Life Imitates Satire In US Elections


I was moaning about US politics and how rubbish their election system seems from the outside with people queuing for hours on in just to exercise their right to democracy that they are so proud of, and the breaking up of areas so that it’s actually difficult for certain minorities to vote (This is apparently called Gerrymandering), when @GladleyNet pointed out to me that Arizona had printed election material with the wrong date on it.

I thought she had the story wrong, as I remembered 8 years ago the outrage people exhibited when they had misinterpreted an article in the Onion about republicans urging minorities to vote on the wrong date, I even remember sharing the article with an American friend on Yahoo! Chat! (Wow that brings back memories) with the intention of getting a laugh out of it, she thought it was a serious article.

This time it seems that life is imitating art, there are actually election leaflets out there urging minorities to vote on the wrong day, whether this is intentional or not it unclear, it’s certainly a horrible thing to happen, it is only 50 cards of however many were handed out so it’s not likely to have much effect and the outrage at this story surfacing will probably make even more people vote.

 

Nexus 7 Not an iPad Killer But It’s not Meant to Be

Right now people are probably composing millions of blog posts singing the praises of or deriding the Google Nexus 7 that was announced yesterday. Here is a summary of what you are likely to read:

Blah blah blah blah iPad, Blah Blah Blah Nexus 7 Blah Blah Blah Blah competition heating up Blah Blah Blah,  Blah Blah Blah Google Blah Blah Apple Blah Blah Mountain View, Blah Blah Cupertino Blah Blah Blah 7 Inches, Blah Blah Blah Steve Jobs said it’s too small. Blah Blah Blah Could this be an iPad Killer? Blah Blah Blah I’m a pundit I know what I’m talking about, Blah Blah Blah probably not an iPad Killer.

The thing is if you looks at the specs for the Nexus 7 there is no way it’s aimed at the iPad, sure it might eat into it’s market a little, but compare there is no way that a $199 device is going to compete with a $399 device, for one thing the iPad 3 is resolutionary, whatever that means (I really wish Apple would hire someone who spoke English).

People are making the wrong comparison though, the Nexus 7 is priced exactly like the Kindle Fire, it even comes with a gift certificate for Google Play store that is pretty much exactly what Amazon introduced to raise flagging Kindle Fire Sales  earlier this month. Just look:

It’s practically an upgrade to the Kindle Fire at the same price point! I’m not saying that it’s not going to eat into iPad sales, but that’s not what the intention is, Google want a device that people will use to consume it’s content, they sell books, movies, games and other crap, the Nexus 7 allows you to give Google money to view the content they sell, plus if you have big pockets it might just fit in there which the iPad doesn’t.