Kozminski Techblog

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Since many Asian countries banned cryptocurrencies people decided to move their businesses of crypto-mining mainly into USA.

You could capture an incredible increase of crypto-miners in US since July 2021 – nearly 80%. The rest of China’s previous mining percentage (25% globally) went mainly to the closest places possible: Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and mostly Kazakhstan – due to its mild tax law.

Bitcoin, was globally mined in nearly 36% by USA and 19% by Kazakhstan (2021 – according to data from the University of Cambridge Center of Alternative Finance) – it’s incredible due to the comparison of population, area or power consumption in those countries.

A few days ago (25th of January, 2022) a power blackout hit all 3 above mentioned countries – Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. They are all connected to one main for the region power supplier, which capacity wasn’t enough as for the usage of crypto-miners.

The blackout caused chaos across the region for several hours, with subway trains stuck in tunnels and skiers on lifts, airports closing, district heating and tap water pumps going idle and traffic lights switching off.

Kazakhstan, which has previously experienced power shortages due to the influx of cryptocurrency miners, has started routinely cutting off their power supply and did so from Jan. 24 until the end of the month, according to a document published online by one of the local miners.

We are waiting, and wondering if Kazakh is going to be another banned for crypto-miners country, or what is going to happen in Asia, and previously mentioned Kazakhstan’s North-South power line region if it comes to cryptocurrency-mining laws.

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Diamonds are considered the most expensive gemstones in the world, they are associated with high social status and prestige, however, their value presents a rather interesting story that can show this beautiful trinket in a completely different light.

Each story has its main character, in this case it is Cecil Rhodes, the organizer of the colonization of South Africa by England. In 1817, Rhodes decided to buy huge tracts of land in South Africa, after which he founded a diamond mining company. The man saw the potential in this diamond business and for the next 17 years he continued to develop it.

During this time, he managed to displace competitors from all over Africa, thanks to the purchase of their lands for an incredibly high amount of 1.5 million pounds, borrowed from Nathan Rothschild.

Such huge plans resulted in the fact that at the beginning of the twentieth century, the company we are talking about – De Beers controlled more than 85% of the global diamond market. Cecil Rhodes understood that diamonds are very expensive because of their rarity, but he noticed that this commodity is not scarce at all, on the contrary, it literally saturates the market.

Then the founder of the business decided that since he was a monopolist on the market, he could independently determine the price of their goods. He did it in a very cunning way, creating an artificial deficit by putting into circulation only modest batches of stones, hiding all the rest for several years.

In this way, they made diamonds a luxury commodity that only wealthy people could afford, and the middle and working classes could not even imagine spending money on such a luxury.

The way of enrichment invented by De Beers marketers can be considered the best in the history of advertising, due to the fact that they created a vision in people’s minds, and the best thing about this is that people had no idea about this cunning manipulation.

The company decided to broaden its horizons, cooperating with Hollywood film studios, they created engagement scenes in films, where the main character was a diamond ring.

In the face of a completely new trend, the working and middle class were forced to patiently save in order to be able to prove their love one day with a diamond ring as big as that feeling.

After a few years, the company’s sales increased by 70%, and the management did not rest on its laurels. Another advertising campaign created the impression that diamonds are like art when they were shown in magazines right next to photos of famous paintings, artists or models.

When in 1947 De Beers introduced its official slogan, registering the name “Diamonds are eternal”, they literally sealed their victory. The whole community has known for generations that diamonds are a luxury, and the fashion for them has not changed to this day, it persists and is associated only with the best.

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Investments are not only about currencies, real estate, art or land, nowadays you can invest in practically everything, from limited clothing lines to special versions of cars or motorcycles.

There are more and more collectors of racing, luxury or classic cars, and as in every group of people, there are also various conspiracy theories and legends spoken out there.

One of the most interesting stories we can hear from petrol lovers is the story of “La Voiture Noire”, the eponymous Black Car.

This is how the Bugatti Type 57 SC Atlantic model was named with the chassis number 57 453. That is, a car produced in the number of four copies in the world. The second, one of a kind, was a car intended for Jean Bugatti himself, not only for driving, but mainly as a show car. Unfortunately, not long after its production, i.e. in 1938, rumors of it were lost. There are many theories that more or less clearly describe what could have happened to the car, but none has been confirmed, and the history of the car is so known and important in the automotive world that literally everyone has heard about the model.

Unfortunately, this delicacy worth much more than $120M will probably never be found. As long as it does not belong to someone’s truly private collection.

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Everyone knows British people are being classy, and so does everyone know Triumph for. This founded in 1983, Hinckley based private motorcycle engineering company had some pretty cool releases on Milan Motorcycle Shows.

Trident 660

Our list opens with surely one of the coolest looking and driving roadsters of the decade – Triumph Trident 660.

This bike has a brand new 660cc in-line triple engine, scoring 64nm of Torque and 80hp. Such engine can truly compete with yamaha’s MT-07 or BMW’s F900R. This beauty would be an alternative to some cruiser-typed naked motorcycles, as well as modern-classics.
Furthermore the amount of electronics – including 2 OLED displays in which one shows for instance rainy emojis while the weather is going to change soon – active weatherwoman support.

Tiger Sport 660

Finally A2 licensed alternative for road-oriented adventure hunters!
Tracer 7GT, Versys 650 or Multistrada V2 are going to have a tough competition with Triumph right now!

There are three listed colours: Lucerne Blue – seen above, Sapphire Black and listed for £100, seen above – Korosi Red.

Tiger 1200

I guess that every driver licensed A2 has this small dream to finally pass A driving license and cruise on his enormously powered bike. If I am right, then Tiger 1200 is here! – And obviously it is.

This bike is completely redeveloped leader of Adventure Motorcycles all over the globe. Triumph has already accustomed us to their insanely well made engines, gearboxes, suspension and basically everything else that we could have listed will be truly taken to perfection.

Tiger 1200 comes in a few variants as always, however the masterpiece of facelifts do not end just on the facelift. We got two main versions of the bike: GT and Rally, both having their higher-grade “Pro” package, and something which has not been introduced ever before – Explorer version.
Both GT Explorer and Rally Explorer have extra 50% tank capacity, making this 30L beast cruise over 450km without looking at gas stations – wow.

Speed Triple 1200RR

Our list ends with a brand new Speed Triple 1200RR. Glorious motorbike created for the most needy customers. It is truly a pure beauty, class, attitude and performance, never squeezed so hard together.

1160cc Engine with over 180ps of peak power and 125nn of peak torque creates goose-flesh to every motorcycle driver out there, and this design – no words to explain how beautiful this bike is.

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Pricing of listed motorcycles

At the end I would love to talk about some banknotes.
Triumph is not the cheapest producer, but their motorcycles have a clear soul, that is a true beast.

Trident 660: £7,395.00
Tiger Sport 660: £8,450.00
Tiger 1200: £14,600.00
Speed Triple 1200RR: £17,950.00

*Base prices.

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SteelSeries Apex 3

Let’s kick off the list with the most standard keyboard from the producer.
Apex 3 is the most known membranical, water resistant gaming keyboard on the market as for 2021. Customizable 10-zone RGB illumination reacting to the Games you currently play as well as full Discord integration makes it one of the best lightning illuminations implemented into an keyboard of its kind.
Below you can see both, listed from the left – Apex 3, and Apex 3 TKL, which in thanks to numeric keyboard removal is a more gaming oriented version.

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SteelSeries Apex 5

The main changes in Apex 5 compared to its lower tier model are really a step ahead. It features OLED Display, completely new hybrid mechanical blue switches, and an improved RGB illumination, now allowing you to separately customise each buttons color.
In my opinion this OLED Display previously mentioned is a real game changer, it allows you to actively display your in-game details such as your characters health points for instance in shooting games, money balance in games such as grand theft auto series, laps left to the end of your race in Forza Horizon, song title from Spotify, time left to the end of your Netflix’s movie and really much more!

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SteelSeries Apex 7

Our list of mechanical keyboards just started, Apex 7 and its even more gaming oriented TKL version are both here. Basically the only difference between Apex 7 and Apex 5 or Apex Pro are the switches, in currently listed Apex 7 we can decide between three SteelSeries’s QX2 Mechanical RGB Switches: Blue, Red and Brown, having different sound and feel.
Blue and Brown switches are both tactile in feel, and if it comes to the sound – Brown switch is really quiet while Blue tends to be really clicky.
Red switch from the other hand is the most comfortable for people switching from membranical keyboards since it’s both Linear and Tactile in sound – meaning that it sounds even quite than the Brown switch.

Below you can see a few photos of Apex 7, Apex 7 TKL, and it’s limited, white themed edition – Apex 7 “Ghost”.

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Steelseries Apex Pro

Incredibly advanced OmniPort switches are finally here.
Response time at 0.7ms is a true game changer (standard mechanical switch, same as speed switch both have 6ms response time), each switch customisable (from built-in options in SteelSeries’s software) activation point is also breathtaking, from 0.4mm to 3.6mm is incredibly amazing, especially when you realise that a standard mechanical switch has an 2mm activation point, and the speed switch around 1.1mm.

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Honest Opinion

After taking all of SteelSeries’s products into my hands, and testing each of them for a longer period of time I came to a few honest conclusions.

Firstly, in my opinion there is completely no point in paying over $50 more to get OmniPort switches, unless you really do professional e-Sport gaming. Of course there is a huge difference between 0.4mm activation point they offer and 2mm activation point of a standard mechanical switch, however my personal needs did not overcome the standard activation point.

If it comes to Apex 3 and Apex 5 comparison – I would not pick Apex 3 even thought the TKL version really stole my heart if it comes to it’s design. Sadly I am the type of a person that wants their stuff to be just the best, zone RGB customisation (even thought there are twice as much zones as in other keyboards on the market) is just not for me.

That is when Apex 5 and Apex 7 comparison finally comes.
As you know switches are the main difference here, personally the choice was not that hard, Apex 7 is $50 more expensive than Apex 5, and $100 more expensive than the standard Apex 3 priced for $49.99.

The only thing I regret is that the producent did not release, or even plan to release its TKL version, if I could get Apex 3 TKL with Apex’s 5 illumination then that would certainly be my last keyboard.