Well well well, two messages just pop up from two of my rides when I started them last few days. There are messages for overdue general services. Firstly, is the Porsche Boxster S which is due for services in 2 days follow by MINI Countryman S which is already 800km overdue for services! My Boxster is hardly driven and the last services was done in April last year. And I think I put down around 5000-6000km for that period. This is what I like about modern day's car, they are so advance to the point where the ECU will calculate when to bring in your car for services. Compared to a few decades ago where the general rules of thumb is to get your car serviced every "5000km" or at least every 6 months. This rule is still being practiced by many owners and workshops. Nevertheless, it is good to know there is techology that will guide you when to pit in for the next services. As for MINI, this is the car first service! The car just clocked over 12000km in just over 9 months from new. I remembered when I received my Nissan Skyline, the first services was at 1000km. Then second services at 5000km, talk about advancement in today's car!
Tesla built an experimental station in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1899, to experiment with high voltage, high frequency electricity and other phenomena. When the Colorado Springs Tesla Coil magnifying transmitter was energized, it created sparks 30 feet long. From the outside antenna, these sparks could be seen from a distance of ten miles. From this laboratory, Tesla generated and sent out wireless waves which mediated energy, without wires for miles. In Colorado Springs, where he stayed from May 1899 until 1900, Tesla made what he regarded as his most important discovery-- terrestrial stationary waves. By this discovery he proved that the Earth could be used as a conductor and would be as responsive as a tuning fork to electrical vibrations of a certain frequency. He also lighted 200 lamps without wires from a distance of 25 miles( 40 kilometers) and created man-made lightning. At one time he was certain he had received signals from another planet in his Colorado laboratory, a claim that was met with disbelief in some scientific journals. The old Waldorf Astoria was the residence of Nikola Tesla for many years.
He lived there when he was at the height of financial and intellectual power. Tesla organized elaborate dinners, inviting famous people who later witnessed spectacular electrical experiments in his laboratory. Tesla's concept of wireless electricity was used to power ocean liners, destroy warships, run industry and transportation and send communications instantaneously all over the globe. To stimulate the public's imagination, Tesla suggested that this wireless power could even be used for interplanetary communication. If Tesla were confident to reach Mars, how much less difficult to reach Paris. Many newspapers and periodicals interviewed Tesla and described his new system for supplying wireless power to run all of the earth's industry. Because of a dispute between Morgan and Tesla as to the final use of the tower. Morgan withdrew his funds. The erected, but incomplete tower was demolished in 1917 for wartime security reasons. The site where the Wardenclyffe tower stood still exists with its 100 feet deep foundation still intact.
Tesla's laboratory designed by Stanford White in 1901 is today still in good condition and is graced with a bicentennial plaque. Nikola Tesla was one of the most celebrated personalities in the American press, in this century. According to Life Magazine's special issue of September, 1997, Tesla is among the 100 most famous people of the last 1,000 years. He is one of the great men who divert the stream of human history. Tesla's celebrity was in its height at the turn of the century. His discoveries, inventions and vision had widespread acceptance by the public, the scientific community and American press. Tesla's discoveries had extensive coverage in the scientific journals, the daily and weekly press as well as in the foremost literary and intellectual publications of the day. He was the Super Star. Tesla wrote many autobiographical articles for the prominent journal Electrical Experimenter, collected in the book, My Inventions.
Tesla was gifted with intense powers of visualization and exceptional memory from early youth on. He was able to fully construct, develop and perfect his inventions completely in his mind before committing them to paper. According to Hugo Gernsback, Tesla was possessed of a striking physical appearance over six feet tall with deep set eyes and a stately manner. His impressions of Tesla, were of a man endowed with remarkable physical and mental freshness, ready to surprise the world with more and more inventions as he grew older. A lifelong bachelor he led a somewhat isolated existence, devoting his full energies to science. In 1894, he was given honorary doctoral degrees by Columbia and Yale University and the Elliot Cresson medal by the Franklin Institute. In 1934, the city of Philadelphia awarded him the John Scott medal for his polyphase power system. He was an honorary member of the National Electric Light Association and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.