How to Be an Infamous Engineer

The DesignNews link has a typo.

I think Beijing university has a class in this... All the way to the PhD level... Of course, when you get to the PhD level, you not only create a dangerous product, but you use slave labor to produce it!

Some time ago, I heard about a process involing lead-gold paint and blowtorch to do gold plating.

A medieval process still in use.

Inhale that!

Can't be worse than your child's toy making a date rape drug... I will be really interested in this year's Christmas. There's got to be an awful lot of parents out there worried about gifts from China! I challenge you to go to any big-box store or large toy-store conglomerate and find any toy that wasn't made in China!!!

Is this the year that Christmas doesn't come?! Here. Billy we got you this book. Just don't lick the pages!!!

Now we know.

About a month ago a customer protection magazine here in Quebec (Protegez Vous) made a study of the lead content of the toddler toys most likely to be shared this Christmas, part of their yearly toy review. They were not expecting to find anything and this step was taken to reassure parents.

Being toddler toys, they did not only test the surface by wiping (the norm for lead transfer tests), but the bulk of the plastic, since this age group is likely to chew the toys.

The toy manufacturer tried to get an injunction to prevent the publication, but failed.

That is immutability and responsibility taken very seriously.

And chewing toys is a bad habit, so just stop it!

This bad yellow thing reminds me of Zappa.

I agree Vermin, but I'd like to take your statement one step further. I challenge the public to go to any big-box store (or virtually any store, including catalog sales organizations) and find more than 3% of the products they peddle (not just toys) that werent made in either China, India or another country utilizing "slave labor".

Perhaps this should be the year Christmas doesnt come. We need to start rethinking our priorities and what the meaning of Christmas really is.

For the past few years (9-10), Christmas in my family has been "brought back" to a simple family reunion. Parents, brothers and sisters (along with their partners and kids) all get together for a few days of great food and family fun. All "gifts" are hand made (going from a poem by a 14 year old to sweet stuff made by mom or whatever). Everybody gets 1 (one) gift.

Kids can't wait to get with their cousins and pull a few "all-nighters" just playing games.

Christmas used to be a time (when I was younger) where you could get that very special thing you wanted all year and where you'd be on your best behavior to up your chances of getting it. In today's consumer world, when you want or need something, you go ahead and buy it. My kids (teenagers), will work through summer in babysitting, lawn-caring, etc to get what they want.

Christmas for them is a great family reunion, period.

UPDATE: This should have been Off-topic

"Can't be worse than your child's toy making a date rape drug... I will be really interested in this year's Christmas. "

Look on the bright side. If you don't know where to buy GHB, all you need to do is to buy Aquabeads, soak them in water, then use the water to mix drinks. You'll really be able to get plenty of action this Christmas for sure.

This is not an engineer thing, this is a philosophy thing. The need of these manufacturers causes them to take short cuts, they put lead, poisons and shoddy designs into their 'products', solely for the purpose of making more money. And it's no coincidence that they all originate in China. The Beijing government is on a mission to be the world's superpower and they have instructed their people that "every foreign dollar that you take from the foreign devil is one for us and one less for them, and any way that you do that, and by any means that you do that, is entirely permissible and backed by your government". Americans, Europeans and even, surprisingly, the Japanese still haven't learnt that there is a difference to the Beijing revolution compared to say the American revolution. America, throughout its history has fostered the rights of the individual. Beijing throughout its history has fostered the non-rights of the individual and the rights of the state over and above all else. Most especially above the Chinese population. This is an ant colony mentality and it prevails in all of China. Americans are working to make themselves rich as individuals and the fact that the state becomes rich as a side product is a consequence of that individualism. But the Chinese people don't work for themselves as individuals, they are working for the colony, for China, because it is ingrained in the Chinese mind from way back, that China, ie, the country, and therefore the government, is the ultimate authority and therefore all the fruits of the people's labors must eventually end up at the head of the colony. Americans, more than any other nationality, resist this "the state knows best" concept. It is weaker in Europe and even weaker in Japan. The Japanese are in the best position to recognise the motives of the Chinese and many Japanese manufacturers have either not gone down the road of outsourcing to China or else they have been there and seen the signs and they have pulled out because of the blatant thieving of their intellectual property or because they have seen the short cuts to wealth that are taken when a nation of people put their efforts at getting rich in the service of the state. If you are in China and you are making a product that you are selling to foreigners and your government has told you that the only important thing is to get the foreigners money, no matter how, then it's no surprise that you will make fake or poisoned products because that is the kind of short termism that the Beijing philosophy approves of and sanctions because it is quicker and cheaper than "doing it properly". Doing it properly, by the way, has taken Toyota 50 years to get the top of the manufacturing tree, a concept that Beijing has no truck for. The Beijing government protects it's immoral manufacturers by allowing them to close up shop and start up elsewhere with no comeback on the manufacturer. Just because there might be a storm in the hated foreign press because a Chinese manufacturer has poisoned some American pets, or put some dumb American children at risk by poisoning their toys and their toothpaste is no reason to cut off the Beijing cash cow, because these manufacturers more than anyone else in China are the fast buck merchants who are ripping off the rest of the world and who are therefore more profitable to Beijing than a million rice farmers, but who, by the way, are just as essential to the Beijing plan. It's just that rice farmers make less effort to feed the colony and they are therefore paid less. The most telling comparison between the Almighty State as seen in the Chinese model, and the Almighty Individual as exemplified in the American model, can be seen clearly by the fact that life is cheap in China and expensive in the US. In China, the people belong to the state, and if they transgress the State's edicts then thay can be gotten rid of with no consequence. That is why you see crackdowns and jailings and beatings in China on dissidents and protesters who break from the fold and try to rally against pollution, or against state backed developers who grab their land and have them beaten by thugs, or against the corruption that prevails in all levels of government in China. So it would be safer for you if you put off buying Chinese stuff until their system is reformed, which admittedly is going to be a long way off yet. Some cracks are showing, it's true, we see it in the rest of world through the increasing amount of faulty and poisoned products that are sent out from China with the sanction and approval of the Beijing regime. We can even see some cracks showing inside China, like in the miles long queues at gas stations because the state has got it's sums wrong again and figured that they can carry on supporting a market in fuel when oil is already $100 a barrel, and could be set to go even higher, a stance that is only able to be taken by the way, solely on the fact that their huge stockpile of US$, stolen from the hated Americans and Europeans and Japanese, can afford to subsidise Chinese gasoline in order to keep their own peasants working diligently in order to steal even more US dollars. If we could see right into the heart of the Beijing government, not the PR products that are paraded in the press as their leaders, but a place so secretive they do not dare show their faces to even the Chinese public, we would see, in the immortal insights of Ayn Rand, a bunch of simpletons, so screwed up by their own manipulations and their fears and addictions, we would wonder that we shivered at the very mention of their existence.

The only question I have is how long it will take American business to recognize the falacy of sending work (and jobs) to China and elsewhere because of the cost of doing business at home? It is a stupid move and while short term profits are there the endgame is a disaster. In the long term, with the significant reduction in manufacturing in the US, the capital will all flow to China (as the other guest poster indicates) and the average standard of living in the US will go down. It already has over the last 20 years.
The problem is that Washington, with the aid of money from lobbyists from business, has pushed the US into a World Free Trade Zone. While it may not be too late for the US to recover from the antics of the political hacks in congress and the WHitehouse, it is getting damn close. But what can we as individuals do?

Let's not forget Beijing's strong support for such rogue states as Syria, Iran, Sudan, North Korea, Myanmar and Zimbabwe. Actually, what else can you expect from a country run by Peking Men?

That's exactly why we have chemists and physicists, to watch over well intentioed engineers! Ever see a video or news item where a bridge collapsed? A building collapsed? Vehicle recalls? SUV rollovers? Airplanes crash? More recently, thousands of tons of very sub-standard concrete was used in the new tunnels under Boston.

I'd like to meet the chemist or physicist who could specify what grade of concrete should have been used!

The only way to get a safe product is to have proper certified Quality Assurance staff, who are not prepared to certify sub-standard product as being complying with Specifications and Safety Standards.

In may places, there is no proper Quality Assurance of any sort.

Thus the only way to change things, is to boycott the sellers.

Manufacturing always goes to cheaper labour countries, since that way there is a greater profit for all in the sales chain.

Once again, hit them in the pockets,until it hurts....

That's good advice. So, if you're the kind of company that produces "Aquadots," you had better have an organic chemist on staff - or at least one that you can consult.

Now we all know that walmart is not going to buy any product that cost $0.001 per item above the lowest price point just because it gets any QA/QC in production. And, No business will cut wages and benefits for Executives, Management, HR, Sales/Marketing and personal secretaries to employ QA/QC Staff, then those people might have to work and that is not why they got their business degrees.