Tech Tips, Tricks & Trivia

This Week I Learned -  * Adding "-hi" or any equivalent Indian language code to the India-specific subdomain of the Open Food Facts URL will show few parts of the product page in Hindi (or equivalent regional language). For example, some words which have English to Hindi translations in Crowdin , a translation mapping service that Open Food Facts uses, will be shown on this webpage in Hindi -  https://in -hi .openfoodfacts.org/product/8908015592355/khatti-premium-seedless-tamarind-de-naturel * What is Crowdin? * Due to the localisation that Crowdin enables, different nationalities can benefit from utilizing the Open Food Facts database through its website in their native language. * Reinforcement Learning is a machine learning technique where an agent learns to make decisions by interacting with an environment and receiving feedback in the form of rewards or penalties. Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton are recognized for developing the foundational concepts and algorithms ...

The English language is full of surprises, especially when it comes to pronunciation. With more than 19 vowel sounds represented by just five vowels (plus sometimes “y”), English can be a challenge—especially for non-native speakers. Many words contain silent or extra letters that make pronunciation tricky. If your native language follows phonetic spelling (where words are pronounced as they are written), you might instinctively apply the same logic to English. This can lead to unexpected mistakes—like pronouncing the “t” in ballet or being puzzled by why colonel is pronounced ker-nil . To help with this, I started compiling a list of such tricky words in a Google Spreadsheet. Then, I learned that Google Sheets can function as a read-only database , so I built a simple web app using the Google Sheets API and JavaScript to display the list online.  Check it out ! The pronunciations are from Google & WordWeb (created by a physicist, Antony Lewis).  Switching to Datasett...

This video is part of a "general audience series on large language models". It aims to show practical applications of LLMs and how to use them. It includes examples , different settings, and personal usage demonstrations. Key points: Language model is essentially a self-contained entity, like a "one terabyte zip file," which contains knowledge from pre-training and style from post-training. It's important to be mindful of the specific model being used, as different models have varying capabilities and pricing. Deep Research  combines internet search and thinking for in-depth analysis

A good way to understand commercial software products is to check features for its different pricing plans.  Here is the list of the 50+ GitHub Copilot features from its Pricing page - Chat Messages and interactions Access to OpenAI GPT-4o [Preview] Access to OpenAI GPT-4.5 [Preview] Access to Anthropic Claude 3.5 Sonnet [Preview] Access to Anthropic Claude 3.7 Sonnet [Preview] Access to OpenAI o1 [Preview] Access to OpenAI o3-mini [Preview] Access to Google Gemini 2.0 Flash Context-aware coding support and explanations Debugging and security remediation assistance Access to knowledge from top open source repositories Generate tests, docs, and more with slash commands Answers about issues, PRs, discussions, files, commits, etc. Web search powered by Bing [Preview] Explain failed Actions jobs [Preview] Multi-file editing in VS Code [Preview] Switch between models [Preview] Add images to prompts Code completion Real-time code suggestions [Preview] Next edit suggestions Comments to c...

Can you imagine sharing a CSV file as URL and letting the recipients view the data through just their browser? Guess what, you can do that & more with  Datasette . Click on this link to see a table showing shelf life of some perishable food items Datasette is a tool created by Simon Willison for exploring and publishing data .  It's a web application that provides a  user interface (UI) for browsing, viewing,  faceting, filtering,  sharing and exploring data .  Datasette allows you to convert CSV files into a database table . Datasette runs on top of SQLite , which is a fast, widely used database where each database is a single file that's easy to copy and back up. Datasette is designed for read-only data, meaning you can't make changes to the data through the Datasette interface. You can run your own SQL queries against the data, which is usually risky for web applications but safe in Datasette because it uses a read-only database. Datasette's JSO...

This Week I Learned -  * Message queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS) solve problems but also introduce new ones (ordering, deduplication, backpressure). Nothing is more abused than Redis as a primary database. Understand trade-offs .  *  Roboflow provides the means to label, train, and deploy computer vision solutions. It offers a Free Plan with 15 credits per month to try it and get started. * Currently 45+ services are available in the AWS Free Tier  to both existing and new AWS customers indefinitely unlike some others that are free for the first 12 months. * Skype Joins Windows Phone in Microsoft's Graveyard of Forgotten Innovations -Founded in 2003, Skype’s cheap audio and video calls quickly disrupted the landline industry in the early 2000s. Microsoft bought Skype in 2011 for $8.5 billion after outbidding Google and Facebook. Microsoft will retire the two-decade-old internet calling service in May 2025. * Dark Patterns & Dirty Tricks in Smartphone Apps - The Di...

The two islands,  Little Diomede (Yesterday Island, USA) and Big Diomede (Tomorrow Island, Russia) are a mere three miles apart. Yet, they lie on opposite sides of the International Date Line, creating a remarkable 21-hour time difference! This means that when it's noon on Big Diomede, it's 3 AM the previous day on Little Diomede. This unique situation makes the islands seem like two different worlds, despite their close proximity.  Imagine being able to celebrate your birthday twice or experience two different days within a short trip.  This geographical anomaly is a fascinating example of how time can be bent by the International Date Line. See more of my AI co-creations