The worth or futility of factorizations relating to OPNs

[akruppa]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

And as long as people feel the need to post these results, I will continue
to post my opinion.

[...]

Your "opinion" has the sole effect and, since you are not stupid, I must assume the purpose of starting yet another flame war. I consider that well over the line towards trolling and I will act on it. You think you're the only mathematician here qualified to decide what can and cannot be posted. You are quite wrong there. Since you don't have actual moderator powers, you try to enforce your ideas by sheer obnoxiousness. That has to stop, now.

Whether the computations are mathematically groundbreaking or significant or whatever isn't even the question, another point where you are completely wrong. Mersenneforum is an offspring of GIMPS which is one huge project of blindly running someone elses code. Such computations are not merely welcome here, they are what mersenneforum are based on - you'd think that after seven years here, you would have noticed. If you don't like a forum where people waste their time on such futile trivialities, what are you doing here?? You are most welcome to participate in a forum that better matches your idea of how to spend computational resources. You are not welcome, however, to tell everyone here what they have to do to meet your expectations. No one needs to. Get it out of your head that you can or should exercise authority here. Stop being a control freak.

Occasionally you do post something worth reading, which is the reason why you are still around. Pointers to literature (when they aren't merely "Read my paper" plugs), or dropping the name of the theorem relevant to the question. The thread where you walked science_man_88 through elementary math and turned him into someone who can participate in everyday forum discussion here is a fine piece of work, and I applaud you for it. If you want to display authority, do it by insightful posting - preferably without pointing out yet again that you have scientific publications, you're hardly the only one.

Think about whether mersenneforum is right for you and if it is, take it as what it is, not as what you think it should be, no matter how much you think you've got it right. If you can't help trying to enforce your ideas of what is fit for the forum and what is not, the decision of wheter you stay or not will likely be taken out of your control.

[Christenson]

Somewhat dumb question: Suppose, unlike Fermat's famous conjecture, that an odd perfect number does in fact exist and is found by the Odd Perfect hunters. Then what?

This whole business of GIMPS is a lot like astronomy...it's largely useless, but folks get supported for it because the folks that do it create useful skills and inventions that support other things. (Now, possibly not fairly or well enough, as I am sure RDS feels). Remember that P95 is now a test suite for most Intel processors and chipsets, before they ever get seen by mere consumers!

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by akruppa

You are not welcome, however, to tell everyone here what they have to do to meet your expectations. No one needs to. Get it out of your head that you can or should exercise authority here. Stop being a control freak.

A moderator wants to practice censorship because he doesn't like
my suggestions thaqt certain computations are pointless, then calls
me a control freak??? And tells me that I can not 'exercize
authority'? Since when has expressing an opinion about the value of
certain reserach constituted 'exercizing authority'?

This is total hypocricy. You are trying to ban
the posting of a point of view simply because you don't like that point of
view. Who is the control freak here???

Hypocricy.

[fivemack]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

A moderator wants to practice censorship because he doesn't like
my suggestions thaqt certain computations are pointless, then calls
me a control freak???

No. A moderator wishes to keep the group tranquil - which is precisely what moderators are for - and has made the clear observation that your repeated assertions of your opinion are harmful to tranquility. He is not trying to bar you from having your point of view; he is trying to keep the group tranquil, and observes that your repeated loud assertions of your point of view harm tranquillity.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by fivemack

No. A moderator wishes to keep the group tranquil - which is precisely what moderators are for - and has made the clear observation that your repeated assertions of your opinion are harmful to tranquility. He is not trying to bar you from having your point of view; he is trying to keep the group tranquil, and observes that your repeated loud assertions of your point of view harm tranquillity.

So you want an academic (or semi-academic) arena in which there is no
controversy. Indeed. You want one in which controversy is forbidden!!!

What an enlightened view!

Its still censorship because you don't like a particular message.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by fivemack

No. A moderator wishes to keep the group tranquil - which is precisely what moderators are for - and has made the clear observation that your repeated assertions of your opinion are harmful to tranquility. He is not trying to bar you from having your point of view; he is trying to keep the group tranquil, and observes that your repeated loud assertions of your point of view harm tranquillity.

And of course, the break in tranquility caused by repeated insults toward
ME are conveniently ignored by the moderators.

You are hypocrites.

[pinhodecarlos]

Pointless discussion. Mr. Silverman should take a walk for a week.

[akruppa]

This is not a scientific arena, this is a web forum. Those who would like to discuss academic subjects are welcome to do so, those who wish to discuss mindless computations are likewise. Whether you like it or not is irrelevant.

[BigBrother]

Do I qualify for 'couch potato' when I say I enjoy this discussion very much while Prime95 is doing double-check LL tests in the background?

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by akruppa

This is not a scientific arena, this is a web forum. Those who would like to discuss academic subjects are welcome to do so,

Clearly not, since the question of whether a computation has value IS
an academic subject and moderators with too much power want to
censor such discussion because it upsets 'tranquility'.


Hypocrites.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by Christenson

Bob:
I think the mods *do* pose a double standard. You get the long end of the stick, with a pass for stuff that would get me tossed, on account of having some math in the literature relevant to GIMPS.

The long post from akruppa tonight on the OPN hunt thread is a case in point....the last person I saw get himself tossed from here (crying Mediocrite!) didn't get anywhere near that much effort from the mods.

fivemack said it. They do not want free and open debate.
They want tranquility and are willing to resort to censorship
because my opinions upset people.

I quote Ben Franklin:

"Those willing to give up essential liberty for safety are
deserving of neither."

(here, 'safety' is a synonym for 'tranquility')

And of course, they ignore the many insults tossed my way. I wouldn't
mind the insults if we had free an open communication, because then I could reply
in kind. But the thought police don't want that.