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Bar Coding The World Away
778790 writes "The Bar Code, long used for inventory classification and sometimes feared as a tool of social engineering, has been regulated in the name of globalization, and the globe has defeated the United States. Bar Codes in America will now have more digits, to match the global bar code standard: the European Article Numbering Code."
This would last forever and be able to migrate through other technologies, such as RFID.
Wal-Mart has been running with 13-digit codes for almost forever now. Amazon does likewise.
To the best of my knowledge, I don't know anyone that works with strictly 12-digit codes on any mass level. Perhaps it's just the mom&pop shops with their possibly custom software that runs with 12-digits only.
Next up, metres and kilogrammes (you can spell them American if you really want).
BTW who assigns barcode numbers and do they reap huge financial rewards from performing such a task?
Peace
Just a nit, but one that happens to affect me greatly. The reality is that the people printing and/or applying the barcodes are the packaging operations. They typically understand very little. For some odd reason, the UPC standard prints the check digit in the interpretation (the human readable part of the barcode). Why is this an issue? Because one of the common mistakes operators make is to enter the entire code, including the check digit. So there are twelve digits when we were expecting eleven. Did they fat finger an extra character or enter the check digit?
We've tried a few different ways over the years to insure the right number of characters, including forcing eleven by cropping, forcing eleven by not allowing entry (no good if the table is a linked one and the entry is outside of our software) or allowing 11 or 12 and checking the checksum if there are twelve. All this matters because the equipment used to print the barcode typcially generates the check digit on its own, and the different manufacturers handle excess digits in several different ways.
The new standard now says we have three choices: 11,12 or 13. What do we do now? I'm not expecting an answer, because in the end we have to balance all the considerations and make Hobson's choice.
I'm not even going to go into the major US corporation whose database consists of 10,11 or 12 digit UPC codes, because in the beginning, that first digit was always the same, so why waste space on it?
Just goes to show you that when volume and/or speed increases, everything gets complicated (except rock).
Motorcycle racing, actually Ive never hurt myself in a race , only in dorking around in practice and nearly all have been due to mechanical failure. In addition to my mentioned head injuries, I've broken my elbow, wrist, 10 ribs (at various times of course) my jaw, my right foot (twice) a couple of fingers and toes and had my knees so tore up I'm 33 and looking at knee replacments (actually I should say looking forward to then the damm things wont hurt anymore)
But its all been worth it, I've had a blast Ive been racing since I was 9 , first Junior MX, Then by 14 Flat Track, then I got into Road Racing and I'm still doing it, although in the last 2 years I've raced Vintage, probably will till I croak, Ive actually thought SERIOUSLY about doing the Isle of Man TT, but I havent had a sponsor (other than contingency sponsors) since I was 18
Metric is actively discouraged by the government. It's done under the guise of promoting it, and it's quite subtle.
For example, there'a sign on I-87 in NY which reads:
Montreal 300 miles (482.8 km)
There is no sign 50 miles later that says:
Montreal 400 km (248.5 miles)
so, you see, Imperial is easy, Metric is hard.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Well, that doesn't HAVE to be true...unless a transaction that is taking place involves SS taxable income,etc, you do NOT have to give your SS#, and I pretty much do not.
Sure it is inconvenient, but, it can be done. When I wanted a cell phone, or ordered new cable service...I refused to give my SS#. In the case of the cell phone, they were just using it to run a credit check...and I want as few of those run as possible as that it can affect your credit rating, but, I digress. I had to give them something like a $200 deposit, and got signed up. I think I got the deposit sent back to me less than a year later.
I had a hassle at a company I worked for once...I refused to let the company's insurance have my SS...I told them to generate a new ID for me...after a little bitching...they gave me one. Thankfully, it is getting alittle easier to avoid giving the SS these days...due to people understanding identity theft being a problem (I've had mine stolen 3 times).
Not to mention the fact, it is a horrible number for a unique identifier from a database viewpoint. It cannot be counted on to be unique....the numbers are recycled...you cannot count on everyone HAVING one...and you cannot count on them being exactly 9 digits...many foreign national guests of the military are given special 'SS' numbers...that have extra digits to identify them as special...etc.
So, just because someone asks for it, you don't have to give it......and you should not!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
You know, there are many long-continued misunderstandings of the bible and within the bible itself, and the whole "666" thing is one of them (the former category). It's not three sixes. It's chi-xi-digamma. The greek counting system used their alphabet. Instead of having a set of only 10 numbers total and having the ordering determine significant digits such as we do, they assigned 10 numbers for the 1s digit, another 10 for the 10s digit, another 10 for the 100s, etc. And, instead of having separate characters as we do, they used their alphabet (in addition to some discontinued alphabetic characters, such as the digamma). So, the mark of the beast isn't three identical sixes; it is both a specific number (six hundred sixty and six) and a name (chi-xi-digamma).
Other common misunderstandings: "Lucifer" (Lux+Ferre = Light Bringer) is not Satan; the phrase is "a ROPE through the eye of a needle" (camelis != camel!!!); there is linguistic confusion over whether Mary was a virgin (neanis vs. parthenos, alma vs. bethusaleh, etc; there's also some evidence that parthenos did not carry its modern connotation); etc
"If there was an antonym to 'Elon Musk', it would be 'Richard Branson'."