
Barcodes: The Number of the Beast 287
Boomzilla continues: Barcodes were first developed in the railroad business to keep track of which cars went with which engine. The barcodes were imprinted on the side of the railway cars. The barcodes on each car could then be read together to compile information on that particular grouping; what station they came from, where they were headed, etc. thus automating the process of marshalling. When the business world realized how well this system worked, these railway barcodes evolved into the UPC system with which we are all familiar. To really be able to take in the wonder that are bar codes, check out the excellent FAQ created by Russ Adams and an article from the BBC.
Coming full circle, the clever folks at Bekonscot Model Railway in the UK have utilized barcodes at every turn of their expansive system. For example, an MP3 player is driven off barcodes attached to trains. The trains are announced before they arrive and when they are leaving, stating their destination, route and at what stations they will call.
Want a barcode of your name?
Stupid Games (Score:3, Interesting)
What about all those games that came out a year or so ago with commercials exhorting kids to run around grocery stores ripping things off of shelves in an attempt to "power up" their videogame creatures? Those were cool...er...stupid.
so uh... cool or not? (Score:5, Funny)
That way people know who I am.
It is unclear from any of those links if this makes me cool or not.
Re:so uh... cool or not? (Score:2)
Go calculate [webcalc.net] something
I'm going to regret this (Score:5, Funny)
but here you go:
Microsoft's latest wall poster [devphil.com]
No, I don't remember who sent it to me. And I'm turning off the webserver in half an hour so I can go back to getting real work done, so somebody mirror the damn thing and stop hammering my home DSL. :-)
Re:I'm going to regret this (Score:5, Funny)
The Business Software Alliance thanks you for your attention.
Don't forget support contracts. (Score:2, Funny)
don't laugh; it's been done (Score:2, Interesting)
I just went to his wedding last year. Forgot to ask the bride what she thought of it, though.
Re:don't laugh; it's been done (Score:2)
Most people seem to think it's cool, except the dental assistant who freaked out because she thought I was in the Special Forces or something.
It especially went over well at work, since I'm in IT at a major retailer.
Re:don't laugh; it's been done (Score:2)
You aren't alone [alkem.org].
This one is in CODE 39, inked circa 1991.
Re:so uh... cool or not? (Score:4, Interesting)
This does not make you cool.
I'm not saying you're not cool, but if you are, it would be in spite of your forehead, not because of it.
--
Re:so uh... cool or not? (Score:3, Funny)
After all if you wanted to be a geek you could always have a barcode of slashdot.org tattoed there.
Like this one...
begin 644 slashdot.GIF
M1TE&.#EAR`!X`//($%F'$DRI,F3*%.JI$B R 94N!
M_U!4E&E1)L&9,VG:O*@S)DV#4K5Z]2B1'_>=%JV+=2D L\ZUXR
MQ;&7'G09#A>?4JLY6!^$R4FH6 XDI'K?@9P9^:%F'TXFUF77P-
MJ3A"J6JEPK9*E
Re:so uh... cool or not? (Score:2)
odd... that files was only 2.3 kb when I uploded it, and now it looks crappier and is 3kb in thumbnail...
Use on railroads (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Use on railroads (Score:2)
http://www.bekonscot.org.uk/index_railway.asp [bekonscot.org.uk]
Re:Use on railroads (Score:5, Interesting)
This was before I'd seen a computer. :^)
useful at last (Score:2)
Re:useful at last (Score:2)
Store employees will however notice someone cutting out little squares from all the cardboard boxes.
Re:useful at last (Score:4, Informative)
Re:useful at last (Score:2, Interesting)
Well sheesh. (Score:5, Funny)
It never occurred to me that Satan might be living in my UPC symbols. Now I need a priest to accompany me to the grocery store.
Re:Well sheesh. (Score:2, Interesting)
We're used to much more potent lunacy these days.
Tattoo, not the little guy that yells at planes (Score:2, Funny)
Barcodes have 666 encoded on them? (Score:4, Interesting)
Standard UPC bar codes consist of a set of lines to mark the start of the code, the left hand part of the code itself, another set of marker lines, the right hand part of the code itself, and a third set of marker lines: The marker lines are "0101", "01010" and "1010" respectively, where 0 is white and 1 is black.
Now, the encoding scheme is complicated, but it just so happens that "0101" if treated as data on the left hand side would decode to the digit "6".
Similarly, "1010" on the right hand side would decode to a "6" if it were data. The middle also has a "1010" or a "0101" depending upon how you want to look at it.
Hence every UPC bar code has "6...6...6" built into it.
There are some technical niggles with the theory. The middle marker has that extra white bar on the left, but this can be explained away by saying that a gap is needed before the next coded part starts, or that it is to make the thing scan both ways. Yup, it even reads "666" if you play it backwards.
In "The Master of Space and Time" Rudy Rucker jokes about this theory by having an alternate universe where people pay for their groceries by having the checkout operator swipe a UPC code that's tattooed on their foreheads.
Re:Barcodes have 666 encoded on them? (Score:2)
Re:Barcodes have 666 encoded on them? (Score:5, Informative)
To say that every barcode contains 666 is somewhat misleading.
Re:Barcodes have 666 encoded on them? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Barcodes have 666 encoded on them? (Score:5, Informative)
Third, a fair number of manufacturers don't always obtain a valid block of UPCs, they just print with a number that they hope to be unique. (It's actually quite common to have collisions in any reasonably large store.) Thus, the retailer may have replaced one UPC with a different one to ensure that both items were uniquely identifiable.
Oh, it was a joke.
Anyway, if they actually replaced one UPC with another, you'd still have 666 (if you want to call it that) on your book.
Re:Barcodes have 666 encoded on them? (Score:2)
Barcodes printed on books are Bookland code [barcodeisland.com], which is really the ISBN number of the book expressed as an EAN-13 barcode. Unless the books don't have valid ISBN numbers it is unlikely that there would be any conflicts between books.
Re:Barcodes have 666 encoded on them? (Score:2, Informative)
Data is encoded not in the color, but in the width of each bar. There are three (I think, maybe four) bar widths, narrow, medium, and wide. Three narrow bars and a wide one represent a 6. If there is no wide bar, it is not a 6.
There are four narrow bars on either end, and five
Re:Barcodes have 666 encoded on them? (Score:5, Informative)
Um, no. [snopes.com]
Gray Code (Score:2, Informative)
It appears that the encoding is Gray Code, where successive numbers only differ by one bit.
Hence:
0000 = 0
0001 = 1
0011 = 2
0010 = 3
0110 = 4
0111 = 5
0101 = 6
Re:Gray Code (Score:2)
0000 = 0
0001 = 1
0010 = 2
0011 = 3
0100 = 4
0101 = 5
0110 = 6
0111 = 7
etc
yes
Re:Gray Code (Score:2)
Oh, Puh-leeze!! (Score:5, Informative)
Please try again Mr. AC troll...
Re:Oh, Puh-leeze!! (Score:2)
Re:Oh, Puh-leeze!! (Score:2)
I think you're confusing 'FUD' with 'urban legend.'
--Jeremy
Re:Oh, Puh-leeze!! (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed. The main problem with the Mark of the Beast is that people want to yank it out of context into today's society; seeing 666s behind every bush, worrying about credit cards, tatoos and all kinds of nonsense. But the original recipients of the letter (the Christian Church scattered throughout the known world somewhere around 95 AD) would have known who 666 was. In those days, as in some societies today, it was popular to add the numbers formed from the letters in your name and make a total. So for instance, some Roman graffiti has been found which says "I love her whose name is 545." Hard for us to extrapolate but doubtless the young lady knew
Which brings us to 666. Apart from being a numerical pun (a man's name that represents a being impersonating deity but falling short), John's readers would have known that you get 666 when you add the letters together of "Nero Caesar." In Greek it adds up to 666, in Latin it comes to 616. 616 appears as a variant reading in plenty of the original manuscripts of Revelation which adds quite a lot of weight to this theory. Apocalyptical literature is hard for us to understand today but in those days it was an effective way of painting a picture using symbols and metaphors, all the while making its meaning known to those who were familiar with it. There is nothing in Revelation that would not have been unfamiliar to early Jewish Christians, steeped as they were in the old Testament. And the message they get from that passage is: "you're suffering terrible persecution from a man who thinks he's God. You all know who I mean. He is just a foreshadowing of all corrupt and evil leaders who will persecute the church throughout history. But ultimately you will overcome."
Bzzt. WRONG! (Score:2)
True...
The marker lines are "0101", "01010" and "1010" respectively, where 0 is white and 1 is black.
True...
Now, the encoding scheme is complicated, but it just so happens that "0101" if treated as data on the left hand side would decode to the digit "6". Similarly, "1010" on the r
Re:Barcodes have 666 encoded on them? (Score:2)
It's so complicted, in fact, that you don't understand it. Every digit in a UPC barcode consists of a total or 7 element widths (X) which are made up of 2 bars and 2 spaces of varying width. The left-side representation of the digit "6" is 0000101 which means a 4-wide space, a 1-wide bar, a 1-wide space, and 1-wide bar (for a total width of 7).
Using your d
Sweet Christ! (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm trying to replace my useless trivia knowledge with something more worthy of knowing. This isn't helping...
So, seriously, what's up with the barcode expose? Is it that slow of a news day?
666 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:666 (Score:2)
And just how would you take it seriously?
Does anyone remember?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Does anyone remember?? (Score:2)
Re:Does anyone remember?? (Score:2)
Have you seen the "new" Nintendo e-reader [nintendo-e-reader.com]? Original NES games encoded as 2D barcodes and emulated on the GBA.
Mark of the Beast? (Score:4, Funny)
Barcodes for DVDs Games CDs Video Games (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.mediachest.com/
*nix the mark of the beast? (Score:2, Funny)
what does it mean for a person to be able to read and write in user group world, without being able to execute?
rw-rw-rw-Barcodes go open source! (Score:2, Informative)
Info on barcodes... (Score:2)
101 != 6 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:101 != 6 (Score:2)
The code on the ends is *not* 101, neither is the code in the middle 01010. Think of it more as ternary (or maybe base 4, I'm not up on my UPC trivia) encoded in the width of the bars
Did anyone else read (Score:4, Funny)
Did anyone else read that as Andy Dick? I thought the only things andy dick did was get naked and fall down a lot.
RFID (Score:5, Informative)
BUT!!... optical scanners are expenive ($250 and up). Yet you can get a RFID USB reader [hvwtech.com] for about $60. It comes with a few premade tags. You can buy pre-signed RFID tags for less than $1.00 each, and a sheet of them can usually be run through a printer; then you could have barcodes AND RFID.
We're considering using such a system to do inventory control. Fun!
Re:RFID (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:RFID (Score:3, Interesting)
WTF are you talking about? I bought mine for $29.95. That was a few years back, but still...
Re:Cheap ones.. (Score:2)
It suported the only standard I cared about at the time (S/N barcodes on the laptops i had to keep track of), and I considered the "keyboard-wedge" interface a feature. I was having to type in piles of S/Ns a day into a couple programs, both of which expected keyboard input, and any typos caused major headaches. So keyboard wedge was ideal. YMMV
Re:RFID (Score:3, Interesting)
when they where introduced, in the mid eighties, there was about 12% inflation a year. the fact that the store was able, with barcoded articles, to increase price of articles without having to update the (no longuer present) tags on each articles permitted to finance the investement in about 6 month for a typical store.
(they buy with a certain target price, they inflate price while stock is in inventory, and they pay providers a few month after the inv
Re:RFID (Score:2)
The inflation rate for the Unites States in the year 1980 is 13.48
Re:RFID (Score:2)
CT drivers license (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:CT drivers license (Score:2, Informative)
Re:CT drivers license (Score:3, Informative)
Re:CT drivers license (Score:3, Informative)
It is possible that this won't disrupt the barcode reader at all. At my place of employment, we sell barcode card readers for security systems, and as such have to deal with the technology from time to time (incedentally, it does seem to be dying). One of the features we offer is called a masked barcode. It works on the idea that black is not always the same. For example, when prin
Obligatory crossover (Score:3, Interesting)
Messing with their heads (Score:3, Funny)
If you do nothing else, be sure to raise the hair on the heads of these unsuspecting Russian artists as they see the traffic on their server spike beyond reason or expectation...
-------------
The artsy stuff is ok .... (Score:3, Interesting)
And Now For Something Completely Different: The definitive book on barcoding is "The Bar Code Book" by Roger C. Palmer (4th ed., (c) 2001 Helmers Publ., Inc., ISBN 0-911261-13-3). How do I know so much about barcodes? Trust me - you don't want to know.
Re:The artsy stuff is ok .... (Score:2)
Barcodes have an incompatibility problem... (Score:5, Funny)
B&Q is a large DIY chain in the UK. They might be in the US, I don't know. They have a policy of only employing people over 95 years of age.
So you get to the checkout with your self install kitchen. A little old 97 year old lady has now got to try and
a) locate the barcode on each item of your self-install kitchen, containing many items that are several orders of magnitude BIGGER THAN SHE IS.
b) having located the barcode, get her scanner to it.
Re:Barcodes have an incompatibility problem... (Score:2)
Re:Barcodes have an incompatibility problem... (Score:2)
Barcode Hacking (Score:5, Interesting)
For a few years I worked for Safeway Food and Drug as a File Maintenance Clerk. I printed pricing labels and hung them on the shelves. I made price signs, applied the batches to change prices, etc.
Safeway has a system in place on the registers where certain activities require a manager with an override card. Checks of a certain amount, large voids, all kinds of stuff.
Since I worked on the computers all the time I was the one who changed the message on the bottom of receipt tapes- with the manager name- when we got a new manager. One day I'm moving around in the file that contained that information and I find all these long numbers in one location. They were all the managers override numbers.
Here's where the barcode part comes in. I wanted my own over ride card. I went into the software I used to print price labels and took a single record and changed the UPC of a product on the label to an override number. When I printed the label- the barcode in the corner for ordering now read the override number.
I cut the barcode part out, peeled the back and stuck it to a card I carried in my wallet. Now any time I needed an override I could just scan that card over the register scanner.
On a side note- I called company security and told them that all the manager codes were in plain text where anyone could see them in the machine. They told me it was o.k. because noone would ever look there. Kind of funny. It is probably still that way.
OT: "Abbey Road" (Score:3, Informative)
Disclaimer: I do have links with people there, and yes it is a nice place to hang out (it's still the best place to record the soundtrack for big movies such as Star Wars, LoTR, etc).
bizare != art (Score:2, Insightful)
You know, I'm completely fed up with shit getting dressed up as art. Paint thrown at a canvas- it's just paint, thrown at a canvas. A bathroom sink, dragged out of a dump, is just a effin' sink, dragged out of a dump. I've seen both gussied up as "art", and it's not- it's a no-good, washed out artist, who couldn't think up something creative, got desperate to put the meal on the
Re:bizare != art (Score:2)
Re:bizare != art (Score:2)
Looking good != art. If that were true, then water world woudl be art. Despite the fact that the movie sucked ass.
Re:bizare != art (Score:3, Insightful)
That's pretty much post-modernism by definition, isn't it?
Re:bizare != art (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/artartists/artart
By that definition, the barcodes (and the sink) are art. I think you underestimate the amount of art in our world, and simultaneously overvalue your concept of an artist. I personally don't find any reward in looking at a Van Gogh or a Monet, but I can lose myself in an Ansel Adams picture, and all he did was press a button, right?(it took a long time for photography to be considered "art") We each have tastes, and we each value certain things as art or not. And in someone's opinion, we're wrong.
Re:bizare != art (Score:2)
The stockcode of the beast (Score:2, Funny)
It's in the bones ... the bones never lie (Score:3, Interesting)
My title to the post makes me think of shamen. Shamen throw bones to tell fortunes and future events. In the Bible they cast urem and thumen to determine selection of elders and clerics. I wonder if either of those are TRUELY read like barcodes or whether Shamen and Biblical figures made things up to suit the task at hand or the situation.
I had turned my name into a barcode a long time ago after watching THX 1138. They all had barcodes on them that told their names. I have my barcode printed onto a laminated card in my wallet. If I can think of it, I scan it in different stores. If read by a Walmart Barcode scanner I am a bouncy ball from the toy department 99cents.
Best "Third Rock" joke ever (Score:4, Funny)
Harry: Great. I was at the grocery store and... watch this: [holds up a can of corn] fat skinny skinny fat fat skinny fat skinny... $2.49. I cracked the bar code!
Sally: Good work!
Re:Best "Third Rock" joke ever (Score:2)
How Barcodes Work (Score:3, Interesting)
Jennifer Government (Score:2)
An exerpt follows:
"Welcome to paradise! The world is run by American corporations (except for a few deluded holdouts like the French); taxes are illegal; employees take the last names of the companies they work for; the Police and the NRA are publicly-traded security firms; and the U.S. government only investigates crimes it can bill for.
Hack Nike is a Merchandising Officer who discovers an al
Barcode Books (Score:2)
Couldn't find it, I wanted to estimate the size of a Linux distro in Paperbyte form. Ow!
Good steganography (Score:2)
But I suspect that after you send the first 2400 pictures of steamy windows to your partner, the authorities will start investigating.
Re:Summary inaccurate ... (Score:2)
So has your reasoning skills. [oberlin.edu]
Re:UPC really universal (Score:4, Interesting)
As I understand it-- there is a newer standard with longer barcodes and europe has moved to it but the u.s. still uses the older UPCs.
Re:UPC really universal (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:My cat is a troll. (Score:2, Funny)
Then there would be a chip inside the cat, that belongs to the Chip inside the Cat.
Re:Barcodes (Score:2)
Re:So wouldn't it be interesting if... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ridiculous... (Score:2)
Re:You'd like my license plate (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The sign of the beast (Score:2)
Re:The sign of the beast (Score:2)
Re:fscking with barcodes? go to jail for theft/fra (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Bar Code! The Ubiquitous Bar Code! (Score:2)
Re:ex-scouser (Score:2)