This Week I Learned - Week #39 2024

This Week I Learned - 

* Cursor is a fork of VS Code. As a standalone application (and not an extension), Cursor has more control over the UI of the editor, enabling greater AI integration. Regardless of whether you use the free, pro or business version of Cursor, all generated code is yours and free to be used however you like, including commercially. 

* Llama 3.2 is Meta’s newest release of vision and text models that fit on edge devices, enabling developers to build more private and personalized AI experiences. It includes small and medium-sized vision LLMs (11B and 90B) and lightweight, text-only models (1B and 3B) that support image reasoning and on-device use cases.

* OpenAI's new family of AI models titled o1-preview are being trained via reinforcement learning and 'chain of thought' in order to answer queries. o1-preview is optimized for solving math and science problems, writing code, and solving word problems, with its expert reasoning and analysis. It excels in complex reasoning tasks, performing similarly to graduate students in scientific fields, making it ideal for tackling challenging problems that require advanced planning and analytical approaches. 

* o1-mini is optimized for coding and reasoning tasks. It excels in focused problem-solving tasks with speed and accuracy, and is particularly good at coding tasks. 

* The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare's Co-WIN application is a microservices-based, cloud-native architecture developed from the ground up on AWS-managed solutions. 200 crore vaccinations have been completed using Co-WIN.

* "your endpoints design and API restrictions are a web lurker's dream"

* "The truth about software is that today’s greenfield project becomes tomorrow’s brownfield mess."

* Don't observe, debug: Discover how to quickly trace issues

* Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has decided to initiate legal proceedings against X following reports that all users on the platform were automatically opted in to allow their data to be processed for training the AI chatbot ‘Grok’. Users have to manually go into settings and uncheck a box to opt-out of the AI training process.

* Anthropometry is the scientific study of the measurements and proportions of the human body. Anthropometric measurements can be combined with each other or with other information to calculate anthropometric indices. These indices can be used to make inferences about body composition, growth and development.

* Phrenology or craniology is a pseudoscience that involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits.

* Women in Afghanistan received the right to vote in 1919. Women in Switzerland had received that same right in 1971. In 2024, Meryl Streep has pointed out that a female cat has more freedoms than a woman in Kabul and a squirrel has more rights than a girl in Afghanistan.

* Closer to India’s high-pressure work system is China, home of the toxic ‘996’ work culture, where people put in an average of 46 hours a week into their work. China’s ‘996’ work culture refers to a routine of working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week, which was glorified by Chinese tech tycoon Jack Ma. Working long hours can make money only when people can be productive. A Chinese worker earns $15.4 per hour, while an Indian worker contributes only $8 to the GDP per hour, placing India behind countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia in labor productivity. 

* After Mao Zedong's death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping introduced his famous reforms in China. China's GDP at the time was roughly equal to India's. In late 90s and early 2000s, the sleeping giant started galloping and now has an economy five times larger than India's. - ToI

* The Reserve Bank of India's Governor Shaktikanta Das has cited severe climate events, geopolitical disruptions, technological advancements, fintech innovations, and AI as key 21st-century challenges for central banks.

* Dengue virus has four strains: DENV 1, DENV 2, DENV 3 & DENV 4. Strains have antigenic drift and every few years dominant strain emerges as stronger. Still in the thick of the dengue season, Telangana has already surpassed last year’s record with 8,027 cases till Sept 20, 20024. The last major peak was in 2019, when 13,331 cases were recorded in the state. The peak dengue season lasts from June to Sept, but in recent years cases have been reported throughout the year. Every time there is a fresh spell of rain followed by dry days, the breeding of mosquitoes accelerates and due to frequent spells of rain and dry days, there are seeing more cases. 

* Trap-cropping uses “trap plants” to protect main crops from pests. These are selected to be naturally more attractive to pests. For example, non-flowering barbarea plants are used to draw diamondback moths away from cabbage crops. - BigBasket Newsletter

* Friends is the Sholay of TV, stitching itself into the DNA of global pop culture just as Sholay has been woven into the fabric of Indian cinema. - MoneyControl

* "Overt sycophancy is often a performative act, an attempt to prove loyalty in a landscape filled with opportunism. But those who engage in sycophancy often do so at the expense of their own self-respect — the trait necessary for integrity and long-term commitment. In the short term, sycophants appear reliable, but examples abound where the loudest, most vocal of them are often the first to shift allegiances when it’s convenient — and then become loudest sycophants for the other side. This trend has created a pervasive culture of opportunism, mistrust and instability within and across political parties. Moreover, sycophancy fosters a culture of groupthink, leading to insularity, where diverse perspectives are sidelined in favour of reinforcing the leader’s agenda." - Ruchi Gupta