This Week I Learned - Week #45 2021

This Week I Learned - 

* If you are running sensitive workloads at risk of side-channel attacks in public clouds, all of the major IaaS suppliers provide options to use hardware dedicated to you, removing the option for an attacker to become coresident with your virtual machines. AWS offers Dedicated Instances, Azure has Isolated Instances and recently announced Dedicated Hosts, and Google Cloud has sole-tenant nodes. These options all cost a little more than their standard shared tenancy offerings, typically in the range of 6% to 10% for pay-as-you-go pricing. - 97 Things Every Cloud Engineer Should Know [PDF]

* Microsoft Ignite 2021 Session Viewer created with Power BI 

* OpenCV is one of the most widely used face detectors. This algorithm performs best for frontal face imagery and excels at computational speed. It's ideal for real-time face detection and is used widely in mobile phone apps, web apps, robotics, and for scientific research.

* Rabies (Latin for "madness". This, in turn, may be related to the Sanskrit rabhas, "to rage") is a viral disease that causes inflammation of the brain in humans and other mammals. The infection period may be as short as four days or longer than six years, depending on the location and severity of the wound and the amount of virus introduced. The disease can be diagnosed only after the start of symptoms. Early symptoms can include fever and tingling at the site of exposure. These symptoms are followed by one or more of the following symptoms: nausea, vomiting, violent movements, uncontrolled excitement, fear of water, an inability to move parts of the body, confusion, and loss of consciousness. Once symptoms appear, the result is virtually always death. Death usually occurs 2 to 10 days after first symptoms. More than 95% of human deaths from rabies occur in Africa and Asia. It is spread when an infected animal bites or scratches a human or other animal. Saliva from an infected animal can also transmit rabies if the saliva comes into contact with the eyes, mouth, or nose. Globally, dogs are the most common animal involved. In the Americas, bat bites are the most common source of rabies infections in humans, and less than 5% of cases are from dogs. All warm-blooded species, including humans, may become infected with the rabies virus and develop symptoms. Washing bites and scratches for 15 minutes with soap and water, povidone-iodine, or detergent may reduce the number of viral particles and may be somewhat effective at preventing transmission. A number of countries, including Australia and Japan, as well as much of Western Europe, do not have rabies among dogs. Many Pacific islands do not have rabies at all. It is classified as a neglected tropical disease.

* Merck developed the Ebola vaccine where, without an animal or human clinical trial, it was given to humans directly. This has been done in other vaccines during emergency times, for instance the mRNA vaccine never underwent animal trials. - ToI

* Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) is a composite temperature used to estimate the effect of temperature, humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation (e.g., sunlight). The WBGT index was developed in 1956 by the United States Marine Corps at Parris Island to reduce heat stress injuries in recruits. It is determined with special equipment and calculated to reflect components of air, humidity and wind that affect ‘actual temperature’ experienced by personnel. Once the "wet bulb" level hits 3, notices are sent to building managers, directors and fire responders so they can make denetminations about planning outdoor activities.

* With its emphasis on scientific accuracy and non-fiction descriptions of history and social science, The Ministry for the Future is classified as hard science fiction. It is also a part of the growing body of climate fiction. Numerous reviewers classified it as utopian fiction because it portrays a society changing in ways to address its short-comings. The book begins with a massive heat wave in India that kills 20 million. This triggers a series of actions that accelerate global human society's response to catastrophic climate change.

* If three celestial bodies in any solar system are lined up, you could say they’re aligned in syzygy. To pronounce syzygy, accent the first syllable: “SIZ-eh-gee.”

* Airbus Fello’Fly Programme  aims to demonstrate the technical, operational and commercial viability of two aircraft flying close together during long-haul flights. This collaborative activity has the potential to make an impact on commercial aircraft’s environmental performance and result in reduced fuel consumption. fello’fly draws inspiration from the “V-shaped” flight pattern of migrating geese. This technique is known as wake energy retrieval – or surfing the air upwash of a lead bird. During commercial aircraft operations, air upwash enables a follower aircraft to benefit from the free lift, resulting in less engine thrust and, as a result, reduced fuel consumption.

* The NIMHANS Brain Museum located on the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences campus offers an educative talk and, with the help of hundreds of specimens, a peek into how the brain grows, develops, and also sickens for various reasons. 

* The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is the governing body for cricket in India and is under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India. BCCI does not depend on the Government of India for its finances and hence is a private entity. In 2012, BCCI had avoided taxes on its income, claiming exemption as a charitable organization. In 2020, with US$405 million out of US$1,534 million, India had 26% share in the ICC FTP income disbursed to 10 Test playing nations, while ECB received US$139 million as the second highest earner. It enjoys clout as the world's richest board. 

* Zomato's Rs 9,375 crore initial public offering (IPO), which opened for subscription during July 14-16, received a strong reception from investors. The public issue was subscribed over 38 times, which is the highest in the last 13 years among IPOs valued at more than Rs 5,000 crore.

* Annual Information Statement (AIS) from the Income Tax (IT) department enables a taxpayer to see and verify taxpayer info available with taxmen, provide feedback in case of discrepancies, view/update the Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) used for pre-filling of ITR.

* Literally meaning ‘Town of Boiled Beans’, Bengaluru supposedly derived its  name from an ancient incident involving an old village woman who served cooked pulses to a lost and hungry Hoysala king. Kempegowda, a feudal lord, was the first person to demarcate the area of Bengaluru by building a mud fort in 1537, and watchtowers that pinpointed the city’s boundaries. Remnants of the watchtowers still exist in Lal Bagh Botanical Garden. The British arrived in 1809 and made the settlement their regional administrative base in 1831, naming it Bangalore. During the Raj era, the city played host to many a British officer, including Winston Churchill, who enjoyed life here during his greener years and famously left a debt (still on the books) of Rs.13 at the Bangalore Club. - Karnataka Tourism

* Madikeri is the capital of Coorg district.

* A researcher from an US university wants to know how to get data on being exposed to more BJP propaganda or advertising during elections. 

* 4G data is so cheap in India that you get 2GB free with a ₹20 ($0.27) pack of chips

* In South India, 'military' hotels serve non-vegetarian food.

* Air Marshal Padmavathy Bandopadhyay nee Swaminathan was the first woman to be promoted to the rank of Air Marshal in the Indian Air Force. She was awarded the Padma Shri recently. Padma was four or five years old when her mother contracted tuberculosis and eventually became bedridden. She became her mother's primary caregiver at a relatively young age. Her neighbor in the Gole Market neighborhood in New Delhi was Dr. S. I. Padmavati, Professor of Medicine at Lady Hardinge Medical College. Padma has said that her experience with her mother's illness and hospitalization at Safdarjung Hospital, and having a neighbouring lady doctor with the same name as her were early motivations to become a doctor.

* Her inspiration, Dr S I Padmavati was the first woman cardiologist in India. She established the first cardiac clinic and cardiac catheter lab in India. She received a MBBS degree from Rangoon Medical College and later moved to London in 1949, where she received a FRCP from Royal College of Physicians, followed by FRCPE from Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. She was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian honor in 1967 & Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honor in 1992. On 29 August 2020, Padmavati died from complications due to COVID-19. She was aged 103 at the time of her death, and was the oldest living doctor in India.

* Ramnath Subramanian, an IIM A and IIT Madras alumnus, started Subhiksha in Chennai in 1997. Subhiksha was linked by the investigators to at least 42 shell companies which it suspects were used to route bank money.  All the companies are linked to each other by common shareholders and all of them hold shares in other companies, forming a complex matrix making it difficult to unravel who is ultimately controlling the company. All these companies have either common directors, common shareholder or share addresses. Another investigation revealed that websites of two planned acquisitions had been made by the same developer who had left almost identical comments in the Wordpress template files for both and all three companies had the same phone number in the domain registry details thereby linking the Subhiksha founder. [Update 5/2022] Subhiksha had over 2,000 retail stores across India before it collapsed in 2009. A few months before the chain's collapse, Azim Premji had bought a 10% stake in Subhiksha in 2008  through his personal investment unit. However, Subhiksha struggled to operate its stores and reportedly defaulted on vendor payments. As per an order issued by the Supreme Court on 10 March 2022,  R Subramanian had to tender a public apology through newspaper advertisements for making a series of false allegations against Azim Premji & others in the Wipro group of companies.

* If you have to choose between being big and being remarkable – choose remarkable. 

* "Study hard what interests you in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible" - Richard Feynman