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Comment Re:Technology usually makes workers more disposabl (Score 1) 674

Quite truthy, but that overlooks an increasing population that exceeded agricultural demand and the fact that the peasants doing the work were now in the same boat as the factory workers; they were disposable labor. Of course, you can lay some of the blame for that on social change, but much of the social change on the farm was driven by the changes in town and the financial impacts that had for the feudal model.

Comment Technology usually makes workers more disposable (Score 1) 674

A serf in the Middle Ages was usually reasonably well cared for by his lord. For instance, many, if not most, had access to free medical care, such as it was, as the lord didn't want to lose his property. With the dawn of the Industrial Age, that all went away as the factory owner had no investment in his workers and they were easily replaceable. The life of those workers was, generally, much worse than their predecessor serfs.

Today, H1-B visas are about the same phenomenon. Make workers a disposable commodity and the riches you accrue will be without limit. But all of this overlooks the ascent of robotics, which truly will replace human workers. It will be less effective to throw you shoe in the works when the works just throw it back at you.

Submission + - Flowering Plants' Roots Pushed Back 100 M Years (frontiersin.org)

Rambo Tribble writes: Frontiers in Plant Science has published research which suggests that angiosperms' origins are a lot older than we have thought; 100 million years older, in fact: http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpls.2013.00344/abstract This puts the roots of these plants in the Triassic, not the Cretaceous, as previously thought. The BBC also covered the story with a little more eye candy: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/24331982

Submission + - Facebook Editing Function Questioned (bbc.co.uk)

Rambo Tribble writes: Recent changes allowing Facebook posters to alter their posts after the fact, without affecting the status of "Likes" attached to the original, have drawn fire for their potential to essentially hijack those "Likes", the BBC reports

Submission + - Martha Stewart Expects Apple to Make House-calls (reuters.com)

Rambo Tribble writes: Recently drawing generally positive reviews for her organization's resistance to Lodsys' extortion demands, the doyen herself is in the news for expecting Apple to pick up her personal iPad, which she broke, and immediately fix it. Reuters reports on this stunning display of entitlement.

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