It seems like a great idea to me; I would be glad to run it if it would help support the site.

I may make it optional figlesquidge, it depends if/how fully all the issues with it can be resolved

Treefarn: I'm glad it's still causing crashes since it's reproducible, better that than it goes away mysteriously.

What addons are you running, and what version of Java? I'm running the same version of Firefox as you so something else must be causing the crashes. Could you also copy the rest of the crash report? I think Mozilla's privacy policy means personal data gets stripped out of crash reports, but you might want to look through before copying it
Thanks for the help, it'd be good to get to the bottom of this

running fine on my version of firefox,

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092417 Firefox/3.0.3

Maybe I am very old fashion, but I seem to feel a little uneasy at anyone using anything of mine without understanding what they are doing with it. For I know it could be a Massive Right Wing Jihadist Child Pornorgraphic Ring of Nuns or something.
How much money are we talking about here?
I would rather pay to play than have some one stick their cyber fingers into my machine for cause or causes unknown.
But then again I am old fashioned.

i do think there should be a notification that you are running coe in the background.

and would actually prefer ads as a source of revenue, just because it is clear what they are advertising. A small banner at the top of hte page would not be too intrusive. (i'm not suggesting pop-ups of any kind, or anything particularily intrusive.)

I note firefox is using 68-71 % of my processing power, and my system is running fine, so i have no problem with this system, I actually dislike my processor idling msot of the time, (except when i find a use for it...) I still think advertising could be used aswell. (or paid accounts as an options for people who don't want to run things in the background.)

LOL. Too funny. I went to a site caused Javatester.com or org, I forget, and it crashed Firefox. I went to java.com (the official Sun site) and clicked on 'Do I have Java?' and it crashed Firefox.

Do I went back to the Sun site with IE and apparently I have the Version 6 Update 2, which is NOT the most current, which I am downloading now. More shortly....

Nope. It still crashes. I thought for sure that was it. But its not your site. Its something with my Firefox and Java.

If it's causing crashes, couldn't we have the option of whether or not to use it? You could just make it a setting and use a cookie to remember the user's preference?

Hmmm.... Well, I posted the problem at Mozilla. We'll see if they respond.

http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?comments_parentId=189394&forumId=1

TECHNICAL NOTE: I am myself an heavy user of BOINC (the Berkeley infrastructure for massive parallel multiprocessing) and I can guarantee that in terms of system performance, if the code is well written the loss of visible performance of what one is doing is minimal.

CONCERNS: While child pornography is out of the question, IMO. There are a number of *perfectly legal* uses of supercomputing that it would still be *immoral* for my standards. Parallel supercomputing would be for example ideal for: study of effect of toxins on neural cells (i.e.: development of chemical weapons), multiple scenarios simulations about virus propagation (i.e.: development of bacteriological weapons), finding correspondences in massive amounts of data (i.e.: screening telecommunication for intelligence services), etc...

MY VOTE: (ok, this is not a votation, yet...). As it is factually impossible to check what the real data processed are about, I am with those who proposed to make this opportunity optional. I would for example deny the applet the permission to run, but I am sure many others would allow it to run.

ABOUT FUNDING: What is exactly the money for? I mean... it is about hosting costs or is about recognising the value of the time that you (kestas and others) dedicate to the smooth running of the site?

I am 100% with EdiBirsan (although probably 50% of his age) in saying that I would be ready to commit a little sum of money to register (BTW: excellent strategy against multi-accounters!!!). This money could be in the form of a subscription with a goal (like wikipedia: goal for phpDip is 200 dollars, we collected so far XXX) in case the money goes to cover hosting costs.

If the money is to compensate for the time spent developing (or administrating, or...), then I would love to see something like the "headhunting coding" sections of certain free software communities. In short: there could be a number of "sponsor-able features" that individual users or groups of users could support. Example: in order to implement the ELO system we need X AU$... maybe TheGhostMaker, myself and a few others would be available to donate that amount of money. While other 3 users would like to pay for "creating an Atom feed with games updates" and so on...

So we are buying components of phpDip like we add onto a house?

By the way................................................
I am quite willing to do that...I'll go and test if my Google Chrome browser cracks. I also have Firefox (which does not seem to crash with any java program) and IE...

Gobbledydook: not sure if I got your question, what I meant - however - is not that people should be pay for an upgrade to their own account, but that - those who wish - could contribute to implement a feature they particularly care about, and that new feature would be available to everybody.

Hope this clarify.

Paying money, such as to register? Yes, no problem whatsoever.

Allowing access to my machines? I am with Edi 100%. As someone who was the victim of a stealth search as far back as 1999 (I was a witness in a corruption case) and whose computer and e-mail archive was seriously compromised as a result, I would not under any circumstances allow access.

mac above also raises valid points about usage.

Glad to hear it's a Java problem and not a problem specific to this applet Treefarn.

Regarding people's concerns:
"First off, let me say that we do not allow Plura to be used for criminal activities. We screen each application using Plura to make sure it is legal, safe, and non-abusive to node computers.

We have two applications on Plura right now. They do:
- Stock market modeling
- Prime number searching

We're talking with some universities to get some additional applications on Plura. These applications may be doing things related to protein modeling."

I've never heard of supercomputers used for the development of chemical/organic weapons, or for "screening telecommunications". I think someone has been reading too many Tom Clancy novels :-P First off I'm pretty sure all those activities are illegal, and second who would do such activities using such a public service? It's complete fantasy

Clearly there has to be an opt-out option for special-cases; people with odd Java problems, and donors deserve to opt-out even if they don't have a reason.

Edi: You're a donor so should this go ahead you'll certainly be able to opt-out, for whatever crazy reason you may have. :-P
But bear in mind that (as mac said) you can't notice this background process, and it's sandboxed in a Java applet which means it can't affect anything on your computer, and it's gone once you close it

> ABOUT FUNDING: What is exactly the money for? I mean... it is
> about hosting costs or is about recognising the value of the time
> that you (kestas and others) dedicate to the smooth running of
> the site?
It'd be nice to not have to fork over for the site, and even based on pretty conservative estimates this should cover hosting (if it works out).
This also has the benefit for me that I really dislike donation drives. Edi may like them, but for all the ethical squeamishness you have about imaginary bio-weapon terrorists I have even more when it comes to asking people for money to support the site.

This would also be more regular than donations, a steady trickle rather than a very occasional prodding, and won't rely on anyones generosity (which I feel bad about).

Also the amount of money would be relative to the amount of activity, which gives me the incentive to work on the boring aspects of the code like getting the forum sorted out, improving the game listings, searching for users/games, PMs, etc
Most developers charge more than your unused CPU cycles, :-P I was expecting people to see it as a win-win situation, the main concern which has arisen is quite surprising

Kestas, it's your site, so of course you can do whatever you feel comfortable with. Personally, I would prefer people to have the option of disabling it (make it enabled by default, and let people know it's happening, so they can choose to turn it off). I just tried it, and it doesn't seem to affect my computer's performance too much (though profiling does show a small impact), so I'd probably leave it on. Then again, I'm a computer scientist, so I understand sandboxing Java applets; it's understandable that people who don't know much about it might be a little more distrustful.

That said, I would also greatly prefer to donate directly to the site, and will be doing that tonight. If you don't mind my asking, roughly how much money are you expecting to raise from Plura? If, as you say, donors and others with special issues get to opt out, that seems reasonable.

That link still promptly crashes Firefox for me.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092417 Firefox/3.0.3

Tree...where are you getting that additional info about your browser?

Dangermouse,
I get a small window called 'Mozilla Crash Reporter' when my Firefox crashes.

Is this something that the individual user can say yes or not to or is it more that case of the whole site or not the whole site?

FYI, I confirmed that the site still runs on Windows Mobile 6; I doubt the applet runs, but the test link itself operates fine.

@ Kestas: "I've never heard of supercomputers used for the development of chemical/organic weapons, or for "screening telecommunications". I think someone has been reading too many Tom Clancy novels :-P It's complete fantasy"

This is probably because (I guess) you are not a BOINC user. If you were, you would know that this is exactly what parallel supercomputer is being used for at the moment... most of the projects are about proteins and DNA: the program simulates the encounters of complex proteins with human DNA or other human proteins and try to predict the effects on a physiological level. On BOINC, this is used for example for researching drugs against cancer and aids. As for the massive analysis of data, this is done by SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence), the mother of all massive parallel supercomputing. What the program does, is to analyse all the input from a rack of radioscopes to find "keys" that might indicate an attempt of intelligent communication.

While within BOINC these techniques are used for the good, the exact same principles can be used for anything. Hope this clarify.

@Edi
I have no clue about IE, but in Firefox and a few other browsers you can disallaw java applets, so - unless kestas would choose to actively block the navigation of phpdip to those with java applets disabled - the choice would remain to the individual (provided he/she knows how to allow/disallaw applets).

Another aspect to be considered is data transfer: this applet will increase the traffic from/to individual users' devices. While this is irrelevant from an home computer with unlimited broadband access, from mobile devices or satellite connections with a cap, this could increase costs (of how much depends from your mobile operator and the amount of data transferred).

Again, this should not be a problem if the possibility to enable the applet will be left to the individual.

@Mac: Excellent suggestion re: Sponsoring Projects

Here's an e-mail I got from the Plura rep I've been speaking to, hopefully it'll make it clear that these guys aren't designing biological weapons or invading your computer
-------------------------
Kestas,

I was looking at your forum post on Plura and thought I'd help you out on addressing some of your users' concerns.

1. One of your users was correct to point out "sandboxing". Our applet is forcibly restricted from accessing the hard drive on a user's computer. Everything runs in memory. More information is here: http://java.sun.com/sfaq. Plura runs an unsigned applet over the web, which means we are put under the strictest security control. Yes, Plura uses the CPU, but that's it. There is no other access to the machine. The machine cannot be compromised.

2. To address people's concerns over our trustworthiness: There is no formal, standardized way we can say "yes, we are a real company and aren't bad people". But, we have been in business for over a year now, we have other sites that use Plura (see http://www.handdrawngames.com and http://www.pokemonworldonline.net), and we are developing relationships with some prominent companies, such as Sun and Microsoft.

3. If people want to learn more about Plura, they can go to http://www.pluraprocessing.com or read our blog at http://pluraprocessing.wordpress.com. They can contact us directly using the contact form on our main site if they have any questions.

4. We're totally ok with you implementing some sort of opt-in/opt-out functionality for Plura. I would think this wouldn't be too too hard to do - maybe a user setting of some sort? It would be interesting to see how this would work and how many people opt-in/opt-out. Seeing as how your users are interested in supporting the site, I would hope they would not opt-out, since it really is a steady, predictable source of income for you.

Hope this helps. Also, let me say we really appreciate your effort in talking to your users openly about Plura. The more feedback, the better.
-----------------------

> If you were, you would know that this is exactly what parallel
> supercomputer is being used for at the moment... most of the
> projects are about proteins and DNA: the program simulates the
> encounters of complex proteins with human DNA or other
> human proteins and try to predict the effects on a physiological
> level.
I'm no biologist, but I don't think protein folding simulations can be applied to manufacturing biological weapons (nor chemical weapons)

> As for the massive analysis of data, this is done by SETI
> (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence)
Massive analysis of data, yes, but you were talking about a legal use of supercomputing for the purposes of immoral surveillance (on an open network which uses personal computers)

Anyway I've gone ahead with this for now, but I've added the ability to opt people out (moderators can also do this). I'll see how things go with this feature, but I'll only be focusing on practical technical problems people face

Whatever you are most comfortable with Kestas. But I would not have any issues with the odd banner ad appearing on this site or paying an annual donation for additional development to continue.

just go for ads kestas :-) personally i prefer them because my cpu is already at 100% all the time, and i had to turn off java when you first tested plura (i didn't know what it was about back then, i just saw java coming in)

Edi: as a right winger I object to the "Right Wing Jihadist Child Pornorgraphic Ring of Nuns" characterization.

everyone knows that Jihadist Child Pornorgraphic Rings of Nuns are almost ALWAYS Left-Wing!

Ohhh philcore you are so deluded....everyone knows that the right is more dangerous than the left which just appears to be larger than it is.

i think this is a great idea. since people are given the option to opt-out, i really don't see why you *shouldn't* do this. it's unobtrusive save for some isolated cases (the solution to which is simple: opt-out the effected users), does not pose an actual security problem (though i understand some are nervous, java applets cannot view or write to the local filesystem unless given specific permission to do so by the user, and they must be signed for this to be possible), is much more attractive than banner ads, and does not rely on the inconsistent nature of donations. i'm all for full speed ahead.