

N. Joseph Woodland, Inventor of the Bar Code, Dies at 91 - jericsinger
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/business/n-joseph-woodland-inventor-of-the-bar-code-dies-at-91.html

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DigitalSea
It's quite interesting to hear how the genius idea of a bar code was conceived
by dragging four fingers in the sand. It's quite amazing that such an
invention which I think is pretty revolutionary and is on everything these
days is something not many people think about. "Who invented the bar code?"
isn't a question that I've ever heard or seen anyone ask.

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cynwoody
>It's quite interesting to hear how the genius idea of a bar code was
conceived by dragging four fingers in the sand.

In 1920, fourteen-year-old Philo Farnsworth was tilling his family's Idaho
potato field. He'd been thinking of how to transmit motion pictures
electronically. Observing the neat parallel lines of the potato field, it
occurred to him that a frame to be transmitted could be broken down into
parallel lines, transmitted, and reproduced at the remote end, line by line,
in synchrony.

<http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_05_27_a_televisionary.htm>

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yakiv
> Mr. Woodland perfected a system for delivering elevator music efficiently.

This isn't directly on topic, but I don't like it when people say that someone
"perfected" some sort of design/tool/technology. They may have made it much
much much better than it was before, but is the new version ever really
perfect?

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noonespecial
Usually, in this context, "perfected" means "made good enough to actually use
for practical purposes". Lots of neat ideas languish in obscurity at the edges
of innovation because they're not quite "there" yet.

Most people understand this use of 'perfected' and do expect more
improvements, probably at a much greater rate now that the idea finds
widespread use.

Perfected might be better said "brought to the practicality tipping point?"

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habosa
One of my elementary school teachers use to tell us that her uncle invented
the bar code... I wonder if this was him.

I remember I couldn't believe that someone actually invented that, as a little
kid that made me think being a scientist was so cool.

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001sky
_Had Mr. Woodland not been a Boy Scout, had he not logged hours on the beach
and had his father not been quite so afraid of organized crime, the code would
very likely not have been invented in the form it was, if at all.

...As a Boy Scout he learned Morse code, the spark that would ignite his
invention...._

\-- Interesting note on the origin of invention.

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kiskis
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ColinWright
Also worked on the Manhattan Project.

