Today Google celebrates the 57th anniversary of the bar code, a handy machine-readable code language designed for inventory management and population control.

Yes, 57 years ago today, Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver were awarded patent number 2,612,994 for the universal product code, and Google has seen fit to honor the anniversary with one of its little goofy illustrations. According to TechCrunch, the code says, "Google." We think it says "Submit, human. You will be indexed."

We look forward to Google's plans for celebrating the birthdays of the Bilderberg Group, fluoride, and LRAD sonic crowd-control technology.