Angry Birds hits 500,000,000 downloads. That’s a lot, for sure, but another data point in that post really caught my eye.

• The equivalent of 200,000 years played
• 300 million minutes played daily
  Yowza… now there’s some perspective. It makes me wonder, what kind of things could we accomplish as a group of like minded individuals in that kind of time. That kind of time being defined as a bunch of random people picking up a task for a few minutes here and there during a day. What kind of problems could be solved? What kind of amazing discoveries? This absolutely is the domain of projects like Galaxy Zoo, SETI@Home and similar efforts. I’d be willing to be they don’t post quite the numbers that Angry Birds does. In a way that’s kind of sad. I’m not one to tear into gaming or the like, I enjoy far too much idle entertainment time day in and day out. I still consume far more than I produce, even though it’s been a topic that weighs a lot on my mind these days. That really needs to change. Those Angry Birds numbers just make me wonder what if we all did?