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Sparks
A Spark is a person whose work helped inspire this place.
People whose work lit something. Each one helped make this place possible, by building a tool, opening a door, or showing that a big thing could be tried at all.
Every card has two parts. What they did is sourced and says plainly where they were wrong or argued over. From Jaron is in the founder's own words.
The rule for this page: we honor what someone built, freed, discovered or healed. Never who they defeated.
Spark 01 · Virtual worlds
Jaron Lanier
Born 1960, computer scientist, musician and writer
What he did
- In the 1980s he founded VPL Research, one of the first companies to sell virtual reality gear, including the DataGlove and the EyePhone headset.
- He popularized the term "virtual reality" and is widely credited as one of the field's founders.
- Later he became one of tech's most careful critics. His books You Are Not a Gadget (2010), Who Owns the Future? (2013) and Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now (2018) warn about what technology can do to people.
- He has worked at Microsoft Research and argues for "data dignity": that people should have a say in, and share in the value of, the data they create.
From Jaron
Jaron's words go here.
Spark 02 · Electricity
Nikola Tesla
1856 – 1943, inventor and electrical engineer
What he did
- He invented the AC induction motor, sold it to Westinghouse, and his work helped advance the alternating-current power that still runs homes and cities today, a system many people built together.
- He built the Tesla coil and did early wireless experiments. How much credit he deserves for radio is still argued over.
- His dream of wireless power for everyone, the Wardenclyffe tower, lost its funding and was never finished. He died in 1943 in a New York hotel room with little money.
- The SI unit of magnetic flux density, the tesla, is named after him.
From Jaron
I can’t give away free energy the way you wanted, but I can give free energy in the way of my labor for others.
Spark 03 · Building big
Elon Musk
Born 1971, entrepreneur
What he did
- He founded SpaceX in 2002. In 2015 a Falcon 9 first stage landed back on Earth after launching to orbit, and reusing boosters has since helped bring launch costs down.
- At Tesla, which he joined as an early investor and has led as CEO since 2008, he pushed electric cars into the mainstream.
- His companies, from Starlink internet to xAI and X, reach into many fields at once.
- His politics, his public statements and how he runs his companies are widely covered and argued over. This card is about the building, not an endorsement of everything he says or does.
From Jaron
Jaron's words go here.
Spark 04 · Freedom in words
Frederick Douglass
1818 – 1895, abolitionist, writer and speaker (he did not know his exact birth date)
What he did
- Born into slavery in Maryland, he escaped on September 3, 1838, disguised as a sailor and riding a northbound train.
- He became one of the most powerful antislavery speakers in the country. In 1845 he published his autobiography with real names and places, partly because some audiences doubted he had been enslaved.
- In 1847 he started his own newspaper, The North Star, in Rochester, New York, even though his early ally William Lloyd Garrison opposed the idea.
- He and Garrison split. Garrison called the Constitution proslavery and refused to vote; Douglass came to argue that it could be used against slavery and that abolitionists should act through politics.
- Later he held public posts, including U.S. Marshal for D.C. and minister to Haiti. His 1884 marriage to Helen Pitts, who was white, drew public criticism.
From Jaron
Jaron's words go here.
Spark 05 · Setting people free
Harriet Tubman
About 1822 – 1913, conductor on the Underground Railroad, nurse and activist
What she did
- Born into slavery in Maryland, she escaped to freedom in the North, then went back into Maryland again and again to lead family and friends out.
- The numbers are debated. Historians such as Kate Clifford Larson count about 13 trips and roughly 70 people she personally led out. Figures like 300 come from a book written in 1869 and are thought to be too high. Her own claim was that she never lost a passenger.
- During the Civil War she also worked for the Union as a nurse, cook and scout. This card honors her work of freeing people, not any army.
- She made her home in Auburn, New York (she bought land there in 1859). After the war she worked for women’s right to vote and helped create a home for elderly Black residents in Auburn.
From Jaron
Jaron's words go here.
Spark 06 · Sitting down to stand up
Rosa Parks
1913 – 2005, civil rights activist
What she did
- She was secretary of the Montgomery, Alabama NAACP chapter from 1943, years before her famous arrest.
- On December 1, 1955 she was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat. Black residents of Montgomery then boycotted the city buses for 381 days, and a Supreme Court ruling ended bus segregation there.
- The popular story says she was just a tired seamstress. She said otherwise in her 1992 book My Story: she was not tired physically, and “the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” She was 42 and a longtime NAACP activist. She was also not the first person arrested for this in Montgomery.
- After losing work and facing threats, she moved to Detroit in 1957, kept working for civil rights, and later worked for Congressman John Conyers from 1965 to 1988.
From Jaron
Jaron's words go here.
More sparks are coming. Sparks is also a channel on Heartbeat TV (coming soon).