This Week I Learned - Week #51 2021

This Week I Learned - 

* IT admins will be able to access the new Log4j exploit detection solution via Microsoft Sentinel Content Hub.

* Custom neural voice, a feature of Azure Cognitive Services for Speech, is a great way to create a highly natural synthetic voice that sounds almost identical to your voice actor. 

* Log4j records events - errors and routine system operations - and communicates diagnostic messages about them to system administrators and users. Log4Shell is part of the software supply chain. Like physical objects people purchase, software travels through different organizations and software packages before it ends up in a final product. When something goes wrong, rather than going through a recall process, software is generally "patched," meaning fixed in place. Log4Shell works by abusing a feature in Log4j that allows users to specify custom code for formatting a log message.  One of the major concerns about Log4Shell is Log4j's position in the software ecosystem. Logging is a fundamental feature of most software, which makes Log4j very widespread. In addition to popular games like Minecraft, it's used in cloud services like Apple iCloud and Amazon Web Services, as well as a wide range of programs from software development tools to security tools. Depending on how Log4j was incorporated in a given system, the fix will require different approaches. - ET

* @RajSinghTKR 's bio - Till Twitter has a dislike button, all likes and retweets can either be in support or strongly against

* While there are thousands of spoken languages in the world, the top 1% (~70 language) accounts for the 80%+ of the global population - Wikipedia

* In 1990, 2.3 million used the internet-by 2016 this reached 3.4 billion.

* Turkey produces 70% of the world’s hazelnuts

* There is more than $1.57 trillion in outstanding federal student loans in the U.S.

* India currently imports around 70% of electric vehicle-parts from China - Bloomberg

* Each of the 18,352 contracted sweepers spread across 650 square km of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation limits, clean around 1.5kms per day. They are paid a salary of Rs 17000 per month.

* 8 crore (80 million) people in the country earn their livelihood through pashudhan (livestock).  India produces milk worth Rs 8.5 lakh crore.

* GST on common food items varies based on the degree of processing involved -

• Roti (5%) - Malabar Parottas (18%)
• Idli/Dosa batter (5%) - Ready to cook mix in powder form (18%)
• Milk (5%) - Flavoured Milk (12%)

* The former official title of Attender is now Office Subordinate and Scavenger is Sanitary worker.

* Euler is credited for popularizing the Greek letter π (lowercase pi) to denote Archimedes' constant (the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter), as well as first employing the term f(x) to describe a function's y-axis, the letter i to express the imaginary unit √−1, and the Greek letter Σ (capital sigma) to express summations.  Euler's eyesight worsened throughout his mathematical career. In 1738,  he became almost blind in his right eye. In 1766 a cataract in his left eye was discovered, and a few weeks later a failed surgical restoration rendered him almost totally blind. Euler remarked on his loss of vision, stating "Now I will have fewer distractions."

* Asrar ul Hassan Khan better known as Majrooh Sultanpuri (Majrooh means 'wounded') is the first lyricist to be awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award. He was a struggling Unani Hakim in Sultanpur, UP before moving to Bombay to start his career in films as a lyricist which spanned six decades. He was member of the Progressive Writers' Movement and Communist Party of India. His leftist leanings  and politically-charged poems got him into jail for two years in 1949. He is credited with introducing Urdu words like sanam (beloved) through Hindi film songs.

* Daringbadi is a hill station in Kandhmal district of Odisha. It known as "Kashmir of Odisha" for its climatic similarity. The village ("Badi") is named after a British officer named Daring Saheb who was in charge of this place. It is famous for its production of superior quality of organic turmeric, "Kandhmal Haldi", which  has received the G.I. tag. 

* In Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, the Cyclopes (singular Cyclops) are giant one-eyed creatures. 

* An acrostic is a poem or other composition in which the first letter of each line or paragraph spells out a word, message or the alphabet.

* Disruptions bring a profound shift in people’s understanding of how the world around them works. Ideological change is crucial for major societal change because societies promote ideologies that support their way of doing business – and if the way of viewing the world doesn’t change, the way of doing business isn’t going to change either. The outcome of a disruption is often completely unexpected to contemporaries, and that is precisely because ideas from outside the mainstream were used to shape the solutions to the problems of the time. A successful disruption creates space in which people can discuss new ideas. Lenin’s New Economic Policy, essentially state-sponsored capitalism, gave people a vested interest in what might generously be described as a modified communist regime. Yet Lenin’s successor, Joseph Stalin, destroyed the New Economic Policy with his programme of forced collectivisation. His homicidal regime ensured that the Soviet Union could never offer a viable alternative to Western capitalism. The disruption led by Hitler relied on a collapse of faith in institutions. It is a critical lesson from history that, when normality fails, change will come.

* "...my smartphone will remain the most dangerous item I possess." - Snowden