RIP, Steve Jobs. I Truly Wish You Could Have Lived Longer. .

... And maybe you could have been a social visionary as well as a technical visionary.

I've been following the situation of the Chinese iProduct workers for many months now, and I did have very mixed feelings as I read all of those accolades to Jobs.  I had previously written about the iPod sweatshops here:  Chinese iPod Suicide Sweatshops. 

For those who don't know, there was a scandal a year or two ago when the living and working conditions of the Chinese who were making iProducts (and other computerized electronic gadgets) was exposed.  It wasn't very pretty.  These people don't work for Apple, Dell, and all of the rest directly; they work for subcontractors.  

I added a comment about Steve Jobs when I read of his death:

Oakland Bay Bridge: Chinese Paid $12 a Day

The Chinese are Building an American Bridge!

The Oakland Bay Bridge was seriously damaged during the 1989 earthquake, and it is now being reconstructed... Much of the construction of the Oakland Bay Bridge is happening in China.  By Chinese workers paid $12 a day.  

(Photo Ryan Pyle for the New York Times)

Please read the whole article, and I hope you find it as disturbing as I do.

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More about Chinese making iPods in slave labor conditions:

Chinese suicide & iPod sweatshops  

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This, to me, was one of the worst parts of the article: