AUDIO: GUY INVENTS MACHINE TO WASTE ROBOCALLER'S TIME
Fed up with telemarketers calling his home, Roger Anderson initially constructed a simple device that sends auto-dialed calls to a recorded message to waste the company’s time. Most marketing calls last a few seconds before hanging up because the system, is looking for a real human voice on the other end. Anderson, who works on telephone systems for a living, has now created a system that plays back a sound board of his voice. First, he has his recording say “hello, hello, hello” a few times to prompt the auto-dialer to forward to a human. Then he added some “uh-huh”s and “right”s. Then comes several lines of dialog to string them along for as long as possible.
* Genius. What are we waiting for? Let’s give him the Nobel Prize in Science now.
* Sadly, the robo-calling machine on the other end can’t actually get angry.
* Now if he could make one for when my family calls!
* So where can we buy one? The political robo-calls are going to be coming fast and furious.
* It’s basically patterned after the phony little comments husbands say to seem like they’re listening to their wives.
* An advanced version would include a way to repeat the last few words the caller says, in real time, like husbands do.
* “Then the dry cleaners was closed? You poor dear. You’re right. You’ve had a horrible day.”
CLIP: A sample of Roger’s work.
