Montreal, QC - In a study by McGill University’s Department of Psychology, researchers found that men looking at the inside of books while commuting on public transit were objectively hot, regardless of evidence that literacy was being exercised. 73% of research participants in fact requested not to administer reading comprehension tests to the study subjects to generate evidence that the men were actually reading. Participants were cited saying, “why spoil the fantasy?”

“Talk about judging a book by its cover”

This rigorous study was conducted with participants that identify as heterosexual women, homosexual men, as well as queer, bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual and androsexual people. During the design phase, individuals that identify as asexual were also recruited into the research but were found to develop sexual attraction to men over the course of the study after seeing them read on the light rail transit (LRT) system.

Upon completing the analysis of the surveys, some confounders were discovered that skewed the conclusions towards increased and decreased attraction extremes:

• Men with good hygiene - Increased Attraction

• Men with crotch-closed, cross-legged sitting stance - Increased Attraction

• Men reading the Qur’an or Torah - Decreased Attraction

• Men reading the Bible - Increased Attraction (assumed ironically)

• Men reading while holding the book with one hand and thumb used to hold down book’s spine with a, minimum, 0.5 meter distance from eyes - Exponentially Increased Attraction

The current situation with the US-Israeli attack on Iran, the Iranian retaliation, and the ways that it is being characterized reminds me of a cold war-era Soviet joke of an American and a Soviet talking:

American: “I’ve got to hand it to your government - the Soviet Union has produced some very good propaganda.”
Soviet: “Thank you but we will never be able to compete with how effective American propaganda has been.”
American: “What do you mean? We don’t have propaganda..”
Soviet: “Exactly.”

As a Canadian, I have to live with the uncomfortable truth that we are not sovereign from American hegemony. The moral and political philosophies we perceive the world through and how we characterize the rest of the world is, essentially, American. However, the little separation I have from American hegemony as a Canadian and the consumption I have of media that is critical of the US and Israel points to one conclusion: America and Israel are today’s greatest perpetrators of terror, sponsors of terror, and agents of destabilization.

The American hegemony has blue pilled us into the stance that we’ve reached an “end of history” status for morality. That, while we may be self-critical at times, only we know what justice is and others don’t. That we may fall short of consistently upholding justice, but we actually care to uphold justice. And that our concepts of justice, human rights, and goodness have been perfected and don’t need to be explored further. By contrast other nations, principally our adversaries and rivals, want to enforce injustice.

I’m not old enough to honestly criticize post-9/11 war on terror or the Iraq war, but one thing that feels consistent with what is happening now in Iran is that form of propaganda: “we are for justice, they are for injustice”. This is very different from CCP-style propaganda of “democracy is chaos” or Nazi-era propaganda of “exterminating the parasites”. Our propaganda tricks us into adopting a worldview that gives us the self-righteousness and license to be critical of others and what they are doing.

I would never defend the Islamic Republic, what they’ve done to their people, or how they’ve represented Islam (especially as a Shi’a Muslim myself). But their anti-American and anti-Zionist stances have been stances of resistance to what they describe as a colonial/imperial power in Israel and an actively/historically destabilizing power in the USA. I don’t doubt that this has manifested into hate-filled, antisemitic propaganda which has led to atrocities that cannot be justified. However, can an honest argument be made that those anti-American and anti-Zionist stances are unfounded? When the US ambassador to Israel supports the expansion of Israel from Egypt to Iraq after Israel has been occupying and annexing territory since its formation, how can acts of resistance (justified or not) to this be the source of instability?

The absurdity of this claim rings even more hollow when it is extended to making the argument that our security in North America is at risk from the Islamic Republic. For a perfect synopsis of that absurdity, watch this clip from the late, great Norm MacDonald:

Not only does Norm point out the absurdity of the West fearing Iran, he also shows how we completely look pass the actual threats, historically, to security and stability. Norm expresses confusion as to why people aren’t more concerned about Germany, when putting into consideration the last 100+ years. For that matter, why aren’t we more threatened by the US and Israel with respect to the world’s security and stability? In the last year, it isn’t Iran that is committing a genocide in occupied territory and executing non-retaliatory strikes on 7 different countries. It’s Israel. And in the last year, it was the US that carried out regime-changing strikes on Venezuela and Iran while threatening to annex Greenland and Canada.

The type of propaganda that normalizes the actions of the US and Israel is the same that dismisses President Trump’s rhetoric as puffery or (even more insidiously) as alien to the American experiment. It is the propaganda that convinces us that we know what’s best and that we know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are because it presumes to know what “good” and “bad” are. It doesn’t feed the insecurity and rage that Nazi propaganda does. And it doesn’t feed the anxiety of chaos and disorder that communist propaganda does. Instead, it does something more insidious. It feeds the vanity and narcissism that we are the protagonist and whoever is in opposition to us is the antagonist. The protagonist is allowed to be imperfect, make mistakes, have a “bad day” (or a bad election). The protagonist is rewarded when they show growth. The antagonist is not extended any of this.

I don’t know what justice is. And I tend to be suspicious of people who are certain of their concepts of justice and injustice. The definition of justice that I gravitate towards is where “power” flows from the more powerful to the less powerful. There’s a lot of holes in this. For example, is Robin Hood an agent of justice or a thief? Or, is the Joker an agent of justice when converting corruption into chaos? In reality, I think the way justice truly manifests is a little more cynical. I would argue that justice is carried out when the powerful are rewarded (shout out to Thrasymachus) - where “might makes right”. When Saddam Hussein was decapitated, justice wasn’t served to the Iraqi people. Justice was served to the military-industrial complex. When a person pays a speeding ticket, justice isn’t served to the security of the public. Justice is served to the people who can afford the speeding ticket.

I think it’s worth reflecting on what justice is and how the powerful parties in the context you live in are describing themselves carrying out justice. Because one thing that is consistent and undeniable, is that it is the powerful that carry out justice. Whatever definition of justice you adhere to, it cannot be served by the less powerful. A worker needs to form a union to accumulate power if they want justice. And it is why acts of resistance are characterized as terrorism. A Palestinian in Gaza may want justice for the rubble where their home was, but what power do they have to serve it? In fact, we in the West claim that justice was served when we raised their home to rubble. We can do that because we have the power to.

This is where I am stuck when it comes to Iran. The regime, in the power it has consolidated over its people, has been the subject of criticism and protest in Iran and around the world. As a Canadian without Iranian heritage, I don’t think it’s my place to say it is good or bad that the regime is being attacked - for that, I defer to the diverse opinions held by Iranians. However, I don’t know if justice is being served to Iranians in this war when it is the US and Israel that are the parties serving it. When hearing reports about the assassinations of top leadership up to, and including, the Ayatollah, I don’t see justice being served to the Iranian people. This is not a commentary on the goodness or badness of the people that have been assassinated. It is an analysis of power and where it is flowing.

With the war in Iran and its destabilization, is power flowing to the Iranian people? Or is it flowing to Israel in that they are destroying their only regional adversary? By the definition I’m comfortable with, this is not justice.

As an aside, war is fucked up and you’re fucked up if you think it is ever okay to start it.

Peace out.

When using it as a metaphor, my “shoestring” stack for generating customer insights comprised of:

1. A stable internet connection (public libraries are good)

2. Google Workspace (standard, $15/mth); branded business email, recorded Google Meet, Gemini AI, appointment booking

3. Dovetail account (free tier)

4. Hubspot account (free tier); Attio looked good too

5. Free trials for lead generation tools; LinkedIn sales navigator, Instantly, Dripify, etc.

   • Stagger the trials to optimize each platform

   • Very painful to maintain CRM when moving through each one but I had no money

6. Granola AI Basic (free tier)

7. Miro Board (free tier)

8. Daily showers at the end of the day to forget I’m crying

Context

Starting a venture from zero (like, literally) was a painful education of managing priorities and re-evaluating their order of importance on an hourly basis. Fortunately, I’m a psychological masochist. Just kidding. Probably.

I had no cash flow so there wasn’t a buffer to conduct a longitudinal study, exhausting primary and secondary sources, followed by a rigorous analysis of the data collected towards publishing a beautifully crafted report on the evolution of the “Add to Cart” button in eCommerce.

I had access to a stable eCommerce platform, a reliable supplier, and a curious nature. By the way, how are you?

I wanted to grow the marketplace I was building, but I only had a general understanding of the market I was building for and I didn’t even know for sure who my target customer was.

Product-Market Fit

What I learned early is that product-market fit isn’t a precious gem that you’re mining for. It’s the greased-up deaf guy from Family Guy that you’re trying to catch.

It’s an ongoing process that you may catch, but will slip away once you think you’ve won. Also, the market is deaf so you should try a variety of communication techniques (the metaphor isn’t as strong here). Martina Lauchengco describes finding product-market fit as a “discovery and rediscovery” process in LOVED. But that felt cyclical and stupid. Like Ralph Wiggum easter egg hunting.

What I did learn and found helpful was Lauchengco describing the process of determining market fit as “taking inputs from discovery work and applying them to what people are likely to truly do in real-life conditions” [chapter 11, LOVED]. This was a big contrast to my experience in design research where the discovery work was to the end of creating delightful and helpful user experiences.

For customer and market research, I needed to generate insights to position and message my product to make it desirable - to make my customer need it and then do something about that feeling.

Customer and Market Research

So how do you get these insights when you have no money and need to prioritize growth? You repurpose a mediocre growth opportunity as a great customer research opportunity. This is a take on the old adage, “one man’s garbage is another man’s gold.” I took a sales call with a lead and read the situation to evaluate if it would serve better as a customer research opportunity.

I never treated my positioning as complete, especially with a prospective customer who was not resonating with my messaging. Instead, I took it as an opportunity to test hypotheses for different positioning and I started to notice patterns emerging. I was creating customer personas from the bottom-up with my “garbage” sales calls.

A simple case: there were two clinics that offered the same services, with the same revenue, in the same region, with many of the same clinicians working at both clinics. But only one of the clinics used my product. When the sales call was going nowhere with the non-customer, I transitioned to just learning about what’s different about their clinic.

I learned that they are right next to a rehab centre who is their primary referral source for cases, which meant that their priorities were completely different and how I was positioning the product was of little consequence to them. I pivoted to test other positioning that highlighted different value propositions for my product. It didn’t lead to a conversion but there was signal.

A customer insight, generated!

To keep with the metaphor, the greased-up deaf guy slipped from my hands but I learned that wearing nitrile-coated gloves allowed me to maintain a grip for a little while longer.

Summary

Collapsing growth and customer research into a tag-team effort is not a scalable solution as you develop a more nuanced understanding of your customer and your sales calls become more intentional. However, this tag-team effort is a very economical solution that can kickstart your search for product-market fit.

If you’re at the very early stages of growth and you have the freedom to be as nimble as you want and experiment as much as you want, this is a great tactic. It allows you to generate actionable, executable, and mutable value in every instance you’re willing to put in effort.

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There is also the convenient overlap between a sales call and a customer research call in that they require some of the same key tools:

• curiosity

• empathy

• adaptability

• a decent CRM, and

• the suspension of belief that your life is a simulation and nothing matters

The last tool isn’t necessary for everyone but hopefully it helps you feel seen if this is a barrier you need to consciously overcome.

Good luck!

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Reader discretion is advised for unhinged stream of consciousness reaction to chapter.

Summary

The fourth chapter opens with the introduction of Hagrid, the keeper of keys and grounds at Hogwarts, whose job title is eponymous to the chapter’s title. Because in late-stage capitalism, our value-generating function in an exploitative market economic system is all we need to know about a person.

Much of this chapter is spent with Harry being punched in the face by facts about his parents (murdered), the Wizarding World (patriarchy), the concept of a Muggle (which feels like a slur considering it’s spelled with two g’s in the middle), and Voldemort - the guy who murdered Harry’s parents and whose name wizards and witches fear to say aloud (dumb).

The fourth chapter ends with Harry struggling to accept that he is a wizard (the self-doubt doesn’t last long), the Dursleys resisting Harry going to Hogwarts (with limited success), and Hagrid conjuring a pig’s tail on Dudley (fat-shaming) in a fit of cruel, misdirected anger in response to Uncle Vernon characterizing Dumbledore, Hogwarts’ headmaster, as a crack-pot. A claim that was legitimized, not debunked, from this reader’s perspective over the course of the series.

Reaction

They say good writers don’t need adverbs to effectively describe the way a character is saying something.

I described that adage pretty smartly.

So when Rowling starts the fourth chapter by describing Dudley Dursley asking a question “stupidly”, she is being pretty dumb and lazy.

But maybe she isn’t being dumb and lazy. Maybe Rowling is doing it intentionally.

Maybe it’s more about the story and the world than about the characters and their humanity being realized.

Maybe everyone in JK Rowling’s Wizarding World is a tool or simply a means to an end in telling the story she wants told.

Maybe it doesn’t matter what Harry Potter’s opinions are about Fruit of the Loom-brand underwear or Israel’s genocide of Palestinians or the Arab-supremacist genocide of black people in Sudan.

Maybe that dimensionality or complexity beyond the character’s narrative function does not matter.

Maybe it actually makes the story harder to tell if we’re confronted, or inundated, with a character’s paradoxes, dissonances, and humanity.

Maybe genuine confrontation with a protagonist’s moral fragility or being made to feel compassion for an antagonist calls into question too many things about what we believe and how we see ourselves.

Maybe that form of storytelling is too uncomfortable because it shows us how untenable and amorphous our concepts of justice are and how empty our indictments of injustice are.

Maybe this is the crux of tribalism and why it is so hard to see “us” in “them”.

Maybe we prefer to “other” them.

Maybe it helps us justify why we are not them and why they are there and why we are here.

Maybe it’s easier to create and digest concepts of “us” and “them” than considering if there is even an “i” that exists in relation to anyone or anything.

Maybe we are still clinging on to comfort and pleasure and ease and ego when we believe that we’ve conceded to nihilism or powerlessness.

Maybe nothingness isn’t the end, but actually the beginning.

Or maybe.

Maybe Dudley Dursley just asks stupid questions stupidly and we should shut the fuck up and Free Palestine before we have to Remember Palestine. Other stuff happened in the chapter. Mostly dialogue. I really hope this doesn’t feel like AI-slop.

Review

I’ll probably retract this statement at some point, but I think this may have been the hardest chapter for Rowling to get right in the entire series. Up until this point, it was two worlds in parallel play with pipes being laid about who Harry Potter is as a character, not his identity. But in this chapter, the two worlds were brought together to actually start the story. And I think it was done poorly.

This chapter falls apart with the manufactured rage from Hagrid “discovering” how little Harry Potter knows about the Wizarding World and himself. Hagrid should not be upset or surprised that Harry knows nothing; Dumbledore told Hagrid that Harry probably doesn’t know much. Beyond this, there was clear resistance to Harry entering the Wizarding World. Harry not knowing anything about the Wizarding World and himself is the plot device used to bring the two worlds together to actually start the story. Hagrid’s rage was disingenuously manufactured to have that plot device carried out the way it was. It undermined Hagrid’s relationship with Dumbledore, Hagrid’s value as a reliable interlocutor, and it called into question how Dumbledore is being presented as intelligent, beneficent, and powerful.

Sudbury, ON - The worst thing to happen to Janet Borough was the release of YouTube Premium.

“The ads between videos stopped me for a second before I could comment and realize what I was watching. Now, it doesn’t matter what I’m watching or when I’m watching it. I’ll comment on a video that came out last week that I’m watching it this year. You don’t understand the pleasure if you haven’t done it before” says Janet over voice note while pooping.

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Cupertino, CA - The original “Think Different” marketing campaign, created by TBWA\Chiat\Day Agency in 1997, was a response to IBM’s slogan, “Think”. A bold, conceptual, and non-derivative message by Apple - qualities that CEO, Tim Cook, is able to propagate with his expertise in supply chain management. Apple leadership believe bringing back the “Think Different” campaign for their forlorn generative artificial intelligence will help manage user expectations in contrast to competitors until Apple is able to buy one.

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“It’s no secret that Apple Intelligence sucks. It made my job at WWDC a lot easier since it is so universally dismissed, with delayed development and garbage releases, that we didn’t even want to talk about it. We’ll probably acquire a thriving incumbent and incorporate it into our brand. As a stop-gap, bringing back this campaign will give our zealots some nostalgia and the delusion that we can still build new products. Even though we haven’t built anything of note since Steve Jobs died” said SVP of Worldwide Marketing, Greg “Joz” Joswiak.

Wellington, NZ - “I usually spend a lot of time in pre-production of my films doing research about the character I’m playing, the context that the story is taking place in, and how the two fit together. And I did this when I played Adolf Hitler in Jojo Rabbit even though I wasn’t the centre of the film.

So it’s great that I will be able to reuse the character study I did for Adolf Hitler for Palantir CEO, Alex Karp. I’m looking forward to conveying the backdrop of the two being insecure douchebags in the context of their racism, blood-lust, and extremism” said Waititi while enjoying his morning apple juice.

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The PR team at Palantir is currently reviewing the draft of the screenplay despite the company already accessing the writer’s personal computer without permission, stealing their personal data, and flagging them as a terrorist to the Trump regime.

Miami, FL - With the FIFA Club World Cup principally taking place on the east coast and CONCACAF Gold Cup mostly taking place in the west coast, the Department of Homeland Security under the Trump regime thought they had the perfect “pincer movement” for their mass deportation sting operation. Unfortunately, when planning the events, both FIFA and the DHS forgot that they were targeting vulnerable, working class, people. This was made apparent when games were scheduled in the middle of work days with ticket prices reaching up to USD$2,200.

“I am here illegally to purchase weapons on behalf of my US-backed militia in the Middle-East. And I thought I would drop-in for a football match since the stadiums were empty and I could conduct my business there. I was apprehended by an ICE agent, but they released me immediately once they recognized my blood lust and affluence” said an attendee after the Real Madrid-Juventus match at the Hard Rock Stadium.

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Austin, TX - Between the twenty-two trips to the washroom that Musk took in the half-hour interview we had with him, the businessman was able to share an explanation of why his artificial intelligence is so racist.

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“After I left OpenAI, I was torn between building my own large language model (LLM) and the risk of it not expressing my unhinged racism towards Jews. I tried going the reasonable route for a little while with Grok, but last week, I thought we were ready to fix the responses that were liberal and woke. Unfortunately, we did not have the technical resources to build a new LLM for this, so I just bought up all of the Adderall in the area and started posting as the new Grok LLM.”

White House, DC - “We’re so impressed by how Netanyahu’s regime is able to continue the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank even while he’s here fellating Trump with a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.

Once Bibi had a rinse and the president gave him a check, the two shared a laugh about people thinking there’s going to be a peace deal. “Come on, you all know that Bibi can’t finish the genocide if the hostages are all back. Use your brains. You think either of them care about civilian life?” says White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt.

Squamish, BC - Canada has seen a surge in tourism this summer with many around the world who are angry with the Trump regime and are, therefore, choosing to boycott travel to America. And while the language, architecture, and genocide of indigenous populations is familiar in Canada for tourists who have visited USA, European tourists have been mourning the ability to talk down to Americans about their domestic and foreign policy.

“We are not enjoying this boycott of USA. Not travelling to America has been difficult and substituting it by visiting Canada has made it harder. We don’t feel better than Canadians. When we travel, we like to visit places that help us mourn our fallen empires by criticizing our former colonies. We miss USA and Americans and their lack of social programs that can break the stratified class systems we kickstarted for them.” says French tourist outside 1914 Coffee Company

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New York - Zohran Mamdani, democratic nominee for mayor of New York, Rep. Robert Garcia of California, and Lina Khan, former chair of the Federal Trade Commission, have all identified Charlie Kirk as their muse, spurring them to pursue public office. Mamdani, born in Uganda, Garcia, born in Peru, and Khan, born in England, were all exposed to the Great Replacement Theory by Charlie Kirk and had the same response: “hey, that’s a pretty good idea.”

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“I’m just grateful that they’re noticing me. I know that true conservative philosophy no longer exists and that this whole MAGA nonsense has been a Hail Mary in response to our dying empire. My last wish is that whatever filthy shade of beige my grandkids are, that they know I helped start a new era of democracy” says Kirk at his favourite New York lunch spot, Halal Guys.

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In an act of defence of the greatest civilization, and on this auspicious week that includes Canada Day and Independence Day, we are publishing the definitive guide to what you can eat with your hands. Because hands are what built this civilization. Mostly Black, Chinese, and Indigenous hands. But we know what you can use those hands for.

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Senator Chuck Schumer: “Personally, I have brand loyalty to Tena - I don’t need the fashion forward design that Depends offers. The truth is that this is no longer just age-related incontinence and we are truly not on the same page with America’s progressives. We tried tricking them with Hakeem Jeffries, but these young whippersnappers with their technology were able to figure out he’s just one of us.”

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New York City - As the polls closed for the mayoral primary last night, New Yorkers breathe a sigh of relief that the election has been all but called already. Many of the city’s democrats were grateful to have had the easy choice to make between Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo. The sex predator has already formed an independent party and will still, likely, be running in the general election this fall, making this primary a grotesque waste of time and resources. This has none-the-less been an opportunity for the city to reflect on ranked choice voting and what could be a longer process in the general election.

“Personally, I hate it. I can get a ride with Uber within 5 minutes, I can get a box of powdered donuts delivered the same day with Instacart, and I can get my weight loss pills overnight with Hims. But I have to wait up to two weeks so that the winner of the election actually reflects the voting population? I don’t think democracy is worth the wait. Can we please have something faster? Did we really give authoritarianism a chance in America?” Says voter who is now learning that he has been drafted to fight in the Iran war that Trump and Netanyahu started without congressional approval.

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The disgraced former governor will be running on a platform with Zionism as a cornerstone ideology - “because the sustenance of an independent apartheid state, over 9,000km away, is crucial to the governance of New York City” says Cuomo.

Three years ago, I went back to school because I worked in tech and felt that product strategy was, more often than not, being defined by people who had consulting and business operations backgrounds. I didn’t like it. No offence to you if this describes you. But I felt that if a product vertical in your organization is being led by a product manager that doesn’t have a background in design, engineering, or analytics, you are optimizing for process and productivity. You are not optimizing for expertise and user experience.

My work experience was in analytics but I wanted a more hands-on experience with development - designing and building both physical and digital products. I did a grad program in design engineering where I struggled a lot. I learned slowly and my peers in the program were younger, smarter, and more talented than me. There were days that I called in sick because I was embarrassed by my final product and I did not want my peers to see it. The shame actually caused physical symptoms so I wasn’t being totally academically dishonest. I finished the program with a capstone project where I worked on every part of the product development to produce something I was not embarrassed by.

After grad school, I took some time off before actively starting my job search which probably made it harder to get the role I wanted. I eventually got a job somewhat related to product strategy and development where I was doing product marketing for a 3D printing company. I struggled a lot. I did not have the project management or soft skills that someone with a consulting or business operations background has mastered to successfully keep multiple stakeholders aligned, marching towards a common goal. I was calling in sick again and avoiding the people I was responsible to. There were small wins and incremental steps in the right direction, but not enough. I was fired.

For the few months since this, I’ve been working on a project independently. The experiences of struggle and success have been similar to the ones I had in school and my product marketing role; the feeling of failure is prolific throughout where a good day feels like treading water after weeks of drowning. By contrast, the seven years before going back to school working in different analytics roles felt like lying down on a rudderless raft. I wasn’t struggling or thriving. I was living very comfortably and a good day didn’t feel very different from a bad day.

It took me a while to realize that this period in my life since going back to school, professionally, has been a blown out version of the experience I have every day as a stand up comedian. There is a consistent feeling of failure. I am imposing myself into a space that nobody wants or needs me in. But sometimes, there is a moment where I can take a gulp of fresh air and see that I’ve done something good. All of these things are happening repeatedly within a five-minute set I’m on stage for. The difficult part is when that breath of fresh air is not the last feeling at the end of the night. It makes the feeling of drowning not worth struggling against.

It may sound insane to continue this way and not return to the comfortable steady-state I had working in my analytics roles. And even more outrageously, I used to criticize people wanting to live in that comfortable steady-state. It’s partially because of the sensitivity I have to earning my privilege which makes me indulge struggle. But in large part, it’s because drowning underwater is where I craft something new and worthwhile that propels me out to take a breath of fresh air. And I appreciate that single moment more than the years of comfortable steady-state that, for me, were rudderless. Without direction and self-indulgent.

This isn’t for everyone and I have moved on from condescending at the idea of a person wanting to live in that comfortable steady-state. I even envy it at times because not everyone has to experience how low the lows can be and how infrequent the highs are to be doing something worthwhile. Some are able to do the things that give them purpose in that comfortable steady-state. The main benefit for me has been a lot of learning and growth. I have a little more familiarity with the path to a high to make them a little more frequent. And conversely, I know now that when I am drowning, the feeling won’t last forever. It doesn’t make the lows any less low. But it helps put drowning into context so I can sooner get back to crafting something new and worthwhile.

What this looks like in real life is that I used to think entrepreneurship was stupid. I still think it is stupid. At least the culture of it - the way people post on LinkedIn is very annoying. But I’ve been able to learn cool things going through starting my own business that has helped me discover that growing something matters more to me than the steadiness of a pay check. At an everyday-scale, it’s made me a little more resilient to facing the silence of an audience I’m performing a joke to that I’ve spent a year working on. That literally happens every damn day. It also helped me develop the project management and soft skills that I was lacking yada, yada, yada.

So if any of this resonates with you, try failing. A lot. Drown in your own mediocrity. You may learn that you are also a masochist. You may also find the things you’re willing to struggle for. For me that is my partner, stand up comedy, and building things.

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Coincidentally, I started doing stand up when I went back to school. Probably not a coincidence, actually. I’m still not good at it but if you laughed a lot while reading this, from start to finish, you’ll really enjoy my stand up.

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Summary

School is over and summer is upon the Dursley household, featuring Harry Potter. The chapter begins with preparations being made for Harry and Dudley to attend separate schools for the new academic year. Harry will be going to the local public school and Dudley to an elite private school where little white boys participate in mild homoeroticism by poking each other with walking sticks. Why else do adolescent boys need walking sticks if not to have an outlet for their suppressed sexual aggression towards one another?

The bulk of the chapter is escalating attempts at a letter being delivered to Harry being matched with equally absurd preventative measures being taken to refuse Harry reading the letter. For example, the Dursleys escape to an abandoned shack on a rock in the middle of a sea to avoid Harry reading the letter. Which seems a little excessive even if the letter is explicit instructions for Harry to kill the entire Dursley family.

The chapter ends with the clock striking midnight to mark Harry’s 11th birthday and someone knocking at the door of the shack at that exact moment. The thrill of the countdown to Harry’s birthday served no narrative function.

Reaction

This chapter has not aged well. Rowling presents Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia as being anxious about the surveillance they are getting and paranoid about the information known of the circumstances under which Harry is living. Under modern, surveillance capitalism, circumstances, Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia would be loving the attention and the feeling of importance they are getting through Harry - they’d probably make a TikTok series out of it.

More than anything, this chapter presents Uncle Vernon as having love and devotion to his family that ought to make most husbands and fathers feel inadequate. He risks his physical and mental health, security, comfort, and livelihood to protect his wife and child from another child getting a letter delivered. Because that is literally all of the information we are given by the end of this chapter. That Uncle Vernon has gone insane because he doesn’t want a 10 year-old, malnourished, post-colonialism, British boy to read a letter. Post-colonialism is included here to emphasize Harry being, emotionally, neutered.

Review

One of the hardest things I imagine writers have to deal with is balancing the trade-off between character consistency and narrative progression. It happens a lot in this chapter. The television writer, Greg Daniels, said “you don’t eat your seed corn” to discuss this trade-off. Which is to say, you should not sell-out your character for a great joke or to move things along in the story because you don’t know when or how you’ll need the character later on in the story.

Uncle Vernon, until this point, is not an avoidant person and he is definitely not someone who would overpower Aunt Petunia about decisions surrounding Harry. In the first chapter, he was scared to bring up Aunt Petunia’s family. When he did, she had complete dominance over the emotional levels of that conversation. Yet, in this chapter, he is paranoid and, most importantly, dismissive of any input Aunt Petunia has on the situation.

All of this is done to build out the fantastical world that the Dursleys are not a part of. Rowling does this with increasingly ridiculous methods of delivering a letter matched by increasingly ridiculous methods of avoiding the receipt of the letter. And in the process of doing this, she takes liberties with Uncle Vernon’s character.

Summary

To paraphrase J.K Rowling, nearly 10 years have passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on their front step. To illustrate the passage of time, she (what I’m guessing is Rowling’s pronoun of choice, given social discourse) presents the fixation and ornamentation of the Dursley household on Dudley’s growth from a large pink beach ball of a baby, into a fat boy. You could say that he aged like a Twinkie, but Dudley probably ate the Twinkie before it could age.

Rowling spends much of this chapter describing the miserable conditions of neglect and abuse in which Harry Potter is living and uses Dudley’s birthday celebrations as an indicator of it – a day where normal families would distribute care and attention equally to all children regardless of whose birthday it is. The chapter ends with Harry casually dialoguing with a snake leading to a series of extraordinary events that defy the laws of physics for which even the zookeeper could not provide an explanation for.

Reaction

Where the hell does Harry Potter get the self-esteem from to talk back and express sarcasm to his aunt and uncle? He has spent his entire consciousness being sat on by them – both literally, and metaphorically. Especially considering that the only thing he likes about himself is a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead – probably because it made him feel special and different. What a hipster-doofus.

Based on how he’s been treated, every answer Harry gives to something the Dursleys say should be either “yes” or “not yet”. Imagine how big of a prick he would be with this innate self-esteem if he had even semi-supportive guardians. Dudley is a real one; he knows that little boys can’t cry when their boys are around. However, for some reason, he’s able to count to 36 confidently but unable to add 2 to 36. Clearly, Rowling hates the person Dudley is based on and just wants to make them look unnecessarily stupid.

Also, how the hell does the Brazilian boa constrictor know any Portuguese if it was bred in captivity in the United Kingdom? Get real, Rowling…

Review

As the chapter closes, Rowling coalesces Harry’s misery and existential dread with powerful catharsis. The people he lives with treat him horribly, refuse to offer him any sense of self or connection to his family, and proactively deny any flourishing. The build-up to this is excellent, starting from the only information Harry has of his parents is that they died in a car accident and that if Harry himself suddenly died, virtually nothing about number 4 Privet Drive would change. Except that Uncle Vernon would have fewer things to complain about.

The transition to the summary was powerful with Rowling planting the seeds of Harry’s longing for connection back to the beginning of the chapter when he was dreaming about the flying motorcycle that he arrived on. It’s these seeds that make the peculiar interactions that Harry reminisces about with witches and wizards that he does not know, more meaningful.

Lastly, the relationship between Uncle Vernon and Dudley, in this chapter, seems strange and difficult to believe. Aunt Petunia would want to believe she bred a perfect child, and that Dudley could do no wrong. However, Uncle Vernon is stern and presented to avoid showing weakness. And yet, he continuously caves to Dudley’s whims (good publication) and offers no counterbalance to Aunt Petunia “babying” their child.

Summary

The story opens by laying the pipes of a willing and actively troglodytic family that marry the extremes of the human physique and procreate a symbolic incarnation of the human condition; a maleficent, obtuse, and pathologically reactionary, baby. We are then introduced to a parallel world to ours that is extraordinary and fantastical but subject to the same plot devices; fear, insecurity, and a powerful white man that keeps things together.

In spite of the gross lack of semi-colons in the first chapter relative to that first paragraph, the actively troglodytic family and extraordinary parallel world are connected like two clauses by the English language’s most misunderstood punctuation. To this end, the family of a baby boy in the extraordinary parallel world is assassinated and he is made to live with his only living relatives: the aforementioned family of exceptionally ordinary troglodytes. A classic premise for a sitcom – the original odd couple!

Reaction

First of all, “The Boy who Lived” as a title? Stupid. Harry Potter survived. You say someone “lived” when they have a tale to tell. At this point in the story, Harry Potter is a stupid baby who couldn’t even tell you the difference between a tale, a tail, and a worm (foreshadow).

Next, what is the deal with this random wizard that refers to Voldemort as “You-Know-Who” to Mr. Dursley, a person who definitely does not know who “You-Know-Who” is? That wizard knows that Mr. Dursley is a muggle and that they could not know who “You-Know-Who” is. He is essentially celebrating with a blind person that the sun finally came out. At best, he’s an idiot. At the very least, he’s an asshole.

Lastly, why the hell is some random teacher, and his bumbling pet, responsible for the adoption process of a child immediately following the assassination of his parents at the hands of a war criminal and terrorist? Spoiler alert: this is never answered.

Review

For the opening chapter of the series, Rowling seamlessly shifts the tone from the start to finish – beginning with a silly caricature of the Dursley family, transitioning to a tense and pregnant dialogue between husband and wife and ending with a solemn toast of an oppressed people across a country. As a result, she is able to effectively interweave a world parallel to ours that becomes accessible by a shared fragility and response to a changing sense of security.

In her attempt to establish the Albus Dumbledore character, I think Rowling tries to do too much too soon. Within a few exchanges in dialogue, he is shown to be whimsical, beneficent, omniscient, and omnipotent, yet unable to address 11 years of terror at the hands of Voldemort. Rowling does little to introduce or justify Dumbledore’s role in the story by prioritizing the revelation of his persona. More of what Dumbledore is capable of could have been revealed as the story progresses allowing for simple questions to be answered like why he was the one to decide what happens to Harry and how he got that authority.

The dialogue between Mr. and Mrs. Dursley did an amazing job of showing the subtle distinction between their perspectives. They are both presented as ardently striving for normalcy at the beginning of the chapter. However, from the anxious conversation that Mr. Dursley initiates, it becomes clear that while he hates things being out of the ordinary, Mrs. Dursley in fact hates her sister for being extraordinary. This contradiction is betrayed when she expresses hatred for her nephew’s name as being “common”. This dialogue, as much as the one between Dumbledore and McGonagall, lays the pipe for the rest of the story to allow for depth to these characters and complexity for the world that Harry will be entering.

1. My best friend is a Siberian Husky named Sura,

2. I live in the Apple ecosystem.

Okay. Now let me give you a few qualifiers about the above statements. While I live in the Apple ecosystem, I would not call myself an evangelist. I have a MacBook because it’s the machine my last employer gave me before I went back to school. I have an iPad because my research told me that they have longevity and can manage heavy illustration software (6 years later, my research has held true). And I have an iPhone because my partner has an iPhone. Let me add additional context to that last statement. My partner does not have an iPhone because I have an iPhone. So yes, I live in the Apple ecosystem the same way an agnostic person raised in a religious family goes to a place of worship — the product, community, and values are great, but I just don’t have the same relationship with it as everyone else.

The biggest frustration I have with living in this “reverse Garden of Eden” (how I refer to Apple’s ecosystem) is because of my best friend. The analysis of the advantages of Apple’s ecosystem has been done to death. For more on this, read the Tech Journeyman’s blog or watch MKBHD’s video. The TL/DR is that Apple is great at creating a “greater than the sum of its parts UX” with its ecosystem. That is all well and good, but my best friend is still a Siberian Husky named Sura.

Okay, I should probably explain. Huskies are beautiful, playful, caring, and smart. They are also mischievous, energetic, stubborn, and daring. What do all of these things ladder up to? I am terrified of losing her and she just wants to explore new opportunities for play. When she’s off-leash, getting her back requires a series of tricks (me, not her), treats, and tranquilizers. Not actual tranquilizers. Just playing with her to the point where she’s tired enough to sneak the leash back on her. That being said, I may, eventually, need actual tranquilizers if this keeps up. But what happens when we’re not in a dog park and she can roam free? My biggest fear, that’s what.

Okay, I still haven’t explained anything. Here is what is frustrating for me. Apple’s biggest markets are in the Americas, Europe, Greater China, and Japan. The only country that falls under any of Apple’s biggest markets that is also in the top 100 countries for birth rate is Mexico at 99th out of 100. By contrast, household pet ownership has increased steadily with nearly 70% of U.S homes having a pet.

I’ve tried several GPS trackers on Sura. They’re bulky — both the physical device and the UI of the companion app. The results are consistent: she chews up the tracker and/or I chew out the app. They’re also often expensive with a cost associated with purchasing the device and a subscription fee for using it. As a result, I have resigned to return to my reverse Garden of Eden and stuck an AirTag on Sura’s collar. This has been a solution for my fear the same way vertical striped sweaters make me look taller. I’m still only 5’6” and 9/10 instances I would need a reliable tracker for Sura, the AirTag is useless.

My recommendation: Apple needs to start designing and building for pets and they should start with an Apple Watch-type product that flows seamlessly into their ecosystem. The market is primed for it and growing, the need is there, and they have existing products that they can draw on for UI/UX inspiration. The product would largely be an industrial design and engineering problem with limited need for an on-device UI. Apple could even get away with employing the exact same design as they have done for the AirTag shell and incorporating elements of the Apple Watch hardware that are necessary for GPS tracking.

This is also an opportunity for Apple to generate UX research insights into their mapping software. For existing GPS pet-tracking products, you are able to define “designated areas” where the pet can roam free without the owner being notified. Understanding user behaviour for this functionality can help Apple improve their “Find My” UI and give their users a better connection between themselves, their devices/objects, and the space they occupy.

Ultimately, a product like this is unlikely for an organization like Apple where the focus is so deeply in human-computer interaction. However, consumer electronics have already been working with ambient technology with products like the HomePod, Google Home, or Alexa. I think it’s time that Apple started building for ambient consumers of their technology — the household pets. A reliable pet-tracker that is integrated into the Apple ecosystem could finally be what pushes me over the edge to become an evangelist and encourage others to join me.