Would you rather “Listen” to paul graham's Essays? | Hacker News Reader

Would you rather “Listen” to paul graham's Essays?

1 pointishan382 comments

Hi Guys. I have been an avid reader of Paul Graham's essays where he shares his perspective. But, many a times I hope that somehow I could "feel" what would it be like to have him communicate his essays to me, as opposed to me just reading them. We are building a voice cloning company, and it's very much possible to clone PG's voice and make his essays very interactive. Think about being in a room with him as he shares what's on his mind through his essays. Ofcourse, this requires his consent and his permission. Posting this in hacker news because I believe he must really be active here. Anyways, would love to know what you guys think!

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and make his essays very interactive

The essays have some hyperlinks in them, how could audio be as 'interactive' as that already is? It seems you mean something other than 'interactive'.

Anyway, I don't see what's "just" about reading someone's essays - it's my favourite thing in life. People like Hazlitt, Stevenson, Chesterton, Santayana, Russell, Emerson - and, yes, pg - I think he's a great essayist, my favourite from recent decades.

I've never been into audiobooks. I tried a few years ago - but all bad, terrible pronunciation of names, usually inappropriate US accent, etc. I hear there are good ones, although that was just novels. Also, when reading, I like being able to stop, think about what I read. (Not like a read-aloud story where the storyteller's pace is usually fine) Being able to stop at the end of a sentence, and repeat it, or repeat paragraph, or page, would be good.

I used to have tapes with hours of famous poets reading their own poetry - Yeats, Eliot, Plath etc - they were so awesome. Then when you read their other stuff, you can hear it in their voice. It's like that e.g. reading Rorty after watching a lot of video of him speaking, I can't imagine not having heard/seen him.

He is officially retired as the moderator/owner here. (There is a moderator team now.) His account has no post in the last three years https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pg .

IIRC he is active on Twitter. Also, try sending an email.

(Perhaps sending him a one minute demo of one paragraph may convince him that your product is good (, or he may get a lawyer and send a CD letter).)

(If your product is good, this is a scary word.)

(Note: I read the emails from my friends with their voice. The difficult part for an automated version are the intonation of each sentence, the pauses, and which parts to stress.)

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