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What's happening in the federal IT community
By Thursday, May 15, 2008 | 4:17 PM
Remember that story about the New York City employee who got fired for playing computer solitaire at work? Well, it turns out that just maybe the addictive game isn't all about wasting time; it's also, according to Josh Levin writing for Slate, "propelled the revolution of personal computing, augured Microsoft's monopolistic tendencies, and forever changed office culture. It has also helped the human race survive innumerable conference calls and airplane trips. If solitaire is not the most important computer program of all time, it is at least in the top two, along with Minesweeper."
Comments
When I spent a year in Afghanistan, my Lieutentant Colonel specialized in soltaire, its nice to know that your tax dollars were hard at work because Bill Gates thought it would be productive adding this feature in windows. As for oversight, this guy set a shining example for the rest of the team. Yes, solitaire is a favorite activity among the fobbits overseas (fobbit = def. a person who nevers leave the safety of the walls of the compound in fear something might happen to them).
Good article!
Government Employee | Monday, May 26, 2008 | 9:03 PMAfter playing Gnome's "Mines", Windows Minesweeper is nearly unbearable.
Kevin LeCureux | Sunday, May 18, 2008 | 4:46 PMWhen Windows (3.0) was released, the inclusion of solitaire was questioned by many in business, who wanted to find a way to omit it from desktop installation. A Microsoft marketing guy told me that the game was engineered to teach people how to use a mouse. I have since recommended it to many people who got their first computer (often at an advanced age, compliments of children who wanted to email or teleconference).
Andy Boots | Friday, May 16, 2008 | 7:40 AMPlaying Solitaire helped me learn quickly to use a mouse - I stopped thinking about what I was doing, concentrated on the game, and improved my mousing skills very quickly.
At work when I would get tired and go brain dead, I would pull up Solitaire for a game and find that I would be back up and productive after that brief break. Nothing like a little challenge to refresh your mind!
Abusing Solitaire is one thing, but taking it off computers is short sighted, in my view.
I Love Solitaire | Friday, May 16, 2008 | 6:53 AM