This Week I Learned -
* To prevent apps from starting automatically, disable startup apps by moving all icons and shortcuts from the Startup folder (OSDisk\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp) to another folder.
* Azure Site Recovery replicates data to an Azure storage account or managed disks, over a public endpoint. Replication isn't over a site-to-site VPN. When you replicate to Azure, replication traffic reaches the public endpoints of an Azure Storage. Thus you can only replicate over the public internet or via ExpressRoute (Microsoft peering or an existing public peering). You can use the pricing calculator to estimate costs while using Site Recovery. For detailed estimate on costs, run the deployment planner tool for VMware or Hyper-V, and use the cost estimation report. When you use Site Recovery, you incur charges for the Site Recovery license, Azure storage, storage transactions, and outbound data transfer.
* Azure Site Recovery compresses the data before you transfer. Hence, egress is charged for the compressed replication data. Costs are also incurred for the virtual machine compute capacity and is only applied at the time of test failover and failover. This cost is usually zero provided there’s no active disaster recovery drill or no actual disaster.
* Azure Site Recovery replication for SQL Server is covered under the Software Assurance – Disaster Recovery benefit, for all Azure Site Recovery scenarios (on-premises to Azure disaster recovery, or cross-region Azure IaaS disaster recovery).
* Azure does not support persistent MAC addresses, and so software with MAC based license models can't be used for both on-premises to Azure migration or disaster recovery.
* Application-consistent recovery points capture the same data as crash-consistent snapshots while also capturing data in memory and all transactions in process. Because of their extra content, application-consistent snapshots are the most involved and take the longest. We recommend application-consistent recovery points for database operating systems and applications such as SQL Server.
* Pronunciation assessment feature in the Speech Service of Cognitive Services evaluates speech pronunciation and gives speakers feedback on the accuracy and fluency of spoken audio. With pronunciation assessment, language learners can practice, get instant feedback, and improve their pronunciation so that they can speak and present with confidence. Educators can use the capability to evaluate pronunciation of multiple speakers in real-time.
* The Pronunciation Assessment API provides speech evaluation results compared to reference text by using a machine learning-based approach that correlates highly with speech assessments conducted by native experts. The pronunciation Assessment model was trained with 100,000+ hours of speech data from US English speakers. Pronunciation Assessment evaluates three aspects of pronunciation: accuracy, fluency, and completeness.
* After an AI developer posted about how he restored an old picture of his father using GFP-GAN (a blind face restoration algorithm), another commented on how a "deep fake" takes it a step further:
* Amazon RDS first launched back in October of 2009. Starting with Amazon RDS for MySQL it has reached a total of seven database engine options: Amazon Aurora MySQL, Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle Database, and Microsoft SQL Server. Moving self-managed databases to managed database services is the new norm.
* Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) on VMware is a service that delivers AWS-managed relational databases in on-premises VMware environments. RDS on VMware is generally available and will support Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, and PostgreSQL database engines in customer-owned data centers, including for workloads that need to remain on-premises to be in compliance with security, privacy, regulatory, or data sovereignty policies.
* Information about the service disruption that occurred in the AWS Northern Virginia (US-EAST-1) Region on December 7th, 2021 due to "automated scaling activity".
* The Indian government announced the Open API Service from Aarogya Setu (ASetu) in August, 2020. It enables organizations and business entities to fetch the COVID-19 risk status of their employees or any other ASetu app users. The solution is made up of only serverless components that require minimal maintenance and are secure. It’s built using AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK), an infrastructures as code (IaC) library that makes it easy to deploy infrastructure or integrate with existing infrastructure.
* The site Data.Page has an online tool that can convert JSON to a CSV file.
* A Twitter Professional account enables you to distinguish yourself as a business or professional creator on Twitter. To be eligible you must have a complete profile with an account name, a bio, and a profile picture. Parody and fan accounts are not eligible for Professional Accounts. Depending on context, severity, and history of violative behavior, Twitter may take enforcement actions like limiting amplification of your account via algorithmic recommendations to accounts that do not follow you.
* From 2 product marketing emails I received:
Moving forward, we will pause on sending you promotional emails. However, you may click the button below to stay on our mailing list.
P.S. Let me know if you don't want to hear from me again
* “Net net,” noun phrase, the ultimate result or outcome; also adverbial phrase, in summary. Usage note: Because this term can be employed as either a noun or an adverb, one hears it fairly often in the financial field, which is unfortunate because its utterance is about as annoying as stepping in dog turd. It’s obnoxious because the user of the term often seems to be implying that he has no interest in hearing the current speaker’s full message because the former is too busy, intelligent, and important for such silliness. Someone asking for the “net net” frequently means: “Spare me all your windbaggery and just give me the bottom line.” The investment banker is nothing more than a highly paid deal processor. If he had more intellectual curiosity, he’d be an industry analyst. If he had more interpersonal skills, he’d be an equity or bond salesman. If he had the courage of his convictions, he’d be a trader.
* Trichotillomania (TTM) (pronounced trik-o-till-o-MAY-nee-uh), also referred to as “hair-pulling disorder,” is a mental disorder in which people feel an overwhelming need to pull out their own hair.
* Onchocerciasis, or river blindness, is a neglected tropical disease (NTD) caused by the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus. It is transmitted through repeated bites by blackflies of the genus Simulium.
* Fruit is “nature’s candy”
* Nils Bohlin, an engineer, invented the modern three-point seat-belt in 1959. Volvo patented the designs but instead of retaining exclusivity, they made it available to all, encouraging mass adoption and safety of passengers around the world.
* Elizabeth Holmes built a blood-testing startup Theranos Inc. into a $9 billion company based on promises and the force of her personality. Holmes heaped significant blame for what went wrong at Theranos on Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, with whom she entered into a romantic relationship when she was 18 and he was 38.
* David Boies is an American lawyer and chairman of the law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner. Boies rose to national prominence for leading the U.S. federal government's successful prosecution of Microsoft in United States v. Microsoft. Time magazine named Boies "Lawyer of the Year" in 2000. Boies has dyslexia and he did not learn to read until the third grade. Boies's mother would read stories to him when he was a child and Boies would memorize them because he could not follow the words on the page. He is frequently described as having a photographic memory that enables him to recite exact text, page numbers, and legal exhibits. Colleagues attribute his courtroom success in part to this ability.
* Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, acknowledges taking the name Apu for his character on the television show from Ray's Apu Trilogy.
* In 1982, when Steven Spielberg's blockbuster E.T. was released, the plot bore a striking similarity to Ray's script for The Alien, and was produced by the same company that had contracted with Ray in 1967. The similarity was considered by some, including Ray, to be more than mere coincidence.
* Manthan (The Churning) (1976) is a film by Shyam Benegal on rural empowerment and is set against the backdrop of Gujarat's fledgling dairy industry. For the first time, over five lakh (half a million) rural farmers in Gujarat contributed ₹ 2 each and thus became the film's producers. Upon its release, truckloads of farmers came to see "their" film, making it a success at the box office.
* The historically significant 24,322 square feet bungalow Veda Nilayam in Poes Garden, bought by Jayalaltihaa’s mother Sandhya, in 1967 will be handed over to the legal heirs Deepa and Deepak, children of Jayalalithaa’s lone brother the late J Jayakumar. The legal heirs would have to settle the Rs 37.54 crore income tax dues of Jayalalithaa.
* Kishore Kumar is the maternal uncle of Bappi Lahiri
* The British introduced the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) to counter the Quit India Movement in 1942. The Act grants special powers to the Indian Armed Forces to maintain public order in "disturbed areas".
* Benford's law of controversy is an adage from the 1980 novel Timescape, stating: Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.
* "...data just doesn't sit in our mind as much as stories do. It's almost like the glue that takes all of the data and even more important, stories have emotions that data doesn't. And emotions get people to do all kinds of things, good and bad...it's about having an emotional appeal...about having trust and believing this story and being moved by this and being able to tell themselves the story." - Dan Ariely in The Inventor: Out For Blood In Silicon Valley, a documentary that looks at the rise and fall of Theranos, a health care startup that was a multibillion-dollar fraud.
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