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On Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:35:01 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>>> Would they actually bother for 21p?
>>
>> They'd probably fine you if they noticed it.
>>
>>> Now, if I wrote an automated program to print these stamps and posted
>>> it on the Internet... *then* they might have a case. :-P
>>
>> That would certainly raise your visibility, yes. But breaking the law
>> is breaking the law, and when one does it one has to be prepared for
>> the consequences. Thinking "yes, it's illegal but they won't care/will
>> never catch me" - well, the prisons here (and there) are filled with
>> people who thought that way.
>
> Theoretically, if I pick up one of the pens at work and take it home
> with me, that's theft.
>
> Is my employer going to care?
>
> I doubt it...
>
> (And a pen costs significantly more than a stamp.)
I have worked for employers who did care about pens going home with
employees.
It's a risk analysis, but as I said, the prisons are full of people who
thought they could "get away with it" and were wrong.
Jim
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Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> Bar codes. They're little bunches of black lines which can be read by a
> scanner. Right?
>
> Hahaha, well... it turns out there are actually a miriad of different
> kinds. And they're ALL COMPLETELY DIFFERENT to each other.
>
My Android phone has an app that does a bar code scanner that can eventually
look up the product it scans online to see who sells it for what. I've found
prices for things when looking up some very boring, unimportant things when I
tested it around the house. It has however failed me twice in computer stores
when I was hurriedly trying to find out if the price were right. I quickly
scanned one of the five or six bar codes on the box and it never worked. Maybe
some of these were about the UPS shipping or inventory. I never found the store
product UPC.
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gregjohn schrieb:
> My Android phone has an app that does a bar code scanner that can eventually
> look up the product it scans online to see who sells it for what. I've found
> prices for things when looking up some very boring, unimportant things when I
> tested it around the house. It has however failed me twice in computer stores
> when I was hurriedly trying to find out if the price were right. I quickly
> scanned one of the five or six bar codes on the box and it never worked. Maybe
> some of these were about the UPS shipping or inventory. I never found the store
> product UPC.
It seems to me they don't bother about UPC-A (or EAN-13) codes except
for products typically sold at supermarkets and other high-volume
low-margin retailers.
I can imagine that it doesn't pay off for e.g. manufacturers in the
computing industry to apply for a company code, as the customers have a
strong say in what products a shop will carry (at least for the products
the store will make the real money with), so the retailers have
difficulties trying to threaten the manufacturers with boycotting their
products. And most retailers will not really bother too much either, as
the handling expenses are low compared to the margin.
Supermarkets, on the other hand, are strongly motivated to keep handling
costs to a minimum, and it won't hurt them much if they refused to carry
a certain brand of toothpaste.
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http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2009/10/09/what-does-that-barcode-say/
FAIL.
Altough... now I can *print* barcodes. (Just not *read* them.)
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Invisible wrote:
> Interesting fact: I actually have a barcode scanner here. Specifically,
> our tape robot has a barcode scanner. We've never used it, but
> apparently our Director of IT has suddenly decided that we're going to.
> In a few days' time I should have a stack of preprinted barcode labels.
OK, so I now have several sheets of barcode labels.
What I can't figure out is which symbiology they use. Consider, for
example, the label for "UKM11001L3". If 1=black and 0=white, we have
[...000]101101101001010101001101101100101011010110101001011010
11011001010101101100101011010100101101101010010110100101011
011011001010101101101010100110101101101001[000...]
This doesn't seem to match anything Wolfram Alpha can come up with:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=barcode+UKM11001L3
None of these barcodes start with the distinctive two thin bars framing
two thick bars ("...01011011010..."). I have no idea what barcode type
this is...
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On 10/23/2009 8:58 AM, Invisible wrote:
> OK, so I now have several sheets of barcode labels.
>
> What I can't figure out is which symbiology they use. Consider, for
> example, the label for "UKM11001L3". If 1=black and 0=white, we have
>
> [...000]101101101001010101001101101100101011010110101001011010
> 11011001010101101100101011010100101101101010010110100101011
> 011011001010101101101010100110101101101001[000...]
>
> This doesn't seem to match anything Wolfram Alpha can come up with:
>
> http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=barcode+UKM11001L3
>
> None of these barcodes start with the distinctive two thin bars framing
> two thick bars ("...01011011010..."). I have no idea what barcode type
> this is...
Why not upload a scan of the barcode?
Mike
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SharkD wrote:
> Why not upload a scan of the barcode?
I'd need a scanner to do that.
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Invisible wrote:
> SharkD wrote:
>
>> Why not upload a scan of the barcode?
>
> I'd need a scanner to do that.
A camera will do too.
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Invisible schrieb:
> OK, so I now have several sheets of barcode labels.
>
> What I can't figure out is which symbiology they use. Consider, for
> example, the label for "UKM11001L3". If 1=black and 0=white, we have
>
> [...000]101101101001010101001101101100101011010110101001011010
> 11011001010101101100101011010100101101101010010110100101011
> 011011001010101101101010100110101101101001[000...]
>
> This doesn't seem to match anything Wolfram Alpha can come up with:
>
> http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=barcode+UKM11001L3
>
> None of these barcodes start with the distinctive two thin bars framing
> two thick bars ("...01011011010..."). I have no idea what barcode type
> this is...
Now if you think that those three barcodes on the Wolfram page are all
the world has to offer...
http://www.herdsoft.com/ti/davinci4/examples/barcodecgi.cgi is convinced
that it is a "Code 39" (aka "Code 3 of 9") barcode, and indeed correctly
reads it as "UKM11001L3".
Closer analysis of your barcode pattern shows that your barcode indeed
appears to be Code 39, but flipped horizontally for some reason (which
of course should not matter to a barcode reader).
BTW, Wolfram is doing a poor job at generating Code 39 barcodes, as it
uses different bar widths for the "frame" than for the "payload".
(The Code 39 frame is usually interpreted as a leading and trailing
asterisk (*) character, as it uses the same bar sequence.)
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>> This doesn't seem to match anything Wolfram Alpha can come up with:
>>
>> http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=barcode+UKM11001L3
>>
>> None of these barcodes start with the distinctive two thin bars
>> framing two thick bars ("...01011011010..."). I have no idea what
>> barcode type this is...
>
> Now if you think that those three barcodes on the Wolfram page are all
> the world has to offer...
There don't appear to be many bacode types that handle text. Many handle
only numbers.
> http://www.herdsoft.com/ti/davinci4/examples/barcodecgi.cgi is convinced
> that it is a "Code 39" (aka "Code 3 of 9") barcode, and indeed correctly
> reads it as "UKM11001L3".
Really? (I can't even tell what language that page is in.)
> Closer analysis of your barcode pattern shows that your barcode indeed
> appears to be Code 39, but flipped horizontally for some reason (which
> of course should not matter to a barcode reader).
My word... That *does* in fact appear to match. I hadn't noticed that!
> BTW, Wolfram is doing a poor job at generating Code 39 barcodes, as it
> uses different bar widths for the "frame" than for the "payload".
>
> (The Code 39 frame is usually interpreted as a leading and trailing
> asterisk (*) character, as it uses the same bar sequence.)
I especially love the way the bar widths don't appear to be multiples of
each other. I almost wonder if the image has been scaled down by
rounding each bar to a whole number of pixels, so some "thin" bars are 3
pixels and some are 4... It's very districting!
Indeed, clicking on "PDF" and enlarging the image seems to make the
problem go away... How annoying!
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