But nobody is talking about people being forced to pay their maximum bid. They're talking about people outbidding themselves, when they're already the high bidder, because they feel uncomfortable about their bid position. That's stupid, however you look at it. Don't bid against yourself, and you won't have this problem, period.
Bid once, bid the highest amount you're willing to part with for the item, and understand that if someone bids more you won't get it, but you're fine with that because if someone wants to pay that much for it, they're the fool and you're not.
If you really change your mind and have to have the item, and re-raise over your own maximum bid, then the desire you have for the item is clearly much higher than the extra bid increment you just added to the selling price. Since you agree that you're willing to pay MORE than what the current bid gets set to, whining about paying an increment over your previous high bid is retarded.
If you don't like it, wait until you're actually outbid, THEN raise. Then you'll be up TWO increments from your old maximum. But if your old maximum never gets outbid, then you'll be up ZERO. Win some, lose some.
In eBay, the buyers each place a semi-secret bid and and the highest bidder pays the amount of the second highest bid.
Quite so, UNLESS two people enter identical high bid. But in many cases, the winner WILL pay less than the maximum amount he was willing to spend. Thus, in many cases, eBay is a good place to shop.
Again, what seems to be whizzing past YOUR head is that the problem comes up when you UP your maximum bid. Never, never do that. Decide your max bid ONCE, and place it. Then stick to your guns. If you win, you'll pay no more than the maximum you stated in a contract that you were willing to spend. Chances are quite good that you'll pay LESS than that. And you'll NEVER get "cheated" by this "outbidding yourself" bug, BECAUSE YOU AVOID THAT BEHAVIOR ENTIRELY. If you MUST have an item, wait until you've been outbid, THEN enter a new maximum.
But the best strategy of all is to bid at the last second. eBay auctions are timed, and thus the winner isn't the person with the most economic weight to throw around, but the person who bids just as time is expiring with an amount that is just enough to win. Since you can never be 100% certain of what the current maximum bid is, you should always bid what you personally feel is the most you're willing to spend on the item. If you want to make a "profit" on the purchase, then (DUH) factor that amount into the maximum you're willing to bid. How many economists do you think you'd have to talk to to figure that one out?
And, lest I repeat myself too often, if you're WILLING to spend an amount, then you're willing to spend it. Don't quibble about it, just be happy you've got the item at a price you were willing to pay. Obviously we will always regret when we could have spent even less, but if you're willing to spend the amount, then you shouldn't cry about it even as you do so.
I'll tell you about my experiences with using eBay... here's how not to get ripped off on eBay.:
- Decide what you're interested in buying - Observe several auctions for similar items to gauge what the market price is - Select an auction that looks good to you (ie, agreeable terms, good shipping cost, reputable-looking seller, good pics and description of item, auction ending at an odd time when there's likely to be fewer people watching and thus fewer people jacking up the price, etc.) - Decide on a maximum price you're willing to pay for it. - Then place your bid at the last possible second, preferrably with bid-sniping software.
If you bid at the last second, you'll never have to worry about someone else outbidding you, and thus will never fall prey to this problem. If you use a bid-sniping program to bid for you, you can do this reliably, any time.
I even take advantage of this flaw in eBay's bidding system, as a buyer. I love it when I can guess that someone else has a maximum bid of some round number. It's freaky how often this happens. People just put in $10, $20, $25, $50, $100, etc. without thinking about it.
It's very easy to guess, based on the current bid, what the maximum likely is, 9 times out of 10 on the nearest round value. So I always bid that round value, plus $.01 or $.03 or whatever. As long as the current bid is more than an increment away from the max bid of the current winner, if you bid a penny over their total, your bid will win, even though it's not a full increment over the previous max bid, and even though their max bid was first.
This is great, in that you get to beat the other person by the minimum possible amount of money necessary. But I always tell people never bid more than what you're willing to spend to get the item, and then you'll never be disappointed. Plus, it just feels great to bidsnipe someone with a few seconds remaining, and steal their win with a penny.
I'm never dumb enough to bid more than I'm willing to spend on an item. You have to have self control and discipline, and walk away from anything that goes over what you're willing to pay. If you get it for under what you're willing to pay, by definition you can be happy, even if it's not for the lowest possible price you could have paid.
For the type of stuff for which eBay provides a good shopping experience -- buying unique or hard to find or discontinued items, you really can't care about money as small as a fraction of a bid increment. For readily available items, you can almost always find a cheaper, more convenient, and more reliable/safe deal from a traditional retailer or ecommerce site.
I can't believe the amount of people who sell (and therefore, apparently, buy) new retail items on eBay, with all the hassle involved and lack of good prices (Reserve price auctions pretty much guarantee that any new item is going to be near retail, and shipping, waiting, and uncertainty make the price even higher in most cases). This is the only time I'd be concerned about spending the least possible amount of money, and it's why buying these types of items on eBay is rarely worth the effort expended.
You can try to save a few dollars buying a popular item in used condition, but often you end up with something that's got a problem with it, and no warranty or receipt to take to a real retailer. Even if this only happens 1 in 10 times, it's enough to make the whole thing not worthwhile. And even if the item was in good shape when it sold, and no one's trying to rip you off with damaged goods, sellers often underpackage it to save themselves money, and you end up with damage and more inconvenience. The vast majority of sellers package their stuff well enough, but like I say, even 1 in 10 is enough to offset the potential gains of using eBay for regular shopping.
Thus, the lesson I've learned is that eBay is not where to go for the lowest possible price. It IS where to go to find something that would be hard to find otherwise. T
It's non-optimal, sure, but it clearly says to enter the maximum amount you're willing to pay as your bid. It's up to you to determine what you're willing to pay.
If you enter a proxy bid of $125, then you are entering into a contract with eBay and the seller to pay up to $125 if yours is the winning bid. If you end up winning at $102.50, then you should be happy for getting the item for $22.50 cheaper than you were willing to spend. It doesn't matter if you were initially willing to spend $100.01 before, your new bid of $125 supercedes this, and by your own free will. If you weren't willing to pay $102.50, then why did you place a bid of $125?
"Greco had allegedly threatened to share his methods for spamming members of the group if MySpace.com didn't sign an exclusive marketing deal that would have legitimized the messages he was sending via the service."
So, the spimmer isn't really under arrest for spimming, but for extortion. Right?
You do need a personal firewall on your corporate desktops. The perimeter of your network isn't just where the line comes in from the ISP, it's the whole friggin' network. Every floppy drive, every laptop that leaves your sanctuary, gets plugged in somewhere else, and brought back home, bypasses the corporate firewall.
"They're not supposed to run any unauthorized services..." well, duh. Of course they're not. But how do you think you're going to ensure that policy is followed?
If they can accomplish the same mission with less resources, it's a cost savings. Even if they choose not to eliminate those resources, but rather put them to another task, there's still less being spent on the former task.
the driver for Linux on the desktop is not cost savings, but easier support. Manning estimates that it takes a company approximately one desktop administrator to support 40 Windows PCs, while one administrator can support between 200 and 400 Linux desktops.'
If they are changing the law, how can they go back and hold persons responsible for taxes which were not owed at the time of the transaction? If I buy cigarettes out of state, why do I owe taxes on them when I bring them back across state lines, when they've already been paid for and already have been paid for in the jurisdiction where they were purchased?
More or less, yes. It's not easy to track who's doing what with those downloads once they've left the server. One easy way to get accurate numbers would be to figure out how many unique visitors the Firefox start page has received in a given week.
Not everyone leaves that as their default homepage, so this won't give absolutely accurate numbers, either but it'd give perhaps a slightly more accurate estimate of how many users out there have installed and actively use the program.
Maybe Blizzard is violating their own ToS/EULA... but given that these agreements always state somewhere that they can change the terms of the agreement without notifice or your approval, where does that leave you, exactly? Nowhere.
Gates went on to say, "Much like our Internet Explorer and Outlook Express products, we feel that it is best if we charge for these tools what they are worth."
Books that are in the public domain still cost money. Anyone has rights to publish them, but publishing them is still a business enterprise and still costs money. If google hosts Wikipedia, they ought to be able to attempt to make money off of it, but NOT by leveraging IP ownership or DRM. As long as the information can still be freely distributed as a public domain resource, mirrored by other interested parties, etc., then I don't see a problem with google hosting and charging for access.
Yeah, except, you don't have to "use their service" to provide a deep link to their site. Unless you construe merely accessing their website to be "using their service".
And no, it doesn't affect your rights TODAY, but 3 years down the road, when all their technical roadblocks have failed, and they decide to buy a law banning the practice, it'll affect a lot of people's rights.
Slashdot Mirror
SLI is overkill for 99.99% of people out there. In fact, onboard video is fine for probably 80-90% of the PC market.
If I had five bucks for every time a Microsoft product lost my data, I'd be a very rich man.
Actually, that's EXACTLY my point.
But nobody is talking about people being forced to pay their maximum bid. They're talking about people outbidding themselves, when they're already the high bidder, because they feel uncomfortable about their bid position. That's stupid, however you look at it. Don't bid against yourself, and you won't have this problem, period.
Bid once, bid the highest amount you're willing to part with for the item, and understand that if someone bids more you won't get it, but you're fine with that because if someone wants to pay that much for it, they're the fool and you're not.
If you really change your mind and have to have the item, and re-raise over your own maximum bid, then the desire you have for the item is clearly much higher than the extra bid increment you just added to the selling price. Since you agree that you're willing to pay MORE than what the current bid gets set to, whining about paying an increment over your previous high bid is retarded.
If you don't like it, wait until you're actually outbid, THEN raise. Then you'll be up TWO increments from your old maximum. But if your old maximum never gets outbid, then you'll be up ZERO. Win some, lose some.
In eBay, the buyers each place a semi-secret bid and and the highest bidder pays the amount of the second highest bid.
Quite so, UNLESS two people enter identical high bid. But in many cases, the winner WILL pay less than the maximum amount he was willing to spend. Thus, in many cases, eBay is a good place to shop.
Again, what seems to be whizzing past YOUR head is that the problem comes up when you UP your maximum bid. Never, never do that. Decide your max bid ONCE, and place it. Then stick to your guns. If you win, you'll pay no more than the maximum you stated in a contract that you were willing to spend. Chances are quite good that you'll pay LESS than that. And you'll NEVER get "cheated" by this "outbidding yourself" bug, BECAUSE YOU AVOID THAT BEHAVIOR ENTIRELY. If you MUST have an item, wait until you've been outbid, THEN enter a new maximum.
But the best strategy of all is to bid at the last second. eBay auctions are timed, and thus the winner isn't the person with the most economic weight to throw around, but the person who bids just as time is expiring with an amount that is just enough to win. Since you can never be 100% certain of what the current maximum bid is, you should always bid what you personally feel is the most you're willing to spend on the item. If you want to make a "profit" on the purchase, then (DUH) factor that amount into the maximum you're willing to bid. How many economists do you think you'd have to talk to to figure that one out?
And, lest I repeat myself too often, if you're WILLING to spend an amount, then you're willing to spend it. Don't quibble about it, just be happy you've got the item at a price you were willing to pay. Obviously we will always regret when we could have spent even less, but if you're willing to spend the amount, then you shouldn't cry about it even as you do so.
I'll tell you about my experiences with using eBay... here's how not to get ripped off on eBay.:
- Decide what you're interested in buying
- Observe several auctions for similar items to gauge what the market price is
- Select an auction that looks good to you (ie, agreeable terms, good shipping cost, reputable-looking seller, good pics and description of item, auction ending at an odd time when there's likely to be fewer people watching and thus fewer people jacking up the price, etc.)
- Decide on a maximum price you're willing to pay for it.
- Then place your bid at the last possible second, preferrably with bid-sniping software.
If you bid at the last second, you'll never have to worry about someone else outbidding you, and thus will never fall prey to this problem. If you use a bid-sniping program to bid for you, you can do this reliably, any time.
I even take advantage of this flaw in eBay's bidding system, as a buyer. I love it when I can guess that someone else has a maximum bid of some round number. It's freaky how often this happens. People just put in $10, $20, $25, $50, $100, etc. without thinking about it.
It's very easy to guess, based on the current bid, what the maximum likely is, 9 times out of 10 on the nearest round value. So I always bid that round value, plus $.01 or $.03 or whatever. As long as the current bid is more than an increment away from the max bid of the current winner, if you bid a penny over their total, your bid will win, even though it's not a full increment over the previous max bid, and even though their max bid was first.
This is great, in that you get to beat the other person by the minimum possible amount of money necessary. But I always tell people never bid more than what you're willing to spend to get the item, and then you'll never be disappointed. Plus, it just feels great to bidsnipe someone with a few seconds remaining, and steal their win with a penny.
I'm never dumb enough to bid more than I'm willing to spend on an item. You have to have self control and discipline, and walk away from anything that goes over what you're willing to pay. If you get it for under what you're willing to pay, by definition you can be happy, even if it's not for the lowest possible price you could have paid.
For the type of stuff for which eBay provides a good shopping experience -- buying unique or hard to find or discontinued items, you really can't care about money as small as a fraction of a bid increment. For readily available items, you can almost always find a cheaper, more convenient, and more reliable/safe deal from a traditional retailer or ecommerce site.
I can't believe the amount of people who sell (and therefore, apparently, buy) new retail items on eBay, with all the hassle involved and lack of good prices (Reserve price auctions pretty much guarantee that any new item is going to be near retail, and shipping, waiting, and uncertainty make the price even higher in most cases). This is the only time I'd be concerned about spending the least possible amount of money, and it's why buying these types of items on eBay is rarely worth the effort expended.
You can try to save a few dollars buying a popular item in used condition, but often you end up with something that's got a problem with it, and no warranty or receipt to take to a real retailer. Even if this only happens 1 in 10 times, it's enough to make the whole thing not worthwhile. And even if the item was in good shape when it sold, and no one's trying to rip you off with damaged goods, sellers often underpackage it to save themselves money, and you end up with damage and more inconvenience. The vast majority of sellers package their stuff well enough, but like I say, even 1 in 10 is enough to offset the potential gains of using eBay for regular shopping.
Thus, the lesson I've learned is that eBay is not where to go for the lowest possible price. It IS where to go to find something that would be hard to find otherwise. T
It's non-optimal, sure, but it clearly says to enter the maximum amount you're willing to pay as your bid. It's up to you to determine what you're willing to pay.
If you enter a proxy bid of $125, then you are entering into a contract with eBay and the seller to pay up to $125 if yours is the winning bid. If you end up winning at $102.50, then you should be happy for getting the item for $22.50 cheaper than you were willing to spend. It doesn't matter if you were initially willing to spend $100.01 before, your new bid of $125 supercedes this, and by your own free will. If you weren't willing to pay $102.50, then why did you place a bid of $125?
Here's all my information, government. I trust that you will keep this information private.
iThink iHave found a suitable target for the Apple Legal Team.
3 is 300% of 1.
3 is 200% (of 1) more than 1.
"Greco had allegedly threatened to share his methods for spamming members of the group if MySpace.com didn't sign an exclusive marketing deal that would have legitimized the messages he was sending via the service."
So, the spimmer isn't really under arrest for spimming, but for extortion. Right?
You do need a personal firewall on your corporate desktops. The perimeter of your network isn't just where the line comes in from the ISP, it's the whole friggin' network. Every floppy drive, every laptop that leaves your sanctuary, gets plugged in somewhere else, and brought back home, bypasses the corporate firewall.
"They're not supposed to run any unauthorized services..." well, duh. Of course they're not. But how do you think you're going to ensure that policy is followed?
Someone needs to MAIM this guy before he can make it to the trademark office.
If they can accomplish the same mission with less resources, it's a cost savings. Even if they choose not to eliminate those resources, but rather put them to another task, there's still less being spent on the former task.
the driver for Linux on the desktop is not cost savings, but easier support. Manning estimates that it takes a company approximately one desktop administrator to support 40 Windows PCs, while one administrator can support between 200 and 400 Linux desktops.'
And this does not represent a cost savings?
If they are changing the law, how can they go back and hold persons responsible for taxes which were not owed at the time of the transaction? If I buy cigarettes out of state, why do I owe taxes on them when I bring them back across state lines, when they've already been paid for and already have been paid for in the jurisdiction where they were purchased?
That's it, I'm turning off all my RS-232 ports RIGHT NOW!
It all evens out.
More or less, yes. It's not easy to track who's doing what with those downloads once they've left the server. One easy way to get accurate numbers would be to figure out how many unique visitors the Firefox start page has received in a given week.
Not everyone leaves that as their default homepage, so this won't give absolutely accurate numbers, either but it'd give perhaps a slightly more accurate estimate of how many users out there have installed and actively use the program.
Maybe Blizzard is violating their own ToS/EULA... but given that these agreements always state somewhere that they can change the terms of the agreement without notifice or your approval, where does that leave you, exactly? Nowhere.
Gates went on to say, "Much like our Internet Explorer and Outlook Express products, we feel that it is best if we charge for these tools what they are worth."
Every time I see a movie, I remember it. Then I go around and tell people all about it. I quote lines and re-enact scenes complete with sound effects and pantomime. You can never stop me.
Books that are in the public domain still cost money. Anyone has rights to publish them, but publishing them is still a business enterprise and still costs money. If google hosts Wikipedia, they ought to be able to attempt to make money off of it, but NOT by leveraging IP ownership or DRM. As long as the information can still be freely distributed as a public domain resource, mirrored by other interested parties, etc., then I don't see a problem with google hosting and charging for access.
Yeah, except, you don't have to "use their service" to provide a deep link to their site. Unless you construe merely accessing their website to be "using their service".
And no, it doesn't affect your rights TODAY, but 3 years down the road, when all their technical roadblocks have failed, and they decide to buy a law banning the practice, it'll affect a lot of people's rights.
I guess that's neat and all, but why wouldn't I just install X11 for whatever apps I run that need it, and run everything through OS X?