This Week I Learned - Week #21 2021

* In May 2021, Microsoft extended the capabilities of the Power Apps Community Plan to meet the needs of developers and have rebranded it as the Power Apps Developer Plan. Anyone with a work or school email address can sign up for the Power Apps Developer Plan. Power Apps doesn't support email addresses provided by consumer email services or telecommunications providers.

* To reduce costs of Dedicated SQL pool (formerly SQL DW), you can pause and resume compute resources on-demand. You won't be charged for compute resources while the database is paused. However, you will continue to be charged for storage.

* In seven years Microsoft’s migration to the cloud is 96 percent complete and the list of lessons learned is long. 

Microsoft Digital’s migration to the cloud decision tree 

* AWS Support documents how to avoid incurring charges when using the AWS Free Tier and has multiple times proved to be supportive and reimburse the accidental charges, but there is currently no way to set an hard limit on billing. Microsoft offers a spending limit functionality turned on by default to all new customers who sign up for an Azure free account or subscription types that include credits over multiple months. Users running on the Google Cloud free program are not charged unless they explicitly enable billing by upgrading the Cloud Billing account to a paid one. - InfoQ

* Companies are increasingly using “reinforcement-learning agents,” a type of AI that rapidly improves through trial and error as it single-mindedly pursues its goal, often with unintended and even dangerous consequences. Those at the receiving end of an RL agent’s actions may be unaware that they’re being influenced by an AI. The weaponization of social media platforms is an extreme example of what can happen when RL agents’ policies aren’t properly conceived, monitored, or constrained. Unlike algorithms that follow a rigid if/then set of instructions, RL agents are programmed to seek a specified reward by taking defined actions during a given “state.” In this case, the reward is views — the more the better. The agent’s permitted actions might include who to target and the frequency of promotions. The algorithm’s state might be time of day. Combined, the agent’s reward, the states within which it operates and its set of permitted “actions” are called its “policies.” Policies broadly define how an RL agent can behave in different circumstances, providing guardrails of sorts. The agent is free to experiment within the bounds of its policies to see what combinations of actions and states (state-action pairs) are most effective in maximizing the reward. As it learns what works best, it pursues that optimal strategy and abandons approaches that it found less effective. Through an iterative trial-and-error process, the agent gets better and better at maximizing its reward. If this process sounds familiar, it’s because it’s modelled on how our own brains work; behavioral patterns ranging from habits to addictions are reinforced when the brain rewards actions (such as eating) taken during given states (e.g., when we’re hungry) with the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine or other stimuli. - HBR 

* Originally, the main function of an IT Service Management (ITSM) tool was to manage the service desk and handle requests, services, and incidents. Nowadays, ITSM solutions streamline processes throughout the IT department, with many solutions expanding to increasing the efficiency of business operations as a whole. Some areas covered:

1. Workflow automations
2. Logging of actions and communications
3. Reporting
4. Notifications
5. Incident management
6. Service requests
7. Asset management
8. Security

* Many ITSM providers are also entering into the world of Enterprise Service Management (ESM), which applies the strategies of ITSM to other areas of the business, such as HR or production. 

* When Fred Luddy launched ServiceNow in 2004, his basic premise was to “enable people to route work effectively through the enterprise.”

* ServiceNow, BMC & Ivanti have been named Leaders in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for IT Service Management Tools

* Akamai's Bot Manager performs advanced bot detection to spot and avert the most evasive threats for web sites. It employs  employs multiple layered detections to identify bot activity, including signature-based, behavioral, and statistical anomaly detections. It also checks for motion sensors on user's devices.

* Despite Apple’s review process for apps on the App Store, sometimes terrible scams slip through. Even more so for Google’s Play Store, where apps aren’t subject to human review before going live.

* In 2008, a pseudonymous person called Satoshi Nakamoto invented a peer-to-peer digital currency to solve the problems created by the entanglement of money and state. He called it Bitcoin. Bitcoin verifies transactions without the need for banks or a central authority. It uses a decentralized ledger known as the blockchain that exists simultaneously on a network of thousands of computers. No single person owns the network and transactions can’t be censored. Anyone can join the network, maintain a copy of the ledger, and be rewarded with Bitcoins for their effort. Privacy and security are maintained through anonymity and decentralization. 

* Substack is a platform that helps writers and content creator use an email subscription newsletter platform to convert their subscribers into paying customers. Writers can choose whether subscriptions are free or paid; the minimum charge for paid subscriptions is five dollars a month or thirty dollars a year, and Substack takes ten per cent of all revenue.

* The WIPO IP Portal maintains a Global Brand Database that allows a trademark search by text or image in brand data from multiple national and international sources, including trademarks, appellations of origin and official emblems.

* Lavalier microphone also called lav mic or lapel mic, are small and clip to your shirt, collar or tie.

* Having increased histamine levels can cause your body to make more mucus. For example, bananas, strawberries, pineapple, papaya, eggs and chocolate may increase histamine levels. It's important to keep in mind that some foods may cause increased mucus for some people and not for others.

* Spicy foods that contain capsaicin, such as cayenne or chili peppers, may also help temporarily clear sinuses and get mucus moving.

* Pepper is used in preservatives, perfumes and medicines

* If you have been vaccinated for COVID-19, you cannot donate for one month from the day of vaccination

* “Black fungus” is caused by mucormycetes, a class of moulds. It is often found in soil and rotting fruits, compost and animal excrement. The infection is rare and usually harmless to a healthy person but can be life-threatening for people who have weakened immune systems. Usually someone will become infected with mucormycosis after inhaling spores that are in the air. Infections can also occur as a result of a skin injury or after ingesting mucormycetes in food. - Economist

* Hyderabad in the 1920s was considered the fourth largest city in the Indian Empire with a population density of 7,925 persons per square mile. 

* The rapid proliferation of Spanish and English languages can be traced back to the history of Spanish conquistadors in the Americas, and British colonies around the world.

                                                Source: visualcapitalist.com

* Words in the Telugu language end with vowels, just like those in Italian, and hence it has been called "The Italian of the East"

* Verses of Vemana - [1829] [1911]

* In America, one-third of adults are college graduates, a figure that was just 4.6% in the 1940s. The number of graduate students has tripled since the 1970s.

* India has more than 50% of its population below the age of 25 and more than 65% below the age of 35. It is expected that, in 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan - Wikipedia

* People under the age of 25 years constitute 46.9% of the India's population, population under 25 years of age includes 47.4% male and 46.3% female.

* Alfred Bernhard Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1833. He was a chemist, engineer and an inventor and held 355 patents to his name. In 1867, while experimenting with explosives, he discovered a mixture that had high explosion capabilities and was easy to handle. He named the invention ‘dynamite’ after the Greek word ‘dynamo,’ which means power.

* Regret and regret aversion both impact our decision making in personal life and in investing. When people act out of character or outside their comfort zones, the regret is higher. Regret comes with a companion: Hindsight Bias. When we evaluate our decisions, we choose to compare the option we chose with the alternative that turned out to be the best choice in hindsight.  To err in one’s circle of competence causes more regret than the one outside purely because in hindsight, one feels it seemed like an easy decision. Don’t let regret or regret aversion guide your actions (or inactions). - ET

* Wagh Bakri is the third largest packaged tea player in India. Narandas Desai established the Gujarat Tea Depot in 1919 and sold loose tea. In 1934, Desai started selling the tea under the brand “Wagh Bakri” for the first time. The brand's logo shows “Wagh” (Tiger) and “Bakri” (Goat) drinking tea from the same cup and finds a mention in the book "Principles of Marketing" by Philip Kotler. The company doesn’t own any tea estates to avoid the costs and problem of maintenance. Instead, they focus on only processing and packaging the tea. This has allowed them to stay asset-light (helps a business be nimble), cash-rich and debt-free.

* Freemasonry is the world’s most famous secret society whose objective is to ‘take good men and make them better'.  From being an organization of stonemasons who built cathedrals, Freemasons were forced to pivot and transitioned to a fraternity of men looking to improve themselves and build a better world after the demand for cathedrals cooled off. Men of all faiths were permitted to apply, but applications needed to be approved by existing members. Masonic Lodges began to be used as meeting points for members to socialize and discuss anything other than politics and religion, which were forbidden. In part due to the secrecy that shrouded the organization, demand for memberships skyrocketed. Over time, Freemasonry became one of the most powerful networks on the planet, with a membership list that included the likes of Winston Churchill and George Washington.

* Stoicism is a school of Philosophy that originated in Athens in 300BC and endured for five centuries. It emphasized the importance of living a virtuous, rational, and disciplined life.

* Scott McCloud has been working fully digital since 2000 

* “The difficulty of working on ‘The Simpsons’ is that each episode takes about six to eight months from beginning to end, and if you’re on staff you’re always working on half a dozen episodes at the same time,” - John Swartzwelder

* “Courage is willingness to take the risk once you know the odds. Optimistic overconfidence means you are taking the risk because you don’t know the odds. It’s a big difference.” - Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist who pioneered the modern study of decision making under uncertainty

* Illustration is a way for us to tell stories, human stories and connect with people - Wendy Macnaughton