This Week I Learned - Week #13 2025

This Week I Learned - 

* FastAPI is a high-performance web framework for building HTTP-based service APIs in Python 3.8+.

* Scrollytelling is a web design technique that uses scroll-triggered animations, transitions, and interactions to create immersive and engaging stories. Some popular scrollytelling pieces:

• New York Times: Close Read
• ABC News: How to spot fake and AI images
• Stuff: This is the tale of two pandemics
• Permutation Test: A Visual Explanation of Statistical Reasoning

* GenAI is more like a stochastic parrot imitating human language by matching statistical patterns.

* "I'd decided to start AI Dev because while there're great academic AI conferences that disseminate research work (such as NeurIPS, ICML and ICLR) and also great meetings held by individual companies, often focused on each company's product offerings, there were few vendor-neutral conferences for AI developers. With the wide range of AI tools now available, there is a rich set of opportunities for developers to build new things (and to share ideas on how to build things!), but also a need for a neutral forum that helps developers do so." - Andrew Ng

* Founded in 1985 by animation legends Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Toshio Suzuki, Studio Ghibli is celebrated for its hand-drawn animation, enchanting visuals, and heartwarming narratives that captivate audiences of all ages. Its distinctive style—characterized by soft pastel colors, intricate backgrounds, and unforgettable characters—is instantly recognizable and deeply admired.

When Miyazaki was shown an AI demo in 2016, he was “utterly disgusted” 

* ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which is fighting copyright lawsuits over its flagship chat bot, has largely encouraged the "Ghiblification" experiments and its CEO Sam Altman changed his profile on X into a Ghibli-style portrait. The company said the new tool would take a "conservative approach" in the way it mimics the aesthetics of individual artists, but added it "permits broader studio styles". Josh Weigensberg, a partner at a law firm, said there is a general principle “at the 30,000-foot view” that “style” is not copyrightable.  Japan is unusual insofar as it explicitly permits AI developers to use copyrighted materials for commercial purposes.

* Until a few years ago, any app you installed on an Android device could see all other apps on your phone without your permission.

Since 2022, with Android 11, Google removed this access from app developers. Under their new package visibility policy, apps should only see other installed apps if it’s essential to their core functionality. Developers must also explicitly declare these apps in the AndroidManifest.xml file - a required configuration file for all Android apps.

There are some legitimate reasons for an app to check which other apps are installed on your phone. For example, an app might check which UPI apps are installed to show relevant payment options. Most of the manifest files I examined included checks for these apps. Some also looked for app cloning or multi-account apps, likely for security and fraud detection. 

Swiggy checks 154 apps (if installed) on your device not essential to its core functionality. The wide range of categories of apps in this list strongly suggests Swiggy is collecting installed apps data for user profiling and to build a behavioural profile of their customers. - Everyone knows all the apps on your phone, Prashant Baid 

* Commenting on the above post about Android allowing app makers to routinely use a loophole (that Android has known about and not fixed for years) to get the list of all other apps on your phone, Andrej Karpathy writes that there are NO legitimate uses for allowing user information or if there are they are super marginal and the privacy tradeoff is not worth it. In practice, the data is clearly being collected at scale for shady user profiling.

* The Sahara Desert is the largest hot desert in the world stretching across North Africa, covering parts of 11 countries.

* Concerns over the management of the invasive Conocarpus species of trees have recently led Gujarat & Telangana, to ban their use.  Many species introduced to India for greening or ornamental projects have become invasive over time. These invasive species have outcompeted native flora for space and soil resources, driving many native species to extinction and incurring significant management costs. The list of such invasive species is extensive, with notable examples including Eucalyptus, Prosopis juliflora (vilayati kikar), Acacia mangium, and Lantana camara. Despite their invasive nature, these species continue to be used until greater attention is focused on addressing their impact.

* While fluency in Mandarin (a language with over 50,000 characters) requires mastery of at least 3,000 to 5,000 characters, the intricate writing system and tonal nature of it make it one of the most challenging languages to learn. 

* Chinese markets are up 50% over the last one year. 

* US is the largest importer of Indian pharma products, accounting for 31% or $9 billion (₹74,000 crore) of India’s total pharma exports in 2023-24.

* IPL currently has a cumulative brand value of USD12 billion, as per the 17th Brand Finance IPL 2024 Valuation Report, generating 1.25 million direct and indirect jobs in India. 

* The Unified Pension Scheme (UPS) is a new option under the National Pension System (NPS) for Central Government employees, offering a guaranteed pension amount, while NPS pensions depend on market-linked investments

* Mexico, Japan and South Korea, along with Canada, account for about 75 percent of U.S. vehicle imports.

* Indian households’ total holding of gold is estimated at about 25,000 tonne, which is more than the combined gold reserves of top 10 central banks. 

* The cost of running AC in a car is ₹16 to ₹18 per km

* Although less than 20% of Indian households own an air conditioner, cooling accounted for an estimated 60 GW of the total peak load in 2024. Rising AC ownership and an expected intense and prolonged heat waves will further drive higher power consumption. By 2030, ACs are expected to contribute to a third of peak electricity load, reaching 140 GW.

* Family medicine was part of medical education in Telangana. Now, it’s no longer among the 22 specialties offered as part of the MD course. As per the National Medical Council (NMC) website, barring seven states that offer just about 17 seats, no other state has provision to pursue family medicine.

* ~5 lakh citizens travel by Hyderabad Metro daily.

* A tautogram is a form of poetry where every word in a line or sentence begins with the same letter.

* Virtue Signaling refers to the act of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's moral correctness, often to gain approval or admiration from others.

It’s typically about expressing support for a cause, belief, or value without taking meaningful action.

Often seen on social media, where individuals or brands highlight their alignment with social or political causes.

Example: Posting a hashtag or slogan to show solidarity with a movement but doing little to contribute meaningfully to the cause.

Criticism: It’s sometimes viewed as superficial or performative, where the focus is on appearing virtuous rather than making a real difference.

* Blagging is a social engineering technique where someone uses deception or persuasion to obtain information or access to something, often by creating a false scenario. It can involve impersonating someone or fabricating a story to trick the victim into sharing sensitive information.

* "When the winds of change blow, some people build walls, and others build windmills." - Chinese proverb