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The cost of hybrids and Diesel vehicles is a perfect example of this. I have a TDI and I'm an active member at Fred's TDI Club

People are buying TDIs on ebay for $3-4k more than a comparative gasser. It's absolutely ridiculous. All they see is "45-50 MPG" and that's all they can think about.

I bought my 1998 Jetta in 2003 with 60k on the clock for $5500. I could sell my car (now with 150k) for $7-8k on eBay. What car appreciates that much in 4 years?

But if you do the math, 60 miles a day, you're saving maybe $4 / week (assuming the 2.0L 1998 Jetta gets 30 MPG). This means that your break even point is in the 1,000 week range.

Case and Point: 1990 Jetta Diesel. 290k miles. 17 years old. A comparative gasser may fetch $1000-$2000. It's just plain stupid.

here are some for a lot less and some vintage too. http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?satitle=a rcade+machine&fcl=3&fcol=ship-off&fsop=3&fsoo=2&fr pp=100/

I'll make this very clear for you:

Condensed matter physics > cleaning boogers off a diesel engine. Sorry. What you do doesn't even come close. Don't you remember getting hopelessly lost, trying to find the condensed matter physics room in your ITT tech campus? :)

"I AM a women and I could probably solve more math and physics problems in an evening that you could in a month."

First point: Whooptie F'ing doo! So you're a woman.
Second point: No doubt, as you're likely educated in that field. I'd like to see you strip, clean, rebuild, and calibrate (mechanical, electrical, and thermal) an analytical prober that's been EOL'd for 5 years (damn I want new equipment). I bet I could do in a day what would take you a month! (only link I could find with pics, not much demand for old crap and if you actually want one you already know what it looks like)

It's all about what you're trained for.
Sorry for the rant, but I work with some brilliant women (and a fair share of block heads as well). If you're that bitter, maybe a more open company would be a good move?
-nB

• I can make my own 16gb solid-state IDE disk for only $150 (and 32gb CF cards are coming out in a few months).
  
• Does the $300 Transcend solid-state disk include any additional caching features or other speed-up? (the web site doesn't say: http://www.transcendusa.com/Products/ModDetail.asp ?ModNo=164&SpNo=3&LangNo=0)
  
• Are the 32gb disks anything more than just a little RAID0 chip with two 16gb CF cards attached?
  

If this person keep stonewalling he or she's not willing to pay more.

Close -- they're not willing to pay more if they don't have to. That doesn't mean they wouldn't pay more if necessary to beat another determined buyer.

It's unfair when someone bids the highest but doesn't pay what they bid.

No, it's not. It seems to me that you think so because, in your mind, a "bid" is defined as "the amount the person should pay if they win". Yes, by that definition, of course they should. But only because that is how it was defined in the first place.

Why in the world would anyone say what their maximum bid is? And why would eBay ask for it, if eBay does?

eBay does indeed ask for it. Essentially, eBay is trying to give the advantages of typical auctions (such as the top bidder only having to out-compete the second-highest bidder to win) without requiring the bidder to monitor the auction and keep bidding over and over. Read about it here. You'll notice that things work exactly as I have described in my two examples so far. The terminology here might be useful for us to come to an understanding -- you enter your "maximum bid", and eBay enters real bids on your behalf. That way, you pay what you bid, as you insist should be the case -- but yet the winner still only has to pay at most 1 increment higher than the second-highest bidder, as I have insisted is fair.

As I wrote above, under a system the winning bidder only pays the second highest amount there is an extreme reason to bid higher than you can pay, by bidding higher you shutdown bidding.

No, there is not. With eBay, if the starting bid was $100, and someone else has bid $101, and I then enter my maximum bid as $11,000, it won't display $11,000 as my real bid. It will enter a "real" bid of $102. If someone else then enters a maximum bid of $200, eBay would enter a bid for me of $201. And so on. So it does not shut down the bidding in any way. If you entered $11,000, and someone else has the same "bright" idea and enters $10,000, then you will automatically bid up to $10,001 (or some other increment -- I think the increment is dependent on the current high bid) and you'll have to pay $10,001. So, just as you have said, do not bid more than you are willing to pay!

The same thing happens with the auction type described earlier, for a different reason -- it is a secret auction. So, if you bid $11,000, no one else will know what you've bid, and they'll keep on bidding. If someone else bids $10,000 before it's over, and that's the second-highest bid, you'll have to pay $10,000. Again, do not bid more than you are willing to pay! This auction type is trying to achieve similar results to eBay, but without some of the problems eBay has due to open bidding. One example is called "shill bidding", a form of cheating sellers sometimes employ; another is the fact that people often get so emotionally involved in "winning" the auction that they wind up bidding an amount they later regret. With eBay's "maximum bid" system (if people used it correctly) or this other system's secret bidding (which is really the same thing as eBay's system, except secret), buyers won't be driven to bid higher by emotion, and thus the final price is more likely to be a good estimate of the market value.

If you still think it would be a good idea to bid an outrageously high amount, read some of the other comments. There are a lot that explain why it is a horrible idea.

I can't buy a modded Xbox in U.S. retail stores or on eBay; where else should I buy a modded Xbox?

Cottage industry made america great. There are ads in small papers and on bulletin boards across America advertising modded Xboxes and Xbox modding. Or, you could mod your own, let us continue.

If you mean that I should learn to mod one myself, can version 1.6 be modded without soldering? Does your "no cheaper way" estimate include training for somebody who has never soldered before? And I still can't buy modchips in U.S. retail stores or on eBay for the same reason as above.

No, but modchips can be had easily enough; if you're willing to use ebay then why not another online service? Get a temporary CC number and go to town. You CAN buy them in retail stores in the US, but only small shops that probably won't exist in a year or two, and typically only in cities.

Does your "no cheaper way" estimate include the potential $750 to $30,000 statutory damages (per 17 USC 504 and foreign counterparts) for infringement of the copyright in the Xbox BIOS and/or the XDK libraries against which XBMC and most of these emulators are compiled?

It is possible to come up with a Linux-based solution (using cromwell BIOS) which does not involve the use of a hacked-up Xbox BIOS. So if you are truly worried about this, then you do have the option of a free solution. There are XBMC-like applications which will run on Linux. Though, I do admit, the value of the Xbox is diminished while not running its native OS. It's a little light on RAM.

Per several comments in other console vs. PC discussions on Slashdot, isn't television output overrated? Isn't it "better" to buy one set of PC, monitor, keyboard, and mouse per person and play multiplayer games over the LAN, because that way each player has a hundred triggers for discrete actions and can't easily cheat off other players' screens?

Console gaming does not necessarily replace PC gaming. They are suited to different situations and purposes. Heck, in certain environments there's no room for a large output device and they're practically the only thing available. (Most console games these days are inscrutable on a 13" television. No Atari-sized pixels.)

Also, the purpose of the device is not just to play games, but also to watch movies. I still use my PSTwo for a DVD player sometimes (it boots marginally faster than the Xbox) so it's not just the Xbox to which this argument applies.

"Screen cheating" is simply another game mechanic. Besides, in the really real world you have a level of situational awareness which cannot be provided by a TV screen; peripheral vision, highly directional hearing, etc etc. A little more information on what your opponents doing might be considered to help make up for that lack.

Finally, console gaming does not actually preclude network gaming; while almost no one ever got groups of consoles together to play games until recently, even though a number of older games permitted it (I've done it with Wipeout XL on PS1 for example) the feature is available in some cases.

And, let me remind you, you can run Linux on the Xbox.

Yeah, as a server: "A 1.6 Xbox (softmodded) is known to not work with 2.6 kernels, the screen will lock or the tv will lose video sync." But then you lose the TV output advantage of the Xbox chipset, and you might as well use an old paid-for PC.

Who says you have to use a 2.6 kernel? 2.4 is still quite viable and perhaps bet

"Who said anything about TV?" -- Smug PC weenies

I agree with you that a set-top box should be the best solution for some entertainment environments. But unfortunately, all stand-alone set-top boxes that are significantly cheaper than a Mac mini are thoroughly Tivoized. I want to help us come up with some ammunition against smug PC weenies who almost unconditionally prefer the 2-foot experience over the 10-foot experience, so here are four of their objections in increasing order of devil's advocacy:

1. I can't buy a modded Xbox in U.S. retail stores or on eBay; where else should I buy a modded Xbox?
2. If you mean that I should learn to mod one myself, can version 1.6 be modded without soldering? Does your "no cheaper way" estimate include training for somebody who has never soldered before? And I still can't buy modchips in U.S. retail stores or on eBay for the same reason as above.
3. Does your "no cheaper way" estimate include the potential $750 to $30,000 statutory damages (per 17 USC 504 and foreign counterparts) for infringement of the copyright in the Xbox BIOS and/or the XDK libraries against which XBMC and most of these emulators are compiled?
4. Per several comments in other console vs. PC discussions on Slashdot, isn't television output overrated? Isn't it "better" to buy one set of PC, monitor, keyboard, and mouse per person and play multiplayer games over the LAN, because that way each player has a hundred triggers for discrete actions and can't easily cheat off other players' screens?

As of this posting, it's gone, presumably for this reason.

The link no longer works and I find one available for sale Buy it now for $50,000, but no pics.

However, there's a lot that don't, and even when they do have component cables, they're located in the back of the TV and hooked up to the DVD player.

If you have a spare component in on the TV (far from guaranteed) wouldn't you hook the cable up to the TV and then leave it tucked behind somewhere until you wanted to pull it out and play the PSP?

On the other hand if you only have one component in (much more likely) and you are a gamer you already have a $20 component switchbox with easily accessible inputs for DVD + at least one system. This will work in the first case too if you have a desire to frequently remote the PSP cable.

Probably the best phone I ever had. It's several years old now but I found this on eBay though price seems a bit high for such an old device.
    http://cgi.ebay.com/Unlocked-Nokia-6100-Tri-Band-G SM-Mobile-Phone_W0QQitemZ160139013240QQihZ006QQcat egoryZ64355QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I loved that phone and would still use one if I didn't need a Smartphone to keep track of my contacts and schedule (I got tired of carrying two devices around everyplace). The 6100 has the best interface, it's small and reception/voice quality was good. I charged it every night out of force-of-habit so I don't know the battery life. It's a great phone.

> Do you know were I can pick up a Cray for the house?
Sure, try eBay.
> And while you're out shopping, can you pick up a connection machine as well?
That will be harder. :-)

> Do you know were I can pick up a Cray for the house?
Sure, try eBay.
> And while you're out shopping, can you pick up a connection machine as well?
That will be harder. :-)

You'll have to snort instead of shooting up, but this might help. And it comes with a free blender.

And pranking my boss. He'll be very sad when he discovers we sold his mouse pad. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1 &item=110148680540&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=001

He probably picked a couple up off eBay for two grand; that he's willing to blow half that on a 10-second video clip testifies to how much more he's getting in return.

1 minute 37 seconds to be precise :)

And I'm sure he made that back in advertisements (i.e. blender sales -- there were no ads on the page); plus, the eBay he mentioned at the end is now up to $570 (he's paying shipping, plus the $400 blender, but still -- I applaud his marketing genius!).

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =330142582706

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =170129995323

And judging by his feedback it's not the first time this particular phone has been on eBay...

Try here.

Assuming this is real, he wasn't just joking at the end.

craigslist is notoriously easygoing and their terms (you can run searches but not mirror the whole damn thing) seem reasonable, so I think the way Oodle could have avoided the ban is by not pissing Craig off

Craig's gone man, sold out, walked away. I believe it was to these people.

It's called bait and switch. Advertise a low-price item and then try to up-sell the consumer to a more expensive one when they come into the shop.

No, what you described is perfectly legal. Trying to upsell -- no problem at all with that.

Bait and switch is when they say "50 inch TVs for $100!!!" and when you get to the store they say "Aw! Sold outta those, they went like hotcakes! But we DO have lots of 46 inch TVs for $99!"

Now you can make an argument that this is actually what they did with the 20GB PS3 -- but that argument won't hold much water when you take a look at this long list of 20 GB PS3s available right now on eBay, many of them brand new, from stores.

Here yah go!
http://cgi.ebay.com/Using-Professional-Write-3-0-f or-MS-DOS_W0QQitemZ270140523670QQihZ017QQcategoryZ 3521QQcmdZViewItem

Panasonic have had a gel 'bag' protecting their hard-drives in their Toughbooks for some time. Surely they've suitably protected their IP.

I even managed to find a picture of one on Ebay

FTA: Why is it called an "air bag" if it is filled with liquid?

The question is how much difference is there for Composite, since composite (RCA) is what this box supports now.

There's been an HD breakout box for the original XBOX since its inception. You can get a convincing knock-off of the original (probably made in Taiwan or Korea) that works just as well for $10.00 (USD) on eBay (the real McCoy's from Microsoft go for more than $100 in some places). That gives you HD output. Plug one of these (~$20 depending where you go) in the HD pack connector and you have optical 5.1 DD output.

Good luck getting the 700 Mhz. processor to handle 1080i. I've gotten XBMC to boot, but we're talking video rates in the single digits for most HD content. Most I've gotten is 720p, and that's full xvid encoding (or Matroska, or just about anything else you can think of). Not bad for such old hardware.

The other thing I like about the XBOX/XBMC as a multimedia solution is that you really don't need a lot of crap in your living room. One box should do it all--movies, music... whatever. I always hated the whole "television + reciever + dvd player + xbox + pre-amp + speakers" look where half your living room looks like an alter to the gods of Home Audio.

The XBMC guys are clever coders (I recall an attempt to use the GPU to try and aid in decoding video streams). The problem is that they are die-hard, attached-to-the-hip classic XBOX fanatics. You can't even start to talk to them about porting to another system. They won't do it. End of story. Which means no "true" open HD media box for the foreseeable future (MythTV the sole, sad exception).

Personally, I think years of waiting for the right material and special grinding is a waste of money... I could of pointed them in the right direction if they only had asked. Here, looking for YOUR OWN silicon sphere:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Siaz-SILICON-CRYSTAL-SPHERE-SP ACE-HI-TECH-BALL-2-D_W0QQitemZ260110751261QQihZ016 QQcategoryZ3225QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewIt em

PS.. This is not my auction, I just KNEW it must exist on ebay if someone needed it. :)

The question is whether $35k is enough to fund one experiment.

Well, that's enough to get started...

Prior art invalidating several of the patant claims will only cost 24.99 plus 14.99 s&h. I seem to recall a Star Trek and Star Wars game that operated in similar fashion.

Google for momentary e-stop.
But here is one that would do http://www.automationworld.com/view-3183, you can order momentary, locking, with proper contacts. But I agree, ebay would be best for a cheep one. Here is one on ebay with locking key so toddlers don't reset your system http://cgi.ebay.com/E-STOP-MOELLER-RPSR-S-EMERGENC Y-KEY-ENCLOSURE-BOX-NEW_W0QQitemZ300116926899QQihZ 020QQcategoryZ42898QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZVi ewItem

It was late 70s/early 80s. The artwork was from the Rankin/Bass animated movie.

Now that I think about it, I'm not 100% sure it came from Hardees. I may have confused it with the Gremlins book-and-record series. It was a while ago.

http://cgi.ebay.com/THE-HOBBIT-Rankin-Bass-record- and-book-1977-TOLKIEN_W0QQitemZ270125419460QQihZ01 7QQcategoryZ29799QQcmdZViewItem

After the Zune was released, I decided to go counting how many people would actually buy it. My target was where my internship was: New York. This would be a fairly easy time killer; many New York commuters have some sort of MP3 player, so it shouldn't be too hard to at least get a raw estimate and ballpark a real-world value from there.

Since it's release, I only counted TWO people who had a Zune. TWO. Out of the HUNDREDS of people that I have seen while commuting every weekday to work, and out of the HUNDREDS of iPods (various generations) I have seen on those commuters, I have only seen TWO people carry a Zune. Furthermore, I have yet to really see a Zune make Page 1 of your advertisements. It's usually pretty deeply hidden, unlike its competitor.

Another interesting place to confirm this is eBay. If I had to ballpark a value for the average price of a Zune there, I would have to say it was somewhere around the upper $210-lower $220 range. Check here. However, the average price of iPods is noticeably higher. Check here.

In short, I think that this iDumpster, while it might surface as a joke, is just to remind the Zune developers that they have quite a bit of work to do before they even expect to see people actually flocking to this device. This is just my honest opinion.

After the Zune was released, I decided to go counting how many people would actually buy it. My target was where my internship was: New York. This would be a fairly easy time killer; many New York commuters have some sort of MP3 player, so it shouldn't be too hard to at least get a raw estimate and ballpark a real-world value from there.

Since it's release, I only counted TWO people who had a Zune. TWO. Out of the HUNDREDS of people that I have seen while commuting every weekday to work, and out of the HUNDREDS of iPods (various generations) I have seen on those commuters, I have only seen TWO people carry a Zune. Furthermore, I have yet to really see a Zune make Page 1 of your advertisements. It's usually pretty deeply hidden, unlike its competitor.

Another interesting place to confirm this is eBay. If I had to ballpark a value for the average price of a Zune there, I would have to say it was somewhere around the upper $210-lower $220 range. Check here. However, the average price of iPods is noticeably higher. Check here.

In short, I think that this iDumpster, while it might surface as a joke, is just to remind the Zune developers that they have quite a bit of work to do before they even expect to see people actually flocking to this device. This is just my honest opinion.

Some Mozilla guy said that some eBay exec said they were pissed. Who cares?

Also, what ads are everyone talking about? I don't see any ads for anything other than eBay properties (Paypal, Skype, and eBay auctions).

Finally, if they're so incompetent, what is this? http://pages.ebay.com/ebay_toolbar/

No encryption or security was bypassed so it is not a DCMA violation. However, it does directly violate the ToS of their website:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-agreement .html

In other words, you're accessing their content without accessing their site, which is a violation of their ToS. This is theft. They will accordingly code their site to block any access from this new "toolbar".

They are already cheaper than those, and don't require cannibalizing an entire player for the diode:
http://cgi.ebay.com/POWERFUL-BLUE-VIOLET-LASER-DIO DE-MODULE-BLU-RAY_W0QQitemZ170108933797QQihZ007QQc ategoryZ4661QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

> Some of the houses that I looked at when buying my current house, a couple years ago, were ~$100k. My current 3-bedroom, 2 bath house (in-city) is ~$125k.

I have no doubt that there are houses that cost ~$100k, somewhere. But it's still mislead to use that in a comparison. To make it sound even more outrageous, one could say that he demanded the price of a private aircraft! The aircraft in question would, of course, be a 30-year-old Cessna.

> Oooh, he got a date wrong when repeating something his parents told him, when giving not a stump speech, but a one-off that was for a single location. *Shudder*. What's next, mixing a metaphor? Splitting an infinitive?
Oh yes he did get a date wrong. I mean, it's not like we can expect him to know his birthday and the date when the event which he was there to talk about took place, and be able to perform basic mathematical operations on the two. After all, he's only went to Harward Law School, they probably don't teach stuff like this there.

> All with the hopes of getting a big payoff when Obama ran. That's called cybersquatting.

No. I'm probably stretching my analogy skills here, but I'll give it a try. There's an open source project which adds a feature or a file format to MS Office. It's called "Feature X for MS Office". The developer spent a lot of his time during the last 2 years to developer and maintain it. Now MS wants to release a new version of Office, and they want this app. The dev doesn't want to give up the pet project. MS asks him to name a price, and he does.

So, is this guy cybersquatting? Even if he hoped that MS would buy him out eventually, that at most makes him an entrepreneur, not a cybersquatter. Same for this guy, except the chances that he planned the sellout all along are even smaller here.

Look, I'm not trying to get you to vote (or not to vote) for anyone, but just to get the facts straight. You may now proceed with voting for whatever puppet you find more to your likening.

OK, ladies and gents, I made it real simple! One eBay Search should cover everything! Searching for (gun,knife,fertilizer,holster,hammer,pen,freedom,l etterOpener,sword,GTA,2ndAmmendment,sarcasm) yields only 148,000 results. Let the delisting begin!

Ironically, I thought "security by obscurity" wasn't a viable option. If we hide all the dangerous stuff, then you will be truly safe (TM).

Some people refuse to admit they see evil when it is staring them in the face. God knows his true motive, and our attempts to shove Cho's blame on any who touched his life in fact downplays the insanity and cruelty of his actions.

Why not just pick up a used laptop from a reliable seller on Ebay and drop Ubuntu on it?

Quick search came up with http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-Thinkpad-T23-P3-1-26GHz-PI II-Laptop-Notebook-1-26_W0QQitemZ320108259669QQihZ 011QQcategoryZ140083QQcmdZViewItem, I'm sure there are tons of similar items, and a 1000 mhz+ PIII is definitely faster than the AMD Geode in the XO.

Let's see, honor student with no history of violence did nothing wrong. I say do nothing. If parents complain, point out that it's a game and he is an honor student with no history of violence.

I don't see what swords have to do with anything. Even in expert hands they're not very conceilable and not very effective for mass murder. Odds are they were display pieces rather than fightable weapons (as are most swords you can buy these days).

Lets face it, if even 1/10 of 1 percent of the students who wrote stories, drew pictures, or jokingly planned about destroying their school actually did it there wouldn't be any schools left in the U.S.

A few years ago, I saw a jibba jabber dressed in a business suit as a stress relief device. Are you saying anyone who owned one should have been fired in case they were practicing to strangle their boss?

Besides all of that, I would think the LAST thing you'd want to do to a high schooler you suspect is building up to a massacre would be to make them feel picked on by the school board and make them socially isolated by moving them to another school. All they need to do now is make him take SSRIs that cause incidents of explosive violence. That should prevent problems.

I'm bored. You can get hammers for less than $2 per:
    http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40& satitle=lot+of+claw+hammers
The original story is dead & the others posted don't have information about the hammers.

Who should slashdotters ship hammers to?

Get one of those cheat cartridges with parallel ports (Game Shark, Action Replay, etc). They come cheap, $3-$10 on ebay at the moment. Reflash the EPROM and you're ready to inject your own code, or simply watch some demos.

>So that's why just about every American house had a vacuum tube radio or three before they were obsoleted by transistors? Vacuum tubes were not expensive.

Keyword: *a* vacuum tube radio. One. Just one.

I would hedge my bets that my house presently has a dozen radios in it.

In 1930, a cheap radio would cost $9.95. Calculating for inflation, that radio would cost $122 today.

In contrast, eBay sells 10 radios for $0.99.

Yes, tubes were expensive back then. That radio only had 5 tubes in it. Considering for the price of the case, I'd say that's about $10 a tube. Which is what they are now, give or take.

olive oil and garlic

alfredo sauce (or other types of cheese sauces)

white clam sauce

pesto sauce

http://stores.ebay.com/TheFifthFoodGroup?refid=The FifthFoodGroup

don't be silly. the italians know for a long time how to make pasta. how much brains do you think a roman soldier would need to figure out that if they mixed their ration of flour with their ration of olive oil they might get a positive result.

http://stores.ebay.com/TheFifthFoodGroup?refid=The FifthFoodGroup

Ethal M is owned by m&m mars.

m&m mars has been responsible for a lot of the research developing claims that chocolate is healthy (high in antioxidents, etc.). they want to convince everyone that you can make yourself healthier by eating candy.

well, i don't have a problem with people thinking that chocolate is health food, i don't think it's a good idea to make the claim. i think i prefer my chocolate to be bad for me. makes it taste better.

anyway, m&m mars has been doing a lot of work at making chocolate with enhanced antioxident and flavinol content. they want to make chocolate a 'functional' food.

http://stores.ebay.com/TheFifthFoodGroup?refid=The FifthFoodGroup

whichn is why hershey is going to utterly fail at their current project of offering single bean origin chocolate bars.

copying the gourmet chocolate manufacturers, hershey recently came out with chocolate bars made with beans sourced from sao tome, madagascar, and an assortment of other regions.

but, as they have probably alwyas done, they are tailoring the taste and texture of these new bars to what the typical hershey bar customer expects in an ordinary hershey milk chocolate bar. people who buy hershey milk chocolate bars already have a low expectation - meeting that expectation has resulted in a bunch of lousy and expensive chocolate bars.

http://stores.ebay.com/TheFifthFoodGroup?refid=The FifthFoodGroup