A reality TV star who sells her farts in small jars has decided to stop selling, even though she made $1,000 for a jar. But her fans don’t have to worry about it. Because now she’s going to sell her fart in the form of non-fungible tokens, better known as NFTs.
Stephanie Matto, who starred in the reality TV show The 90-Day Groom and has become very popular on TikTok, says that she was recently hospitalized with stomach complications because she was eating so much high-fiber food that she was producing more and more farts.
She calls himself a fartrepreneur, began farting in jars and selling them online in November and documented on TikTok the foods she ate to reduce flatulence, such as beans, protein muffins, and eggs. Matto was reportedly making about $50,000 a week from his very lucrative business, but the strain soon became too much.
But although Matto has moved away from the actual fart jar business, she still participates in the NFT world, where she sells cartoon images of her fart jars. Non-fungible tokens are most often associated with jpeg images, but they are essentially a decentralized receipt on a blockchain that can be any hyperlink.
Matto’s new website claims that 100 of the virtual fart jars will be redeemable for real-world fart jars, so it doesn’t seem like Matto is completely giving up the fart game just yet. Another 70 tokens will be redeemable for used panties and 30 of the fart jar tokens will be redeemable for some of Matto’s used lingerie
The fart-based businesswoman is also offering Zoom meetings and even mentorship for anyone who wants to create a business like hers.
Whatever you may think of selling farts in a jar, Matto seems financially alright. And it looks a little bit funny to see how NFTs can be monetized on the internet right now. What a time to be alive.
It is said that 3D printing is becoming easier, cheaper, faster, better”. These technologies are flourishing so prominently that business operators and developers start to achieve more and more with each and every year.
Only some time ago, 3D printing usage was only available for big companies with huge financial resources. However, today, even you can buy such technology for your personal needs. So, what are the advantages of modern 3D tools?
1. Affordability
By the current time, the costs of 3D printing have substantially dropped. Therefore, the golden doors for advanced technologies are open not only for large companies but also for common people who want to use them in everyday life. Sometimes, 3D equipment can be even cheaper than branded devices.
According to analysts, 10 years ago it was difficult to find 3D printers that cost less than 4000-5000 dollars, but today you can find similar models for about one hundred dollars on the market.
2. Quality
There is no doubt that the quality of 3D printing has improved: modern gadgets are quite efficient in printing with micro accuracy, which makes it possible to create high-quality models that are not secondary to those at the conventional serial production at large businesses.
For example, a new product by Anycubic — the Photon Ultra DLP 3D printer. Though this printer has a nominal resolution of 720p, the print quality exceeds even that of 2K/4K monochrome LCD 3D printers. The reason for it is that DLP printers use a different curing technology than LCD/MSLA gadgets. DLP 3D printers use a projector that reflects light onto a pixel through a micromirror, which erases light convergence and provides sharper blacks and whites. LCD 3D printers confine all the light to pixels, which can lead to bumps and shadows at the edges of models. DLP machines provide finer lines and clearer texts than MSLA 3D printers, with better color purity and greater layer saturation, which result in models with clear edges and smoother textures.
3. Simplicity
3D printing technology is becoming easier and more accessible every year. In past, to make use of such a device, a person had to be competent in that area, but today even children may know how to use it. Simplification leads to the popularization of these technologies and their indirect influence on different spheres of human life.
According to official statistics, in 2014, 110 thousand 3D printers were shipped worldwide. More than 400 thousand home 3D printers were sold in 2018. In 2021, these indicators increased quite a lot.
4. Size
The first models used to be heavy, but now many printers are compact and smooth. As an example, one of the earliest 3D printers, the Actua 2100, covered an area of several square meters. A lot of modern machines can easily fit on the desktop, while their build volume allows users to print large objects.
5. Speed
One of the main reasons for becoming 3D printing so popular is its speed increase. Modern devices print at way higher speeds than models of the past years. It makes it possible to take out both serial bearer printing and expeditious single-piece production. For instance, the first FDM/FFF 3D printers were printed at speed of up to 35 mm/s. Today, the print speed of the Delta WASP 2040 Pro 3D printer can advance to 500 mm/s.
Experts say that this is just the beginning. Even though the 3D printing technologies market has already made huge progress, in the not-so-distant future, the equipment of these devices will be an integral part of every human’s home — for example, a laptop or refrigerator.
A baby dragon, a cat with wings, and a pixie with a puck – the characters from different mythologies were created on 3D print as sculptures in the greenhouse of the Siberian Botanical Garden of Tomsk State University.
Stories about winged cars can be found in different cultures of the past. For example, in Ancient Egypt, a goddess named Pasht had a body of a winged cat. In countries of Turkic origin like Tatarstan and Kazakhstan, there are still symbols of winged cars, more precisely of snow leopards. However, there are scientific explanations for the origin of stories about winged cats. A winged cat may appear to have wings because of poor grooming or birth defects.
Pixies are very small and magical creatures who throw funny parties and give blessings across the countryside in England. They wear pointed hats while having pointed ears. Although they can be mischievous, most time they are cheerful and helpful to people. It was said that if you show an iron cross to them they would turn away and go.
Puck is quite similar to a pixie though it has horns and in Norse folklores is a nature spirit, who does everything to save trees and plants from people. Puck supposedly appears in all sorts of guises to confuse people and play little tricks on them. And according to old tales, these spirits would be happy to have new clothes because they walked naked.
Baby dragons are playful and hunting animals with sharp teeth and visible claws. While living in a nest with a mother for some time, after growing up they become big and independent as well as being able to breathe flames. Since these creatures are visibly and culturally connected with dinosaurs, the sculpture of a dragonling is in the Evolution of Plants exhibition, with the group of plants that have been existing during the age of dinosaurs. These are cycads, clubmosses, horsetails, ferns, and ginkgo.
The whole idea was to create photographic, moisture-resistant sculptures that would complement the greenhouse exhibition and draw visitors’ attention to mythical creatures. The models of the sculptures were designed and printed on a 3D printer, then polished and painted to look like a stone.
Recently, Porsche has invested in a German startup called Isar Aerospace, which is working on a lightweight launch vehicle with 3D printed parts, including key propulsion components. The first launch is scheduled for 2022.
German journalists are excited to call the startup a competitor to SpaceX, but at present Isar Aerospace is focused on another segment of the aerospace market: launching relatively small satellites using inexpensive light launch vehicles. The main competitor in this niche is the U.S.-New Zealand company Rocket Lab, which has been successfully launching commercial payloads since 2018 (its first partially successful launch dates back to 2017). The company also uses 3D-printed engines. Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket can launch up to 200 kg into sun-synchronous orbit. Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum launch vehicle will be more powerful and can deliver up to 700 kg of cargo to the same altitude. This would not be enough to launch a car into space, as SpaceX once did, but would certainly be acceptable for commercial and research satellites.
The first stage of the 27-meter-high launch vehicle will use nine Aquilla SL engines, while the second stage will use only one Aquilla VAC engine. The company plans to produce up to 80% of the components in-house using additive technologies, with a focus on 3D metal printing. The startup uses laser powder 3D printers from Electro-Optical Systems (EOS GmbH). The devices are used to produce combustion chambers and nozzles.
Isar Aerospace has already received more than $180 million. In addition to Porsche, investors include the venture arm of Airbus and Bülent Altan, a former SpaceX engineer who led a team of avionics engineers for Falcon rockets and Dragon spacecraft. In addition, the startup is supported by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the German Aerospace Center after winning the Boost! competition, which aimed to improve the state of private space in Europe.
The place is based in Munich and plans to use the Andøya Rocket Range in Norway for launches. It may be too far north, but it is good for launches into polar or near-polar orbits. Funds will go in part to research the reusability of rockets. Reusable launch systems are the current trend: Blue Origin, SpaceX and the aforementioned Rocket Lab are actively pursuing the technology. The cost of the launch has not yet been announced. For example, the cost of launching one Electron vehicle is about 7.5 dollars.
The Japanese economy boomed in the 1980s (particularly from the mid-80s onwards). Life was very good (a sense of optimism everywhere!), people bought luxury goods like no tomorrow and in the West, many people started learning Japanese and taking Japanese business classes (learning how to conduct business in a more Japanese way, etc) as many thought that the Japanese economy was set to take over the world (and that all future business transactions worth their salt, would happen in the language of Japanese). People both hailed and feared the economic giant Japan had become (in only 30 or so years since its dim post-war days)!!
Then the bubble economy began to collapse in January 1990 as stock prices crashed (and continued declining through the year)…By 1991 the economy had gone bust and a huge recession had started. Between December 1989 and August 1992 the Nikkei average dropped from 38,915 to 14,309, producing a loss of $2 trillion. With the declining value of land factored in assets shrank by around $10 trillion.
The decade beyond 1991 is known as “The Lost Decade” (失われた十年).
Like in all economic bust periods, no one person or single factor was to blame for the burst of the bubble economy. But whoever or whatever was to blame, it was little consolation for the endless amount of ordinary souls involved whose livelihoods were destroyed or were severely negatively affected by the disaster.
People struggled in all sorts of ways- many people lost their jobs (and struggled to find any new jobs at all) while those who managed to keep their jobs saw their salaries drop significantly. Many people also found themselves being forced to continue paying for huge loans they had taken out on properties whose value plummeted after the crash (sometimes by 50% or more!). The number of people committing suicide or filing for personal bankruptcy also went up considerably.
The collapse of the real estate values was devastating to Japanese banks. Banks had traditionally relied on the property as collateral for loans. But when real estate values plummeted, the banks were reluctant to call in the loans (because the value of the collateral was considerably less than it was before, causing the banks to lose money).
So Japanese banks were saddled with billions of dollars in debts (and may have accumulated as much as $1 trillion in bad loans, or $5,000 for every Japanese). No one was sure how bad the situation really was…The Japanese government prevented the Japanese banking system from being properly investigated and hid the full scale of the losses sustained by the banks (in a bid to prevent the crisis from being worse than it already was).
And things weren’t necessarily any better by the late 90s! In the late 1990s, the introduction of performance-based salary systems produced higher unemployment rates and coincided with high suicide rates.
Over the years the Japanese government tried many things to rejuvenate the economy. For example, over $10 trillion was pumped into projects between 1991 and 2001. The projects offered temporary relief but generated huge debt. But a lot of money was spent on projects (dubbed “Bridges to Nowhere”) that Japan didn’t really need.
Ultimately (long story short) none of the government stimulus measures worked very well and Japan ended up building the largest national debt of any industrialized nation in the world. In 2003, the public debt reached $6.4 trillion (130 percent of GNP, and half Japan’s savings and triple the debt rate in 1992). By contrast, the public debt in the United States was $3.4 trillion (or 35 percent of GNP). Most of the debt is held by the government. Even though there is enough money in the banks to cover the debt, most of it is in the form of personal savings (which the government can’t touch).
Japan also suffered from deflation. National wealth declined as property values continued to fall. Companies didn’t invest, so they didn’t expand. So people worried about the future (and save their money rather spent it, figuring that things would be cheaper in the future). Prices declined more, people saved more because they figured prices will drop further.
Companies lost money and laid-off workers…
There were worries about a deflationary spiral and a depression. Some wanted the Bank of Japan to create inflation, believing that would solve Japan’s problems (but others saw deflation as a symptom of Japan’s deeper problems).
In more recent times…
The New York Times once reported: “Deflation has left a deep imprint on the Japanese, breeding generational tensions and a culture of pessimism, fatalism, and reduced expectations. While Japan remains in many ways a prosperous society, it faces an increasingly grim situation, particularly outside the relative economic vibrancy of Tokyo…A new frugality is apparent among a generation of young Japanese, who have known nothing but economic stagnation and deflation. They refuse to buy big-ticket items like cars or televisions, and fewer choose to study abroad in America.”
Even in 2019, Japan’s economy is still troublesome (and ultimately, all the massive monetary and fiscal stimuli have so far over the years since the bust has failed to really spur faster and more sustained growth). Some of the current ideas to boost and strengthen the Japanese economy are;
Expand the workforce, including by hiring and promoting more women, and by allowing older workers to keep jobs longer.
Counteract aging demographics via immigration.
Generate more revenue to lower government debt.
Institute industrial and labor market changes aimed at more flexible work practices and eventually, wage gains
But the main obstacles to these proposals are:
Cultural workforce “traditions,” rigid seniority systems at companies.
Deep aversion to increased immigration (by both policymakers and the general population).
Pressure against tax increases from consumers and companies.
Resistance from various quarters, including industries, labor unions, and some in workforce, along with a lack of political will.
