Conference hydra::dejavu

    Hi Ariel,
    
    The 666 number appears in the book of Revelations in the Bible. It
    refers to the Beast, and saysthat he will have a human number, which
    will be 666. I can't quote exactly as you may have noticed, but a quick
    flick through Revelations should make all clear!
    
    Regards
    Angela.

    Re .0 (Ariel):
    
    Rev 13.11 --
    
    "And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two
    horns like a lamb and he spake as a dragon."
    
    Rev 13:13 (speakiong of the second beast) --
    
    "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."
    
    Most people are told that this is "the number of Satan" or some such.
    Actually, since it's "the number of a man," and since early Christiand
    were being persecuted, it represented an indirect reference to a
    persecutor.  Many scholars think that person was Nero; however, there's
    no concensus.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    The source is Revelation 13:18.  For context, St. John is having a
    vision of the Last Things -- the final judgements on the world, the
    general resurrection, the rule of Christ on Earth, and the creation of
    the new heaven and the new earth.  In this part of the vision, he has
    seen two beasts; one rises from the sea, conjured by Satan, and has
    seven heads and ten horns; the other rises from the earth, to aid the
    first beast, and is, roughly, a dragon in sheep's clothing.  The two
    form a tyranny over the whole world.  The second beast forces everyone
    to worship the first beast on pain of violent persecution.
    
    	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.  This calls for
    	wisdom.  If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of
    	the beast, for it is a man's number.  His number is 666.
    
    People have busily tried to find the number 666 in all manner of
    things, especially people's name -- the names of people they do not
    like -- ever since.  This is usually done by assigning numbers to the
    letters on some scheme or other, then adding them up.
    
    Almost every figure of modern history with enough anti-fans has had
    their name tried.  Henry Kissenger and Adolph Hitler, for instance. 
    I'm sure someone has tried Saddam Hussein, though I don't know with
    what success.  On the theory that the man in question was an early 
    persecutor of the church, some folk have tried the name of the 
    emperor Nero.
    
    During the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, Protestants and
    Catholics amused themselves finding the number in the names of their
    contra-respective leaders.
    
    Other interpretations are purely numerical.  For instance, if you write
    out 666 in Roman numerals (the official numbering system of the time),
    it is DCLXVI.  These are the first six letters used in Roman numerals,
    in ascending order.  The next letter is M = 1000, so perhaps this shows
    the Beast is immediately before the Millenium in which Christ rules.
    
    Another numerical interpretation is that 666 is 2/3 of a full thousand. 
    Shortly before the Beasts appear, Revelation describes a series of
    plagues that darken a third of the sun, poison a third of the waters,
    and so one, striking thirds of the world.  The world-wide kingdom of
    the beast is really a fragmentary kingdom of the remaining 2/3 world.
    
    Finally, if memory serves me, 666 is the "triangle" of 36, which is 
    the square of 6.  We are still familiar with taking the square of a 
    number, but taking the triangle is not something we do much anymore.  
    They did it back then, though.  This interpretation is that 666 shows
    how thoroughly the Beast falls short of the perfection symbolized by 7.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

RE .4 (Earl)

>    Finally, if memory serves me, 666 is the "triangle" of 36, which is 
>    the square of 6.  We are still familiar with taking the square of a 
>    number, but taking the triangle is not something we do much anymore.  
>    They did it back then, though.  This interpretation is that 666 shows
>    how thoroughly the Beast falls short of the perfection symbolized by
>    7.

    Actually its something I do not infrequently.  It comes up a lot in
    combinatorics, computer data structures, etc.  I must admit, though
    I've never heard it refered to as "taking the triangle" of a number
    before though.  Generally, at least today, it would be said that
    666 is the 36th triangular number.

    Imagine having a bunch of pebbles.  Put one down on the ground.  Now
    put two below it to form a triangle.  Below that put three more to
    form a larger triangle.  Repeat 36 times so that the last row has
    36 pebbles in it.  How many pebbles are there in the whole triangle?
    The answer is the 36th triangular number, which is the sum of the
    numbers form 1 to 36, which is 666.

    Imagine taking a square of pebbles, N (e.g., 36) on a bebbles on a
    side.  Take away half the pebbles starting at the upper right corner
    and working along the left-to-right-top-to-bottom diagonals.  You
    will be left with a right-angled version of the pebble triangle
    described above, except half of the hypotenuse will be gone.  If
    complete the hypotenuse has to have N pebbles (one for each row)
    so to get the complete hypotenuse back you have to put back N/2
    pebbles.

    The N'th triangular number (or the triangle of N) can therefore be
    seen to be N�/2 + N/2 or (N� + N)/2.

				    Topher

For which ELF tells us there's no such employee.

    
    
    
    Some people inthe 1980s believed that we were in the end times and that
    a certain President was the Beast.  They were going by the letters in
    his name:
    
    
                             Ronald     6
                             Wilson     6
                             Reagan     6
    
    
    
    
    Bill
    
    
    
                       

    Re:1576.0
    Thanks you all for the input you all gime on my question.
    Now I'm no longer confused,but some what scare.
    Thanks.
    Ariel

    It was on the radio just before I went on holiday that the UK
    car licensing authorities had stopped issuing any license numbers with
    666 in the numeric field of the plate. It seems that so many
    superstitious people were complaining when issued with such a plate
    that it was cheaper all round just to skip over the number altogether.

    So all you people in the UK with a license plate reading 667 it should
    read 666, rather like the office buildings in the USA which go directly
    from the 12th to the 14th floor.

    Jamie.

    
    When I worked in a restaurant back in college, we were assigned numbers
    to punch in the order tickets on an NCR system.  The original person
    who was assigned #13 asked to be changed to something else (think it
    was #6).  
    
    After a couple of years went by, the manager realized one day that
    there was more of a waitress turnover on #6 than on any other number
    (by a very large factor).  She stopped assigning #6.  (;^) 
    
    Cindy

    
    With the lot of replies like the last one.....
    
    
    
    I really miss John Mitchell.  (;^)
    
    Cindy

	Someone showed me this a few years ago, using multiples of 6
	for the letters of the alphabet, spell out computer and add 
	up the numbers  - thought it was amusing/interesting...

	A = 6		L = 72		W = 138
	B = 12	       *M = 78		X = 144
       *C = 18		N = 84		Y = 150
 	D = 24	       *O = 90		Z = 156
       *E = 30	       *P = 96
	F = 36		Q = 102
	G = 42	       *R = 108
	H = 48		S = 114
	I = 54	       *T = 120
	J = 60	       *U = 126
	K = 66		V = 132
	--------------------------------------------------------------
	C = 18, O = 90, M = 78, P = 96, U = 126, T = 120, E = 30, R = 108

	Total = 666
                                           

    Yeh, interesting how that worked out with Linda's computer note eh ?   
    
    	'Be afraid, be very afraid.'
    
    		The_Beast_whose_MAC_access_number_starts_with_666 knows about 
    		Notes (probably invented the fiendish concept).

    
    The last 3 numbers of my birthday are 666.
    
    
    12/06/66
    
    
    Gerry

	
	Robert Heinlein wrote in his book `The Number of the Beast' that 
	the number was actually ((6^^6)^^6).  


	_kate_ 

Re .20 (kate):

	
	>Robert Heinlein wrote in his book `The Number of the Beast' that 
	>the number was actually ((6^^6)^^6).  


Understand, I enjoy Heinlein, and his suggestion makes a lot of sense from
the standpoint of mathematics.

However, irt's a little much to take too seriously when we recall when and
where is was written (first-century Rome).  I don't believe Roman (or the
Jewish) mathematics went in for exponentiation.

Espewcially with those Roman numerals.

Steve Kallis, Jr

  
  Re .21 (Steve)
  
  > Especially with those Roman numerals.
  
  It all becomes clear ... the confusion eases ... this wasn't meant to be
  a number at all, simply the repeated warning about ultimate evil ... the
  editor that has caused higher blood pressure than any other in the history
  of computing ... unfortunately, they left the CAPS LOCK key on so the
  readers misinterpreted "vi" as "VI" : instead of being forewarned about
  a poxy u*ix editor there have been generations of people worrying about
  a number ... ah, how the Evil One twists noble intentions to serve it's
  own purposes ... now the realisation happens but it is too late, the
  terror is out amongst the world of networked merchant bankers and contract
  yuppies writing control systems, ignorant of the real meaning of the ritual
  incantations they scribe ... woe, woe and thrice woe ...
  
  Frank

    Re .22
    
    Frank were you describing the coming of ULTRIX?
    
    Jamie.

Re: .21 - Steve,
	
>However, irt's a little much to take too seriously when we recall when and
>where is was written (first-century Rome).  I don't believe Roman (or the
>Jewish) mathematics went in for exponentiation.
>
>Espewcially with those Roman numerals.

Point well taken.  I'd mention it to the author, but in his current condition
he may be a little difficult to reach.  Grok?


_kate_

  
  Re .23 (Jamie)
  
  > Frank were you describing the coming of ULTRIX?
  
  Aye, verily, for was it not written many centuries ago :
  
  +++
   5:1  And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book
        written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.
   5:2  And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice,
        "Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?"
   5:3  And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was
        able to open the book, neither to look thereon.     
   5:4  And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read
        the book, neither to look thereon.                 
   5:5  And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: no bugger ever readeth
        the installation guide.
  ---
  
  And was it not true ?

Re .26:

The Devil made him do it....

    Since Revelations was written in Greek (the language of culture in the
    Roman Empire of the period) it is likely that 666 was expressed in
    Greek numerals rather than in Roman (Greek numerals used the letters
    of the Greek alphabet as digits -- it was a more direct representation;
    no "aaa" for three) though I have no direct knowledge one way or the
    other.  Certainly early numeralogical speculations as to its
    interpretation was based on the Greek letter equivalents of the
    corresponding names.

    Nero really is a quite plausible interpretation.  Much of the book is
    interpretted as an exhortation to bear up under the current Roman
    "persecution" (and by extension, the future persecutions that it
    predicted that Christians would undergo).  Exact dates are hard to
    pin down (particularly since it appears to come from multiple sources)
    but Nero might well have been the emporer when the passage was written.

    Although 666 is the usual reading, apparently an alternate reading of
    616 is seen as supportable by biblical scholars.

					    Topher

    Re .28
    
    Consulting an interlinear New Testament, I find that the number was
    written out in full, not given as numerals of any kind:
    
    	hexakosioi  hexakonta hex	(transliterated off the cuff)
    	six hundred  sixty    six
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    RE: the number 13.
    
    For the followers of the Old Ways, numbers often have meanings
    different from those ascribed by other systems.  Numbers can unlock
    cosmic secrets.
    
    There are 13 lunar months; the number is sacred to the Moon
    Goddess.  
    
    There were 13 colonies in the new world.  This is not a coincidence.
    Our first flag, known as the Betsy Ross, featured a circle of thirteen
    white stars(pentacles) on a blue field and thirteen red and white
    stripes.  
    
    Friday the 13th is taken much more severely.
    But, keep in mind that Friday is named for the Goddess Freya, the Norse
    deity of love, beauty, and fertility.  And perhaps the combination of
    the goddess' name day with her sacred number seems to be more than
    those who do not know the light of her love can endure.
    
    So, should you ever find yourself in a room with twelve other people
    and it happens to be Friday the 13th, fear no evil.  Thank the gods of
    the Old Religion and await the magic.
    
    
    j 
    blessed be your travels
     

Re .31 (j):

After amusedly observige the ".31," ---

    
    >There were 13 colonies in the new world.  This is not a coincidence.
    >Our first flag, known as the Betsy Ross, featured a circle of thirteen
    >white stars(pentacles) on a blue field and thirteen red and white
    >stripes.  
 
Why is the fact there were 13 colonies "not a coincidence"?  That there were 13
stars and 13 stripes is a consequence of there being 13 colonies.

Re the stars: anything can be called a "pentacle," these days (see, for example,
the Pentacle odf the Sun in the _Clavicle Solomonis_, which has not one
five-faced, much less five-pointed, figure in it); however, most things 
carrying that label have figures inscribed thereon.  Pythagorean pentagrams, as
an example, are clear of figures but open; the flag stars are solid.

    >But, keep in mind that Friday is named for the Goddess Freya, the Norse
    >deity of love, beauty, and fertility.  And perhaps the combination of
    >the goddess' name day with her sacred number seems to be more than
    >those who do not know the light of her love can endure.
 
Love goddesses can be an interesting bunch.  Hathor (or more properly, Het-Hert)
of ancient Egypt was the love goddess of the Khemites.  She was also so blood-
thirsty that she once went on a killing spree that left the other gods aghast;
it took a spiked drink to knock her out and stop the killing.  Somwe kinds of
love are hard for _any_ human to endure.

Steve Kallis, Jr.

    re: .32, but going even farther into digression ...
    
    	I keep hearing about the conspiracy theories regarding the
    	founding fathers of the US and their relation to 'Secret Societies'
    	or Occult-ish (?) social movements of 18th century Europe.  And how
    	this is represented in the symbolism on the current dollar bill,
    	etc., etc..  
    
    	Got the real scoop on Jefferson, et al., regarding Occult-ish
    	affiliations ?   
    
>Some kinds of love are hard for _any_ human to endure.
    
    Ain't it the truth.  
    
    								todd

Re .33 (Todd):

    
    	>Got the real scoop on Jefferson, et al., regarding Occult-ish
    	>affiliations ?   

"Occultish" things were not necessarily frowned upon by the educated folks of
the 18th Century.  Anyone who was very well read couldn't help but stumble upon
things with what we'd call occultish aspects.  A number, of societies, some
secret andf some open, flourished then; and many inquiring minds would join
them to see what they coul;d learn.  Some folk became Masons; Franklin was a 
Rosicrucian, etc.

For weant of a better way to say it, it was "something to do."

Steve Kallis, Jr.

Hi,
    I once read a book called "The Invisible Hand" by Victor Dunstan which
    tried to unravel the Biblical prophecies, and eventually those relating
    to the "end times".
    
    Herein, the author stated that the term "beast" used in the Bible
    always represented a great force or army, reference examples and
    historic cases were used to "explain" some such beasts... if this is
    true would not 666 be the number of a man, but that man being the
    leader of a great army/nation???
    
    I recall also that there was some question as to whether the actual
    number meant was 666, as has been stated, since the numerical
    terminology of the Bible was also apparently rather convoluted...
    interestingly, the author posited a theory at the start of the book
    which tallies the "classic" description of the formation of the world
    with that of the Bible, stating for example that the Hebrew word for
    "day" - can also be taken as week, year, or even, say millenium
    depending upon the context in which it is used... could the original
    Earth created in 6 days theory therefore be a mis-translation of "it
    took 6 millenia for the planet to form from cosmic matter". 
    
    Some such other relation were made (very interesting, too much to go on
    about and too long since I read the book!).
    
    If anyone wants to dig it up it is by Megiddo Press 1984.
    
    								- JIM CAD* 

Re .35

   "Herein, the author stated that the term "beast" used in the Bible
    always represented a great force or army, reference examples and
    historic cases were used to "explain" some such beasts... if this is
    true would not 666 be the number of a man, but that man being the
    leader of a great army/nation???"

That has usually been part of the interpretation of the Beast, whatever the 
other differences of interpretation.

The book of Revelation is a tapestry of references to many other books of the 
Bible.  In this case, the Beast is on the same pattern as the beast-visions 
in Daniel, chapters 7 & 8.  There, it is openly stated that the beasts 
represent nations and kings.  For that matter, the Beast of Revelation is
openly stated to represent a particular king and a set of kings.  
(Revelation 17:8-14)

   "I recall also that there was some question as to whether the actual
    number meant was 666, as has been stated, since the numerical
    terminology of the Bible was also apparently rather convoluted..."

There were a few manuscripts in which the number was given as 616, but 
these were rare, late copy errors.  Biblical textual critics now regard the 
traditional 666 as the genuine original.  There's nothing particularly
convoluted about the Greek that I can see.  I admit to not knowing Greek, but
see the interlinear translation I copied in .30. 

   "... stating for example that the Hebrew word for "day" - can also be 
    taken as week, year, or even, say millenium depending upon the context 
    in which it is used... could the original Earth created in 6 days theory 
    therefore be a mis-translation of "it took 6 millenia for the planet to 
    form from cosmic matter". "

Sounds like the "Day-Age Theory" of the creation story.  I never heard that 
the Hebrew word for "day" (`yom' I think it is) had more than one literal 
meaning, but it has many of the same metaphorical meanings as the English 
"day," e.g. "In my grandfather's day," meaning his lifespan.  It would be a 
question of interpretation, not translation.

If you want to match the six Genesis days to the time of the Earth's formation
in current astronomical theory, you want more than six millenia -- more like
six billion years.

That the days of Genesis were not meant as 24-hour periods is strongly 
suggested by (1) the fact that the sun isn't created until the fourth day, and
(2) the fact that the whole creation story is summed up at 2:4 with "This is 
the accountof the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the 
day [singular] that Jehovah God made heaven and earth."  Even if you regard
this as the beginning of a second creation story by a separate author, it
shows that the editor who put the two together was not concerned about the 
quantitative difference between six days and one.

None of which has a lot to do with the Beast of Revelation.

Earl Wajenberg

    The MARK of the Beast, which is the actual number 666 in the Greek, is
    already fully in use all over the planet.  We are so used to it that we
    don't even notice it.  It is already so prevalent that it would be 
    difficult not to use it in any one day.

    The passage that mentions this number in the book of Revelation also says
    of it that nothing can be bought or sold except it has the MARK! 

    Now- consider the UPC code that is on every product in every store.

    If you take the time to look at it carefully, you will see that it IS
    the number 666.  After you see it, it will always jump right out at you
    whenever you glance at this ugly mark.

    i Will attempt to explain it here in words, but you really have to see
    it after you read this in order to understand.

    There are two different types of UPC codes, and they BOTH are framed by
    3 sixes!  The most commonly used mark is the easiest to see however,
    and this is the one that i will explain here.

    The most commonly used UPC code mark is a bar-code that has two sets of
    5 digit numbers under it.  The number on the left is the manufacturer,
    and the one on the right is what the product is.  With this information,
    the computer can assign it a price, etc.  Notice however that these two
    sets of numbers are divided and framed by the mark itself.

    Now, here is the astonishing thing.  Every bar-code is accounted for by
    a corresponding number except for 3 very distinquished sixes!  

    A 6 is represented by three different bar-codes, and the computer
    always interprets any of them as a 6.  The set of five numbers on the
    left is always represented by one set- those on the right by another.  
    Now, find a UPC code that has a 6 in the SECOND set of numbers, look above 
    it and you will find the corresponding bar-code of two thin, parallel
    lines.

    Notice that these same two parallel lines are in the center of the mark
    and they extend down a little to separate the two sets of numbers.  Notice
    also that this bar-coded 6 is very prominently located as the first mark 
    (also extended down) and the last mark (also extended down)!  In order to
    be confusing however, there are two smaller numbers on the mark.  One is at
    the far left and the other at the far right.  The one on the left (usually 
    a 0) is represented as the first bar-code after the 6, or the second bar-
    code in the configuration.  The number on the right is the last bar-code
    just before the last 6, or the 14th bar-code in the configuration.

    Sounds confusing i know, but look at it and you will see!

    There are 12 numerals printed altogether, including the two small ones
    on either side of the code.  But there are 15 bar-coded numbers!  Three
    extra numbers that are not printed in numerical form is on every UPC
    code! These three numbers are always six! 666. 

    Picture the symbol in your mind with only the three prominent bar-codes.
    The ones that extend down lower than the rest. This is a frame of 6  6  6
                          ||           ||          ||
                          (6)          (6)         (6)
    with the product information codes in between.

    It is already mandatory for this "Mark_of_the_Beast" to be on every
    product sold both in America and Europe.  It won't be long before this
    same mark will be applied to the right hand or forehead of people
    wishing to proclaim their allegiance to the New World Order!  DON'T DO
    IT!!                                                        ----- --
    --
    
    Proclaim your allegiance to the One who declaired that this would
    happen 2000 years ago!
                                                    jOHN 
                                                       777

    Looking around me I'm unable to find any bar-codes corresponding to
    this description.  Its been while but I have seen the formal
    description of the UPC definition -- what the manufacturers use when
    they go to print this stuff.  I'm pretty sure I would remember if this
    had been in there.  There are some "punctuation" marks marking start
    and stop, but they use codes distinct from numbers (I would remember,
    I'm pretty sure, if they had done anything as strange as far as coding
    as to use the same code for two things).  My Coke can has a 6 marked
    as a thin line and two thick lines (which end up running into each
    other).

    I'll see if I can find a copy of the spec.

    Evil is not so unsubtle as all that, I think.

				    Topher

On beasts:

Rev 13:1 -- "And I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out
of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his hoerns, ten crowns,
and ,upon his heads the name of blasphemy."

Note: this is _not_ the 666 beast; that one's found in Rev 13:11.  Given the
Seven Hills of Rome, there has been some suggestion that this "beast" 
represented Rome itself (the 100 crowns could be the Senate or the Centaurions
or somesuch).  Rome at the time was essentially against the Christian belief,
so its name would be "blasphemy."

Rev 13:11-12 -- "And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he
had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.  And he exerciseth all
the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them that
dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed."

_If_ we posit that the first beast represents the city of Rome, then the
being who exercises power over Rome (and the Roman Empire) would cause "those
that dwell upon the earth" to honor Rome.  The second beast's number was
"the number of a man"; this would suggest that a man was in control of Rome
(i.e., was the being in question).

That's why some scholars beliueve that "666" was an indirect refereence to
the emperor Nero. 

Steve Kallis, Jr.

Continuing Steve's theme in .41, consider that the occasion of conflict
between the Empire and the infant Church was that loyal citizens were expected
to demonstrate their loyalty by worshipping the emperor, which, of course, the
Christians would not do.  This ties in naturally with Revelation 13:12, about 
worshipping the first beast, and with 13:15:

	And there was given to him [the false prophet, the second beast]
	to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the
	beast might even speak and cause as many as do not worship the
	image of the beast to be killed.

Earl Wajenberg 

Re three sixes in every UPC code, interesting idea, but you should have
checked around before making such a statement (there's much expertise
in Digital, and plenty of information in public notesfiles, not to
mention public libraries).

Let's take a look at the "standard" UPC codes to which you're referring
(there are several formats in use):

First of all, the digit six is not represented by three different
codes. It's represented by a single code: 1-1-1-4 (meaning a stripe of
one unit width, followed by another one-unit stripe of the opposite
color, followed by another 1, followed by a stripe four units wide).
All digits are represented by a combination of four stripes with a
total width of 7 units. A zero, for example, is 3-2-1-1, one is
2-2-2-1, two is 2-1-2-2, etc.

Secondly, the divider in the middle is *not* a digit. It's a divider
consisting of the pattern 1-1-1-1-1 which causes "parity" to switch. On
the left of the divider, all digits start with a light stripe, on the
right, they start with a dark stripe.

Finally, yes, there are two digits outside the two groups of five. They
aren't restricted to being sixes (and generally aren't sixes), and, on
some symbols, are also printed in smaller type to the left and right of
the main fields. And these are bracketed by start and finish patterns of 1-1-1.

    re: Bar Codes 666 and Demon Computers,
    
    	I wrote a bar-code-reader driver once for VMS for
    	a shop that ran manufacturing robots.  Giant things
    	with big steel arms weighing thousands of pounds
    	and capable of rendering a sinner into mashed potatoes
    	in a trice.
    
    	Come to think of it, I always wondered about that one
    	QIO function called "REJECT IALDABAOTH," but I never gave it
    	much thought at the time.  I thought it was a quality control
    	subsystem.
    
    							todd
    							

    When I got home I looked at the types of of bar codes that our laser
    printer can produce and was amazed to find that it could produce 40
    different types. Some as stated did produce codes with double thin bars
    at the beginning, middle and end. However as has been pointed out, this
    pattern, whilst similar to that of a six, is in fact a different code.

    So you may all relax the dreaded 666 in not produced on everything.

    Jamie.

    
    Couldn't you consider it like Big Brother is watching?
    
    Michelle
    
    Why don't we just regress back to the barter system? ;^)

Actually,  I don't see how this would get rid of black market or illegal 
substance; as Michelle mentioned, the barter system would reappear for those
items not obtainable with a card.

Beth

    For about the last 29 years my salary has been directly credited to my
    bank account. Pay cheques never caught on in the UK, it was cash or
    direct transfer.  

    In my pocket I have my bank card, when I wish to fill up my car I can
    drive it into a filling station and, instead of paying cash, I just slip
    my card into a reader, type in my PIN code and the money is moved from
    my account to the filling station's. Also many other businesses are
    beginning to offer this excellent service.

    The banks like it as it saves them money, the businesses like it as
    the transfer is instantaneous, it can't bounce like a cheque and there
    is no cash to be stolen.

    I suppose that one day America will catch up.

    Jamie.
                                      

Re .49 (Jamie):


    >I suppose that one day America will catch up.

Jamie, we've had debit cards over here for years.  Many of us have opted not
to have them; among other things, it messes up what bankers call "the float," a
hysterisis-like lag in funds exchange that apparently aids the economy.

To some of us, this is like "catching up" with getting measels.

Steve Kallis, Jr.

    Oh these are not special cards, these are your normal bank card that
    you use as ID when cashing a cheque or activating an ATM. They also
    work ATMs in other European countries and the eventual plan is to make
    the direct debit machines much more common thus eliminating cash as far
    as possible. 

    Already we don't bother taking any cash with us for short trips it
    France. We just make sure we have our bank card with us. Saves queuing
    at currency exchanges at the border.

    Jamie.

    
    Re.52
    
    "New World Order"?  Can you elaborate on this? 
    
    Regarding Australians voting, I believe that if people in Australia do
    NOT vote, they are fined $25.00 (this was the rate a few years ago), so 
    of course they would vote on it.  
    
    Cindy

    I think New World Order is a George Bush idea. It's his idea of all the
    Russian satellite countries that are going independent and he thinks
    that democracy has one in the world or is real close to winning. The
    old Us vs Them and Us has one.
    
    The card thing really smacks of Big Brother to me. I have one but can
    only use it for bank transactions and would never want to go to a scan
    the card payment system. That truly frightens me.
    
    $25.00 fine if you don't vote? They ought to institute that here. If we
    Grandfathered it back to Truman or FDR, we'd get the national debt paid
    off, finance a health care system, and totally rehabilitate the economy
    in one sweep. :-) 
    
    PJ

I have seen the gas stations where you can pay using your ATM card.  I sort of 
like the idea, since I use cash for gas all the time anyway.  I don't agree with
totally eliminating cash, though - like others, if feels like Big Brother to me.

I also have been having direct deposit to my bank for some time now.  It's not
new in the US (I've been doing it for 5 years now), but sometimes it isn't worth
the hassle of filling out the paperwork to get it done.

Some states may have problems using these ideas, however, due to banking laws.
While in college in West Virginia, I saw a bank have to close down it's drive
through teller because the drive through was located a block away from the 
main bank.  This made the drive through fit the definition of "branch banking",
which was illegal in West Virginia at the time.  Just think of what such a 
regulation would mean to ATM machines - you could only use one that was right
smack on the front of the bank you did ALL you business at.  I wonder if those
laws have been changed since then.

Beth

    The banks are too crooked here.
    
    I've had banks close on me and reopen under a different bank... and
    neither one seemed to know what happened to my direct deposit.
    
    I have a live check now and use cash and money orders.

	In terms of your right to privacy, think of what would happen
	when a paper trail existed of even your smallest finanacial
	transaction.  You already end up on specialized mailing-lists
	because of your credit-card habits; think of how selectively
	you could be targeted if *every* transaction were available
	to scrutiny.  Even worse, if the transactions were processed
	in realtime, your whereabouts would be more or less continuously
	known to the "keepers of the system."  

	Also, imagine the damage that could be done to an individual
	if some malicious "insider" decided to invalidate someone's
	cash-card.  The victim would be effectively stranded.  What
	if that happened to *you*, either on purpose or by accident ?

	Although it's being presented as "money card", these things
	seem suspiciously like the national ID cards that have been
	so controversial of late.  And the basic issue is, why does
	the government *need* to know so much about you ?

	-Art

    Not even deliberate damage... the nature of data collection is
    (hey guys... we all work for a computer company) is that it
    can easily and rapidly get out of control.. and it can be extremely
    difficult to correct erroneous data once a data bank has been
    corrupted.... especially if they are all networked together and
    share information. 
    
    Banks are closing all over the place here... bank officers 
    have been known to play fast and loose with depositors money...
    the FDIC is nearly bankrupt... the Savings and Loan bailout is
    out of control.... 
    
    ... no way...  they can't be trusted to handle it ... that Jamie
    thinks we should only confirms it as far as I'm concerned. :-) 
    (just kidding)

    There are many advantages to the "cashless" society.  I won't bother
    listing them.  I think "Crucified on a Cross of Silicon" arguments
    frequently make out the problems (which are both real and serious) as
    intrinsically insoluable.  I do not think that they are.

    Like it or not, our only real hope for privacy, given current
    technology is centralization *with proper controls*.  Decentralization
    (as we have now) does not give us privacy -- it only gives no hope
    for imposing meaningful controls.

    Can we get those controls in place?  I don't know, but if we don't,
    centralized electronic money system or not, we will have no privacy.

    Reliability?  I think that we will soon be in a position -- if we work
    on it -- so that your money will be as safe as cash (anywhere you store
    physical cash, there may be fire or flood, and no more cash; and cash
    can be stollen by any fool with a gun or a crowbar).

    I think it is premature to talk about a full system being in place.  I
    don't think it is premature to talk about what we need to get there in
    a way that will assure privacy and reliability.

					Topher

    I think you're dreaming, Topher.

    Perhaps -- but a dream is always the first step.  And in this case,
    I think we will inevitably end up with either the dream or a nightmare.

					Topher

Re .61 (Topher):

    >Perhaps -- but a dream is always the first step. ...

Freddy Krueger has put his stamp of approval on such sentiments. :-D

Steve Kallis, Jr.

RE: .62 (Steve)

    Steve!  Have you been smoking those funny pumpkin seeds again?!

					Topher

Re .63 (Topher):

     > .... Have you been smoking those funny pumpkin seeds again?!

No.  I tried that once, and it was so hard to suspend each little seed in the
smokehouse ....

Steve Kallis, Jr.

    Topher,
    
    The problem with centralization with the proper controls is that who
    determines the controls?  Who runs the system.  Whoever does has
    absolute power.  I read something (I've gone totally blank on this-- I've
    been going through tons of stuff lately on some work projects) about
    some company and the incredible data files they already have.  The
    company calls its file "Big Mother."  Big Brother sounded a lot more
    accurate to me.
    
    I prefer the inherent danger of decentralization -- with so much data
    spread so far apart, eveything will ultimately get so inundated and 
    totally screwed up that nobody will be able to do anything.  The economy 
    and society will collapse and we'll have total chaos (compared to the 
    growing chaos we have currently).
    
    Then, maybe I can get back to my nap ;-)
    
    Mary

    Mary,

    Who determines the controls?  We do, to the greatest extent possible,
    and we work like Niflheim on it to make the "greatest extent possible"
    mean something.

    The alternative to full, controlled centralization is  uncontrolled
    semi-centralization -- that is what we have to a large extent today. 
    We have independent groups -- government agencies, credit companies,
    libraries, marketing firms, insurance companies etc., collecting and
    "correlating" information about you.  They happily give information to
    each other, either in exchange, for a fee, or for good will.  You don't
    know who has it, you don't know whether its accurate, you don't know
    whether it is misleadingly incomplete, you don't know who has access to
    it, you don't know what they are going to do with it, and you would not
    have anything to say about it if you did.

    Over in Jolly Ol', they have attempted to attack the problem in a way
    so extraordinarily impractical I suspect that it was drafted by the
    people who want the uncontrolled data bases.  Do you have a Christmas
    card list on your home computer?  You have to register that fact with
    the government, at least in theory.

				    Topher

    Well if we succeed as well in controlling that system as we have in
    controlling the current government...need I say more?
    
    Mary

    An amusing solution might be to have licensed worm-runners -- legalized
    hackers that you hire to remove you from data-bases.  Not that it was
    illegal for the owners of the data-base to acquire the information,
    either.  But the law would give them no protection for *keeping* that
    information.  Sort of software jousting.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    This is one of the deeper rat-holes I've ever been down. - ESW

Re .70 (Earl):

Well, it depends on how one defines "Doomsday."  I suppose computer-created
chaos could fit in there somehow.

Steve Kallis, Jr.

    
         Well-like Reagan used to say.
    Of all the things that I heard about the 666.Now is making sence to
    me, one of them.And that is that in the end,in order to get food or 
    anything that you may need,you have to submit to the "BEAST".You don't
    need money or credit,all you need is his number on your forehead or 
    arms.NOW I WOUNDER IF THE JAPANESE BELIEVE IN THIS NUMBER BECAUSE
    THEY ARE THE ONLY ONE I KNOW ARE TAKING OVER THE WORLD.AND ONE DAY
    NOT FAR FROM HERE WE WILL.
    BY FROM NOW.

    Well if it made sense to Reagan then that explains a lot.

    I truly believe that the American people have lost all control over
    their government. There is no other satisfactory explanation why Dan
    Quayle stands one irregular heart beat away from the Presidency.

    Jamie.

    Jamie,
    
    Here is a topic on which we heartily agree.  Our government is not only
    out of control, it is largely owned by big business.
    
    Mary

  
  Re -.1 (Mary M)
  
  <- That applies to the government of every country I can think of ...
  
  Frank

    You never think of China, Cuba and the rest of what was the Communist
    block? You get the government that you deserve. What percentage of the
    enfranchised bothered to pull themselves away from their TV sets long
    enough to vote at the last election?

    Jamie.

    Jamie,
    
    What difference would voting have made?  The entire system has been
    so corrupted that by the time the politicians get to national politics, 
    they are owned by big business and the special interest groups that finance
    their multi-million dollar campaigns.  Do you think it would have made
    a difference if Dukakis/Benson had been elected.  We simply would have
    a different mess than the one we have today, not less of a mess.
    
    At the senate/congressional level they are supposed to push what the
    people they represent want, but they don't.  They push what they want,
    what will line their pockets.  So it doesn't matter what kinds of
    beliefs they claim to have while running for office.  Once they are in
    office, it's a free-for-all.
    
    re: you get the government you deserve
    
    Hey, when did you start believing that you create your own reality? ;-)
    
    My personal belief at this point in time is that, once the disease is
    this well entrenched, it's best to let it run its course.  I'm putting 
    my energy into outliving the disease...fortifying the immune system,
    good nutrition, etc.  As with the US/Soviet Union cold war, direct 
    confrontation could too easily have led to MAD.  Let it collapse of its 
    own weight.
    
    Unlike the US/Soviet Union cold war, I'm putting my energy into
    building a good internal economy.  My weapons are cardboard and paper
    mache, with maybe some metal inside.  Looks fearful from satellite
    pictures and x-ray scans.  Costs almost zip -- let them put their
    time & energy into real weapons.  Can't eat'em.   ;-)  ;-)  ;-)
    
    Mary

    Two very important differences would be that Souter and Thomas
    would not be on the Supreme Court.   Voting does make a difference,
    at least insofar as it lets the politicians know that somebody
    is paying attention.  I agree with Jamie on this one, and would
    go even further to say that an attitude that it makes no difference
    who gets elected is an attitude of victimhood.
    
    /bruce

    Except, Bruce, that I didn't get the option of voting for or against
    Souter or Thomas.  The senate and congress, or whoever, did.  And they
    have a tendency in these situations to vote for their own political
    agendas, not for what their constituents want.
    
    Call me a political victim if you like, but I haven't seen *anyone* run
    that I'd like to see get elected since I turned 21.  I voted against
    Nixon...not that I especially wanted McGovern.
    
    I guess I'm just more into civil disobedience and giving politicians
    the kind of attention that keeps them in line, rather then giving them
    the kind of attention that they can use to support the status quo.
    
    Mary David Thoreau ;-)

    Pardon my absence for a wile, but being a temp and all...

    Now let me get this topic back on track and hope i can hang in here for
    a couple more days.

    In response to;

  <<< Note 1576.43 by ENABLE::glantz "Mike @TAY 227-4299 TP Eng Littleton" >>>
                       -< a plea for responsible noting >-
    Mike,

    Believe me, i have researched this thing out, and i believe that what i
    wrote in my former reply (.39 i think) is the absolute truth.

    i Admit that i am no Engineer, and i appreciate your reply.  It forced
    me to do some searching in Regent::Bar_Codes and what it did was re-
    enforce my belief all the more.  

>First of all, the digit six is not represented by three different
>codes. It's represented by a single code: 1-1-1-4 (meaning a stripe of
>one unit width, followed by another one-unit stripe of the opposite
>color, followed by another 1, followed by a stripe four units wide).
>All digits are represented by a combination of four stripes with a
>total width of 7 units. A zero, for example, is 3-2-1-1, one is
>2-2-2-1, two is 2-1-2-2, etc.

    In note 159.1 of REGENT::BAR_CODES, Andre Peters says;
   | "I can tell you that UPC/EAN is quite a complex code. Each digit can be   
   | represented by FOUR combinations of bars, depending upon wether they
   | appear in the left-hand side or the right-hand side of the symbol, and
   | if they are on an even- or oddnumbered position in the code!"
    And get this! As a side note, the address for the International Article 
    Numbering Association that provides the "General Specifications for the 
    Article Symbol Marking" (creator of UPC/EAN) is in none other than 
    Bruxelles, Belgium- home of the Super Computer named "The Beast"! 

    Your explanation Mike, of 6 being represented as the stripes 1-1-1-4, 
    is absolutely right. But it's hard to visualize your way.  Lets
    approach it this way.  Digitaly, white (or the color that the UPC/EAN
    is printed on) is represented by 0.  The opposite color, black (or as on
    my Coke can, silver) is represented by 1.  The code is made up of 7
    modules, so the 7 bit number would be 0101111.  Correct? Visually,
    here's what it looks like:

       if     W=White line= 0
              B=Black line= 1     then 6= WBWBBBB  All that shows up to the
    eye is the narrow B followed by a narrow space and then a B that is 4x
    wider.

    And that is exactly what the 6 on my Coke can looks like. The Coke can
    UPC is version E by the way. It is the second most common UPC in usage 
    and a bit more complicated than the most common version A.  Both E and A
    however are based on three 6's.         

    Now, if this six- WBWBBBB were on the most common version A, it would
    be on the LEFT side of the mark.  If six was on the RIGHT side of the
    mark, it would be EXACTLY the OPPOSITE!  That is BWBWWWW.  It looks like
    2 parallel narrow lines slightly shifted to the left.  The scanner
    picks this up as a 6 also!  

>Secondly, the divider in the middle is *not* a digit. It's a divider
>consisting of the pattern 1-1-1-1-1 which causes "parity" to switch. On
>the left of the divider, all digits start with a light stripe, on the
>right, they start with a dark stripe.

    Right.  The center pattern which extends down is 01010. Or, WBWBW. 
    Visually, it is two parallel lines just like the 6 on the right side!
    It is just a 5 bit 6.

    The Left guard pattern and the right guard pattern are also 6's.  They
    are both 1010000- BWBWWWW. Two narrow black lines.

>Finally, yes, there are two digits outside the two groups of five. They
>aren't restricted to being sixes (and generally aren't sixes), and, on
>some symbols, are also printed in smaller type to the left and right of
>the main fields. And these are bracketed by start and finish patterns of 1-1-1.

    i Did not say that the two numbers printed outside of the mark are
    sixes.  In fact, the one on the left is usually a zero.  My point here
    is that there are 6 digits on either side of the "center pattern" 6. 
    They are all framed by 2 sixes on either side.  

    Two sets of 6 digit numbers that are printed for the human eye to read.

    Framed by 3 6's that can only be read by the computer.  I am calling
    them sixes because that is what they are when encoded on data mode.

    They read as three sixes, to the eye they look like three sixes.

    If it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck...
    
    The Mark of the Beast is on every product that is bought or sold.
    Wouldn't it be conveniant to have a cashless world-wide society and
    have people do business with a similar personal identifcation number
    mark that is encoded on their right hand so it won't get lost!
    
    Biblicaly speaking, it is comming very soon.  Half of the system is
    already fully functional and it has been for years.
    
         DO NOT EXCEPT THE MARK OF THE BEAST ON YOUR HAND OR FORHEAD!!
    
                                                     jOHN

  
  Re .76 (Jamie)
  
  > You never think of China, Cuba and the rest of what was the Communist block?
  
  Nope, the "big business" that owned the government was 'The Party' - just
  another powerful special interest group that is/was very similar in their
  "democratic" views to the car-manufacturer-senators, the farmer-MEPs, the
  director-MPs, the union-block-vote-selectors, ad nauseum. [ Sorry to have
  ratholed the rathole, I didn't intend to bring specific politics into the
  argument but rather point out that the failing is in the people involved,
  not their (supposed) beliefs. ]
  
  Back to the topic :
  
  "13:18  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."
  
  Suppose that we don't add in the bracketed words and view it as a single
  long number : six hundred threescore six = 600 60 6 = 600606 ... now, all
  we need to do is find the area code and we can give him a call ! :-)
  
  Frank

    re: .79 (Mary)
    
    AND... she couldn't run for office if she wanted to.  Both parties are
    tied up tight at the local level.  I read where a politician was TOLD
    not to run for a particular office by an ISRAEL PAC... and he was a
    Jewish politician who felt he deserved their support.... and this is
    America, guys... why is a foreign PAC making those kinds of decisions?
    
    Guys.... you can call that an attitude of 'victimhood' if you want but
    the truth is that our political system just isn't working ... it runs
    on money and you need money to run and that brings in an element of
    corruption that pervades the entire system.
    
    The only solution is to vote out every incumbent and do so in every
    election... and that solution is based on the premise that politicians 
    do more harm than good and so the less experience they have, the less 
    damage they are able to do.  
    
    Or pay for elections with public money and cut out that element and then
    complain if people don't vote but don't expect people to buy into
    a system that isn't working for them.
    
    mary

    I agree with you, Frank.

    Re .81  (Frank):
    
  >Suppose that we don't add in the bracketed words and view it as a single
  >long number : six hundred threescore six = 600 60 6 = 600606 ... now, all
  >we need to do is find the area code and we can give him a call ! :-)
  
    Um.. except that a telephone number (at least in the US) is seven
    digits long, not [gasp!] six.  But if we take "threescore" literally,
    then the number should be: 600 20 20 20 6.  That's one longer than a 
    U.S. Social Security number.  Maybe it's a safe combination for an 
    electronic lock...  :-D
    
    Steve Kallis, r.
    

  
  Re .84 (Steve)
  
  > Um.. except that a telephone number (at least in the US) is seven    
  > digits long, not [gasp!] six.  But if we take "threescore" literally,
  > then the number should be: 600 20 20 20 6.  
  
  The first "phone number" that I thought of was (600) 2020206 but I
  reduced it to 600606 to match [some of] the UK patterns ...
  
  Now think how certain religious bodies would react to dialing it and getting
  a recording like "Sorry, Beelzebub is unable to come to the phone at the
  moment, please leave a message after the tone ..." :-)
  
  Frank

    
    Didn't reply .80 get noticed, or is it too close to the truth to want 
    to be considered.  i Enjoy good humor but this subject is too serious
    to be very funny i think.

    Reply .80 got noticed, but as it made very little sense to most of us
    it got ignored.

    To you the number separator character may look a bit like a six,
    however to the scanners it looks nothing like a six. Theories must fit
    the observable facts, all of them. Your theory falls at the first
    hurdle. Therefor the sign of the beast is not on all products.

    However if believing this fantasy is important to your view of the
    world please feel free to do so.

    Jamie.

Re .80, there are several minor errors in your note, which I won't take
the space to discuss, but just to point out one:

> Framed by 3 6's that can only be read by the computer.  I am calling
> them sixes because that is what they are when encoded on data mode.

As you said, a six can be read as any of 1010000, 0101111, 0000101, or
1111010 (which are the four possible combinations of 1-1-1-4 in parity
and direction). The divider, however, is always 01010, and though it is
visually similar to a six (having two thin stripes), it will never be
read by a computer as a six.

> DO NOT EXCEPT THE MARK OF THE BEAST ON YOUR HAND OR FORHEAD!!

Minor spelling errors aside (accept, not except), I certainly agree
with you here. It's bad enough we have to carry ID. When the day comes
that ID gets permanently attached to our bodies, I'll go underground.

    
    Thanx fer the reply Mike.
    
    i Hope what you said about the divider is true.  Just seems to me that
    if 0000101 can be read as 6, and 1010000 can be read as 6, then why not
    101?  UPC/EAN is after all, a complex code.  In version E, a six can
    even be read as 010 depending on its position within the code!
    
    And WHY is it designed so that they all (6's in version A) look the
    same to the human eye?  Too coincidental for me.
    
    An interesting thing that i saw in the BAR_CODES notes is that DEC is
    developing ways to ID prisoners and locate them within cell blocks in
    at least two different prisons- USING BAR CODES!  One of them i think
    was in California.  The Bar Codes are on bracelets on their wrists!
    
    Sounds like we're gettin' there to me!
                                                 jOHN

    The Notes complaining about centralized information handling remind
    me of a site I once worked at.  They tried to remove all the
    terminals and workstations from people's desks, and have a few
    in a side room for programmers.  They planned to return to using paper mail 
    to save money on equipment and save their upper management from having to 
    learn complicated software packages.   And of course they didn't
    trust the techie types that had such mystical control over the
    systems, and thus the lifeblood of the organization.  I wonder if there
    is any parallel ?
    
    							kind regards,
    
    							todd
    
    							007

    It is strange how someone will come up with some paranoid prediction of
    doom from the simplest thing. Always it is the task of others to prove
    them wrong, while they never need provide anything other than their
    personal opinion.

    Jamie.

> And WHY is it designed so that they all (6's in version A) look the
> same to the human eye?  Too coincidental for me.

You've got me, there. It's certainly possible that "it was no
coincidence". Each of us will have to choose what to believe without
benefit of further information.

    Stop teasing him.

    Jamie.

    
    I can't take this seriously.
    
    There is real evil and real pain in the world in the form of crime, 
    poverty, abuse, hunger, disease, torture, and so on.  Spending time
    and effort on can labels seems rather meaningless when viewed in this 
    context.
    
    Cindy 

Some replies back, there was reference to some great computer called (or 
nicknamed) "The Beast."  This was supposed to tie into apopcalyptic references
to 666, 101101101, or whatever,

This is one of those "techno myths" (i.e., high-tech urban myths) that seems
to have gotten well established at least a decade ago.  If such a computer
really existed (and I'm certain there are a number of computers that are referred
to colloquially or disparagingly as being "beasts"; we have to be careful not
to mistake a label for an object), it would be an ideal target for hackers,
and would have been well known to the computer community by this time.

Steve Kallis, Jr.

          
        I also beleive that we are marked with a number allready.
    LIKE our Social security.Without it we are nothing.Think about it.
    Ariel.

    
    The day we are born we are given a number...

    It is absurd to believe that the author of the Revelation was referring
    to bar codes when he wrote that cryptic document.  It is *much* more
    likely that in his surrealistic narrative he encoded "Nero" as the Beast,
    considering the situation at the time it was in original circulation
    (which people seem not to want to do).
    
    Richard

    The first computer that I ever worked on was capable of doing
    calculations in any radix you liked. Actually the calculations were all
    done in hexadecimal and there was an excess constants register (C) the
    contents of which were added in to cause the overflow to the next
    column. This meant that the machine could operate in yards and feet and
    inches, gallons and pints and most important in those days pounds,
    shillings and pence.

    As there were 12 pennies in a shilling the lowest digit of the C
    register would contain a 4 forcing an overflow into the shillings
    columns when 12 was reached in any addition. Logically the two
    shillings columns contained a E (15) and a 6 as there were 20 shillings
    in a pound. There were three other digits in the C register, the top
    one being used for all columns to the left, and as pounds are only ever
    counted in decimal these three digits held sixes! 

    Even worse if the machine was calculating in decimal the C register
    held six sixes, the number of the beast TWICE!!
    
    No wonder it was a bugger to fix when it broke down.

    Jamie.

    From _Bar_Code_Symbology_ by David C. Allais:
    
    "Individual UPC/EAN characters are constructed of 2 bars and 2 spaces"
    -- This means you can't ignore the white spaces like you've been
    doing -- "occupying a total of 7 modules"  "Dark modules are associated
    with Binary 1 and light modules with Binary 0, so that the sum of
    these bits equals the number of dark modules in the character.  Odd
    characters have either 3 or 5 dark modules while even characters have
    either 2 or 4 dark modules.  20 possible left hand and 20 possible
    righthand characters can be constructed using these rules."  -- In
    other words, there are *four* ways to print a six.  "Each half symbol
    contains a total of 6 digits.  The last digit in the right half is a
    check digit computed from the preceding 11 information digits."
    
    This extract only begins to hint at the complexities of UPC/EAN bar
    coding.  Presumably the U.S. patent of June 28, 1971 covers this in
    excrutiating detail.  Enjoy.
    
    							Ann B.

    I thought that the number of the beast was 666, that is 3 contiguous
    sixes. A six followed by 5 random numbers, another six followed by
    another 5 random numbers then another six would not therefor constitute
    the number of the beast any more that any other number that just
    happened to have at least 3 sixes in it.

    So even if the separator character was a six it still would not put the
    number of the beast on every product.

    Jamie.

    re.37 .38
    I sitting here looking at 6 examples are they are all alike the
    description John gives.
    
    -j

    Re .104

    We agree that his description of the product code. However we did point
    out that this is not the number of the beast. So what point are you
    trying to make.

    Jamie.

    re.104
    Who said I was trying to make a point? I see after wadeing thru the
    replys since .37 that several have pointed out the don't think it is
    the mark but who really knows for a *fact* that it is not?
    My mind won't be made up until I see the chosen mark myself and a bar
    code is just as plauseable as the next idea.
    
    One of the things I enjoy most about this file is the number of self
    appointed experts that frequent it.
    
    -j

    We have already established as a fact that the three separators in the
    UPC are not sixes. Thus if they are not sixes then by definition the
    number of the beast is not being represented by them. 

    So what point are you trying to make. Or are you just trying to confuse.

    >One of the things I enjoy most about this file is the number of self
    >appointed experts that frequent it.

    As the UPC is a computer related code, and many of the people who come
    into this file are indeed experts in the field of computers, I wonder
    why you find people giving you an authoritative answer on this subject
    funny?

    Jamie.

    re-.1
    I myself am not unskilled in the computer environment having spent the
    last 12 years supporting them. I don't see anything wrong with an
    authorative answer when it comes from an *authority*.
    
    >>Or are you just trying to confuse. 
    I feel no need to further contribute to that which already exists.
    
    -j

    Actually this entire discussion on UPC seems to be designed to confuse,
    worry and spread doubt rather than enlighten. Could the article
    claiming the UPC contains the number of the beast, itself, be the
    work of chaos?

    Jamie.

e .110 wal

    >why didn't someone throw in Crowley's '666, the number of the beast'
    >or something like that?

There may be a little confusion here.  Crowley signed himself (among other 
things) as "666" because when he was young and naughty, his mother, in a fit
of exasperation or anger, likened him to "the great beast in the Book of
Revelations."  Young Crowley looked up the reference, liked what he read,
and adopted "666" as one of his aliases/nomes_de_plume.  He later wrote
_777_, which is another matter entirely.  But the "666" was clearly derived
from the Biblical writings.

Steve Kallis, Jr.

    Ronald (6 letters)
    Wilson (6 letters)
    Reagan (6 letters)
    
    Rearranging the letters of this name reveal:
    
    Insane Anglo Warlord


Richard

    
        On sunday when I came back to work,a co-worker in the first
    shift had a bottle of a cold formula.To my susprise the name of it
    is (666) it says that it's pretty good taking care of the cold.
    Now I wounder what make the president of that company or the one
    who invented the formula to give it such name.How many others
    products may be out there with such a name?,humm I just wounder
    who is behind that company.
    
    Ariel @ BOO  

    re: .115 (Wal)
    
         Well, wal, I'd say it means that this day is getting really
    boring and you can't wait until you're outta here!  Right?
    
    Frederick
    

re .115 (Wal):

    
    >if you add up all the numbers in the magic square of the Sun, you'll
    >get '666'. so what does it mean? 

It means that each row or column adds up to 111.  FWIW, 111 is a prime number.
666 reduces to 18, which reduces to 9.  The magic square of the Moon, FWIW,
adds up to 3321, which also reduces to 9.

What it all means is numbers can be fun.

Steve Kallis, Jr.

    Any number that is divisible by 9 if you add up all the digits, and if
    your answer is more than one digit add them until you end up with a
    single digit the result will always be a 9.

    There is no limit to the number of mathematical calculations that result
    in the answer being 666.

    Jamie.

Re .118 (Jamie):

    >Any number that is divisible by 9 if you add up all the digits, and if
    >your answer is more than one digit add them until you end up with a
    >single digit the result will always be a 9.

Perfectly true.  But, for instance, the Magic Square of Mars adds up to 325,
which is not a multiple of 9.  Neither is 136, which is the sum of the Magic
Square of Jupiter.  The point I was making was/is that even with esoteric
number schemes, you can have fun.

Steve Kallis, Jr.

RE: .115 (wal)

>    if you add up all the numbers in the magic square of the Sun, you'll
>    get '666'. so what does it mean?

    It means that, as already pointed out, 666 is the "triangle" of a
    perfect square (36=6*6).  Every such number (above the "triangle" of
    3*3) will be the sum of the contents of a magic square (actually, all
    magic squares of a particular size), and, conversly, the sum of the
    numbers in any magic square will equal the triangle of a perfect
    square.

    A magic square of side "n" will contain each of the numbers from 1 to
    n� once and only once.  That means that the sum of the numbers in the
    square will be the sum of the numbers between 1 and n�, which is the
    definition of the n�'d triangular number.  So any 6x6 magic square
    must sum in total to 666.

    Its pretty easy to show algebraically that the total sum of any magic
    square whose side is a multiple of 3 will be evenly divisible by 9
    (i.e., the "digital root" of the sum will equal 9).  Also any square
    whose side is one less than a multiple of 9 (e.g., n=8, 17, etc.) will
    have a total sum which is a multiple of 9.  Finally any square whose
    side is one more than a multiple of 9 (e.g., n=10, 19, etc.) will have
    a total sum which is a multiple of 9.  No square which does not meet
    one of these three criteria will have a sum which is an exact multiple
    of 9.  This can be summarized as follows: the digital root of the total
    sum of a magic square will be 9 if and only if the digital root of the
    side of the magic square equals 1, 3, 6, 8 or 9.

					Topher

    Earlier, some body made an interesting observation about HITLER =666 if
    we represent A = 100, b = 101 etc.
    
    Well, here is another interesting observation:
    
    Representing,  A as 105, B as 106.......etc, we get the same number for
    Saddam Hussein:
    
    	S = 123
 	A = 105
    	D = 108
    	D = 108
    	A = 105
    	M = 117
    	--  ---
     TOTAL= 666
    
    Is it just a coinicidence ?

Yes, thoroughly fascinating. And what's more:

For A=100, B=101, ...

C = 102
O = 114
O = 114
P = 115
E = 104
R = 117
-------
    666


For A=73, B=74, ...

A =  73
N =  86
D =  76
E =  77
R =  90
S =  91
O =  87
N =  86
-------
    666

For A=154, B=155, ...

L = 165
O = 168
V = 175
E = 158
-------
    666


If you ask me, we're in BIG trouble.

No, not *any* name, but *many*. Here's how:

Pick any name. Start with A=1, B=2, etc. Add them up. Subtract the
result from 666. Divide this by the number of letters in the name. If
the result is an integer, then the name can be made to add up to 666.
For a large number of such names, the "base" value which must be added
to A=1 is 98, 99, 100, or 101, so that A will be 99, 100, 101, or 102,
all of which lend an aura (pardon my pun) of "not just a coincidence".

Sharks like Uri Geller know literally thousands of cheap ploys like this.

RE: .123 (Marcos)

    Not every name -- for example, Marcos cannot be made to form 666 by
    simply choosing a starting point for the alphabet.

    Take a name (or word) and add up the sum of the letters using A=0, B=1,
    C=2, etc.  Call that sum "s".  Let the number of letters in the name be
    "n".  Then if

		    x = (666-s)/n

    is an integer, then the name/word can be "made" to sum to 666 by
    "setting" A to x, B to x+1, C to x+2 etc.

				    Topher

    re: .127
    
    If the base is not an integer I think everyone and everything on earth
    will be a beastly 666.

Nobody would be very impressed if you had to say "let A=119.4, B=120.4,
etc, and JESUS will add up to 666".

    I think the symbol 666 could be symbolic in another way too - perhaps
    symbolising a sick society or too sexed society. If you say six-six-six
    in succession, it sounds more like sick-sick-sick. Or if you choose to
    speak it with a slang it could sound like sex-sex-sex.
    
    Was someone trying to warn us that too much sickness or sexness is
    wicked/bad/develish ???
    
    Come to think of it, 666 also looks like the upside down of question
    marks ???  Now reverse of questions is answers. So is it that when we
    have too many answers, too much knowledge then the fruit of knowledge
    which Adam ate has culminated into the devil ??? Is that what 666
    really means in a symbolic way ??? A society which knows too much for
    it's own good.
    
    Of course 666 also looks like the hair profile of a girl with a bobbed
    hair. Could something be evil there ???
                 

    re: .130,
>    Of course 666 also looks like the hair profile of a girl with a bobbed
>    hair. Could something be evil there ???
    
    If you think of the bowl of the six as curled fingers and the top as
    an extended finger, it looks a little like three disembodied hands pointing
    to the right, too.   
    
    re: .113, 'Insane Anglo Warlord'
    
    I think it was in something by R.A. Wilson that I read :
    
    George Herbert Walker Bush
    ------ ------- ------ ----
    Huge Berserk Rebel Warthog
    
    	... when you descramble the letters.
    
    		Wow this stuff is spooky.  :*)	
    
    							todd

    Let your imagination run wild and you can come up with more symbolic
    meanings of 666. For instance I just thought of a real sick-sick-sick
    meaning of six-six-six. This one requires a twisted tongue and a
    likewise sense of humour. Here goes:
    
    Pronounce	: Six hundred sixty six 
    and you get : Sick Hun dreads sects, tea, sex.
    
    So we are looking for a hun who is a little sick in the head, who
    dreads sects (some particular religious sect ?), who dreads tea (or
    dreads the British perhaps, tea is very English you know), and who
    dreads to have sex.
    
    Know anyone, someone matching that description ???              
                                                      

Re: .121
    
>    If we twist it a little further we can also tie Saddam to the famous
>    "Mabbus" of Nostradamus. Michel de Notredame was said to have his
>    visions looking at a bowl of water which acting as a sort of mirror
>    might have reversed the name of Saddam which would then read as Mabbas 
>    which was later mispelled as Mabbus.
    
    This is off the topic but I would like to know if there is any Note
    which deals exhaustively with Nostradamus predictions and their
    interpretations. A 'dir/key = nostradamus' shows just one note which
    doesn't even discuss Nostradamus. Thanks for any pointers/help.

    Re : .134
    
    Thanks. I did see that movie and that's what got me interested on
    Nastradamus. I believe that there are some books also which discuss the
    interpretation of Nostradamu's verses, since they are replete with
    symbolism. Since there are conference on every conceivable subject
    here, I was hoping there would be one devoted exclusively one on 
    predictions/ astrology/ numerology/ palmreading. I sure hope someone
    would start one.

  re: .130
   
   >> Of course 666 also looks like the hair profile of a girl with a bobbed
   >> hair. Could something be evil there ???
    
    So are you associating girls with evil, or bobbed hair with evil?
    
    Did you ever hear about the man who was given a Rorschach test
    and every ink blot he was shown reminded him of sex?  The doctor
    told him he appeared to be obsessed with sex.  The man said,
    "Me?  You're the one showing me all these dirty pictures!"
                 

    
    Re: .136
    
>    So are you associating girls with evil, or bobbed hair with evil?
    
    No I wasn't really associating - merely speculating. Moreover the beast
    with the mark of 666 is probably a HE and not a SHE. On second
    thoughts, it could be a she too. You never know.
    
    BTW, I forgot to add :^) in .130, but I thought it was implicit in it's
    contents.

    ah, glad to know you had tongue in cheek.  Years of
    exposure to misogyny have made me overly sensitive.  Too often, when sin
    is mentioned the thought process seems to be evil=sex=women. 
    I think evil is genderless but if I had to assign a gender to 666, 
    I'd vote for male.  Those sixes look a lot more like sperm than they look 
    like bobbed hair.

Re 666 and gender:

Rev 13:18 -- 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 three-
score and six.                          ^^^      ^^^

That's pretty specific.

Steve Kallis, Jr.

re: .139
    
>Rev 13:18 -- 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 three-
>score and six.                          ^^^      ^^^

>That's pretty specific.

    Steve, That does look specific all right but don't you think that MAN 
    and HIS  could have been used to denote human beings in general as
    opposed to a beast. e.g in the old days, we did say chairman (now
    we say chairperson) even if it was a chairwoman and so on. Words like
    Wo/man and s/he are I think very recent terms emanating from the
    women's lib movement. They couldn't have thought about making that
    distinction in the old days.
    
    So the beast could be a woman too although it seems less likely.
    
    Re : .140
    
    Yes this interpretation along with the Mabbus connection does make Saddam a
    strong contendar for the 666 Title and perhaps we haven't seen the last
    of him and he could rise from the ashes again.
                                                                     

Re .141:

    >Steve, That does look specific all right but don't you think that MAN 
    >and HIS  could have been used to denote human beings in general as
    >opposed to a beast. e.g in the old days, we did say chairman (now
    >we say chairperson) even if it was a chairwoman and so on. Words like
    >Wo/man and s/he are I think very recent terms emanating from the
    >women's lib movement. They couldn't have thought about making that
    >distinction in the old days.

Rev 17:3 -- So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness; and I saw a
woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having 
seven heads and ten horns.

Rev 17 goes on to describe the woman, as "the mother of harlots and abominations
of the earth."  The angel explained to John that "the seven heads are seven
mountains on which the woman sitteth"; this implies very strongly that the beast
of the woman is a geographic area.  But "woman" is "woman," just as "man" is 
"man," in the Biblical context.  

Steve Kallis, Jr.

    The original language that Revelations was written in (either
    Aramaic or Greek; there is disagreement) has gendered nouns.
    Thus, "man" is unambiguous.
    
    						Ann B.

    Re: .140
    
    It sure may look to you as if I got a craze on Saddam Husain but i shall
    risk it to take just have one more go.
    
    Remember HITLER = 666 with A=100 etc. Well if we take the same base of
    A=100, we get
        
    	H = 107 
 	U = 120
    	S = 118
    	A = 100
    	I = 108
    	N = 113
    	--  ---
     TOTAL= 666
    
    Husain is a very common muslim name and if you will pick up a directory
    from any muslim dominated country, you will see husain spelled Hussein,
    Hussain or Husain. 
    
    Looks like Saddam has more 6's in more ways than most of us.
    
    Now no more of 666's for me or I will go crazy. Bye.   

  Re .144 (Marcos)

>1576.142 > the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. The angel
>         > explained to John that "the seven heads are seven mountains on
>         > which the woman sitteth"
>
> Given the Seven Hills of Rome, I'd say there's a big harlot sitting there
> that has even burned those who dared to say the earth is round.

  Interesting point, especially when you consider that the cardinals [the
  upper levels of 'the beast'] are robed in scarlet and [frequently] ruled
  by something other than an honest, decent man :

  "a woman sat upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy ..."

  ie., reading 'woman' as 'non-man' where the default man is honourable and
  the default pope isn't : hence the "names of blasphemy" including the
  decidedly inclement Clements, several unpious Pius, and the other greedy, 
  self-seeking hypocrits preaching one thing and practising the opposite.

  Alternatively, the blasphemy could be the gross pervertion of the original
  message of the Christian church to suit the goals of the few : the
  introduction of a totally unnecessary 'management' structure, the re-writes
  of scripture to match the views of the current 'leaders', the justification
  of large-scale torture and murder in the name of the one who preached
  peace, love, understanding and tolerance ... pretty blasphemous when you
  think about it.
  
  Of course, if you wanted a secular equivalent then you could consider the
  members of the Treaty of Rome and their own hierarchies of harlots ... but
  that's a standard definition of politicians :-)

  Frank

  [ Before any of our eglatarians have a go at me, *I* don't view women as
  any less honest and decent than men but as riddle goes, "What man is other
  than a man ? a woman" - the latter is still of the animal "Man" but not of
  the sex "Man" ].

Without beating this to death, note that it was a bit early in the game for St.
John to be attacking the [Roman Catholic] Church.  The chances are that he was
attacking the Roman society and political structure of the time.  This is why
some scholars believe firnly that "666" represented Nero.

Steve Kallis, Jr.

    1.  Revelations wasn't written by St. John.
    
    2.  I find it distinctly objectionable for anyone to cavalierly
    claim that "woman" :== "any man who, in my personal opinion, is
    not exactly as I want him to be".  It's a cheap method of forcing
    prophecy; I find it contemptible.
    
    						Ann B.

    Most of the symbols used in Revelation are explained either in the book
    itself or elsewhere in scripture. I don't remember off hand the
    references, but a woman in prophecy refers to a church. The beast is a
    kingdom or political power. For example, in Daniel, Persia is represented
    as a Bear. A women riding on the back of a beast is a church that
    depends on civil power to enforce her dogmas. This is contrasted with
    another woman (chapter 12) clothed with the sun and with the moon under
    her feet ie depending upon cosmic power rather than temporal. 
    	I haven't seen any one mention it but there was a system of
    numerology in common use in John's day that simply used roman numerals.
    	One source I read applied this to the triple crown worn by the
    Pope. There is an inscription on it that goes something like Vicarii
    Felii Dei. It means Vicar of God. If you take that C=100, D=500,
    L=50(or is it the other way?) V and U are both 5,and the I's add
    another six. It must have been 15 or 20 years since I saw it so I could
    have easily garbled it. That's how I remember it at least.
    	Its interesting to me that Pope John Paul I refused to wear this
    triple crown. I don't remember the exact reason why. I think he
    considered it too presumptious. At any rate he died under mysterious
    circumstances after about a month.
    	 Incidentally, Rome was always known as the city of seven hills.
    The practice of identifying the Roman church as the beast or
    anti-christ has been around for a long time, predating the protestant
     reformation by several centuries. Almost as soon the Roman bishop 
    became corrupted by the exercise of civil power, various prelates began
    to suggest that it had become the beast of Revelation.
    	John wrote in a time of great religious intolerance, where it was
    common practice to clothe religious ideas in symbolism to protect from
    persecution. Not just christianity but many mystery religions had much
    to fear from pagan Rome. Therefore it was only natural to clothe
    religious ideas in arcane symbols. 
    	
    
    johN

Re .149

	"Revelations wasn't written by St. John."

I assume you mean St. John the apostle.  Better to say that the identification 
of the author of Revelation with the apostle John is disputed.  I've read 
arguments on both sides.  The first verse claims the author is "John," without
further specification.

Re .150

	"...a woman in prophecy refers to a church..."

I know of no authority for that general rule, and in the case of the Scarlet 
Woman, the vision itself says, "And the woman whom you saw is the great city, 
which reigns over the kings of the earth."  (Revelation 17:18)  So here the
woman is, first, a city.  The reference to seven hills (17:9) make Rome the 
obvious candidate, but it is still quite a leap to identify the city with the 
denomination that has its headquarters in that city.  Nor do I find the 
identification a great example of "valuing differences."
                              
Earl Wajenberg

>>  Interesting point, especially when you consider that the cardinals [the
>>  upper levels of 'the beast'] are robed in scarlet and [frequently] ruled
>>  by something other than an honest, decent man :


	Would you please go into more detail here.....Being a "good 
litlle Catholic Girl"  ment not questioning these things, and within 
the last 15 years or so, I just haven't bothered with any of it - 
could you talk more about the reference than, especially the "and 
[frequently] ruled by something other than an honest, decent man"


Thanks,
Pat

re: .146

Frank,

I'm glad you don't view women as any less honest and decent than men
and this is not a personal criticism of you, but some of your remarks
touched on issues I consider to be part of the unconscious foundation of 
sexism.

You spoke of:

>>  ie., reading 'woman' as 'non-man' where the default man is honourable

You're right, when we speak of Man the default is male, honorable, and
rational.  Women are included in Man as a subset; dishonorable men,
irrational men are also subsets.  But using the word Man this way creates
what Martin Buber called the Other - the Other being an individual or
group of individuals that we see as less human than ourselves.  We attribute
all the negative qualities we don't want to own to the Other.  

I think this negative view of women is so subtle and pervasive that it
is almost unrecognizable, but that it infects us like a virus.  Imagine
the opposite, imagine that in school your history book is called
"The Story of Woman."  Little Bobby says "hey, what about men?" and the
teacher tells him the word woman includes men.  Bobby grows up and hears
a discussion of historical writings; he's told in this case that "man"
doesn't mean man but woman ("we call a woman who behaves dishonorably
a man but don't take offense").  How would this affect Bobby's attitude
about what it means to be a man? 
    
    Sue  

Re .150 (johN):

    >	 Incidentally, Rome was always known as the city of seven hills.
    >The practice of identifying the Roman church as the beast or
    >anti-christ has been around for a long time, predating the protestant
    >reformation by several centuries. Almost as soon the Roman bishop 
    >became corrupted by the exercise of civil power, various prelates began
    >to suggest that it had become the beast of Revelation.

Well, I think we can all agree that Rome was a good "beast" candidate.  Now
whether the "mother of harlots" was the early church, the Roman government,
the wife of the Roman emperor, or something else is open to question, and perhaps
endless debates.  A sport of the old days was for various Catholic and Protest-
ant leaders to "beast" each other by demonstrating how their opponents' names
could become "666" with the proper manipulation.  As has been demonstrated
in several replies before, by simple procedures, many names can be 666ed.

    >	John wrote in a time of great religious intolerance, where it was
    >common practice to clothe religious ideas in symbolism to protect from
    >persecution. ...

This was particularly true during the time of the Christian martyrs.


Steve Kallis, Jr.

  Re .149 (Ann)

> 2.  I find it distinctly objectionable for anyone to cavalierly
> claim that "woman" :== "any man who, in my personal opinion, is
> not exactly as I want him to be".  It's a cheap method of forcing
> prophecy; I find it contemptible. 

  and .153 (Sue)

> and this is not a personal criticism of you, but some of your remarks
> touched on issues I consider to be part of the unconscious foundation of 
> sexism.

  I am aware of that - hence my last paragraph - but wished to show how the
  use of the word "woman" in older works did not always apply to the female
  sex.  Please don't turn this into a rathole on sexism but leave it as a
  rathole on Revelations.  I can only ask you to believe me that I agree any
  form of discrimination is unpleasant and - although I'm certainly not
  perfect - I try to avoid propagating such problems.  If you don't choose
  to believe me or otherwise wish to continue this line of discussion, can
  we do so by mail please ?  In the meantime, if I did offend anyone by my
  apparent endorsement of sexism, please accept my apologies as it was
  certainly not intended.

  Re .152 (Pat)

>>  Interesting point, especially when you consider that the cardinals [the 
>>  upper levels of 'the beast'] are robed in scarlet and [frequently] ruled
>>  by something other than an honest, decent man :                         
                                                                            
> Would you please go into more detail here.....Being a "good little Catholic
> Girl"  meant not questioning these things, and within the last 15 years or
> so, I just haven't bothered with any of it - could you talk more about the
> reference than, especially the "and [frequently] ruled by something other
> than an honest, decent man"

  This could run and run but as above, this isn't the ideal place for it.
  Basically, the hierarchy of the Church is not necessary to the message that
  is supposed to be spread far and wide but is an artifact of the pride and
  greed that is a major failing of mankind.  There have been many changes,
  deletions and rewrites to the Bible in order to produce various "authorised"
  versions.  The price of disagreeing (or even questioning) the current "PC"
  viewpoint has been terrible.  The crimes that have been committed in the
  name of the Christian God have been terrible.  The self-appointed leaders
  of the Church have lined their own pockets at the cost of the people they
  should have served.  These things have happened throughout history and were
  admittedly par for the course but to someone who believed in the message of
  Christ - love, peace, understanding - to see this gross perversion of the
  message would be horrendous blasphemy and would be described as such.

  I think that any further detail would be best discussed elsewhere to risk
  losing the [fascinating] topic of this note but a glance through the history
  books, especially in the period 1100-1400, would show you some of the ways
  that a simple message was distorted to suit the desires of a few selfish men.
  
  I hope that the above is sufficiently cold and factual to be received in the
  spirit it was intended - information - rather than an attack on someone's
  own faith but if not, please let me know before getting too heated about it
  and it will either be changed or deleted as appropriate.

  Frank

  

	The Book is called Revelation.
	There ain't but one of 'em.
	
	Jay

re:.155
    
Frank, if this note can survive a derailing into a discussion on ULTRIX,
I think it can survive a brief discussion on sexism. No matter how many 
disclaimers, "reading 'woman' as 'non-man' where the default man is
    honourable" is a provocative and hurtful 
    statement that deserved to be answered publicly.

To return to the subject: I think it is wrong, in an academic sense, to
    assume that the woman on the scarlet beast represented a pope (or
    even several of the more corrupt popes).  The symbol of the woman
    would more likely represent the entire church.  I can't recall
    of any writing where a woman is used to represent an individual
    man, no matter how dreadful he was.                           


  

    I agree with you Sue.  
    
    But I think that the "woman clothed with the sun, with the stars at her 
    head and the moon under her feet" is a *real* woman. ;-)
    
    mary

    Re: .153 , Sue

    >I think this negative view of women is so subtle and pervasive that it
>is almost unrecognizable, but that it infects us like a virus.  Imagine
    
    Pardon me for ratholing in an already rathole but this reminds me of 
    what I read in a Readers Digest booket on jokes which went something 
    like this:
    
    It's funny but when a man makes a stupid mistake we say "How stupid
    that man is". If a woman makes the same mistake, we say "How stupid
    women are".
                                         

  
  Re .157 (Sue)
  
  On the subject :
  
  > I think it is wrong, in an academic sense, to assume that the woman on
  > the scarlet beast represented a pope (or even several of the more corrupt
  > popes).  The symbol of the woman would more likely represent the entire
  > church.
  
  Yes, I wouldn't think it was any specific individual but rather the upper
  echelons of the entire church.
  
  Off the subject :
  
  > Frank, if this note can survive a derailing into a discussion on ULTRIX,
  > I think it can survive a brief discussion on sexism.
  
  Good point ... I wonder who could have done such a dastardly thing as to
  mention ULTRIX in this forum ? Hmmm...
  
  Much further off the subject :
  
  > No matter how many disclaimers, "reading 'woman' as 'non-man' where the
  > default man is honourable" is a provocative and hurtful statement that
  > deserved to be answered publicly.                    
  
  OK, as you appear to want it stated even more baldly than in .155 : I did
  not - and do not - intend to slight women by making the suggestion that
  "woman" may have equated to "non-man" in a piece of archaic text of
  dubious origin.  I don't view an abstract posit (as in the original) as an
  issue to be overly concerned about and am sorry that you believe otherwise.
  I *would* agree with your worry if the statements implied that this was the
  case these days, or that this was the correct way to view the word 'woman',
  or that I viewed the world in such a misogynistic fashion.  Maybe I've
  struck a nerve or have accidentally echoed some comments you have heard
  which *were* intended to be "provocative & hurtful statement[s] that 
  deserved to be answered publicly" but - as stated earlier - this was not
  my intention.  Whilst I respect your views and explained my reasons along
  with an apology (for upsetting you and for not realising the potential for
  offense in my original statement), I do not intend to apologise further.
  If you require any editorial action, please contact a moderator and have
  him/her remove the reply/replies that offend[s] you.  
  
  Frank

Re .157 (Sue):

>To return to the subject: I think it is wrong, in an academic sense, to
>    assume that the woman on the scarlet beast represented a pope (or
>    even several of the more corrupt popes). ...

'Cept that there was a Medieval legend of a lady Pope (Pope Joan).  This 
mythical Pope is identified with the Tarot Major Arcanum, The High Priestess.
_If_ you believe (as some do) that the Tarot preceded The Book of Revelation,
then you could possibly make a connection, but it would be a tenuous one
at best (wrong color scheme, for one).

Steve Kallis, Jr.

    
    Re. -1 Steve,
    
    This is a major rathole! But, spaeking of Pope Joan, I saw a PBS
    program last year, about Women in the Catholic Church, and they
    mentioned Pope Joan as a fact, not a myth. Evidently, she died by
    stoning, after giving birth while being Pope.
    
    I was just going to open a note on this in Antiquity or History, since
    this note reminded me of her. (If I were presumptious enough, I'd say 
    great minds think alike, but I won't insult you. ;^) )
    
    Do you have any evidence that she was in fact, not real? 
    
    (Moderator, you may move this into a note of its own, if appropriate)
    
    
    Marilyn

Re .163 (Marylin):

This is discussed in some detail in Sabine Baring-Gould's book, _Curious
Myths of the Middle Ages_.

Steve Kallis, Jr.

    Frank,
    
    You have managed to miss my point entirely.
    
    My point was not that of slurring one gender, but of using the
    diiferences of gender as a convenient argument.  Let me rephrase
    my statement.  Twice.
    
    1.  I find it distinctly objectionable for anyone to cavalierly
    claim that <X'> :== "any <X> who, in my personal opinion, is
    not exactly the sort of <X> I want".
    
    2.  I find it distinctly objectionable for anyone to cavalierly
    claim that <X> :== "any <X'> who, in my personal opinion, is
    not exactly the sort of <X'> I want".
    
    Are you clear now?  I was not, per se, objecting to your misuse of
    my half of the population, but I was objecting to your abandonment
    of rationality in favor of glib distortion.
    
						Ann B.

  
  Re .165 (Ann)
  
  OK, I thought you were coming from the same direction as Sue.  Let's try
  again ...
  
  >  I find it distinctly objectionable for anyone to cavalierly
  >  claim that <X> :== "any <X'> who, in my personal opinion, is   
  >  not exactly the sort of <X'> I want".                          
  
  I did not cavalierly claim anything and the distinction between subsets
  of X or X' was not my personal opinion.  The distinction was noted as
  one that has occurred - regardless of merit - in the past (and FWIW in the
  present).  The "claim" was merely proposing a possible interpretation.
  
  The concept of suggesting potential explanations to a selection of facts
  is not a "glib distortion" but rather a means of opening discussion from
  a different angle.  Unfortunately the speculative content of the original
  reply has been almost completely ignored beneath a flood of trivial
  ratholes - 'trivial' being my choice of word to describe the attack on
  the words rather than the concepts : my pet hate is people who produce
  notes full of spelling errors but I try to ignore that in favour of the
  underlying ideas that they are trying to put across ; if you dislike the
  method of proposing a hypothesis then testing it, then fine but please
  bear with it as many people find it a useful tool for analysis.
  
  When searching for a best-fit curve, a line is drawn from an initial
  equation and the variance from the data points examined.  If this is beyond
  a certain tolerance, the initial equation is corrected to produce a new line
  and the cycle repeats else the curve is recognised as valid - until such
  time as further data is available to bring onto the graph and repeat the
  checking process.  You are currently attacking a line regardless of the data
  points it is trying to connect.  I was not responsible for the creation of
  the data points and am fed up with their existance being attributed to my
  "abandonment of rationality".  If you believe that the distance between the
  curve and the point is greater than the tolerance then please explain
  why - that is the object of the exercise - but don't go off on a tangent
  suggesting that I created the datum or that I should have ignored that point
  or the point itself comes from a mindset that is no longer acceptable or
  that trying to fit a curve to a set of points is irrational.
  
  If I had reached the stage where I didn't need to make guesses or questions
  on any subject then I would most certainly not be here.  Until that time,
  I will try to resolve situations that I see as problems, listen to valid
  corrections and, in short, learn.
  
  Frank

    Frank,

    Your original "hypothesis" was posted in 1576.146:

    "[R]eading 'woman' as 'non-man' where the default man is honourable and
    the default pope isn't ..."

    Here is what I see when I read the above.  (Do not take the order of
    presentation as being the order of perception.):

    � `The default man is honourable.'  Fine.  There is nothing wrong with
    this assumption or axiom.
         ^^^^^^^^^^    ^^^^^

    � `The default woman is not honourable.'  Not fine.  It is not fine
    because it is an unsupported conclusion.  Conclusions should not be
    part of hypotheses.          ^^^^^^^^^^

    � `To be a non-man is to be a woman.'  Not fine.  There are umpteen
    zillion things in this universe which are non-man.  You have leapt
    in with *another* unsupported conclusion masquerading as part of an
    hypothesis.

    � `The default pope is not honourable.'  Not fine.  This is unsupported
    by anything other than your arbitrary claim.  Again, it has no place
    in an hypothesis.

    It would be preferable if you defined "honourable".  Until them, no one
    can even argue with you as to whether the "default" man (or woman) is
    honorable or otherwise.

    Only after you have defined "honourable", and demonstrated that (1) it
    is a term that can be applied to the "default man" and (2) it is NOT a
    term that can be applied to the "default woman" are we in a position
    to judge the truth of the implied `The default pope is not honourable.'

    If you want to try to prove it, fine, do so:  List every pope, rate his
    actions and thoughts (Yes, I know you can't.  You are attempting to pass
    judgement on people's "honour" without knowing if THEY thought that THEY
    were doing the Right Thing.  That is wrong.), average them out, and place
    the pope in the appropriate column.  Show us the results, and let us
    conclude if your claim is valid.

    You should also let someone else do all the same research (without having
    seen anything of yours), go through all the same exercises, and let us see
    how the results compare.  (Repeatability of experiments is an important
    part of the scientific method.)

    (And none of the above suggestions even begins to address your leaps
    of `A non-honourable man is a non-man.' and of `A non-man is a woman.')
    
    Remember what Richard Feynman said about scientific integrity:  "The
    first principle is that you must not fool yourself -- and you are the
    easiest person to fool."

    						Ann B.

    I think that we have gotten into a serious misunderstanding here.

    Frank was trying to interpret the passage according to what he believes
    the cultural norms/beliefs/biases of the writer were.  He has not said
    that he approves of those beliefs, and in fact has said that he
    disagrees with them.  I do not think that his interpretation is likely,
    but I do not think he should be criticized for holding beliefs simply
    because he has stated (correctly or incorrectly) that some people
    living almost 2000 years ago held those beliefs.

				    Topher

    Wow! There's big time rathole being explored here!
    
    As Earl Wajenburg pointed out, a woman in prophecy is directly equated
    with a city. In the Hebrew scrptures Jerusalem is personified as a
    woman. In the Apocalypse John refers to the "new Jerusalem" as a
    metaphorical bride of Christ. Jesus referred to the kingdom of heaven
    in the context of a wedding feast(The Apocalypse refers to a marriage
    supper of the Lamb also). Only a city that has significance as a cult
    site i.e. a city that is a major religious center is referred to as
    woman in propecy.
    
    Now back to the beast! The beast would be a political power
    ridden(controlled?) by a religious city. References to specific
    individuals in prophecy are represented by horns, although they can
    refer to kingdoms also. For example in Daniel the rough goat
    representing Greece starts out with one horn (Alexander the Great) that
    is broken and sprouts into 4 horns which are the 4 divisions among
    Alex's  generals after his death. Each division persisted for varying
    lengths of time with a series of kings. So a horn could represent a
    notable king or a division in the kingdom. To identify a specific pope
    as the "beast" would be unwarranted, but identification with a series
    of its horns might fulfill the specifcations of the prophecy.
    	Incidentally, I hesitated for a long time to direct the discussion
    of the "beast" and his number in this direction. This is bound to
    offend someone. Afterall, the Catholic church is a very respected
    institution at this time. People forget how much this situation
    has changed in the last 50 years. In my lifetime there has been
    active persecution of non catholics in predominantly Catholic
    countries. Incidently Catholics were often viewed with suspicion or
    worse here in the USA. The church was viewed as opposed in principle to
    our constitutional government.
    IMHO no matter how honored  a religious
    organisation is, if it aspires to secular power it is dangerous. Power
    corrupts. If a religion cannot accomplish its goals on a spiritual
    level and feels that it can resort to political force it is dangerous. I
    don't care whether  the moral majority, Right to lifers or Muslim
    fundamentalists gain power, they  seem to be capable of behaving in a
     beastly fashion. I'm not saying that it is necessarily a parallel, but the
    Ayatollah Khomeini didn't emphasize the oppressive side of his
    asperations when he lived in France. I hope that the Catholic church
    has learned something about freedom of conscience, but I'll will remain
    very wary just the same. The present pope learned important lessons
    while under communism in Poland, but will this transform the church as
    a whole?
    
    johN

   re-        <<< Note 1576.169 by KARHU::TURNER >>>
                  
    
    
  >    Now back to the beast! The beast would be a political power
  >  ridden(controlled?) by a religious city. References to specific...
    
    Now we're gettin' somewhere!
                     

    re: .132
    
    
                   Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols fame? He Hates every/
    one / thing.
    
    
    

    Does anyone else find that reading other people's paranoid fantasies
    mind bogglingly boring?

    Jamie.

    re:  <<< Note 1576.175 by HOO78C::ANDERSON "I hate quotation; R W Emerson 1849" >>>

�    Does anyone else find that reading other people's paranoid fantasies
�    mind bogglingly boring?

    Jamie,
    
    I find your arrogant, condescending attempts to stifle any
    discussion that you personally do not find reasonable to be 
    increasingly annoying.  I also find it fascinating how often
    your keenly analytical mind resorts to name-calling.  You have
    had one positive effect on me, though:  I now fully appreciate
    the value of NEXT/UNSEEN.
    
    /bruce
    

    I am in no way stifling discussion, however I am entitled to point out
    that it is raving paranoid claptrap. You are are entitled to agree or
    disagree and state you views here like mine. 

    Jamie.

    I fail to see how it can be that Jamie's comment "stifled discussion".
    As a matter of fact, I agree with him, and my having said that, just
    goes to prove that discussion hasn't been stifled. If it had, you see,
    I wouldn't have bothered to say anything, because, I'd have been
    stifled. But I haven't, which is why I have. Said something that is.
    About the previous note. You know, the one that wasn't stifled.
    
    Laurie.

Re .last_few:

I think much of the sting would have been taken out of the remarks if the
words "in my opinion," or "IMO," or some such had been appended or prepended.

Steve Kallis, Jr.

RE: .177 (Jamie)

>   I am entitled to point out that it is raving paranoid claptrap.

    You are entitled to point that you believe that it is claptrap.  Saying
    it that way is, of course, rude and oafish, and serves no purpose I can
    see except to antagonize people, but you *are* entitled -- and you have
    stated elsewhere that you believe that verbal assault constitutes
    subtle wit.  But if it makes you feel good about yourself -- have fun.

    You are *not* entitled, however, to refer to it as "raving" or as
    "paranoid" since those are direct attacks against the writer.  Such
    attacks are *not* permitted in this conference.  You have shown on many
    occasions an apparent inability to distinguish arguments against ideas
    and arguments against the people who hold those ideas.

				    Topher

    Re .180

    >You are entitled to point that you believe that it is claptrap.  Saying
    >it that way is, of course, rude and oafish, and serves no purpose I can
    >see except to antagonize people,

    There is always the hope Topher, that one or two might actually stop
    and think about what I said, re-read the article in question and
    discover that they agree with me. Remember there is always a chance,
    albeit an outside one, that I am correct.

    Bruce accuses me of stifling discussion, yet I always seem to promote
    discussion on almost any topic I care to reply to. I do not think that
    there is one topic in this conference that stopped dead just because I
    replied to it.

    A few tiny points, why does Bruce wish to stop me writing in here? His
    reply definitely implied that. Why does he want to silence an opinion
    contrary to his own? Does he have some ulterior motive for trying to
    silence me? What does he have against freedom of speech? Or are these
    just paranoid ravings?

    Jamie.

> There is always the hope Topher, that one or two might actually stop
> and think about what I said, re-read the article in question and
> discover that they agree with me.

Jamie, I often think this, too, but more and more, I'm coming to
realize that even *polite* suggestions rarely have any effect. Nasty
criticisms *never* have the effect you desire. They always trigger an
immediate defensive reaction which then snowballs into an exchange of
insults. Check it out!

If you really want to teach, you have to make a serious effort at
finding out what kind of approach will actually have the effect of
getting the reader to think instead of react out of blind emotion. If
you aren't interested in dropping the fruitless approach of insulting
criticism, and figuring out what would actually work, then maybe it's
not really teaching you have in mind.

I don't think nastiness stifles discussion per se, but it does derail
it by sending it off into an exchange of insults, instead of rational
discussion. Bruce is probably just frustrated at seeing (1) nastiness,
and (2) potential discussions veer off into useless insults. You have
to admit that this does happen quite a bit. I think that's a bit sad,
because, for the most part, I happen to agree with you (especially that
people often construct elaborate fantasies which they hope others will
join them in).

Well I must say, that's truly fascinating. It makes one feel sort of
"left out of the fun" to know that there are people who are in
posession of this knowledge (the knowledge of the numerical and other
symbolism in these works). It recalls to me the thrill I felt on
"decoding" some of the stories in Jorge Luis Borges's _Ficciones_. It
also leads me to strongly suspect that Borges and others (Garcia
Marquez, Eco, Unamuno, etc) must be well versed in this knowledge, and
are probably members of several "secret" societies which study and
preserve this stuff -- the Masons, Rosicrucians, etc.

However, I also wonder: to what extent does the study and knowledge of
this material actually bring a person closer to Truth? I mean, reading
about and decoding these puzzles is thrilling in the extreme
(especially if one believes that they're of divine origin), but can it
bring more than mere excitement to the student?

Re:  .185
    
<(6) Ajna, cavernous 
<ganglion--Philadelphia, a city which was repeatedly destroyed by earthquakes; 
<the manifestation of the kundalini at this 6th center is especially violent, 
<and so Ioannes describes the opening of the 6th seal (muladhara, which brings 
<the _ida_ and _pingala_ to their culmination at this center) as being 
<accompanied by a "great earthquake".  (7) Sahasrara, conarium, or pineal body, 
<the "3rd eye", Laodikeia, noted for the manufacture of the so-called 
<"Phrygian powder" which was esteemed a sovereign remedy for sore and weak 
<eyes, presumably the "eye-salve" mentioned by Ioannes in the message to 
<this 7th Society.

Maybe someone can enlighten me here.  I always thought of the 6th chakra as
the 3rd eye (pineal gland area) and the 7th chakra as the one on the top of 
the head/above the head.  Am I missing something here?

Joanne        

    Joanne,
    
    I recall hearing of the 6th and 7th chakras described in the way
    Marcos' note .185 describes them.  I think it is the same way Edgar
    Cayce viewed them based on the Endoctrine system (but my memory is
    vague on this).
    
    Ro
    

    Please explain.  While I know the news, I don't know what you are
    referring.

    
    For our British readers...
    
    If you ever have to dial the emergency services (999), then for
    goodness sake, don't turn your phone upside down !!!!
    
    Another way the number 666 can appear with ease, is using the
    following equation.
    Think of a number between 1 & 10. Add 45 & then divide by 2.3. Subtract
    the number you first thought of & then add your mum's birthday.
    If the answer isn't 666...then it's because your mum was born in a leap
    year.
    
    

    
    The book of revelations, Chapter 14, Line 31 quite categorically 
    states that "The Beast shall rise from the Ashes of Babble-on & there
    shall be gnashing of teeth & girding of loins. The weak  shall suffer
    at the  hands of the Cushti Vordong. 
    The Gwaponites shall endure great thostick intenders & suffer an
    Amawageon castleton dilema. It is at this time that the Tree people
    shall be heard to say...."A Wibble"
    
    By my calculations, this should occur at 7:06PM GMT (which is 66 minutes
    after 6).
    
    Spooky, huh ?
    
     

    Since when did anything written in the Bible have any significance?

    Jamie.

So, you bought that pile of fish, Jamie? I thought it was pretty funny.

    I happened to notice that Sunday evening's Massachusets daily lottery
    number was 0666. HHHMMMMM. :-) I wonder how many play that number or
    avoid it for religious reasons. :-)
    
    Bright Blessings,
    
    PJ

    It Paid_Off Damn Good Too..   :_)
    

    was that exact order for last three????

    Not sure. could have been reversed. I do know that the zero was the
    first number. :-)
    
    This reminds me of the time that I played an easypick number in NH and
    got 3 of the same number, 777, for a pick3. I had asked for a
    straight/box ticket. Meaning that I played it for any order or exactly
    as picked. (Pays more and the explanation is for those who don't play
    lotteries.) Well the machine kept coming out as straight and not
    straight box. The system recognized that it made no difference and
    wouldn't print or recognize both choices. Took us humans 3 voids and
    reprints to figure it out. :-)
    
    Bright Blessings,
    
    PJ

    Another interesting topic I just MUST reply to....
    
    Re. 1576.3.......Right on !!!!
    
    666 is the number of a man...It spells out " Latino "....in the
    number = letter equation that was used in the early Graeco-Roman
    language ( or so I've read ).
    
    " Latino " is NOT referring to " Hispanic "....it is referring to
    Rome and / or  a Roman leader ( either relegious or otherwise ).....
    
    The Book of Revelation is SO full of symbols and it cannot be taken
    literallly.    It is, in my opinion, the most difficult part of the
    Bible to understand.  
    
    Perhaps I am a bit off on this " number of the beast " thing, but I
    have read a LOT of stuff on the subject and I have formed an opinion
    based on what I have read.
    
    I apologize in advance if I offend anyone...:-)

    666 is the number that falls midway between 665 and 667, no more, no
    less. However by bending the rules you can make 666 equal anything you
    want to make it mean. This is a good way of frightening people who are
    not capable of rational thought.

    Jamie.

666 is the name of a record album by a group called Aphrodite's Child.
	
	;-)
	

666 is the telephone number of the Australian emergency services.


Simon

    
    All free information telephone numbers in Holland start with 06-0 and
    then 3 or more digits. It's like the US 800 numbers.
    
    Digital's number in Holland is 06-0666
    
    Andr� ;^)