> - Foxconn workers have to walk on highways for hundreds of miles with their luggage to go back home
For anyone wondering why: It it because they are labeled as COVID close contact by health code system, so they cannot take public transport system even they have enough money.
In India's case it was logistics issue. Initial decision was to keep migrant workers in place and provide them with daily necessities free. Some state govts didn't play ball and cut off electricity and rations. After that it took some time for central and various state govts to run special trains to the people. And it's not thousands of kms, 10s of kms.
how is protecting others from a still-deadly pandemic anything remotely like genetic-engineering of Uebermensch and social stratification? people aren't shunned for life because they got coronavirus, they are quarantined until they test negative again
It’s mostly about protecting from a pandemic. China doesn’t have enough completed vaccinations for them to let it rip even if they wanted to, nor was their vaccine as good as ours.
And of course, just because you think long covid isn’t worth the risk doesn’t mean they agree.
That's an interesting channel, though I've personally found it problematic. Nearly all its videos are very strongly negative on China. That makes me wonder do they have an agenda and are they twisting the truth in some cases? Would be great to get any insight on this.
Are they twisting the truth? It is difficult to say without corroborated information that poses an alternate read of the facts.
Is it cherry picking information? Almost certainly.
If you trust the translation in the voice overs or subtitles and the sources of the videos themselves, there is still a lot of material there.
Spotlight on China is another that has news about China's economics / industry / politics for outside of China consumption that doesn't appear to be state media.
It looks very disturbing to see them hauling their luggage (why do they have luggage at their place of employment?) out of something that I can only interpret to look like a prison.
Important note for anyone that doesn't already know, migrant in this context refers to internal migration from far off home towns as opposed to "immigrant" in the context of temporary farm labour migrant workers migrating in from another country where such work forms part of their visa arrangements (Australia's migrant worker visas, pick some fruit, do some backpacking) or is part of seasonal regional migration over the border such as parts of the USA where Mexican workers legally migrate on short temporary work visas during farm's harvest seasons.
Yes, but not ones where you're fenced in with barbed wire and can't leave.
I thought the concept of company towns was more financial and economic slavery, eg your company gives you a mortgage to a buy a house from the company, all near work so you can work long hours, and you're essentially an indentured servant.
But this is actual slavery, these people are literally locked in and can't leave except by crawling over barbed wire fences.
I live in a multi-apartment house. When COVID started, one of tenants was found COVID-positive. Our entire house was locked by authorities for two weeks. It was forbidden to leave it, there was car with policeman and barricades. The only way to get food was to order it with online delivery.
A closer analogy would be to an oilfield "man camp" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbGg57r9wK0) — temporary housing for a bunch of people who have signed up to do a few months' stint of work in a job that requires them to be in the middle of nowhere to do that job (because that's inherent to the nature of the job.) They're a lot like military encampments, actually.
The real question is why these factories are built in the middle of nowhere. There's no clear need for it; no reason they couldn't just be built in cities. They're not heavy industrial polluters or anything that would make people not want them in city limits.
The bad part of company towns was that they didn’t pay you in normally accepted currency. It’s not the part where they gave you housing.
Japanese companies also own worker housing, sometimes even owning the CEO’s house (as a way of making his wages look lower). Some of them are also abusive, doesn’t mean they all are.
It's due to China's Hukou system, a type of caste system, due to which rural workers can't obtain any govt benefits or even housing in cities. This leads to this kind of worker dorm situation.
I don't see any problem here as long as workers get freely to choose whether they want to live in factory dorms or in any other arrangements they can afford. Clearly such choice is available to them and there are numerous reports online that young workers are increasing choosing not to live in factory dorms. e.g. the following report talks about young female workers usually choose to move out of the factory dorm when they got boyfriends.
Other than the annual university entrance exam and buying properties, Hukou is no longer enforced. The real difference only exists for tier-1 mega cities like Beijing and Shanghai, 97% Chinese don't live there.
Of course they'd "choose" to move out as soon as they finally can, if they get on with a local who has residence. Otherwise the only alternative is more or less going home to their parents.
This is super bad news for Apple — Zengzhou having a massive lockdown will scare away workers for a while unless they promise to pay big jumps in salary to come back I would imagine.. Apple shifting tons of production to India is super bad news for China and this is definitely going to accelerate it. Zhengzhou is Uber important to apple’s iPhone production.. so my guess is that Foxconn production is essentially zero right now and will be for a month before lines get back up to speed.. (lockdown is supposed to be 7 days) but these production lines are massive, so could impact production for an extended period if workers are nervous to come back. Likely could cost Apple tens of billions in revenue..
Interestingly, this does not affect iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus. Either the production lines for them are not affected (yet) or Apple have plenty of inventory for the holiday season.
I just ordered a M2 Macbook Air and apparently they ship those directly out of China. It's already cleared customs in Zhengzhou according to tracking, which would indicate they make those there and have no issues fulfilling orders currently.
> ...which would indicate they make those there and have no issues fulfilling orders currently.
Based on FY22 total net sales[1], the entire Mac category accounted for 10.2%, whereas iPhone category accounted for 52.1%.
In other words, if iPhone production volume were reduced by just -10% of FY22 levels going into the holidays, that would be equivalent to half of Mac revenue!
The press release was making forward-looking statements so you may be correct, but this thought experiment suggests that even if they were experiencing Mac throughput issues, it's almost irrelevant if the same facility is being shared with iPhone production.
The Apple Store near me told me that the 14 Plus sold less than even the 13 Mini. Which is kind of wild to me, I thought most wanted bigger phones and huge batteries, which is why the Mini line was killed. I say that as someone who thinks the 13 Mini is the best phone I’ve ever owned, but I always figured it was niche compared to huge phones
Yeah the 13 mini is a pretty excellent form factor. It fits in most hands, pockets, and slots in bags. It’s even small enough to toss in a suit jacket without being visible or causing the jacket to sag.
Fits in most hands, sure, but I never understood this "fits in pockets" obsession - tons of similar comments for all kinds of gadgets, when even a 2x version would fit any normal pocket (on a jeans say, or a coat) just fine.
Surely you've seen people who put their phone and wallet on a table before sitting down, because they can't comfortably sit with them in their pockets?
Mens' clothes have adapted significantly over the past 15 years to accommodate growing devices - it's just happened slowly enough that it's hard to notice.
Modern jeans are made with deeper front pockets; and a lot of sportswear has added/redesigned pockets. I have running clothes from 20 years ago with nothing but a space for some keys, and others with only shallow pockets with no button or zip - hardly suitable for carrying a $1000 phone! Modern running clothes often add a large, zipped, sweat-proof pocket specifically designed for carrying a phone.
People's experience of this will vary with their style preferences, naturally - nothing modern exceeds the pockets on a 1990s pair of cargo pants or JCNO jeans! And if you update your clothes regularly, your entire wardrobe might have gained large pockets without you noticing.
>Surely you've seen people who put their phone and wallet on a table before sitting down, because they can't comfortably sit with them in their pockets?
Yes, never understood them either. It's no issue to sit with a phone and wallet in the pocket/backpockets. This is more of a The Princess and the Pea-style issue than a real problem....
You may want to look at it from a non male perspective: for smaller people and tighter trousers or small exterior pockets on skirts and other clothing the smaller (mini) version often just fits and is one comfortable to wear even with regular movement (think of very tight stretching jeans).
I don't know, I have pretty normal guys' levi's jeans (model 514), waist size 30, length 32. The jeans fit comfortably, they're not painted on.
My iphone 7 fits ok-ish in my front pokets if I stand but I have to adjust it and pull it down when I want to sit. It's the main reason why I was looking at the 13 mini as opposed to the regular.
I find that the 13 mini is about the largest thing that is comfortable in my pocket while sitting or on a bike.
As for a coat/suit jacket I can always tell when someone has a large phone in their suit jacket pocket. If you care about that sort of thing it really ruins the line and drape of the jacket.
You want to put it in the pocket and be able to move freely after that. It worked for me with Nokia 3310, it does not work the same with any modern phone.
I was interested in the 14+ for a family member, but the pricing is awful. I'd rather go up to the 14 Pro or look into the 13 series (same phone for less).
Almost everyone I know having a big Iphone bought it because it was the most expensive one. No one does it because they like to hold a mini TV. I may be biased, but I have a wide sample.
When you can get an iPhone 13 Pro for almost the same price but it is objectively better (or alternatively get an iPhone 13 on clearance, which is almost the same device) it isn’t hard to see why the regular 14 isn’t selling amongst people who are upgrading early in the release cycle and are therefore more likely to be enthusiasts.
Than the iPhone 14 (non-Pro)? It has a brighter screen which runs at 120Hz (not 60) and it has the additional telephoto lens (and LiDAR, though I don't think there's any use for that still). I also think it looks nicer, but that's a personal preference.
Because Apple didn't upgrade the CPU in the non-pro this year the iPhone 13 Pro is still the better device.
