Attoparsec

[gfish]

Those ideas of promoting myself as a builder of improbable devices? No longer just random thoughts. I decided to take a spare domain of mine and set up Attoparsec: Custom props and gadgets. The Google AdWords campaign just went live!

Next step is to work on more projects to showcase on the site. But I won't be able to really get into that until I'm back into Seattle. So... back to the thesis mines for now.

Comments

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

What do you like about Newcomen that you don't like about Watt?

[gfish.livejournal.com]

He actually did invent the first (successful, useful) steam engine, instead of just being mythologized as such. He also was the victim of terribly oppressive intellectual property laws, instead of the instigator. My real ire is saved for Thomas Savery, but no one has heard of him.

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

Oh, OK. I've heard of Savery, and he was a tool. To be fair to Watt, he was a real inventor and innovator, and he made a genuinely more efficient engine (actually, series of engines) than Newcomen's.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Sure, Watt had real technical merit. He did actual engineering, while Newcomen was more of a hacker. I'm comfortable where my loyalties lie. :)

[grinninfoole.livejournal.com]

Sure, I was just trying to tease out exactly what distinctions you were making. Watt was a talented and productive engineer, but he was also a professional who got partner and made a serious business of steam engine production.

What you want to do with Attoparsec seems firmly unserious, and only barely a business.

btw, is one inch really 1 trillionth of 4.1 light years?

[gfish.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I'd say it was unserious, more that I recognize that this is not something I can devote myself to full time at the moment, nor something that has a high chance of success. It's certainly not a business, but it's the groundwork for a possible business later. The only way to get somewhere you want to be is start moving in that direction...

Atto- is 10^-18 or one quintillionth. (One millionth of one trillionth.) And yeah, it works out to be about 3 centimeters.