True Ascent Labs is my independent software studio. It’s anchored in water — a research career in freshwater science and years operating real utilities — and it’s where I build the products, consulting, and research that come out of that work.
hydrohistorian.com
A century of Colorado water, made readable — all 78 water districts, the river as a flow network you can trace headgate by headgate, decreed rights and the call record, and gage records running back to 1899. Free for everyone during the open beta.
alcyone.us.com
A dosing advisor for drinking-water treatment plants: it predicts what the settled water will do, recommends the cheapest doses that still clear the plant’s limits, and keeps the ledger. Chemistry calibrated to the plant’s own record — and the operator still decides.
Software of my own, built to be genuinely useful and worth trusting — led by Hydrohistorian and Alcyone, alongside Cairn (early-retirement planning), Jimothy (project management for a team of one), and a CNC design copilot.
Custom software and data tools for water utilities, ditch and irrigation companies, and agricultural water users — built by someone who’s administered the water rights and run the SCADA, not just read about them.
The question every dam is designed around — how hard can it rain here? — answered with L-moment regional frequency analysis, run uniformly at every dam in the country and published so the numbers can be checked.
Most software for the real world is written by people who’ve never had to live with it. I’ve been on both sides — the research that has to be defensible, and the 2 a.m. reality of keeping a system running. That’s the standard everything here is held to.
