Blackhacker

My wife found this at The Beeb

A US company has been given the green light to implant microchips in humans. It’s intended to provide medical information … but will it turn into a surveillance system?

The article talks about the applications for security, as well as use in emergency medical situations. It also talks about the privacy, concerns but I would like to talk look at this differently. Consider the following passage from the Book of Revalations in the Holy Bible.

Rev 13:16-18

16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

The above passage is talking about a period in history that has yet to happen (a prophecy of thing to come), called the Great Tribulation Pay attention to the characteristics of the Mark of the Beast. "And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark…" It will be illegal or just physically impossible to conduct any business transaction without "The Mark." In society with currency this is impossible. After all who is going to turn down cash? Even if it is against the law, as long as it is still legal tender? But … what if we where to do away with currency all together? What if you could walk into Wal-Mart with one of these chips implanted under your skin fill up a basket with stuff, and leave. the whole time you where tracked, similar RFID devices implanted in the products we buy would allow a computer to tract us through the store, monitor what we buy, and tally the price and deduct this amount from our bank accounts. No PINS, no check out, no cash, all seamless. And anyone who refused to get such device could not buy a thing. You might think, "Things will never get that bad. You must be smoking somethin’ "If so, just think how many of you had the option to actually receive an actual check at your job, not direct deposit. If you wanted to work you had to have a bank account. At my last job, if you had no account, they would set one up for you. I am not saying that direct deposit has anything to do with the Tribulation or the ends times but as an example how people can be compelled to do anything, if they need to live. This will include receiving the mark.

I am not try to scare anyone or preach to anyone but We (Christians) where instructed to watch and pray. I consider this post as the watch part of the mandate.

I am really becoming a fan of Eliot Spitzer. I understand that he will probably parlay the publicity of all of his high profile cases into a career politics and that all of this might be to JUST to make a name for himself. Still … this guy is taking on a LOT of Corporate Corruption and it is about time. Check this this from the NY Times.

According to several people involved, investigators in Mr. Spitzer’s office have served subpoenas on the four major record corporations - the Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, the EMI Group and the Warner Music Group - seeking copies of contracts, billing records and other information detailing their ties to independent middlemen who pitch new songs to radio programmers in New York State.

My favorite quote:

Since the big companies severed their ties to the practice, record labels - suffering from piracy and other financial woes - have sharply scaled back payments to the middlemen, and by some estimates pay them as little as $30 million annually.

only 30 Mil ?? How will they eat ?

This is from the NY Times.

A Pennsylvania court struck Ralph Nader’s name from the state’s ballot yesterday, declaring that nearly two-thirds of the signatures on his nominating petitions were invalid or had been forged in what the court called an unparalleled case of election fraud.

Of course the only reason this is even news is because Dems think Nader is a spoiler, drawing vote from Kerry, and therefore handing the election to Bush. That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. I realize this going to be a close election and every vote will matter (mostly matter anyway. electoral college and everything working on a post about that) but If you are going to vote for Nader and you don’t see him on the ballot, what do you do ? You right him in. You can right anyone in. ( I might write myself in. ) I think Nader is wasting what little time and money he has, trying to get his name on the ballots across the country. He should mount a write in campaign. He probably won’t have any less impact on the election this way. Infact it should be stronger because he could focus on gettin ghis message out.

I was Crustasian for a hot second. What happend ?
upadate:
This seemed appropriate.

I doubt I am telling the anything new.
Check this from Google Blog:

Considering how important the information on your own computer is, it’s always been a bit strange that you could find what you were looking for more easily if it were hidden on a website in Irkutsk than in a corner of the hard drive sitting right in front of you. Today, Google offers a first step toward fixing that anomaly with the beta introduction of Google Desktop Search, a free downloadable application for your PC.

I heard about something like this a few month ago when Google announced GMail. Not from Google but from Microsoft. They plan to have a search engine that returns results that includes stuff on your harddrive and the web. Makes sense. Google was moving in on MSFT’s territory with the web email, so Redmond would answer by putting pressure on the search space. But apparenty Google was able to get to market sooner. No surprise though. They don’t have to wait for the notoriously, and with any luck terminally late Longhorn version of Windows. Where they are supposed to be introducing a NEW file system. that will have search integrated with it.

This is from sunday’s Boondocks. How many of you feel like Huey this year ?

Dictionary.com/Word of the Day: didactic

didactic dy-DAK-tik; duh-, adjective:

1. Fitted or intended to teach; conveying instruction; instructive; teaching some moral lesson; as, “didactic essays.”
2. Inclined to teach or moralize excessively; moralistic.

Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914)

Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.

Google is light years ahead of anybody else. Their willingness to experiment with tech and give there engineers the opportunity to work on pet projects is going to be the difference. An example of cool stuff they do is this.

This is from Google Blog

Google Print is an ongoing initiative to scan printed material and put it online where it can show up in Google search results. We’ve expanded the program, and we’re now inviting publishers to send us books that we’ll scan and put online for free. There are many, many books out there, and the process of scanning takes time, but depending on your areas of interest, it’s likely you’ll soon be seeing more Google Print results when you use Google.

To test it out, I did a google search on War and Peace and got this link at the top.

You get a scanned image of the first page. You can read up to 3 pages. They have links that let you buy the book from amazon, BN, Booksense (I have never heard of) or find seller through froogle. They also have sposored links (of course) which features free Cliff notes online (which is how I used to read book in school anyway (you know you did it too)

FOX 12 OREGON Second trip to space is a success

SpaceShipOne, the rocket plane funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen, appeared to top its required altitude within minutes of firing its rockets, said Peter Diamandis, who founded the X Prize eight years ago. The plane took off from a desert runway early Monday, slung to the belly of a carrier plane with a test pilot at the wheel. It was released at about 46,000 feet and fired its rockets to continue to an altitude of just over 62 miles — generally considered to be the point where the Earth’s atmosphere ends and space begins.

One small step for man one giant step tward flying cars.