IP: Re: Survey says: Hands off Microsoft

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 22:40:51 -0400
To: farber () cis upenn edu
From: "Richard J. Solomon" <rsolomon () dsl cis upenn edu>
Subject: Re: IP: Survey says: Hands off Microsoft


The Literary Gazette, during the height of the Great Depression, surveyed a
small sample of residences by telephone and predicted in 1936 that
Roosevelt would lose by a landslide. He won by a landslide. You never heard
of the Literary Gazette? That's because it went bankrupt the year after it
predicted that FDR would lose big. It was the leading newsmagazine of its
time. As Deming preached, sampling is everything. During the Depression,
only upper class Republicans could afford telephones, particularly for
small samples.


& who was sampled for the Microsoft-paid survey? Would they let us see the
sample?


Richard