گفتگو

CONVERSATION LESSON

GOOGLE EARTH HELPS MAN FIND HIS WAY HOME

Dan: AC, what’s happening my brother?

Aaron: Well, not a whole lot. What’s going on with you over there?

Dan: Doing pretty good.

Aaron: Yeah?

Dan: Pretty good.

Aaron: What’s the latest?

Dan: Feeling good about life. What’s the latest? I got bupkis.

Aaron: Bupkis, huh?

Dan: But I’m feeling good.

Aaron: You’re feeling good, yeah?

Dan: Good spirits. A little healthy.

Aaron: That’s good.

Dan: Getting some sleep.

Aaron: It’s good to have a positive outlook on life.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. What about yourself?

Aaron: Oh, I’m doing fine, doing fine, man, just busy at work. You know, doing my thing.

Dan: Yeah?

Aaron: Yeah.

Dan: So what’d you think of this story?

Aaron: I thought this is an incredible story.

Dan: You saw the movie, right?

Aaron: I did see the movie, but I saw it when it first came out and, you know, it’s just sort of been out of sight, out of mind until we decided to do this lesson and so revisiting it, yeah, I just remembered how impressive and touching and moving the movie was when I first saw it. How ‘bout you?

Dan: I saw it recently, it was … Yeah, super movie. I cried.

Aaron: Yeah, theDan: I am not one to do, a macho dude.

Aaron: Yeah, actually, it was very powerful when he was reunited with his mother after all those years. That was a very powerful scene in the movie. Yeah, definitely.

Dan: I thought it was … I don’t know if you remember this aspect, but the part where he worried about his Australian mother. So, you know, he was searching for three years on Google Earth, Google Maps, to try to find his family and it was taking, it was like nine hours a day for three years. That’s what he guesstimates.

Aaron: I hadn’t realized it was that long. I just had no idea.

Dan: So the huge part of his life, and he was working in a family business and he was showing up to work late and real sleepy and they could tell, emotionally, something was off with him, but he kept it secret because he didn’t, I don’t know, I guess he was just worried about how his Australian family would feel, if it would feel like he was trying to abandon them or didn’t appreciate them or … So when he finally finds, well he thinks he’s found where he grew up and he’s planning to go to India it’s, at that point, at least in the movie, that he tells his mother and yeah, it’s a really touching scene.

Aaron: Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan: But she’s very supportive, apparently, in the movie and in real life. I looked at, I listened to a couple podcasts and stories comparing the movie and what really happened. And for the most part, at least from what I’ve read and heard, the movie doesn’t take too many liberties with the actual facts.

Aaron: Yeah. I was actually, speaking of facts, related to this story. When I was doing a little bit of research, I came to realize, and I had no idea, but India’s a huge, huge country. It’s one of the most populated countries in the world, if not the. It’s right up there with China, probably over, what would you say, overDan: It’s like 1.2 billion or something.

Aaron: It’s about 1.2, yeah 1.2, 1.3 billion.

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: There’s something like, you know, like this is an extraordinary story, but in fact, it might not be as extraordinary as we think in terms of children being reunited with parents in India. Maybe not in this way, like from abroad using high technology, but there’s something like … Various estimates of between 60,000 and 80,000 children per year that go missing in India, and there’s something like 11 million children living on the streets. And a lot of these children they get abducted, they get lost, they get sold into slavery or the sex trade, it’s a massive problem. And apparently, the producers of this movie, Lion, after the movie was a blockbuster, was a hit, it did well, but it served to raise awareness of this sort of social issue. And they’ve launched some kind of campaign with a charity network to provide financial support to a lot of the millions of children living on the streets. So there’s sort of a, not only a happy ending in the movie, but there seems to be at least a happy beginning of a new movement that was sparked by this movie. I thought that was really interesting.

Dan: Yeah. I mean, I think they, I read that they raised a couple hundred thousand dollars. Which is a large sum of money, but really a drop in the bucket.

Aaron: Yeah, it’s a drop in the bucket.

Dan: When you think about how many … Yeah, it’s really sad. I saw a lot of that when I lived in Nepal. Children living on the street and scavenging you know, plastics and metals to survive, or stealing, or just really living hand to mouth. And yeah, in India, being such a larger country it’s happening on an even larger scale there.

Aaron: Yeah. Another thing I thought was interesting about this story was the way that he went about finding his hometown and his family ultimately just based on memory alone. Like he used, like he used his memories, which were probably a bit fuzzy, because so many years had gone byDan: Interestingly, I listened to an interview about that and he talks about how crystal clear his memories were and what he attributes that to is that he never went to school, I mean he was only five, but he never went to any sort of preschool or anything, and so he didn’t have, he was, he said he was a very visual learner, because he didn’t have … And he didn’t have many conversations with other people

Aaron: Oh, that makes sense.

Dan: And he thinks that’s why his memories of all the landmarks and the path to his house were so strong for him.

Aaron: But just the way … What amazed me was the way that he sort of deducted his … Like he connected his memories and combined them with the science of time and speed and he was able to sort of narrow or hone in on the approximate region this would have been based on the speed of trains and based on his memory of how much time had elapsed and where he ended up, I mean I thought that was really interesting.

Dan: He was able to rule out a lot of places, but he was far from pinpointing.

There’s actually this video that he put out, it’s a two minute video kind of telling his story in brief put out by Google. I’m sure Google loves that story. All of a sudden it’s not even Google anymore. We’re reuniting mothers and children. So it was a Google sponsored video where he tells his story in two and a half minutes, and he goes over the part where he is making a radius and how he came up with that radius and what he was ruling out. And he was able to rule out like Bangladesh and that part, that eastern part, northeastern part of India because of language. And he was able to rule out a big part of the north because of the weather, he was able to rule out big cities because he could see the stars. But it was, I mean you look at this map, it’s in the Google video, and it’s still this massive part of India. This huge, massive region that he had to look through.

Aaron: And the fact that, you know, I don’t know how much time you’ve spent on Google Earth kind of exploring the world, but there are lots of places in the world where the cameras just haven’t gotten yet in terms of-

Dan: Really?

Aaron: Well, yeah. Like in terms of Street View.

Dan: Right, but I mean in terms of satellite.

Aaron: But even satellite, there’s a lot of variation in terms of how detailed and how close you can get in some places. And there are even other places where it’s just completely blurred out. Like, yeah … So yeah, it’s amazing that he was even able to find that. I mean, had it been really a tiny village, yeah, the chances of finding that would be pretty low, I would think, in such a big area.

Dan: Well, you know, he, I think he had some systematic plan. First he narrowed it down and then he … In the movie he’s got kind of like a war room, big board with maps and pinpoints, and pins in the map, and lines being drawn, and it looks like he has some really systematic plan. But apparently when he found, when he found the place, he was taking a break and just kind of randomly looking at a river and just kind of following the river to relax his eyes, he describes it that way. And then all of a sudden the river led to a train station and he automatically went into his search mode when he saw a train station and then he was looking for a water tank next to a train station, and he saw that. Then he saw an overpass adjacent to the water tank and then he saw a ring road to the right of the overpass and it was just one after another they all fell into place.

Aaron: Wow, that must’ve been a huge rush for him.

Dan: Yeah, yeah.

Aaron: But yeah, I mean like it’s, yeah … Just amazing what he was able to do with that technology and his memory.

Dan: Yeah. But yeah, I mean, you know, these days mostly people are worried about all the tracking and all the recording that Google is doing of our lives. You know, from your browser history to Street View, to Maps, to what is their Amazon version of Amazon Alexa or Apple Siri called?

Aaron: Oh, yeah, yeah, I think it’sDan: Google Home, or Google Watch, somethingAaron: Something like that. But yeah, it’s like everything is recorded these days.

Everything is surveilled. Under surveillance.

Dan: Yeah. They’re this Orwellian behemoth but here’s this story about them saving the day.

Aaron: Oh yeah, what’s that? Oh the story here about Lion? Yeah.

Dan: Right, right.

Aaron: About Saroo.

Dan: So, I bet they were milking this movie.

Aaron: Oh, I’m sure they love it.

Dan: Pushing this movie to the top of their Google search results.

Aaron: It’s great PR.

Dan: But it is a great story. How amazing is that that he was able to search such a vast, a country of over a billion people and …

Aaron: Yeah, it’s incredible.

Dan: There’s something like 22 or 23 official languages in India.

Aaron: How many?

Dan: That’s how diverse India is. 22 orAaron: You’re talking about official languages.

Dan: Official. I’m not talking about dialects.

Aaron: Okay.

Dan: Official languages.

Aaron: Because I was going to say, there must be hundreds in India, you know, it’s so huge.

Dan: Oh, yeah.

Aaron: But yeah, officially. Yeah, I didn’t realize that. I thought there might have been half a dozen official languages, but yeah, wow, that’s a lot.

Dan: It’s just such a diverse, large country and the fact that this guy, 25 years later, through the use of the internet could find his way back home is amazing.

Aaron: Yeah. Well I men, nowadays, gosh man, I kind of depend on Google Maps to get around and to navigate and find my way. I mean without it it’d be a lot harder to get around. But it’s not always right.

Dan: No.

Aaron: It’s not always right.

Dan: But it’s a lot more right than I am.

Aaron: Yeah. This is true. No, but there’s stories of people … There’s one story I read where this woman was trying to find something and she was following Google Maps and it led her like way out into the desert because she thought she was following a road, but that road didn’t actually exist. Like Google Maps just made it up or it was some kind of error, and so she was following what she thought was a legitimate road, but I guess it was some old, maybe some kind of old road or … Anyway, she ended up in the middle of the desert and ran out of gas and almost died before she was rescued. But yeah, stuff like that happens I guess.

Dan: So where was this?

Aaron: This was in the Grand Canyon actually, so this was in the United States.

She was traveling alone and she had about 70 miles worth of gas in her tank, but Google Maps, according to Google Maps she only had like 35 miles to go to get to the highway she needed to get to. But it turned out to be some completely nonexistent road which led her to some nonexistent place, she ran out of gas, and apparently she was a former Girl Scout and she had like a bunch of water and dried fruit with her. And she made like a giant “help” sign out of rocks to get the attention of planes flying overhead. And yeah … Pretty crazy. But anyway, after five days she was finally rescued.

Dan: By Google.

Aaron: No, not by Google. Yeah, that would be great for Google, right? But no. I think she hiked through the desert and she found some very faint cell reception and she was able to squeeze out like a real quick 911 call. Because where her car had broken down there was no cell phone reception. So they were able to rescue her. So yeah. So don’t depend too much on Google Maps.

Dan: Well, I mean Google has discovered all kinds of things I’ve readAaron: Just with their technology of mapping?

Dan: Yeah, I read where they discovered some unknown to the modern world, or to the world outside of that local area, some rainforest that had all these new species of insects, and animals, and lizards in Mozambique.

Aaron: Oh yeah?

Dan: That was kind of some unique habitat because it was isolated on a mountain but had these rainforest qualities.

Aaron: Oh wow.

Dan: So, you know, Google’s not all bad.

Aaron: Yeah, I guess you can explore via satellite because you can go anywhere.

There’s no physical limitation. Yeah this … And by anywhere I mean it can uncover all kinds of things that people don’t want you to see. Like, for example, there was another story I read about this woman, I think it was a Canadian woman, and she went to check her house on Google Maps and she found that, she saw herself, I guess outside her house, and she was, apparently her boobs were showing, and because Google has this policy of blurring out your face, like any people that show up on the street view, their faces are blurred out, but I guess they didn’t have some kind of policy of blurring out people’s chests and I guess for some reason one of her boobs was hanging out of her shirt or something like that. But because they had failed to take out her address or something like that, people were able to identify her. So she got really, of course, upset and embarrassed and I think she sued or tried to sue Google.

Dan: I wonder if she won.

Aaron: Well, from what I read she tried to sue Google for violating her privacy in like a small claims court, and the court did award her a settlement. But not as much as she wanted … And it wasn’t a lot of money, it was like two or three thousand dollars. Which for some people is a lot of money, I suppose.

Dan: But she was out in her yard, so …

Aaron: Yeah, I don’t know what the ruling was all about.

Dan: Actually maybe if it was her private property and it was a rural area she should have an expectation of privacy.

Aaron: Yeah.

Dan: I mean, of course it depends on the country, but as you know in America, the law says that when you’re out in public you should have no expectation of privacy and people are allowed to take your picture whenever they want and if you don’t like it, go inside.

Aaron: That’s right. That’s why you stay inside all the time.

Dan: That’s right.

Aaron: Like a cave dweller.

Dan: I saw some funny article about how … Speaking of face blurring, how Google’s algorithms, I guess they just mess up sometimes, and they found some map used, Google Street View pictures of cows with their faces blurred out.

Aaron: Yeah, gotta protect their privacy, it’s very important.

Dan: Yeah, that’s right.

Aaron: Bovine privacy.

Aaron: Alright then. Well I guess you try to steer clear of the satellites and the street view cameras.

Dan: Yeah, stay inside, put your tinfoil hats on.

Aaron: Stay inside, put your tinfoil hats on.

Dan: They’ll protect you.

Aaron: Okay man.

Dan: Alright buddy.

Aaron: Well until next time.

Dan: Alright, see you later.

Aaron: Adios.