ripperdoc's clinic

• You’re not a worker in a warehouse there, you’re an “associate in Amazon’s fulfilment center.”
• On average, a worker walks between 7 and 15 miles per shift—one “picker,” as the workers who push customer orders around on trolleys are known, lost half a stone in his first three shifts.
• An Amazon truck leaves the depot, which is the size of nine soccer pitches, every three minutes or so.
• Humans will always be employed, despite Amazon’s acquisition of a robot company, as they’re better at coping with the different-shaped products. “You’re sort of like a robot, but in human form,” says one of the managers there.
• The firm employs a “three-strikes and release” policy. Talking is frowned upon, as it is seen as a form of time-wasting, says one former worker.
• Basic pay is £6.20 per hour, that’s one penny above the U.K.’s minimum wage

An interesting read on US biggest privately held company, Koch Industries, which is largely unknown to the public.

Koch Industries, Inc. owns a diverse group of companies that are engaged in trading, operations and investments worldwide. It has a presence in 50 countries in such industries as petroleum, chemicals, energy, fibres, resins, fertilisers, pulp and paper, ranching, securities and finance. 

(via @GreatDismal)

Interesting writeup by Tim Maly via Futurismic:

If you are an early adopter for this kind of thing, the only thing we can say for sure about it is that it’ll be slow and out of date very soon. Unless they find a way to make easily-reversible surgery, your best strategy is to wait for the interface that’s whatever the brain-linkage equivalent is to 300dpi, full colour, high refresh screens

This is not only a boring downside of technology, but an intersting way of how cybertech will enhance or create the difference between classes: those who afford upgrades, those who have to look in the bargain bins and those who can’t even fix their failing cyborg body.

Buying up a part of Madagascar big as half of Belgium, not to feed the locals but to supply palm oil for Korea (more of those beauty products, perhaps?)