yes we talk like this

[cellio]

At the Giant Eagle pharmacy:

Me: Here's a prescription, and a gift card from Big Pharma that will pay for three months' worth. If I mail-order it I can get three months' worth at once; can you do that for me?

Her: I don't know; I'm just the front-desk flunky. Do you want to leave it and we'll give you as much as we're allowed to?

Me: Sure.

After I did my grocery shopping I returned.

Her: Sorry, we're only allowed to do one fill-up at a time.

Me: I understand. Have we completed this transaction, then?

Her: Um, yes?

Me: Will you take as given that I walked out through that exit and then came back in, or do I need to actually do it?

Her: Nice try, but you have to wait a month.

Oh well. I have until the end of the year to use the gift card.

---

Dani: So you can read on Shabbat; can you use a Kindle?

Me: No, because you have to manipulate the controls. It's like changing the channels on TV; technically you can watch it if it's on but you can't change the channel or volume. (Pause.) I suppose if, before Shabbat, you set in motion a smooth scroll at a readable pace, that would be like programming the lights. But it seems unworkable.

Dani: What about software that tracks your eye movements and turns the page at the right time?

Me: Seems like manipulation to me. Next you'll be bringing up sentient lightbulbs again.

Dani: How good does the programming have to be before your software qualifies as a servant?

I have no answer to that. Halacha geeks?

Comments

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

See, the problem I have with this -- and I know that this may offend my coreligionists who are more *frum* than I, but that's not my intent -- is that it assumes that G-d really wants us to get so persnickety that we figure we can look at a Kindle but can't manipulate it (presumably we could hire a non-Jew to do that for us, Idunno). It strikes me as rather silly, and I can't think of my G-d as silly. This is a form of the problem in which we are not allowed to use an elevator (because to do so is "lighting a fire" and that's work), so we have to climb all the stairs to that 60th-floor office because that's *not* work. Am I missing something here? 'Cause I can't imagine G-d really wants that.