Surveys and its ilk

One thing that gets my goat each time is the number of so called "surveys" that keep cropping up. Forget the sample space and other considerations,(survey? line up those people hanging out at the mall) etc, but even the conclusions arrived at can be so irritatingly irrational that I just can't believe people still have any faith left in them.

Take as an example "this. I would take any conclusion reached by talking to 347 people (not randomly chosen again) and throw it in the salt bed. But, to come to such an awesome conclusion, especially when its quite obvious to anyone with a hint of braincells that most of the people who can become managers are old enough to have started their own families, it must take quite a lot of talent.

Then we have some genuinely misled conclusions arrived at .. for example this. I wouldn't be too harsh on this guy, because it was done for fun, not to sell copies or publish journals but still since he claims its research, here goes my rebuttal:

"the fact that people haven't noticed you've been changing your birthday can means they don't care about you enough to know that or that they have become too dependent on orkut.

If second were true, that they cared enough about you but become too dependant on orkut, they might not remember your actual birthday, but would've found out your game when you changed the birthday a second time.

Imagine if things like orkut didn't exist, you'd probably have got maybe one or two calls from your closest friends who remember the occasion or from your colleagues/classmates etc whom you interact with daily. But thats that. On the other hand an old acquaintance's face popping up on birthday list is just like running into him downtown which is out of your routine, so for old time's sake you do a courtesy call, wish him and find out what he's been upto etc etc. It's about keeping in touch, remembering that a guy called XYZ existed and I knew him once"

Twisted Logic

Sunlight opened up my eyes
To see for the first time it opened them up
And tonight rivers will run dry
Not for the first time rivers will run

Hundreds of years in the future
There could be computers looking for life on Earth
Don't fight for the wrong side
Say what you feel like
Say how you feel

You go backwards but then you go forwards again
You go backwards but then you go
Created then drilled and invaded
If somebody made it someone will mess it up
And you are not wrong to
Ask who does this belong to
It belongs to all of us

You go backwards but then you go forwards again
You go backwards but then you go forwards
You go backwards but then you go forwards again
You go backwards but then you go forwards

-Coldplay