I HATE GE....

[bkg]

First, they run TV ads invoking Reagan as a hero and helping to make GE what they are today... Yet they have the largest lobby in DC and are pushing cap-n-trade and global warming.

Now they are running radio ads invoking the founding and building of our country - that compatition is what founded us and made us great. All the while whining that congress is going to award the contract for the new fighter jet engine to another company... which in GE's mind, is creating a "monopoly." They encourage people to call congress to remind them that competition is what this country is all about.

WTF????

[Thor]

I've worked with GE turbine engines for the majority of my career. While engines weren't exactly my rate specialty, I helped service them and change them when they broke. GE has had a major impact on our military, most of it positive. Of course, I'm certain they benefitted immensely from their contracts. I've grown to loathe GE since I've retired, but I still have a lot of respect for them for their history and their impact on this country. If I recall, GE sprang from Thomas Edison. I loathe him because he was a thief. He stole a lot of inventions that should have been credited to his employees.

[JohnnyReb]

I've worked with GE turbine engines for the majority of my career. While engines weren't exactly my rate specialty, I helped service them and change them when they broke. GE has had a major impact on our military, most of it positive. Of course, I'm certain they benefitted immensely from their contracts. I've grown to loathe GE since I've retired, but I still have a lot of respect for them for their history and their impact on this country. If I recall, GE sprang from Thomas Edison. I loathe him because he was a thief. He stole a lot of inventions that should have been credited to his employees.

I think GE sprang from someone else and Tesla.

....and T. Edison did steal inventions...again from Tesla among others.

[Thor]

I think GE sprang from someone else and Tesla.

NO, you're incorrect.

1876 was also the year that Thomas Alva Edison opened a laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, where he could explore the possibilities of the dynamo and other electrical devices that he had seen in the Exposition. Out of that laboratory was to come perhaps the greatest invention of the age - a successful incandescent electric lamp.

By 1890, Edison established the Edison General Electric Company by bringing his various businesses together.

During that period, a competitor emerged. The Thomson-Houston Company became a dominant electrical innovation company through a series of mergers led by Charles A. Coffin, a former shoe manufacturer from Lynn, Massachusetts.

As both businesses expanded, it had become increasingly difficult for either company to produce complete electrical installations relying solely on their own patents and technologies. In 1892, the two companies combined. They called the new organization the General Electric Company.

Several of Edison's early business offerings are still part of GE today, including lighting, transportation, industrial products, power transmission, and medical equipment. The first GE Appliances electric fans were produced at the Ft. Wayne electric works as early as the 1890s, while a full line of heating and cooking devices were developed in 1907. GE Aircraft Engines, the division's name only since 1987, actually began its story in 1917 when the U.S. government began its search for a company to develop the first airplane engine "booster" for the fledgling U.S. aviation industry. Thomas Edison's experiments with plastic filaments for light bulbs in 1893 led to the first GE Plastics department, created in 1930.

GE's leaders through the years have built a diverse portfolio of leading businesses; a stream of powerful company-wide initiatives that drives growth and reduces cost; financial strength and Controllership that allow it to capitalize on opportunities through numerous cycles; and a set of common values that allows it to face any environment with confidence.

The Schenectady Museum maintains an archive of historical GE information and photography in its Hall of History. For more information, contact:
Hall of Electrical History
15 Nott Terrace Heights
Schenectady, New York 12308
+1 518 382 7890
See Also...

    * Edison's legacy lives today at the GE Global Research Centers
    * A look at what is happening inside the Research Lab

http://www.ge.com/company/history/edison.html

[The Village Idiot]

First, they run TV ads invoking Reagan as a hero and helping to make GE what they are today... Yet they have the largest lobby in DC and are pushing cap-n-trade and global warming.

GE is a rent seeking leftwing goonsquad. They are happy with MSNBC, that should be enough to know.

[bkg]

NO, you're incorrect.

http://www.ge.com/company/history/edison.html

As as a point of information, quoting a GE site is about as valuable as quoting anything .gov...

[BlueStateSaint]

As as a point of information, quoting a GE site is about as valuable as quoting anything .gov...

But, seeing that my in-laws live about three minutes from the Schenectady Museum, it shouldn't be too difficult to check out the info.

[Lacarnut]

They are certainly in bed with the Administration and will get rewarded with greenie contracts.

[Thor]

As as a point of information, quoting a GE site is about as valuable as quoting anything .gov...

Ya know, **** off ya little turd. I don't think that GE would lie about their history. My point was that Edison WAS a major founder of GE. I was correcting Johnny Reb's misinformation. No more, no less.

They are certainly in bed with the Administration and will get rewarded with greenie contracts.

I think that GE has been in bed with MANY administrations. They do have a LOT to gain with this silly "green energy movement". I'm pretty sure that they are backing this global warming  hoax to the fullest.

[bkg]

Ya know, **** off ya little turd. I don't think that GE would lie about their history. My point was that Edison WAS a major founder of GE. I was correcting Johnny Reb's misinformation. No more, no less.

Little sensative, are we? A company would certainly never promote only the history they want people to read and minimize that which they don't, eh?  Got it.

[The Village Idiot]

I think that GE has been in bed with MANY administrations. They do have a LOT to gain with this silly "green energy movement". I'm pretty sure that they are backing this global warming  hoax to the fullest.

They are. To the hilt. They are heavily invested in it. GE is one of the biggest rent seekers out there. Like Archer-Daniels-Midland

[Wineslob]

Who was the inventor of the AC motor,3 phase, which Westinghouse backed?   
Who invented the polyphase system for power transmission that we still use today?
Who was it that tried to screw Tesla to  out of money for "fixing" his horrible DC system (he later used the "dangerous" AC generator/current system to eletrocute an elephant on film), but luckily Tesla quit before he got his "mitts" on the technology.

Edison had established direct current at the standard for electricity distribution and was living large off the patent royalties, royalties he was in no mood to lose when George Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla showed up with alternating current.

Edison's aggressive campaign to discredit the new current took the macabre form of a series of animal electrocutions using AC (a killing process he referred to snidely as getting "Westinghoused"). Stray dogs and cats were the most easily obtained, but he also zapped a few cattle and horses.

Edison got his big chance, though, when the Luna Park Zoo at Coney Island decided that Topsy, a cranky female elephant who had squashed three handlers in three years (including one idiot who tried feeding her a lighted cigarette), had to go.



Read More http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/dayintech_0104#ixzz0pFWdgHGz

The list of electrical technology that we use today attributed to Tesla is incredible.
 The fact that Tesla is no more than a side note in this area of history shows how devious Edison was.

Edison has his place in history, but he was an A-#1 asshole that stole ideas.

[Thor]

Damn, y'all are taking things WAY out of context!!!

I've worked with GE turbine engines for the majority of my career. While engines weren't exactly my rate specialty, I helped service them and change them when they broke. GE has had a major impact on our military, most of it positive. Of course, I'm certain they benefitted immensely from their contracts. I've grown to loathe GE since I've retired, but I still have a lot of respect for them for their history and their impact on this country. If I recall, GE sprang from Thomas Edison. I loathe him because he was a thief. He stole a lot of inventions that should have been credited to his employees.

I think GE sprang from someone else and Tesla.

....and T. Edison did steal inventions...again from Tesla among others.

NO, you're incorrect.

http://www.ge.com/company/history/edison.html

All I was doing was stating a fact and correcting some incorrect information. I had already admitted that I didn't like Edison because he was a thief.

In short, GE sprang from Edison. The fact that Edison was a thief and usurper is beside the point  here.

Also, I have the utmost respect for Tesla. Marconi also screwed Tesla.

[JohnnyReb]

OK...I WAS WRONG...Tesla started work for Edison but helped found Westinghouse.
Tesla and his inventions were/are instrumental in out every day lives today.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

Tesla claims he was offered US$50,000 (~ US$1.1 million in 2007, adjusted for inflation)[27] if he redesigned Edison's inefficient motor and generators, making an improvement in both service and economy.[21]:54–57 In 1885 when Tesla inquired about the payment for his work, Edison replied, "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor," thus breaking his word.[28][29] Earning US$18 per week, Tesla would have had to work for 53 years to earn the amount he was promised. The offer was equal to the initial capital of the company. Tesla immediately resigned when he was refused a raise to US$25 per week.[30]

In 1886, Tesla formed his own company, Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing. The initial financial investors disagreed with Tesla on his plan for an alternating current motor and eventually relieved him of his duties at the company. Tesla worked in New York as a laborer from 1886 to 1887 to feed himself and raise capital for his next project. In 1887, he constructed the initial brushless alternating current induction motor, which he demonstrated to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (now IEEE) in 1888. In the same year, he developed the principles of his Tesla coil, and began working with George Westinghouse at Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company's Pittsburgh labs. Westinghouse listened to his ideas for polyphase systems which would allow transmission of alternating current electricity over long distances.

[Thor]

I know that you were mistaken. I was merely correcting you.

This thread is about GE, not Tesla.

IMO, Tesla was a genius and got screwed out of a lot of things that he should have received credit for. I think we're in agreement over that fact.

[JohnnyReb]

I know that you were mistaken. I was merely correcting you.

This thread is about GE, not Tesla.

IMO, Tesla was a genius and got screwed out of a lot of things that he should have received credit for. I think we're in agreement over that fact.

I wasn't upset...just admitting I was wrong....Westinghouse/GE/old age it all sort of runs together after awhile.

The one thing Tesla was playing with that I would like to have seen finished and in use....transmission of electricity through the air or atmosphere. Everyone could have their own electricity receiver at home and buy from the cheapest power company....can you say that evil capitalistic word.....competition. 

[The Village Idiot]

The one thing Tesla was playing with that I would like to have seen finished and in use....transmission of electricity through the air or atmosphere. Everyone could have their own electricity receiver at home and buy from the cheapest power company....can you say that evil capitalistic word.....competition. 

We kind of have that here, competition, and now but the rates are dramatically differrent because of regulations. Better prices in the rural areas with the co-ops.

[JohnnyReb]

We kind of have that here, competition, and now but the rates are dramatically differrent because of regulations. Better prices in the rural areas with the co-ops.

You have only one choice of power. the company that serves your area.

[Hawkgirl]

We have GE medical equipment, installed a new Digital room last year...it breaks down once a week...luckily, we're still under warranty.

GE is not what it used to be.

[vesta111]

I've worked with GE turbine engines for the majority of my career. While engines weren't exactly my rate specialty, I helped service them and change them when they broke. GE has had a major impact on our military, most of it positive. Of course, I'm certain they benefitted immensely from their contracts. I've grown to loathe GE since I've retired, but I still have a lot of respect for them for their history and their impact on this country. If I recall, GE sprang from Thomas Edison. I loathe him because he was a thief. He stole a lot of inventions that should have been credited to his employees.

You said:
I loathe him because he was a thief. He stole a lot of inventions that should have been credited to his employees.

GEEEZ Thor,  Lots of research and design employees in all kinds of business sign a contract that the discovery's or inventions they come up with belong to the company as they are being paid to develop them.  

[The Village Idiot]

You have only one choice of power. the company that serves your area.

Nope. the power lines are by something called Oncor. It is not a provider though. We have used TXU, Reliant, Econergy and others in the past few years.

[Alpha Mare]

You said:
I loathe him because he was a thief. He stole a lot of inventions that should have been credited to his employees.

GEEEZ Thor,  Lots of research and design employees in all kinds of business sign a contract that the discovery's or inventions they come up with belong to the company as they are being paid to develop them.  

Several undercurrents lay beneath this rivalry. Edison was a brute-force experimenter, but was no mathematician. AC cannot be properly understood or exploited without a substantial understanding of mathematics and mathematical physics (see AC power), which Tesla possessed. Tesla had worked for Edison but was undervalued (for example, when Edison first learned of Tesla's idea of alternating-current power transmission, he dismissed it: "[Tesla's] ideas are splendid, but they are utterly impractical."[3]). Bad feelings were exacerbated because Tesla had been cheated by Edison of promised compensation for his work.[4][5] Edison later came to regret that he had not listened to Tesla and used alternating current.[6]

Edison carried out a campaign to discourage the use[12] of alternating current, including spreading disinformation on fatal AC accidents, publicly killing animals, and lobbying against the use of AC in state legislatures. Edison directed his technicians, primarily Arthur Kennelly and Harold P. Brown,[13] to preside over several AC-driven killings of animals, primarily stray cats and dogs but also unwanted cattle and horses. Acting on these directives, they were to demonstrate to the press that alternating current was more dangerous than Edison's system of direct current.[14] He also tried to popularize the term for being electrocuted as being "Westinghoused". Years after DC had lost the "war of the currents," in 1902, his film crew made a movie of the electrocution with high voltage AC, supervised by Edison employees, of Topsy, a Coney Island circus elephant who had recently killed three men.

Edison opposed capital punishment, but his desire to disparage the system of alternating current led to the invention of the electric chair. Harold P. Brown, who was at this time being secretly paid by Edison, constructed the first electric chair for the state of New York in order to promote the idea that alternating current was deadlier than DC.[15]

When the chair was first used, on August 6, 1890, the technicians on hand misjudged the voltage needed to kill the condemned prisoner, William Kemmler. The first jolt of electricity was not enough to kill Kemmler, and only left him badly injured. The procedure had to be repeated and a reporter on hand described it as "an awful spectacle, far worse than hanging." George Westinghouse commented: "They would have done better using an axe."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents

Just as a starting point.