revelation

I spent five weeks at the firm’s newest warehouse in Tilbury, Essex, armed with a secret camera bought from Amazon’s own website.

I found staff asleep on their feet, exhausted from toiling for up to 55 hours a week.

Those who could not keep up with the punishing targets faced the sack – and some who buckled under the strain had to be attended to by ambulance crews.

The plant, with no natural light, is flooded with fluorescent bulbs – night and day have no meaning.

Many of the clocks have been covered over with tape by employees desperate not to be reminded how long is left of their shift. But time still rules here – a new package must be sealed and ready to go every 30 seconds.

Whatever the hour thousands of workers are racing to hit goals set by computers monitoring their every move. In my five weeks I saw staff struggling to meet impossible targets, in constant fear of the sack.

Two half-hour breaks were the only time off my feet, but it was barely enough time to race to the canteen and wolf down some food to keep my energy up.

“The emergency responders of Licking County, Ohio, are under strain. At least once a day, a medical unit from West Licking Fire Station 3 makes a run to the Amazon.com Inc. warehouse 3.1 miles away, in the township of Etna, about 20 miles east of Columbus. The calls for routine medical issues that occur in grueling warehouse jobs come at all hours, says Steve Little, the fire district administrator. Shortness of breath. Chest pains. Myriad minor injuries. During the busy holiday season, he says, the warehouse sometimes issues multiple emergency calls a day.Amazon isn’t helping cover the costs. Under the deal the company negotiated in 2015 with local officials and the state’s private economic development agency, JobsOhio, it’s paying no property taxes to Licking County for 15 years. As part of a two-warehouse deal, the state gave Amazon $17 million in tax incentives, and JobsOhio handed over $1.5 million in cash, funded with income from the state’s liquor monopoly. The new facilities are “almost a million square feet we have to protect, but we get no extra money,” Little says. “We have no voice in these deals, and we get no cash. Our residents are being forced to pay instead.” In November, voters in Little’s district will be asked to approve a five-year, $6.5 million property tax levy to keep the fire department operating.”

Usui Matagorô Kills a Giant Ape in the Mountains of Hida.

Researchers have used Easter Island Moai replicas to show how they might have been “walked” to where they are displayed.

Maori told Europeans that kiore were native rats and no one believed them until DNA tests proved it

Until they finally payed closer attention to local songs and legend that all essentially said “Yah the Goddess Nanda Devi got mad and sent huge heave stones down to kill them”. That was consistent with huge contusions found all on their neck and shoulders and the weather patterns of the area, which are prone to huge & inevitably deadly goddamn hailstones. https://www.facebook.com/atlasobscura/videos/10154065247212728/

“Inuit traditional knowledge was critical to the discovery of both ships, she pointed out, offering the Canadian government a powerful demonstration of what can be achieved when Inuit voices are included in the process.

In contrast, the tragic fate of the 129 men on the Franklin expedition hints at the high cost of marginalising those who best know the area and its history.

“If Inuit had been consulted 200 years ago and asked for their traditional knowledge – this is our backyard – those two wrecks would have been found, lives would have been saved. I’m confident of that,” she said. “But they believed their civilization was superior and that was their undoing.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/16/inuit-canada-britain-shipwreck-hms-terror-nunavut

“Oh yeah, I heard a lot of stories about Terror, the ships, but I guess Parks Canada don’t listen to people,” Kogvik said. “They just ignore Inuit stories about the Terror ship.”

Schimnowski said the crew had also heard stories about people on the land seeing the silhouette of a masted ship at sunset.

“The community knew about this for many, many years. It’s hard for people to stop and actually listen … especially people from the South.”

it’s literally the oldest accurate oral history of the world.  

Friendly reminder that this hell site is owned by Yahoo, a company who are now actively advocating for the death of Net Neutrality.

Friendly fucking reminder that the site is actively forcing users to unfollow the net neutrality tag after 20 or so minutes of following it.

2016 felt like the year that would never die.