M39 get-together pics

ewmayer · 2018-03-17, 22:24

Blast from the past - this slightly predates the birth of the forum, but longtime Mersenner Spike Jones just reminded of John Pierce's online photo archive of the get-together a bunch of us SF-bay-area Mersenners had at the Mountain View Tied House to celebrate the discovery of the 39th Mersenne prime, M(13466917), in late December 2001:

http://hogranch.com/s300/2001-12-07/index.html

That's Scott Kurowski of Primenet fame in the glasses in pic 2121, Spike with mustache and beer in 2126, and me with Stanford's Don Knuth in 2129, in which I - this is Spike's decription - "instruct the wayward professor in the way of truth, justice and the American Way". Knuth was a surprise shower-upper, the story behind that goes like so: Having met Knuth with Scott K shortly after moving to Silicon Valley a few years before, once we organized the M39 bash, I thought it would be neat to invite the great man himself. Turns out he was giving a CS seminar at Stanford the week before, so I showed up and at the end of the talk slipped an invite to the bash onto the edge of his lectern. Had no idea whether he'd actually show up until he did. And with a healthy appetite, too - he said he'd spent the early part of the evening at some church-music-group (he plays the pipe organ, and even has one in his home) social, where "they didn't feed me."

For posterity's sake, in case of link rot at the above archive, here are the 2 webpages with their thumbnails, and the collection on half-sized images in zipped form:

kruoli · 2018-03-22, 20:05

Wow, nice to see that!

I'd look forward to, that on some occasion there should be something like this for every new \(M_x\) found. Has there even been such thing since \(M_{39}\)? If not, it would be nice to organize something like this in the future.

ewmayer · 2018-03-22, 20:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by kruoli

Wow, nice to see that!

I'd look forward to, that on some occasion there should be something like this for every new \(M_x\) found. Has there even been such thing since \(M_{39}\)? If not, it would be nice to organize something like this in the future.

Yes it would, but there seems to have been a fundamental shift in societal attitudes since that gathering, I find it very hard to get folks in these kinds of mostly-remote virtual communities interested in actual face-to-face socializing. The corrosive effect of social media "fake friendship, perhaps?

Dubslow · 2018-03-22, 21:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Yes it would, but there seems to have been a fundamental shift in societal attitudes since that gathering, I find it very hard to get folks in these kinds of mostly-remote virtual communities interested in actual face-to-face socializing. The corrosive effect of social media "fake friendship, perhaps?

The freedom to consider a post you write for a few minutes, to use your backspace key and make minor edits.

Such is nearly impossible in live conversation.

...And of course the ever-broadening physical horizons of the userbase. A lot harder to get people to travel 10,000 miles rather than 1,000 or 100.

ixfd64 · 2018-03-22, 21:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Yes it would, but there seems to have been a fundamental shift in societal attitudes since that gathering, I find it very hard to get folks in these kinds of mostly-remote virtual communities interested in actual face-to-face socializing. The corrosive effect of social media "fake friendship, perhaps?

This is so true. I actually just made a post about this very subject on Reddit not too long ago: https://reddit.com/r/TrueOffMyChest/...be_inferior_to

The main problem is that travel costs so much time and money. I wish meeting people in person was as easy as simply sending them a message. :-(

ewmayer · 2018-03-22, 23:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dubslow

The freedom to consider a post you write for a few minutes, to use your backspace key and make minor edits.

Such is nearly impossible in live conversation.

It's not a "better or worse" issue - they are fundamentally different modes of communication, with different strengths and weaknesses.

Quote:

...And of course the ever-broadening physical horizons of the userbase. A lot harder to get people to travel 10,000 miles rather than 1,000 or 100.

The gathering described in the OP was SF-bay-area, lots of GIMPSers within easy driving distance of the venue. Whereas when I proposed just such a SF-bay gathering one or two M-primes ago in a thread on this forum ... I believe the colloquialism describing the resulting expressed interest is "crickets". So distance and local-density-of-GIMPSers have been controlled for - perhaps an argument could still be made based on age of the project then vs now.

Dubslow · 2018-03-22, 23:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by ewmayer

It's not a "better or worse" issue - they are fundamentally different modes of communication, with different strengths and weaknesses.

For you maybe, but for me one is clearly better (at least as far as ability to communicate information).

Quote:

Originally Posted by ewmayer

The gathering described in the OP was SF-bay-area, lots of GIMPSers within easy driving distance of the venue. Whereas when I proposed just such a SF-bay gathering one or two M-primes ago in a thread on this forum ... I believe the colloquialism describing the resulting expressed interest is "crickets".

I don't believe that this leads to this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by ewmayer

So distance and local-density-of-GIMPSers have been controlled for

You don't know that there hasn't been a significant change in the local GIMPS demographic (though I agree that a priori it's unlikely).

What about the different manners of arranging such a meeting? Rather than GIMPSers, how many forumites are bay are folks?

retina · 2018-03-23, 01:05

If it is new then it is exciting and interesting so people will be more willing to do crazy things.

If it is old and familiar then people are less willing to repeat the same old stuff all over again.

So my vote (not that it was asked for) would be for project age related factors.

chalsall · 2018-03-23, 22:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by ewmayer

It's not a "better or worse" issue - they are fundamentally different modes of communication, with different strengths and weaknesses.

Agreed. Your sharing the pictures was useful in knowing a little bit more about who I often argue with.

Correctly or wrongly, the photons bouncing off our atoms sometimes suggests that we're not (quite) as scary as our writing might indicate...

P.S. There's also body language, of course. Never captured in the written word, and very badly in video conference.

richs · 2018-03-28, 00:45

Mountain View is only 67 miles from my home, so I'd love to attend a future gathering.

LaurV · 2018-03-28, 10:21

Any plans for Thailand? Some forum members already visited me here and they all seem to be ok, hehe, I wouldn't mind meeting more....

2018-03-22, 20:05	#2
kruoli "Oliver" Sep 2017 Porta Westfalica, DE 1,319 Posts	Wow, nice to see that! I'd look forward to, that on some occasion there should be something like this for every new \(M_x\) found. Has there even been such thing since \(M_{39}\)? If not, it would be nice to organize something like this in the future.

2018-03-23, 01:05	#8
retina Undefined "The unspeakable one" Jun 2006 My evil lair 6,679 Posts	If it is new then it is exciting and interesting so people will be more willing to do crazy things. If it is old and familiar then people are less willing to repeat the same old stuff all over again. So my vote (not that it was asked for) would be for project age related factors.

2018-03-28, 00:45	#10
richs "Rich" Aug 2002 Benicia, California 3116₈ Posts	Mountain View is only 67 miles from my home, so I'd love to attend a future gathering.

2018-03-28, 10:21	#11
LaurV Romulan Interpreter "name field" Jun 2011 Thailand 10100000100001₂ Posts	Any plans for Thailand? Some forum members already visited me here and they all seem to be ok, hehe, I wouldn't mind meeting more....