This Week I Learned - Week #18 2022

This Week I Learned -  

* All of Azure SQL is built on Azure Service Fabric, which serves as the Azure backbone.

* Azure SQL Edge is an optimized relational database engine geared for IoT and IoT Edge deployments. Azure SQL Edge is built on the same engine as SQL Server and Azure SQL. Azure SQL Edge is a containerized Linux application. The startup-memory footprint is less than 500 megabytes (MB).

* Azure Virtual Desktop is a cloud virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) platform that securely delivers virtual desktops and remote apps.

* Traditional load balancers operate at the transport layer (OSI layer 4 - TCP and UDP) and route traffic based on source IP address and port, to a destination IP address and port. Azure Application Gateway is a web traffic load balancer that enables you to manage traffic to your web applications. 

* Redshift’s SQL dialect is based on PostgreSQL

* BigQuery also lets you do geospatial data analysis using familiar SQL with BigQuery GIS. The BigQuery architecture is composed of several components. Borg is the compute. Colossus is the distributed storage. Jupiter is the network. And Dremel is the execution engine.

* Snowflake, unlike the other data warehouses we’ve profiled, is the only solution that doesn’t run on its own cloud. It’s the first multi-cloud data warehouse available globally on AWS, GCP, and Azure. With a common and interchangeable code base, Snowflake features global data replication, which means you can move your data to any cloud, in any region — without having to re-code your applications or learn new skills. - Comparison Guide - Top Cloud Data Warehouses for the Enterprise [PDF]

* Google Cloud AlloyDB provides PostgreSQL compatibility and is up to 2 times faster than AWS Aurora.

* Link to Google Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) online books

* Master data management (MDM) is a technology-enabled discipline in which business and IT work together to ensure the uniformity, accuracy, stewardship, semantic consistency and accountability of the enterprise's official shared master data assets. Master data is all the data critical to the operation of a business. This data is usually shared across the enterprise, and multiple departments and personnel depend on it for decision-making. Master data management includes the tools and processes an organization uses to establish a single source of truth for all its critical data. Customer information—such as names, phone numbers, and addresses—is an excellent example of master data. This data is less volatile but occasionally needs to be updated when a customer moves or changes their name. if your organization is very large or complex, distributes data often, or frequently goes through mergers and acquisitions, a master data management solution is likely to help solve some of your critical data challenges Many companies use master data management to organize, centralize, update, and distribute product data. If a company makes money from selling products, it’s essential that everyone in the company have access to a single accurate source of information for those products. 

* Securing Enterprise DevOps Environments [PDF; 53 pages]

* Machine Learning University (MLU) provides anybody, anywhere, at any time access to the same machine learning courses used to train Amazon’s own developers on machine learning. 

* Dive into Deep Learning - Interactive deep learning book with code, math, and discussions

* To harness the power of data and machine learning, Netflix categorizes its content into tens of thousands of micro-genres. Pairing these genre tags with a viewer’s history allows them to assign several of over 2,000 “taste profiles” to each user.

* Geoffrey Hinton is one of the first researchers who started working on ‘mimicking’ the human brain using computer hardware and software, thus constructing a newer, purer form of AI, which we now call ‘deep learning’. Hinton works part time for Google, the result of a frenzied bidding war between Google, Microsoft and Baidu, where he auctioned his company, essentially himself, to Google for $44mn – how this auction unravelled is a stuff of legend in itself. 

* Facebook is now the only Big Tech firm whose founder is an engineer, and still is the CEO

* Google's ‘Find My Device’ app can locate your Android phone, tablet or watch. 

* Google Maps also has a tracking feature that can locate a Google Contact when allowed by the person who wishes to be tracked. A Location link can also be shared with non-Google Contacts.

* A murderer in Hyderabad used the ‘Find My Device’ app to track his victim who had set his user id and password as his mobile phone number - DC

* In the genre of art known as appropriation art, artists intentionally take another artist's work and change, build on, or modify it in their own work. Appropriation in art and art history refers to the practice of artists using pre-existing objects or images in their art with little transformation of the original. Andy Warhol's "Campbell's Soup Can" series (1961) is probably one of the best-known examples of appropriation art. The images of Campbell soup cans are clearly appropriated. He copied the original labels exactly but filled up the entire picture plane with their iconic appearance.

* Billionaires follow “buy, borrow, and die” strategy to avoid taxes 

* Édith Cresson is the first, and so far only, woman to have held the office of Prime Minister of France in 1991. She soon became strongly unpopular among the electorate and had to leave office after less than one year. Her premiership is one of the shortest in the history of the Fifth Republic (France's current republican system of government established in 1958 by Charles de Gaulle. The Fifth Republic emerged from the collapse of the Fourth Republic, replacing the former parliamentary republic with a semi-presidential (or dual-executive) system that split powers between a president as head of state and a prime minister as head of government). Other than her breakthrough gender role, her term was uneventful. Her political career ended in scandal as a result of corruption charges dating from her tenure as European Commissioner for Research, Science and Technology.

* Shiv Kumar Sharma and Hariprasad Chaurasia collaborated with Yash Chopra and provided music for 8 films. They met each other while they were session musicians for other composers. 

* A French law, imposed in 1800 banned women from wearing trousers. According to the law, women needed to have the permission of local police if they wanted to "dress like a man" and wear trousers. Though it has been ignored for decades, formally it remained on the statute books. It was repealed in 2013.

* Varicose veins occur because of the improper functioning of the veins. Given that veins have only one-way valves that avoid backward flow of the blood, poor vein functions damage these valves and blood begins to collect in one place, hence enlarging the veins. This type of condition is most prevalent in women. Experts believe about 50% of the women population and 25% of all adults suffer from varicose veins. These mostly appear on the lower legs, since standing and walking raises the pressure in the veins of the lower body. It isn't dangerous or life-threatening in most cases. However, it can lead to complications in very rare cases. These include: blood clots, vein rupture leading to blood loss, skin ulcers.

* Sufis, like all practicing Muslims, pray five times a day and must visit Mecca once in their lifetime if they have the means. Additionally, order-specific practices might include the repetition of phrases using a set of beads, periods of semi-isolation or visits to the shrines of local spiritual leaders. A Muslim of any sect, nationality or set of political beliefs can choose to practice as a Sufi. Beyond the basic tenets of Islam, Sufism doesn't imply a specific set of beliefs, like the terms Sunni or Shiite. What it does suggest is a mode of practice concerned with individual spirituality. In general, a Sufi makes an oath of allegiance to a living spiritual leader, or sheikh, committing to a submission so complete that the relationship is often said by practitioners to be like that of a dead body in the hands of its cleanser. The sheikh draws his or her legitimacy from authority bestowed by a previous sheikh, and so on, going back to the Prophet Muhammad. It is spiritual, mystical Islam, but at the same time, traditional Sufism has not rejected jihad per se. A few Sufi orders in history have used drugs to seek a trance-like state, while some practice spinning in circles toward the same end. - WSJ

* Islam is the official religion in 26 countries in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, and the Middle East. 

* In May-19 and Jun-19, Hyderabad Traffic Police filed 5 lakh e-challans for traffic violations. In Mar-19,  more than Rs 5 Crore of fine amount was paid by violators.

* The term umwelt is of German origin. It refers to one's subjective experience, as dictated by our biology. If there were a mouse, to it, you and I would be giants. To a giraffe, we are small.

* "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts" - Sherlock Holmes / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

* "With great power comes air-conditioned comfort" - C K Nandan, Third Umpire, 5 Star ad