White noise. I bought a white noise machine years ago when I lived near a large emergency room that had ambulances going by all day every day. It really helped with the sirens, and when I moved away I kept using the machine. My brain now interprets the white noise as profound silence, and I sleep so deeply that I don’t know how I ever got by without it.

Spock explained that they could mimic the sounds, but not the language. They would be responding in gibberish.

Maybe its programming was damaged or tampered with. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Inmate firefighters are indeed inmate labor, but the issue is whether inmate firefighters are slaves. I don’t think that they are, and I also think that lumping them together with other forms of inmate labor (particularly those that benefit private interests) is misleading and hyperbolic when discussing that point.

I think you’re conflating the general issue of inmate labor with the particular issue of inmate firefighters.

But in this case they are volunteers. They specifically applied to the firefighting program.

There’s certainly cause for discussion about the ethics, etc. but calling it slavery or involuntary servitude is hyperbole.

1. No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.
2. Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.

Citation needed.

Well, yes, just like me and my job, they can quit. What part of that suggests slavery?

How so?

It’s not involuntary, though. They have to apply for the program, and can stop if they want.

Removed by mod

Ugly giant bags of mostly water.

Another nit about Riker’s argument: at one point he detaches Data’s arm to demonstrate that he’s a machine. Four years later Riker’s arm was amputated and reattached by the subspace aliens in Schisms.

The Dominion Did Nothing Wrong^TM

From a national security standpoint of the government, it absolutely does matter who has the data.

TestDisk and PhotoRec. TestDisk can recover broken drive partitions, PhotoRec can recover deleted files even if the partition table is borked.

There’s an entire Star Trek instance (startrek.website) that followed the /r/daystrominstitute community from reddit during the Exodus.

There are Federation time beacons. The E-D resynchronized the ship’s chronometer using one after they got stuck in a time loop in Cause and Effect. They, however, did not use it when they lost a day in Clues.