This Week I Learned - Week #255

This Week I Learned -

* The Basic & Stamdards service plans with Linux runtime environments support Web App for Containers. The platform automatically takes care of OS patching, capacity provisioning and load balancing. Steps to deploy a containerised app -
az group create -n AzureDemoRG -1 "East US"

az appservice plan create -n AzureDemoPlan -g AzureDemoRG --is-linux -l "East US" --sku S1 --number-of-workers 1

az webapp create -n LaunchCampaignApp -g AzureDemoRG -p AzureDemoPlan -i toddbaginski/django-starter-app:latest

Microsoft has made SQL Server Developer Edition a free product for non-production use. This is yet another way you can save on Azure costs for your non-production environments.

Premium storage can achieve 10 times the IOPS, 3 times the throughput and 1/3 the latency when compared to standard disks.

* Microsoft is heavily invested in SAP applications—it uses them extensively to run finance, human resources, global trade, supply chain, and other parts of its $89.5 billion global business. Doubling down on that investment, the company just finished moving its entire SAP landscape—an estimated 50 terabytes—to Microsoft Azure. Estimates are that moving from on-premises to Azure will slash the Microsoft SAP budget by 10 percent to 20 percent, cost savings that come from fine-tuning usage, snoozing systems at night and on weekends, and by leaving behind old processes that aren’t needed any more. Officially and publicly, SAP has adopted a “multi-cloud strategy” where it supports all hyperscale cloud providers to enable customers to use their preferred cloud. However, SAP recently announced it has selected Microsoft Azure to run many of its internal mission-critical SAP business systems - Microsoft IT Showcase Blog

* ...at times, new AI systems also exhibit strange and unexpected behaviour because the way they learn from large amounts of data is not entirely understood. That makes them vulnerable to manipulation; today’s computer vision algorithms, for example, can be fooled into seeing things that are not there. The rapid evolution of A.I. is creating new security holes. If a computer-vision system can be fooled into seeing things that are not there, for example, miscreants can circumvent security cameras or compromise a driverless car. A.I. systems are increasingly adept at generating believable audio and video on their own. This will accelerate the progress of virtual reality, online games and movie animation. It will also make it easier for bad actors to spread misinformation online - NY Times

Face recognition is poised to become one of the most pervasive surveillance technologies, and law enforcement’s use of it is increasing rapidly. 

* Adobe Systems based in San Jose, US, has about 17,000 employees across the globe and revenues of $7.3 billion in 2017

* Around 350 different genes, or about 1% of the human genome are responsible for olfaction. These allows us to distinguish over one billion smells.

* The first time in life when you smell a smell is the essential moment. If the moment is positive or negative, your relations to that smell remains positive or negative till you die

* Anosmia or odor blindness is the inability to perceive odor or a lack of functioning olfaction

* Aruna Roy left the IAS in 1974 when she was just 28. After serving the government for six years, Roy chose to become a fulltime social activist. She founded the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan which advocated people’s rights to scrutinize official records; that eventually led to the enactment of the Right to Information (RTI) Act in 2005. In 2000, she received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership.

Jean Drèze has made wide-ranging contributions to development economics and public economics, with special reference to India. He has lived in India since 1979. During and after his PhD in India, he adopted a lifestyle of voluntary simplicity. In 2002 Dreze became an Indian citizen, a process that took some time because the Government of Belgium could not understand why he wanted to renounce Belgian citizenship.

* "Aadhaar..was supposed to harness technology in the service of development; it has made people’s personal data vulnerable" - Reetika Khera, Associate Professor in the Humanities and Social Sciences department at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and one of India's leading development economists.

* Bathtubs, once mandatory for a five-star hotel classification, may be done away with as lodging chains move towards shower-only options. According to a Accor Hotels (which owns brands like Novotel, Sofitel and Ibis) representative, a guest uses around 370 litres of water while bathing in a tub. On the other hand, only 70 litres is spent on a shower, aiding in conserving water - Times of India

Hyderabad has 25% of state population and generates about 60% of Telangana’s income.

* “The internet is not complete yet. I believe that only a small percentage of the applications that are possible through the internet have been developed” - Vint Cerf, @vgcerf, Chief Internet Evangelist at Google

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