I've used 2-3 day backpacking trips to reset my clock for years. Typically, after moving for 10-15 miles in a day under the sun with 25-50lbs on my pack and then making camp, I'm ready for bed at sundown anyway. I actually have to force myself to stay up til 9 or 10pm. For the last few years, though, I've used this to reset my kids summer schedules. Typically by mid-August they're going to bed at 2-3am and getting up around 12-1pm each day. So the last week of summer for the last 3 years we've gone camping. Nothing special no grueling backpacking trips. Just camping at a campsite with tents and a fire and day hikes, etc. After a week of this they're on a sun-up to sun-down sleep schedule and ready for the new school year.

"2. Does American Airlines belong to the Unites States of America?" Um, obviously the answer is no. But it *was* founded in America by Americans. And yes, We Are The World was recorded 28 years ago. But last I checked, Ethopia is still listed as a 3rd world country. In fact, its #10 on the list. I'm just surprised that a third world country has a friggin' Dreamliner (well had one that is apparently its burning right now). Then again, I guess I should be even more surprised that my comment wasn't even modded up for being humorous, but your's was for being "insightful" yet lacking any insight.

Wait a minute? Ethopia Airlines? As in the country in Africa that's so poor and destitute that it pulled heart strings with "We Are the World"? That Ethopia? They can afford a friggin 787 Airliner? Damn...

True. This started as a technical solution with only one finance person present. We know we have evaluations to do, etc to figure it out. I figured why waste the time going into budget and P&L meetings and crap if there's some huge reason it won't pay off. From the majority of replies it sounds like we'll burn more electricity and make some money but likely earn less BC value than we'll spend in power. That will be the focus of our next meeting and investigation and determining if we move forward with this.

Apparently /. has started to allow 12 year olds to post again. Please go back to pretending you have a life on Facebook and leave /. to people that don't have to pretend their existence is greater than their phone tells them it is. :P

Thanks valuable insight here. I would mod you up if I could...

Well, that's the general idea we're trying to figure out. Obviously if the PC is idle it uses fewer resources. But at what point does ratcheting it up to 100% utilization for 8-12 hours become worthwhile? Sure, it will consume more electricity, but say the extra electricity is $0.10 per PC times 18K PC's is an electrical bill increase of $1800. So we would need to generate 24 bitcoins in that 8-12 hours to break even and more to make money. Granted, this is loosely rounded math, but that's what we're trying to figure out. Is it feasible now? Or do I need to wait til a BC is $200 versus $75? Of course the real money *could* be to the botnet guys as they can use the swarm to generate revenue without caring about the electrical costs.

So one thing I should throw out there we're already very, very green compared to many companies. We are positioned near a local river & lake for cooling needs and use a solar farm (no I don't work for Apple in NC). All building roofs are painted white, etc etc etc. All laptop users are required to run on battery power throughout the day until 20% and then they plug in. Compared to your average company on a grid, we're already about 60% green and our electrical bills now are about 75% lower than they were 5 years ago accounting for inflation and the market and other offsets and adjustments that bean counters like to do. Our goal is to shave off another 10% within 3 years EITHER by consuming fewer resources or by offsetting our costs (ie: making money that covers electrical costs) or both. Please add your comments to the main thread, not this one just wanted to throw this out there as some additional information.

Trust me I would like to. In fact, in our ESX environment we do turn vmotion VMs and turn off servers each evening to save power in the datacenter. However, for desktops and to meet requirements, etc we are required to have them on for the AV scans and backups, as well as automated Windows Updates.

And no AV scans or backups. Unfortunately, not an option for our org but thanks for the info. Any resources or public data available for figuring out the value of BC mining? I've looked but can't find any...

Nokia is in love with Microsoft. Apple has IOS. Motorola/Google has Android. BB10 is around the corner. There are a few other niche OS's out there. I honestly cannot see any carrier shipping an Ubuntu based phone.

Half the items shown at CES will be vaporware. Most of the rest will come to market too late to be of any value. The only thing worth seeing are the good ideas that some new or small company has come up with that Zuckerberg, Apple, or some other company can clone or otherwise knock-off and then present as their own (as FB likes to do) or as some new thing no one has ever thought of before (Apple I'm looking at you). I just hope it doesn't scroll or have rounded corners.