Newer milestone thread

[Prime95]

Originally Posted by retina

Exponent 33088277 either has some missing assignment data, or the expiry date for "ANONYMOUS" is incorrect.

I haven't dug into the logfiles. Perhaps the user unreserved the exponent.

[retina]

Originally Posted by Prime95

I haven't dug into the logfiles. Perhaps the user unreserved the exponent.

If I had to guess I would think the code to expire underperforming assignments has set the expired date using the 60-day rule to the assigned date + 60 days rather than using the current date.

[Madpoo]

Originally Posted by davar55

It shouldn't even be called poaching when the "experts" resolve a "problem."
And poaching by non-experts should (I agree) be avoided scrupulously.

We could always remove the "active assignments" page entirely. :) But I know some folks like the data and use it responsibly. I'll let George puzzle that one out... He's talked about that particular page in the past with a sense of regret.

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by Madpoo

We could always remove the "active assignments" page entirely. :) But I know some folks like the data and use it responsibly. I'll let George puzzle that one out... He's talked about that particular page in the past with a sense of regret.

Use a password? (like... for trusted users, you know? :P - it can be the same password for all, not as much as for protection, but to descourage the badass teenagers)

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by LaurV

Use a password? (like... for trusted users, you know? :P - it can be the same password for all, not as much as for protection, but to descourage the badass teenagers)

Yep, then only give the password to people who provide a copy of their birth certificate together with a photo of their derrière, showing that they are not badass teenagers.

[axn]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

provide a copy of their birth certificate together with a photo of their derrière

Well, technically, you only need to provide one or the other to disprove that you're a BaT.

/my-contribution-to-the-less-than-useful-thread

[retina]

According to WolframAlpha there are 2044287 exponents below the 10M digit mark. And as of this posting there are M2 remaining to be verified to complete the set.

Originally Posted by LaurV

Use a password? (like... for trusted users, you know? :P - it can be the same password for all, not as much as for protection, but to descourage the badass teenagers)

Perhaps you are protecting against the wrong class of potential poacher. Past records here indicate the opposite; established and trusted individuals are the main poachers. So we should be freely giving out the information to all that request it in an effort to attract more to join and replace those that get shafted by a poacher and leave for other projects.

[LaurV]

Mea culpa. I wasn't talking about poaching, I knew the objection (opposition) to the active assignment page was more or less related to the fact that (in George's approx. words) "it kills the server" and therefore it should not be accessible to everybody. Not any more the case with the new server, I guess. Sorry I didn't read the discussion carefully.

The poaching we can not stop, unless the rules are enforced and unless the poachers see that they don't have any advantage in poaching, for example no matter who reports the result, is should be credited to the assignee (just an example, and not the best/easiest solution). But to do this in a "fair mode", again, we need to enforce the rules, good or bad, they are there to be applied. Otherwise it is a big can of worms, if one reserves a billion exponents and never work on them, and they are not expired (by the server) when the time comes (as it was the case with the old rules), other people do his work and he will get the credit. It was done in the past (it was called "hoarding" exponents, and even curtisc did it. But you (generic you) can't play tricks with the credits of the one who reports the results. Even so, some people don't care (I am guilty , I confess) if they want to poach, they will poach, for the sake of it, for whatever silly reason like advancing a milestone or satisfying a personal pride or stupidity (ex: I use to DC my old LL work of 5-7-10 years ago without giving a sh!t if and to who is assigned, you know, what if one of my computers at that time went nuts and missed a prime? ). (what I wanted to stress is that not the rules are the problem, but enforcing them; most of the time when things go wrong, the "management" would change the rules, when in fact the old rules are quite ok, or even better, the real problem is how those rules are applied in practice).

All in all we are making too much of a case from it. I think we are moving in the right direction, day by day (new server, new rules, etc, better terms to accommodate newer/faster CPUs, soon we will have GPU work directly from PrimeNet, etc), but we can't avoid kibitzing and making a big fuss of it. Let the things move on, at least, or help if you can. They progress slowly, but progress.

[Uncwilly]

It has been almost 2.5 months, good progress has been made on the various milestones.

All exponents below 33,121,687 have been tested and double-checked.
All exponents below 54,357,769 have been tested at least once.

Countdown to testing all exponents below M(57885161) once: 3,985
Countdown to double-checking all 2^P-1 smaller than 10M digits: 2 (Estimated completion : 2015-02-09)
Countdown to first time checking all exponents below 56M: 29 (Estimated completion : 2015-05-16)
Countdown to proving M(37156667) is the 45th Mersenne Prime: 52,245

Originally Posted by NBtarheel_33

One more idea: Davieddy's Interval, i.e. the number of days until we expect to find the next Mersenne prime, per Poisson.

Just as a note: we are now at 0.500 expected new primes in the 79.3 range.

[Madpoo]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

It has been almost 2.5 months, good progress has been made on the various milestones.
Countdown to first time checking all exponents below 56M: 29 (Estimated completion : 2015-05-16)

We're also just 3 exponents away from first time checks up to 55M. I didn't include that in the milestone page at the time because it was already a small number, but it's in there... 2 should have been due but haven't checked in for a few days. Hopefully that user is still running them and they'll pop in. The 3rd one is a couple more weeks out but making somewhat consistent progress.

[NBtarheel_33]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

Just as a note: we are now at 0.500 expected new primes in the 79.3 range.

0.497 now, so (with the standard caveat about calculations of this nature over extremely short intervals) that's a drop of 0.003 in six days, or basically 2,000 days (~5.5 years) until we expect to find a new prime.