In the EU, we had a respite from people wanting to split up, when the consequences of BREXIT were fresh in their memory, but it's starting to be forgoten and new splitters are coming up. No coincidence that Trump invited them all to his inauguration.
From an egotistical point of view, I hope it happens to the US as a wakeup call for EU... but hard times are coming for everyone.
Kickstarter works for multiple phases or versions of a project.
The only real difference with GoFundMe, is that Kickstarter will return backer money if the campaign doesn't get funded, while GoFundMe has an option to fail and still get paid.
China for decades has been buying scrap and actual trash from Western countries. They were not going to just sit on it without trying to make a profit.
The alternative, would have been to keep that trash locally. This way at lest it gets smeared out over multiple countries... or something. 🤷
Nostr is great for privacy and for crypto, but not yet suitable for the general public.
Asking an average user to secure a cryptographic key for their identity, when most can barely hold onto a user:pass, is kind of ridiculous... so Nostr is selling a $100 "authenticator box". Not particularly user friendly.
One strong point of Nostr is Bitcoin LN integration, which potentially could work as a source of revenue, but the look&feel is not published enough, while at the same time trying to offer more interaction types (like the marketplace), than what people really want: Twitter's sweet teet.
The code is dual-licensed MIT and Apache. Meaning it's fully compatible with a privative fork, but also a free federated network could still survive.
For now, it seems like they are planning on developing extra features on top of the basic functionalities, not paywall basic features... but time will tell.
In any case, they seem to be led by people who jumped ship from Twitter before the Muskocalypse, so it's becoming kind of "the old time Twitter". Chances are, as Musk rides Twitter's popularity and inertia until fully turning it into a dystopian dictatorship propaganda machine, BlueSky will emerge to replace it as a slightly better iteration of what Twitter used to be.
Well... pretty much all plastics shed microplastics, it's a matter of how much. Scratching, rubbing, heating without melting, or starting with loosely packed fibres... accelerate the process.
There's estimates that weekly we ingest enough microplastics to make a credit card, which is truly dystopian. I wonder how much more it was during my ballpen cap chewing phase. All the variety of compounds used to manufacture them, under more or less control, are a Pandora's box of possible issues.
Many tea bags are made from paper with added plastic fibers for extra strength. As you heat them, like when pouring hot water over them, some of the particles (both paper, plastic, and whatever other additives) release into your cup.
The filter paper used to produce teabags with a string and tag attached does not need to contain plastic polymer fibres: these teabags close by folding, and are secured by stitching or stapling, rather than by heat sealing.
However, many teabag producers (including organic brands) still choose to use paper with plastic (polypropylene) fibres to add strength to their teabags.
Political isolation would allow them to decide which countries to do business with, and on what terms, in order to maximize their own profits. Instead of a "free for all" market, it could become a "limited for all, except for some chosen ones". The USD has been artificially propped by the USA being "the world police", or the largest bully on the playground. In a multifaceted world, where some large nations start to put that to the test, chances are the USD could stop being the world's currency, making it more beneficial to establish selective trade agreements valued in goods, closer to barter.
They could still solidify Trump's power... or just the opposite: impeach him, throw him away, and put in his place someone they might see as easier to control. For now, having a Republican majority in both Congress and Senate, the threat of impeachment could work to keep Trump in line. As much as Trump's ability to say "yes, no, and the opposite" worked great for people to cherry pick whatever they wanted to hear and vote for him, the same can work wonders to cherry pick the opposite and destroy him. In countries like China, they use that kind of politics all the time: anyone wanting to advance, needs to commit some irregularities that can be used to blackmail them, then throw them under the bus when the higher ups feel threatened.
As the DOGE works its way through the administration to cull down non-political appointments, it can as easily decide to keep Trump loyalists, or Musk loyalists, or Vance loyalists, or whatever. That's one part of the autocoup. For the other part, Trump has already promised no more elections, and to get the term limit removed. But even if he manages to get those, whether he's the one to enjoy them, remains to be seen. Trump's a babbling loudmouth, but Musk has already gained several time more ($100B) on his election, than Trump's whole net worth ($6B, maybe).
Nobody's stopping anyone from forking open source software.
If you don't have the expertise or time/money, nobody's stopping you from starting a GoFundMe or whatever, and hiring some devs you like.