"Edward M. Lerner - The Day of the RFIDs" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lerner Edward M)

The Day of the RFIDs
Edward M. Lerner
First published in Future Washington, ed. Ernest Lilley



The way into the Homeland Security Bureau seldom runs through mom & pop grocery stores and the
Internet Movie Data Base. Even less often does that route continue onto the Ten Most Wanted
Fugitives list.

Chalk me up as one to take the road (lane, alley, trail, deer path) less traveled.

I'm not blogging this for your sympathy--but I hope, at the least, to establish credibility and get your
attention. I'm posting this, in fact, for your own good. And, while I am being direct, one more thing....

I'm not the only one being watched.
****
At one level, I would like to blog my story under that grand old pseudonym "Publius." As patriotic,
though, as I believe my goals to be, my role model is someone far removed from Madison or Hamilton or
Jay. There is, in any event, nothing to be gained from a pen name: The feds know exactly who I am. The
challenge lies not in anonymity, but in elusiveness ... at least long enough to spread the word. Maybe
personal details will make this all a bit more credible.

So who am I? The family name has always been a point of obscure pride to my parents: Boyer. "Like the
suave actor, my boy," Dad would say, as though I had any idea whom he meant. "You could be like
him." Despite my cool attempts at disinterest, I eventually absorbed that said long-gone thespian was
Charles Boyer, with whom I identified about as much as with Bela Lugosi or Fred Flintstone.

Oddly omitted from this bit of cinematic trivia was how the black-and-white era actor pronounced his
name: boy-YEA. Grandpa had Americanized the name, so that it came out boy-ER--from which it was a
short step to boy-ARE. As in: Boy, are you a geek. The family business being a small grocery, it was
only a small step further to the leitmotif of my youth: Geek Boy are dee.

The grocery wasn't all bad. It supported the family, and I had a built-in after-school job--which didn't
help the Boyardee jokes. Dad, fortunately, wanted me out of the store as much as did I. Owning a
grocery store means hard work and long hours. "If you follow in my foot steps, Zach," he would
volunteer more or less weekly, "I will personally break your ankles." Not that there was ever any chance
I would make such a career choice: The geek taunts were reasonably well-founded. I'm good with
computers and better with microelectronics. I went to college to become an EE and meant never to look
back.

Easier said than done.

It's not that I ever thought the store did well, but pitching in every day after high school I had believed the
place did okay. Going away to college gave me a whole new perspective. Seeing the store only every
few months, on holidays and at breaks, the place looked different to me: dated, fewer shoppers each
time, an ever-older clientele, brands that--now that my friends regularly shopped at Wal-Mart and
Costco and Big Bob's--seemed oh so dated.
Throughout high school I had argued with Dad about upgrading to checkout stations with barcode
scanners. (I'm sure you know the advantages: fast, efficient checkout and machine-readable data on what