This Week I Learned - Week #17 2022

This Week I Learned - 

* The existing Azure Front Door and Azure CDN from Microsoft will now be known as Azure Front Door (classic) and Azure CDN from Microsoft (classic) moving forward. Azure Front Door Standard and Premium have the latest capabilities and future enhancements will not be available on Azure Front Door (classic). The new Azure Front Door is a modern enterprise CDN catering to both dynamic and static content acceleration with built-in turnkey security, and a simple and predictable pricing model. 

* At PyCon US 2022, Anaconda’s CEO Peter Wang announced a shiny new technology called PyScript that allows users to write Python and in fact many languages in the browser.  PyScript is a system for interleaving Python in HTML (like PHP). This means you can write and run Python code in HTML, call Javascript libraries in PyScript, and do all your web development in Python

* "The web browser is the most ubiquitous, portable computer environment in the world." - Peter Wang

* Microsoft Edge helps you find coupons, rebates, and better prices while shopping online. The Microsoft shopping service returns prices from other retailers, historical price trends, and any available coupons for that web

* The Software Engineering at Google [PDF; 602 pages] book (“SWE Book”) is not about programming, per se, but about the engineering practices utilized at Google to make their codebase sustainable and healthy. 

* The term break/fix or break'n fix refers to the fee-for-service method of providing information technology (IT) services to businesses. Using this method an IT solution provider performs services as needed and bills the customer only for the work done. The service may include repairs, upgrades or installation of systems, components, peripheral equipment, networking or software. The alternative to break/fix is managed services, which is a service plan, where the customer pays a fixed amount for services covered in the plan and pays additional amounts for repairs or other work which is not covered in the plan. The equivalent practice in the consumer market is that of out-of-warranty appliances, where the customer can pay for repairs as needed (break/fix) or they can buy an extended warranty (managed services). An advantage of break/fix IT management is the initial lower cost of maintenance. However, since problems are only addressed when they arise, maintenance is reactive rather than proactive. Small problems left unaddressed can balloon into major failures due to focus on cost. Unscrupulous providers are incentivized to use inefficient or malicious means to increase break/fix work and thus increase their revenue.

* Total contract value (TCV) refers to the whole revenue generated from one particular contract (or customer), including one-time charges such as costs related to cancellation or an onboarding fee. It measures how much value a contract is worth once executed. TCS had the highest TCV in Q4FY22, at $11.3 billion. Infosys had a TCV of $2.3 billion in the period. - ET

* I like that Google Search now shows number of pages in a PDF that turns up in the search results.

* Live Captions in Chrome is a great feature that when enabled automatically creates captions for English audio and video running within the Chrome browser. Try it if: 

• you want subtitles/captions for an English movie/video you're watching that doesn't have it
• English is not your first language and you want to understand any audio speech in English emanating from the Chrome browser which is hard to follow
• you want to follow an English audio speech/commentary with your computer volume turned off, through captions 

To enable Live Captions via Chrome Settings:

1. Go to Google Chrome > Settings menu 
2. Scroll to the Advanced section, and click to expand.
3. Scroll down to the Accessibility section, and turn ON the Live Caption toggle.

To toggle Live Captions, click Media control  next to the address bar at the top right. 

* Real-time translated subtitles

* Closed captions and subtitles are both popular terms used to describe transcribed audio in video. Subtitles assume an audience can hear the audio, but need the dialogue provided in text form as well. Meanwhile, closed captioning [CC] assumes an audience cannot hear the audio and needs a text description of what they would otherwise be hearing.  They provide more information about the speech and audio elements in the film or media.   Open captions which are burned in the video always are in view and cannot be turned off, whereas closed captions can be turned on and off by the viewer.  

* Unlike captions, audio description assumes the viewer cannot see the video. Audio Description is an optional audio track that narrates the relevant visual information happening on screen, including physical actions, facial expressions, costumes, settings, and scene changes without interfering with the key dialogue. Audio Description is an optional narration that describes what is . It is helpful for audiences who are blind or low vision. 

* IP Webcam turns your phone into a network camera with multiple viewing options. View your camera on any platform with VLC player or web browser. Stream video inside WiFi network without internet access.

*  NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter burned up in the Martian atmosphere because engineers failed to convert units from English to metric.

* The ManhattAnt is a unique species of ant found only in New York City.

* Methanethiol, commonly known as methyl mercaptan, is added to natural gas as an odorant, usually in mixtures containing methane. Methyl mercaptan is a by-product of asparagus in roughly 50% of humans, and it is responsible for the distinct change in odor of the urine.

* Phubbing is a term to describe the growing phenomenon of people ignoring their friends and family right in front of them while scrolling on their phones.

* Owning, renting and leasing land or a building includes the right to use the space above the land, also called air rights. Air rights refer to the legal ability to occupy the vertical air space above a plot of real estate. This encompasses any empty space above a property, from the upper stories of a high-rise building, to power lines, to a region of airspace above a property. In many cities, the total buildable airspace is capped by the government through a complex set of zoning laws. 

* A bear market is defined as a market that falls more than 20% from its most recent peak for a sustained period of time. On an average, it takes around 30 months for a bear market to end, if we look at Sensex data since 1986 but the one in 2020 was short-lived.

* The U.S. constitution is almost two and a half centuries old but has been amended 27 times, once a decade on average. India’s is much younger but has already been amended four times more than the American one.

* The 14th Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 following a Chinese crackdown on an uprising by the local population in Tibet. India granted him political asylum and the Tibetan government-in-exile has been based in Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh since then. China views the Dalai Lama as a "separatist" working to split Tibet from China