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So this dude bids on an Iomega Buz that I was trying to sell back in November 1999. In the terms of my auction, I clearly stated that PayPal and money orders were the only payment methods I would accept. Furthermore, I stated that payment must be received within a week of the auction's close.

So the winner of said auction sent me an eMessage asking if I'd accept COD. I say no, because I already stated in the terms that I would not accept COD. Cut and dry, right? Nope. Dude gets pissed and questions why I won't accept COD. Does it matter? I said no in the bidding terms!

A week goes by, and I receive no payment from him. I notify him that I'm going to offer the item to the next person down on the list, and post negative feedback to the seller for failing to follow through on the auction (read: failing to comply with a binding contract.) Out of retaliation, the guy posts this:

Complaint: NO GOOD SELLER,,SENT MONEY NEVER RECEIVED ITEM..BEWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Obviously, anyone who uses all-caps and places two commas together is challenging to deal with, to say the least. As it stands, eBay won't remove the feedback, even though it is easily verifiable as libel. He never sent the money as I told him not to.

The worst part? He has a history of this shiat, and he fucked my otherwise perfect rating.

Pissed doesn't even begin to describe how I feel.

Feedback is a hot topic. Look here for instance:
Feedback Board.

eBay doesn't protect sellers from negative feedback retaliation, unless the other user is suspended for having false contact information during leaving feedback. Underage people can also have their feedback left for other removed [since they are using eBay illegally].

1. eBay's policy on excessive S&H charges is a bit fuzzy.
2. Whether or not it's cheating is besides the point. I as a customer would like to know whether the $18.00 S&H fee the seller is charging is really worth it. If I'd be paying $18.00 for a crumpled old cardboard box and a shipper that can't even be bothered to spring for bubble wrap, I'd rather know that ahead of time and take my money elsewhere.

I think that there is a new wave of people on eBay that forget they are dealing with people and not businesses.

I've bid in auctions where the seller had over 30000 feedbacks. You don't get that many feedbacks by selling casually.

There's even a market for selling tools that are most definitely geared towards the professional seller -- see some here. These tools manage listings, collection of buyer information, correspondence (automatically send e-mails to winning bidders), and even allow canned feedback responses. The only reason why you'd need software like this is if you were selling in large volumes (eBay's Seller Assistant Pro is even a subscription-based package, so you have to be actively selling to offset the monthly fee).

The point that I'm trying to make is that it's easy to forget that you're dealing with people when the e-mails you get from the seller are all automated, and the feedback that you get is just some canned message.

Anyway - this thing almost went for $6.7 Million US but got pulled becuase people assumed that it was operational, which it wasn't.

Seems this inspired the competition ;-)

All but the lowest-end home MD decks have digital (SPDIF/TOSLINK) output, for example this one; no, it's not as convenient as USB would be and it's still only real-time, but these non-pro decks are inexpensive and get the job done.

Many scale free distributions in user patterns have already been discovered (i.e. web pages against user visits -- a few popular sites like Amazon and Ebay, but lots of mediocre web sites like mine). You generally get a scale free distribution of transactions anytime people interact with one another in a way that they feel is advantageous (preferential). Even more interesting is when web usage becomes content becomes web usages becomes... etc. Such as Amazon's "Customers who bought this book also bought", or when Google's page rank become self reinforcing over time.

if all else fails, sell it on eBay

I won't have to worry about Sega releasing new hardware anytime soon. But, I'd love to have a broadband adapter for it on the cheap.

does this help?

1) Nope, no extra-$ connector kit, no digital connector. Extremely inexpensive mods... and what's your time worth, nothing? In your case perhaps.

2) My mistake - you pay extra for component video - see above. Xbox comes with composite - a good way of forcing you to buy extras, because it looks like shit even on a bad TV.

3) Great, looks good on my 48" plasma too, especially through component. What's your 50", a rear projection? How ghetto. But PC output (SVGA) on the plasma looks sharper still (especially for text) and the Xbox S-video output on a 20" LCD monitor is just like I said, blurry with dull colors. It's not that way when the cable box is plugged in there, even the digital banding is sharply defined so it's not the monitor that's blurry.

4) $300 = Xbox, advanced HD kit, USB adapter, USB keyboard and USB mouse, digital audio cable, mod chip. Post URLs if you can buy all that stuff cheaper. Bonus points if you include a keyboard and mouse worth using, not some Chinese trash with windows keys and engrish instruction sheet.

TV resolutions, even 720p HDTV, are nothing compared to average PC resolutions. A 1998 ATI card could do 75Hz at 1280x1024, 32-bit. Like this one. $8!

You're fairly lucid for an Xbox fanboy.

On ebay they're $8.50 each + shipping http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =3002036744

but I found them here for only $4 each http://www.oshealtd.com/tetrisjr.htm

I forgot to mention that the PCI POST Code Master can often be had for less than the $65 retail price quoted on MSD's site. Check out this eBay seller.

(I am not the seller - this is how I bought mine).

Get an HP Jornada 820
USB Host, PC Card, Compact Flash, VGA out, onboard modem, etc.

Check out this

It's long been know that laptop theives are often more interested in the data than the computer.

Some computers sold on eBay are sold for the data.

Please show me which page in eBay's questionable items policy prohibits selling modified products other than video game consoles modified to play imported video games.

I've got some of these NdFeB magnets and if you don't have some now, go order some! They are incredibly powerful and a ton of fun to play with. I got mine from a user on ebay who calls himself Pie. He also runs a website called WonderMagnet.com.

Don't ignore those safety warnings, these suckers are STRONG and will hurt you if you're not careful. I bought a whole stack of them and sold two to a co-worker - within minutes he had let them slam together and they shattered sending little sharp pieces (they're a metallic ceramic and break like glass) flying in all directions. To mis-quote A Christmas Story - you'll put your eye out, kid!

how about magnets? Big ones, made from NdFeB (Neodymium-Iron-Boron) ... they aren't too expensive, and boy they do the job. Hop over to ebay and get one.

Oops! Yeah, bgmicro is sold out.

Crap, I was going to get a couple. Guess I should have learned by now, to move fast on surplus.

Anyway, eBay has a few of them. Looks like one can be found under $45, maybe.

Crap.

It's long been know that laptop theives are often more interested in the data than the computer.

Some computers sold on eBay are sold for the data.

How about this poor soul that appears to have bought an unmodified CueCat on eBay for $26.00

Good marketing job on the part of the seller.

Sometimes the simple games are the best.

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo for the original PlayStation is a great example of this. Everyone that I have showed this game to has become hopelessly addicted, yet it could easily be coded by a small team.

Even though it was released back in 1997, it consistently goes for good money on eBay, because it is so much fun and so hard to find.

CSA/ESSCO made an interface device with 5 PC games quite some time ago. It was a simple photoeye/reflector beam device with two button pads to strap to handlebars. It could be used with any equipment by aiming the light beam at any moving part, as the rate of pulses was all that was was needed for controlling the speed.
Oh, I see there is one on eBay now.

Cheap to some people means a couple hundred dollars

I hate mac keyboards (at least the bog standard one I always see) ... not big enough, keys feeling too cramped.. etc..

I have an apple extended II keyboard (as shown in this picture) and I would not describe it as small by any means :) (it is attached to a Beige G3).

• Score: -24 to -10: Ghost. Ghost players attack (post comments) with a -1 threshold, making them unable to hit any target except those who choose to be hit. Ghost players are limited to two attacks per day, and the label 'Terrible' is placed next to their name.
  
• Score: -9 to -1: Zombie. Zombie players attack with a threshold of Zero, making only their subject lines visible and reducing the effectiveness of their attacks. Zombie players, like ghost players, can only attack twice per day, and the label 'Bad' is placed next to their name.
  
• Score: Zero: Dying player. In this transitional state, a player appears to be a normal player, but the label 'Neutral' is placed by their name to signal that they are close to death.
  
• Score: 1-12: Journeyman. A journeyman player can attack ten times a day with a score of one. The label 'Positive' is placed by their name.
  
• Score: 12-25: Adventurer. An Adventurer attacks with the same effectiveness as a journeyman, but has the label 'Good' placed by their name.
  
• Score: 26-50: Sword Saint. A sword saint can devastate his opponents in combat, attacking with a bonus of +2 and flaming them up to twenty-five times per day. Sword Saint players have a distinct advantage, but they are not invincible.
  

I'm not griping (really, I'm not) but the submission chosen for this item was a poor one. I submitted this item -- once on Tues. Dec. 7 and an UPDATE (read carefully before responding) on Fri. Dec. 10 -- with plenty of links to detailed info, and it was rejected both times. Which one do you think was more useful?

Dec. 7: SoloTrek XFV personal VTOL flight vehicle on eBay
Trek Aerospace announced it will auction a protoype SoloTrek XFV ducted fan Vertical Take-Off and Landing flight vehicle on eBay this Friday, with a starting bid of about $50,000. Trek's CEO says he thinks the seven-day auction's winning bid will exceed $1-million. Technical info, photos and video are available. The company is also working on an unmanned aerial vehicle and closed-cockpit versions for one, or two people.

UPDATE Dec. 10: SoloTrek personal VTOL aircraft on eBay
Trek Aerospace's eBay auction of its protoype SoloTrek XFV ducted-fan Vertical Take-Off and Landing flight vehicle started today (Friday), with an opening bid of about $50,000. As I write this, 46 people have bid and the current bid is $175,000. Trek's CEO says he thinks the seven-day auction's winning bid will exceed $1-million. Technical info, photos and video are available. The company is also working on an unmanned aerial vehicle and closed-cockpit versions for one, or two people.

No problem.

eBay has over a dozen auctions for entire 286 PCs, some even laptops, and all of them are under $10. If that doesn't do it for ya 7 auctions for 286 PCs ended in the last week on eBay with most of those not selling, so I'm sure you could e-mail some of those sellers and come to an agreement on an acceptable price.

Course you'll probably have to wait a week for it to arrive, but if you were buying a new 3ghz P4 you wouldn't go to the local computer store to buy it, right?

No problem.

eBay has over a dozen auctions for entire 286 PCs, some even laptops, and all of them are under $10. If that doesn't do it for ya 7 auctions for 286 PCs ended in the last week on eBay with most of those not selling, so I'm sure you could e-mail some of those sellers and come to an agreement on an acceptable price.

Course you'll probably have to wait a week for it to arrive, but if you were buying a new 3ghz P4 you wouldn't go to the local computer store to buy it, right?

Gamestop has MOO2 for ten dollars as well. Doesn't say whether it's jewel case or not.

I went and grabbed MOO1. Only got 5.1KB/sec. Still only took a couple minutes... :-)

-B

Here's one on EBay

I have one, sitting right between my Pro Audio Spectrum cards and my Ad-lib gold cards. The damed thing is twice the size of all the other cards, it looks more like a frat paddle!

Old hardware is everywhere, you just have to ask the right people. Ebay Has one listed for $4.30, 16 hours left in the bidding. Get your piece of history now!

Original poster here again. Take a look at these eBay auctions to see what my drives look like.
Not used so much
This is the one I use.
As you can see, they go for like 10$. Trust me, the 4X machine is built better than any of the crap standalone "Made in China" specials people have recommended so far. The 3X is too flaky, it's built in a strange way, but lots of fun to look at inside.
The 4X has analog and SPDIF out, the 3X only SPDIF.

Original poster here again. Take a look at these eBay auctions to see what my drives look like.
Not used so much
This is the one I use.
As you can see, they go for like 10$. Trust me, the 4X machine is built better than any of the crap standalone "Made in China" specials people have recommended so far. The 3X is too flaky, it's built in a strange way, but lots of fun to look at inside.
The 4X has analog and SPDIF out, the 3X only SPDIF.

exactly what i was thinking, except i thought it was a toshiba dolphin for some reason. still, its hardly an innovation. i guess allen took his billions and had people search on ebay till they found something cool, declaried searching a valid innovation, and recreated what they found.

Like this one?

As for me, I'd rather write for hardware that is more widely available (i.e. I can run at home).

Only a grand. Sad thing is that the buyer probably plans to strip the parts.

This couldn't possiible have ANYTHING to do with the fact that Verisign is EVIL and computer people know it, could it? And when I say "EVIL" I mean EEEEEEEE-VAH-HIL as in the FROO-IT of the DEV-IL!

• Comic Books
• Coins
• Rock and Roll Posters
• Stamps (both foreign and domestic)
• Butterflies
• Nasa paraphenalia
• pottery
• Movie Props
• Computers

• Comic Books
• Coins
• Rock and Roll Posters
• Stamps (both foreign and domestic)
• Butterflies
• Nasa paraphenalia
• pottery
• Movie Props
• Computers

ebay

I live up on a slight hill about 3.5 miles from work.

For about a year, I had an older (mid-70's model) "Tomos" 2-cycle 50cc "scooter". (Similar to this, but older and needed pre-mixed fuel.)

Except during the winter when the wind on my face and hands were a bit too cold, I really preferred to take my trips to work and to the grocery store on my scooter. I liked the open-air feeling of gliding on the scooter, and also felt better about not lugging a 3000 lb. car just to carry myself. I was getting about 50 miles to a gallon of fuel + a cup of oil.

One thing that I didn't like about the scooter was having to drive on the street (along the side, like a bicycle) while cars whizzed by me at 45+ mph. On the uphill stretches going home at night, that got scary sometimes. (My uphill speed was about 15-18 mph; flats around 25; and downhill around 32 mph.)

I also didn't like having to worry about the bike's chain maintenance (needed frequent cleaning), and the fact that it was a 2-stroke polluter (today's 4-stroke mopeds should be pretty good in comparison).

When an axel bearing crunched away I couldn't find a convenient place to fix it, I gave it up.

Since then, I've been thinking about buying another, more modern moped. But I just sorta never did. I toyed with the idea of getting a real motorcycle, and got my class-M permit; but I really didn't want a bike because I would have to be IN traffic, and I prefer not to be in between two cars (or SUV's as is likely to happen around here).

When the Segway was first revealed, I thought "neat, cool gadget". But I dismissed buying it for myself.

But, I've been missing that open-air gliding feeling for some time now. The Segway would allow me to get that feeling back (though at 12 mphs, it's a bit slower than I would have liked compared to when I used to pull 20-30). And, since I can used it on sidewalks, I would feel much safer. Since the sidewalks around here (L.A. suburb) are pretty much open, I think I can safely travel at the top speed for most of my travel.

The only concern I have now is the TCO. While a "full charge" is 11 to 17 miles of range, and costs about $0.10, that translates favorably to my car which gives about 20 miles to the gallon at $1.70. But the batteries are rated only for 300-500 full-charge cycles, or about 3,000 (worst case) to 8000 (best case) miles. The power train is supposed to be a "lifetime" design needing no servicing, so I'm hoping that the supposed 5-(active use)-year lifetime of the Segway holds.

It's not clear how much a battery replacement will cost... But I'm guessing it'll be about $1,000. So that then pushes the cost up to as much as $0.55 per mile. Even if the battery is $2,000, that's favorable compared to my 3,000 lb. car.

I can already tell some of my co-workers will approve, and some of them will scoff and ridicule me. But I used to own a scooter, and I liked it. And I've pre-ordered a Segway, and I expect to like it when it arrives. (Yes, it is a small leap of faith.)

You can still get keyboards that click. A good number of businesses still have these things lying in closets. Ask the tech guy at your company if they've got some they're willing to donate. My dad's company had a bunch, so now we have a pile of backup IBM, Compaq, and Apple keyboards around.

How about making a PS/2 conversion of a Stenotype but drop in a PIC like the BS2-IC (if your lame like me) that will convert the shorthand to all the words... using an I-PAC triggered by the BS2 to actually send the data to the keyboard port. Muhaha.. Muhahaha!!!

No rational manufacturer would ever ignore such obvious demand. So where are they?

Ebay. Seriously. Search for "Northgate Omnikey" -- among the best keyboards on the planet. Tactile feedback, reprogrammable, weighs ten pounds, the whole nine yards. Only reason I don't use mine is that I type papers late at night and don't want to wake anybody up. (grin)

These are the only keyboards that I will use. Every system I use has one.

They are called a "type M" or "model M", depending upon who you ask.

They are actually quite easy to find. I have purchased several from goodwill for $5/each. You can also find them on EBay fairly cheap.

"But you pay for it dearly, of course."

On the other hand, no you don't. Fibre channel is as cheap as cheese since the dot-com crash.

Indeed, if you search, there are quite a few pay phones on ebay. Pretty impressive.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&cate gory=11047&item=1947212605

Want to own Custar's Revenge?