[QUOTE=cheesehead;180384]I'm sick of seeing this impatient tunnel-vision attitude that would hurt GIMPS.[/QUOTE]The lack of [U]perceived[/U] progress will drive some others away.
So, a balance between the 2 needs to be struck.
I think that the new way that the server assigns the tail end exponents (and the smart assignment of work type) has helped[B][I][U] dramatically.[/U][/I][/B] We can see regular progress [B]and[/B] those who wish to help with older machines can help out where it makes the most sense. A big :tu: to Scott and George (and the others who helped and advised.

[COLOR="DarkOrange"][B]Cheese[/B][/COLOR], take a breath, count to 2[sup]5[/sup]-1, then post, ok.
We know, when you programmed, people were glad if their program completed the same day. The young ones have no patience.
[quote=Babbage]In my day, we were lucky to get 7 divides in one hour....[/quote]

[quote=starrynte;180376]34% done. I'll temporarily set that worker to two threads, and pause worker #2 just so it finishes faster :D[/quote]
Thanks for the update. :smile:
[quote=cheesehead;180384]Why do you want to hound starrynte?[/quote]
I don't want to "hound" him, I just wanted an update if possible. As he browses these forums, I figured such an update would be fairly easily to obtain, and it was. (note that he posted before your rant!)
[quote=cheesehead;180384]Why would you want to assume that? Because you're so eager and impatient to see a number change that you just can't stand it?[/quote]
I was just submitting that scenario in case he had abandoned the work, and as we see it's not necessary. No harm done. Perhaps my wording suggested that I'd expect him to have abandoned it, but I did not intend that.
[quote=cheesehead;180382]Are you saying that 10 completions per day of DC assignments in that range aren't "timely"?[/quote]
I was going to say something to this effect, but then I noticed he seemed, at least to me at the time, to focus more on the 18,000,989 number (which is a somewhat valid argument, though yes I know that GIMPS is helped by slow machines too) and less on the 600 number, (which would be ignorance of its progress) and so ignored that part.
[quote=cheesehead;180382]When it finishes, there will probably be a sudden jump in the number within "All exponents below nn,nnn,nnn have been tested and double-checked" sentence. Apparently, you'd feel better if you saw a steady sequence of small increases in that number, but the eventual long-term result will be the same either way ...[/quote]
I'm sure it will jump by some amount, even if only to the next prime number, but perhaps this one will have been assigned more recently so we can be more sure that it will be finished relatively soon. Like Uncwilly said, it's only perceived progress.
Also, I second this:
[quote=Uncwilly;180408][COLOR=DarkOrange][B]Cheese[/B][/COLOR], take a breath, count to 2[sup]5[/sup]-1, then post, ok.[/quote][quote=cheesehead;180382] ... unless impatient participants hound the owners of "slow" systems so much that they stop contributing to GIMPS -- which will SLOW DOWN GIMPS, not SPEED IT UP! Every assignment a "slow" system works on is one that no "fast" system has to do, so that the "fast" systems can work on [I]other[/I] assignments -- [I]assignments that would not be making any progress at all if the "fast" systems were diverted to poaching the assignments of "slow" systems.[/I]

As I've explained several times, the "slow" systems are performing their fair share of GIMPS work.

Let them do it, while other "fast" systems do their fair share instead of trying to do [I]both[/I] their fair share [I]and[/I] the "slow" systems' fair share.

101 MPH is faster than 100 MPH.[/quote]
I'm well aware of this. You've pointed it out several times in other threads. Again, I do not condone hounding and certainly did not intend my request to be considered hounding.

I do not feel hounded :) 38% done btw

[quote=Uncwilly;180408]The lack of [U]perceived[/U] progress will drive some others away.[/quote]Yes, I plan to include that in my future wiki article, maybe to appear before the end of the decade.

[quote]We know, when you programmed, people were glad if their program completed the same day. The young ones have no patience.[/quote]I've resolved to stop making old-geezer jokes.

BTW, the last 10 years I programmed, it was for real-time transaction networks that had responses in fractions of a second and 99.9+% continuous uptime.

[quote=Mini-Geek;180409]so we can be more sure that it will be finished relatively soon.[/quote] (* ahem *) :-)

Would just like to express my appreciation for the fact that the GIMPS project welcomes smaller contributors like myself as well as the top producers. My contribution is one single-core machine which is only switched on when I am actively using it. I have my preferences set to "whatever makes sense". These days it is giving me mainly trial factoring assignments but also occasionally LL-double checks in the 20M-22M range each of which takes me about 8 weeks to complete. My progress is slow but steady. My motivation is the appreciation of being allowed to be a small part of such a magnificent project.

If I felt that my taking part was somehow holding things up or that my contribution was not valued, I would most certainly leave.

It is important to me that GIMPS has prominent ambassadors such as Cheesehead who make sure that everyone feels welcome. Not that the other contributors to this thread make me feel unwelcome in any way - you don't. :smile:

[quote=cheesehead;180420]
[quote=Uncwilly;180408]The lack of [U]perceived[/U] progress will drive some others away.[/quote]
Yes, I plan to include that in my future wiki article, maybe to appear before the end of the decade.[/quote]... and once I have it in the wiki, I can just link to that instead of exercising the bold, italic, underscore and caps lock features. :smile:

[QUOTE=cheesehead;180420]I've resolved to stop making old-geezer jokes.[/QUOTE]Well, I for one learned Fortran on a mini computer and used Eve on a DEC Vax (I learned a lot on CBI).

[QUOTE=cheesehead;180420]BTW, the last 10 years I programmed, it was for real-time transaction networks that had responses in fractions of a second and 99.9+% continuous uptime.[/QUOTE]

It wouldn't happen to be HV/TIP on 36-bit machines???

[quote=RichD;180537]It wouldn't happen to be HV/TIP on 36-bit machines???[/quote]No, I don't even know what HV/TIP is/was. My real-time work was on IBM mainframes and Tandems 1985-1995.

[QUOTE=Kevin]I've got about 60 days of sub-33M assignments left on 5 cores, but I'm done once those finish. The new assignment system seems to be working pretty well, so I personally no longer feel the need to be especially proactive.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=garo;179650]Exactly. I feel it not worth my while to waste time trying to catch small exponents any more.[/QUOTE]

Ditto, Ditto. I've got 6 cores doing under 10M with enough assignments (37) to keep them busy until Sept/Oct. I'll let those finish and hopefully Primenet will be done all the <10M by then. If any more come free, I hope they are grabbed by someone who will finish them before October.

So until then ...