Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Zaius
I dropped AOL in the mid 90's and went with Net Zero untill they started charging. It was a good ride while it lasted. Had internet for free for about a year.
Now I have Surewest DSL....love it.
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I know a few that can't break the AOL habit. I was on it years ago and I'll admit I didn't venture out beyond it's walls even though people told me of wonderful things on the web that were not mutilated by the AOL browser. It was the way their system screwed with images that was the last straw for me.
I'm not giving any polls credibility this year, or maybe forever more.
First off, internet polls or petitions are worth the paper they're written on. A true scientific study will use methodology to select a random sample to poll. Throwing up a question on-line and yelling "Hey anyone and everyone! Click some buttons! And bring your friends and relatives along to click some buttons too!"
I worked for a social science research firm at a University for over 15 yrs so I'm a little fussy about this topic. But now having been gone for 8 years and seeing the quality of their current standards I wouldn't put any confidence in their poll results either.
This is a longer story than anyone could care about, but to sum up, my wife still works for them so I see the quality of the systems they release. Plus last week they had a company dinner that I got to attend, talking to the few old timers left it seems the situation is worse than even I thought.
Bottom line, Corporate America Meets Not-for-Profit Corp, the professors and social scientists are quickly replaced by more affordable staff that previously wouldn't have qualified as research assistant, the entire techie staff with years of experience in survey research was replaced in one swoop by a gaggle of 19-25 yr olds.
Social science was like a religion to the old crew.
Am I sounding like a grumpy old man yet? Cause I'm really trying.