Hi all,
(replying to the digest)
[Steinar:]
> >However we can't deny having seen cash prizes, in addition to
> >this satisfaction, make an observable difference in accelerating
> >Mersenne number research results.
>
> Can we? I'm sure you (Scott) is the one with most data on this...
I have one solid data point and a few weak ones. The GIMPS newsletter
registration web form data has about 1,000 entries. GIMPS participation is
apparently self-reported with prizes as a motivating factor for at least 16% of
registrants, though prizes alone did come in last:
26% good use of spare CPU time
18% just for fun or cool hobby
15% research participation
14% several reasons, in part for the prize
14% (no response entered)
06% help distributed computing
05% possible famous discovery
02% other (added to comments)
02% $50k prize money
The weaker evidence is from PrimeNet's account level responses. First, the
April 1999 GIMPS Newsletter detailed both the v17 bug and the EFF prize - and
resulted in about 5% of recipients rejoining GIMPS and adding over 1,000 new
accounts the following few days. The second account level response was EFF's
prize announcment finally gaining press (including CNN and Science), where
another 1,000 accounts joined in the span of a week.
In conclusion, I'm guessing people on the fence may be tipped by the extra
reason to play, but in retrospect my impression of prize effectiveness was more
subjective than I thought.
So while I'm on the subject, the list response regarding sponsoring a prize pool
amounted to 2 people offering $225 between them - I have my answer.
> - --Luke, who has such great vision that he lost a bet and
> owes George a dinner (prime rib, of course)
That reminds me, during a lunch last summer it was Luke who made sure the prize
pool was all 1 digits to entertain all of you...! (I was too lazy to change all
the zeros on the web site.) Luke is also an advisor to George and I, and helped
shape the PrimeNet status report content & layouts.
[John Williams:]
> Finally, when and why does it communicate with the server (besides getting
> new numbers to test)?
It will update the server at least every 28 days with when the exponents are
expected to finish. This keeps your assignments 'alive' so PrimeNet will not
give them away after several months. When there's a factoring or primality test
result, or you change your account settings, those are updated immediately.
Overall, the transactions are very fast and only a few hundred bytes each,
perhaps once a week on average. The majority of the server's transactions are
assignment progress updates.
[Aaron Blosser:]
> I did notice in the prime.log that when errors occur, that info is sent to
> the Primenet server.
>
> On that note, Scott...what becomes of info sent indicating errors in the
> calculations? Are those exponents flagged in someway, indicating that they
> are "suspect"?
PrimeNet completely ignores error messages and stuffs them into the results log
for George to analyze. George requeues exponents with bad results through the
database synchronization process and his use of a few remote scheduling
commands. Things seem to be working smoothly enough, but there's always room
for improvement.
Best regards,
scott
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