Wooster

I feel like I’m reading clickbait.

Only 13 states are participating in the roll out… still. That’s better than the 0 we’re currently experiencing.

One of the main criticisms of the program is that it the direct file pilot only covers individual federal tax returns and does not prepare state returns. However, IRS officials said they are working with Arizona, California, Massachusetts and New York for filing season 2024 to integrate state taxes into the pilot.

Taxpayers in nine other states that don’t have an income tax – Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming — may also be eligible to participate in the pilot, according to the IRS.

As an aside, the wording in the article makes me feel like the people putting this forward have a gun to their head and they’re trying really hard not to piss TurboTax off.

The boy was stabbed 26 times and succumbed to his injuries, the sheriff’s office said.

The 32-year-old woman, who had more than a dozen stab wounds, is recovering at the hospital and is expected to survive, the office said.

The Parliament class we first see in Cupid’s Errant Arrow is 2D illustrations. It’s not until Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place that we get a 3D model.

The chaotic battle we see in the opening credits are mixed. The Romulans and Borg are 2D. Starting in S2 we add 3D Clumpships and Birds of Prey. S3 adds 3D Crystalline Entity. S4 adds 3D Breen ship, and 2D Whale Probe.

The Parasite scene is mixed. The Cerritos is 3D. The Parasite is layered 2D giving the illusion of 3D.

Is it extremely powerful though? The ship doesn’t begin its attack until after an inside job has been completed, not unlike in Star Trek: Generations.

You do bring up an interesting point with the lack of Federation ships being attacked. Though the BIA and the Bynar ship throw half a wrench into that idea. Not technically Starfleet, but not unaffiliated either.

My personal suspicion as to why we haven’t seen a Starfleet Vessel being attacked yet is because the Cerritos is ultimately going to be one of its victims… and that’s best saved for the finale. My second guess is that a Parliament ship will be a casualty. We saw a CGI model for the first time in the Ferengi episode, but the CGI models are typically reserved for fan service (Titan, Crystaline Entity, Voyager, DS9, Soverign Class), have a lot of use (Cerritos, Shuttles), or are engaged in combat (Bird of Prey, Sh’Val, Clumpship, Texas Class, Breen Vessel).

Also note the CGI Bird of Prey being added to the LD intro in S2, which foreshadowed the CGI battle in 3 Ships.

The Parliament class, to date, has not really fulfilled any of those roles—which has my attention in a conservation of detail sense.

An odd number of Binars… and we find the missing pair operating a bridge console at the time of the attack.

Certainly fits the profile of the other acts of treachery followed immediately by betrayal.

I have to admit, with the revelation that the ships are all being stolen with fake debris left behind… I’m at a loss as to what the endgame is.

• I seriously doubt they’re being salvaged for parts. Lower Decks has already done that with the Pakleds.

• The ships don’t really fit a profile. We have the huge vertical warbird to the tiny Orion vessel. The militant Bird of Prey to the sciency Binars.

• Only the Orion and Ferengi vessels could be argued as sharing a mission—with their sorting of random weapons. But even if the ship is after weapons, there are better targets.

• Taking the crews prisoner seems impractical.

Really, the only things the ships all have in common is a lower decker that is vindictive and gullible enough to commit treachery. But that’s not an objective, that’s a means to an end.

They’re still in the process of genetically engineering the bacteria, so their efficiency is still a work in progress.

There’s also the issue that economies of scale tip heavily in plastics direction,

It’s not a carbon neutral process. There’s significant both heating and cooling involved.

And, it doesn’t really solve the issue of retiring plastics.

The last update I read on the bacteria, prior to the genetic engineering, mentioned that the bacteria didn’t actually like the plastic and would only really break it down for want of something more practical. Presumably that has been solved, but I didn’t see it brought up in the article.

The article explains that they use the bacteria to basically break down the plastic into two solutions, which they ultimately recombine into plastic—seemingly out of lack of any other practical use for the results.

I’m not a scientist, I don’t know what could be a better use for the results of the bacteria doing their job. And seemingly, neither do the scientists, but it’s still a very young project in the grand scheme of things.

Since 2021, a French company named Carbios has been running an operation that uses a bacterial enzyme to process about 250kg of PET plastic waste every day, breaking it down into its precursor molecules, which can then be made directly into new plastic. It’s not quite composting it back into the earth itself, but Carbios has achieved the holy grail of plastic recycling, bringing it much closer to an infinitely recyclable material like glass or aluminium.

That’s a significant step forward from when the last time I read up on the plastic eating bacteria. Granted, I’d prefer it if it was recycled into something other than more plastic… but I’ll still take it.

Megalovania intensifies.

She’s not technically a star, so I’m under the impression there’s a limit to how many episodes she can appear in per season.

The cutscenes feel like they were inspired by something like “Lady Lovelylocks”… which isn’t a bad thing… but the game itself seems devoid of personality.