Under Armour (NYSE: UAA) used to be the IT company on Wall Street with years of sales growth great than 20%, but things went left in 2017 when sales started slowing down. The end result was company struggled to manage inventory and saw margins decline when it had to sell surplus product at heavy discounts.
That’s when Under Armour put together turn around strategy which focused on inventory control and implementing a whole new strategy for product development.
Price is clearly in an uptrend based on price making higher lows. However, based on the immediate levels in play, the weekly zones, the turnaround story might be short lived.
Under Armour reported second-quarter results on Tuesday that didn’t quite meet Wall Street expectations. Although they the company maintained their forecast for the full year and international sales grew in the low double digits, revenue in North America grew only 1.5%. Needless to say the stock price sold off on the news, just $0.44 away from the bottom of the weekly supply at $26.
The company attributed the lackluster results were due to softer-than-expected demand in its direct-to-consumer channel, meaning lower traffic in physical stores and lower conversion rates online. Since price is in the middle of both weekly zones, the one of the better plays right now would be to put on a iron condor, if you can get the right amount of premium. However, because of the volatility collapse after earnings, you may have to go out at least three months to find the right amount of premium.
This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.
Litecoin has had a great run this year as it was once up over 300%. However, like all Cryptocurrencies in July, Litecoin has also pulled back as well.
With the halving event one week away, will the event help Litecoin price leg up like it has in the past? The block mining reward halves every 840,000 blocks, and this one will see it decrease from 25 to 12.5 coins. It’s a simple supply and demand equation and should make owning Litecoin more valuable.
After hitting the daily supply at $137, Litecoin has pulled back almost 50%, but has since bounced off the daily demand at $75. The chart suggests it’s going to be tough for the halving event to serve as the catalysts for the next leg up because recently the buyers failed to take out the sellers.
In additional, even if the daily supply at is taken out, the buyers have another battle with the sellers at the daily supply at $124.
The chart suggests this time around the halving event served as a buy the rumor, sell the news type of play.
This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.
Unless you have been missing out on the actions. EOS-based games and casinos are the new rages in town.
Lots of fun and earning opportunities have been created in what is now becoming the mania of the current crypto phase.
If you are a lover of decentralized gaming applications and would really want to maximize your fun and earning capabilities. Here is the secret… You need to join in the rush during the launching period or earlier days of a Dapp in this category.
Meanwhile, maybe you have missed out on a few ones in the past and want to bury such misses for good.
I am glad to tell you there is a new hot-sauce around.
I bring to you CryptoMania slot – the first provably and decentralized EOS-based casino game.
In this CryptoMania review and explainer post, I will provide a general overview of how this slot game is played and highlight its uniquenesss. You should also rest assured that I will be showing you series of illustrations on how to get around the game and fill your curious mind.
CryptoMania
Your Slot Games On EOS
CryptoMania is a casino gaming platform built upon the decentralized EOS infrastructure to enable a fair, transparent and rewarding gaming experience.
The game is constructed with a wider outlook to bring the gaming experience of traditional advance platform by using a battle-tested algorithm and mathematical random number generator.
According to the project Manifesto – CryptoMania game is a work of a team of experienced gamers, developers and blockchain enthusiast with over 50+ years of accumulated experience in the gaming industry and over 9+ of experience in the blockchain space.
Current use of the game is restricted to the EOS blockchain at the moment. However, there are underground plans to enable universal onboarding gateways and experience.
Placing a bet on CryptoMania is conducted via the EOS coin or MANIA token with future plans to allow other cryptocurrencies. The winning probability of bets is determined not only on luck but also by factors which are regulated by the adopted algorithm.
A Provably Fair and Trustless Gaming Platform
One unique feature that should excite all players of CryptoMania slot is the trustless onboarding process. Using the advantage of innovative escrow contract tools like Scatter, a player can start engaging with the slot game without ever needing to make a direct deposit or withdrawal, thereby, mitigating the risk associated with trust.
This trustless operation prevents heartbreaks experience when a project suddenly runoff with user’s fund as your private keys stay with you and you only.
The provably fair concept is realized by using the data of the hash of a blockchain transaction of a bet, which is regulated and calculated by the widely used slot machine “Mersenne Twister” algorithm for random number generation. This algorithm is the #1 used slot machine randomness determinant in the traditional world and top casino platforms.
The calculation of how the hash is determined is explained in this section on the CryptoMania website.
To instantly verify the fairness yourself a “maniaresult” blockchain result is provided to you every time you place your wager.
The advantage of this is that players do not need to trust the honesty of the algorithm adopted by the slot machine which mostly is rigged with cheat and unfairness in most traditional slot gaming, but to openly verify the authenticity of data backing a bet result.
Author’s Remark
By Combining the concept of verifiable gaming fairness and trustless payments, Cryptomania ticks the boxes of a credible casino dApp game and is worth keeping tabs on.
How CryptoMania Works
Your Chance To Multiplying Your Stash
CryptoMania slot machine matches symbols in a random but deterministic way, using a set of data to compute a winning bet.
Winnings are calculated and identify according to the value each particular symbol carries. Using this in conjunction with their combination and formation determines the result of a bet.
This diagram reveals the worth of each symbol and their combination worth.
The way the combination of any of these symbols forms a line and their frequency determine a winning bet and the payout amount.
Each formation of line with their assigned number is shown in the image below.
A zoom-out format
Author’s work
Lines are drawn on the basis of 3 rows and 5 reels or column.
A pattern must reveal at least 3 members before it is considered a winning bet. The number of appearance or frequency increases the winning amount. that is – 3x, 4x, or 5x.
Look at this example
The winning line in the above sample form a pattern similar to line 10, therefore the winning line is line 10.
These are some of the factors that determine winning lines.
Winning lines must be in succession from both leftmost to right and rightmost to left.
Multiple lines of winning and winning combination provide a greater chance of winning.
Cons
Winning lines are difficult to get at first, but becomes easy afterwards.
More than 5 symbols provide some level of difficulty to easily win.
Placing A Bet
CryptoMania slot is an EOS-based game and this requires you to connect your EOS account via Scatter on Desktop or Token Pocket/Lynx or any other EOS mobile wallet before you can make a bet.
To place your bet: Get an EOS account if you don’t have one and follow the steps below.
Choose your token of preference (EOS or MANAI) at successful wallet connection.
Choose your desired wager amount. The minimum bet is 0.1 EOS while the maximum is 400 EOS.
Click on SPIN to make your bet. Press and hold your finger on the SPIN button to automate your bet until you press the Stop button.
The result will be revealed almost instantly and is verifiable through the ‘maniaresult’ receipt.
Author’s Remark
Smooth login and onboarding process provides players with top experience. Intuitive website design simplifies the overall experience.
Crypto Mania Token Economics and Its Advantages
A good tokenomics determine whether a token fits an investment checkbox.
In the case of CryptoMania, tokens are generated under the concept of “play to mine” that is, for every successful bet wagered, a number of determined tokens are generated and replicated into two different pools.
The original pool serves to reward players in the form of dividends. The replicated second pool is divided among various sections like marketing, team, bounties, and investors.
Dividends are payout on an hourly basis and distributed proportionally among users who qualify. A user needs to stake some amounts of MANIA tokens in order to be eligible. Unstaking of tokens takes 24hours before they are released.
CryptoMania token generation is strictly based on the concept of “play to mine” and there are no pre-mimed tokens. There would be a total of 2.1 billion MANIA tokens which will be distributed in a period of 30 months.
For every 1 EOS a player wagered, the player receives Mania mining rewards. Higher mining rewards are enabled with an accumulated wagered amount of 10 EOS. which can also be leveled upped within four bonus levels.
Apart from the mining reward and distribution, 96% of the house edge profit is distributed back to players.
VIP Status
VIP members are entitled to up to 0.4% cashback on wagered amount.
Referral Program
CryptoMania affiliate program is one of the best you could come across with so many attached benefits. You stand to receive;
0.2% lifetime on all your referral wager.
10% extra Mania bonus on all Mania tokens mined by your referrals.
Consult CryptoMania Manifesto for other huge benefits. (Read from page 10)
Author’s Remark
The concept of “play to mine” without any prior pre-mine provide a fair tokenomics as tokens are generated based on usage giving the tokens a reasonable value.
Graphical representation and summary of CryptoMania Slot game
Infographic is the work of the post author
Author’s General Remarks and Conclusion
Judging from an honest side of view based on my understanding of decentralized applications and casino games. The approach of operation adopted by CryptoMania is “Provably Fair” in many respects.
One aspect that is worth taking note of most is how there is no direct deposit or withdrawal, which goes a long way to minimize the risk associated with theft, hacks, and deceit.
Also, tokens are generated according to the usage of the system in a deterministic way, which ensures fair protection of the token value.
It is also important to point out the transparency I observe from the project product and resources while I was doing my research. An example is how a mathematical explainer of how bet results are calculated. Verify here.
On the other side of things, the obvious downside is the absence of any personal documentation of the team. The team operates under an anonymous banner with no one to be held responsible for a bad event or experience. Judging from my experience with many gaming and betting Dapps, most of them operate under this anonymous status ( it is seen with even the established ones). This status quo among betting Dapps may be assumed to avoid regulation pressure that is related to strict KYC process required to operate in this niche, geographic restrictions and other forms of regulations.
My Overall Rating
4.4 of 5
My rating resolve to a positive review, therefore I will be suggesting a befitting slogan that matches CryptoMania concept and usage.
All related project images used in the post are sourced from the project resources and website except the ones made by the author.
Special Note and Disclaimer
This review was conducted as an entry to a CryptoMania review contest hosted by Trybe.one. Though, I tried my possible best to give an honest review and overview of the project. Nevertheless, I shall not be held responsible for any investment, gaming, trading or betting decision made by readers of this review. Shared information is based solely on my own assessment and opinion. It is advised you do your own research before making any form of decisions related to the content of this review.
Yesterday I bought myself (another) 75 KuCoin Shares (KCS).
Yes, I know that my previous post was all about the KuCoin Exchange (The Best Crypto Exchange just got Even Better! (Again)). I apologise for the lack of variety, but this is important and time is of the essence! Similarly, I can’t just write another “Shopping Cart” post and risk you missing this important buy!
I bought those 75 KuCoin Shares (trading STEEM and Ethereum for them) in order to be able to take part in the latest KuCoin programme. Of course they only released this information after my last post – Murphy’s Law at work once again!
So what is the latest KuCoin programme (as if they haven’t already launched enough new initiatives this month already!)?
This is it:
From https://www.kucoin.com/news/en-kucoin-will-launch-the-kcs-lockup-cash-back-program-and-burn-plan
Of course, if you follow me on Twitter, then you probably already know this:
From https://twitter.com/brain_bit
If you have a Twitter account and you don’t want to follow me… then, well, I guess I’m sorry – I don’t know how to cure “stupid”.
What is the KuCoin Lockup Plan?
The lockup plan is a three-month lockup of KuCoin Shares on the KuCoin exchange. In other words, it’s a staking contract. The more you stake, the more you can earn. Importantly, the sooner you stake, the more you can earn too. And that’s where it gets impressive:
Recently I staked my WAX coins on their new native (EOS-cloned) blockchain. Returns on that contract amount to 100% over a period of 3 years, which I think is very good! But the KuCoin figures are even better: returns are far higher, working out to a rate which equates to an estimated annual ROI of 50%. Over the three-month period of their staking contract, that works out to just over a 10% return. Not bad for three months, especially with no work involved! That is, quiet simply, the best staking contract I know of in crypto. By far. Yeah you could also get those sort of returns by running the right crypto masternode, but that would probably be considerably more risky – and possibly a lot more expensive.
To get into the KuCoin Staking contract you will need a minimum of 200 KCS. The news of this opportunity caused a price rise in KCS, the tokens have gone up from around $1.30 each to around $1.60. Thus (at time of writing) it will cost you a minimum of $320 to get into the programme – which isn’t cheap, but I consider it to be well worth it if you have the money available! There is a good chance that prices may drop after the staking contract closes, but I really don’t care: KCS is a long-term hold and will no doubt shoot up in price as the platform gets busier (As it has before – to an ATH of $20.17).
Set your alarms:
The lockup plan works as follows: it runs for the month of August, but those who lockup first stand to score the most. Estimated returns start at an annual rate of 50%, but then drop off by 0.5% every day thereafter, so you want to lockup on day one! The staking contract opens on 1 August (I assume directly after midnight) and the time zone used for that is UTC +8. In other words, the contract opens at 16:00 UTC on 31 July, at least I think it does.
For the whales out there, there is a maximum daily lockup amount of 10000 KCS. There is another limit that applies to everyone: a maximum of 500 000 KCS can be locked per day, so don’t wait too long! If you do miss day one or two, it isn’t the end of the world, 49% annual ROI on day three is still pretty darn fantastic! Even if you lockup on the final day of the month, the annual ROI rate will still be 35%, which stillbeats practically any other staking contract! The entire lockup programme will stop if and when 5 000 000 KCS is locked. This could happen in as little as 10 days, or it may not happen at all. Here is an added bonus: however much is locked up in the programme (in total), that same amount of KCS will be burnt in December 2019. KuCoin are burning KCS like wildfire at the moment (check my previous KuCoin post), a trend which seems to be continuing. This is great for KCS holders, especially when they are getting more KCS for free! If 5 000 000 KCS is burnt, that will mean that the total amount of KCS in existence drops by 2.8%! If you prefer to work with circulating amount (which I do not advise), then that percentage rises to 5.6%! Remember: you can always check out the latest information about KCS specifically at the KCS dashboard at https://kcs.kucoin.com
You don’t have much to lose
For those who fear that KCS price will drop radically during the three-month staking period, take heart: you can cap your USD losses at 10%. This is because KuCoin have built a safety net into the system: they have a guaranteed service that works like this (in their own words):
After the KCS unlocks, KuCoin provides a service for repurchasing the user’s locked KCS at the price of 10% off the average KCS price (USDT price) on the day of the user’s lockup
What this allows you to do is to turn your recently unlocked KCS into USDT a price of 10% less than what it was worth during the lockup period. The programme is thus not only a good way to buildup your crypto holdings, but also a way to hedge against drops in the market! This offer expires 24 hours after unlocking and is only valid as long as you have not traded or moved your KCS.
On the downside, tokens locked into the new programme do not earn the usual daily staking rewards that KuCoin offers to KCS holders. However, those rewards are FAR less than what you stand to gain by participating.
Conclusion
I fully intend to lock up my KCS for this period, and I will do so as soon as I can. For those who don’t hold KCS, I think that the rise in the token price has been minimal and that it is still well worth your time to participate. I truly believe that KCS is an excellent token to hold and that it is greatly undervalued. I also firmly believe that KuCoin is a fantastic exchange. I’ve been using it for nearly two years now and I am 100% happy with it, in fact it often exceeds my expectations!
Following hot on the heels of “Soft Staking”, KuCoin is obviously focusing on staking lately and their offerings in this regard are extremely impressive. I hope they continue in this vein, if they do it should win them many new customers. I do not know what will happen after the three month lockup period ends, I know that your staked KCS will be returned to you, but I don’t know if another programme will follow thereafter, I hope it does! Perhaps it will become an annual event, who knows? At this stage information is still limited. Read the latest of KuCoin’s own articles about the the lockup here: “KuCoin Will Launch The KCS Lockup & Cash Back Program and Burn Plan”
If you are not a KuCoin user yet, please consider clicking my “KuCoin” banner in my signature and signing up wit my referral link. I get tiny amounts of some of your transaction fees if you do, for which I would be most grateful. While you are at it… remember that Nash goes live next month!
From https://twitter.com/brain_bit
Nash and its NEX token should become big names in the world of crypto exchanges. After its launch, I see Nash being the best DEX by far, even better than Binance DEX. Initially trading pairs will be limited, but that will change with time. The highly advanced Nash platform and the myriad added features should make it extremely attractive to investors and crypto traders alike. I have built up a relatively big stack of NEX which I am hoarding jealously. I strongly recommend that you look into NEX if you have not already done so.
In the meantime, why not sign up so long? Once again, I have a referral link in my signature. You HAVE to use a referral link to sign up – there is no option to sign up without one. This is designed into the system to help spread the word. The referral link gives you entry into a competition: you can win BTC and NEX by signing up. The lucky draw is at the end of the year, and the more people you refer with your own code (that you will get after signing up), the more entries you get into the competition. I have never been this excited about the launch of an exchange before!
Yours in great crypto exchanges Bit Brain
Attribution: Featured image from https://www.kucoin.com/news/en-kucoin-will-launch-the-kcs-lockup-cash-back-program-and-burn-plan
Yours in crypto
Bit Brain
“The secret to success: find out where people are going and get there first”
~ Mark Twain
“Crypto does not require institutional investment to succeed; institutions require crypto investments to remain successful”
I have seen many steemians that I follow creating alternative accounts in order to upvote with the different steem-engine tokens airdropped during the last weeks.
I confess I also created one in order to deviate the Good-Game tokens I received, on which I feel as not identified myself with the trybe created, in order to upvote with it to certain accounts, mostly in automatic fashion using the amazing tool created by @holger80 called Steemrewarding and following the idea of @abh12345 .
There are people that have created dozens of these alternative accounts and, despite I appreciate the upvotes coming from them, I don’t think the main aim of the Tribes was thought to reward people in “automatic”.
The main “aim” is to support those persons that fit your interest on a particular tribe by manually curating , and mostly, if you feel that the post deserves to be upvoted.
If these people you follow is rewarded with an alternative account but not with your main, sometimes happen that the “prize” you are giving or demonstrating towards your “colleague” is somehow very little indeed.
That’s why, after having tested my alternative account on Good-Game tokens (GG) I am not going to further create alternatives accounts, if I follow you and I find that you deserve my upvote I will reward you with all the tokens ascribed to the post, including STEEM, PAL, LEO, SPORTS, ZZAN, CCC, STEM or whatever the tribe!
What I am not going to do is to upvote you with @toofasteddie.porn and then with my main account because, besides to be a really waste of time, that’s not the aim for what Trybes have been created IMHO.
However, this is my personal opinion and maybe yours may differ.
Surely this is not the best approach for having an excellent ROI approach but, I don’t care. I have so much work lately that I don’t think the prize of doing it deserves my effort…
Don’t become crazy man!
@toofasteddie
p.s: I think I should use #creativecoin here… at least it has been original, hasn’t it?
I have to say that I am not in favor of doing such a thing
Active trading is more than just reading charts. Sentiment, news announcements and sometimes just simple logic can all play a part in making a trade, especially one that offers a big move.
That’s what Guy Gentile did trading Beyond Meat (BYND)
How One Guy Crushed It Trading Beyond Meat
Beyond meat is a meatless food company (think burgers, etc.). They had an initial public offering back in late May and the stock had basically skyrocketed since.
The hype around the company and stock was a big part of that. Kind of like anything “new” that gets the “this is the next big thing to boom” vibe throughout the masses.
Granted meatless food products isn’t new, but they have a burger that is apparently very good and used that fact to expand like crazy and then raise a ton of money to fund it.
Either way there were plenty of signs, that atleast in the near-term the stock was far ahead of itself.
Higher Valuation Than JetBlue and Coors?
As shared in @rollandthomas post has beyond meat seen its best days the value of beyond meat had blown past some rather larger companies that do way more business such as beer maker coors and airline operator jetblue.
I’m sure the meatless burger is good, but can they sell enough to generate more revenue than the two companies above?
The chart also gives us a nice indication that things may be a bit ahead of themselves…..
There is always a Catalyst
As you can see the stock ripped higher into earnings and gave us a nice doji candle meaning the buyers were not fully in control anymore.
Now it was just a matter of what happened at earnings. Here is the thing though, the hype around the stock was so high that even an earning beat might mean a sell off. Buy the rumor sell the news is a mantra for a reason.
Shorting with Leverage and Safety to Crush It
Mr. Gentile made a big play with the use of options (which is good cus it establishes your risk up front) by buying weekly put options heading into the earnings announcement.
If the stock goes down he has the right to buy the stock at those lower prices or he can just sell the put option for the higher valuation it has at that point.
With the stock trading around 230 on Friday he bought 230 strike prices down to the 215’s in 5 point increments, thousands of them. If he was right he gets paid. If he was wrong he loses only what he spent no more.
Well, he was right and the stock is down 30 plus point from Friday’s close. Just booking the profits by closing out those put options is a homerun.
However, he leveled up (and did take on my risk) by selling a bunch of the 220 calls that expire this week. Basically if the price of BYND closed below 220 this friday he will also keep all the premium collected from selling those calls.
Conviction Meets Size
There are times to make regular trades and times to load up. He saw this as a time to load the truck up and get paid. You won’t always be right, but to make real money actively investing you need to take the occasional big swing when all the signs line up.
Just be sure that if you are wrong it doesn’t knock you out of the game. Never put yourself in a position where one trade can blow out your whole account. Always live to trade another day.
You can read a detailed article about the trade including an interview with Mr. Gentile here:
NANO seen from the temporality of 1D we can see how the price has made an upward movement after making a tweezer bottom at 0.9083, in the upward movement has made a correct structure of three points so we should expect a decline in the price to the area indicated in the chart within a blue rectangle that is located within the price range of 1.1320 – 1.2082, the bulls will be located in that zone of demand where the price should have a positive reaction, otherwise, the price would be put into a bearish structure.
NANO seen from the temporality of 4H we can observe more closely the movement of the candles within this structure, we see how the price has drawn us a double ceiling near the weekly supply, this setup is a reversal of trend so it would support our operation and zone of demand mentioned above. In the chart above I have also drawn the possible trajectory that the price should follow over the next few days.
In conclusion, the current structure of the price movement is very good to look for a next long entry, for this we must wait for the price reaction once it reaches the demand zone located within the price range of 1.1320 – 1.2082, a continuation setup (ABCDE) must be formed to continue towards our objective that I have pointed out in the first graph above located at 1.7799.
As I always say, you have to be aware of the movement, invalidations can occur, there is no 100% reliable analysis, take your own precautions when trading.
Beyond Meat priced its initial public offering at $25 and now the stock is up more than 800% since the IPO. Beyond Meat, a maker of plant-based meat products is the new IT THING on Wall Street because they are trailblazing a new secular movement away from animal protein.
Beyond Meat had their second
quarterly earnings announcement yesterday.
Although they reported a second quarter loss of $9.4 million, sales
nearly quadrupled from a year ago. In
additional, Beyond Meat raised its revenue guidance for 2019 to $240 million on
Monday, up from more than $210 million previously.
“Growth in net revenues for the second quarter of 2019 was driven primarily by an increase in sales of the Beyond Burger, expansion in the number of retail and food service points of distribution, including new strategic customers, as well as greater demand from our existing customers,” Chief Financial Officer Mark Nelson said in a conference call Monday afternoon.
However, shares tanked in after hours trading after they announced that it would be selling an additional 3.25 million shares of common stock. Three million of these shares are held by current stockholders, and 250,000 shares will be newly issued and are set to trade on August 1. Although the additional shares dilute earnings/profits, the money will go towards expanding the business.
However, it didn’t matter as investor took profits and short sellers took the opportunity to short the stock because they say the stock price as being overvalued.
That valuation is higher than that of roughly 25% of the companies in the S&P 500 index, including decades-old industry stalwarts like Molson Coors, Viacom, Under Armour, and JetBlue. At its Friday morning levels, Beyond Meat’s market cap was twice the size of Macy’s.
But while investors might still be hungry for this stock, experts’ appetites are starting to wane.
“My understanding is it’s a good product, but … from a valuation standpoint, it’s beyond ridiculous,” Quint Tatro, chief investment officer at Joule Financial, said Thursday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.” “The company is trading at 100 times sales, 300 times cash, so … it’s not a matter of whether it’s justified at this price. It’s can they actually keep growing to justify this valuation?”
For context, Microsoft — which, at over $1 trillion, is the most valuable company in the market — trades at eight times sales and eight times cash. Amazon, a $970 billion company, trades at about four times sales and 20 times cash, Tatro said.
All in all, his thesis on Beyond Meat is simple: “It’s a no-touch.”
Personally I think it was a great move to raise capital to expand aggressively because the competition is coming. If you believe Beyond Meat is a 10 year story vs. the latest fad, there are two daily demand zones to pay attention to for an opportunity to go long.
This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.
Just when I thought I was nearing the end of the work in the granny flat, my wife suggests we replace the bath with a shower.
I could not find reason to argue though as her reasoning is quite sound. Her mother will be moving in towards the end of August, so we are trying to make sure it’s all cleaned and sorted by then.
So why add more work? Well my mother-in-law is not as young as she used to be, recently she slipped getting into the bath when she lost grip. That got my wife thinking, what will it be like for her to get into a bath in a year or two’s time? We discussed installing bars for her to hold on to, but that depends on her having enough strength in her hand to hold herself up.
With a shower it would be much safer in the long term, so the decision was made.
No dogs were harmed in the removal of the bath!
Roxy is a rescue dog and decided she wanted to be in the photo of the bathroom before the demolition. Here’s the bath in pretty much the same state it was when the previous owners tenant moved out.
Here we go from another angle and just an excuse to include another photo of Roxy.
The destruction was underway, I started in the corner, where I thought there would be the most hollow space behind the bricks and tiles. I was hoping to get the bath out in a good condition.
A close up view of the side. I was pretty much just hitting the tiles directly with the hammer, the bricks are hollow and after a few blows, they would break into smaller pieces and crumble. At this point I really had not had to swing the hammer very hard.
Up until this point things had gone pretty easy, my arm had started tiring from swinging the hammer, but no damage done to the bath.
The drain has a cover screwed into a part which is most likely cast in cement, so I removed the screw so it would not prevent the bath from moving.
Wow, if I could carry across the amount of effort and perspiration that went into getting to this point! I struggled for quite some time as the bath was caught between the tiles and the cement at the bottom of the bath. I chipped away at the cement bit by bit, unfortunately I managed to chip some of the enamel of of the bath where the cement was forced into the bath with a hammer blow.
On the closest corner of the bath on the right hand side you can see how I deformed it by bending it up and shuffling the bath out. The bath is made of steel, and the edges are rolled over such that there is a lip at the bottom.
Somehow when the bath was installed, cement was forced into that lip and it held the bath quite tightly up against the wall.
First job before continuing is to clean up this mess. But not at that point I was incredibly tired and disappointed as I had damaged the bath whilst trying to get it out.
Will take a few loads with a bucket to get it all picked up. The tiles help with cleaning so its bound to be a quick job. Chopping up the rest of that cement however…..
The chips and bend on the bath in closer detail. I am pretty bummed about this. I guess we will have to see what we do with the tub now.
My wife has already hinted at using it as a planter for vegetables, so we may get some use out of it anyway. I hate throwing away perfectly usable stuff.
On to chipping out the cement so that we can plan our way forward. We already have an idea of what to do, with the bath out of the way we can make more plausible plans and put them into action.
Not-for-profit organisation OpenAI (co-founded by Elon Musk) and Microsoft have formed a $1bn strategic partnership focused on integrating Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform with its on-going work.
The two firms will jointly develop Azure AI supercomputing technologies, but also focus on creating artificial general intelligence(AGI).
OpenAI will port its existing services to Microsoft’s cloud and use Microsoft as preferred partner for marketing commercialised AI technologies.
Analysis and Comments
The main difference between AI and AGI is that AGI is not developed for a specific application and therefore more multi-functional in nature. So, while an AI can be incredibly good at one task (e.g. screening scans for cancer), the aim for AGIs is to have the ability to perform any task that a human can.
Some experts have predicted the development of an AGI to be achieved as early as 2030, however, most lean towards later dates, such as the year 2060 or even 2099.
Regardless, OpenAI has already achieved several impressive milestones in the AI world, for example, by setting new benchmarks for robot dexterity, with one of its video gaming bots recently beating human champions at Dota 2, while one of its text-generation systems can write anything from fake news articles to convincing song lyrics and short stories.
