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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!"
Of course they'll lead the pack. Since most businesses still use Windows, there are more copies in every office.
I have no admin rights, so I can't install everything else.
Just because more play it does not necessarily mean it's the best game!
The difference here is that most skyscrapers and canals require _actual physical labor_, not just moving a mouse. Plus, most people play Solitaire as a break, so their potential productivity during Solitaire-playing hours is low.
-- Nerds on toast in the new millenium
Just how much does it cost to 'play' Empire State Building or Panama Canal? It costs me more to just visit those places then to sit and let my mind waste away watching cards flip over on my monitor... ;^]
'mmmmmmmmm.... forbidden donut'
Ask yourself this: do you really want the type of person who finds fulfillment playing Solitaire and Minesweeper to divert his/her attention to building the next skyscraper or hydroelectric project? Please, no!
But not that amazing. It just means that if 23 million people each spend one hour digging, the Panama canal could have been finished in less then a month. There would be some elbowing ofcourse, and maybe Panama would have sunk by itself with al those people standing in spot...
The point is, if you choose the statistics that you compare to carefully, you can make anything seem amazing. Compare hours spent playing solitaire to hours spent while brushing teeth, and suddenly he numbers don't seem so amazing anymore.
karma capped
I think when you measure man-hours, you have to measure the quality of the person. The Empire State building was built by 7 million man-hours put in by some of American's finest citizens and workers. Men died building that building. And don't even get me started on the Apollo project. To compare the work that these men did quantitatively with the the work of millions of unproductive Windows-bound office drones wasting their employers money goofing off at work is a disrespect to the qualitative difference between these groups of people.
My grandfather worked on the Apollo project; granted his role was small, he helped to turn down the radio stations operating in Apollo 13's band when it was operating under power due to difficulty. But without even his minor contribution men could have died. To compare the work of brave men in the same tally as lazy overpriveleged goof-offs is a damned insult.
Sorry if I come of as irate; it's because I am.
If guns kill people, then CmdrTaco's keyboard misspells words.
It could take 60 boys 1 minute since a lawn can be partitioned into 60 pieces and each boy works independently, therefore, not affecting the work of the other 59 boys. What you probably meant was something more like: it takes 3 doctors 6 hours to do an operation, does it take 18 doctors 1 hour?
It's kinda ironic that the subject of the post is "All work and no play...". If anyone remembers the end of that saying, its "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". In other words, people need some time to play, or else they become dull. The funny thing is, the poster rambles on about how much more could have been done for the world if people didn't play. But would the world be worth living in if everyone was dull?
Given that Minesweeper is NP-complete, are you so sure of that assertion? In a sufficiently-crowded field, you almost always get to some point where you can't deduce from the surrounding squares whether or not there's a mine in a space. You end up guessing and hoping for the best when this happens. I suspect that the Minesweeper where you never have to guess isn't the true Minesweeper.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
hey, minesweeper is played without computers or electricity by millions of kids around the world too! Now there's a fun game for all to enjoy.
Particularly the version where the mines are actually disguised as really neat wristwatches and stuff like that.
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
have you ever seen primates in a zoo? "Wasting time" is all they do!
Er, perhaps it has something to do with the bars on the cage?
Have you ever seen people in prison? wasting time is all they do!
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.