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script artifacts/script-primaryVO.txt

@@ -5,12 +5,13 @@ ready? Are you all prepared to take notes?
 **Get out of the user's fucking way.**
 Thank you for attending my ted talk, video over.
 
-...no alright, I'll elaborate. There is, or could be, technology that exists to be a means to an end. Instead, software in $CurrentYear is entirely an exercise in being an obstacle. I'll break it down to some rules.
+...no alright, I'll elaborate. There is, or could be, technology that exists to be a means to an end. Instead, software in CurrentYear is entirely an exercise in being an obstacle. 
+I'll break it down to some rules.
 
 Software is a means to an end. But app developers think they're crafting an ℯ𝓍𝓅ℯ𝓇𝒾ℯ𝓃𝒸ℯ. 
 They want to *increase* the time spent in an app. I assume this is favorable for ad revenue metrics. For those of us who actually do things, an app is a tool, and a tool is better when it *decreases* the time it takes to get shit done.
 
-take for example, Discord. They've given themselves loads of work to produce features, to justify asking you for money. Meanwhile it only exists in the first place because skype was bloated full of junk, all of the extra stuff makes the app slower. I get it; groceries and servers are expensive. nevertheless, their addiction to progress is harming their product.
+take for example, Discord. They've given themselves loads of work to produce features, to justify asking you for money. Meanwhile it only exists in the first place because skype was bloated full of junk, all of the extra stuff makes the app slower. I get it; groceries and servers are expensive. nevertheless, their addiction to "progress" is harming their product.
 
 The entire world of technology is mislabeled. the definition of technology is about applying knowledge to achieve practical goals. It's far more profitable to hide the fact that your only actual goal is extracting value from the people who ostensibly should be your customers. 
 That's why the only practical goal to achieve at the moment is adversarial APIs. We don't need yet another skin on your phone's built in music player, we need the possibility for your phone to install new audio codecs and an ecosystem of it.
@@ -44,13 +45,13 @@ so, ask. Should you?
 for example, keyboards on laptops.
 my laptop, much like every single other laptop I have ever seen within the last 15 years, is the least-bad design I could find. Laptop keyboards are universally moronic. 
 as a person who understands the concept of a file, I habitually save often.
-looking at my keyboard, the place where many years of muscle memory have trained me to hit the ctrl key, there’s an "fn" key instead, and the ctrl key is moved over to where i expect the windows key. fn + s is screenshot. Cinnamon's screenshot app has a fun white flash effect. That's why I flashbang myself *often*.
+looking at my keyboard, the place where many years of muscle memory have trained me to hit the ctrl key, there’s an "fn" key instead, and the ctrl key is moved over to where i expect the windows key. fn + s is screenshot. Cinnamon's screenshot app has a white flash effect. That's why I flashbang myself *often*.
 apparently, if you design a laptop keyboard, a prerequisite is some kind of brain damage that makes you think people want all kinds of bullshit instead of the keys on a keyboard. Fortunately, mine was able to be set once to let the keys do what they’re supposed to. However, on my black keyboard illuminated by my mostly black screen with a couple of points of extremely bright LEDs, I can see the unnecessary functions' white labels, and the actual f key labels have a dark blue one. 
 
 
 no one wants to chat with your "AI".
 
-the current state of the art of quote-unquote AI manages to both not do what it should, and do so much more stuff rather than what it should. But it's *such* a problem it deserves its own section. Even though it's been covered a million times in a million forms already.
+the current state of the art of quote-unquote AI manages to both not do what it should, and do so much more stuff rather than what it should. But it's *such* a problem it deserves to be ranted about for a million-and-first time.
 
 
 Microsoft, being so large that they have so much money that they taught us you're allowed to just *buy* a nuclear power plant, of course is sinking all of their money (and none of their brainpower) into the current thing everyone hates.
@@ -66,7 +67,7 @@ Cortana is dead.
 Now, microsoft will make you love Copilot. 
 Remember how they tripped over their own dick right out of the gate by starting at step 1 with a feature that automatically screenshots your credit card details and passwords? 
 hah, good times.
-Recently they're preparing to roll it out again, this time assuring us it's opt-in-only. Given their track record of "accidentally" forgetting that a user didn't opt in, I don't think anyone's going to be surprised when that happens again.
+Recently they're preparing to roll it out again, this time assuring us it's opt-in-only. Given their track record of "accidentally" forgetting that a user didn't opt in, I don't think anyone's going to be surprised when they forget again.
 
 
 indulge me one last tangent to complain about AI.
@@ -93,8 +94,8 @@ but you may not automatically update them.
 
 because no one likes ads, if you're a professional Marketer, you market *yourself* on the grounds that you can make a stronger impression. Which means making your ads more intrusive.
 Everyone hates ads. Everyone hates pop-up ads **much** more, because they pop-up.
-So in the extremely rare event that a person actually googles something, and the even more rare event that they find a good result, they might read the web page.
-imagine the *audacity* it takes to *stop them from reading* to ask them to sign up for a newsletter. You know, in case they like this experience so much they want to come back for more of it. Your function is to be read, putting junk in the way of the text is the opposite of that.
+So in the extremely rare event that a person the wider internet for something to buy, and the even more rare event that they find a good result, they might read the web page.
+imagine the *audacity* it takes to *stop them from trying to give you money* to ask them to sign up for a newsletter. You know, in case they like this experience so much they want to come back for more of it. 
 
 
 The digital markets act of 2022 in the EU granted advertising corporations the right to view the data they've generated, the right to take their data to other platforms. In other words, big tech gatekeepers don't get to lay claim to advertisers and treat them like property. It demonstrates we all know interoperability is great and enclosure is bad, 
@@ -114,7 +115,7 @@ Hidden information is bad.
 Software should have observability for itself during development, and you might as well provide that same observability to your users while you're at it.
 
 
-Apple says phones "just work", so the world keeps the faith. When something doesn't work, if there are logs, good luck finding them. On a real computer, if the whole thing is completely fucked, you can reformat and start from scratch. If your emacs configuration is out of control, you can do the same - "declare emacs bankruptcy". 
+Apple says phones "just work", so the world keeps the faith. When something doesn't work, if there are logs, good luck finding them. On a real computer, if the whole thing is fubar, you can reformat and start from scratch. If your emacs configuration is out of control, you can do the same - "declare emacs bankruptcy". 
 But if your phone appears to be haunted?
 Shrug, throw it in the trash and buy a new one.
 
@@ -124,8 +125,8 @@ let's not retread what apple hath wrought against the right to repair.
 Security theater has a lot of overlap with other problems. Most often, lying about security is the excuse for user-hostility - 
 
 Surely I don't have to remind you that flying is a nightmare, almost entirely for 1 reason: the TSA, which is undeniably, *purely* security theater
-Meanwhile in the US, for all the effort they put into telling you that the petty ritual of dominance they're enacting on you is for your protection, they miss 70% of test weapons.
-..hey, remember in 2008 when the TSA felt they weren't getting the respect the entitled themselves to, so they switched their uniforms to look exactly like police officers?
+-Meanwhile in the US, where the shoe bomber was headed, for all the effort they put into telling you that their petty rituals of dominance are for your protection, they miss 70% of test weapons -
+-in 2008 when the TSA felt they weren't getting the respect the entitled themselves to, they switched their uniforms to look exactly like police officers-
 ok, TSA tangent over, back to nerd shit.
 Websites are afraid of DDoS attacks. A web server is a fallible thing that can only deliver so much. But that isn't why a disgusting number of websites block VPNs - as evidenced by the fact that they give you a professionally styled frontend webpage saying they'll let you read if you sign in.
 
@@ -134,7 +135,7 @@ conform to known paradigms.
 
 You know how a save icon is a floppy disk? A type of storage media so old, I bet if you're listening to this you physically can't use it. But the association has stuck.
 You know how on mobile, the menu of all your options is probably 3 parallel, horizontal lines, a.k.a. the hamburger menu? another association that everyone just went with.
-In life, this extends much further. Red light means stop, green light means go. 
+IRL, this extends much further. Red light means stop, green light means go. 
 So when you have an action that could be destructive, you color-code it red, and when something is constructive, you color-code it green.
 These associations are arbitrary. But since they're there, we keep them.
 Can you touch type? imagine I presented you with a blank keyboard. You'd still be able to type, due to a lifetime of training.
@@ -155,7 +156,7 @@ Normal is not a valid target. Just ask the air force.
 and finally, a short list of features that you know goddamn well no one wants.
 no one wants to sign up for your newsletter - you aren't interesting enough to fill one out. Just get the stupid notification out of the way.
 scrolling is not an ℯ𝓍𝓅ℯ𝓇𝒾ℯ𝓃𝒸ℯ, every vehicle website ever.
-If you want to "customize my experience" before I'm allowed to have one, the answer to all of your questions is "whatever gets you to go fuck yourself".
+Onboarding is at best a necessary evil.
 
 The worst UX antipattern emerged a while ago.
 It picks a permitted subset of functionality, moves it away from anywhere it could interoperate with other systems, entitles itself to priority over what you're trying to look at, so it can be in front of your eyeballs. 
@@ -164,6 +165,9 @@ the Floating. Action. Button.
 it's a software screen notch.
 The pinnacle of getting in the way. 
 
+So, again:
+Get out of the user's way.
+