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Facebook could cure cancer with 1 line of code in website – computes.js

• zbentley 9y ago
  The title is insanely reductive. You could just as well say (assuming that cancer research funding is the issue with finding a cure--which is a highly debatable assumption) "The government could cure cancer by adding just two significant digits to this number (annual spending on cancer research)!" In other words: the size of the light switch is not proportional to the illumination provided. Also, those 80% of my computer's resources sitting idle are saving me battery hours and money off of my electrical bill, thank you very much.
  • cmatthieu 9y ago
    Your computer doesn't need to be asleep to be idle. Even while browsing the web, checking email, or programming, today's machines are more than 80% idle...
    • zbentley 9y ago
      Yes, and while not-asleep idle it's using a lot less battery than it would be if all of its cores were pegged. That's what CPU throttling and adaptive power use are for, especially on phones.
    • platinumrad 9y ago
      And if the CPU supports frequency scaling, which pretty much any CPU made in the last decade does, considerably less power will be used in that "80% idle" state.
• dekhn 9y ago
  This is garbage. Idle cycle computing won't cure cancer.