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Forget About the Mythical Lone Inventor in the Garage

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Re: Forget About the Mythical Lone Inventor in the Garage

#11

Post by 6ren »

ajdecon wrote: post #6

Well, like so many other things, it's field-dependent. :-) If you're working in software, you don't even need a garage: a dorm room or studio apartment, a laptop, and a few thousand dollars to pay for web hosting, will fill your need for physical equipment. I think that one of the great achievements of the past few decades has been the invention of an entire field of technical endeavor in which the base costs are so…

Another advantage of a "lab" is interaction with other bright people in the field. It's a key benefit of YC; Jobs designed the pixar building to enhance this; many great software ideas came out of Bell Labs and Xerox PARC; and I've also experienced it myself at my old compsci dept.

Re: Forget About the Mythical Lone Inventor in the Garage

#13

Post by saturdaysaint »

The inventor in the garage is a real, re-occurring figure in the rise of industries, although the author is correct that these figures are more commercializers and integrators than scientific trailblazers. The irony is that there's no greater example than the namesake of Bell Labs...

Re: Forget About the Mythical Lone Inventor in the Garage

#14

Post by alexhawket »

ajdecon wrote: post #6

Well, like so many other things, it's field-dependent. :-) If you're working in software, you don't even need a garage: a dorm room or studio apartment, a laptop, and a few thousand dollars to pay for web hosting, will fill your need for physical equipment. I think that one of the great achievements of the past few decades has been the invention of an entire field of technical endeavor in which the base costs are so…

I came across this post yesterday about using Ponoko's, relatively inexepensive, laser cutting service for micro-fluidics: http://nznano.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/simple-laser-cut-millim...

Re: Forget About the Mythical Lone Inventor in the Garage

#15

Post by danking00 »

bjornsing wrote: post #8

The author can't be too happy with the picture of Albert Einstein at the top... For those that don't remember this Albert guy made one of the most important discoveries of all time; working in solitude, in the Swiss patent office, in-between reviewing patent applications. :)

And soon after, a team of experimentalists the world over set about proving him right. People rarely remember the experimentalists, the guys who go through all the hard work of providing the evidence to the theorists.

See: Michelson and Morley, Eddington, and others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_special_relativity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity

Re: Forget About the Mythical Lone Inventor in the Garage

#16

Post by ajdecon »

alexhawket wrote: post #14
ajdecon wrote: post #6

Well, like so many other things, it's field-dependent. :-) If you're working in software, you don't even need a garage: a dorm room or studio apartment, a laptop, and a few thousand dollars to pay for web hosting, will fill your need for physical equipment. I think that one of the great achievements of the past few decades has been the invention of an entire field of technical endeavor in which the base costs are so…

I came across this post yesterday about using Ponoko's, relatively inexepensive, laser cutting service for micro-fluidics: http://nznano.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/simple-laser-cut-millim...

Hey, that's really cool! Thanks for posting the link. I wonder what kind of resolution Ponoko can get, and what the pricing on the parts in the post were.

I don't have a ton of experience with acrylic microfluidics -- I mostly did soft lithography with PDMS -- but this could be a cool alternative to a institutional cutter for small shops/labs.

Re: Forget About the Mythical Lone Inventor in the Garage

#17

Post by mahyarm »

ilaksh wrote: post #10

I can't wait until some of the programmable-matter type approaches really take off. The closest we have is 3d printing. What I am hoping to become popular and inexpensive something like 3d printing but with the ability to either assembly parts into machines automatically or the ability to print functional machines all in one go. When you have inexpensive machines that can do that type of thing, then you really will b…

What's happening are CNC machines are starting to be sold as consumer devices. You can attach a lot of tools to a CNC-like machine, be it a laser etcher, a plastic squirters, millers, etc. It's kind of like kitchens.

Re: Forget About the Mythical Lone Inventor in the Garage

#18

Post by dredmorbius »

6ren wrote: post #11
ajdecon wrote: post #6

Well, like so many other things, it's field-dependent. :-) If you're working in software, you don't even need a garage: a dorm room or studio apartment, a laptop, and a few thousand dollars to pay for web hosting, will fill your need for physical equipment. I think that one of the great achievements of the past few decades has been the invention of an entire field of technical endeavor in which the base costs are so…

Another advantage of a "lab" is interaction with other bright people in the field. It's a key benefit of YC; Jobs designed the pixar building to enhance this; many great software ideas came out of Bell Labs and Xerox PARC; and I've also experienced it myself at my old compsci dept.

The Internet has, if not replace, then extended that metaphor considerably.

Or at least it does when people with a common interest can reach out and find one another.

One of my huge frustrations with so-called "social media" is that they frequently make just this sort of interaction very difficult.

People who empathize similarly can reach out and like one another. However, people who can actually GSD need to wade through a ton of noise in search of signal. Even old Usenet did better (charters and cancelbots FTW).

This is one of the reasons why topically-organized sites (Reddit, HN, etc.) do far better for communications in my book.

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