From "What Kind of Person Fakes Their Voice?" in New York Magazine. I was a little surprised that the author, Katie Heaney, didn't protect herself against criticism like this (from her comments):
As a transgender woman, I "fake" my voice all the time, as my "natural" deep baritone voice doesn't really match my feminine appearance. The author seems to take issue with the awkwardness -- for the author -- of a sudden voice change in somebody in her social circle. She fails to consider the awkwardness the voice "faker" experiences and that that person likely has a compelling reason if they are willing to endure the ridicule, criticism, and judgment of those around them.To listen to Elizabeth Holmes's ludicrous phony voice, watch this:
And if you're looking for The One Where Ross Gives a Lecture in a British Accent — "You guys had me all worried I was going to be boring, I got up there and they were all like staring at me, I opened my mouth and this British accent just came out" — it's "The One Where Joey Loses His Insurance." Keep it up and you may get a call from Dr. McNeeley from the Fake Accent University:
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124 comments:
Blasey Ford is another example.
Vanity Fair has a couple of great Elizabeth Holmes articles if you’re looking for a primer. The Wall Street Jounal did the takedown itself.
I knew a man who would shift into this deeper, more pompous "authoritarian" voice right in the middle of a sentence. He'd go in and out of it. It inspired a lot of laughter behind his back.
I adore Holmes. She totally suckered The Best and the Brightest. Exposed them as the morons they really are.
She should be head of Clandestine Operartions at the CIA. Trump should seriously consider pardoning her and putting her talents to use.
I love how she put Mattis on the Theranos Board.
The fake voice is just awesome. Little Edward Norton in Primal Fear.
She's probably flexing her sternocleidomastoid muskles.
I adore Holmes.
I was thrilled with the idea that at last there was a game changing female entrepreneur. She wasn't in fashion or handbags or some 'women are underrepresented in- ' company, but a bonafide breakthrough technology. Not second in command or in a c suite backwater.
Alas she was the kingpin perpetrator of a grand financial fraud. A breakthrough for women in it's own way, I suppose...
I always greatly disliked how Hillary CLinton would deepen her voice in order to appear more authoritative.
The voice was too Buffalo Bill to be believable, though. There's tall blond nerds at MIT with deep voices but that was too much...
Of course some transgender had to chime in. But what Holmes was doing is (subtly, perhaps, but importantly) different--she thought she'd be taken more seriously if she had a more masculine voice, so she faked it.
Which makes me wonder what, if anything, she thought of the women around her and their more feminine voices. Did she privately laugh at them, like the con-artist she is supposed to be? Or did she suggest they do the same?
Figures you couldn't poke a little fun at the fakey (and not very sexy) voice without drawing trans ire.
I love at the start of the interview, when Cramer asks her what she makes of all this scrutiny, and she immediately goes to This is What They Do When You Try to Change the World.
She's got balls, I'll give her that.
Oops.
Ann Althouse said...I knew a man who would shift into this deeper, more pompous "authoritarian" voice right in the middle of a sentence. He'd go in and out of it. It inspired a lot of laughter behind his back.
I recently learned there is a name for it--vocal fry. Those who notice it tend to frown on the act, but it's effective. For men at least. Holmes does sound cartoonish.
A favorite, Cyndi Boste, Night Ride from Home Truths
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg2Yw0_u-q0&list=PL3E0JPmtRvlGQLey27gyQfRYiI21mayJ8
same baritone. I'd call it deep alto though.
Rehajm,
That’s part of what Holmes was counting on. The PC bullshit. Great hook. She understood her marks. The Droput and Black Turtlenecks were so much like Jobs that you knew she was just having fun.
She really exposed the idiocy of the ruling class.
She’s a National Treasure.
I don’t feel bad for The Walton Family, The Murdoch Famiky, or The Devos Family. These investors were wealthy and Sophisticated.
Greedy suckers.
She wrapped Madog around her finger.
You have to tip your cap. She provided an invaluable service to her country.
Michael K said... Blasey Ford is another example.
Seriously Professor Althouse, you're Really Truly NOT going to mention her?
THE MOST FAMOUS FAKE VOICE OF ALL TIME? You're not even going to say:
"'some' people accuse Dr. Ford of faking her voice; but I, as a Professor Emeritus KNOW that that is her real voice, even though i have nothing to base that on besides my biases . "
????
Elon Musk is also a world class grifter of The Best and the Brightest.
I’d take Holmes over him any day of the week.
I confess that I can't follow news about Theranos because I always assume it has something to do with the Avengers villain and my eyes glaze over and that's that.
It's weird. An even-more-fake version of the sorts of affectations that some celebrities, business people, and politicians adopt to somehow make themselves more memorable.
Bertolt Brecht had his black leather jacket. Steve Jobs had his faux turtleneck shirt. Steve Schumer refuses to wear his glasses properly. Etc.
@Rehajm,
That is precisely one of the real weaknesses we have going right now in our society...
The need to believe.
Worked for Holmes...
Worked for Obama...
"It Ain’t What You Don’t Know That Gets You Into Trouble. It’s What You Know for Sure That Just Ain’t So" - attributed to Mark Twain
Do trans people up usually fake accents?
I thought the criticism was unfair. Objecting to fraudsters faking their voice, or snobs faking an accent doesn’t mean you object to a trans person trying to alter his or her tone. Grievance hunting.
I know a woman who grew up with me in northern Alabama. Northern Alabama, remember that.
She goes off in college to Britain for a year at Oxford & comes back with a permanent British accent. So, we have a 'Bama girl tahlkin' likah hi-falootin' English lay-dee!
Anyway, she was thoroughly whack in voice as in other matters. Much like Ms Holmes, I suspect.
“I ain’t in no ways taard”
Hillary channeling Amos-n-Andy
A quick internet search shows I'm not the only one with a Theranos/Thanos block. That's good to know.
Margaret Thatcher took voice lessons to lower her shrillness, but even so was called Attila the Hen in Parliament.
Listening to women is very hard in long sessions. A male voice is needed to break up the sound penetration.
"Bertolt Brecht had his black leather jacket. Steve Jobs had his faux turtleneck shirt. Steve Schumer refuses to wear his glasses properly. Etc."
I'm going to start faking Tourette's, like Cartman in South Park.
American Hustle (2013) Amy Adams as Sydney adopts a British accent to work a scam.
When I lived in Ithaca NY in the 70's my boyfriend (now Husband) and I frequently heard this voice. It was the voice of women who had deliberately lowered their register because they had heard that people don't listen to women speak. I'm pretty sure some Cornell or Ithaca College professors encouraged it. Hillary Clinton uses that voice sometimes too.
mccullough said...
Elon Musk is also a world class grifter of The Best and the Brightest.
I’d take Holmes over him any day of the week.
3/15/19, 12:22 PM
Oh yeah? When's the last time you or Holmes sent anything into space?
I saw her on Charlie Rose a few years back. She was absolutely weird....
At the five-star hotel where I used to work the story went around about a waiter who was attending a couple at dinner. They remarked at his accent and asked him where he was from, to which he replied "Sweden". The guest replied-- in Swedish-- that she was from Minnesota and spoke a little Swedish herself. The waiter confessed that he was not, in fact, from Sweden, but from Mission Viejo, and he'd been told he'd get better tips if he had a foreign accent.
In my job I work with people from all over North America, which includes speaking with them on the phone and in person. I have, over the years, softened my natural Boston accent. When I'm hanging out with local friends and family the accent comes back to the forefront.
Does that make me a bad person?
@ Kevin said... well, somewhat like Thanos she can snap her fingers and make half her investors' money dissappear.
What business is Musk involved in that does not depend on taxpayer subsidies or government approved barriers to entry?
I think it was on a periscope, so no way to google check, but I'm pretty sure Scott Adams said one time he thought his vocal dystonia may have been brought on in part by his speaking in a voice that wasn't natural for him. Don't remember how he characterized that voice.
Little Edward Norton in Primal Fear.
That is a great movie. I watch it once in a while, but, like"The Sixth Sense", you lose something seeing it again. The first time is best.
Another movie like that, and another favorite, is "Dead Again." I was half way through before I realized that Kenneth Branaugh was playing both parts,
Holmes: changes voice because her natural voice matches her appearance.
Transsexual: Changes voice because his natural voice it does not match his appearance.
So they are the same, see?
Wow,
Musk built an electric car and sent something into space?
That’s been never been done before. What a Genius.
As a transitioning transnational personne I find the Friends clip problematique. Je suis triggered.
As a transgender woman, I "fake" my voice all the time, as my "natural" deep baritone voice...
Why the quotes? Is the commenter trying to be ironic? It doesn't work: she is in fact faking a higher-than-natural voice. Or is she saying that voices can't be fake or natural? If so that blunts her broader point, doesn't it?
Elon Musk is also a world class grifter of The Best and the Brightest.
I’d take Holmes over him any day of the week.
Except tjat Musk is selling products (like electric cars and spaceflight) that actually exist.
Nonapod said...I always greatly disliked how Hillary Clinton would deepen her voice in order to appear more authoritative.
--
Go back to early Bill Clinton days where Hil' had that Arkansas accent.
Holmes exploited diversity sentiment, and her investors paid for their bigotry. Clouded judgment happens for different reasons, but color judgment is a notably common cause. Who would have thought these financially well-off people would be so green.
Bad Blood is a good read on the whole Theranos thing.
blasey ford
I've commented before on Obama's "Texas whistle" when he tried to appeal to moderates.
I went to law school around the time of Hillary Clinton. We female law students were told to lower our register and project if we wanted to be successful in court. So, I have always done that, and after decades of smoking, my deep voice is my natural voice. People call me "Sir" on the phone sometimes....disturbing. So I don't think Hillary's deep voice is an affectation. Her sliding into a southern accent is.
Musk’s business relies on government subsidies. And people aren’t buying enough of his virtuous products.
He’ll be bankrupt soon. Maybe the taxpayers will bail him out because he is So Cool.
The guy is a fraud. His lenders and investors deserve what’s coming.
So do his fanboys
My wife and I both read the book and are going to watch the HBO doc on Monday. One point on which we disagree. I found her extremely attractive, and admit it. People can claim that her accent makes her gross, etc., but when she was still on top I sincerely thought she was stunning. Having read the book, she no longer looks that way-she looks in someways completely insane. But look who she hoodwinked - a bunch of white guys my age or older who were attracted to incredibly smart women. Theranos did not fool the VCs (who smelled something fishy). She suckered a bunch of older super-rich white dudes.
White Dudes?
She was one of Obama’s Entrepreneurship Ambassadors.
The Best and the Brightest.
I have somewhere a recording of my father with a speech therapist in the 40s trying to cure his Southern accent so he could get a job teaching up North (I suppose). I can't actually listen to it because it's a weird format where the the platter spins backwards and the tonearm runs from the center out.
I lived in California after college and worked very hard to lose my NY accent; I had some success. 10 minutes after moving back east the accent was back, thicker than ever.
McCullough - yes bunch of older white dudes. Check out her BOD - it's like something from the 1950s. https://twitter.com/Rschooley/status/727239348584738816
I thought it was just common knowledge about Holmes. She sounds like the voice all women do when they are making fun of a guy saying something.
The Board of Directors had Kissinger and Schultz at one time.
And Obama helped promote the company by appointing Holmes one of Entrepreneurshio Ambassadors.
She understood her marks and what they needed.
I’d say Obama was one of her useful idiots just like Kissinger. Of course the megaphone effect from the morons in our national media was very helpful.
Rupert Murdoch gave her $100 million in another round of investing
The Best and the Brightest.
I find that Alexa responds better if I lower my voice.
Really.
I have, over the years, softened my natural Boston accent
The rest of the country thanks you.
Some military brats, who grew up in (and with people from) multiple parts of the country, will pick up the accents of the people they're conversing with.
My voice in German is usually a half-octave lower than in English. Don't know why.
Some of the American accents by British actors on their TV are shockingly weird. No doubt they feel the same about our actors' attempts.
As a transgender woman, I "fake" my voice all the time, as my "natural" deep baritone voice doesn't really match my feminine appearance
Curious that the biggest practitioners of stereotypes are those who are so vociferous in objecting to stereotypes.
Also, that in order to "be themselves," they have to fake so much -- their body, their appearance, their mannerisms, their voice . . .
And Americans can NOT do British accents.
I remember when I first started watching British TV and started hearing authentic British accents. And later met a few real Brits.
The American attempts at Brit accents is laughable -- and Audrey Hepburn as Eliza was especially atrocious.
Blogger tim maguire said...
Ann Althouse said...I knew a man who would shift into this deeper, more pompous "authoritarian" voice right in the middle of a sentence. He'd go in and out of it. It inspired a lot of laughter behind his back.
I recently learned there is a name for it--vocal fry.
--
I suspect Althouse (female, exposure to uni gals) is quite aware of "vocal fry" and would have characterized it as such.
On the other hand, I notice that Brits can do a really good American accent. Well, many of them can. Others . . . not so much.
As a transgender woman, I "fake" my voice all the time, as my "natural" deep baritone voice doesn't really match my feminine appearance.
In the broad term "transgender" we get all sorts of individuals from those who have surgeries to cross-dressers, but short of surgery to alter voice tones, we get egotistical fake voice sounds from the gender fakers. Among homosexuals, a telltale voice pattern can often be discerned but it obviously not considered to be a social abnormality.
Its Romy's voice!!!!
She self-identifies as someone with a deep voice.
If you find her self-identification anything but 100% wonderful--if you even note that you find it odd--you're guilty of bigotry and probably a hate crime.
The nice people will not stand for this!
I find that Alexa responds better if I lower my voice.
I'm so old that I remember when having a listening device in your house was a bad idea.
Harrison Ford does the authority-deep voice in his movies, especially when he is trying to talk sense into a woman. It's one of those tics you can't help but notice once it has been pointed out to you.
Ann Althouse said...I knew a man who would shift into this deeper, more pompous "authoritarian" voice right in the middle of a sentence. He'd go in and out of it. It inspired a lot of laughter behind his back.
I know of a person who identifies as genderfluid and has been known to modify their dress and behavior in the workplace day-to-day (presenting as a man one day and a woman the next).
Any laughter behind xir's back (not actually sure of that person's "preferred pronouns") would be immediate grounds for firing and likely complete social ostracism.
These are the rules you nice people have made, Professor. Thanks.
I can guess why a very young looking young woman who wanted to impress people with money would intentionally try to keep her voice low. It seems weirder if it is artificially low. But since that young looking young woman was successfully conning millions of dollars from people with money, you should say that it worked.
I had a professor who masked his southern accent successfully most of the time. The scorn of a fellow student of mine, a guy from Alabama, was off the charts.
"Except tjat Musk is selling products (like electric cars and spaceflight) that actually exist."
Since my tax dollars paid for them, they damn well better exist.
Where is my cut of the profits? I assume that there are profits?
I don't mind a British accent so long as there are subtitles.
Don't call it "ludicrous". Call it "successful".
One of the reasons I believed Dr. Christine Ford was lying during the Kavanaugh hearing was the way she would strategically change her voice, from authoritative to victim. There were a couple of YouTube videos that analyzed her voice changes in depth, which were convincing.
It's not "fake". It's her voice. She's just choosing to use a lower register. People do it all the time.
Sorry, I commented before reading any of the other comments. Always dangerous to do on Althouse. I'm glad others had the same negative reaction to Dr. Ford. Most of the people at my workplace felt so sorry for her (eyeroll).
I don't care about transgenders. I never even heard of them 10 years ago. Yes, they are children of God but I think they are sick. I just don't want to hear about them and their problems.
I'm Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive, "I don't care."
I don't mind a British accent so long as there are subtitles.
The Scottish & N. Irish ones are the most difficult for me, and I'm about half Scots-Irish. Considering how small GB is and how long inhabited, it's amazing they have so many and so very different accents and dialects.
Meh. I don't think it's remarkable. I pitch my voice differently when I talk to women than when I talk to men (with the exception of close family). It's not put on and I don't have to make a conscious effort. It's intelligent communication.
The most gibberish-like British accent I've heard was spoken by a very well educated young scientist. I had to have him repeat everything he said slowly, and then I only got about 2/3 of whatever it was he was saying. I asked him where he was from, and he said that he was born in Glasgow, raised in Manchester. The other English people in his group seemed to have difficulty understanding him.
Wrong in one, wrong in many.
Since so much of what she was and did, what's a fake voice?
One interesting example of a purposeful voice change is Daniel Whitney, aka Larry the Cable Guy. It's all an act. His real voice is of course quite different.
"On the other hand, I notice that Brits can do a really good American accent." My favorite example of that is Kelly Macdonald nailing West Texan in No Country for Old Men.
Holmes is trying to talk with a deep voice. It is similar to radio DJ talk. She is not employing vocal fry which is a raspy tone that usually comes in at the end of sentences.
Althouse has covered vocal fry repeatedly.
Re: Cracker EmCee:
Meh. I don't think it's remarkable. I pitch my voice differently when I talk to women than when I talk to men (with the exception of close family). It's not put on and I don't have to make a conscious effort. It's intelligent communication.
I certainly have a much more sing-songy voice when talking to family (co-workers have commented on this when they have overheard me answering the phone to family), whereas when I'm doing work, I try to be a bit more monotone. Co-workers have also commented that there are times when I sound extremely British, and times when I don't. I've heard recordings of myself from time to time, and my accent is honestly sometimes surprising to me. Unless I'm deliberately paying attention to it and trying to do an American accent, or trying to do an English accent, it's evidently kind of all over the place.
I don't mind a British accent so long as there are subtitles.
I like the scene where Doc Martin tells Signorney Weaver that he can't understand her because of her thick accent.
Holmes has 2 creases that run from the corners of her mouth down to her chin, one on each side, like a puppet's mouth. See that?
Couple that with the male sounding voice and she seems very much a ventriloquist's dummy.
OT: The slow red-pilling of Jimmy Fallon continues
(This is relevant to the Beto hands post. I thought Althouse might enjoy it.)
I kinda want to give her a pass. There's a difference between a "fake" voice and a "performance" voice. I do a lot of sportscasting, streaming, radio stuff, etc. You eventually end up almost being a voice actor in order to convey what you want to convey in a way that will get people's attention or make them want to keep listening. I don't know if Prof. Althouse used the same voice she uses at home in her lecture halls, but I kinda doubt it.
Holmes was fucking with lives with her fake blood testing machine that did not do what it was reported to do. Many scientists were taken in. Many more thought it was bull shit. And for a while the science was settled. Her scam likely killed people who acted on their health based on false, wrong, results.
I'm only giving her a pass on the voice thing, she's a terrible person.
(This is relevant to the Beto hands post. I thought Althouse might enjoy it.)
Tina Fey sardonically blamed him for Trump getting elected.
I'm still not sure if Damian Lewis is English or American.
Bud McFarlane is another one who sometimes lowered his voice to sound serious and learned, per Peggy Noonan.
You want to see what a con Theranos was? Go read John Carreyrou’s excellent book “Bad Blood”
I've been reading it as "Beet oh" for some reason.
Actors and actresses are selling themselves as the parts they play. The Cortez Representative from NYC actress is playing a role all day long. The age old talent of actors is appearing sincere. A recent study of actors' brains shows that while acting they can turn off the parts of their brains necessary to stay in a role.
Can they get their turned off minds back on after the show. Probably they can with the aid of Rx drugs and an alcohol binge.
Actors and actresses are selling themselves as the parts they play. The Cortez Representative from NYC actress is playing a role all day long. The age old talent of actors is appearing sincere. A recent study of actors' brains shows that while acting they can turn off the parts of their brains necessary to stay in a role.
Can they get their turned off minds back on after the show. Probably they can with the aid of Rx drugs and an alcohol binge.
mccullough said...
Wow,
Musk built an electric car and sent something into space?
That’s been never been done before. What a Genius.
****************
What Musk's people did, and which has never been done before, is return the booster rockets to their launchpads for reuse. That's a game-changer in space flight, making it much more economical.
And...when aircraft manufacturers design and produce next-generation aircraft using government money, do you expect a cut of their profits??
And there is this one thing about the story. Rich ont men have been showering young women with money in an effort to seduce them as long as there’s been old men, young women and money. These old fools all though Lizzie was gonna give them a tumble.
Vocal Control in Movies...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JUXtUeWUTQ
Is it possible that Ms Holmes worked out a lot & was into steroids or testosterone supplements? Maybe that voice was not so put-on after all.
I knew a woman in college who had a naturally low voice. Not one of the sultry, "purring" low alto voices like Tokyo Rose, but a gravelly baritone. Matter of fact, when she sang in choir, that's what she sung --- baritone.
I sincerely thought she was stunning.
There are two kinds of men: those who find bleach-blondes sexy, and those who don’t.
“Holmes ruthlessly curated her public persona in a way that should have read as flagrantly over-contrived from the beginning. This was most obvious in her self-consciously bland appearance, which looked as though she had done a focus group on how a young woman might optimize her look in order to placate male investors perhaps more inclined to believe in the genius of other men.
“Holmes’s hair and makeup seemed to acknowledge that she understood what was expected of her appearance as a relatively young woman, but she’d really rather focus on more cerebral matters. She couldn’t let herself be ugly enough to turn men off or pretty enough to make them doubt her intelligence, so she appeared to color her hair but left the ends scraggly and dead as it grew. Her blonde highlights were always present, but that was part of the problem — you could see them and where they were painted on, and high-end hair color would have hidden in plain sight. Holmes also always wore the same makeup, and not only was it always applied poorly, but specifically in such a way that you noticed its poor application. She created problems with her appearance that weren’t really there — like the fuzzy hair of a bad blowout that could have been easily smoothed, or the slightly askew application of a neutral, easy-to-apply lipstick — and then she pointedly declined to solve them. Just look at her over there, being beautiful but serious.”
Holmes' parents tried a "back door" tactic to get her in to Stanford. As he explained, "She was a fair student with low grades. Her parents heard through their channels that she could improve her chances if she took a summer program there and learned a language. While in high school, they put her into a summer program at Stanford to study Mandarin."
I have to wonder if those channels included William Singer.
Fake tunes (Theranos)
Fake news (CNN)
Fake noose (Smollett)
Fake boobs (Stormy)
> The Cortez Representative from NYC actress is playing a role all day long.
I am surprised more haven't mentioned Sandy Donkey Chompers'
super thin mouse squeak.
Makes me laugh when I hear Chakrabarti,
her Malcolm McLaren,
speaking Marx and Titania McGrath
in the manner of Jenny Tilley and Victoria Jackson
through "Breakfast Club Evita"
I recently learned there is a name for it--vocal fry.
Speaking in a lower tone isn't vocal fry, this is vocal fry.
It is very tedious to listen to for any length of time.
Andrew wrote:
"My favorite example of that is Kelly Macdonald nailing West Texan in No Country for Old Men."
I remember watching the movie for the first time, and I sat there wondering who the actress was- she was very familiar to me, but I just couldn't place her- then near the end of the movie, and in her last scene, it hit me- I had seen her in Trainspotting- a movie I had watched at least 5 times.
when she sang in choir, that's what she sung --- baritone
So I was watching these videos of the singing talent shows where the contestant sings opera (following the lead of Paul Potts who was the first to dare to do it).
And there were a couple where the contestant sings Puccini's "O Mio Babbino Caro," not in the soprano range like the professionals, but in the mezzo-soprano/contralto range, which is still fairly high. Problem is -- it was two guys singing the aria at that range. Much higher than Seinfeld's "high talker."
Very disturbing.
Better than vocal Fry
Vocal Sly
"I "fake" my voice all the time, as my "natural" deep baritone voice doesn't really match my feminine appearance. The author seems to take issue with the awkwardness."
Wait, aren't you trying to "fake" the feminine appearance, while your "natural" baritone happens to match your "natural" genes?
Re men singing in high voices: check out Damien Guillon or Alex Potter, if you haven't heard them.
I was a little surprised that the author, Katie Heaney, didn't protect herself against criticism like this (from her comments):
It's perfectly reasonable to expect every conversation on the planet make a special accommodation for transsexuals.
"I find that Alexa responds better if I lower my voice."
Does it help if you also call her "honeychild?"
"As a transgender woman, I "fake" my voice all the time, as my "natural" deep baritone voice doesn't really match my feminine appearance."
Isn't it sexist to harbor gender stereotypes about vocal qualities? Here, let me answer my own question. Yes, yes it is, deeply sexist. Burn the witch!
She's not a baritone, not even close. She's simply trying to modulate her voice and sound authoritative, but she's doing a shitty job of it.
According to "Bad Blood" just about everyone who heard Holmes speak thought her voice affectat ion strange, but so was her black-turtleneck Steve Jobs fetish.
And these are her positive qualities.
This bitch could've killed millions with her megalomania. She certainly took suckers like George Shultz for millions.
What Musk's people did, and which has never been done before, is return the booster rockets to their launchpads for reuse. That's a game-changer in space flight, making it much more economical.
I'd be willing to bet it costs at least as much to refurbish and test the booster rockets for reuse as it would to build new ones.
What I find interesting about Holmes is that she was a straight-up fraud from the git-go. Most famous frauds, including the eponymous Ponzi, started out legit, then went crooked a little at a time, when things didn't pan out right. Holmes seems to have believed that developing a revolutionary technology was something you could fake.
"...Elizabeth Holmes's ludicrous phony voice". That's a description/conclusion based on very little, it seems to me, Althouse. At best, it's judgmental condemnation and certainly doesn't strike me as an example of your touted "principle of charity/humanity." At worst it sounds like "bullshit". Sorry about that.
What I find interesting about Holmes is that she was a straight-up fraud from the git-go
They indulged a color judgment, hoped for a social justice miracle, and gave her the benefit of the doubt exclusively because of her special diversity class. Superior in rights and excluded from judgment... until they lost money and face.
Audrey Hepburn spoke six languages. I'm happy to give her a pass on not nailing Cockney.
I'm happy to give her a pass on not nailing Cockney.
She sure nailed mine.
Two topics, both disturbing, one is the relative lack of female engineer/inventor types and the other is envy.
Envy rears up in the comments where Elon Musk is compared to Elizabeth Holmes. What?!! Seriously! Musk is one of the greatest engineering entrepreneurs of our time. He reeks of technical achievement on multiple dimensions. He's either an engineering genius or a genius at finding and persuading great engineers to do great things or both. And yet you run into comments like this all the time.
What is going on? I can't say for sure but I think this is about by envy. Unfortunately, I have trouble identifying or articulating at any greater detail how this works and what specifically is going wrong beyond saying envy.
And then there is Elizabeth Holmes. She is remarkable in the scale of the fraud she committed. Is there anyone else comparable? I'm restricting this to frauds that depend on an alleged invention. Certainly there have been larger frauds by dollar amount in real estate or in the financial industry.
I wonder if this would have happened if she had not been a young, good-looking woman. Was she able to avoid skeptical scrutiny because of that? For whatever reason, there have been very few extremely successful female engineering types. People wanted her story to be true.
alanc709,
"I'd be willing to bet it costs at least as much to refurbish and test the booster rockets for reuse as it would to build new ones."
Hey, how much investment capital, errr I mean, betting funds, have you got? I'd take the opposite side of your wager in a heartbeat! A reusable booster has been the holy grail since forever; as some person once quipped, "How expensive do you think it would be to fly to Australia, of you threw away the airplane after every flight?"
Informative content I like it Elizabeth Holmes
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