1 in 10 Americans think HTML is an STD

I heard 1-10 newspapers sometimes post fake surveys.

Seriously, they claimed the data was from a coupon site, lol.

Must be boring in LA.

The article says the participants weren't given any context for the questions - they weren't told it was a technology-based survey. Given that, I don't find the answers surprising at all.

We tend to live in our own cocooned IM world, believing terms we bandy around amongst ourselves are in common usage. Not so. For many people, the internet isn't much more than Facebook and their favorite shopping site.


Frank

I heard that you could catch it from sitting on a toilet seat.

Did you know that only 1 in every 100,000,000 Americans know who Claude Whitacre is?

Of those who said they knew him, when asked who he was, 83% responded, "Isn't he the guy who always hangs out at the bus stop? You know, the guy who smells like Funyuns and always starts unbuttoning his shirt when he talks to you? That guy?"

GIVE ME A BREAK:

I had trouble selling some things in the 80s because people didn't know what they were and/or didn't believe me. They thought RAM and disk were effectively interchangeable, etc...

This is a fact of life that exists even TODAY! People learn only a certain amount and most learn only what they feel they HAVE to know. But don't look to SCHOOLS to teach this! Even in COLLEGE they may not teach NEEDED things.

SEO? A term some came up with to describe something that they often HYPE to sell? I mean you can't even make 100 objects on the PLANET rank in the top page for the top term in a given industry on Google(A PAGE could have over 100 objects!!!!!), but many CLAIM to be able to do FAR better.

Gigabyte wasn't even a common term until like 25 years ago anyway. How many know what a PETABYTE or EXABYTE are? And exactly HOW big IS a gigabyte? Is it always the same size? If not, why not?

OK, WHO would think a motherboard was the deck of a cruiseship? Motherboard originally was JUST THAT! A board OTHERS plugged into. Maybe the term motherboard caught on as a main computer board because of the complexity and the fact that it became so common. Originally, though most of the computer motherboards, whether dec, IBM, APPLE, HP, SUN, fit the more traditional meaning as well.

MP3 isn't all THAT old either. How many here know about LZH?

BLURAY is one of the newer, perhaps THE newest, CD(call it what you want), format. HECK, for a while one wondered if it would die, like betamax. QUICK, how many here know what BETAMAX is!?!?!?

SOFTWARE? WHO KNOWS? OK, HOW many here know what FIRMWARE is?

USB is a country? CLOSE USA is CLOSE, or there is Uzbekistan! Uzbekistan is UZB! OK, HOW MANY HERE know what RS232 is? How about RJ45?

BTW I have tested indians and other foreign nationalities on this stuff when they NEEDED TO KNOW IT, and found THEY did poorly, so don't harp TOO much on americans here!

Regarding HTML.... How many here know what HTTP is? How about HTTPS? What is the difference? How does HTTPS work? How about SCP? I was on a phonecall with 6-7 people that were SUPPOSED to know this stuff. One asked me to do something and I TOLD them it was already there, etc..., and WHY. They all seemed shocked when I turned out to be right. They clearly didn't know about it.

Steve

BTW companies STILL often sell tablets and the like, and you are lucky if they give you ANY way to compare. It is funny in a way. Almost all phones and tablets use processors with a lot of the CPU stuff designed by ARM, but they may have like 4 variants of like 4 generations with like 4 sets of options(that is ALREADY 64 different CPU setups), and they may have like 8 different companies putting their own spin on it. So even with a 1Ghz clock speed, you may be comparing a 1core processor that was designed years ago for low power systems to a 4core processor that came out a month ago for high power systems. And the older processor by one company may be better than a newer one by another.

ANOTHER thing! WHAT does ASP mean? Even if I said it was in the context of computers, even MICROSOFT, I could declare your answer wrong, and give you a valid reason for it. HEY, don't blame ME! Blame the likes of M/S!

HERE is a simple question I could declare wrong, but I will add a part so only the MAJORITY of you will likely get it wrong.

WHO first wrote the product known as "SQL SERVER"? That is the same product that M/S called SQL SERVER up to ver 6.5(IIRC), the version just before 1999.

And what IS SQL anyway?

Steve

Looks like the coupon site found a way to get publicity. Anyone who attributes more to the survey than that is too trusting of online surveys.

By the way, I wonder how they differentiated "American" respondents from the rest?

Yeah, it's STUPID. I just read part of that article:

HTML is a formatting "language" for documents about at BEST! It is SUCH a bad "language", that it is practically WORTHLESS for any somewhat substantial purpose. The client based validation and the like is HORRIBLE, so they have added javascript. Server based processing only allows you to go into limbo, short of some demo capability. So you have java, PHP, PERL, etc.... About all HTML is good for is basic displays, basic client side formatting, and sending control elsewhere with some minor data, like cookies. SERIOUSLY, WORD has about the SAME capabilities BUILT IN! Do you consider RTF a language? RTF really IS, functionally, about as good as HTML. I DARE you to try to build something like amazon on only HTML. GOOD LUCK!

And assuming that only Americans lack in such things is LUDICROUS. HECK, many of these things were developed in the US and/or by Americans. And I respect torvalds and people like him, and I LOVE LINUX, but LINUX, like it or not, IS based on POSIX(Written by an AMERICAN INSTITUTE), and that is based on UNIX(Written by an AMERICAN COMPANY). The internet is over ETHERNET, etc.... AGAIN, GUESS WHO!

I will be the first to admit there are stupid Americans, and also that MANY know little about things that some here think they should known more about, but it is a WORLDWIDE problem. And AGAIN, I am not discounting the swiss, finnish, etc... involvement that probably increased acceptance of the INTERNET SO much that the world probably got to where it is over a DECADE sooner.

Steve

Unhealthy HTML can lead to viruses - but unlike a real STD a trojan in this case is not a preventative measure but usually the cause.

I just thought it was funny, and not too far-fetched. I didn't actually read the thing...

I think this is so funny. At least it's 1 out of 10. it will be worse if there's more of them who thinks that HTML is a type of sickness. LOL

It is not necessarily a bad thing if someone doesn't know that stuff. There's a woman in my neighborhood who grows all the food her family needs to eat in their backyard. They also have chickens (apparently it's not against the law here). I live in a condominium just blocks away; it is close to the center of the city. She also makes a nice living crafting kites entirely out of wood that fly really well (promotion is 100% word of mouth). She doesn't have a computer or a cell phone and doesn't want to, never mind a website.

I like the survey. Every time I start feeling like the most outrageously techno-moronic person on the globe - someone posts something like this and I feel so above average for awhile.

70% of respondents report a burning sensation when they <p></p>

Can't really knock 'em. I always thought PHP was an exotic medical degree!