What's really impressive is that I think all of that is reflected in Fletcher's portrayal of the character from her first appearance in Season 1, even though I doubt they had the full nature of her character fleshed out at that point. The disdain, the jealousy, the hatred she has for Sisko is so clear in those conversations. Nothing Sisko ever said could have changed things, she could never forgive him for being the Emissary.
Wynn, on the other hand, made no fucking sense. Sorry, but going from pope to satanist and shacking up with the face of the occupation? Jumping the shark, forgetting that she's a character with real (albeit, shitty) convictions and a past.
Oh no, see Winn served the Prophets her whole life. She believed she had given them everything. The problem is, Winn's religion was only ever transactional for her. Winn believed that she could work her way into heaven. She served because she believed she would be rewarded for doing so. She wanted power, but more than that she wanted to be recognized as the very best follower. She wanted approval from her gods, and she wanted them to acknowledge her above all others. It's why she was so jealous of Sisko from the very beginning, because Sisko never had to earn his position as the Emissary. He didn't even want it, and that made it worse - Sisko had everything she wanted her whole life, and he didn't value it like she did. Blasphemy. Winn is the embodiment of ambition and narcissism (truly an equal to Dukat), which I think she portrayed from the very first appearance of her character.
When she tried to talk to the Prophets through the Orb, and they rejected her because she had been tainted by the enemy, she knew that she would never get what she wanted from the Prophets. No power, but even worse, no recognition.
Because her religious practice was transactional, the other party of the transaction was replaceable, as long as she could get what she wanted. Trading the Prophets for the Pah Wraiths was simple, because the Prophets never really mattered to Winn, only getting what she wanted from the transaction.
I'm all for humiliating them in public, but in my experience you can't effectively humiliate them on the internet. It's just attention for them. Obscurity is better, or reporting them to whatever platform they're on if you can demonstrate that they've violated the terms of service in some way.
I agree with the sentiment, but... I think the same logic as not naming school shooters applies. Naming these people (or linking to their YouTube channels or whatever) tends to result in amplifying them, bringing them more views and shares. They thrive on attention. It's better not to feed the Streisand effect.
Yeah, great, I'm sure that'll be comforting for everyone who didn't vote for it, when they can't afford to buy the small amount of food that gets produced.
Absolutely. Nothing can break down those polymers naturally, so just getting that process started makes a big difference. The very worst case is that the output material ends up in landfill - if it's just a sugar molecule at that point, it will break down relatively quickly. Way, way better than letting the plastic break down in the environment.
OK, so if you can pass the host root filesystem to a container and then write files or execute code with root privileges on that filesystem, I would definitely consider that a container escape. You're executing arbitrary code on the host from within a container.
Before the yeast can start feasting, the PET plastics are subjected to a process called oxidative hydrothermal dissolution to break them down into smaller bits that the microbes can digest.
"Oxidative hydrothermal dissolution" - basically they boil the plastic and oxidize it, I think at the same time. Maybe hydrogen peroxide + water? Essentially this is kind of an accelerated aging.
Anyway, the yeast can't eat the plastic without some processing first, which is probably good because it means existing plastic packages won't just start falling apart. On the other hand if this does get loose, it might be able to eat any PET litter that has started breaking down in the environment due to exposure to sun, rain, ocean water, etc. The absolute easiest waste for this to eat would be any PET that has broken down into microplastic particles and ended up in soil or water, which would be kind of an ideal situation.
Yes, I'm assuming that this is being done in a lab environment without purpose-built equipment, and also that developing the specialized yeast strain was part of the cost.
Assuming that the genetic change is stable and that the yeast is self-propagating like normal yeast, then engineering the rest of it into an assembly line shouldn't be too difficult and should bring the cost down by orders of magnitude.
Plus, if we can turn the output hydrocarbons into a viable market product then the recycler can offset the operating cost, which would make this even more interesting. Right now plastic recycling is just losses.
Before the yeast can start feasting, the PET plastics are subjected to a process called oxidative hydrothermal dissolution to break them down into smaller bits that the microbes can digest.
Sensationalism aside, this could actually be a big deal. We use a lot of PET (polyethylene). Plastic drink bottles, plastic bags, plastic wrap, tape, fabrics, even some car parts. PET is a huge market segment of consumer products that are difficult to replace with environmentally friendly alternatives.
If we can boil it and then feed it to a vat of yeast to break down, that would be fantastic. Even better, it could remove some of the difficulty of plastic sorting which is a major part of the recycling problem. Basically, if you dump some plastic into the vat that the yeast can't eat, well it just won't eat it, so just sift it out of the vat later for a different disposal process, no big deal.
Even if humans can't directly consume the byproduct, I'm sure we can use it for something else.
My biggest question is how long this takes, which they don't address in the article. How long do you have to boil the material (how much energy, how much water, how much oxygen, how big a facility to process X volume of waste), and how long does it take the yeast to break it down? If it can be done in hours or days that's well worth spending some resources to build a processing center. If it takes months or years it will require more planning and analysis.
On further inspection, it was found that the mathematician had assumed an ideal sphere of constant radius, while the real object was in fact oblate. The mathematician had neglected to take any measurements, leading to an incorrect value. The physicist's answer was correct, but only at sea level at nominal temperature.
The engineer is currently using calipers to measure the diameter of the object at many different angles in order to build a CAD model. He said we could expect results next year.
Organized crime exists everywhere. In the places that don't have a stereotyped reputation for it, the organized crime groups are either better at hiding or have more control over the local government and don't get investigated.
For instance, in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos internet scams are a significant portion of the economy. In Laos the scams revenue represent about 68% of their GDP:
Local governments have tried to crack down on the scam centers, but the operations are so large that basically everyone in the country is either involved directly, or knows someone personally who is.
“These are massive pieces of infrastructure, set up very publicly. You can go to borders and observe them. You can even walk into some of them,” says Tower. “The fact this is happening in a very public way shows just the extreme level of impunity – and the extent to which states are not only tolerating this, but actually, these criminal actors are becoming state embedded.”
The point being, most of the time there isn't a "crime family" like in movies and TV shows. Organized crime is business, and in a lot of places it's business as usual.
Ooh, yes someone should do this not on any particular person's property but as an avantgarde public art installation. Not with actual Flock cameras but just some replicas. Pop it up in a couple different cities around the world.
Armchair warrior.