Category: Random Stuff

Tweet of the Day: A Simple Way to Save Lives At Train Stations?

| April 5, 2015

Twitter image2

This simple change to train stations reportedly could save many lives.

New York City Councilwomen Upset that Too Many Asians are Moving Into Public Housing

| March 28, 2015

Could you imagine what the media reaction would be to this if it was a white Republican claiming too many (enter ethnic minority) group was moving into public housing?

A Brooklyn city councilmember on Thursday made the bizarre claim that a wave of Asians has invaded public housing developments in her district.

Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo made the unusual statement at a hearing Thursday on the Housing Authority’s funding problems.

Addressing NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye, Cumbo — who represents a wide patch of Brooklyn from Fort Greene to Crown Heights — asked why “certain ethnic groups come in” to a NYCHA development “in blocks.”

NYCHA has a waiting list of 250,000 hoping for public housing, and tenants are picked strictly in chronological order, with preference given for homeless families and victims of domestic violence.

So a clearly perplexed Olatoye asked Cumbo to elaborate.

Cumbo then stated, “We have a large Asian population in our district — and we love them.”

Without identifying specifics — such as which development she meant — she claimed that this particular ethnic community “had the opportunity to move into a development in large numbers.”  [NY Daily News via reader tip]

So I guess the councilwoman loves the Asian community, just not enough to allow them to move into public housing.

Korean-American Restaurant Owner Ordered Pay Over $2 Million In Back Wages to Employees

| March 25, 2015

Via a reader tip comes this story of a Korean-American restaurant owner in New York who was treating his illegal immigrant employees as if they were Kaesong Industrial Complex workers:

During the busiest banquet season at Kum Gang San, a venerable 24-hour Korean restaurant in Flushing, Queens, employees said they often worked more than 16 hours, with no overtime, and earned less than the minimum wage. When times were slow, workers had to shovel snow from the owner’s driveway and move the owner’s son to a new apartment.

But the final indignity that prompted employees to file a lawsuit in 2012 came after workers were told to pick cabbage at a farm outside the city on their day off. When they refused, the workers said, they were suspended.

Last Thursday, a federal magistrate judge ruled that Kum Gang San, the owner, Ji Sung Yoo, and two restaurant managers owed the 11 employees who had filed a lawsuit claiming wage theft $2.67 million.

“I do see this as a victory because this lawsuit, yes, was about getting the money we were owed, but it was also about changing conditions,” Chul Park, 47, one of the plaintiffs, said through an interpreter on Sunday outside the restaurant. “Even though I am no longer working here, I know that this is going to impact the workers who are here now.”

The case is the latest involving an ethnic restaurant that has been found to exploit workers, many of whom are undocumented immigrants from the same country as the restaurant bosses.

A federal magistrate judge, Michael H. Dolinger, wrote in his decision that Kum Gang San not only persisted in paying employees “grossly substandard wages and diverting some of their tip income, but — in violation of statutes and regulations — they made sure to deny the workers any information that would disclose the violations of their rights.”  [New York Times]

You can read more at the link, but Ji Sung Yoo has had a long history of exploiting employees so it is about time this ruling came out against him.

Tweet of the Day: Dakota Meyer and Bristol Palin Engaged

| March 16, 2015

Twitter image2

Tweet of the Day: Falcon-9 Set for Launch

| March 2, 2015

Twitter image2

Tweet of the Day: Chicago Turning Into 1970’s Korea

| February 25, 2015

Twitter image2

This reminds of something that would happen in South Korea during the military dictatorship era when people could just be snatched off the streets and detained without recourse:

Tweet of the Day: Remember the Battle of Iwo Jima

| February 20, 2015

Twitter image2

Tweet of the Day: 30% of Millennials Still Live With Parents

| February 19, 2015

Twitter image2

Apple Believed To Be Operating A Secret Electric Car Program

| February 18, 2015

This is going to be a tough marketplace for any company even one like Apple to break in to:

Apple Inc. may already be positioned to evolve into a global automaker in many ways that other Silicon Valley companies aren’t.

The tech company has put a few hundred employees to work on a secretive project to develop an electric automobile, a person familiar with the matter has said. While Apple often tests ideas that don’t get released, the work underscores the company’s long-held desire to play a greater role in the automotive space, which is ripe for more of a merging with users’ digital lives.

“It makes a ton of sense,” Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray Cos., said Saturday. “If you would’ve said 10 years ago, ‘Apple is going to be in the car business,’ I think people would’ve said you’re crazy – because it would’ve been crazy – and today it’s a much different company that’s able to tackle these massive addressable markets.”

Apple, with a market capitalization that’s more than $700 billion, needs to continue growing sales in iPhones, its largest revenue generator, while also expanding into new markets, such as automobiles, if it’s to reach a $1 trillion valuation, Munster said. He added that he doesn’t think Apple would bring out a car in the next five years.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but it seems with all the talk of a Google Car that Apple feels like they have to get into the car industry as well.  It seems like they should just partner with Tesla and revolutionize the car industry that way?

Tweet of the Day: Wounded Warrior Summits Vinson Massif

| January 15, 2015