This Week I Learned - Week #24 2024
This Week I Learned -
* Oracle and Google Cloud have announced a Multicloud partnership to simplify cloud migration, multicloud deployment, and management
* A nice comparison of AI tools by PashooTech
* How LLMs Work, Explained Without Math
* The average hospital generates 137 terabytes of data daily.
* AI Toolkit for Visual Studio Code simplifies generative AI app development by bringing together cutting-edge AI development tools and models from Azure AI Studio Catalog and other catalogs like Hugging Face.
* In an innovative approach, MIT Media Lab has developed a website where users can interact with a personalized digital representation of their future selves. This artificial intelligence-driven experience is meant to inspire more long-term thinking and behavior by allowing users to imagine and plan for their future.
The future self, however, is not a crystal ball; it's simply a model generated from user-provided survey data and existing language models. The conversation with this virtual representation of your future self cannot predict specific details, but it aims to provide a realistic and engaging narrative of your potential future based on your survey responses.
* OTT streaming services frequently offer content in various languages, which benefits language learners and those who prioritize the art over the language. Prime Video has introduced a feature allowing you to select preferred audio and subtitle languages different from the primary language of your account's country. You can set up to five preferred languages, and doing so will tailor your Prime Video suggestions to mainly display content with audio or subtitles in your selected languages.
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| Streaming Languages in Prime Video |
* Perspectives on Data - Information - Knowledge - Wisdom
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| Source: 21st Century Infolibnet |
* Wizmatic Consulting's estimates suggest that the revenue for Global Capability Centers (GCCs) could be significantly higher than Nasscom's reported $46 billion for 2022-23, potentially exceeding $100 billion, which would account for more than 3% of India's GDP.
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| Courtesy - The Times of India |
* Tommy Feldt has created a datepicker with support for natural language text input
* "Generative AI has made it easier than ever to generate lots of code. But writing code has always been the easiest part of software engineering, and it's getting easier every day. The hard parts of software are what come next -- understanding it, scoping, upgrading, integrating, instrumenting, scaling, extending, maintaining. " - Charity Majors, CTO, honeycomb.io
* "Analysing, fixing and optimising code is much more important than writing it... (especially in this GenAI world)" - Chris Heilmann* "A big part of my success on the web was using view source and reverse engineering" - Chris Heilmann
* Siraitia grosvenorii, commonly known as monk fruit, luohan guo, or Swingle fruit, belongs to the herbaceous perennial vines of the gourd family, Cucurbitaceae, and is indigenous to southern China. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has classified monk fruit extract as "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS), suitable even for individuals with diabetes. Rich in distinctive antioxidants known as mogrosides, monk fruit is 100–250 times sweeter than sugar, allowing minimal usage. However, its fruity flavor is not universally appreciated, with some consumers reporting an adverse aftertaste. Currently, the approval for monk fruit sweeteners as a food additive in Europe is under review.
* The Arabian Oryx is a cultural icon in the Arab world, and the national animal of Jordan, Oman, the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain. Hunting and habitat loss had nearly driven the animal to extinction, but captive breeding and conservation efforts have now boosted its numbers in many parts of the Middle East.
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| Cartoon by Rohan Chakravarthy |
* Married couples in Japan are required by law to choose either the husband’s or the wife’s surname.
* The University of Chicago team has developed a new textile, now provisionally patented, that could offer a passive cooling solution. This innovation has the potential to lessen the reliance on energy-intensive systems, thereby making urban 'heat islands' more tolerable.
* Heat Wave Insurance - In the city of Ahmedabad, temperatures climbed above 43°C (109°F) every day between May 19 and May 25, creating deadly hot working conditions for many of the laborers who keep the local economy humming. With climate change raising temperatures during heat waves, millions of Indians face a difficult choice: work in dangerous conditions or go hungry. An innovative insurance program is helping around 50,000 women in India, enrolled into a heat wave insurance programme run by a self-help group, avoid such deadly work. When temperatures cross 43.6°C, the insurance company ICICI Lombard pays them a portion of their daily wages, using parametric insurance which pays out when a particular metric like the daily high temperature is hit. The extreme heat is especially dangerous for people like these women who suffer from conditions like hypertension. This insurance helped these Indian women avoid deadly work during heat waves by providing an alternative source of income on scorching days. - paraphrased from a Bloomberg article
* In May 2023, ICICI Lombard, in collaboration with Swiss Re, first launched a parametric-based Weather Insurance Policy covering high-heat events for 50,000 women labourers associated with SEWA across 22 districts in Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra. This time, the policy period is from April 2024 to March 2025. As of May 31, the policy has triggered claims amounting to approximately INR2.90 crore, against a total premium of INR1.89 crore, benefiting around 46,000 labourers (with about 45,000 from Gujarat and the rest from Rajasthan). Swiss Re is the reinsurer for this cover. Tata AIG GI has done a pioneer job by providing parametric cover for the people of Nagaland against the excessive rainfall during 2018-2021. Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company is providing parametric cover for weather-based crop insurance in states like Maharashtra. - ET
* Pension assets in India, measured as a percentage of GDP, stand at approximately 16.5%, whereas in developed nations such as the U.K., the U.S., and Australia, this ratio exceeds 100%. In comparison, the average for OECD countries reached 81% in 2022. Moreover, in certain Scandinavian nations like Denmark, the Netherlands, and Iceland, the figure surpassed 200% as of 2021.
* The National Pension System (NPS) was implemented in 2009. The overall NPS assets reached the ₹10-lakh crore mark in August 2023.
* The assets of SBI Mutual Fund are expanding more rapidly than SBI's deposits. The Assets Under Management (AUM) of SBI MF rose by 27% in the financial year ending March, reaching ₹9.14 lakh crore, up from ₹7.17 lakh crore in the corresponding period last year, according to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India. Meanwhile, SBI's domestic deposits grew by 11% during the same timeframe to ₹47.24 lakh crore, compared to ₹42.53 lakh crore recorded in the previous year. Buoyed by robust equity markets and a record collection from new fund offers, SBI MF surpassed the ₹10-lakh crore mark in average AUM on June 3. Presently, SBI provides a peak interest rate of 7% on domestic retail term deposits for 2-3 years. In stark contrast, the SBI Magnum Gilt fund has yielded an 8.45% return over two years, and the SBI Flexi Cap has returned 20%.
* Priyanka Mattoo was born into a wooden house in the Himalayas, as were most of her ancestors. In 1989, however, mounting violence in the region forced Mattoo’s community to flee. The home into which her family poured their dreams was reduced to a pile of rubble. Mattoo never moved back to her beloved Kashmir―because it no longer existed. She and her family just kept packing and unpacking and moving on. In forty years, Mattoo accumulated thirty-two different addresses. She chronicles her nomadic existence with wit, wisdom, and an inimitable eye for light within the darkest moments in memoir debut, Bird Milk and Mosquito Bones
* Udham Singh (born Sher Singh; 1899 – 1940) was an Indian revolutionary belonging to Ghadar Party and HSRA, best known for assassinating Michael O'Dwyer, the former lieutenant governor of the Punjab in India. In Singh's diaries for 1939 and 1940, he occasionally misspells O'Dwyer's surname as "O'Dyer", leaving a possibility he may have confused O'Dwyer with General Dyer. However, General Dyer had died in 1927, even before Udham Singh had planned the revenge.
* "Growing up, I was a fat kid. In Bengali culture, the opposite of thin is “healthy”. Food is a central part of celebration, and being fat is regarded as the norm. Sweets make up a critical part of the Bengali diet. In fact, in the city of Kolkata, where I’m from, 40% of adults are overweight and over 20% of men have high blood sugar. I was rarely ever denied food growing up. I had about 3 main meals and 3 snack meals every day. The philosophy with food has always been - Eat till you can’t eat any more… and then have dessert." - Deedy Das
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