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daily snapple fact #27
A ball of glass will bounce higher then a ball of rubber.

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doug at freewayslowdance.com

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Yay Drivel!

So I've been watching this reality-game show called "So You Think You Can Dance." I'll spare you the details, but it's a dance version of American Idol.

Anyway, last week they had something like ... 3.7 million votes. 6 of the contestants have the potential to get canned by voters. 6 contestants, 3.7 million votes. Assuming both guys and girls get the same amount of votes, let's do the math, yeah?

3,700,000 votes / 6 contestants
= 616,667 votes necessary to guarantee you're doing better than someone else.

I can put in approximately 10 votes per minute with my speed-dial on.
10 vpm * 120 minute voting block (you get 2 hours to vote) = 1200 votes per person per phone.

616,667 / 1200 = 513.

You only need 513 die-hard fans to vote consistently for 2 hours straight in order to save someone. This week they limited the potential cast-outs to 4. That makes 925,000 / 1200, or 770 people voting constantly.

That's not a lot. That's why Jasmine Trias did so well for so long on American Idol. Because there was a huge contingent of folks in Hawaii who didn't give a crap how well she sang, they were going to vote for her. And it's the same way in American Politics to some degree. Yes ... everyone gets ONE vote, technically, but it's the lobbyists and special interest groups who scream the loudest that get anything done. It's easier to mobilize one smaller group of super-interested folks than a large group of disinterested ones.

Anyway, thought that was interesting.

posted by Doug 7:57 AM

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