Quel luxe nous reste-t-il?

Je me pose la question: la patience est-elle devenue une vertu inutile?  Avant,bien avant que je sois jeune, pour profiter de choses devenue maintenant communes, il fallait savoir se montrer patient, savourer le moment.  Aller au cinéma du coin de la rue, attendre le développement de ses photos, passer la nuit de voyage en train pour aller dans le sud de la France ou en Toscane.

Toutes ces choses aujourd'hui sont devenues si simple à obtenir: en quelques secondes je peux regarder un film chez moi, plus besoin de développer les photos, le voyage long d'hier est devenu un saut de puce aujourd'hui.

Que nous reste-t'il comme luxe aujourd'hui?

The electric car: a solution?

I hear this (and last?) year biggest hype is the electric car, I'm all for it!  It's been too long the automotive industry has been stuck in an uninovative loop for decades (against all odds: building bigger cars, adding more horsepower,...).  Yet, mentalities are slowly evolving and the economic crisis has certainly had an inpact on how people buy such products.  Telsa motors, after creating the most sexy and attractive electric car ever, is now focusing on a high-end sedan and setting itself as one of the most innovative company in this sector. All mainstream manufacturers are now coming up with an electric model (example: the Citroën C-Zero, based on a common platform together with Peugeot and Mitsubishi.  Yet at a price tag of EUR 34000, I'd still rather buy a BMW 3-Series coupé, thank you).  Speaking of BMW, they are also moving in that direction with their own line of electricity guzzlers: the i-series. All that make me think we're slowly moving towards a petrol-free automotive industry.  It's all great and for the good of mankind!  If only I had the money...

But wait, let's take a step back and think a little.  Electricity today is produced mainly by non-renewable source - more than 80% worldwide (Fossil 67,2%, nuclear 13,4%).  I couldnt find any reliable numbers on the future evolution of these numbers, but something tells me that the "less polutant" of non-renewable energies is going to be mostly phased out pretty quickly.  So what's left to fill the gap, and to respond to the higher demand that the electric car will inevitably put on the worldwide electricity production?  Isn't that shifting the problem?  One positive of this trend is that, indeed, the problem will be shifted from individual to collectivities and/or to bigger corporations, where it is easier to organise big changes.  People will do their share (they wont have a choice and  buy electric or hybrid cars), but it is clear to me that the biggest challenge stays at the level of electricity production, wich is moving way to slowly today to solve the problem.

Some interesting numbers for the EU here

[EDIT] There are some interesting insight about Electric Cars in this article as well
[EDIT 2] Apparently, electric cars are much more efficient than fuel cars, meaning that with the same amout of oil to produce electricity or to fuel a car, the electric car would ride longer. "Typically, conventional gasoline engines effectively use only 15% of the fuel energy content to move the vehicle or to power accessories, and diesel engines can reach on-board efficiencies of 20%, while electric drive vehicles have on-board efficiency of around 80%." Now that's the real bonus I think. Yet, I suppose a oil-fired electric plant doesnt have a 100% efficency either. But still.

Are they really in touch with what matters?

As I was developing today, I found this article about pluralizing tables name in ruby on rails:

http://devilelephant.blogspot.com/2007/01/rails-plural-table-names-lame.html

Is it me, or the guys argument is completely subjective? I quote:

Most experienced DBAs will tell you that the name of a table should describe what one record in that table would represent. Who would recommend plural table names? Developers seem to like plural names because they equate database tables with Collections

Basically: "You should not do that because most of the guys I know all said it was bad, trust me"

Furthermore, isn't a database table a collection of things, indeed? My opinion is that it's perfectly normal to pluralize table names. But then I didn't ask my friend to tell me their opinions on the matter ;-)

2 things I've learned related to the Belgian crisis by going on vacation abroad

This first week of July I went to Tuscany by car, with family and friends. Starting from Brussels to go in the neighborhood of Lucca, you have to go down through Luxembourg, a bit of France, pass by Switzerland and go over the Alps, finally arriving in Italy.

I don't know much about Switzerland, except that I went skiing there for the first time when I was twelve (a marvelous overnight trip by train through the mountains), that they have over-zealous custom officers, and that it's amazingly beautiful.

Also, it's a federal state - just like Belgium. They speak 3 languages, just like in Belgium. They also have bilingual areas. For all I know (I might be wrong), they don't fight about cultural differences, territory or language. They all feel Swiss, as far as I know.

Italy, this year was celebrating the 150th anniversary of its unification. Flags and celebrations everywhere! Wait, what? 150 year? So Belgium has existed longer than Italy? I never heard anyone saying that Italy wasn't a "real" country because its history was so short! Belgium will celebrate its 181 year of existence this 21th of July.

They have a region where people speak and learn German in Italy, too, by the way. I went there for two weeks, three years ago. These people feel Italian.

Exactly what is the problem here in Belgium that makes it so difficult to accept that we have three languages, cultural differences and still that it's possible to live together, to have a Belgian identity? I suspect it has nothing to do with culture or language.

discarding car maintenance byproducts in Brussels

I'm the proud owner of a 1978 Fiat 124 spider. She's my only car, and I drive it everyday: she's very trustee, even though she has its mood. The engine and general mecanics are very basic and simple, so I do maintenance work on it myself: first because I enjoy it, then it saves me a few bucks.

I'm not learning you anything if I say that when you do that kind of work on a car, there are a string of byproducts resulting; used up oil, discarded oil filters, etc... In Belgium we have a quite efficient system for recycling houseold waste, but it's very difficult when you come with that kind of toxic wastes. You have to wait for a specific waste recycling bus to come along in a place near you.

[EDIT] Recently I've learned that you could also bring those up in a garage near you. That's what I did, good to know ;)

Very good article about software that changed computing forever (through digg)

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/ibm_os360_windows_31_software_changed_computing

Paypal don't really care about its clients, and its client's clients...

A few days ago we, together with my associates, started a new brand of shavers that currently sells only over the internet. I won't digress about the concept, except that you can get more information here: Raz*War , or on this nice blog post explaining the concept.

We launched the service during the eleventh Brussels beta group and I think people really liked it. So far, so good, we're selling our products and everything run smoothly, except with the payment system.

We use paypal because it's easy to set up, and applications to the big payment gateway are long, cumbersome and they usually reject you when you don't sell 100k€ worth of stuff in a month (this actually describe my application with chronopay). But...

Paypal is far from cheap: they basically rip us of a minimum of 0.65€ per transaction. Also, they have a security system wich, in an obscure and unexplained way, can accept or reject someone's credit card based on a calculated "risk" that seems to take into account the amount, card type and e-mail. Customers are then simply disallowed any transaction, receiving the following message:

"The card you entered cannot be used for this payment. Please enter a different credit or debit card number."

... With a perfectly working card. Paypal does not give any explanations, and actually doesn't even reply to my inquiries, and a significant part of our customers have experienced this: needless to say we are looking for another way to