Made to reassure the public about the safety and quality of McDonald's meat, this tour of one of their meat providers' factories is interesting, partly because of the complex, bewildering preparations that the beef patties go through and the amazing machines that do the work, but mostly because of how much the procedure resembles that child-grinding scene from The Wall.

The video has it all: masked employees earnestly voicing the virtues their "USDA-inspected" product while behind them, a torrent of beef spews out of a giant mechanical meat-hole onto a speeding conveyor belt; tubs, pipes and boxes of various sizes and shapes carrying a roiling mass of beef slurry; countless, mysterious processing chambers, each of which does who knows what else to the patties.

The final step of the process: after all the processing, grinding, forming and freezing, the last device the patties pass through before packaging is a metal detector. In other words, go to McDonald's, because your Big Mac is practically guaranteed not to have a lug nut in it.

It's not that this is necessarily surprising, it's just that we're used to companies keeping this kind of thing as out of view as possible. So some credit is due to McD's, I guess? Witness all the mechanical wonder/horror here. [McDonald's—Thanks, Albert!]

I don't know how old these photos may be and I don't care—seeing a MiG-29 in various states of assembly, and attended by a fine-looking team of hard-working babushkas, is awesome. Bless our comrades at English Russia, where you can see more. [English Russia]

Dell has long used their own factories to assemble computers after a consumer places an order—a technique Dell pioneered to cut inventory costs and boost profits. Currently, the company relies on Asian computer parts assembled in Dell US factories—the "two touch" process. The planned transition, which has already been made for some laptops, will move all production to foreign contract manufacturers—something we already see from companies like HP and Apple.

So the only question that remains is whether or not there will be interested buyers in Dell's $2.6 billion in production plants. Because if Dell is backing out of the game, it's gotta be a tough sell to anyone. [WSJ]

The audit found no underage workers, many requests for overtime and also found that all employees received at least local minimum wage, while at least half received over that. The most interesting finding is that the facilities offer dormitories for employees to live in, rent-free, along with recreation facilities, cafeterias, lounges, Internet cafes, a post office, a hospital, a supermarket and even a freaking swimming pool. Sounds like a pretty good place to work, in China at least.

So, uh, Gawker. You guys going to pay for my rent and hook me up with a sweet swimming pool? – Travis Hudson

Report on iPod Manufacturing [Apple via Consumerist]