Amazon warehouse workers 'peed in bottles' fearing punishment for taking breaks - <AUTHOR> http://www.pulse.ng/bi/tech/undercover-author-finds-amazon-warehouse-workers-in-uk-peed-in-bottles-over-fears-of-being-punished-for-taking-a-break-amzn-id8258070.html <comment><USER2> Is this worth it? Is this worth having the ability to pick between 10,000 different toasters via internet and have them delivered to your doorstep in 2 days?

Sometimes I look at society as a complete organ, with a hypothetical ability to make cohesive decisions for itself. And I think, it is making extremely self-destructive choices. All for the sake of satisfying the urge to buy more, at lower prices, with more convenience.

I wonder how much of the stuff in those warehouses is utter garbage that gets bought and used just once.

<comment><USER3> We can have both. Amazon isn't going to implode if they pay some extra pennies for reasonable working conditions.

<comment><USER4> Why would Amazon pay one more penny than they have to? To win a nice guys award? To get a warm, squishy feeling inside?

There is precisely one solution to this problem, and it is us electing leaders who change the rules in favor of the working masses, and enforce those rules mercilessly against exploitative employers.

<comment><USER5> Why would anyone with sufficient money and organization to support a candidate support one who would change the rules in favor of the working masses?

<comment><USER6> Not everyone is a sociopath.

<comment><USER7> Just everyone with power

<comment><USER8> It's a process of selection...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Are Amazon's margins razor thin? I'm trying to understand what compels them to be so toxic in their work environment. Especially compared to the people I know who work at Costco, I struggle to understand why Costco treats employees so well, and Amazon treats their employees so poorly.

It's really sad, regardless.

<comment><USER10> Bezos. Jeff Bezos is the reason why Amazon treats workers they way they do. Compared to other tech giants, Amazon is incredibly anti-employee. Look at how their stocks vest.

I worked at Microsoft during Balmer's reign. The founder/CEO's attitude dictates the work culture. And causes harm if it's bad.

I live in Seattle and often hear this joke: Being an Amazon customer is the best. An investor is great. An employee not so much.

I worked at Amazon in 2005 and was a customer before that. But I can't support Bezos anymore because he negatively impacts how people are treated. It's not on par with Nike's sweatshops in the 90s, but I still canceled Prime and stopped buying things from Amazon.

<comment><USER11> Judging from some of the comments here, software engineers working in Amazon must either be stupid or irrational to continue working there, given the market for software engineers. Amazon is a highly successful company with significant anticipate growth still to come. All that success doesn't come without talent. So maybe not stupid, maybe just irrational? Tech companies in general, and Amazon in particular, are highly data driven and people are constantly challenged to make design choices and decisions based on data--they are being constantly asked for hard evidence on why a certain choice is better than another. In a way they are optimizing for rational people in their recruitment. Could it be that they are more rational than average? Could it be that they are qualified to look at their work experience and weigh it against the compensation, and make the choice to instead go work for Microsoft, or one of the many tech companies around the Seattle area? Maybe they are all just masochists?

(Disclosure: I am a software engineer in AWS, and I love my job. Sorry, can't speak for non-tech jobs. Opinions are my own.)

<comment><USER12> At least one reason is that the stock has done _so_ well. A typical software engineer hired 4 years ago is incredibly well compensated at Amazon because of this.

Consider a mid-level software engineer hired 4 years ago, on April 16 2014, with a salary of $100k. A typical stock grant at hiring for a mid-level software engineer in 2014 might be $400k over 4 years, backloaded so most of it comes at the end; on April 16 2014 the share price was $323, so the grant would have looked something this:

      Apr 16 2015: 154 shares @ $323 = $50k  = $150k total comp
      Apr 16 2016: 248 shares @ $323 = $80k  = $180k total comp
      Apr 16 2017: 371 shares @ $323 = $120k = $220k total comp
      Apr 16 2018: 464 shares @ $323 = $150k = $250k total comp

But the share price has gone through the roof since then, so things look more like this:

      Apr 16 2015: 154 shares @   $383 = $59k  = $159k total comp
      Apr 16 2016: 248 shares @   $625 = $155k = $255k total comp
      Apr 16 2017: 371 shares @   $901 = $334k = $434k total comp
      Apr 16 2018: 464 shares @ $1,440 = $668k = $768k total comp

That mid-level, totally normal software engineer is making _more than $750k this year_ because the stock price has gone up so much since 2014. They're likely to put up with a lot of bullshit to get that kind of financial security - that's not just a down payment on a house, it can be the whole thing in cash in the east side suburbs, with great school districts.

Amazon (and Seattle in general) could be in big trouble if the stock price turns around. I don't think that's likely, but it's kind of scary to me.

<comment><USER13> Are those numbers real? As in, does (did?) Amazon really do $400,000 in stock grants for routine (I don't mean that to sound harsh, I just mean "not as a super-exceptional process to land a world-famous developer") software engineer hires?

If they are, holy shit. I thought the meteoric rise in housing prices around here was almost entirely due to the influx of people compounded by this region's seeming inhospitable allergy to building housing stock at anywhere near a reasonable rate.

But, damn, if your table is even within 80% of reality, I am floored. No wonder it's virtually impossible to rent or buy anything for a "realistic" (for me, and I make a pretty good income, or so I thought) price anywhere between Edmonds and Auburn. The rest of us, even those employed in the technology industry, simply cannot compete with that kind of cash on the barrel.

<comment><USER12> Yes, this is typical, more or less. Amazon tends to pay with a low base salary and high stock component. What I described would be somewhere between "pretty competent developer" and "tech lead on a team of 8," not anything unusual like hiring a superstar principal engineer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My fear is that the future of work for most people is not unemployment, but shitty jobs like this.

My feeling is that in order to avoid this and prosper, the people need to own the robots that do all the work (Marxism heyy). If robots provide huge productivity gains, then they will provide those gains for their owners. If it's the big corporations that own them, they will see the gains. But as long as people are treated like machines, they will be left out of this prosperity. Instead, if the people own the machines collectively, then they can enjoy the productivity gains themselves as a group.

What do you all think of this?

<comment><USER15> But I _do_ already own some of the robots. I have Amazon stock in my 401k. That's what "the people owning the robots" looks like.

What you're getting at is that there are many people right now who are too poor (and are going to be too poor) to ever own any part of the robots.

This century's great debate is forming up to be whether or not we should give them some anyway even though they can't "earn" it for whatever moving value of earn society is currently accepting.

<comment><USER16> In a few centuries students in history classes will look back and try to understand why we let our people die in the streets.

<comment><USER17> I don't think so, reading real statistics on this kind of thing instead of alarmist and politically slanted headlines paints a very different picture of how the world is doing.

[https://ourworldindata.org/extreme- poverty](https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty)

<comment><USER18> As global average quality of life trends upward, the American lower and middle class are dying quietly in the streets.

[https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends- statistics/o...](https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends- statistics/overdose-death-rates)

[https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2017/12/21/5720803...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2017/12/21/572080314/life-expectancy-drops-again-as-opioid-deaths-surge- in-u-s)

<comment><USER19> So you're thinking that people in the future will wonder why we weren't more parochial in our sphere of concerns? More precisely, they'll be morally shocked at the notion that we were too close to treating all humans as of equal moral worth, instead of prioritizing those that are located closer to us geographically?

Don't get me wrong, I'm very aware that most moral systems have somewhat- principled reasons to prioritize those that are geographically closer to you. This is intended more to illuminate that side of the argument than as a full- fledged suggestion for how to set our priorities. But the claim being discussed here, that the future will wonder why we let people die in the streets, is still bizarre to me in the context that you're framing it in.

<comment><USER3> You act like we're putting in enormous efforts overseas to improve life, when we really aren't.

<comment><USER19> No, I'm not. You're projecting your overly simple-minded model of the economy and the world onto me.

<comment><USER3> toomuchtodo pointed out we're not doing enough about a problem that exists locally.

You argued that thinking globally is more important than thinking parochially, which is fine by itself. But it's totally unrelated to what toomuchtodo is saying _unless_ we were taking global action in lieu of local action.

So I assumed you meant that, because it's critical to your comment being relevant.

If you didn't mean that, then your argument falls apart. toomuchtodo is not arguing for being parochial, they're arguing that we should be making it a priority to fight this problem _at all_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If everything is based on performance metrics alone, surely there's a feedback loop here? Employee A starts peeing in a bottle, so their performance numbers go up, then at the end of the week they have better performance numbers and everyone else's targets are increased to be more inline with employee A. So more people start using bottles and taking shortcuts and the problem just increases over time!

<comment><USER21> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I tend to personally view things from the owner's point of view. I also know that once the popular narrative has bitten down on the story of a successful company running slave factories, they won't let go. Whether these are exaggerated or isolated cases doesn't matter, there will be story after story until Amazon makes some show of changing practices.

However, I know there's another side. At some point, a company the size of Amazon begins consuming all available oxygen. I don't know what the tipping point is, but I know workers in some areas have about as much choice in where to work as I do in cable providers. That's obviously undesirable, because without a competitive labor market, Amazon is in practice able to treat employees however they choose, because the one emergency brake built into the loop is gone.

I wish there were some simple way to codify regulations about employee treatment once you become as powerful as a small nation that don't also encumber 150-employee plastic tubing manufacturers. At that level, pure laissez faire is desirable to me, because you do have options as an employee, and no reasonable case can be made that you've got to bog down your employer in a regulatory mess. Then, once you've got some single digit of the GDP in resources, you can be expected to operate with increased oversight and expectations, as a tax for the opportunity cost your mere presence visits upon other firms.

If that inhibits growth of megacorps... well, that's OK.

<comment><USER23> A big part of this problem is that the warehouse operations people de-risk the impact and accountability for these problems to the bodyshops that fulfill these roles. Companies like Amazon love temporary workforces because they have big capital investments in fulfillment centers that they cannot walk away from, and an employee workforce would attract union mobilization.

IMO, the way to attack this is to increase the cost of temporary employment by taking away tax and other privileges. There should be a cost borne by the employer for the flexibility of temporary workforces. That would discourage the practice at companies like Amazon and have a lesser impact on SMB.

<comment><USER24> There already is. They pay more on an hourly basis for temporary workers. The body shop gets their cut first. Body shop charges $17/hr, pays $13/hr

<comment><USER23> The body shop adds value by taking on compliance costs and risks. Amazon is pretty well run, I'm sure the margins on the staffing company side are as tight as they can be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Long-haul truckers have been doing this for decades for the same reason-- they don't have time to pull over and use the restroom-- and no one is upset about that. I'm sure there are many industries, white and blue collar, where similar norms are expressed.

Edit to add: I'm not endorsing the practice in any industry at all, just pointing out that its not a unique problem to Amazon. My comment would have been better phrased "why aren't more people upset about that?" It IS still definitely a problem!

<comment><USER26> wait, you're sure there are many industries, white and blue collar, where workers routinely pee in bottles as a job requirement?

Really? In the U.S.? You're pretty sure about this, eh? Many industries?

I'd be curious to hear an example of _one_ industry where "white collar" workers routinely pee in bottles as a job requirement, official or unofficial.

<comment><USER27> My dev team are all forced to use the same bottle to save time. The one who tops it off and has to go off to empty it is docked pay.

<comment><USER28> My dev team each have their own bottle. It's the most expensive bottle on the market and is provided/cleaned/maintained for free as an employee benefit.

It is an IOT bottle, connected directly to the employee's primary work station/laptop. Cleaning/emptying of the bottle is automatic and triggered by employee engagement (eg LOC written/pushes to Github). It can also be triggered manually by the team lead.

Employees who wish to take the bottle home/on vacation with them may do so (same trigger rules apply).

Since implementing our new bottle infrastructure, we've been able to acquire several new key hires from companies where employee benefits aren't taken so seriously.

Furthermore, assigning the emptying of the bottles to our management team has helped balance the company and improve morale significantly (now that we've switched from a unilateral to bilateral flow of excrement).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If you work in a latino painting or landscaping crew, tough guy stuff like this is expected and socially enforced. Or say Alaskan fishermen. It's one of tradeoffs you make for an uber-bule-collar job. But these jobs also have benefits that others don't have: when you leave the job site, you don't have to think about the job (like teachers do) and your skills and experience don't lose relevance (like IT) and you don't have to suffer fools (like service staff). But yeah - the notable tradeoff for these jobs is you get valued (and devalued) by your physical productivity and reliability.

</comment><comment><USER30> I am honestly quite surprised that Amazon warehouses haven't experienced a wave of workplace shootings. They're really a recipe for how to construct a place primed for them. During the 1990s there were several high-profile workplace shootings at US postal offices. Originally everyone presumed it was just isolated incidents, mentally ill people, etc. But in the years that followed, once people had calmed down and the situation could actually be analyzed, the truth was quite different.

The shootings had a cause. Those post offices had paired human beings with automated machines and slowly increased their expectation of performance of the humans to match the machines. They cut breaks, they expected humans to keep up with the machines (the machines would sort mail, for example, and kick out things its OCR scanners couldn't recognize for a human to deal with), and they made it clear that the humans weren't valuable employees... they were an annoying inefficiency in the system that hadn't been optimized away yet.

That puts people under immense pressure. And while some people might be able to handle immense pressure, it is fundamentally incorrect to expect large groups of people to handle it. Large groups will have people who will crack. This is as certain as gravity, and those who seek to ignore it just as ludicrous.

</comment><comment><USER31> It seems that everyone is assuming that the allegations in the article are true, and are commenting based on that assumption.

But are they true? Can someone corroborate?

p.s. the reason I ask is because things are often more complex than a simple narrative would have you believe, and it's worthwhile thinking about what's actually going on rather than just taking in a narrative without questioning it.

<comment><USER32> Moreover, Amazon is a global company with 500,000+ employees. Painting the entire company with this brush is poor analysis.

If this portrayal is representative of this distribution center, it could be the result of a general manager whose incentive bonuses motivate him/her to be strict about how pickers spend their time and grant strikes even for legitimate medical excuses.

Or it could be true that all of Amazon is this way. In that case, however, this one circumstance is insufficient to draw that conclusion.

<comment><USER33> I suspect it is a pervasive part of Amazon's work culture. They bought Whole Foods, IIRC, and there were news articles about how that went:

[http://www.grubstreet.com/2018/02/whole-foods-inventory- syst...](http://www.grubstreet.com/2018/02/whole-foods-inventory-system- reportedly-making-employees-cry-at-work.html)

<comment><USER31> The problem identified in the article seems to point to the OTS inventory system, which was a Whole Foods initiative. Amazon doesn't seem to know much about it (which may partly be the problem), but it isn't evidence against Amazon per se.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Doesn't this affect more than the employees? If they are peeing in a bottle, shouldn't they sanitize their hands after touching their package so they can safely handle our packages? Should I be inspecting the inner contents using a black light?

<comment><USER35> They shouldn't be pissing in a bottle period, they should be taking a break, they are just scared to. No one is forcing them to pee in a bottle.

<comment><USER34> Oh I totally agree. I'm just suggesting that perhaps this also affects the recipients of the packages.

<comment><USER35> You know how many nasty germs a package comes in contact with even before an Amazon employee touches it and long after it's shipped? _Trillions_ , with a t.

<comment><USER34> I don't think that makes it safer to touch the package after peeing in a bottle. Employees are required to wash their hands after using the restroom. I believe that state law may even require it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Amaazon says bathroom breaks are not timed. That is probably true. But that is not what the article is alleging. Rather they need to reach a certain productivity level within a given time period, and using the bathroom counts against that apparently. And if goals are set based on previous employee performance than what if that person also skipped bathroom breaks? Maybe total breaks should be timed over a longer period of time. So if today you need to shit your lungs out that's ok then it averages out with more normal breaks over the next few weeks.

</comment><comment><USER37> > Another said: "The target grows every year."

Whenever I see examples of impossible-to-meet goals I'm reminded of reminded of this classic "I Love Lucy" bit [0] with the chocolates on the conveyor belt.

"Speeeed it up a little!"

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NPzLBSBzPI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NPzLBSBzPI)

</comment><comment><USER38> Amazon in general, like Uber, considers that warehouse employees and driver are just a needed adjustment until robots take over. They have the consideration that Google/Waymo has for the people filling in "Is this a Stop sign" Catpcha. Thinking of it as sweat labor is not false, but it won't convince the company change.

If you think of it that way, you understand better how Amazon product managers and engineers are OK with the treatment. Also part of that vision: those employees benefit from constant iteration of the work conditions, from Bezos' initial suggestion to get knee pad to help filling in boxes (rapidly replaced by the far better option to get tables). All the pain is just a step in the process that has not been automated yet, and the "handful" of people "temporary" suffering now are just there to provide training data for the order of magnitude more orders to come when running around, climbing on step- ladders, will be automated. And, in fairness, a lot of it has, or is about to: Amazon has robots to carry shelves around, raising platforms, etc. They are generally not used at scale yet, but teams are actively working on it.

I'm not saying that to justify the company's callous take, or pain their plan as a delusional grandeur, but to explain how the stress is part of the process: to reveal what hurts. As far as I can tell, all employees, especially desk-dwellers, are asked to do shifts in the warehouse to build some empathy. It's far from perfect and seem to hide the reality of family life for the de- facto full-time workers -- but accusing Amazon of having inhumane condition is missing the dynamic angle to it.

I believe there is a massive mis-match between how employees see their service and the efforts so many employees are putting in; I'm not convinced that you can reach automation faster by having humans run around and learn from their mistake. I would be a lot more comfortable with the experiment is participants where excited by the perspective of automation rather than working poor, but I'm not in charge of the company, so it's hard to grasp exactly what could be done. I believe that warehouse employees with more free-time, more initiative and the ability automate themselves would automate faster than what Amazon is currently doing, but that's just speculation.

<comment><USER39> > you understand better how Amazon product managers and engineers are OK with > the treatment.

Or do they really care?

<comment><USER38> The closest example I can imagine is, the same way medical professionals care about you, or maybe surgeons more than others, or maybe pre-clinical bio- scientists: most of the time, not really. They have their own paperwork, debt, office rivalries, etc.

They do when you are 'interesting' (you very much _not_ want to be 'interesting') but they actually care about fixing your problem. They probably care more when they see you, just like Amazon employees care after they have been at a warehouse. It drives them to work on their project that will address one small pain-point -- but they can't care too much, just because their fix takes so much time, if they cared, it would crush them. Both product managers and medical professional have to respect proper, long, tedious testing procedure to make sure their solution works as intended.

I think few people measure explicitly the amount of that bureaucratic detachment (Chaplin, Kafka, Ionesco did) and even less see how it is necessary to progress.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> What's so special about Amazon in comparison to the Chinese factories where those goods are manufactured? Are we just upset because these people are geographically closer? Or is it nationalism; Americans/Westerners are too good for such treatment? Racism?

<comment><USER41> I used to think it was some sort of nationalism, but I think it's mostly because making sure all Americans are treated well is a much more tractable problem than worrying about the welfare of literally everyone in the world.

It is conceivably possible for every American to have adequate food, housing, and medical care, to work in safe and humane conditions, and so forth. Even that seems crazy and utopian to some, but there's a plausible-enough plan that people see it as a solvable problem.

Once you take a global perspective, though, you realize that one of the most cost-effective ways of preventing human suffering today is to buy people in malaria-infested regions insecticide-treated mosquito nets. That's kind of overwhelming to think about. Warehouse workers have to pee in a bottle, but at least they aren't dying of malaria. And let's say we manage to eradicate malaria, or at least contain it enough that we can move on to the next-lowest- hanging-fruit, and you still have to worry about access to clean water, or having their children murdered/kidnapped by the local warlord or rape cult, or the effects of dirty open-pit mining (particularly as overseen by the local warlord or rape cult), or the cultural practice of mutilating the genitals of infant girls, etc., etc. The problems of the world are just so big and so complicated and so multi-faceted that the natural emotional reaction is just to get overwhelmed and give up, and that doesn't help _anyone_.

<comment><USER42> > It is conceivably possible for every American to have adequate food, > housing, and medical care, to work in safe and humane conditions, and so > forth.

It is conceivably possible for every human - given the current available resources.

<comment><USER40> The global GDP per capita is about $10k/yr. Depending on what you mean by "adequate" housing, medical care, safe work, and humane conditions... it might not actually be possible. I think if you use first world standards, you'd have a hard time achieving that even if you could magically redistribute all of the globe's economic productivity.

<comment><USER41> Also, if you actually want it to work out, you first have to remove all the tinpot kleptocrats and replace them with halfway responsible governments. This doesn't get attempted often, but this was attempted with Iraq, and the attempt cost 2.4 trillion dollars and didn't yield sustainable results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Having to go down four flights of stairs to go to a bathroom is ridiculous.

I wonder if this is an unexpected side-effect of automating warehouses. Normally, bathrooms are required by OSHA, but the relevant code appears to dictate only the number of bathrooms required by the number of employees on a site[0].

Adding bathrooms to a building is an expensive retrofit; I can't imagine this situation getting better without regulation.

My inclination would be to try and lobby congress to require bathrooms within X feet of employees on every floor, or require Y bathrooms per Z square feet of space. (But what about edge cases? What do construction workers do in high rises?)

[0] [https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2017-title29-vol5/xml/CFR-...](https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2017-title29-vol5/xml/CFR-2017-title29-vol5-sec1910-141.xml)

</comment><comment><USER44> Typical retail. You're given goals that continue to get higher and higher. Some places give you a handful of goals but the math doesn't work out so you can't ever reach them all simultaneously. This is by design so that they justify paltry raises and/or firings. The only way to play the system is to stay aligned with whatever your immediate report feels are the ones to focus on.

</comment><comment><USER45> Link to original story (as far as I can tell) at The Sun (urgh), it has more photos: [https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6055021/rushed-amazon- warehous...](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6055021/rushed-amazon-warehouse- staff-time-wasting/)

</comment><comment><USER46> How long before Amazon replaces all the warehouse workers with machines? 5 years?

<comment><USER47> If they're going to be replaced by robots soon, isn't that a good reason to not fear spending on them, since they are a short-term cost?

<comment><USER48> Nope. That's exactly why money isn't spent on people. There is no reason for Amazon to invest in them.

I'm not a fan of people thinking they will lose their job for taking breaks, but why would Amazon invest money in something that may go away in 5 years? They'll invest in the R&D of the replacement.

<comment><USER47> I see what you mean, and I hope you mean it in the "playing devils advocate" kind of way, because implying the most reasonable thing to do is what makes most business sense is what's unfortunately wrong in this country.

<comment><USER48> Yes, most definitely I was pointing why Amazon's calculus is to not invest in people. I was not saying that people should be worked like cogs in a machine, where you try to go on the cheap without oil for as long as possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> What's the typical walking time to the toilet in a large warehouse? Where do the relevant employees keep the bottles (e.g. are they attached to their legs underneath trousers? If not how do they avoid CCTV?) Are break periods mandatory or optional?

<comment><USER50> Ya, I do believe a FC warehouse job sucks pretty bad, but for some reason, this particular article seems strange. The journalist is clearly trying to find sensationalist material for his book. I'm not sure how much I can trust his sources.

<comment><USER49> That may well be but my questions are genuine questions (I'm curious).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I don't understand how managers at amazon can believe this is okay and that it won't blow off in their face.

<comment><USER52> _> I don't understand how managers at amazon can believe this is okay_

They probably don't. They have stringent targets for their team to meet in order to get their bonus (or not get promoted over, or not get moved to a worse area, or...). The pressure is passed down the chain.

 _> and that it won't blow off in their face._

Maybe they expect to have moved on before that happens? Or simply feel that have no choice because of that downwards pressure and not being able to afford to risk losing the job (a morally corrupt job pays the mortgage better than no job at all does).

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Obviously, I wouldn't call this slavery. But in terms of the effect on the employees, it's __in some ways__ getting close.

Do we have a word for this type of relationship between worker and company?

There's something wrong when we (at least in the USA) are said to be approaching but workers (albeit in the UK) can't stop to pee. All this at the hands of the richest man in the world?

<comment><USER21> > Do we have a word for this type of relationship between worker and company?

Exploitation of labour. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation_of_labour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation_of_labour)

<comment><USER53> Ok. But that's more or less a verb. How about a noun? Words matter. We need a word.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> That's the future of the low paid work.

US poultry workers wear diapers on job over lack of bathroom breaks – report [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/12/poultry- work...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/12/poultry-workers-wear- diapers-work-bathroom-breaks)

</comment><comment><USER55> It seems they don't allow warehouse workers "degraded mode" with "performance targets based on previous worker performance." If a storage array were rebuilding I think most engineers would cut it some slack.

Not meaning to be flippant but I guess the difference is that with stateless processing you get disposable machines. Reminds me of Moon (film).

</comment><comment><USER56> I stopped buying from Amazon a few years ago, the constant background noise of the way they treat their staff.

When I was young I worked in warehouses and it was hard, tiring work _but_ the management by and large treat you like a human being.

We occasionally use Amazon at work (not my choice) and very often I can get a better price for something from aria, scan or ebuyer anyway.

</comment><comment><USER57> I used to work in a factory floor. Having a job at this factory used to be one of the nice things in the town. For the fear of being driven to work too much, workers refused to increase the thru-put beyond a union limit. They used that as a tool for bargaining for more pay. Observing bathroom breaks became the responsibility of supervisor. There were many missed daily targets, which became a regular discussion point. But in the end the entire thing was pushed too far. This, coupled with the top management inability to run the factory at a reasonably profitable state, finally lead the shut down. Ultimately it ended up hurting the workers more than the top management. Majority of top management found jobs elsewhere, and most of the workers ended up not having any jobs. This story merely reflects the constant struggle we are witnessing for generations.

</comment><comment><USER58> Okay, people here need to get out of their bubbles. This is the same with most warehouse/assembly line jobs.

Folks here are shitting on Amazon because it's relevant to their everyday lives. Walmart does the same stuff. I worked in one of their warehouses, loading trucks for a summer. These situations are not the exception.

</comment><comment><USER59> How does this compare to other warehouse jobs? My impression is that warehouse jobs almost universally suck.

</comment><comment><USER60> Why aren't more people on Amazon's ass for pushing their people so hard? This sounds preventable simply by setting production standards to be in line with the environment provided.

Yes, there are important bits in here about tech. But this sounds like a classic case of management abuse

</comment><comment><USER61> The main issue is with demand-supply difference. There are too many people out there in need of blue collar jobs, and this means companies like Amazon have a chance to push the criteria to get the job much higher, as long as it's legal. This happens in other sectors too. Here in India, there's oversupply of candidates in almost every field, with the exception of those which require highly specialised/costly knowledge(eg: PhD in AI, neurologist), so a lot of companies exploit people by making them work for long hours and at a very low salary.

</comment><comment><USER62> Why dont they just wear Adult Diapers and really improve their productivity?

</comment><comment><USER63> "Changing the world", one bottle at a time...

<comment><USER64> Or maybe it is beta testing of new Amazon SBS aka Simple Bottle Storage®.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Let's say Amazon leadership is appalled at these conditions. Management by metric is working insofar as it goes, but you really didn't know how bad it was several layers down.

How would an organization identify something systemic like this? E.g., identifying that unexpected consequences had popped up and you'd created an environment where people were afraid even to speak up?

</comment><comment><USER66> Perhaps I'm missing something, but why don't Amazon's well-paid office workers (e.g. IT workers) show more solidarity?

</comment><comment><USER67> Here's the largest Nescafe plant in the world, located in Southern Russia.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzxjMxKUvIg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzxjMxKUvIg)

Check out some of the jobs on offer:

18:15 - the coffee tasting job

22:30 - the optical controller job

The latter one is crazy. The video doesn't make it clear why it's not automated.

</comment><comment><USER68> Bezos realistically has about 30 to 40 years to enjoy his position in the world and then will go the way of everyone else. If one believes in karma, in a future life he may yet get to experience the fruits of the world he helped to create.

</comment><comment><USER69> Meanwhile in Jeff Bezos's bank account:

[https://finviz.com/insidertrading.ashx?oc=1043298&tc=7](https://finviz.com/insidertrading.ashx?oc=1043298&tc=7)

</comment><comment><USER70> None of these people work for Amazon. They are all Integrity Staffing employees. It is up to IS to follow federal labor laws and Amazon's hands are "clean".

</comment><comment><USER71> Just one of the reasons I avoid giving Amazon money.

<comment><USER72> I've started cutting my Amazon usage too. It's difficult because I've become dependent but I can cut the delivery part for most products.

<comment><USER71> I pretty much only use Amazon as a fallback, when I need to buy something that I just won't find in any other store, online or brick-and-mortar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> I'm curious to know these workers' next best employment option, the one they're forgoing to work at an Amazon warehouse.

</comment><comment><USER74> Hang on a second. Isn't the magical quality about life, is its ability to adapt?

If the world is becoming full of this kind of job, we need as individuals to reject it, and adapt to other forms of income. Off course, if you let the corporations treat us like this, they will.

And they are not at fault. It is us at fault for accepting it. We must not accept these forms of income. Easier said than done, I know. But, who said it was easy? Its like being in an abusive relationship. If you accept it, it will continue!

<comment><USER75> Of course, it's so easy - there's no apprehension of the fallout from your decisions, no lingering self-doubt, no fear that maybe you contribute to the problem and self-advocacy might amount to petulance, no implicit duress from the question of where your food and shelter will come from.

I guess it might not be a bad metaphor, but I gotta say, your advice seems facile and sort of in poor taste from my point of view.

You're exhorting people to stand up and say 'this is not okay', but that additional burden shouldn't have to be borne solely by the people who are already shouldering the worst of the situation's negative externalities, should it?

<comment><USER74> Please see my reply below.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> I've never heard stories like this, but I have heard stories (there's a distribution center a few miles from where I live) of workers stealing sex toys from bins and using it in the bathrooms at work. This is both sexes.

Amazon treats their floor employees horribly, but (and this is good/bad) are hiring people from low rungs of society, so they probably feel they -can- take advantage of these people. They are sometimes the only job in town.

</comment><comment><USER77> Amazon warehouse workers should consider moving to China and work at the factories where they will be treated better.

</comment><comment><USER78> What do the women warehouse workers do?

</comment><comment><USER79> I have a friend who used to work at a fulfillment center.

In December, she took a week of medical leave. Last month, they _retroactively_ denied her leave and then fired her for having a negative UPT balance. She'd worked there for years.

It's an awful, abusive company, and even though Trump's reasons for going after Amazon are the wrong reasons, I hope he successfully gets them shut down anyway.

<comment><USER80> She wasn't covered by FMLA?

<comment><USER79> I don't know the details.

She also told me that a couple of her other coworkers got fired the same way, and she and a couple of her ex-coworkers were talking about how it's something Amazon does periodically. Apparently that's how they cull people management doesn't like if they don't have a real reason to fire them.

Edit: Here's a writeup by somebody else this almost happened to. [https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home/harassing...](https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home/harassing- the-sick)

Edit again: Another [https://www.reddit.com/r/amazon/comments/5pegzc/amazon_wrong...](https://www.reddit.com/r/amazon/comments/5pegzc/amazon_wrongful_termination_of_employment/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> Did we ever get pass the slave era?

</comment><comment><USER82> I'm curious how far away bathrooms can be and how building codes come into play.

<comment><USER83> They have palette shifting robots running around the warehouse. They should just put a port-a-potty on one and let the workers summon it with a Dash button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Wow, keep this up and soon working for Amazon will be as bad as making iPhones!

</comment><comment><USER85> Do what you gotta do to get ahead, including sleeping on the factory floor.

</comment><comment><USER86> Well I for one am going to stop ordering bottles from Amazon..

</comment><comment><USER87> How similar is an amazon and a factory job from the past?

</comment><comment><USER88> Lol USA 🇺🇸

<comment><USER89> Please don't do this here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> er

</comment><comment><USER90> > Amazon said it didn't time workers' toilet breaks...

That means they set really high targets for middle-managers and then let them get creative with the rules.

> ...and set its performance targets based on previous worker performance.

That means they cherry pick their best performing employees and set global standards based on the top n%.

> The company said it provided coaching to help people improve...

That means they write people up when they can't meet performance standards or quotas.

> ...and used "proper discretion" when it came to sick leave and absences from > work.

And that means they write people up when they don't show up.

> The company also said it provided on-site occupational health and > physiotherapy support...

They do that because real doctors and PCP's are way more costly to the insurance plan.

> as well as legal,...

That's when HR puts together a meeting with a lawyer who tells you quitting is stupid because of the NDA.

> ...financial,...

That's when an employee asks for a raise and HR sends them to a meeting with a financial consultant who tells them "You don't really need a raise, you need a budget!"

> ...and workplace guidance.

That's where they teach you not to drink water so you can meet your quotas.

<comment><USER91> According to Bezos, there are two types of decisions- 1) type 1 - where Bezos does not time workers' toilet breaks, and 2) type 2 - where he lets middle managers to create their own rules. It's always Day 1 :)

<comment><USER92> I'm not sure I understand this comment. Day 1? What are you referencing?

<comment><USER93> It's a Bezos thing. The idea is that every day is "Day 1". Just because you or your company has been around for years and years or that you've hit a major milestone, you can't rest on your laurels. You need to approach every day as "Day 1" with regard to your attitude toward innovation and moving quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> I have a very simple solution for this. Whenever people checkout on Amazon give them an option to tip people in the originating warehouse.

</comment><comment><USER95> We can't. Labor and capital need each other, but they are forever at odds. Good wages and working conditions can only be won through negotiating from strength. Modern America favors capital. Elections have consequences.

<comment><USER96> > Modern America favors capital

The universe favors capital because capital is more mobile than labor.

<comment><USER97> This is changing in the software world.

Software gives "labor" more scalability and leverage than ever before.

<comment><USER95> This is one of the reasons I feel good about contributing to open source. It boosts the prospects of at least some workers, while at the same time offering great value for employers, for industry, and for society at large.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> One company I worked for 10 years ago (as an engineer) had signs up in the call centre telling staff there not to pee in the bins. Apparently this is a common thing in call centres. This is in the UK.

</comment><comment><USER99> You may want to check the seal on your next order of Mountain Dew from Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER100> This is totally normal</comment>


Would the internet be healthier without 'like' counts? (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/internet-healthier-without-like-counts/ <comment><USER2> Addicts never want you to cut their supply off.

Social media is a video game as much as World of Warcraft is. There's no value judgment there; I enjoy video games. I liken it to video games to suggest that perhaps playing video games 5 hours a day constantly isn't healthy, that you probably shouldn't be playing video games while on the clock, that real life usually has a more lasting impact on your well-being than video games, and that, like other addictive behaviors, they often mask a void in a person's life that may be better being addressed directly.

Also, I'm still salty that the general public would've snubbed private Internet use as nerdy in the early 2000s and now has no problem being addicted out in public to the point of awkwardly ignoring real life conversations.

</comment><comment><USER3> As someone who worked at a rather popular social media company through the transition from "we're helping people connect" to "we're making all the money in the world" — not really.

In my opinion, it's not the likes themselves that ruin the internet; the like count is simply the number of people who agree or empathize with something. It's the algorithms that boost content that is likely to get more interactions and demote everything else. When I started, we didn't have much in the way of recommended anything. Your newsfeed was literally a list of posts made by the people and communities you follow, in a reverse chronological order, and nothing else. You had complete control over it. There were likes and reposts, but there was no way for something to be surfaced to a large audience without a bunch of people intentionally sharing it to their followers, retweet-style.

Without the algorithms meddling with what they see, people (usually) don't tend to chase like/share counts as much. There were civil discussions. People were simply talking to their followers by posting things — with no incentive to abandon everything human and become a "blogger". It was beautiful.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes absolutely. People are not able to draw accurate conclusions from the demographic of viewers vs voters to draw meaningful conclusions from like counts. It breeds thoughtless support / activism. "Why learn about a topic of concern when I could just like Sarah's post and everyone will know that I'm down for the cause."

<comment><USER5> Well, except that like counts alone don't make it so that "everyone will know" you support a given comment or cause.

This site, for instance, used to have like counts, but you could not see who liked (or disliked) a given post or comment. You could only see the number.

I personally liked it that way, although I understand why the site admins decided to do away with the visible # of likes for comments.

<comment><USER4> Well you can't tell the number of likes in the positive direction but based on the shade of grey you can tell how negative it is haha

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Healthy way to use social media is to avoid anything that garners likes. Don't post things that are approval or attention seeking. Just use it for exchanging messages with people you know, or asking genuine questions. I stopped posting to my Instagram feed, but I do use Instagram Stories which aren't likeable. Also, stop liking others' stuff. When you avoid the "social currency," you cease to be played and deprive these companies a little of their data feed on you.

</comment><comment><USER7> Yes.

A few years ago I installed a browser extension that removed display of likes from Facebook posts. I could still like things, but when I made a post or a comment I wouldn't be able to know how my friends reacted.

I didn't expect this, but it made me feel way more free when I posted. A lot of my anxiety went away, and I posting or commenting felt more like an act of personal expression rather than a performance that would be judged by my friends. I highly recommend giving it a try if you can.

<comment><USER8> Cool! Maybe HN could add a feature that hides your own like-number (in the top right corner) so that even the last remnants of "gaming" your likability can be eradicated from HN? (at least for those who then do hide their number in their config options) edit: o wait, there's already a discussion about this :)

<comment><USER9> I mostly use the app Materialistic, which does not show vote numbers on your comments. Went through a phase of using the website more (I'd really rather use a pc than phone), but found that the existence of the page that shows your comments (/threads?id=username, I think) warped my behavior in ways I didn't like (compulsively scanning for new replies, thinking about how upvoted different of my posts were. The app has a similar page, but notably it doesn't provide a way to see replies to your comments -- without scores or replies, there's not much incentive to check it. I also enabled email notifications using hnreplies.com, so I wouldn't have to worry about missing replies I might care about, overall it's worked out well and I I'm back to just commenting when I feel like it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yes. Wish there was a way to disable points and karma on HN

<comment><USER11> I'm using the following stylesheet to hide scoring on HN:

        /* Hide score */

        /* Top bar */
        #hnmain>tbody>tr:nth-child(1)>td>table>tbody>tr>td:nth-child(3)>span {
          font-size: 0 !important;
        }

        #hnmain>tbody>tr:nth-child(1)>td>table>tbody>tr>td:nth-child(3)>span * {
          font-size: 10pt !important;
        }

        #hnmain>tbody>tr:nth-child(1)>td>table>tbody>tr>td:nth-child(3)>span>a:nth-child(1) {
          margin-right: 20px !important;
        }

        /* Main page and discussion page */
        #hnmain>tbody td.subtext span.score {
          display: none !important;
        }

        /* Profile page */
        #hnmain>tbody>tr:nth-child(3)>td>form>table>tbody>tr:nth-child(3) {
          display: none !important;
        }

        /* Threads page */
        #hnmain .comhead .score {
          display: none !important;
        }

It's hacky, but I have this since ~5 years and it has been quite stable.

It's not on the chrome store, but I have a dumb browser extension to enable/disable: [https://github.com/dgellow/hn-no- pressure](https://github.com/dgellow/hn-no-pressure).

<comment><USER10> Or you could add a single line to uBlock Origin (in 'my Filters' )

news.ycombinator.com##.score

<comment><USER12> Thanks I'm doing that now, always the person who prefers to spend ma karma instead of hoard it. Bury me deep all you want, got tha fingers in the ears

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a silly exercise in scapegoating really that forgets about some of the downsides of traditional message boards. There the most recent posts were what brought it up by default - no likes required. Of course this isn't a measure of how relevant they are. All of those bits spilled for a stupid persistent idea of "the mirror made us ugly!".

</comment><comment><USER14> The question is not so easy to answer. HN's 'Like' Counts somewhat helps rank content and thus save me time to check out the top stories. It's not bullet proof and many great posts get lost. But it's somewhat of a helpful tool to organise information.

The same goes for Google search results. One could say they are organised by 'likes' (how many pages link to that particular page).

So while on the surface, the gut reaction is YES. Kill the like button. The reality is that it's somewhat of a useful mechanism as well to quickly find what's relevant in the sea of content.

</comment><comment><USER15> "Likes" are just one technique among many for increasing engagement/addiction. The core problem is the ad-based business model, that incentivizes companies to make addictive products.

</comment><comment><USER16> What if the rule was that aggregators could not also be advertising platforms? If you're both linking to stuff and selling attention, it creates tons of perverse incentives, whereas if you're just creating content and selling ads, the incentives were better aligned. Notice that the 20th century saw a big shift to centerist media because that's where the money was, and now we're seeing the opposite.

<comment><USER13> That rule sounds more geared towards punishing "felony interference with a business model" and gatekeeping than anything else. Content is fundamentally valueable because it gets attention in the first place regardless of who pays for it!

<comment><USER16> How can the government pass a law that is a felony?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Yeah, too bad there isn't a website that understand this issue, and has never had like counts, and whose participants largely deride the idea of like counts-and have for a long, long time.</comment>


A port of the GTK+3 Hello World to Bash - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/taviso/ctypes.sh/blob/master/test/gtk.sh <comment><USER2> This seems to basically showcase the ctypes.sh Bash plug-in, which is what is doing the magic calling into a native library. See [https://github.com/taviso/ctypes.sh/wiki](https://github.com/taviso/ctypes.sh/wiki), that was very interesting.

<comment><USER3> Previous discussion on ctypes.sh: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10184940](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10184940)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As someone who has written quite large projects in both C and Bash, I find it amusing that it's now even easier to use two of our biggest footguns together. Still, I can see this being very useful for writing test scripts for libraries.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't know if this is awesome or just sick.

<comment><USER6> Here are the reactions from the parent project's readme: [https://github.com/taviso/ctypes.sh#here-is-what-people- have...](https://github.com/taviso/ctypes.sh#here-is-what-people-have-been- saying-about-ctypessh)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know whether to be delighted or appalled, and I love the brain-twist.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've never heard of ctypes.sh, but it sounds pretty interesting: [https://github.com/taviso/ctypes.sh/wiki](https://github.com/taviso/ctypes.sh/wiki)

</comment><comment><USER9> Whilst it's a fun proof of concept, the real solution would be zenity: [https://help.gnome.org/users/zenity/stable/info.html.en](https://help.gnome.org/users/zenity/stable/info.html.en)

</comment><comment><USER10> I have long been annoyed that this wasn't possible. Seems like you could use this as a kind of "C REPL".

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra Why not use Tk/wish? Result is basically the same but means are much, much more conventional.

</comment><comment><USER11> tightly packed portable version of this code

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

#!/usr/bin/env bash

cat <<EOF | /usr/local/bin/wish

package require Tk

pack [button .b -text {Push Me} -command {

        tk_messageBox -message {hello, world}

}]

EOF

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

Of course doing it directly in Tk Tcl would be even more portable, readable, simple and smarter and easier to deploy/maintain.

And at the opposite of gtk team tk team does not breaks API for the pleasure of being more right than the users.

So it would be a win-win-win situation to use Tk/Tcl instead of gtk3.

<comment><USER12> You can simplify it by starting your program like this:

      #!/bin/sh
      # \
      exec wish "$0" ${1+"$@"}

( You wouldn't need the cat pipe. )

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I hate that something like this is possible.

This gives people who know only bash the ability to create a mess rather than learn a real scripting language like Python.

<comment><USER14> I've tried writing a GTK 3 app in python, it was pretty horrible. The GTK XML format is very annoying to work with, and writing interfaces programmatically requires using an automatically generated C->python API, which has essentially no documentation.

<comment><USER15> I didn't find GTK2 with Glade all that difficult.

But eventually I dropped GTK and switched to Qt. I thought they worked through all the common issues with better solutions.</comment></comment></comment>


Reminder: add an email to your HN profile 'about' - <AUTHOR>

This is just a reminder that your 'email' field isn't visible to anyone but you and moderators. If you want anyone to reach you, add an email or a URL to your 'about' section.<p>What prompted me to post this: yet another mistakenly-[dead] comment, and no way to contact the poster directly. <comment><USER2> HN so badly needs a simple messaging system. The most fundamental missing piece.

<comment><USER3> > HN so badly needs a simple messaging system.

I certainly don't feel that way. I have enough things clamoring for my attention right now; I don't need another. (And I imagine I'm not alone in this.)

So, HN can get a messaging system, I suppose, but it would need to be opt-in.

<comment><USER4> Since you are easily findable, the people who want to message you probably do so already.

A message system would just make it easier for those people who aren't easily findable.

<comment><USER3> Certainly. But let's not forget that there are some people who prefer not to be found.

As far as I'm concerned, HN can include whatever messaging system anyone wants, as long as it is OPT-IN.

<comment><USER4> The only way opt-in might work is if it was a checkbox when registering. If it were hidden in the settings then most people would ignore it rendering it useless.

<comment><USER5> A checkbox during registration wouldn't do anything for current users, though, so it would have to be in the settings page as well. Which wouldn't help with getting lots of people to opt-in, as you point out.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


TU/e vacancies for academic staff exclusively for women for the time being - <AUTHOR> https://www.tue.nl/en/news/news-overview/17-06-2019-tue-vacancies-for-academic-staff-exclusively-for-women-for-the-time-being/ <comment><USER2> Another prime example of people using sexism to battle sexism... It totally makes sense as long as you don't think about it</comment>


Service Fabric Mesh – Serverless Microservices Cluster - <AUTHOR> https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-service-fabric-at-microsoft-build-2018/ <comment><AUTHOR> > Azure Service Fabric Mesh, which offers the same reliability, mission- > critical performance and scale customers get with Service Fabric, but no > more overhead of cluster management and patching operations. Service Fabric > Mesh supports both Windows and Linux containers allowing you to develop with > any programming language and framework of your choice.

> Whether it be modernizing existing workloads or building highly available, > cloud native applications with stateful services, Service Fabric Mesh allows > you to deploy microservices running in containers [...] It also offers > intelligent routing between microservices using Envoy.</comment>


Not your Tibetan Buddhism - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/what-lies-behind-the-simplistic-image-of-the-happy-buddhist <comment><USER2> This is an interesting article because it exposes how little most Westerners know about non-Western thought and history. Most westerners can probably name dozens of western countries that rose and fell, but are unlikely to be able to name more than one or two of the Chinese dynasties.

To provide a parallel to western culture, the view most westerners have of Buddhism is like if Christianity was portrayed purely as a well sanitized Joel Osteen prosperity gospel book, ignoring the entire history of violence in the old testament, the east/west catholic/orthodox split, upturn of the protestant reformation, and all the other "historical nasty bits".

And with Buddhism being offered based on that pop-culture sanitized version, no wonder people are surprised when they dig deeper (as would be the case with any long-standing religion).

<comment><USER3> the funny thing is that this is the way japanese people see Christianity. in most japanese literatute and anime, cristians are always persecuted and pure of hearth and whatnot. oh and also not a male dominated religion at all, they even have women leading mass in some cases.

<comment><USER4> Speaking of Japanese, i ran into a claim some time back that the view of Bushido that we have now is one fabricated by a Japanese writer. That effectively transplanted European chivalry over long after the samurai had turned into career bureaucrats, and was called out on it by his contemporaries.

<comment><USER5> You may be referring to the Tofugu article Bushido: Way of Total Bullshit[0], also discussed on HN two years ago[1].

I don't know why you've been downvoted - your comment brings up a good point, that no culture exists in a vacuum. Japan was being influenced by Western culture even during the Sakoku period when the entire country was locked down, albeit in a very controlled way.

[0][https://www.tofugu.com/japan/bushido/](https://www.tofugu.com/japan/bushido/)

[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11990721](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11990721)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Glad to see this article getting some attention. My university training is in Religious Studies and it became clear pretty quickly that Buddhism suffers just as much as any other religion from the pathologies of global institutions of power.

The one that always gets me, as it's so glaringly obvious, is that Buddhism is so audaciously and unapologetically male-dominated. It just seems embarrassing to me that on the one hand the teachings place so much emphasis on kindness to all living beings, yet none of the major lineages (until recently under Western influence) have female lineage holders - therefore those that are considered worthy enough to pass the teachings on to the next generation.

<comment><USER7> When I became a monk in Burma, sayalays (sort of like female novitiates) in the monastery were expected to show respect to me, even when they had been there for 30 years, and I had only been a monk for two weeks.

A western monk friend and I discussed it a lot, and we concluded that the rules of the sangha (the monastic community) ensured it would be roughly as sexist as the society around it.

See, one of the rules of the vinaya (the ancient monastic code) is that monks are forbidden to grow their own food; all food is a gift from someone. This is an interesting rule, with both good and bad consequences.

The beneficial aspect is that it keeps the sangha tied to the lay community; it prevents Theravadan monks from disappearing into the forest with no ties, and is probably crucial to maintaining the existence of a religious order for over two millennia.

The detrimental aspect is that it punishes sanghas that are too progressive for their community. Every morning, we would walk out at 6:00 for alms. If the townfolk were pissed at us, we'd have starved.

One of the things western buddhist communities have done better is gender- inclusion. In fact, most of my teachers in both zen and theravada have been women.

<comment><USER8> I grew up in Myanmar until 23 and know what you're talking about. Those 'sayalays' follow a less stricter rules/precepts than a fully-ordained monk. That's why they are expected to pay respect to the male monks. Of course, there is no denying that it's a male-dominant religion, but it is no worse than Catholicism. Buddha, according to the Buddhist legends, appointed his step-mom to be in charge of female monks and they have established their own structure, which follows closely to the one established by male monk's structure (but with slightly less strict rules).

As an atheist, I am not going to defend Buddhism (be it Mahayana, Theravada or Tibetan) because they all have major flaws, and aren't very practical--in my opinion--for the modern society. As with most religions, there are good and bad parts in Buddhism and a lot of original teachings by Buddha have been 'tainted' by cultural reasoning (not to mention that even Buddha himself likely got a lot of influence in his philosophy from Hinduism and other mainstream religions in his time). Overall though, I have to say that Buddhism at its core is fairly benign (no eliminate-those-who-don't-believe-in-our- god's-teachings that can be found in old testament or Koran).

<comment><USER9> Interesting comment.

I consider my self an atheist too. I've done some reading on Buddhism (online and offline, and at my local temple) to learn more about it. I found that a secular approach to Buddhism ("Secular Buddhism"?) is what works best for me.

I don't believe in myth or fairy tales. Nor do I believe in sky Gods or the after life. To me Buddhism, when stripped of all of this, becomes The Four Noble Truths, The Eight Fold Path, and meditation. Or put another way: a simple guide to understanding the mind, our attachment to worldly possessions, life, how to do well by others, and so on.

What's your take on this?

<comment><USER10> I was all in on Theravada Buddhism for a while. Until I realized I only believed in a small subset of it - cherry-picking, if you will. Anything that my western sensibilities don't find appealing, like nagas and devas and stuff I just conveniently filtered away.

Cherry picking gets a bad rap in religion as being arbitrary, but in the Kalama Sutta, which to me is an epistemological treatise, Gotama (or some other guru, who really knows?) says:

> "So, as I said, Kalamas: 'Don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by > scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement > through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, "This > contemplative is our teacher." When you know for yourselves that, "These > qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are > praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to > welfare & to happiness" — then you should enter & remain in them.' Thus was > it said. And in reference to this was it said.

Cherry-picking.

<comment><USER8> This! The Kalama Sutta was broadcast on national TV every night (around 8-9pm) when the military junta was in power. It is their way of saying, "Don't believe in what you heard about our evil doings from outsiders--such as the western propaganda". So almost everyone in the country is aware of that. Ironically speaking, that Sutta really became my go-to philosophy for life. Never believing everything taught by anyone/any being UNTIL it fits my experience/goals. That Sutta, if it was really said by Buddha, is one of the most powerful and most empowering statement he made of all his teachings (in my humble opinion).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The way this article talks of Tibetan Buddhism without comparing it or contrasting the teachings in it to the Theravada school of Buddhism practiced in Thailand and Myanmar is very disappointing. It is painting another wrong image of Buddhism as a whole.

It is almost like if someone never knew what Christianity was about and after learning about a sect (church) with strange practices proceeds to write an article talking about it using the name of the church interchangeably with Christianity as a whole- to a group that knows nothing about Christianity.

This is especially disappointing because the Theravada school is the school that emphasizes philosophy more than rituals (other than meditating) and is thus actually closer to the Western idea - even though it is not exactly the same, because again Westerners including the author of this article mostly know nothing about Buddhism.

The result is this articlle paints a picture that Buddhism as a whole isn't really worth learning about.

Yes the author says he is talking about 'Tibetan Buddhism' but he doesn't inform the reader of other schools of Buddhism that may be more interesting to learn about and that don't have an emphasis on tantric rituals and mysticism that he is complaining about.

</comment><comment><USER12> "Buddhist-based mindfulness practices are used to teach dissatisfied cogs in corporate systems to suck it up"

Mindfulness practice like everything else is much more complicated. It is more than a management tool for complacency. There are times when you have to really just have to suck it up and times when you don't. The overall goal is to stop torturing yourself about things you cannot control even if you are trapped with no options. The more you peer through delusion the less you need to suck it up. You might even start to see new possibilities where none were apparent.

<comment><USER13> There is a big difference between an individual using it as a tool to cope with the difficulties of corporate life and a business using it to try and improve their bottom line.

<comment><USER14> How do you differentiate between a business using it to "improve their bottom line" vs a business that is trying to provide their employees with some increased life quality? Is everything a business does evil just because they are a business?

<comment><USER13> _Is everything a business does evil just because they are a business?_

If a business really wanted to deal with the excess stress in their organisation then they would start with the causes rather than trying to treat the symptoms.

<comment><USER14> As someone who has done extensive mindfulness training and recommends it to others, I would actually argue that lack of mindfulness, of other emotional and psychological skills is the source of the problem many times. If you look at foxconn or some other slave-ish companies in China then yes, perhaps conditions are really harsh. But for most western companies it is not the case. People are not stressed because the life is somehow very complicated - they are stressed because in our culture they are not given proper tools in the childhood: very few families have this in their ethos, and public education is completely lacking in this regard.

<comment><USER13> I don't think so, that sounds like blaming the victim, it's more to do with long work hours, office politics, poor workstation ergonomics, open plan offices, dysfunctional management, long commutes, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This article is, from what I can tell, genuinely well informed.

Throughout the last few years I've read around 8 books on Buddhism, Meditation as a practice, and Zen Buddhism. And some of the differences that popped up were bizarre to me. Incredibly so in the Tibetan side of the literature. Even more so because I started with a very westernized view: The Zen Programmer.

It took me over a year of some non-focused research to get a general idea of what was going on, and I feel this article actually summarizes, and ties it together pretty well. It is fairly simplistic of course, but you can't go too in depth in a handful of pages.

I do feel they explained the situation more eloquently than I would have.

</comment><comment><USER16> In Chinese internet pop culture, Tibetan Buddhism == 密宗 == having sex with your master.

<comment><USER17> Wouldn't be surprised if it's scandal filled like the Catholic church. When you combine mysticism and people in position of absolute spiritual leadership and people who willingly believe it, you get some interesting relationships...

<comment><USER6> It very much is scandal-filled. Just take the recent coming to light of Sogyal Rinpoche's abuses of power: [https://www.lionsroar.com/letter-to-sogyal- rinpoche-from-cur...](https://www.lionsroar.com/letter-to-sogyal-rinpoche- from-current-and-ex-rigpa-members-details-abuse-allegations/)

Not to mention the extraordinary mess that was Chögyam Trungpa.

<comment><USER18> I enjoyed reading Lions' Roar until Trump won the election.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I fail to see the conclusion of the article. Yes, Buddhism is much more than most people think. Yes, it's much different than most people think. Nevertheless, if someone gets interested in it, they should do some background research - and very often do. After that, when you deepen your knowledge, you naturally learn much more about the history and culture. In the case of Tibetan Buddhism, it's also a bloody and unpleasant story, with all kinds of degeneration, also of religious nature. It would be naive to expect that one religion would be magically devoid of these.

For example, the famous yogi Drukpa Kunley sings about nuns who have sex, and then, ashamed, bury their newborn so that the walls of the monastery are filled with their corpses. Similar things were happening everywhere. Nevertheless, this has nothing to do with the essence of the religion, which in the case of Tibetan Buddhism is Dzogchen and Mahamudra, and which can be practiced without any monasteries, complex rituals, and other elements of Tibetan culture.

</comment><comment><USER20> Anyone who lives near mountains long enough understands cabin fever. Is it any wonder the humans that live in the Himalayas experience cabin fever to a greater extent?

Stoicism, or Buddhism, in my view, is simply the most efficient ideology for surviving in dangerous environments.

<comment><USER21> Can you explain what you mean by cabin fever? Is it just boredom with being inside? And if so, how does it relate to being near the mountains?

<comment><USER20> Just watch The Shining. All work and no play made Jack a dull boy. All play and no work is just as bad.

Cabin fever is extreme introversion, to the point that you have cut off social contact with most people for an extended period of time. You effectively create an echo chamber of one.

I have found it to be prevalent in areas of rugged natural beauty, such as mountainous regions. As an introvert, one can fill all of their free time exploring this paradise forever.

But as you get better at seeking out more rugged and wild adventures, it almost serves as a positive feedback loop for your introversion. Thus, when you are in a stressful situation, the escape hatch is to get out in nature away from all those pesky humans.

The "logical" conclusion is that you should just buy a cabin in the woods. Then you don't have to deal with any people, and your already in your comfort zone 24/7.

The downside of all of that is you eventually become singularly focused on whatever your echo chamber has reinforced. And when you live among mountains, without focussing on all of the immediate danger that constantly surrounds you, that danger has extreme consequences.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Good to see such articles from western writers, as the same content from anyone with a Chinese heritage would be easily labeled government sponsored propaganda (most of it is, but that's not the reason to dispute their validity).

</comment><comment><USER23> This is very similar to what happens to Daoism. You have this rich esoteric tradition, a monastic and religious tradition, and people in the west labeling it a philosophy. Since I practice esoteric Daoist meditation I'm interested in other traditions. I've heard cool things about Tibetan Buddhist practices, but as the article said, it's really difficult to find the esoteric stuff in English.

</comment><comment><USER24> Hitchens has a section on Buddhism in God is Not Great[1] wherein he discusses some violent atrocities in which Eastern Buddhism has taken part (Japanese Buddhism during WWII, for example), as well as the malevolent sex acts forced upon female practitioners.

Worth a read.

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

</comment><comment><USER25> I've always wondered why abrahmaic religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) never question why they came after Eastern religions (Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Jainism)

<comment><USER26> Buddhism is more recent than Judaism though and Sikhism is a lot more recent than Judaism, Christianity or Islam.

Other than that, probably for the same reason Hindus don't question why Hinduism came after tribal shaman religions.

Because in the believers mind maybe age doesn't matter and if it does, it's simply that people were foolish before religion X appeared.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> also see the chapter on the dalai lama in 'stripping the gurus' by geoffrey d. falk for that other side of buddhism [http://www.strippingthegurus.com/stgsamplechapters/dalai.htm...](http://www.strippingthegurus.com/stgsamplechapters/dalai.html)

</comment><comment><USER28> Buddhism originated from a man sitting very still under a tree for a while.

The core issue I think this article ignores, is a Western buddhist's need to identify their spiritual life with a specific geographic region across the globe. The goal of Buddhism is not to create an alliance to eventually rule the world and compete with evil Western forces, but to develop a way of life through personal enlightenment that allows a better world to emerge.

These constructs in between us and enlightement only have life because of the energy we give to them. When the Dalai Lama talks about ways of finding personal peace, that's because it's the key point that you need before you can even know if your calling is to put your energy toward saving the Tibetan Buddhists.

<comment><USER16> > Buddhism originated from a man sitting very still under a tree for a while.

Buddhism originated from a wealthy prince, who enjoyed every aspect of upper- most human life, began to ponder why there miseries exists among humans.

<comment><USER29> And then he spent the next decade studying with every philosopher he could find, from theists, atheists, agnostics to materialists and then finally decided to figure things out on his own. Only during the last period before his enlightenment did he sit under a tree. His meditations would not have borne fruit without all the experiences that preceded it. Source: raised as a Buddhist.

<comment><USER30> I second this.

And let's not forget he pursued ascetic practices for six years and nearly starved to death[1], _then_ he sat under a tree with a very particular goal in mind.

[1] He would later characterise these practices as a false path.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I hate how westerners view Religion. "Oh, Buddhism is a thing of peace an enlightenment, as opposed to Christianity, which a vicious God condemns people to hell." Never mind the fact that Buddhism has multiple hells whether its Chinese or Japanese (possibly in the hundreds where the tortures to people are all described in glowing detail.) We're talking about the faith that gave us Sokishinbutsu, self-mummification while alive.

Most folk Taoist and Buddhist beliefs would probably horrify people who tend to think New Age bowdlerization of eastern faiths is what really goes on.

<comment><USER32> The "facebook motivational quote" approach to spirituality is naive and romanticized as many other topics.

You are vastly generalizing "how westerners view Religion" while, at the same time, cherry-picking and oversimplifying facts about Buddhism.</comment></comment>


WiFi Protected Setup (WPS) PIN Brute Force Vulnerability - i-hacker http://blog.insecure.in/?p=1059

<comment><AUTHOR> Actual paper[1] from the author's blog post[2].

[1]: <http://sviehb.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/viehboeck_wps.pdf>

[2]: [https://sviehb.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/wi-fi-protected- setu...](https://sviehb.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/wi-fi-protected-setup-pin- brute-force-vulnerability/)

<comment><USER2> And previously discussed already here (albeit with a ~misleading~ title):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3401888>

<comment><USER3> A problem is that it might not be possible to disable WPS on some routers yet, for example Linksys routers: [http://superuser.com/questions/374624/how-do-i- configure-my-...](http://superuser.com/questions/374624/how-do-i-configure-my- linksys-routers-to-resist-the-wps-brute-force-vulnerabilit)

Anyone from Cisco know? Or have the equipment/effort able to verify this claim: _That "Manual" switch only affects the GUI, if you look at the beacon (with some WiFi Analyzer) you will notice that WPS is still enabled._</comment></comment></comment>


Coronavirus and the World Bank's Catastrophe Bonds - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/3935ab5f-c6d2-4a91-ab98-f04b0a75da31 <comment><USER2> the link seems to be behind a paywall..</comment>


Majority of Google devs using VS Code? - <AUTHOR> https://www.geekwire.com/2019/microsoft-declines-back-cmos-statement-majority-google-developers-using-visual-studio-code/ <comment><USER2> Worked like a charm...

1\. make exaggerated claim about biggest competitor using one of your products.

2\. release article highlighting actual facts which are interesting but not newsworthy.

3\. then let everyone talk about it while still pointing out very positive results.</comment>


Lenovo BIOS Simulator - <AUTHOR> https://download.lenovo.com/bsco/index.html <comment><USER2> I realize this just the photos from the associated manuals merged into a basic website, but damned if it isn't cool.

I feel reassured when the people who were responsible for my computer's creation aren't doing their very best to hide the fact that what they sold me was, in fact, a computer.

I get machines are now marketed as lifestyle accessories, but they can also, unapologetically, be computers. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

<comment><USER3> Are you sure? The date/time was live for me.

Edit: Looked at the network requests, it's not images. It's returning config files with the information to emulate it. [https://download.lenovo.com/bsco/schemas/ThinkPad%20X1%20Car...](https://download.lenovo.com/bsco/schemas/ThinkPad%20X1%20Carbon\(20FC%2020FB\).ini?_=1562364164341)

<comment><USER2> Good Catch! I was being overly reductive! I should have said:

I realize this is a rather shallow simulator working more closely on the with the view layer than the underlying model/hardware, but...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Almost 20 years ago I would use chasms.com, which had similar click-through screens for Windows. It was hugely helpful in being able to see the various dial-up Internet configuration screens when I worked part-time on an ISP help desk.

The site is still there and still being updated! The oldest example is now [https://www.chasms.com/winxp/desktop.htm#](https://www.chasms.com/winxp/desktop.htm#)

<comment><USER5> Wow, this is great! I don't do a lot of remote support, aside from immediate family, but I don't remember settings by name -- especially for an older OS I no longer use -- so this is a great resource.

So often I've had a frustrating conversation like "Okay, do you see something that says 'wifi' or 'ethernet'? Hm, ok, no go back.. is there another button that says 'Network' or 'Adapter settings' or something like that on the screen?".

I like that Lenovo has this resource too (and exposes it publicly), and really every manufacturer should, but I honestly can't think of a time I've ever had to remotely fix a system by changing something in BIOS. It's pretty rare to change a setting there in the first place, aside from when you're doing the initial build or major hardware changes. If you were providing remote support to the people doing the hardware changes, though, this would be invaluable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is cool. Seems odd that it starts with the X230/T430 generation though.

The 220's are still very popular especially with the crowd that would find this interesting or useful.

<comment><USER7> I imagine this is intended for support personnel to guide users over the phone through bios changes. So there would be no need to provide models out of warranty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I used to work phone support for Dell and we had tools similar to this to help troubleshoot over the phone without having access to the exact hardware the customer had.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't understand what is interesting about this, but if you find this sort of thing interesting, perhaps you would also enjoy the router admin interface emulators of TP-Link: [https://emulator.tp- link.com/VR600v2/index.htm](https://emulator.tp-link.com/VR600v2/index.htm)

<comment><USER10> > I don't understand what is interesting about this

Maybe you've never done remote support with an individual who is not particularly skilled with computers, but as someone who has, this is exactly the kind of tool you'd want at your disposal.

> perhaps you would also enjoy the router admin interface emulators of TP-Link

Yes!

<comment><USER9> > Maybe you've never done remote support

Oh sure, it's great that it exists and I would like to have these for Windows or MS Office (most family questions are about that), but I don't particularly care to browse through a random BIOS/router/Windows interface just for the heck of it.

<comment><USER11> One of the reason these are more valuable than one for Window or Office is 90% of the time once you are in windows you can just use a Remote Support tool to remote into the system

Attempting remote support that requires BIOS or Router changes is much easier if you can tell the person, exactly, what the click word for word, or even provide screenshots with instructions in say a manual... Getting them can be harder tools like this help alot

I have used things like this when development instructional material for new Technicians or as reference for people that many not work with those systems every day...

Just as an example

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Would be even more mind-blowing if it ran real BIOS code on js x86 emulator.

<comment><USER13> The problem with that would be emulating all the embedded controllers and other hardware associated with the various bios menu entries. What would be cool is if the bios interface was coded using a certain menu rendering system that could be replicated in JS and all you would need is a BIOS dump of certain structures which would then render the appropriate menu without having to run the code associated with the underlying choices. Shouldn't be that hard to do. I believe that's sort of how it alrwady works. It would be nice to see it happen though.

<comment><USER14> Most of the junk in BIOS settings doesn't actually talk to the hardware. It just stores flags that other layers of the firmware read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> That's cool, but I really wish it had a search feature. Like start typing in a name of a setting, immediately get a suggestion list, select a specific one from it and see where exactly in the menu hierarchy it is.

</comment><comment> a-ve Seems like you can "Permanently Disable" ME using their BIOS on Thinkpads.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it just disables the management feature, the ME itself is always active to an extent. BTW, don't forget to also disable Computrace.

<comment><USER16> I haven't done any reading into this but as far as I know on the used Thinkpad I have Computrace is "available" but hasn't been connected to any sort of third-party tracking service.

Should I disable this forever? Is Computrace tracking me even with the service not connected to anything?

<comment><AUTHOR> The main concern here is not "Computrace is tracking you", but "Computrace may be exploited". Basically, if Computraced is activated, it will actively attempt to inject its payload into Windows via BIOS to achieve persistence even after an OS reinstallation - like a rootkit. If a vulnerability allows an attacker to somehow control this process, nobody knows how far the attacker can go...

* Deactivate the Rootkit: Attacks on BIOS anti-theft technologies

[https://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh- usa-09/ORTEGA/BHUS...](https://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh- usa-09/ORTEGA/BHUSA09-Ortega-DeactivateRootkit-PAPER.pdf)

* Stuff just got real - First Computraced-based UEFI rootkit

[https://tcsltesting.blogspot.com/2018/09/stuff-just-got- real...](https://tcsltesting.blogspot.com/2018/09/stuff-just-got-real.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just a note, it doesn't seem to have all the latest updates, since those can sometimes change what's on the setup screen.

</comment><comment><USER18> Missing the Thinkpad X20 and probably others.

</comment><comment><USER19> But why?

<comment><USER20> When you have remote hands and need to tell, over the phone, what to edit in BIOS of a specific Lenovo PC?</comment></comment>


Synthetic spider silk could revolutionize clothing - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/708298/synthetic-spider-silk-could-be-the-biggest-technological-advance-in-clothing-since-nylon/ <comment><USER2> I was wondering if this was an older article but apparently it is recent (2016). Synthetic spider silk has been on the cusp of revolutionizing "stuff" (clothing, tethers, ballistic vests, etc.) since at least 2010. So far the secrets of mass production have eluded people, and bespoke production is waaaay too expensive for anything except science experiments. The $750+ "moon parka" is a good example of an impractical piece of clothing.

That said, once the necessary techniques _are_ learned it opens up some interesting things. But it could put a lot of sheep out of business.</comment>


Judicial Watch Finds Millions of Extra Voters on Voting Rolls in Multiple States - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dMs_HBX0_w& <comment><USER2> [https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/judicial- watch/](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/judicial-watch/)</comment>


Russia Targets Dissenters–Right in Their Bank Accounts - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-targets-dissentersright-in-their-bank-accounts-11573041600?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> Russia bad.</comment>


Ask HN: I'm selling some simple .com domains - add yours too - <AUTHOR>

In my spare time I write naming reports/analysis and help people find decent .com domains for their side projects within a small budget. I would like to expand this and see if there is a bigger market for memorable short domains + simple branding put together for a reasonable price and a straight forward transaction.
I find it frustrating when you find a domain you want but the owner is unresponsive or asks for an overwhelming price.
I always have a project in mind for each domain I buy and know I will put them to use in the future. If someone can put them to use sooner, then even better!
Here's a few domains I have for sale :-
OrderCab.com
PowCall.com
FloClick.com
EarnFan.com
FlyWoo.com
WalletGeek.com
AthleticEats.com
Brightype.com
Feel free to list any domains you'd like to re-home too and hopefully some side projects will get a great name!
My email is my username at gmail if any are of interest. <comment><USER2> Bustedhearts.com if anyone wants it :)</comment>