P-1 factoring anyone?

[KyleAskine]

Originally Posted by LaurV

Running TF for exponents assigned to other people for longer jobs is NOT poaching, as long as you do not make this regularly and with a mean purpose. I did this few times in my 8-years GIMPS life, maybe 10 or 20 times, when I was particularly interested in some exponents, and I DO NOT consider myself a poacher.

In this case you are setting a long LL as the baseline. But no one is accusing you of running a TF on someone else's LL. You ran a TF on someone's P-1, and you ran a massive ECM on an entire project's NFS. So you specifically attempted to factor a number that someone else is attempting to factor. I don't understand how you don't see the problem here.

Beyond that, it isn't even okay for you do to it if someone were to be running LL. Think about it.

There is some x probability (I've heard 1/70 thrown around) that you do find a factor when you TF someone's LL. Does this person save some time on their LL if you can somehow notify them that their test is not needed? Absolutely. Do you get whatever it was that you wanted when you set out to TF this already assigned exponent. I suppose so.

But GIMPS as a whole is who loses in this case. You have wasted whatever time that person already spent on that LL. There are plenty of other numbers out there to TF. You can find one that has not yet been LL'ed. This is the best allocation of resources for the project. Saving LLx2 is much better than saving LLx1.5 (or whatever), plus there are no hurt feelings when you save LLx2.

[diamonddave]

Originally Posted by KyleAskine

In this case you are setting a long LL as the baseline. But no one is accusing you of running a TF on someone else's LL. You ran a TF on someone's P-1, and you ran a massive ECM on an entire project's NFS. So you specifically attempted to factor a number that someone else is attempting to factor. I don't understand how you don't see the problem here.

Beyond that, it isn't even okay for you do to it if someone were to be running LL. Think about it.

Well it wasn't LaurV that did the TF on someone else P-1

Originally Posted by markr

7.0M to 7.019M is now checked to 2^59, and I'll take it to 2^60.

M7018901 has a 58 bit factor. It was assigned to Carsten Kossendey for P-1 (since March): I don't usually poach but since P-1 would be very unlikely to find a factor with k = 43 x 258029413 I hope he won't mind too much.

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by KyleAskine

But GIMPS as a whole is who loses in this case. You have wasted whatever time that person already spent on that LL. There are plenty of other numbers out there to TF. You can find one that has not yet been LL'ed. This is the best allocation of resources for the project. Saving LLx2 is much better than saving LLx1.5 (or whatever), plus there are no hurt feelings when you save LLx2.

Half his post was about that this paragraph is entirely true, and he does such only when he has a particular interest in the exponent involved, rather than just 'vanilla' work for GIMPS.

Just pointing that out.

[James Heinrich]

Originally Posted by James Heinrich

To list those exponents (that I've found so far) in one place for easy reference:

2 more:
M6,802,123, M6,853,937, M6,853,967, M6,854,297, M6,888,719, M6,935,129, M6,937,501, M6,961,751, M6,984,797, M7,012,963, M8,263,357, M8,272,073, M8,289,409, M8,855,257

[KyleAskine]

Originally Posted by diamonddave

Well it wasn't LaurV that did the TF on someone else P-1

My reading comprehension skills are not up to snuff.

So sorry about half of my accusations. The rest of my points still stand though.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by LaurV

That's life, my dear. I don't want to go through a flame war with you, but if it is a must, I will.

To whom are you addressing this?

Are you saying that you don't yet understand the ethics of the GIMPS/PrimeNet system?

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Rodrigo

cheesehead,

I'm simply trying to get a ballpark estimate on how long it should take to complete a P-1. The ones that get assigned to my not-so-modern CPUs prior to starting an LL test take just a couple of days. Therefore I wonder why it would take nine months for someone to complete a P-1, as in the case under discussion.

Rodrigo,

You seem to be assuming that your nine-months case involves a single P-1 assignment, since you compare it with a single-assignment case of your own.

Have you ever considered the possibility that someone might get more than one assignment at a time (which is perfectly legitimate)? Only the assignment that is listed first in the worktodo file may be the one actively in progress, but the user may wish to have multiple assignments queued up. M7018901 might well be queued farther down in the user's worktodo. There's nothing about that situation that violates any GIMPS or PrimeNet rules.

A reminder: PrimeNet has algorithms to limit how long an assignment may pass without progress. If the user's progress is within those rules -- as indicated by the fact that the assignment still exists -- no one else has any business poaching it. Anyone who thinks there's some exceptional circumstances can ask George Woltman to intervene.

[ckdo]

Originally Posted by Rodrigo

Thanks, James, for the info and the links.

If I read the information correctly, ckdo has no shortage of firepower available. Thus, it leads one to wonder why such a tiny assignment, reportedly allocated in March, would have still not been completed well into December (as of the time that this discussion started). There must be a good explanation.

Rodrigo

There's a rather simple explanation: I have a lot of similar assignments - 8,000 or some such. While this may seem like an enormous number, I have already completed 64,000+ of those. I'm rather positive none of the rest will expire, even if the final result is a long way down the road.

[Rodrigo]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Have you ever considered the possibility that someone might get more than one assignment at a time (which is perfectly legitimate)?

cheesehead,

Until I read this post by Brian-E which provided an explanation of ckdo's situation after I posed my question, no -- the possibility of stockpiling thousands of assignments for completion months or years down the road had never crossed my mind. Now I have learned that this does happen.

I have seven computers doing various kinds of work for GIMPS. Following the KISS principle, they all receive their assignments automatically from the PrimeNet server as current exponents approach completion. The machines doing TF have a 5-day queue. I am aware that it's possible to increase the size of the queue, but I never had a need to do that or indeed (till yesterday) saw any point in doing so. (The machines I use are at home, so I have at-will access to them.)

The only hands-on experience I have with stockpiling assignments in any way is with the GPU I use to LL with CUDALucas. The first time I tried the manual assignment thing, I thought I'd done it wrong and ended up getting two exponents. Now I'm more careful and only do one at a time, on the consideration that should something happen to me, then these assignments will have to wait so long before somebody else can take them up.

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Only the assignment that is listed first in the worktodo file may be the one actively in progress, but the user may wish to have multiple assignments queued up. M7018901 might well be queued farther down in the user's worktodo. There's nothing about that situation that violates any GIMPS or PrimeNet rules.

So let me see if I get this -- you could have 10,000 P-1's (or whatever) lined up, and as long as PrimeNet keeps getting reports of progress made on the batch as a whole with enough regularity, it doesn't matter that the last ones of those 10,000 won't actually be done for two years, five years, or whatever. Is that correct?

Rodrigo

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Rodrigo

cheesehead,

Until I read this post by Brian-E which provided an explanation of ckdo's situation after I posed my question,

Unfortunately, I hadn't yet read that post from Brian-E when I composed my preceding one, or else I wouldn't have posted my last one at all.

no -- the possibility of stockpiling thousands of assignments for completion months or years

not years AFAIK -- see below

So let me see if I get this -- you could have 10,000 P-1's (or whatever) lined up, and as long as PrimeNet keeps getting reports of progress made on the batch as a whole with enough regularity, it doesn't matter that the last ones of those 10,000 won't actually be done for two years, five years, or whatever. Is that correct?

Last I heard, the PrimeNet limit was one year or less. So, not multiple years AFAIK, but I could be mistaken.

You wouldn't have 10,000 P-1s assigned unless you had lots of computers, so they wouldn't be in progress just one at a time.

[drh]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Last I heard, the PrimeNet limit was one year or less. So, not multiple years AFAIK, but I could be mistaken.

I watch this very close on a small project I'm working on, and I think I have it figured out ... let me know if I'm missing something.

There two options, the first is getting an assignment from PrimeNet automatically. This assignment has a life of 60 days from the last update from your computer. If your computer updates everyday, it could conceivably never expire. If it updates every 7 days, the life will reduce by 1 per day for the week, down to 53 days, then get upped again to 60 when you report, until it is finished. This is true for all of your assignments of this type, not just the one that is active (one per core actually). If you don't report back to the server within the 60 days, regardless of your status with the exponent, it gets returned and made available.

The other option is the manual reservation. These are good for 180 days. There is no updating that I know of for these, so if you don't finish them within the 180 days, they get returned.

Of course, there is always the option to manually extend them as well.

Doug