Newer milestone thread

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

Cheesehead also gave me a superb informative reply when I asked about this issue as a newcomer to this forum.

And typically succinct

Slowinsky notoriously skipped some exponents (eg he missed M29).
Does anyone know why?

David

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Commaster

Maybe we will get another (read "Don't care about 100.00000001 > 100) opinion as soon as this assignment holds 3-4 Milestones ^.^

What we need is a different method of handling "milestones" that avoids tempting impatient folks to poach.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Mini-Geek

I think it's a good idea for George to (politely) 'prod' the user in this way.

I think it'd be a better idea to prod some impatient folks here as to the ethics of leaving alone people who are following the rules.

Or, as I'm sure Cheesehead et al will tell me, it could also anger them so they quit GIMPS, but I don't think there's a great risk of that happening

More accurately, you don't seem to care much about that happening.

What does "empathy" mean to you?

just by making sure they know the significance of that test

How about reminding you of the significance of following the rules?

If what you want is a new rule that someone who is judged by impatient people to be "holding up a milestone" can be legitimately subjected to poaching, please say so straight out.

Do you have any objection to the PrimeNet method of handing out exclusive assignments for testing exponents? Do you agree that such exclusivity helps the efficiency of GIMPS's search by avoiding unnecessary duplication?

(no, it's not extremely important in the long run, but it is holding up a couple of milestones, and some people are more bugged by that than others).

[/begin sarcasm]
Oh, that's right ... in our society, people who are more bugged than others are allowed to ignore the rules. If I'm really, really worried about being late to an appointment, I'm allowed to do 40 in a 25 zone, and so on ... because it's well-known that individual impatience supersedes all other considerations.
[/end sarcasm]

Oh, and about "holding up ... milestones" -- why don't I see you discussing the holding-up of future milestones that occurs when someone who could be advancing GIMPS toward some future milestone instead diverts his system to unnecessary duplication/preemption of someone else's assignment work?

As I've pointed out before, you cannot speed up GIMPS by harrassing or poaching someone else!!!

Therefore, any advocation of harrassing users with "slow" systems _cannot_ be motivated by concern for GIMPS progress -- it can only be motivated by desire to advance personal goals at the expense of GIMPS progress.

(To be fair, it could also be motivated by a mistaken desire to advance GIMPS because of ignorance of a proper analysis of the factors -- but since I've pointed out those factors to this forum, you can't use that excuse any more.)

[davar55]

Since I don't know what the fuss is about, I'll just say
I totally agree with Che...H...d's last post.

[Mr. P-1]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

I think it'd be a better idea to prod some impatient folks here as to the ethics of leaving alone people who are following the rules.

More accurately, you don't seem to care much about that happening.

What does "empathy" mean to you?

How about reminding you of the significance of following the rules?

If what you want is a new rule that someone who is judged by impatient people to be "holding up a milestone" can be legitimately subjected to poaching, please say so straight out.

Do you have any objection to the PrimeNet method of handing out exclusive assignments for testing exponents? Do you agree that such exclusivity helps the efficiency of GIMPS's search by avoiding unnecessary duplication?

[/begin sarcasm]
Oh, that's right ... in our society, people who are more bugged than others are allowed to ignore the rules. If I'm really, really worried about being late to an appointment, I'm allowed to do 40 in a 25 zone, and so on ... because it's well-known that individual impatience supersedes all other considerations.
[/end sarcasm]

Oh, and about "holding up ... milestones" -- why don't I see you discussing the holding-up of future milestones that occurs when someone who could be advancing GIMPS toward some future milestone instead diverts his system to unnecessary duplication/preemption of someone else's assignment work?

As I've pointed out before, you cannot speed up GIMPS by harrassing or poaching someone else!!!

Therefore, any advocation of harrassing users with "slow" systems _cannot_ be motivated by concern for GIMPS progress -- it can only be motivated by desire to advance personal goals at the expense of GIMPS progress.

(To be fair, it could also be motivated by a mistaken desire to advance GIMPS because of ignorance of a proper analysis of the factors -- but since I've pointed out those factors to this forum, you can't use that excuse any more.)

What "rules" are we talking about here? I don't see anything in the rules that says you're not allowed to test an exponent already assigned to someone else. Maybe there should be. But until there is, your argument that he has broken a rule doesn't stand up.

[mdettweiler]

Originally Posted by Mr. P-1

What "rules" are we talking about here? I don't see anything in the rules that says you're not allowed to test an exponent already assigned to someone else. Maybe there should be. But until there is, your argument that he has broken a rule doesn't stand up.

Cheesehead,

In addition to what Mr. P-1 said, Mini-Geek was not advocating poaching at all; merely a friendly "prod" from George via email for the assignee to expedite the processing of the exponent if they can (and wish to). His statement of "or it could change nothing" clearly indicates that the assignment would be left be, for the current assignee to complete at his leisure, regardless of his response to the "prod" email. Surely that is not "poaching"?

Also, with regard to your statement of:

Originally Posted by cheesehead

More accurately, you don't seem to care much about that happening.

is patently unfounded, since he merely said that he didn't feel that there was a great risk of that happening--nothing about whether and to what degree he cared about such an occurrence happening. Plenty of times in life, one is confronted with the choice of taking a small, but nonetheless present, risk that something they definitely do not want will occur. For instance, if you are driving in a car down an expressway and want to make a lane change, there is a possibility that there is a car in your blind spot and you will hit it by changing lanes. You can minimize the chances of that by properly looking over your shoulder and checking your mirrors, but you cannot eliminate it. So you can either take a small chance and make the lane change, or stay in your lane and be absolutely sure that you won't collide with anyone. But if you do that, you may not be able to get off an exit later and get where you need to go. One could argue that since a human life is much more valuable than making an appointment, you shouldn't make the lane change; but clearly, the chances of a negative occurrence are sufficiently small that it is correct to take the small risk to attain the consequence of getting to your destination.

The case of this slow-moving exponent is similar. If George was to send a "prod" email to the assignee asking him to expedite the processing of the exponent if it is conveniently doable, there is a small chance that he would become angry and leave GIMPS, but if the email is written professionally and politely (as it surely would be), that chance is minimized. What is to be gained by sending the email is the possibility that a poaching by someone not willing to work within the rules can be averted*. This does not mean that such poaching is good or allowed, but that since it is often difficult to prevent given the way PrimeNet is structured, it is wise to take steps to avoid such poaching when possible and not overly inconvenient. To use another analogy, say you are in a restaurant with a guy who happens to be carrying a gun, and who has gotten rather drunk. He decides to grab your drink off your table and guzzle it down. Do you call him on it and demand that he compensate you for your loss (let's assume that there are no free refills), or let it slide so as not to risk angering the guy and getting yourself shot? Sure, you'd be perfectly justified in insisting on redress of a legitimate harm (the theft of your drink, that is, of the money you spent on it), but there's a high probability that you'd wind up dead. By letting the offense go, you lose a little money, but you keep your life. The same applies in this case: by sending a "prod" email to the assignee, you run the very small risk of him leaving GIMPS in response to your email, but the potential gain, that of preventing a poaching, is much more likely to prevent him from becoming frustrated and leaving GIMPS in response to that.

*Just to head off a rebuttal on this front, allow me to remind you that it is well within the rules for someone to ask that someone expedite the progress of an exponent.

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

Snip

Well ***k it. I never wanted to be a mod in the first place,
and I don't think my old keyboard could stand it anyway.

Do you have any semblance of a sense of humour you jerks?

David

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by davar55

Since I don't know what the fuss is about, I'll just say
I totally agree with Che...H...d's last post.

If I could understand this, I suspect it might be humorus (sic)

I used to have a poster of that Guevara bloke on my wall in '68.

"La lutte continue".

David

[NBtarheel_33]

Originally Posted by ckdo

Likewise, the completed double-check tests below M(24036583) will certainly include hundreds of fake results. Independent verification of PrimeNet's residues isn't something that actually happens.

One day, I'm sure it will, as part of a SUPERGIMPS to which our "meager" decades of work will be as the "meager" efforts of (re)finding M20-M29 (for instance) were to GIMPS.

In fact, once GPUs really take off as part of GIMPS, we could likely confirm every result in the database in a matter of a couple of years.

[Primeinator]

Originally Posted by NBtarheel_33

One day, I'm sure it will, as part of a SUPERGIMPS to which our "meager" decades of work will be as the "meager" efforts of (re)finding M20-M29 (for instance) were to GIMPS.

In fact, once GPUs really take off as part of GIMPS, we could likely confirm every result in the database in a matter of a couple of years.

How long before you expect GPUs to "take off" as you put it?

[davar55]

When SUPERGIMPS solves M100 I'm going to celebrate.

Need a thread for predicting that arrival.

(Must take into account SON-OF-GIMPS ^ n, for n = 1 , k)