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

Simplest and safest is bribery. I don't know why we don't do it more often. Almost makes me believe the guys running things are secret war nerds themselves, because otherwise they'd do bribery as a way of bringing down "rogue states" all the time. Just do the math. Right now, November 12, 2006, the official cost of Iraq is around $340 billion. Suppose we'd just bombed Iraq with dollars; we'd be the heroes of the world, and every family in Iraq would be - are you ready for this?-$70,000 richer. That would make Iraq one of the richest countries in the world.

Kinda puts the spending in perspective, don't it? This article is great. I am so glad Jello introduced us to eXile. eXile is one of the coolest things on the web.

eXile - Issue #251 - War Nerd - How To Win In Iraq - By Gary Brecher

Clinton is obviously very agitated. I think he over-reacted to the question. At the same time, I have no respect for efforts to blame him for not doing enough. Conservative commentators have been busy pointing out after this rant that NRO and other sources supported his missle strikes, but at the same time, I don't really know who the fuck these people think they are fooling when they say that mainstream Republicans weren't accusing him of "wagging the dog." Its infuriating to me that people claim an actual military conflict was an attempt to draw attention away from something that was transparently intended to draw attention away from something. Dumb.

Clinton PWNS Chris Wallace on Fox News - Clinton Interviewed on Fox News Sunday - Google Video

HANDY ONE-LINERS FOR SED (Unix stream editor) Apr. 26, 2004 compiled by Eric Pement - pemente[at]northpark[dot]edu version 5.4

This puts the K in K-rad.

SED one-liners

Charlton explained to Discovery News that humans have an inherent attraction to physical youth, since it can be a sign of fertility, health and vitality. In the mid-20th century, however, another force kicked in, due to increasing need for individuals to change jobs, learn new skills, move to new places and make new friends.

A “child-like flexibility of attitudes, behaviors and knowledge” is probably adaptive to the increased instability of the modern world, Charlton believes. Formal education now extends well past physical maturity, leaving students with minds that are, he said, “unfinished.”

“The psychological neoteny effect of formal education is an accidental by-product — the main role of education is to increase general, abstract intelligence and prepare for economic activity,” he explained.

“But formal education requires a child-like stance of receptivity to new learning, and cognitive flexibility."

"When formal education continues into the early twenties," he continued, "it probably, to an extent, counteracts the attainment of psychological maturity, which would otherwise occur at about this age.”

WHAT A POO POO HEAD! HAHAHAHAHA!

Serious Study: Immaturity Levels Rising :: Discovery Channel :: News - Human

I (Fyodor) asked users from the nmap-hackers mailing list to share their favorite tools, and 3,243 people responded. This allowed me to expand the list to 100 tools, and even subdivide them into categories. Anyone in the security field would be well advised to go over the list and investigate tools they are unfamiliar with. I discovered several powerful new tools this way.

Top 100 Network Security Tools

The world’s first sports car phone with alcohol Breathalyzer has gotten tremendous popularity in Korea. The cell phone by LG was a big hit from the beginning mainly because its outward appearance of a sports. Equipped with an alcohol measurement sensor, the LG-SD410, LG-KP4100, and LG-LP4100 have sold over 200,000 in the four months that it has been available, and is still selling around 1500 per day.

Having an alcohol measurement device attached to something like a cell phone is nothing but brilliant, especially among younger crowds who regularly drink after work or school and like to party. To use the sensor an intoxicated individual simply opens the phone and blows on the sensor, the LCD will tell you whether your level of alcohol in your blood is safe to drive.

Bloody Koreans are too smart! I thought of this while drunk dialing last night: a breathalyzer that will not let you talk on the phone if you are drunk: you can only call a taxi, alcoholics anonymous, a suicide hotline, or 911. Everyone thought it was a novel and original idea. But they've alreay done this and its selling like hotcakes.

I think a phone attachment could still work, though, a little thing that goes in the charge plug/data cable jack.

LG Cell Phone with Breathalyzer gaining popularity

Scientists find evidence of a perpetual evolutionary battle in the mind. The process, they suspect, is the key to individuality.

Brain's Darwin Machine - Los Angeles Times

This commercial is badass. I don't know much about Areva. But this commercial is just really fucking cool. Reminds me of something Edward Tufte would do.

I guess this is part of the campaign to build new nuclear reactors. You know what? It worked. I'm now pro-nuclear. That pretty cartoony happy-fun nuclear commercial has me sold. Also, I want to play sims now.

Areva TV Ad: Super Cool

Vaguely gross instructions for blowing up a large animal corpse.

Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness/Exploding-Horse