Anyone still here? I'm discouraged...

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CodeTalker
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Anyone still here? I'm discouraged...

Post by CodeTalker »

Let me explain - with the Tempel maneuver the other day, I did some exploring and found Stardust@Home, so I trained, registered, and began dusting - but have TERRIBLE S/S stats also (99% / 62% or so!), possibly because I wasn't clear enough on the finer points, maybe because I've focused on the more obvious trails and not so much on HA impact identification, for example - I didn't even realize that the X/Y co-ord's were in my status bar because it was so crowded (have since cleaned it out and I can see them now), so I think I also missed out on some accuracy in tagging, and so on.

Anyway, I began skimming the Forum and learned a lot today, plus noted most of this was really active in '06-'08 as opposed to lately - so what's going on NOW? Is anyone still working this like before? I can see the numbers as well as anyone, but how many dusters are actually active now, or is most of that just holdover? Do you even need new dusters? I know my eyes are nearly 60 now and not as good as they used to be, but despite my poor stats I've worked it hard, viewed thousands of movies already - and only have a dozen or so decent possibles plus my poor stats, so that's very discouraging - and I have to ask, am I wasting my (and your!) time here? Should I continue or just quit and find another project?

I'm disabled and have the time to spend here, but am also a 'puter geek of over 30 years, so it's not that I'm a noob at any of this (except here!), yet it all seems so impossible now that I see dusters who have 100% / 99+% and higher stats! (How do you DO that?)

Seriously, am I just wasting time, or what? There aren't many recent posts, so if there's anyone still working the board, pity the old man and give me some straight talk, ok?
(Thanks)
John
fjgiie
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Re: Anyone still here? I'm discouraged...

Post by fjgiie »

CodeTalker wrote:Let me explain - with the Tempel maneuver the other day, I did some exploring and found Stardust@Home, so I trained, registered, and began dusting - but have TERRIBLE S/S stats also (99% / 62% or so!), possibly because I wasn't clear enough on the finer points, maybe because I've focused on the more obvious trails and not so much on HA impact identification, for example - I didn't even realize that the X/Y co-ord's were in my status bar because it was so crowded (have since cleaned it out and I can see them now), so I think I also missed out on some accuracy in tagging, and so on.

Anyway, I began skimming the Forum and learned a lot today, plus noted most of this was really active in '06-'08 as opposed to lately - so what's going on NOW? Is anyone still working this like before? I can see the numbers as well as anyone, but how many dusters are actually active now, or is most of that just holdover? Do you even need new dusters? I know my eyes are nearly 60 now and not as good as they used to be, but despite my poor stats I've worked it hard, viewed thousands of movies already - and only have a dozen or so decent possibles plus my poor stats, so that's very discouraging - and I have to ask, am I wasting my (and your!) time here? Should I continue or just quit and find another project?

I'm disabled and have the time to spend here, but am also a 'puter geek of over 30 years, so it's not that I'm a noob at any of this (except here!), yet it all seems so impossible now that I see dusters who have 100% / 99+% and higher stats! (How do you DO that?)

Seriously, am I just wasting time, or what? There aren't many recent posts, so if there's anyone still working the board, pity the old man and give me some straight talk, ok?
(Thanks)
John
Hi CodeTalker, (are you realy Navajo?)

Not going to pity the old man becauce you are just a youngin'. :lol: Many dusters here are far from retirement.

I'm not sure how long you have been dusting but looks like only a few days. Is that right?

Calibration movies:
We are in phase 3 now. In phase 1 you could tell when a Calibration movie came up because there was morie in the image. The Stardust Team straighten that out and in stage 2 the calibration movies were very difficult to find. example - I missed seeing like 60 CMs in stage one and missed 800 or more in stage 2. In stage 3 we began looking for high angle tracks which you can see near the surface mostly. Many high angle tracks can be found here. Most calibration movies looks like a maniature one of these. For hard to find examples read from here down. (log into the Virtual Microscope and then hit your back button twice to see some of the calibration movies)

The calibration movies are very difficult to see sometimes so I llike to dust with my screen resolution set to 800 by 600 pixels using full screen. That makes the images larger.

The old timers like me and those with that 100%, 99% can recognize a calibration movie when it comes on the screen. They look different from a real movie. I just have trouble finding the track! That is the secret of doing good on your score. Some of the negative calibration movies (those without a track) have diagional features running from top right to bottom left.

OK, now back to psychology class -
The way Stardust at Home was set up was to get thousands of dusters to look at a few movies and look for tracks made by interstellar dust. That still stands and everyone's work is important because you may be the one that finds one of the very few tracks.

Just keep working when you can and click on that REAL track when you see it.

          fjgiie
CodeTalker
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Re: Anyone still here?

Post by CodeTalker »

Thanks for the reply, fjgiie!
(I'm part Mohawk - name's a tribute is all, although I know a few Dine)

Naw, DON'T pity me, I paid my dues long ago and "coasted" since - broke my back hauling heavy electric cable on the job as a sparks 15 years ago and been laid up since, so this is a perfect thing for me to tackle - and yes, only been dusting a few days. Glad to see a reply so quick, too. I was wondering if anyone still used the site much and saw your name a lot, just got wondering when I saw "Users viewing forum: 0 - Guests: 1". Great to know there's that kind of talent and experience around; I've been reading a bunch of topics on my own, and will follow up your suggestions now. Good stuff, just what I need. Hope we all get to find real tracks and name particles someday!

More later, off to study - it's what I do when I can't sleep.
Thanks again,
John
(PS _ I thought it was "moire" pattern?)
jdrockster
Posts: 27
Joined: Wed Aug 16, 2006 11:14 am
Location: Northern California

Re: Anyone still here? I'm discouraged...

Post by jdrockster »

Greetings: CODE TALKER! Don't get down on your score...it will improve with time! I had so many errors when I first started but it gets better as you begin to recognize the calibration movies. When you have only viewed a few movies and miss one, it really effects your score. As your score increases the errors are not such a high percentage of your score. You WILL begin to recognize the movies that count for or against your score if you miss it...then the trick is to actually locate the track. Take your time on those and really search for the track. On some movies there is a lot of junk you have to eliminate until you locate the track. Also, watch the edges. Take breaks and don't have too much WINE, medical flowers, (everything looks like a track) or other distractions. It is a good piece of work that can benefit science and make a difference. Hang in there!!! I finally got my score back in the top 100...Yippee! They need to load some more movies. The ones we are now seeing have been repeated sooooo much. After seeing them so many times, I tend to go too fast on the real movies because the calibration movies are easy to spot. I can have a 4-6hr. session and miss 0-1,2 because I recognize the boogie-man tracks! Have fun, welcome aboard. 8)
Dust2Dust...Dust4Dust!
caprarom
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Re: Anyone still here? I'm discouraged...

Post by caprarom »

Hey, Code Talker, I see you've already gotten some expert advice from our colleagues. I just thought I'd add that the forum activity is in a lull right now as we are between phases - wrapping up phase 3 and eager to get on with phase 4 once the new movies are released. You should see considerably more activity once phase 4 kicks off, but now is a good time for a new duster like yourself to get in some practice and get familiar with things as you have been. Welcome aboard.

Mike C.
CodeTalker
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Re:Thanks fjgiie, jdrockster and caprarom

Post by CodeTalker »

I'm beginning to get a feel for it and have reviewed a lot of the material fjgiie pointed me to, and have begun finding those tiny tracks. That makes a big difference, huh! I did some of the same things already - skimming too fast, esp. when I saw movies that have been covered 400 times or more. But I realize the importance of what we're doing here - plus the wow factor, which is what drew me here in the first place - having gazed at the stars all my 60 years, I now have a chance to find tiny bits of them in their natural state, wow!

Appreciate all your comments, take your advice seriously, and look forward to whatever this project holds - and I want to be here when it does bear fruit.

Lost a day here, had to reroute a leaking PS fluid line in my car, wiped my back right out, but hoping to get back on track (pun intended) now...

Again, seriously, thanks - I feel welcomed and welcome. Can't ask for more, guys! :!:

(WINE and "roses", huh jd!?!? Not anymore - on powerful pain meds that don't play well with 'em.... but there WAS a time.... oh well!)
CodeTalker
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Re:Now I'm confused...

Post by CodeTalker »

Figured I'd keep this discussion going, since I'd like to get my questions/issues out right up front.

Guys, what's up with the "scoring"?

Seems like I worked hard this last week and clawed my Specificity back up to 99.12 by .02 at a time - took me several days to get there from 99.00%, but then I marked a CM (3876740V1)***Edited here*** for a suspected LA "crater" at @ 450/200 (perpendicular impact with a ring, not a HA-type impact with a long track, right?) and apparently it isn't one - BTW it's the first LA I've marked, and my score dropped right away to 98.83% - that's a LOT for one wrong guess, isn't it?!!
(***Edit:I edited this because I remembered that I hadn't checked if this was a CM until AFTER my score dropped)

And then tonight I also marked a CM (6903727V1 - I check them by pasting the ID into Viewer to make sure they're CMs) that had an obvious track, and my Sensitivity dropped from 68.42 to 68.27 - ouch! Is there a glitch in the system? I'm SURE it was a clear track, upper left near 240/30 or so.

I've been trying to see what the scoring is all about only because I saw all those 100/99 percenters and I feel bad that I wasn't more careful in the beginning when mine was still there, and have tried to be more careful and get it back up - maybe I should stop caring about it, but as long as they take higher scores "more seriously" I feel like I should care. I've got almost 3,700 movies scanned already since I registered 2/17, but feel like I'm losing ground, not gaining it!

Any suggestions, anyone?

(***2nd edit - I saved the URL's for the movies I'm referring to, just LMK if that info would help explain all this.)
DanZ
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Re: Re:Now I'm confused...

Post by DanZ »

CodeTalker wrote:Figured I'd keep this discussion going, since I'd like to get my questions/issues out right up front. Guys, what's up with the "scoring"? Seems like I worked hard this last week and clawed my Specificity back up to 99.12 by .02 at a time - took me several days to get there from 99.00%, ...
Hi CodeTalker - and welcome aboard!

You are not the only one who gets frustrated with the scoring - you should read the discussion (both above and below) here.

But don't get too hung up on this either. We're testing a whole new scoring system for Phase 4 (partly based on comments just like yours) and it shouldn't be too much longer before it's operational - I hope (meaning everyone here knows I've missed judged these things before).

But as mentioned already, everything you're doing now is GREAT practice at the very least.

See you in the next iteration!

Dan
CodeTalker
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Re: Thanks, Dan!

Post by CodeTalker »

Dan;

Appreciate your reply and that you are aware of and working on these things, esp since I'm working hard to get my accuracy up and it IS frustrating to see such drops... almost hate to see anyone working on things like this, but scoring and ranking are kind of baby elephants in the room, huh? I read about some even cheating to advance, which seems bizarre here but I guess I understand that kind of drive... a little.

I read the thread you linked and it's certainly about what we're seeing as we scan movies and CMs and miss-mark, plus I did the kind of math that elainekeefe posted and see that rising scores are scalar just as she explained, but the drops in % for individual misses DO seem out of proportion to the much slower rises, which I think is the point of the others that brought it up too. Nice to know that's being addressed!

I don't even know how my score got down to the 66% area because I wasn't paying any attention to those things the first few days, but when I explored and saw that I was at something like 98/66 it felt like I was being held back for a few misses or something, and I found myself trying to make that ground back up and having less fun... I've even begun looking over the candidate and alpha movies to see what kinds of tracks are being graded and how, plus spending way too much time checking if the movies I'm scanning are CMs or not. Wasn't what I came here for, but I see the point of scoring - I just hope that a more proportional system can be achieved. Not complaining, either - I like it here and will be staying around - although I DID think about signing up again to get a clean start - then decided that's just not necessary because it's really about the science and that's why I'm here in the first place. (Although I admit an interim goal is to be on the 100 list - nearing 4,000 movies already)

Y'all have made me feel welcome and have been informative, every one of you so far - thank you.
Happy dusting!
John
DanZ
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Re: Anyone still here? I'm discouraged...

Post by DanZ »

Hi John,

Thanks for the kind words, and for "getting" that the science of it all is really our main concern. But for those motivated by scoring, the Phase 4 scoring will not have any penalties. But it may be harder to compete! Actually, we're not entirely sure yet and are eager to see what transpires when we go live. Still hopin' for March on that too.

Glad you're with us!

Dan
CodeTalker
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Re: Anyone still here? I'm discouraged...

Post by CodeTalker »

Thanks Dan!

Say, how about you just give me a particle to name and we can forget about all this scoring nonsense?!?!? :lol:

John
DanZ
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Re: Anyone still here? I'm discouraged...

Post by DanZ »

Love it! But when I find one John, it'll it be mine :lol:

Dan
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