What is Digg?123 Comments
- a12k, on 10/10/2007, -3/+51Now make your own bar code here: http://www.waspbarcode.com/software/barcode_maker.asp
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -4/+34pretty good. i always wondered what most of the barcode meant. i checked to see which one my big gulp had and and sure enough 'Used on small items like cans of soda, cigarettes, and candy.'
- griz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+22How does 5 digits count for enough manufacturer IDs? There have to be more than 99,999 manufacturers out there who use bar codes.
- Gatesophile, on 10/10/2007, -1/+18So unoriginal though. Lots of people have gotten the barcode done. Although, those probably don't mean anything, while yours would be your name, but still.
- Hollywood, on 10/10/2007, -1/+17The EAN style is used for products. The first two numbers are country of origin, then the manufacturer and then the product id and finsally a check digit.
There are also special codes used to encode product, price and weight in a barcode. Yes I do have a life but work with barcodes as part of my work with supermarkets. - repairman, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11You should also know that when working with barcodes, it's important to have a proper amount of white-space on each side of the barcode. I've had issues in the past where not enough white-space makes the barcodes unreadable by a scanner.
- Pix869, on 10/10/2007, -2/+12You'll have to keep wondering, because I don't trust this site. They posted a picture of Missingno where the pic of a data matrix is supposed to be.
- brownspank, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10Actually, it's more like Morse code. There are certain patterns of thick and thin bars that make up the different numbers.
- jayssite, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9Oh right, never mind then, I guess there are enough IDs.
- squelart, on 10/10/2007, -3/+12Why do people always forget zero? 5 digits allow for 100,000 numbers, not 99,999.
- PersonX2, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8I did a show-and-tell speech on bar-codes in college...needless to say, most people didn't find it as interesting as I did, I got a lot of blank, spaced-out stares. I even explained how the check character is calculated (which this article doesn't go into, unfortunately.)
- MeMongo, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9They left off PDF-417 which is a 2D bar code developed by Symbol. It is commonly used on Driver's Licenses (Florida uses them) and other identification because it uses a lot of error correction and can store a lot of data in a relatively small space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF417 - binorgog, on 08/07/2008, -0/+8I still want an exact reproduction of the bar code sku for Malibu Barbie on my wrist, just so I could go to Target, and freak out cashiers.
- theholycow, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7CueCat works great.
- vs292, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8Reminds me of a certain Eidos character.
EDIT: Damnit, this was meant to be in response to Andrew. I think I just proved that I'm too stupid for Digg, which is saying something. - Anand999, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6The manufacturer ID is 6 digits. The "Number System Character" is considered part of that ID. So it's really 1,000,000 possible manufacturers.
- Hauk2004, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6I work in a supermarket and even I didn't know how they worked until now.
Top Tip: if your not sure of the price of something, or if the label is somewhere else on the shelf, compare the last three digits of the barcode on the product to the last three on the barcode on the shelf.
We have to do it all the time to make sure the prices are the same. Plus now this saves you asking people like me what the price of something is ;) - Azimuth1, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Which manufacturer has the ID 00001?
- Cyber_Akuma, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5The first couple of ids were most likely reserved for testing/internal purposes.
- crazymonkey1, on 10/10/2007, -3/+7Dug for usefulness.
- VeganG, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4The cool thing about the Left Hand bars and the Right Hand bars is that it enables a barcode to be scanned upside down, and it'll still work fine.
- jhaks, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4The price isn't encoded in the bar code (except for books since there's some law I think). The bar code encodes what item it is which is looked up in the stores database.
- squegie, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4This is better than email spamming. At least if we mark "return to sender" on something sent out from that company, they remove me from the list. The cost of the letters cause a sort of self-regulation. I really get a good ratio of "real" mail to junk mail. Unfortunately, the bulk of my real mail is bills. I wonder if I should mark those "return to sender" as well?
- thoughtudied999, on 10/10/2007, -3/+7Just proof that digg is made up of a bunch of pompous asses. They knew exactly what he meant, but because he accidentally misused one word, they dugg him down.
- dacheetah, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3If you had read the comments, someone has already posted a link to snopes which describes how the long "guard" lines are similar to a 6, which would make the longs alone 666, if they actually were sixes.
Also, it's not every single barcode, it's only the ones that have 3 sets of "long" lines that happen to be similar to the code for 6. (Which covers most of the barcodes used for buying and selling things, which is what the mark of beast was supposed to be related to anyway.) - bossm4n, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3If this is art, then so is Velvet Elvis and Dogs Playing Poker.
- schotty, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Why is this dude getting dugg down? The new barcode system (DataMatrix) and RFID are vastly more useful and better than the old school barcodes.
- Philluminati, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5I used to work for a mailing house that sent out thousands of junk mail every day (sorry! i need the money and experience) and we used to print barcodes on letters so when they were returned as undeliverable we could scan them to update our records quickly. We used the customer number to generate the barcode text and checksum and then put the barcode text under a barcode font and viola!
- CLShortFuse, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3You want usefullness? How about a barcode font?
http://www.idautomation.com/fonts/free/#Download_Free_Barcode_Font - tadarnold, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3The 3 guard bars at beginning, middle, and end (the longer lines) appear to be the same spacing as the digit "6". But really, they are not.
http://www.av1611.org/666/barcode.html - Lane, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3"fat bar, skinny bar,fat bar, skinny bar, skinny bar, fat bar. $4.99"
- crackintosh, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Buried without a reason, or even reading the article? If you don't care, than move on, don't bury. I personally thought it was interesting and don't care what you think, who the hell are you?
F off! - Phearce, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4The width of the black bars and the width of the white space is relevant in determining the number. Additionally, all of the numbers/symbols represented in the code are designed so that they are unique in terms of reading from the left/right. That is, if the bar code is read "upside down" the orientation of the code can be determined, and the content reversed so as to maintain the code's correct order.
- mgrucker, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2What's with the free post cards? That's just a little bit creepy I think...
- Cyber_Akuma, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2On one hand, I am happy I wasn't the only person thinking of that scene from Third Rock from the Sun.
On the other hand, the fact that I remembered that scene makes me feel like a dork. - Balanced, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2You need to read the article... They mention UPS's matrix barcode.
- wakkow, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2In the graphic, the left and right-hand bars look the same. What differentiates the left and right sides?
- PersonX2, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3http://www.csensors.com/modulo.html How the Modulo check character is calculated.
- chubbybubba, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2This is great to know for when the govt starts using them on us.
- heaintheavy, on 10/10/2007, -6/+8Oh, Christ.
- MrSidnet, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Okay, so how do I make one, stick it on a product at Wallmart, and give myself really good sale prices?
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2You probably already carry a barcode around w/ your name in it. It's on you driver's license!
- Flipperbw, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2what is this all about?
- jamesvaughn, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I bet our chip implants in a few years will be based on this.
- inetiatic, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1qft
- merreborn, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Barcodes are pretty strict on the white:black ratio. It probably wouldn't work if you just did black ink on skin. You'd have to paint your wrist white first, or something.
The ink'll blur and stretch over time too, so even if you resolve the white:black ratio issue, your barcode will still be unreadable in 10 years. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I'll need this to fight against the New World Order when they start put these on people's skin.FOLLOW FREEMAN.
- VeganG, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I don't know, I always chalked it up to magic. It does work, though; we use barcodes at work.
- merreborn, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1No it doesn't. I've been working in the book software industry for years. BTW, this page lists ISBN as its own barcode. It's not. An "ISBN barcode" is just EAN13 -- specifically, an EAN13 encoding of the ISBN 13, which is just an ISBN prefixed by the "bookland" region code 978, with the checkdigit recalculated. The last 5 digits, in the 18 digit example on the site, is used to encode pricing data. Sometimes, wholesalers or textbook stores will stick a sticker over the final 5 digit section (or the first 3 digits) to indicate a special code indicating that a book is new or used, but this is *not* in the ISBN or EAN specs.
The only data you could possibly extract from an ISBN10, is the region in which the book was published, and the publisher (assuming you had a database of publisher ISBN range allocations).
It's true that the publisher assigns a different ISBN to the paperback and hardcover editions of a book, but without knowing ahead of time whether a specific ISBN is for a hardcover, there's no way to know. There is no "hardcover bit" in the ISBN. - ScottBlake, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1It is just Mail-Art. Nothing to get creeped out over.
-
Show 51 - 100 of 117 discussions
Digg is coming to a city (and computer) near you! Check out all the details on our 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is