter Balazic: yes we tried to bring to life some of the original items

camryn darkstone: Tesla got the contract to provide electric lighting for the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago... Edison bid $1,800,000 and Tesla bid $399,000 lol

Walter Balazic: well there's even more to it than that.... Edison was pissed he lost so he wouldn't allow Westinghouse (Tesla) the use of his style of lightbulb, so they had to create their own which had 2 pins rather than the screw in bulb you know of

camryn darkstone: Right, Tesla is like, no problem, I'll just invent a light bulb lol

Walter Balazic: they still managed to light everything up fine, but Edison even with this couldn't resist but be a nuisance.... Edison was for lack of a better term, a criminal, and a child.

camryn darkstone: You can see his light bulb in the fixtures on the walls here

Thirza Ember: ugh Edison sounds a lot like Marconi, the more you know of him the less there is to like

camryn darkstone: in fact Tesla invented the radio before Marconi... Marconi couldn't patent his radio in the US because Tesla already had the patent

James Atlloud: LIke Disney, only Edison got credit for other people's work.

 Walter Balazic: well all the other sounds came over LOL, that's good, I have to fix the main tesla coil, I didn't notice that earlier

James Atlloud: It's still a great build even with some missing sounds.

Thirza Ember: yes, tell us a bit about bringing aall your regions to OSGrid, Walter!

Walter Balazic: well as most of you may or may not know, Littlefield Grid is shutting down operations after 14 years on June 1st 2026.

James Atlloud: OH

Nara Nook: sorry to hear that

Walter Balazic: after the loss of Ashton Nobilis one of the grid owners along with Dirk Mathers and myself, we just didn't really have the same feeling toward "the grid" part of the equation... we still love our community and the builds etc.. so we decided to move all 400 regions here to OSGrid... which is where they all are now.

camryn darkstone: This has been a massive undertaking for Walter

Thirza Ember: must have taken weeks!

Walter Balazic: OSGrid has a very good community, the infrastructure is much better now that they have done the database restructure  and they do have a decent development team.

Thirza Ember: what about your inventories were you able to port them too?

James Atlloud: Do you still have to provide server resources on OS Grid?

Nara Nook: that is fast

Walter Balazic: well what we did James is we have 3 very very powerful servers, that are pretty much double the power of LFGrid's grid servers, they are hosting all the regions, so we connect to OSGrid and utilize their grid services, basically groups, avatar names, inventory, etc.. but everything else we maintain, so far it's run quite well, in some cases better than Littlefield, and some not quite.. but close, 

Thirza Ember: so we all need to re-friend your osgrid avies to stay in touch

Nara Nook : Didn't Littlefield begin on OSGrid?

Walter Balazic: yes we did, we started with 4 regions in OSGrid originally and it expanded to around 100, we've always kept a close working relationship with OSGrid so this just seemed like the natural progression for us

James Atlloud: Seems a good fit!

Walter Balazic: you'll see everything now says Littlefield Estates which is basically any region we created, run, rent, etc...

James Atlloud: Do you try to keep LF estates nearby to each other or does it not matter.

Walter Balazic: they are all together, and far from LBSA core, if you look at the map, the 400 regions you see as you zoom out

I feel like it would be great if they had Tesla parties here, to celebrate and inform about this great man...

Thirza Ember: maybe more shocking interactive poses will begin in the crowds LOL

Walter Balazic: LOL we have quite a few educational regions, this one is my favorite however

camryn darkstone: Tesla was just so cool

Walter Balazic: I've liked Tesla for years and only now is he actually starting to get noticed  which is somewhat ironic since a lot of what is done now is DC not AC, but his wireless energy and communications ideas are making people take a second look at him

camryn darkstone: We have freebies here in the museum, coffee cups and tee shirts, My favorite is the AC~DC tshirt

Thirza Ember: ok i have to ask... Tesla was a man who was victimized by the more money-centric folk with few scruples.... what would he think of the 21 century Tesla company? You think he would appreciate having his name attached to it?

James Atlloud: I wonder what Nikola would have thought of our modern 5v USB power standard.

camryn darkstone: Wow good question Thirza! What do you think?

Thirza Ember: Irony!

Walter Balazic: LOL, exactly my point,  how odd is that... DC is winning out overall now who would have expected that?

camryn darkstone: feel free to look around a read the posters in your own time, and you can see the Tesla light bulbs on the wall in here, plus you can take home your very own Tesla Coil :-)

Thirza Ember: i think you've really made a lovely tribute to a good man, and it's great that you have brought this build, and so many other great regions, to osgrid

Nara Nook: yes

Yara Eilde: It's very interesting

Max Well: Thank you for this visit. I really like Nikola Tesla, and it's excellent to have an exhibition about him. Everyone should know what he did.

Alex Salamander: Thank you very much. It was very interesting

James Atlloud: Thank you Walter - this is splendid!

HG Address: hop://hg.osgrid.org:80/Wardenclyffe/129/158/22