Dan Price’s blog
Weblog of a cyber-geek

I was randomly surfing YouTube today when I came across a new form of music - produced by computer hardware. Of course, computers have played a central part in modern music for some time now, but never before has “electronic music” been taken so literally:

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This is somewhat of a conspiracy, but it is truly strange that on June 6th 2006 (06/06/06), George Bush announced a plan for a biometrics system to be implemented in the USA to track all immigrants.

666 (Greek passages read 616) is supposed to be the “Mark of the Beast” or the “Number of the Beast”, mentioned in Revelation 13. The passage:

““And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. 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.”
Revelation 13:16-18″

In general, I’m not one for conspiracies. However, surely it’s a bit strange that on 06.06.06., George Bush gives a speech about immigrants and ID cards, including mentioning biometrics:

“What really Congress needs to do is to use a biometric technology to create a new tamper-proof identification card for every legal foreign worker,” he said. “We need a tamper-proof card. If you’re here legally working, here’s your card, and you got to show it. And a business owner has got to call for it, and if they hire somebody without the tamper-proof card, they’re in violation of the law and will be fined.” (Taken from New York Times article).

YouTube also had a video of Bush announcing this plan:

Perhaps this is just a massive coincidence, but it’s interesting at least. On a date some associated with the Antichrist and the Mark of the Beast, Bush talks about bringing in a new ID system for immigrants, meaning they won’t be able to work without having ID on them. ID cards are becoming more popular, with governments assessing whether or not to implement them on a national scale so that we are all watched. Some have even suggested chip implants into our arms or other areas of the body so that we can be scanned and our identity validated. Who knows? Perhaps one day, we will have chip implants in our right hands or even implants into our brains (a suggestion made not long ago on a BBC documentary). Is this passage coming true today?

First of all, I apologise for neglecting my blog recently. College has been particularly busy recently; I’ve been trying to get fitter (weight lifting, walking etc.) and I’ve been working on several projects recently too. Consequently, I haven’t been able to post very much on here at all or surf the forums as much as I’d like to - hopefully, I’ll be able to find a bit more time soon to start again.

On to the main topic of the post - the 1-laptop-per-child project has announced that it will be running Windows XP on it’s laptops side-by-side with Linux. The project was set up to give children in developing countries the chance to learn I.T. and enhance their skills and knowledge. Previously, a special light weight version of Linux was planned to be the only OS (Operating System) as it is free and open source, making it ideal for educational purposes on a budget laptop. (more…)

As some people will know, I’m a moderator at Webmaster-Talk, a comprehensive webmaster forum. Recently, Earners Forum, an online community for individuals who were earning money online, merged with Webmaster-Talk. The merge will mean new content for Webmaster-Talk, lots of new members and masses of new expertise that we didn’t have before.

The forum has now opened a celebratory contest with prizes including a Macbook Air, iPod touch and a Nintendo DS. 5 lucky winners will get these prizes by collecting the most points - you get 10 for just signing up, 2 per post and an incredible 200 for submitting articles.

The contest will be open for another 32 days, after which 5 winners will be announced. Good luck!

I found a few fonejacker videos on YouTube and ever since, I’ve been fairly hooked. The guy basically prank calls random people and speaks nonsense to them until they slam the phone down (well most of them do anyway).

Here’s one of my favourites:

Well this is going in a category called “Bi-weekly websites” although it seems that I never post often enough to this category to justify the term “bi-weekly”.

Anyway, we’ve been using a new website at college called How The Market Works - it’s definitely worthy of it’s name. Not only does it explain the basics of the stock market in easy-to-understand language, but it has a really really fun stock market game where you invest in real stocks and make or lose virtual money (Believe me it’s addictive).

Windows XP may be a 7 year old operating system but it is still widely used, and often preferred, to Windows Vista. However, Microsoft have still decided that they will cease all sales of the OS (Operating System) on June 30th and officially stop support sometime after this date.

While it is inevitable that Windows users will have to upgrade sooner or later, XP has been on the whole a user friendly, compatible OS that has remained incredibly versatile for it’s age. In my opinion, Microsoft should continue to sell Windows XP for users that prefer it, but put emphasis on selling Windows Vista and preloading most systems with it, just as it is doing at the moment.

If you agree, then sign the Save XP petition at InfoWorld!

Well it’s something I definitely missed, but Amazon has announced that it’s DRM-free music store is going global this year. This is of course fantastic news for regular computer users like you and I!

Amazon has got a number of major labels involved including EMI, which is likely going to cause a massive headache for the likes of iTunes, Napster, Yahoo Music and other download services that rely on DRM (Digital Rights Management) to theoretically stop users from sharing music illegally. DRM however is widely criticised because it also stops the user from moving music between his own devices - i.e. from one computer to another, or between different MP3 players and computers.

Is this an end to DRM entirely? We’ll have to wait and see

Student governor results

I’m sure you’ve all been eagerly anticipating the announcements of the results of the student governor elections that I stood for at my college - if you haven’t, then I’ll announce them anyway. The waiting is over!

The result: victory!

Yep I won the student governor elections for the college so now comes the real part - actually doing the hard work.

Open Source search

I’m sure you’ve at least heard of this, if not been bombarded with it already. Wikia Search, currently in Alpha, is the hot news right now. It’s attracted a lot of criticism by bloggers and the tech industry however. The concept of the site is that it is open source, meaning that the code and algorithms behind the search engine can be viewed by anyone. This is a clear contrast to Google which keeps a lot of the information regarding it’s algorithms secret.

The idea does seem to be jumping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon a bit and I’m unsure whether it will catch on among the non-techie crowd who make up the majority of web users. However, if the site can prove that it’s search results are of a better quality to Google (which is asking a lot), then it may be able to compete successfully with the giants (Yahoo, Ask, MSN as well as Google).