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How Barcodes Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's your old pel Josh. Sorry to cut in,
0:04
Speaker 1: but just for a second, I'm wanting to let you
0:06
Speaker 1: know that I'm doing my solo live show, The End
0:10
Speaker 1: of the World or How I Learned to Start Worrying
0:13
Speaker 1: and Love Humanity in Minneapolis and in d C. On June.
0:18
Speaker 1: I'll be in Minneapolis at the Parkway Theater and you
0:22
Speaker 1: can get tickets by going to the Parkway Theater dot com.
0:25
Speaker 1: The next night, June, I'll be in Washington, d C,
0:29
Speaker 1: our Nation's capital, to bring the good word to our
0:33
Speaker 1: nation's capital. I'll be there at the Miracle Theater and
0:35
Speaker 1: you can get tickets to that one at the Miracle
0:38
Speaker 1: Theater dot com. Thanks a lot for coming to see me.
0:41
Speaker 1: I'll see you this June. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
0:45
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
0:54
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's
0:56
Speaker 1: Charles W Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there, and this
0:59
Speaker 1: is Stuff you Should Know. Barcodes. Give me some bar codes.
1:06
Speaker 1: I love them bar codes. Blah. Do you like bar
1:11
Speaker 1: codes too? Um? Sure, I'm I'm I'm feigning geeking out
1:18
Speaker 1: because I think bar codes are cool, But I'm not
1:20
Speaker 1: like a barcode nerd. No, But it is interesting that
1:23
Speaker 1: like how much of our how much we take them
1:26
Speaker 1: for granted, and how they're everywhere, and after you listen
1:30
Speaker 1: to this or we research this, you probably start noticing
1:34
Speaker 1: them and being like, what secrets lie within you? Exactly
1:37
Speaker 1: a little black things and spaces in between. Well, hopefully
1:40
Speaker 1: if they listen to this, they won't have any questions
1:43
Speaker 1: like that they'll know all the barcode secrets. Well sure,
1:46
Speaker 1: I hope, Yeah, we'll find out. We'll see. So, like
1:52
Speaker 1: you said, bar codes are absolutely everywhere, and it is
1:54
Speaker 1: one of those things where you like, there's one, Oh
1:56
Speaker 1: my gosh, there's one. There's one over there. Like if
1:58
Speaker 1: you work at a company, turn your computer over, guarantee
2:01
Speaker 1: there's a bar code underneath. There's bar codes all over
2:03
Speaker 1: the place, right, there's one on your forehead. There is
2:06
Speaker 1: I gotta tattoo this morning just for this episode. Wasn't
2:09
Speaker 1: it in a movie? I feel like, um, future world
2:13
Speaker 1: where we all have barcodes? Was the government to put
2:16
Speaker 1: him on our next Oh? Maybe it was the Apple
2:20
Speaker 1: add It was the Apple ad was probably I know
2:24
Speaker 1: exactly what you're talking about I can see a guy
2:26
Speaker 1: with the shaved head in a suit with a bar
2:29
Speaker 1: code on the back of his neck. All right, well,
2:30
Speaker 1: I think there's people yelling at their radio right now, right,
2:34
Speaker 1: so they're every radio, they're on your computer, they're on
2:36
Speaker 1: guys next, they're on the computer or on the radio. Um,
2:41
Speaker 1: and they're actually not that old of an invention. Let
2:46
Speaker 1: me rephrase that, chuck. They are exactly as old as
2:50
Speaker 1: you would imagine them to be, right, which is uh,
2:54
Speaker 1: if you thought about it. This is one of those
2:56
Speaker 1: things where if you ask someone, they probably able by
3:00
Speaker 1: stopped talking, if you gave a little bit of thought,
3:02
Speaker 1: you might think of the other half of what makes
3:04
Speaker 1: a barcode necessary or able to be used, which is
3:08
Speaker 1: the laser. And that was the big reveal. Well, they
3:12
Speaker 1: can't have preceded the laser. It kind of did, actually though.
3:17
Speaker 1: Well yeah, sure the idea, but it took them in
3:19
Speaker 1: concert to actually do anything worthwhile, right exactly. Um, basically,
3:25
Speaker 1: we're both just a couple of lumps and put us
3:27
Speaker 1: together and we took off like the UPC code protocol.
3:32
Speaker 1: So so um back, let's let's let's set the scene,
3:38
Speaker 1: shall we. All right, are we way back in it here. Sure,
3:41
Speaker 1: all right, Jerry, Thank you, Jerry. Jerry launched us. So. Um,
3:54
Speaker 1: when you think about bar codes, you think grocery store typically, right,
3:59
Speaker 1: I think anything, Sure, I think grocery store. I think
4:02
Speaker 1: anything you can anywhere you can buy something or yeah, okay,
4:06
Speaker 1: that's much more dead on. But mine makes sense too,
4:09
Speaker 1: because it was in the grocery store that the whole
4:12
Speaker 1: issue of bar codes, the whole reason we have bar
4:15
Speaker 1: codes to begin with, really began because it used to
4:18
Speaker 1: be a genuine, bona fide mess going to the grocery store. Yeah.
4:25
Speaker 1: I mean, and this was back when people weren't even
4:26
Speaker 1: in a hurry. Um yeah, imagine now, like my mom
4:30
Speaker 1: was a uh cashier at Kroger in the nineteen sixties.
4:36
Speaker 1: So she has remarked about how fast she was typing
4:40
Speaker 1: in those numbers, and now people like going through her
4:42
Speaker 1: line because she was just brew right, she was typing
4:47
Speaker 1: in those numbers. Is the key here? Yeah? But no,
4:50
Speaker 1: I mean there is no Well we haven't done the
4:53
Speaker 1: John Henry test. Maybe maybe Diane was so fast it's
4:57
Speaker 1: she could beat the laser, especially these days, because you know,
5:01
Speaker 1: sometimes it seems like they can take longer when they
5:05
Speaker 1: scan it and scan it and scan it and then
5:07
Speaker 1: type in the tiny number. Right, But your mom may
5:09
Speaker 1: have been an anomaly. For the most part. If you
5:12
Speaker 1: went and checked out in a line at a grocery store,
5:16
Speaker 1: you had to wait way longer than you do these days,
5:19
Speaker 1: because it wasn't Chuck's mom it was checking you out.
5:22
Speaker 1: It was some other person who to lift up the
5:24
Speaker 1: can't find the price label on it, type in the price,
5:29
Speaker 1: type in the tax, and then pick up the next
5:32
Speaker 1: thing and do the same thing. Heaven forbid that sticker
5:36
Speaker 1: fell off, yes, or they got over price. Check on
5:41
Speaker 1: Aisle seven earl and see what the Alpa costs. So
5:45
Speaker 1: you've got that problem, right if it goes on sale.
5:48
Speaker 1: That's another thing too that you have to go through
5:51
Speaker 1: and relabel all those cants. Right, So that's where you
5:54
Speaker 1: got the price was. It was labeled by some guy
5:57
Speaker 1: with a gun. Remember that movie Oh God would John
6:00
Speaker 1: Denver and George Burns. I always whenever I hear of
6:03
Speaker 1: a dude like pricing um something in a supermarket with
6:06
Speaker 1: a price, That's what I think of it that I
6:09
Speaker 1: think the first scene where he meets God, Yeah he
6:12
Speaker 1: was a supermarket manager, right, yeah, he was so um.
6:16
Speaker 1: That's how the price got on there. That was one
6:18
Speaker 1: problem that you had hand labeling prices and then hand
6:22
Speaker 1: typing it in. But there's also the key of inventory.
6:26
Speaker 1: The only way to tell how much stuff you had
6:28
Speaker 1: in a store at any given time was to go
6:31
Speaker 1: through and count everything in the store and in the
6:34
Speaker 1: back room, and then you would know what you needed
6:37
Speaker 1: to order. So supermarkets were frequently out of stuff. The
6:41
Speaker 1: lines were very long. It was a nightmare unless your
6:44
Speaker 1: mom was the cashier, which is one reason why barcodes
6:49
Speaker 1: were first invented and adopted into grocery stores, because it
6:52
Speaker 1: became so clear so early on that they could solve
6:55
Speaker 1: this enormous problem in one fell swoop if they could
6:58
Speaker 1: only get a system in place that perfected it. Yeah.
7:01
Speaker 1: So in the thirties there was a guy who wrote
7:04
Speaker 1: a thesis paper at HAVID named Wallace flint Um where
7:08
Speaker 1: he invented an automated grocery system with punch cards and
7:12
Speaker 1: flow wrecks and such. Didn't really take off, but it
7:15
Speaker 1: was an interesting precursor. I think anytime you have punch
7:18
Speaker 1: cards involved, it's not gonna take off, right unless that's
7:21
Speaker 1: how we vote in this country, um, and you see
7:25
Speaker 1: how that worked out. So flash forward Philadelphia in the
7:29
Speaker 1: nineteen forties. That was a grocery store manager who was
7:32
Speaker 1: like Josh, he was pretty upset and riled up about
7:35
Speaker 1: time and how long it's all taking and running out
7:38
Speaker 1: of stuff. And he went to Drexel. Uh, I guess
7:43
Speaker 1: it's dressed Drexel University Now was a Drexel? I t
7:46
Speaker 1: back then? Or was it? Two different? Things? Could be offshoot?
7:49
Speaker 1: Maybe there are copycats. All right, we'll like, yeah, we're
7:52
Speaker 1: in Drexel too. I looked at their mascot. By the way,
7:55
Speaker 1: they're the Dragons, specifically their mascot that dresses up for
8:00
Speaker 1: basketball games as Mario the Magnificent. Huh, it's a little
8:05
Speaker 1: odd for a dragon. Yeah, he's he's named after. Apparently
8:08
Speaker 1: they're like oldest basketball fan or something. Okay, that makes sense.
8:11
Speaker 1: Sure what happens to be a dragon? Anything? Rao dragons. So,
8:15
Speaker 1: like I said, can you help me Drexel? I need
8:20
Speaker 1: help because I'm a grocery store managers taken forever. The
8:23
Speaker 1: dean said, no, no, not really. But there was a
8:26
Speaker 1: student there, a grad student name Bob Silver, who's stuck
8:31
Speaker 1: that in his pocket. As they say, walked away and
8:33
Speaker 1: went to his friend who who was a grad of
8:35
Speaker 1: Drexel name Joe Woodland, because I guess he knew Joe
8:38
Speaker 1: was the man for ideas like this. And Woodland said, yeah,
8:43
Speaker 1: I think, uh, I think we could come up with something.
8:45
Speaker 1: He said, we're in Philadelphia, let's go down to Miami
8:48
Speaker 1: Beach and think about this. Yeah, because years from now
8:51
Speaker 1: that's where the I smell will be dreamed up. It
8:54
Speaker 1: was Miami Beach too, That's why it seemed familiar, it
8:56
Speaker 1: wasn't it. Yeah, it seemed familiar to me, and I
8:58
Speaker 1: was like, wait a minute, Oh that's right. So the
9:00
Speaker 1: I smell and the UPC symbol we're both dreamed up
9:04
Speaker 1: on Miami Beach and to life crew. Um. So yeah,
9:08
Speaker 1: Apparently he goes to the beach starts dreaming of like
9:11
Speaker 1: Morse code. Basically, what he's trying to figure out is
9:14
Speaker 1: what can we use to represent like the price and
9:18
Speaker 1: like the stock number. That's really what they were trying
9:21
Speaker 1: to boil it down to use. If you have that
9:23
Speaker 1: in one little component, then then that can be scanned
9:30
Speaker 1: and exactly, um it could be scanned, it could be
9:35
Speaker 1: um typed in. However, you need to do it, but
9:37
Speaker 1: it could bring up a lot more information and you
9:39
Speaker 1: could do it a lot faster because it could tell
9:41
Speaker 1: you things like there's only two left, you better order, right,
9:44
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. So, like you said, he figured
9:47
Speaker 1: out Morse code. He was kind of inspired on Miami
9:50
Speaker 1: Beach to use Morse code. But then something really weird happened.
9:53
Speaker 1: He types some lines and some dots, typed with his fingers, um,
9:59
Speaker 1: and the sand in the hand, typed in the sand,
10:01
Speaker 1: and then he just pulled his fingers downward in the
10:05
Speaker 1: sand and turned him into lines. I figured he was
10:08
Speaker 1: drunk or something maybe, so I just kind of he
10:10
Speaker 1: was slurring his sand line right, And um, that was
10:15
Speaker 1: the beginning of the first u PC symbol. And it
10:18
Speaker 1: was way different than what you would think because what
10:21
Speaker 1: they ended up coming up with was not just lines
10:23
Speaker 1: like we see today, but circles concentric concentric circles like
10:27
Speaker 1: a bull's eye. Yeah, it looks like uh, it looks
10:30
Speaker 1: like a record like an LP Yeah. Basically, Um, so
10:35
Speaker 1: that was it. Like if this was the movie, And
10:38
Speaker 1: after all, they made a movie about Winchell wipers with
10:41
Speaker 1: Greg Kenear, So why hasn't this been made I don't know.
10:45
Speaker 1: That would be the moment where he draws those lines
10:47
Speaker 1: in the sand and like a halo glows around them
10:50
Speaker 1: and like two live crew starts playing back. Then How
11:00
Speaker 1: great would that be? Um? So yeah, that's where it
11:03
Speaker 1: was born. Uh, those two dudes, Woolen and Silver, they
11:06
Speaker 1: came up with a machine because that was kind of
11:09
Speaker 1: the problem. It's like, great, we figured out this barcode thing,
11:12
Speaker 1: but it's useless unless you had a reader. And their
11:15
Speaker 1: reader was huge and expensive and heavy and dangerous. It
11:19
Speaker 1: sounds like it was like the size of a desk,
11:21
Speaker 1: and back then desks were really big. That's like says
11:24
Speaker 1: of a bus today. They also used in a scilloscope
11:27
Speaker 1: as the reader, right, which I for life, we can't
11:30
Speaker 1: figure out how they did that, um, because that detects
11:33
Speaker 1: like electrical pulses. But the upshot of it was that
11:37
Speaker 1: a scilloscope with a five hundred bulb they got super
11:41
Speaker 1: dangerously hot when they put it together with those two kids.
11:44
Speaker 1: These were grad students at the time or they just
11:46
Speaker 1: recently graduated. Um, they put together the first machine that
11:50
Speaker 1: could read printed material. That's pretty cool, right. So it
11:54
Speaker 1: just so happened that that printed material was a printed
11:56
Speaker 1: bulls eye upc code. There's a big problem that they
12:00
Speaker 1: were missing something very important, and that was uh microcomputer,
12:05
Speaker 1: something that could read this code and make sense of it. Um.
12:09
Speaker 1: They hadn't quite come up with that, so they said,
12:11
Speaker 1: you know what, let's just forget about this. We'll put
12:13
Speaker 1: it in dad's garage like a trampoline, sell it to
12:16
Speaker 1: our c A. Well, yeah, they sold the patent right right,
12:19
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna head off to go work for IBM.
12:22
Speaker 1: And that's where the big scene with the glowing and
12:26
Speaker 1: two live crew would have ended, maybe in a montage
12:29
Speaker 1: or something. Right. Uh so we I spoiled it, I
12:33
Speaker 1: guess um with the laser. But in nine was when
12:38
Speaker 1: the first laser was debuted. And this was really key
12:43
Speaker 1: to read this thing because the reason they used a
12:45
Speaker 1: five D lightbulb wasn't because they were just like, man,
12:48
Speaker 1: this is so cool and hot and dangerous, Like you
12:51
Speaker 1: needed a tremendous amount of light to read these tiny um,
12:57
Speaker 1: I mean super detailed. You know, it's not detail old
13:00
Speaker 1: with like lettering that we're used to seeing, but it
13:02
Speaker 1: was deep. He had to read the detail right because
13:05
Speaker 1: and it also has to be kind of small too. Yeah,
13:07
Speaker 1: it can't be at the size of they can right exactly, um,
13:10
Speaker 1: or you know, something bigger than the size that they can.
13:12
Speaker 1: It has to be fairly small and it is fairly
13:15
Speaker 1: detailed and um, so you need a really bright light
13:18
Speaker 1: to read it. Well. Luckily, eventually the Hughes Corporation came
13:22
Speaker 1: up with the laser and that was very quickly implemented
13:26
Speaker 1: with the bar code system, not in grocery stores at first,
13:29
Speaker 1: but on the railroad. It turns out, yeah, this was um,
13:34
Speaker 1: this guy figures pretty prominently. His name is David Collins,
13:36
Speaker 1: and he had a company called Computer Identics Corporation. And
13:41
Speaker 1: what he came up was the first in nine, the
13:44
Speaker 1: first bar code reader that actually worked without you know,
13:48
Speaker 1: five lightbulbs, using that laser to keep check of freight
13:52
Speaker 1: cars because the railroad companies would swap freight cars with
13:57
Speaker 1: one another all the time, but you'd end up some
13:59
Speaker 1: guy would always keep your freight car and be like,
14:01
Speaker 1: I don't know, just talk about yeah. So he sold
14:03
Speaker 1: two of those in nineteen nine m I T. Grad
14:06
Speaker 1: and that that kind of changed the game because all
14:10
Speaker 1: of a sudden it was being implemented not in grocery
14:12
Speaker 1: stores like you said, but grocery store uh people, workers, managers, owners, uh,
14:20
Speaker 1: industry leaders. I think they took notice. They did, especially
14:23
Speaker 1: again named Alan Hallerman, who basically led the charge to
14:27
Speaker 1: get this stuff into supermarkets. And there was a pilot
14:31
Speaker 1: program that was at a Kroger like the one your
14:33
Speaker 1: mom worked at about the time where she would have
14:36
Speaker 1: worked for Kroger. But this is up in Cincinnati, which
14:39
Speaker 1: I think is where Kroger was founded. Yeah, she was
14:42
Speaker 1: in Tennessee, I think. And our c A had been
14:45
Speaker 1: looking for new projects to um to to work on,
14:49
Speaker 1: and they found this old patent that r c A
14:51
Speaker 1: bought from Woodland and so, yeah, what about this old thing?
14:55
Speaker 1: Is it a bulls eye? Like? No, check it out.
14:58
Speaker 1: So they put laser to bull's eye and ran this
15:02
Speaker 1: pilot program in in Cincinnati at Krogrin it went okay
15:06
Speaker 1: ish for a new thing, It did all right, But
15:09
Speaker 1: we mentioned how they had to be able to read
15:11
Speaker 1: these intricate little barcodes. Um printing wasn't great, so any
15:16
Speaker 1: smudges or smears or anything would just throw the whole
15:18
Speaker 1: system off, right, But it was enough of a proof
15:20
Speaker 1: of concept that that the these um grocery store industry
15:25
Speaker 1: leaders led by Alan Holderman, said we've got to get
15:29
Speaker 1: this out into grocery stores. So they formed we got
15:31
Speaker 1: to mention the name of their group. You're ready for it? Okay?
15:35
Speaker 1: They formed the US Supermarket ad Hoc Committee on a
15:39
Speaker 1: uniform Grocery Product code. What does that spell? U S
15:43
Speaker 1: A h C, U G p C, it spells nothing
15:48
Speaker 1: or nothing, it spells a barcode um. I read somewhere
15:53
Speaker 1: that this guy, he would when he was lobbying supermarket
15:57
Speaker 1: managers and leaders I us to like buy into this.
16:02
Speaker 1: He would take them to go see Deep Throat. I
16:05
Speaker 1: read that it was the fashion of the day to
16:08
Speaker 1: like go out for a steak dinner. And then everybody
16:10
Speaker 1: went and watched Deep Throat in the movie theater as
16:13
Speaker 1: part of like a business meeting. Do you get the
16:15
Speaker 1: steak dinner before or after that? Before parents are really
16:18
Speaker 1: to oh dear, Well, let's take a break and ruminate
16:24
Speaker 1: on that question and we'll be right back. Change. So
16:55
Speaker 1: the um, the U S Supermarket at Hot Committee on
16:59
Speaker 1: a unifor ARM grocery product code hanging out at the
17:02
Speaker 1: ad committee in the porno theater. Sure we can call
17:05
Speaker 1: him the ad HUT Committee from now on, all right,
17:07
Speaker 1: that's wanting to get it in one more time. And um,
17:11
Speaker 1: they decided that yes, the r c A patent with
17:15
Speaker 1: the bulls eye was pretty good, but it hadn't worked
17:17
Speaker 1: that good. Is it possible or something better? And this
17:20
Speaker 1: is pretty forward thinking, um at the time if you
17:24
Speaker 1: think about it too, to say like, yes, this works,
17:26
Speaker 1: this company has a patent on it. Forget about that.
17:29
Speaker 1: Could we do better? And they actually launched like a
17:32
Speaker 1: national basically a competition to come up with something better. Yeah,
17:36
Speaker 1: And this was sort of in the face of manufacturers
17:38
Speaker 1: who weren't too crazy about this idea to begin with,
17:40
Speaker 1: because it would be on them obviously, like Campbell's Soup
17:45
Speaker 1: to start putting these codes on their soup cans. And
17:48
Speaker 1: no one really wanted to do it because of they
17:51
Speaker 1: have their own systems in place. It would cost some
17:53
Speaker 1: money and time, and they were just like, hey, it
17:55
Speaker 1: ain't broke on our end. What's funny is this this article?
17:58
Speaker 1: I think this part came from a smith sony An
18:00
Speaker 1: article where they're saying, like cardboard manufacturers thought it would
18:03
Speaker 1: spoil their product, like it's so beautiful, this box of
18:07
Speaker 1: of apple cinnamon oatmeal cannot be spoiled with a with
18:11
Speaker 1: a UPC code. Yeah, that's weird, but that was part
18:14
Speaker 1: of the pushback apparently, was they thought it would mess
18:17
Speaker 1: up the product, right, but they gave then. I guess
18:20
Speaker 1: they were I'm sure they were talked into the fact
18:22
Speaker 1: that they could move more product with this. In the end,
18:25
Speaker 1: they were taken to see deep through and they just
18:27
Speaker 1: caved like a house of cards. They're like, man, that
18:29
Speaker 1: stick was good and so was the cinema. Um. So
18:35
Speaker 1: seven people, like you said, submitted seven companies, and um
18:39
Speaker 1: if you go and look at these seven submissions, it's
18:41
Speaker 1: interesting that some of them, like one was like the
18:45
Speaker 1: LP bull's eye. There was another circular one, but it
18:49
Speaker 1: looked like no, no, it looks like if kid draws
18:54
Speaker 1: the sunshine. It was like all the lines were going
18:56
Speaker 1: out from the center. There were a few different variations
18:59
Speaker 1: that sort of look like the modern barcode and in theory.
19:04
Speaker 1: But then it's it's so funny when you look at
19:06
Speaker 1: the seven side by side, you immediately go to that
19:09
Speaker 1: little rectangular when you're like, oh, well, yeah, just because
19:13
Speaker 1: we're used to it. But I don't know if at first,
19:15
Speaker 1: if people just looked at it like the bulls in
19:18
Speaker 1: one was pretty, it is. The sunshine one was nice.
19:20
Speaker 1: I think I've seen the Sunshine one and like cartons
19:23
Speaker 1: of milk or orange juice, like on the bottom of
19:25
Speaker 1: paper cartons. I've seen that before, I know. Yeah, so
19:28
Speaker 1: I guess somebody adopted. There was a little half circle
19:30
Speaker 1: one too, that looks sort of like a rainbow sticker.
19:33
Speaker 1: It's very cute. That is cute. But the kicker here
19:38
Speaker 1: is is that IBM um sort of at hour, I
19:43
Speaker 1: guess heard about this. We're like, hey, yeah, we'll throw
19:45
Speaker 1: in a bid. They're like, oh, well, what have you developed?
19:49
Speaker 1: And they're like, we haven't developed anything because we just
19:51
Speaker 1: heard about this. But Grapevine, Joe Woodland, the guy who
19:54
Speaker 1: invented this other one works for us. Sure, ironically, Joe
19:58
Speaker 1: Woodland didn't have anything to do with their design though.
20:01
Speaker 1: Who was it George Laura? The story is all over
20:05
Speaker 1: the place. It really is interesting how many different like
20:08
Speaker 1: directions it took, how many times they saw a deep
20:10
Speaker 1: throat over and over again as this process was going on.
20:15
Speaker 1: Just stop saying those words, just say cinema. But there
20:19
Speaker 1: was a guy there named George Laura at IBM and Uh.
20:24
Speaker 1: The advantage he had, or at least says he saw it,
20:26
Speaker 1: and I agree, is that he hadn't seen all these
20:28
Speaker 1: bulls eyes and sunshines and rainbows, and he was he
20:32
Speaker 1: kind of started from scratch and built that beautiful little rectangle.
20:37
Speaker 1: That was his premise that he was like, I'm unadulterated
20:41
Speaker 1: with any any conceptions IBM, didn't have any pre existing
20:45
Speaker 1: machinery that this thing needed to fit into nothing. He
20:48
Speaker 1: got to start from scratch. And actually his idea panned
20:51
Speaker 1: out because his was selected the ad hoc committee I'll
20:56
Speaker 1: spare everybody UM met in New York, and they actually
20:59
Speaker 1: tapped some scientists from m I T because they said,
21:02
Speaker 1: who are the smartest scientists around? M I T scientists?
21:05
Speaker 1: Here are the how many was it seven or eleven designs? Seven? Okay,
21:10
Speaker 1: here are the seven designs and my T scientists, you, guys,
21:13
Speaker 1: tell us which one you think is right. But then
21:16
Speaker 1: this Alan Haberman, he said, hold on before you, guys,
21:19
Speaker 1: tell us, can you give me a confidence interval of
21:23
Speaker 1: how how confident you are that you have picked the
21:27
Speaker 1: right one? And all of them were at like confident
21:32
Speaker 1: and it was lours rectangle that one that's right. Uh. Interestingly,
21:38
Speaker 1: they had demonstrated the rectangular one with a bean bag
21:44
Speaker 1: ashtray and the a softball picture, Yeah, which is picture, Like,
21:49
Speaker 1: is there anything better than the bean bag ashtray? Those
21:52
Speaker 1: are great? Yeah? We got those in college. Like I
21:54
Speaker 1: searched them out just because they you know, because they
21:58
Speaker 1: were always plaid and looked like they were from the
21:59
Speaker 1: fifth You never smoked, did you. Well, I mean I
22:02
Speaker 1: spoke to a little in college, but we we had
22:04
Speaker 1: ashtrays around. He still wanted to provide for your guests.
22:06
Speaker 1: See this is in college, you know. Yeah, that's trays.
22:09
Speaker 1: Maybe a little snack caddy to go with the cocktails.
22:13
Speaker 1: But we had a few of those bean bag ashtrays,
22:15
Speaker 1: and uh they were pretty great, and mostly because you
22:17
Speaker 1: could put them on a dashboard of a car and
22:19
Speaker 1: they would stay there right or on your belly. Well
22:22
Speaker 1: you're popin sure, Sure they'd stay wherever you want them to. So,
22:26
Speaker 1: like you said, Laura, one the big they had a
22:29
Speaker 1: big party I'm sure with rectangular um or derve's all
22:34
Speaker 1: arranged in perfect lines, eating out of bean bag ashtrays.
22:38
Speaker 1: Oh god. Uh. And then on June nine, they debuted
22:43
Speaker 1: it in a real store, um in Troy, Ohio, Marsh
22:48
Speaker 1: Marsh Supermarket. Yeah, I've not heard of it. I still
22:51
Speaker 1: I thought you might have been like, oh, yeah, the
22:54
Speaker 1: old days of the Marshes and Toledo. No, we had
22:57
Speaker 1: I g a food Town Kroger, that's it. Yeah, that's
23:03
Speaker 1: all I can remember. And foods with a Z foods. Uh.
23:10
Speaker 1: I don't know why that. That's the first thing I
23:12
Speaker 1: can think of. Um, So they had this the whole
23:16
Speaker 1: checkout counter I see is translated into day's dollars. But
23:19
Speaker 1: forty four grand is what that thing would have cost today. Yeah,
23:23
Speaker 1: and just the scanner itself was more than seventeen grand
23:27
Speaker 1: of that in today's dollars. Yeah, and today you can
23:30
Speaker 1: get a scanner for about twenty bucks. So this is
23:33
Speaker 1: the This is a pretty nice set up for the
23:36
Speaker 1: Marsh's store in Troy, Ohio. And the just one register
23:40
Speaker 1: to right, it was out of However, many of the
23:42
Speaker 1: rest of them. We're having the type. Can't you be
23:44
Speaker 1: more like sharing Buchanan's over here on the on the
23:49
Speaker 1: uh the laser checker. Yeah, that was the real name.
23:52
Speaker 1: By the way, it sounds like you just totally improptered that. No,
23:55
Speaker 1: it came out of my memory. No, but we should
23:57
Speaker 1: give her her do. Yeah. She was the first cash
23:59
Speaker 1: year to to scan an item with a UPC code,
24:03
Speaker 1: And the first item that was scanned was a ten
24:06
Speaker 1: pack of juicy fruit gum. Yeah. I bet the guy
24:09
Speaker 1: what was his name, Richard Dawson. Now that was family feud,
24:13
Speaker 1: Clyde Dawson, his brother, right, he was ahead of R
24:17
Speaker 1: and D for marsh and he played the first shopper.
24:20
Speaker 1: And I wonder if he was like, hm, let's see
24:23
Speaker 1: because his fruit stripes is nothing but striped lines. I
24:27
Speaker 1: wonder if he was trying to throw him off. I
24:28
Speaker 1: don't know, like scan this. Supposedly he chose gum because
24:34
Speaker 1: a lot of people were like, well what about gum,
24:36
Speaker 1: You're never gonna be able to get one of these
24:37
Speaker 1: things on gum. But then he chose a ten pack
24:40
Speaker 1: of gum, so he was kind of hedging his bets whatever.
24:44
Speaker 1: But it was what the smallest one smallest barcodes are, uh,
24:48
Speaker 1: the smallest I saw they have No bees have barcodes
24:53
Speaker 1: like on them. Somehow, I haven't figured out how. I
24:55
Speaker 1: didn't see how. I just know that bees have bar codes.
24:57
Speaker 1: You mean bees, the insect yes, with the z um
25:01
Speaker 1: what do you mean to track them or something? What? Yeah? Um,
25:05
Speaker 1: so that's got to be pretty small. But the smallest
25:08
Speaker 1: product I saw with the barcode is, um, the roll
25:12
Speaker 1: pop sticks have the barcode on them. Really did you do, researcher,
25:16
Speaker 1: You were just eating its role pop? How many licks
25:20
Speaker 1: did it take to get to the center. I've never
25:22
Speaker 1: made it right, I always crunch like the owl says. So,
25:28
Speaker 1: I guess we should talk about how these things work
25:30
Speaker 1: because it's interesting, it's super wonky. But um, I think
25:35
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's good for people to understand this
25:37
Speaker 1: to a certain degree, whatever degree you're comfortable with with learning. Well, okay,
25:42
Speaker 1: you ready? Yeah, Well, first, there's two kinds we should differentiate,
25:45
Speaker 1: between the barcodes and QR codes. Yeah, a barcode is
25:49
Speaker 1: technically a linear one D code, just sum code, just
25:53
Speaker 1: lines basically. Um. The two D codes like the q
25:58
Speaker 1: R quick response codes, like the as you see on
26:01
Speaker 1: you know, happen in products and items these days, marketing materials,
26:05
Speaker 1: maybe business card. It's actually becoming even more of a
26:09
Speaker 1: thing from what I understand, just because there's so much
26:12
Speaker 1: stuff you can encode in it. Um, how many characters
26:16
Speaker 1: like something. Yeah, you can encode seven thousand digits or
26:20
Speaker 1: four thousand characters of text, and so you can encode
26:24
Speaker 1: some pretty sophisticated stuff in there. So people encode um
26:27
Speaker 1: web addresses or pictures or whatever. I've seen them on tours,
26:31
Speaker 1: Like you can do a QR code and bring up
26:33
Speaker 1: like a bunch of text about the painting or whatever.
26:36
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of yes, I've seen that as well. Um,
26:39
Speaker 1: I think that it's kind of becoming less popular as
26:43
Speaker 1: a marketing tool, but simultaneously it's becoming more popular in
26:48
Speaker 1: just about every other Yeah. Barcodes, on the other hand,
26:52
Speaker 1: the one D bar code can hold up to eighty
26:55
Speaker 1: five characters, so these two ds are like exponentially more
27:00
Speaker 1: um potent storehouses of information. Yeah, but I like the
27:06
Speaker 1: simplicity of the bar code. It's pretty cool, like you
27:09
Speaker 1: don't need it does exactly what you need in nothing else, yes,
27:12
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, And so so when we're talking about
27:15
Speaker 1: a bar code, most people think of a universal product code,
27:19
Speaker 1: which is a one D linear bar code. It's a
27:23
Speaker 1: type of it. It's not the only kind. There's a
27:24
Speaker 1: bunch of one D linear bar codes, but the most
27:29
Speaker 1: readily recognizable one, especially in the US and Canada, is
27:32
Speaker 1: called the UPC. Right, so let's say you're a company
27:36
Speaker 1: and you have a product um that you want a debut,
27:40
Speaker 1: and what you would do is, since nine seven, you
27:43
Speaker 1: would uh ring up company out of Brussels called g
27:47
Speaker 1: s I g S one. Oh is that a one?
27:51
Speaker 1: Don't call g S I. You're not gonna get your
27:54
Speaker 1: stuff on the shelves crime scene investigation. God man, you're
27:58
Speaker 1: just flying with the singers. Yeah, all right, not all
28:04
Speaker 1: of them are good. Well I didn't say they were. Okay,
28:08
Speaker 1: I would like to save your applause. I'll save it.
28:12
Speaker 1: So the g S one, what you do is you
28:14
Speaker 1: pay an annual fee as a manufacturer, and then you say, hey,
28:18
Speaker 1: I have this new thing. I want to apply for
28:20
Speaker 1: permission to enter the UPC system. That's what that's the
28:25
Speaker 1: martial brain way of putting it. Yeah, basically like, hey,
28:28
Speaker 1: I want to be registered in the official system. They
28:31
Speaker 1: right back and they say, all right here, uh new manufacturer,
28:35
Speaker 1: you have a six different six digit identification number. I
28:39
Speaker 1: imagine if you were like the Coca Cola company, you're
28:41
Speaker 1: already set up with us. Well, if they had to
28:43
Speaker 1: eventually start somewhere. Well, right, but now when Coke develops
28:47
Speaker 1: a new product or whatever, they don't they just give
28:49
Speaker 1: them the new uh the manuaf the item numbers exactly,
28:55
Speaker 1: So the first six numbers. So if you look at
28:58
Speaker 1: a UPC bar code, it is a there are a
29:01
Speaker 1: bunch of bars and that's for the computer to read,
29:04
Speaker 1: and then there's a twelve numbers that's for humans to
29:07
Speaker 1: read and actually punch in if the machine has problems
29:10
Speaker 1: with it. Okay, so it's actually the same information but
29:13
Speaker 1: in two different languages technically, so you could technically probably
29:17
Speaker 1: teach yourself that language if you just looked at these lines,
29:20
Speaker 1: you totally could. You could. Um. It would be probably
29:24
Speaker 1: the most useless thing you've ever done in your life,
29:27
Speaker 1: especially if you're not in the UPC code industry and
29:29
Speaker 1: there is an industry, But you could do that, and
29:33
Speaker 1: we're gonna teach you how, right, uh in a minute.
29:35
Speaker 1: But um, if at every big company there is a
29:40
Speaker 1: UPC coordinator and I imagine full departments that handle this stuff,
29:45
Speaker 1: it depends. You can also if you're a small company,
29:47
Speaker 1: you can contract out with a company that basically does
29:50
Speaker 1: it for you. Um, Like if you want to sell
29:53
Speaker 1: on Amazon, but you're not like a big company you
29:56
Speaker 1: have to have a UPC symbol. But it could be
29:59
Speaker 1: it could make no sens money wise for you to
30:01
Speaker 1: go to g S one and get a UPC symbol
30:05
Speaker 1: rather than just getting it from a reseller. Yeah. So
30:08
Speaker 1: if you're a huge corporation, though it's in house, you
30:11
Speaker 1: have a coordinator and a team, and anytime you have
30:15
Speaker 1: a product or launch a new product, you're gonna have
30:17
Speaker 1: to assign that new product a number, and it's got
30:21
Speaker 1: to be very specific to that product. It can't. You
30:24
Speaker 1: can't just say, well, you know, Cocus coke, so two leader,
30:28
Speaker 1: twelve pack, single, twelve ouncer, sixteen ouncer, they're all the same, right,
30:33
Speaker 1: which means that the first six numbers of a UPC
30:37
Speaker 1: code for coke is going to be the same on
30:40
Speaker 1: any bottle or can or whatever you pick up of coke.
30:43
Speaker 1: Because the essentially says the Coca Cola company and whatever
30:46
Speaker 1: language right to the entire world anywhere in the world
30:49
Speaker 1: where they use bar codes, if they gets scanned, it's
30:53
Speaker 1: going to come up as a Coke product. That's right,
30:55
Speaker 1: those last five numbers, it's up to coke and that
30:58
Speaker 1: upc coordinator that employed by Coke to come up with
31:02
Speaker 1: new numbers for each not just coke and diet coke
31:06
Speaker 1: and new coke and cherry coke and orange vanilla coke,
31:09
Speaker 1: which have you had? It's weirdly good. Um, you have
31:13
Speaker 1: to come up with not just a different number for
31:15
Speaker 1: each of those, you have to come up with a
31:16
Speaker 1: different number for each of those, and each size and
31:20
Speaker 1: each way that those sizes are put together ever as
31:23
Speaker 1: they call it in the business, right, so a different
31:25
Speaker 1: a different one for one twelve ounce can of coke
31:28
Speaker 1: or a six pack of cokes or case of cokes, um,
31:32
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. And I was on
31:34
Speaker 1: that g S one site and the way that they
31:36
Speaker 1: put as much simpler. If you have one T shirt
31:39
Speaker 1: that you sell, right, it's a Vitamin S Y s
31:43
Speaker 1: K T shirt, which you can get even better. It's
31:46
Speaker 1: great T shirt. If you ask me, you like that one? Right?
31:48
Speaker 1: I love it. I think it's the colors on it
31:51
Speaker 1: that really get me. Um. But you have one T shirt,
31:54
Speaker 1: a Vitamin S Y s K shirt. But that thing
31:57
Speaker 1: comes in four different sizes small, Media, large, extra large,
32:01
Speaker 1: and it comes in four different colors. You need sixty
32:05
Speaker 1: four different Um, is that right? Four by four sixteen
32:10
Speaker 1: by four sixty four? You need sixty four different UPC
32:14
Speaker 1: codes for for that one product, that one T shirt.
32:18
Speaker 1: And UPC code is one of those dumb things like
32:20
Speaker 1: saying a t M machine, What do you mean, well,
32:24
Speaker 1: machine machine universal product code? You know, thank you for
32:28
Speaker 1: calling me out on that. I actually went through this
32:31
Speaker 1: article and like got the instances of UPC code, like
32:34
Speaker 1: I defy you to find it. So I wasn't being pedantic,
32:43
Speaker 1: but I was doing it for the people who are
32:46
Speaker 1: already thinking that. Um, and there there were people out
32:50
Speaker 1: there thinking that. So the last digit is called a
32:53
Speaker 1: check digit, and this is basically a bit of a
32:57
Speaker 1: fail safe to make sure that the scanner got everything right. Yeah,
33:02
Speaker 1: it's really convoluted how it does that. Yeah. There, I mean,
33:06
Speaker 1: there's a calculation every time you scan something or every
33:09
Speaker 1: time something scan for you. Rather, Um, do you check
33:12
Speaker 1: out yourself at the grocery store? Do you like that deal?
33:14
Speaker 1: I don't because I very strongly see or clearly see
33:20
Speaker 1: that they're replacing human cashiers, and I think human cashiers
33:24
Speaker 1: like to do human cashier work. So I go to
33:26
Speaker 1: the human cashier whenever I can I love the self
33:28
Speaker 1: check out do Yeah? Because I like bagging my stuff
33:31
Speaker 1: very specifically, so that's why I do it. Like like
33:35
Speaker 1: cold with cold or chunky items or stuff that contain fat.
33:39
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I could go over my whole
33:42
Speaker 1: system for everyone to tears come on, but a lot
33:45
Speaker 1: of cold with cold size like sizes where it goes
33:49
Speaker 1: in my house as I'm unpacking. Uh, and more than anything,
33:52
Speaker 1: just efficiently packed so it all fits. I have a
33:55
Speaker 1: bit of a tetracy brain when it comes to packing things,
33:59
Speaker 1: and so I get a little, um, I get not
34:02
Speaker 1: a little. I get really uncomfortable when I see someone
34:05
Speaker 1: else doing it and it's all wrong really, even when
34:07
Speaker 1: it's not your groceries. Like if you look over and
34:10
Speaker 1: now I don't know, Yeah, I can't even look at that.
34:12
Speaker 1: I just look away. So that that's my cross to
34:17
Speaker 1: bear though. Yeah, you're doing a great job. But anyway,
34:21
Speaker 1: when they're checking, when they scan something, that calculation is
34:24
Speaker 1: performed every time something is scanned to make sure that
34:27
Speaker 1: check digit calculates out that this is the correct price
34:31
Speaker 1: for this thing. However, to me, the fact of the podcast,
34:38
Speaker 1: the Barcode does not contain a price, No isn't that remarkable. Yeah,
34:43
Speaker 1: Remember we said the thing that that the reason barcodes
34:46
Speaker 1: were invented was so that they can encapsulate information about
34:49
Speaker 1: that that item. Right, One of the pieces of information
34:53
Speaker 1: that it encapsulates is price, but it also encapsulates how
34:57
Speaker 1: many are in stock, whether it's on sale, um, what
35:00
Speaker 1: tax you you put onto it, um, who manufactures it,
35:04
Speaker 1: what size, some item description, all of this stuff, and
35:07
Speaker 1: it's all encoded in that bar. But no one thing
35:10
Speaker 1: is encoded into that. It's just that when you enter
35:14
Speaker 1: that number, either by scanning it into the computer or
35:18
Speaker 1: by punching those numbers in that that information goes to
35:22
Speaker 1: the point of sale computer in the store and it
35:25
Speaker 1: returns all that information to the to the checkout. Yeah,
35:29
Speaker 1: that's kind of I don't know the fact of the
35:31
Speaker 1: podcast for me because like when you scan it, the
35:35
Speaker 1: price pops up, and I just automatically thought, well, sure,
35:38
Speaker 1: that's encoded in those bars. Yeah, there is no way
35:40
Speaker 1: for you to look at a u PC symbol and
35:42
Speaker 1: discern the price, even if you can read the bars,
35:46
Speaker 1: because the price the one of the reasons it's invented
35:48
Speaker 1: so you can alter the price without having to mess
35:51
Speaker 1: go through and hand label everything. Remember that was one
35:53
Speaker 1: of the reasons why. Yeah, the problem is is that
35:56
Speaker 1: means that there is such a thing as um scanner scamming,
36:00
Speaker 1: which some state senator felt pretty good about him or
36:02
Speaker 1: herself for coming up with that phrase. But there there's
36:06
Speaker 1: um where there are some untoward retailers or merchants who
36:11
Speaker 1: will mess with the price of something and hope you
36:14
Speaker 1: don't notice, and charge you more, even if it's by
36:17
Speaker 1: a few cents. We all saw office space that adds up,
36:21
Speaker 1: you know. Um. And since we're there, you mentioned the
36:24
Speaker 1: Michigan law. I did look that up because they do
36:27
Speaker 1: have a law, and I didn't yet. Well, the result
36:30
Speaker 1: of the Michigan law against scanner fraud is the seller
36:35
Speaker 1: pays and this to avoid a lawsuit. But you can
36:37
Speaker 1: technically bring a lawsuit against the company, but they can
36:40
Speaker 1: just all they can take care of it right here
36:42
Speaker 1: and brainard if they want to. So the seller pays
36:46
Speaker 1: the buyer the amount equal to the difference between the
36:50
Speaker 1: displayed price and the charge price, plus an amount equal
36:54
Speaker 1: to ten times that difference. So you think that's whopping. Well,
36:59
Speaker 1: I mean, let's say your charg ar for something that's
37:03
Speaker 1: so you get that dollar. A million dollars, you get
37:06
Speaker 1: that dollar plus ten times the difference with a maximum
37:11
Speaker 1: of five dollars, because I thought, oh man, you could
37:14
Speaker 1: really clean up if they really mislabeled like a TV. Yeah,
37:19
Speaker 1: but it's not up to five dollars. That's where they
37:22
Speaker 1: cut it off. But that's why, to me, that's a
37:24
Speaker 1: measuring stick for a good grocery stores without flinching, they
37:28
Speaker 1: when they confirmed that there has been a discrepancy between
37:31
Speaker 1: the scanned price and the price that they have on
37:33
Speaker 1: the shelves listed, um that they just give you the
37:36
Speaker 1: item Publis does. Okay, that's why I'm a public shopper
37:41
Speaker 1: right that in the sheet cake, it's really good. They
37:43
Speaker 1: also have this line of special limited edition ice cream
37:49
Speaker 1: right now, and I wanted to declare everyone, if there's
37:54
Speaker 1: a publics near you get to the public find their
37:58
Speaker 1: special edition hosted Smore ice cream and enjoy arguably the
38:05
Speaker 1: greatest ice cream ever in good. It's good. Good doesn't
38:08
Speaker 1: even begin to describe it. I've had a lot of
38:10
Speaker 1: small ice creams. You're going to love. This is better
38:13
Speaker 1: than other small ice creams. Okay, you're going to love it. Man,
38:16
Speaker 1: public's need to sponsor us. We throw them so much
38:18
Speaker 1: love they really should. All right, well, let's take another break,
38:21
Speaker 1: and we're gonna come back after this and talk a
38:23
Speaker 1: little bit more about how these things are red Chuck.
38:54
Speaker 1: All right. Another fact of the podcast for me is
38:58
Speaker 1: that the laser technically is scanning the white space between
39:03
Speaker 1: the black bars, both the black bars and the spaces. Yeah,
39:06
Speaker 1: I mean, but it's you know what I'm saying. I mean,
39:09
Speaker 1: is that like me thinking about it, like looking at picture,
39:12
Speaker 1: is it an old lady or a young lady? Kind
39:14
Speaker 1: of Yeah. But to the to the scanner in the sensor,
39:17
Speaker 1: more more directly, the sensor in the scanner that's getting
39:20
Speaker 1: the bounce back. The black lines on the UPC code
39:25
Speaker 1: don't reflect back into the scanner. The white lines are
39:28
Speaker 1: the absence of the black lines do. But both of
39:30
Speaker 1: those things. The fact that the light didn't bounce without
39:34
Speaker 1: the black exactly, it's a very like like Zen invention um.
39:39
Speaker 1: The fact that some bounce back and some didn't means
39:42
Speaker 1: something to the to the computer that's attached to the scanner.
39:46
Speaker 1: And this this is where the whole thing kind of
39:50
Speaker 1: gets translated into numbers, which then are put together to
39:54
Speaker 1: become the UPC number that is associated with the information
39:58
Speaker 1: associated with the item. Right, So if you look at
40:01
Speaker 1: these bars, if you study next, let you pick up
40:04
Speaker 1: a can of soup, turn it over and look at it.
40:07
Speaker 1: The very thinnest bar that you're gonna see, UH is
40:11
Speaker 1: one unit wide you can call it that, sure, And
40:14
Speaker 1: then every other bar that you see is either one
40:18
Speaker 1: unit wide, two, three, or four units wide, and that's
40:22
Speaker 1: the maximum width UH is going to be four units, right,
40:26
Speaker 1: And so not just the bars are one, two, three
40:29
Speaker 1: or four units wide, the spaces are also one to
40:32
Speaker 1: three or four units wide. Right. So there is when
40:35
Speaker 1: you put a combination of spaces and bars together in
40:38
Speaker 1: the right way, you will end up as far as
40:40
Speaker 1: the computer is concerned with a zero or a one
40:43
Speaker 1: or two. For example, to come up with a zero,
40:48
Speaker 1: you have, um, a three unit wide bar, a two
40:53
Speaker 1: unit wide space, yeah, a one unit wide bar, and
41:00
Speaker 1: then a one unit wide space. That's a zero. When
41:04
Speaker 1: you see that what I just said, go back, listen
41:06
Speaker 1: to it over and over again until you get it. Um,
41:10
Speaker 1: that is is that to the computer is a zero? Yeah? Okay,
41:15
Speaker 1: I wonder if you would have messed that up, if
41:17
Speaker 1: there would have been anyone that would be like, actually, Josh,
41:22
Speaker 1: because a little something like this, right, yeah, that would
41:24
Speaker 1: be remarkable. Maybe. So I'm sure there are bar code
41:27
Speaker 1: walks out there. There has to be, I mean there.
41:29
Speaker 1: That's just the fact that there's this major industry associated
41:34
Speaker 1: with with creating and selling and leasing bar codes. Surely
41:38
Speaker 1: people can just look at it and know what. I'm
41:40
Speaker 1: sure there are people like ham Radio hams a better
41:43
Speaker 1: into this. It seems really complex and difficult to us,
41:46
Speaker 1: but if you step back, it's really simple. And yeah,
41:49
Speaker 1: being exposed to it day in and day out, you
41:51
Speaker 1: would you couldn't help but memorize it. I would think,
41:54
Speaker 1: are we onto the QR codes or well, there's one
41:56
Speaker 1: more thing. If you'll look at a bar code, the
42:00
Speaker 1: first two there are two lines, and then the numbers start.
42:04
Speaker 1: There are another two lines in the middle, and then
42:06
Speaker 1: there are two more lines at the ist and they
42:09
Speaker 1: are larger than the rest of the bar code. Those
42:12
Speaker 1: are separators. Those are separators, guidelines, whatever you want to
42:15
Speaker 1: call them. And in the middle, those middle two lines
42:18
Speaker 1: actually cut the bar code in half. And when that happens,
42:22
Speaker 1: so that the bar code can be scanned any direction,
42:26
Speaker 1: the rules turned into the mirror image. So where a
42:31
Speaker 1: zero would have been like UM, three unit wide space
42:36
Speaker 1: followed by a two unit wide bar, it would be
42:40
Speaker 1: a three unit wide bar followed by a two unit
42:43
Speaker 1: wide space, and so on. It's it's the same number.
42:46
Speaker 1: It's just the mirror image of it. And that tells
42:49
Speaker 1: the scanner, Hey, just go ahead and show off, show
42:53
Speaker 1: everybody that you can read backwards and forwards. Yeah, and
42:56
Speaker 1: that was I mean, we didn't even mention at the beginning.
42:58
Speaker 1: There were um civic specs when everyone was developing those
43:03
Speaker 1: seven uh test whatever submissions, and one of them was
43:08
Speaker 1: you've got to be able to do these things forward
43:10
Speaker 1: and backwards, guys, Yeah in your sleep, Yeah, on beam
43:14
Speaker 1: bag as trade, it doesn't matter. Yeah. There was also
43:16
Speaker 1: a size requirement of course, UM and other things like that,
43:19
Speaker 1: but forwards and backwards had to be in there, right,
43:22
Speaker 1: I guess for I don't know, convenience. Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
43:27
Speaker 1: I think that they wanted. I think that the the
43:30
Speaker 1: Cincinnati pilot program bulls I one was touchy enough that
43:34
Speaker 1: they're like, we it can't be like that. It's got
43:36
Speaker 1: to be like really tough and accurate. You got you
43:39
Speaker 1: can just drop this thing accidentally and it will ring
43:41
Speaker 1: it up. Got which happens sometimes, Yeah, it does. And
43:45
Speaker 1: then you when you're bagging, when you're doing it yourself.
43:48
Speaker 1: That's the only problem is when you have a problem,
43:51
Speaker 1: because then you've got to call the person over. Oh
43:53
Speaker 1: that's the worst, and that person has you know, they're
43:55
Speaker 1: managing eight different registers. Move and then the people in
44:02
Speaker 1: line behind you're like, ah, I should just gone to
44:05
Speaker 1: the cashier line. This guy he's no cashier, he's no Diane.
44:09
Speaker 1: Have you noticed also that that retailers, companies, stores are
44:14
Speaker 1: why do you just put that in scare quotes, hurting people,
44:17
Speaker 1: hurting people more towards self service by having fewer and
44:20
Speaker 1: fewer human run checkout lanes open at a time. Yep,
44:26
Speaker 1: I haven't noticed that. It's bugging me. Yeah, I I
44:30
Speaker 1: just I bugs me. So when you go to a store,
44:34
Speaker 1: do you um have a friendly conversation with your cashier?
44:37
Speaker 1: Usually you don't even interact. Then you just know, like
44:41
Speaker 1: them having their job and being quiet about it. I guess, okay, No,
44:45
Speaker 1: of course I do a chat with people. I'm a
44:48
Speaker 1: friendly guy. By the way, we should shout out. I didn't.
44:51
Speaker 1: Uh was his name Brian. I was in a major
44:55
Speaker 1: big box flat pack furniture store over the weekend, which
44:59
Speaker 1: one and a guy approaches me with a Josh sent
45:02
Speaker 1: me shirt and I took a picture. He was very nice.
45:05
Speaker 1: I think his name was Brian, but he's like, I
45:07
Speaker 1: don't want bugy. I was like, dude, you know you're
45:09
Speaker 1: wearing it. Don't be dumb shirt. It's like, you gotta
45:11
Speaker 1: come up to me and say something. And I asked
45:13
Speaker 1: if he minded if I took a picture of him,
45:15
Speaker 1: and I texted it to you. I know, I got it.
45:17
Speaker 1: And uh, I was like, Chuck's texting me on a weekend.
45:20
Speaker 1: This must be good. He's quitting the show, can't take
45:24
Speaker 1: it anymore, won't be there Tuesday period. Um. Yeah, it's
45:30
Speaker 1: kind of cool to see him out in the wild. Anyway,
45:33
Speaker 1: back to QR codes, Uh, these are way more complex.
45:35
Speaker 1: If you look at a QR code or a two
45:38
Speaker 1: D barcode, which by the way, came around which is
45:41
Speaker 1: hard to believe. I mean it seems like at least
45:45
Speaker 1: a two thousands thing. Um, but this, like we said,
45:49
Speaker 1: can store a ton more information. Vertically. Horizontally, they use dots, hexagons, rectangles,
45:56
Speaker 1: they use bulls eyes, which is kind of ironic. Um,
46:00
Speaker 1: I don't when I look at a QR code, I
46:02
Speaker 1: don't see any of those shapes you see, like the
46:05
Speaker 1: one bigger shape mostly yeah, right, I mean I just
46:08
Speaker 1: see a bunch of blocks. Well, yeah, that's that's the
46:12
Speaker 1: most universal one, just like the u PC is the
46:15
Speaker 1: most universal one D linear. That QR code is a
46:19
Speaker 1: type of two dcode, but there are ones that have
46:22
Speaker 1: tons of different like patterns and stuff. To you just
46:25
Speaker 1: gotta stare at him, man, yeah, and then it all
46:28
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, it's a donkey right. What were those
46:31
Speaker 1: called the Magic I poster? Yeah? I used to enjoy this.
46:35
Speaker 1: I always got it. Eventually. I think we didn't do
46:38
Speaker 1: a show on these, did we. I don't think so
46:39
Speaker 1: we talked about it, but it sounds like a short
46:41
Speaker 1: stuff to me. It does. Let's do it, okay. So, uh,
46:46
Speaker 1: QR codes work because like, uh, basically because everyone has
46:50
Speaker 1: a camera in their pocket now, because you have to
46:52
Speaker 1: have a very complex reader on hand, and that is
46:57
Speaker 1: a camera. Basically. Yeah, if you run a product with
47:00
Speaker 1: a QR code through a supermarket scanner, one D scanner
47:03
Speaker 1: will say like does not compute smoke will come out
47:06
Speaker 1: of it, it will spin around, it won't be good.
47:10
Speaker 1: So you need an image recognition software to scan a
47:13
Speaker 1: two D code. But the camera on your phone does
47:16
Speaker 1: a really fine job, which is why you're starting to
47:19
Speaker 1: see them everywhere, like in museums, on tours and things
47:22
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah. I use one just the other day
47:25
Speaker 1: on a home security camera. Um. They have a little
47:28
Speaker 1: QR code on the bottom and to get it going,
47:30
Speaker 1: you just point your camera at it and it locks
47:32
Speaker 1: it in. I know exactly the one you're talking. Yeah, So, Chuck,
47:36
Speaker 1: I think we've been kind of dancing around what's ultimately
47:39
Speaker 1: the biggest question of this whole podcast, and really the
47:41
Speaker 1: reason we created it, is the UPC code, the mark
47:45
Speaker 1: of the Beast, the devil's mark. How did you know
47:48
Speaker 1: about this? Because I have never heard this. Had you
47:51
Speaker 1: heard this or did you just come across it? I
47:53
Speaker 1: knew paranoid people in the nineties, so I was familiar
47:57
Speaker 1: with this. So refer to our Satanic Anik episode as background.
48:02
Speaker 1: But apparently when these things started coming out, Um, there
48:07
Speaker 1: were people or maybe this is all urban legend. No, no,
48:11
Speaker 1: there were I saw a reference that Pat Roberts and
48:14
Speaker 1: somebody tried to link to a video of Pat Robertson
48:17
Speaker 1: on The Seven Club talking about this in it. I
48:19
Speaker 1: couldn't find the video, but it's possible what you're saying
48:23
Speaker 1: from what I saw, it started out as a real thing,
48:25
Speaker 1: all right. Well, it all goes to the Book of
48:27
Speaker 1: Revelation in the New Testament. Where as everyone knows, if
48:31
Speaker 1: you've read the Bible, revelation is when they talk about
48:34
Speaker 1: it's when the Bible gets really good, and it's when
48:36
Speaker 1: it talks about the apocalypse and the Beast and uh,
48:40
Speaker 1: you know, raining fire down from the heavens and stuff,
48:43
Speaker 1: and it says this, uh, he causes all both great
48:47
Speaker 1: and small, rich and poor, free and slave to receive
48:51
Speaker 1: and he is the Beast, right sure, yeah, Satan uh
48:54
Speaker 1: to receive a mark on their right hand or on
48:57
Speaker 1: their foreheads. Didn't say back in the neck that no
49:01
Speaker 1: one may buy or sell except one who has the
49:05
Speaker 1: mark or the name of the Beast or the number
49:07
Speaker 1: of his name. Somehow this got locked into the fact
49:11
Speaker 1: that QR code or I'm sorry, barcodes were now on
49:14
Speaker 1: products like that was the mark to sell. Yeah, that
49:18
Speaker 1: was the thing that got everybody. You need this to
49:20
Speaker 1: buy or sell? This is the mark of the beast.
49:22
Speaker 1: So that's how it started, and then it evolved pretty
49:25
Speaker 1: quickly after that into just a straight up urban legend
49:29
Speaker 1: and rumor that those those guidelines, the two in the beginning,
49:32
Speaker 1: the two in the middle, and the two in the end,
49:35
Speaker 1: actually or encoded sixes to which meant that every barcode
49:39
Speaker 1: in the world or every UPC symbol in the world
49:42
Speaker 1: had six six six embedded in it, which clearly made
49:45
Speaker 1: it the mark of the beast, and poured um George
49:49
Speaker 1: Lawyer or layer who invented this is like, no, I
49:52
Speaker 1: swear I did not create the mark of the beast.
49:55
Speaker 1: And apparently he got a registered letter once from Satan
49:58
Speaker 1: himself say, how does it feel to have done my
50:02
Speaker 1: my bidding? Sucker? I have six six six on the
50:06
Speaker 1: license plate of my pickup truck, yes, by chance, which
50:11
Speaker 1: I kind of thought was great. Sure, Yeah, you stole
50:15
Speaker 1: my Jesus fish, didn't you. Uh. There was one other
50:18
Speaker 1: thing that kind of helped the urban legend to chuck.
50:21
Speaker 1: The IBM scanners that were first put into use were
50:24
Speaker 1: models three six six six, what thirty sixty six? There
50:29
Speaker 1: you have it, um. Last thing, Uh, there was one
50:33
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to mention. We talked a little bit
50:36
Speaker 1: about how um bar codes we basically couldn't exist without them.
50:40
Speaker 1: There's five billion bar codes are scanned every day. That
50:45
Speaker 1: g s one site tracks it um and basically says
50:48
Speaker 1: about five billion today. Wow, all over the world. Five
50:51
Speaker 1: billion UPC codes are bar codes of all kinds are
50:55
Speaker 1: scanned every day. And then the last thing is there
50:59
Speaker 1: is a company called Acquiring Monuments that builds headstones that
51:04
Speaker 1: have QR codes engraved in them. I've heard about so
51:07
Speaker 1: that you can scan it as you're in a cemetery,
51:09
Speaker 1: you know, bring up like information and pictures of the
51:11
Speaker 1: deceased and talk about their life. Yeah, that's kind of cool.
51:13
Speaker 1: Instead of you're not limited by the size of your gravestone. No,
51:19
Speaker 1: with just your name and like, you know, a couple
51:21
Speaker 1: of sentences about your life, you could have like a
51:23
Speaker 1: one inch by one inch grave stone. That's all you need.
51:26
Speaker 1: That'd be kind of goal. It's the way with the future. Yeah. Well,
51:29
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about bar codes, you
51:31
Speaker 1: can go to a store and start studying them. Go
51:34
Speaker 1: do that now. Oh wait, but first listen to this
51:36
Speaker 1: listener mail. Uh this I've been meaning to read this
51:42
Speaker 1: for a few weeks. We've gotta email from a woman
51:45
Speaker 1: named Maggie who works for a great organization. UM, I'll
51:50
Speaker 1: just read it. Hey, guys, listen to your Selects episode
51:52
Speaker 1: recently about circumcision. Thank you for creating awareness about female
51:57
Speaker 1: genital mutilation around the world. I work with an organ
52:00
Speaker 1: station and Kenya that rescues young girls from early forced
52:02
Speaker 1: marriage and female genital mutilation. Some of our girls have
52:06
Speaker 1: been rescued from uh this as early as age eight. Uh.
52:10
Speaker 1: We just recently rescued our one girl and have raised
52:13
Speaker 1: up every single one of them to graduate high school,
52:16
Speaker 1: which is a rare thing in this part of Kenya. Uh. Yeah,
52:19
Speaker 1: it's very cool. Many have moved on to go on
52:21
Speaker 1: to college. Tribe girls and Kenya are raised to feel
52:24
Speaker 1: worthless and inferior to men and boys. Their only value
52:27
Speaker 1: is a dowry they can provide their father when he
52:29
Speaker 1: sells them for marriage. All of our girls have learned
52:32
Speaker 1: their worth and value, which empowers them to spread their
52:34
Speaker 1: message to other girls around them. Uh. They're wonderful girls
52:38
Speaker 1: and so happy now. The two times I had visited
52:40
Speaker 1: the last few years have been amazing, eye opening experiences.
52:43
Speaker 1: It's good to see how quickly the girl's blossom with
52:46
Speaker 1: some security, love and protection. Uh. They are remarkable women.
52:50
Speaker 1: One girl sponsored is ten now, but was eight when
52:53
Speaker 1: we rescued her. Uh and to think she was going
52:55
Speaker 1: to be sold off as someone's wife at eight years old.
52:59
Speaker 1: I'd love for you plug our websites. Your listeners can
53:01
Speaker 1: get involved if they want to support it is uh
53:04
Speaker 1: sarooney dot org s a ru n i dot org.
53:09
Speaker 1: There's a gift tab at the top of the page,
53:11
Speaker 1: as well as lots of information on what we do.
53:13
Speaker 1: We specifically need funds to build more dorms and bathhouses
53:16
Speaker 1: for the girls. We are maxed out on beds, cannot
53:19
Speaker 1: take any more at the moment, so that is our
53:21
Speaker 1: next big goal. I'm really glad you read this one man. Amazing.
53:25
Speaker 1: That's for Maggie and again at is s a r
53:28
Speaker 1: u n i dot org. Thanks a lot, Maggie. I'm
53:31
Speaker 1: not just for writing in but for the work you're doing.
53:33
Speaker 1: That's really amazing stuff. UM. If you want to get
53:37
Speaker 1: in touch with us like Maggie did and let us
53:39
Speaker 1: know about some amazing things you're doing, we love to
53:42
Speaker 1: hear that stuff. So you can go on to our website,
53:45
Speaker 1: a's stuff you Should Know dot com and check out
53:47
Speaker 1: our social links there, or you can send us a
53:50
Speaker 1: good old fastioned email to stuff podcast at iHeart radio
53:54
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
53:59
Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for
54:01
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
54:04
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H m
54:13
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