It won't work because it will be, successfully, argued that you're getting paid in miles rather than cash.

And there will need to be a central authority where you can redeem miles and register to participate. And at that point the government can set a value on each mile.

Just because YOU don't set a value on something does NOT mean the government CANNOT.

And no, sex-work is NOT the same as a girlfriend who borrows money from you.

That's why the change happens on the weekend.

Read TFA about heart attacks increasing on the Monday after the change.

The problem is that people's "biological clocks" become accustomed to a specific cycle. They cannot be changed overnight.

My point was that if the computer can figure out the context of the other 90,000 languages it runs into, it can figure out the context of language #90,001. Else it wouldn't have been able to figure out the context of any languages, including ones on earth.

Do not stop there.

If the aliens were not able to communicate with the Enterprise then were they able to communicate with any of the other races they probably encountered?

If so, then why isn't the Federation using that translator tech?

If not, then why haven't the aliens figured out that their language is so unique that other cannot understand it ... and done something about it? Such as including films showing actors acting out the events.

Instead, they lose one of their people just to teach some basic phrases to Picard? Picard cannot order a cup of tea with those phrases. He cannot ask directions to a bathroom.

Both sides are written as too dumb to survive.

To be fair, the universal translator was probably a necessary license to avoid having the entire show consisting of puzzled humans and aliens getting frustrated because they can't communicate.

And that is why it is a bad episode. Because the plot depends upon a failure of a device that is only included in all the other episodes because there isn't enough time or money to be more realistic.

Suppose a plot focused on the absence of seatbelts.

Or a plot focused on a ship where everyone spoke German instead of American English.

Or a plot focused on why the consoles on the bridge are made of plywood.

And so forth.

Words have specific meanings only within the culture that uses them. The sounds have no meaning of their own.

This is another case where an episode's plot depends upon the failure of a system that works flawlessly in all other episodes.

The universal translator should have had no problem with that language. The same as it had no problem with any of the other brand new languages that it had no problem with.

For example, someone might say "You're such a Samantha", but if you haven't watched many hours of Sex and the City, you would have no idea what they meant despite knowing all of those words.

And that is where that episode breaks down. Because every other time the translator has encountered a new language it has translated it.

It doesn't matter if I know what "a Samantha" means or not.

The translator in that show has never had a problem with translating such before.

GOVERNMENT spies who are spying on POTENTIAL ENEMY GOVERNMENTS are okay.

GOVERNMENT spies who are spying on ALLIES are not okay.

GOVERNMENT spies who are spying on PRIVATE companies in allied nations are not okay.

And before you get to the next part I'll just say that GOVERNMENT spies who are spying on CITIZENS of that government are also not okay.

I'm not!

He wrote, "It's always uncomfortable to listen to criticism. But if one can step back a bit, it's often thought-provoking and even helpful."

"thought-provoking"? How was it even a question?

If they had a problem seeing the problem in the first place then I don't trust them to see the problem in the future.

I've worked for a company that used Trustwave.

I hate them.

They did NOTHING except forward
EVERY
SINGLE
ALERT
FOR
EVERY
SINGLE
SERVICE
ON
EVERY
SINGLE
SERVER
that was in scope.

I understand WHY Trustwave did that. It is so that they cannot be blamed for when YOU miss something. So you are buried in their reports.

But you do get to check off the box labelled "24/7 monitoring of all systems".

Which is why "compliance" is NOT the same thing as "security".

I don't care if it is the same fucking dictionary attack as yesterday. Root and Admin are NOT valid names. They can throw 10,000 attempts and they will still not get in. But Trustwave will send you 10,000 notifications AGAIN. Just like yesterday.

Per service. Per server.

How do you report something like this, if their own "support" is either ignorant or not prepared to deal with these issues. Obviously, someone at Target new of the problems, but couldn't get upper management to listen.

You don't.

And you don't leave ANY trails showing that you knew about it.

It's too easy for them to drag YOU into court on "hacking" charges.

They'll be looking for ways to cover their incompetency later. Do not be their victim.

What do you think a Glass user can do that a phone user can't?

Nothing. They just do it without the physical motions that would otherwise provide the visual cues to indicate what they're doing.

Really - the camera on Glass is not useful at all to record or photograph someone without them knowing.

Bullshit.

There's no zoom, no flash... however if I take a $99 camera with a 8x optical focus I can easily take the picture from a distance and no one is going to look at me funny because I'm taking pictures on the street.

Bullshit, again. I'm in Seattle. We get a lot of tourists. They're easy to spot with their cameras. And people do step out of the way of their shots.

So to sum it up: Get a life.

Got one already. Me having a life does not mean that you are not an ass hole.

You being an ass hole does not mean that I do not have a life.

No. Huawei is a commercial company. Not a government.

This is our government engaging in corporate espionage.

Yep. It's always about money. If a company THINKS that it can get a cheaper worker to do the work that you do then that company will try to replace you.

From TFA:

In an interview, Papademetriou said that the literature on this issue "has become comfortable with a consensus that basically says that high-end immigration produces more jobs than it takes." However, he didn't put a number on the number of jobs created.

Maybe they do. After all, SOMEONE has to work at the company providing the "guest workers". But there are really TWO issues here:

1. Are the "guest workers" driving down the pay of the workers that they're replacing?

2. WHAT jobs are being created by hiring "guest workers" that would NOT be created by hiring regular workers?

Slaughter said restrictions on H-1B use have cost the U.S. economy 100,000 new direct jobs over the past year, a figure that rises to 500,000 when indirect jobs are added.

Again, TWO items:

1. WHAT are those jobs?

2. WHICH companies are trying to fill them?

He shouldn't have any problem showing tens-of-thousands of job openings that have been open for months IF WHAT HE CLAIMS IS CORRECT.

You've hit upon the problem with most Star Trek scripts.

The crew encounters aliens who are more advanced in areas X, Y and Z. But have a child's view of ethics and morality.

As in that episode, there was no rehabilitation. Just punishment. And the punishment was meted out prior to any arguments or evidence from his defence.

It would have been a lot more interesting if he had spent 20 mental years being "rehabilitated" through positive reinforcement to internalize the aliens' ethics. So he gets out in a short period of time and he seems happy but his ethics and behaviour are now what the aliens deem "good". Not necessarily what the Federation deems "good". What to do then? How far does "rehabilitation" go before it becomes "brain washing"?

And worry that she (a philosophy PhD) cannot tell the difference between "justice" and "vengeance".

I had wondered whether the best way to achieve justice in cases like that was to prolong death as long as possible.

Seriously. She cannot tell the difference between "justice" and "vengeance".

Some crimes are so bad they require a really long period of punishment, and a lot of people seem to get out of that punishment by dying.

And it gets worse.

In the US, for instance, the vast majority of people on death row appeal to have their sentences reduced to life imprisonment. That suggests that a quick stint in prison followed by death is seen as a worse fate than a long prison sentence.

Or rather it suggests that being DEAD means that you have no chance of parole or pardon or of the system finally deciding that you really are innocent.

A lot of philosophers who have written about personal identity wonder whether identity can be sustained over an extremely long lifespan. Even if your body makes it to 1,000 years, the thinking goes, that body is actually inhabited by a succession of persons over time rather than a single continuous person.

No it is not a "succession of persons". It is one person with a succession of experiences. Those experiences can change that person's world view but it is still the same person.

And that means you are effectively punishing one person for a crime committed by someone else. Most of us would think that unjust.

The same can be said about a prisoner's first time in prison. But just because someone's world view changes does not mean that that person is now someone else.

Suppose there was some physics experiment that stood a decent chance of generating a black hole that could destroy the planet and all future generations. If someone deliberately set up an experiment like that, I could see that being the kind of supercrime that would justify an eternal sentence.

Physicists in prison.