No, the tendency was to not think of one's self as the expert. That didn't make one dumb, that made one ignorant. Now people think that they're experts even when they cannot demonstrate mastery of the subject without having access to resources. It's the difference between an open-book test and a more traditional testing technique. I can't deny a certain amount of perverse pleasure from watching people with poor cell phone signal squirm because they are attempting to consult the Internet for an answer to something that's part of their responsibiltiy that clearly they cannot do on their own and aren't able to do so.

I disagree. I think that some rational persons, in particular many religious persons, consider themselves accountable to God for all symbolic activity in which they engage.

This view is supported in the New Testament in 2 Corinthians 5:20, which calls Christians to be ambassadors for Christ. Engaging in a form of symbolism is an act of speech.

The Old Testament / Hebrew bible is full of strictures against engaging in symbolic support of claims that the Lord is not in charge of everything and worthy of exclusive worship.

Thought experiments involving role-reversal are useful for everyone in this kind of discussion. Would you consider it okay for the law to compel a Muslim-owned advertising company to write "Islam is wrong. Mohamed was a militant con artist" all over a city's billboards? If not, why not?

Or would be okay, on your view, to force a Jewish-owned movie-making company to produce and promote a movie claiming that the Jews had it coming in the Holocaust, if it could somehow be shown in court that the submitted script was a guaranteed money-maker for them?

My contention is that some Christians consider writing messages counter to their theology to be objectionable in the same way. And that the very debate about whether or not it's sufficiently a matter of compelled religious speech is itself a question whose answer depends on one's religious viewpoint.

I don't think any rational person assumes ...

I disagree. I think that some rational persons, in particular many religious persons, consider themselves accountable to God for all symbolic activity in which they engage.

This view is supported in the New Testament in 2 Corinthians 5:20, which calls Christians to be ambassadors for Christ. Engaging in a form of symbolism is an act of speech.

The Old Testament / Hebrew bible is full of strictures against engaging in symbolic support of claims that the Lord is not in charge of everything and worthy of exclusive worship.

Thought experiments involving role-reversal are useful for everyone in this kind of discussion. Would you consider it okay for the law to compel a Muslim-owned advertising company to write "Islam is wrong. Mohamed was a militant con artist" all over a city's billboards? If not, why not?

Or would be okay, on your view, to force a Jewish-owned movie-making company to produce and promote a movie claiming that the Jews had it coming in the Holocaust, if it could somehow be shown in court that the submitted script was a guaranteed money-maker for them?

My contention is that some Christians consider writing messages counter to their theology to be objectionable in the same way. And that the very debate about whether or not it's sufficiently a matter of compelled religious speech is itself a question whose answer depends on one's religious viewpoint.

Encouraging them in their sinful behavior. A gay wedding is a celebration, which I take as an affirmation that the thing being celebrated is good and worth of encouragement.

On some Christians' view, that's like having a celebration of giving a 6 year old a loaded gun. It puts them and those around them at heightened risk of death.

There is absolutely no reason to treat these law abiding citizens as second class citizens in places of business.

I think you're perhaps missing part of my point.

I agree entirely that there are downsides to allowing business owners to make such distinctions. The point about black Americans is very valid.

But my point was that your dismissing a certain notion of harm, as perceived by religious persons. They consider themselves to be held accountable to God for their choices.

You're correctly arguing that gay people suffer a certain kind of harm by a business refusing to do a certain kind of business on their behalf. I'm saying that you're dismissing the harm done to religious persons by demanding them to violate their consciences and/or their obedience to God (on their view).

I think something irreligious non-libertarians miss in these discussions is the notion of harm.

I'm guessing that they see clear harm to a gay person in having a business refuse to perform a particular service for them.

But they see no harm in forcing a religious person to choose between being faithful to God and making their living.

In reality, gay people can usually find another place to get a cake decorated, and religious people can actually write the requested message on a cake. But irreligious people are making the value judgment that the former is less tolerable than the latter.

As far as I can tell, that prioritization is itself a religious judgment. It's saying that it's more wrong to refuse to blaspheme, than to blaspheme. That strikes me as very much an Enlightenment era notion of morality.

It's also only for the initial few weeks after launch. This is aimed at getting rid of those queues of people that just *have* to have the latest Apple iThing on launch day from cluttering up the streets around the store, which I'm sure goes over well with the city administration that needs to police the queue and deal with the aftermath - at least some of which I suspect have probably had words with Apple store managers or VPs about it. Unless it's a complete debacle I suspect we'll be seeing similar management of iPad, iPhone and other major product launches.

Socialized medicine doesn't mean you can just walk in and get free medical care anytime you want.

Have you ever thought about not paying them to not produce energy instead? How do I get in on this, I'd like to be paid to not produce electricity too. I think I'd be quite good at it.

Seriously though, let me guess, public sector contract with penalty clauses? that why? the usual story? Can they really not sell the electricity to anyone instead, like you know, that whopping great City to the South; New York. Or do the Americans not trust immigrant electricity or something?

I've noticed this a lot, and so told my parents that if I'm ever arrested and the media come asking you've got to say "yeah he was a real dick, I'm glad he got busted". It'd be worth it just for the reaction.

Dumping waste onto your neighbor's property (even gas, here), without their consent, is criminal.

Offering to give a person a ride at a cheaper rate than the alternative, without misrepresenting your product (and regular Uber users know what the product is perfectly well), with their consent, is not just legal, but beneficial to society as a whole.

If the problem is regulated rates, minimum road time, and so on... how about we fix that problem, instead of creating new ones?

What you're describing is called protectionism and it's been disproven in economics for hundreds of years. If you're going to cry 'Nothing happens in a vacuum' you can't then proceed to talk about only the taxi cab owners/drivers. You have to talk about all of society.

Well they are insured and they do have a license, so I am not sure your point.

I only respect laws designed to represent the interests of the citizenry as a whole--not the vested interests of one tiny class who bribed some politicians with campaign contributions.

Kermit is a good choice, should be able to do all he needs with no extra cost as long as he can cable 2 computers together.

I specifically dislike those telling him to buy a UBS adapter for the old disk drive or other solutions that require spending money and waiting. I do have such an adapter, and a PCMCIA firewire card that would open other options for me, but they are not needed in this case.

Another option that seems to be ignored is that XP computer he says he also has. At that vintage it likely has USB and Ethernet. I would try swapping the drive into that (if it isn't too thick to fit) and booting the XP computer with a Live Linux CD (the 3.11 Windows disk will likely not boot properly and would not have the needed drivers even if it did). Then from Linux you could easily write the 160 meg drive contents to a USB flash drive or transfer it across ethernet to the destination computer (I would do that with FTP but there are any number of options).