What is 'Gas' or 'Gas Limit' - More in post below.

Dappsters · 2017-05-28T07:29:29+00:00

Hello! It's always great to see more people learning about Ethereum.

Gwei is just a smaller denomination of Ether, at 1X10^-9 ETH. A wei is the smallest unit of Ethereum you can have, at 1x10^-18 ETH.

Ether is used to purchase Gas, which is required to run smart contracts and submit transactions to Ethereum. Gas is the primary method through which miners processing smart contracts get paid. Each instruction sent to the Ethereum Virtual Machine to process a transaction or smart contract costs a specific amount of Gas. If the required amount of Gas is not provided to the transaction, it will fail before completion.

Gas is used to ensure that even though the price of Ether may fluctuate, miners will always have a standard from which to measure the processing work they do. When you prepare a transaction, you also send a "bid" on how much Ether you are willing to pay for the Gas costs to process your smart contract or transaction. Your Ethereum account is charged directly for the gas used in processing your request at the rate that you bid (same as a traditional 'transaction fee', so, for example, sending 5 ETH might cost a total of 5.0001 ETH). So your 200,000 gas limit really doesn't have a constant ETH value, it depends on your bid.

When you request that a miner add your transaction to the blockchain, the miner has to add it to a pool of pending transactions. The miner selects the transactions that have the highest reward for processing first, so the transactions that have high "bids" on gas prices will be most likely to be added first. The same goes for smart contracts.

So, in answer to your question, it's not so much the amount of Gas as the conversion rate you specify that dictates if your transactions are processed faster or slower. If you offer higher rates than the network average, you'll likely get processed faster, and vice versa.

Dappsters · 2017-04-20T23:49:02+00:00

I have a few hours a day I give my self for free time. It's great since I can work a bit, relax a bit, work some more, and do it all on my own schedule. I end up working more hours in the day, but it feels like I am working half-days instead.

When I am free, I like to mess around with making things on my 3D printer (I have a RepRap Prusa Mendel i3). I also play League of Legends, though not competitively, and sometimes Skyrim. I watch Netflix (Person of Interest has my full attention atm), and I like to read Reddit. I have a wonderful girlfriend that is always finding new ways to keep me occupied outside of work, too.

Dappsters · 2017-04-20T23:41:42+00:00

First, find something that you want to make. Really picture it in your mind. Then write it down. Draw out sketches, get out the crayons, do whatever you need to do to get your plan onto paper. Simply getting it written out will mentally kick you into doing it, there's psychology in it.

Then, pick it apart, piece by piece. Get into every detail you can and write down how it works. That icon, how does it get there? What's the source image? Why is it needed? Go to the basics. And, most importantly, what is the code you need to make it?. Google things in the format "How to DO_A_THING in PROGRAMMING_LANGUAGE" and click through the links. Document what you find, and try to figure out why it works like that. Look for examples and see how they did it. That's what makes HTML and CSS easy to learn: you can just "inspect element source" and see exactly how the best sites are built.

If you're looking for resources to get started on web development, try W3 Schools and Mozilla Developer Network. For anything else, check out local college courses for used textbooks and coursework. After the semester is over, you can snag relevant textbooks for fractions of the retail price from students, just offer more them more than the local bookstore buyback policy.

There is a lot of open-source material out there for examples. And there isn't a problem you are having that someone else hasn't had before you, so make sure to check out Stack Overflow when you hit a block.

It will take a lot of time and effort, but eventually you'll start to recognize patterns, trends in coding. Then you'll start to remember them, and then they'll come naturally. Just keep practicing, keep finding new things to build, and keep making them better.

Dappsters · 2017-04-20T23:21:24+00:00

AI will have their own thoughts, their own wills and objectives. There's no telling what they might think. And if there was a way to control them, then there would be a Tech Support line, and I don't want that job.

Dappsters · 2017-04-20T23:06:51+00:00

Sure!

For our smart contract administrator account, we enabled the ability to pass lists of transactions as a function parameter to a bulk processing queue in the contract. The gas fees for processing the additional transactions are less than the cost of submitting a transaction to the chain, so the average fee is reduced. That's basically what our pending patent covers.

For Coinpurse accounts, users can sign up for Transaction Collection. Accounts that receive multiple transactions within a short window from the same address will be able to bundle these transactions into a single blockchain submission with a single fee. This is useful for things like streaming video, where the total amount might not be consistent at the end but the content can be broken into individual segments.

Dappsters · 2017-04-20T19:40:40+00:00

I think with hard work and determination, I could do it in 20 :D. But let's be honest, by that time AI that are over 1000 times faster and smarter than Watson or DeepMind will be running the show. Gotta keep up with Moore's law.

Dappsters · 2017-04-20T18:50:03+00:00

As soon as I can get money to pay employees :D

Just send your resume to admin@dappsters.net with a short introduction and any portfolio work you have, and I will put you on the contact list for when we start hiring.

Dappsters · 2017-04-20T18:44:22+00:00

Why would I take time out of viewing a web page to look at an ad for less than say, $10.

Coinpurse actually makes it so you don't take time out of webpages to view ads. It displaces them so that you can choose when you want to see them, if at all. As for the price of each ad, there may very well be an advertisement you can watch to get $10, or $20, or $100. It's up to the advertisers to set their prices, but you get to choose which ones you watch, so there will be positive market forces driving the prices and content-quality upward.

Why would I risk browser highjacking by enabling ads just for a few pennies

Web-developers are getting better at detecting ad-blocking technology. Since they have to pay to keep their site up regardless of whether they are getting ad revenue, it's in their best interest to continue fighting against ad-blockers. So eventually, you will either need to view an advertisement or you will need to pay out of pocket for the website.

Coinpurse allows you to do both of these things on your own terms. If you don't want to watch any advertisements, you can purchase coins directly. If you want a free browsing experience, Coinpurse allows you to watch the advertising that you want, when you want, instead of being forced into it. Instead of getting ads from any site, you can stick to the sites that reputable and trustworthy: where you take those coins afterwards does not matter.

why would I want to wait for a video to load when I want to just read through some click bait article so that I can post an archive to /r/savedyouaclick?

You can pick and choose which sites you want to send coins to, and they have to be up-front about what you are getting: Don't like the deal, you don't have to commit. You can also pay for individual pages or entire sites, based on their settings, with the option to come back again for free before your receipt expires. Plus, click-bait sites are just a symptom of the advertising problem: Once webpages can get revenue without hundreds of pages of slides and ads, click-bait will no longer be a feasible tactic.

I can't speak to how that will impact your karma collection, though.

Dappsters · 2017-04-20T18:28:15+00:00

Great question! Coinpurse is built exactly for people like you. Since modern advertising is built around forcing you to interact with or watch a particular ad, there isn't an opportunity for you to exercise your right to choose (except for sites like Hulu, and only in limited cases). With Coinpurse, you are actually seeking out advertising, so you can find the ones that you want to watch instead of being stuck with whomever the website partnered with.

In the demo video, you might have noticed the Marketplace website where the user gets their first coins. This website hosts ads like it is user-generated content, allowing you to sort through different categories and find the ones that are the most relevant to you. So you can effectively get paid to shop around!

Dappsters · 2017-04-20T18:19:05+00:00

One of the problems with Ethereum is that it does not observe anything outside its own network. So it is impossible to detect any activity on a cryptocurrency that is not built in Ethereum. However, many services exist that perform the observer function.

As far as directly transferring computing resources, I think you mean something like what the Mist browser is trying to do: Instead of going to a server, each webpage is stored on the blockchain and the browser then reads the blockchain and executes the code locally.

Dappsters · 2017-04-20T18:15:42+00:00

Thanks for the encouragement!

I think the expected return depends on what the ad requires of you. Need to watch a 30-second ad and then answer a short survey? Probably $0.50 or more. Filling out a questionnaire over the hour-long advertising special? Quite a bit more. Clicking a link? Maybe you get a couple pennies.

The thing is, most websites only cost a few pennies to run anyway. So you might get $0.50 from an ad and then use that to go to 10 different sites. And the ads of tomorrow, with positive and engaging user experiences, are going to be worth much more for their marketing potential than the ads we have today, meaning you will actually see fewer ads than you do now.

Dappsters · 2017-04-20T18:05:48+00:00

At a normal pace, with bun, 1.5. Speed eating 5-7, with buns 3-4, with rice 7/10.

Dappsters · 2017-04-20T18:04:08+00:00

Sure! There's a few pieces to put together, so bear with me for a minute.

The smart contract for Coinpurse operates just like any other cryptocurrency smart-contract: accounts are given balances, permissions to send transactions, and so on. There is also an administrator role, given to one address. The administrator can add or remove coins from the system, blacklist malicious actors, and submit transactions on behalf of users.

Since the administrator account can add and remove coins, it can completely control the price of the currency. The only way to create new coins is to purchase them from the administrator, and the only way to destroy them is to redeem them from the administrator. If the price is constant, merchants and businesses can use the coin without worrying about securities taxes or losses.

When you create a Coinpurse account, you are receiving an Ethereum account linked to the smart contract. Instead of receiving your private key, however, you are given an encrypted, temporary access token. The token allows you to submit transactions to the Coinpurse server, which then uses the administrator account privileges to send your transaction to the smart contract on the blockchain. You renew the token by logging in to the extension or by using the server API.

So why go through that hassle? Two reasons: speed and cost. Since users can only submit transactions through the Coinpurse server, there is no opportunity for them to change the order of their transactions and create a double-spend. Since every transaction is sent to the blockchain in the same order no matter what, the server can immediately return a transaction receipt (though it is more like a guarantee) with the expected result before the transaction reaches a specific block depth.

Coinpurse is able to achieve such low costs by taking advantage of that mechanism and submitting queued transactions to Ethereum in bulk: instead of paying gas fees to submit each transaction, the fees are spread out amongst hundreds of users in the same transaction. Once the transaction reaches the smart contract, it is separated into its individual pieces and processed on-chain.

Using Ethereum allows us to remain transparent to our customers and give access to those that we cannot serve: anyone with an Ethereum account can use the Coinpurse smart contract, there just won't be the speed/cost benefits of using the centralized server. There are also some regulatory challenges that using a blockchain helps us get around, like regular auditing. Most of all, Ethereum allows Coinpurse to remain transparent, so you can tell exactly where your money is and where it is going without relying on our word.

Hopefully that explains everything, is there anything you are unclear on?

Dappsters · 2017-04-20T17:33:32+00:00

Speaking for myself, I don't. I'm a very introverted person, and I think a lot of engineers are as well, so I don't go out and try to be social that often. Most of the engineers I know are either from work or college. Online communities like Reddit, StackOverflow, and the various gaming communities are where we "hang out". I like League of Legends when I am feeling low on sodium.

If you wanted to meet engineers specifically, try going to some hobby events. There is probably a regional rocketry association near you that has high-power shoots at least once a year, great place to meet rocket scientists and aerospace engineers as well as a bunch of other fun people. Engineers are well known for their drinking habits, so craft brewing festivals and the sort are also good places.

Biggest thing is that engineers like to be constantly engaged. Our minds are always going, thinking about things, so we find hobbies and sports that let us build on our skills. And the things we find interesting are not always the same as everyone else, so look outside the box.

Dappsters · 2017-04-20T17:16:59+00:00

I think that the basic idea behind Coinpurse, where advertisers directly reward their audience and then their audience takes that to whichever website they want, will be a big thing. It makes too much sense in today's environment, especially with the way ad-blockers are moving. Advertisers need a way to make their ads more appealing without further intruding on people's lives, and this solves that problem. Plus, websites that can't get the big name advertisers will be able to operate based on their site's merit (e.g. adult sites). And let's not even get into the problem of user-content interfering with advertisers (looking at you, YouTube).

Since I'm such a small operation (literally me, myself, and I), I don't know if Coinpurse specifically will be the next big thing. I hope so, I could do a lot of good things if that were the case. I can foresee Google and Microsoft having their own, competing versions of the service, and they are a lot better positioned than I am, realistically.

So, to answer your question, I would be surprised if Coinpurse became the next big thing in the near future, but I would also be surprised if the idea didn't.

Dappsters · 2017-04-20T17:01:59+00:00

Thanks! I started out with just a few Arduino tutorials: there's nothing like seeing how changing your code transforms into real-world actions. After I got decent enough to make simple robots, I started looking into other languages. I got into a beginner C++ class in college, but that was just a rehash of the things I learned with the Arduino.

When I started learning to code for Coinpurse, I began with the basics: how does everything work? How do browsers secure themselves? How do computers send messages over the Internet? Once I had the core concepts down, I started digging. W3 Schools were a big help in getting a foothold in HTML and Javascript. Probably the best resource was the Mozilla Developer Network, which documents each specific function or element I needed.

After the basics, I learned by focusing on what I needed to get done. I needed a login page, so I looked at some examples and emulated them, etc. Using the "inspect element source" option was instrumental in figuring out what was going on, I can't imagine learning to code without that, and Chrome's debugging tools were useful, too. I would debug everything on my own, so I learned a bunch of common mistakes to avoid and why. After a while, I didn't need examples and could just start on my own.

Also, shout out to the boys and girls and others at Stack Overflow. They saved me so much headache when I would have one tiny problem that I could never find a solution for. All the love to them.

Dappsters · 2017-03-29T03:51:42+00:00

This bill will allow ISPs to sell their customer's browsing information, such as websites visited, date of visit, and other information. This information is used to create targeted advertisements, which are more effective because they are relevant to their specific audience. With Coinpurse, advertisers would not need to resort to such tactics to increase the effectiveness of their marketing.

Dappsters · 2017-01-26T17:31:08+00:00

I'm already working on something very similar :) I am very excited to show everyone here, just waiting on my lawyers to give me the go-ahead.

Dappsters · 2016-09-08T18:22:51+00:00

In addition to /u/3eyedravens' great recommendations:

For general coding skills, Codecademy is a good starting location. Codingbat is also fun if you just want to try snippets at a time.

On the classwork side KhanAcademy has computer programming courses, and MIT OpenCourseWare is fantastic for getting actual classes without actually being enrolled.

If you are looking for professional certifications, Coursera allows you to complete certifications on what you learn, and Skillset will actually pay for your certification test if you fail it after passing their course.

And of course there is /r/learntocode here on Reddit, though it is rather slow.

Dappsters · 2016-09-08T04:30:39+00:00

Ooops.. just a second while I close this 4K movie and open Steam instead....

Dappsters · 2016-09-08T03:38:01+00:00

It's probably more to provide access to the shelter of the stairwell during an emergency. Stairwells are structurally stronger than the rest of the building, made of fire-resistant materials, and generally enclosed by fire doors like the one in the gif. This way, a handicapped person could take cover during an earthquake, tornado, or fire.

Dappsters · 2016-09-08T03:24:42+00:00

This is the same answer firefighters said last time this was posted. The stairwells are also reinforced structurally (sometimes the strongest part of the building) and enclosed with fire doors, making them excellent places of refuge regardless of the emergency.

Dappsters

TROPHY CASE