Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track 'labor organizing threats' - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qj4aqw/amazon-hiring-intelligence-analyst-to-track-labor-organizing-threats <comment> reading-at-work Not surprised. Tech companies (Facebook and Google in this case, and probably others) have been known to retain Pinkerton agents to monitor employees. Yes, _those_ Pinkertons.

"Among other services, Pinkerton offers to send investigators to coffee shops or restaurants near a company's campus to eavesdrop on employees' conversations."

[https://newrepublic.com/article/147619/pinkertons-still- neve...](https://newrepublic.com/article/147619/pinkertons-still-never-sleep)

<comment><USER2> This is awesome in a very very sad way.

Several years ago, I started working for a company that was in the build up to a Yea/Nay vote for joining the union. During that time, 2 "goons" showed up at my apartment to discuss the benefits of joining the union and why not joining would be bad. However, these very "intelligent" goons showed up during the day, you know, working hours where I had a very low chance of being home. I don't know if they were just that dumb, or if they were trying to influence what they thought were family members. Instead, it was my flatmate from England. She told me just laughed at the thought of me joining a union, and not so politely told them to bugger off and closed the door on them. Ultimately, the vote failed miserably.

All of that to say, that I'm not surprised that anti-union shenanigans are at the same level as the pro-union shenanigans.

<comment><USER3> What makes you call them goons? Politicians, activists, all sorts of people go door knocking around the time of elections and referendums. What made this interaction so different that you call them goons sent there to intimidate you, not activists trying to attract your vote?

<comment><USER4> Union activists in the UK have a reputation of being bullies, and in some cases in the past they've used physical violence to try to get people to do things their way.

At the height of union fever back in the 80s it got so bad at one point that union activists dropped a concrete block on someone's head from a bridge because he was trying to get into work and they thought he should be striking (David Wilkie.)

I would not appreciate union goons showing up at my door and I'd have a similar reaction.

<comment><USER5> Love the way you've got to reach back literally 36 years to find one example of union violence. The reputation that British unions actually have is for getting shat on by bullying employers.

<comment><USER4> I think it was a pretty watershed moment in union relations in the UK. It's what a lot of people think of when they think of unions in the UK. They're pretty unpopular here. I was explaining why a British person might call them goons.

<comment><USER6> > They're pretty unpopular here. I was explaining why a British person might > call them goons.

Yeah, no. We must be living in different countries. There are lots of large, powerful, popular British unions in a wide variety of industries.

<comment><USER4> Union membership in the UK has been going down long-term for four decades. It's halved since 1980 in fact.

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/287232/trade-union- densi...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/287232/trade-union-density- united-kingdom-uk-y-on-y/)

The Labour party have been ineffective for a decade and haven't been less popular since 1935. They're at their least popular when their leadership is more aligned to the unions. They were at the most recent popularity when they were furthest from the unions. They have just one representative now in Scotland, once a key area for unions.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/election-2019-50768605](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/election-2019-50768605)

If you're a fan of unionisation in the UK then I'd say you have cause for concern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This does not surprise me. I've been waiting to see corporate intelligence agencies pop up. When you think about it, Amazon had an operating budget last year of around $309 billion [1], already 75% of Germany's at $399 billion [2]. Facebook has an operating budget of around $35 billion, but that is still enough to field a small intelligence arm. Also, that is Facebook..not all Facebook properties combined.

[1] [https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/operat...](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/operating- expenses)

[2] [https://www.dw.com/en/german-parliament-passes-record- budget...](https://www.dw.com/en/german-parliament-passes-record- budget/a-51463550#:~:text=The%20total%20German%20state%20budget,Bundestag%20chamber%20during%20Friday's%20debate).

<comment><USER8> Most of Amazon's revenue is retail sales. Buying a product for $10 and selling it for $10.10 is _not_ comparable to $10 of government spending. After deducting cost of sales and cost of fulfilment you're left with ~$60 billion.

<comment><USER9> Are you sure about that? My understanding is that the bulk of their profits are from Amazon Web Services. That is potentially a factor that contributes to this skewed and awkward framing of labor.

<comment><USER10> You are both right.

The bulk of PROFITS is in AWS.

The bulk of ECONOMIC ACTIVITY is in amazon.com sales.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Beyond the creepiness of the tasks required, what sticks out to me is the persistent use of Amazon-specific jargon:

> Analysts must be capable of engaging and informing L7+ ER Principals > (attorney stakeholders)

Does anyone who doesn't work at Amazon know what "L7 + ER Principals" means?

Perhaps these are universally understood terms in some fields, but my guess is that the "error" was posting this publicly, and it was meant to be an Amazon- internal job posting.

Sometimes, for legal reasons, these sorts of jobs are required to be posted publicly, but not in a way that makes the underlying content clear to anyone [0]. So another possibility is that the mistake was posting the job with too many specifics.

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21851281](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21851281)

<comment><USER12> A quick search shows that L7 also exists at Facebook and Google at least. It's a senior (staff) software engineer. [https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software- Engi...](https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engineer/L7/) Not sure about the ER part though.

<comment><USER13> Levels don't scale the same among FAANGs

<comment><USER14> In particular L7 at Amazon is roughly equivalent to L6 at Google, E6 at Facebook, 66-67-ish at Microsoft, and 5-ish at apple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The relevant excerpts from the job listings:

>Analysts must be capable of engaging and informing L7+ ER Principals (attorney stakeholders) on sensitive topics that are highly confidential, including labor organizing threats against the company, establish and track funding and activities connected to corporate campaigns (internal and external) against Amazon, and provide sophisticated analysis on these topics

>Analysts must be capable of creating and deploying sophisticated search strings tailored to various business interests and used to monitor for future risk; Engaging business leaders (L6+) directly is core to this support, and may cover topics including organized labor, activist groups, hostile political leaders.

>Analysts are expected to close knowledge gaps by initiating and maintaining engagement with topical subject matter experts on topics of importance to Amazon, including hate groups, policy initiatives, geopolitical issues, terrorism, law enforcement, and organized labor

<comment><USER16> > ...hostile political leaders.

Nice! It's always good to see corporates fight against elected politicians that are _hostile_ to projects like HQ 2. This is not dystopian at all.

<comment><USER17> Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman paid Twitter employees to spy on dissidents. He was also the guy that ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. One of the spied-on dissidents was a friend of Khashoggi.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/former- twit...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/former-twitter- employees-charged-with-spying-for-saudi-arabia-by-digging-into-the-accounts- of-kingdom-critics/2019/11/06/2e9593da-00a0-11ea-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html)

<comment><USER16> 1\. MBS was not _elected_ \- a qualifier I included intentionally.

2\. What Twitter would have needed was a _counter-intelligence_ analyst (reactive), as opposed to Amazon's proactive intelligence post. Now that I've written it out, what twitter needed was better _security_ \- not COINTEL.

3\. _If_ companies start dabbling with intelligence and counter-intelligence against political actors directly (instead of offloading to state apparatus like the FBI), then we are reaching _Deus Ex_ levels of Dystopia

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Having been a part of a union I was mandated to enter when I took the job until the supreme court ruled that wasn't legal, actual unions are a far cry from how they are portrayed as helping the worker.

I would honestly do anything in my power to not have to work in a union again. They are set up as antagonistic between administration and workers, and adds a layer of bureaucracy that I've only seen be negative. I've worked with people who effectively could never be fired and were so bad at their jobs they spread negativity with everyone they encountered.

<comment><USER19> Some people like unions, I think because they're lucky enough to have had a good experience, or to be part of a union that was not decayed by age or special interests.

Unions should not be needed... the governments who represent the people working should provide the necessary protections for workers without unions being needed.

Unions are a way for some people to get what all workers should have by default.

<comment><USER20> The government will never be as in tune with the needs of the workers as the workers themselves.

I think organized labor is a very good idea. We can see in the US how workers have been put in ever more precarious situations since the labor unions were significantly weakened 30-40 years ago.

But actually I don't think having a normal corporation with a board of directors and then a union at odds with that board really makes sense. To me, worker owned cooperatives make a lot of sense.

I am coming to appreciate that there is however no one size fits all solution. So I look at this like "more of X would help Y". And I do think more organized labor as unions or coops would help workers (in the USA where this is an issue). In the USA workers generally need better health care, maternity and paternity leave, predictable working hours and better pay.

I did however recently learn that in Germany apparently the big companies have representatives from labor in the board, and then they have another board that supervises them which is half labor. I'm fuzzy on the details but it was described in the linked lecture below which is pretty good!

[https://youtu.be/8iHeh0iRykw](https://youtu.be/8iHeh0iRykw)

<comment><USER21> I think worker-owned cooperatives do make a ton of sense and bridge the interest gap between employers and employees. When the interests of the unions align with the interest of society at large in that we want to promote productivity, it fixes a lot of things.

<comment><USER20> Agreed. Germany has kept so many factories (it would seem) because labor doesn't want to offshore their own jobs, even if management is indifferent.

<comment><USER21> I think you might be interested in what Richard Wolff has to say.

<comment><USER20> I've met him! He signed my copy of Democracy at Work. So yes you're right! :)

<comment><USER21> Damn, lucky you! Anyways, I'm glad my prediction was accurate :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is just proof that not everyone is following the same narrative that you're personally following or understands reality the same way you do.

It's beyond me how that job post would make sense to anyone besides someone who is disconnected from the usual contending rhetorics Amazon is involved in.

Nobody raised a flag on how that would look like for them? You gotta be pretty oblivious to read that and say "yeah that looks good to me".

I'm not even discrediting the value or purpose of that particular position since I have zero context besides the ad but I don't understand how can you sprinkle those terms and reference those specific groups without reflecting deeply how it could be perceived.

<comment><USER23> Are you commenting on the optics or the ethics?

In a broader context, I don't understand how others see this as a victory. As if taking the job post down means it's not still part of their strategy.

<comment><USER22> Mainly on the optics. I know that's shallow but I'm commenting on how it looks because perhaps that's a symptom of something deeper.

Maybe people involved on these projects are so oblivious that it never occurred to them that they may be contributing to something that could be borderline unethical.

What's kind of ridiculous about this is that you can tell these job requirements were written by a lawyer or similar. People that are trained and presumed to have a somewhat acute skill to evaluate the ethical complexities of a situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's so nice to know they group "organized labor" in with "terrorism" and "geopolitical issues."

I will never purchase anything from an Amazon-related company.

<comment><USER25> >"organized labor" in with "terrorism" and "geopolitical issues."

For sure, all three are bad for the online shopping business...long live the unlimited capitalism!!

BTW: When did you heard "Freedom Fighter" the last time in the "Free Press"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why would Amazon want to prevent workers from unionizing? Look what it did for teaching, policing, mail delivery, port security, taxi driving, waste management, public service, and construction.

<comment><USER27> I think there is a growing part of america that is coming around to the idea that the path to more negotiating power for laborers is not unions. It is through basic income and social safety nets.

<comment><USER28> How would basic income and social safety nets increase labors negotiating power?

<comment><USER27> I assume you're asking this question in good faith.

Negotiating power is derived _exclusively_ from the ability to walk away. When walking away from your employment means being evicted, starving, and being unable to afford medical care, your ability to do so is crippled.

<comment><USER28> I was and all of the replies so far are assuming UBI would cover all basic necessities in the long term in every part of the country. Many people with above avg income TODAY struggle with medical bills and even housing. So I'm not sure I buy the argument that a UBI would be able to cover them unless many other things change first.

<comment><USER29> Hence the need to strengthens social safety nets too. Universal health care removes the medical costs problem for individuals (I'm not weighing in on its societal cost here except to say that other countries manage it).

A UBI should cover the cost of housing and food, though it does not guarantee that you can live in a highly-sought after area without other income. That must be factored into employee compensation in the same way that it already is for desirable jobs today. It puts more pressure on cities to ensure that close, affordable housing exists for the lower-wage workers like retail and service workers who help make those cities desirable places to live. A job at a swanky downtown coffee shop with an hour commute becomes a lot less attractive if I can ditch that job and the transit costs without worrying about my basic survival. So the coffee shop has to increase pay or lose its employees and close up. Its downtown location and clientele will either absorb the price increase, or downtown will become a less competitive living space due to the loss of the business.

A UBI will not remove all of the reasons someone can't pack up and leave if the area is too expensive, there are lots of human factors in play, but it will increase people's ability to move elsewhere without having to fear for their very survival.

<comment><USER28> Ok thanks for your response. I do agree that a UBI could go a lot further if it was implemented alongside universal healthcare and those two things together would significantly increase your bargaining position as a worker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I very much doubt they no longer intend to hire somebody for such activities, this was just way too much in the open.

<comment><USER31> [https://pinkerton.com/](https://pinkerton.com/)

<comment><USER32> They still operate. Among the things they do: secret shoppers at sports stadiums to confirm that the vendors selling alcohol are carding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Is that even legal? I thought the US or most states at least like most other countries have laws against undermining the ability of employees to organise.

<comment><USER34> If you've ever worked in retail, one of the first "training" videos they show you is an anti-union informational video.

One of the big points of the videos is to report union organizers to management ASAP.

This kind of training is extremely common for low wage jobs in the U.S. If almost all large retailers are doing it, it mustn't be illegal, or not enforced.

<comment><USER35> Saw these videos during my first job (cart attendant at Target). This behavior happens at every big company, both in and outside of tech.

I remember the video being incredibly weird - they basically posited unions as bad because nonmembers would feel socially isolated from member. Eg - in one clip two workers would be gossiping about info from a members-only meeting and the moment a nonmember walked up to them, they became quiet and it turned into this strange teen drama.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It seems perfectly fine and honest from them. Did anyone expect any different? I'm not saying it's bad, just that's the reality of the job.

<comment><USER37> It seems perfectly fine and honest to post a job listing and then take it down hours later due to backlash, claim it was a mistake, and refuse to answer follow-up questions on it? What part of that sounds honest to you?

<comment><USER38> they honestly posted a job, they honestly got backlash, they honestly decided it was a mistake, they honestly refused to answer follow-up questions. What part of that is not honest?

Honestly, I think you simply don't like that they don't agree with you 100% and act as you would have them act, and you should honestly admit that, and honesty would require that you stop accusing them of being other than honest on the basis of what you outlined.

<comment><USER39> Yeah, (dis)honesty isn't what was noteworthy about this. It's just optically very strange. Like, the fact that they employ people to do this is totally unsurprising to me, but the fact that they're willing to say so in public job posting seems really tone-deaf. Like, what hiring manager thought this was a good idea, and how oblivious must they be of how Amazon is publicly perceived?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> They must have found the perfect candidate!

</comment><comment><USER41> Or maybe they found their candidates based on the free publicity around the posting..

</comment><comment><USER42> It's fascinating how emotional of a topic this is on HN. A lot of people seem to be taking a staunch binary, black-and-white, us-vs-them approach to this issue.

I've known friends that hate their unions (usually retail), and those that love their unions (electricians, UPS drivers etc.) These are of course just a small group of anecdotes and not representative of a comprehensive dataset so I don't really have a strong opinion one way or another if the question is "are unions horrifically evil or a godsend that's universally necessary."

The framing of this type of debate doesn't seem to foster good faith discussion.

My only personal experience with being in a union was a call center job I had when I was 18. I don't recall dues being much, and everybody got full health coverage (including dental and vision) at 25 hrs/wk, and that ended up being a big draw for a lot of people in the area. So that was pretty cool.

I've also worked at a lot of places that weren't union where the employees were paid well, received benefits and treated fairly. That was also pretty cool.

I guess to me if I were to have an opinion it'd be something along the lines of "If people want to unionize, they have a legal right to do so, and I don't have any particular issue with that. If it works out with a positive outcome, great! If it doesn't, that sucks!"

I'm definitely not in favor of people being bullied or misled to go either way on this issue. It literally just seems like something people should talk about in good faith and make their decision accordingly. It's just a choice.

<comment><USER43> There are two separate issues here. They're only tangentially related.

1) Unions, good or bad?

2) Is it appropriate for a company like Amazon to spy on their work force to stop them from unionizing, as compared to persuading their work force that unionizing would be bad?

<comment><USER42> The majority of my post was addressing the way that this is being discussed on here. There have been a lot of nasty comments on this issue ranging from accusing people of being Pinkertons and bots, to posts about declining meritocracy etc.

It seems as though this thread has had a whole lot of posts conflating the two issues you mentioned and it just muddies the waters imho.

As I mentioned, I think it should be a good-faith discussion across the board and I'm not a fan of bullying or misleading people.

I could be misunderstanding this but the discussion about your second point has been in some cases in this thread been supplanted by people arguing about who is on the "right side" rather than the more immediate discussion of "is this an acceptable practice?"

Like I said earlier, it's really fascinating how emotional this gets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> While being in Basic Income meetings frequent subject was "what will happen to people rights when AI takes over" sadly this is example of the answer of what is the most probable outcome...

</comment><comment><USER45> Never ask the drivers about unionizing. I'm not saying that they will report it to their boss who will mess with your orders and deliveries.

But I am also not not saying that.

<comment><USER2> A nod is as good as a wink to a blind man. Got something that helps you lean towards that conclusion?

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Jeff has a lot of money. Surely workers rights don't hit the bottom line that hard. Does Jeff not know that everyone will remember him for this behavior?

<comment><USER47> > Does Jeff not know that everyone will remember him for this behavior?

This presupposes that Jeff cares about his legacy. I genuinely don't know what drives him; my best guess is 'making Amazon ever more successful'.

<comment><USER48> Wasn't there an article about him saying that he fancy himself as real life capt. Picard?

<comment><USER49> Ok haircut checks out everything just fell in to place

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> "Made in error!"

The excuse heard round the world.

<comment><USER51> The error was that they stated so bluntly in a public job listing that they wanted a union buster with an intelligence background. They still are looking for someone like that, of course (or many someones), the error was that the job posting wasn't written in a properly deniable way.

<comment><USER52> Maybe they can ask Sammy Gravano for recommendations

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> They already have a company stores. Just hire your own police force and we can be back to colonial America .

</comment><comment><USER54> HN title: Amazon deletes job listings for analysts to track 'labor organizing threats'

My thoughts after reading the title: "Oh good, I always thought Amazon was scummy and lacked integrity, but credit where credit is due, _they did good here_.

.

The actual article's title and body: Amazon deletes _their own_ job listings for union-busters, as a PR response due to public outcry.

My thoughts: #$%@!

</comment><comment><USER55> It's mind-boggling to me that we allow this sort of thing, and that brazenly putting on a job description that you want to hire someone to help thwart legally-protected labor organizing isn't something a company can get fined -- or worse -- over.

</comment><comment><USER56> I am surprised from the reactions here. What is the best way to deal with worker union blackmails according to you? I know people like to portray worker and amazon as good guy and bad guy, but I think most of us has seen some demands that are pretty outrageous from them. I think it is best if both sides have contact person with whom they can negotiate.

Don't get me wrong, I think worker unions are essential for pushing the demands of underprivileged and should exist, but nobody should agree every demand from them.

<comment><USER57> Unions don't end up with outright control over business. Generally speaking, companies and unions _do_ continue to negotiate throughout the term of a contract, which negotiations are formalized in Memoranda of Understanding. And during contract negotiations, if negotiations over a particular issue stall, the law empowers companies to make a "last and final" offer, which is then included in the contract presented to the workforce. (This is U.S.-specific.)

The idea that a company must "agree to every demand" from a union seems to me a strawman. Bargaining ideally maximizes net value, and true collapses in bargaining are rare.

"Outrageous" demands that _are_ met, therefore, represent a company's unwillingness to reallocate the value of those demands towards other contract elements (that is, to say "we can't do that, but we'll offer this instead"). If they were truly too costly, the company would have either a) refused the terms, or b) failed to bear the cost and gone under.

<comment><USER56> Yes, that's why amazon is hiring people who are expert in negotiations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is actually a really interesting recursive algorithm: That is, the job listing for analysts to track labor organizing threats turned out to be a labor organizing threat.

</comment><comment><USER58> Man, it sure would suck if the lowest ranked and most precarious Amazon employees got a bigger piece of Bezo's pie. What an awful world that would be. /s

</comment><comment><USER59> It's too late this year (I bought some cat food during the winter), but next year I'm shooting for zero orders from Amazon.

<comment><USER60> This is what counts most!

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I don't know why this is even controversial. American style unions are bad for business, plain and simple. And Amazon is legally required to put the interests of its investors first. Amazon is going to be doing whatever it can to discourage unionization, that's just what's going to happen, and I find it hard to blame them.

<comment><USER62> Maybe it's controversial because it's blatantly illegal under the National Labor Relations Act.

[https://twitter.com/MattBruenig/status/1300856270572916736](https://twitter.com/MattBruenig/status/1300856270572916736)

<comment><USER63> Gathering information on union organizing is illegal? I don't think so.

Spying, yes, but I don't see that in the description.

And your Twitter post is gone.

<comment><USER62> [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3azegw/amazon-is- spying-o...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3azegw/amazon-is-spying-on- its-workers-in-closed-facebook-groups-internal-reports-show)

<comment><USER63> Well if those allegations are true, then Amazon is gonna have some 'splainin' to do to the NLRB.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> An interesting thing from Amazon's labor organizing risk rubric: increased diversity drastically _decreases_ the risk of employees organizing. In case you were curious why all the big companies are so strongly pro-diversity, that's a pretty compelling reason for them.

</comment><comment><USER65> As far as my understanding goes, companies of any size have the right to exercise a sort of capital strike at their discretion. The perfectly legal shuttering of The Gothamist after their newsroom unionized a while back is a good example of that (the story is a fascinating read!) (0)

I would honestly love to hear from those that aren't favorable towards unions about why it's acceptable for business management and ownership to punitively destroy jobs and value over ideological issues, but it's unacceptable for the employees to have that option as part of collective bargaining?

(0) [https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2017/11/03/561830256...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2017/11/03/561830256/billionaire-owner-shuts-down-dnainfo-gothamist-sites- a-week-after-workers-unioni)

</comment><comment><USER66> Why is this a surprise? If you work in infosec at any multinational you would know activists (hacktivism) and hostile nations/leaders are a serious threat you track. Has no one heard of Dataminr? What do people think it's used for. The "labor" part is a bit unusual but given their business it kinda makes sense.

This reminds me of how back in 2016 right before November US elections,I read threat intel reports and conference style presentations from threat intel vendors talking in detail about Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and the Steele dossier, this was before buzzfeed decided to publish it (all other media refused at the time). This is all public stuff now but big corps are very interested in learnig about the latest strategic intel so they can adopt. And that's perfectly fine so long as no laws are broken. This is similar to how big corps get a scoop on emargoed CVEs so they can patch before it's made public. A lot of times this is what intelligence community people do when they want to settle down and make money. I'll bet good money whoever they hire has background at FBI,NSA or DIA.

<comment><USER59> Who said it was a surprise?

<comment><USER66> We're seeing it here because people made a big deal out of it on social media.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> US law does not protect employees' right to unionize? I'm from Brazil where we have some strict (too strict IMHO) labor laws and this type of hunt (and punishment) for union makers is wildly illegal here.

<comment><USER62> Technically this is probably illegal in the US as well, but enforcement is very weak.

[https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your- right...](https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your- rights/employee-rights)

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Never forget The Ludlow Massacre: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre)

</comment><comment><USER69> Should probably be merged with:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24345259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24345259)

Even if not quite a dupe.

</comment><comment><USER70> How is workers' rights for white collar at Amazon? I guess the company culture is ever prevailing, or is it a apartheid system?

</comment><comment><USER71> > The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 is a foundational statute of United > States labor law which guarantees basic rights of private sector employees > to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining for better > terms and conditions at work, and take collective action including strike if > necessary.

It's truly late stage capitalism if companies can impede labor organizing so brazenly in public like this and have only encouragement at the federal level to go further. HN a few days ago (the 787 structural issue) was also talking about Boeing closing plants and sacrificing safety to avoid union labor.

<comment><USER72> do have the link(s) for that Boeing thread?

<comment><USER71> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24305067](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24305067)

The whole thread is interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> What Amazon needs is competition.

<comment><USER74> agreed

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Do unions really provide a better work experience for the worker? Genuine question.

<comment><USER76> According to the BLS, white collar union members in the US have higher salaries, better benefits, more paid time off, and better retirement benefits. They also report having higher life satisfaction[1].

The same trend exists for blue collar union members, too.

[1] [https://cpb- us-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.baylor.edu/dist/2/1297/f...](https://cpb- us-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.baylor.edu/dist/2/1297/files/2010/09/Union_Membership_and_Life_Satisfaction_10.27.14-nlder4.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> Yet another step towards NeoFeudalism, with The Corporations as the new Lords.

</comment><comment><USER78> Bemused at the knee-jerk downvotes against anyone who has an opinion on unions in EITHER direction.

As in so many internet spaces, partisan zealots are degrading our ability to converse. I hope the mods figure out how to keep them from turning HN into yet another dunghole.

</comment><comment><USER79> At what point would it be unethical to continue using Amazon?

</comment><comment><USER80> They can just outsource the work to a union-busting company.

<comment><USER69> Isn't vertical integration and in-sourcing Amazon DNA?

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> This is not unexpected. Merely the product of capitalism.

We build an economic system that rewards selfishness and drive for profit at all costs. Successful companies generate profit. More profit is generated by charging the highest cost for the lowest quality product and paying the worker as little as possible.

Unions threaten that profitability. Its simple math. Its cheaper to hire analysts to track and snuff out labour movements than it would be to capitulate to the demands of any labour movements that formed, such as wage increases or benefits.

Why are we shocked and appalled when the system we created does what it does best?

</comment><comment><USER82> Off-topic - US should hire lots of intelligence analysts and AI experts to track social network driven threats to our nation.

</comment><comment><USER83> Pinkertons!!

</comment><comment><USER40> It perhaps shouldn't be surprising that a website for wannabe capitalists views workers having greater negotiating power extremely suspiciously, yet is enthusiastic towards employers having near-absolute power over their employees.

</comment><comment><USER84> Whenever unions are mentioned on HN there always seems to be a coordinated effort to attack them in the comments, very interesting.

<comment><USER85> Maybe because a lot of people on HN are small business owners, and unions take power away from business owners and can and will force you to do things to the detriment of your business if they deem it in the best interests of the union members.

<comment><USER86> Most of people on HN work at large tech companies. In my experience the majority consensus in the industry is that a union would do more harm than good, but of course that is infinitely debatable.

<comment><USER87> > the majority consensus in the industry is that a union would do more harm > than good

Most people also think they are smarter than average. I have seen people that thought they were great at negotiating their own wages/benefits in a ritualized yearly pissing match with their boss only to be outdone by new hires. Lots of overinflated egos around that would rather rip their own arms of than pull on the same rope.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> At some point you have to question people that choose to work at Amazon who have other options. At the very least.

<comment><USER89> I worked at Amazon and I had other options. What about me do you have to question?

<comment> em-bee were you aware of amazons practices before you started to work there? if yes, how did that factor into your decision to take the job?

<comment><USER89> Do you mean specifically around their anti union stance?

It wasn't widely in the news back then. But I also don't want to be part of an union and most of the unions I'm aware of in North America are not shining examples. So I'd be ok with working there today given what I know.

<comment> em-bee i wasn't looking specifically at that, but anything they are doing to take advantage of employees, third-party sellers or customers, etc.

that said, i really just wanted to elaborate on the question itself, without expecting a detailed response because i don't think it's fair to single out individual employees for working at a company with issues. even if you can change jobs easily, other companies are not necessarily better, and they may have other problems.

with that in mind i appreciate your response even more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> Why doesn't Amazon do what all monopolies do, lobby the government and cause Regulatory capture to corner the market?

It's easy, spend 100M dollars on a law that makes warehouse labor a mandatory union.

Mom and pop companies can't afford to fill out government/union paperwork for their 3 employees and customers can't go to cheaper alternatives.

But this means Amazon and Amazon employees win.

<comment><USER91> Unions are probably the biggest threat to Amazon in the long term, as their interests are directly against Amazon, they'd rather there be 100 competitors they can buy out/drive out of business one at a time; then a single union who could easily shut them down (by striking)

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> Disgraceful. But will anything be done, judicially, legally? Not a chance. Tells you all you need to know.

<comment><USER32> I'm pretty sure it isn't illegal to seek out an employee with strike-busting knowledge.

<comment><USER93> It is, however, illegal to engage in, or create the impression of engaging in, surveillance of union activities.

<comment><USER32> .

<comment><USER93> I'm sure they could finagle a job description to say this and maybe even get away with it, but unfortunately the job description they did use was unambiguously "spying on labor organizing", which makes it an open and shut case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> I've not seen good come out of unions in decades.

Example of unions that are net negative for society: police unions, teacher unions.

<comment><USER95> Teachers unions are definitely not a net negative...

<comment><USER96> Teachers unions exist at the detriment of children's education.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> This article is ridiculous. It makes a bunch of unfounded assumptions and provides very little in the way of facts to support its claims. Did anyone actually read the job postings before jumping to conclusions?

> _Monitor various collection platforms for incidents that pose direct and > indirect risk to Amazon operations, personnel, or brand;_

There is nothing in there about union busting or making sure employees don't organize. This author is naive to think that Amazon isn't dealing with state level threats. They likely need state level intelligence.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20200901125940/https://www.amazo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200901125940/https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/1026060/intelligence- analyst)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20200901142713/https://www.amazo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200901142713/https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/1213610/sr- intelligence-analyst)

<comment><USER98> > There is nothing in there about union busting or making sure employees don't > organize.

Literally from your own link:

> Analysts must be capable of engaging and informing L7+ ER Principals > (attorney stakeholders) on sensitive topics that are highly confidential, > including _labor organizing threats against the company_

(emphasis mine)</comment></comment>


The largest privately owned giant sequoia forest is now protected - <AUTHOR> https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/blogs/alder-creek-giant-sequoia-grove-save-redwoods-league <comment><USER2> I love this story. A much needed happy item. Great work Save the Redwoods League (SRL) and thank you Rouch family.</comment>


Writing a Flash player in assembler (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://flashasm.wordpress.com/

<comment><USER2> Not only an insane idea to start with, the blog linked doesn't appear to have been updated since August 2014 - and the link goes straight to the blog's index which means it will change when new posts are added.</comment>


More than 1k Android apps harvest data even after you deny permissions - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/more-than-1000-android-apps-harvest-your-data-even-after-you-deny-permissions/ <comment><USER2> [0] from the researchers pdf:

• We designed a pipeline for automatically discovering vulnerabilities in the Android permissions system through a combination of dynamic and static analysis, in effect creating a scalable honeypot environment.

• We tested our pipeline on more than 88,000 apps and discovered a number of vulnerabilities, which we responsibly disclosed. These apps were downloaded from the U.S. Google Play Store and include popular apps from all categories. We further describe the vulnerabilities in detail, and measure the degree to which they are in active use, and thus pose a threat to users. We discovered covert and side channels used in the wild that compromise both users' location data and persistent identifers.

• We discovered companies getting the MAC addresses of the connected WiFi base stations from the ARP cache. This can be used as a surrogate for location data. We found 5 apps exploiting this vulnerability and 5 with the pertinent code to do so.

• We discovered Unity obtaining the device MAC address using ioctl system calls. The MAC address can be used to uniquely identify the device. We found 42 apps exploiting this vulnerability and 12,408 apps with the pertinent code to do so.

• We also discovered that third-party libraries provided by two Chinese companies—Baidu and Salmonads— independently make use of the SD card as a covert channel, so that when an app can read the phone's IMEI, it stores it for other apps that cannot. We found 159 apps with the potential to exploit this covert channel and empirically found 13 apps doing so.

• We found one app that used picture metadata as a side channel to access precise location information despite not holding location permissions.

[0] [https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_events/141...](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_events/1415032/privacycon2019_serge_egelman.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Ban. These. Apps. And. Devs. Permanently.

It's hypocricy if they let these malicious devs keep publishing but keep harassing non-malicious developers with things like "How dare you have a Donate button in your app".

<comment><USER4> It seems like at least some of these apps might be using these vulnerabilities without even being aware of it, as the offending code is in third party libraries. Game devs grabbing mac addresses via Unity's API, for example, may not know that that information is supposed to be restricted on Android.

<comment><USER3> Some might be using them without being aware of but the rest can be nicely permabanned.

<comment><USER5> How would you go about reliably and efficiently determining which category each falls into?

<comment><USER3> They aren't reliably determining violations of current absurd rules and people's apps get hit all the time for no good reason, so basically they could just continue doing what they've done so far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> By what set of mechanisms is it possible for the app to access data that you've denied the app access to? It seems the flaw is in Android allowing this to happen.

The example given (app accessing photo with embedded gps coords) seems very specific and doesn't deal with the general notion of data harvesting.

And wrt mac address lookups - for this reason it's not possible to list the available wifi access points on android without requiring the location permission. It's pretty absurd that "list the access points that I have recently received wifi beacons for" is equal to "locate where I am on earth", but that's the world we live in now.

Whether it's just location data or a larger set of data is unclear from the article.

<comment><USER7> Android does not ask for permission to read certain things like the clipboard. So an app can intercept anything added to the clipboard such as passwords copied in by password managers.

<comment><USER8> Wow. The password manager I've been using for the past few years has dedicated buttons/gestures for copying the password to the clipboard (like many others, I'd assumed.)

I feel like the expectations in this case are clear: a copied password should only accessible when the user "pastes" it. (The app even clears the clipboard after a certain amount of time, making it seem like the only weak point in the system is the paste functionality.)

To find out that this is not the case is pretty mind blowing. Does anybody know of any good reasons why the clipboard _shouldn 't_ be secure?

<comment><USER9> > _Does anybody know of any good reasons why the clipboard shouldn 't be > secure?_

Seems like a UI issue to me. Right now apps themselves invoke the paste command (e.g. they can put a "paste" button in their UI). If you remove clipboard access from programs, the UI would have to be presented by the OS.

Requiring paste to be initiated by the OS may work alright for text boxes (but you'd now have to sandbox all the text boxes to avoid the app simulating taps), but it wouldn't work for say, pasting images.

Another option is to add a dialog box every time asking the user "did you REALLY want to paste?", but that will quickly get annoying.

<comment><USER10> I can imagine something along the lines of checking whether user interaction was the root cause of getting access to the clipboard as a middle ground... e.g. on web, popup blockers work this way. If a user interacts with a button, and that javascript series of functions opens a popup, it is allowed. If a non user interaction function in javascript, say a running ad, tries to open a popup, it is blocked. Could try the same approach, where only if the user initiated the current running series of functions, would it be allowed to access the clipboard. Or even ask for elevated user interaction functions, so that security teams would have an explicit list of elevated functions that are allowed to access sensitive data, allowing for easier manual checks. Anything else would have the annoying confirmation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > The update will address the issue by hiding location information in photos > from apps and requiring any apps that access Wi-Fi to also have permission > for location data, according to Google.

The great minds at Google have done it again!!

This craziness (Bluetooth requires location) was the reason I never bought a smartwatch. I guess now I should stop using internet too.

<comment><USER12> According to Google Bluetooth requires location, because it van be used to find your location. So there is some reasoning behind this decisions, although I wwould be mutch happier with something like: Location (Bluetooth), location (GPS), location (WiFi)

>A location permission is required because Bluetooth scans can be used to gather information about the location of the user. This information may come from the user's own devices, as well as Bluetooth beacons in use at locations such as shops and transit facilities.

[https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/blue...](https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/bluetooth.html#Permissions)

<comment><USER11> Please take a step back and look at this again.

What is the cause and what is the effect here? Is Google's solution making it better or worse from a practical privacy point of view?

(Also, don't buy Google's explanation that this is just to inform users of potential misuse - they actually log your location and even wait for a GPS lock when you pair a new device)

<comment><USER13> Why shouldn't I buy Google's explanation?

If an app that uses bluetooth can get my location via beacons or etc., then bluetooth should be wrapped in location privileges. An app that I do not want having my location should not be allowed to use bluetooth, and I have to accept that any app that does use bluetooth could get my location.

While it does mean that apps that use bluetooth now have a slightly easier way of getting location (i.e., via phone GPS, not just bluetooth), we shouldn't obfuscate that bluetooth is another way to get that information. In the end, you are trusting the app developer with the privilege of knowing your location. If you don't trust them with that, then they can't be allowed to use bluetooth, full stop.

<comment><USER14> > Why shouldn't I buy Google's explanation?

Because Google is notorious for coming up with bogus explanations whenever they get caught red-handed. Every month there is a bunch of news articles, where high-ranked Google employee claims to spy on everyone to "protect people from electric pigs", "lower the danger of Confucian Jihad", "enrich e-mail UX with hefty data-harvesting" or something along those lines.

> If an app that uses bluetooth can get my location via beacons or etc., then > bluetooth should be wrapped in location privileges.

There is no reason why apps have to be able to "get location from beacons" in order to connect with another phone over Bluetooth. Same for P2P Wi-Fi API — pairing with another device already requires exchanging tokens via graphical dialog with explicit user approval on both devices. Removing ability to read scan results from API would be enough to fix the underlying data leak. Once two devices are paired, they should be able to exchange data without need for any permissions or user actions.

Instead Google forces users to keep Location enabled long after initial connection is made. Even if there is no underlying bad intention, they should be ashamed of forcing such garbage UX upon people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _> Egelman said the researchers notified Google about these issues last September, as well as the FTC. Google said it would be addressing the issues in Android Q, which is expected to release this year._

A whole year to get a solution out?! Google is clearly demonstrating where it stands when it concerns privacy.

With the usual low penetration of the latest release of Android, this will probably be "solved" for the majority of the devices in four years from now. Sigh!

Edit: Why not crack down on apps through updates to the Play Store policies and rules? Apple seems to use that tactic sometimes.

<comment><USER16> > Edit: Why not crack down on apps through updates to the Play Store policies > and rules? Apple seems to use that tactic sometimes.

Google has been doing that a lot lately and has created the appropriate amount of heavy complaining from the side of developers. Still, auditing source code for every one of those things is pretty much impossible - even iOS apps use a lot of such tricks to fingerprint users and Apple has a hard time keeping on top as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Would any/all of these methods be violations of U.S. criminal laws against unauthorized computer access?

They seem to contravene the computer owner's explicit choices about allowed access.

<comment><USER18> I think this behavior is covered by existing criminal law. If not, the law needs to be updated.

Replace "phone" with "web server", and you will find legal precedents showing that much of the behavior is criminal.

In particular, it is clearly not legal to walk the file system tree to obtain access to private data you were explicitly denied access to, and then directly profit from the data you illegally harvested.

Failing to strip exif location data, even though gps access was denied? That's a gray area, at worst.

(I am not a lawyer.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why do they have to wait for Android Q? Couldn't they pull the apps now?

<comment><USER16> They can pull the apps, but Android Q will add several additional security features - e.g. scoped storage (no more SD card access without user consent), EXIF location stripping (accessing EXIF from photos will require additional permissions) and plugging of several possible fingerprinting sidechannels.

<comment><USER20> This really feels like a cat and mouse game, with Google not actually trying to solve the issue. The proposed additional security "features" will give a false sense of security.

Any way for 2 apps to communicate together will be exploited for the same purpose in the future. Google would have to fix the issue in a more fundamental level, which requires better understanding of users habits and wishes in term of privacy.

But obviously, privacy-oriented users are the worst users for an ad network machine...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> By default apps should not be able to call home, in order to save battery and data plan, ohh and also privacy.

<comment><USER22> So don't let them.

Doesn't work so well on apps that by their very nature and a variety of contrived reason have to call home.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The Android platform and Play Store place too much trust in the integrity of app developers who are forced to occupy an intentionally low-profitability app ecosystem. Google will never expend the effort to filter out all of the malware. It's too expensive. Google is too inefficient and the dev teams are too loosely managed.

</comment><comment><USER24> There certainly is a way to make it so an app can 'add photos only' on iOS. I have only seen it used a handful of time and some apps like Facebook Messenger where I've somehow got that permission setting set in the past actually ignore it and demand full access despite just trying to save a photo.

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46341694/detect-add- phot...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46341694/detect-add-photos-only- permission)

</comment><comment> m-p-3 > Google said it would be addressing the issues in Android Q, which is > expected to release this year.

How nice that many of the phones out there will never see this vulnerability fixed.

</comment><comment><USER25> Phones and web browsers are not secure, not even a little tiny bit.

It is problematic that it is nearly impossible to go unidentified and untracked, constantly. IoT makes this so much worse because now nearly everything around you is constantly harvesting data, I am somewhat personally embarrassed about how little attention I have paid.

</comment><comment><USER22> Sandboxes are never safe.

But man some of these bypasses are getting into evil genius level of shady cleverness.

<comment><USER26> Is it tho? or is the OS just too relaxed on security?

Think old Windows that people always ridicule, the publicity was rare on calling out bad practice/intentions, it has always been the fault of the OS.

<comment><USER22> We're asking the sandbox to be perfect and that'll never be a thing. It's always a race between the sandbox makers and those trying to escape it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> "Google says a fix won't come until Android Q."

Meanwhile Android Q is going to gut a number of power user features, like any ability to wardrive or create a decent signal strength map of your home or workplace.</comment>


Sand and gravel mining "greatly exceeds natural renewal rates" - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/29/the-world-is-running-out-of-sand <comment><USER2> Nature is not crushing rock into gravel and sand as quickly as humans are using it. But it is straightforward for humans to crush bulk rock. The New Yorker article actually mentions crushing quarried material toward the middle of the piece. Here is a study from 2008 about replacing sand with crushed stone in concrete (from India, where natural sand shortages are acute), "Experimental Study of Artificial Sand Concrete":

[http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4580058/](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4580058/)

EDIT: probably shouldn't link directly to sci-hub copy.

The short version: crushed stone is a fine substitute for natural sand in concrete. It actually improves strength modestly compared to concrete made with natural sand. ("Concrete with stone crusher dust was reported to show 17%, 7%, 20% higher compressive, tensile, flexural strengths respectively than those of conventional concrete.")

Of course it takes energy to quarry and crush bulk rock. But the energy input is manageable. The Bond Work Index for granite is 10-15 kWh/ton; for quartz/quartzite it's also up to 15 kWh/ton. That means energy cost up to $1.50/ton at 10 cents/kWh for an electrically driven crusher.

[https://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/table-of-bond-work- inde...](https://www.911metallurgist.com/blog/table-of-bond-work-index-by- minerals)

For comparison, current concrete sand seems to run about $45/ton:

[http://www.earthmaterials.com/1_concrete.htm](http://www.earthmaterials.com/1_concrete.htm)

<comment><USER3> You can also crush used concrete to replace aggregate:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_recycling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_recycling)

That doesn't help in countries like India which are growing rapidly, but it can make a big difference in most parts of the US.

<comment><USER4> I've driven by two large concrete and asphalt recyclers in two different states within the last week. Definitely a big thing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So why can't we convert the useless 'round', 'smooth' desert sand into useful angular sand?

E.g. use concentrated sunlight to fuse sand grains together [1], then crush to the desired grain size.

It's got to be a better solution than shipping sand halfway around the world.

[1] [http://www.markuskayser.com/work/solarsinter/](http://www.markuskayser.com/work/solarsinter/)

<comment><USER6> Making bigger rocks from smooth sand to crush into pointy sand would only make sense once we've run out of bigger rocks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A building under construction near me has a large sign around it advertising a local alcohol company: it provides sand via recycled bottles (for the concrete, I assume). I'm curious how efficient this is in relation to finding new mining exploits nearby, or if this is just marketing.

<comment><USER8> Could just be marketing or for Aesthetics. Glass and concrete don't always mix that well. My hobby is concrete countertops with glass fibers, and these are specifically alkali resistant. Concrete and glass don't mix well without additives, which may or may not matter for eco friendliness. You will find some fly ash in some concrete mixes, which is a byproduct of power plants more common.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Obviously it'll become more expensive until we no longer need the resource, find an alternative, or recycle. Next.

<comment><USER10> Concrete is a very good material so I don't see "no longer needing it" happening any time soon. Finding an alternative and recycling both sound like hard to tackle and expensive, I wouldn't say this scarcity can be so easily dismissed.

<comment><USER11> Crushing rocks to make sand is a fine alternative. It's just a matter of additional cost, which will become viable as shortages drive up the cost of natural sand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> [http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/29/us/alabama-to-make- prisone...](http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/29/us/alabama-to-make-prisoners- break-rocks.html) (I support prisoners having good job training, choices and wages.)

</comment><comment><USER13> I wonder: if Mr Musk's will ever succeed with The Boring Company, would it significantly help with the shortage? By succeed I mean doing tunnels right and left.

<comment><USER14> Not really. You can't use just any soil for construction, it has to be a sandy/grainy variety.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> granite or other rock can be crushed and sieved to the right mixture. There is lots of granite and sandstone etc

</comment><comment><USER16> [disregard this: I jumped the gun]

<comment><USER17> That's not what this article is about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Similarly the sun won't last forever and is not renewable.

So what?

Latest is that the expansion rate of the universe is slowing. So, one might predict a big crunch and the end of everything. So what?

Looks like someone wants to get eyeballs for ad revenue. No thanks, not with that _story_.

 _Stories_ of the form the sky is falling no longer get my eyeballs. People who write such stories need to find other, more useful work to do.

<comment><USER19> Did you even read the story... it's not a "sky is falling" story. (A Miami is falling story, maybe :-P)

It's really more of an interesting look at a resource that few in our part of the tech world even think about, and some of the challenges they face, if you can look past the headline.

<comment><USER18> No it's not: Wake up. You've been taken in. It's just "the sky is falling", or "Oh we've got trouble, right here in River City. Trouble starts with a T and that rhymes with a G and that stands for gravel." It's just a scare headline and story to get eyeballs for ad revenue.

The good news about such nonsense grabbing people by the heart, the gut, below the belt, always below the shoulders, never between the ears, is that it really is the most scary story they can find. So, all other stories they can find are less scary than their story which is not scary at all which means that all is well. Good.

Maybe if there is some serious problem, then they will write about that, too.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Restaurant POS system built completely on iOS - <AUTHOR> Hi guys, I've spent the last 18 months building a restaurant POS app that can run completely and reliably on iOS. Along the way, we've really pushed the devices to their limits and have something special that doesn't rely on the cloud for service, doesn't copy old and crappy "100 buttons on a screen" POS interfaces, and is still just as efficient and much more usable. Combining Bonjour (Apple's implementation of zeroconf) with the excellent Cocoa APIs also made it a relatively magical experience - you can literally watch on an iPad as a waiter takes an order on a iPod connected to the iPad.
This is my first time as an entrepreneur, and we're trying to bootstrap out of Buffalo, NY. I'd love to hear any advice you have on marketing to a relatively hard to reach segment such as restaurants, and any feedback you have on the app itself. The app is available for free (trial version that doesn't allow adding menu items or allow complete printing of checks to receipt printers) at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ambur/id408723017?mt=8&ls=1 , and our website is http://www.refulgentsoftware.com
Thanks for your time! <comment><USER2> The app looks good, but from the video I think, wow it would take me a long time to put in an order.

I was a bartender at a downtown Chicago restaurant using Aloha for more than a year. Aloha is not pretty, but it's really fast. I don't want to scroll, or click into menus and tabs to then go find an order. Just put my tables in front of me as soon as I'm logged in.

Trying to give constructive criticism here, so please don't take this the wrong way. Speed is everything. I almost feel like I can login to Aloha (all I have to do is type my server #), and then enter in an order for a table before I've even finished finding my name and typing in the password into your "server selection dial". Passwords are really not that important at the server level. What I am going to do, go change someone else's check?

Speed. Think raw speed. How FEW clicks can I get from login to item entry. It's not about how logically organized it is. I don't want a magical experience, I want a flawless and fast experience, so that I can get back to the 500 things I have to do to service my customers.

My 2 cents.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is true...one of the UI things that keeps me up at night is how to optimize that login screen. Passwords are actually important to me because of that, and I'm not sure servers IDs are really a great idea, they just seem insecure to me (the restaurant I worked at constantly was broken because servers would figure out the manager ones) and introduce a whole host of validation issues that would be frustrating to deal with in this distributed system.

We'll have to look at speed a bit more - at the restaurants we've tested at, my experience once it was just pure frustration for a server at first, but after 3 or 4 shifts they settled back down into normal speed for order entry, and it ended up being a win overall because the discoverability of stuff was faster. That being said, I know we definitely have room to improve.

Thanks for your feedback, it's nice to hear from someone else who worked at a restaurant, especially one that was busy and relied on the speed of its POS more than one in Buffalo may have.

<comment><USER3> If you're going to ask for feedback, you should take it! Here's a professional explaining that you don't have to worry so much about the login. A 2-4 digit code will do. Password-protect the manager login if you want, but not the servers'. This should not be keeping you up at night.

What should be keeping you up at night is the ordering experience. This is where users are going to spend 99% of their time. It needs to be flawless and ultra-refined for speed and accuracy. The cascading screens and tiny "Done" buttons are not going to cut it for heavy use.

Finally, you are going to need to be careful about getting feedback during a 15 minute demo. There is a grand canyon of difference between using a POS all day every day versus once for 15 minutes.

<comment><USER2> Sorry, didn't see these replies. But I just wanted to add, that at our busy bar, the manager's IDs were passworded. Actually, I assume they were passworded. I do not that for certain functions, the managers had a mechanism to go in a delete items or change price/add discounts etc. I'm not sure of what scenario you could commonly avoid by passwording the server ID. Maybe messing around with other server's checks happens at other restaurants (but then I assume they have a slew of other problems.)

We did however have situations where I would need to enter alternate server IDs for different things. What comes to mind is that we had an ID for bar comps so that we could keep track of inventory.

Perhaps discoverability makes sense in certain restaurant scenarios. At our sushi restaurant/bar, I don't know that I ever had to "discover" something?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some constructive criticism. The video does a really poor job selling this. Here are a few things I've learned from building software over the years.

No matter what the end user says, they do not care about fine-grained permissions. Not that they don't care about your system having them, they just have no interest setting them up or ever changing them. The way us software engineers think about things and the way management thinks about things are just too different. "I just want Mary to be able to see the f*$%ing orders!" It's really too much to go, "Ok, well Mary is part of the Server's group, so you go into Servers Group Permissions, then look at this list of vaguely worded categories and find the one you want, then click into that and get half a million switches, then find the action verb that we've assigned to viewing orders then click it on. Oh yea, this also gave Carlos and Mike the ability to see orders because they are in the Server's Group. Oh you didn't want that? Ok, well make a new group called Super Servers and then put Mary in that gr....."

At this point management has slipped quietly into a coma.

Split this video into a, "Here is what your servers will see, look how easy it will be to get those minimum-wage monkeys to use this" and a "Here is what you will see, look at how much more money this will put in your pocket as you are able to manage more effectively, you king of food you!"

And then make a third video about the nitty-gritty technical details of Role- Permission systems and launch that into the sun, no one wants to see that ;)

I think it could be a really compelling product but right now the video doesn't seem to be addressing any audience (other than maybe other developers writing POS software).

Personal Note: For some reason the line, "Refulgent is very proud that Ambur saves all the information pertaining to all closed orders, just as if they were open." irks me to the very core of my being. Whoa, you did the most logical thing to do by keeping historical records, this is nothing to be proud of. Be proud of the truly innovative parts of this product, not the silly things that are obvious for your software to do.

I wish you the best of luck, just throwing in my $0.02 and trying to share some wisdom I've learned the hard way.

<comment><USER5> >Split this video into a, "Here is what your servers will see, look how easy it will be to get those minimum-wage monkeys to use this" and a "Here is what you will see, look at how much more money this will put in your pocket as you are able to manage more effectively, you king of food you!"

Yes.

I'd really want to see it in action at a table to see that the drill-down method of entering orders is going to work fast enough - there's a reason that current systems have the "million buttons" interface and I don't think it is solely that POS designers can't make good interfaces.

As an improvement I'd add in something like a margin/upsell reminder system. The server would have someone to know high-margin items from the menu list and have key upsells highlight when a dish is chosen ... "do you want fries with that!".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd highly suggest paying a professional user interface designer to take a look at every screen of your app and offer suggestions and/or redesigned mockups. It looks like you're using nearly all stock UIKit widgets (default buttons, default tableviews, default split view controller, etc.) and the problem is that this type of app needs to be head and shoulders above the POS apps that waiters and restaurant works are used to which are mostly just grids of buttons. You've traded grids of buttons with rows of buttons instead of attacking the usability and user experience head on with a gorgeous, custom interface that totally blows away what's already out there.

This type of app will live and die by demos that you give restaurant owners. It needs to blow people away at first glance, especially waiters. Because you used all stock UIKit elements, at first glance it looks like it could be anything. I really think it needs an amazing interface to stand out from the crowd and blow people away.

Edit: I'd also suggest going to some local restaurants & bars and talking to people there who'd be using this app. Get their information and tell them you'll pay them $50 for 30 minutes of their time whenever they're free. Meet up with them and ask them their gripes about current POS systems, record this audio conversation (with their consent). Have them talk about the top things that they hate and the top things they wished it would do. Ask about what they spend the majority of their time on when using POS systems and which parts of the system fail the most often or are most frequently misinterpreted by the cooks or other waiters. Now you've got a firsthand account of what your competitors suck at that you can focus efforts on.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're absolutely correct – unfortunately, living in Buffalo means there's a dearth of local talent and bootstrapping means we really don't have the means.

To be honest I took out more custom UI than ended up making it in because the people we tested with who were new to iOS _really_ took quickly to the standard components and had a harder time with custom stuff. That being said, I'm hardly a real designer, so there's a distinct possibility my custom UI was just, well, not too good. :P

Thanks for your feedback. I'm familiar with your work and you saying this automatically means I'm probably going to dedicate the next week or so combing over my UI and trying to make it better.

<comment><USER6> I'd definitely suggest not caring about where your UI designer is located. It's hard enough to find decent UI people without forcing them to live in Western NY. Some of the best UI people I know live in Europe, Mexico, New Zealand, etc. If you're down for contracting with someone remotely, I'd take a look at Dribbble to find some styles of work you really like and then give those designers a shout. It could really make a huge difference. Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You should move the video to the home page. It took me a while to find it. You may consider having a professional voice actor narrate the video, it's not as expensive as you might imagine, and the results can really take it to the next level. You may also want to get another domain, something like amburapp.com. Any chance of integrating with Square? Manual credit card entry could be a challenge.

You should also consider offering packages with all the hardware the restauranteur would need.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, we'll have to see where we can fit it.

You're right on the domain thing too.

Square is great for what it is, but there rates are way, way, too high for restaurants and their app doesn't allow for 3rd party callbacks. I don't think they have much interest in "real" business to be honest with you, I've tried to get in touch with them on multiple occasions for at least information on them integrating a callback scheme, but I haven't heard a word back. They're busy doing bigger and better things though, god bless 'em.

We actually do have integrated credit card processing (kind of). There's an app called Credit Card Terminal that lets us pass charges to it and then calls back to us with the charge amount and type when it's done processing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For what it's worth, I really quickly became annoyed with the seemingly glacial transition pace of the image slider on your homescreen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Aye, I do too at times :P needs to delve into the Javascript there and fix it up

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> By programming in iOS you are requiring companies to purchase expensive mac products to run your POS rather than inexpensive PC products.

You need to go to as many restaurants in person as possible and be able to explain why your product is worth "trying" at the risk of a night of business. The key to understanding your customer is that they need to train all their servers and cooks on the new system and risk a huge single night loss of sales in the event of an error.

This is big business and for large restaurants could be $20K in a single night.

What is the big feature that your product has, that current systems don't have?

 __*ALSO REALLY IMPORTANT: I would consider not offering it for free since the "cost" is not the product. The cost in your case is the potential loss a restaurant could take on a crashing system (and the cost and lost sales relating to server training). I would try charging MORE than current POS systems as your sticker price.

Pricing is a signal and you need to signal high quality to sell this risk to businesses.

A few quick things that are important to restaurants: 1) Margins (they are really low, anything to improve them is good). 2) Servers are unreliable and turnover is high (anything to help speed up training is a plus, but probably a minor one) 3) Risk (a single night of lost sales may bankrupt a restaurant. You are asking for big commitment.) 4) Costs (upfront costs are harder to swallow because cash flow is always important. Decide whether it is worth figuring out a way to subsidize the equipment and software and get paid back later maybe).

Additional advice: Work in a restaurant as a server, then as a cook. Knowing the business is very important for selling to it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Re: expensive products. Micros charges about $3000 for a terminal, we're charging $1500 for the first one ($999 for our app + $500 iPad) and $500 (per iPad) apiece after. Not to mention the iPod is really just as good for servers taking orders.

Big features? Price, wireless connectivity, commodity hardware. I can't lie and pretend we're as rock solid as Micros, and I'd like to charge a fair price. $999 is low in my opinion, but not that low.

Thank you for your feedback!

<comment><USER9> 1) Price is never, ever, ever, ever a feature. Price is determined by the features (it is the other side of the equation).

2) I haven't done market research, but are you telling me no other POS has wireless?

3) Who will provide iPods? How many will be lost or broken, this seems to add additional expense.

4) As a potential pivot, could you enable your system to run in restaurants with no servers, just food runners and have patrons order the food themselves? There is competition here as well, but it is less entrenched and probably easier to displace.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) Fair, but to a restaurant owner who is staring at Micros package X that is $15K for a basic two terminal + a few printers set up, we look pretty darn good. 2) Not reasonably priced. I know Micros does, but their handhelds are propietary hardware that costs in multiples of iPod touches. Their terminals are, again, in multiples of iPads. 3) Up to the restaurant. They don't get broken, them 'walking off' is an issue, but a management issue. If you have 3 at 5 PM, you better have 3 at 10 PM or your staff has to answer. 4) Certainly, but I'm not a big fan of that because it compounds issue #3 dramatically and I'm not sure any restaurant would want to do that. Also, it would require a dramatic 'prettying up' of the UI to make it more lively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My startup is in point-of-sale as well (retail, not hospitality). I'm curious as to why you chose to go with iOS? I'm not saying it's a good or bad choice, but it definitely is the current fad in the POS market. I'm focused on the lower end and small businesses, so I try to work with hardware they already have. How receptive are people to using iPods and iPads, cost wise?

Another question is.. what happens if a server spills a drink on it? :)

Now for an answer instead of another question. For marketing I would focus on finding a scalable sales method that is as self-serve as possible (small biz owners will always want to talk no matter how hard you try though). It's easy and tempting to go 'door to door' and sell one at a time, but economically it doesn't make sense. That's one place iOS helps, distribution through the app store. But you'll eventually need to find people who are generally looking for POS, not just specifically an iPad POS.

Anyways, good luck it looks interesting!

<comment><USER11> One of the benefits of iOS devices is their ubiquity. What if a server spills a drink on the cash register? Then your register is fried and you have to wait for a replacement from the vendor. If someone spills a drink on an iPod Touch, though, you can run down the street to the Apple Store (or other vendor) and drop $300 on a new one (which you can return if you get the other one working).

The fact that the whole ecosystem (app store, iTunes, backups, etc.) is designed for consumers means that it's easy for anyone to deal with. It would be trivial to teach all your management and supervisors how to reset, restore, etc. an iPod Touch in the case of hardware problems, rather than having to log a support ticket with some company somewhere when the PoS hardware is being problematic.

<comment><USER10> Most restaurant/bar specific POS systems are water resistant for exactly that reason. I'm sure it that's happened though, that's why it's "water resistant" and not "water proof".

So lets say it happens to your iPad POS and you run down to the Apple store to get a new one. What happens to your data? Is it stored on the device, or is the backend hosted somewhere? How do you get your old data into your new iPad?

Another thing I just thought of... lets say there's a horrible bug that's causing some big problem. Wouldn't you have to submit a new version to Apple, which then needs to get approved by them?

All that being said, there's risks with any POS system since it's pretty much mission critical. When I launched my company and did a Show HN, some people thought it was a bad idea (it's web-based). There's a lot of what ifs you can bring up that all sound terrible to a business owner. I'm sure a lot of people will go with iPad POS systems, I'm just wondering if there's a good reason to or if it's just the cool thing to do.

<comment><USER12> _Wouldn't you have to submit a new version to Apple, which then needs to get approved by them?_

That is the showstopper.

"Sorry, we fixed the bug, but Apple hasn't approved it yet. We'll keep you posted."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a really cool idea! How many restaurants do you have signed up? The proof is in the pudding, so the more restaurants that use this, the more likely it is for your to work our any bugs/process issues etc and for your company and product to just take over a huge chunk of marketshare. I know a lot of people who are building or talking about building similar products, so congrats on being early to the party! Also, best of luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> x, where x is less than 10. To be honest, it looks like it's going to be a _lot_ of hard work to get people signed up and interested.

It's a tough marketing problem: how do you get to people who haven't already invested in another solution down this road, even if our solution is much cheaper we're still talking in the thousands to switch over from someone who already charged them tens of thousands. The answer is to find people who haven't, which means finding restaurants that have not opened yet. Not easy work.

<comment><USER13> Great! You have a base to refine your product till it's the cat's meow. There's nothing like word of mouth, better yet, references from businesses who've actually used your product and absolutely love it! You marketing effort should just be the product, but also real verifiable applications of your product. Put together a little marketing video where the existing businesses vouch for your product.
 I agree with what #pbreit said as well. Once you have 30-40 mom and pop stores using your devices, not only will you be more confident about what your sell, your potential customers will be too. See if you can target small but high traffic businesses, even if it's lunch truck or a no name pizza joint at a Campus near you.
 You've got a great idea, simple and potentially very effective. Iron out the kinks before other competitors get to market. Once again, best of luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> First of all, congrats. I'm sure it wasn't easy getting to this stage.

Now, there are lots of good comments that others have made already. I think the most important ones are the issues with the speed of taking orders and the suggestion to talk to local restaurants and bars for input.

My two cents are related to the video. It looks too amateurish. The camera is not 100% steady (use a tripod, or set the camera on a table), the narration is not very fluid (practice, practice, practice) and it's too technical. The video should target your audience and highlight the advantage of using your system. Show a waiter taking orders, and the kitchen receiving them instantly. Show how a fast and easy it is to print receipts and how a manager can help resolve customer issues/complaints. How would you convince a restaurant owner to ditch the multi-thousand $$ POS system that he/she has, and invest in yours?

Also your FAQ page seems to be outdated and missing a few links.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll have to look at speed, it's something I'm concerned about because we don't have a huge sample size. I know the restaurants we tested at got up to speed after each server had worked 3-4 shifts, but I'm 100% sure it could be better in several areas.

Reshooting the video is probably the first priority after fixing mistakes on the site, thanks to your comments and a couple others. Thanks for the feedback, hearing things like that from someone really makes it clear what work we have to do and how we have to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> From the FAQ:

> Is there a demo video of Ambur? > Yes! Please click here to see a real demo > of Ambur.

There's no link anywhere near this text.

<comment><AUTHOR> Noted, thank you. Peer review of a website has the unique ability to make you feel like a blind idiot. :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The biggest thing with a POS system is support.

Where I work (not my dept.) we were locked in a five year contract with a company based 5 times zones and 5,000km away.

Adding new printers, configuring printers, connected by cheap off-the-shelf switches and routers, too many people with admin access and employee turn- around losing the people who knew the system.

Add to that old and usually proprietary hardware that tends to get damaged faster in an environment with a lot of food and liquids (restaurant/bar).

Add to that restaurant people tend not to be technology oriented.

I can't see my workplace buying a bunch of iPad or iPod Touch devices just to use a brand new system. I know the staff would love it. If you had an iPad/serving tray that would be interesting too.

The perfect system would run on old existing hardware, be bullet proof, very intuitive, cheap and with lots of support every day at all hours.

<comment><AUTHOR> Most terminals cost ~$3000, while the first terminal for us is $1500 - $500 for the iPad, $1000 for the app. After that, new terminals are just $500 since you bought the app already.

Secondly, adding printers is one of our best pieces of functionality - it's just entering an IP address, a name, a type of printer, and assigning it to a menu item group.

I'm not sure old hardware is the answer. It's underpowered, weak, running on odd platforms. iOS was designed for touch and to be rugged from the ground up, and provides a consistent platform that is essentially commoditized and is growing every day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> When I visit your website I can't find out:

\- What the app looks like -- there's a lot of talk about how beautiful, simple and well designed it is, but not a single screenshot;

\- If it accept payments;

\- Whether it is a complete solution. Will I need a server? If not, what's "Ambur in a box"?

\- A 1-2-3 storyboard of setting up, making an order, paying the bill;

\- Whether it will work with my cash drawer, or my receipt printer, or my credit card machine, (or any drawer or printer or machine);

\- What happens if my iPad (I'm the manager) breaks/is stolen/is low on batteries?

\- Can my clients place orders using their own iOS devices?

And important stuff is hidden by the wall of text. For instance:

\- Your app needs _no configuration_ when adding more terminals;

\- Updates are free for life;

Lastly, a benchmark: <http://checkoutapp.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, this is stuff we definitely have to focus on, we're planning on moving stuff and adding stuff based on the feedback we received here in the next couple days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Really impressive work! I'd suggest for your demo video, instead of showing all your features in action, to instead talk through a typical scenario (someone taking an order, closing the order, etc) and showing what it's like to use the app.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback - we'll definitely take that approach with the next set of videos we'll shoot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This looks very interesting. Quick question, as far as I can tell, one of the iOS devices has to function as the database server. Is this reliable? If so, that is extremely exciting...

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, and yes! Core Data + Bonjour + KVO are absolutely magical, it's a truly distributed system, you always can see whats going on accurately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Do you have restaurant experience (server/owner/manager)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Server, four long years. My cofounder is an owner.

<comment><USER12> You will be very successful! You have something here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> You have (at least one) misspelling on your page: "unbelieveably" should be "unbelievably". Just jumped out at me (maybe since it's italicized!) so I thought I'd report it.

Also, though this one's just my opinion: "point of sales system" seems awkward to me compared to "point of sale system" and I note from a couple of Google searches that the latter seems to be used a lot more often.

Anyway, good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Getting more eyeballs on the site has had the effect of mostly making me feel like I'm illiterate and blind. :P

Good call on point of sale, I had never thought about the distinction before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> From the FAQ:

"Is there a demo video of Ambur? Yes! Please click here to see a real demo of Ambur."

However, nothing is hyperlinked.

Same here:

"Ambur will be available for free shortly in the App Store. You can also download the software from any iOS device by launching the the App Store and searching for "Ambur"."

I would actually just link to the app (there is chance someone is viewing that page on an iPad after all).

<comment><AUTHOR> Doh! Thanks, I don't know how we missed both of these.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This discussion from about a year ago might be relevant: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1382566>

(Not endorsing or dis-endorsing anything in it, but a possible point of reference to see if anything's changed.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Aye, actually I ran into that a year ago and took a bit from it, thanks for bringing it up again, I forgot about it.

The main caveat is, the article assumes that servers would be carrying around iPads - we've found iPod touches are more than sufficient and iPads acting as centralized hubs like a traditional POS work well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Looks interesting. I especially like the idea of using Bonjour. There is a missing closing tag on the "click here" anchor tag on the Get a Quote page

<comment><AUTHOR> The magic of the app (from an engineering perspective) is really Core Data + KVO + Bonjour. Sometimes it feels more bubblegum and sticks than anything, but it _really_ is magical after all the kinks were worked out.

I wish I could open source the framework, but at this point it would be an engineering effort to tease out the code and it's also giving away a lot of secret sauce.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> easy to click: <http://www.refulgentsoftware.com>

</comment><comment><USER25> This is a space that does require some disruption.

Good job.

</comment><comment><USER26> Its really tough to market to restauranteurs because there are tons of scammy companies out there...

My company helps SMB's find the best credit card processor, so in theory Restaurants would be great customers because they are often getting screwed. In reality, we don't convert restaurants well at all.

I've been to trade shows like the NRA (Nat'l restaurant association), Pizza Expo, etc, and a new trend is well-funded companies offering a "free" POS system. It's free because they include the merchant account, and they KILL you on the fees. Almost all of the POS vendors are partnered with <http://www.mercurypay.com/> which is a very expensive solution with hidden fees/upcharges etc.

Restauranteurs become lured in with the free POS and are locked into a shitty payment processor. I think being on iOS is a strength though - maybe there are ways you can focus and optimize your ranking on the app store? Participate in blogs/forums whenever you can.

We've had some luck getting in publications (QSR, Food News Today, etc), which has been very useful in getting the word out. You should try to get in QSR.

Drop me a line if you want to talk further.

<comment><AUTHOR> Huh, fascinating, my involvement in the restaurant business has been limited to mostly waiting and somewhat being aware of what was going on in the back end with processors, but I've only worked at one restaurant so my experience was limited. I had no idea they were gouging that much, we're actually looking into using iDynamo ( [http://www.magtek.com/v2/products/secure-card-reader- authent...](http://www.magtek.com/v2/products/secure-card-reader- authenticators/iDynamo.asp) ) in our app, which would make it dirt easy to just pick the best payment processor and run with it. I'll have to drop you a line when we're done with that, probably in the next four weeks.

Thanks for your feedback, and the information about publications, it's been hard for me to figure out what publications exist and which ones exactly matter.</comment></comment>


Steve Jobs travel update: Private jet reimbursement decreased 95% last quarter - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/steve_jobs_travel_update_private_jet_grounded_this_winter

<comment><USER2> My guess is different kinds of products need different amounts of travel. You don't design an iPod while jetting all over the place. This article seems to be an excuse for getting excited over Steve Jobs' private jet.</comment>


New Image compression method from UCLA outperforms JPEG - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2013-12-compression-method-big-data-bottleneck.html

<comment><USER2> Whilst it is not stated, this does appear to be a lossy form of compression. As for the part about being better than JPEG, well there are many compression forms that do better than JPEG out there. Crutch being that JPEG is out there free for all to use and has been for a while. Even the updated edition JPEG2000 ( [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG_2000](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG_2000) ) is better, yet not as used.

What I do find interesting is that this approach can be done in analogue as well as digital and can be done at time of image capture.

But how much better and the details we all crave are not there.</comment>


A Day in the Life of a Developer  - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/bo55r/a_day_in_the_life_of_a_developer_using_jira/ The new 2.0 release of the Atlassian Connector for Eclipse provides the latest and most complete access to Atlassian's development and collaboration tools from within the Eclipse IDE. This provides developers with an integrated platform for managing issues, source code, builds, and code reviews. To illustrate the benefits of the connector this article will walk you through a day in the life of a developer using the Atlassian Connector for Eclipse and Tasktop Pro. <comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I put the wrong link. Here's the direct link: <http://tasktop.com/blog/tasktop/atlassian-connector-eclipse>

</comment><comment><USER2> original link: <http://tasktop.com/blog/tasktop/atlassian-connector-eclipse></comment>