Daemon pacing

The most annoying thing about a lot of system software is that it gets it into its head to start burning lots of CPU just when it suits the user the least. macOS is famous for its berserker daemons that decide to consume immodest amounts of CPU at the worst times. Utilities such as Homebrew seem to be designed to take a long time to do things precisely when you want something from it quickly.

This isn’t a new annoyance. Windows deciding to run updates exactly when it suits the user the least is one of those things that have been around for decades. It is a well known problem. Curiously it is not a problem that seems to have received any systematic attention.