This Week I Learned - Week #130

This Week I Learned -

* When creating a new Linux VM, Azure will provide you an OS disk (/dev/sda) and a temporary disk(/dev/sdb), subsequently added disks will show as /dev/sdc, /dev/sdd and so on. Be aware that content on this disk may be lost in case of specific events like VM resizing or Azure Host OS failure. Even if content will survive VM reboots, should be considered a temporary storage

* Jet.com which competes with Amazon, built its entire e-commerce platform, including development and delivery infrastructure, on Microsoft Azure, using both .NET and open-source technologies. It uses Visual F# and a microservices architecture. Node is used on the front end. To get its code through development and into production as fast as possible, Jet uses a mix of Azure App Service, Azure Web Roles and custom servers, with deployment happening from Jenkins. To make it easier for merchant partners to integrate with the platform, it has created a developer portal for its APIs using Azure API Management. It uses Azure Key Vault to store encryption keys as well as Azure Application Insights, which will provide real-time alerts to its developers to help them identify and triage problems as they occur. Application Insights also enables Jet to learn, in real time, how customers are using their application, so they can implement an agile build-measure-learn cycle. Office 365 and Azure Active Directory are used for IAM. Jet's data warehouse sits in a SQL Server instance and it will be augmented using HD Insight to handle any amount of data, scaling from terabytes to petabytes on demand. Jet also has many open-source middleware components, which it runs on Azure Virtual Machines, including Elasticsearch, RedisLabs, Hadoop, and Event Store—an open-source event-sourcing data store.

* The Autocomplete feature of the Places library in the Google Maps JavaScript API lets you use autocomplete to give your applications the type-ahead-search behavior of the Google Maps search field. When a user starts typing an address, autocomplete will fill in the rest. Tom Elliott has a nice example with minimal code.

* Want to try writing using only simple words? Here’s a writing checker you can use: xkcd.com/simplewriter

* Dictionary of Numbers is a Chrome extension that tries to make sense of numbers you encounter on the web by giving you a description of that number in human terms. Like a dictionary describes words you don't know in terms you do, Dictionary of Numbers puts quantities you're unfamiliar with in terms you can understand. Because "8 million people" means nothing, but "population of New York City" means everything - via Randall Munroe

* Steve Souders likes The Art of Capacity Planning 

* Algorithmic trading/High Frequency Trading (HFT)/High Speed Trading (HST) are said to be gaining market share and are already said to occupy around 46% of the total trade volume at NSE and over 30% of the total trade volume at BSE. In the USA and Europe, while they occupy very significant amounts of trade by volume (between 75% - 80% of total trade volume in USA and around 60% of total trade volume in Europe respectively), it is widely expected that Asian markets like India[ii] will offer greater avenues for the growth of Algorithmic trading/HFT/HFS in the future

* Algorithmic trading or ‘algo’ in market parlance refers to orders generated at a super-fast speed by use of advanced mathematical models that involve automated execution of trade. It is mostly used by large institutional investors. It has raised concerns that algo exposes small investors, and the market itself, to possible systemic risks - The Hindu

* Mobile phones now enable people to remain in contact with their social and professional network continuously. This may result in compulsive checking for status updates and messages, for fear of missing an opportunity - FOMO, Fear of missing out

* Android powers 9 out 10 smartphones in India

* Some modern Routers come with Parental Controls built in, where you can set a Time Schedule per device

* Sony Xperia Z  is covered on the front and back by tempered glass, where the front is Dragontrail Glass from Asahi Glass Company resin-bonded to the LCD, and the back is Corning Gorilla Glass.

* Competition between Indian banks is helping customers experience better online services. Check the services offered by popular banks - HDFC, ICICI, SBI

* E-mail in 1989 - "Another key component of Microsoft's informality is its seductive E-mail (electronic messaging) system, which Shirley says epitomizes the corporate culture at Microsoft. Workers can message each other - even Gates and Shirley - day and night, to and from home or office computers, in an instant communications network that, Shirley notes, "flattens the corporate hierarchy considerably.'' The sophisticated system displays a queue showing the time and date and sender's "log-on,'' or nickname, for each message and a brief description of its contents."

* Kay Redfield Jamison, a clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, profiled her own bipolar disorder in her memoir An Unquiet Mind

* Nice insight from the StackExchange Music forum's top rated question - Why do minor keys sound “sad”?
The major key is present by nature in every note that is played. Therefore, it is interpreted as normal behavior, a happy day in our lives, 'cause that's what we expect to happen. The minor key is opposed to the major key and it's perceived by us (without being aware) as if there was something wrong, hence sadness or restlessness. Unconformity is related to sadness and restlessness