<kristianpaul>
i dunno if you can live with that in china..
<wolfspraul>
sure I just try to understand what (in that list) you find bad
<wolfspraul>
I guess in a perfect world, we don't want to build a product where any worker, no matter where in the supply chain, is treated worse than you would treat your own son or daughter.
<roh>
kristianpaul: 125ukp? 90us$ is 55ukp or 63Euro
<wolfspraul>
that's going to take a loooong time to get there though. of course we can start :-)
<roh>
ack
<kristianpaul>
roh: dont get it
<wolfspraul>
the list in the guardian article is not very shocking to me. the guardian is doing really good China reporting actually, so maybe they don't want to publish sensationalist stuff.
<kristianpaul>
ha,you'll wonder how i get to that article ;)
<wolfspraul>
overtime is the #1 problem, yes. but the kids want it, like crazy. I mean I see Lars being up (hacking?) until about 4 AM or so too.
<wolfspraul>
should we stop him?
<kristianpaul>
no..
<roh>
kristianpaul: ah. sorry.. wrong article. now i see where the 125ukp are from
<roh>
142Euro that is.
<kristianpaul>
well is free to choose
<wolfspraul>
so the overtime is something those kids want. they will leave the factory if the factory won't allow them to work 14 hours a day - if they want to.
<kristianpaul>
some times you just cant.. or
<wolfspraul>
you could argue that they are under a lot of social or society pressure to make money.
<wolfspraul>
but a single factory definitely cannot change that, even Foxconn and Apple cannot.
<kristianpaul>
is different being up to late when you lik soemthing.. and when not
<wolfspraul>
no trust me, I have been at many factories, I lived in dorms. they enjoy what they do - a lot.
<wpwrak>
kristianpaul: the "confession letter" ... maybe the hairdryer is considered a fire hazard
<kristianpaul>
well, good for them !
<wolfspraul>
I am talking specifically about young Chinese workers (16-22) in the electronics industry.
<kristianpaul>
happynes is unique :-)
<wolfspraul>
also about hygiene
<wolfspraul>
Chinese have all sorts of 'strange' hygienic beliefs.
<wolfspraul>
fire in your body etc.
<kristianpaul>
:S
<wolfspraul>
the hairdryer sounds very much like that to me, like blowing something bad into the air, infecting others.
<kristianpaul>
yeah i should be aware of that context too
<wolfspraul>
also keep in mind that a lot of people sleep together in small rooms, the hygienic rules are very strict
<kristianpaul>
wolfspraul: why the enjoy? that part.. there must be somehing clue on all this
<wolfspraul>
and rooted in Chinese beliefs of course, they are not doing this since yesterday
<wolfspraul>
they make their first own money!
<wolfspraul>
they are very proud of that
<wolfspraul>
imagine you are a kid in some village somewhere in China
<wolfspraul>
that's a bad place! the ngo folks should live there for a month :-)
<wolfspraul>
now you get a job at that shiny factory in the shiny megacity
<wolfspraul>
and you make your first own money
<wolfspraul>
you can go shopping all these shiny things, clothes, fashion accessories, cellphone (well they probably have that already)
<wolfspraul>
they try to make as much money as possible in the least time possible
<kristianpaul>
how long this "kids" stays on a factory?
<wolfspraul>
then back to their village, and think about the next step. which is often marriage (girls), or higher schooling (boys)
<wolfspraul>
I have rarely/never seen them there for more than 4 years
<kristianpaul>
do they ever realize that money is not all in life?..
<kristianpaul>
or may be it is for them..
<kristianpaul>
sigh
<wolfspraul>
they are just excited about these new things they are seeing
<wolfspraul>
remember they are very young, 16-22, coming from the countryside
<kristianpaul>
sure, that happens :-)
<kristianpaul>
and after the 4 year they move to another factory?
<wolfspraul>
yes actually, I just realize. those ngo guys should have accompanied a worker back to his hometown. compare with the living conditions there :-)
<kristianpaul>
when you usually get marriage in china btw?
<wolfspraul>
no the workers are all young
<kristianpaul>
yeah, all is relative
<wolfspraul>
factories are not really offering a career path
<wolfspraul>
workers come and go, they are just human material
<kristianpaul>
just a temporary jump of money then
<wolfspraul>
so the article is all correct, and definitely westerners should understand and care about that when they buy products
<kristianpaul>
interesting
<wolfspraul>
so they stay a few years, then they need to think about the next step
<wolfspraul>
since they will have saved quite a bit of money, they actually have a lot of options, especially higher level schooling
<kristianpaul>
wow, nice (higher level schooling)
<kristianpaul>
thats not so bad then :)
<wolfspraul>
I'm not going to talk you into this being paradise on earth :-)
<kristianpaul>
sure not
<wolfspraul>
it's 1000 times better than a North Korean slave labor camp, for sure
<wolfspraul>
and probably factory life for them is better than life back at their village
<kristianpaul>
I was making the comment considering the context pointed (countryside etc..)
<kristianpaul>
all is relative, too many ecosystems
<wolfspraul>
if I were them, what would bug me the most is the strong social pressure, first from the family in CHina, and then from society at large
<wolfspraul>
but I wouldn't blame my employer for that, that kinda makes no sense
<wolfspraul>
I've thought about this and I have a clear goal now. no job you are paying for should be worse than a job you could imagine your own child to do (or yourself of course).
<wolfspraul>
that does need to take into consideration that people are different, different age, different money requirements, different health, different social environment, and so on.
<wolfspraul>
so there will still be a huge diversity and inequality. but we should not treat someone else worse than we treat our loved ones.
<wolfspraul>
unfortunately China doesn't score very high on this idea :-)
<wolfspraul>
if one of those kids has to rely on their employer to take care of them, they are indeed screwed
<wolfspraul>
but they know that
<wolfspraul>
it's just a stupid money source for them
<wolfspraul>
loyalty is exactly 0
<kristianpaul>
they r smart ;)
<wolfspraul>
many factories have something like 80% attrition rate (80% of workers in January are gone in December)
<wpwrak>
they probably enjoy more social liberties at the factory, well away from the family, even if the factory would be considered very rigid by our standards
<wolfspraul>
definitely!
<wpwrak>
wolfspraul: (treat your employees as if they were your own kinds) that seems a bit too idealistic to me. well, depending on how stern a father you are ;-)
<wolfspraul>
that's just my conclusion after looking at this problem from different angles. if from the perspective of those workers their job is truly good and helpful to them, and if you were their father and you would think that a good thing is happening, why would you want to remove that?
<wolfspraul>
it can improve further, but first of all what's good or bad is a subjective thing, and depends on your perspective
<wolfspraul>
there are many cases where it's out of the question that a bad thing is happening, from everybody's perspective. so those can be improved first.
<wolfspraul>
story from last Ben NanoNote run
<wolfspraul>
I stay there until 2-3 AM or so, let's say 'normal' time for a hacker to call it a day, right?
<wolfspraul>
at that time the run was still going on, everybody there. anyway, I leave, get some sleep.
<wpwrak>
sure. what's the meaning of the time of day anyway :)
<wolfspraul>
get up around 9 AM, go out, nice sunshine, drink a coffee in a small street shop
<wolfspraul>
who walks by (on the way to the factory) - the head worker girl I know from the run
<wolfspraul>
I say "wow, that's early! You've been there when I left. When did you leave?"
<wpwrak>
(father) well, you may have different ambitions than their parent and so on.
<wolfspraul>
answer: 6 AM!
<wolfspraul>
she left the factory at 6 AM, and overtook me again sipping my coffee, because she wanted to be there at 9 AM, but was a little late (!)
<wolfspraul>
man man
<wolfspraul>
I finished my coffee first, showed up around 10 or so :-)
<wpwrak>
i fear for the yield on that day ;-)
<wolfspraul>
well that was an extreme day even for their standards
<wpwrak>
good ;)
<wolfspraul>
but trust me - she loves her work
<wolfspraul>
the money she makes rather
<wolfspraul>
and it's a lot!
<wolfspraul>
she now also convinced her sister to join the same factory
<kristianpaul>
will consider drink coffer more often..
<wolfspraul>
a lot of China reporting mixes two things together - hourly wage, and overtime
<wpwrak>
kristianpaul: to pick up factory girls ? ;-)
<kristianpaul>
wpwrak: he :p
<wolfspraul>
so they do some math saying "hourly wage is 1.50 USD, monthly wage is 200 USD"
<wolfspraul>
then, often in the same article, they say "we saw workers who had 100 overtime hours"
<wolfspraul>
so yeah
<wpwrak>
*grin*
<wolfspraul>
either or
<wolfspraul>
the actual paid-out monthly wage is higher than when you do the math with the normal working hours
<wolfspraul>
because nobody works like that
<wpwrak>
does overtime pay more than regular hours ?
<wolfspraul>
forgot, this is tricky
<wolfspraul>
the government wants to reduce overtime
<wolfspraul>
so the factories are forced to pay less for overtime than for regular hours
<wolfspraul>
but they find all sorts of tricks to circumvent that
<wolfspraul>
:-)
<kristianpaul>
ha!
<wpwrak>
i know vacations and weekends do. or at least they cost more. not sure how much of this trickles all the way down to the workers.
<wolfspraul>
it's the other way round here
<wolfspraul>
the government tries to stop the overtime excesses
<wolfspraul>
so they force the factories to pay less (!) during the night etc
<wolfspraul>
of course that doesn't work
<wolfspraul>
because on paper maybe it's less, but the factory finds some other way to send the money to their workers
<wpwrak>
nice. employers who invent tricks to pay _more_. now there's an example ! :)
<wolfspraul>
bottom line that girl makes maybe 400-500 USD per month
<wolfspraul>
which given that all regular life articles are dirt cheap allows her for a very comfortable life in China, and build up savings too
<wolfspraul>
and in China it's simple - you are a 'good' girl/boy when you save 50% of your salary!
<wolfspraul>
at least the number is easy to remember
<kristianpaul>
hum.. i  need do more savings :-)
<wolfspraul>
you get the social pressure from me now? :-)
<wolfspraul>
that 50% thing is one of the endless kinds of social pressure exerted here. horrible imho
<wolfspraul>
kristianpaul: just consider I never told you :-)
<kristianpaul>
k
<kristianpaul>
btw, is also healthcare dirt cheap?
<wolfspraul>
difficult. some very basic healthcare is cheap or even free, yes.
<wolfspraul>
on top of that if you want better healthcare you are quickly piling up huge amounts, and worst case you even fall for some scam/fraud.
<wolfspraul>
like for example simple antibiotics cost 1-2 USD for one pack
<wolfspraul>
in Germany the same thing costs 40 USD, in the US 100 USD
<wolfspraul>
:-)
<wolfspraul>
in that case a lot of the cost in Germany or US is the whole bloated system. the pill itself could indeed be much cheaper.
<wolfspraul>
but then there are other things let's say a difficult surgery, and you need a very clean room, you need very clean and high-precision instruments, etc. etc.
<wolfspraul>
and they will cost, no matter where you are. most of the technical equipment in a Chinese hospital is from the US or Europe. GE, Siemens, etc.
<kristianpaul>
damm just one 82 ohm resistor :-(
<wpwrak>
probably still a bargain compared to the US. i wonder how much there is simply insurance against malpractice lawsuits
<kristianpaul>
what i just dint go to the electronic shop my self...
<wpwrak>
kristianpaul: you can probably also use 1.2k : 560 : 100 instead of 1.0 k : 470 : 82
<kristianpaul>
dont have 560 ohm..
<wpwrak>
or 890 : 390 : 68
<kristianpaul>
ha, those are crazy common values
<kristianpaul>
may be i can scratch a 100 ohm resistor i have
<wpwrak>
it helps to just go to the shop and buy, say, 100 of each E12 value from 10 Ohm to 1 MOhm :) resistors are so cheap, it's not like spending real money. and you'll never have to worry about not having the right resistor around.
<wpwrak>
you have 1000 and 470 ?
<kristianpaul>
yes
<wpwrak>
with 1k : 470 : 100, you get: 0.3 V, 0.58 V, and 0.79 V
<kristianpaul>
yeah i need go do that
<wpwrak>
so you'd over-drive the VGA input a bit (it's nominally 0-0.7 V). not sure if this is a problem.
<kristianpaul>
humm
<kristianpaul>
i just have one analog and lcd monitor..
<kristianpaul>
i can wait monday better :)
<wpwrak>
i doubt it would damage the monitor. but you may get weird colors.
<kristianpaul>
ah ok :p
<wpwrak>
ah, and better try it with the lcd monitor. you could damage an analog monitor with weird timings.
<kristianpaul>
oh
<urandom__>
you really get a resolution of 1024x768 with the ubb-vga stuff?
<wpwrak>
urandom__: yup :) there's a bit of jitter, so i wouldn't try to read a small font at 1024x768, but there are that many pixels on the screen
<urandom__>
awesome!
<urandom__>
i would not have expected it to get such high resolutions
<wpwrak>
yeah, the mmc controller helped a lot. without it, it would have maxed out at 640x480
<kristianpaul>
wpwrak: is posible to read a PDF?
<kristianpaul>
you just uncover the dma oscurity, and an open door for new apps
<wpwrak>
kristianpaul: at the moment, you can only display the test image or the lcd content (in 640x480 mode), or a single PPM image (no slide show yet)
<kristianpaul>
like doing SDR with a 4bit ADC/DCA.. who know..s
<kristianpaul>
ah
<kristianpaul>
well i can hardcode a presentation ;)
<wpwrak>
kristianpaul: but you could covert one page of a PDF to PPM and display it. or add a slide show feature and pre-convert multiple pages.
<kristianpaul>
okay i need to read more about PPM first :)
<slie>
hello
<wpwrak>
it's a very simple rgb image format. all the usual tools (gimp, imagemagick, and of course pbmplus) can handle it
<kristianpaul>
hi slie
<slie>
just wanted to say hello just found this on slashdot thoght it was cool
<slie>
thought *
<kristianpaul>
wellcome :)
<wpwrak>
slie: thanks ! :)
<slie>
I don't yet know a lot about this stuff but major is EE.
<slie>
I was wondering does this just mirror a display?
<wpwrak>
it builds an internal frame buffer with the bit pattern it needs to send out, and then transfers pixel data from this internal frame buffer
<wpwrak>
now, the content can come from different sources. at the moment, there are three image generators: the test image, one that takes a content of the ben's little screen (320x240) and puts it in a VGA-sizes frame buffer, and
<wpwrak>
last but not least one that takes a PPM image of the same resolution as the frame buffer and converts it to this internal format
<wpwrak>
at the moment, the displaying keeps the system 100% busy, so you couldn't, say, run an X server on that vga. but i hope that we can still improve that.
<slie>
awsome, im going to go look into this stuff I really like it.
<wpwrak>
slie: great ! the qi-hardware project, despite its name, actually doesn't have a lot of hardware people, so some expertise would also be hotly welcome :)
<kristianpaul>
yup :)
<kristianpaul>
are you good with dsp btw? ;)
<wpwrak>
kristianpaul: trying to separate noise from signal in some mysterious raw gps data dump ? :)
<kristianpaul>
hehe, not yet, actually osgps take care fo that for now
<wpwrak>
kristianpaul: so have you gotten a fix yet ?
<kristianpaul>
no
<kristianpaul>
need more data for that
<wpwrak>
damn
<kristianpaul>
i just have some miliseconds dump
<wpwrak>
that gps takes forever to get a first fix, doesn't it ? :)
<kristianpaul>
:-(Â Â no no
<wpwrak>
could you extract time from the dump ?
<kristianpaul>
i dont have too much data but for the last dump i got, it seems to cath some satellites
<kristianpaul>
not
<kristianpaul>
were just few miliseconds...
<kristianpaul>
next dump will be  some seconds at least 30..
<kristianpaul>
i need catch satellites PRN before extract any navigational data wich is the easy part actually
<kristianpaul>
s/cath/track/correlate
<kristianpaul>
yeah, i had been slow on this, i had to learn lots of things...
<kristianpaul>
now just finishing the milkymist core, i hope it works.. at least better than in SIE, now that i fixed some bad habits during acquisition.
<wpwrak>
(dump size) best if you can get 60 seconds. that way, you can be sure that for any satellite you find you will have an entire frame
<kristianpaul>
he well, the ideal will be at least 30 mminutes if i want a full almanac i remenber
<kristianpaul>
but i can cheat and load some updated almanacs from the web :)
<wpwrak>
i think once you can fully decode the first minute, the rest will be easy :)
<kristianpaul>
:)
<kristianpaul>
s/noise/pseudo randon noise
<kristianpaul>
i remenber DocScrutinizer pointe a nices graphs about that process time ago
<rjeffries>
kristianpaul is there a description of your GPS project online? I am not sure if you are doing software defined radio for gps? or some hardware assist
<kristianpaul>
i dont do the rf front end and some downconvertion and data serialization, the rest is software for now
<kristianpaul>
wpwrak: when you said extract time, it was about clock or navigation data?
<wpwrak>
kristianpaul: the data sent by the satellited (in the 1st subframe)
<kristianpaul>
like TOW and such?
<wpwrak>
yeah, "time within the week", wikipedia calls it
<kristianpaul>
okay now make the testbench
<wolfspraul>
yeah the chart at the bottom of the homepage is funny indeed
<wolfspraul>
I wish we had 5000 visitors each day
<rjeffries>
wpwrak does 4760 support 2x 8:10 interfaces (I think ans is yes?)
<wpwrak>
rjeffries: even 3x if the manual is to be trusted
<wpwrak>
wolfspraul: have any found their way to the shop yet ? (if it was actually reachable :)
<rjeffries>
wow the one day bump in visits to home page is cool
<wpwrak>
we may get another wave around now - us west coast evening
<rjeffries>
will 4760 have more free gpios or about same as current chip
<kristianpaul>
rjeffries: are you interested on 4760 for some particular porpuse?
<wpwrak>
rjeffries: a lot more. the 4720 has 90. the 4760 has 168
<kristianpaul>
need a dual cored xburst
<kristianpaul>
or milkymist...
<kristianpaul>
but that need better bus support :-)
<rjeffries>
isny 4760 dueal core?
<kristianpaul>
i think...
<wpwrak>
kristianpaul: i hope he's collecting investors or sponsors for our cause ;-)
<rjeffries>
wpwrak just thinking is all
<rjeffries>
would a design simular to atben that was built0in to a future NN be able to use GPIOs rather than specifically the sfio stuff
<rjeffries>
I wonder what mass produced products there are that use 4760
<kristianpaul>
may be 4760 will have built-in wlan rjeffries ;)
<wpwrak>
what atben really wants is spi. sp it should use an spi port. the 4760 has two of them.
<kristianpaul>
rjeffries: did you tried asking xbusrt (seriouslly, this questions are good to ask then)
<kristianpaul>
i was thinking wich mobile phones are using at xbust chip atm..
<rjeffries>
I do not know anybody there and do not read/write Chinese
<kristianpaul>
s/xburst/Ingenic
<rjeffries>
from what wolfsprau1l has said in past Ingenic is n ot exactlt open to strathgers
<kristianpaul>
rjeffries: come on, english is wellcome everywhere ;)
<wolfspraul>
wpwrak: oh sure, a nice batch of orders, maybe about 6 or 8 now, and probably some more with David
<wolfspraul>
when slashdot covered the launch there were about 100, if I remember correctly
<wpwrak>
(spi on 4760) hmm ... or maybe just one. manual seems inconsistent once more
<wolfspraul>
this time maybe 10 in the end :-)
<wpwrak>
wolfspraul: whee ! a warm meal for the whole family ! ;-)
<wpwrak>
heh, 4760pm is great. there are three versions of the number of spi interfaces: the overview drawing and the feature list has two. the section on the spi controller has one. the register map and the end has a whole three of them.
<wpwrak>
heisenberg would be so proud :)
<wpwrak>
gpio map has two. so maybe that's the real truth. alas, it seems that that the multiplexing is such that using both SPI means losing one SD/MMC.
<rjeffries>
I wonder if this tablet is hipping yet?
<wpwrak>
Fusin: yeah, structuring the IRC log archive index a bit like the mailing list archive index would probably be nice. the current list of all days in more than a year is kinda intimidating
<kyak>
that would involve editing of source code of log2html.py, as it doesn't provide such setting
<kyak>
or switching to some other log parser
<Fusin>
yeah, i thought so (readed somewhere that it was a script building the log) alas i don't know nothing about python, except the real ones are dangerous ....
<kyak>
# TODO: split by year/month.  Perhaps split off old logs into separate pages
<kyak>
see, we can just wait for developer to do his job :)
<wpwrak>
nice. they'll be happy about your patch :)
<kyak>
i fear that the patch would be trivial.. might have a look
<kyak>
need to recall some html skillz :)
<wpwrak>
wolfspraul: btw, if you're using any of the ubb-vga pictures from my web page for the monthly news, you can find full resolution versions by just removing the -small or -medium
<wolfspraul>
overloaded, but yeah, definitely. thanks!
<wpwrak>
wolfspraul: plan b, skip may and aim for a timely june update ?
<wpwrak>
wolfspraul: with the date drifting, the "leap month" will happen sooner or later anyway
<wpwrak>
roh: that rfid thingy .. you wondered about the "decent antenna". who says it's decent ? :-) over a few cm, almost anything somehow "works""
<kyak>
as for activity statistics, there are powerful irc log analysers, like pisg.. I'm not sure if we really need them :)
<wpwrak>
irc activity seems to more or less track mailing list activity. e.g., last month was eerily quiet both on irc and the list. i actually downloaded all the irc logs and plotted their size
<wpwrak>
also, uncompressed size and compressed size follow each other very closely for relative changes
<wolfspraul>
kyak: oh, I just see I get a new eggdrop error, ending in IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/srv/irc/irclog2html/src/irclog2html/listCollapse.js'
<kyak>
wolfspraul: lemme check it..
<wolfspraul>
you can see such messages if you subscribe to the mailman site list, basically all admin mails go there
<wolfspraul>
you don't need to, you would just load more admin junk on you
<wolfspraul>
but that's where such mails go
<kyak>
wolfspraul: i think that was a one-time error, i changed the file permissions afterwards
<kyak>
should be fine now :)
<wolfspraul>
if you want to subscribe to ahead, subscription is moderated though because information in those mails _may_ compromise security (it shouldn't, but you never know, they are error mails...)