Slashdot Mirror
One In Ten Americans Thinks HTML Is a Type of Sexually Transmitted Infection
sandbagger writes "It looks like technical writers won't be unemployed any time soon. According to a recent study reported on by the LA Times, 11% of Americans thought HTML was a sexually-transmitted disease. The study, by coupon site VoucherCloud, involved 2,392 men and women 18 years of age or older. 27% thought 'gigabyte' was a South American insect, and 23% thought MP3 was a Star Wars robot. The participants were not told that the study was specifically looking into their knowledge of tech terms. They were presented with both tech and non-tech terms and were asked to choose from three possible definitions. 18% identified 'Blu-ray' as a marine animal, and 15% thought 'software' was comfortable clothing."
That not everyone is taking this seriously?
Those Americans who don't know IT terminology are surely not interested in learning it, so I see no job openings for technical writers just yet.
Just another sign of the demise of Slashdot. A clearly fake survey viral created solely to publicize a coupon website makes it to the front page of a site supposedly for people smart enough to know better than to fall for rubbish like this.
Could this any more obviously be a viral scam? No.
And nor could Slashdot any more obviously be a shadow of its former self.
Talk about a useless survey, everyone knows you can get HTML from watching porn. And if you do it with IE 7 or lower, there's no known cure!
...are more scientifically rigorous.
One In Ten Americans Thinks HTML Is a Type of Sexually Transmitted Infection
Those who have used it know that it's much worse
20% of Americans have a sense of humor.
Study confirms that half of all people have below-average intelligence.
FTA:
12% said "USB" is the acronym for a European country. In fact, USB is a type of connector.
USB is actually a serial data interface. The connector is just one part of the spec.
MP3 is a robot from star wars? Even my older relatives know what a MP3 is. My grandmother, who doesn't have a computer, wouldn't even come to the conclusion that it's star wars related unless someone asked her "is MP3 the name of an audio format or a robot from star wars." I'm going to guess that this is similar to what happened when someone recorded himself walking around a campus asking "Is Obama a Keynesian (yes, he is)" and people were smugly saying that no the President was born in Hawaii.
Sci/tech press releases are like the autocue in Anchorman, you can put any old bollocks up there and the mainstream media will uncritically print it as news because it's a lot cheaper than having an actual science/tech department big enough to fill that section of the paper/website.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Those people where given three options, how many of those just filled in something randomly? If they all filled it in randomly because they could not be bothered to think about it 1/3 would have answered STD. So in my opion this research shows 1/3 of americans are to lazy to think about questionaires so they filled in something random.
If it had been an open question and people wrote STD on their own, then maybe it meant something.
I know significant numbers of the over 60 population who avoid and ignore all things digital save for their satellite TV receivers. And the only reason they have those is because cable wasn't available in their area.
Yeah, sure, I could laugh and point at the "dumb Americans", but it's not dumb Americans -- it's dumb people, and we've no shortage of them around the world. After all, as George Carlin pointed out: Think about how stupid the average person is, and remember that half the population is dumber than that.
Besides, as many have already pointed out, this whole article is clearly a slashvertisement to give eyeballs to a piece of shit coupon site.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
One in Ten Americans Thinks HTML is a Type of Sexually Transmitted Infection
To be fair, from an IT geeks perspective that is kind of true. To be precise, web pages written in HTML can be, and frequently are, carriers for a multitude of electronically transmitted infections.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
It's not that hard. One set are vaguely reptilian, have misshapen heads and an unjustified sense of superiority. The others invaded Bajor.
[drabadabaTISH!]
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It's okay... 10% of geeks think STD is some kind of internet protocol...
acronyms, abbreviations, and initializations out of context are confusing.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein
I always thought Blu Ray was a pr0nstar - whether he has HTML or not is unclear, but with his skillz he needn't worry about being replaced by MP3 any time soon.
So what? Ask people to find Croatia on a map. Forget that. Ask them to find Africa. Skip that. Ask them to find North America. For real, now we're shocked at people who can't keep up with acronyms? This is a huge shock? Is this post about making fun of people?
I know that when I am being data mined I am very likely to pick the funny or ironic answer to any poll. The less intelligent the dumbest option is, the more likely I am to select it. My data is valuable and if you aren't gong to pay a fair price, and you intend to use it to subvert my happiness, I am not likely to go quietly to the slaugter.
I remember some movie where a guy lands in a Gulag and is being forced to make mitten liners. He learns from one of the other guys to sew them shut across the fingers and then hide the sabatoged ones by slipping them into the "already inspected" pile. It is sabatoge and it's faster than making the proper stitch so it's easier to meet the quota.
Lots of people maliciously answer polls and such, or so I suspect, which is why they are such a terrible instrument of governance and polity.
And P.S. if you don't limit people to thinking about tech, well there are _many_ blue species of sting and mant rays, so contextually they might have a point on answering some of those questions. Its that whole ability to read past typos that humans are so gifted with.
So conclusion? Polls suck, they suck slightly more than the pollsters conducting them, um-kay?
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Obviously these were multiple choice questions. So you cannot use the data like this. 10% do not actually think HTML is a STD, they just have no idea what HTML is.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
It should read, Of LA Times readers XX% think,,,,.
The Times didn't conduct the survey; it was only reporting on a survey done by vouchercloud. Perhaps someone should conduct a survey on Slashdot posters' reading comprehension.
Horizontal Testicular Misa-Lignment
I believe the relevant quotation is "the best thing about STDs is that there are so many to choose from."
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!