[4+ EH] Slush Pool (slushpool.com); Overt AsicBoost; World First Mining Pool

[gourmet]

In fact, you are punished for disconnection. You're punished exactly the same way you'd been in PPS in the long run, provided that you disconnect asynchronously, i.e. randomly.
At Slush's, you can either lose, when you disconnect near the round end, or you can gain, when you disconnect at some other time. In the latter case, your payout for the round won't be decreased due to the disconnection, although you would deserve some decrease. And as the time constant c is hopefully still 300 seconds and an average round is several times longer, it's greater chance for you to gain a bit than to lose substantial part of the reward.
Anyway, in the long run that should even out, as is the popular phrase in this thread for some time already... :-)

(...)
but I have a hard time feeling I'm being punished for my downtime when ... well ... I'm down.

In the long run, you're "punished" just to the extent you're down.
When you won't come to your work, you won't be paid.
Or would you like something like paid holidays?

I swear this topic comes up every now and then because... well like you said, it sucks to be punished (e.g. kicked when you're down).

Not me said, 5120-01-518-6126 said. Me rather opposed.

I want to elaborate a bit and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong.  The key to all this is really variance.  The way scoring is done on Slush's pool is subject to variance and it's much more evident on slower miners and less so (but still present) on faster/more powerful ones.  So what does variance have to do with being punished???... a lot.

Take for example if you're disconnected in the beginning of one of those crazy 7 hour rounds and 1 hour later you manage to fix your router, USB hub, whatever... At the end of that round you're actually not penalized that hard because what's 1 hour worth of shares compared to 6 hours of shares (and plus your score is isn't hit badly because you've been continuously mining for the last 6 hours of the round).

(emphasis me)

You're not penalized at all. Six hour old shares have zero value compared to the new ones, at least practically. (But I believe that not only practically in this particular case: After at least three renormalizations, their score value must be at least 36 orders of magnitude less than the score of the fresh ones; that number converts to a very little fraction of a Satoshi, so really zero.) :-)
Thus, in this case, you haven't been working for an hour, and you're paid the same as if you had been.

Now take the counter example.  You disconnect for 1 hour (same amount of time as before) but instead 4 rounds go by (a 5 min, 30 min, 15 min, and 10 min).  You just missed out on 4 different payouts.  Remember, on Slush you're paid based on the rate you contribute, so you usually get the same pay for large rounds as you do for short ones (again with some variance).

Contrast the two examples and what you get is HUGE variance in punishment.  You can get punished a little bit  or a lot.  

Or you can gain. I.e., be paid for no work.

While it's true that it averages out in the long run, the "long run" is a really really long time.  For someone who isn't down that often... say only once a month at most... you catch one bad break and you'll need at least 2, 3, or 4 lucky breaks to "even out".  

There's equal chance that you catch 2, 3, or 4 lucky breaks first an then the unlucky one.

I figure that most people don't catch as many lucky breaks as they do bad lucks as they haven't really been mining all that long (I speak from experience as both of the above scenarios have happened to me, plus I'm a low hash rate miner and I haven't mined that long).

This is just psychology. You can try to find the term for this natural human feeling on Wikipedia e.g.

You really can't compare this to something like PPS because they're two different scoring mechanism.  It's like comparing apples and oranges.  PPS just doesn't punish you the way Slush's scoring does.

Apples and oranges, blah, blah.
Well, it's the variance, as you have said, that makes the "punishment" variable, and thus sometimes more noticeable. But you're not punished any more at Slush's than you are in PPS for your downtime. There's just different distribution in time.

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[r.padgett]

In fact, you are punished for disconnection. You're punished exactly the same way you'd been in PPS in the long run, provided that you disconnect asynchronously, i.e. randomly.
At Slush's, you can either lose, when you disconnect near the round end, or you can gain, when you disconnect at some other time. In the latter case, your payout for the round won't be decreased due to the disconnection, although you would deserve some decrease. And as the time constant c is hopefully still 300 seconds and an average round is several times longer, it's greater chance for you to gain a bit than to lose substantial part of the reward.
Anyway, in the long run that should even out, as is the popular phrase in this thread for some time already... :-)

(...)
but I have a hard time feeling I'm being punished for my downtime when ... well ... I'm down.

In the long run, you're "punished" just to the extent you're down.
When you won't come to your work, you won't be paid.
Or would you like something like paid holidays?

I swear this topic comes up every now and then because... well like you said, it sucks to be punished (e.g. kicked when you're down).

Not me said, 5120-01-518-6126 said. Me rather opposed.

I want to elaborate a bit and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong.  The key to all this is really variance.  The way scoring is done on Slush's pool is subject to variance and it's much more evident on slower miners and less so (but still present) on faster/more powerful ones.  So what does variance have to do with being punished???... a lot.

Take for example if you're disconnected in the beginning of one of those crazy 7 hour rounds and 1 hour later you manage to fix your router, USB hub, whatever... At the end of that round you're actually not penalized that hard because what's 1 hour worth of shares compared to 6 hours of shares (and plus your score is isn't hit badly because you've been continuously mining for the last 6 hours of the round).

(emphasis me)

You're not penalized at all. Six hour old shares have zero value compared to the new ones, at least practically. (But I believe that not only practically in this particular case: After at least three renormalizations, their score value must be at least 36 orders of magnitude less than the score of the fresh ones; that number converts to a very little fraction of a Satoshi, so really zero.) :-)
Thus, in this case, you haven't been working for an hour, and you're paid the same as if you had been.

Now take the counter example.  You disconnect for 1 hour (same amount of time as before) but instead 4 rounds go by (a 5 min, 30 min, 15 min, and 10 min).  You just missed out on 4 different payouts.  Remember, on Slush you're paid based on the rate you contribute, so you usually get the same pay for large rounds as you do for short ones (again with some variance).

Contrast the two examples and what you get is HUGE variance in punishment.  You can get punished a little bit  or a lot.  

Or you can gain. I.e., be paid for no work.

While it's true that it averages out in the long run, the "long run" is a really really long time.  For someone who isn't down that often... say only once a month at most... you catch one bad break and you'll need at least 2, 3, or 4 lucky breaks to "even out".  

There's equal chance that you catch 2, 3, or 4 lucky breaks first an then the unlucky one.

I figure that most people don't catch as many lucky breaks as they do bad lucks as they haven't really been mining all that long (I speak from experience as both of the above scenarios have happened to me, plus I'm a low hash rate miner and I haven't mined that long).

This is just psychology. You can try to find the term for this natural human feeling on Wikipedia e.g.

You really can't compare this to something like PPS because they're two different scoring mechanism.  It's like comparing apples and oranges.  PPS just doesn't punish you the way Slush's scoring does.

Apples and oranges, blah, blah.
Well, it's the variance, as you have said, that makes the "punishment" variable, and thus sometimes more noticeable. But you're not punished any more at Slush's than you are in PPS for your downtime. There's just different distribution in time.

Does anyone even really give a s**t about this topic anymore...

[aurel57]

Does anyone even really give a s**t about this topic anymore...

no

[nottm28]

no

[gourmet]

but I have a hard time feeling I'm being punished for my downtime when ... well ... I'm down.

In the long run, you're "punished" just to the extent you're down.
When you won't come to your work, you won't be paid.
Or would you like something like paid holidays?

Another parable comes to my mind.

• You won't come to work, and boss comes and realizes. You won't be paid. (Short round, end of round)
• You leave work for 2 hours, return at luchtime, boss comes in a while, and colleagues remember and tell him. You are paid less. (Some time before the end of round.)
• You are late to work in the morning, boss comes in the afternoon, no one remembers, you're fully paid. (Beginning of a long round.)

Well, just for fun... :-)

Ooooh, now that's an idea -- unfortunately, as a Bitcoin miner, I'm self-employed.  Oh, well ....

Are you? Are you mining solo? :-)
OK, let's modify the above example, when you don't feel yourself "employed" by Slush. ;-) If you're self-employed, you get money for some goods or services.
Then, when you don't deliver your goods or services, you're not paid. OK now? ;-)

[Quantus]

Question: Suggested difficulty option box.

What is the point in this box? It optional but then if its optional dose it really matter? I'm running just 4 Block Erupters on Slush's Pool should I change my setting and if so to what?   

[twmz]

Question: Suggested difficulty option box.
What is the point in this box? It optional but then if its optional dose it really matter? I'm running just 4 Block Erupters on Slush's Pool should I change my setting and if so to what?   

 For those with large amount of hash power, setting a higher difficulty will reduce the network bandwidth consumed by submitted shares.  You don't have enough hashpower for it to matter.   I wouldn't worry about it. 

[5120-01-518-6126]

Ooooh, now that's an idea -- unfortunately, as a Bitcoin miner, I'm self-employed.  Oh, well ....

Are you? Are you mining solo? :-)
OK, let's modify the above example, when you don't feel yourself "employed" by Slush. ;-) If you're self-employed, you get money for some goods or services.
Then, when you don't deliver your goods or services, you're not paid. OK now? ;-)

Yup, I get "official" money (or other things of value) from the BTC I produce by mining.

In a pool we're all self-employed, including the pool operator.  For example, Slush is self-employed -- he sells network and accounting services to pool members.  We can either pay fees to Slush (or some other pool operator) for access to his node on the Bitcoin network and his accounting services to tally our shares of the blocks we collectively mine via his node, or we can save those fees by going solo, setting up our own nodes and doing our own accounting -- then we can generate even more income by selling access to our nodes to others, and helping them with their accounting (for a fee, of course!).

My current thinking is that 2% for Slush's services is reasonable and well worth the time and energy it would take to operate solo.  Might think differently if I had a few Terahash to dig with.

[r.padgett]

Question: Suggested difficulty option box.
What is the point in this box? It optional but then if its optional dose it really matter? I'm running just 4 Block Erupters on Slush's Pool should I change my setting and if so to what?   

 For those with large amount of hash power, setting a higher difficulty will reduce the network bandwidth consumed by submitted shares.  You don't have enough hashpower for it to matter.   I wouldn't worry about it. 

So just curious at what point would you need to set a higher difficulty? How many Mhash/s are we talkin'? I know what the website suggests according to Mhash/s but is this realistic? What have others experienced?

[nottm28]

I've never seen a definitive answer - stick your finger in the air - what works best for you kinda responses...

[Trongersoll]

Question: Suggested difficulty option box.
What is the point in this box? It optional but then if its optional dose it really matter? I'm running just 4 Block Erupters on Slush's Pool should I change my setting and if so to what?   

 For those with large amount of hash power, setting a higher difficulty will reduce the network bandwidth consumed by submitted shares.  You don't have enough hashpower for it to matter.   I wouldn't worry about it. 

So just curious at what point would you need to set a higher difficulty? How many Mhash/s are we talkin'? I know what the website suggests according to Mhash/s but is this realistic? What have others experienced?

all increasing the difficulty does is cut down on the network traffic. mining uses so little bandwidth that i wouldn't worry about it. besides, i think the pool raises your difficulty automatically if you set it too low... or maybe that was a different pool. it all blurrs sometimes.

[5120-01-518-6126]

Question: Suggested difficulty option box.
What is the point in this box? It optional but then if its optional dose it really matter? I'm running just 4 Block Erupters on Slush's Pool should I change my setting and if so to what?   

 For those with large amount of hash power, setting a higher difficulty will reduce the network bandwidth consumed by submitted shares.  You don't have enough hashpower for it to matter.   I wouldn't worry about it. 

So just curious at what point would you need to set a higher difficulty? How many Mhash/s are we talkin'? I know what the website suggests according to Mhash/s but is this realistic? What have others experienced?

When you set a value there, it tells the servers "Don't send me anything less than this."  The maximum is whatever diff the server decides to send.  For example, one of my miners is set for diff 2 -- most shares I get are between 2-1000, but I often get shares as high as 10M to work.

[aurel57]

How about block 18995? Anyone have issues with payout? My statistics say "none" shares submitted so no reward as well, which is difficult to believe since I run 24/7 with my ASICS. Hopefully Slush is already on top of it.

my problem is with #18994 :

18995 2013-07-07 16:13:53 0:03:48   1004576       310 0.00741798   245313  25.08610005 87 confirmations left 
18994 2013-07-07 16:10:05 2:30:19   43504966  11560 0.00444670    245312  25.24340000 86 confirmations left 
18993 2013-07-07 13:39:46 1:16:36   21972047    5907 0.00685585   245292  25.31574798 66 confirmations left 

I was hoping it was going to be corrected before it got confirmed but I guess by the low amount of others having problems with 18994 it must have been on my end?

[macsheadroom]

How about block 18995? Anyone have issues with payout? My statistics say "none" shares submitted so no reward as well, which is difficult to believe since I run 24/7 with my ASICS. Hopefully Slush is already on top of it.

my problem is with #18994 :

18995 2013-07-07 16:13:53 0:03:48   1004576       310 0.00741798   245313  25.08610005 87 confirmations left  
18994 2013-07-07 16:10:05 2:30:19   43504966  11560 0.00444670   245312  25.24340000 86 confirmations left  
18993 2013-07-07 13:39:46 1:16:36   21972047    5907 0.00685585   245292  25.31574798 66 confirmations left  

I was hoping it was going to be corrected before it got confirmed but I guess by the low amount of others having problems with 18994 it must have been on my end?

I was also about halved, 18995 is ever so slightly above "normal" for my 3 Gh
18995    2013-07-07 16:13:53    0:03:48    1004576    171    0.00433259    245313    25.08610005    20 confirmations left
18994    2013-07-07 16:10:05    2:30:19    43504966    6332    0.00237623    245312    25.24340000    19 confirmations left
18993    2013-07-07 13:39:46    1:16:36    21972047    3218    0.00372723    245292    25.31574798    confirmed

[gourmet]

Question: Suggested difficulty option box.
What is the point in this box? It optional but then if its optional dose it really matter? I'm running just 4 Block Erupters on Slush's Pool should I change my setting and if so to what?  

 For those with large amount of hash power, setting a higher difficulty will reduce the network bandwidth consumed by submitted shares.  You don't have enough hashpower for it to matter.   I wouldn't worry about it.  

So just curious at what point would you need to set a higher difficulty? How many Mhash/s are we talkin'? I know what the website suggests according to Mhash/s but is this realistic? What have others experienced?

When you set a value there, it tells the servers "Don't send me anything less than this."  The maximum is whatever diff the server decides to send.  For example, one of my miners is set for diff 2 -- most shares I get are between 2-1000, but I often get shares as high as 10M to work.

Not really.
The difficulty value you set in your client tells your client to send only shares of that difficulty (and higher) to the server. And it tells the server that you will be doing so.
The server will than count each your difficulty 2 (or higher) share as two difficulty 1 shares (when you set the difficulty to 2, of course). Your network traffic is then lower, and lower is also your demand on the server capacity.

The server makes no decision about what difficulty it sends you. It in fact can't do anything like that. You don't get shares as high as 10M to work. You don't get any shares to work on from the server.

The server gives you some data to work on, and it's a matter of your fortune to find a share. When your client is set to send shares of diff 1, it sends all shares it finds to the server. To find one such basic share you have to compute 2³² hashes at average.

When you set the difficulty to a higher number, only shares of that difficulty (and higher, of course) are sent to the server. This is useful when your share rate would be too (unnecesarily) high with shares of diff 1.

[nottm28]

245443 is not ours

[5120-01-518-6126]

Question: Suggested difficulty option box.
What is the point in this box? It optional but then if its optional dose it really matter? I'm running just 4 Block Erupters on Slush's Pool should I change my setting and if so to what?  

 For those with large amount of hash power, setting a higher difficulty will reduce the network bandwidth consumed by submitted shares.  You don't have enough hashpower for it to matter.   I wouldn't worry about it.  

So just curious at what point would you need to set a higher difficulty? How many Mhash/s are we talkin'? I know what the website suggests according to Mhash/s but is this realistic? What have others experienced?

When you set a value there, it tells the servers "Don't send me anything less than this."  The maximum is whatever diff the server decides to send.  For example, one of my miners is set for diff 2 -- most shares I get are between 2-1000, but I often get shares as high as 10M to work.

Not really.
The difficulty value you set in your client tells your client to send only shares of that difficulty (and higher) to the server. And it tells the server that you will be doing so.
The server will than count each your difficulty 2 (or higher) share as two difficulty 1 shares (when you set the difficulty to 2, of course). Your network traffic is then lower, and lower is also your demand on the server capacity.

The server makes no decision about what difficulty it sends you. It in fact can't do anything like that. You don't get shares as high as 10M to work. You don't get any shares to work on from the server.

The server gives you some data to work on, and it's a matter of your fortune to find a share. When your client is set to send shares of diff 1, it sends all shares it finds to the server. To find one such basic share you have to compute 2³² hashes at average.

When you set the difficulty to a higher number, only shares of that difficulty (and higher, of course) are sent to the server. This is useful when your share rate would be too (unnecesarily) high with shares of diff 1.

Thanks for the clarification 

[bspurloc]

How about block 18995? Anyone have issues with payout? My statistics say "none" shares submitted so no reward as well, which is difficult to believe since I run 24/7 with my ASICS. Hopefully Slush is already on top of it.

my problem is with #18994 :

18995 2013-07-07 16:13:53 0:03:48   1004576       310 0.00741798   245313  25.08610005 87 confirmations left 
18994 2013-07-07 16:10:05 2:30:19   43504966  11560 0.00444670    245312  25.24340000 86 confirmations left 
18993 2013-07-07 13:39:46 1:16:36   21972047    5907 0.00685585   245292  25.31574798 66 confirmations left 

I was hoping it was going to be corrected before it got confirmed but I guess by the low amount of others having problems with 18994 it must have been on my end?

Mine was wrong too, oh well.

[aurel57]

Today is a day why most are here on Slush's Pool... 30 blocks found in the last 24 hours.. ( I guess its only 29 as we did have the 1 invalid today)

[TObject]

Question: Suggested difficulty option box.
What is the point in this box? It optional but then if its optional dose it really matter? I'm running just 4 Block Erupters on Slush's Pool should I change my setting and if so to what?  

 For those with large amount of hash power, setting a higher difficulty will reduce the network bandwidth consumed by submitted shares.  You don't have enough hashpower for it to matter.   I wouldn't worry about it.  

So just curious at what point would you need to set a higher difficulty? How many Mhash/s are we talkin'? I know what the website suggests according to Mhash/s but is this realistic? What have others experienced?

When you set a value there, it tells the servers "Don't send me anything less than this."  The maximum is whatever diff the server decides to send.  For example, one of my miners is set for diff 2 -- most shares I get are between 2-1000, but I often get shares as high as 10M to work.

Not really.
The difficulty value you set in your client tells your client to send only shares of that difficulty (and higher) to the server. And it tells the server that you will be doing so.
The server will than count each your difficulty 2 (or higher) share as two difficulty 1 shares (when you set the difficulty to 2, of course). Your network traffic is then lower, and lower is also your demand on the server capacity.

The server makes no decision about what difficulty it sends you. It in fact can't do anything like that. You don't get shares as high as 10M to work. You don't get any shares to work on from the server.

The server gives you some data to work on, and it's a matter of your fortune to find a share. When your client is set to send shares of diff 1, it sends all shares it finds to the server. To find one such basic share you have to compute 2³² hashes at average.

When you set the difficulty to a higher number, only shares of that difficulty (and higher, of course) are sent to the server. This is useful when your share rate would be too (unnecesarily) high with shares of diff 1.

There are about 30 seconds between a miner connects and starts hashing and the suggested difficulty is set. If a share is submitted within these 30 seconds at what difficulty will it be counted: one, suggested difficulty, actual difficulty, something else?