Lenny is pretty funny. Lenny is a series of pre-recorded audio clips driven by a VoIP system, typically Asterisk. Basically, it answers the phone, or has a phone call transferred to it, and starts playing the Lenny sound files. In between files, the Asterisk server is programmed to wait for a couple of seconds of silence (basically waiting for the Telemarketer to stop speaking), and then plays the next file in the sequence, etc. Some of the file are pretty short, and some have Lenny launching in to pretty long monologues to test the Telemarketers patience. The files are nicely organized
Lenny’s record is 38 minutes and 29 seconds. That’s short of my personal best, but incredibly impressive for being a Robocallee.
This particular “Hello, This Is Lenny”features a SEO (Search Engine Optimization) company trying to sell services to Lenny. Telemarketers probably exaggerate the truth to various degrees, but this one goes beyond that. Lenny is unlikely to purchase this service, but that doesn’t stop the Telemarketer from trying. At about 2:06the Telemarketer blatantly lies about talking with Larissa, a fictitious daughter of Lenny, that doesn’t exist. Listen for yourself, it’s fairly short:
For those that would like to play with your own “Hello, This Is Lenny” server, you can get the audio files through links at this Reddit thread; Where Can I Get Lennys Sound Files. There are other places that have scripts for using these files to build your own Lenny server. Perhaps if there is some interest, I could write a quick tutorial of setting up your own Lenny server using Amazon Web Services or your own hosted server. It could be pretty low cost, too, if Amazon still has their free year for a micro instance available. An army of autonomous Lenny’s would be awesome, wouldn’t it?
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