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by jrockway
814 days ago
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I think idle CPUs still exist, people are just afraid to share them now. For example, for lowest latency you want your application servers close to your end users. Your end users probably all go to bed at about the same time and wake up at the same time. So your server is just sitting there taking up space, maybe saving a little power, overnight. But, nobody is will to take the risk to let someone else use their computer for a batch job of some sort, so the best you get is slightly less heat output and slightly less power consumption instead. For those that don't really care, the cloud providers have shared core instances, so some batch job is probably using your cycles late at night. I think the thing that killed SETI@home was crypto mining. Why help others when you can collect stuff for yourself? Plus, everyone woke up to the electricity arbitrage going on; when every employee started using their work computer to mine crypto, and the electricity bills got high, someone started looking for answers. The edict came down from on high: don't steal our electricity for yourself or for human good. Rest in peace, SETI@home and folding@home. (I was always personally a fan of Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search when those things were cool. I guess I didn't know much about protein folding or searching for extraterrestrial life, but I did understand factoring numbers.) |
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