Lost Projects

[John Allain]

This thought crossed my mind many moons ago offline,
here it is on-list.

If the amount of lost time spent reading offtopic and other
time wasting threads is were counted up

assume
   800 readers, 100 full-time, 700 part time
   80+ posts a day, 30,000 a year
   1 second to read a header, 10 seconds to skim a post
   1/3 of posts off-topic and other

then time wasted is
   100 x 1/3 x 30,000 x 10 / 3,600 ~= 2,800
  +700 x 1/3 x 30,000 x 1 / 3,600  ~= 1,900
   = 4,700  = 2 1/3 man-Years wasted

In effect, the full-time equivalent of two complete engineers is 
continuously going wasted.  That could amount to *a few*
open-CatWeasels, Q-IDE controllers, USB 8" drives  or 
whatever.

John A.
I don't take this too lightly.