At 02:59 AM 9/16/98 -0400, Vincent J. Mooney Jr. wrote:
>Should the GIMPS effort discard Alan Blosser's results on the grounds that
>they were improperly obtained? Surely we can wait for the whole story, not
>just a newspaper article, but then if the news stories are indeed right,
>should we discard the results?
Well Vince, that is a pretty moronic suggestion. I think some of you
(especially you, Vince) have lost sight of the true goal - discovering new
prime numbers. The fact that Alan may (or may not) have used processing
time on unauthorized machines does NOT invalidate the numbers he has
completed. The fact is that he has completed a lot of numbers. How he did
it is NOT a consideration.
>The purpose would be to prevent future attempts of the same sort, i.e.,
>improper use of corporate machines, per the corporation. Of course, I'll
>accept 1,000 or more machines when fully proper and legitimate permission is
>given.
Give it a rest. For one thing, Prime95 is NOT the reason US West's service
went to hell in a handbasket. I do a lot of stuff on my systems that is
very CPU intensive (Compiling programs that have more than a million lines
of code) and the difference in response time is absolutely nil when running
or not running Prime95.
US West was looking for the reason their system slowed down and happened to
stumble on Prime95. Ain't it gonna be a hoot when, after eradicating the
Prime95 program, their service doesn't improve in the slightest?
I think it's time you (and those who might feel the same way) to take a
friggin chill pill and get on with your non CPU-intensive lives. Your
original suggestion is absurd.
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John Simmons (Redneck Techno-Biker)
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John Simmons (Barbarian Diecast Collector)
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