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751

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: A Custom Page for Inno Setup showing DoCo info and donation benefits

« Last post by JavaJones on March 12, 2011, 07:37 PM »

I definitely know what worstje is talking about in reference to the "donationware" label. It's a tricky thing. What matters is people's perception. We'd like *intention* to matter more but ultimately it's all in the eye of the beholder. If they don't understand that the label "donationware" to DC means "donate if you find it useful and can afford to", but rather think it means "you must donate some amount to use this", it will put people off, even if it's more than worth the price of a small donation.

I also like the idea of having different versions of this and letting authors decide how they want to handle it. I can think of at least 2, exemplified by the difference between worstje's approach and some others in the thread: one that focuses on donating to the author, one that focuses on donating to/joining DC in general. I *do* think DC is worth promoting, and like the current fundraiser I don't think we should be apologetic about spreading the word about the site and its resources. It doesn't have to be a plea of any kind, more like a promotional page, but a cool and fun one. It's a chance to show people (perhaps again) what DC really has to offer, besides what the user may have "in their hands" so to speak.

- Oshyan

752

Living Room / Re: More thoughts on micro vs macro donations and the turning point for donationware

« Last post by JavaJones on March 12, 2011, 07:33 PM »

Wow, some very interesting ideas here. I was right with you all the way up to the "Software costs $100 but you can buy it for $5 through Paypal" thing. Wouldn't they have to use a "license key" for the $100 version? And is Paypal really that much harder than using e.g. Worldpay or some other credit card processor that you'd use for a buy system anyway? Paypal even takes credit cards. So I don't really see how you'd differentiate that.

That being said, maybe if it was more like "If you would like to buy the stand-alone software you can do so for $100. Alternatively you can get a license for all DonationCoder software for a donation of $25 or more to the site.", something like that. I know you prefer donations to individual authors, but you could probably work out a way to distribute it equitably. And there are other ways to structure it too. I just don't get your version really, it doesn't make sense to me as a consumer.

But I think the revelation that the value vs. hassle of the software product and donation requirement for accessing it is more or less spot on. Cost is often less an issue for people than effort and perceived value. And perceived value is a *really* interesting one because it often has little or nothing to do with the actual functionality, capability, or even aesthetic qualities of a product. Value can be completely "manufactured" conceptually, for example. If you can make someone believe what you are selling is worth a lot, they will want to buy it, even (or perhaps even more so) at a high price, regardless of whether the sum total of its working parts costs you $1, or whether its functionality can be duplicated by a free or cheap doodad.

- Oshyan

753

Living Room / Re: England Is Grinding To A Halt.

« Last post by JavaJones on March 12, 2011, 12:36 PM »

Hydrogen *can* work in an internal combustion engine, absolutely. I never said it didn't. I said it's not a "drop-in replacement". Which it isn't.

But ok from your last message it sounds like we're on the same page: electric is the way of the future. You're advocating hydrogen as essentially a storage/transport medium for electric "fuel", yes? That focuses the discussion a lot more! Now whether hydrogen fuel cells are so much more efficient than upcoming battery tech improvements is another question. Currently fuel cell tech is too expensive and underdeveloped to be used in mass production for public vehicles. So it's really a race, will other battery tech get light and long-lasting enough *and* cheap enough to beat hydrogen fuel cells by the time *they* are market ready? Dunno. But the added drawback of having to *generate* that hydrogen means that any battery tech has a head-start due to the energy loss of hydrogen production, if you consider the sum total energy consumption of the system ("Well to pump, as they say"). And of course you *should* consider sum total energy consumption, otherwise moving to new fuels/energy sources is potentially pointless, or even detrimental (see ethanol).

- Oshyan

754

Living Room / Re: England Is Grinding To A Halt.

« Last post by JavaJones on March 11, 2011, 06:51 PM »

I'll see if I can find a link to the article I read on the Prius/BMW comparison, it was a while ago.

Propane and hydrogen aren't synonymous of course, so a propane conversion isn't the same as a hydrogen conversion. There are a lot of con artists out there selling "hydrogen boosters" and "conversion kits" that connect up to your alternator and electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen to inject into the combustion process, but they're dubious at best.

A liquid hydrogen tank rupturing would immediately decompress to a gas and fill up a huge area. Yes it would rise somewhat quickly, but the largest chance for an explosion is in the few seconds following the accident, and given that it's a rapidly expanding gas, any nearby spark could ignite it. It is *at least* as dangerous as gasoline, if not more so, especially given that its contents is kept under pressure.

199mph is the record *for a hydrogen powered vehicle*. I'm not sure what your point is as the record for gasoline vehicles is over 400mph and even non-specialized road-legal cars can go over 200mph (e.g. McLaren F1, Bugatti EB110, etc, etc.). So I think the point that hydrogen is a less efficient fuel holds pretty darn strong.

- Oshyan

755

Living Room / Re: England Is Grinding To A Halt.

« Last post by JavaJones on March 11, 2011, 05:48 PM »

Stoic, looks like a different test. I had assumed it was the same as the one I'd seen before, sorry about that. The one I read about previously was actually much more real-world and realistic though, which is more compelling to me. In any case the results are similar, just more horse power in your version.

Hydrogen is not a "drop-in" replacement for gasoline by any measure. It's *less* energy dense in combustible form, it does not store easily in vehicle-portable tanks (it needs to be stored as a liquid) and is, as I said, volatile, etc.

For fuels, the energy per unit volume is sometimes a useful parameter. Comparing, for example, the effectiveness of hydrogen fuel to gasoline, hydrogen has a higher specific energy than gasoline does, but, even in liquid form, a much lower energy density.

So it's really not a direct replacement for gasoline at all. The closest we have to that is biodiesel, which again suggests more widespread adoption of diesel as a stepping stone. I continue to be dismayed at the lack of support for that option.

You might find this Wikipedia section to be an interesting reference: http://en.wikipedia....s_an_automotive_fuel
Some choice quotes:

The energy that must be utilized per kilogram to produce, transport and deliver hydrogen (i.e., its well-to-tank energy use) is approximately 50 megajoules using technology available in 2004. Subtracting this energy from the enthalpy of one kilogram of hydrogen, which is 141 megajoules, and dividing by the enthalpy, yields a thermal energy efficiency of roughly 60%.[44] Gasoline, by comparison, requires less energy input, per gallon, at the refinery, and comparatively little energy is required to transport it and store it owing to its high energy density per gallon at ambient temperatures. Well-to-tank, the supply chain for gasoline is roughly 80% efficient (Wang, 2002). The most efficient distribution however is electrical, which is typically 95% efficient. Electric vehicles are typically 3 to 4 times as efficient as hydrogen powered vehicles.[45]

A study of the well-to-wheels efficiency of hydrogen vehicles compared to other vehicles in the Norwegian energy system indicates that hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles tend to be about a third as efficient as EVs when electrolysis is used, with hydrogen Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) being barely a sixth as efficient. Even in the case where hydrogen fuel cells get their hydrogen from natural gas reformation rather than electrolysis, and EVs get their power from a natural gas power plant, the EVs still come out ahead 35% to 25% (and only 13% for a H2 ICE). This compares to 14% for a gasoline ICE, 27% for a gasoline ICE hybrid, and 17% for a diesel ICE, also on a well-to-wheels basis.

- Oshyan

756

Living Room / Re: England Is Grinding To A Halt.

« Last post by JavaJones on March 11, 2011, 03:14 PM »

Stoic, I wasn't trying to be comprehensive in listing alternative energy sources, I missed a lot more than hydro. And coal? Coal has been the backbone of our entire power production infrastructure for decades. I'm not sure what you're trying to say there. Did you think I was suggesting it as a fuel for cars? Erm, no. Coal creates electricity which *directly powers electric vehicles*. As opposed to: Coal creates electricity which is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen which is *then* used to fuel vehicles.

The electrolysis process is essentially less than 70% efficiency in most cases (i.e. 30% energy lost in the conversion process), and when considered in sum with the whole chain of systems needed to produce, distribute, and fuel vehicles with hydrogen, the efficiency is far less, not to mention that we don't even have efficient mass hydrogen distribution systems yet, whereas hey we've already got powerlines going everywhere. Did I mention that hydrogen is difficult to contain due to its volatility? I'm sorry but the "hydrogen economy" is a myth being sold by interested parties, just like the benefits of corn-based ethanol are promoted by the corn industry.

Your perspective on energy production is really confusing to me. You say you're ok with inefficient production as long as it creates jobs and uses renewable resources? Great. Problem is just because a second level energy source comes from abundant and renewable natural resources doesn't mean that the energy that powers its production does. Again most of the energy you will need to electrolyze water would come from coal-fired plants. So you're not removing that pollutant from the system, instead you're *increasing* your energy needs because of lost energy in the inefficient conversion process. Whereas if you just use the electricity produced by coal directly, well, you're losing less. Makes a lot more sense to me. *shrug*

As for jobs, renewable energy production system manufacture and installation is going to create jobs whether it's hydrogen or solar or wind or anything else. I'm not questioning investment in alternative energy, I'm questioning the focus on hydrogen as a useful option, and I do so from the perspective of someone who used to be a huge believer in it. But I've done a lot of research since then and as far as I can see it just doesn't make that much sense. It's not efficient, it's hard to transport and store, and the distributions systems don't yet exist.

I don't really understand your comment on oil extraction issues. Some oil is easier to extract and refine than others, that's a simple fact, and as difficulty goes up, generally environmental impact does also. Restrictions are in place to *avoid* excessive environmental damage in trying to utilize less efficiently extracted oil resources like oil sands. This is the whole consideration of *total cost* of an activity, not just immediate cost (men, materials), but environmental impact is a "cost", long-term human health impact is a "cost", etc.

For the record, the Prius vs. BMW was an *M3* with *4 cylinders* and 177HP (0-60 time about 8 seconds vs. the Prius at 11). It's also a *diesel*, far more efficient than most gas engines. I'm personally more in favor of wider diesel adoption than hybrid technology as they have similar efficiencies and hybrids have the added issue of battery lifetime, replacement, and disposal. Unfortunately for some reason the US is really against even modern, low emission diesels, even though they're far more efficient than most gas engines, while maintaining healthy amounts of power, acceleration, etc. Beats me why that is...

- Oshyan

757

Living Room / Re: England Is Grinding To A Halt.

« Last post by JavaJones on March 11, 2011, 01:29 PM »

I think you're getting my comments about hydrogen wrong. I'm all for alternative energy sources, especially *truly renewable* and *primary* sources of energy. When I say "primary sources" what I mean are sources where you are directly converting an environmental resource (wind, sun, even coal) into energy that is then *directly* used. The problem with hydrogen as a "fuel source" is it is *not* readily available in a directly extractable form which can then be used directly as energy. As it stands now it is an *intermediary* or "secondary" energy source, in other words you have to produce energy in the first place *to* produce hydrogen which you then use to fuel something. That introduces inefficiencies in the process, inefficiencies that are potentially unnecessary. Instead of having a hydrogen powered car (burning hydrogen) or even a hydrogen fuel cell car, instead use a pure electric car with modern battery technology. The Nissan Leaf is one example and it does fine for mileage and speed (for example it would handle my daily ~2hr, 90 miles total commute).

On the subject of "more difficult oil extraction is not my problem", you have to keep in mind that more difficult extraction generally also means more damaging to the environment, e.g. the reason the "Deep Water Horizon" spill was so bad and went on so long is it was drilled in *deep water*, which meant enormous pressures at the depth of the water where the entry was made, and hence much more difficult to repair, and also higher oil outflow rate. Another example is what is necessary to extract oil from "oil sands": http://en.wikipedia....Environmental_issues

So I really don't think you can just say "it's not my problem that fuel extraction gets more difficult", because you can't trust corporations to appropriately balance the issues in play. They generally have one consideration and that's profit. Environmental impact will be considered only in so far as it impacts their bottom line and their legislative burden. Yet environmental impacts do effect *you* and *me*. So leaving it to corporations to figure out is in my opinion not smart.

- Oshyan

758

Living Room / Re: England Is Grinding To A Halt.

« Last post by JavaJones on March 11, 2011, 12:23 PM »

1) Technology to use things as simple as tap water for fuel have existed for years but often dismissed for various reason like limited mileage and other - in my estimation - 'fixable' reasons.

-rgdot (March 10, 2011, 09:14 PM)

On the water front I'm a big fan of hydrogen. It can be used in existing reciprocal combustion engines, and electric cars with hydrogen fuel cells. Not to mention it's virtually impossible to run out of.

-Stoic Joker (March 10, 2011, 10:13 PM)

So use electricity that you've probably generated with coal to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using an energy-negative process, and use *that* to fuel your vehicle, being less efficient than gasoline? Yeah, I used to be way into hydrogen powered vehicles too, then I wondered "Where does all that hydrogen come from?". Yes, hydrogen is very abundant, but *not* in its free, usable state...

- Oshyan

759

Living Room / Re: Fox Sends DMCA Takedown To Google To Remove Link To DMCA Takedown Sent By Fox

« Last post by JavaJones on March 10, 2011, 10:53 PM »

Hm, the cause of your non stop laugh is not in vain at all. Here the reasons of taking down the notice isn't clear at me. But, there's the way to strip up it by receiving the DCMA and mouser is ready to do it.

-rupak447 (March 10, 2011, 09:03 PM)

I dare say this fellow will be writing Shakespeare soon enough!

- Oshyan

760

General Software Discussion / Re: Your most used SPECIAL programs

« Last post by JavaJones on March 10, 2011, 06:28 PM »

Ah, good to know! Thanks.

- Oshyan

761

General Software Discussion / Re: Your most used SPECIAL programs

« Last post by JavaJones on March 10, 2011, 05:02 PM »

How does RIOT compare to the built-in XnView version? Granted XnView doesn't have the full-screen, full-size view, but you can view 1:1 (cropped), control chroma subsampling, etc. and I find the output size is comparable to Photoshop's generally excellent Save For Web results.

- Oshyan

762

Finished Programs / Re: SOLVED: Play two audio files at the same time.

« Last post by JavaJones on March 10, 2011, 05:01 PM »

Woo! Quick and easy solutions are still satisfying if you ask me.

- Oshyan

763

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Play two audio files at the same time.

« Last post by JavaJones on March 10, 2011, 04:09 PM »

Agreed. In this case you could easily use an editor for this, but not necessarily actually "edit" anything. Simply load both files in e.g. Audacity (free) as multiple tracks in a single project. Then you can view their waveforms, potentially matching them up that way, you can drag them along the timeline to sync them with each other, you can play both together or "solo" one of them (or selectively mute if you're dealing with more than 2 tracks). Once you determine the differences you can decide what you want to do with that info of course.

- Oshyan

764

Timns Apps / Re: timns Friendly Password Generator

« Last post by JavaJones on March 09, 2011, 09:39 PM »

Looks good! I currently use this, which has some similar features, but yours looks even better.

- Oshyan

765

Site/Forum Features / Re: Fundraiser ONE-A-DAY Planning Calendar, Please Volunteer

« Last post by JavaJones on March 09, 2011, 03:12 PM »

Is this pretty much a "whatever you want/are willing/able to do/submit, we'll take" kind of situation? If so I'll assume my CrashPlan review for later in the month is a go. I just need to nail down a date.

- Oshyan

766

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by JavaJones on March 09, 2011, 03:07 PM »

I think the *right* way to do this is something more explicit and obvious, but also with a positive tone. Maybe "powered by open candy" or "made free in partnership with open candy", with a link to info about what it does or something. As it is it sounds like so many of the apps that include it are virtually silent about it aside the EULA.

- Oshyan

767

General Software Discussion / Re: The Bat: Great program, terrible documentation and support

« Last post by JavaJones on March 09, 2011, 01:43 PM »

J-Mac, that story about Postbox "customer relations" is stunning! Wow. Sounds like good riddance though. Makes me not feel so bad about Google's lackadaisical attitude toward Gmail support.

- Oshyan

768

Developer's Corner / Re: Discussion of CMS suggestions for the DC software directory

« Last post by JavaJones on March 06, 2011, 04:58 PM »

App, sounds like you have a pretty good plan going. I'm definitely in favor of seeing you run with your intended approach at this point. WP may not be "the best thing" for this, but until we have something better I suspect it will be a "pretty darn good thing" for this, and if it lasts only a year it will have been worth it. My guess it will realistically be at least that long before a truly superior alternative is implemented.

- Oshyan

769

Developer's Corner / Re: Discussion of CMS suggestions for the DC software directory

« Last post by JavaJones on March 06, 2011, 03:33 PM »

Good points 40hz (and I can finally see your new avatar ). I think having a way to tag or even more clearly indicate "unsupported" apps or "infrequent support" or something would be good. It would be a shame to not list them at all but I agree that some way to make it clear to people that the app is unlikely to be fixed if there is a bug would be good.

- Oshyan

770

Developer's Corner / Re: Discussion of CMS suggestions for the DC software directory

« Last post by JavaJones on March 06, 2011, 02:54 PM »

Much as I dislike it for general CMS use, it seems like Wordpress is actually a legitimate option here. It can for example support the kind of tagging and tag-based presentation that mouser is looking for (and which I agree is needed). Apparently there's also PAD file support, and perhaps even more importantly the person most motivated to work on setting it up has WP experience.

The only thing I'm personally not sure of is how to implement the feedback process and systems. Comments in e.g. WP are more amenable to reviews (e.g. "love this app!"), not so much to bug reporting or tracking. One thought was to have a full sub-forum or even just a single discussion thread for each app in the forum and just link from the app's directory entry. That gives us the full capability of the forums for formatting, discussion, etc. I don't think a formal bug tracker is needed for 90% of the software that will be listed. The rest can use our existing Redmine setup that devs have access to. The question remains though whether a simple "commenting" functionality is enough, or if we should continue to rely on the forums for at least the major part of the actual *discussion*.

- Oshyan

771

Living Room / Re: The March 2011 6th Anniversary Fundraiser Has Begun! Cheer for Victory Thread

« Last post by JavaJones on March 06, 2011, 01:18 PM »

Haha, god bless you sir (and I'm not even religious )!

- Oshyan

772

Living Room / Re: The March 2011 6th Anniversary Fundraiser Has Begun! Cheer for Victory Thread

« Last post by JavaJones on March 06, 2011, 01:52 AM »

I've just been moving to a new house the last week or so and I've missed most of this initial rush of excitement. But coming in now and seeing it all it's really pretty amazing what has happened in less than a week of this fundraiser. This really is an unique and wonderful place, and the support that has come in from just the first few days is huge proof of that for me. While I know it won't continue at that level, that doesn't take away from how amazing it is that we've more than reached the initial goal already in less than 1/4 the total time of the fundraiser. It's also fantastic to see new (and old lurker) members popping in to say hello.

I'll be doing my own donating a bit later in the month, hopefully I can help sustain the momentum.

Wow!

Three days + 15.5 hours into it and you're almost at goal!

I've never seen anything like that for site like this one. Tells you something doesn't it?

(NPR & PBS could learn something here.  )

 

-40hz (March 04, 2011, 02:39 PM)

And without even any annoying telathon breaks!

- Oshyan

773

Site/Forum Features / Re: Fundraiser ONE-A-DAY Planning Calendar, Please Volunteer

« Last post by JavaJones on March 06, 2011, 01:29 AM »

I'll review CrashPlan software and service if it can be posted some time in the last 2 weeks of the month.

- Oshyan

774

General Software Discussion / Re: The Bat: Great program, terrible documentation and support

« Last post by JavaJones on March 06, 2011, 01:20 AM »

I keep a local backup using one of the many Gmail backup options (all 3rd party admittedly). You can easily restore them with e.g. http://www.gmail-backup.com/ or through IMAP. I certainly wouldn't be doing all my email through Gmail if there were no proper backup/restore option. What is available currently works for me.

- Oshyan

775

Living Room / Re: Unsubscribe to 404

« Last post by JavaJones on March 05, 2011, 02:22 PM »

Double opt-in is a *good* practice and is as housetier describes. Perhaps others are incorrectly using the term to describe the malicious tactics mahesh mentions?

One way of getting the "quick, easy auto-creation of aliases" function is to have a catch-all on your domain emails that sends all mail to your box and then simply *deny*/reroute/filter those addresses that get spammed. It can take a little while to build up the deny list at first, during which you'll get more spam, if only from the spamming practice of sending to random/commonly used email aliases across domains (e.g. [email protected]). But once you setup some deny rules, then all you need to do is enter e.g. [email protected] (like [email protected]) to sign up for something with a unique email address for that service, and if it ever starts getting spammed, just filter/block that specific address and leave the rest. Works for me.

- Oshyan