He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. ~ Revelations 13:15-17

President Bush’s former Health and Human Services Secretary, Tommy Thompson is getting an RFID implant. Thompson is on the board of Applied Digital, owner of RFID vendor VeriChip and he claims to volunteer for the Mark of the Beast for promotional reasons.

Thompson said people will eventually get beyond any queasy feelings about having a chip implanted.

“It will prevent babies from being picked up by the wrong people in a maternity ward and make sure people in nursing homes don’t walk away,” Thompson said.

So far, about 7,000 chips for people have been sold, with about 2,000 implanted worldwide, said Scott R. Silverman, chairman and chief executive of Applied Digital, which owns VeriChip.

I don’t care what his real intentions are, the chip is pretty useless:

Once Thompson gets chipped, chances are it won’t help him in an emergency. Only two hospitals - Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston - read the chips, Silverman said.

Besides, this isn’t quite what I had in mind for my future:

The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the land, and ugly and painful sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshipped his image. ~ Revelations 16:2

Link via BoingBoing.

I haven’t felt like blogging much but there were rather interesting things I had been meaning to post and simply found myself too lazy to. So here they are:

• Metabrains in select Aibos to artifice learning and curiosity
• EFF Legal Guide for Bloggers: Know your rights!
• Apple switches to x86: Time for a new revolution against Microfuck

That’s all until I get my blogging mood back.

I find it somewhat soothing to stare at a fine girl. Droid or not, if I could afford it I’d create [buy] one to accompany me working at night. She could just sit [stand] there and I’d look at her every once in a few seconds to refresh my inspiration [respiration]. Design would be a pleasant job [hobby] once again.

Real girls [women, females], beware!!

Repliee Q1 appeared yesterday [four days ago] at the 2005 World Expo in Japan, where she gestured, blinked, spoke, and even appeared to breathe. Shown with co-creator Hiroshi Ishiguru of Osaka University, the android is partially covered in skinlike silicone. Q1 is powered by a nearby air compressor, and has 31 points of articulation in its upper body.

Internal sensors allow the android to react “naturally.” It can block an attempted slap, for example. But it’s the little, “unconscious” movements that give the robot its eerie verisimilitude: the slight flutter of the eyelids, the subtle rising and falling of the chest, the constant, nearly imperceptible shifting so familiar to humans.

Update (July 28, 2005): If Howard Stern sent you here and you’re interested in finding out more about Repliee Q1 there’s more useful links here. Thanks for stopping by!

Next time I have a real girlfriend I’ll get her a few of these.

forget-me-not panties will help protect the women in your life!

These panties will monitor the location of your daughter, wife or girlfriend 24 hours a day, and can even monitor their heart rate and body temperature.
Based on pioneering research developed by the U.S. military at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), we have brought this revolutionary technology, previously only available to the military, to you!

These “panties” can trace the exact location of your woman and send the information, via satellite, to your cell phone, PDA, and PC simultaneously! Use our patented mapping system, pantyMap®, to find the exact location of your loved one 24 hours a day.

The technology is embedded into a piece of fabric so seamlessly she will never know it’s there!

With all the cheating around these days you can’t blame me, besides there are bad guys out there, I would just be protecting her!

I don’t know if anyone came up with that term before me but I’m downtown sitting at the foodcourt at a local mall sipping cappucinno bubbles on free wi-fi connection. If this lasts a while I’ll have to keep stealing my dad’s laptop for free internet hijack, posting stupid things on my blog.

Anyway this girl is staring at me wondering what the fuck in the world I’m doing, so I’ll go talk to her and wlog more later.