This Week I Learned - Week #52 2022

This Week I Learned - 

* The Kubernetes attack area is vast  

* A list of companies that discount their software and services for nonprofit orgs

* OpenAI’s Codex is a family of AI models from Open AI that translates between natural language and code in more than a dozen programming languages.

* Codex powers GitHub Copilot, an AI pair programmer available in Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. Copilot draws context from code and comments you’ve written, and then suggests new lines or whole functions.

* Prompt engineering is the practice of using prompts to get the output you want. A prompt is a sequence of text like a sentence or a block of code. The practice of using prompts to elicit output originates with people. Just as you can prompt people with things like a topic for writing an essay, amazingly you can use prompts to elicit an AI model to generate target output based on a task that you have in mind.

* Prompt engineering is a concept in artificial intelligence, particularly natural language processing (NLP). In prompt engineering, the description of the task is embedded in the input, e.g., as a question instead of it being implicitly given. The GPT-2 and GPT-3 language models were important steps in prompt engineering. In 2022, machine learning models like DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney were released to the public. These models take text prompts as input and use them to generate images, which effected a new category of prompt engineering related to text-to-image prompting.

* Microsoft offers OpenAI models in the Azure OpenAI Service with Azure’s enterprise capabilities of security, compliance, and global reach. 

* OpenAI, the San Francisco company is one of the world’s most ambitious artificial intelligence labs. Here’s a look at some recent developments.

• ChatGPT: The new cutting-edge chatbot is inspiring awe, fear, stunts and attempts to circumvent its guardrails.
• DALL-E 2: The system lets you create digital images simply by describing what you want to see. 
• GPT-3: With mind-boggling fluency, the natural-language system can write, argue and code.

* The experimental chat bot ChatGPT can serve up information in clear, simple sentences, rather than just a list of internet links. It can explain concepts in ways people can easily understand. It can even generate ideas from scratch, including business strategies, Christmas gift suggestions, blog topics and vacation plans. Although ChatGPT still has plenty of room for improvement, its release led Google’s management to declare a “code red.” - NY Times

* The technology at the heart of OpenAI’s chat bot was developed by researchers at Google.

* Steve Jobs decided the iMac would be "legacy-free" & replaced the ADB and SCSI ports with an infrared port and USB. Though the USB standard had industry backing, it was still absent from most PCs in 1998. The USB 1.1 standard was only standardized a month after the iMac's release. The iMac is credited with saving Apple from financial ruin, and for turning computers from niche, technical products to mass consumer fashion. 

* Originally, Apple planned to spell the Macintosh as McIntosh, since the name was a reference to project creator Jef Raskin's favorite apple cultivar - the succulent McIntosh.  The spelling of the name was changed to avoid potential conflict with McIntosh, the audio equipment manufacturer.

* The French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi created the statue itself out of sheets of hammered copper, while Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, the man behind the famed Eiffel Tower, designed the statue's steel framework. Lady Liberty's face is modelled on the sculptor's mother.

* The McIntosh apples are less suitable for market as they don't maintain their crunch over a long period of time. McIntosh apples are also known as McIntosh Red and Mac apples.

* Saki's short story "Gabriel-Ernest" includes many of the author's favourite themes: good intentions gone awry, the banality of polite society, the attraction of the sinister, and the allure of the wild and the forbidden.  

* Down and Out in Paris and London is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities.

* Any exposure to sunlight adds to the cumulative effects of ultraviolet radiation on your eyes. UV exposure has been linked to eye disorders such as macular degeneration, solar retinitis, cataracts, pterygia, and corneal dystrophies. The most dangerous time for sun gazing is midday and during a solar eclipse. The brightness of the sun is hidden; but the dangerous invisible rays that permanently burn your eyes are not reduced. Too much UV exposure boosts your chances of cataracts and macular degeneration.

* A cow's eye has four muscles that allow the eye to move up down left and right. The human eye has two more muscles that allow that allow the eye to move more freely.

* The extraocular muscles are the six muscles that control movement of the eye (Superior rectus, Inferior rectus, Lateral rectus, Medial rectus, Superior oblique and Inferior oblique). The levator palpebrae muscle controls eyelid elevation.

* A Psychologist studies all human behaviour - normal and abnormal. A Psychiatrist is a DOCTOR who specializes in abnormal behaviour - "mental disorder".

* Arthritis means inflammation or swelling of one or more joints. It describes more than 100 conditions that affect the joints, tissues around the joint, and other connective tissues. Specific symptoms vary depending on the type of arthritis, but usually include joint pain and stiffness. Some types of arthritis run in families. Most types of arthritis are more common in women, including osteoarthritis (OA), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and fibromyalgia. Gout is more common in men. 

* Banerjee or Bandyopadhyay is a surname of Brahmins originating from the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent and from Bangladesh. Together with Mukherjees, Chatterjees, Bhattacharjees and Gangulys, Banerjees form the Kulin Brahmins.

* The Old Pension Scheme, under which the entire pension amount was given by the government, was discontinued by the NDA government in 2003 from April 1, 2004. Under the New Pension Scheme, employees contribute 10% of their basic salary towards pension while the state government contributes 14%.

* “Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if both are frozen” - Edward V. Berard

* 3 things that help luck: 

1. Deconstructing your craft, so you know what good opportunities look like.

2. Remaining vigilant, so you notice when lucky breaks come your way. 

3. Acting quickly, so you are more likely to seize luck when it arrives. 

- James Clear