The worth or futility of gratituous factorizations

[bsquared]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

And I am trying to suggest (albeit CLEARLY without success) that
big challenges yield big rewards.

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

I could [excuse my language] be the first in the world to piss on some anthill.
Would you not think it strange that I might try to claim 'bragging rights'
for doing so?

Call it a limitation on my part. I just don't understand it. [You see? I can
admit limitations!]

Here's my attempt to help you understand.

Consider the existence of community sports leagues. Every summer, hundreds of people in my hometown get together to play softball on a weekly basis. They hire umpires and buy equipment. The city keeps track of stats on a webpage they maintain. Clearly, it would be a huge challenge for any one of those team to, say, play again the USA women's softball team. Any of them would get waxed in such a game. So is everyone involved in a community sports league "wrong-headed"? I think there would be very little satisfaction derived by the players of some hometown team in getting waxed by a professional team on a regular basis.

Yet thousands of hometown softball teams still exist. Why? It is not for training purposes, as everyone recognizes (consciously or not) that no amount of training will elevate them to that level. People do it because everyone desires interaction with their peers. Same goes for factorization. Simple as that, IMO. People that do mundane factorizations are interacting with other people with similar interests. Most are fine with the peers they have at this mundane level. Not everyone has the time or energy to go off and write horrendously complex software just so they can elevate themselves somehow to a different group of peers playing in an entirely different league. They would probably also have considerably less fun being the ball-boy or boot-lick of some professional team versus being the star shortstop of their hometown league.


You want everyone to elevate themselves to a (in your worldview) higher caste or more nobel set of peers by striving to participate in things beyond them. That's a noble goal. However, people are generally satisfied in occasionally playing hometown softball and dedicating most of their energy elsewhere (family, job, etc.).

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by firejuggler

"wow nice, was your part of the total work important?"
"hmm like 0.5% of the total work"
" So let me get this straight, you made your computer work 24H/24 for a whole month and your contribution only amount to 0.5% of the total work? what a waste of time!"

I see. You imply that what matters is your percentage of the effort.
Imagine that the engineers on the Apollo project had this same attitude.
Everyone worked long and hard and the effort of any individual was small.

With an attitude such as this, we would have never landed on the moon.


I say instead: It was a MASSIVE effort. Your effort was as much as anyone's.
Only the combined effort made it possible. Kudos for helping out.

Your implied attitude is that large collaborative projects are not possible
because each person only contributes a small piece.

This attitude SUCKS BIG TIME.

[firejuggler]

Pay me and i'll take any factorisation challenge. The massive effort produced by the enginneer on the Appollo project wasn't free, they were paid.
those factorisation are done for free.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by bsquared

Here's my attempt to help you understand.

Consider the existence of community sports leagues. Every summer, hundreds of people in my hometown get together to play softball on a weekly basis. They hire umpires and buy equipment. The city keeps track of stats on a webpage they maintain. Clearly, it would be a huge challenge for any one of those team to, say, play again the USA women's softball team. Any of them would get waxed in such a game. So is everyone involved in a community sports league "wrong-headed"? I think there would be very little satisfaction derived by the players of some hometown team in getting waxed by a professional team on a regular basis.

Yet thousands of hometown softball teams still exist. Why? It is not for training purposes, as everyone recognizes (consciously or not) that no amount of training will elevate them to that level. People do it because everyone desires interaction with their peers. Same goes for factorization. Simple as that, IMO. People that do mundane factorizations are interacting with other people with similar interests. Most are fine with the peers they have at this mundane level. Not everyone has the time or energy to go off and write horrendously complex software just so they can elevate themselves somehow to a different group of peers playing in an entirely different league. They would probably also have considerably less fun being the ball-boy or boot-lick of some professional team versus being the star shortstop of their hometown league.


You want everyone to elevate themselves to a (in your worldview) higher caste or more nobel set of peers by striving to participate in things beyond them. That's a noble goal. However, people are generally satisfied in occasionally playing hometown softball and dedicating most of their energy elsewhere (family, job, etc.).

But I don't see these projects AS A COMPETITION. They are COLLABORATIONS.

Obviously, you and others see it as a competition. Why else would
people care about their rankings in "GHz-hours"?


And I don't see the collaborations as being "beyond them". It is no
more difficult to install and run the collaborative software than what
they are doing. It does not take (as you put it) "most of their energy"
to participate in a collaborative effort. Just fire it off and forget about it.

BTW, I would think that some of the people here would be offended
by being told "Don't try to implement anything; it is beyond you" or
"Don't participate in a collaborative project; it is beyond you"

If I were to say such a thing many people herein would take offense.
[In fact, people have done so. I have told some people in the math
sub-forum that the math was beyond them and many took offense]

I think the whole things is better explained by IGG. These people lack
the long-term patience needed for a large collaborative effort and want
instead "quick feedback".

Why is SETI so popular? It is just "fire and forget" and participants
never see an actual result/get no feedback. (Yes; people do like the
pretty graphics; If that's all it took we could install pretty screen
savers on the computational number theory projects. In fact, that might
be a good idea!!!)

I guess we just differ in our world-view.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by bsquared

I think there would be very little satisfaction derived by the players of some hometown team in getting waxed by a professional team on a regular basis.

But many of these collaborative efforts are NOT the same as "getting waxed
by pros".

When a large effort from (say) NFSNET gets posted, it is the collaborative
effort of ALL. Noone is getting 'waxed'. Indeed; there is no separation
of the large-resource contributors from the small ones. It is just NFSNET.

And your comments fail to explain GIMPS itself. Yes, there are some
contributors with large (or relatively large) resources. But there are
far more people with just a single PC.

It is NOT A COMPETITION.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by firejuggler

Pay me and i'll take any factorisation challenge. The massive effort produced by the enginneer on the Appollo project wasn't free, they were paid.

I doubt that a paycheck was a motivation for the massive effort many put in.
Many of the people on that project had "The Right Stuff". Your comment
about a need to be paid for this shows that you do not.

And I have said before that people who participate herein should do so out
of INTEREST. This is a labor of love. If you need to be paid in order to
participate, then be gone.

[firejuggler]

I'm not going away, I do trivial factorisation for free.

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

It is NOT A COMPETITION.

Factorisations may well not be a competition, but surely the competitive side of softball was not what bsquared's amateur softball analogy was intended to express?

Here's another analogy. Some towns and cities have an amateur orchestra. It's doesn't attempt to emulate the Berlin Philharmonic because its musicians, most of whom spend most of their time doing an unrelated day job, are nowhere near the standard required for top international performances. In fact the music which the orchestra practises may be completely unsuited to performances and is merely a chance for the amateur enthusiasts to get together in a setting where they can play music as a team and in each other's company. It's their way of producing their art form and socialising with each other at the same time.

Factorisation isn't an art form? No, indeed. And that's not the aspect of amateur orchestras which the analogy intends to express.

[bsquared]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

But many of these collaborative efforts are NOT the same as "getting waxed
by pros".

When a large effort from (say) NFSNET gets posted, it is the collaborative
effort of ALL. Noone is getting 'waxed'. Indeed; there is no separation
of the large-resource contributors from the small ones. It is just NFSNET.

And your comments fail to explain GIMPS itself. Yes, there are some
contributors with large (or relatively large) resources. But there are
far more people with just a single PC.

It is NOT A COMPETITION.

You picked the wrong analogy. Look at the one right below that:

Originally Posted by bsquared

They would probably also have considerably less fun being the ball-boy or boot-lick of some professional team versus being the star shortstop of their hometown league.

I'm arguing that people would sometimes rather interact with their peers (people of similar capability/resources) then be an also-ran in a larger effort - there can be greater satisfaction in doing so. (edit: Brian-E understood me right)

I don't thing the Apollo program is a fair analogy either. Anyone in American would have participated in the Apollo program if they had been told their effort, however small, would have been useful, because doing so would help beat the Communists. Compare that with participation in factoring very large numbers versus very mundane ones; in either case, who cares? They are stamp's in someone's collection either way. So you can't compare participation in the two.

[bsquared]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

When a large effort from (say) NFSNET gets posted, it is the collaborative
effort of ALL. Noone is getting 'waxed'. Indeed; there is no separation
of the large-resource contributors from the small ones. It is just NFSNET.

Take away the stats page of NFS@Home and see what kind of participation you have one month from now. Still think it's not a competition?

edit: Is NFSNET still active?
edit2: No. I'm thinking that helps proves my point.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

Factorisation isn't an art form? No, indeed. And that's not the aspect of amateur orchestras which the analogy intends to express.

Really?.

What Dr. Silverman fails to understand is that some of us do what we do just because (we personally consider) it is fun.

I've asked him before, and I'll ask him again: have you ever had a girlfriend?