An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Amazon's warehouse working conditions, which have come under increased scrutiny in recent years, are now at the heart of a congressional probe being led by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. In a letter (PDF) to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, Sanders, who chairs the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, said the e-retailer's "quest for profits at all costs" has caused warehouse employees to experience unsafe working environments without access to adequate medical attention.

"Amazon is well aware of these dangerous conditions, the life-altering consequences for workers injured on the job, and the steps the company could take to reduce the significant risks of injury," wrote Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democratic party. "Yet the company has made a calculated decision not to implement adequate worker protections because Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder, and you, his successor as Chief Executive Officer, have created a corporate culture that treats workers as disposable."

Sanders called on Jassy to turn over more information related to Amazon's injury and turnover rates, as well as data on its on-site medical clinic, called AMCARE, dating back to 2019. He also asked Jassy to say whether Amazon has, internally or through a third party, examined "the connection between the pace of work of its warehouse workers and the prevalence or cost of injuries at its warehouses." Sanders said Jassy has until July 5 to respond to the inquiry. The HELP committee posted a form on its website seeking testimonials from current and former Amazon employees about their experiences at the company. An Amazon spokesperson said the company strongly disagrees with Sanders' claims in the letter. "There will always be ways for our critics to splice data to suit their narrative, but the fact is, we've made progress and our numbers clearly show it," said the spokesperson.

You asked Daniel Knight, director of the crowd-funded filmed version of Terry Pratchett's Troll Bridge, about cameras, Kickstarter, and his source material. Daniel's answered now with details on the process of filming, why they selected Troll Bridge, and his favorite He-Man figurines. Read on below!

BioShock, the moody drama-driven FPS for the Xbox 360 and PC, was released last month to rave reviews from the major gaming news sites. Since then the internet has been ablaze with outcry about the game's high rating scores. It's hard to understand why. The work of Ken Levine and Irrational Games on the spiritual successor to System Shock 2 is sublime. It's incredibly atmospheric, the game's story is well written and compellingly told, and the first-person shooter gameplay is a respectable, tightly crafted experience. It's a really, really good game. I'll tell you now: it's a 5/5. So why all the angst? Why the backlash? Read on for my review of BioShock, and a few comments on the dangers of 'merely' being a good game.

Late last month we asked you for questions to pass on to the Civ IV team. Last week we posted the responses from game designer Sid Meier to your questions about his design philosophy. Well, this week Civilization IV has shipped, and we have responses from lead designer Soren Johnson for the Civilization development team over at Firaxis Studios. He has some thoughtful answers to your questions, and they're well worth taking a look at. Many thanks to Mr. Meier, Mr. Johnson, and the entire Civ IV team for accommodating us. Read on for the responses to your queries.

Some legal issues, some technical issues, a little personal insight... This is what Professor Felten gives us here. Some excellent questions rose to the top in this interview, and the answers are similarly thoughtful. Major thanks go out to Professor Felten, also to the many Slashdot people who submitted great questions!

David Weinberger, one of the co-authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual, is one of many celebrated practitioners of what loosely came to be known as cybertheory. The Manifesto began with the memorable phrase "People of Earth" and was "aimed squarely at the solar plexus of corporate America," one reviewer alleged. (You remember those days. Everything about the Net was aimed at the solar plexus of one thing or another). The book purported to show how the Internet was turning business upside down. But that, of course, was then, and this is now. Nobody seems to have noticed that if anything has been turned upside down, it's the Net. Weinberger has struck again in his new book Small Pieces Loosely Joined , (Perseus) a "unified theory of the Web." This time, the Web is changing life itself. Is he on the same Web? Mostly, what this book suggests is the end of CyberBS. And good riddance.

How will the new President affect the tech universe? In short: Fat times in the Corporate Republic, and possible abandonment of the Microsoft prosecution. Big media, telcom and chip-maker CEO's: go out and play, boys. The feds may go after "hackers" again, as Bush I did. Digital civil liberties issues will heat up as the Net Culture Wars return with a vengeance. Scientific research and politics will mix, as with RU-486 and some gene mapping issues. Open, de-centralized, bottom-up Net media will mushroom. Good times for tech defense workers and the makers of blocking software. Jump in with your own predictions.

Chris Johnson writes: "When you think about PalmPilots or the new crop of wearable computers or, perhaps, even computers themselves, you could sum it up with a single nonword - Borgification. By this, I refer to the way computers can extend a person's abilities, in the same way that wearing clothing can extend a person's ability to survive hostile climates, or standing on ladders can extend a person's ability to reach high-up things. This is a central theme of computer use, and the development of GUI speaks eloquently toward how far a computer's interactions can be bent to make them look like human interactions." Keep reading (below). Chris has lots more to say, and it's all good. He'll get you thinking, whether you agree with him or not.

I made it to the summit, but not the peak. The good news -- I wrote on Linux, saw the Sacred Kernel, browsed the terminal logs, did some hacking, even played Asteroids. But I have been (temporarily, I hope) undone by a PPP Daemon that quit and ran. I think I'm hooked.

Digital Democracy isn't the same thing as Direct Democracy. Friday's column on the former provoked a brainy and high-minded outpouring of e-mail worthy of the dinner table arguments of the Founders themelves. Lots of people loved the idea, many fear it, and confused it with the chaos of what they called Direct Democracy. But it ain't the same thing. The Morning After the nightmare in Washington, Digital Democracy is clearly an idea whose time has came, a healthy and inevitable part of the revolutionary decentalization of at least some power already underway on the Net and Web, and for that matter, sites like this. And Digital Democracy has already arrived. Here's some of the response and some more arguments.