Depends on what you usually use for thinking.

Sorry, but that's the internal business of orange or Vodafone.

There WAS a reason, back when phone companies were indeed seperate companies, so the roaming costs were justified for those additional costs for both inter-company and inter-country accounting and banking.

But the EU did as much as they could to get rid of those additional costs for international business. A company (in ANY business down to a family plumbing business!) can now serve the whole of europe without worrying about different tax, costumer protection, safety, or pipe-gauge regulations. The even invented a whole new currency for a bunch of countries, just to make business easier.

At the same time, a wave of mergers hit the cellphone market with a few big players being active in every european country. ALSO to save money and getting rid of that internal accounting.

If they're still loosing money for "coordinating internal records", it's their own fault and nothing that would justify roaming charges.

That's what you get when you try to play mindgames and try to artificially set up people against each other who are used to team work. Those tricks definitly work better when your panel is drafted from anything from egoists to sociopaths on shows like like "Big Brother", "Bachelor" or "$COUNTRY Idol"

NP. And I know it's a very technical difference, so no offence here.

And of course you have to know the law to avoid breaking it. But not have to know it simply for the sake of knowing it. And it was you who already made the point why: It would be "thoughtcrime" to punish someone only based on what he thinks or knows. And that's why this small difference DOES matter.

But then there is not only the practical standpoint, but also the realistic one: There are more laws and regulations you DON'T have to know about than otherwise, because you're never going to take any action in the field they're regulating. Like, for example, I don't know zip about any FAA regulations. But at the same time it is very likely that I never will violate any of them, because I'm simply not building or operating planes (gliders, helicopters, kites, hanggliders, parachutes... actual and/or model)

And as there are so many laws and regulations irrelevant to most people, it IS relevant that you can't be fined for not knowing them. (as long as they stay irrelevant for whatever you're doing.)

What's more important: People need help interpreting DNA and other tests. And doctors, too! We're no way near deriving the best individual course of action based on statistical information.

No. It only becomes a problem when you break it. And even then you won't be fined for not knowing the law, but only the offence at matter.

Without a doubt.

But how does that contradict parents doctor hopping until they find one who is willing to diagnose a medical excuse for cognitive or behavioral deficiencies?

but as I said in my original post. That still leaves room for an actual increase or a perceived increase due to better diagnostics.

Not more autistic, but he could be nerdier, more self absorbed, less responsive or "crazier" in general than someone on the autistic spectrum.

I'd rather make up the term "over-medicalising" to describe better where the problem starts. That happens when diagnosis starts to overreach and offers (=sells) help to people who are still well within the "normal spectrum".

Understanding that there is something like an "autistic spectrum" was indeed great progress. But we now need to learn (or rather re-learn) that there is also a "normal spectrum". And they may overlapp. Just think of that classical "eccentric" who may be deeper in his own private reality than most "Aspergers" but not suffer from any actual medical problem.

Plus a number of parents that can't accept that their precious offspring simply may be plain stupid or lazy as any other kid.

There HAS to be a reason and there HAS to be someone or something responsible for Li'l Joe standing in the corner with the dunce cap so often.

And I guess that still leaves a bit of wiggle room for an actual increase of people ending up somewhere in the autistic spectrum.

And the biggest giveaway is that he doesn't question if the US constitution can be imposed onto someone outside the US borders.

Gee, guess what I posted about 8 hours ago... *g*

But as you said: There are completly begnin reasons to use a specific translation.

I've been and they scanned and typed quite a lot, so I don't know if they used my data from the machine or human readable zone.

But then again. It wouldn't be that easy. Your link states that the machine readable zone contains the ICAO transliteration. You may have that, but you can't check for any other transliterations unles you have the original name that you can try various transliteration systems on. Transliteration works like a hash function here: you can't run it backwards to see the original input. Similar, yes, but our whole problem is that "similar" has been missed at least once so far.

Diving deeper into your links I found that information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

It seems that the method used for passports and other official documents changed quite frequently: 1997, 2010, 2013. Depending on the year the records were created, different systems may have been in use, leading to this oversight. And they will continue running into that kind of problem until they leave behind that 1970's computer ASCII code and move on to Unicode.

The rule of thumb that any non-western alphabet belongs to some backward country and can be ignored holds no longer true.

If you don't expect them to enter Cyrillic, Georgian, Armenian, Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, Chinese, Korean, Mongolian, Tibetan or Japanese names correctly, how do you expect they could ever identify a suspect with Cyrillic, Georgian, Armenian, Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, Chinese, Korean, Mongolian, Tibetan or Japanese name?