The Current Events Thread

[Madican]

Because companies see the word "cost" and then they look at their legions of sweatshop people and see only "profit."

[Tall-Hatted Yanimae]

There's a level of meticulousness when applying the certain parts of the devices that only human hands have the nimble ability to do.

And it's sad because children will do this for 15 hour work days and by doing this everyday, their hands are destroyed in the joints by the time they're in their 20's.
No one ever works less then 10 hours a day. People have died working multiple days straight. On their feet. With no breaks. Factory workers in China have no breaks what so ever. No one has ever heard of working an 8 hour shift.

[Syobon]

I don't understand why they don't use robots to make ipads instead. Surely the cost of it could be outweighed by the fact you don't have to ship it halfway across the world.

Robots are a millions times more expensive than third world hand labour. Third world hand labour is so cheap it's practically free. Some people make the equivalent of a dollar a month or something crazy like that. Robots also break down and need repairs, labourers can simply be plucked off the street so they're more reliable.

[Ersatz]

The most ironic thing? There are no apple products sold in China.

hmm, not according to today's news

I guess everyone who has ever bought a Nike product is now responsible for the death of thousands of children.

The cocoa used by big companies is harvested by children kept as slaves in plantations.
I made a school research about child labor three years ago. If I remember well, there was 81 millions of children involved around the world. Nike is well-known, but almost all big companies use child labor: McDonald's, Wal-Mart, American Apparel, ExxonMobil, Ikea, Disney...

[Sollix]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scot ... atoes.html

what. what. Why int he name of god would they BAN potatoes.

[Brekkjern]

Because someone could carve a knife out of the potato with another knife and stab someone with it.

I don't see how someone could die any other way.

[General]

Criminals get really creative. I heard a story of a guy who bought some old playing cards in the Prison store, used a shank to scrape off the red dye on the cards, put it in a pipe and used a match to make a bomb. Apparently the old dye is highly explosive.

[Syobon]

Sounds like an urban legend to me, scraping off the dye would give you paper more than anything. It'd be faster to just shred the card. Even then, I think you'd have to have like 50 packs of cards to have enough dye to make any decent sort of explosive, if the dye even has any decent explosive properties.

[Madican]

Criminals are pseudo-McGyvers but this is banning potatoes at an elementary school because someone might have an allergy to them.

[Syobon]

On the rise of allergies, two theories:
- underexposed immune systems. An obsession with hygiene and overprotection (children not allowed to play outside etc) has made immune systems "lazy": exposure to micro-organims will stimulate white blood cells production and train them to recognise malignant ones. This somehow causes the immune system to overreact when a foreign element is introduced, which is what an allergy is.
- dioxines and hormones in food wrecking shit.

[Sammich Monster]

THE SOPA BILL HAS BEEN REJECTED


REJOICE

[adurumus]

Colbert can't run for President of the United States of South Carolina, because the primaries are locked. However, to gauge interest for him running, he has told the people of the internet, college students, watchers of his show and friends of Reddit to vote for... Hermain Cain. A vote for Hermain Cain is a vote for freedom.

Link

[Exeres]

THE SOPA BILL HAS BEEN REJECTED

Source? From what I can find, they're scheduled to vote yay or nay on the 24th.

[Kamak]

On the rise of allergies, two theories:
- underexposed immune systems. An obsession with hygiene and overprotection (children not allowed to play outside etc) has made immune systems "lazy": exposure to micro-organims will stimulate white blood cells production and train them to recognise malignant ones. This somehow causes the immune system to overreact when a foreign element is introduced, which is what an allergy is.
- dioxines and hormones in food wrecking shit.

I have a shitload of allergies. However, pretty much all of them have to do with genetics. I'm very susceptible to medications, especially ones for neurological disorders (like epilepsy meds). In total, I'm deathly allergic to over 30 medications I've tried. I actually need to start carrying a list of them in my wallet... just in case.

The two "normal" allergies I have are for pollen (mostly cedar, which is horrible because we live in a region that is like 80% cedar) and latex (though, not as much an allergy as "oh my god this stuff is melting to my skin"). Strangely though, I'm only allergic to certain latex, like certain types of gloves and latex-based tape. I got that allergy from my Grandma on my dad's side. My mom's side is the one that gave me the cedar allergy.

[Syobon]

That does make me think of a third thing:
- a hundred years ago, kids with deadly allergies would probably just die at a very young age. Now we can keep them alive, so naturally there's going to be more of them. If it's genetics based, this will also cause hyperallergic genes to mix in the genepool and be passed on, also since the mother shares an immune system with the child (right?) allergies will be passed on as well.