Slashdot Mirror
Henrico County iBook Sale Creates iRiot
pikester writes "What do you get when you combine 1000 used iBooks being sold for $50 and 1000 people desperately wanting to buy them? You get an iStampede of course! Add into the mix one guy who watches too much wrestling and one gal who re-lived her first Backstreet Boys concert by wetting herself and you'll being looking for video of the whole thing. CNN has some extra details as well." From the article: "Officials opened the gates at 7 a.m., but some already had been waiting for hours in line. When the gates opened, it became a terrifying mob scene. People threw themselves forward, screaming and pushing each other. A little girl's stroller was crushed in the stampede. Witnesses said an elderly man was thrown to the pavement, and someone in a car tried to drive his way through the crowd."
"In the ghetto...."
That's my state's citizens, neighbors, and friends at their best!
I couldn't be more proud.
*tear*
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
Everyone is at the sale...
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
The obvious point here should be that the countyr was sellign them too cheap. Wasting taxpayer dollars. They should have sold them on ebay where they could have gotten much more than $50 without the liability of riots.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
OMG! Zerg Rush!
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
I had submitted this article this morning, with a little more information in case people were interested here is what I had posted:
Henrico Co. Schools of VA decided to change laptop suppliers at the end of their contract with Apple, opting instead for a contract deal with Dell and Microsoft. The result was a couple thousand laptops of no use. In a first attempt, Henrico Co. was going to sell laptops in a free for all at $50 dollars each, but subsequent meetings and enraged tax payers made them change to limiting the sale (at least this first sale) to Henrico citizens and tax payers. The sale occurred at the Richmond International Raceway where 1000 laptops would be given on a first come first serve basis with proof of residency/tax payments. The facilitators of the event decided to close the main gates of the area until 7 AM and begin the sale at 9 AM. This did little to deter people arriving as early as 1 AM and circling the area until the main gates opened. At 6:54 AM the main gates were opened and a massive stampede of over 12 thousand attendants for the event fought to be the first in line. Injuries (albeit minor according to the Times Dispatch) and chaos ensued. One unconfirmed report I was given by an attendee was of a lady who.s ankle was broken and her baby carriage trampled by the sheer number of people shoving to get through the gates. Police support was supposedly small with off duty officers working, the event planners obviously underestimating the popularity of this event. The details of the event including the specs for the iBook (12 inch, G3 500 MHz) can be seen at this posting on the Henrico Co Schools website. In the fall there is to be another sale of which no restriction will be made on buyers, but after today.s incident, one could only imagine that it will differ highly from the chaos of today. Photos of the scene can be viewed at the article in the Richmond Times Dispatch website .
I usually only piss myself over new apple products...
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
"What do you get when you combine 1000 used iBooks being sold for $50 and 1000 people desperately wanting to buy them?"
Looks a lot like one each to me...
local richmond newspaper link
another local link with slideshow pictures
Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
Whenever someone does something like this (selling something for much less than its value) scenes like these always happen.
Ikea did this with a new store in the UK, selling a £500 sofa for £50 and mob scenes resulted, with people fighting in the aisles, people trampled and people stealing sofas off feeble old people who were unable to hang onto their purchase.
When it comes to a bargain, I'm amazed people don't pack heat before setting off for the store.
As geeks living in the area my friends and I were interested in getting some cheap computers to set up as servers and various low intensity jobs. The local papers and Henrico County made such a huge deal over this that I am really not that surprised by the turnout. They were selling off used and discarded low end macs, and making it sound like the deal of a lifetime.
I personally think the county would have been better off finding a way to distribute them to low income families and possibly offering classes in their use, but what do I know.
"It is sad to see a family torn apart by something as simple as a pack of wild dogs."
All white and promising good stuff. then you get really disappointed by the quality and want to knife your dealer.
From: pschiller@apple.com
Steve,To:sjobs@apple.com
I think we've found the perfect price point to really boost Mac sales. I'll have marketing look into it, but as best I can figure, we'll lose money on every sale, but we'll make it up in volume.
See you in Paris next month,
Phil"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Now you can get the tshirt too.r t-kicked-in-the-balls_W0QQitemZ8327177210QQcategor yZ15687QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/HENRICO-COUNTY-50-iBook-t-shi
Seriously, they had to expect this. They should've had a more orderly way to deal with this sale.
DeviantArt Page
NSFWCome on, doesn't everyone know they found all the golden tickets already?
1. What about those laptops couldnt still run spelling programs? Are the kids teaching programs really running framerates they cant handle? :)
2. Who is the moron that decided that the school didnt need the $? I'm sure those laptops could have paid for quite a few of the new computers they seem to need.
3. Any left?
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
You would get everyone living happily ever after with their iBooks. But there were actaully about 3000 people, which changes everything.
They decided to switch from apple ibooks, to machines made by Dell... which is why they had 1000 Apple ibooks to sell.
/hugs my powerbook. //it's shiiiiny. :)
After seeing how popular the ibooks are, I wonder if they'll rethink the change to PCs?
Actually, I bet most of 'em were Windows users, driven around the bend by viruses, bugs, and bloat, and desperate to switch. It's the only thing that could explain it.
The lineups start around 5am and there's a huge rush to get in once the doors open, grab the first thing you see that is mildly appealing and buy it "cause it was on sale, see?". My sister-in-law who works as a sales-clerk at Futureshop usually comes home absolutely exhausted after the 12 hour shift that they make them work that day. The funny thing is, you can usually get better deals during regular, non-rush times of the year if you just keep an eye out for them.
Weren't these iBooks school district property? I guess it's good to see that the schools in Henrico County are so flush with cash that they can dump their iBooks at what is obviously below market value plus pay for whatever damages and lawsuits may result from their lack of planning.
I've been at similar mega-sales and all it took to prevent chaos was to pass out numbers to people as they arrive then let people enter in small batches. Problem solved and injuries prevented for the cost of a couple dollars of paper.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
So, we have a real live meatspace slashdotting.
Sigh.
No wonder everybody steers clear of this planet.
www.eFax.com are spammers
What you may not understand is that still in the united states not many people can easily afford laptops or computers at the price range of 500 to $1000.
A $50 laptop for a low income user is very ideal.
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
Do the equivalent in just about any country, and you'll end up with the same thing.
Sad? Yes. American only? No.
first official slashdot post from a $50 iBook.
But at least they would have maximized the cash flow, which is the most important thing, right?
Uh...yes? Maximizing revenue to allow the schoolboard to fulfill its mandate, rather than acting as some sort of terribly inefficient, and undoubtedly seriously abused, charity computer distribution network. I'll bet that over half of those laptops end up on ebay in a day or two anyways, with no benefit to the schoolboard.
Being a Henrico county resident, I tried to go to the iBook sale this morning. I have younger siblings who could use a computer and this was a pretty good deal for that.
I got to the Richmond International Raceway where the sale was held at 6:55. It was pretty obvious to me that there was no way I was getting a laptop based on the number of cars trying to get in and the number of people lining up outside. So I left. The police were doing their best to try to keep the siutation under control, but you could tell that it was rapidly getting out of hand just because there were too many people. Driving back home, I think there was at least a good mile or two of cars still trying to get into the sale. I can't imagine how long those people ended up sitting there.
I'm not sure why more people didn't just decide to leave when the saw the number of people there. I'm also not sure why the county didn't make the price higher. Having it at $100 - $200 would have made a lot of money back for the county and would have discouraged a lot of people. This has to be a net loss in profit for them based on the number of police officers that were there. It could have been handled much better.
Rumor has it that there may be more laptops laying around (they did give one to every high school student in the county and only sold 1000). Hopefully, they are smarter next time. I guess at least I know where my tax money is being spent...
None of those people ended up with their lappy because some guy bought them all online while the mob was busy crushing strollers.
I happen to live in the Henrico area, and honestly - a fifty dollar computer is a deal you can't beat. I went there with my mother and my sister, however, after people started running, I just wanted out. I only stayed for my sister.
It was chaos. The first people who started running, I don't know what they were thinking, but after that, you HAD to run. There is just something about 12,000 people running at you from behind that kind of makes you run away.
Ended up getting stuck in a huge crowd for several hours, left when the police in riot gear started telling us they only had 300 left.
I don't know if imageshack likes Slashdot or not, but it's worth a try.
I took some pictures of the crowd, I'll post them if anyone is interested. Mine aren't as good as the ones from the times dispatch, but they gave a decent view of how many people were packed in.
this
Article IV
Section 1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.
Section 2. The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.
or this :
Amendment XIV
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.
although one could argue the 14th was not properly ratified. Many "unreconstructed" southerners still hold the view that you are a citizen of your state first, and these united states second.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
You just don't get this kind of exitement with Microsoft products ;)
Most people were disapointed when they got in and discovered that the ibooks were not in fact, cabage patch kids.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Of course, the true problem is that the iBooks were sold at a price well below their true value.
My theory is the following: To get the money to purchase new laptops from Dell and Microsoft, somebody had to represent that the existing, perfectly-good iBooks were obsolete and near-worthless. If they had been offered at auction, they would have sold at a much higher price, exposing the fraud. So instead, they were offered to the public at fire-sale prices. The riot was the predictable outcome.
In fact, it is hard to imagine what student use would have required anything more powerful than a 500 MHz iBook. The only one that leaps to mind is video editing, and somehow I doubt that a large number of students needed to do that on their laptops.
Info http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/ 6592/
P age/VideoPopup&c=Page&cid=1059969235826&image=medi a.mgnetwork.com!wwbt!images!hdr_video.jpg&oasDN=ww bt.com&siteid=WWBT&videoid=1031784465717
a .gatewayva.com/photos/rtd/special/ibook/index.htm
Video http://nbc12.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WWBT/
Slideshow http://macdailynews.com/index.php?URL=http://medi
-- Boycott Shell
Meanwhile, in Sudan, Ethiopia, Niger etc. many people who are starving are patiently waiting for food supplies to be handed out.
1. When the UN provides food aid, they are usually smart enough to bring along well-armed peacekeeping soldiers to prevent riots.
2. In those cases where the UN did not bring said peacekeepers, food riots have often occurred.
3. In those cases where the food riots did not occur, it is usually because the people were so chronically malnourished that they were too weak to riot.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
>Jesse Sandler said he was one of the people pushing forward, using a folding chair he had brought with him to beat back people who tried to cut in front of him.
"I took my chair here and I threw it over my shoulder and I went, 'Bam,"' the 20-year-old said nonchalantly, his eyes glued to the screen of his new iBook, as he tapped away on the keyboard at a testing station.
"They were getting in front of me and I was there a lot earlier than them, so I thought that it was just," he said.
Hmmm.
Henrico County Sheriff's Office
Michael L. Wade, Sheriff
sheriff@co.henrico.va.us
Sheriff Mike?
I got one for ya!
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Seriously, check out the group mentality of baggage pickup.
Everyone stands a little ways off, but the MOMENT the belt turns on it turns into a shoving match where EVERYONE MUST BE NEXT TO THE BELT!
Instead of standing 3 steps back, waiting till luggage that looks like yours comes by, walking up, checking it, leaving or pulling it...
Now they get into shoving matches to yank the luggage free and knock their 'neighbors' (whom get pissed off) while trying to remove said dead weight.
So yes, people act responsibly? Never. It's not possible. Any single person will act responsible, but the moment you remove the threat of punishment a free-for-all mentality of "I can get away with this, and tough shit" is born.
So THIS is what the Slashdot effect would look like in person eh? heh... wish I could have seen that!
"there are some areas of public life where market or commercial approaches haven't completely encroached"
;-P
unless you are a farmer growing your own food, market and commercial approaches have completely encroached, to use your phrase
read: even BEFORE the invention of money this behavior existed
all that is required are two magic ingredients: little supply and lots of demand
presto: this "disgusting American behavior"
hell, i amend my initial comment: it's not even a human attribute, it's an attribute of all animals hard at work getting scarce resources
ever see a feeding frenzy around a dead carcass on the dicsovery channel?
how about animal behavior around a watering hole during a drought?
how out of touch with reality can you possibly be?
based on your words, am i to suppose that when ants go crazy over a dead bug carcass, they've been corrupted by american consumerism?
please try to understand the reality you live in a little better!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Then again given the stampede, the crushed baby stroller, the lady peeing on herself and the guy swinging the folding chair, suddenly "already had access to a computer" is sounding like a pretty darn desirable filter. ;-)
This gives you an idea of just how fine a line there is between civilization and complete anarchy. Imagine a fuel crisis much worse than the Carter era, where only a select few can have access to gas each week. Or food shortages. Or a mass bio-hazard.
Better yet, the bird flu. A mass epidemic. Imagine the scene at hospitals. This is why crisis management and homeland security dollars are important - too bad they are being treated by politicians as just another thing to pork barrel. We spend money buying firefighters in Wyoming HazMat suits and trucks - but a nuke in NYC would be catch us completely un prepared.
I always enjoy these little reminders of how close the American public is to hysteria.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
There's always a small group of folks who stand back and let the herd struggle with one another over baggage. We lean against the wall, amuse ourselves over the antics of our fellow human beings, and then go pick up our bags after the crowd thins out. Which takes what? All of five or ten minutes? In exchange for the free amusement?
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
This could happen anywhere. In the past I would have been shocked, but reality TV (which is popular most everywhere) has punctuated for me just how low people are willing to go for money or things. The lure of getting something for nothing or next to nothing is just too great.
Honey, just swim across that swimming pool full of chicken manure suspended in wesson oil without upchucking the four rancid gopher meat burritos they fed you and we get a new SUV!
Sad really
My Good Lord, I almost relived "War of the Worlds" where people start killing each other for a spot on a Van.
I got there around 5:45 and the crowd was already over a 1000, snaking along the road for half a mile. It got worse as it got near to 7:00 when the gates were supposed to open. There were hardly 4 law enforcement officers near the gate and even they were hardly prepared for the onslaught at 7:00. More over, even after having over a month to prepare, there was hardly any planning. They could have let people in to the Raceway which had a huge parking lot and used barricades to create a maze like queue. I am positive people would have respected that, but they made people wait in unmanaged queues outside the gate. They could have opened just one gate, and let people trickle in. Instead they opened two gates, one wide enough for cars waiting outside to enter (which they did plus hundreds waiting to pounce) plus they flung open the gates where people were waiting and you bear witness to what ensued by looking at the slideshows on Times dispatch. People ran like as if a pack of hellhounds were at their heels and in less than 30 seconds a "queue" (if you can call it that) formed outside the entrance to the facility which was more like 10 queues side by side.
People were fainting all around us, fire department did what they could. Swat team in riot gear assembled towards the back of the facility, willing to step in to do what they can if things get more worse. There were still less than 10 law enforcement officers in regular attire trying to manage the crowd. People were unruly, cussing and dropping like flies around us as the heat picked up.
Towards 9:30, authorities realized they need a plan and put together some barricades and started channeling people inside the facility. It was another 3 hours before I got in and got my hands on one. I am sure Steve jobs will be licking his lips in anticipation of 1000 odd users foraging through his stores..
Anyway, this was an event that went to hell in a handbasket in 10 seconds straight. Due to bad planning or lack of it, something that could have been organized to the point where the whole thing should have lasted a couple of hours, it turned out in to a free for all, where people, regardless of their social status put a lid on their conscience and returned to more basic instincts.
Rapid Nirvana
Completely missing from the story is one important detail:
Who was the DUMBASS from this school's administration that decided to sell 1000 laptops for less than 1/15th of what they could have fetched on eBay?
Hell, even a rip-off joint like Computer Rennaisance would have given them about $200 a pop for those things.
Whoever made this call should be fired.
Not just for causing a riot which anybody should have seen coming...
Not just for dumping those spiffy iBooks and making the teachers there settle for crappy Dells (probably Latitude 600 seris, if they are very lucky...)
All that, yes, but also for throwing away more than $700,000 dollars worth of school assets.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Its happened here in London UK but not for computer kit. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4252421. stm
If you want to get technical, Virginia doesn't call itself a state -- it's a commonwealth. The US has three other commonwealths - Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
severe demand+short supply=ugly behavior
true across all humanity and even the animal kingdom
to illustrate the absurdity of your position, are you telling me the same scene wouldn't happen in brazil or india or china?
and if it did, would you insist it was because the people there got corrupted by american capitalism?
gee, that's funny, why haven't they been corrupted by medieval venetian capitalism? or ancient sumerian bazaar mobbing?
methinks you simply don't understand that this behavior is extremely close to intrinsic human behavior, even animal behavior
no modern buzzwords apply: you're simply out of touch with the reality of human behavior
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well, since it was taxpayer money that paid for them, they probably were just disposing of them rather than trying to get top dollar. Sort of a community service if you will...
Personally, if I had known that sort of riot would happen, I woulda just camped-out with refreshments and a video camera and enjoyed the spectacle (don't need an ibook).
And they could've easily avoided creating a problem in the first place by just giving people numbered tickets in the order they arrived - then calling them out in order when they were ready to sell. If someone doesn't respond within a few minutes of the number being called, they lose their spot and someone else farther down the list gets called. Simple and smart.
Doesn't take a rocket-scientist to figure out how to do this without causing a riot...
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
I wanted to amplify this. I just flew from Vancouver to Toronto this past Friday, and while it took a while to get my luggage due to the plane landing at the IFT (Infield Terminal), it did give me a chance to stand around and watch the human animal.
I have to say, watching these people at Canada's biggest and busiest airport, I felt pretty good about ourselves as a people. There was no pushing or shoving. Everyone did indeed stand two or three paces back waiting for their bags to show up. The only "event" was mostly a non-event: a petite woman who flew in from China with a suitcase that probably weighed as much as she did asked me if I could help her get her bag off the carousel (for which I had to say "excuse me" to a few people so I could manhandle it off).
If I can generalize for a moment, in all of my travels the vast majority of people I see behaving badly in airports are Americans. Earlier this decade I was travelling back to Toronto from Schiphol Airport (in Amsterdam, The Netherlands). I had been warned by airport staff well in advance of my flight that it is a good idea to get into the line to get your passport stamped at least a hour before boarding time, so I did (actually, it was probably closer to two hours in advance -- I got there early, and was trying to enjoy a leisurely day).
By the time I made it to the half-way point in line after about 30 minutes, a man and woman sudddenly forced themselves into line in front of me, mumbling something about their flight leaving in 20 minutes (note: they didn't ask -- they just shoved me out of the way while they jammed their luggage in front of me). I was cheesed, but to be honest I had lots of time, felt for their situation somewhat, and decided to say nothing. After all, I have that world-renouned "Canadian politeness" to live up to.
And to be honest, at that point I didn't know that these people were Americans. Just minor league jerks. But then they spent the next half hour bitching about how they wouldn't have had to stand in line back in the US, and how terrible air travel is in the rest of the world.
(Okay -- hint for those Americans reading this who have never been outside their own country: IMO, Schiphol Airport gets an A. It was very efficient, and the staff was super nice. Additionally, just try being a foreigner travelling at a US airport, and the situation is often much, much worse than what little wait these people had to put up with).
By the time I had made it to the front of the line, I had let nearly a dozen more Americans into line in front of me, all of whom had arrived "just minutes" before their flight was to leave (or, in the case of one couple, as their flight was leaving). They all seemed to congragate around this woman who was (at this point) very loudly bitching about having to stand in a line at the airport. They berated the airport, the airport staff, and the whole country of The Netherlands in general. I was embarassed to admit I was from the same continent as these people.
Now admittedly there were probably 20 or more other Americans in the line who got to the airport in plenty of time who were likewise embarassed by the actions of these people. But it seeems that every time I travel anywhere and run into someone behaving badly in the airport and ask them where they're from, it turns out they're from the US. You never see those people helping old ladies get their baggage off, or letting louts who arrived at the airport 10 minutes before their flight was to leave get into line in front of them because they arrived in sufficient time.
So maybe it shouldn't be any wonder that the grandparent routinely sees people bahaving b
That's a very good question. I think the CNN article was a bit misleading in that it didn't describe the true market value of the actual laptops. Someone from the area has stated that they were 500MHz G3 laptops. A little research on eBay of completed items that are comparable indicates they would sell for something like $300 to $325 on average, depending on configuration.
So, that's still $250 per laptop down the drain. Given 1000 laptops, that's $250,000 taxpayer dollars wasted if they could've gotten the real value for each one.
Now, having said that, it takes time and effort to list things on eBay, and flooding eBay with 1000 similar laptops is likely to drive prices down. But still, there are companies out there who buy used computers in bulk and resell them. They probably could have gotten maybe $200 per computer from such a company, with no effort at all. So they are still wasting $150,000 even if they had gone the easy route.
The worst part of all this is that $150,000 could pay, depending on salaries and the cost of benefits, for a teacher for 2 or maybe 3 years. Letting citizens get a nice break on a laptop is neat perk, but is it really worth taking $150,000 out of your school district's budget? And even if it didn't come out of the school's budget, is it really fair to the taxpayers who had to pay the money in but really don't need a laptop (or already have one, etc.)? It amounts to redistributing wealth, but in a totally arbitrary manner. If the school district is already so well-funded they really don't need the money, then what they should've done is sold the computers for a fair value and then sent rebate checks out to the taxpayers. Or, put it in a rainy day fund at the very least. Or establish a foundation, or a small scholarship.
Who was the DUMBASS from this school's administration that decided to sell 1000 laptops for less than 1/15th of what they could have fetched on eBay?
The same person that was first in line.
It's a racetrack, for Christ's sake-- you're telling me they didn't have turnstiles with counters on them at the entrances there, like every other friggin' stadium and other large public venue in the country does?
What a total fiasco. I can't wait until the first civil suit gets filed by one of the people who got injured. You know it's coming, and a nice settlement will result.
Even if they wouldn't put the things on eBay like anyone with a shred of sense would have, there were still a million better ways to do this than a friggin' battle royale-- for example, why didn't they give out numbered tickets to everyone who showed up before a certain time, and then draw "winners" at random from that group?
If there will be more of these iBook fire sales, I hope they put some more thought into the execution than they did for this one.
~Philly
Generally, assets are depreciated over a set schedule. UNLIKE Tax accounting, where the IRS sets the depreciation schedule, for financial reporting and to some extent governments, can set the rules.
For example, they may have decided that we buy these machines for $1250, will get four years out of them, then have a salvage value of $50. Therefore, we take $300/year in machine costs (the depreciation) and sell them at the end.
Now, if a corp. sold them at the end for $200, then they would book $150/each. as a profit on disposed asset. But the school system has no concept, so likely sold them for the salvage value from 4 years ago... and that salvage value was probably based on previous laptop salvage pricing, ignoring that the Mac market tends to have higher salvage values.
So it likely wasn't fraud, but rather a government official confusing accounting with reality.
Having worked in a public school system that has collaborated on tech projects with Henrico Co Schools...
Making ANY money off of reselling these laptops is a good thing. Most of the time end of life gear is destroyed (along the systems legal definition).
There are VERY strict rules about reselling 'expired' goods. These are set by both county/district mandate as well as Board of Ed policy. The few things that are allowed to be sold / non-damaged generally have to go through a review (to determine why they are being destroyed - or why they no longer serve as intended) have to go to public auction and there are very few goods that get to this point. The fact that they were able to recoup any cash whatsoever is a major policy shift.
An even better idea would have been to offer a reverse (dutch) auction with the price starting at $1000 or so, as the price ticks down, bid and take all you want at the current price. You can show up 2 minutes before the auction and get all the computers you want at the price you want, if it is above the market clearing price. If I'd known about this, I would have taken the day off and road tripped down to Richmond with a cooler or more full of cold sodas and iced teas and perhaps some snacks to sell. Then I'd have returned to the Apple store in DC and bought a new laptop with my proceeds.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.