> not, but, what would it show? A progress bar, maybe... anything else? There
> isn't really anything else to show. Intermediate results of the LL test
> don't themselves have a lot of meaning (even the final result, if non-zero,
> is devoid of much interpretation). There's not a lot you could plot - a
> graph of the iteration time would only serve to show when you opened
> Microsoft Word or something...
Yes, but the point is that they may be pretty. (?) This probably wouldn't
alter anyone who already is at GIMPS, but it might attract new members.
This feature (based on George's postings about his interests in the project)
would be badly maintaned, and a support headache.
> I must admit, I dallied (albeit very briefly) with the bovine rc5 client.
Gack! About the only manufactured challenge comes from ID software.
> Were it not for their peculiar statistics ('if keys were drops of water, we
> could flood the world in a week' etc) I'd have got bored of the effort a lot
> sooner than I did. The SETI client looks pretty (more of a screen burner
> than a screen saver though) but the display is at best meaningless, a waste
> of cycles at best.
Ha! SETI has gained so many cycles due to that "waste". I know at least
three people who "use SETI 'cause it looks cool", and only 1 person
(discounting y'all, and myself) who uses GIMPS. Though she let me
put it on her computer only after many assurances that it wouldn't
do anything wierd to her computer. A good reason why...
> I think we ought to count ourselves lucky that what we've got is bare-bones
> and low-impact.
Despite the extra cycles that it might get us, I couldn't agree more!
-Lucas
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