I’ve spent almost a week in Sydney and I’ve noticed a few things. First, it’s very beautiful. It reminds me of all the best parts of Seattle and Vancouver BC mixed together. They have the “Sydney Tower”, but trust me it’s no Space Needle. Of course the Harbour Bridge and Opera House are amazing landmarks, but best of all they have sushi places like Seattle has coffee places… they’re everywhere, and I love sushi way more than coffee 🙂
Other things are just small annoyances. During the week, everyone is in a super rush all day long. Street vendors almost panic if something takes even a second longer than it should and they start apologizing profusely. One vendor accidentally dropped a coin while handing me back my change and just about had a stroke. Also, a large percentage of the population smokes here, a lot. It’s annoying when trying to get a breath of fresh air in the city, and it helps illustrate how everyone seems so high strung all week. At least things in the city seem to calm down a little during the weekends, but that’s probably because a lot more people come in from surrounding burghs and burbs.
Before flying out here, one of the papers had contacted me about an article they were writing about the conference. Since I had landed in Sydney a week before the conference, the Herald wanted to know if I was up for a quick photoshoot. They sent a photographer by and took a few snaps.
Photo: Ben Rushton via Sydney Morning Herald
Later that day I heard from Conrad, a very nice Aussie reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald, that his article would be on page 4 of the Saturday edition. The article was also posted on the SMH website (pdf).
Amal,
I am a senior electrical engineering student attending Northeastern University. I am currently working on a capstone project with four other students in which we plan to utilize an RFID system. I have stumbled upon several of your projects (RedBee Wireless/USB RFID reader being one of them) and was wondering if you have the time if you could contact me back. We would appreciate any input we could get from an expert in the field such as yourself.
Thank you,
PJ Maio
Hi there Amal, I found this the least invasive way to contact you. In the movie Tagged, what was the name of the store in Toronto that you were looking for a soldering iron in?
Hey there 🙂 The place was Active Surplus; http://www.activesurplus.com/
Hi PJ,
Go ahead and post your project details and questions to http://rfidtoys.net and I’ll help with whatever I can there.
Hi Amal
I am not sure what to do about this thing, please advise how to proceed. Thanks in advance.
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A worldwide criminal network is known to make use of RFID human implant technology in order to propagate crime. Although the ring also commits conventional crime to augment their revenue, the RFID human implant is their main source of cash. Crimes such as credit card fraud are committed (by being able to locate the victim at an ATM / card purchase); the production of internet porn videos (with the aid of Rohypnol) and housebreaking (knowing when the victim is not at home) are also common. The suspects use clubs and bars as a location for injecting these tracking devices, mostly in the stomach area.
The criminal program works to a degree. However, the implant causes some sort of radiation on the brain, making the victim aware that “something is annoying me”, but not knowing exactly what it is. A great many innocent people are thought to be infected; the number of humans implanted with this technology might be as many as 100,000 and possibly even more. The radar screen used by the suspects is very simple, at least. A laptop connected to a cellphone with modified software might be all that is required. Using this radar screen would then come close to a real-life reality video game.
As victims who actually try and find the device (under their noses) run into misfortune (collaborated accidents), the story needs to be printed in the mainstream media first, before hard evidence, the transmitter, can be collected.
James, where did you find/read this? It’s a load of hooey. Nothing about it is even remotely true or possible. In short, it’s pure fantasy.
Just think, if technology like this were even possible (passive RFID tags being used to track things around in real-time), then the pet industry would have made billions selling it. Instead, what’s the best thing a microchip for your pet can do? A vet can run a reader directly over the implant to get the ID. They can’t read the ID from the tag in your pet when it’s in the parking lot or at your home… the same would be true for any similar tech, including the VeriChip which is FDA approved for us in humans.