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Subject: Re: More on the "bad math" after an important email...

Author: Wayne Lowrance

Date: 21:39:30 09/03/02

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On September 03, 2002 at 22:10:22, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On September 03, 2002 at 20:00:56, Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
>
>>On September 03, 2002 at 19:54:41, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>
>>How can you calculate speedup based upon node counts
>>instead of time?
>
>I don't, and I didn't.  As I clearly said.  I calculated the speedups
>directly from the log file times.  Then I was asked to supply node counts
>which are _impossible_ to produce due to the way the test was run and the
>way Cray Blitz (and crafty btw) counts nodes during a parallel search.
>
>So.  Speedups were computed normally.  In the log file, for anyone that has
>ever seen Cray Blitz run, we produced a continual display of how busy each
>processor was.  I could tell at any point I wanted "how much of each processor
>has been devoted to searching nodes only? (as opposed to spinning or whatever).
>
>Given that data, which in the case of Crafty is the cpu% that it displays in
>the log files, I can easily compute a node count that will be _very_ close
>to what is searched.  IE in crafty, the cpu% is computed by _me_ and it is not
>just total cpu time divided by wall clock time.  I'll let you look at the source
>to confirm that it is only time spent actually _searching_ that is counted...
>
>That is how the node counts were produced, since I was not doing searches to a
>fixed depth, because I used the actual game log for the 16 cpu numbers, so that
>I could just use an 8cpu C90 for the rest which was easier to get access to.
>
>Clear enough???
>
>
>>
>>Where is the accurate time table if your latest statement now
>>is that the time table in journal of icca is not correct?
>
>The speedup numbers in the JICCA paper are _exactly_ correct.  As I have
>told you all along.  I had no idea you were on a node count tangent, even
>though I have certainly told you often enough "I can't display node counts
>when the pv changes because I don't count nodes that way...  I couldn't do
>it in Cray Blitz for the same reason."  So you should have known what I was
>talking about, but aparently not...
>
>There are three tables in the JICCA paper.
>
>1.  speedup.  This is correct and was computed by eating the logs and computing
>speedups by dividing raw times.
>
>2.  nodes.  Computed from the speedups computed above.  I can guarantee that
>they would be within less than 1% of the real numbers, because I did some fixed-
>depth testing to make sure that calculation was reasonable.
>
>3.  Time.  I don't know whether time was computed from 1 above, or whether it
>was raw.  The paper first only had speedup.  I added time/nodes a year later
>after one (or more) referees requested it to be compatible with other papers
>that did provide them.  After talking to my "helper" this afternoon, I realized
>that I should have remembered the node issue, because I have only explained
>that to you a dozen times in the past 2-3 weeks as you continue to try to make
>crafty display data that I have explained can not be displayed.  And then you
>use that flawed data to draw silly conclusions such as "if you didn't have that
>smp lock overhead, and the 44KB copy overhead, you could have gotten a speedup
>of > 2.  Of course, the fact that your 2 cpu node count was way "understated"
>(because of not listening to me about trying to do that in Crafty) didn't deter
>you one bit...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>You seem to have you roriginal text of your paper still at home,
>>so you must have the logfiles still too?
>
>I don't have anything "original".  Fortunately I had sent several ASCII
>copies out before "the crash" and was able to get an ascii version back.
>I don't have the log files.  I don't have any source except for one version
>Harry found, well prior to the singular extension additions.  I don't have any
>of the carefully saved log files from _every_ game Cray Blitz ever played.  I
>don't have any versions of Crafty prior to 13.x except for a few sent to me
>after I posted a request on r.g.c.c a few years back.
>
>As I said, I lost _everything_ because the disk crashed and we discovered
>that the backups were unusable...  Not a big deal although there was a lot
>of nostalgia in some of the games that I would have loved to keep "just
>because"...
>
>But of course, I had already told you that I had lost the SE source code when
>you asked last year.  I had already told you that the log files were gone when
>you asked last week.  The only reason I have a fair number of old crafty
>versions is that I used to keep 2-3 major versions on my ftp site, and
>_everything_ on my office machine.  Luckily when it went down, the 13.x and
>14.x versions were still on the ftp...  but it was a big loss.  Lots of old
>code dealing with null-move threat extensions, early singular extensions
>attempts...  lots of things I would have liked to have kept...
>
>
>
>
>>
>>Best regards,
>
>That rings a tad hollow, IMHO.

Geeze Bob ! You could have left out this comment.... How the "hey" can you tell.
Vincent almost always end with  Best Regards...Sounds sincere to me
Best Regards
Wayne
>
>
>
>>Vincent
>>
>>>On September 03, 2002 at 18:22:04, Dave Gomboc wrote:
>>>
>>>>On September 03, 2002 at 18:03:14, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>However reasonable your explanations may be, the gist of your DTS article
>>>>>and the most important thing for comparison were the speedup numbers. After
>>>>>what we discovered and what you just posted, it is clear that they are
>>>>>based on very shaky foundations.
>>>>>
>>>>>What's far worse, until you were directly accused, there was no indication
>>>>>whatsoever for all the fiddling that was done with the auxiliary data. When
>>>>>you were accused, you denied again, until other people supported Vincent's
>>>>>point of view, when you suddenly got an email from an unknown person you're
>>>>>not willing to disclose that 'refreshed your memory'.
>>>>>
>>>>>Additionally, the only other thing to support DTS, you PhD thesis, appears
>>>>>to be basically totally unfindable for third parties.
>>>>>
>>>>>I hope you realize that a request from you to trust your numbers isn't
>>>>>very convincing. In fact, with what we know now, I'm pretty sure the
>>>>>article would never have gotten published in the first place.
>>>>>
>>>>>If Vincent wanted to discredit your results, then as far as I'm concerned,
>>>>>he's succeeded 100%.
>>>>>
>>>>>--
>>>>>GCP
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I don't agree: the main result is the speedup, which was directly measured --
>>>>though I'm certainly not a fan of the estimated node counts being there (at
>>>>least without something saying "estimated", which the article may or may not
>>>>have done).
>>>
>>>In this case, Vincent's "your bad memory" would actually be right.
>>>
>>>The only thing that would have been better would be had he simply asked me
>>>specifically what he stated in his first post here.  He mentioned a week ago
>>>that he thought my data was "faked".  I had no idea what he was talking about
>>>and I told him _exactly_ what we had done for the speedup stuff..  How I ran
>>>the tests, taking pondering into account, etc.  Never for a minute thought
>>>he was talking about the nodes or times, because he kept talking about the
>>>11.1 is fake...
>>>
>>>He was right and wrong.  The 11.1 was _not_ a faked result.  But the node
>>>counts were definitely calculated because that was the only way I could think
>>>of to come up with them.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>But in the main, the least reliable source for information at CCC is Vincent --
>>>>indeed, I'd go so far as to say that whenever he claims something, I tend to
>>>>believe that the opposite is true, unless there are some other, more credible
>>>>people who agree with him.
>>>>
>>>>Dave



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