The Factory of the World - Documentary On Manufacturing In Shenzhen

szczys writes: This Hackaday documentary (video) looks at the changing ecosystem of manufacturing in the Pearl River Delta (Shenzhen, China) through interviews with product engineers involved with the MIT Media Lab manufacturing program, Finance professionals in Hong Kong, and notables in the Maker Industry. Worth checking out for anyone thinking of a hardware startup or just interested in how hardware gets made.

"Documentary"?

[Doub]

It's half a dozen interview of westerners slapped together with a background music, with poor sound recording on top of that. It hardly deserves the "documentary" qualifier. And if you expect to see any manufacturing done in Shenzhen, you'll be disappointed.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't know that they allow youtube access in China and you out of the cage.

Re:

[Sponge Bath]

No cats? Screw that.

Re:

[gl4ss]

not to mention that there's no mention of who they are, just talking.

it's like it's lacking final edit. sheesh, even gamer youtube stuff is better edited. this is just pointless babble without even a clear objective.

Re:

[KGIII]

I would penis the blond unless she is pear shaped. The top looks good. Did I mention I would penis her? I would.

Ah ... sour grapes !

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if what they have produced are 'crap', as you said, they are still much better than what you can pump out

Get out of your mother's basement sometime, kiddo!

Re:

[K. S. Kyosuke]

That's what she said! (The alien programmer from Sirius about Earth...)

Re: The Factory of the World - Documentary On Manu

[Desiree Hindenburg]

What was that annoying hum on the background? No really, what was it?

Re:

[TheGratefulNet]

is it, at least, good old amercian 60hz hum or that evil commie 50hz variety?

Re:

[ArcadeMan]

It's an industry that sells hardware to people who have this hobby.

I just received my Raspberry Pi 2 to build a tiny arcade cabinet (yeah I know, quite original) and without the "maker industry" I would probably be forced to make a bigger cabinet using a mini-ITX computer motherboard or pay multiple hundreds of dollars for an industrial SBC without any community support built around arcade and console emulators.

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[SpaceManNH]

Well said, i totally agree

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[Desiree Hindenburg]

Ok, thank you. But the next video you shoot, please consider at least muting the hum while the people are talking.
Thanks again.

Hackaday Heartburn

[Anonymous Coward]

This video was remarkably consistent with Hackaday's web presence. They took some excellent starting material and then screwed it up in an effort to be "cool". The ridiculous audio drone is perfectly analogous to the "super cool" black background that visually obfuscates the Hackaday webpages.

The Hackaday project pages also demonstrate a resemblance to the video. The information in the video was interesting, but there was no underlying development of an idea. Likewise the Hackaday project pages take lots o

Re: They misspelled "Hellhole of the world"

[DNS-and-BIND]

nope. Workers in Shenzhen are highly mobile and if they don't like something, they walk out and get another job across the street. Bosses moan they have to pay more and more to keep workers on the job. It sounds like you were a victim of the NPR fake story that said things were like that. Seriously, it was a total lie, the journalist just went there and told a story about what he wished were true instead of investigating the conditions on the ground. It was widely reported when it came out and we're going to be dealing with the fallout for years to come. Facts != narrative.

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[Zontar The Mindless]

I can see you've not actually been to Shenzhen recently. I have.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I was there last week, is that recent enough for you?
I visited 6 different factories / suppliers during my stay.
The factories that have difficulty with high turnover of workers are the ones that can not provide 2-3 hours overtime per day during weekdays, normal workday on saturdays and free sundays + national holidays. The workers expect it and as he said, they are highly mobile.

I don't know what you were doing in Shenzhen, but visiting factories probably wasn't it.

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[ArcadeMan]

I was there last week, is that recent enough for you?
I visited 6 different factories / suppliers during my stay.

Mike, is that you? [kickstarter.com]

Sounds like you're a victim of the PRC's lies.

[sethstorm]

Nope, but don't let facts get in the way of *your* narrative!

Nice bullshitting by Apple, though.

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[DNS-and-BIND]

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/03/16/148761812/this-american-life-retracts-mike-daiseys-apple-factory-story

A highly popular episode of This American Life in which monologuist Mike Daisey tells of the abuses at factories that make Apple products in China contained "significant fabrications," the show said today.

"We're horrified to have let something like this onto public radio," Ira Glass, the show's executive producer and host said in a blog post today. "Our program adheres to the same jour

Along those lines

[jafiwam]

Along those lines but better done. "Manufactured Landscapes" is a documentary that in part, contains lots of shots of factories in China.

Preview on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Re:

[KGIII]

Here it is on Hulu if you can stand the ads:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/4635... [hulu.com]

At least I am assuming it is the same one. I did not verify it and I have JavaScript disabled so I did not double check. Should be though, it is from Google Video search. Will watch later.