I have always been fascinated by this bit of "urban legend",,,some of the comments are fascinating
Laurer — who has clearly tired of answering questions about the UPC and its supposed connection to the Book of Revelation — calls all this “ludicrous.” But it’s also rather amusing. Laurer has long told UPC watchers that the three longer “guide bars” in each code — one at the front, one in the middle, and one at the end — do not represent 6′s, hoping to put that urban legend to rest. But you can’t squash human nature. If someone wants to find proof that the apocalypse is upon us, they will find it.
[,,,]
Laurer first realized the code could be construed as some sort of apocalyptic signpost while it was still under development in the early 1970s. His daughter happened to be studying the Book of Revelation, and he couldn’t help but notice that the code harbored a few 6′s — though not the 6′s alleged by the urban legend that’s still bouncing around the internet.
[,,,]
Bill Selmeier — an IBM executive who worked alongside Laurer and Woodland on the project inside the IBM Store Systems group in Raleigh, North Carolina — doesn’t remember anyone in the group discussing the possibility of people protesting the scanners while they were still under development, but protest they did. When Selmeier showed up at a Ralph’s grocery store in Los Angeles to see one of the first scanning systems in action, dressed in his pin-stripe suit and wing tips, a man approached and told him the code was the sign of the beast.
[,,,]
“All of this is pure bunk,” says Laurer, “and is no more important than the fact that my first, middle, and last name all have 6 letters.”
Why the Bar Code Will Always Be the Mark of the Beast | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com
No comments:
Post a Comment