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I know it's astronomically unreal, but so is the playing of the lottery, however people do win.
It's easier to get jackpot on lottery though. For example, jackpot odds on Powerball is 1:292.201.338 or approximately 1:2^28.12.
The whole point of this is a learning thing. I have a pc which is turned on the all time anyway, so why not run something on it, and as for the zero balances, I have chosen balances with 1000 dollars in them and upwards.
If the point is learning something new (programming, database, etc.), then it's okay. But i'd suggest to use the PC for something else such as Folding@Home.