Stand by your work

The sign language interpreter widely ridiculed for his performance at the Nelson Mandela memorial stands by his work. Thamsanqa Jantjie said on Thursday that he is a fully qualified interpreter and has been trusted in the past with other big events. "It has been many years I have been doing this job" he told media. "My portfolio shows that I have been a champion of what I have been doing." Not so, says the head of the South Africa Translators' Institute. There were complaints last year after Jantjie interpreted the proceedings at the ruling African National Congress elective conference, the institute's chairman, Johan Blaauw, told the South African Press Association. But Jantjie stands by his work. "I have never in my life had anything that said I have interpreted wrong," he said. I think what this comes down to is that his translations just need more work, as do conditions at Foxconn's facilities. A watchdog group says conditions at the facilities of the Apple supplier have improved in recent months, though the factories are still in violation of Chinese laws on work hours. In a report released on Thursday, the Fair Labor Association said three Foxconn facilities in China employing an estimated 170,000 workers have made "steady progress" in improving working conditions over the past 15 months. The FLA worked with the company to develop an action plan to address the issue. The group said Foxconn had constructed additional exits and restrooms at the three facilities, and had revised its policies to limit overtime hours to 36 per month and three per day. But the report found that workers at one of the factories had worked more than 60 hours a week on numerous occasions between March and October of this year, and that all three had exceeded the monthly overtime limit, but there is still a long way to go, starting with the issue of hours worked - it is possible the bellends in charge could have increased the proportion of hours that were not officially recorded as overtime, thereby violating the spirit of the new policies. And speaking of spirit, if you think you can only make whisky from cereal grains (including but not limited to rye or barley), think again. At least at Brooklyn’s Kings County Distillery, they’ve made the spirit with some crazy components. When Gizmodo stopped by for a visit earlier this week, they spent a fascinating day with co-founder Colin Spoelman as he pulled some transubstantiating magic and turned Coca-Cola into whisky. Located in the rustically beautiful 113-year-old Paymaster’s building at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Kings County Distillery is the first distillery to produce whisky legally in New York since Prohibition. In 2010, the state relaxed some farmhouse distillery laws to allow small producers to sell and serve their product in the same location. This paved the way for a lot of craft producers in Brooklyn and its environs, with Kings County leading the way.