The Lobo

This Tuesday the 12th marked the 1st anniversary of my Dad's passing away. It feels hard to get around that its been a year since Dad passed. We had a memorial service and get-together yesterday.

On this occasion, my brother Don spoke a few words. And here is what he said.

"
Thank you for coming and joining us at the one year anniversary celebration for my Dad. I use the word celebration purposely since we are here to celebrate the life he lived, a life that he lived with conviction, passion and energy.                              

When I look back, I look at the qualities and values that Dad wanted for all of us. Being different individuals, i think we picked up on the things differently. As a parent he was a strict disciplinarian, and he pushed us to work hard and give everything in life our best shot. As a grandparent, he was so very different with his grand-kids. He was super indulgent and had such a great and loving relationship with each of them. He would sing to them on their birthday and was the perfect definition of the grandfather who indulged his grandchildren, who in turn loved and adored him.

Personally to me, Dad left me with two core values. The ability to keep pushing, learning and improving every single day of our life. He was an inspiration in how he would always be working on getting more educated while he was working. The second value was generosity. He was always so generous and helpful to his extended family, his community and the world around him. I hope to come close to his standards in these values.

Thank you Dad for making us who we are today. We miss you and will remember you always.
"

And listening to Don speak was a reminder that Don himself was an unbelievable and amazing philanthropist. He's generous and giving and has put his heart and soul into supporting organizations, mainly in India not only with funding but more important with time spent by his family and him. Every time he visits, he spends time with what is probably his favorite cause, the Sharanam Center.

While all of this is commendable, what I find amazing is how he gets people around him to participate. He starts by appealing to their good side and when that doesn't work, which is most of the time, he uses every option available. Whether its making them feel guilty or cajoling them and finally his most lethal weapon, bullying them. In a nice, difficult to say "No" way.

I just wish there were more Don's. This world would be a far better place. And also to quote him, "I hope to come close to his standards in these values." Which is why I do think he has earned the title the world knows him by, The "Lobo".

The Ultmate in Flight Tracking : FlightRadar24

Until recently, I used websites such as FlightStats  and FlightAware to track incoming flights when I had to pick someone up or to see if my flights were likely to be on time, by checking on the incoming aircraft.

They were pretty good though in some cases, I would need to refer to the relevant airport site for the most updated information. And then it all changed.

My colleague Claudian mentioned a site called Flight Radar 24. He said it was pretty good and that it tracked flights in real time. I decided to check it out. And I was blown away.

This site was tracking flights all over the world in real time. I tested it with flights that I could see landing and taking off. And the data was on the dot. I became a fan. And in addition to using it for tracking flights, I sometimes even used it to see airport traffic and delays and ... It was fascinating. It even had real time 3-D simulated scenes.

Learning that it was started by 2  Swedish aviation geeks as a hobby project in 2006 to become one of the most accurate provider of real time data that even airlines use, as well as companies like Boeing and Airbus defies imagination.

A Wall Street Journal review of FlightRadar24 is an eye opener.

Wall Street Journal
Published on Aug 26, 2015
The story of Flightradar24: how two guys in Stockholm can track flights around the world but big air traffic organizations and airlines still can’t. WSJ's "Middle Seat" columnist Scott McCartney joins Lunch Break.

For aviation enthusiasts curious to know how it works, check this out.
How it works
https://www.flightradar24.com/how-it-works

And ABC News has an excellent article featuring the founders Robertsson and Lindahl.
An Inside Look at Flightradar24, the Team Watching Every Airplane in the Sky

DuoLingo

Learn a language for free. Forever.

A few months ago Freia mentioned that she was learning Spanish using a website called DuoLingo. What I recollect from that conversation was that it was free. And she found it pretty good.

Recently I was listening to an Audible Original Series called "Genius Dialogues" The Genius Dialogues is the podcast with MacArthur 'Genius Grant' Winners. This podcast featured Luis von Ahn the creator of DuoLingo. He had also built ReCaptcha, which he sold to Google, and then moved on to build DuoLingo.

https://en.duolingo.com/

Here's a quick intro from their website.

What I found fascinating was how they manage to keep the application free and yet sustainable. And the idea is rather simple. The site gets its students as part of its learning to translate content from the language they are learning to their native language. And these translation services are paid for by clients, such as CNN who have their content written in English and have it then translated into other languages, such as Spanish. This funds the project and allows them to continue to offer language learning for Free.


Here's how they do it in their words.

To learn more, you can listen to Luis von Ahn at a TedX presentation.
Duolingo -- the next chapter in human computation | Luis von Ahn | TEDxCMU 2011

Young Achiever

Freia and I were watching an Ellen clip of an interview with a prodigy. That's when Freia mentioned that a friend of hers had appeared on the Ellen show. And she showed me the clip on YouTube.

The person was Sara Sakowitz. And it became quickly apparent that Sara too was a prodigy who at 20 had achieved more than most of us manage in a lifetime.

I won't bother trying to explain what she does. I'll allow you to discover it yourself.

Sara on Ellen

A Young Scientist's Perspective

 

Sara on 22 under 22
https://22under22.hercampus.com/2016/sara-sakowitz

And finally you can check out Sara's own website
http://sarasakowitz.com/

Should we Tolerate the Intolerant ?

The last couple of years, there's been significant number of people and media India talking about "intolerance" becoming a part of an ugly side of Indian Society. While some part of the issues and incidents highlighted are political in nature, I think that in several cases, unfortunately there is merit to these allegations.

What is even more concerning is that this phenomenon seems to be rearing its ugly head across the globe. In Asia, Europe, America, ...

A few days ago, it came to the fore in Charlottesville, US.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/us/charlottesville-virginia-overview.html?mcubz=0

And this is when it becomes important for us to understand the Paradox of Tolerance and make a decision. Who are we and what do we want to do?

“
The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato.

Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.

- In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.

We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
”
- Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/25998-the-so-called-paradox-of-freedom-is-the-argument-that-freedom

For the audio-visual minded, here's an explanation of the paradox.
What is PARADOX OF TOLERANCE?

All of this leads to a fundamental question. Why should we be just tolerant. Can we not be accepting. And like most thoughts, someone, somewhere has already answered it. Extremely well.

Tolerance is a dirty word
Andrew Sayer - TEDxSemesterAtSea

And while we are on paradoxes, it would be great to check out 25 of them in 6 minutes.
25 CRAZIEST Paradoxes That Will Blow Your Mind

Muktangan - New Model of Education

Recently Reia spent 2 weeks volunteering at a public school run by "Muktangan". She enjoyed her time there and was very excited by the time she spent at the Muktanagan school and with the kids. Her last day was supposed to be Tuesday, while the other volunteers were to be there till the end of the week. The kids requested Reia to come back for the other days, since they had not completed a "Thank You" card that they were making for her. She was touched. And of course, went back for the rest of the week.

While sharing her experiences with us, one thing she mentioned stood out to me. "I wish my teachers used these techniques while teaching us". Considering that she was part of the privileged lot who went to a private school, the comment about a public school stood out. More so, since the public school system in India unfortunately does not  have a good reputation and the dream of most parents is to put their children in private schools even when they may not be able to afford the significantly higher fees.

I asked for some examples and she gave me 2. I loved both of them. The first was the methodology used to quieten the class. As with all children the class is typically noisy when a teacher enters. But unlike most schools, they do not ask them to be quiet or some such in an angry tone. Instead they draw a circle on the board called the circle of silence, and as the circle is completed, the kids who are engaged in the drawing quieten down until there's complete silence when the circle is completed.

The second is getting kids back on track when during the class they get distracted. The teacher starts singing, "Are you listening, are you listening.". And the distracted kids are suddenly engaged and reply in unison, "Yes, we are, yes we are". These are seemingly simple things. And yet not so commonly used. Like Reia, I too wish my teachers used some of these techniques.

They adopt and use what they call a "New Model of Education".

"Muktangan is a new model of education providing quality, child-centred, inclusive English-medium schooling to thousands of underprivileged children in Mumbai.  We are truly "education for the community by the community," integrating the training of teachers from the same neighbourhoods as the students, creating empowered change agents.Check it out."

No amount of admiration for the founders is sufficient. Elizabeth and Sunil Mehta started Muktangan in 2003. And what started as a small initiative has grown into a major success that has brought quality education to tens of thousands of kids.

And in addition to that they are also great people. Although I've not had the privilege of meeting them, Reia is full of praise for the dedicated couple and went so far as to say, "Sunil is the nicest, funniest, person I've met and reminds me of Daddy". And no, the Daddy is not me. She's referring to
my Dad, her granddad who she adored.

On behalf of Reia and the thousands of children whose lives you'll have touched, to Elizabeth and Sunil, a BIG THANK YOU.

You can learn more about Muktangan, their mission and what they do at their website.
http://muktanganedu.org/ 

What just hapenned to the Bitcoin ?

You may have come across news that Bitcoin was going to be forked and that a new currency "Bitcoin Cash" was being introduced. The change was scheduled to go live on August 1. And it did.

Several questions immediately come to mind. "What's a fork ?"; "What happens to my Bitcoins?"; "What's Bitcoin Cash". Since I knew nothing about any of this, I looked to the experts and they were able to answer all of the questions. I'll allow them to answer your questions.

August 1 BITCOIN FORK Explained!
BTC and BTC Cash Explained! What Should You Do?

The mainstream media too covered the event. For the lay-person. Here's NBC News' take.
Why Did Bitcoin ‘Fork’ Today and What is ‘Bitcoin Cash?’
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/why-bitcoin-forking-today-what-bitcoin-cash-n788581


Still want to know more ?

Bitcoin Fork Explained | When Will Bitcoin Fork?

 

Every new event is a threat. And an opportunity. Here's a take on how you can capitalize on this opportunity. A bit late to capitalize, but interesting to know.

How To Capitalize on The Bitcoin Fork

And for those of you who are interested in a detailed explanation, this is a great video.

Bitcoin Fork? What is Bitcoin Cash? What should You do?

And for those who don't yet know what finally did happen, here's the good news. Everyone gained. Today Bitcoin (BTC) hit its all time high and was trading at US$ 3,255. Bitcoin Cash, the currency Bitcoin holders got at a 1:1 ratio was trading at US$ 218.96. A huge win-win for all crypto-currency holders and specifically Bitcoin holders.