This Week I Learned - Week #9 2024

This Week I Learned - 

* Globe Explorer by Brian Machado is a visual way to breakdown any topic. It uses LLMs to understand your query, and generate an exhaustive page on that topic visually, allowing you to explore information in a way that search engines can't understand. It allows you to go from big picture ideas to the knowledge you need.

* Multi-modal LLMs as a watchman - "Act as a security camera watching entry door, the owners are not at home, there should be no person on the property. Do you see any suspicious activity on this image?"

* LLaVA is a vision language assistant using Llama.

* In designing the Great Seal, Thomson placed the Latin words "Novus Ordo Seclorum" beneath a pyramid of 13 steps to represent the 13 colonies that laid the foundation of American democracy. It means "a new succession of ages" and signals the beginning of the new American era in 1776. The phrase Novus ordo seclorum is one of two Latin mottos on the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States. The other motto is Annuit cœptis. This Latin phrase and the other motto on the reverse of the Great Seal, Annuit cœptis (meaning "He favours our undertakings"), can both be traced to lines by the Roman poet Virgil. 

* The “Star Spangled Banner” didn’t become the US’ official anthem until nearly a century later in 1931

* Dengue fever is among the most common mosquito-borne viral diseases worldwide, with global incidence rates increasing 30-fold over the last 50 years due to urbanization, travel and climate change. It is currently endemic in more than 100 countries and causes an estimated 390 million infections each year. QDENGA is a dengue tetravalent live, attenuated vaccine, also known as TAK-003, is currently available for children and adults in the private market in countries in Europe, Indonesia and Thailand and in private and some public programmes in Argentina and Brazil. TAK-003 is not approved for use in India. 

Source: American Heart Association 

* Phantosmia (also known as olfactory hallucinations or phantom smells) is a disorder linked to a person’s sense of smell. It happens when a person can smell something that is not there. People with parosmia smell real-life smells, but the smells are distorted.

* Humanism is a non-religious, ethical world view shared by millions of people around the world. Humanists believe that this life is the only life we have, that the universe is a natural phenomenon with no supernatural side, and that we can live ethical and fulfilling lives on the basis of reason and humanity. 

* The more effort you put into something, the more you admire it. Ikea products & cake mixes (which make customers add additional ingredients) attest to the fact that you can make a product require more effort on the part of the customer and nevertheless make them like it more. But product creators shouldn't make users invest so much effort that they can't create the product at all. - Edward Tanguay's notes from A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior by Prof. Dan Ariely in The Learn Tracker

* During the last hundred years, technological, economic and political developments have created an increasingly robust safety net separating humankind from the biological poverty line. In fact, in most countries today overeating has become a far worse problem than famine. In the eighteenth century Marie Antoinette allegedly advised the starving masses that if they ran out of bread, they should just eat cake instead. Today, the poor are doing just that. Whereas the rich residents of Beverly Hills eat lettuce salad and steamed tofu with quinoa, in the slums and ghettos the poor gorge on Twinkie cakes, Cheetos, hamburgers and pizza. In 2014 more than 2.1 billion people were overweight, compared to 850 million who suffered from malnutrition. Half of humankind is expected to be overweight by 2030. - Homo Deus