Mike Franklin

Sun
Jan
22
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Foxconn employs nearly 300 guards to direct foot traffic so workers are not crushed in doorway bottlenecks. The facility’s central kitchen cooks an average of three tons of pork and 13 tons of rice a day.
Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class - NYTimes.com
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The entire supply chain is in China now,” said another former high-ranking Apple executive. “You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours.
Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class - NYTimes.com
Fri
Jan
20
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Predictions are dangerous, but I’m going to go ahead and make one right now: By November, the Obama campaign will have torn Mitt Romney into tiny little pieces, put those pieces into a wood chipper, and fed the dust that came out the other end to the worms. He’ll end up the kind of failed nominee that no one wants to associate themselves with when it’s over. Think Bob Dole after 1996, or Michael Dukakis after 1988.
Incredibly, Mitt Romney Really Is the Republicans’ Best Chance
Thu
Jan
19

CIA’s “Facebook” Program Dramatically Cut Agency’s Costs (by surikanta)

Wed
Jan
18
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For all you high school students who have papers due tomorrow, as well as anyone else who might like to access Wikipedia while the site is offline to protest SOPA, we have a clever workaround for you. Atlantic friend and contributor Philip Bump created a simple site — http://pbump.net/wiki/ — that lets you search Google’s cache of Wikipedia to find recent copies of articles. Obviously, the cached versions of the millions of Wikipedia articles won’t retain their full functionality, but as a temporary Wikipedia replacement, it’s pretty slick.

The site also a great reminder that the Internet is very good at defeating attempts to restrict information flow by anyone, even those people protesting to keep the flow unfettered.

While Wikipedia’s Down, This Tool Will Answer Your Questions With Google’s Cache - Alexis Madrigal - Technology - The Atlantic
(via Office Colds And The Heroes Who Perpetuate Them | The Awl)

(via Office Colds And The Heroes Who Perpetuate Them | The Awl)

Tue
Jan
17
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Leading scientists and naturalists, including Professor Richard Dawkins and Sir David Attenborough, are claiming a victory over the creationist movement after the government ratified measures that will bar anti-evolution groups from teaching creationism in science classes.
Richard Dawkins celebrates a victory over creationists | Education | The Observer
Mon
Jan
16

With these shoes. (by João Varela)

Sat
Jan
14
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It’s the internet. The only thing less important than correct spelling is getting your facts right.
Should Vanity Fair Be a Spelling Vigilante? | Blogs | Vanity Fair
Thu
Jan
12
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But no one seems to have noticed that the fervor of online jihadists is actually quite similar to the fervor of any other online group. The online world of Islamic extremists, like all the other worlds of the Internet, operates on a subtly psychological level that does a brilliant job at keeping people like Abumubarak clicking and posting away — and amassing all the rankings, scores, badges, and levels to prove it. Like virtually every other popular online social space, the social space of online jihadists has become “gamified,” a term used to describe game-like attributes applied to non-game activities. It turns out that what drives online jihadists is pretty much exactly what drives Internet trolls, airline ticket consumers, and World of Warcraft players: competition.
The World of Holy Warcraft - By Jarret Brachman and Alix Levine | Foreign Policy
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The Inquisition, with its stipulation that torture and interrogation not jeopardize life or cause irreparable harm, actually set a more rigorous standard than some proponents of torture insist on now. The 21st century’s Ad extirpanda is the so-called Bybee memo, issued by the Justice Department in 2002 (and later revised). In it, the Bush administration put forth a very narrow definition, arguing that for an action to be deemed torture, it must produce suffering “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.” To place this in perspective: the administration’s threshold for when an act of torture begins was the point at which the Inquisition stipulated that it must stop.
Torturer’s Apprentice - Magazine - The Atlantic
Wed
Jan
11
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Negotiations with the carriers:
Android handset makers: Here are our phones. How would you like us to change them so that you will sell them?

Microsoft: Here’s $200 million. Please sell our phones.

Apple: Here is our new phone. It comes in black or white. We will let you sell it.

Daring Fireball Linked List: U.S. Carriers Don’t Want Stock Android Phones
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The pace is swift, despite the meeting lasting five hours. It is occasionally leavened with a touch of humour, or avuncular kindness. One of the academics, looking at a file photo, sighs: “Oh he’s young – he looks like one of the Bash Street kids.” Another remarks, of a different candidate: “You could conduct a biology study in his hair.” Recalling an over-caffeinated and under-dressed teenager, one says: “The T-shirt, oh yes, the T-shirt …
So who is good enough to get into Cambridge? | Education | The Guardian
Tue
Jan
10
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Most people—including nearly everybody I surveyed while reporting this story—assume that Livestrong funnels large amounts of money into cancer research. Nope. The foundation gave out a total of $20 million in research grants between 1998 and 2005, the year it began phasing out its support of hard science. A note on the foundation’s website informs visitors that, as of 2010, it no longer even accepts research proposals.
Lance Armstrong and Livestrong - Page 3 | Lance Armstrong | OutsideOnline.com
Mon
Jan
9
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Over the past 48 hours, news has broken in India of the existence of at least 12 patients infected with tuberculosis that has become resistant to all the drugs used against the disease. Physicians in Mumbai are calling the strain TDR, for Totally Drug-Resistant. In other words, it is untreatable as far as they know.
India Reports Completely Drug-Resistant TB | Wired Science | Wired.com