mahler3 - Slashdot User

Survey Shows That Fox News Makes You Less Informed 1352

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday December 16, 2010 @01:58PM from the fair-balanced-and-simple dept.

A survey of American voters by World Public Opinion shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. One of the most interesting questions was about President Obama's birthplace. 63 percent of Fox viewers believe Obama was not born in the US (or that it is unclear). In 2003 a similar study about the Iraq war showed that Fox viewers were once again less knowledgeable on the subject than average. Let the flame war begin!

Comment Re:Deja boom (Score 2, Informative) 285

by mahler3 on Tuesday November 23, 2010 @10:26PM (#34326528) Attached to: Utah vs. NASA On Heavy-Lift Rocket Design

Hatch didn't join the U.S. Senate until 1977, well after the booster contract was awarded. It was his predecessor, Frank Moss, whose cozy relationship with then-NASA administrator James Fletcher (another well-connected Utah man) was widely suspected as a factor contributing to Thiokol's win.

Comment Re:My recollection is that this is not new (Score 2, Informative) 285

by mahler3 on Tuesday November 23, 2010 @10:15PM (#34326446) Attached to: Utah vs. NASA On Heavy-Lift Rocket Design

Not quite, but you're on the right track. The three leading contenders (Lockheed, Thiokol, and United Technologies) all proposed segmented booster designs. Lockheed's were to be shipped by barge, in a vertical position, as opposed to the horizontal rail shipping used by Thiokol. (Not sure about UT.)

A fourth contender, Aerojet, proposed a single, monolithic booster, to be built at a new facility in South Florida and shipped up the intracoastal waterway by barge. But the additional cost of the new facility made that proposal less competitive, where the others assumed use of existing facilities.

[You're right; there's not much hard info about this online. I'm relying here on Malcolm McConnell's Challenger: A Major Malfunction (1988), which in turn relied heavily on Rogers Commission testimony.]

Today's Children Are Officially Potty Mouths 449

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday September 22, 2010 @10:32AM from the kids-say-the-#@^*est-things dept.

tetrahedrassface writes "When the Sociolinguistics Symposium met earlier this month swearing scholar Timothy Jay revealed that an increase in child swearing is directly related to an increase in adult swearing. It seems that vulgarity is increasing as pop culture continues to popularize vulgarities. The blame lies with media, public figures, politicians, but mostly ourselves. From the article: 'Children as young as two are now dropping f-bombs, with researchers reporting that more kids are using profanity — and at earlier ages — than has been recorded in at least three decades.'"

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