Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 February 25

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February 25

Which satellites is my dish capable of receiving?

I have a satellite TV system and I now need to sell the dish, complete with the LNB and coaxial cables, but without the satellite decoder box. So that I can advise potential buyers, where/how can I find out what satellites the dish and LNB combination is capable of receiving? I currently use it to receive Sky TV but I think it should be capable of receiving signals from other the Astra satellites that cover Europe, if it is pointed in the correct direction. The dish is a standard 60 cm, and the LNB is marked "Smart TT titanium universal LNBF" and "10.7 - 12.75 GHz" - like one of these (that e-bay ad says "Hotbird, Astra 1, Sirus & Many others"). Astronaut (talk) 11:39, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Are contemporary high school kids in the USA "better behaved" than in the 20th century?

Hi everyone! My last question was answered and I appreciate it very much. I have another one, that I cannot seem to get any good references on. I did read Steven Pinker's "Better Angels of our Nature" and was wondering something about the behavior of American "kids". For full disclosure I went to High School in America in the 1980s. Back then you were considered a "nerd" if you shied away from casual sex, drug use (mostly cocaine and pot), binge drinking, having your own car as soon as possible, mostly in order to further your "dazed and confused" type adventures. Not only was this real life for most kids in the 1980s (and from I understand, the 70s, 60s, and most of the 90s), but this was reflected in the "teen comedies" of the time. From what I have seen anecdotally, it seems like high school kids in America are not really into that sort of thing, and are much better behaved. What are your thoughts on this? Thanks. Jojo Fiver (talk) 21:40, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

You might want to look at the advent of helicopter parenting and no-tolerance policy schooling, as well as the emasculation of the American male with politically correct policies on sexual harassment and the success of Just Say No, for factual reasons why high school is less fun than it was in the '80's, as well as the death of John Hughes Jr for why it seems less fun. μηδείς (talk) 22:26, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

The "having your own car as soon as possible" thing seems still widespread, as is peer pressure to do all manner of foolish things. (Not going to start mentioning the sort of things involved.) No-one is right to say that Just Say No and similar campaigns have had huge success in changing high school kids' attitudes towards drugs etc (there are numerous similar campaigns against teen drinking or teen being awake after 10pm or whatever, which are widely promoted and seem accepted by some). Teen pregnancy rates in the USA remain extremely high compared to more liberal countries that don't have such a problem with contraceptives.

Shoving in an international perspective, in the UK, even by the early '90s there was peer pressure against teens taking drugs (perhaps encouraged by drugs campaigns initiated at high school age) - maybe 10% of the pupils were obviously involved with drugs, as against 90% expressing some level of disapproval. At university age (late teens to early twenties) those proportions changed a fair amount, as did the numbers who drank heavily. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:37, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

What would be interesting to see is the geographical and socio-economic distribution of the various behaviour patterns. With the extremes between rich and poor increasing, are the extremes of behaviour more concentrated in one of social extremes? Nationwide averages hide a lot of reality. HiLo48 (talk) 22:53, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

I would take issue with the OP's supposition that "most kids" in the 1960s were leading such libertine lives. Quite the contrary. That was a time when smoking regular cigarettes could get you suspended, drug use could get you expelled, and teen pregnancy was considered shameful. Clearly, society has improved significantly since then. (Ha.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:25, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

The punishment doesn't matter to the kids, so long as they don't get caught. I'm pretty sure all three of those statements were true for the whole period the asker is talking about, through to the present day. MChesterMC (talk) 09:19, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Maybe the OP is experiencing a bit of observer bias. I certainly get the impression my nieces (17-21 years old) behave quite differently around their parents or other adults, than they do around their peers. I see/hear some evidence of excessive alcohol use, casual sex, etc, yet they all seem prim and proper at home, shunning alcohol and not having boyfriends to stay overnight. That said, they are also diligent with their school work, study subjects in much greater detail than I remember from my schooldays, and get good results in their examinations. Astronaut (talk) 09:48, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Don't forget the 20th Century was a long time. I expect in 1900-1910 they still had very severe physical punishments in schools an things would be very different to 1990-2000. -- Q Chris (talk) 10:52, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

I can't speak with any degree of confidence with how things were in the US in any period, but it's worth considering:

1) A lot of TV isn't a great reflection of real life. Even those parts which are a decent reflection are often only a reflection of small parts of it. (Amongst other things, everyday life is often a bit mundane.) So you need to take care in to reading too much in to what's shown on TV.

2) Factors mentioned or hinted at by Astronaut, HiLo48, and other respondents mean that a person's knowledge of what's going on whether now or in their past amongst any particular large group must be limited. For example, if you were in a school of over 400 or so students, or had 80 or so in your age group, it seems unlikely you knew that well what a significant percentage of them were doing. In fact, even among your close friends, for anything you didn't actually witness but are instead relying on relayed accounts (and even more so if it's an indirect relay), remember that peer pressure may not only push people towards doing things, it may also push people to embellishing or outright lying about having done these things.

And as HiLo48 has hinted at, it's likely these sort of things vary somewhat from place to place and with other things like socio-economic status. So even if your have an accurate picture among your peer group in your particular school (or whatever), it may be things were fairly different in other places (i.e. it may not really apply to 'most kids'). To give an obvious one, I wonder whether getting a drivers licence was ever a big deal in somewhere like urban New York, particularly among those who's parents didn't even own a car. And of course, even if you had an accurate picture in the 80's if you're largely going by memory rather than detailed notes, people have a tendency to remember things somewhat different from what they were for a variety of reasons.

And as Astronaut mentioned, it seems likely you're now on the outside looking in so even if you had an accurate picture of the 80's, you may not have of the 2000's, or 90's; let alone the 60's or 70's.

BTW, I think there is evidence however that teens are driving less and less likely to get their drivers licence in the US [1] and other countries.

Nil Einne (talk) 14:27, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

• Define behaved. Among H.S. aged students, there is less use of alcohol, tobacco, and most illicit drugs today than at any point in the U.S. history: [2] According to that U.S. government study, the rates of illicit drug/alcohol/tobacco use by U.S. high school students is lower now than at any point in history EXCEPT for use of Marijuana, which appears to be rising. Teen pregnancy rates are also lower now than in past generations: [3] In the U.S. as a whole, according to that report, the rate of teenage pregnancy has dropped 49% between 1991 and 2011. So, on some statistical measures (druggin' and screwin') teens are less likely to be not doing what they are supposed to be doing. --Jayron32 15:53, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Statistics are helpful. The closest we can get to an answer. Thank you to the above gentleman that posted some, also to the gentleman who linked to that National Geographic article. These statistics bear out what I anecdotally noticed, that teen pregnancy, binge drinking, the "car culture," and drug use are all WAY down in high school kids. Someone posted that Marijuana use was "up" but the stat was only 22%, which is kind of laughable in a way...back in my personal experiences in the late 80s/early 90s, the figure easily would have been 95% smoking pot! Oh, its also my impression and fights, violence, and bullying are down as well. There are probably some statistics on that. To the gentleman that wondered if I was just remembering things wrong or being nostalgic, well I don't think so. While I had fun, high school to me seemed like a Hobbesian battle of all against all, or perhaps a Lord of the Flies type situation. Jojo Fiver (talk) 19:19, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

95 percent? I don't believe that for a minute. Unless you've got some reliable stats for it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:11, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

I think regional variations in such a big country would seem to complicate any generalizations about all American highschool kids -- daily life at a rural school in the bible belt is far different than inner city jungle just 30mi away. and it's only natural for one's memories to be clouded even without drugs, since those are truly formative years. You might even say that the underlying social dynamics don't really change much in adulthood, anyway. Also, clumsy cultural shifts like 24hr news cycles, social networking on cellphones, and 'reality' shows have skewed the spectrums of normal and taboo. El duderino ^(abides) 09:22, 27 February 2014 (UTC)