[quote="ET_"]
...and don't forget that some people can elude it with the "vacation" option used too often.
Luigi[/quote]

That can easily be taken care. We can even add a client option that say no priority assignment for me please. We need to change the client a bit so the priority assignments can preempt the todo list - as soon as the current task is done, priority assignment is up.

Some example criteria for calculation could be

- at least 10 P90 years reported in the past 90 days, the more the better. (all cpu slower than 40x P90 are dropped. hosts younger than 90 days are dropped. fast cpu that dont report as expected are dropped).
- one priority assignment each node
- vacation hosts are dropped
- current task finish date

The beauty is that once the rules are set, all is automatic.

Are these "priority exponents" ones that need factoring, or need LLing?

Or both?

[quote="QuintLeo"]Are these "priority exponents" ones that need factoring, or need LLing?[/quote]

LL testing and double-checking. If the smallest available exponents in these categories are assigned to "trusted" clients, then you should get a more orderly progression of milestones (the "all exponents belox X have been tested once" and "all exponents below Y have been dchked").

At present, the server just blindly hands out small exponents to the next user to ask for an exponent of that work type.

By "priority exponents" it is meant exponents below a given milestone. For example, the approx 130 exponents still to be double-checked in order to prove that M38 *is really* M38. If they are in the hands of slow or careless testers, the time needed to achieve this milestone may get unnecessarily long.

[quote="lycorn"]By "priority exponents" it is meant exponents below a given milestone. [/quote]

As for double-checking, lower, important exponents are often automagically given to slower or less reliable machines... Must be Murphy. :(

Luigi

Slower and less reliable machines are probably not going for the 10 million exponent prize.

I don't think it would be practical for me to swap my K5 and K6 machines over to doublechecking - they're REAL slow on floating point - but I figure that having them dedicated to factoring should still help the situation.

woah that was random... I don't think there's any worries that these slow machines will tie up the winning 10M exponent here.

Still, it'd be a good idea to give out the smallest exponent to more reliable, or at least faster machines. It would be extremely simple (as I see it) to limit the "priority exponents" to machines over 500 MHz or something. T'hen at least you'd have a better chance of getting them done (and you wouldn't have to go to all the trouble of determining reliability)

[quote="Deamiter"]It would be extremely simple (as I see it) to limit the "priority exponents" to machines over 500 MHz or something. T'hen at least you'd have a better chance of getting them done (and you wouldn't have to go to all the trouble of determining reliability)[/quote]

I know primers that installed Prime95 on PCs at office, working 8 hours a day 5 days a week, and did not modify the "Hours per day this program will run" item: So if they had a 750 MHz Pentium III they would reserve DC exponents (or even LL) with an actual 178.5 MHz Pentium III efficiency...

Luigi

[quote="Kevin"] :evil: . I might poach some of the latter ones they reserved. They're so far down, even if they do check in at some point, there's no way they've started to work on it (which in my book is a legal poach).[/quote]

I'm suprized that no one picked up on Kevin's comment. [b]Is poaching condoned?[/b]

Joe O. aka JMO

[quote="Joe O"][quote="Kevin"] :evil: . I might poach some of the latter ones they reserved. They're so far down, even if they do check in at some point, there's no way they've started to work on it (which in my book is a legal poach).[/quote]

I'm suprized that no one picked up on Kevin's comment. [b]Is poaching condoned?[/b]
[/quote]

Not that I know of, but it isn't much frowned upon either as long as it is kept within reasonable bounds. Obviously there has to be a point where a "reserved" exponent is tested by someone else, just to keep things moving along smoothly.

So the fact that a person could be working on an exponent and someone else poaches it [b] is not frowned upon?[/b]

I am setting up a Dual Celeron/450 to run PRIME95. It has no internet connection. I put exponents from my internet box into the nonet worktodo.ini and start on them. Lo and behold 2 of them are taken from me. One by the server, the other possibly by the server, possibly by a poacher. The CPU time I have had wasted for me bothers me. [b]Especially if it were a poacher![/b] This is theft! And it is not frowned upon?