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Date: 25 Jul 90 15:11 BST
Subject: the mark of the beast
To: Paganism%MC.LCS.MIT.EDU@lcs.mit.EDU
I saw an interesting thing the other day. There was this magazine
(I've forgotten the name) that was running through various conspiracy
theories, etc. Here's one I'd never seen: It seems that the Universal
Product Codes (the laser-readable bar-codes that are on all products)
have an interesting property. The numbers are delimited at the
beginning, middle and end by two thin bars. Two thin bars are in fact
also the code for the numeral '6', within the bar-code itself. Thus,
every UPC has an implicit 666 in it, in the delimiters of the code.
The magazine didn't seem to be paranoid, they were just putting out these
different ideas. They also had the relevant quote from the bible
(I'll have to paraphrase :-) about how "none shall be able to obtain
food or make trade, unless he have the mark of the beast upon him. The
mark of the beast is a number and that number is six hundred, three
score and six."
The idea is that, because the UPC is now being considered for credit
cards (or is it already there, I wouldn't know) and that it's hard to
even write a check without credit cards (tell me about it) .. well, it
has a nice coherence to it.
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