New milestone

[ATH]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

So, like every other poacher, you have your own individual criteria for deciding when you think your judgment is superior to others'.

Gee, you're smart.

But there are those little matters of trust, integrity, opportunity, pledges, and so on ... how did you figure out when and why it's acceptable to throw those away? Please explain for the rest of us.

Yes, that is my own criteria, but who's trust am I breaking? I don't know, because they didn't bother to register properly for >1.5 year since the v4 server was closed. If the exponents turned out to be prime, they wouldn't get credit for the discovery, they won't get credit for the work, so what exactly am I stealing? It's like when you find cash in the street, there is no way to know who dropped it, so most people keep it, and it's not considered stealing.

Btw, who made you the GIMPS chief of police or maybe the GIMPS conscience?

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by petrw1

I can tell you from person experience that I had a borged PIV PC that has ended up in a situation where:
a. the people literally use it only a couple hours a WEEK / MONTH
b. the PC is no longer accessible to me

[snip]

P.S. because it is still V4 I CANNOT unreserve the exponents myself from the server interface.

This statement confuses me a bit.

I have two "borged" machines which are still running V4 (doing DC work), and yet I can unassign their assignments through the V5 web interface just like I can for any other machine running V5.

Originally Posted by petrw1

P.P.S. Probably a silly question but why not simply have the server DISALLOW taking (or reporting in) a LL/DC assignment that someone else has assigned?

Another suggestion made by someone else here on the Forum some time ago (I don't remember who or where) which I think would work better -- accept the result, but credit the original assignee.

If the original assignee does finally submit a result, credit them again as a "triple check" (in the case of LL/DC), since it would have been done by a different machine.

@cheesehead -- what do you think of this as a compromise position?

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by chalsall

@cheesehead...

With all due respect, it appears you have issues that perhaps you should deal with outside of GIMPS....

Please say what you mean instead of using cutesy phrases.

We all have "issues" "outside of GIMPS".

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Please say what you mean instead of using cutesy phrases.

We all have "issues" "outside of GIMPS".

ROFLMAO...

Care to speak to my post immediately above this one, dated 16 Jul 10 11:33 AM, where I asked you a direct question?

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by NBtarheel_33

Exactly. Holding up choice exponents, or worse, delaying milestones is no worse or no better than poaching.

Once again: speeding-up one milestone by poaching just delays the next milestone by the same amount.

"Delaying milestones" only happens when you focus your tunnel vision on the nearest milestone and ignore the rest.

Note that if this limit were in place, my poaches would no longer be poaches

I presume you meant to say that you wouldn't have felt the urge to poach, so that there wouldn't have been any poaches. :-)

I also wonder if it would be worthwhile to change the preferred exponent thresholds whenever we get close (e.g. within 100 or even 1000) to a milestone, so that only reliable, confirmed, modern machines are given the potential stragglers.

This sounds like a good idea, except that I think that by the time we're within 1000 of a milestone, usually all those 1000 will have already been assigned.

Keep in mind that even with the one year limit in place by itself, an exponent could go into a loop of year after year being assigned to a woefully slow user/machine...and we get the same problem we have now.

Yes, indeed.

So I feel we definitely need a combination of a hard upper limit on assignment age *and* dynamically adjusted preferred exponent thresholds as we pass near milestones.

Because of the already-assigned factor I mentioned, measures such as "adjusted preferred exponent thresholds" won't be effective if we apply them only as milestones are neared, at least not in a simplistic manner.

Suggestion: Assign to "slow" (non-preferred) systems only exponents which are not among the xxxx lowest remaining ones -- regardless of milestones. That is, if xxxx is set at, say 5000, then any non-preferred system requesting an assignment gets only one which is not among the lowest 5000 unassigned exponents.

That simple xxxx parameter could be replaced by a dynamic algorithm that takes recent completion rates into account, and assigns to any non-preferred system an exponent which can be predicted not to "hold up" any milestone for, say, thrice the time expected for that system to complete the assignment.

One of the wonderful things about GIMPS is that George actively considers (and even solicits) ideas and opinions from the participants. Just as we all worked together in reaching a consensus on trying to increase the pace of DCs, I'm sure we will be able to figure something out here that once and for all ends the tug-of-war between the anti-poachers and the milestone fans.

Yes.

Instead of advocating blunt-force solutions like poaching, we can do some thinking about how to adjust assignments in advance so as to minimize "hold-ups".

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by chalsall

ROFLMAO...

Care to speak to my post immediately above this one, dated 16 Jul 10 11:33 AM, where I asked you a direct question?

Did you mean post #365 (which shows a different timestamp to me)?

There are other posts in the queue ahead of your #365. Care to wait your turn?

(Your #352 got a response already only because it was simple.)

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

I'm keying as fast as I can. Wait your turn. :-)

Yes sir....

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by NBtarheel_33

But, as ET said, his lost machine *is* reporting within the time limit. What happens if only an infinitesimal amount of work is being performed within that time limit?

That's an argument for adjusting the PrimeNet algorithm, not for poaching.

I could hoard 10,000 exponents, as I said earlier, and report 100 iterations on each one, every 59.9 days, and you're saying that all 10,000 of my assignments should be protected for perpetuity?

No. Unlike you, I'm not exaggerating numbers, because I can refute your arguments fairly without doing that. Care to try doing that yourself?

I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous.

Yes, but it's your own idea that's ridiculous. That straw-man exaggeration that you're pretending to attribute to me just shows that you don't think you can refute my argument without exaggeration.

And before you dismiss the example as an exaggeration, what if I do it with 100 exponents, or 10 exponents, just to make a point?

But you didn't propose the 100, or 10-exponent example. You did propose the 10,000 exaggeration.

If you could have made your point with a smaller number, then why didn't you do so in the first place? Answer: because you wanted to put the 10,000 figure first to make your argument seem bolder, because you knew that if you didn't exaggerate you couldn't pretend that your argument was superior to mine.

Because the "lost" computer keeps reporting in with the exponent, and getting it reassigned.

So, you're arguing for a PrimeNet change. Why go beyond that?

No one has _ever_ described a situation in which holding up a milestone or sitting on choice exponents for years was justified.

Your 10,000 example attempted to do that.

By the way, it follows that ET hasn't described such a situation, if no one has...

False logic.

I, and perhaps others here, claim that these procedures still have loopholes that make them inadequate. These loopholes need to be tightened, if not closed completely.

So, why not just phrase it that way, instead of phrasing it as a justification for poaching?

Frankly, you tend to treat anyone who doesn't share your point of view as a kid who is doing the wrong thing. No offense, but that is just the way it comes across. Your opinion is the right way, and anything in conflict is inherently wrong or evil.

Once again, you present a straw-man exaggeration of my words.

If you could refute my argument without resorting to such exaggeration, why don't you do so?

The analogy with Bob Silverman would be that anyone who does not study mathematics 16 hours a day doesn't deserve to discuss the subject.

... which is a straw-man exaggeration of Bob's actual opinion.

Straw-manning is addictive, but you can kick it if you try.

Wow, I'm a thief? There's a deed and title to each exponent?

Another straw-man. I never claimed anything about deed or title. I described what I meant by theft, but you can't refute that, so you exaggerate in order to set up a straw-man target you _can_ knock down.

Try refuting just what I say without adding or exaggerating anything -- or admit that you can't do so.

I have fifty of them, each one a different integer. I hereby charge anyone $5 usage rights for any use of "my" exponents' names. I guess we have to start referring to M47 as "that number" or else we'll have to pay the discoverer for usage rights. Sorry, man, but you're taking a fun, volunteer project *way too freaking seriously*.

No, you're just hanging on to the straw-man technique because you know you can't refute my argument on a fair, level, unexaggerated basis.

Again, I'll ask the question: Suppose there is someone who loves milestones as much as you hate poaching. How would you feel if they did nothing but push their views on milestones and essentially refused to even consider your anti-poaching side of the issue? Because that is what you are doing, in reverse.

As others have already pointed out, you and your hypothetical person are both free to post your opinions here.

Poaching is _not_ simply posting an opinion.

By trying to draw an analogy between poaching and posting, you're just trying rhetorical trickery to avoid admitting that you have no legitimate refutation.

[cheesehead]

Hmmm ... it seems that when I thought a glitch on my end prevented my post #355 from going through, it actually did get posted. So my post #356 was a near-duplicate recreation.

Sorry about that, guys. :-(

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by NBtarheel_33

No, he just feels strongly about the poaching issue, because it is something that has affected him numerous times in the past. He is certainly entitled to his viewpoints, and to argue them,

Thank you.

but I feel like he needs to let the wall down a little bit to consider the views of the other side.

I do consider the views of the other side, and have been for a long time.

Folks have been expressing those views in this forum and on the preceding mailing list for over a decade. (Not many of the current arguments are much different from the arguments offered in the 1990s!) I've analyzed those views. I post my analysis. So far, all arguments for poaching I've seen violate the basic principles upon which GIMPS and PrimeNet were founded, so I explain why I oppose those violations.

I think that if those advocating poaching would convert their arguments into suggestions for improving PrimeNet in order to prevent the irritating situations about which they complain, we could have a more peaceful time here.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by imwithid

These debates tend often to become nasty when it comes to efficiency vs. milestones accomplished with regard to the methods that underly the achievements of one,which detract to some extent from the other.

Thank you for your fresh view.

The wedge issue seems to be that some are satisfied that work is being done at a natural, but optimal, pace while others want to see somewhat arbitrary milestones verified and marked as complete at the cost (rightly mentioned) of future milestones via poaching or expiration policies.

Okay.

This impatience can be somewhat ameliorated if reports could include greater detail. This would alleviate some of the anxiety that some have (and I will admit to some level) to seeing milestones resolved.

I agree.

I assume

(correctly)

that there are those out there who want to see the meta data behind the tests to give them some idea as to when the next milestone will be completed based on how often a given test is reported, its status to completion ... etc. (sort of filling in the blanks by allowing one to search a given exponent to see some of the work history and progress).

I'm not sure if the servers themselves, in addition to reporting, run tests as well

No, AFAIK.

and perhaps this extra data that needs to be processed is a waste of resources and hence simply an indulgence of one's wanting to know more about less.

It's more than a mere indulgence if some participants would refrain from poaching if they had that information.

Both sides of the argument seem to have their heels dug in to varying degrees (rightly, wrongly or arbitrarily). Compromise to the poaching rule is a slippery slope as tempting as it is to cheer at times from a showing of hands for varying reasons. Can more detailed information be a compromise?

Yes -- more detailed information is just fine with me and does not violate any basic principles upon which GIMPS and PrimeNet were founded, as poaching does.