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The Bar Code (2015) (smithsonianmag.com)
14 points by taubek on May 25, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 4 comments



I love that I can find this kind of narrowcasting book in pop-sci Kindle. I hate that it costs me $25 to buy it. I know that in times past, that would have been below my pain threshold, and this is not just "but digital is free" -I would have hoped by now the % of the kindle was enough to an author in return, and cents-in-the-dollar to amazon at scale was enough for amazon, but no: amazon want 50%+ of the list in clear profit, and the author gets 5% or worse, after all other costs.

Looks like a great book. I won't be buying it soon.


This book excerpt doesn't mention the bar code patent troll, a man who made billions out of evergreened or invalid bar code patents:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2012/12/14/the-pat...


My family vacationed on the same beach as Joe in the late 90s, and he was a great dude. Just having a great time, telling stories that my father (and to some extent, I, though I was distracted by swimming as kids are wont to do) loved to hear. Fantastic engineer and dude with a serious love of life.


I often forget that a lot of things that I take for granted today where innovations at one point in time.




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