TWIL - Week #16

This Week I Learned:

• $.now() is the shorthand for new Date().getTime(). #jquery
• Pages fetched with POST are never cached, so the cache and ifModified options in jQuery.ajaxSetup() have no effect on these requests. Setting cache to false will only work correctly with HEAD and GET requests. #jquery
• On devices running iOS6 and Safari, POST is also cached. #jquery
• How does Windows detect battery issues? Laptop batteries have a small chip inside that controls/monitors the charging process and also monitors the number of charge/recharge cycles. This chip is factory programmed with information how this sort of battery typically degrades over time. It also can derive information from the charging cycle itself: The time it takes to reach full-charge at a given voltage/current changes when the battery gets worn out. (Voltage drop during discharge is not reliable as it depends a lot on the amount of current drawn while discharging, so it varies with the use-pattern of the laptop.)
• Is meanness the secret sauce of a winning open source project? It might be, according to Linus Torvalds, the guy who’s been running the Linux kernel project for the past 22 years. "On the internet, nobody can hear you being subtle"
• Tip for self-publishers: Amazon is trying to drive down e-book prices by creating an incentive to price the book under $10. Normally, you only get 35% of every book sale but if it’s under $10 then you can get 70% of every sale....The other catch is that you only get 70% if the book is sold to someone within certain countries. For books sold to people outside of that list, you still only get 35%.
• US is the Indian IT industry's largest market contributing to over 50% of revenues #india
• Only about 5% of the country's 850 million mobile users have subscribed to 3G services, which are estimated to account for 3% of mobile revenue of telecom carriers. (Times of India) #india
• The best American exports are not its goods or capital but its small, nifty, universal ideas from garage start-ups to open source that elevates the commons and reduces the dominance of monopolies
• Mosquitoes find their mammalian prey through sensing the heat and carbon dioxide mammals emit. Pregnant women and larger people are sometimes the victim of multiple attacks, since they exert more energy than the average person. Mosquitoes cannot distinguish blood quality. Mosquitoes are attracted to our human odor, and that is largely a consequence of the bacteria on our skin. The "flora and fauna on our skin" also smell appetizing to mosquitoes, and these can increase when we sweat or spend a lot of time outdoors. When the mosquito bites, it leaves behind some of its saliva, a substance that contains anticoagulants and a local anesthetic, among other things. The body recognizes it as a foreign invader and sends histamines in to counterattack. Scratching just spreads the saliva and encourages the release of more antibodies, and more itching—a vicious cycle. Female mosquitoes are driven to bite you as they need a blood meal to complete their reproductive cycle and produce fertile eggs, which takes a huge boost of protein. To reduce the chances of being bitten, wash with an antibacterial soap to reduce the volume of mosquito-attracting bacteria on your skin. (Source: WSJ) #science