Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

[yogi]

Odd as it may seem I try to eliminate those pesky multiple workspaces in all the Linux boxes that force them upon me. I think it's optional in all Linux systems but some force them on you and don't let you delete them. I have problems with multiple workspaces in that they keep switching without my permission. That's the beauty of the system tray in Windows; you need to click on the icon in order to switch screens. Windows 7 isn't plagued by all this TMI and I've grown quite comfortable with several apps and browsers sitting at the bottom of my screen waiting for me to beckon and call them. LOL You're right that whatever is in the system tray gets reloaded, but it's all in RAM and I've not noticed any significant lag time for that to happen. It might be a problem in older systems.

I have two computers on this desk's top and as far as I know they are both in top working condition. When a computer needs more than just a dusting I tend not to fix it - the Silver Yogi was an exception, but that was an upgrade and not a fix. I guess it's something left over from my desktop support days. I loved that work, but I've had my fill of fixing broken hardware. I want machines that just work. There are enough items in this house to collect Missouri dust and I don't need useless computers to add to the clutter.

[Kellemora]

I don't know about other Distro's much, but I do know on Debian and Linux Mint you do not have to have a lower panel or make use of workspaces. I've never had anything switch around on me yet, and I keep several things in the workspaces so I can jump to them. Documents I copy and paste lines from several times every day. Special Tools I use for certain tasks, and even a terminal I keep open. When I open something like Google Chrome, it appears in the workspace, but also with a location bar just like in Windows systray. I use the Mate Desktop, because I can't stand Gnome or Cinnamon style.
I think the big difference between Windows and Linux using workspaces, is I can start a program doing something in one workspace while I do something else on another workspace. On Windows, if you drop a screen into the systray it stops doing its thing until you bring it back into focus again. Or if you open something else on top of it, I think it automatically drops into the systray, either way it stops running until you open it again. Not so on Linux using workspaces, at least on the programs I keep running while doing something else. The only time I cannot do that is if I'm using a tool that is relative to screen position and is independent of what is on the screen.

When I had the two identical computer built using iMicro cabinets, one for the frau to use and one for me, and when I would get her a new one, I could take the memory out of it for the one I used. Hers had the graphics go bad, and I planned on buying a cheap graphics card to see if that would fix it. Then I found out the memory cards could not be added to my computer because they used all the memory card slots, in both. I have memory cards laying around here that are supposed to work on that mobo but don't seem to. And this is one reason I no longer try to fix them myself.
I can take a machine to the repair guy and tell him I want to upgrade the memory, he does it, charges me for the memory sticks and a bit for labor, and not usually the full shop rate either, or used to not do so when I was buying so much from him so often.

[yogi]

Those Linux work spaces are one of the most convoluted features they claim to be an advantage of the OS. It seems that each desktop environment has it's own method of activating them, switching, and controlling what's in them. The fact that you use only one OS and one specific desktop would certainly make life more simple, or at least more predictable. Some desktops, I believe the KDE ones, switch work spaces by using the thumbwheel on the mouse. I will end up in one of four default work spaces depending on exactly where on the desktop I do the scrolling. Inevitably it's always the wrong place and I lose the view of the workspace I want to use. I recall Mageia having this problem. When I went to their forums asking how to turn them off or simply default to only one workspace they thought I was crazy. Several people gave different answers regarding the settings to accomplish what I wanted to do. No matter what I did there was no way to go less than four work spaces. I had no trouble adding or going back to four, but could not make only one or two available. I can tell you similar stores about other desktops.

It's fairly obvious that much of your Windows experience is not on Window 10. Given all the problems you seem to have with it I can understand why you avoid it like the plague. Perhaps you never saw or tried to use what they call "task view." It's exactly what Linux does for work spaces. Originally Windows only allowed one other task view besides the default desktop. Now, I believe, you can do many. That's about all I know because since I have no use for it in Linux there is no reason for me to try and use the same nuisance feature in Windows. LOL

[Kellemora]

Perhaps that is why I prefer Debian over any of the others I've tried.
It does exactly what I want it to do, how I want it to do it, and gives me no problems.
For the things I do, it is the perfect Desktop and OS for me.
Right now I have 12 workspaces lined up. Two of them are used with programs that are tools I can run using the F-keys.
Four of them are separate document files I have to grab a line or two from to copy and paste to something I'm working on.
One has Terminal open with a bash program in it I use several times a day. And of course one has Google Chrome which I'm on right now.
The three that are empty right now will be used at times throughout the day usually for html work where I need to have access to an image file I open, the html file open in gedit, and also the folder that holds the other html folders so I can move thing to them. For me having these workspaces is just great and makes things super easy to do and do them fast.

They do say what you learn on is what you like the best. Well I learned on DOS, then Windows 3.0, 3.11, XP, and when Vista came out, I switched to using XP for some things and Ubuntu for other things. Got to like the programs available to me in Ubuntu, but when they upgraded I didn't like Ubuntu much anymore but still used it. Then I learned about the different types of desktop environments. I started trying them all out, which is how I ended up with so many different OSs on my computer I could move between. Linux Mint has a lot of features I love, but then it also causes a lot of problems I don't need, which is why I fell back on Debian. True it is harder to set up because it is not turn-key, but it is also much faster on older machines because it is not bloated with things you don't use.
I used to use the Gnome desktop until they turned it into a cell phone look. Then I used Linux Mint Maya for a short time, and then I found the Mate desktop and have been using it ever since. Mate was available on Debian so I was back to Debian again and have been here ever since. I still try other desktops, I have Linux Mint 19.3 on one computer up all the time. But on another I had Mint on, I recently switched it back to Debian since I had problems with installing Mint on it.
So for me, Debian just works, and the way I want it too, all the time.

My wife suffered through using Windows 10 for over six months before I took her computer after her son gave her his old Win 7 machine. I kept that computer up here for close to another six months, trying to use it with Win 10 before I finally decided to completely wipe the drive and install Linux on it. It is the one running Mint 19.3 right now. Runs circles around Win 10!

[yogi]

I guess that is why there are so many options out there. Everybody has different needs and expectations and no one computer/OS can satisfy them all. That problem was pretty much eliminated in mobile devices. All phones and tablets look and work the same now and days. That's not to say mobile devices can do all that a desktop or laptop is designed to do, which is the reason why a lot of people have both.

Windows 10 is Microsoft's answer to missing the memo about mobile devices. They came into the game late and discovered their flagship product, Windows, was sinking rapidly. The brilliant solution was to abandon their dominance in the world of desktops and now focus on ... Windows as a service. The Windows service concept has yet to prove it's worth but you will note that Microsoft is still going strong as ever. This is due to the clever marketing which underlies the service. Windows is no longer just one operating system that needs to be updated and reinstalled from time to time. Windows is now intended to be a method of serving the needs of computer users of any genre. Supposedly it will work just as well on a server as it will on a cell phone, or at least that is the ultimate goal. I don't know if Satya Nadella will actually accomplish that dream which was an inspiration from Bill Gates, but he sure as shootin' has made it a lot easier for developers to use Windows on any platform.

Many people did what I suspect you tried to do, i.e. make Windows 10 run on a minimal system. I run Linux that way in my virtual machines just to save memory. Performance suffers when you don't have all the possible resources to back up the potentials of the operating system. Plus, there was/is that strategy of deliberately offering a low tier inexpensive product with the hopes people will buy it and then upgrade later on. Those low tiered products simply by design can't perform like the fully loaded system. It's all Windows, but is it really? When you think of it as was intended, Windows as a service, then you would not expect systems with less service to perform as well as those with more. What you have described here is not an anomaly. There are many reasons for a computer to under perform, or not meet the user's expectations. It's up to the user to recognize what they are getting into or be burned by a bad decision. It's a heck of a way to run a railroad, but that's life in a competitive world.

I think you missed your calling. You are a hacker at heart and need to know how every detail fits into the grand design. Simplicity and ease of use are what drove you to Debian, which is an OS like that needs to be built from scratch. Hackers like you are in high demand. It's a shame you never got into something like network security. You'd be living on easy street today.

[Kellemora]

I can't believe I just lost everything again, and can't seem to get it back.
I still don't know what button combination I pressed to log me out while typing.
Sometimes I can get it back, sometimes I cannot.
GRRR...

I had a ton of typing in my response, so I guess it is for the better.

Maybe another day.

[yogi]

Some of the best replies get lost exactly the way you lost yours

One other long gone prolific poster I could think of would complain of similar things. She would type up a world class response to some thought provoking question, and boom. She did something to make it disappear. She swore it was a bug in our software, but I could never duplicate it. Nothing she could do would retrieve it from browser history or anywhere else. In fact I have done the same thing, but I know what causes my problem. I will be reviewing a long winded reply and accidentally close the browser. Doesn't matter what I do, it's gone. I've tried using that [Save draft] button, and it works as intended. It's cumbersome and a PITA which means I never use it anymore. Somehow it's easier to try and reconstruct a brilliant post than to reload a draft that has only part of what I wrote. Replies can also be composed in a text editor and then copied into here. The text editor I use has an automatic save feature so that very little, if anything, would accidentally be lost. But, it's an extra step as is the case with saving draft copies.

For now I'll just try to imagine what thoughts you were trying to convey. I already have an idea of what you think about Windows so my imagination won't have to work too hard.

[Kellemora]

I've yet to be able to pinpoint what is causing the problem.
I thought for a while perhaps I was accidentally hitting the CTRL key instead of the shift key.
But so far, doing that on purpose has not caused me to jump to the log-in screen, meaning it logged me out.
Perhaps you know the keyboard combination that logs one out of but not takes you out of the site, just to the log-in screen. That must be what I'm hitting?

In a nutshell, I was only talking about how I ended up using Debian instead of any of the others. Which I think I've said in times past already.

I did get into a story about our local restaurant and his new POS system, well it is like 3 years old now.
He bought some self-contained system that had a monitor as part of the cash drawer, and a tiny computer box on the back of the monitor, sorta like my doctor has switched to. Even the credit card terminal is part of the side of the cash drawer, and the receipt printer on the other side.
He is a little disgruntled with it, not because it works perfect, but because he thought the unit he bought had a screen in the cook area to show the orders. It doesn't it only prints out the prep-order on paper, so he still uses the old whirlybird.
The system he bought was only like 4 grand I think, but the one he thought he was getting is over 10 grand, hi hi.
It also only prints out the days receipts on paper, not a USB stick like his old system, so he could just plug that into his computer in the back and copy from it. But now that he bought it, he's stuck with it for 6 years, hi hi.

[yogi]

I tried to log out of Brainformation only using the keyboard, and have not found a way to do it. But, it's like comparing apples and oranges. We are both dealing with fruit, but you are eating Chrome Linux fruit while I'm munching on Mozilla Windows fruit. I would suspect the key mapping in each situation is different. Plus there is the uncertainty of what exactly is responsible. Is it the OS, the browser, or the website itself? I can't find anything to tell me about keyboard shortcuts for this phpBB software, but that does mean it doesn't exist. Most of that kind of stuff has been disabled for security purposes. Should I run across anything relevant, of course you will be the first person I tell about it.


No doubt we all do it. We buy something without knowing exactly how it works. A lot of assumptions are made when buying computer products and that is always a bad idea. Sometimes, however, you don't know what to look for until it's too late. The MSI laptop I bought is a fantastic gaming computer on the same level as is my custom made desktop. However, the BIOS is totally different and lacking in some ways. Do you ever go to a computer store and check out the BIOS before you buy? LOL Well the shop keeper would probably toss you out if you did because you look like a hacker. In my case knowing exactly what the BIOS is set up to do was critical. Never again will I buy one with protected MBR as the standard operating mode. Truth is that I didn't know such a thing existed until I got involved with Linux and EFI, and much less did I understand why I don't want my BIOS to have it. But, I'm just a power user and don't depend on my computer to run my business. If I did purchase a computer for business use, you can count on me doing a thorough evaluation prior to my shelling out $4k. The story from your restaurant friend is just one more case of getting what you pay for.

[Kellemora]

Well, using CTRL-Shift I was able to do a lot of things I couldn't get back from.
Bring up other windows, go incognito, and even closed the browser completely.
But I haven't hit what caused it to go to the log-in screen yet.

We bought one computer we took back the next day.
What it claimed on the box was very misleading is the reason why, and also because I couldn't install a second hard drive.
SATA was new at the time also, and I still don't know if you can use 1 SATA port with 2 or more devices.
In any case, the box showed the computer had 2 SATA ports, what it didn't say was all of them were in use.
It had an SB multi-card reader, a DVD, the hard drive of course, but the way it was worded it sounded like two extra open SATA ports. I got it home, took the side off to put in the second new SATA hard drive I purchased at the same time. No place to plug it in. I also noticed where the memory sticks went only had two slots, both in use, and only one card slot of a small size. Definitely made bare minimum to hold only what came with it.
This is why I should have known better than to buy another off-the-shelf computer.

The frau just called, our new refrigerator we just replaced is not working. DANG!
Can't win for losing around here.

[yogi]

I think what you are running into is strictly an issue with this website. There are numerous key mappings for browsers and for OS shortcuts, but none of those would logically control the website navigation. The only way to log out is by clicking on your avatar icon in the upper right corner (under the search box) and then selecting the last item from the drop down menu. This probably can be done using TAB and ARROW keys but it's not likely to even closely resemble any key combination you would use wile typing a reply. If I think about it I'll check out the phpBB forums. I'll likely need to go there anyway when I get around to updating the software. As it is I waited two long and they came up with yet another update before I installed the last one. That generally requires me to look up the changes so that I don't miss some critical intermediate step in the process.


It's possible that some day I might buy an off-the-shelf computer again. A laptop would be the most likely purchase there. Generally I can tell what the machine will and will not do by going to the manufacturer's website and checking out their detailed specs. Sometimes it might be necessary to check out the processor and memory specs too. It's a waste of time for most people to do that because the specs are written in some kind of alien language we are not familiar with here on earth. I must use my intuition each time I do a look up. That, too, only works if you know what to look up.

There used to be a port for eSATA connections but I've not seen that option for many years now. That would be the only way to connect an external SATA device. My tower has a slot on top of the metal box that will accept any common SATA hard drive. I never knew I wanted such a thing until I got it. It's great for checking out hard drives without having to install them physically. I've even booted into old OS's on that external port. When done there is a cover that slides over it to neatly hide the connector and slot. Now that I discovered LinuxOnAStick technology, I don't use that port very often.

[Kellemora]

Since I couldn't duplicate what happened by holding CTRL-Shift and hitting single keys.
There are a few functions that require CTRL-Shift and two or more key or number combinations.
One of those is entering a Unicode Codepoint number to generate a special character.
In this case it is CTRL-Shift, the letter U followed by four numbers or letters.
Just strange that it happens when I'm responding in a text box is all.

Well, in the case of Laptops, you almost have to buy something a manufacturer put together.
But as you said, study the specs first. I've seen a few laptops between 4 and 6 thousand dollars on the locked shelves, hi hi.
Hard to believe but some businesses are running the whole place on a laptop.
I have to laugh because we have an auto repair place that although they do have a computer for generating invoices and the like, he handles all the money transactions on his cell phone, including taking credit cards using a plug-in tiny card reader.

And stores where you shop, some of the changes a few are making is amazing. The downside is, you need to have a cell phone to shop there using their new system.
I saw it in use at a small gift store. If you want to buy an item, and you have the program in your cell phone, you just click the box on the tag, and then put the item in your cart. When you get up to checkout, somehow their register reads your phone and displays it on the screen. As they pick up each item to bag it, it is checked off on the screen automatically. Then the purchase is run through your credit card info in the phone, and you are out the door.

They tried something similar here at Kroger with these cart mounted readers, but apparently they were too problematic and they didn't keep them. And I can tell you, people are getting more and more disgruntled with the self-checkouts here too. I don't blame them really. They are a SLAVE, working for free as a checker, bagger, and cashier. And it is not always faster unless you only have one or two things, which most people don't when grocery shopping.

I bought a docking station where I just stick an IDE drive in the slot. It works great so I've got most of the data off the old IDE drives, sorted and put away now. I hate to throw away a stack of perfectly working IDE drives, but I have tossed all of those under 80 gigs of memory now.
I was also told I should replace my SATA drives, every 5 years, especially those external USB connected ones. They still have a separate power supply that goes to them. But heck, I still have the first couple of SATA drives I ever bought.
Seems to me they should last 20 years or longer, based on how long all of my old IDE drives have lasted.

[yogi]

Quite a few years go I bought one custom made ASUS laptop. The guy in shop assembled it from pieces he purchased from ASUS. That computer just got tossed when it died, but I have looked inside, and disassembled, several commercial made laptops. There is no way in Hell that a human being can actually put one of those together. And there is no such thing as commonality in laptops, with one exception. The CD player, if it has one, is identical in every laptop. I'm guessing there is only one company in the world that makes them. LOL

No, a $6000 laptop is not hard to think about. Some of the newest processors from AMD go for a few grand by themselves. Add some graphics cards, tons of memory, and $6k would be cheap in certain situations. I'd have no qualms about using such a machine to run a fair size business.

Cell phones these days often come with what is called near field communications (nfc) that has a range of about 4 cm. The idea here is to place your phone near an appropriate terminal and conduct all the financial transactions over nfc. My credit card has a chip in it and something like nfc, but different. All I have to do is wave it above the card reader and voila! Not all places have this capability but now all the places I buy groceries do. As far as using nfc in a store sans checkout counters, Amazon has been doing it for a very long time. I've not enabled nfc on my smart phone yet because it seems pointless. Google will take care of all the financial transactions with their app, but I have to pay Google with my credit card. So, I just eliminate the middle man. LOL

I imagine your office will one day become a remote annex to the Smithsonian National Museum. It certainly does seem like a shame to throw away working equipment even if it is several generations outdated. As long as you stick to that retrograde environment there is no need to upgrade.

Also, I've not received the memo telling me to replace my SATA drives after 60 months. The only thing that will break in them are the bearings on the spinning disk. Perhaps in mission critical situations it would be wise to stay current. But, last I heard, you were not planning a flight to the moon or the ISS. Your drives are going to last longer than you will.

[Kellemora]

I'll tell you, I was surprised to see how electrical components could be just printed on a circuit board, layer after layer until it had all the parts of the chips just printed on. No replacing those when a part goes bad, hi hi.
I would venture to guess all these small devices are assembled by robotics, because humans are not agile enough to do some of the things that need to be done to get them all together and working.

I just don't see how a laptop can have a large fast CPU and enough heat sinks to dissipate the heat, not to mention the amount of current a large fast CPU would use.
When we look at computers, every new generation needs larger power supplies, and better ways of handling the heat.
Even my little netbook when I use it, I set it on top of fan that blows more air through it if I plan on having it on for a long time. Else that sucker gets hotter and hotter.

Then the question is, if they can make smaller sized faster CPU's that don't draw lot of juice, and run cool, then why are they not used in the server industry where heat and power are major problems for them to deal with?
I know laptops have come a long way, and the price down some due to volume of sales.
But still, I can't see them replacing a desktop computer, much less being used to run a business.

I know the Schmartz-Fonz are doing more and more each year. I wonder if some day they will replace humans, hi hi.
And then there is me, still using a PDA and a Flip-Fone, hi hi.
Must have rubbed off on me from my dad! Although we had electronic calculators and computers too, he still used his Old Victor Adding Machine and Royal Typewriter, hi hi.
So, to see my dad, long retired, going to work for my brother using computers to do the accounting on, was really a sight for sore eyes. He even had one of my brothers older computers and a printer at his house to do his personal things on.

In the early days of cordless telephones, I bought one for myself that I carried on my hip in a leather case.
Now most cordless phones would not work but about 30 to 50 feet, yet the one I had would work clearly for half a mile, even inside our metal framed greenhouses. A couple of times it worked at close to a mile away, but not very clear.
My dad was totally amazed that they made a telephone without wires, when he already knew about all of my ham radio gear and walkie talkies, so knew it was possible, but just not by the phone company, hi hi.

You know, I probably should not have thrown away my old Win95 computers. They might be worth something today, after all, they still worked when I finally got rid of them.
But you are right, stepping into my office is almost like stepping back in time a few decades. How many people do you know that still have 5-1/4 floppy disks, 4-track and 8-track cassettes, reel to reel tapes, etc.
Heck, I should take a picture of the shelves of 5-1/4 and 3-1/2 floppy cases I still use. Only now they hold mostly CDs and DVDs, hi hi. I did sell all of my old gramophone records, some of them only recorded on one side, and all of my old 78s at auction before I moved south, but kept a few of the 33s and 45s.

I get a kick out of some things people post on Farcebook with the comment, Who Remembers These!
I look across my office and I still have many of those items, and they are still in daily or weekly use, hi hi.

That's what I thought too. Maybe it was a company who makes and sells drives that said they should be replaced every 5 years, hi hi.

[yogi]

CPU technology is moving along faster than the speed of the Internet. It's not an exaggeration to say that something new is released every week or so. There is an exponential growth in data throughput each generation but the chip size and power requirements are not growing nearly as fast. I don't know why you would think state of the art processors are not being used as servers. Corporations with huge data processing needs have money to spare and can afford military grade hardened servers if they wanted them. I've been out of the industry for a dozen years and don't really know what is inside the every day servers most corporations use, but you can bet your bottom dollar that Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon power their search engines with ultra high performance and low power consumption processors. They must in order to be able to do what they do.

Laptops can't replace desktops for the same reason desktops can't replace servers. They all are designed to do different things. One of the more interesting aspects of this COVID pandemic is that a lot of people are now working from home on a permanent basis. Those folks are buying desktops. The death knell reserved for them has been slightly delayed. In fact if more people migrate to working from home we could see a resurgence in the popularity of Windows. LOL

To be honest I don't know if robots can assemble laptops. They certainly could eliminate the need for people in the build process, but most of the robotics I've seen is used to assemble PC boards. It's true that many boards are multilayered with components printed onto the circuitry. This is how Panasonic gets away without testing their televisions. The idea is to cut costs, and human labor is the most expensive part of any manufacturing process. Robots excel in that regard.

I get a chuckle out of some of the computer stories you tell me, but you truly have the right idea. Corporations need state of the art to be competitive, but us personal users are not competing with anybody but ourselves. You're doing a marvelous job with the steam powered computers in your office and have no need for a 32 core hyper threading processor. It would be fun, but who needs to spend $3,000 on a CPU just to have fun? Well, yes, I HAVE been thinking about it. LOL

[Kellemora]

Although I've had my own computers, the only mainframe I had anything to do with was the WANG VS we had installed at work, and even then, they Wang company took care of almost everything to do with its operation.
Adding what we wanted, and leasing out time on the machine, which actually paid for itself for us.

The car dealer my first wife worked for, had a server cabinet that ran from floor almost to ceiling, and all it had to do was run 5 workstations. Heck, we had 7 at the florist.

Ever have to replace a miniature bulb in a string of Christmas lights?
It is tedious to get those little wires just right to go into the holes.
When I was on a buying trip with my brother to Japan and China, while he was doing his wheeling and dealing, I was watching a machine through a window. I can't say it was computerized, looked mechanical to me, but then I could only see the machine that placed the lamps into the strings of wires that already had the sockets molded to them.
The glass lamps were standing with the top down, wires sticking up, and after passing under a brush first then a then through some triangular blades, which probably made sure the lamps were facing with wires right and left, the triangular things made them stay perfectly upright. Then they passed under a wheel holding the plastic caps, and every single one took the wires through the two holes perfectly, then they went through a formed metal guide that bent the wires down to the side, and coming in from another machine was the wired strings with the sockets, and they would push down on the lamps to load them into the sockets. These machines were running along at a pretty good clip too, then winding up the strands on these huge reels. I guess from there they would get cut, and the plugs installed.

I saw something similar, but not with Christmas lights, but normal light bulbs.
The part I saw the glass already had it's filament inside and the bottom sealed.
But almost like the same thing, a machine guided the wires through the screw base and out the bottom as it passed, the base had glue in it and was pressed down, then it went through a soldering machine for the side, that also cut the side wire off, and then the last machine soldered the bottom and cut that wire off, then it went through a grinder/polisher to trim the bottom smooth. From there they went through a testing machine to make sure the lamp worked. It did not light the lamp up, probably only checked the resistance.
Once a bulb is burned the first time, I assume the filament is more brittle, so they didn't actually light each lamp.
Further down the line they went into the four-bulb packs, and the packs went into the cartons.

This was way back in the 1980s, and the way technology has changed since then, I can see a machine assembling a computer board and possibly even doing most of the installation operations in a laptop.

[yogi]

Robotics is amazing, not only in what they can do but also their price. Out of this world. LOL When Motorola sent it's production of cell phones to China they also sent a team of engineers to help them set up the robotics. The management there thought our guys were nuts. They didn't use robots at all. Every phone made in those days was done by humans with hands and fingers. The justification for that was that there are more people than there are jobs and that it costs way way less to pay the people than it does to buy the robotics. All that was fine, but the bottom line was the quality. They had to meet the quality standards regardless of how they did it. The amazing thing about it was that a line of 100 Chinese hands could meet or exceed the quality levels of the robots in our domestic factories. We couldn't get people to assemble boards that well which is why we went with the robots.

In the final days of domestic production many of the components on those cell phone PC Boards were the size of a grain of salt, or smaller. The parts were placed by something that looked like a metal pencil. Suction would use that pencil to grab a tiny part out of a bin, orient it correctly, and place it exactly between the two correct foils on a tiny tiny board. You know, I worked there for a dozen years and never did find out how those machines picked one single part out of the bin and much less how it oriented it properly. Then, too, I worked in the office and not on the lines themselves.

[Kellemora]

I've used vacuum devices to pick up small items myself. The tip is shaped so that the part fits into the tip, and the vacuum is low enough that if will not pick up the piece if the seal is not tight. What I used was picking up a tiny cap for a small vial. I worked for about 3 weeks part-time at company name Pacco out in Ballwin, MO, before I went to Watling Ladder.
Their main job was packaging automotive parts, but the basically packaged anything they got a contract for back then.

What kills me is how we Americans try to compare our culture and labor rates with that of a third world country.
Heck, my great-grandpa worked for 12-1/2 cents per hour cracking rock for road building, and was elated when the company changed to $1.00 a day salary, and cut those ten hour days down to only 8 hours a day.
My average salary for a good portion of my life was only 150 bucks a week.
I wasn't making much more than that, perhaps 200 bucks a week when my step-son landed a job paying 50k a year.
That was well more than double, if not triple my salary.
In other words, we have inflation much higher than anywhere else in the world, and salaries sorta kept pace with it.

Now, if you look at a country where jobs are hard to find, and the normal salary is only 35 to 50 bucks a week, just because our salaries might be 250 to 300 bucks a week or more for the same type of job done here. If a company goes in and gives jobs to those without jobs, and pays them slightly more than their normal going wage, the employees are elated, those without jobs were ecstatic they finally got a job to earn money, and good money by their standards at that.
It was good for them, and the lower cost to us is also beneficial, lower prices on the goods we buy.
In other words, we benefited by giving them a step-up above the norm.
The way I see it. It's a win win situation for all concerned.

OK - What about the jobs here?

I know I told you this story so will keep it short. The mattress manufacturer that was not far from here, placed ads in the newspaper to fill certain positions. Some were office positions, some in the computer department, and the rest in the factory where the mattresses are made. He needed to hire another 150 to 200 factory workers.
He got over 200 applications for the 3 jobs in the IT department, 150 or so for the 5 office positions, and only 8 to 10 applications to work in the factory. Some of those openings were for skilled wire formers, and twist machine operators, not a single application for those positions.
He placed another full page ad, that if those positions were not filled, he would be forced to send the manufacturing overseas. 6 months later, with no one wanting to work in the factory, he did just that.

Young Adults today do not want to work at factory jobs, so we have no choice other than to send our work out to those who want to work, regardless of where in the world they are located. A good percentage of them now have college educations, with no jobs available for them at the level they feel they should be working.
Others have degrees in useless things that won't help them in any field of employment.
Others with clout are who land the high paying jobs! So none of those have openings.

On top of that, we have so many laws here now, those would be employers don't want to mess with the hassles involved.

Some of my product packaging jobs I picked up for myself were from companies closing their packaging facilities, and the product sales of some items were not enough to have them done overseas, so they were going to discontinue the product altogether. I just lucked out and got wind of a group of three products I could package for them at a profit, not much, but I also knew that product line was going away as the machines they were used in were replaced. That's when I was packaging developing solutions for Agfa developing machines. None exist any more! No more overnight Photomats, hi hi.

[yogi]

What kills me is how we Americans try to compare our culture and labor rates with that of a third world country.

The differences are as obvious as the cars on your street. I'd say it's not too much of a stretch to claim there are more cars in the state of Tennessee than there are in all of China. Or, at least that was the case when we shut down American production of cell phones. The comparison to be made is the standard of living. A fresh-out graduate from a mediocre college in the USA lives a better life than all the working class in China. Why would that graduate want to work like a peasant when he is used to living a better lifestyle? Those grunt work jobs can be filled easily with immigrant and migrant workers, and in fact they have been. Unfortunately, many folks don't want "those kind" of people living and working in this country which leaves their jobs open and available only to newly degreed graduates.

Life on planet earth, circa 2020, isn't what it used to be last century and before. Even those Mexican illegals who were sent back home are returning to a higher standard of living than they left. All those third world countries, and a lot of those developing countries such as China, are increasing their own standard of living. I don't think you or I will be around long enough to see this, but places like China and India will be outsourcing their products to cut labor costs at some point in the future. The most likely place for them to go is right there in the good ol' USA. If we don't do what it takes to be competitive in a global market, we are stuck in the mode we see before us right now.

Motorola was doing some amazing things about twenty years ago when they still built cell phones in Illinois. It's now owned by Lenovo and I would love to have a tour of their factory to see what improvements evolved since I left the workforce. Then again, I could be disappointed. There may be 500 Asian people doing the job of two robots; doing it cheaper and with higher quality.

[Kellemora]

I went on two mission trips to East Central Africa. At that time, the areas we worked in were still nothing more than tribes living in huts. We were simply helping to get 24 small farms started and productive.
Compared to South Africa it was like a totally different world. Modern vs Ancient Wild.
South Africa has all the amenities we have, Central and East Africa are like untouched early civilizations.
You can't fathom how that can be unless you've been there. Difference is like night and day.
One group has more money than they can spend, and the next group doesn't have anything to spend money on if they had it.

China is more of an example of two classes, the very rich, and the very poor, with nothing in between those two levels.
And unfortunately, America is slowly becoming that way as well.

For the middle class American, the cost of living is going up faster than salaries are keeping pace.
Not the actual cost of living, but in reality, more of the things that we need that use up our money faster. Plus many of the things we don't really need but want to have. There is just more stuff to buy now than ever before. That's good in one way, but bad in another. Excess may cause some prices to drop, but desire and necessity causes other prices to climb.

All this does is keep bringing the Middle Class lower and lower until there really is no middle class anymore, it is now lower middle class and upper class, the true middle class is basically gone. And then we have the poor who can no longer make ends meet without resorting to criminal activities, and these will only get worse.

We are good friends of that little restaurant we eat at quite often. In the last 5 years, his total cost of running the place has doubled, but it is impossible for him to double his selling prices to make up for it.
During Covid lockdown, he had to raise is average price of 5.99 up to 6.99 and then had to jump to 8.99, and is still losing his shirt right now. If he didn't have other investments from which he was making a living from, he would shut the place down. Said he is putting money into it to pay salaries and buy product simply because they have a high shortfall due to low sales right now, but he can only loan so much to the restaurant before it becomes ridiculous to keep it open.

We hear similar stores from a lot of store owners, large and small alike. The cost price of the things they sell has exceeded the price folks are willing to pay for an item.