All Work And No Play ...

Clifton Forlines writes: "Jupiter Media Metrix released a report on Monday about PC gaming - here's one of the more interesting tidbits: 'Similar to past years, Microsoft Windows-bundled games dominated the top rankings in October 2001: Solitaire was number one, with 21.3 million users.' A little math tells us that americans spent about 24 million man-hours in October on Solitarie (estimating that each user spent a little more than an hour over the whole month) That corresponds to about 1 million man-days, or around 2740 man-years! For comparison, I looked up these numbers... Empire State Building: 7 million man-hours (a mere 9 days of Solitaire), Panama Canal: 20 million man-hours (a mere 26 days of Solitaire), Apollo project: 15.5 billion man-hours (or a mere 52 years of Solitaire) Think about it!"

Pot, Kettle, Black

[PD]

Hmmmm. That's amazing. I wonder how many billions of Solitaires go into a single Slashdot?

Sorry, I'm busy.

[Medievalist]

I can't think about the implications of this right now, I'm supposed to be re-engineering software systems but I'm just about to win my Solitaire game.
--Charlie

Minesweeper #4?!?

[Anonymous Freak]

Come on, we need to make a concerted effort to get Minesweeper up to number 1! I mean, it's available on many different platforms (Minus the Microsoft copyright, at least) so there's got to be more than 21 million users of Minesweeper!

Minesweeper forever!!!

Think of the man-hours wasted on sex

[typical geek]

If we could just convince all the women that they really don't need orgasms, we could cut down the hours needed for sex to about 5 minutes each time.

This is exactly what keeps Linux down.

[gayrod]

Linux will continue to be an afterthought in the OS world without a solid bundle of games that come pre-installed. Hearts, Solitaire, Minesweeper, etc. have all become classics and are many users' introduction to computers. Can you think of one Linux game as imaginative or innovative as Minesweeper or Freecell? I sure can't.

Until Linux distros wake up and realize that packaging high quality games with their installations will guarantee their success, Linux will remain a minor thorn in Microsoft's side.

Microsoft knows what's important when bundling their OS: games and entertainment. Redhat, Debian, etc. just need to wake up and follow their lead.

Why Solitaire?

[fizzboy]

Those people should be playing Freecell.

What a waste...

[Mike Schiraldi]

This is a disgrace, the way people waste their time at work. It's cheating their employer, too.

I'd write more, but i don't want my boss to see me on Slashdot.

Solitaire programmer 'killed' 36 people

[Tattva]

If you assume a lifespan of 76 years than that programmer has robbed the world of the equivalent of 36 lives. Worse than Jeffery Dahmer.

Re:Think of the man-hours wasted on sex

[big_cat79]

5 minutes? Damn, you must be a marathon man.

Come on.

[Krapangor]

Solitaire has a much better plot than minesweeper, is less violent and enhances you illectual capacity.
It runs on more platforms than minesweeper, there are even forms of solitaire which run without an computer or any electric power !

Why should we even consider playing minesweeper ?
It's obviously much worse.

Well Hell!

[cavemanf16]

If mind-numbing games like Solitaire, FreeCell, and Minesweeper are all that's keeping Linux off the desktop of millions of users, why doesn't KDE and Gnome just start including a quick link to Entertainment -> FreeCell, Minesweeper, Solitaire, and Pinball on thier desktop systems too?! Forget about office productivity suites, set us up the minesweeper! ;)

Re:Pot, Kettle, Black

[Skirwan]

That's amazing. I wonder how many billions of Solitaires go into a single Slashdot?

The difference, of course, is that one is generally used as a mindless diversion while one should be doing real work, and the other is a card game.

--
Humour through misdirection: I could write for Angel!

Thank you wine

[joeflies]

for supporting one of the top Windows applications, and especially allowing me to minimize without the evidence showing up on the task window.

Cool!

[sterno]

So if everybody gave up the time that they spent showering, that could easily be like... well let's see:

Let's assume roughly 170 million people in the US who aren't too old or too young to be useful. Then let's assume they each shower for roughly 15 minutes a day on average. That is 42.5 million man hours per day spent showering. At that rate:

Emprie State Building: Under 4 hours
Panama Canal: Half a day
Apollo project: 36 days

So the empire state building and panama canal are easy. The apollo project is doable, but I doubt anybody would want to fly on it. Man would that thing smell bad.

Re:Pot, Kettle, Black

[karb]

My favorite article was when slashdot went crazy because the DoJ was spending a few hundred thousand on an anti-hacking education program for kids.

It seemed like the amount of money (measured by person-hours) spent reading the article and posting nasty rants about the DoJ involved far more money than the measly few hundred k allocated by the DoJ :)

Re:People spent too much time playing games

[daeley]

IF people could be just ALITTLE more serious, perhaps we wouldnt be having economy trouble, terrorist attacks, problems with virii, hackers, worms.
Instead of using your computer to play stupid games, use your computer to do stuff thats important and play a game no more than a half hour to an hour per week.

You know, most economists and terrorists (meatspace and cyber) I know of are severely serious people. If they had a fscking modicum of playfulness in their bodies, much less a sense of humor, we would probably have a lot fewer recessions and suicide bombers.

Now that we've put economists and terrorists in the same boat, let's throw you in -- a /. flamebait-poster who really needs to get out more and have some fun. ;-)

The curse of violent video games

[karb]

As noted time and time again by those opposed to game violence, just a casual glance reveals that the Most Popular games are also the Most Violent.

For example, just take a look at number 21 : HOYLE SOLITAIRE. HOYT SOLITAIRE has been comdemned by numerous game anti-violence activism groups, including The Lion and Lamb Project [lionlamb.org].

How many more children need to die before HOYT and other violent-game makers stand up and becomes accountable? How many more people will buy (and I'm getting ill at the thought of it) ... _Guns_, for 'self-protection' and 'hunting', before congress will take action against these code-writing purveyors of death?

As a bible-thumping christian, I am reviled by the thought of these violent games and guns, especially remembering the death of our savior, Jesus Christ, at the hands of Doom-playing gun-wielding members of the pharisees. Evil is no older than videogames and guns. Write to your congressman now! Stop the corruption of our children!

(and since I typically get mod'd down at least once before someone realizes my sarcasm, yes, this is sarcastic.)

Re:Think of the man-hours wasted on sex

[Glove d'OJ]

As a man, I would like to be on record as considering the WOMAN-hours wasted...

Re:Funny numbers

[Glove d'OJ]

I agree totally... if we could similarly stack people like this, imagine what could get done...

6,480 women could have a baby in an hour!
388,800 women could have a baby in a miunte!
23,328,000 women could have a baby in a second!

Now, while I doubt I could handle all of those women, I would certainly be willing to try...

MYST!!!! Get some more improvement!

[MemeRot]

Myst does not improve critical thinking skills.

The only critical thought one needs when playing Myst is 'where is the off button?'