This Week I Learned - Week #32 2023

This Week I Learned - 

* HTML condenses whitespaces. Whitespace is any string of text composed only of spaces, tabs or line breaks (to be precise, CRLF sequences, carriage returns or line feeds). The presence of whitespace in the DOM can cause layout problems and make manipulation of the content tree difficult in unexpected ways, depending on where it is located. Most whitespace characters are ignored by CSS, but not all of them.

* Periodic table of Elements created with CSS grid

* For some time, containerization was a Linux-only feature. Windows applications could not benefit from containers. That changed with Windows containers and their subsequent support in Kubernetes and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).

* Free Datasets for Analytics Projects

* Open Government Data (OGD) Platform - India

* Mastodon is free and open-source software for running self-hosted social networking services. 

* There are 15,048 public repositories which are tagged Web app 

* The real essence of software architecture is trade-off analysis.

* The Resources section of Google for Startups has useful decks  

-0-

* Every four years, Americans who are 18 or older can vote to decide who becomes the president of the United States. US elections are not decided by the total or popular vote, but individual states. The candidate with the most state-wide votes becomes the candidate your state supports for president. We end up with most of the 50 states and the District of Columbia voting to support 1 candidate each. When it comes to a state's influence on the election, the number of districts matters most. More population = More districts =  More influence. The influence a state has in the election is measured by the number of "electors". This number comes from the number of districts in a state plus the number of U.S. senators - which is always two. For example, North Carolina has 15 electors (13 districts + 2 senators), California has 55 (53+2). If you add up the electors of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, there are 538 in total. The goal on election day is to win the majority of 538 – or 270 electors. Once a candidate wins enough states to reach the 270 majority, they have won the election and become the president elect.  On the following January 20th, the president elect is sworn in as the next president of the United States. - Common Craft

* Contrails — those fluffy ice clouds airplanes sometimes make when flying in humid regions — are responsible for 35% of aviation’s global warming impact. 

* Matteo Farinella is a neuroscientist-turned-cartoonist who uses comics to explain science.

* Your comfort food preferences are usually determined by the combined influences of internal (i.e., hormones) and external (i.e., environment) stimuli. While short-term stress may decrease appetite, research suggests that long-term stress triggers the release of additional cortisol—the body’s main stress hormone. When cortisol levels increase, so does your motivation to eat. To offset the effect of high cortisol levels in the body, people tend to eat foods with a higher sugar and fat content. This is because these foods may help to produce serotonin, a hormone that assists in improving mood and reducing cortisol levels. If you're looking for other ways to curb your comfort food cravings, you might consider trying taming your stress, leaning on your support system & exercising. When you experience a craving, you might first stop and ask yourself if satisfying that craving is really you avoiding a problem. - Go Ask Alice!

* The fatalistic French phrase c'est la vie (pronounced 'say-la-VEE' with the stress on the third word) literally translates to “that's life” or “such is life.” This expression is used to play down some minor disappointment: 

* "So we lost the match by two runs. What can you do; c'est la vie."

* "I can't go to the game on Sunday - I've got to work. Oh well, c'est la vie."

* The average weight of an elephant is 2000-5500 kgs and it's heart weighs 19 kgs. They have more than 100000 muscles in their trunks. Only male elephants have tusks. 

* Theobroma is derived from the Greek words 'theos' (god) and 'broma' (food). It translates to 'food of the gods'. Theobroma Cacao is also the botanical name of the cocoa plant. - Baking a Dream: The Theobroma Story

* Parsi surnames often have a link or connection to an ancestral profession; this is why Doctor, Driver, Lawyer and Engineer are all common Parsi family names. 

* According to nutritionist Bhuvan Rastogi, "Sooji has lesser fibre and micronutrient content than atta. In fact, sooji is closer to maida than atta". Sooji which is also known as semolina or rava is a more processed form of wheat and has lesser fibre while whole wheat atta is made by running wheat through a mill. Atta has all parts of wheat, including germ (nutrition centre) and bran (fibre). Germ is the most micronutrient dense part of the grain. Bran has the majority of fibre. Therefore, the nutrition of atta is the same as whole wheat. Sooji is made by passing wheat through the mill for coarser grain. Then it is sifted to remove both germs and bran. Therefore, Sooji is low in both fibre and micronutrients. - HT

* The glycemic index of semolina is 66 which is a medium GI food. Any food that has medium GI can raise the blood sugar, though slowly when compared to high GI foods. Hence semolina should be avoided by diabetics. - Tarla Dalal

* The Glycemic Index of Millet is 54.5 while Rice has an average glycemic index of 73. Green vegetables, most fruits, raw carrots, kidney beans, chickpeas and lentils have low GI.

* Asafoetida is used as a digestive aid, in food as a condiment, and in pickling. It plays a critical flavouring role in South Asian vegetarian cuisine by acting as a savory enhancer. Its most commonly available form is compounded asafoetida, a fine powder containing 30% asafoetida resin, along with rice flour or maida (white wheat flour) and gum arabic. Asafoetida is also known colloquially as "devil's dung" in English (and similar expressions in many other languages).

* 60+ universities across India now offer 500 online degrees.

* The presumptive scheme of taxation reduces the compliance burden on small professions and facilitates ease of doing business. Under the presumptive scheme of taxation, profits are presumed at 50% of the gross receipts. 

* Restoring our capacity to live sequentially — that is, focusing on one thing after another, in turn, and enduring the confrontation with our human limitations that this inherently entails — may be among the most crucial skills for thriving in the uncertain, crisis-prone future we all face. The Hindu mystic Patanjali, for example, saw doing one thing at a time as a core yogic discipline, suggesting that it didn’t come easily to people 2,000 years ago, either. - Oliver Burkeman, 'Four Thousand Weeks' 

* "The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it." - Mark Weiser, scientist at Xerox PARC

* "The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom." - Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)

* "You know who the best managers are? They are the great individual contributors who never ever want to be a manager but decide they have to be a manager because nobody else will do a better job than them." -  Steve Jobs

* "Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent" - Adam Smith