And it is not just individuals: the web makes it easier for companies to rent out spare offices and idle machines, too.

这不仅仅是个人层面：网络使公司出租多余办公室和闲置机器变得更便利了。

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What he needs is someone to point out to him his listless workmen and idle machines, and show him how to put each one to working full time and overtime.

对于这样的情况，最需要的就是有人能够提示那些工人关于他们的懈怠和机器的闲置浪费，最需要的是有人能告诉他们应该如何做才能让自己满负荷运转。

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These machines have lain idle since the factory closed.

工厂关闭以来，这些机器就一直闲置着。

《牛津词典》

Soon pharmaceutical companies or any other business that has a need for supercomputer power from time to time could be renting that power or creating it for themselves with their own idle desktop machines, said Mr Findlay.

BBC: Why the future will be easier to use

Started in late 1998, the space-alien hunt has recruited the owners of 2.5 million PCs, tapping their machines' idle processing time to search small chunks of radio telescope data for patterns that might signal intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos.

FORBES: Sharing Power

When a designer is ready to test part of a new chip layout, his workstation uses NetBatch to find all the other machines on the network that are idle, whether they are in Ireland or China or the U.S., and feed the job to them.

FORBES: Sharing Power