This Week I Learned - Week #32 2024

This Week I Learned - 

* Learning Roadmap for Gen AI developers 

* Jonathan Ross, the visionary behind Groq, was instrumental in the creation of Google’s groundbreaking Tensor Processing Unit (TPU). Initially a 20% side project with a single colleague, Ross’s work on the TPU eventually evolved into the core of this specialized machine learning accelerator. The power of this custom chip was on full display when Google’s AlphaGo AI sensationally defeated South Korean Go master Lee Se-dol.

* "If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything." - Ronald Coase

* "Part of storytelling and songs is to explore ideas and allow certain feelings or emotions to come to the forefront because they exist in all of us." - Vince Vaughn

* Ads and digital content that mix words in Indian languages and English including transliterations in English are becoming a thing

Interestingly, AI assistants can also understand some Indian languages when you type the native words in English alphabet.

* At the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Jim Hines of the USA became the first Olympian to complete the 100m in under 10 seconds. In a new milestone, every 100m finalist at the Paris Olympics finished in under 10 seconds.

* The EU agreed to be net-zero by 2050. With existing measures, only 2 out of 27 EU member states are on track to reach net-zero by 2050.

EU Emission Tracker dashboard

* Climate Bracelet, a remarkable piece of Data Art by Natalia Kisaleva, visualizes global warming data for the city of Arkhangelsk across recent decades. 

Each pair of rows signifies a year, with bead colors indicating the temperature deviation from a historical baseline. Darker, redder beads denote a positive deviation from the average temperature, signifying warmer years; conversely, bluer beads indicate cooler years with a negative deviation. This visual technique, termed Warming Stripes, was initially introduced by Ed Hawkins and has since gained traction among eco-activists and data visualizers, who often craft warming stripes using various materials, most notably by knitting scarves.

* Hyaluronic acid, pronounced hi-ah-lew-ron-ic, also referred to as hyaluronan or hyaluronate, is a naturally occurring gooey and slippery substance in the body. It plays a significant role in skin health, contributing to tissue repair, and is a key component of synovial fluid, enhancing its viscosity. On a commercial scale, hyaluronic acid is produced by extracting it from animal tissues like chicken combs and from bacterial sources such as Streptococci.

* In journalism, a hot take is a "piece of deliberately provocative commentary that is based almost entirely on shallow moralizing" in response to a news story, "usually written on tight deadlines with little research or reporting, and even less thought". It originated as a term in the industry of sports talk radio (and in turn by shared televised simulcasts of those shows to fill dead time on networks and sports-related debate shows, sports television itself), referring to the tactic of hosts picking "a topic from the sports zeitgeist, often one that has no business being discussed because the answer is unknowable", making "loud, fact-free declarations" about the topic, eliciting angry listeners to call in and providing show content. The New York Times Styles section defines a hot take as "a hastily assembled but perhaps heartfelt piece of incendiary opinionated content".

* Rage-baiting or rage-farming is internet slang that refers to a manipulative tactic to elicit outrage with the goal of increasing internet traffic, online engagement, revenue and support.

* In Netherlands, the average height is 182 cm (~6ft) 

* The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has asked the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and Institute of Company Secretaries of India to take action against CAs who signed off on 500 Chinese companies that are being investigated for incorporation fraud.