Mersenne.ca Status Report

[Madpoo]

Originally Posted by James Heinrich

Thanks. The data feed from PrimeNet had an unexpectedly-large dump of data on 2016-Feb-23, more than triple the typical daily amount of data. The XML file itself was 254MB, so PHP ran out of its allocated 256MB trying to process it.

Umm... yeah... about that...

When I saw the post about mersenne.ca not updating since the 22nd, my first thought was "uh oh, I just dumped nearly 400K new results into the database on the 23rd... coincidence?"

Sorry about that. If I had it to do over I may have chosen to spread the data dump over several days to avoid any ripple effects.

[James Heinrich]

Originally Posted by Madpoo

Umm... yeah... about that...

No worries, it's all good now

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by Mark Rose

That would be the skipped-TF results of mine that Madpoo imported :)

Originally Posted by chalsall

Yaw see! This is why we can't have nice things....

I would rather think that this...

Originally Posted by James Heinrich

so PHP ran out of its allocated 256MB trying to process it.

...is why we can't have nice things.

[snme2pm1]

James, I appreciated that you rapidly responded to a suggestion to make dates more universal some months ago, by using more ISO 8601 rather than Canadian format for the currency of TF statistics.
It was of interest to further discover that Canada has adopted ISO 8601 as a non-mandatory standard for many purposes.
Further it would seem that Canada is one of the worst places in the world for ambiguity of multiple date formats.
I observe an anomaly at mersenne.ca, whereby for TF statistics we see radio button "the most recent data (dd mmm yyyy)" then in the next column another radio button "a specific date:" yyyy-mm-dd.
I didn't venture to look for further non ISO dates at your site.
There seems to be compelling reasons to adopt ISO dates, everywhere.

[James Heinrich]

Originally Posted by snme2pm1

It was of interest to further discover that Canada has adopted ISO 8601 as a non-mandatory standard for many purposes.
Further it would seem that Canada is one of the worst places in the world for ambiguity of multiple date formats.

Canada is one of the worst places for mixed measurement system standards. Temperature is Celsius, except for cooking. Produce is priced per pound and sold per kg. Size and weight are metric, except for things people don't know in metric like their own height and weight, the size of their TV, or the size of a 2x4 lumber or 4x8 plywood at the hardware store. Everything has a normal unit of measure, you just have to know what it is. If you talk weather in Fahrenheit, or speed in mph, or ask someone how many kg they weigh and you'll get confused looks.



I didn't know Canada had any standards, formal or otherwise, for dates. Anything and everything goes, so you really have no idea what 06/09/12 means. It could be the same as 12/09/06, but who knows.

I found a few outlier date formats on mersenne.ca that I have now brought more inline with ISO 8601 format.

[science_man_88]

Originally Posted by James Heinrich

Canada is one of the worst places for mixed measurement system standards. Temperature is Celsius, except for cooking. Produce is priced per pound and sold per kg. Size and weight are metric, except for things people don't know in metric like their own height and weight, the size of their TV, or the size of a 2x4 lumber or 4x8 plywood at the hardware store. Everything has a normal unit of measure, you just have to know what it is. If you talk weather in Fahrenheit, or speed in mph, or ask someone how many kg they weigh and you'll get confused looks.



I didn't know Canada had any standards, formal or otherwise, for dates. Anything and everything goes, so you really have no idea what 06/09/12 means. It could be the same as 12/09/06, but who knows.

I found a few outlier date formats on mersenne.ca that I have now brought more inline with ISO 8601 format.

I like conversions so I'm the outlier. I hated conversions in pharmacy though because the US ones ( some still used) are inconsistent with each other and it's done mostly for speed I think. I have a body fat scale that can weigh in kg so I know roughly ( plus I use the wii fit and it's set to kg, I'm still not happy about my weight at times)

[petrw1]

Originally Posted by James Heinrich

Canada is one of the worst places for mixed measurement system standards.

Pretty bad considering we converted to metric 49 year ago.

[James Heinrich]

Originally Posted by petrw1

Pretty bad considering we converted to metric 49 year ago.

Is that a Canadian Year, British Year, or US Year measurement?

By my calculation it's only 45 (perhaps 46) years since conversion started (and 31 years since the following goverment messed it up ).

[Mark Rose]

Originally Posted by James Heinrich

Is that a Canadian Year, British Year, or US Year measurement?

By my calculation it's only 45 (perhaps 46) years since conversion started (and 31 years since the following goverment messed it up ).

Skip to 10:00. Explains everything.

[petrw1]

Originally Posted by James Heinrich

Is that a Canadian Year, British Year, or US Year measurement?

By my calculation it's only 45 (perhaps 46) years since conversion started (and 31 years since the following goverment messed it up ).

My failing memory told me it was 1967....I was close-ish.

Recall however that the U-S-of-A attempted to go metric a few years later (1975) and .... well they still do Miles and Fahrenheit.....

I think (cue whining) Canada would have been more successful if our neighbor to the South played along.

[James Heinrich]

Originally Posted by petrw1

Canada would have been more successful if our neighbor to the South played along.

Oh, most certainly. Things like railroads continuing to operate in miles is directly attributable to the USA not converting. We'd buy metric lumber too if not for the neighborly influence.