[quote=smh;172686]I notice there is one person who is keeping his c375 on to of the queue for 3 days already. I don't even get the chance to run a few 250K curves.

I suggest disabling the 3M curves to prevent using the system in this way.[/quote]

I think there should be a time limit, because a t40 on a C150 is much quicker than a t40 on a C375.

[quote=10metreh;172709]I think there should be a time limit, because a t40 on a C150 is much quicker than a t40 on a C375.[/quote]
Maybe, if a job takes longer than 3 hours it gets sent to the bottom of the queue and can't be moved up for (say) 5 hours?

i think i have noticed a bug in the database
in "ECM high limits" when you find a factor it seems to stop ecming
this is not reflected in how much ecm it claims to have done in the "ECM done:" section

Someone is being REALLY impatient on a C358 :furious:, keeping thir number top of the queue constantly. (I just clicked "stop" and he restarted it almost immediately!) What's more, this composite is from 10^573+1. This is above current Cunningham limits; why not work within the current tables?

[QUOTE=10metreh;172882]Someone is being REALLY impatient on a C358 :furious:, keeping thir number top of the queue constantly. (I just clicked "stop" and he restarted it almost immediately!) What's more, this composite is from 10^573+1. This is above current Cunningham limits; why not work within the current tables?[/QUOTE]Same person who did the c375 for the last 4 days.

I got so fed up that I actually reported fake curves so that there would be no VHL available.

[QUOTE=10metreh;172887]I got so fed up that I actually reported fake curves so that there would be no VHL available.[/QUOTE]

This isn't appropriate. Rather than use the shared database computers, why not just grab an ECM binary and run it on your own computer? Then no one will interfere with [I]your[/I] calculation. :smile:

[QUOTE=frmky;172888]This isn't appropriate. Rather than use the shared database computers, why not just grab an ECM binary and run it on your own computer? Then no one will interfere with [I]your[/I] calculation. :smile:[/QUOTE]

In fairness, the other party's actions didn't seem appropriate either.

For myself, I largely use the database as a database: a place to store and share nice factorizations I've done or found. That it can also factor is a nice feature -- it's very easy to check numbers for easy factors -- but not as important as being a repository.

I agree with CR; maybe ten curves with limit 10k is a reasonable thing to have a factor repository do (since that happens in about the time it takes to load a Web page on a not-very-fast connection), but anything bigger should be done elsewhere and have the factors reported.

[quote=fivemack;172901]I agree with CR; maybe ten curves with limit 10k is a reasonable thing to have a factor repository do (since that happens in about the time it takes to load a Web page on a not-very-fast connection), but anything bigger should be done elsewhere and have the factors reported.[/quote]
Agreed...though, I must admit, it would be a shame to see such a nice resource go bye-bye. One other possibility, though: by default everyone's limited to sieve, TF, and ECM low/medium/high limits, *but*: you could enter a password (provided only to users who Syd can be reasonably sure won't abuse such privileges) to be allowed to initiate very high limits jobs.

Thoughts, anyone?

[QUOTE=mdettweiler;172914]Thoughts, anyone?[/QUOTE]

Everything other than very high limits finishes very quickly, so I agree that there's no good reason to restrict those.

Personally, I'm amused by the current setup: anyone can do anything to the jobs. If that could continue it would be nice. But restricting it otherwise might be sensible as well. I've been trying to think of what way would be most sensible: restricting a person to a limited amount of power (CPU-hours), or a number to an amount of power, or various schemes that would reward people for contributing workers, etc. (Contributing X CPU-hours might give preferential access to aX CPU-hours later, for 0 <= a <= 1, allowing people to time-shift. Of course there would be no guarantee that it would ever be redeemable -- Syd might move to Outer Slavbeckstania where there is no Internet access -- but that's a chance I think many would take.)

If you use accounts, people might register for several; if you restrict IP addresses, people can reset them or use proxies. Faking workers is harder but could be done; checks to see if the number of factors found is close to what would be expected could be implemented if that was a problem. Requiring registration does lower the marvelous openness of the project in its current state, but it would have certain advantages. For me, the biggest one would be the potential to time-shift: a person might contribute 1,000 CPU-hours if I knew that they would (probably) be able to use 100 CPU-hours (over, say, 6 to 30 hours) to get 'important' factoring done quickly.