> This is supposed to be fun, and your behaviour makes it the oposite. I
> don't want to stand guard over my exponents, sending in false progress
> reports to make you stay away from them.
Hey, whoa. I'm not asking anyone to send in false status reports. I *real*
status report every now and then would do. In fact, a status report at
least every 6 months seems quite prudent, don't you think?
And personally, I think that if a test will take over a year to complete,
you're probably better off doing factoring tests or double-checks, or maybe
some other (integer based) distributed computing project altogether. I like
GIMPS personally, but I'm not about to run Prime95 on my 486-75 laptop
except maybe for factoring assignments.
I know that factoring means you won't find the next record breaking prime,
but so what? I try to run factoring assignments on my computers on the
"recommended" 10:1 ratio... 1 factoring assignment for every 10 LL tests.
Factoring is every bit as important to GIMPS as anything else. We're now
doing first time LL tests in the 7M range...I can recall not too long ago
when I would get factoring assignments in that same range, and I like
knowing that I could use some of my slower machines to "pave the way" as it
were.
I'm not out to do all this just to get in the top-100 list...you could take
away all my accumulated CPU time (though the others in my team madpoo might
not like that) and that'd be fine because I'd still know that I'm
contributing.
Some people post to this list being upset that the work they turned in
hasn't shown up in the primenet status lists yet. I know that this is a
valid motivation for some people, but I do think they're missing a bigger
picture. We have thousands of people all tied together into one huge, very
well organized system. Scott and George have done wonders with putting this
altogether. I merely suggest that we try to clean up some of the bits that
ultimately will fall through the cracks. As I said before...exponents like
the ones that were pointed out earlier are a very rare exception to the
rule...but those exceptions must be dealt with to keep the coherency of
GIMPS intact.
But hey, this is just my opinion. After I test this little teeny tiny group
of numbers, I won't poach anymore and you can all do whatever, but I still
think it's a good idea to "clean house" every now and then.
Aaron
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