Slog
News & ArtsFriday, May 8, 2009
Politics / Tech OMG, Start the Conspiracy Theories Now
Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, May 8, 2009 at 12:56 PM
It's Amazonfail, Part 2: The Dumbening. Why does Amazon hate our president*?
The New York Times (no stranger to writing about the Prez) says that the name "Barack Obama," when read aloud by the Kindle's computerized text-to-speech system, sounds something like "Brack Alabama."Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos laughed about the gaffe, calling it "unfortunate," but the company has nonetheless hustled out a fix via its text-to-speech partner Nuance, which promises to correct the pronunciation of the name.
Thanks to Slog Tipper Marc for directing us to this grave—and possibly racist?—injustice on Amazon's part*. You'd think that they'd have learned from their aborted war against homosexuals a little over a month ago*.
*Note to the hordes of libertarian Amazon apologists who get all personally offended when Amazon is chastised: I'm just kidding.
3
Before the election, the BBC radio announcers pronounced his name like Bear-rick Oh-bama (rhymes with Alabama), but I guess someone let them know that they should pronounce the name of the Leader of the Free World correctly because they've got it right now.
5
Yeah, Paul. We're all such libertarians. If we weren't so blinded by our raging libertarianism we would be capable of appreciating the basic soundness of your series of perfectly reasonable criticisms of Amazon. You really nailed us there. Us libertarian fanatics, I mean. Couldn't fool you.
Guess I'll head out now to the, uh, libertarianism conclave or whatever we libertarians all do with ourselves in the evenings.
Guess I'll head out now to the, uh, libertarianism conclave or whatever we libertarians all do with ourselves in the evenings.
Advertisement
Most Commented on Slog
-
Hating People Doesn't Make Them Thinner by Jen Graves
-
Los Angeles Gay Bar Bans Bachelorette Parties Until Marriage Equality Is Attained by David Schmader
-
Fill in the Blank by Grant Brissey
-
This Reminds Me of the Great Calculator Scare of the Late '70s/Early '80s by David Schmader
-
Idiot Tries to Defend Bigoted Anti-Gay-Marriage Preacher on Anderson Cooper by Paul Constant
-
SL Letter of the Day: Putting It In by Dan Savage
-
Six Moms with Too Much Time on Their Hands and a Shitty Website Decide to Fight Gay Superheroes by Paul Constant
-
Why Mayor McGinn's Wife Canceled Her Family's Seattle Times Subscription by Eli Sanders
-
What the Hell Is Wrong With Seattle's Pride Parade? by Dominic Holden
-
Meet the UW "Swagga Suit" by David Schmader
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
Comments (6) RSS