ciferecaNinjo

Intro:

“From 1 May, stricter rules on rents apply in the Brussels region. Electrical appliances including dishwashers and laptops will also have to display a repairability score. These and other changes are introduced on Mayday.…”

More info on the repairability index here. IMO this is extremely slow progress. It’s barely a drop in the ocean of what we need for rights to repair.

1. Grab a Super+ loyalty card leaflet + card.
2. Lift the card just enough to reveal the barcode and scan the barcode; OR alternatively lift it a little more to reveal the digits and photograph them when no one is looking of course… and leave it on the top of the stack. Otherwise bring the leaflet home.
3. From home, run these commands on your Debian machine:

$ sudo aptitude install barcode; # or use apt if you prefer
$ barcode -b "$delhaize_barcode" -e upc -E -p A8 | epstopdf --filter > /tmp/delhaize_super+.pdf; # where "$delhaize_barcode" is the unique 12-digit code you grabbed.
$ sudo adb start-server; # if this fails, skip the next 2 commands. Otherwise connect your phone to the Debian machine over USB before the next step
$ adb shell mkdir storage/sdcard1/my_disloyalty_cards
$ adb push /tmp/delhaize_super+.pdf storage/sdcard1/my_disloyalty_cards/

4. If you took the leaflet and card home, then your final step is to return to Delhaize and sneak it onto the top of the pile. Eventually someone else will take the card home and activate it by registering it in their name.

No worries if the last 3 “adb” developer commands fail. They will likely fail for most people. The commands can be substituted with however you would transfer the PDF from your PC to your phone.

The barcode should be immediately scannable but it may not have effect until the next poor sucker installs Delhaize’s shitty proprietary closed-source app and registers the card in their name. Thereafter you should get the instant discounts on what you buy but obviously any points accumulation will go to your surrogate. Sure, you could probably exploit the points too but don’t be evil. Your surrogate is your friend. Fair enough that they get the points credit.

Mods

The barcode will not have the exact same cosmetic style as the card (the leading and checksum digits are visually offset). If you care about this, you could:

• Add the -n option to the barcode command to omit the digits, then use ImageMagick or GIMP to insert the digits below the barcode; or
• Use LaTeX to generate the barcode. I’m not sure how to generate a “UPC A” barcode in LaTeX but you likely have complete control over the format

You could pass the -t option to the barcode command to print many copies on a page of sticky labels to give to give to family/friends/colleagues. Those stickers could be put over top of barcodes on other cards which no one activates.

Unworkable shortcut

Theoretically you could simply scan the barcode and use the same barcode app to generate a UPC-A barcode. My app detects the barcode as UPC_A and correctly decodes it, but when the app tries to re-encode the digits into UPC-A it produces a 2D barcode (like a QR). I doubt that works because the cashier’s scanner is likely only for 1D linear codes.

Perhaps other apps can do this correctly.

Notes

The Delhaize barcodes do not seem to start with a “2”, which seems questionable because a 2 normally indicates internal use. So does Delhaize run the risk that their loyalty cards clash with UPCs of actual products? Maybe they actually legitimately bought a range of product codes for memberships but seems like a waste of money.

UPDATE - Why I’ve decided not to do this

It has come to my attention that loyalty customers who run the app have access to their own shopping history. At the same time, couples often share an account and see each others purchases. So consider this scenario:

Bob and Alice are a non-drinking couple, but Bob had a drinking problem historically. Suppose he is on the wagon. If suragate Mallory buys alcohol, Alice will think that Bob is sneaking alchohol which would lead to confusion and misery. Mallory could avoid buying things like alcohol and tobacco, but there is also the problem that Alice or Bob could be using the receipts for accounting and bookkeeping.

Since there are unpredictable problems with this, I think this anti-surveillance advertising move should not be used.

Someone operating a small gratis online service in Germany posted an address for GDPR requests. I happened to be passing through the neighborhood so I went to the address to drop a cash donation in their box. But I was blocked because it was an apartment building with a locked front door and no access to mail slots which are apparently in the lobby. Buzzing yielded no answer, so I could not donate cash.

About half the apartment buildings on the street were designed to block public access to mailboxes. A bartender told me it was some kind of German privacy rule and that postal workers get a front door key to all such buildings. I don’t quite grasp the issue being solved. Mail slots can have flaps that prevent inadvertently seeing someone else’s mail. Is there a problem with malicious snoops probing into mailboxes with a camera? Or mail theft? If someone is so interested in snooping, wouldn’t they just wait until a legit resident uses the door and do a tailgate entry anyway?

Anything to increase security is a good idea in the absence of compromise. But this seems like a bad compromise because it means that Deutche Post has an exclusive monopoly on mail delivery (like USPS in the US). In the case at hand, I would not trust the postal network with cash.

Postal services are now threatened by relentless digitization. E.g.:

• Belgium has reduced non-priority mail delivery to just a few times per week
• Denmark has completely eliminated mail delivery (yikes!)

If the Denmark scenario were to play out in Germany, the mailboxes would be unreachable to 3rd party couriers. Maybe it’s favorable in the sense that the access restriction could actually prevent Germany from becoming as foolishly digital as Denmark.

Belgium has Riopan for €8.95 (price controlled):

• comes in 20 individually sealed shelf-stable packets of 10 ml doses containing 800mg of magaldrat

Netherlands (price controls unknown):

• Antagel Sanias for ~€7.50 comes in 1 bottle of 300ml (20—30 doses of aluminumoxide + magnesuimhdroxide) which must be refrigerated after opening; stable for only 1 month
• Maalox chew tablets (×20 of 200mg aluminumoxide & 400mg magnesiumhydroxide) for €4.85 [€c24/dose]

Superficially the Antagel Sanias seemed like a winner because the price is lower than Riopan and you can control your dosage. But you have 1 month to use it up! Whoever needs 20—30 doses in 1 month has serious enough problems that they probably should be getting more rigorous treatment. Not sure why this stuff exists in that quantity. If you only get acid reflux 1—2 times/week, the Antagel Sanias is a ripoff.

Not sure why Maalox tablets have 10 times the potency of Antagel Sanias. Is there a 90% absorption loss with chew tablets?

Makers of appliances like washing machines implement a diagnostic mode which enables manual control to command specific cycles (filling, agitating, draining, spinning). There is typically also a secret set of steps to see error codes.

Why do retailers like Krefel get that info? I have never seen a retailer who actually connects their machines to water and sewage, so it’s unclear how they use the secret modes.

In any case, they are somehow prohibited from sharing the secret info with customers -- those who actually need diagnostic control to maintain their own property.

All but one supplier of electronic components in Amsterdam has shut down. The most recent shop to go under was Hecke Electronica. This was actually a mere retirement by the owner in his mid-70s. But all the other shops could not overcome the struggle for business.

According to the owner of an electro shop which sells light bulbs (not components), it’s not interesting to sell components because you do a lot of talking and only to get a sale that earns 20 cents.

A shop that traditionally only sold plastic toy models (“MUCO”) has allocated half the shop to:

Things they seem to be missing are along the lines of:

The masses of Amazon.com consumers did this. People who prioritise saving a couple euros above the environment while looking the other way as exploited human factory workers pee in jars to keep up with the pace of reverse-centouran robots that keep people’s noses on the grindstone for lousy wages. Only to then toss new non-defective goods into a landfill because they did not reach Bezo’s profitability standard amid warehouse space shortages.

I will only shop offline, with cash. And my focus is on repair, so I need hacker tools to repair broken appliances that consumerist Amazon patrons dump on curbs. So from where I sit this is dystopia unfolding. Unbanked people are fucked. Law may not directly explicitly force you to lick a bank’s boots but if you don’t you’re simply marginalised like an insect under a steam roller.

At the same time, the number of shops selling useless junk souvenirs to tourists is uncountable. But not a single Bus Pirate in town. Clogs and shot glasses won’t help fix a washing machine PCB that has bricked itself due to an anti-repair design.

I always have a hard time finding these things locally:

• malt vinegar powder and liquid (not Sarsons.. I know where to get that and there is nothing wrong with it but just want to try something different)
• steel cut oats (sometimes called Irish oatmeal but I've seen the standard rolled oats also called Irish and that's not what I'm after)
• Liquid Smoke
• Flipperzero (unlikely on any shelves, but worth asking)
• Bus Pirate
• Mongolian Fire Oil -- not sure if there is a generic name for this stuff but it’s a kind of spicy hot oil with a quite unique character
• Bragg’s Liquid Aminos

Any shops in Amsterdam worth a look?

Flixbus recently started blocking tor for some operations like seeing prices. The only alternative site for Flixbus price info is Trainline, as far as I know.

Are there others?

Then trainline started blocking tor. And (today?) Flixbus started blocking tor from the whole site (not just pricing info). Same problem for blablacar (blocks tor).

Anyone have a source for openly reachable Flixbus pricing?

EDIT: found wanderu.com

Any Aacheners around?

I visited the Lindt factory outlet shop. I was in hurry so I just very quickly grabbed a bag of chocolate without the time to look around. Noticed I was charged ~€50/kg for chocolate. It’s a quite shocking price. Did I just make a really unlucky choice in that shop, or is all the chocolate priced like that? Just wondering if I should return if I have more time.

For comparison, the Neuhaus chocolate factory outlet shop in Brussels has quite good value. I think I blew like €100 on something like ~15 or so kilos.. not exactly sure.

In any case, I expect a factory outlet shop to be cheap; cheaper than retail. The most pricey retail chocolate in grocery shops is like €30/kg.