Guangdong, the Chinese province in the Pearl River Delta where practically everything you’ve bought in the past ten years was made, is about to see a minimum wage increase effective Jan 1, with some workers seeing increases as high as 20 percent. Guangdong has experienced high inflation. The wage increases, combined with weak western currencies, suggests that prices for virtually every consumer good in the west will rise significantly in the new year. The experts quoted in this Global Post article say that while other cheap labor markets exist in places like Bangladesh, they lack the scale and infrastructure of south China and are unlikely to provide a substitute. For decades, Guangdong province and Chinas Pearl River Delta have been at the heart of Chinas economic rise. And while larger manufacturers and state-owned companies have contributed greatly to the boom, smaller and medium-sized private firms have also helped propel China to become the worlds second-largest economy. As wages, raw material costs and other costs rise, those smaller businesses say theyre being cut out of the mix. Lau said at the current rate, he expects 30 percent of factories in Guangdong to reduce production or close down this year, in the wake of a minimum wage increase last year. Another 18-20 percent pay rise would decimate the industry. But Crothall is less than sympathetic, noting that although Chinas inflation rate has slowed somewhat, Chinas workers still need more to get by. Bye-bye cheap, Chinese labor ( via Digg )

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Minimum wage hike coming to Guangdong, the world’s factory

Guangdong, the Chinese province in the Pearl River Delta where practically everything you’ve bought in the past ten years was made, is about to see a minimum wage increase effective Jan 1, with some workers seeing increases as high as 20 percent. Guangdong has experienced high inflation. The wage increases, combined with weak western currencies, suggests that prices for virtually every consumer good in the west will rise significantly in the new year. The experts quoted in this Global Post article say that while other cheap labor markets exist in places like Bangladesh, they lack the scale and infrastructure of south China and are unlikely to provide a substitute. For decades, Guangdong province and Chinas Pearl River Delta have been at the heart of Chinas economic rise. And while larger manufacturers and state-owned companies have contributed greatly to the boom, smaller and medium-sized private firms have also helped propel China to become the worlds second-largest economy. As wages, raw material costs and other costs rise, those smaller businesses say theyre being cut out of the mix. Lau said at the current rate, he expects 30 percent of factories in Guangdong to reduce production or close down this year, in the wake of a minimum wage increase last year. Another 18-20 percent pay rise would decimate the industry. But Crothall is less than sympathetic, noting that although Chinas inflation rate has slowed somewhat, Chinas workers still need more to get by. Bye-bye cheap, Chinese labor ( via Digg )

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Minimum wage hike coming to Guangdong, the world’s factory

China is considering temporarily capturing an asteroid in earth’s orbit and then mining it for all it’s valuable metals. Me? I say we invent hoverboards first, THEN start mining asteroids. That way, when the asteroid does wind up destroying earth , we can at least all die happy. …seem fairly optimistic that they could tweak the orbit of a near-Earth asteroid by just enough (a change in velocity of only about 1,300 feet-per-second or so) to get it to temporarily enter Earth orbit at about twice the distance as the Moon. The orbit would be unstable, and eventually (after a few years) the asteroid would head back out into space from whence it came, but it would stick there long enough for us to poke around on it. While the Chinese are likely going to start small (the prime candidate right now is a 30-foot-wide rock), they’re thinking bigger. Much bigger. Like, over a mile bigger, since a metallic asteroid that size would be worth an absolutely staggering amount of money. Now, were something to get screwed up and that mile-wide metallic asteroid hit Earth instead, we’d be looking at something like a 24-mile-wide crater and a fireball so large that trees 200 miles away would spontaneously burst into flames… There’s speculation that mining an asteroid a mile-wide could be worth something to the tune of 25-trillion dollars. That’s a 25 followed by like *Wikipedia’s ‘trillion’, gets confused* a LOT of 0’s afterward. And you know what else has a lot of zeros following them? The Kardashians on Twitter. DAMMIT TWEENS. Chinese want to capture an asteroid into Earth’s orbit [dvice] Thanks to Pescada, who’s played Asteroids at the arcade before and can tell you it’s not as easy as it looks.

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China: Let’s Trap An Asteroid In Earth’s Orbit And Mine It. GW: Don’t And Say We Did?

Foxconn, the electronics manufacturer best known for making Apple’s iPhones and iPads (but who also manufactures electronics for Acer, Amazon, Asus, Intel, Cisco, HP, Dell, Nintendo, Nokia, Microsoft and Sony), plans to “hire” over a million robots in the next three years to replace the humans currently handling the “menial tasks”. MENIAL TASKS?! I’ll show you a menial task! *picking marshmallows out of Lucky Charms one by one* First reported in Chinese newswire Xinhua, Foxconn chairman, founder, and CEO Terry Gou apparently announced at a “workers’ dance party” on Friday that the robots will replace some of the routine tasks currently performed by humans, like spraying, welding, and assembling. Gou also said Foxconn already has 10,000 robots and that the number will increase to 300,000 next year and one million in three years. But according to the Financial Times, Gou’s message didn’t come out right. Although the implication was that robots would soon replace workers at the company, apparently Gou meant to communicate that the robots would relieve workers of menial tasks–in the past, Foxconn employees had complained of being treated like robots. A MILLION robots. Can you even imagine that? I can’t. Or, more specifically, I don’t want to. *begins sketching out sabotage plan on the back of a napkin* Also, WTF is a “workers’ dance party”? Because that sounds like a pretty shitty morale booster sweet political party. Dammit, I want a president who can breakdance! Report: Foxconn to Replace Humans With 1 Million Robots? [pcmag] and Picture Thanks to Bear and david, who [reference something really clever from Vonnegut's 'Player Piano' so everyone thinks you're smart].

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Foxconn (Electronics Manufacturer) To Hire A Million Robots Over The Next Three Years

Pissed Japan stole back the honor of housing the world’s fastest supercomputer , China answered back this Thursday (apples to oranges style) by opening the world’s longest sea-bridge, at a staggering 26.4 miles. That…sounds like a terrible f***ing place to run out of gas . The Jiaozhou Bay bridge in China took more than four years to build. It links China’s eastern port city of Qingdao to Huangdao island. “The earthquake- and typhoon-proof bridge … is designed to withstand the impact of a 300,000-ton vessel,” Guinness said. About 81 million cubic feet of concrete was reportedly used — enough to fill 3,800 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Well thank God they converted millions of cubic feet to Olympic-sized swimming pools, amirite?! Because otherwise all that concrete would hard to imagine. A marathon span: China opens world’s longest bridge over water [msnbc] Thanks to bb, who knows I get all sweaty-palmed and like to close my eyes whenever driving across bridges.

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China Claims World’s Longest Ocean Bridge

So apparently Chinese prisoners are being used by prison bosses and guards as free labor to mine the shit out of World of Warcraft gold and other virtual commodities and aren’t even allowed to level up their characters . Now that’s harsh. “Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour,” Liu told the Guardian. “There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [470-570] (~$770-935) a day. We didn’t see any of the money. The computers were never turned off.” It is estimated that 80% of all gold farmers are in China and with the largest internet population in the world there are thought to be 100,000 full-time gold farmers in the country. Prison farming aside, there’s over a hundred-thousand full-time Warcraft gold farmers in China?! That’s f***in’ nuts! I can’t even imagine numbers that high. Or, okay, anything past the hundreds. “Not even 1,000?” Whoa whoa whoa — cool it with all the zeros, homey! China used prisoners in lucrative internet gaming work [guardian] Thanks to AverageGeekGirl, who collects gold the old fashioned way: chasing leprechauns.

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I Want The Gold — Gimme The Gold: Chinese Prisoners Forced To Farm Warcraft Gold

Burberry, a company best known for f***ing plaid (houndstooth FTW), recently held a runway show in Beijing featuring holographic models. Which, fun fact: eat just as much as real ones . DAMMIT JEM, YOU TELL THAT BAND OF YOURS TO POUND SOME CHEESE-FRIES, STAT! Admittedly, the holograms do look pretty impressive, they’re just a little ridiculous to see all dressed up because holograms don’t actually care if they’re butt-ass naked, just as long as they’re shiny and people think they’re from the future they don’t give a fuuuuuuuuuuu. Hit the jump for 35-seconds of holographic modeling set to ‘You Don’t Own Me’.

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Burberry’s Holographic Runway Models

Zeta — really? Not even Zora or Zelda? Note: It’s dangerous to go alone! Full-res shot HERE . I’d recognize that sword and shield anywhere! Unless they were at a crime scene in which case, nope, never seen that shit. Officer what do I look like, some sort of adventurous ’save the princess’ type? I barely leave the basement and I’ve never seen a princess’s tits before IN MY LIFE. No clue what Zeta trading trades in, but my guess is arrows and bombs. “What about bottles?” I’M CHUGGING ONE RIGHT KNOW, I KNOW THAT. Okaaaaaaaaaay , pretty sure that one was a fairy. Location in Google Maps Thanks to Tom, who actually found the sign randomly searching Hong Kong streets in Google Maps. Suuuuuure you were, Tom. OR SHOULD I SAY, GANON?!

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Link & Zelda Set Up Business In Hong Kong

Nine-year-old Ming Li is just like any other little Chinese girl. Except she has to walk to school uphill both ways and still got run over and her hand cut off by a tractor . At the time, her arm was in such poor shape reattaching the hand was an impossibility. Thankfully, quick-thinking doctors were able to graft it to her foot while her arm healed, and successfully reattach it 3-months later. MODERN MEDICAL MAGIC! Dr Hou Jianxi, spokesman for the hospital in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, said the hand had now been transplanted back on to her arm. “When she came in, her left hand was completely severed from her body. It was very scary,” he told the Zhoukou Evening Post. “But Ming Li can now move her wrist again and her left hand is a healthy pink colour proving that the blood is circulating well.” Li will need two more operations over the next year. One to improve her hand functions and some plastic surgery to remove her scars. But Dr Hou said: “After surgery, and with plenty of physiotherapy, we are confident her left hand will be capable of doing most things. Amazing, I love a story with a happy ending. Huh? DAMMIT PERV — GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE GUTTER! Get well soon, Ming. And remember, tractors: not the toys Matchbox would lead you to believe. Girl’s hand grafted on to her leg [orange] via Severed Hand Reattached -Three Months Later [neatorama] Thanks to Hankzor411, who once taped a Nerf gun to his arm and pretended he was Mega Man. That’s, uh, pretty sad I’m not gonna lie.

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Little Girl Gets Hand Cut Off, Grafted To Foot

I can barely sit in traffic for five minutes without screaming and threatening to kill everyone else around me, but nine days ? I’d nuke the entire damn planet . Shit, the moon too . What?! I’m not crapping in the backseat again! Thousands of vehicles were bogged down Monday in a more than 100-kilometre (62-mile) traffic jam leading to Beijing that has lasted nine days and highlights China’s growing road congestion woes. The Beijing-Tibet expressway slowed to a crawl on August 14 due to a spike in traffic by cargo-bearing heavy trucks heading to the capital, and compounded by road maintenance work that began five days later, the Global Times said. The state-run newspaper said the jam between Beijing and Jining city had given birth to a mini-economy with local merchants capitalising on the stranded drivers’ predicament by selling them water and food at inflated prices. No lie: I’d rather do anything than sit in traffic. Including dying . “But GW, it’s just traffic — is it really worth losing your life over?” Yes, it 100% is. “Then, uh, why the hell did you move to LA?” Listen — enough with the questions, smart-ass! China’s nine-day traffic jam stretches 100km [yahoonews] Thanks to Jane, pomeberry and Mikel, who have all rolled out of moving cars before to avoid traffic jams. Impressive!

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OMG — I’d Be Road Raging My Face Off!: Beijing’s Nine-Day, 62-Mile Traffic Jam