This Week I Learned - Week #205

This Week I Learned -

Azure SQL Database can now support up to 4TB of storage

Blobxfer is an AzCopy-like OS independent Azure storage blob and file share transfer tool

Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise (GA) is now available on Google Compute Engine, with support for Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) and SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability (GA).

* Google's Cloud Spanner beta is the first and only relational database service that is both strongly consistent and horizontally scalable. With automatic scaling, synchronous data replication, and node redundancy, Cloud Spanner delivers up to 99.999% (five 9s) of availability

* The Docker API and container format is now supported on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, every Linux distro, and Windows.

SQL Server containers are named instances, complete with data and configuration, delivered in seconds.  A mounted 1 TB database is delivered in a container instance in less than one minute.

* Google has released a new API for the mobile-friendly testing tool named the mobile-friendly test API.

* Images in a Blogger hosted blog are stored in a Google Album Archive.  Blogger feeds can be accessed by specifying the actual “blogname” in either of the 2 URL RSS feed formats -
Atom 1.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
RSS 2.0: http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

* Google Maps is one of the most popular apps in the world, with well over a billion users. Google collects its mapping data from a wide variety of sources including road sensors, user contributions via Map Maker, and local transport departments, private data providers as well as users of Waze app (which Google acquired in 2013 for $1 billion) & Google Maps (without even knowing they are doing so). Google Maps users can opt out of it by turning off Location Services for Google Maps in Privacy on your iPhone or turning off Google Location History under Location in the Google Settings option. But that would also leave your Google Maps app useless!

* Swiggy, a local food delivery service & Bigbasket, India’s largest online food and grocery store use the Google Maps Javascript API, Google Maps Directions API and the Google Distance Matrix API for their delivery logistics & commitments

* HDFC Bank has announced the launch of an electronic virtual assistant (EVA), an artificial intelligence—driven chatbot, for customer services. Eva is India’s first AI-based banking chatbot and can answer millions of customer queries across multiple channels instantly

Raise your hand if you're a security expert! Most would not raise their hands, even if they were a "security expert". Today's online world is extremely hostile.

* Adrak Ke Punjey is an Indian satirical play promoting family planning, written by Babban Khan in a mix of Urdu and Dakhni. The play ran from 1965 to 2001. Guinness Book of World Records in 1984 has mentioned it as the world's longest-running one man show. On 22 September 1965, Adrak Ke Panje was staged for the first time. It was a massive flop,but a good samaritan came backstage later and gave him Rs 500 to continue with the show. The play was a resounding success and won accolades from all. The story of Adrak is borne out of the story of Babban. His parents were unaware of family planning. The result was that three brothers and four sisters died due to malnutrition and lack of proper medical care. In fact, Babban’s parents refused to name him till he was 10 just in case he died too! Adrak means Ginger and Panje means its offshoot. As ginger has many irregular offshoots, so does Rumsu's (Babban Khan) children in the drama—without any family planning - Wikpedia

* Both vitamins and minerals are considered micronutrients — meaning they’re needed by the body only in small amounts (think milligrams or micrograms per day). Vitamins are organic and all are essential to the body, whereas minerals are inorganic elements and only some are essential for key body processes. There are nine different water-soluble vitamins that require water for absorption: vitamin C and the eight B vitamins (thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamins B6 and B12, folate, biotin, and pantothenic acid). On the other hand, the fat-soluble vitamins such as vitamins A, D, E, and K require fat for absorption and are stored in the adipose tissue. There are 16 minerals that the body needs, with seven that are major (calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, chloride, magnesium, and sulfur) and the remaining nine that are trace (iron, iodine, zinc, chromium, selenium, fluoride, molybdenum, copper, and manganese) - Go Ask Alice!

* Stress makes you social. Oxytocin is a neuro-hormone that the pituitary gland pumps out as part of the stress response. It's as much a part of your stress response as the adrenaline that makes your heart pound.  It fine-tunes your brain's social instincts. It primes you to do things that strengthen close relationships. Oxytocin doesn't only act on your brain. It also acts on your body, and one of its main roles in your body is to protect your cardiovascular system from the effects of stress. It's a natural anti-inflammatory. It also helps your blood vessels stay relaxed during stress. But my favorite effect on the body is actually on the heart. Your heart has receptors for this hormone, and oxytocin helps heart cells regenerate and heal from any stress-induced damage. This stress hormone strengthens your heart - Kelly McGonigal on Ted Talks

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