stat padders already?

Discuss your experiences with and ideas about Stardust@home here.

Moderators: Stardust@home Team, DustMods

Keem
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Aug 04, 2006 1:20 am

Post by Keem »

Just because you can't go through them that fast doesn't mean somebody else can't. Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? Are you in these people's homes watching them "cheat"? No. All you have are some vague calculations based on what you personally have the ability to do in a certain amount of time. Yes, some people do go through these movies quickly, and I'm sure some of them do spend hours a day viewing these movies. I say good for them if they're that dedicated. If I had the time to be here that long I'd probably be right up there with them in the stats, and I'd be accused of cheating right along with them.

And honestly, it doesn't take that long on most movies. Sure, there have been some movies I spent a very long time on, just to make sure. But most of the time I'm ready to move on after a few seconds, especially on the easy calibration movies or bad focus movies. I'm sorry if I don't spend 5 minutes combing over each movie with my magnifying glass, but I am definitely being accurate. Out of over 300 calibration movies I've only missed one (thought I saw something on one that apparently didn't actually have anything).
Orion_0169
Posts: 153
Joined: Wed Aug 02, 2006 8:17 pm

Post by Orion_0169 »

:D
Je ne peux pas regarder la Mer sans me demander qui vit au-delà de cela.
Peter Borah
Posts: 15
Joined: Mon Jul 31, 2006 3:22 pm

Post by Peter Borah »

I have a rank of 728, so I have no vested interest in this discussion.

First of all, have you read any of the other threads on this topic? Maxim himself made a detailed post on how he manages his crazy scores.

From memory, he said something like he spent 16 hours yesterday doing this, since he's on vacation. And he has two screens open at a time, so his loading time is essentially zero.

There is an important principle all of us need to remember. "Better than you" does not mean "impossible".
nexguy
Posts: 38
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 6:44 am
Location: Texas

Post by nexguy »

Robert Evans was an astronomer who observed galaxies at a rate of 1 per minute over a time span of 4.5 days. Taking 77 days to complete this.

How is that even comparable to stardust in aerogel?

It is improbable to look through a 12" dobsonian telescope at a clear spot in the night sky and NOT see a galaxy. It didn't matter if he missed galaxies, there are others to find. There are, however, a finite amount of stardust particals in this aerogel.
mikesobo
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jun 11, 2006 1:38 pm
Location: Indianapolis, Indiana

Post by mikesobo »

I have not been able to spend a lot of time searching due to site being slow or unresponsive and for the simple fact I have other things to do, so my score is not unreal or in the "cheaters" catagory. There has been only a few times where I have spent up to 10 seconds looking at a movie. Most slides only take a few seconds to "completely" analyze. Some people are just faster at certain things than others. Deal with it.
Orion_0169
Posts: 153
Joined: Wed Aug 02, 2006 8:17 pm

Post by Orion_0169 »

Close. How about this from wikipedia...

amateur astronomer who holds the all-time record for visual discoveries of supernovae (40).

He reported 6,814 galaxy observations in a period of 107 hours and 30 minutes, spread out over 77 nights. During that time, he found four supernovae;

In his book An Anthropologist on Mars, Oliver Sacks called Evans a savant for his uncanny ability: He has memorized the starfield foregrounds and positions of around 1500 galaxies and can detect changes simply by looking at them through his telescope.


Any of the naysayers here would say "it is impossible to memorise 1500 galaxy starfields" and yet, here is someone who can.

Praise the man's absolutely incredible talent and ability. Don't accuse him of being a cheater.

And my reason for bringing him up? Some people can do things well beyond the norm. They can even sometimes appear to do the impossible.
Je ne peux pas regarder la Mer sans me demander qui vit au-delà de cela.
nexguy
Posts: 38
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 6:44 am
Location: Texas

Post by nexguy »

I don't understand why people are posting that faster is better or that I am upset because I can't view video's faster than you. I am only saying that by viewing one every few seconds, you are missing 3 out of every 100 (of the easy movies!).
nexguy
Posts: 38
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 6:44 am
Location: Texas

Post by nexguy »

No one has called Robert Evans a cheater. I havn't anyway. I havn't called you a cheater either. I do not think you can even cheat at stardust@home. The goal of stardust isn't a score, its number of dust particals found. How can you cheat at that?

I would like to see Robert Evans memorize the surface of the aerogel before it went into space and then be able to pick out tracks when it came back. If he can appear to do the impossible, then shouldn't he be able to view 4,000 movies with NO mistakes?
Orion_0169
Posts: 153
Joined: Wed Aug 02, 2006 8:17 pm

Post by Orion_0169 »

Umm. No. First of all my success rate is going nowhere but up. (haven't had a miss in ages) And I'm NOT missing 3 in every hundred.

Sensitivity
Sensitivity measures how well you are able to correctly identify calibration tracks. Sensitivity is the total number of tracks you have correctly identified in calibration movies divided by the total number of calibration movies you have searched in which there were actually tracks.

My sensitivity is 100%. Has been from the beginning. Given missing decimals, that makes the worst it can be 99.5%
Je ne peux pas regarder la Mer sans me demander qui vit au-delà de cela.
Orion_0169
Posts: 153
Joined: Wed Aug 02, 2006 8:17 pm

Post by Orion_0169 »

Sigh. The point is that Evans's ability to recognise star fields is SO FAR BEYOND anyone else on the planet that most people would say what he does is impossible. But he DOES it.

The connexion to here is, as I and otehrs have said, just because someone sees something as impossible doesn't mean it can't be explained by someone simply better at it.
Je ne peux pas regarder la Mer sans me demander qui vit au-delà de cela.
Keem
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Aug 04, 2006 1:20 am

Post by Keem »

I don't think anybody is saying that faster is better. Everybody needs to work at their own pace and stop worrying about what other people are doing. The point people are trying to make is that some people are able to work faster than others, and that doesn't mean they're cheating or are getting many incorrect.

Maybe the people with the high stats have a natural ability, they have been working hard and have spent a lot of time viewing these movies so they get even better.
Orion_0169
Posts: 153
Joined: Wed Aug 02, 2006 8:17 pm

Post by Orion_0169 »

Another example, Domic O'Brien. Can memorise over 50 packs of cards. Pretty much inhuman. Doesn't cheat. But it would look like it to anyone else. There are people who have memorised pi to over 40 000 digits.

Again, the point to all this is things can sometimes be explained by superior ability and performance, rather than cheating. Why not celebrate the successes?
Je ne peux pas regarder la Mer sans me demander qui vit au-delà de cela.
nexguy
Posts: 38
Joined: Tue Aug 01, 2006 6:44 am
Location: Texas

Post by nexguy »

I do not think you are reading my posts. I am not saying that what you are doing seems impossible...I think most people could do it. The tough part is doing it with highest accuracy. Most people don't do it that fast because accuracy fails. Again, missing easy calibration videos shows that one is not looking closely enough. Nothing impossible about it, just look more closely. There may be tracks that are much smaller than those in the calibration videos, wouldn't you think the error rate goes up with them? Who would you want to be the one who reviews your finds, someone who views video's with great accuracy or someone who views videos with not so great accuracy?
Orion_0169
Posts: 153
Joined: Wed Aug 02, 2006 8:17 pm

Post by Orion_0169 »

So what would you like people's accuracy rate to be? Presumably they are willing to accept a margin of error. Otherwise no movie would be viewed more than once.

So where would you like to see the cut off?

And if my 99% (keeping in mind the sensitivity(identifying tracks) is still 100% which means my misses are picking ones that aren't actual tracks, and we want people erring on that side do we not?) IS actually good enough, why don't some people spend their time helping the people with lesser scores?

I don't believe I singled you out as one of the people who said it was impossible.
Je ne peux pas regarder la Mer sans me demander qui vit au-delà de cela.
bartsob5
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Aug 03, 2006 7:15 am
Location: Gdynia, Poland

Post by bartsob5 »

i think nexguy is right. most of all tracks in calibration movies are huge in comparision to what we can find in real movies. many people are looking for some strange, lonely pixels, not circles diameter of minimum 2mm, which can be find in calibration movies... and it's not about whether are you cheating or not, just about whether you look at it carrefully enough to find everything...
Image
Locked