KritonK writes:
"On February 19, distributed.net began project OGR-28, the challenge to discover the Optimal Golomb Ruler with 28 marks. The previous challenge, OGR-27, is almost complete, with only 9 stubs remaining to be processed, as of February 19. People participating in that challenge do not need to update their client, as it can also process stubs for the new challenge."
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KritonK writes:
Ed's Note: For those not sure what an optimal Golomb ruler is, or how you would use one, see here.
"Following the recent start of the OGR-28 project, the search for the optimal Golomb ruler with 28 marks, distributed.net quietly announced the completion of project OGR-27 on February 25. The shortest Golomb ruler with 27 marks has length 553 and marks at positions 0 3 15 41 66 95 97 106 142 152 220 221 225 242 295 330 338 354 382 388 402 415 486 504 523 546 553. This confirms that the best known, up to now, Golomb ruler was optimal. When the project began, it was expected that a shorter ruler would be found, but this did not happen."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:06PM
Fortunately for your sex-starved white moms, girlfriends and wives we have already long ago launched the "Big Black Cock in Every White Pussy" Project. The bitches even pay for the priviledge of us turning them out!
- Nigga Tyrone
(Score: 5, Interesting) by mhajicek on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:06PM
Possibly interesting, but are there any real world applications for this? If participating in a distributed computing project, wouldn't it be better to work on drug or cancer research?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2, Insightful) by ragequit on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:12PM
It seems to be a mathematical dick measuring contest, along the lines of "the largest prime".
The above views are fabricated for your reading pleasure.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:17PM
So radio frequency selection to prevent intermodation interference and optimal placement of radio antennas in a phased array are just things done by dick wavers? Because golomb rulers are used for these applications.
(Score: 1) by buswolley on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:07PM
What is the largest (most marks) ruler found?.. or does that matter for these application?
Also, why integers? Wouldnt it be easier to create a ruler without repeating intervals if one ditched integer limitation?
subicular junctures
(Score: 2, Informative) by KritonK on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:28PM
As soon as project OGR-27 is complete (any day now) the largest known optimal Golomb ruler will have 27 marks. Till then, the largest known optimal Golomb ruler has 26 marks.
Here [ibm.com] is a list of the shortest known Golomb rulers. The rulers of up to length 26 in that list are known to be optimal, the last three (24, 25, and 26) confirmed optimal by previous distributed.net projects. The OGR-27 project is expected to produce a shorter ruler than the one in the list. However, being pessimistic, I expect that it won't.
(Score: 1) by naubol on Friday February 21 2014, @04:02AM
How do they know, they tried every permutation of numbers up to the current shortest?
(Score: 1) by KritonK on Friday February 21 2014, @08:40AM
If you are asking how they know that rulers with length up to 26 are optimal, yes, they tried every possible permutation!
If you are asking how they know that the optimal ruler with length 27 is shorter than they shortest currently known, without having performed the brute force calculation, well, they don't. It's just a sense that they have. Those who understand the math might be able to explain why there is a high probability that the heuristically found ruler is not optimal. As for me, I'll stick to my pessimism.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by FatPhil on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:30PM
However, you don't need an optimal one for that.
Similarly, the travelling salesman doesn't *have* to take the shortest route. It just has to be good enough.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Funny) by Desler on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:24PM
I'm ignorant of the topic at hand but instead of not showing off my ignorance I'll show it off to the world by attempting to claim it's just a dick measuring content.
FTFY
(Score: 1) by buswolley on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:02PM
Even if ignorant, it was funny.
We are all ill-informed about some aspect or two of technology and science. Should that keep us from posting?
subicular junctures
(Score: 3, Insightful) by weeds on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:26PM
Indeed it should. Take a few minutes to get educated (the internet is awesome for this) and then make an intelligent comment.
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 1) by buswolley on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:26PM
Ah yes. Ignorance can easily be cured by a quick internet search on advanced mathematical topics. /sarcasm
subicular junctures
(Score: 1) by weeds on Friday February 21 2014, @01:35PM
Maybe it is too fine of a detail, but there is a difference between posting a comment that shows off ones ignorance and one that contributes to the discussion, even if the contribution is not part of the technical details.
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 1) by tangomargarine on Friday February 21 2014, @03:40PM
Even after reading the Wikipedia article, without a degree in EE I have a hard time imagining how this could ever be useful.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by weeds on Friday February 21 2014, @03:56PM
There is an excellent example on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golomb_ruler#Practica l_applications [wikipedia.org] page that shows how using a Golomb ruler, a conference room can be designed to have the maximum number of possible configurations. More links are provided there to other uses.
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Desler on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:29PM
If you don't want your ignorance called out, yes. Otherwise you'll get mocked for making stupid statements.
(Score: 1) by buswolley on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:24PM
Oh yes. Mocked. That is fine. But if you are willing to be mocked, then go ahead. I don't mind.
subicular junctures
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ragequit on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:55PM
When appropriate, I do like showing off my ignorance snarkily. Amusingly enough, I tend to get more informed feedback that way. I suppose it's the difference between being wrong, and so catastrophically wrong that people can't help but point out exactly how wrong you are in exhausting detail.
I learn something, others get to feel superior. Win-win!
The above views are fabricated for your reading pleasure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 20 2014, @09:04PM
Hey, we finally have Slashdot 2.0!!!
(Score: 5, Informative) by Desler on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:13PM
Yes. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by siliconwafer on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:29PM
Define "better". Everyone has to decide on their own. For some, it will be more about what interests them individually, and there's nothing wrong with that.
(Score: 1) by saudadelinux on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:02PM
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Statecraftsman on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:35PM
Do they have a GPU-accelerated client? Any interest in designing an ASIC for this?
(Score: 2, Funny) by calmond on Thursday February 20 2014, @06:52PM
OGR-28: it's like an ONION
(Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:07PM
It turns out the Optimal Golomb Ruler is some sort of enchanted ring that makes you invisible, but slowly destroys your soul as the years pass.
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 1) by mechanicjay on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:09PM
Would that not be OGR -1 (ie One ring to rule them all)?
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 1) by frojack on Thursday February 20 2014, @07:32PM
Ah, distributed net, fond memories of the past.
I used to run this on a boatload of computers (in the office) in the past. So many that I had a high score back in the early days. (It was my company, so I wasn't violating company policy).
Over the years I drifted away, and didn't know they even existed any more.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Appalbarry on Friday February 21 2014, @02:08AM
Editors: Can we adopt the near universal editorial practice of including some kind of definition when writing about something obscure?
The link to distributed.net sort of fulfils this need, but a few words in the summary saying what the hell a "Golomb Ruler" is would be a lot more user friendly.
Same goes for most acronyms and abbreviations. Unless it's something very obvious (MS-DOS for instance) it's good practice to spell it out the first time, then use the acronym.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2014, @10:40AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2014, @11:49AM
But apparently they'd like to be!
http://www.distributed.net/Source#Why_is_distribut ed.net_still_not_completely_open-source_with_all_p arts_of_its_source_code.3F [distributed.net]