The Hyundai-LG Metaplant in Georgia is a joint battery production facility set up by the two South Korean giants. Representing at least $7.6 billion in direct investment, it's the largest economic development project in Georgia's history; it's expected to provide 8,500 jobs directly at the plant and 40,000 direct/indirect jobs statewide, bringing in a total of $4.6 billion a year. In short, once it's up and running, it will be good for the U.S. economy.

So I was surprised to learn that an immigration raid on the plant arrested over 300 South Korean workers. These were predominantly engineers and technical specialists, brought over by Hyundai subcontractors to install equipment for the battery and production line. "No company in the U.S. makes the machines that are used in the Georgia battery plant," an immigration lawyer told PBS, "so they had to come from abroad to install or repair equipment on-site — work that would take about three to five years to train someone in the U.S. to do."

The issue appears to be that the arrested workers were here on B-1 business visitor visas, but that the installation and repairs were taking longer than the visa period. However Christi Hulme, an American labor leader in Savannah, says local unions "believe Korean workers have been pouring cement, erecting steel, performing carpentry and fitting pipes."

"Basically our labor was being given to illegal immigrants," Hulme said, without providing evidence. ( I have a hard time believing Hyundai saved money by flying people over from Korea, and putting them up in a hotel, to do carpentry and plumbing.)

In any case, this post isn't about immigration, although that raid falls neatly into our culture of sensationalized news. And hot-button sensationalized news provides a gigantic distraction from a much quieter, yet far more radical occurrence that recently happened at another foreign automaker's plant in the American South.

At BMW's Spartanburg, South Carolina plant, humanoid robot company Figure has been running trials with their 'bots working on the production line. And they've set a record: A Figure 02 robot successfully completed a 20-hour continuous shift handling sheet metal panels, and it did it autonomously.

To be clear: The robot worked two shifts. Without taking a coffee break. Without going to the bathroom. Without stopping to eat, check its phone or field calls from its kids.

At press time, you could find a lot of media ink spilled about the Metaplant immigration raid. But you can't find any news of any labor unions protesting the robot that flawlessly worked a double shift. You'd think we'd see at least one labor leader saying "Basically our labor will be given to robots."

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Even in these degenerate times this (gift link) is a shocking story, to the extent that anything these people do can be shocking any more.

Two extremely sophisticated satellites that were launched at great expense 15 years ago, but are operating at a small fraction of the cost to launch them in the first place, are going to be destroyed by the Trump administration. This despite — or rather because of — the fact that they are in perfect working order, and are gathering crucial data to track climate change, which is why they were launched in the first place.

The reporting here frames this in terms of a “cost savings” measure, because that’s the Vought-Miller administration’s explanation for this, but that of course is simply a lie. The total cost of these missions is almost all sunk costs: trashing these satellites saves almost no money, but it does accomplish the real mission here, which is to continue to destroy the capacity of the United States government to do critical in every sense scientific and medical research.

If a genuine political opposition should somehow arise in this country, and go on to win political power, the people who are trying to revoke the best part of the last couple of centuries (at least; the integralist types want to go back about seven) need to be treated as the treasonous criminals that they so publicly and obviously are.

The post Trump administration trying to destroy two satellites gathering critical climate change data appeared first on Lawyers, Guns & Money.

The Rail is by Cleveland-based product designer Brian Hendricks, a/k/a Lofted Goods. It's a rail-based, wall-mounted planter system consisting of a wood dowel and 3D-printed components.

The vessels are easily removable, and slot into the brackets via a sliding dovetail.

The bottom of each vessel is unscrewable, allowing you to drain water as necessary.

What I really appreciate is that Hendricks put careful thought into how the system could be easily installed and assembled:

Hendricks doesn't sell The Rail as a product, but posts the files here so you can 3D print it yourself.

Some words are carved into regulation, others were invented during a lunch break in brand strategy.

The post What Terms on Alcohol Labels Really Mean: The Words You Trust and the Tricks You Miss appeared first on Primer.

We live in an age of shitty product design and no customer support. Stuff breaks because it's poorly made, and then you have no recourse but to throw it into the trash, because it's unrepairable. If you try to get someone on the line, it's endless sub-menus before you finally get a live person overseas, who struggles with the language and has not been empowered by their bosses to actually solve your problem.

Here, however, we have a product design failure that was handled masterfully.

I think Peak Design, which designs and makes travel gear, is a great company. I own two of their bags and they've never let me down. They're also a B-Corp and an employee-owned company, which I like. I was excited to learn they'd expanded from bags into carry-on rollers, as I think there's a dearth of good design in that space, and I wrote about the launch of their Roller Pro (which I do not own).

Peak Design fans have started a subReddit where they review the company's products and post mods and hacks. Recently an owner of their new Roller Pro posted this:

"Took my bag out of the overhead compartment on the first flight segment to find the handle no longer attached to the carbon fiber tube. Has been used for a total of 12 days travel. I could live with the squeak/fart noises but this is going to make things very difficult."

And all of us have had something like this happen to us. What happens next? You try to call the company, and can't get through. Or you do get through, and get the run-around. E-mails go unanswered. You try to fix it yourself, but you can't. You throw the thing out.

However, it appears Peak Design monitors this subReddit, and they responded immediately. Within two hours of the post above going live, Robb Jankura, the company's Principal Design Engineer, made a video to the customer--not just apologizing, but trying to help the customer improvise a fix.

Jankura recognizes that the customer has been inconvenienced on the road, is taking ownership of the problem, and is trying to make it right. I recommend clicking the link and watching the video before it disappears. In it, Jankura attempts to duplicate the problem, explains how the mechanism works, and suggests temporary fixes using commonly-available items.

"Within 2 hours of posting," writes the customer, "one of their design engineers sent me a field repair guide video explaining how the parts work and what to keep an eye out for when I do a temporary repair. And of course, made plans to replace it as soon as I'm back."

Now, why did the bag fail so quickly? Maybe it's a design flaw. Maybe it's a manufacturing defect. Things go wrong. And when they do, you usually have no recourse. The easiest thing for the company to do is ignore your post and continue clocking profits. Instead, Peak Design owned the problem, took responsibility, reached out to the customer unprompted and tried to solve the problem (as well as guaranteeing a replacement).

I'm guessing Jankura is now studying the problem and taking steps to remedy the design. Obviously 12 days is an unacceptable window for product failure. I expect to get 12 years or more out of my Peak Design products. If I don't, I'll reach out—and I like knowing that someone on the other end of the line gives a damn, stands behind their product and will try to help.