This Week I Learned - Week #49 2020

This Week I Learned - 

* App Service (using azurewebsites.net domain) provides SSL connections for all URLs under the 'azurewebsites.net' domain at no additional charge. Standard and Premium service plans include the right to use one IP SSL at no additional charge per App Service Plan. Free and shared service plans do not support SSL.

* App Service offerings include access to a free 20mb SQL database for 12 months. After 12 months, the free SQL Database converts to a paid basic SQL subscription.

You are charged for Azure App Service apps while they are in stopped state. Delete apps that are not in use or update tier to Free to avoid charges.

* Running workloads in the cloud gives an organization access to unlimited resources. That's a good thing, but only if the IT team adopts good capacity management practices.

* Trehalose (from Turkish 'trehala' – a sugar derived from insect cocoons + -ose) is a naturally occurring glucose found in mushrooms, some seaweed, lobster, shrimp and foods in which baker's or brewer's yeast is used. It is also known as mycose or tremalose. Trehalose is widespread in bacteria, fungi, yeast, insects and plants, but is absent from vertebrates. The Food and Drug Administration lists it as "Generally Recognized As Safe" (GRAS).

* Psychologist Daniel Goleman popularized the concept of emotional intelligence with his 1995 bestseller of the same name. Emotional quotient, or EQ measures the ability to understand other people — to listen, to empathize, to self-regulate, and to appreciate. Assertive people — those with high “AQ” — can comfortably engage in the sorts of conversations that make many of us squirm. They ask for things they want, decline things they don’t, provide constructive feedback, and engage in direct confrontation and debate in a way that is firm and respectful.. These people were likable and great to work with. Those with low EQ and high AQ are excluded from the best professional opportunities and personal relationships.

Socializing is a complex symphony of subtle cues and interactions, and getting better means learning to play an ensemble of new social instruments, often all at once

Breath is the raw material, so to speak, for great orations and arias and the sweet nothings of everyday utterance. It comes out of the lungs under pressure and vibrates the vocal cords, just as it does with the lips when blowing a horn. From there the noise goes up the throat and into the back of the mouth, as it does past the valves in a horn. There it receives the peculiar contours and intonations and resonance that distinguish my voice from yours: our voice print, which gives raw sound personality. Only when it comes out of the mouth and past the lips is it enunciated into actual words and imbued with meaning - The Beauty of Keeping Mum, The Atlantic

* A significant advantage of DNA over conventional data storage approaches is its longevity and stability. DNA has a half-life of approximately 500 years and can endure over millennia under appropriate storage conditions - National Center for Biotechnology Information

Dyslexia is believed to be caused by the interaction of genetic and environmental factors. Some cases run in families.Dyslexia that develops due to a traumatic brain injury, stroke, or dementia is called "acquired dyslexia". The difficulties are involuntary and people with this disorder have a normal desire to learn. People with dyslexia have higher rates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), developmental language disorders, and difficulties with numbers.

70% of the United States population carries a credit card, with 34% of Americans carrying 3 or more cards. In 2018, there were 1.122 billion credit cards in circulation in the U.S. The average credit score in the US is 688, according to credit reporting company Experian. Credit scores, which are like a grade for your borrowing history, fall in a range of 300 to 850. The size of most credit cards is 85.60 by 53.98 millimetres (3 3⁄8 in × 2 1⁄8 in) and rounded corners with a radius of 2.88–3.48 millimetres (9⁄80–11⁄80 in) conforming to the ISO/IEC 7810 ID-1 standard, the same size as ATM cards and other payment cards, such as debit cards. The card number's prefix, called the Bank Identification Number (known in the industry as a BIN), is the sequence of digits at the beginning of the number that determine the bank to which a credit card number belongs. This is the first six digits for MasterCard and Visa cards. The next nine digits are the individual account number, and the final digit is a validity check code.

The 50 Cent Party, or 50 Cent Army (Chinese: "wumao"), is a term for Internet commentators who are reportedly hired by authorities of the People's Republic of China in an attempt to manipulate public opinion to the benefit of the Chinese Communist Party. They create favourable comments or articles on popular Chinese social media networks that are intended to derail discussions that are unhelpful to the Communist Party and that promote narratives that serve the government's interests, together with disparaging comments and misinformation about political opponents and critics of the Chinese government, both domestic and abroad. To maximize their influence, such pro-government comments are made largely during times of intense online debate, and when online protests have a possibility of transforming into real life actions. A 2016 Harvard study estimated that the group posts about 488 million social media comments per year. In June 2020, Twitter has removed 170,000 accounts which targeted 2019–20 Hong Kong protests. 

Stun grenade also known as flash grenade, flashbang, thunder flash or sound bomb, is a less lethal explosive device used to temporarily disorient an enemy's senses. It is designed to produce a blinding flash of light and a bang loud enough to temporarily cause deafness. A candle emits light of about 1 candela of intensity. A 25-watt compact fluorescent light bulb radiating light equally in all directions emits about 135 candela. When a flashbang detonates, it ignites a magnesium-based charge that releases a burst of light of around 7 million candela. Coming to the noise, a flashbang is louder than 170 decibels when ammonium nitrate is detonated. A jet engine produces just over 140 decibels, which means that a sound louder than the noise of the jet would have reverberated through the room. A sudden noise that loud can cause temporary deafness and tinnitus. It also disrupts the inner ear fluid, which can cause a loss of balance. Stun grenades are commonly used by military and special police forces in house clearing and surgical raids.

* The Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI) represents 20,000 developers across the country

* As of 2020, there's a total of 739 districts in India

* There are over 74 lakh voters from 150 divisions of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation. 46.55% of them voted.  A majority of at least 65, is needed for a Party to win the mayoral post.

* Achyut Bhogle, Harsha Bhogle’s father, was one the founders of Alliance Francaise of Hyderabad

MyGate was founded by Vijay Arisetty, an ex- IAF pilot (Shaurya Chakra awardee for his role in evacuating victims of the 2004 tsunami in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands), Abhishek K, former VP at Goldman Sachs, and Shreyans Daga, former project head at Oracle and Digit in 2016. It has tied up with companies such as ITC Limited, Grofers, Box8 and StoreSe for preferential delivery and special discounts on retail products. On its website, it claims that "MyGate has never traded in user information or shared data with a third-party" and it is an opt-in service. According to a  MyGate user, it is not ‘opt in’ by default but ‘opt out’ (the option being hidden behind many settings’ screens) and calls it a "a personal stalker". It is backed by Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings & US-based hedge fund Tiger Global, one of the most aggressive backers of startups in India.

* School dropout Mahashay Dharampal Gulati, famously known as 'MDH Dadaji' for repeated appearance in his spice brand MDH's ('Mahashian Di Hatti') television ads, started his spices business journey in a nondescript shack in Delhi's Karol Bagh after selling his tonga, and went on to build a Rs 1500 crore spice empire. At the age of 94 became the highest-paid CEO in the country's FMCG sector. He received the Padma Bhushan, the country's third-highest civilian award, in 2019.

Of the total 100 women in the "Kotak Wealth Hurun - Leading Wealthy Women" list, 31 of them are self-made wealth creators. Among those self-made wealth creators, six are professional managers and 25 are entrepreneurs. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, who is also on the board of IT major Infosys, is the wealthiest self-made woman in the list with a net-worth of ₹36,600 crore. With a wealth of ₹54,850 crore, HCL Technologies Chairperson Roshni Nadar Malhotra is the richest woman in India for 2020. The average age of the top 100 women wealth creators from India was 53 years and 19 of them are 40 years old or below. The list considered only Indians, born or bred in India, and who are actively managing their businesses or are self-made. Mumbai is the city of choice for 32 of the country’s wealthiest women, followed by New Delhi (20) and Hyderabad (10). Four of the country’s wealthiest women are also on the Hurun India Philanthropy List 2020.

* "censorship is now increasingly performed by spreading disinformation, flooding with too much information so some stories are deprived of attention, and creating distrust and confusion in a manner that diffuses attention" - Zeynep Tufekci, Twitter and Tear Gas [PDF]

* 'I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.' - Mark Twain

* "There are problems that we did not create but that we now have to solve, like climate change and cyberbullying with the introduction of technology." - TIME's Kid of the Year: Gitanjali Rao, 15

* 'Our house is still on fire': Greta Thunberg

"2020 is among the 3 hottest years on record" - a brilliant and incisive cartoon by Kevin Kal Kallaugher in The Economist

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