n 1953 the celebrated Harvard behavioural psychologist BF Skinner published a paper about the gambling habits of rats. Testing his theory of 'operant conditioning' he had noticed a strange compulsive tendency among his laboratory rodents.

When one of Skinner's rats pressed a lever, it was given a food pellet. By experiment Skinner then established that if a pellet was delivered only on the 10th press of the lever, the rat would quickly learn to press the lever 10 times. If, however, a random element was introduced to the lever-pressing, whereby a pellet was still introduced on average one in 10 times, but sometimes delivered twice or three times in a row and sometimes not for 20 or more presses, the rat apparently became obsessed with the lever-operation itself.

This is how I feel about the Nintendo Wii. Here is another take on the Wii... Not safe for work... :)

The best chance you'll get? | Review | The Observer

Ryan Singel at 27B Stroke 6 chimes in on an element of the Democrats' 911 bill. This sounds really good to me.

Most notably, the bill removes the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board from the White House -- turning it into an independent agency.

Good news!

27B Stroke 6 | Dem's Privacy Changes in 9/11 Bill Challenge Administration

On Thursday, just after noon, the Tufts historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto was arrested by Atlanta police as he crossed the middle of the street between the Hilton and Hyatt hotels.

Eight....

How many APD officers does it take to arrest a history professor for Jaywalking?

The relevant section of the Act is Section 1010(e), which comes at the very end of the act in a section about "technical and conforming amendments." This section doesn't do much: it simply moves a paragraph of statutory text from one place in the U.S. Code to another. Specifically, the section takes a paragraph from 39 U.S.C. 3623(d) — a paragraph that has been there since the 1970s — and moves it to 39 U.S.C. 404(c).

So what does this signing statement mean? First, it pretty clearly says that the Administration reads the moved paragraph as having implicit exceptions that track the Fourth Amendment's exceptions to the warrant requirement.

It may be that this signing statement is nothing... On the other hand, it may be that it hints at a program allowing the government to open postal mail under the claimed authority of the AUMF (Authorization for the Use of Military Force (in Afghanistan, et al)).

Orin Kerr provides some details on the Bush signing statement, and many Volokh readers comment.

I have to wonder if this isn't just a product of beaurocracy. Beaurocrat A is cleaning up beaurocratic regulation B and decides that paragraph C would be more logical if it was organized under section D. Congress approves, and the bill goes before Whitehouse beaurocrat E, who has never seen paragraph C before, and adds signing statement F, designed to protect his client, President G, by providing a mundane explanation of how paragraph C doesn't override an existing understanding of Amendment 4. Journalist H reads this signing statement, jumps to conclusion I, and writes sensationalistic story J, which leads bloggers K through V to freak out, and gives Special Agent X an idea.... Eventually the entire country is beset with an Orwellian Nightmare, and its all due, ultimately, to the anal retentive regulatory care of beaurocrat A.

The Volokh Conspiracy - Has the Bush Administration Claimed New Power to Open Mail?

Bumping Cypherghost's link through to BoingBoing, but this burning Elmo video is one part of a three part series that starts with this video. Watching the chared, burning robot flailing its metal limbs against the ground and laughing manically evokes some of the more disturbing scenes from the Animatrix. The future is machines that don't break down, they die.

Immolate Me Elmo

The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from online civil liberties pioneer John Gilmore who was contesting a Ninth Circuit decision which held that the government did not have to make public its rules about requiring airlines to ask passengers for identification.

This is the end of the road for Gilmore's case. Gilmore argued that the government cannot enforce a secret rule. The 9th Circuit disagreed, saying that the Government can enforce a secret rule in the case where the secret rule doesn't take away your fundamental rights. At the heart of the 9th's decision was the following illogical passage, which the Supreme Court has effectively upheld by denying cert in this case, at least in regard to the western United States.

"He was not threatened with arrest or some other form of punishment; rather he simply was told that unless he complied with the policy, he would not be permitted to board the plane. There was no penalty for noncompliance."

Apparently, the Government can enforce a secret rule as long as the rule does not impinge on a fundamental right that is specifically protected by the Constitution. The right to fly on an airplane is not specifically protected (based on the logic that you could walk to your destination) and so the Government can enforce secret rules with regard to it. Whether or not the Government can enforce secret rules in the context where a fundamental right is impinged is a matter for a different lawsuit.

Its not totally absolutely over for the legal question. Its technically possible for this matter to be raised in another district, and if that district reaches a different conclusion, its possible that the Supreme Court would hear the case. Sometimes the Supremes like to wait for a number of different jurisdictions to look at an issue in different ways before they take it on... There is no telling when or how these issues will come up in court again. If all of the districts reach the same conclusion, it won't matter either.

27B Stroke 6: Gilmore Airport ID lawsuit is over

The Transportation Security Administration is looking to have private companies pay for the screening bins and tables at airports, in exchange for advertisements in the bins, according to an Aviation Daily story.

Adam Shostack has been lining up donors who want to sponsor ACLU or EFF ads in the bins.

Priceless!

27B Stroke 6: TSA screening bins to get ACLU ads.

dc0de wrote:
And yet another loss of privacy, without so much as a whimper from anyone...

Well, technically they are arguing that they had the right to do this all along. In order to test their theory, you'd have to get standing in court, which would require demonstrating that they have done it, or demonstrating that the possibility that they might do it directly impacts you. The later is what they've tried to do with the telephone surveillance cases. What comes next is their claim that the lawsuit's result is a state secret...

Basically, whatever happens with the phone suits is likely to happen with this, and in the phone suits they are doing everything in their power to avoid having to actually argue, before a court, the points of law that they keep making in contexts like this (inherent power of the president, article II, etc...). In my estimation there is only one currently sitting Supreme Court justice who would accept their perspective on that if push finally came to shove, but they're not ever planning on push coming to shove. The recent change in Congress may have made it difficult for them to pull the issue out of the courts through legislative fiat, but I have been surprised that this thing has gone this far in court and I have a feeling they'll get it out of there through some other means eventually.

Also, suing specifically on this mail question won't get you anywhere, as they haven't actually publicly admitted that they do this, and so their state secrets claim would stick and it would get pulled.

RE: NPR : Federal Government Can Now Open Citizens' Mail

Compact, computer-controlled, 3-dimensional woodworking machine with an easy-to-use interface. It allows a novice to make a complete project without a shop full of tools.The unique configuration allows it to perform many other woodworking functions, including ripping, cross cutting, mitering, contouring, jointing and routing. The CompuCarve can work in most soft materials, including wood, plastics (polycarbonate or cast acrylic) and certain types of high density foam.

Craftsman 3D printer.

Craftsman 21754 CompuCarve Compact Woodworking Machine, Computer-Controlled at Sears.com

This desk calendar provides information on terrorist incidents throughout recent history along with information on key groups and people.

Now available for download from the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) website. I wish you could buy a printed copy. I imagine Kinkos would ask for a suicide bombing in exchange for printing this.

2007 Counterterrorism Calendar (PDF)