What You Could Be Doing On A Weekend… (Ok, Maybe Some Of It)

1) Fighting Ebola With Nothing But Hope. They get supplies that will quickly run out, with no idea when the next batch will reach them. Then they drive 3 hours and trek through the woods another 3 hours to deliver some of these supplies. Because Ebola is contagious by the time you can see symptoms, they know their own chances of infection are high. According to a WHO report Daily Beast cites, of 240 infected health care workers in West Africa, at least half are dead.

Health care manager Emmanuel Boyah

Articles like this make you think if you are ever blessed with the means to do something, you “have” to. I don’t just mean donating or circulating something on social media – I mean if you are blessed with an idea, a talent, a gift, you can find a way to use it.

And it can be your own way; think it takes millions and big medical companies to develop vaccines, screening test equipment and what-not?

2) (Caveat: Cancer is not Highly Contagious Deadly Disease) I linked this kid in a previous TGIF, but here he is again – The 15 Year Old Who Developed A Far Cheaper And More Effective Test For Pancreatic Cancer At The Intel Science Fair.

Jake Andraka (center)

He was 13 when he lost a close family friend to pancreatic cancer. He describes googling and wiki-ing and Youtube-ing for answers, thereby discovering that about 85% of pancreatic cancer is detected late – by which time the survival rate is about 2%. Then he went through the list of 8,000 proteins associated with the cancer to find an appropriate marker for a theoretical test. (He found something around the 4,000th protein… And then I think the test in the end was a bit like peeing on a stick…)

It took a kid at a science fair. 

They should have more science fairs that reward efforts like this. (Btw his older brother won close to USD 100k from science fairs also…)

3) Mostly unrelated, My Loser Kid Should Get A Trophy. Mainly because I wanted to type how more “Loser Kids” can probably do with Science Fairs 😀 (But I’m not being completely flippant – Science Fair “participation trophies” have a lot better ring to them, and didn’t a lotta very useful discoveries like Penicillin come from people trying to invent something totally different… A participation in a Science Fair could mean the spark of an idea that someone else might even turn into another early cancer detection method.. )

Not… that I don’t respect sports, I grew up with competitive sports despite being a relatively sickly child (and btw NTU Hall 6 “a.k.a. The Sports Hall” where I spent 3 years of university life is just teeming with jocks), and it was only in Rockstar’s time that I understood better the value of non-competitive sports and PE as a very important part of kids’ education,  greatly facilitating their ability to do better in a classroom as well… Just that I mean a distinction should be made between sports meant for competitive purposes vs others, because some of the goals can be different otherwise…

If we as a society didn’t reward “winners” (not necessarily winners who are “nice” about it), there wouldn’t be so much money in professional sports, endorsements and college sports scholarships. But what do you tell the less naturally talented child who attends every single practice without fail, who practices all they can hoping to make the team? Sure, they can still play, but when you need to pick a winning team for an important tournament, that last spot is going to be filled possibly by a child who doesn’t need to work quite that hard, but is a natural athlete?

(Any resemblance to any real life scenario going on in schools is PURELY COINCIDENTAL, I know NOTHING please.. That was inspired by a former boss who knew Kieren Perkins the Aussie Olympic gold medalist swimmer personally (yes The Perkins was standing in our dealing room in HK once!) – boss described the training he’d heard about from young, how they picked budding professional swimmers, at least a small part from sheer size, arm span etc etc…)..

So in the interests of finding something for everyone, is just what I’m saying…

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4) 8 Celebrities Who Transformed Loss Into Something Powerful.

Like her.

And him.

Does tragedy somehow make a person more resilient, or does it weed out those who are not? Probably a bit of both… But the true inspiration here is that some of these people who rose up out of tragedy and poverty already had what it took to succeed no matter what. The resilience that sees a person through tragedy bears some resemblance to fierce determination to succeed against all odds, the person who gets over a difficult childhood/ other tragedy bears resemblance to the kind capable of building an empire…

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5) Crazy former Google interview questions. Because you apparently used to have to be Google to work there 😀 (But no, for real, some of the answers illustrate some useful thought processes to develop…)

“How many piano tuners are there in the world?” Or Chicago?

(The test is more about how you approach problems you are given to solve – for e.g., total population => percentage of population playing piano => percentage of piano players who regularly get their pianos tuned => how much business each piano tuner needs to survive…….)

Similar to Fermi estimate technique (and interestingly Fermi paradox refers to the argument that based on Fermi technique we should’ve been contacted by aliens ages ago because given the vastness of the universe, the number of sun-like stars, the probability therefore that there are other planets out there that can support the evolution of life, why have we not met any?)

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6) Kiasu-ism knows no skin color nor gender, but it does go by income… The Tutor To the 1%. This “star tutor” charges USD 1500 for 90 minutes and requires 14 sessions minimum. And he’s booked up for the next 4 years. 

Dis is he.

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7) All rise for The Knee Defender! What’ll they think of next…?

pic from Dailymail.co.uk

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8) I had to ask… Real Life Virtual Girlfriends.

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9) Rockstar Skit this weekend is And Now There Are Two.

Miss: Hey Ko-ko. C’mere a sec.

Miss: Let’s go bother the good people at the Indigo Kids store while they’re having a sale

Twins!

Good weekend, dears…