This Week I Learned - Week #211

This Week I Learned -

* Azure HDInsight is the only fully-managed cloud Hadoop offering that provides optimized open source analytical clusters for Spark, Hive, MapReduce, HBase, Storm, Kafka, and R Server backed by a 99.9% SLA.

Users can now use H2O.ai’s open source solutions on Azure HDInsight, which allows reliable open source analytics with an industry-leading SLA.

Azure Site Recovery now supports creating failed over virtual machines in an availability set.

All of AWS Whitepapers

The architecture of the internet has tremendous influence over what is made, and what is seen; algorithms influence what content spreads further on Facebook and turns up on top of Google searches. YouTube’s most serious ad change yet came in the wake of reports from The Times of London and The Wall Street Journal that ads were appearing on YouTube videos that espoused extremism and hate speech. according to YouTube creators, that shift has also punished video makers who bear no resemblance to terrorist sympathizers and racists. On the site, it’s known as “the adpocalypse.” To rein in its sprawling video empire — 400 hours of video are uploaded to the platform every minute — YouTube uses machine learning systems that can’t always discern context, or distinguish commentary or humor from hate speech. That limitation means that YouTube routinely pulls ads from content deemed “not advertiser-friendly.” 

Media power has consolidated in the past several decades, with a smaller crew of billionaires controlling journalism and entertainment. The internet was supposed to offer an opportunity for a diverse group of upstarts to challenge the corporate structure. But the same consolidation of power has happened online.

Google and Facebook are now so dominant that they form a practical duopoly over digital advertising  - NY Times

* The average Chinese person today pigs out on 40kg (88lbs) of pork a year, up from 12kg in 1980. Although China constitutes just one-fifth of the world’s population, it consumes 50% of the pork - Economist

Taking time to contemplate what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the “right” thing to do. It also improves your mood, because it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%. Sleep deprivation raises stress hormone levels on its own, even without a stressor present.

* Steven Ballmer's USAFacts.org website is perhaps the first nonpartisan effort to create a fully integrated look at revenue and spending across federal, state and local governments. Altogether, he has spent more than $10 million between direct funding and grants.

* Robert Vadra bought a 3.5-acre plot in Gurgaon in 2008 for 7.5 crores and sold just three months later for 58 crores to India's largest real estate developer, DLF - NDTV

* About 4 crore subscribers of EPFO will get 8.65 per cent interest on provident fund deposits for 2016-17, as decided by the organisation's trustees in December - NDTV

* The website of Doordarshan News is designed and maintained by National Informatics Centre (NIC). The site has URLs like these with commas & spaces -
http://ddinews.gov.in/Home%20-%20Headlines/Pages/Petrol,dieselprices.aspx

* "We will move from mobile first to an AI first world" - Sundar Pichai

* "Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help shall all be saved." - Jane Goodall

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