### The “Yell at Your Clouds” Strategy: Why Your Phone Isn’t Listening and Your Smart Glasses Aren’t Cool

In the latest installment of “Tech Journalists Desperately Trying to Justify Their Screen Time,” *The Verge’s* Installer No. 113 has arrived to tell us that the secret to peak productivity is—checks notes—screaming at a piece of glass in your pocket. Because nothing says “I have my life together” like barking orders at an AI that still can’t distinguish between “Add eggs to my grocery list” and “Play ‘The Legs’ by some obscure indie band.”

If you’ve ever wanted to look like a confused Victorian ghost trapped in a Silicon Valley fever dream, this guide is for you. Let’s break down the logic of getting stuff done by shouting into the void.

#### 1. The “Yell at Your Phone” Productivity Hack
The central premise here is that vocalizing your to-do list is the ultimate workflow. It’s a bold claim, considering Siri still thinks “Call Mom” is a request to search for “Calm Mom” on Wikipedia.

**The Counterpoint:** Yelling at your phone isn’t a productivity hack; it’s a public service announcement that you’ve lost the plot. Voice assistants operate on a 70% accuracy rate on a good day, and that’s before you account for background noise or the sheer humiliation of dictating an email to your accountant while standing in line at Chipotle. True productivity is usually found in silence and focus, not in recreating the vibe of a frantic stockbroker from 1987 who forgot his medication.

#### 2. The Ray-Ban Meta “Whirl”
Our guide mentions giving the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses “another whirl.” This is tech-speak for “I’m trying really hard to make these $300 face-cameras happen.”

**The Counterpoint:** Giving smart glasses a “second whirl” is like giving a toaster that shocks you a “second whirl.” We know what they are: a privacy-invading novelty that makes you look like a low-budget extra in a *Mission: Impossible* parody. Fact: The meta-analysis of wearable tech shows that after the initial “cool” factor of taking a blurry photo of your latte wears off, these mostly end up in a drawer next to your 3D TV glasses and your Zune.

#### 3. The “Curated” Chaos of Private Garbage and Vintage Watches
The article suggests that reading about private garbage collectors, watching *The Running Man* (which the author claims wasn’t great—a blasphemous take on a 80s dystopian masterpiece), and obsessing over vintage watches constitutes being “well-informed.”

**The Counterpoint:** This isn’t a guide to “the best stuff”; it’s a diary of digital distraction. There is a hilarious contradiction in claiming to be a “guide to getting stuff done” while simultaneously admitting to falling down a rabbit hole of private sanitation logistics and Netflix talent shows. The assumption that more consumption equals a better “installation” of life is the great lie of the attention economy. You aren’t “installing” a better version of yourself; you’re just filling your RAM with trivia while your actual tasks wait for you to stop yelling at your iPhone.

#### 4. The “Freezing Cold House” Aesthetic
The author opens with a plea for hot cocoa because their house is “freezing-cold.”

**The Criticism:** Perhaps if you spent less time researching vintage watches and more time yelling at your Nest thermostat, the “productivity” you preach would actually result in a habitable living temperature. It’s the ultimate tech-bro irony: owning the latest Meta glasses to record your frostbite in 1080p rather than just fixing the HVAC.

### Final Thoughts: Just Put the Phone Down
The “Installer” approach to life assumes that we need more gadgets, more newsletters, and more voice-activated shortcuts to be functional humans. In reality, the most “Verge-y” thing you can do is realize that your phone doesn’t want to be yelled at—it wants to be put in a drawer so you can go live a life that doesn’t require a weekly status report.

If you want to get stuff done, try a pen. It doesn’t require a software update, it never misinterprets your accent, and it certainly doesn’t require you to wear a pair of Facebook-branded spectacles to see the point.