This Week I Learned - Week #1 2023

This Week I Learned - 

* The Developer’s Guide to Azure is constantly updated and has a quick run through of the major Azure services with links to online resources. I liked the visual summaries from the latest edition 

* Azure Strategy and Implementation Guide, Fourth Edition; 287 pages; 2021

* Microsoft Defender for Cloud can monitor all your services, both in Azure and on-premises.

* Formerly known as Stackdriver, Google Cloud Operations Suite is a platform where you can monitor, troubleshoot, and improve application performance on your Google Cloud environment. Key Pillars of Cloud Operations Suite include Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Logging and Cloud Tracing.

* Kubernetes gives Pods their own IP addresses and a single DNS name for a set of Pods, and can load-balance across them.

* Premises is singular word for a location, premise is a proposition for an argument. On-prem is short for on-premises

* Using leading edge technologies requires you to be comfortable with change

* Some AI whisperers tell you how to ask ChatGPT to get useful answers.

* The Upcycler is a tool to convert existing (outdated) applications to a low-code model. It allows you to easily reuse the important and sound elements of your existing software. This enables you to quickly create a solid foundation and jumpstart your project.

* Spacewalk is open-source systems management software for system provisioning, patching and configuration licensed under the GNU GPLv2, allowing you to control the system software life cycle from initial installation, through maintenance, software configuration, upgrades, and eventual decommissioning. The project was discontinued on 31 May 2020 with 2.10 being the last official release. 

* The Volkswagen Group comprises 12 brands from 7 European countries:  Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Skoda, SEAT, CUPRA, Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, Porsche, Scania, MAN and Ducati. Rooted in Europe, the Volkswagen Group operates in 153 countries.  

* The ŠKODA head office is in the Czech Republic. It employs over 23,500 people, & works with a further 265 subcontractors. It accounts for 7.5% of all exports out of the Czech Republic. In 1991, ŠKODA proudly joined the Volkswagen family. As the largest car manufacturer globally, the Volkswagen Group annually provides customers with an average of more than five million cars — about 12% of the world car market. The Russian market is one of ŠKODA's most important markets globally.

* Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. is an Italian brand and manufacturer of luxury sports cars and SUVs based in Sant'Agata Bolognese. The company is owned by the Volkswagen Group through its subsidiary Audi.

* Invented in 1862 by a Dutch ophthalmologist named Herman Snellen, the Snellen chart remains the most widespread technique to determine the clarity of your distance vision. 

* Orangutans have the longest infant dependency period of all the mammals. They stay with their mothers for up to 7 years, and often nurse for comfort up to that point. They also mature slowly.

* The brown bear, hibernates in winter to save energy when food is scarce, but not the polar bear. The polar bear eats seals that it can hunt on the ice throughout the year and so has no need to hibernate. 

* The sun bears (Ursus malayanus) and sloth bears (Melursus ursinus) of Southeast Asia do not hibernate. Nor do the spectacled bears (Tremarctos ornatus) of South America. All live in climates without significant seasonal shortages of food and thus need not den up for winter.

* Apple cider vinegar is apple juice with a two-step fermentation procedure to transform into vinegar. Mashed apples are first combined with yeast and unrefined sugars to make alcohol. The alcohol is then fermented into acetic acid by the addition of microorganisms. 5-6% of apple cider vinegar is acetic acid. Apple cider vinegar may contribute to weight loss by promoting satiety, lowering blood sugar, and reducing insulin levels. 

* The Nobel Prize in Literature, one of the world's richest literary prizes, at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm

* Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber, 1922 – 2018) was an American comic book writer, editor, publisher, and producer. He rose through the ranks of a family-run business called Timely Comics which would later become Marvel Comics. Stan Lee (a play on his first name, "Stanley") explained in his autobiography and numerous other sources that because of the low social status of comic books, he was so embarrassed that he used a pen name so nobody would associate his real name with comics when he wrote the Great American Novel one day. Lee entered the United States Army in early 1942 and served within the US as a member of the Signal Corps, repairing telegraph poles and other communications equipment. He was later transferred to the Training Film Division, where he worked writing manuals, training films, slogans, and occasionally cartooning. In the Army, Lee's division included many famous or soon-to-be famous people, including three-time Academy Award-winning director Frank Capra, New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams, and children's book writer and illustrator Theodor Geisel, later known to the world as "Dr. Seuss." While in the Army, Lee received letters every week on Friday from the editors at Timely, detailing what they needed written and by when. Lee would write stories, then send them back on Monday.  

* The Avengers are a team of superheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby, the team made its debut in The Avengers #1 (cover-dated September 1963). Most of the characters that appear in Marvel Comics' books are set in the same fictional universe, known as the Marvel Universe. DC Comics pioneered this idea with the Justice Society of America and the Justice League, likewise promoting and developing the DC Universe. Marvel Studios repeated this business strategy when it produced the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), culminating with the release of The Avengers in 2012. Before the MCU, superhero movies were usually isolated productions mostly because of licensing issues, but the shared universe model has led to its continued growing success. In response, Warner Brothers (which owns DC Comics) began to produce its own series of interconnected superhero movies known as the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), culminating with Justice League in 2017. Movies tend to have bigger audiences than comic books, so, the general public are more aware that the likes of Wonder Woman and Captain America existed in separate universes owned by different companies. The movies raised brand awareness of DC Comics and Marvel Comics.

* In an interview with A.R. Rahman, Hamad Al Reyami calls the musicians in the web series 'Harmony with AR Rahman' (2018) - Avengers (of singers).

* In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions.

* The national dish of Pakistan is Nihari. 

* Nihari is a stew originating in Lucknow, the capital of 18th-century Awadh under the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent. It consists of slow-cooked meat, mainly a shank cut of beef, lamb and mutton, or goat meat, as well as chicken and bone marrow. The name nihari originates from Arabic nahâr meaning "morning" it was originally eaten by nawabs in the Mughal Empire as a breakfast course following Fajr prayer.

* The Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) was founded in 1992 by Prof. Francine R. Frankel from Penn’s Department of Political Science, as the first academic research center in the United States for the study of contemporary India.

* Banga Bibhushan Samman is a title instituted by the West Bengal government to honour the services of personalities in various fields. The Banga Ratna Samman and the Banga Bhushan Samman awards are also granted. The award was conceived in 2011 by Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal.

* Fabindia owes its origins to the 1956 film The King and I. When John Bissell, a buyer at Macy’s, came to Benaras to source fabrics for the film, weavers told him that since each handloom produced three saris, they could guarantee consistent colors only in those three, not across number of pieces Bissell needed. He realized the untapped potential of standardized Indian textiles in the global market, an idea which would eventually lead him to open the first Fabindia store in 1975. - IWTK

* Hornbill Festival is one of the largest indigenous festivals organized by the state government of Nagaland to promote tourism in the state. The festival pays tribute to Hornbill, the most admired and revered bird for the Nagas for its qualities of alertness and grandeur.

* 25% of Telangana's population live in Hyderabad.

* 20% of Karnataka's population live in and near Bengaluru (inside Peripheral Ring Road)

* The annual shopping carnival of Numaish in Hyderabad began as a two-day affair in 1938.

* Senior Citizen Savings Scheme (SCSS) is taxed at income tax (I-T) slab rates, as is the case with FDs. This can significantly prune down the final returns for those in higher tax brackets.

* Indexation is a process by which the cost of acquisition is adjusted against an inflationary rise in the value of an asset. For this purpose, the cost inflation index has been notified by the government. The benefit of indexation is available only to long-term capital assets.

* Networking can open unexpected doors. Much of the job market is now ‘hidden’. Many roles not only get filled via networks but also get created for specific people. - Getting On: Making work work, Joanna Gaudoin 

* Never use a one-size-fits-all decision-making process. Many decisions are reversible, two-way doors. ...most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow. If you’re good at course correcting, being wrong may be less costly than you think... - Jeff Bezos 

* Rethinking 10,000 hours: The amount of practice explains 18-21% of performance in sports and music, but only 1% in coding, flying, sales. In predictable tasks,  practice makes perfect. Under uncertainty, adaptability matters more. - Adam Grant