I saw that before I read your post. I'd like to note here that I did not get drunk on TPR's behalf.

On topic:
Now there are 938 Mersenne numbers whose exponents are larger than or equal to 49,828,919 (aka 15,000,000 digits) that has been LL tested. :smile:

[quote=garo;215101]I saw that before I read your post. I'd like to note here that I did not get drunk on TPR's behalf.[/quote]
Then again "Taking the piss" would be well over their heads.

David

[quote=davieddy;215142]Then again "Taking the piss" would be well over their heads.

David[/quote]

LOL - American and British guys. Do you need some children toys and a sandbox? *hehe*

Greetings from the cool and grown up Germany :judge:

[quote=Merfighters;215139]On topic:
Now there are 938 Mersenne numbers whose exponents are larger than or equal to 49,828,919 (aka 15,000,000 digits) that has been LL tested. :smile:[/quote]

Now it's 1352. :smile:

[URL]http://www.mersenne.org/report_LL/?exp_lo=49828919&exp_hi=999999999&exp_date=&user_only=0&user_id=&dispdate=1&B1=Get+LL+data[/URL]

It appears to me that M(20425091) is currently not assigned to anyone... this is the last exponent needed to prove M40 is truly M40. Can someone with skills superior to mine verify this?

[url]http://www.mersenne.org/report_LL/?exp_lo=1&exp_hi=20996011&exp_date=&user_only=0&user_id=Primeinator&exdchk=1&exbad=1&exfactor=1&dispdate=1&B1=Get+LL+data[/url]

Edit: Never mind. It was assigned for triple checking October of 2009.

[QUOTE=Primeinator;218908]It appears to me that M(20425091) is currently not assigned to anyone... this is the last exponent needed to prove M40 is truly M40. Can someone with skills superior to mine verify this?

[url]http://www.mersenne.org/report_LL/?exp_lo=1&exp_hi=20996011&exp_date=&user_only=0&user_id=Primeinator&exdchk=1&exbad=1&exfactor=1&dispdate=1&B1=Get+LL+data[/url][/QUOTE]

That page only shows results, not assignments.
[url]http://www.mersenne.org/report_exponent/?exp_lo=20425091[/url] still says it's assigned:
"Assigned Double-checking to "ANONYMOUS" on 2009-10-21"
And to confirm, I just requested the DC of that number, but it didn't let me have it (because it's already assigned).

But to confirm part of it (which you may or may not have been unsure of): this is indeed the last exponent to prove that M20996011 is M40.

[QUOTE=Mini-Geek;218909]That page only shows results, not assignments.
[url]http://www.mersenne.org/report_exponent/?exp_lo=20425091[/url] still says it's assigned:
"Assigned Double-checking to "ANONYMOUS" on 2009-10-21"
And to confirm, I just requested the DC of that number, but it didn't let me have it (because it's already assigned).[/QUOTE]

Yes, I realized my rather stupid mistake immediately after posting. My apologies.

[QUOTE=Primeinator;213285]These are very close too. I propose a celebration for when they conclude as well. Bring on the wine! :beer:

# Countdown to testing all exponents below M(32582657) once: 16
# Countdown to testing all exponents below M(37156667) once: 47[/QUOTE]
Two months later, there's quite a lot of progress on one milestone, but barely any progress on the other one:

Countdown to testing all exponents below M(32582657) once: 15
Countdown to testing all exponents below M(37156667) once: 29

M40 is proven the 40 th prime !
 

Today 2010-07-11 at 07:54 UTC Nathan Edington returned a manual result which matched a previous one : this proves M20425091 composite and thus proves that M40 (M20996011) is the 40[sup]th[/sup] Mersenne prime !!!

Jacob

:bounce wave::bounce wave::bounce wave:

[quote=S485122;221044]Today 2010-07-11 at 07:54 UTC Nathan Edington returned a manual result which matched a previous one : this proves M20425091 composite and thus proves that M40 (M20996011) is the 40[sup]th[/sup] Mersenne prime !!!

Jacob[/quote]

Yep, 'twas yours truly that finally put the thing out of its misery. I can think of two milestones that we can now add to the milestones page:

* M40 is proven to really be M40 (of course)
* All exponents under 21 million have been doublechecked.

George (and others) might also be interested in knowing that this exponent was tested with the new Prime95 v26 that he had out for alpha release a couple of weeks ago...and all went well (it was a matching residue), so his new FFT code must be reasonably okay. The only weird thing that happened was when I tried to do the manual submission, PrimeNet wouldn't take the checksum signature line starting with We4: (indicating the program version). But after I doctored it to read Wd4: it went through without a hitch. This is probably a Good Thing, as George indicated that it might not be wise to use v26 extensively for production work - that's why I ran a doublecheck, and this particular doublecheck, as it provided an easy way to track down any problems that may have occurred with the result.

For those of you (George?) interested in benchmarks/timings, with everything else sitting idle, Betsy the 3.06 GHz P4 ran 10,000 iterations of M20425091 every 5 minutes and 54-58 seconds, on average. This figure started off up in the 6:20-6:30 range before I blew out the fans with a gas duster :smile:.

OK, everyone, first 100M result probably comes in tomorrow, and then it's onward to prove Mxx is Mxx for xx >= 41!

[QUOTE=S485122;221044]Today 2010-07-11 at 07:54 UTC Nathan Edington returned a manual result which matched a previous one : this proves M20425091 composite and thus proves that M40 (M20996011) is the 40[sup]th[/sup] Mersenne prime !!!
[/QUOTE]

Excellent!! :fusion::fusion::fusion::fusion::fusion::fusion::fusion::fusion::fusion::fusion:

[QUOTE]Countdown to proving M(20996011) is the 40th Mersenne Prime: 0[/QUOTE]

We have a ways to go for M41 though:

[QUOTE]Countdown to proving M(24036583) is the 41st Mersenne Prime: 5,599[/QUOTE]

Time seems an eternity when it's down to one. That last milestone for the 40th mersenne just wouldn't complete. I suppose the news will get around and make the main page soon enough.

[QUOTE=imwithid;221124]Time seems an eternity when it's down to one. That last milestone for the 40th mersenne just wouldn't complete. I suppose the news will get around and make the main page soon enough.[/QUOTE]

Yes. It took nearly 7 years after finding M40 to prove it was truly the 40th Mersenne prime.

[quote=Primeinator;221148]It took nearly 7 years after finding M40 to prove it was truly the 40th Mersenne prime.[/quote]

Double checkers urgently needed... :help:

# Countdown to testing all exponents below M(30402457) once: 2
# Countdown to testing all exponents below M(32582657) once: 13
# Countdown to testing all exponents below M(37156667) once: 26

The server counts Suspect LL as a sucessfull LL, which I don't think it should. Counting the Suspect LL as well the numbers are:

# Countdown to testing all exponents below M(30402457) once: 2
# Countdown to testing all exponents below M(32582657) once: 14 (+1)
# Countdown to testing all exponents below M(37156667) once: 34 (+8)
and
Countdown to testing all exponents below M(33219281) (10M digits) once: 16

[quote=Primeinator;221148]Yes. It took nearly 7 years after finding M40 to prove it was truly the 40th Mersenne prime.[/quote]

This is going to get worse, unless we get some Tennesseans...I mean volunteers...to take up a decent share of double-checking duties. Right now, based on the pace of returned results from May 21, 2010 to date, we are looking at not knowing the true positions of M46 and M47 until late in the year 2020. That would be 11-12 years from date of discovery to proven position on the Mersenne list.

I mentioned in another post that I wonder how many folks would balk if George suspended all first-time LL testing for six months, and handed out only double-checks. I am considering letting all or nearly all of my cores switch over to double-checking exclusively for a few months.

*Another option* - with TF being so overpowered (and GIMPS about to run out of exponents to TF in the classical 79.3M assignment space), maybe we should suspend TF in favor of DC, except for the absolutely oldest and slowest boxen on PrimeNet - which should be getting the TF-LMH assignments that are being needlessly chewed on (nay, ravenously devoured) with state-of-the-art boxen.

[QUOTE=NBtarheel_33;221175] I am considering letting all or nearly all of my cores switch over to double-checking exclusively for a few months.[/QUOTE]

Isn't this like using a 1mL dropper to drain a barrel? It is going to take the work of many individuals to dent the number of double checks required up to M47 (or even close).

I can think of two viable options:

1) Change the first-time / double-checking crossover. Maybe increase it to 2500 MHz. See [url]http://www.mersenne.org/thresholds/[/url]

2) Offer bonus CPU-time credit for double-checking. This goes against GIMPS long history of trying to accurately give CPU credit. I'd bet a 50% bonus would convince some of those TFers to switch to double-checking.

[quote=Primeinator;221179]Isn't this like using a 1mL dropper to drain a barrel? It is going to take the work of many individuals to dent the number of double checks required up to M47 (or even close).[/quote]

Well, let's see, I have 39 cores (plus 5 or 6, I think, that are yet to be borged). Right now, I'm finishing one first-time LL on average every 1.25 days. If I switched this effort to doublechecks, I could probably what - finish a DC every 0.5-0.6 days on average? That would be 600-700 doublechecks in a year. Right now, we're averaging a return of 38-39k doublechecks per year below M43112609. So if I turned my whole borg to DCs, I'd increase annual throughput by 1.5-2% give or take. Not a huge contribution, but nothing to sneeze at either.

On the other hand, I wonder if we could get the heaviest hitters (curtisc, ahmerali, linde, etc.) to switch some or all of their machines over to DC for a while. Not sure how these folks feel about finding a prime vs. placing Mxx in its proper place.

George - changing the threshold might be a good idea. I *would not* mess with the credit system. It's more interesting if it accurately reflects a user's total effort, not some sort of make-believe scaled number (and someone could easily figure out the real number anyway, just by subtracting .50 * the number of GHz-days earned from DCs).

Here's another option, not sure how feasible it is. Presumably there is some prize money in the GIMPS coffers to be given out as research discovery prizes. How about a token prize (say $100 or something) for the highest doublecheck throughput over some appropriate interval. For example, we could advertise a doublecheck drive for the year beginning September 1, 2010. Whoever has the best throughput (measured by some appropriate metric, say total GHz-days divided by total computing power (to make it fair whether you have one computer or 100)) for DCs from 9/1/10-9/1/11 gets the $100 prize (and recognition on the GIMPS homepage).

[QUOTE=NBtarheel_33;221191]Well, let's see, I have 39 cores (plus 5 or 6, I think, that are yet to be borged). Right now, I'm finishing one first-time LL on average every 1.25 days. If I switched this effort to doublechecks, I could probably what - finish a DC every 0.5-0.6 days on average? That would be 600-700 doublechecks in a year. Right now, we're averaging a return of 38-39k doublechecks per year below M43112609. So if I turned my whole borg to DCs, I'd increase annual throughput by 1.5-2% give or take. Not a huge contribution, but nothing to sneeze at either.
[/QUOTE]

My apologies! That is far more than removing drops at a time. I retract my previous statement.

I would be curious to know if not only some of the heavy hitters, but some of the individuals working on other projects with higher success rates (arguably more practical) would be willing to contribute to the DCing process? After all, in so doing they are achieving a more tangible result than first time LLs and are doing a great service by putting M41- M47 in proper numerical order.

[QUOTE=Prime95;221184]I can think of two viable options:

1) Change the first-time / double-checking crossover. Maybe increase it to 2500 MHz. See [url]http://www.mersenne.org/thresholds/[/url]

2) Offer bonus CPU-time credit for double-checking. This goes against GIMPS long history of trying to accurately give CPU credit. I'd bet a 50% bonus would convince some of those TFers to switch to double-checking.[/QUOTE]
I'd also prefer the credit system reflected effort alone - please don't add arbitrary factors to it. Changing the crossover would be better. (For anyone who hasn't checked the thresholds page, it's currently 2000 MHz, but that's a "Pentium 4 equivalent speed" so it's not as high as it sounds.)

What if all the "whatever makes sense" machines above that threshold were assigned first-time LLs and double-checks alternately, or randomly in some proportion, or even just always assign one or two to any new machine? IIRC you considered a similar idea in the "P-1 factoring anyone?" thread - to assign some P-1 as long as the GIMPS client was configured with sufficient memory. A few DCs for each PC would also help measure their reliability.

I agree with markr above. What if every new machine was assigned a doublecheck first unless the user explicitly requests not to?

OK, who wants to e-mail curtisc...
 

Curtisc have handed in 7,092 LLs in the last 365 days. A conservative estimate is that a DC takes half the time of a current LL (for now, anyway, as we'll be working in the 20Ms and low 30Ms to start). So, figure that curtisc could perform roughly 14,000 doublechecks in a year if they were to switch their computers over to DC. This alone would increase doublecheck throughput by 50% or so on an annual basis, bringing the estimated wait for a proof that M47 is really M47, down to around 7 years from its date of discovery (i.e. 2016 or so).

curtisc is in it to find more primes. I don't think it is fair to ask people like him to do DCs. Instead we should get all new entrants - most of whom never finish an LL because it takes so bloody long - to do one or more DCs first instead.

[QUOTE=Prime95;221184]I can think of two viable options:

1) Change the first-time / double-checking crossover. Maybe increase it to 2500 MHz. See [url]http://www.mersenne.org/thresholds/[/url]

2) Offer bonus CPU-time credit for double-checking. This goes against GIMPS long history of trying to accurately give CPU credit. I'd bet a 50% bonus would convince some of those TFers to switch to double-checking.[/QUOTE]

I too would prefer to NOT have a bonus system.

This is similar to the problem last year (and maybe still a problem) of not having enough doing large P-1. I'd be curious to know how many PCs (as a percentage) are set to "Whatever makes sense". i.e. are there enough that you could use them to make bigger gain in P-1 and DC?

[quote=garo;221252]curtisc is in it to find more primes. I don't think it is fair to ask people like him to do DCs. Instead we should get all new entrants - most of whom never finish an LL because it takes so bloody long - to do one or more DCs first instead.[/quote]
Agreed. If you change the threshold then please make sure that Q6600s fit first-time tests. It really is getting to something if desktop quads are being handed DCs because they are too slow. I can understand mobile quads as they are clocked low.

[QUOTE=henryzz;221254]If you change the threshold then please make sure that Q6600s fit first-time tests.[/QUOTE]

Yes, quads will still get first-time tests if the threshold is changed. Under some of the other suggestions posted here a quad would get double-checks.

Your request, though, falls on deaf ears as you can always set your work preference to get exactly the work type you want.

[QUOTE=Prime95;221273]Under some of the other suggestions posted here a quad would get double-checks.[/QUOTE]I had suggested earlier (somewhere) that, before actually being assigned a 100M digit L-L, that those requesting such, be assigned a minimum number of DC's (unless they have a history on that CPUID that proves them stable). I was thinking a minimum of 2 per core that match (in a row). If you have a quad core turn in 8 clean and matching DC's, that should prove that it is viable to do a big LL. You may want to tweak the back-end (to account for the first timers being bad or wanting at least a 95% OK rate, which would mean any non-matches would require >10 clean matches.)

This will help the DC problem and prevent wasted cycles on bad 100M digit numbers.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;221282]I had suggested earlier (somewhere) that, before actually being assigned a 100M digit L-L, that those requesting such, be assigned a minimum number of DC's.[/QUOTE]

An overriding rule of GIMPS has always been to let the end user select the work they want to do.

For example, I had one user that insisted on running P-1 with B1=120 and B2=large. Several times I tried to convince him of the foolishness of this, but he persisted. Yet there is still no code in prime95 that prevents the user from doing this.

So it seems to me that anyone who happens to just download and install Prime95, and blindly run through the initial dialog boxes without selecting a type of work or anything, should be assigned DCs by default. In other words, make DC the default worktype unless someone knows enough (and takes the action) to select something different.

"Whatever makes sense" should also mean doublechecks. I am assuming that anyone selecting "whatever makes sense" either (1) doesn't care what type of work they contribute, (2) doesn't understand the differences between worktypes, or (3) really wants to do the work that is most needed by GIMPS. Yes, (1) and (2) are taking advantage of apathy and ignorance, respectively, but there is nothing that says that down the line, the user can learn more about or become more interested in GIMPS, and then try out different worktypes. Moreover, I'm betting that many (1) and (2) cases might include the folks who start an LL, only to become frustrated with the length of time it will take, and abandon the assignment. With a doublecheck taking a couple of weeks, we might be lucky enough to get at least one result from the early attriters (is that even a word? LOL).

With regard to silly stuff like the guy wanting to run P-1 with B1 = 120, I think that we really need to work on forming a Web page explaining how the different settings work for the different worktypes. I'm wondering how many users are blindly letting Prime95 run P-1 with 8 MB of RAM allocated, not because they can't afford higher memory, but because they simply don't understand why/how P-1 does better with more memory. It is not really noted anywhere on the GIMPS site what the recommended amounts of RAM are for P-1 (for instance, while 8 MB is really too little, something like 3GB for a single exponent is overkill). Trial factoring is another issue - I know it's in the source code, but it's not really out in the open what bit depth should be used for a given exponent range. Cheesehead wrote a good article on why trial factoring up to sqrt(Mp) is physically impossible - perhaps this could be included to help people understand why you can't just TF an exponent rather than running an LL.

I think that there are many users out there who are interested in the mathematics and the goals of GIMPS, but that are unaware of the finer points of how things work within the project. Along with this fact we must also consider that most users adopt the common paradigm of installing software and leaving the default options in place. I must admit that while I joined GIMPS in 2002, and began LL testing at that point, it was only with the introduction of v5 in 2008 that I began exploring other worktypes and learning more about how the different assignments and settings work. Indeed, I was one of the many who just chose the 8 MB option for P-1 and as a result I handed in very weakly P-1'ed exponents (and probably ran many unnecessary LL tests) for my first five or so years in GIMPS.

[QUOTE=NBtarheel_33;221285]So it seems to me that anyone who happens to just download and install Prime95, and blindly run through the initial dialog boxes without selecting a type of work or anything, should be assigned DCs by default.[/quote]

Replace "should" with "could". There is no consensus as to how important DC is vs. first-time LL.

[quote] With regard to silly stuff like the guy wanting to run P-1 with B1 = 120, I think that we really need to work on forming a Web page explaining ... It is not really noted anywhere on the GIMPS site what the recommended amounts of RAM are for P-1 (for instance, while 8 MB is really too little[/QUOTE]

No amount of documentation would have helped Mr. B1=120.

8MB is sufficient for P-1 - just not optimal.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;221282]I had suggested earlier (somewhere) that, before actually being assigned a 100M digit L-L, that those requesting such, be assigned a minimum number of DC's (unless they have a history on that CPUID that proves them stable).
This will help the DC problem and prevent wasted cycles on bad 100M digit numbers.[/QUOTE]

I like this idea; though would not most of these new computers be stable unless they are being overclocked? Pardon my ignorance on this subject!

[QUOTE=Prime95;221284]An overriding rule of GIMPS has always been to let the end user select the work they want to do.
[/QUOTE]

I think that this should be kept in place, [B]but[/B]....

[QUOTE=NBtarheel_33;221285]So it seems to me that anyone who happens to just download and install Prime95, and blindly run through the initial dialog boxes without selecting a type of work or anything, should be assigned DCs by default. In other words, make DC the default worktype unless someone knows enough (and takes the action) to select something different.

"Whatever makes sense" should also mean doublechecks. I am assuming that anyone selecting "whatever makes sense" either (1) doesn't care what type of work they contribute, (2) doesn't understand the differences between worktypes, or (3) really wants to do the work that is most needed by GIMPS. Yes, (1) and (2) are taking advantage of apathy and ignorance, respectively, but there is nothing that says that down the line, the user can learn more about or become more interested in GIMPS, and then try out different worktypes. Moreover, I'm betting that many (1) and (2) cases might include the folks who start an LL, only to become frustrated with the length of time it will take, and abandon the assignment. With a doublecheck taking a couple of weeks, we might be lucky enough to get at least one result from the early attriters (is that even a word? LOL).[/QUOTE]

This is also a good idea.

[QUOTE=Prime95;221289] There is no consensus as to how important DC is vs. first-time LL.[/QUOTE]

Perhaps we should take a poll then among active participants? It seems like at least a few on this thread support more attention being put on DCs (with caveats, of course). I think the reason for this was well-stated in the fact that it is going to take an increasingly large amount of time to confirm the positions of M41 to M47. In a practical sense, this may not matter as the work will get done 'eventually' as total throughput between DC and first-time ect is remaining relatively the same. However, some may feel that these gaps need to be completed in a more timely manner to effectively "settle" the matter. The end result will be the same regardless of the path taken; just the time in which they are realized will be different (potentially greatly different).

Kyle

[QUOTE=Primeinator;221291]Perhaps we should take a poll then among active participants? It seems like at least a few on this thread support more attention being put on DCs[/quote]

No need for a poll. The important point is I tend to agree with you that DCs should be given somewhat more priority. I'll implement something and we'll see how it goes.

[quote]The end result will be the same regardless of the path taken; just the time in which they are realized will be different [/QUOTE]

Quite true.

Okay. I now have two computers working for GIMPS- a dual core and a quad. When my dual core finishes it's current assignments, I will put it onto doing DC work (a drop in the bucket) but my quad core is 'relatively fast' and I will keep it doing first-time LLs at least for the present time. I have another PC 'sort of' working that I will also put onto DC work though it may be months before I resume access to that computer.

Is there anyway to send a message to people currently running the client that would give an explanatory message regarding the DC situation and asking if they would like to temporarily switch over their work type to aid the project? Of course, this information would have to include the prize money, etc. I do not have a good idea about the technical limitations of the new server and this idea may be impractical for other reasons. Again, please pardon my ignorance!

How about a plea?
 

The same way that you asked for P-1 help last year (and at least got "some" attention) could the same idea work for DC and catch the attention of some of the the big "farms". Someone like me with about a dozen active PC's of various sizes could allocate the entire team to DC and still take 20 years to complete one million range; DC is about 25 ranges behind LL.

I know there are several big farmers doing LOTS of factoring. Maybe(?) in the next few weeks when all the exponents are factored to 64 bits some of these might consider helping out with DC. This way we don't slow down LL in the meantime.

[QUOTE=petrw1;221296]I know there are several big farmers doing LOTS of factoring. Maybe(?) in the next few weeks when all the exponents are factored to 64 bits some of these might consider helping out with DC. This way we don't slow down LL in the meantime.[/QUOTE]

OK -- as one of those doing lots of LMHing (currently 110,000 a day)...

I do this partially because I want to have a regular and predictable amount of internet traffic from each machine (75 dual core at at least 2GHz) for monitoring purposes. Thus I will want to continue doing low-level TFing.

However, what I can and will do is allocate one core on each machine to DCing, leaving the other core to TFing / traffic generation.

And, George, I agree with the others above -- don't mess with the stats giving DC work a GHz Days "bonus". Not appropriate; and I don't think needed.

[quote=NBtarheel_33;221285]So it seems to me that anyone who happens to just download and install Prime95, and blindly run through the initial dialog boxes without selecting a type of work or anything, should be assigned DCs by default. In other words, make DC the default worktype unless someone knows enough (and takes the action) to select something different.[/quote]But it makes much more sense for the default worktype to be "whatever makes sense" than for it to be a specific worktype. That way, the admins can adjust the assignments for "whatever makes sense" to be whatever seems to be in GIMPS's best interest at a particular time. DCs might not always be what is in GIMPS's best interest.

Your proposal would leave the admins less flexibility -- why tie their hands?

[quote]"Whatever makes sense" should also mean doublechecks.[/quote]... and it can, whenever the admins make it so.

[quote]I am assuming that anyone selecting "whatever makes sense" either (1) doesn't care what type of work they contribute, (2) doesn't understand the differences between worktypes, or (3) really wants to do the work that is most needed by GIMPS. Yes, (1) and (2) are taking advantage of apathy and ignorance, respectively,[/quote]Not really "taking advantage" in any exploitative sense, I think.

If someone doesn't care -- they don't care, and will be happy for the GIMPS server to make the choice. Isn't that practically synonymous with reason (3)? After all, those people are joining GIMPS because [I]they want to help the project! [/I]Allowing the server to decide the worktype is perfectly compatible with that.

I think reason (3) may be much the most common reason when you take that into account.

[quote]but there is nothing that says that down the line, the user can learn more about or become more interested in GIMPS, and then try out different worktypes.[/quote]... so we don't need to change the assignment system's default, do we?

[quote]Moreover, I'm betting that many (1) and (2) cases might include the folks who start an LL, only to become frustrated with the length of time it will take, and abandon the assignment. With a doublecheck taking a couple of weeks, we might be lucky enough to get at least one result from the early attriters (is that even a word? LOL).[/quote]That's a good reason to assign DCs to new joiners ... [I]but it can just as well be implemented with a default of "whatever makes sense"[/I] -- the algorithm can simply take the user's newness into account, and assign DCs to newbies.

OTOH, reason (2) users might be dismayed to be assigned DCs -- they thought they would be getting a chance to win the EFF prize. However,

(A) they will get that chance later if they complete the initial DCs, and

(B) that's what they get for ignorance ... but it's easily remedied! Once they've learned the difference between a first-time LL and DC, they are completely free to specify first-runs only.

[quote]Trial factoring is another issue - I know it's in the source code, but it's not really out in the open what bit depth should be used for a given exponent range.[/quote]But TF assignments don't, by default, offer the user the chance to specify bit depth, so what's the problem? A beginning TF worker doesn't [I]need[/I] to know the default bit depths -- they're automatically set in the worktodo assignment lines.

Once the user learns more about TF, s/he can learn how to specify bit depths on the TF worktodo lines if s/he desires to override the default bit levels.

[quote]Cheesehead wrote a good article on why trial factoring up to sqrt(Mp) is physically impossible - perhaps this could be included[/quote]Included in readme.txt, you mean?

[quote]to help people understand why you can't just TF an exponent rather than running an LL.[/quote]Someone who actually tries TFing to the square root will be effectively educated by the wall clock.

[quote]I think that there are many users out there who are interested in the mathematics and the goals of GIMPS, but that are unaware of the finer points of how things work within the project.[/quote]We [I]do[/I] have this forum ...

[quote]Indeed, I was one of the many who just chose the 8 MB option for P-1[/quote]Let's not forget that one of the other basic principles of this project, in addition to the one George just mentioned, is to have as small a "footprint" on the user system as possible. That's why we have the programs run at lowest priority ... and why by default we have the user run only stage 1 of P-1 (that's the effect of the 8 MB default).

BTW, there _is_ an explanation of the P-1 memory issues in readme.txt -- it's under the heading "SETTING AVAILABLE MEMORY". Did you read that before, or while, you ran your first assignments? If not, why not?

Not much can be done[sup]*[/sup] about users who won't bother reading the readme.txt -- adding more explanations to it won't persuade new users who think it's already too long to bother with.

[quote]and as a result I handed in very weakly P-1'ed exponents (and probably ran many unnecessary LL tests) for my first five or so years in GIMPS.[/quote]... but you also had minimal interference with your system's performance because the software used only as much memory as it had to.

If GIMPS software bogged down systems by allocating gobs of memory once in a while for P-1 stage 2, without an understanding and informed consent (by deliberate memory setting) by the user, our project's software might be kicked out of many places where it now runs quietly with minimal impact.

Getting no LL contribution at all is worse for this project than getting a small percentage of LLs run where a large-memory P-1 stage 2 might have found a factor.

- - - - -

[sup]*[/sup] We might put some highly-effective introduction at the beginning that will grab new users' interest enough so that they'll want to devour every word that follows -- care to write one, anybody? Shall we make an offer to some best-selling author?? Anyone know a best-selling author who likes to crunch primes in the background as s/he writes?

Personally i think it would be possibble to maintain having a small footprint on a system if the default memory was set to 64Mb*(the number of gigabytes total on the system). This would work for low memory systems and high memory systems alike. Who would notice 256Mb of memory on a 4Gb system?

[quote=chalsall;221335]OK -- as one of those doing lots of LMHing (currently 110,000 a day)...[/quote]

LOL, you and Linde are lumberjacks and the unfactored ranges are forests. I couldn't even keep up with you guys to finish the 930M range.

[quote]I do this partially because I want to have a regular and predictable amount of internet traffic from each machine (75 dual core at at least 2GHz) for monitoring purposes. Thus I will want to continue doing low-level TFing.[/quote]

Just out of curiosity, are all of those systems yours, or are folks allowing you to run Prime95 on them? 75 dual-cores is an impressive farm!

[quote]However, what I can and will do is allocate one core on each machine to DCing, leaving the other core to TFing / traffic generation.[/quote]

75 cores devoted to DCs - just as a back of the envelope calculation, that would increase annual DC throughput by (at least) 5% or so! This would be a *huge* contribution!

[quote]And, George, I agree with the others above -- don't mess with the stats giving DC work a GHz Days "bonus". Not appropriate; and I don't think needed.[/quote]

Yeah, I think we've pretty much settled this one. Lots of votes against, none for, and several thousand abstentions, LOL.

[quote=henryzz;221369]Personally i think it would be possibble to maintain having a small footprint on a system if the default memory was set to 64Mb*(the number of gigabytes total on the system). This would work for low memory systems and high memory systems alike. Who would notice 256Mb of memory on a 4Gb system?[/quote]

Yes, this is sort of what I was trying to get at - the fact that despite the average system now having gigabytes of RAM, Prime95 is still timidly only taking 8MB, whenever it is likely that the program could take 200MB or so, get better P-1 results (and hence kill off more unneeded LLs), and still not affect system performance in any way.

Case in point: on all of my borged systems, I have P-1 set up to take 40-50% of the total available memory during Stage 2. This ranges on some machines from 200MB all the way up to 1536MB. I have not heard any complaints about memory hogging due to Prime95.

Even if Prime95 were to take 64MB of RAM, rather than just 8, we'd likely get more P-1 successes and definitely would not impact performance on a modern computer. IMO it's worth looking at, especially since bigger tests mean we need all the help we can get avoiding needless LLs.

I just finished M28002781 (assignment dated back to late 2008), so now everything under 29,000,000 has been checked once, and only one exponent remains under 30,402,451 (M43).

I've gone ahead and grabbed up this last exponent (it's assigned, but the assignment goes back to early 2009), and it should be done in about 10 days or so. Then everything under 30 million will have been checked once, as will everything under M43.

Please note that I am not advocating wide-scale, smash and grab poaching here, but I do believe that an exponent under 30 million that is (1) holding up a milestone, and (2) has been assigned for *well over* a year, ought to be considered fair game.

[QUOTE=NBtarheel_33;221421]I just finished M28002781 (assignment dated back to late 2008), so now everything under 29,000,000 has been checked once, and only one exponent remains under 30,402,451 (M43).

I've gone ahead and grabbed up this last exponent (it's assigned, but the assignment goes back to early 2009), and it should be done in about 10 days or so. Then everything under 30 million will have been checked once, as will everything under M43.

Please note that I am not advocating wide-scale, smash and grab poaching here, but I do believe that an exponent under 30 million that is (1) holding up a milestone, and (2) has been assigned for *well over* a year, ought to be considered fair game.[/QUOTE]

I sense a storm coming your way. Perhaps one way we can better dintinguish what to do with old assignments is to have a history (like when they checked in with the server and what point in the LL they are at). For it to be that old implies that the computer is working very minimally on it but is turning in reports just often enough to keep it.

I also immediately thought of another 101mph post coming your way. Anyway we really need a date when report was last sent to the server. When we have those 1.5+ year old exponents, there is no way to know if there is any progress at all, or if it has been abandoned.

Many of us, me included, get very impatient when they are holding up milestones, and I don't care about 101 mph vs 100 mph, and I don't care about credit either, so I wish I could "poach" them and give the credit to the person it was assigned to.

I have "poached" some exponents assigned to "Anonymous" which was over 1 year old. If people can't register properly, I consider it fair enough, and they don't get credit anyway, so I'm not stealing their credit.

When you add the line manually to your worktodo.txt, I sometimes get the error message "[B]ra: already assigned, exponent: <exponent>, A:1, b:2, c:-1[/B]" and I don't get the assignment, while other times I get the assignment registered to me "officially" including the very long "residue". I assume this could be a hidden date for when activity was last reported, so I leave the "already assigned" alone, and assume the ones transfered to me was abandoned. Can George confirm or deny this?

Btw, there is an error, unless its intended, when I get an Anonymous assignment from for example 2008 "officially" assisgned to me, it doesn't correct the date, and it looks like I had it since 2008, until I finish it.

[QUOTE=NBtarheel_33;221371]Just out of curiosity, are all of those systems yours, or are folks allowing you to run Prime95 on them?[/QUOTE]

The latter. They are clients who know Prime95 is being run, and the reasons for it.

This has saved our collective butts many times in the past -- detecting virus infections the "antivirus" software didn't, debugging network routing issues, and detecting bad hardware. :cool:

[quote=chalsall;221469]and detecting bad hardware. :cool:[/quote]
what about creating bad hardware?

[QUOTE=henryzz;221474]what about creating bad hardware?[/QUOTE]

LOL... I'm of the school of thought that if a machine can't handle 100% CPU load, then it's faulty; and I want to know about it ASAP.

There's nothing worse than trying to debug the "once a month" fault....

[quote=chalsall;221475]LOL... I'm of the school of thought that if a machine can't handle 100% CPU load, then it's faulty; and I want to know about it ASAP.

There's nothing worse than trying to debug the "once a month" fault....[/quote]
I realize but AFAIK running at 100% causes more wear and tear than 0%
not that i take any notice

[QUOTE=henryzz;221482]I realize but AFAIK running at 100% causes more wear and tear than 0% not that i take any notice[/QUOTE]

Let me please say again... If the machine can't handle it (over the long term), I don't want it on my (or my client's) network...

As Far As I Have Experienced (AFAIHE), CPUs don't go bad because of load (unless they're overclocked, which I never do).

Usually machines fail because of bad fans, then bad harddrives (non solid-state... hmmm...); both of which Prime95 helps me find....

[quote=NBtarheel_33;221421]I've gone ahead and grabbed up this last exponent (it's assigned, but the assignment goes back to early 2009),[/quote][U]In other words, you're a poacher and unashamed to announce it.[/U]

[quote]Please note that I am not advocating wide-scale, smash and grab poaching here,[/quote][U]Of course not.

No poacher [I]ever[/I] advocates indiscriminate poaching!

Every poacher thinks that his individual judgment is better than anyone else's on just certain exponents -- not many, just a few,
[/U]
It doesn't hurt anyone to poach only a few selected exponents, does it? -- Is that your rationalizaton for stealing someone else's chance to discover whether that exponent denotes a new a Mersenne prime -- spoiling their fun -- just because they were stupid enough to play by the rules, whereas superior folks like you know when you're justified in breaking the rules?

[quote]but I do believe that an exponent under 30 million that is (1) holding up a milestone, and (2) has been assigned for *well over* a year, ought to be considered fair game.[/quote]Of course, you do! Those are oh, so reasonable criteria!

You just want to steal a little bit. You're [I]soooooo[/I] discriminating in your superior-to-others' judgment!

- - -

This project runs on trust.

You're breaking that trust.

Have you any shame?

[QUOTE=henryzz;221474]what about creating bad hardware?[/QUOTE]

I don't think running a machine without over-clocking at its full specified 100% productivity is "creating" any bad hardware even if it effects the life expectancy. Its supposed to be able to do it and if it can't Id just as soon it went bad so I can find it and replace it.

[quote=ATH;221465]Anyway we really need a date when report was last sent to the server.[/quote]That would help.

[quote]When we have those 1.5+ year old exponents, there is no way to know if there is any progress at all, or if it has been abandoned.[/quote]Actually, we [I]do[/I] know that the most recent report was within the default reporting interval, or else it would have been reassigned already.

[quote]Many of us, me included, get very impatient when they are holding up milestones, and I don't care about 101 mph vs 100 mph, and I don't care about credit either, so I wish I could "poach" them and give the credit to the person it was assigned to.[/quote]That last clause was nice of you, [U]but here's something any poacher [/U][U]steals and cannot give back[/U]:

[U]The opportunity, [I]which the GIMPS project has pledged to try to preserve[/I], to discover a Mersenne prime.

[/U]By poaching, you chip away at GIMPS's reputation and trustworthiness.

[quote]I have "poached" some exponents assigned to "Anonymous" which was over 1 year old. If people can't register properly, I consider it fair enough, and they don't get credit anyway, so I'm not stealing their credit.[/quote]So, like every other poacher, you have your own individual criteria for deciding when you think your judgment is superior to others'.

Gee, you're smart.

But there are those little matters of trust, integrity, opportunity, pledges, and so on ... how did you figure out when and why it's acceptable to throw those away? Please explain for the rest of us.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;221514]
But there are those little matters of trust, integrity, opportunity, pledges, and so on ... how did you figure out when and why it's acceptable to throw those away? Please explain for the rest of us.[/QUOTE]

While completely being on your side regarding poaching (I strongly believe in rules), I would like to remind you the fact that many (and I mean MANY) users have lost their (often borged) computers. Those machines still connect to the Internet from time to time, but are virtually lost.

I myself had a couple of slow computers that run Prime95 on a travel agency. The PCs have been donated to charity after a quick and not so smart wiping of the disks. Prime95 was kept inside, and runs for a couple of hours each day, connecting once a week (or more).

I feel somewhat guilty for stealing exponents to GIMPS that way, and in that particular case I'd be glad if someone "poached" these exponents.

What I am trying to say is that, while poaching is absolutely a bad action, sometimes it can amend small troubles. Maybe you could be a bit less harsh and "squared" in your messages, where you remind me of Bob SIlverman. :smile:

His argumentations are also always correct, like yours, but sometime directed to the wrong audience: he likes to teach people to learn how to proceed in Math fields, you try to explain how to behave in life. While we all are just playing in a forum.

I'm sure NBtarheel_33 will never steal in "real life". May I assume that you never downloaded any MP3 or PDF document or program, and never infringed any copyright?
Maybe I can, and that is a good evidence of your assertions, but sadly life brings many of us to seldom break some rules, as a matter of survival.

My 2 cents: keep advicing people on life values, but don't take it too personally... :smile:

Luigi

I understand where Cheesehead is coming from, as for whatever reason, he was repeatedly a victim of poaching (because the poacher felt that Cheesehead was taking too long to finish his assignments, to boot), hence this issue is his hot-button as it hits closest to home.

On the other hand, there are more than a few (just judging from participation in this thread alone) participants in GIMPS who are interested in a steady progression of milestones and wavefronts, in both first LLs and double-checks (there is a level of concern about the time between the discovery of Mxx and proof of numerical order of Mxx that is so strong that there is a thread rallying support for GIMPS farmers to switch their cores to DCs). I bet that there are one or two people who might even feel as strongly in this direction as Cheesehead feels in the other direction, but simply do not wish to be as vocal about their feelings. Moreover, while we understand that poaching may drive participants away from GIMPS, it is important that we also note that sluggish progression of milestones/wavefronts/etc. may do just the same.

Therefore, it seems as though we need to strike a compromise between the anti-poaching side of the aisle and the milestone-mowing side of the aisle.

With regard to the present PrimeNet assignment system, it is my understanding that an assignment (of "typical" size, as opposed to a 100Md assignment) remains "checked out" to an assignee for a maximum of one year, before being subject to reassignment. I may be misunderstanding the way the system works, but it seems to me that I've read where this reassignment may happen *despite* the assignee's checking in with the PrimeNet server (someone please correct me on this if I am wrong). In any case, it seems reasonable to assume that the exponents that are holding up the next few milestones are all of a size that should be able to be completed within a year on any modern PC that has any business running LLs (note that this is not my opinion; George instituted thresholds based on clock speed for receiving certain assignments for this very reason). I understand that we do not want to discourage users with slow systems, 101 mph is faster than 100 mph, etc. etc., but one might also argue that these systems' being assigned an LL test, when such will take over a year, and in some cases over 18 months, is actually hurting GIMPS throughput, as such a machine would be better suited to increasing the throughput of TFing, DCing, or even P-1.

In other words, we may not be looking at 101 mph vs. 100 mph, we may be looking at 100.0000000001 mph vs. 100 mph. And so my question is, at what point is the work from such a slow system no longer worth waiting on, when it can be done by a modern system in mere days *and* facilitate the passage of a milestone, which (1) appeases the hardcore milestone fanatics, and (2) may in fact generate new interest in the GIMPS project (in how many math classes, for instance, do you think that it was mentioned this week that M40 has been proven to really be M40? How many students will hence go home and give GIMPS a try?)

With respect to potential loss of discovery of a prime, yes, this is a possibility albeit a very rare one. Remember that the poacher has the same chance of hitting a prime as the original assignee - basically on the order of a few hundred thousand to 1. In the case of a poached doublecheck, it's even rarer that the poacher will hit a prime. On the other hand, one must ask the question of whether it is fair to allow an exponent to be held up for over a year when (1) a year is on the order of 6-12 times the time required for modern hardware to complete a first LL, and (2) George has set the maximum assignment age to a year. As an example, albeit a facetious one, why couldn't I simply reserve tens or hundreds of thousands of exponents (all it takes is a little patience and enough HD space for the worktodo file) and tie them up indefinitely, reporting mere hundreds of iterations per day, essentially locking out any discoverers of potential Mersenne primes in my cache?

Again, I know that the poaching issue looms larger for Cheesehead than it perhaps does for others here, but I would hope that he would agree that there needs to be some sort of consensus on how to handle exponents that are (1) aging well beyond what would be considered reasonable, and (2) directly hindering GIMPS from achieving new milestones. After all, as I mentioned above, there may be a participant who feels just as strongly as Cheesehead about reaching new milestones, but simply doesn't vocalize it.

[quote=NBtarheel_33;221535]
Moreover, while we understand that poaching may drive participants away from GIMPS, it is important that we also note that sluggish progression of milestones/wavefronts/etc. may do just the same.

Therefore, it seems as though we need to strike a compromise between the anti-poaching side of the aisle and the milestone-mowing side of the aisle.[/quote]

I totally agree. Having exponents dragging their feet for ages makes many of us feel really unconfortable. Participating in the project is a voluntary choice, of course, and every small contribution is welcome, but there are some minimal etiquette standards that should be adhered to. The rule of 1 year, particularly for DCs, sounds quite reasonable and I advocate it should be enforced by the server. In the Assignment Rules page it is stated that exponents that are out for more than a year [U]may[/U] be reassigned by the server. It would be a matter of changing it to [U]will.[/U]
But the final word is to be said by the project leaders, and once they take a decision and communicate it to the community at large I consider we shall abide by it, and refrain from taking direct action.
George, any thoughts?

[QUOTE=ET_;221515]While completely being on your side regarding poaching (I strongly believe in rules), I would like to remind you the fact that many (and I mean MANY) users have lost their (often borged) computers. Those machines still connect to the Internet from time to time, but are virtually lost.

I myself had a couple of slow computers that run Prime95 on a travel agency. The PCs have been donated to charity after a quick and not so smart wiping of the disks. Prime95 was kept inside, and runs for a couple of hours each day, connecting once a week (or more).[/QUOTE]I have had similar situations, losing a borg.

Being somewhat Machiavellian here...

Why on gods green earth would the server hand out low DCs to slow machines?

[quote=ET_;221515]While completely being on your side regarding poaching (I strongly believe in rules), I would like to remind you the fact that many (and I mean MANY) users have lost their (often borged) computers. Those machines still connect to the Internet from time to time, but are virtually lost.[/quote]So what?

PrimeNet has procedures to take care of those cases automatically! Once a machine fails to report within the time limit, PrimeNet reassigns the exponent.

So, there's no justification for poaching because a machine is "virtually lost".

Just like every other excuse I've seen, the "lost computer" excuse for poaching falls apart upon scrutiny.

[quote]I myself had a couple of slow computers that run Prime95 on a travel agency. The PCs have been donated to charity after a quick and not so smart wiping of the disks. Prime95 was kept inside, and runs for a couple of hours each day, connecting once a week (or more).

I feel somewhat guilty for stealing exponents to GIMPS that way, and in that particular case I'd be glad if someone "poached" these exponents.[/quote]You can unreserve any of your assignments any time you wish. Why not do that?

Again, this is no excuse for poaching.

[quote]What I am trying to say is that, while poaching is absolutely a bad action, sometimes it can amend small troubles.[/quote]No one has _ever_ described a situation in which poaching was justified, and you haven't either.

PrimeNet has had procedures for dealing with the situation you describe, for years.

[quote]Maybe you could be a bit less harsh and "squared" in your messages, where you remind me of Bob SIlverman.[/quote]Maybe you could stop squirming, in your messages, to try to justify poaching. You remind me of a kid who knows he's doing the wrong thing.

[quote]His argumentations are also always correct, like yours, but sometime directed to the wrong audience: he likes to teach people to learn how to proceed in Math fields, you try to explain how to behave in life.[/quote]You can't refute what I say about poaching without resorting to distortion of my words, can you? What I've said here was about poaching, not the other 99.99% of life. Your "how to behave in life" is a straw-man exaggeration of what I actually said.

[quote]I'm sure NBtarheel_33 will never steal in "real life".[/quote]Then why do it here in "non-real life"?

[quote]May I assume that you never downloaded any MP3 or PDF document or program, and never infringed any copyright?[/quote]See?

You can't refute what I say about poaching, so you resort to rhetorical trickery to try to expand the discussion beyond that subject.

[quote]Maybe I can, and that is a good evidence of your assertions, but sadly life brings many of us to seldom break some rules, as a matter of survival.[/quote]Notice how much of your argument would disappear if you erased all non-poaching-related content.

[quote=lycorn;221537]there are some minimal etiquette standards that should be adhered to.[/quote]

Exactly. Holding up choice exponents, or worse, delaying milestones is no worse or no better than poaching.

[quote]The rule of 1 year, particularly for DCs, sounds quite reasonable and I advocate it should be enforced by the server. In the Assignment Rules page it is stated that exponents that are out for more than a year [U]may[/U] be reassigned by the server. It would be a matter of changing it to [U]will.[/quote][/U]

OK, so it's different from what I thought. I was assuming that exponents expired on their own, automatically after one year (other than the special case of a 100Md test). Changing this to a hard limit, IMHO, is the key compromise that will end poaching as well as set an upper bound to the expected length of time for a given milestone. Note that if this limit were in place, my poaches would no longer be poaches, and in fact, would have been reassigned months ago and probably completed by now.

I also wonder if it would be worthwhile to change the preferred exponent thresholds whenever we get close (e.g. within 100 or even 1000) to a milestone, so that only reliable, confirmed, modern machines are given the potential stragglers. Keep in mind that even with the one year limit in place by itself, an exponent could go into a loop of year after year being assigned to a woefully slow user/machine...and we get the same problem we have now. So I feel we definitely need a combination of a hard upper limit on assignment age *and* dynamically adjusted preferred exponent thresholds as we pass near milestones.

[quote]But the final word is to be said by the project leaders, and once they take a decision and communicate it to the community at large I consider we shall abide by it, and refrain from taking direct action.
George, any thoughts?[/quote]

One of the wonderful things about GIMPS is that George actively considers (and even solicits) ideas and opinions from the participants. Just as we all worked together in reaching a consensus on trying to increase the pace of DCs, I'm sure we will be able to figure something out here that once and for all ends the tug-of-war between the anti-poachers and the milestone fans.

@cheesehead...

With all due respect, it appears you have issues that perhaps you should deal with outside of GIMPS....

[quote=cheesehead;221543]PrimeNet has procedures to take care of those cases automatically! Once a machine fails to report within the time limit, PrimeNet reassigns the exponent.[/quote]

But, as ET said, his lost machine *is* reporting within the time limit. What happens if only an infinitesimal amount of work is being performed within that time limit? I could hoard 10,000 exponents, as I said earlier, and report 100 iterations on each one, every 59.9 days, and you're saying that all 10,000 of my assignments should be protected for perpetuity? I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. And before you dismiss the example as an exaggeration, what if I do it with 100 exponents, or 10 exponents, just to make a point?

[quote]You can unreserve any of your assignments any time you wish. Why not do that?[/quote]

Because the "lost" computer keeps reporting in with the exponent, and getting it reassigned. Go check out the LL report on M28489829. That exponent was running on a borged box of mine which I lost access to. For whatever reason, after the assignment finished, that rogue computer kept running the LL and reporting the result over and over, some 20 times. What was happening was the computer was actually re-registering the assignment with PrimeNet *every single time* it finished the test. A similar thing has happened with M21934921, I believe (there's a whole thread on that exponent - it's had like 650 LL tests by the same user). I tried to unregister M28489829 - it wouldn't die.

[quote]No one has _ever_ described a situation in which poaching was justified, and you haven't either.[/quote]

No one has _ever_ described a situation in which holding up a milestone or sitting on choice exponents for years was justified. By the way, it follows that ET hasn't described such a situation, if no one has...

[quote]PrimeNet has had procedures for dealing with the situation you describe, for years.[/quote]

I, and perhaps others here, claim that these procedures still have loopholes that make them inadequate. These loopholes need to be tightened, if not closed completely.

[quote]Maybe you could stop squirming, in your messages, to try to justify poaching. You remind me of a kid who knows he's doing the wrong thing.[/quote]

Frankly, you tend to treat anyone who doesn't share your point of view as a kid who is doing the wrong thing. No offense, but that is just the way it comes across. Your opinion is the right way, and anything in conflict is inherently wrong or evil. The analogy with Bob Silverman would be that anyone who does not study mathematics 16 hours a day doesn't deserve to discuss the subject.

[quote]Your "how to behave in life" is a straw-man exaggeration of what I actually said.[/quote]

Oh $deity, ET, you've been hit with the infamous straw-man charge.

[quote]Then why do it here in "non-real life"?[/quote]

Wow, I'm a thief? There's a deed and title to each exponent? I have fifty of them, each one a different integer. I hereby charge anyone $5 usage rights for any use of "my" exponents' names. I guess we have to start referring to M47 as "that number" or else we'll have to pay the discoverer for usage rights. Sorry, man, but you're taking a fun, volunteer project *way too freaking seriously*. As Dinah Washington sang ([URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lhuNh7TIwY[/URL]), Relax Max.

Again, I'll ask the question: Suppose there is someone who loves milestones as much as you hate poaching. How would you feel if they did nothing but push their views on milestones and essentially refused to even consider your anti-poaching side of the issue? Because that is what you are doing, in reverse.

[quote=chalsall;221546]@cheesehead...

With all due respect, it appears you have issues that perhaps you should deal with outside of GIMPS....[/quote]

No, he just feels strongly about the poaching issue, because it is something that has affected him numerous times in the past. He is certainly entitled to his viewpoints, and to argue them, but I feel like he needs to let the wall down a little bit to consider the views of the other side.

[quote=NBtarheel_33;221535]I understand where Cheesehead is coming from, as for whatever reason, he was repeatedly a victim of poaching[/quote]I opposed poaching [I]before[/I] it happened to me.

[quote]On the other hand, there are more than a few (just judging from participation in this thread alone) participants in GIMPS who are interested in a steady progression[/quote]Translation of your "interested in a steady progression":

"We can't control our impatience, among other impulses. Rather than learn self-control we pretend that our inability is superior to someone else's right to enjoy and process their assignment in accordance with GIMPS rules without usurpation."

[quote]of milestones and wavefronts, in both first LLs and double-checks (there is a level of concern about the time between the discovery of Mxx and proof of numerical order of Mxx that is so strong that there is a thread rallying support for GIMPS farmers to switch their cores to DCs).=[/quote]Note that that appeal does not involve poaching! It's conducted entirely according to GIMPS rules!

That's because that "level of concern" is not "so strong" that it exceeds individuals' ability to control themselves.

[quote]I bet that there are one or two people who might even feel as strongly in this direction as Cheesehead feels in the other direction,[/quote]"other direction"?? "other direction"??

Not only do I also fully support acting in accordance with GIMPS project rules, as those thread posters are doing, but I have even joined their effort! I'm running a DC right now.

Why do you try to falsely portray me as being in opposition to that entirely-proper appeal? Is it because you're desperately searching for a way to discredit my opposition to poaching?

[quote]Moreover, while we understand that poaching may drive participants away from GIMPS, it is important that we also note that sluggish progression of milestones/wavefronts/etc. may do just the same.[/quote]Have you considered that the best answer might be to develop metrics that will more vividly portray GIMPS progress to impatient individuals such as yourself?

[quote]Therefore, it seems as though we need to strike a compromise between the anti-poaching side of the aisle and the milestone-mowing side of the aisle.[/quote]Actually, the milestones are getting mowed just fine. Your proposed method of advancing one milestone just delays a future milestone by an equal amount! It's not that the milestones are slow, it's that your vision is so short that you can't see beyond the nearest one.

Poaching _never_ speeds up GIMPS progress. All arguments to the contrary are simply overlooking some factors.

[quote]With regard to the present PrimeNet assignment system, it is my understanding that an assignment (of "typical" size, as opposed to a 100Md assignment)

< snip >

is actually hurting GIMPS throughput, as such a machine would be better suited to increasing the throughput of TFing, DCing, or even P-1.[/quote]... which is just another variation on the "My judgment is superior to those employing 'slow' systems" argument.

[quote]In other words, we may not be looking at 101 mph vs. 100 mph, we may be looking at 100.0000000001 mph vs. 100 mph.[/quote]Can't do without exaggeration, can you?

If you had a legitimate argument, you wouldn't have to stretch any numbers.

[quote]And so my question is, at what point is the work from such a slow system no longer worth waiting on[/quote]... in the superior judgment of those lacking self-control of their impatiences, that is ...

[quote]and (2) may in fact generate new interest in the GIMPS project (in how many math classes, for instance, do you think that it was mentioned this week that M40 has been proven to really be M40? How many students will hence go home and give GIMPS a try?)[/quote]Not as many as would be the case if the proof of M40 were delayed until September or October, when many more math classes are in session than are now in July.

So, sometimes there's no advantage to hurrying up?

[quote]With respect to potential loss of discovery of a prime, yes, this is a possibility albeit a very rare one. Remember that the poacher has the same chance of hitting a prime as the original assignee - basically on the order of a few hundred thousand to 1.[/quote]You seem to have missed my point:

It's not a matter of the chances.

The assignee is the one who has a legitimate right to make the discovery, regardless of the odds. It's not the right of the poacher.

[quote]In the case of a poached doublecheck, it's even rarer that the poacher will hit a prime.[/quote]... but it's certain that rarity is not the important point in this argument.

[quote]On the other hand, one must ask the question of whether it is fair to allow an exponent to be held up for over a year when (1) a year is on the order of 6-12 times the time required for modern hardware to complete a first LL, and (2) George has set the maximum assignment age to a year.[/quote]If you accept George's choice of maximum age as legitimate, why isn't that same period of time "fair" in the first part of your sentence?

[quote] As an example, albeit a facetious one, why couldn't I simply reserve tens or hundreds of thousands of exponents (all it takes is a little patience and enough HD space for the worktodo file) and tie them up indefinitely, reporting mere hundreds of iterations per day, essentially locking out any discoverers of potential Mersenne primes in my cache?[/quote]So ... you're arguing that selfish behavior in one regard justifies selfish behavior in another regard?

[quote]Again, I know that the poaching issue looms larger for Cheesehead than it perhaps does for others here, but I would hope that he would agree that there needs to be some sort of consensus on how to handle exponents that are (1) aging well beyond what would be considered reasonable,[/quote]There already [u]is[/u] a consensus: the existing PrimeNet procedures! :-)

[quote](2) directly hindering GIMPS from achieving new milestones.[/quote]As I pointed out earlier, such short-sighted analysis leaves out the very relevant factor of whether the method of speeding one milestone is also delaying achievement of the following milestone by at least the same amount.

[quote]After all, as I mentioned above, there may be a participant who feels just as strongly as Cheesehead about reaching new milestones, but simply doesn't vocalize it.[/quote]

So, you're conceding that some readers may support my position even though they don't post anything in threads? That's polite of you ... and also true! I have, indeed, received an occasional message from someone saying that he doesn't have time to do more than just read the forum, but supports my positions regarding poaching and other matters, and encourages me to continue my advocacy.

[quote=NBtarheel_33;221535]I understand where Cheesehead is coming from, as for whatever reason, he was repeatedly a victim of poaching[/quote]I opposed poaching before it happened to me. Do you understand that?

[quote]On the other hand, there are more than a few (just judging from participation in this thread alone) participants in GIMPS who are interested in a steady progression[/quote]Possible translation of "interested in a steady progression", I think:

"We can't control our impatience and craving for the security of 'steady' progress. Rather than learn self-control, or a more sophisticated appreciation of GIMPS's total progress, we find it easier to pretend that our inability is superior to someone else's right to enjoy and process their assignment in accordance with GIMPS rules without usurpation."

[quote]of milestones and wavefronts, in both first LLs and double-checks (there is a level of concern about the time between the discovery of Mxx and proof of numerical order of Mxx that is so strong that there is a thread rallying support for GIMPS farmers to switch their cores to DCs).=[/quote]Note that that rally does not involve poaching -- it's conducted entirely according to GIMPS rules.

That's because that "level of concern" is not "so strong" that it exceeds individuals' ability to control themselves.

[quote]I bet that there are one or two people who might even feel as strongly in this direction as Cheesehead feels in the other direction,[/quote]"other direction"??

Not only do I also fully support acting in accordance with GIMPS project rules, as those thread posters are doing, but I have even joined their effort! I'm running a DC right now. How is that any "other direction"?

[quote]Moreover, while we understand that poaching may drive participants away from GIMPS, it is important that we also note that sluggish progression of milestones/wavefronts/etc. may do just the same.[/quote]Have you considered that the best answer might be to develop metrics that will more vividly portray GIMPS progress to impatient individuals?

[quote]Therefore, it seems as though we need to strike a compromise between the anti-poaching side of the aisle and the milestone-mowing side of the aisle.[/quote]Actually, the milestones are getting mowed just fine. Your proposed method of advancing one milestone via poaching just delays a future milestone by an equal amount.

It's not that the milestones are slow, it's that your vision is focused only on the nearest one.

Poaching _never_ speeds up GIMPS progress. All arguments to the contrary are simply overlooking some factors.

[quote]With regard to the present PrimeNet assignment system, it is my understanding that an assignment (of "typical" size, as opposed to a 100Md assignment)

< snip >

is actually hurting GIMPS throughput, as such a machine would be better suited to increasing the throughput of TFing, DCing, or even P-1.[/quote]... which is just another variation on the "My judgment is superior to those employing 'slow' systems" argument.

[quote]In other words, we may not be looking at 101 mph vs. 100 mph, we may be looking at 100.0000000001 mph vs. 100 mph.[/quote]If you had a legitimate argument, you wouldn't have to exaggerate any numbers to convincingly make your point.

[quote]And so my question is, at what point is the work from such a slow system no longer worth waiting on[/quote]... worth, in the superior judgment of those lacking self-control of their impatiences, that is ...

[quote]and (2) may in fact generate new interest in the GIMPS project (in how many math classes, for instance, do you think that it was mentioned this week that M40 has been proven to really be M40? How many students will hence go home and give GIMPS a try?)[/quote]Not as many as would be the case if the proof of M40 were delayed until September or October, when many more math classes are in session than are now in July.

[quote]With respect to potential loss of discovery of a prime, yes, this is a possibility albeit a very rare one. Remember that the poacher has the same chance of hitting a prime as the original assignee - basically on the order of a few hundred thousand to 1.[/quote]You seem to have missed the point:

It's not a matter of the chances.

The assignee is the one who has a legitimate right to make the discovery, regardless of the odds. It's not the right of the poacher.

[quote]In the case of a poached doublecheck, it's even rarer that the poacher will hit a prime.[/quote]... but it's certain that that rarity is not the important point in this argument.

[quote]On the other hand, one must ask the question of whether it is fair to allow an exponent to be held up for over a year when (1) a year is on the order of 6-12 times the time required for modern hardware to complete a first LL, and (2) George has set the maximum assignment age to a year.[/quote]If you accept George's choice of maximum age as legitimate, why isn't that same period of time "fair" in the first part of your sentence?

[quote] As an example, albeit a facetious one, why couldn't I simply reserve tens or hundreds of thousands of exponents (all it takes is a little patience and enough HD space for the worktodo file) and tie them up indefinitely, reporting mere hundreds of iterations per day, essentially locking out any discoverers of potential Mersenne primes in my cache?[/quote]So ... you're arguing that selfish behavior in one regard justifies selfish behavior in another regard?

[quote]Again, I know that the poaching issue looms larger for Cheesehead than it perhaps does for others here, but I would hope that he would agree that there needs to be some sort of consensus on how to handle exponents that are (1) aging well beyond what would be considered reasonable,[/quote]There already [U]is[/U] a consensus: the existing PrimeNet procedures! :-)

[quote](2) directly hindering GIMPS from achieving new milestones.[/quote]As I pointed out earlier, such short-sighted analysis leaves out the very relevant factor of whether the method of speeding one milestone is also delaying achievement of the following milestone by at least the same amount.

[quote]After all, as I mentioned above, there may be a participant who feels just as strongly as Cheesehead about reaching new milestones, but simply doesn't vocalize it.[/quote]?

Are you conceding that some readers may support my position even though they don't post anything in threads? :-)

That would be polite of you ... and also true!

I have, indeed, received an occasional message from someone saying that he doesn't have time to do more than just read the forum, but he supports my positions regarding poaching and other matters, and encourages me to continue my advocacy.

[QUOTE=NBtarheel_33;221548]Because the "lost" computer keeps reporting in with the exponent, and getting it reassigned. Go check out the LL report on M28489829. That exponent was running on a borged box of mine which I lost access to.[/QUOTE]I haven't had that exactly happen, but I have had pre-new-PrimeNet machines lost. If a zombie borg machine gets used 4 hours a week (during which it checks in) (and I have seen one that is fewer user hours than that) and otherwise sits idle, how long would it take to do a DC, that normally would take it 60 days?

(((60 * 24) / 4) * 7) / 365 = 6.9 years.

That is a bit long.

I think the main crux of the issue is this: PrimeNet does have procedures to deal with tardy exponents (namely, the policy that exponents over 1 year old will be reassigned), but it's currently a manual procedure and is not widely enforced. It would seem that all parties here agree that within the bounds of that one year, the assignee has the sole "right" to perform the LL test on that and receive credit if it is a prime.

Beyond that one year limit, though, PrimeNet policies make it clear that the exponent is no longer the "property" of the assignee (in quotes because of course nobody really "owns" the exponents). The only reason why the server still considers it as such after that deadline, and consequently does not reassign it, is because the admins didn't yet get the chance to trigger the reassignment.

Thus, it would seem logical that PrimeNet policies [i]do[/i] allow someone else to come in and claim an exponent that's been assigned for over a year. After all, it is no longer supposed to be assigned to the original assignee and therefore he has no claim on it. That leaves it up for grabs, just as it would be if the original assignment was canceled but it wasn't given out to anybody else yet.

Ideally, the PrimeNet server would cancel >1 year old assignments and reassign them on an automatic, timely basis. However, at this time such a system is not in place, which leaves enforcement of the PrimeNet assignment rules to humans (whether the admins in triggering the reassignment manually, or a so-called "poacher" in claiming an exponent that he has as much right to as anyone else).

Disclaimer: I do not, of course, advocate poaching of assignments that are still within the established 1-year assignment deadline. I suspect that everyone else participating in this discussion agrees with at least that much. :smile:

These debates tend often to become nasty when it comes to efficiency vs. milestones accomplished with regard to the methods that underly the achievements of one,which detract to some extent from the other.

The wedge issue seems to be that some are satisfied that work is being done at a natural, but optimal, pace while others want to see somewhat arbitrary milestones verified and marked as complete at the cost (rightly mentioned) of future milestones via poaching or expiration policies.

This impatience can be somewhat ameliorated if reports could include greater detail. This would alleviate some of the anxiety that some have (and I will admit to some level) to seeing milestones resolved. I assume that there are those out there who want to see the meta data behind the tests to give them some idea as to when the next milestone will be completed based on how often a given test is reported, its status to completion ... etc. (sort of filling in the blanks by allowing one to search a given exponent to see some of the work history and progress).

I'm not sure if the servers themselves, in addition to reporting, run tests as well and perhaps this extra data that needs to be processed is a waste of resources and hence simply an indulgence of one's wanting to know more about less. If that is the case, then one should move on and worry about other things and accept the fact that milestones will take years to accomplish and I am prepared to accept that as part of the means to the goals of the project.

Let's cut the crap here and get to the point. Both sides of the argument seem to have their heels dug in to varying degrees (rightly, wrongly or arbitrarily). Compromise to the poaching rule is a slippery slope as tempting as it is to cheer at times from a showing of hands for varying reasons. Can more detailed information be a compromise?

@ mdettweiler,

If the policies are as you have stated, then poaching x > 1a may be appropriate although breaches the optimal efficiencies implicit to the project and leads to other conflicts. I'd like to see what others think of this as grounds for appropriating poaching.

[QUOTE=mdettweiler;221560]Ideally, the PrimeNet server would cancel >1 year old assignments and reassign them on an automatic, timely basis. [/QUOTE]

I am against such a policy with some exception. I had one system two months from the one year mark and was in the 70th percentage range. I nearly cooked it running it 24/7 to complete it in time (as I couldn't move it as I didn't have a spare computer to move to). It was a Centrino laptop running a DC in the 22k exponent range. If it didn't make it within the time alloted under a strict policy, it would have been a waste of time and resources. If there were a cutoff rule (i.e. if time elapsed >1a, progress on x <10%) perhaps then poaching / reallocation should be permitted.

But this leads to a slippery slope as who is to determine how much work should be done within the 1a period. I hope I have not implicitly contradicted myself here in this message.

[QUOTE=NBtarheel_33;221535]With regard to the present PrimeNet assignment system, it is my understanding that an assignment (of "typical" size, as opposed to a 100Md assignment) remains "checked out" to an assignee for a maximum of one year, before being subject to reassignment. I may be misunderstanding the way the system works, but it seems to me that I've read where this reassignment may happen *despite* the assignee's checking in with the PrimeNet server (someone please correct me on this if I am wrong). [/QUOTE]

I can tell you from person experience that I had a borged PIV PC that has ended up in a situation where:
a. the people literally use it only a couple hours a WEEK / MONTH
b. the PC is no longer accessible to me

It is still running Prime95 and is still in V4. It gets assignments that I am quite certain are TF (I seem to recall that was my last setting) but for some reason the V5 servers lists them as LL. The other evidence that it is a LL assignment is the estimated completion is in days and NOT weeks and they are in the 55-65M range. Because of that others get assigned the TF and if this PC ever completed a TF it would be deemed as not required.

ANYWAY; last year it still had assignments that were over a year old (maybe 370-380 days) and then they were gone!!! I was quite certian the people using it did NOT discover it was there and cleaned it up. I was proven correct when a couple weeks later the PC reappeared with a new batch of assignments - which once again have yet to finish.

So in short and in my experience assignments over a year old even if making some progress have been deleted.

P.S. because it is still V4 I CANNOT unreserve the exponents myself from the server interface.

P.P.S. Probably a silly question but why not simply have the server DISALLOW taking (or reporting in) a LL/DC assignment that someone else has assigned?

[QUOTE=NBtarheel_33;221535]I understand that we do not want to discourage users with slow systems, 101 mph is faster than 100 mph
...
In other words, we may not be looking at 101 mph vs. 100 mph, we may be looking at 100.0000000001 mph vs. 100 mph.[/QUOTE]

[quote]Actually, the milestones are getting mowed just fine. Your proposed method of advancing one milestone via poaching just delays a future milestone by an equal amount.

...Can't do without exaggeration, can you?

If you had a legitimate argument, you wouldn't have to stretch any numbers.[/quote]

For those of you who're interested, GIMPS does about 800 doublechecks a week and about 200 first time tests a week. So for every doublecheck that's poached, a future milestone is delayed by 12-13 minutes, and for each first time test that's poached, a future milestone is delayed by 50-51 minutes.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;221543]So what?

PrimeNet has procedures to take care of those cases automatically! Once a machine fails to report within the time limit, PrimeNet reassigns the exponent.

--- snip ---

Notice how much of your argument would disappear if you erased all non-poaching-related content.[/QUOTE]

English is not my language, so maybe I failed to express my thoughts... :smile:

Let's try to rephrase.

I am against poaching as you are.
I strongly believe in respecting laws and rules.
I believe that anyone, anytime, is free to reserve exponents and complete in the time they like, as long as they make slow progress on them.

So far, we have the same ideas, do you agree?

Now, let's go on as you like, disputing and quoting... :smile:

you wrote:
[quote]
PrimeNet has procedures to take care of those cases automatically! [COLOR="Red"]Once a machine fails to report within the time limit[/COLOR], PrimeNet reassigns the exponent.
[/quote]

You did not carefully read my post, or I failed expressing it.

In fact, I wanted to say that my PCs were still working and connecting to GIMPS, although with a very slow pace.

[quote]
So, there's no justification for poaching because a machine is "virtually lost".

[/quote]

Did you read in my previous sentences that I mildly justify poaching?
What I intended was that, from my point of view, abandoned machines from users not registered anymore or that left GIMPS that hold exponents may be seen as a problem as well as poaching them.

You also said:
[quote]
You can unreserve any of your assignments any time you wish. Why not do that?
[/quote]

I don't follow you... :surprised

You are against poaching (and I repeat it's fine), then you ask users to keep their assignment clean from lost assignments. You blindly believe in the perfection of GIMPS system, and do not accept glitches that happen from time to time on its platform (and that, I repeat, do not justify poaching).

That's why I said you'd like to live a perfect [GIMPS] life in a perfect [GIMPS] universe, and keep pushing people to keep that universe ordered, tense and tidy (see, my words don't lose meaning if I put them into GIMPS environment). I objected that your ideas, although correct, may not find their place in our human [GIMPS] reality, because of fallacies of man and nature. It's just my 2 cents opinion, but in no way you can change it. :smile:

That's all I wanted to say, that's what I meant. No calling names, no judgment, no moral suasion nor indications. You keep thinking as you like and go on verbally attacking people that don't follow your idea. It's your choice of freedom.

I have mine, and don't blame who has different ideas: at most, I try to communicate with him/her, as long as there is a communication link, stopping when I see that the link is broken.

Thank you for the brainstorming, I keep reading your posts with interest. Even if sometime I won't comment. :smile:

Luigi

[QUOTE=cheesehead;221514]So, like every other poacher, you have your own individual criteria for deciding when you think your judgment is superior to others'.

Gee, you're smart.

But there are those little matters of trust, integrity, opportunity, pledges, and so on ... how did you figure out when and why it's acceptable to throw those away? Please explain for the rest of us.[/QUOTE]

Yes, that is my own criteria, but who's trust am I breaking? I don't know, because they didn't bother to register properly for >1.5 year since the v4 server was closed. If the exponents turned out to be prime, they wouldn't get credit for the discovery, they won't get credit for the work, so what exactly am I stealing? It's like when you find cash in the street, there is no way to know who dropped it, so most people keep it, and it's not considered stealing.

Btw, who made you the GIMPS chief of police or maybe the GIMPS conscience?

[QUOTE=petrw1;221570]I can tell you from person experience that I had a borged PIV PC that has ended up in a situation where:
a. the people literally use it only a couple hours a WEEK / MONTH
b. the PC is no longer accessible to me

[snip]

P.S. because it is still V4 I CANNOT unreserve the exponents myself from the server interface.[/QUOTE]

This statement confuses me a bit.

I have two "borged" machines which are still running V4 (doing DC work), and yet I can unassign their assignments through the V5 web interface just like I can for any other machine running V5.

[QUOTE=petrw1;221570]P.P.S. Probably a silly question but why not simply have the server DISALLOW taking (or reporting in) a LL/DC assignment that someone else has assigned?[/QUOTE]

Another suggestion made by someone else here on the Forum some time ago (I don't remember who or where) which I think would work better -- accept the result, but credit the original assignee.

If the original assignee does finally submit a result, credit them again as a "triple check" (in the case of LL/DC), since it would have been done by a different machine.

@cheesehead -- what do you think of this as a compromise position?

[quote=chalsall;221546]@cheesehead...

With all due respect, it appears you have issues that perhaps you should deal with outside of GIMPS....[/quote]Please say what you mean instead of using cutesy phrases.

We [u]all[/u] have "issues" "outside of GIMPS".

[QUOTE=cheesehead;221675]Please say what you mean instead of using cutesy phrases.

We [u]all[/u] have "issues" "outside of GIMPS".[/QUOTE]

ROFLMAO...

Care to speak to my post immediately above this one, dated 16 Jul 10 11:33 AM, where I asked you a direct question?

[quote=NBtarheel_33;221545]Exactly. Holding up choice exponents, or worse, delaying milestones is no worse or no better than poaching.[/quote]Once again: speeding-up one milestone by poaching just delays the next milestone by the same amount.

"Delaying milestones" only happens when you focus your tunnel vision on the nearest milestone and ignore the rest.

[quote]Note that if this limit were in place, my poaches would no longer be poaches[/quote]I presume you meant to say that you wouldn't have felt the urge to poach, so that there wouldn't have been any poaches. :-)

[quote]I also wonder if it would be worthwhile to change the preferred exponent thresholds whenever we get close (e.g. within 100 or even 1000) to a milestone, so that only reliable, confirmed, modern machines are given the potential stragglers.[/quote]This sounds like a good idea, except that I think that by the time we're within 1000 of a milestone, usually all those 1000 will have already been assigned.

[quote]Keep in mind that even with the one year limit in place by itself, an exponent could go into a loop of year after year being assigned to a woefully slow user/machine...and we get the same problem we have now.[/quote]Yes, indeed.

[quote]So I feel we definitely need a combination of a hard upper limit on assignment age *and* dynamically adjusted preferred exponent thresholds as we pass near milestones.[/quote]Because of the already-assigned factor I mentioned, measures such as "adjusted preferred exponent thresholds" won't be effective if we apply them only as milestones are neared, at least not in a simplistic manner.

Suggestion: Assign to "slow" (non-preferred) systems only exponents which are not among the xxxx lowest remaining ones -- regardless of milestones. That is, if xxxx is set at, say 5000, then any non-preferred system requesting an assignment gets only one which is not among the lowest 5000 unassigned exponents.

That simple xxxx parameter could be replaced by a dynamic algorithm that takes recent completion rates into account, and assigns to any non-preferred system an exponent which can be predicted not to "hold up" any milestone for, say, thrice the time expected for that system to complete the assignment.

[quote]One of the wonderful things about GIMPS is that George actively considers (and even solicits) ideas and opinions from the participants. Just as we all worked together in reaching a consensus on trying to increase the pace of DCs, I'm sure we will be able to figure something out here that once and for all ends the tug-of-war between the anti-poachers and the milestone fans.[/quote]Yes.

Instead of advocating blunt-force solutions like poaching, we can do some thinking about how to adjust assignments in advance so as to minimize "hold-ups".

[quote=chalsall;221676]ROFLMAO...

Care to speak to my post immediately above this one, dated 16 Jul 10 11:33 AM, where I asked you a direct question?[/quote]Did you mean post #365 (which shows a different timestamp to me)?

There are other posts in the queue ahead of your #365. Care to wait your turn?

(Your #352 got a response already only because it was simple.)

[QUOTE=cheesehead;221679]I'm keying as fast as I can. Wait your turn. :-)[/QUOTE]

Yes sir.... :smile:

[quote=NBtarheel_33;221548]But, as ET said, his lost machine *is* reporting within the time limit. What happens if only an infinitesimal amount of work is being performed within that time limit?[/quote]That's an argument for adjusting the PrimeNet algorithm, not for poaching.

[quote]I could hoard 10,000 exponents, as I said earlier, and report 100 iterations on each one, every 59.9 days, and you're saying that all 10,000 of my assignments should be protected for perpetuity?[/quote]No. Unlike you, I'm not exaggerating numbers, because I can refute your arguments fairly without doing that. Care to try doing that yourself?

[quote]I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous.[/quote]Yes, but it's your own idea that's ridiculous. That straw-man exaggeration that you're pretending to attribute to me just shows that you don't think you can refute my argument without exaggeration.

[quote]And before you dismiss the example as an exaggeration, what if I do it with 100 exponents, or 10 exponents, just to make a point?[/quote]But you didn't propose the 100, or 10-exponent example. You [I]did[/I] propose the 10,000 exaggeration.

If you could have made your point with a smaller number, then why didn't you do so in the first place? Answer: because you wanted to put the 10,000 figure first to make your argument seem bolder, because you knew that if you didn't exaggerate you couldn't pretend that your argument was superior to mine.

[quote]Because the "lost" computer keeps reporting in with the exponent, and getting it reassigned.[/quote]So, you're arguing for a PrimeNet change. Why go beyond that?

[quote]No one has _ever_ described a situation in which holding up a milestone or sitting on choice exponents for years was justified.[/quote]Your 10,000 example attempted to do that.

[quote]By the way, it follows that ET hasn't described such a situation, if no one has...[/quote]False logic.

[quote]I, and perhaps others here, claim that these procedures still have loopholes that make them inadequate. These loopholes need to be tightened, if not closed completely.[/quote]So, why not just phrase it that way, instead of phrasing it as a justification for poaching?

[quote]Frankly, you tend to treat anyone who doesn't share your point of view as a kid who is doing the wrong thing. No offense, but that is just the way it comes across. Your opinion is the right way, and anything in conflict is inherently wrong or evil.[/quote]Once again, you present a straw-man exaggeration of my words.

If you could refute my argument without resorting to such exaggeration, why don't you do so?

[quote]The analogy with Bob Silverman would be that anyone who does not study mathematics 16 hours a day doesn't deserve to discuss the subject.[/quote]... which is a straw-man exaggeration of Bob's actual opinion.

Straw-manning is addictive, but you can kick it if you try.

[quote]Wow, I'm a thief? There's a deed and title to each exponent?[/quote]Another straw-man. I never claimed anything about deed or title. I described what I meant by theft, but you can't refute that, so you exaggerate in order to set up a straw-man target you _can_ knock down.

Try refuting just what I say without adding or exaggerating anything -- or admit that you can't do so.

[quote]I have fifty of them, each one a different integer. I hereby charge anyone $5 usage rights for any use of "my" exponents' names. I guess we have to start referring to M47 as "that number" or else we'll have to pay the discoverer for usage rights. Sorry, man, but you're taking a fun, volunteer project *way too freaking seriously*.[/quote]No, you're just hanging on to the straw-man technique because you know you can't refute my argument on a fair, level, unexaggerated basis.

[quote]Again, I'll ask the question: Suppose there is someone who loves milestones as much as you hate poaching. How would you feel if they did nothing but push their views on milestones and essentially refused to even consider your anti-poaching side of the issue? Because that is what you are doing, in reverse.[/quote]As others have already pointed out, you and your hypothetical person are both free to post your opinions here.

Poaching is _not_ simply posting an opinion.

By trying to draw an analogy between poaching and posting, you're just trying rhetorical trickery to avoid admitting that you have no legitimate refutation.

Hmmm ... it seems that when I thought a glitch on my end prevented my post #355 from going through, it actually did get posted. So my post #356 was a near-duplicate recreation.

Sorry about that, guys. :-(

[quote=NBtarheel_33;221549]No, he just feels strongly about the poaching issue, because it is something that has affected him numerous times in the past. He is certainly entitled to his viewpoints, and to argue them,[/quote]Thank you.

[quote]but I feel like he needs to let the wall down a little bit to consider the views of the other side.[/quote]I do consider the views of the other side, and have been for a long time.

Folks have been expressing those views in this forum and on the preceding mailing list for over a decade. (Not many of the current arguments are much different from the arguments offered in the 1990s!) I've analyzed those views. I post my analysis. So far, all arguments for poaching I've seen violate the basic principles upon which GIMPS and PrimeNet were founded, so I explain why I oppose those violations.

I think that if those advocating poaching would convert their arguments into suggestions for improving PrimeNet in order to prevent the irritating situations about which they complain, we could have a more peaceful time here.

[quote=imwithid;221567]These debates tend often to become nasty when it comes to efficiency vs. milestones accomplished with regard to the methods that underly the achievements of one,which detract to some extent from the other.[/quote]Thank you for your fresh view.

[quote]The wedge issue seems to be that some are satisfied that work is being done at a natural, but optimal, pace while others want to see somewhat arbitrary milestones verified and marked as complete at the cost (rightly mentioned) of future milestones via poaching or expiration policies.[/quote]Okay.

[quote]This impatience can be somewhat ameliorated if reports could include greater detail. This would alleviate some of the anxiety that some have (and I will admit to some level) to seeing milestones resolved.[/quote]I agree.

[quote]I assume[/quote](correctly)[quote]that there are those out there who want to see the meta data behind the tests to give them some idea as to when the next milestone will be completed based on how often a given test is reported, its status to completion ... etc. (sort of filling in the blanks by allowing one to search a given exponent to see some of the work history and progress).[/quote][quote]I'm not sure if the servers themselves, in addition to reporting, run tests as well[/quote]No, AFAIK.[quote]and perhaps this extra data that needs to be processed is a waste of resources and hence simply an indulgence of one's wanting to know more about less.[/quote]It's more than a mere indulgence if some participants would refrain from poaching if they had that information.

[quote]Both sides of the argument seem to have their heels dug in to varying degrees (rightly, wrongly or arbitrarily). Compromise to the poaching rule is a slippery slope as tempting as it is to cheer at times from a showing of hands for varying reasons. Can more detailed information be a compromise?[/quote]Yes -- more detailed information is just fine with me and [I]does not violate any basic principles upon which GIMPS and PrimeNet were founded, as poaching does.[/I]

[quote=ET_;221584]I am against poaching as you are.
I strongly believe in respecting laws and rules.
I believe that anyone, anytime, is free to reserve exponents and complete in the time they like, as long as they make slow progress on them.

So far, we have the same ideas, do you agree?[/quote]Yes.

[quote]In fact, I wanted to say that my PCs were still working and connecting to GIMPS, although with a very slow pace.[/quote]Okay.

[quote]You also said:

[quote]You can unreserve any of your assignments any time you wish. Why not do that?[/quote]I don't follow you... :surprised

You are against poaching (and I repeat it's fine), then you ask users to keep their assignment clean from lost assignments.[/quote]I proposed that as a satisfactory (to me) alternative to poaching.

I ask whether there's a reason for not having done that.

Someone pointed out that V4 assignments can't be unreserved. Okay, that's a good-enough reason.

[quote]You blindly believe in the perfection of GIMPS system,[/quote]No, I don't.

I do see some people proposing unnecessary actions because they seem not to understood all about GIMPS/PrimeNet. (In other words, they believe the GIMPS system is more imperfect than it really is!) In such cases, I advocate using the available GIMPS/PrimeNet features.

That's not at all the same as claiming or "blindly" believing in the existing system's perfection. When I point out that there already exists a way to accomplish something within the GIMPS/PrimeNet, that's not at all the same as saying GIMPS/PrimeNet has no flaws.

It's just that it has fewer flaws than many people think, because they don't understand all of how it works.

[quote]and do not accept glitches that happen from time to time on its platform.[/quote]Of course I accept that there are glitches!

But when someone claims a glitch that's actually only a flaw in understanding, I'll deny that particular accusation pf glitchiness and try to extend understanding. (I'm not claiming I always do so in the best possible wording!)

[quote]That's why I said you'd like to live a perfect [GIMPS] life in a perfect [GIMPS] universe, and keep pushing people to keep that universe ordered, tense and tidy (see, my words don't lose meaning if I put them into GIMPS environment).[/quote]Describing high standards as perfection is an exaggeration. I have high standards in some matters. I point out how some standards that may seem too high (mistakenly perceived as "perfect") are actually achievable.

[quote]I objected that your ideas, although correct, may not find their place in our human [GIMPS] reality, because of fallacies of man and nature.[/quote]No, I'm pointing out how people [U]can[/U] do things that some folks [I]erroneously[/I] consider undoable.

[quote]I try to communicate with him/her, as long as there is a communication link, stopping when I see that the link is broken.[/quote]So do I. We may differ on our evaluations of "broken".

[QUOTE=cheesehead;221679](Your #352 got a response already only because it was simple.)[/QUOTE]

You know cheesehead, this is a bit like watching a train wreck in slow motion...

At the end of the day, GIMPS doesn't actually matter that much. It's a pedantic exercise which some (like me) use for their own purposes, which sometimes differs from the project's stated goals.

Some of us (including me) try to "follow the rules" and "be polite" while we leverage Prime95's behaviour for our own benefit.

And, I note, you have yet to answer my direct question to you at the end of my post in this thread; post #365.

[quote=ATH;221589]Yes, that is my own criteria, but who's trust am I breaking?[/quote]Those who follow the rules and trust that other participants will do the same.

[quote]they didn't bother to register properly for >1.5 year since the v4 server was closed.[/quote]There was no advance notice to assignees of the v4 -> v5 change, because it was done as an emergency measure. It's incorrect and unfair to ascribe willfulness to those who haven't reregistered since then.

I understand that there are abandonments out there, but you are unfairly depicting some other users as willfully not cooperating.

[quote]If the exponents turned out to be prime, they wouldn't get credit for the discovery, they won't get credit for the work, so what exactly am I stealing?[/quote]Why wouldn't a v4 assignee be credited for a discovery or get credit for their work? AFAIK many v4 assignees have received v5 credit once they reregistered, and there's no reason why others can't.

So, you're setting up a false straw-man description of the situation. If you were to restrict yourself to making a fair and accurate description, you wouldn't be able to justify poaching.

[quote]It's like when you find cash in the street, there is no way to know who dropped it, so most people keep it, and it's not considered stealing.[/quote]No, it's not like that. That's not a correct analogy, and does not support your position.

[quote]Btw, who made you the GIMPS chief of police or maybe the GIMPS conscience?[/quote]Another straw-man -- I'm neither of those.

(Can't give up the strawmanning and just post straight truth, can you?)

[quote=chalsall;221703]You know cheesehead, this is a bit like watching a train wreck in slow motion...[/quote]An impatient person shouldn't have trainwatching as a way to pass the time. :-)

[quote]And, I note, you have yet to answer my direct question to you at the end of my post in this thread; post #365.[/quote]Talk about impatience: [U]I, processing my queue, just posted my response to post #364.

[/U]You posted your impatient #376 while I was in the midst of composing my #377 response to #364.

You're next in line. Quit pretending that your impatience is justified.

Oh, look at the time! TGIF dinner's about to be served (at Jalapeno Loco this month). Your #365 looks too complicated for a quick dash-off response while I'm getting hungry, so -- see you later.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;221707]Oh, look at the time! TGIF dinner's about to be served. Your #365 looks too complicated for a quick dash-off response while I'm getting hungry, so -- see you later.[/QUOTE]

A ten word question is "too complicated"?

Enjoy your supper....

How does this idea grab folks?

When a milestone approaches, (proving a number to be the 'n'th MP or having all expos below an MP tested once), we all will monitor the progress. When the number remaining drops to 3 we wait 6 months to see if it drops to 0.

If it does, great.

If not:
A goodbody Mersennary(s) will be premitted to take the remaining numbers. With the following provisos: they are a known person of good and of trustworthy reputation (and it shall be run on a known good machine), they post their info (GIMPS Username and Machine ID) to an appropriate thread, they agree ahead of time to disclaim all 'rights' to a new prime (in favor of the currently assigned person), they understand that they must manually turn in the result to George (to enforce the above), and that they get no GHz/days credit. Further they agree to buy Cheesehead a small gift ($25-$50) and send it to him or contribute $50 to a charity of his choosing. (This is per person per exponent.) And they agree that if they don't normally do DC's, they must do 5 extra DC's.

[QUOTE=chalsall;221625]This statement confuses me a bit.

I have two "borged" machines which are still running V4 (doing DC work), and yet I can unassign their assignments through the V5 web interface just like I can for any other machine running V5.[/QUOTE]

I could try again but if I remember correctly when I tried this a while back (15 months ago) the assignments disappeared from my assignment workload but a few days later when the PC checked in again it re-checked in the same assignments --- even though someone in the meantime likely grabbed them and if my PC ever finished them they will once again be "not needed".

Temporarily waiting for the dessert course ...

[quote=chalsall;221709]A ten word question is "too complicated"?[/quote]One of the ten, the pronoun "this", implicitly incorporates the entire rest of the post that preceded the direct address to me. :-)

[quote]Enjoy your supper....[/quote]Back after dessert ...

[quote=chalsall;221625]@cheesehead -- what do you think of this as a compromise position?[/quote]Here's my answer:

[quote]I have two "borged" machines which are still running V4 (doing DC work),[/quote]I presume you mean that the borged machines are processing assignments they got from the v4 PrimeNet server.

[quote]and yet I can unassign their assignments through the V5 web interface[/quote]So, I presume you've registered a v5 PrimeNet ID and then gone through the procedure for transferring your v4 assignments to v5 -- right? Or do you mean something else?

[quote]just like I can for any other machine running V5.[/quote]... by which I presume you mean any other machine running a v25 client (prime95, mprime, ...) to process assignments gotten from the v5 PrimeNet server -- right?

[quote]Another suggestion made by someone else here on the Forum some time ago (I don't remember who or where) which I think would work better -- accept the result, but credit the original assignee.[/quote](I presume you mean a result reported by someone who's poached an assignment.)

That's not an excuse or justification for poaching, though.

That proposal tries to make a partial offset to the wrongs done to the original assignee, by giving what would ordinarily be the poacher's credit to the assignee (so that the assignee may wind up with credit for two runs if he completes and reports his own run), but does nothing about the other negative aspects of poaching.

Furthermore, I haven't seen any advocate of poaching claim that the credit is an incentive to poach, so [I]denying credit to the poacher is not any deterrent[/I].

[quote]If the original assignee does finally submit a result, credit them again as a "triple check" (in the case of LL/DC), since it would have been done by a different machine.[/quote]I'm not sure exactly what you mean there.

- -

So, overall, as a "compromise", it stinks -- providing no deterrent to poaching.

As I just said,

[quote=cheesehead;221791][I]denying credit to the poacher is not any deterrent[/I].[/quote]

First, I think the best solution will be to eliminate the perception some folks have that the current set of "milestones" (exponents yet to test to prove ... or to test all exponents once below ...) is a proper measure of GIMPS progress. It's not, because it's a "jumpy" measure and fails to show how GIMPS is accumulating results even when one particular assignment (supposedly "holding up a milestone") is incomplete.

For instance, a better measure of GIMPS progress could be derived from the totals of LL tests and so forth at the bottom of the old V4 status table -- the one with rows of exponent ranges (corresponding to FFT sizes) and columns for 1 ll test, 2 LL tests, factored, status unknown, P-90 CPU years yet to complete, and so on. (Where's the link to that?)

As long as that faulty perception of GIMPS progress exists, there will be an incentive to poach.

What we need to do is to eliminate, or at least reduce, the incentive to poach. That would involve creating a new status display highlighting overall result report progress, not focusing on any one particular assignment.

So removal of incentives would be better than deterrents, but let's take a look anyway at what might serve as a better deterrent as long as the current status display is unchanged:

[U]Disconnecting "milestones" from poached results -- that's what.
[/U]
IOW, [U]tweak PrimeNet so that it ignores poached results when calculating how many exponents remain to be tested before a given "milestone".[/U]

That way, poaching a "slow" system's assignment and reporting the result would do [U]nothing[/U] toward achieving a "milestone"!!

[QUOTE=cheesehead;221791]
... by which I presume you mean any other machine running a v25 client (prime95, mprime, ...) to process assignments gotten from the v5 PrimeNet server -- right?[/QUOTE]

Yes to this, and all your other questions with regards to my post speaking to petrw1

[QUOTE=cheesehead;221791](I presume you mean a result reported by someone who's poached an assignment.)[/QUOTE]

Yes.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;221791]That's not an excuse or justification for poaching, though.[/QUOTE]

Perhaps not, from your perspective.

But you yourself have argued in the past that those "poached" might be discouraged from continuing to contribute because their efforts are not credited.

Please keep in mind cheesehead that different people have different objectives. Some want to find a big prime number. Others want to find a prime number so big they win money (they would actually do better financially by playing the lottery). Others want to determine the exact order of the MPs. Lastly, others (like me) simply use GIMPS for infrastructure quality control.

I would argue that each individual should be allowed to do whatever they want so long as it doesn't negatively impact the project.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;221791]That proposal tries to make a partial offset to the wrongs done to the original assignee, by giving what would ordinarily be the poacher's credit to the assignee (so that the assignee may wind up with credit for two runs if he completes and reports his own run), but does nothing about the other negative aspects of poaching.[/QUOTE]

I disagree. What, exactly, is the real negative impact of poaching beyond possible (not certain) duplicated effort (possibly slightly delaying a future milestone) and possibly discouraging another participant?

Let me please further argue that the proposal above just might mitigate any negative impact of discouragement of those "poached", since they would get credit (if that's what they're after). Please do also consider that the "poacher" is [B]donating[/B] the work -- they don't have to contribute to GIMPS.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;221791]Furthermore, I haven't seen any advocate of poaching claim that the credit is an incentive to poach, so [I]denying credit to the poacher is not any deterrent[/I].[/QUOTE]

No, it isn't a deterrent to the poacher. But it might just prevent discouragement of the poachee.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;221791]So, overall, as a "compromise", it stinks -- providing no deterrent to poaching.[/QUOTE]

cheesehead, I do truly respect your position and arguments.

It would be appreciated if you could at least try to consider that not everyone have the exact same objectives and POV as you do....

[quote=Uncwilly;221711]When a milestone approaches, (proving a number to be the 'n'th MP or having all expos below an MP tested once), we all will monitor the progress. When the number remaining drops to 3 we wait 6 months to see if it drops to 0.

If it does, great.

If not:
A goodbody Mersennary(s) will be premitted to take the remaining numbers. With the following provisos: they are a known person of good and of trustworthy reputation (and it shall be run on a known good machine), they post their info (GIMPS Username and Machine ID) to an appropriate thread, they agree ahead of time to disclaim all 'rights' to a new prime (in favor of the currently assigned person), they understand that they must manually turn in the result to George (to enforce the above), and that they get no GHz/days credit.[/quote]It's a bit better than other proposals I've seen, but it still clings to the faulty idea that the currently-displayed "milestones" constitute a valid measure of GIMPS progress. They don't, as I explain above.

Trying to eliminate poaching by tweaks such as this that don't address the basic source of incentive is a bit like trying to curb illegal drug use by intercepting shipments and arresting people for dealing/using drugs. In both cases, as long as an incentive remains, the problems will persist one way or another. (For drugs, eliminating the incentive would involve finding and implementing ways of preventing drugs from hijacking portions of the human nervous system. This is not simple, but I think it's the only effective way to go.)

[quote]Further they agree to buy Cheesehead a small gift ($25-$50) and send it to him or contribute $50 to a charity of his choosing. (This is per person per exponent.)[/quote]I'd want all to be contributions to my designated charity: GIMPS (i.e., no gifts to me).

See [URL]http://mersenne.org/donate/[/URL].

[quote]And they agree that if they don't normally do DC's, they must do 5 extra DC's.[/quote]... instead of 50 push-ups ...

[QUOTE=cheesehead;221795]

... instead of 50 push-ups ...[/QUOTE]

They should do these too... just for grins.

[quote=chalsall;221794]But you yourself have argued in the past that those "poached" might be discouraged from continuing to contribute because their efforts are not credited.[/quote]That's funny.

Later in your post you chastise me for presumably (you're wrong) not considering that other people have different objectives and POV.

[I]Yet, here you've done exactly that by maintaining that poachers and poachees share the motivation of credits!

[/I]Earlier, I wrote, "I haven't seen any advocate of poaching claim that the credit is an incentive to poach". Let me strengthen that:

1) some confessed poachers have specifically stated that they are not motivated by the credit.

2) I've not seen any poacher claim thet he _was_ motivated by credit.

So your assumed sharing of incentive by poacher and poachee does not exist in some cases, and may not exist in any cases. I have [I]not[/I] contradicted myself in this regard.

[quote]Please keep in mind cheesehead that different people have different objectives.[/quote]It would be funny enough if I had to go to some previous post to find an instance where you exhibited exactly the same flaw you claimed I had.

It's even funnier when I only have to look within the same post.

[quote]I would argue that each individual should be allowed to do whatever they want so long as it doesn't negatively impact the project.[/quote]Poaching negatively impacts the project.

[quote]What, exactly, is the real negative impact of poaching beyond possible (not certain) duplicated effort (possibly slightly delaying a future milestone) and possibly discouraging another participant?[/quote]As I said before, poaching violates basic principles upon which this project is founded.

Aside from what you mention there, there is the violation of trust that participants have that their assignments will remain exclusive to them as long as they abide by the rules. Note again, as I said before, that GIMPS specifically and officially pledges to try to preserve that exclusivity, although it must also inform the user that it cannot completely prevent that exclusivity from being violated.

Anyone who argues that poaching should be acceptable in some circumstance or other is directly contradicting a clause of the license by which GIMPS granted them permission to use GIMPS software.

Any user of prime95 or mprime who advocates poaching in any circumstance is advocating a violation of their license to use that software!

Any advocate of poaching should cease using prime95, mprime, or any other GIMPS software to which the license applies.

There are other negatives, but that alone should be enough.

[quote]Let me please further argue that the proposal above just might mitigate any negative impact of discouragement of those "poached", since they would get credit (if that's what they're after).[/quote]But it does nothing about the other negatives, such as the one I just explained at length.

[quote]Please do also consider that the "poacher" is [B]donating[/B] the work -- they don't have to contribute to GIMPS.[/quote]That's like saying a burglar doesn't charge anyone for prying open a window for the purpose of burglary.

[quote]No, it isn't a deterrent to the poacher. But it might just prevent discouragement of the poachee.[/quote]Now, if you could only show how it also eliminates the other 99% of poaching's negatives ... but you can't, can you?

[quote]cheesehead, I do truly respect your position and arguments.[/quote]Show it, then. Tell us you respect the GIMPS software license and its promise to prevent poaching as far as possible.

[quote]It would be appreciated if you could at least try to consider that not everyone have the exact same objectives and POV as you do....[/quote]Funny, funny, funny .. mistakenly implying that I exhibited that flaw while ignoring that you exhibited that very flaw inside this very same posting.

I've never claimed or assumed that everyone has the same objectives and POV I do. If you want to repeat your mistaken implication, please [i]try[/i] to accompany such repetition with quotes of actual wording where I've exhibited that supposed flaw. Otherwise, stop exaggerating or distorting my positions.