Does this mean I found a block

[jjiimm_64]

Still a newbie question....

running my miner from a shell.  saw this in the console, does it mean I found a block?


27/06/2011 21:24:31, 346497 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:24:32, 351094 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:24:33, 346497 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:24:34, 351094 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:24:35, 346497 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:24:36, 347718 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:24:37, 351094 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:24:38, long poll: new block 00000911fb4344b9
27/06/2011 21:24:38, 346497 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:24:39, 346497 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:24:40, 351094 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:24:41, 346497 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:24:42, 347718 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:24:43, 351094 khash/s

[1715457559]

1715457559

[1715457559]

1715457559

[Jack of Diamonds]

No, it's a long polling announcement which tells your client someone in the network already found the block you are working on,
so you wont waste stale shares on working that block anymore & go onto the next block.

If your client has no LP support you will get up to 1-2% more stales due to hashing redundant work.

[jjiimm_64]

yup..  just figured that out by continuing to watch the console..  just got this

27/06/2011 21:39:04, 261634 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:39:05, 261634 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:39:06, 261634 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:39:07, warning: job finished, miner is idle
27/06/2011 21:39:08, Problems communicating with bitcoin RPC
27/06/2011 21:39:13, 33446 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:39:14, 210688 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:39:15, long poll: new block 000006317ae7b0d6
27/06/2011 21:39:15, 268119 khash/s
27/06/2011 21:39:16, 262144 khash/s

[Cherothald]

Question is: Would the miner inform you if you found a block or wouldn't it tell you anything, anyway? That way you could at least get annoyed because you come to the conclusion that solo mining maybe actually would have been more profitable for you.

[Jack of Diamonds]

Profitability and your probability of finding blocks is mathematically constant, based on your hashing power and current difficulty.
Finding blocks or not finding blocks doesn't indicate anything.

Pools reduce your variance, but aren't any more "profitable" than solo in the long term, statistically speaking.

[boaz2020]

Question is: Would the miner inform you if you found a block or wouldn't it tell you anything, anyway? That way you could at least get annoyed because you come to the conclusion that solo mining maybe actually would have been more profitable for you.

As I understand it:
Every time you see an accepted share, your client (phoenix, poclbm, etc) thinks it has solved a block. The pool requests an artificially lower difficulty setting, this allows you to "solve" blocks more easily. Every time you solve one of these easier blocks, you are credited with a share, a proof of work. Since the method to solve both difficulties is identical, the same work would be done to solve both. So the only real difference is your client reporting back more often, the pool interprets these "solved" blocks as shares, and knows the actual difficulty, so when a true solution is found the pool can submit the solved block, dividing the proceeds to everyone based on the amount of shares they have into the round.

tl;dr Your client couldn't know when you solved the actual block, only the pool.

[sirky]

Question is: Would the miner inform you if you found a block or wouldn't it tell you anything, anyway? That way you could at least get annoyed because you come to the conclusion that solo mining maybe actually would have been more profitable for you.

As I understand it:
Every time you see an accepted share, your client (phoenix, poclbm, etc) thinks it has solved a block. The pool requests an artificially lower difficulty setting, this allows you to "solve" blocks more easily. Every time you solve one of these easier blocks, you are credited with a share, a proof of work. Since the method to solve both difficulties is identical, the same work would be done to solve both. So the only real difference is your client reporting back more often, the pool interprets these "solved" blocks as shares, and knows the actual difficulty, so when a true solution is found the pool can submit the solved block, dividing the proceeds to everyone based on the amount of shares they have into the round.

tl;dr Your client couldn't know when you solved the actual block, only the pool.

I think this is right. I know (or rather, I believe) that BTC Guild recently raised the difficulty from 1 to 2 to halve the strain on the servers.