[tinalumfoil]

> However, the computer industry produces millions of new computers each year, which sit idle much of the time, running screen savers or waiting for the user to do something.

Considering how much more electricity a running computer uses versus an idle one and how much faster consumer CPUs degrade under load this definitely seems like a huge waste of resources for something that has little, if any, utility.

[organsnyder]

I used to run prime95 on all of my machines, back when power management (especially on desktops) was virtually nonexistent. Obviously, with the power management features we have now, an idle CPU (especially outside of a hosting environment) is not considered wasteful.