1 Gizmo - Juan Paulo Rameriz
My name is Juan Paulo Rameriz, call me Gizmo, illegal alien, Mexican/Brazilian parents, born August 5, 2010, the day the copper miners in Chili were trapped in what would be a 69 day ordeal . We came to Los Estados Unidos on my dad's L-1 when "that guy" was president; I was still a minor, but a two year DACA hall pass wasn't very appealing; our immigration lawyer advised against it, (turns out she was right). The ride was a bit bumpy from time to time, no "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" about it, but it all worked out Semsonics style.
Word is, Adrian gave me my big chance, my first job. While we did work together on a number of projects, I don't think that is right. The reason I say that is that is when we first met he was five and I was already looking at my first couple grey hairs in the mirror, (coming out of my ears of all things).
If credit is due, chops to the Department of American Alien Processing, (DAAP). As an undocumented worker. I found work in one of the internment camp machine shops, while they tried to figure out whether to send me back to Mexico, Brazil, or if one of the recycling options was a better fit. Turns out I had the knack for all things mechanical. Everything was breaking down at that point, no two machines were alike, spare parts were impossible. But hey, it was job security! During that time, I came to believe Pirsig was right, “The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.” The only in-country release was to score a solid job offer from a blue circle.
Adrian and I first met at the company Christmas party. Christmas, not holiday, Kwanza, Hanukah, Christmas. Adrian's father, an EB-5 citizen, owned the company, a rapidly growing robotic apparel manufacturing and assembly company. You probably read about us in trade magazines. The stories tended to say we were the reason that poor folks in China and Vietnam couldn't find jobs in the apparel industry, (these where the same folks the trade press called slave labor a couple decades earlier). Fox even ran a piece listing us as an example of robotic manufacturing making America great again.
The party was right in the manufacturing center, a huge sprawling complex that had once been a cannery, later a warehouse style furniture store and now, garment manufacturing. The areas where the textiles were stored and the robotic manufacturing and assembly areas were all shut off. But it was festive to be sure. Humanoid automatons, some dating back to the 1950s greeted the guests, or made off color remarks. They had been acquired when the plant was a furniture store and kept on, guess who had to keep them running? There was a huge electric scale model train system going all through the walking areas of the plant, another hold over from the past, but the largest system of its type in the world. The train industrial control was last updated thirty years ago like everything else around here.
When I first arrived the trains were on the same Modbus network as everything else. I found a compatible controller from Jameco for cheap and installed it. Can you imagine trying to troubleshoot a system with over eight hundred sewing robots with train commands coming in?
Adrian, had separated himself from the adults at the party and was wandering around the plant mostly looking up. Not surprising, there was more to see on the ceiling of that place than a Cirque du Soleil show. I noticed the teddy bear. Was it normal for a five year old to carry a teddy bear in public? Who knows, my kids are grown up, need to pay closer attention to the grandkids, but hey, if Sir Robert Clark could parachute behind enemy lines with Falla in his battledress, who was I to criticize. But wait, this bear has a touchscreen. He was manipulating the O carriages. How?
Even though they were toy trains they were almost priceless, most of them from the 1930s. The wireless controllers 802.11, Zigbee, Bluetooth, were all disabled through hardware switches on the controller that was locked away. I pulled up the spec sheet on the master, what had I forgotten, infra-red. Talk about a blast from the distant past, a little tyke had set up line of site comm link using a stuffed bear. So far, no big deal, nothing malicous, it was possible to accelerate the cars derailing them on a hairpin and maybe, just maybe, to cause a collision, the safety interlocks at intersections were software controlled, but you would have to know the pin number of the PLC. The screen on my phone was just too small for these old eyes, unplugged one of the workflow terminals from production, hooked it up to model_train. If I remembered, I still had full packet capture running off a tap, logging to a daily. For good measure, I put /var/run/lirc/lircd into debug mode. What is this kid doing?
= = =
I finally got in to see a doctor, a real person not a medbot, he said the poylps from my last roto rooter experience were cancerous, it had spread some. All I could think of was Taleb, "Never ask the doctor what you should do. Ask him what he would do if he were in your place. You would be surprised at the difference”.
= = =
When Adrian was an idealistic young teen he visited Gizmo at work.
Adrian, good to see you, I need a break. Let's visit the coffee mess. Gizmo didn't drink coffee after lunch, so he pulled a stash tea. Adrian, always the tree-hugger at heart cringed slightly a the foil wrapper, then saw there was a container for the used ones.
Do they recycle those? Adrian asked.
Nope, but we shred them and use a few as chaff grenades.
Oh I see Adrian said, wondering what a chaff grenade was.
= = =
Word is, Adrian gave me my big chance, my first job. While we did work together on a number of projects, I don't think that is right. The reason I say that is that is when we first met he was five and I was already looking at my first couple grey hairs in the mirror, (coming out of my ears of all things).
If credit is due, chops to the Department of American Alien Processing, (DAAP). As an undocumented worker. I found work in one of the internment camp machine shops, while they tried to figure out whether to send me back to Mexico, Brazil, or if one of the recycling options was a better fit. Turns out I had the knack for all things mechanical. Everything was breaking down at that point, no two machines were alike, spare parts were impossible. But hey, it was job security! During that time, I came to believe Pirsig was right, “The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.” The only in-country release was to score a solid job offer from a blue circle.
Adrian and I first met at the company Christmas party. Christmas, not holiday, Kwanza, Hanukah, Christmas. Adrian's father, an EB-5 citizen, owned the company, a rapidly growing robotic apparel manufacturing and assembly company. You probably read about us in trade magazines. The stories tended to say we were the reason that poor folks in China and Vietnam couldn't find jobs in the apparel industry, (these where the same folks the trade press called slave labor a couple decades earlier). Fox even ran a piece listing us as an example of robotic manufacturing making America great again.
The party was right in the manufacturing center, a huge sprawling complex that had once been a cannery, later a warehouse style furniture store and now, garment manufacturing. The areas where the textiles were stored and the robotic manufacturing and assembly areas were all shut off. But it was festive to be sure. Humanoid automatons, some dating back to the 1950s greeted the guests, or made off color remarks. They had been acquired when the plant was a furniture store and kept on, guess who had to keep them running? There was a huge electric scale model train system going all through the walking areas of the plant, another hold over from the past, but the largest system of its type in the world. The train industrial control was last updated thirty years ago like everything else around here.
When I first arrived the trains were on the same Modbus network as everything else. I found a compatible controller from Jameco for cheap and installed it. Can you imagine trying to troubleshoot a system with over eight hundred sewing robots with train commands coming in?
Adrian, had separated himself from the adults at the party and was wandering around the plant mostly looking up. Not surprising, there was more to see on the ceiling of that place than a Cirque du Soleil show. I noticed the teddy bear. Was it normal for a five year old to carry a teddy bear in public? Who knows, my kids are grown up, need to pay closer attention to the grandkids, but hey, if Sir Robert Clark could parachute behind enemy lines with Falla in his battledress, who was I to criticize. But wait, this bear has a touchscreen. He was manipulating the O carriages. How?
Even though they were toy trains they were almost priceless, most of them from the 1930s. The wireless controllers 802.11, Zigbee, Bluetooth, were all disabled through hardware switches on the controller that was locked away. I pulled up the spec sheet on the master, what had I forgotten, infra-red. Talk about a blast from the distant past, a little tyke had set up line of site comm link using a stuffed bear. So far, no big deal, nothing malicous, it was possible to accelerate the cars derailing them on a hairpin and maybe, just maybe, to cause a collision, the safety interlocks at intersections were software controlled, but you would have to know the pin number of the PLC. The screen on my phone was just too small for these old eyes, unplugged one of the workflow terminals from production, hooked it up to model_train. If I remembered, I still had full packet capture running off a tap, logging to a daily. For good measure, I put /var/run/lirc/lircd into debug mode. What is this kid doing?
= = =
I finally got in to see a doctor, a real person not a medbot, he said the poylps from my last roto rooter experience were cancerous, it had spread some. All I could think of was Taleb, "Never ask the doctor what you should do. Ask him what he would do if he were in your place. You would be surprised at the difference”.
= = =
When Adrian was an idealistic young teen he visited Gizmo at work.
Adrian, good to see you, I need a break. Let's visit the coffee mess. Gizmo didn't drink coffee after lunch, so he pulled a stash tea. Adrian, always the tree-hugger at heart cringed slightly a the foil wrapper, then saw there was a container for the used ones.
Do they recycle those? Adrian asked.
Nope, but we shred them and use a few as chaff grenades.
Oh I see Adrian said, wondering what a chaff grenade was.
= = =
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