Chris Anderson (Wired Magazine, The Long Tail) posted an interesting article yesterday, comparing bored humans to spare CPU cycles – and more importantly, just how much they can accomplish. But while the article – as a whole – was really interesting and scientific and is a topic that has been discussed in scientific forums, dozens of publications, and is the basis for a lot of research, there was one paragraph that stood out:
Who knew there was so much untapped energy all around us, just waiting for a catalyst to become productive? But of course there was. People are bored, and they’d rather not be. [……]
That sheriff is watching a movie because he has spare cycles. Spare cycles are the most powerful fuel on the planet. It’s what Web 2.0 is made up of. User generated content? Spare cycles. Open source? Spare cycles.1 MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Second Life? Spare cycles. They’re the Soylent Green of the web.
While we’re sure that Chris probably didn’t mean anything by it and it was just a passing reference made without much thought, it does beg the question: do people actually believe that open source exists only because we [the developers, the contributors, the testers, the documenters, and just about everyone else involved in the process] are too bored and have nothing better to be doing?!
Emphasis added. ↩
This just in from the up-all-night department: EasyBCD 1.6 has been completed!
Microsoft has just released the public downloads for 
NeoSmart Technologies is hiring once again! This time, we’re looking for bloggers/posters – nothing mind boggling nor anything too difficult: we have another (non-profit) project for the community we’d like to get kicked off, and with our current resources and staff tied-up beyond belief with their current workload (working hard to get you the software, support, and research at the quality levels you’ve come to expect from us!), we’re happy to announce our first open blogging position in years!