I have teenagers, too, Nancy, so I know what you mean. One of the problems with counterfeiting in China is there doesn't seem to be any negative consequences. The government in China seems to be a buffer between the counterfeiters and their victims.
You are so right Rob - I face that with my teenagers everyday! We always follow through with consequences because if we don't, they think that they can still get what they want even though they knowingly broke the rules. It's just easier to apply that to your kids than to a whole country!
Nancy, I think part of the problem with counterfeiting is that we tend to do what we get rewarded for. If those doing the counterfeiting are not facing any negative impact, they'll keep doing it.
Oh, I agree Rob. You have to draw a line at some point. There is even an ethical system called ethical egoism which says that selfishness should not be feared but rather embraced as the highest principle of morality. But just because someone subscribes to a certain ethical system, it doesn't mean that it is an acceptable system. Counterfeiting is such a gross violation of standard business practice - and if they expect to participate in the global economy, they should recognize standard business practices...but another issue that is part of our global economy is that we are all coming from different worldviews. It is a challenge to be sure!
Yes, Rob - and when it is an ingrained mindset it is really hard to change. There are so many ethical systems and when doing business with folks who don't subscribe to the same ethical standards - people call foul on one side while the other side is scratching their heads thinking, but we aren't doing anything wrong...
That's an interesting story, Bob. And it certainly illustrates a culture that is far different from the business culture in the U.S. We would replace all of the workers if we could.
Trouble shooting a problem in any complex product isn't always straight forward.
I have had hundreds of product returned because it didn't work like the prior production build lot... Only to find out what was assumed to be the "same"... wasn't. In this case, the customer incorrectly documented the cables required - and fooled themselves during the course of swapping things around, into thinking the only item changing was the interface board we shipped to them. The problem was the cables they built.. and had their end users build (incorrectly) in hundreds of airports across the world!
Simply put.. they thought the only thing they were swapping out was the interface card we were providing. They were certain this was the only thing being done.
It required a third party to discover the real cause (we didn't have examples of "their" bad cables).
Any single level failure is generally easy to fix with swapping out components with known good components.
But if that is your only skill set during trouble shooting, YOU are in trouble.
Your trouble shooting skills are really "put to the test"? ... when fixing a system with 2 or more different failures at the same time. No one component swap out will "fix" the system.
And a variation of this scenario .. swapping components from questionable stock (never assume "new" = good/working)
This issue is not directly related to Nationality or even counterfeit components. I have seen bad "new" components from nearly all countries / companies on occasion. Counterfeit parts (aircraft industry) happen in the USA all the time. And corrupt business leaders happen everywhere. Little value in making sweeping generalizations on the subject.
Having the skill to not to depend on assumptions.. is the real lesson being presented.
Your story reminds me of a recent trip to China where I went to a KFC for dinner. At the completion of my meal, I picked up my tray to discard my trash, and a KFC employee agressively approached me telling me something that I did not understand. My interpreter explained to me that the employee was telling me that I was trying to take her job, and clearing tables was only her responsibility. It is a different culture.
As energy efficiency becomes more and more a concern for makers of electronics devices, researchers are coming up with new ways to harvest energy from sound vibration, footsteps, and even electromagnetic fields in the air.
The government wants to study your brain, and DARPA wants to use similar information to give robots true autonomy beyond any artificial intelligence developed to date. Sound like science fiction? It's not.
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