Slashdot Mirror

Maybe it was this auction
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =320060047493

Love this one
  Q: Does this come with the operating manual?
  A: NO MANUAL AND ORIGINAL RETAIL BOX IS MISSING

from http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =320064863803

Maybe it was this auction
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =320060047493

Love this one
  Q: Does this come with the operating manual?
  A: NO MANUAL AND ORIGINAL RETAIL BOX IS MISSING

from http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =320064863803

On his most recent sale the GPS unit has an anti-theft feature. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =320065453054

See here.

I wonder if the one up for sale for the EFF was bugged. Just to see how high the irony meter can go...

And before he needed the money for breast cancer. What a scumbag.

Funny, I was just looking at the PS3 sellers on e-Bay. This particular story is a funny read if you have some time at the office (and who doesn't, if you're reading this?) I couldn't help but think of Nelson and "ha ha!"

Speculators, meet the hard rock of economics.

Yes, these are OUTSIDE developers who have downloaded the API docs.
Some developers, like http://unwiredbuyer.com/, have even built useful buyer-oriented applications. There are a whole bunch of outside developers listed on the eBay website: http://solutions.ebay.com/

The LEDs also produced more lumens per watt power consumption as well as used the lest amount of energy to turn on, whereas the traditional florescents had a 7x power spike for turn on, and the traditionals had a 1.5x spike, even the CFL's had a power spike. Everything says to use LED lights now.


Unfortunately we live in a market economy. The cost is a real factor. My average lamp is 900 Lumens. My 1 watt flashlight is only 32 lumens.

If I live another 30 years in my present home, what is the cost to outfit a 6 bedroom 3 bedroom home with LED lamps and will I have any savings over CF bulbs I now have installed?

LED lamps are about 20 cents / Lumen.
Refrence PDF alert. http://www.aceee.org/pubs/a042_l11.pdf

At 5 lamps in the kitchen overhead, 2 under the microwave, 5 in the dining room, 4 in the living room, 15 in bathrooms, 12 in bedrooms, 6 in porch and drive, 4 in the laundry, 2 in the hallway, and 5 in the rec room. Average size 60 watt equivelant. Total numbers of lamps is 60 for a total of 54,000 lumens needed.

To make matters of finding a proper replacement, many LED's are not rated in Lumens but intensity. I don't need a spot of light on the celing above the light. I want the room lit up. Remember there are aproximately 1,000 Mcd to a Lumen. Using that compare this bulb to a typical 14 watt CF lamp.

http://item.express.ebay.com/Home-Garden_Lighting- Ceiling-Fans__16000-MCD-P60-48-White-LED-110-V-Edi son-Type-Light-Bulb_W0QQitemZ220015435889QQihZ012Q QddnZHomeQ20Q26Q20GardenQQadnZLightingQ20Q26Q20Cei lingQ20FansQQcmdZExpressItem

I don't think a 16 lumen lamp is a direct replacement for a 14 watt CF lamp of nearly 900 lumens.

The LEDs also produced more lumens per watt power consumption

http://members.misty.com/don/lede.html
"The better usual modern white LEDs (as of September 2006) produce about 29-45 lumens of light per watt of electricity

http://hes.lbl.gov/hes/makingithappen/no_regrets/l ighting.html

"while the fluorescent produces over 50 lumens per watt"

The high effeciency LED's just are not on the market yet for most white LED's.

I'll stick with CF's as the additional cost of LED's don't yet produce a measurable savings. I have been watching the lumens/watt and cost race for some time. It's getting close, but the average modern white LED is still not as effecient as a typical CF lamp.

A laboratory prototype of a white LED achieving 150 lumens/watt has been announced on 12/20/2006.

Wake me when these are on the shelf at a competitive price.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =160068144458

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =160068144458

I couldn't find any pci cards for ST-506, but the ST-11R new eBay is pretty available. ISA bus motherboards capable of at least running modern software available too, there's lots of special-purpose ISA only hardware around to keep support levels tolerable.

Apparently, people are having a hard enough time trying to find them that they are still willing to pay anywhere from $50-200 extra plus shipping for a system on ebay. So if you know of a store that is still selling them, you may want to let some people know. I could just as easily call bs on your statement as you have on mine. When I say "profit," I'm referring to the expected revenues for the systems that were shipped. Honestly, I have no idea as to what the cost to manufacture per unit was for Sony, so I can't say for sure whether or not they are taking a hit on each console. I can, however, tell you that it is likely that Microsoft and Nintendo would be doing the same if that is the case. But I apologize for my technical error in choice of wording.

While people might be camping out for the Wii, they haven't exactly had the opportunity to do so with the PS3, since there haven't been as many shipments, so it's very hard to compare the sales for the two based on how many lines of campers the consoles had in the days leading up to Christmas.

TRS-80 Model 100. One of the first real laptops.

40 character, 8 line LCD goodness. Ran for days on 4 AA batteries. And featuring the last professional code that Bill Gates worked on personally.

You can get one pretty cheap:
http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40& satitle=trs-80+model+100

I'm not kidding!

Like this.

Next up, a new-fangled serial interface that can do over 10MB/sec, a new optical technology that can read and burn data using a laser (to store around 9GB of data/disc), and a new kind of wireless communication to use your phone over the internet!

Astounding and amazing new things!

Dude, I was about to call bullshit on the "couldn't manage to turn a profit on eBay thing. I went to ebay to prove you wrong and shove it in your face. Instead, I found this.

Basically eBayers aren't getting much above retail right now. After you count what they're paying for the auction, shipping (many are offering this for free) and whatever tax they payed when purchasing it, I think many of them could be losing money. It's good news and bad news really. If you're a scalper, well, we didn't like your kind anyway. But if you want to be a buyer and you don't mind paying a little bit extra to not have to wait till March, I'd go to ebay right now.

TW

At the time I'm looking now, all the ones above $700 don't have any bids at all (except a few large bundles). I just saw a 60 gig model sell for $560 (plus $60 shipping). http://cgi.ebay.com/Sony-PlayStation-3-Game-consol e-GET-IT-NOW-1-DAY_W0QQitemZ180066522847QQihZ008QQ categoryZ62054QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Oh really? Most of those are $300+ premium, unless you somehow believe the PS3 sells for $899 retail.

I'll keep an eye out for the GCN games.

Pikmin 1 for less than $10: clicky

And no, I'm not the seller. I just think it's weird how many people have not heard of half.com (now run by ebay, as you can see from the link).

HA!

Just did a bit more searching.

To do buy it now you do not have any requirements, to use a fixed price listign there are some reqs, but they seem lower then express. (Link)

I actualy just did a quick check, you need 100 feedback and it has to be 98% good (Link)

Ever think it may be because of advertising? This is the first time I'm hearing of eBay Express.

eBay does have an API

http://developer.ebay.com/common/api/

The PS3 is still going for well above retail on Ebay so I doubt very much that there's a much lower demand than reported.

Actually, if you check out eBay most PS3 systems are not going for dramatically over the retail price ($100-$200 about MSRP typically http://search.ebay.com/PS3_W0QQfkrZ1QQfromZR8 ) which is why I didn't buy a PS3 to eBay it; I'm not trying to bash the PS3 or anything, but the days of the PS3 'selling' for $1500 on eBay are long gone.

I bet in the more rural areas it's easier to find the PS3 as people probably don't have as much money to throw around.

I live in a pretty wealthy city which is full of oil executives with more money then sense so I don't think it is really a matter of money. Personally, I suspect that most people who were desperately looking for a PS3 called up every store from the launch (Nov 17th) until early December and heard a clerk say "We don't have any PS3 systems in stock, we don't know when we will have a shipment and are not expecting a steady supply until after christmas." At that point I suspect that anyone (with any sense) would probably give up and wait until January/February to pick one up; if they were looking for a Christmas gift for their family they probably decided on something else; being so close to Christmas I expect that there are few people who will impulse buy a $600 videogame system.

Perhaps my generation was the last one where parents normally bought their children electronics and chemistry sets. Today we would fear that the child would be shocked or chemically burned (regardless of the probability).
 
When I was 5, I got my first 160 in 1 Electronic Projects Kit from RadioShack. Similar to this item here. That thing was really cool, especially when I was a kid. Have you looked at what Radioshack sells these days as electronic kits? This thing is now sold as the new "rage" in kits. Its like a puzzle. To me, that is dumbing it down to the point of a child not learning anything about electronics, other than "connecting the blue piece to the red pieces makes a buzzing sound".
 
I bought my nephew one of the kits off of ebay, because thats the only place I could find the kits that actually teach you something about electronics.
 
Some other poster talked about dangerous toys being sold to weed out the stupid kids, and only let the smart ones survive. He may be on to something... Todays kids use extremely complicated electronic gadgets for their entertainment, and haven't got a clue how they work, nor do they care. Its a scary future.

At least two good bench multimeters, the old red LED digital kind are good to see from a distance.

A Cadex C7000 battery analyzer
An SB-5 Carbon Pile load tester
An infrared thermometer
A spot welder
UV and infrared lighting equipment, maybe a couple of booths and a couple of handhelds

It's sad, before even opening the article I knew that lawn darts would rank #1 on the list. I guess it mildly annoys me because they aren't that dangerous if you know how to use them properly. Just make sure that there's nobody down range, and don't do anything stupid with them (like throw them straight up over your head) and no one gets hurt.

I remember playing with Jarts as a kid (<10 years old) many times over. No one ever got hurt from it. There was enough common sense to keep people behind the shooter when playing the game. I guess it seems silly to me that people keep picking on Jarts because there are so many other "dangerous" things out there as well. Jarts is in a small way, a slow form of archery (sharp objects propelled at a target down range), and know that it can be made relatively safe if the proper precautions are taken. I suppose that even something as innocent as playing horseshoes could be dangerous too, should someone take a blow from a heavy chunk of metal to their head. But it's always Jarts that gets picked on. According to a wikipedia article the incident that led to the banning of lawn darts was mostly a result of the combination of lawn darts and beer. That's frequently a bad combination of anything.

Of course without lawn darts, we wouldn't have neat T-shirts about them. The rest of the list is interesting too. I'm surprised at how many kids that mini-hammock (ranked #3) has managed to strangle over the years.

When we were younger we had lots of time for games but little money. Now we have the money for games (but much less free time).

I haven't seen any ads that target the adult gamer segment specifically; I guess they figure ads that work for a 17-year-old will work just as well for someone twice that age. But soon enough we will probably see ads: "Forget the Civ games! I play Oasis because I can get in several games between feeding the newborn and changing his diaper."

BLATANT PLUG: If you are a member of The Video Game Generation and you have money now, why not bid on my auctions to benefit Child's Play?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =170059988064
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =170059999729
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =170060001967

steveha

When we were younger we had lots of time for games but little money. Now we have the money for games (but much less free time).

I haven't seen any ads that target the adult gamer segment specifically; I guess they figure ads that work for a 17-year-old will work just as well for someone twice that age. But soon enough we will probably see ads: "Forget the Civ games! I play Oasis because I can get in several games between feeding the newborn and changing his diaper."

BLATANT PLUG: If you are a member of The Video Game Generation and you have money now, why not bid on my auctions to benefit Child's Play?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =170059988064
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =170059999729
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =170060001967

steveha

When we were younger we had lots of time for games but little money. Now we have the money for games (but much less free time).

I haven't seen any ads that target the adult gamer segment specifically; I guess they figure ads that work for a 17-year-old will work just as well for someone twice that age. But soon enough we will probably see ads: "Forget the Civ games! I play Oasis because I can get in several games between feeding the newborn and changing his diaper."

BLATANT PLUG: If you are a member of The Video Game Generation and you have money now, why not bid on my auctions to benefit Child's Play?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =170059988064
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =170059999729
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =170060001967

steveha

> eBay's a pretty complex application, and it's backend is entirely Java.

As I asked before, what's your source?

...but expensive PS1s! http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&view item=&item=300050305788

They don't seem to be making that much profit, thete are some auctions with no bids. This is the 20GB version incidentally. I did consider buying one but I didn't want to get stuck with it if it didn't sell. If anyone was lying it was the Wal-Mart manager. Thanks for the ad hominem attack though, it's really in the Christmas spirit. For the record, when the lady announced she had PS3's the crowd groaned. From what I can tell, the majority of this crowd was parents and grandparents who clearly had been told that Santa better have a Wii under the tree come Christmas. In retrospect I probably should have taken a chance on it but after standing around and just missing getting what I wanted I was pissed so I left. Maybe someone did buy the PS3s but everyone behind me in line turned around and left the store. It's rude to call someone a liar without any evidence by the way.

Due to the design of cell phones, it's actually very easy to modify a phone so that it gives a clear visual indication of whether it is transmitting or not.

If, for whatever reason, your phone starts transmitting (be it on a call, or because the FBI have remotely activated it), then some LEDs can be configured to light or flash - providing clear visual feedback. This could be a bit more convenient than removing the battery except when needed.

In fact, you can get the modification kits ready for use, for less than $5 - and installation, can take less than 30 seconds.

These kits are more usually sold as novelties for 'ricing' phones, but they can also be used for serious purposes:
Example kit

I have the 32mb version of this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-Inspiron-8500-8600-D800-G eForce-4200-Video-Card_W0QQitemZ110063239885QQihZ0 01QQcategoryZ74957QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZVie wItem

I can upgrade to the one linked above (64mb) , or to the quadro that come in the M series (M70, I think).

It's a bit of work, but a very nice option.

Now we just have to figure out if the amount of energy needed to synthesize the blood protein (say, X liters of hydrogen in a fuel cell) is less than
the energy of the hydrogen produced from this process... :)

--
Rare 680X0 and PowerPC posters!

Today there aren't as many choices - I always liked the space ones and now everything has to be god awfull starwars crap.

look here.

Not a simple thing to just pick up.

I havn't been to a single store in my area that has received a single one of them at all.

I saw closed auction for over $150.00 at one point.

Forget the consoles, go old school on a new PC and play Descent. It absolutely rocked. You can still find new-in-box copies on Ebay http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?cgiurl=ht tp%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.com%2Fws%2F&fkr=1&from=R8&sati tle=video+game+descent&category0=&submitSearch=Sea rch And FWIW, it rocks on newer hardware and CPUs. A 44 year old that plays video games? In 20 years, you'll be the best granddad of them all...

Looks like his two PS3s are still for sale, though at a substantial discount from the $1999 he was origianlly hoping for. I hope he enjoys playing with his two shiny PS3s, 'cause he's still horribly overpriced. The dude has completely missed the window of opportunity.

Amusingly, on the updated eBay page, he's removed the pics of his girlfriend, but retained the fish photo. Maybe he'll throw in some fresh fish filets:

Butthead eBay gouger : Hmmm, I'll make a quick buck by gouging some desperate fool
Butthead eBay gouger : please please PLEASE SOMEBODY BUY THESE DAMNED videogames!!! I don't want to get stuck with them. All my jock friends will make fun of me.

Almost as funny (for different reasons) was this guy selling a PS3.

Check out some of the pictures. What's with the fish?

. The guy will probably protest it though.

And the sacralige:

http://cgi.ebay.com/MOAI-STATUE-TISSUE-BOX-COVER-E aster-Island-Face-Head_W0QQitemZ260056214458QQihZ0 16QQcategoryZ66744QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

They're gonna burn in hell next to the Danish cartoonists.

Try $9.99 + $50 shipping. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =280050635902&ru=http://search.ebay.com:80/search/ search.dll?from=R40&satitle=280050635902&fvi=1 Talk about a bad day to be this guy. :)

try $7k now...ebay

And here's a version of the URL that won't make your head explode.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =250051615791

(coincidentally, the captcha word for this post is greedily.)

The PS3 speculators are already in trouble. Sure, a few idiots paid $10,000 on day zero, but that's over. Auctions of unsold PS3 systems at bloated prices are now getting zero bids. There are "Buy it Now" prices of $3000, but reality is that units are going unsold at $1100. A sale of the 20GB unit just just occured at $925. Then at $840. One seller writes "I waited over 30 hours in walmart so you don't have to!" He got $780.

The original poster should hang onto his PS3. He's not going to make much money selling it. If you want a PS3, one will be available tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. At a modest premium over retail.

The PS3 speculators are already in trouble. Sure, a few idiots paid $10,000 on day zero, but that's over. Auctions of unsold PS3 systems at bloated prices are now getting zero bids. There are "Buy it Now" prices of $3000, but reality is that units are going unsold at $1100. A sale of the 20GB unit just just occured at $925. Then at $840. One seller writes "I waited over 30 hours in walmart so you don't have to!" He got $780.

The original poster should hang onto his PS3. He's not going to make much money selling it. If you want a PS3, one will be available tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. At a modest premium over retail.