[earl]

Here's another article about jewish appliances in general [1] with more detail about the restrictions. Essentially, jewish law differentiates between direct and indirect responses to actions. And I can verify you'll occasionally see this stuff on the UES, and a little more often in the Hasidic bits of Brooklyn.

   Sabbath law prohibits Jews from performing actions that cause a direct reaction;
   that would qualify as forbidden work. But indirect reactions are, well, kosher. In
   Hebrew, this concept is called the gramma. There are two types of grammas,
   Ottensoser tells me. Say you hit a light switch, but it doesn't come on
   immediately - that's a time delay, a time gramma. There's also a gramma of
   mechanical indirectness, like a Rube Goldberg contraption in which a mouse turns a
   wheel that swings a hammer that turns a key that launches a rocket. You can't
   claim the mouse actually launches the rocket.

That being said, as an atheist, it sure looks like these people are playing rules lawyer with their god, just like the dick at your D&D game. I have to wonder if such a god would be pleased.

[1] http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/kosher.html