Word: surveys
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Poretz and fellow marketing executive Barry Sinrod have published The First Really Important Survey of American Habits (Price Stern Sloan, $4.95), a really important book for people who want to know what percentage of Americans rolls the toilet paper over the spool (68%) or what portion actually eats the fortune cookie (79%). Habits sold out immediately and is sprinting through its second printing toward a third. "It's a silly, funny, not-to-be-taken- seriousl y book," says Sinrod, a funny, not-to-be-taken-seriously fellow. He and Poretz mailed out questionnaires to a cross section...
Students of the American character will find plenty to chew on here, since the intrusive survey asks its recipients how old they were when they first made love (51% were under 18); whether they look behind the shower curtain or door when using someone else's bathroom (7% do); whether, if they found a diamond ring, they would attempt to locate the owner (79% would); and whether they eat corn on the cob side to side or in circles (for those who can't wait to find out, fully 80% eat it in circles...
Californians cannot count on the same lengthy intervals between disasters. , After a moderately powerful quake shook the area around Whittier in 1987, a University of Southern California survey of 235 people in Los Angeles County found that most of those questioned were not interested in leaving. But 30% said they might make plans to go if another quake of the same magnitude shook them...
Experts are unnervingly in agreement that Los Angeles is overdue for a catastrophic shaking. "We feel there is a 60% probability for an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 or larger sometime in the next 30 years," says James H. Dieterich, a geophysicist for the U.S. Geological Survey. Last year the survey reported that the Los Angeles area overlies three fault segments, any of which is capable of producing an enormous quake. Since 1857, when a monster measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale strewed destruction from the Cholame Valley in central California to the Cajon Pass near San Bernardino...
...mile section of the San Andreas, researchers have sunk strain gauges up to 1,000 ft. deep into the earth and laced the surface with "creep meters" that measure rock movement. "We're listening to the heartbeat of this section of the fault very, very closely," says the Geological Survey's Thatcher. The Parkfield section of the San Andreas is unusual in that it is the Old Faithful of earthquake zones, generating moderate tremors every 20 to 27 years. The last Parkfield earthquake occurred in 1966, which means that the next one should strike between now and 1993. By keeping...