As most of you probably know, Lays is holding a contest where people create new flavours for the famous potato chip company for a chance to win $1 million dollars. After the taste-testing period, votes will be cast and the new flavour will be officially decided, and if one percent of the 2013 sales exceeds the promised $1 million dollars, the winner will also be entitled to those earnings.
After 3.8 million entries (and if the ideas of my Facebook friends are any indication, a large number of disgusting ones), I’m glad to see that the final three being sold in stores - Cheesy Garlic Bread, Chicken and Waffles & Sriracha - are creative yet still normal enough to be enjoyed by the majority of the population. For the sake of everyone sampling, let’s hope at least one flavour translates well to chips.
Good Luck to the three finalists – May the odds be ever in your flavour.
Should we be concerned that this voting machine in Pennsylvania seems to be altering votes? This morning a man from Pennsylvania uploaded a video of a defective machine that wouldn’t allow him to select Barack Obama. Every time he tried to select the Democrat option it would highlight Mitt Romney instead.
The voter “centralpavote” who replied to comments on Reddit, explained what happened:
I initially selected Obama but Romney was highlighted. I assumed it was being picky so I deselected Romney and tried Obama again, this time more carefully, and still got Romney. Being a software developer, I immediately went into troubleshoot mode. I first thought the calibration was off and tried selecting Jill Stein to actually highlight Obama. Nope. Jill Stein was selected just fine. Next I deselected her and started at the top of Romney’s name and started tapping very closely together to find the ‘active areas’. From the top of Romney’s button down to the bottom of the black checkbox beside Obama’s name was all active for Romney. From the bottom of that same checkbox to the bottom of the Obama button (basically a small white sliver) is what let me choose Obama. Stein’s button was fine. All other buttons worked fine.
The Academy Awards will now allow between five and 10 best picture nominees, reports CTV.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced yesterday that the number of nominees will be dictated by voting. In order to be nominated, a film will need a minimum of 5 per cent first-place votes.
In 2009, the Oscars expanded the best picture nominees from 5 to 10, but now, the number of nominees has been changed again after analyzing the voting from the last two years.
Retiring Academy executive director Bruce Davis recommended the change, saying:
“In studying the data, what stood out was that Academy members had regularly shown a strong admiration for more than five movies,” said Davis. “A best picture nomination should be an indication of extraordinary merit. If there are only eight pictures that truly earn that honor in a given year, we shouldn’t feel an obligation to round out the number.”
The unknown number of nominees will add a new sense of mystery to the awards too, as filmmakers don’t know how many spots they are vying for. The nominations for the 84th annual Academy Awards will be announced January 24.
I personally think 10 was too much, so I like this idea. Nominate as many movies that deserve it, not just because they need 10 spots. Hopefully this means the award show will be shorter, too, as less people are nominated.
