93% of Americans can’t remember their non-vanity license plates (bogus), can you? |
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With the exception of the somewhat obscured permalinks, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying Gullible.info, which I recommended to Kent last week, a blog which serves up facts (they are facts, right? Er, wrong.) like the one in the title of this post and others like:
Sep 27: “While approximately 42 percent of Americans over the age of 45 can read music, only eight percent of those aged 18 to 45 are able to.”
Sep 23: “Seventeen percent of Americans under the age of 20 have never ridden a bicycle.”
Sep 3: “US $100 bills of series 2003A and later will not burn.”
Hmm-inspiring stuff, isn’t it?
Back to the remembering your license plate factoid. I have lousy success remembering our plates and have to go out and look every time they’re needed, but figured there would be a higher percentage of people who remembered theirs nationwide. 93%? That’s a fairly high percentage (and the dead giveaway that it’s fake). I mean really, it’s only seven digits. Seriously though, can you remember all your non-vanity license plates?
[For those curious, I made the “Iforget” license plate shown in this post using the ACME license plate maker, which can be found in the growing sign generators post (destined to become a dedicated page).]
(Update 5:03am PST: The title of the blog should be a giveaway that these facts are, in fact, not facts — I added this to the humor category because the “facts” just feel like they could be true.)
Let’s see how many commentors don’t get it… I don’t even bother to remember my license plates… Too much data not enough brains… I keep all that stuff in a little encryption program on my blackberry…
Comment by FranciscoIV — September 28, 2007 @ 7:48 am PST
Good use of the blackberry there, FranciscoIV. I should store my license plates in my Pocket PC.
Comment by TDavid — September 28, 2007 @ 7:51 am PST
“Nine out of ten consumers are confused about what HDTV actually is, with 40 percent unaware that they must have a special HDTV receiver to view high-definition programming. Even among those who own HDTV sets, 44 percent do not know that they must use a special player, such as a Blu-ray or HD DVD player, and special discs in order to view recorded movies in high definition on their sets.”
I found this interesting until I read:
“The survey results were published Thursday by the retailer Best Buy, which said that it had polled 1,012 adults across the country.”
Seems like a small group to have polled to proclaim such a large statement.
Comment by Wayne — September 28, 2007 @ 12:07 pm PST
Wayne - when we bought Ghost Rider on Blu-ray at Wal-mart the cashier asked us if we were sure we had a Blu-ray player. She said a lot of people were buying Blu-ray discs and returning them because they “didn’t run” in their DVD players. I don’t know that I’d believe 9 of 10 people don’t realize HDTVs have special requirements, but I’d believe the number is higher than 50%.
Comment by TDavid — September 28, 2007 @ 12:20 pm PST
Absolutely…it’s probably close to 60% but that’s still a large difference from 90%.
The Ghost Rider story just proves that having competing formats is just confusing to the average consumer and most won’t upgrade because of it. I love HD and was a very early DVD adopter, but I won’t be upgrading to any sort of HD disc format until I see some progress towards ensuring the life of the format.
I think you’ve stated that downloadable/on-demand type of services are probably more likely to be used in the future and I agree completely.
Since I switched to Verizon Fios and have an library of shows and movies at my fingertips, I couldn’t be happier.
Comment by Wayne — September 28, 2007 @ 1:51 pm PST