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I just thought I’d let you all know what’s going on while you’re waiting for the latest and greatest.

As the post title says, I was involved in the reverse engineering of one of the most important inventions of the 20th century: the Super Tag Ink.

For those that aren’t privy to what exactly the Super Tag Ink is, it’s one of those things that the department stores put on their clothes so nobody tries to run off with them.  Yeah, one of THOSE things.  If you’re a shoplifter, chances are you’re very familiar with these things and should be involved in this project–I’ll gladly give up my position.

Anyway, my wife bought one of the kids an outfit in TJ Max (hah, one outfit?  I don’t think so–let’s take it one step further.  Shopping spree on J’s card!).  Unfortunately, the checkout clerk neglected to remove the tag on this particular outfit.  A few weeks later, I’m trying to dress the kid to send to daycare and I stumble across this hunk of plastic.  Sorry, no photos.  I didn’t decide to take pictures until after the reverse-engineering.  I can’t exactly hold a camera and do complicated important stuff like that, can I?  NO!

My first thought was to just leave it attached–what’s the harm?  In fact, it might deter some would-be child thieves…or not.  Deciding it would probably be a bit uncomfortable to the lad, my wife suggested I take i over to TJ Max and have them remove it.  Calmly, I replied with something to the effect of furthering scientific studies of ink tags or some silly tripe like that.  Basically, I just wanted to break it.

Not thinking of the risks of bodily-harm involved, I promptly got out the needle-nose pliers, a big knife and some hedge clippers (no idea why I have hedge clippers living in NYC where there are no hedges, but hey, they got the job done).  At first, my goal was to simply get the thing off the outfit.  It’d be too hard to cover up the evidence, and my wife would say something like, “I told you…!” or “Why don’t you ever listen to me?!”

After a bit of plastic surgery, I had the thing in bits and safely separated from the clothing.  No more danger of getting ink on anything but myself and the floor.  Here’s how it looked after I finally had a free hand to pick up the camera:

Sure I could have been gentle, but then this thing quite possible reanimated into a Super Tag zombie or something.  Total decapitation and dismemberment is what I was aiming for.  The next step will be to separate the parts amongst several TJ Max’s to spread the word…but I digress.

Really, I suppose I’m a bit dissapointed that this thing is no marvel of modern engineering.  A simple clutch mechanism holds the pin in, and a completely separate container holds the ink and an RFID tag (just in case it escapes, I guess).  One thing I found a bit silly was the rubber ink condom holding the glass vial:

The Ink Condom – To protect the ink vial from some sort of ink vial STD?

Hmmmm…

Dangerous Business…

I suppose maybe it protects TJ Max from lawsuits would-be shoplifters impaling themselves with glass shards while trying to remove the tag. Ahh, what a country.

Anyway, there really isn’t too much more to talk about.  It’s a simple device with one or two neat little features, but nothing to write home about!

That being said–Caffeinated Content 3.38b, today or tomorrow.