Comments on: Hohm, and cloud computing http://knowledgeproblem.com/2009/06/29/hohm-and-cloud-computing/ Commentary on Economics, Information and Human Action Fri, 01 Jun 2012 16:51:44 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Mike Anderson http://knowledgeproblem.com/2009/06/29/hohm-and-cloud-computing/#comment-8624 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:41:55 +0000 http://knowledgeproblem.com/?p=4863#comment-8624 What am I missing that makes cloud computing so attractive? I have an office computer that only gets used 30 hours a week, and two personal computers that soak up another 24 hours, max, so I have cheap compute cycles coming out my ears. If I need a big processing facility, I can buy a half-dozen El Cheapo PCs, load them up with Linux and Mathematica, and parallel process until the cows come home.

In the statistics business, we routinely get a late night inspiration and fire off an analysis or simulation that ties up some office or university processor for hours or days. We can do this because compute power is a cheap commodity, literally sitting idle on our desks. When some technocrat decides that Cloud Computing (TM) is More Efficient, I check my wallet, and hope the university IT folks see this as a gimmick to gather subscriptions–and YOUR DATA–for life.

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