61 Comments
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Mike Kidwell's avatar

No ranked choice voting?? And you call yourself a progressive...

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William Adderholdt's avatar

I was actually hoping for "approval voting," a system which Substack allows and is also the official system of the Mathematical Association of America, the American Mathematical Society, and the American Statistical Association. If mathematicians prefer it, there must be something to it!

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Rob "Irony Man" Block's avatar

I would like to hear your podcast voiced by Gilbert Gottfried (RIP).

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Jeff K's avatar

I was thinking Christopher Walken, but Gilbert would do nicely.

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Edward Scizorhands's avatar

> And imagine the crushing disappointment the other five will feel when they receive a curt email telling them that we’ve decided to go a different direction.

Yes.

> Picture how hard it will be for them to tell their spouse “I didn’t get the job…again.”

Yes!

> Visualize the stress and feelings of inadequacy that will keep them up at night as they grapple with the fact that they can’t provide for their family.

YES! YES!

> Imagine how devastating it will be to wake up one morning and find a note from their spouse telling them that they’ve taken the kids to Bora Bora and are starting a new life with a fitness model

YES I SAY, YES!

Now I'm disappointed that only 5 of them can lose.

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Mike Laursen's avatar

Doesn’t look like Victoria will be all that crushed.

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William Adderholdt's avatar

The job is beneath Victoria. She is heading straight to the top!

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NTHW's avatar

No option to vote Victoria. Sad!

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Dolphus Raymond's avatar

Seconded — this silencing of fake black female voices will not be tolerated! Separately, and only asking for a friend, but does AI Victoria have an OnlyFans?

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Edward Scizorhands's avatar

Jeff is racis

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Valentin's avatar

I was exited about having his posts read by a sassy black woman, but sadly that wasn't meant to happen either way.

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Kevin's avatar

I want to vote for Victoria but she's not an option on the poll. WHY DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT BLACK BRITISH LIVES, JEFF

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WJ Hayes's avatar

Stewart sounds like one of the characters on the old Simpsons' episode Lisa's seeing her future wedding to some English lord. Disappointed all the Brits sound like extras from Downtown Abby. Clearly Substack needs a couple with Manc accents.

Oliver is the least worst choice.

(Frankly, I feel IMBW should be voiced by an AI the sounds like Foghorn Leghorn).

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Edward Scizorhands's avatar

Stewart looks like he should be an anime voice actor.

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Imajication's avatar

IDK, though it might be amusing to hear Cora riff on fart jokes that are somehow insightful illuminations of economic policy, I think the novelty would wear out fast. Oliver just sounds most like Jeff (and not as “wacky” as the right-up lead me to expect)

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Shaun's avatar

I don't know if it's just on my end, but all the voice trials are the exact same...

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Jeff Maurer's avatar

You mean when you click on “Taylor’s audition,” “Oliver’s audition,” etc? Or when you listen to different articles through the app? Because if it’s the latter, I was experiencing this yesterday; I was trying to use the different voices, but no matter what I did in “settings”, it always ended up being Taylor.

I think the answer is probably that this is a new feature and it’s still a bit buggy.

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Sarah's avatar

Update: I opened the article in a browser window and then it worked! Clearly something screwy with the Android app!

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Sarah's avatar

I'm having this problem too, also on Android app. When I click on any one of the samples, they all show as playing. Even when I come out of the article and reload it I'm getting the same one.

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Shaun's avatar

When I click on the auditions they're all the same (and they all seem to progress simultaneously). Interestingly, the AI voice for the article itself is a different voice.

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Jeff Maurer's avatar

Huh. Anyone else experiencing this?

(I’m a bit baffled, I’m trying this in different browsers, logged in as me, logged in as Paula Fox, etc — I don’t get this particular glitch)

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Shawn Emhe II's avatar

Same for me on the android app, but no problems in a browser.

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Lyra's avatar

I think it's app-only, and might be Android app only. Both mobile apps are absolute trash. You have to X out of the player at the bottom to get the next voice to register.

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Shaun's avatar

I'm on the android app

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Laura's avatar

Also on Android app, also had the same problem. I had to listen through each clip all the way througg and then back out of the article and re-open and then try the next clip. That worked for me.

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Matthew P's avatar

Yes I had that bug too. If you cancel the audio via 'x' using the audio player at the bottom, you can listen to another track again.

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TwoWeeksOfVinegar's avatar

It can't be Cora because she's a certified dipshit who can't spell American legend John Philip Sousa's last name correctly. Go back to 1906 utterly disgraced, Cora.

Also, they're all terrible.

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David William Pearce's avatar

I don't care for any of them. Here's my choice: a highly opinionated robot who a ass-munch with sass.

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William Adderholdt's avatar

I would love to have Bender from Futurama. "Kiss my shiny metal ass!"

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David William Pearce's avatar

Maybe they can get an AI approximation so they don't have to pay the actual voice actor.

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Bob DeVoe's avatar

This was the original voice and it was awesome. Perfectly dry snark. But Jeff hates me so he changed it.

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Malcolm's avatar

Josh Barro uses Oliver, and I swear it was trained on David Foster Wallace. It sounds exactly like him.

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Evan Marc Katz's avatar

Great voices, especially the British ones, but none of them sound like they can be funny.

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Lucidamente's avatar

Can’t AI be trained to create a “Jeff Maurer,” so that we can have his lovely dulcet tones all the time, every time?

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Alexander Kaplan's avatar

Your ability to ape early-twentieth-century verbiage and style for the Cora paragraph is super impressive. I've read a lot of books from that time and it's a really good parody!

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Roxanna Elden's avatar

Taylor with Oliver as second choice.

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GARY SAIN's avatar

Had to go with Taylor. May have been the ink, or more likely that the higher pitched female voice is easier for my hard of hearing ears to perceive. Hopefully Taylor will forgive me for my gender assumption.

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