This Week I Learned - Week #42 2021

This Week I Learned - 

* With RBAC  (Role Based Access Control) you control the so-called Management Plane and with the Access Policies the Data Plane. A user with Contributor right on a subscription can do (almost) everything except change or assign permissions. If there is no Access Policy for that user in Azure Key Vault, they will not have access to keys, passwords, etc. 

* AzGovViz is a PowerShell based script that iterates your Azure Tenant´s Management Group hierarchy down to Subscription level. It captures most relevant Azure governance capabilities such as Azure Policy, RBAC and Blueprints and a lot more. From the collected data AzGovViz provides visibility on your HierarchyMap, creates a TenantSummary, creates DefinitionInsights and builds granular ScopeInsights on Management Groups and Subscriptions. The technical requirements as well as the required permissions are minimal.

* AWS Well-Architected Labs repository contains documentation and code in the format of hands-on labs to help you learn, measure, and build using architectural best practices.

* GCPSketchnote series describes as a  visual sketchnote products in the Google Cloud family

* The updated Google Cloud Architecture Framework 2.0  is organized into 6 pillars. The Framework  provides recommendations and describes a set of canonical best practices to design and build workloads on Google Cloud. It is based on the collective experience of Google Cloud employees, partners, and customers. 

* FinOps is a practice that combines people, processes, and technology to promote financial accountability and the discipline of cost optimization in an organization, regardless of its size or maturity in the cloud.

* Wayback Machine is a search engine of 588 billion web pages taking you through 25 years of Internet history. Geopolitics and commerce are fragmenting the World Wide Web and may lead to Splinternet. The so-called balkanization of the internet isn't just a theoretical problem for the Internet Archive. If internet firewalls stay up in China, Iran and Russia, new content continues to move mostly behind paywalls and passwords, and U.S. political leaders decide its finally time for Section 230 to go, the crawlers whose simple formulas have preserved the last few decades for future historians might not do the same.

* Machine learning is turning things (data) into numbers and finding patterns in those numbers. 

* Oracle RAC on Docker is now available with full production support. Oracle RAC on Kubernetes is in development.

* Using Ctrl+Alt+S shortcut in Word will split the screen when you want to read separate parts of the same document. 

* Juice Jacking is a type of cyber attack involving a charging port that doubles as a data connection, typically over USB. This often involves either installing malware or surreptitiously copying sensitive data from a smart phone, tablet, or other computer device.

* A “backwards” approach to learning  - do projects first without fully  understanding what you’re doing, fill in missing knowledge after. Bugs are a natural way to learn about what’s hiding under your abstractions in a way that’s actually relevant to your work.

* The best code is no code, or code you don’t have to maintain

* German alchemist Hennig Brand believed that he could distill gold from human urine. After stockpiling 1,500 gallons of the liquid and boiling it, he discovered phosphorus in 1669. Phosphorus was the 13th element to be discovered. Because of its tendency to spontaneously combust when left alone in air, it is sometimes referred to as "the Devil's element".

* Cancel culture or call-out culture is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person. Those subject to this ostracism are said to have been "cancelled". 

* Since the year 2000, 52% of the Fortune 500 companies no longer exist.

* We are in the middle of a mass extinction, the first caused by a single species. There are 7.8 billion of us, on a planet that scientists estimate can support 1.5 billion humans living as the average US citizen does today. - The Guardian

* Alibaba debuted Singles’ Day -- which began as a shopping festival celebrating men and women who aren’t in relationships -- in 2009. It has since been expanded to grow into a nationwide marathon of frantic bargain-hunting dwarfing U.S. sales events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

* HBO’s techno-centric comedy Silicon Valley thrives on the tension between two opposing themes: the bleak, cynical nature of the tech industry, and the amazing things that can happen when people are sincerely willing to break the mold. - Vanity Fair

* Meinertzhagen’s Haversack is a principle of military deception. It is a plan that’s based on letting the enemy think they’ve bested you when, in fact, you’re attacking from another angle and a reference to the Haversack Ruse, employed by British Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen during World War I. Essentially, after two failed plans to take Gaza from Turkey, the British needed to try a new strategy. As the story goes, a colonel named Meinertzhagen tricked some Turkish soldiers into thinking he’d dropped some secret battle plans during a horseback chase. In reality, the documents in the bag (haversack) were fake. The Turks planned their attack according to the fake plans, and the Brits finally succeeded in taking Gaza.

*  A strawman is a distorted version of someone's actual argument. Someone makes a strawman in order to purposely destroy it, and then they act like they beat the actual argument the strawman came from.

Here's an example.

Alice: "We should get a dog, not a cat."

Bob: "Why do you hate cats?"

When ever Ben Shapiro says "let's say, hypothetically.." that's him setting up the strawman.

* RTAs (Registrar and Transfer Agents) CAMS (Computer Age Management Services), and  K-Fintech have started a common transaction platform called MF Central.

*  The total number of Aadhaar card holders above the age of 18 has reached 129.48 crore as of June 21, 2021.

* The Centre levies specific excise duty on petrol and diesel, which does not change if the oil prices fall to USD 19 per barrel or rise to USD 84, state governments levy ad valorem rate of VAT whose incidence goes up with every hike. Petrol price was decontrolled in 2010, effectively making it linked to world markets. Diesel prices were freed from government controls in October 2014 by the Modi government. - ET

* Andhra Pradesh (12.4%) and Telangana (11%) — have more elderly people, who are aged 60 years and above, compared to the national population (10.1%) as per the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MoSP) data. In 1951, there were only 5.5 per cent of the elderly people in the country. The country's elderly population is presently 137.9 million. The life span of an Indian was 47 years in 1947 against the present 68 years. 

* The betel (Piper betle) is a vine of the family Piperaceae, which includes pepper and kava. According to traditional Ayurvedic medicine, chewing betel leaf is a remedy against bad breath (halitosis). Betel leaf is mostly consumed in Asia, and elsewhere in the world by some Asian emigrants, as betel quid or in paan, with areca nut and/or tobacco. While the practice of chewing Betel leaf existed even before the Common Era, with attested references from at least the 3rd century CE, the ingredient mix (paan/ betel quid) it was chewed with changed over time. Areca nut, mineral slaked lime and catechu were the historic ingredients, as referenced in texts from 9th century CE, and tobacco started to feature in the 20th century. The practice of chewing betel leaf is on the decline, and now the quid consisting of tobacco, areca nut, and slaked lime (gutka) is more popular. 

* Rabies is a viral disease that causes inflammation of the brain in humans and other mammals. It is spread to people from the saliva of infected animals. Animals most likely to transmit rabies in the United States include bats, coyotes, foxes, raccoons and skunks.

* The Virginia opossum has a natural immunity to snake venom. Other mammals, such as ground squirrels and honey badgers, also have natural immunity to venom. 

* Any mammal can get rabies. However, the chance of rabies in an opossum is EXTREMELY RARE. This may have something to do with the opossum's low body temperature (94-97º F) making it difficult for the virus to survive in an opossum's body.

* Opossums are omnivorous and are beneficial to humans because they cause very little damage and they consume undesirable insects, snails, and slugs. The many beneficial qualities of opossums include: Keeping neighborhoods clear of unwanted pests like cockroaches, rats, and mice.

* Mithridatism is the practice of protecting oneself against a poison by gradually self-administering non-lethal amounts. The word is derived from Mithridates VI, the King of Pontus, who so feared being poisoned that he regularly ingested small doses, aiming to develop immunity. Mithridatism is not effective against all types of poison (immunity generally is only possible with biologically complex types which the immune system can respond to) and, depending on the toxin, the practice can lead to the lethal accumulation of a poison in the body. Results depend on how each poison is processed by the body, ie, on how the toxic compound is metabolized or passed out of the body.

*  Bill Haast, owner and director of the Miami Serpentarium, injected himself with snake venom during most of his adult life, in an effort to build up an immunity to a broad array of venomous snakes, in a practice known as mithridatism. Haast lived to age 100, and survived a reported 172 snake bites. He donated his blood to be used in treating snake-bite victims when a suitable antivenom was not available. More than 20 so-treated individuals recovered.

*  The parents of American actor, comedian, musician, and songwriter Jack Black were satellite engineers. His mother Judith Love Cohen's engineering work included work on the guidance computer for the Minuteman missile and the Abort-Guidance System in the Apollo Lunar Module. The AGS played an important role in the safe return of Apollo 13 after an oxygen tank explosion left the Service Module crippled and forced the astronauts to use the Lunar Module as a "lifeboat."  

* Before he became Chief Minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik authored 3 books including The Garden of Life which describes the properties and uses--sacred, medicinal, culinary, cosmetic, and aromatic--of 70 plants.

* His sister Gita Mehta née Patnaik is an accomplished Indian author and documentary filmmaker. She was adjudged for India's fourth highest civilian award the Padma Shri in 2019, which she declined for political reasons. She married Ajai Singh "Sonny" Mehta, son of a diplomat who went on to head the American literary imprint Alfred A. Knopf. Although Alfred A. Knopf has been publishing books for more than one hundred years, Mehta was only the third editor-in-chief.

* "Being in contact with good people, is refreshing, it is cleansing. It makes a person feel at ease, it brings out the best in that individual." - Beautiful Place, Good People, Naveen Patnaik

* “There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses”. - Bjarne Stroustrup

* 'Wars are created by politicians, compounded by bureaucrats and fought by soldiers.'