00:00:12.870
Hi everybody, how's it going? Oh come on, you can do better than that. How's it going? Yeah, much better! So hi, I'm Saron.
00:00:20.470
I'm the founder of Code Newbie. Do I get to press a button and something happens? That's great! So this is my first time in Colorado. I'm here with my husband, who is right there. Husband, raise your hand. Good job! You're doing great.
00:00:34.120
But very seven years! We've been looking for an excuse to come to Colorado, so thank you so much Chef for the excuse.
00:00:45.670
There are some pretty big differences between Manhattan and here. I'm most shocked at just the high quality of air that you all breathe. I guess I could take in a deep breath; I'm not coughing, I'm not dying, and I don't taste dirt—it's amazing!
00:01:06.670
In Manhattan, we are just overrun by rats, and in Boulder, you are overrun by bikes! You have a huge bike problem! I never knew there were that many people who enjoy physical activity of any kind. So that's pretty impressive.
00:01:19.259
But the mountains? That's a little too much for me. We know you're better than us, it's fine; we get it. I don’t need to be reminded at every single turn, that I'm not in New York.
00:01:31.710
Yesterday, we spent the day in Boulder, and I have to share a serious story. We had a near-death experience! I haven’t told anyone this, and I just need to get this off my chest before we really get into the talk.
00:01:42.250
We decided we wanted to go to the beach, so naturally, we went to the Colorado reservoir. We got there, and it was just us in the parking lot. Guys, there was nobody else. We walked outside and, in a few minutes, we realized at the exact same time that we heard absolutely nothing.
00:01:56.439
It was dead quiet—there was no traffic, there were no humans, no angry yelling or cursing, not even wind rustling through the trees. I've been watching a lot of Homeland recently, and right before anything bad happens in Homeland, there's like ten seconds of complete silence. I looked at my husband and said, "We're about to die!"
00:02:19.240
At that moment, I joked that I could not believe it! We just heard a leaf fall from the tree. You know how terrifying that is? That’s like some horror movie business! You're not supposed to hear that.
00:02:32.330
So, I basically risked my life coming to speak to you today, so you're welcome. My talk is called 'Lucky,' and before we begin, I have to give you an official trigger warning. There’s some not-so-family-friendly content in the beginning and then there's like a moment a third of the way in.
00:02:51.769
Now that I’ve warned you, it’s no longer my responsibility! The last time I gave this talk, oh sorry, we’re going to do a pre-talk. This is like the talk before the talk, like a trailer for the talk.
00:03:05.500
It was 12:35 AM, the night before I gave this talk, and I was talking to my mom. She called and said, "Good luck on your talk, I’m sure you’ll do great!" It’s going to be awesome, don’t worry.
00:03:18.829
I had given this talk like a month ago, and it had great reviews! So, we went on YouTube to see how many views it had. It had nearly 2,000 views and it had only been up for like 10 days! I was totally crushing it! So, I said let's look at some more stats.
00:03:43.639
14 people liked it, and 40 people, not so much. So I told my mom this, and she said, "Oh, Saron, don’t worry about it!" That's where that accent came from. It's not racist! I can do that; you can't. And she said, "You have to fix your talk!"
00:04:03.019
Man, you're right! I definitely have to fix it because I’m doing this again tomorrow, and I really want to make sure it's great. But how do you know what went wrong, right? It was a pretty long talk—how do you know what to fix?
00:04:22.039
I had an idea: let’s read the comments! I’m sure it’ll be filled with rich dialogue, great feedback, and constructive criticism. Let's see!
00:04:32.870
So here’s the first one: 'This is not funny, it’s a super serious, just whining about race and gender...f-ing Christ! The Chinese learn about quantum mechanics and are putting quantum satellites in space, and we learn to hate white men!’