Programmer at a law firm: "Admin has changed all my.pl scripts so that when you click on them, they open in notepad, and taken away my ability to tell it to run the perl script instead. Please change it back."
IT: Because of the existence of perl viruses, we won't let you use the windows gui click ability, though do require you use windows. Open up a cmd window and type in the following path to get to perl.
Programmer: I am a PERL programmer, everything I do I do in perl. Can't you change my computer..."
IT: NO exceptions.
Programmer: Do you think I stupid stupid enough to click on unknown perl script, but will somehow magically not type it in a command prompt? Or not smart enough to write a java applet that runs in the back ground and exceutes any script I drag and drop into it?
IT: Yes. And you can run any java applets you want to, but no perl.
"In the latest Israeli trial, the system caught 85% of the role-acting terrorists, meaning that 15% got through, and incorrectly identified 8% of innocent"
Assume say 2,020 people. 20 are terrorists.
The machine will identify.08 * 2000 plus 20*.85 = 177 people called terrorist by the machine
Of those only 17 are really terrorists (less than 10%), the rest are innocent. 90% wrong decisions
Of the people called 1843 "innocent" by the machine, 6 would real be terrorists. Less than 1% wrong decision there, but even 6 are 6 too many.
This machine looks to do nothing but provide a false sense of security, while causing MAJOR trouble for a huge number of innocent people.
This is basically just a Lie detector, used for a VERY bad methodology. Lie detectors ARE usefull, if used correctly. Specifically you use them to confirm knowledge, not motive.
I.E. "Lie detectors" can NOT detect lies said by the suspect, they detect Nervousness. The proper way to use them is simple. Say you have a woman killed when someone cut her throat. You take suspect, before he has seen the body, or heard anything about her murder and you ask him:
1 "Did you blow up the victim?"
2 "Did you cut the victim's throat?"
3 "Did you shoot the victim?"
4 "Did you run the victim over in a car?"
If the man is innocent, he will be no more nervous on question #2 than the other questions. If he is guilty, chances are question #2 will cause a HUGE jump in nervousness, as compared to the other questions.
Even this is not fool proof (if the suspect happens to be afraid of knives/was cut by a mugger, bad results are likely), but it is certainly a lot more helpfull than the standard practice.
2)You make a VERY prejudiced remark about ALL american citizens
3) You make an off-topic general insult about our TV (and I feel really sorry for you if you think that TV in anyway that matters?????)
4) You think that thoughtless attitude is a reason why people want to bomb us.
5) You think that americans actualy wonder why people want to bomb us.
Here, let me remove your head from that giant hole in your body:
1. Colbert is a sarcastic show, and the comments about him being straight-talking are supposed to be a joke.,
2. Americans are a varied lot, and any comment that starts off with "Americans think.." is almost certainly indicative of a foolish speaker, not americans.
3. Television, like most art forms, varies by culture, and by defition, deciding which is 'better' is pretty much impossible. At the very least one would need a nuetral third party to judge which is better (if you were moronic enough to care about such a thing), you CERTAINLY can not expect culture A to reasonably judge their own TV better than culture B in a fair manner
4. I am SURE that whatever reason people want to bomb the US, it is for far better reasons than the simple ones you put forth.
5. As an American, I can safely say that I have never wondered why people want to bomb us, I know people are varied and have different reasons, but frankly, I usually have better things to do than wonder about such foolish things. Many of them want revenge because an american soldier killed one of their friends/relatives (usually, but not all the time, in attempt to get them to stop killing innocent 3rd parties). Others are simply frustrated and angry that we don't do what they want us to do and are generally succesfull at what we do do. Finally, others are simply responding to religious and political leaders that need an enemey around which they can rally people to their cause.
US Criminal cases require "proof beyond a reasonable doubt".
That means if you are 85% sure the guy did it, you have to let him go, because you think there is a good chance he did not do it. This is mainly because once you lock someone away or kill him, you can't really 'undo it'
US Civil cases require a "preponderunce of the evidence". As such if you are 50.0000001% sure he did it, you rule against him. This is in part because civil cases can only fine people cash, which can easily be undone.
The 'some folk' you are talking about would in effect force the civil law to the much higher standard required for criminal cases. I.E. Even though we are pretty sure he did it, we are going to let him get away with it.
You have your facts backwards. Human beings are far more sucpetible to Alternating current than to Direct Current. One of the reasons Edison prefereed using Direct Current was that if everything else is the same, house hold Alternating Current will kill you, while the same amount of electricity transformed to Direct Current will not.
Except that certain gas guzzlers would game the system. Just as some SUV's got themselves classified as "low pollution versions of trucks" instead of "high pollution versions of cars" and got tax INCENTIVES for themselves.
One: Unless you are willing to spend a LOT of time doing research, you are better off paying someone to manage your money. Mutual Funds routinely do this for less than 2% per year expenses.
Two: Despite what the index people say, there ARE mutuatl funds that beat the index, reliably. But it will take research to find it. MorningStar has a nice free web site that can help you do it. If you don't have the time, then just pick an index fund that seems appropriate to you - but even that will take a small amount of research.
Three: Look at long term performance, i.e. 3 year or longer, to negate the short term luckyness. Make sure the expense ratio (how much you pay the fund) is not too high, and avoid an upfront or back end fee.
Yes people living close to electrical wires has been accompanied by all kinds of health problems.
But that includes EVERY SINGLE PERSON LIVING IN AN ELCTRIFIED HOUSE.
The current from a standard washing machine creates electrical fields FAR stronger than those from transmission wires. And they are FAR close to you.
The health problems experienced by people living near high power electrical transmission wires have been repeatedly found to be NO different than people living in unwired shacks.
Electricity can and does effect the body. So does heat and acid. But low levels do not have adverse effects, just like low levels of heat and acid don't have an effect. As the field strength represents loss (i.e. the more powerfull tha field created, the more it costs the electricity company to send the electricity over that distance), electrical companies transmit their power in such a way that the field strength is WAY too low to cause damage.
There HAVE been serious studies done, but they show no health effects.
I believe that in England they have spread these things everywhere there is a traffic light. The idea is to make sure that people pay local road use taxes and obey traffic rules, such as speed limits and traffic lights.
You are missing the point. The basic idea is that you don't run stuff except what the manufacturer run. That pretty much means NO web surfing. OK, you might be able to do some minor stuff, but forget about Active X and Java and every thing else that requires a plug in or anything else.
Currently 95% of the malware that exists comes into your system via the web, so the fact that a truely secure system does not let you use the web should not be surprising.
What he is talking about is something that works great more like an embeded system. You don't use your car's diagnostic computer to surf the web.
My understanding that the main reason chickens can't fly well is that they are over-weight and their wings are under-exercised. We feed them all they want, so they get big and juicy and offer no exercise for their wings. Surprise surprise, they weigh too much to fly.
No I am not joking. Positive effects can not stem from anything that is at heart evil.
You are making a bad assumption about "postive" effects and about the word "stem" from. Just because a person likes it does not make it a 'positive' effect. Pleasure a man gets from rape is NOT a positive effect, no matter how much he enjoys it. It is a negative effect - the guy should not be enjoying the rape.
An evil act may create a situation where good is done, but not directly so it can't "stem" from it. A good example is The Holocaust. As a reaction AGAISNT the holocaust, there was a strong movement against prejudice in all forms, which helped to remove discrimination. But it did not 'stem' from the Holocaust, it happend as a reaction against it.
People do things all the time that have negative effects that dramatically outweigh the positive effects. And they continue to do it repeately. Ask any person that has realzied they are addicted to cocaine. They will tell you they get NO positive effects, despite it being pleasureable.
1) Real piracy is wrong, no matter what. There are NO 'positive effects', anymore than more allowing pick-pocketing has the positive effect of giving pick-pockets a job.
2) There ARE real other sides to this issue. For example shmucks calling things "piracy" when they are just fair-use. Or vile corporations pricing things WAY WAY too much, then ripping off the artist by paying them a fraction of the profits, then saying that "piracy" is killing their business. Or those same corporations, understanding that modern technology will destroy their buiness model, do everything they can to sabotage the new technology then complaining when people turn to piracy, not to steal the media, but instead just to put get it in a fair/reasonable format for their MP3 player that the )(*@#$ labels did not want them to.
Yeah, I saw this with watches.
I always report this as an abuse.
Ebay does NOT like it when this happens because they charge a commission that is not based on the shipping fee.
The what are you doing at an AUCTION??????
Go to the company's website or a catalog, and just BUY the thing. Chances are you can find free shipping or some other discount if you look for it.
I am sure you win quite often, and by definition that means you are a LOSER - you paid too much.
You want to know why? I'll tell you the advantage.
The way to 'win' (by that I mean pay LESS than the product should sell for fairl) an auction is to find one that has LOW interest. If your bids actually do what you thought it would, drive the price up, then by definition, that auction was going to go for a price that is TOO HIGH. Any auction where the price went up beyond the cheapo price would NEVER have been a good deal.
Stop trying to 'win the auction' - the goal is not to be the fool that over-paid for the product. If you want to just buy the auction, go to a store/mail order catalog.
Instead your goal is pay less than the object is worth. In that case, you should expect 1)To enter a LOT of auctions and lose 95% of the them, 2) NOT to be able to do this if the object has high demand. If there is even one other serious bidder on it, forget about it. How do you tell
No it is NOT the best strategy that will get the lowest price. We know it is NOT the best strategy - otherwise it could NOT have won more often.
Look, consider the "moron's strategy" to win auction:
I bid 10x the actual value. If it is a $50 gift certificate, I bid $500.
Who will win - the sniper or me? I will of course.
ANY strategy that wins an auction more often than other strategies will by definition mean you pay more than the item's worth
Why? Because human nature means auctions result in higher prices than set values too often.
You want a strategy taht will get lower pries? Do what Ebay tells you to and put in a your max bid right away,forget about the product, and ACCEPT the fact that you will lose most auctions. That is your GOAL. To lose most auctions. When you win, you will know for a fact that you got the lowest price possible because you lost 20 auctions for that same product during that week, all of which went for more money than you offered.
Auctions are tricks - they try to get people to "WIN" the auction - but the people that win the most are really the losers. It is the people that 'barely' win a very few auctions that come away with the best deals.
It IS the best strategy. The fools did the study wrong.
Look, what would have happened if they also tested the "Moron's Ebay Strateg".
That strategy is simple - offer 10 times the actual value of the item. See a computer worth 2,000? Put in a Max bid of 20,000.
Guess which strategy 'wins' the auction?
The study is flawed, it asked the stupid question, not the smart one.
If you want to BUY something, go to the store.
If you want to "Pay less money than at a store", then go to Ebay, and DON'T TRY TO WIN THE AUCTION.
If you consistently win the auction, that means you paid too much money for the item.
Instead, keep using the "Put the max value you will pay", and do it in the RIGHT auctions.
How to find the right auctions?
Look for NON-businesses. (They put in a floor and are just wasting your time 90%) Look for mis-spelled products. And look for things that have few bidders. And be ready to LOSE MOST of the biddings to fools that paid too much. And be ready to accept a product that is not exactly what you wanted, but satisfies your needs for much less than what you expected to pay.
I have to say you have been tricked. You fell for for a very very old trick.
You got caught up in the game of 'obtaining the product'.
You do not go to an auction to obtain the product. You go the STORE to obtain the product. Anyone can "obtain the product" at any auction. I can beat your silly Snipig strategy simply by offering 10 times the value of the product as my max bid.
Only a fool would do that you say? Of course. Any strategy that is the 'best strategy to win an auction is by definition something only a fool would do. That is the nature of auctions. When you go to an auction the point is NOT to obtain the product.
Instead the point is to get the product at a CHEAPER price than standard
Any time there are people out there sniping on a product than whoever wins the bid is BY DEFINITION THE LOSER, not the winner.
I used to hate being sniped, but then I fell in love with it - it protected me from over-paying for something.
The real way to 'win' at the auction is instead to find a product that has so little interest that people are not sniping. You also generally have to totally avoid 'business' sales and look for the UN-professional, individuals doing the selling. Key things to do are to look for mis-spellings, and poor pictures.
No it is NOT the best strategy. It is a moronic strategy that screws everyone.
You want the best strategy to buy something? Offer 10 times the listed value. Or click on the fools choice "Buy it Now". Why don't you do that? Because your desire is not to 'be the moron that bought the item" it is instead to be 'the genius that bought it for LESS than it is worth.' And this study ignored that question.
The study looked at "how to win an auction", but considered "winning" to be getting the item instead of "getting the item for CHEAPER than it would cost to go buy it in a store (don't forget to include the high shipping costs). Anything else is losing the auction game, even though you win the bid.
The question is not how to win - we know the answer to that is to OFFER TOO MUCH MONEY.
I can guarantee a win on any auction in the world - just offer triple the value of the item.
That will work MUCH more often then "sniping" will.
The real question is not 'how to win', but instead "how to get the product at the cheapest price, without spending a lot of time on it".
Sniping has the advantage of not informing other people about how much you will bid, and requires the minimum amount of time per bid (Step 1, get end time. Step 2, enter bid at that second).
But it entails a lot of "underbidding risk" - the chance that someone else entered a max bid higher than what you did.
I can tell you how to get a good price with minimum total time: A) Look for products that is MISSPELLED. Fewer people will find it, so fewer will Bid.
B) Look for products that are NOT being sold by businesses. I.E. No "Buy It Now" crap, no "selling up to 10000". Bussinesses demand a profit, so they will NEVER accept a truly cheap bid.
The American Military engages in the following missions:
1) Go to war
2) Protect american missions in case someone else declares war on us (i.e. they guard embassies)
3) To establish a presence to discourage people from attacking allies/engaging in activities that we dislike
4) To go into dangerous situations and do pretty much anything the government tells them to, outside of the country. (which other countries may consider to be illegal, or may not - we would use a military ship for example to rescue russians on a sinking submarine - or to act as an emergencey relief in a hurricane.)
5) To act as a policing organziation where there is no law (which again, other countries might or might no object to. Countries HAVE been known to ask the US to help restore order)
Many of these missions are perfectly legal and acceptable to other countries, without being a war.
Slashdot Mirror
Programmer at a law firm: "Admin has changed all my .pl scripts so that when you click on them, they open in notepad, and taken away my ability to tell it to run the perl script instead. Please change it back."
IT: Because of the existence of perl viruses, we won't let you use the windows gui click ability, though do require you use windows. Open up a cmd window and type in the following path to get to perl.
Programmer: I am a PERL programmer, everything I do I do in perl. Can't you change my computer..."
IT: NO exceptions.
Programmer: Do you think I stupid stupid enough to click on unknown perl script, but will somehow magically not type it in a command prompt? Or not smart enough to write a java applet that runs in the back ground and exceutes any script I drag and drop into it?
IT: Yes. And you can run any java applets you want to, but no perl.
"In the latest Israeli trial, the system caught 85% of the role-acting terrorists, meaning that 15% got through, and incorrectly identified 8% of innocent"
Assume say 2,020 people. 20 are terrorists.
The machine will identify .08 * 2000 plus 20*.85 = 177 people called terrorist by the machine
Of those only 17 are really terrorists (less than 10%), the rest are innocent. 90% wrong decisions
Of the people called 1843 "innocent" by the machine, 6 would real be terrorists. Less than 1% wrong decision there, but even 6 are 6 too many.
This machine looks to do nothing but provide a false sense of security, while causing MAJOR trouble for a huge number of innocent people.
This is basically just a Lie detector, used for a VERY bad methodology. Lie detectors ARE usefull, if used correctly. Specifically you use them to confirm knowledge, not motive.
I.E. "Lie detectors" can NOT detect lies said by the suspect, they detect Nervousness. The proper way to use them is simple. Say you have a woman killed when someone cut her throat. You take suspect, before he has seen the body, or heard anything about her murder and you ask him:
1 "Did you blow up the victim?"
2 "Did you cut the victim's throat?"
3 "Did you shoot the victim?"
4 "Did you run the victim over in a car?"
If the man is innocent, he will be no more nervous on question #2 than the other questions. If he is guilty, chances are question #2 will cause a HUGE jump in nervousness, as compared to the other questions.
Even this is not fool proof (if the suspect happens to be afraid of knives/was cut by a mugger, bad results are likely), but it is certainly a lot more helpfull than the standard practice.
1) You mistake a joke for a real opinion.
2)You make a VERY prejudiced remark about ALL american citizens
3) You make an off-topic general insult about our TV (and I feel really sorry for you if you think that TV in anyway that matters?????)
4) You think that thoughtless attitude is a reason why people want to bomb us.
5) You think that americans actualy wonder why people want to bomb us.
Here, let me remove your head from that giant hole in your body:
1. Colbert is a sarcastic show, and the comments about him being straight-talking are supposed to be a joke.,
2. Americans are a varied lot, and any comment that starts off with "Americans think.." is almost certainly indicative of a foolish speaker, not americans.
3. Television, like most art forms, varies by culture, and by defition, deciding which is 'better' is pretty much impossible. At the very least one would need a nuetral third party to judge which is better (if you were moronic enough to care about such a thing), you CERTAINLY can not expect culture A to reasonably judge their own TV better than culture B in a fair manner
4. I am SURE that whatever reason people want to bomb the US, it is for far better reasons than the simple ones you put forth.
5. As an American, I can safely say that I have never wondered why people want to bomb us, I know people are varied and have different reasons, but frankly, I usually have better things to do than wonder about such foolish things. Many of them want revenge because an american soldier killed one of their friends/relatives (usually, but not all the time, in attempt to get them to stop killing innocent 3rd parties). Others are simply frustrated and angry that we don't do what they want us to do and are generally succesfull at what we do do. Finally, others are simply responding to religious and political leaders that need an enemey around which they can rally people to their cause.
We are sort of taking the Colbert Report and one-upping them.
That means if you are 85% sure the guy did it, you have to let him go, because you think there is a good chance he did not do it. This is mainly because once you lock someone away or kill him, you can't really 'undo it'
US Civil cases require a "preponderunce of the evidence". As such if you are 50.0000001% sure he did it, you rule against him. This is in part because civil cases can only fine people cash, which can easily be undone.
The 'some folk' you are talking about would in effect force the civil law to the much higher standard required for criminal cases. I.E. Even though we are pretty sure he did it, we are going to let him get away with it.
You have your facts backwards. Human beings are far more sucpetible to Alternating current than to Direct Current. One of the reasons Edison prefereed using Direct Current was that if everything else is the same, house hold Alternating Current will kill you, while the same amount of electricity transformed to Direct Current will not.
Except that certain gas guzzlers would game the system. Just as some SUV's got themselves classified as "low pollution versions of trucks" instead of "high pollution versions of cars" and got tax INCENTIVES for themselves.
One: Unless you are willing to spend a LOT of time doing research, you are better off paying someone to manage your money. Mutual Funds routinely do this for less than 2% per year expenses. Two: Despite what the index people say, there ARE mutuatl funds that beat the index, reliably. But it will take research to find it. MorningStar has a nice free web site that can help you do it. If you don't have the time, then just pick an index fund that seems appropriate to you - but even that will take a small amount of research. Three: Look at long term performance, i.e. 3 year or longer, to negate the short term luckyness. Make sure the expense ratio (how much you pay the fund) is not too high, and avoid an upfront or back end fee.
But that includes EVERY SINGLE PERSON LIVING IN AN ELCTRIFIED HOUSE.
The current from a standard washing machine creates electrical fields FAR stronger than those from transmission wires. And they are FAR close to you.
The health problems experienced by people living near high power electrical transmission wires have been repeatedly found to be NO different than people living in unwired shacks.
Electricity can and does effect the body. So does heat and acid. But low levels do not have adverse effects, just like low levels of heat and acid don't have an effect. As the field strength represents loss (i.e. the more powerfull tha field created, the more it costs the electricity company to send the electricity over that distance), electrical companies transmit their power in such a way that the field strength is WAY too low to cause damage.
There HAVE been serious studies done, but they show no health effects.
That is your problem. You should be voting for Giant Douche.
I believe that in England they have spread these things everywhere there is a traffic light. The idea is to make sure that people pay local road use taxes and obey traffic rules, such as speed limits and traffic lights.
Currently 95% of the malware that exists comes into your system via the web, so the fact that a truely secure system does not let you use the web should not be surprising.
What he is talking about is something that works great more like an embeded system. You don't use your car's diagnostic computer to surf the web.
My understanding that the main reason chickens can't fly well is that they are over-weight and their wings are under-exercised. We feed them all they want, so they get big and juicy and offer no exercise for their wings. Surprise surprise, they weigh too much to fly.
Now that is what I call a computer bug.
You are making a bad assumption about "postive" effects and about the word "stem" from. Just because a person likes it does not make it a 'positive' effect. Pleasure a man gets from rape is NOT a positive effect, no matter how much he enjoys it. It is a negative effect - the guy should not be enjoying the rape.
An evil act may create a situation where good is done, but not directly so it can't "stem" from it. A good example is The Holocaust. As a reaction AGAISNT the holocaust, there was a strong movement against prejudice in all forms, which helped to remove discrimination. But it did not 'stem' from the Holocaust, it happend as a reaction against it.
People do things all the time that have negative effects that dramatically outweigh the positive effects. And they continue to do it repeately. Ask any person that has realzied they are addicted to cocaine. They will tell you they get NO positive effects, despite it being pleasureable.
2) There ARE real other sides to this issue. For example shmucks calling things "piracy" when they are just fair-use. Or vile corporations pricing things WAY WAY too much, then ripping off the artist by paying them a fraction of the profits, then saying that "piracy" is killing their business. Or those same corporations, understanding that modern technology will destroy their buiness model, do everything they can to sabotage the new technology then complaining when people turn to piracy, not to steal the media, but instead just to put get it in a fair/reasonable format for their MP3 player that the )(*@#$ labels did not want them to.
Yeah, I saw this with watches. I always report this as an abuse. Ebay does NOT like it when this happens because they charge a commission that is not based on the shipping fee.
The what are you doing at an AUCTION?????? Go to the company's website or a catalog, and just BUY the thing. Chances are you can find free shipping or some other discount if you look for it.
I am sure you win quite often, and by definition that means you are a LOSER - you paid too much.
You want to know why? I'll tell you the advantage.
The way to 'win' (by that I mean pay LESS than the product should sell for fairl) an auction is to find one that has LOW interest. If your bids actually do what you thought it would, drive the price up, then by definition, that auction was going to go for a price that is TOO HIGH. Any auction where the price went up beyond the cheapo price would NEVER have been a good deal.
Stop trying to 'win the auction' - the goal is not to be the fool that over-paid for the product. If you want to just buy the auction, go to a store/mail order catalog.
Instead your goal is pay less than the object is worth. In that case, you should expect 1)To enter a LOT of auctions and lose 95% of the them, 2) NOT to be able to do this if the object has high demand. If there is even one other serious bidder on it, forget about it. How do you tell
Look, consider the "moron's strategy" to win auction:
I bid 10x the actual value. If it is a $50 gift certificate, I bid $500.
Who will win - the sniper or me? I will of course.
ANY strategy that wins an auction more often than other strategies will by definition mean you pay more than the item's worth
Why? Because human nature means auctions result in higher prices than set values too often.
You want a strategy taht will get lower pries? Do what Ebay tells you to and put in a your max bid right away,forget about the product, and ACCEPT the fact that you will lose most auctions. That is your GOAL. To lose most auctions. When you win, you will know for a fact that you got the lowest price possible because you lost 20 auctions for that same product during that week, all of which went for more money than you offered.
Auctions are tricks - they try to get people to "WIN" the auction - but the people that win the most are really the losers. It is the people that 'barely' win a very few auctions that come away with the best deals.
Look, what would have happened if they also tested the "Moron's Ebay Strateg". That strategy is simple - offer 10 times the actual value of the item. See a computer worth 2,000? Put in a Max bid of 20,000.
Guess which strategy 'wins' the auction?
The study is flawed, it asked the stupid question, not the smart one.
If you want to BUY something, go to the store.
If you want to "Pay less money than at a store", then go to Ebay, and DON'T TRY TO WIN THE AUCTION.
If you consistently win the auction, that means you paid too much money for the item.
Instead, keep using the "Put the max value you will pay", and do it in the RIGHT auctions.
How to find the right auctions?
Look for NON-businesses. (They put in a floor and are just wasting your time 90%) Look for mis-spelled products. And look for things that have few bidders. And be ready to LOSE MOST of the biddings to fools that paid too much. And be ready to accept a product that is not exactly what you wanted, but satisfies your needs for much less than what you expected to pay.
You got caught up in the game of 'obtaining the product'. You do not go to an auction to obtain the product. You go the STORE to obtain the product. Anyone can "obtain the product" at any auction. I can beat your silly Snipig strategy simply by offering 10 times the value of the product as my max bid.
Only a fool would do that you say? Of course. Any strategy that is the 'best strategy to win an auction is by definition something only a fool would do. That is the nature of auctions. When you go to an auction the point is NOT to obtain the product.
Instead the point is to get the product at a CHEAPER price than standard
Any time there are people out there sniping on a product than whoever wins the bid is BY DEFINITION THE LOSER, not the winner.
I used to hate being sniped, but then I fell in love with it - it protected me from over-paying for something.
The real way to 'win' at the auction is instead to find a product that has so little interest that people are not sniping. You also generally have to totally avoid 'business' sales and look for the UN-professional, individuals doing the selling. Key things to do are to look for mis-spellings, and poor pictures.
You want the best strategy to buy something? Offer 10 times the listed value. Or click on the fools choice "Buy it Now". Why don't you do that? Because your desire is not to 'be the moron that bought the item" it is instead to be 'the genius that bought it for LESS than it is worth.' And this study ignored that question.
The study looked at "how to win an auction", but considered "winning" to be getting the item instead of "getting the item for CHEAPER than it would cost to go buy it in a store (don't forget to include the high shipping costs). Anything else is losing the auction game, even though you win the bid.
The question is not how to win - we know the answer to that is to OFFER TOO MUCH MONEY.
I can guarantee a win on any auction in the world - just offer triple the value of the item.
That will work MUCH more often then "sniping" will.
The real question is not 'how to win', but instead "how to get the product at the cheapest price, without spending a lot of time on it".
Sniping has the advantage of not informing other people about how much you will bid, and requires the minimum amount of time per bid (Step 1, get end time. Step 2, enter bid at that second).
But it entails a lot of "underbidding risk" - the chance that someone else entered a max bid higher than what you did.
I can tell you how to get a good price with minimum total time: A) Look for products that is MISSPELLED. Fewer people will find it, so fewer will Bid.
B) Look for products that are NOT being sold by businesses. I.E. No "Buy It Now" crap, no "selling up to 10000". Bussinesses demand a profit, so they will NEVER accept a truly cheap bid.
1) Go to war
2) Protect american missions in case someone else declares war on us (i.e. they guard embassies)
3) To establish a presence to discourage people from attacking allies/engaging in activities that we dislike
4) To go into dangerous situations and do pretty much anything the government tells them to, outside of the country. (which other countries may consider to be illegal, or may not - we would use a military ship for example to rescue russians on a sinking submarine - or to act as an emergencey relief in a hurricane.)
5) To act as a policing organziation where there is no law (which again, other countries might or might no object to. Countries HAVE been known to ask the US to help restore order)
Many of these missions are perfectly legal and acceptable to other countries, without being a war.