Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

[touchring]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

Five Days Later, Chinese Concede Design Flaw Had Role in Wreck.

Someone forgot to install a 30 bucks UPS for the signaling equipment.

[GRG55]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

China is a little behind in a great many things. I agree with mooncliff that China will move along the learning curve faster than Korea, which is moving faster than Japan, which moved faster than...

But China's process of building a durable economy with the qualities required to truly compete on a level playing field with the west is going to take a lot longer than most of us can imagine. Too many are ga-ga at the glitzy shopping malls, square miles of new high-rise towers, incredible commodity consumption statistics, not to mention those shiny high speed trains.

But at this point the Chinese economy is rife with corruption, cannot compete without ripping off other's technology and copying it, cannot compete without ripping off customer after customer [one of my companies just had quite a bad experience securing a piece of mining equipment kit from one of the largest Chinese companies in the business], and cannot make anything as well as the best in the world [trains, planes and automobiles...take your pick]. The story that started this thread is classic behaviour for a nation severely lacking in confidence and maturity.

Some day China will grow up, but what is holding it back is a deeply ingrained historical and cultural predisposition towards corruption and continually trying to take advantage of the clients on the other side of the transaction. Of course, that's the exact same thing that has happened in the western financial sector, which has waylaid the economies of the USA and much of Europe for years to come. What goes around, comes around. And China is not immune from that...

Not on the topic of train wrecks, but symptomatic of the root cause. Any nation that is compelled to shut down half its dairies has a serious problem. My wife, who has a particular fondness for canned peaches, told me on her last trip to one of our local supermarkets she could not find any that were not made in China...and she won't knowingly touch them or any other food from there...

4 August 2011 Last updated at 04:14 ET

China arrests 2,000 people in food safety crackdown

China has arrested 2,000 people and shut down nearly 5,000 businesses in a clampdown on illegal food additives, after a series of food safety scares.

The campaign was launched in April after scandals from glow-in-the-dark meat to buns injected with dye to make them look like a more expensive kind...

...Food safety scandals in China have badly damaged consumer confidence in recent years, particularly in the dairy industry.

The Chinese authorities enacted strict policies to ensure food safety after infant milk formula containing melamine killed at least six babies and made 300,000 children ill in 2008.

The industrial chemical had been added to dairy products to make them seem high in protein...

...Earlier this year, China's quality inspection agency shut down nearly half of the country's 1,176 dairies as part of a campaign to clean up the dairy industry...

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And this latest "crackdown" is nothing new in China...not that it will make any difference:

Page last updated at 10:36 GMT, Tuesday, 10 July 2007 11:36 UK
China food safety head executed

The former head of China's State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, has been executed for corruption, the state-run Xinhua news agency reports.

He was convicted of taking 6.5m yuan ($850,000; £425,400) in bribes and of dereliction of duty at a trial in May.
The bribes were linked to sub-standard medicines, blamed for several deaths...

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This incident happened after the shut down of half the dairies:

11 April 2011 Last updated at 09:58 ET
Milk poisoning in northwest China 'deliberate'

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Time for a bit of comic relief :-)

17 May 2011 Last updated at 04:49 ET
China farmers face 'exploding' watermelon problem

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Finally, this entry from the "When in Doubt" file. There's something faintly amusing about city professionals spending time farming in a country with a reputation for massive migration from rural districts to shiny new cities :-)

3 August 2011 Last updated at 20:01 ET
Wealthy Chinese begin farming after food-safety scares

Juggling their iPhones with spades, a group of young professionals are getting their hands dirty - digging vegetables.

During the week, they are teachers, PR consultants, and computer programmers. But at the weekend, these city slickers return to the soil.

"We're worried about food safety," says He Liying, explaining why they grow vegetables...

...From glow-in-the dark meat to dye injected into buns to make them look like a more expensive variety, there has been a rash of scandals in recent months
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But the most bizarre case was that of the exploding melons...

...It was apparently caused by the overuse of a growth accelerant...

...Whether it is exploding melons or pigs pumped full of steroids to produce lean meat, many in China simply do not trust what is put on their dinner tables...

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

... My wife, who has a particular fondness for canned peaches, told me on her last trip to one of our local supermarkets she could not find any that were not made in China...and she won't knowingly touch them or any other food from there...

Same policy at our house -we eat no food finished in China, and we look for it on the label. I'm surprised how much frozen, canned and packaged IS from China.
Of course, I can't see the major ingredients from China that are hidden in my processed foods, but we try and we do what we can.

[GRG55]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

Same policy at our house -we eat no food finished in China, and we look for it on the label. I'm surprised how much frozen, canned and packaged IS from China.
Of course, I can't see the major ingredients from China that are hidden in my processed foods, but we try and we do what we can.

There's a bit of controversy up here in Canada regarding the government's efforts to reduce the amount of food labelling. The controversy over Chinese food products has created a bit of a public backlash against that...

[c1ue]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

Not on the topic of train wrecks, but symptomatic of the root cause. Any nation that is compelled to shut down half its dairies has a serious problem.

It is the completely predictable outcome to a completely unregulated 'free market'.

See: Sinclair, Upton The Jungle

Nothing new here.

[touchring]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

Same policy at our house -we eat no food finished in China, and we look for it on the label. I'm surprised how much frozen, canned and packaged IS from China.
Of course, I can't see the major ingredients from China that are hidden in my processed foods, but we try and we do what we can.

If they are not listed, you can bet they are from China, especially vegetables and fruits. China produces the cheapest vegetables and fruits in the world. Low cost of labor combined with uncontrolled use of pesticide and plant growth hormones.

A list of fruits and veg with the highest pesticides, Peaches listed among the top few.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/orga...e-residues.cfm

Produce with Highest Levels of Pesticide Residues:

Fruit/Vegetable Strawberries Bell Peppers ...Green ...Red Spinach Cherries (US) Peaches Cantaloupe (Mexico) Celery Apples Apricots Green Beans Grapes (Chile) Cucumbers Pears Winter Squash (US) Potatoes (US)

Nutrients Vitamin C Vitamin C Vitamins A, C Vitamins A, C, Folic acid Vitamin C Vitamins A, C Vitamins A, C, Potassium Carotenoids Vitamins A, C, Potassium Vitamins A, C, Potassium Carotenoids Vitamin C, Potassium Vitamin A, Potassium Vitamins A, C, Folic acid Vitamins A, C. Folic acid, Potassium Vitamin C, Folic acid

Substitutions (approx. nutritional equivalent) Blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, kiwi, orange, cantaloupe Green peas, broccoli, romaine lettuce Carrots, broccoli, brussels sprouts, tomatoes, asparagrus, romaine lettuce Broccoli, brussels sprouts, asparagrus, romaine lettuce Grapefruit, blueberries, raspberries, cantaloupe, oranges Nectarines, canned peaches, cantaloupe (US), tangerine, grapefruit, watermelon Watermelon, cantaloupe (US) Carrots, broccoli, radishes, romaine lettuce Oranges, nectarines, bananas, kiwis, watermelon, tangerines Nectarines, cantaloupe (US), watermelon, tangerines, grapefruit Green peas, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, asparagrus Grapes (US), in season Carrots, romaine lettuce, broccoli, radishes Canned pears, canned peaches, oranges, nectarines Winter squash (Honduras, Mexico), sweet potatoes (US) Sweet potatoes (US), carrots, winter squash (Honduras, Mexico)

Produce with the Least Levels of Pesticide Residues:

Avocados - Vitamins A, C, Folic acid Corn - Carotenoids, Folic acid Onions - Trace vitamins, carotenoids Sweet Potatoes - Potassium, vitamins A, C Cauliflower - Vitamin C, Potassium Brussels Sprouts - Folic acid, vitamins A, C

Grapes (US, Mexico) - Vitamin C Bananas - Potassium, vitamin C Plums - Vitamin C Green Onions - Vitamins A, C Watermelon - Potassium, vitamins A, C Broccoli - Potassium, vitamins A, C

11 April 2011 Last updated at 09:58 ET
Milk poisoning in northwest China 'deliberate'

This is common in China among food companies, sabotaging your competitor by planting poison in their products.

[GRG55]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

All this reminded me of this old iTulip thread...

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...ht=London+Rail

China will gradually learn to compete. Gradually. All the breathless reports of China's dominance "in everything" follow in the same tradition as the reports of Japan taking over the world in the late 1980s...vastly overblown.

A while back domeone started a thread devoted to a Chinese commercial airplane project, and I recall making a comment along the lines that "If it ain't Boeing, I'm not going". Nothing has happened to change my mind so far :-)

If labour is so cheap in China, one wonders what they were trying to save with this move. They should be able to have one person holding the screw, one turning the screwdriver, and one running behind verifying the number installed. :-)

Air France A340 Flew With Missing Screws

Nov 25, 2011 3:30 AM MT

An Airbus (EAD) SAS A340 operated by Air France-KLM (AF) Group was halted in Boston in mid-November after about 30 screws were found to be missing from a protective panel, the airline said.

The long-range plane had undergone maintenance in China, at Taeco-Taikoo Aircraft Engineering and left the facility Nov. 10...

[touchring]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

More people does not mean better work done. If you worked with large Indian IT companies, you will know what I mean.

If labour is so cheap in China, one wonders what they were trying to save with this move. They should be able to have one person holding the screw, one turning the screwdriver, and one running behind verifying the number installed. :-)

Air France A340 Flew With Missing Screws

Nov 25, 2011 3:30 AM MT

An Airbus (EAD) SAS A340 operated by Air France-KLM (AF) Group was halted in Boston in mid-November after about 30 screws were found to be missing from a protective panel, the airline said.

The long-range plane had undergone maintenance in China, at Taeco-Taikoo Aircraft Engineering and left the facility Nov. 10...

[nedtheguy]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

redacted

[metalman]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

Agreed. The decision to outsource to said Indian IT companies are usually made by the same genius high level managers who make such calculations as: If a project will take 4000 man hours, we'll hire 100 developers and it will be done in a week!

mythical man month... + language + culture + time zone diffs...

[GRG55]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

mythical man month... + language + culture + time zone diffs...

= another bug filled Microsoft software upgrade...

[jpatter666]

Re: Train wreck is no surprise to me, trains wreck all the time, but what happens next is really nuts.

= another bug filled Microsoft software upgrade...

Oh yes, I remember my time going to India to help some software IT guys there. I was appalled -- very obvious that only a select few had any really software design training. They could write code, but not *good* code.

Hopefully it's better now, but the fact that so little software innovation comes out of India tells me much.

As for MSFT, they've improved dramatically (in their software design technique) over the past ten years. For the first time in ages, I'm not swearing a storm when using MSFT products.