Yet another improbable source of money: (long post warning)

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Yet another improbable source of money: (long post warning)

December 26, 2005, 04:12:54 PM

***NOTE*** It will probably take you longer to read this message than it would to set up the program involved. Sorry for making it sound more complicated than it is.. it's easy to get going and takes zero effort from you once you're started.

It probably seems like I'm on some mission to spread money-making (or prize-winning) ideas to the members of the board. I'm not, really.. but I figure you guys have provided me (and others here) with intangible but nonetheless valuable bits of info from time to time, so I'm sorta returning the favor in a way I'm more capable of at present. I'm still catching up on years and years of being away from car work, so the knowledge gaps are still significant.

Some of you have probably heard of Distributed Computing.. you can do things from helping to cure diseases to helping to search for alien intelligence. This particular program isn't quite so grand, but the one I'm about to name has another benefit: Prize money.

There's a certain kind of Prime number only useful to real pocket-protector-types, but that the EFF has posted a $100,000 total prize for finding. The first person to find a 10 million digit Mersenne Prime number wins this prize, although not all $100,000 if you use this program. (current winnings would be about $50,000) 10 million digits? You might think that would take forever. However, within the past few days they just verified the latest Mersenne Prime, and it was 9.1 million digits long.

What would make this of interest to you? Well, it's a program you can set your computer to run while you're not doing anything, or while you're just doing light tasks like web browsing. It uses your spare CPU cycles to run calculations. You just set it up and let it do its thing, with very little interaction with it. The odds of winning "the big one" are somewhat steep.. estimated to be around 1 in 250,000. By comparison, hitting 6 of 6 numbers on the Florida Lottery is estimated at 1 in 22,957,480. 5 of 6 estimated to 1 in 81,409.5. But in this case, you don't have to buy anything. Prime95 is free, your spare CPU time is mostly free, (although you do pay for the power it takes to run the PC.. but if you have it on anyway, I guess it doesn't matter much) and as I said before you don't have to do much of anything but set it up once and let it run.

Drawbacks? Well, it is a pretty decent torture test of your CPU.. and could conceivably detract from the life of your CPU by running it at 100% all the time. However, last I checked average CPU life was estimated at around 10 years.. and most people will have upgraded long before then. Also, if your system has any potential problems, (like overheating/poor air flow/etc.) a program like this is more likely to make that problem visible. That's why Prime95 is popular as a CPU "torture test". (and has a specific option just for doing so)

http://www.mersenne.org is where you can get the download. You can even set up a Prime95 team if you wish, to pool your stats with others here on the board. (although I would think you'd have to determine whether or not you'd share a prize with the team.. don't think you HAVE to share it with a team you're in, but it might be good to clear that up beforehand)

Sorry this got so long.. but I figured I'd try to cover as much ground as I could before anyone tried it. Don't want someone trying it and then getting mad because their computer's running warmer or whatever. Mersenne.org has a Prizes link to explain why they don't give you the full $100,000 prize for using their software to do it. I think it's a fair distribution.. but you might not agree. That's up to you. But if you join up, good luck with it.

Yet another improbable source of money: (long post warning)

Reply #1 – December 26, 2005, 04:40:58 PM

Hmmm kind of strange. You'd almost think that someone in this group would have a supercomputer easily capable of calculating up the number in a reasonably short amount of time. I can't really see why they'd actually give away that kind of cash just for figuring out a number.

Yet another improbable source of money: (long post warning)

Reply #2 – December 26, 2005, 04:45:54 PM

Distributed Computing IS sort of a supercomputer. DC has potential to be really big.. and they may even come up with a legitimate model for paying people for their spare CPU time, if they haven't already. Until then, there's always the hope for this prize.

I'm pretty sure Mersenne.org is going to be around for awhile. I used Prime95 a few years ago and it hasn't changed much since then. (except the program gets more optimized as newer stuff comes out) And the Electronic Frontier Foundation isn't exactly fly-by-night either. I have no idea why they offer the prize, (although I'm sure they explain it somewhere) but they do.

Yet another improbable source of money: (long post warning)

Reply #3 – December 26, 2005, 04:47:24 PM

Eh...screw it. That sounds like a lot of work.

I'm losing faith in these "make money on the internet" deals anyway because somehow I always seem to get in on the end of the "easy money" times of them.

For example...back in '99-2000 when the "pay to surf" stuff was huge, I thought I could make a few extra bucks by signing up for that and using one of those programs that surfs for you and leave my computer on all night. Just my luck that about a week after I signed up, they started introducing the stuff into the pay to surf programs that detected if you were using one of those bots and wouldn't pay you if you were. So, that idea went down the tubes.

Then I signed up for this turking thing and missed out on that too. Now all they got is stupid shiznit like asking about your three favorite "hot spots" to visit in major US cities, and whether some guy should grow a beard or not, and they pay 1 cent per hit. Screw them.

Yet another improbable source of money: (long post warning)

Reply #4 – December 26, 2005, 04:53:34 PM

I expect Turking will pick back up somewhat after New Years'. The drivers for the A9 project probably got the holidays off.. and I'm sure the people posting the HITs got time off too. It is also a beta project.. which means it's not finished yet. Check back after New Years and things should improve.

EDIT: BTW, there was a big push a few days ago by that CastingWords site to put up tons of Podcast Transcription HITs, and some of them were paying well over a dollar each. Mturk needs more outside companies like this.. and they're slowly getting them. A9 is just another Amazon division, and the music HITs were more in-house Amazon work. That ACRIS thing is another outside job where the guy is somewhat active in the Turking community.

EDIT #2: Prime95 is also something you could run while you're Turking, once things pick up again. The two should not interfere.

Prime95 really isn't a lot of work. You just go to that site, download the installer, install it, run it, put in your name and make up a user name, and let it run. That's it. Not even as complicated as it sounds, unless you have a REALLY big name or something. :p

I restrict my posting of these things only to things I think will work. I could just dig up every money-making scheme out there and post it, but I don't. Turking has potential. Prime95 is easy. The contest I posted is run by a major manufacturer. But if you don't want to do any of the above, that's your choice. More power to ya.

Yet another improbable source of money: (long post warning)

Reply #5 – December 26, 2005, 06:36:59 PM

Well I guess I'll try this...even though after reading the contest rules it sounds like the chance of winning anything is slim to none.

Yet another improbable source of money: (long post warning)

Reply #6 – December 26, 2005, 07:05:44 PM

Yeah, it might take awhile.. and I listed the odds in a previous post.. but like I said, it's essentially effortless and doesn't cost anything (aside from minor arguments I listed above) to do if your computer is already running.

Yet another improbable source of money: (long post warning)

Reply #7 – December 26, 2005, 10:17:28 PM

I tried it...I dunno if I'm crazy about having it run my CPU at 100% capacity though.

Yet another improbable source of money: (long post warning)

Reply #8 – December 26, 2005, 10:48:04 PM

You should be OK if you have adequate ventilation and keep your PC cleaned semi-regularly. (from dust buildup)

Yet another improbable source of money: (long post warning)

Reply #9 – December 26, 2005, 11:17:27 PM

Quote from: Bird351

You should be OK if you have adequate ventilation and keep your PC cleaned semi-regularly. (from dust buildup)

Ok first off I'am going to tell you I'am not a mathmatician. I have a friend who is a professor at Mansfield University and he is a mathmatician. This program you are talking about takes alot of CPU power. I seen him do it on his own computers. If you do not have a really good cooling system and probably a decent cpu along with other things, dont bother since it will most likely crash your system. I seen it done before on similar programs like this. From what I read this company wants you to be the guinea pig and do their work to speed up the process. Bird351 this isn't aimed at you just trying to give other members here the heads up.

James

Yet another improbable source of money: (long post warning)

Reply #10 – December 26, 2005, 11:31:14 PM

Read the above posts and I think you'll find similar warnings already posted about heat and finding potential problems that already exist with your machine. That's why Prime95 is often used to test overclocked machines for stability. I'm having zero problem running it on a basic lil' eMachines Athlon64 3200+ right now, and it's running at a constant 53 degrees C without even triggering the fan's high speed mode on the stock AMD heat sink/fan. (which I set for 60 deg. C) While the layman might think 53 is high, they're designed to handle up to 80-90 C. All this means is that my chip will probably last 8-9 years instead of 10 years. It'll be long gone by then.

As for the "guinea pig" thing.. ALL distributed computing operations want you to do their work for them. That's the point. This one just happens to be chasing a meaningless (to us, but not to the egghead crowd) number in hopes of getting a prize. Others have more noble but less profitable goals.. but it's still their work you're doing.

Yet another improbable source of money: (long post warning)

Reply #11 – December 26, 2005, 11:48:59 PM

Quote from: Bird351

Read the above posts and I think you'll find similar warnings already posted about heat and finding potential problems that already exist with your machine. That's why Prime95 is often used to test overclocked machines for stability. I'm having zero problem running it on a basic lil' eMachines Athlon64 3200+ right now, and it's running at a constant 53 degrees C without even triggering the fan's high speed mode on the stock AMD heat sink/fan. (which I set for 60 deg. C) While the layman might think 53 is high, they're designed to handle up to 80-90 C. All this means is that my chip will probably last 8-9 years instead of 10 years. It'll be long gone by then.

As for the "guinea pig" thing.. ALL distributed computing operations want you to do their work for them. That's the point. This one just happens to be chasing a meaningless (to us, but not to the egghead crowd) number in hopes of getting a prize. Others have more noble but less profitable goals.. but it's still their work you're doing.

I'am very familiar with AMD. Mine runs on the warmer side of 58 deg C. I have a terrible case. I read the dies can run up to 80-90C like you said. Still wouldn't want to push it that high but they can take it.

I was just giving a heads up since you could cook your CPU depending where you set up your shutoff at in your BIOS even then sometimes it is too late. Running an overclocked CPU is even hotter yet so you would need even better cooling as you know but I wouldn't recommend this program for the average Joe since it is not just "run the program". I would bet a decent amount of members here would not know what a healthy system is or even the matter how hot it is running. This isn't for beginners. If you know computers very well then it could be safe. Heck most people I bet on the interest just know how to use the interent itself let alone know anything about heating and cooling issues of a computer.

James

Yet another improbable source of money: (long post warning)

Reply #12 – December 27, 2005, 12:10:02 AM

I've run Prime95 before.. for weeks at a time. My experience with it tells me that the warnings I've given above are adequate. If someone questions whether or not their system is marginal, they'll probably avoid this. If they're confident that they have a system in good working order, they may try it.

Yet another improbable source of money: (long post warning)

Reply #13 – December 27, 2005, 12:11:41 AM

Quote from: Bird351

I've run Prime95 before.. for weeks at a time. My experience with it tells me that the warnings I've given above are adequate. If someone questions whether or not their system is marginal, they'll probably avoid this. If they're confident that they have a system in good working order, they may try it.

True.

James

Yet another improbable source of money: (long post warning)

Reply #14 – December 27, 2005, 01:00:08 AM

My computer is probably full of dust sooo....yeah, maybe I shouldn't run that.