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The Factory of the World - Documentary On Manufacturing In Shenzhen

Posted by samzenpus on from the how's-it-made dept.

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.

7 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. "Documentary"? by Doub · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:"Documentary"? by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 2

      No cats? Screw that.

    2. Re:"Documentary"? by gl4ss · · Score: 2

      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.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    3. Re:"Documentary"? by KGIII · · Score: 2

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

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  2. Hackaday Heartburn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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 of great information and dump it onto a template that often obscures the excellent work being done.

    I actually visit Hackaday regularly because they offer the meat and potatoes that I crave. It's just too bad that they drown it in all their special sauce.

  3. Re: They misspelled "Hellhole of the world" by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  4. Re: They misspelled "Hellhole of the world" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.