Mosquito Sound

Yes that is correct. Many times I'm outbid when there is only seconds left.
The item has not recieved any bid for days but then at the last few seconds
there can be several bids.


"(0) -^- (0)" <transistorPLEASE@REMOVEkc.rrTHISTOREPLY.com> skrev i en
meddelelse news:4121d00a.3162665@news-server.kc.rr.com...
THANK YOU for that tip. Seriously. I do the same search and that guy
bugs me too. There are other searches I do where I would like to
exclude certain sellers like the guys that sell those component kits.


One thing you don't always notice is that a lot of auctions get their
bids in the very last seconds, so even though it doesn't look like
some of the sellers like him are selling anything at all, they
actually are. Looks like more and more people are using the automated
bidding services now.

Ebay is a real hoot sometimes. Dunno if you saw this one or not...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3815314978

check out what he says at the very bottom of the auction

Also there were the ghost in a jar people and the haunted rubber
ducky. If you haven't seen those search on "ebay ghost in a jar" on
google to see archives of all of the damn auctions people put up.

Finally here is one last thing that people sell that is really
funny..search on ORGONE and sort by highest price. Nearly as I can
tell, they are selling a box with a bunch of knobs/lights and a couple
tin ashtrays glued to it for $300-400.00...over and over again. It
can't possibly DO anything.

funny stuff.


On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 19:31:27 -0700, "Watson A.Name - \"Watt Sun, the
Dark Remover\"" <NOSPAM@dslextreme.com> wrote:

I regularly get on Ebay and search for 'transistors' and I exclude those
such as 2n3904, 2n3906, 2n4401, 2n4403, 2n2222A, 2n2907 and a few
others. I usually come up with a few hundred listings. I then check
them out to see what's hot, what's not, what's rare, and what's a
bargain. You've probably seen some of the old CK722 collectible
auctions that I've posted to the newsgroups which may go for a hundred
dollars or more.

For quite awhile I've been noticing that a few sellers have trashed up
the transistors listings for months; they sell supposedly 'vintage'
transistors for outrageous prices, and continually relist the same items
over and over, ad nauseum, with never a single bid. This, to me
indicates they're way overpriced and probably not really what the seller
says they are. One seller in particular really bothers me and probably
everyone else. They go by the name Goldenopportunities1, and sell just
a few transistors for a minimum bid of $10, charge $6 shipping for just
a few transistors, do not accept Paypal, and continually re-list the
same items over and over, making it tedious to browse thru all the
listings.

Well, I found that the new Ebay search has a feature that allows you to
exclude sellers. WOW! I put this seller's name in there, and the
listings went from 145 down to 83! This clueless, inconsiderate seller
was taking up a full 43% of the listings! But not any more! He's outta
there! What a Golden Opportunity!

I also notice that this happens on occasion to my test equipment
searches on Ebay, but maybe not to as great an extent. So I hope this
info is helpful to those, too. I've got several ebay searches
bookmarked in their own folder, just so I don't have to redo the
searches every time. On the old ebay, I never could get their favorites
to work right, maybe because I've got the Moz security and privacy
settings clamped down to prevent popups, cookies and such. But with
these searches bookmarked, who cares!

Someday I hope Ebay improves their website even more. My wishlist
includes putting the number of relists in each auction, so a buyer will
instantly know if the auction is a white elephant. And if this doesn't
help cut down on the relistings, I hope they put a limit on free
relistings, so after some number, say 5 relists, it will start to cost
the seller something.

Also I hope they put, in addition to the feedbacks, the ratio of the
number of relists to the number of successful total auctions. Or some
composite of this and other ratings that reveal how much of a bottom
feeding scumbag each seller is.

Hope you're successful bidding.

--
@@F@r@o@m@@O@r@a@n@g@e@@C@o@u@n@t@y@,@@C@a@l@,@@w@h@e@r@e@@
###Got a Question about ELECTRONICS? Check HERE First:###
http://users.pandora.be/educypedia/electronics/databank.htm
My email address is whitelisted. *All* email sent to it
goes directly to the trash unless you add NOSPAM in the
Subject: line with other stuff. alondra101 <at> hotmail.com
Don't be ripped off by the big book dealers. Go to the URL
that will give you a choice and save you money(up to half).
http://www.everybookstore.com You'll be glad you did!
Just when you thought you had all this figured out, the gov't
changed it: http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
@@t@h@e@@a@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@m@e@e@t@@t@h@e@@E@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.737 / Virus Database: 491 - Release Date: 11-08-2004
 
"Rune Christensen" <rune.christensen@adslhome.dk> wrote in message
news:4121d7b7$0$285$edfadb0f@dread12.news.tele.dk...
Yes that is correct. Many times I'm outbid when there is only seconds
left.
The item has not recieved any bid for days but then at the last few
seconds
there can be several bids.
It's called sniping, and there are software pkgs like snipe-it that will
allow you to do this. But if the bidder bids the maximum sensible,
informed bid on his first bid, then the sniper is just paying too much,
or else he needs it worse than you do. But just remember that there
will always be another of the same item available later, so just bide
your time and don't get into a foolish bidding war. Especially with
those old collectible transistors!


"(0) -^- (0)" <transistorPLEASE@REMOVEkc.rrTHISTOREPLY.com> skrev i en
meddelelse news:4121d00a.3162665@news-server.kc.rr.com...
THANK YOU for that tip. Seriously. I do the same search and that
guy
bugs me too. There are other searches I do where I would like to
exclude certain sellers like the guys that sell those component
kits.


One thing you don't always notice is that a lot of auctions get
their
bids in the very last seconds, so even though it doesn't look like
some of the sellers like him are selling anything at all, they
actually are. Looks like more and more people are using the
automated
bidding services now.

Ebay is a real hoot sometimes. Dunno if you saw this one or not...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3815314978

check out what he says at the very bottom of the auction

Also there were the ghost in a jar people and the haunted rubber
ducky. If you haven't seen those search on "ebay ghost in a jar" on
google to see archives of all of the damn auctions people put up.

Finally here is one last thing that people sell that is really
funny..search on ORGONE and sort by highest price. Nearly as I can
tell, they are selling a box with a bunch of knobs/lights and a
couple
tin ashtrays glued to it for $300-400.00...over and over again. It
can't possibly DO anything.

funny stuff.


On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 19:31:27 -0700, "Watson A.Name - \"Watt Sun, the
Dark Remover\"" <NOSPAM@dslextreme.com> wrote:

I regularly get on Ebay and search for 'transistors' and I exclude
those
such as 2n3904, 2n3906, 2n4401, 2n4403, 2n2222A, 2n2907 and a few
others. I usually come up with a few hundred listings. I then
check
them out to see what's hot, what's not, what's rare, and what's a
bargain. You've probably seen some of the old CK722 collectible
auctions that I've posted to the newsgroups which may go for a
hundred
dollars or more.

For quite awhile I've been noticing that a few sellers have trashed
up
the transistors listings for months; they sell supposedly 'vintage'
transistors for outrageous prices, and continually relist the same
items
over and over, ad nauseum, with never a single bid. This, to me
indicates they're way overpriced and probably not really what the
seller
says they are. One seller in particular really bothers me and
probably
everyone else. They go by the name Goldenopportunities1, and sell
just
a few transistors for a minimum bid of $10, charge $6 shipping for
just
a few transistors, do not accept Paypal, and continually re-list
the
same items over and over, making it tedious to browse thru all the
listings.

Well, I found that the new Ebay search has a feature that allows
you to
exclude sellers. WOW! I put this seller's name in there, and the
listings went from 145 down to 83! This clueless, inconsiderate
seller
was taking up a full 43% of the listings! But not any more! He's
outta
there! What a Golden Opportunity!

I also notice that this happens on occasion to my test equipment
searches on Ebay, but maybe not to as great an extent. So I hope
this
info is helpful to those, too. I've got several ebay searches
bookmarked in their own folder, just so I don't have to redo the
searches every time. On the old ebay, I never could get their
favorites
to work right, maybe because I've got the Moz security and privacy
settings clamped down to prevent popups, cookies and such. But
with
these searches bookmarked, who cares!

Someday I hope Ebay improves their website even more. My wishlist
includes putting the number of relists in each auction, so a buyer
will
instantly know if the auction is a white elephant. And if this
doesn't
help cut down on the relistings, I hope they put a limit on free
relistings, so after some number, say 5 relists, it will start to
cost
the seller something.

Also I hope they put, in addition to the feedbacks, the ratio of
the
number of relists to the number of successful total auctions. Or
some
composite of this and other ratings that reveal how much of a
bottom
feeding scumbag each seller is.

Hope you're successful bidding.

--
@@F@r@o@m@@O@r@a@n@g@e@@C@o@u@n@t@y@,@@C@a@l@,@@w@h@e@r@e@@
###Got a Question about ELECTRONICS? Check HERE First:###
http://users.pandora.be/educypedia/electronics/databank.htm
My email address is whitelisted. *All* email sent to it
goes directly to the trash unless you add NOSPAM in the
Subject: line with other stuff. alondra101 <at> hotmail.com
Don't be ripped off by the big book dealers. Go to the URL
that will give you a choice and save you money(up to half).
http://www.everybookstore.com You'll be glad you did!
Just when you thought you had all this figured out, the gov't
changed it: http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
@@t@h@e@@a@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@m@e@e@t@@t@h@e@@E@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@





---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.737 / Virus Database: 491 - Release Date: 11-08-2004
 
"Michael A. Covington" <look@ai.uga.edu.for.address> wrote in message
news:4121fadc$1@mustang.speedfactory.net...
One thing you don't always notice is that a lot of auctions get
their
bids in the very last seconds, so even though it doesn't look like
some of the sellers like him are selling anything at all, they
actually are. Looks like more and more people are using the
automated
bidding services now.

And in that respect, eBay differs from conventional auctions, which
don't
allow sniping. I was recently involved in organizing the auction
service on
www.astromart.com, and we decided to do like a real auctioneer --
automatically prolong the auction if the bids rise more than a few
percent
at the last minute.

Auto-sniping essentially turns an eBay auction into a sealed-bid
auction,
the kind where you don't know people's bids until after the auction
ends.
Of course, you can run an auction that way if you want to, but it
would be
much easier to omit the "sniping contest" and simply ACCEPT sealed
bids!
Astromart chose not to do this, but eBay perfectly well could, if
they'd
like.

As it is, the sniping contest keeps the sale from going to the person
who is
willing to pay the most. It's fairly common to miss "winning" an
item
because you didn't snipe fast enough.
It all boils down to the bid that gets the last clock cycle...
 
On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 06:27:06 -0700, "Watson A.Name - \"Watt Sun, the Dark
Remover\"" <NOSPAM@dslextreme.com> wrote:

"Rune Christensen" <rune.christensen@adslhome.dk> wrote in message
news:4121d7b7$0$285$edfadb0f@dread12.news.tele.dk...
Yes that is correct. Many times I'm outbid when there is only seconds
left.
The item has not recieved any bid for days but then at the last few
seconds
there can be several bids.
<snipped>

But just remember that there
will always be another of the same item available later, so just bide
your time and don't get into a foolish bidding war. Especially with
those old collectible transistors!
Amen to that!

Don't forget also that there are other sources apart from the USA, especially
for equipment. Ebay has servers in most large countries, although the Latin
American ones seems a bit weak yet.

Peter



--
Peter & Rita Forbes
diesel@easynet.co.uk
Engine pages for preservation info:
http://www.oldengine.org/members/diesel
 
John Miles wrote:
The person who is willing to pay the most *always* wins.
Minor quibble, which may be at the heart of any misunderstanding here: The
person who is willing to pay the most AND who places a bid for that amount
before the end of the auction always wins.

Being willing is not sufficient. (But you knew that. :)

--
John Miller
Email address: domain, n4vu.com; username, jsm

Yes, I've now got this nice little apartment in New York, one of those
L-shaped ones. Unfortunately, it's a lower case l.
-Rita Rudner
 
"John Miles" <jmiles@pop.removethistomailme.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1b8c1c7ef82fc4fb98970c@news-central.giganews.com...
In article <4121fadc$1@mustang.speedfactory.net>,
look@ai.uga.edu.for.address says...
As it is, the sniping contest keeps the sale from going to the person who
is
willing to pay the most. It's fairly common to miss "winning" an item
because you didn't snipe fast enough.

That statement shows a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of how eBay
works.

The person who is willing to pay the most *always* wins.
No... That was my point.

Sniping turns all auctions into sealed-bid auctions. That is, you have to
decide what you are willing to pay before you place any bids at all. In an
open-bid auction, you can use other people's bids as a guide to what you
should bid.

eBay is, in effect, sealed-bid auctions disguised as open-bid auctions. I
wouldn't be surprised if the people in California who license auctioneers
would eventually take some interest in this, as a regulatory matter.

Entirely too many people have never experienced an auction anywhere but eBay
and don't realize just how weird eBay really is.
 
Michael A. Covington wrote:
So it's a sealed-bid auction disguised as an open-bid auction. eBay
should make up their mind.
But how could sniping be eliminated?

--
John Miller
Email address: domain, n4vu.com; username, jsm

Now I lay me back to sleep.
The speaker's dull; the subject's deep.
If he should stop before I wake,
Give me a nudge for goodness' sake.
-Anonymous
 
Well, even sans sniping, the eBay auctions are only semi-open. If
you're the leading bidder, others don't get to see what your maximum
bid is... only that it's at least $MININUM_INCREMENT above the maximum
bid of the next-highest bidder. An eBay auction would be fully open
if and only if each bidder's true maximum bid was visible in real time.
True... maybe they should switch to a completely sealed-bid format.

I'm not at all sure that there's any way, even in theory, to prevent
sniping. You'd always have to create some rule which would
distinguish a "snipe" from a "non-sniping last-minute bid", and I
really doubt that you could create such a rule which would not be
largely arbitrary, and also rather easily circumvented.
Add 5 minutes every time the (apparently) winning bid increases by at least
5%.
 
"John Miles" <jmiles@pop.removethistomailme.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1b8c1c7ef82fc4fb98970c@news-central.giganews.com...
In article <4121fadc$1@mustang.speedfactory.net>,
look@ai.uga.edu.for.address says...
As it is, the sniping contest keeps the sale from going to the
person who is
willing to pay the most. It's fairly common to miss "winning" an
item
because you didn't snipe fast enough.

That statement shows a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of how eBay
works.

The person who is willing to pay the most *always* wins.

Wins?? "A fool and his money are soon parted."


> -- jm
 
"Michael A. Covington" <look@ai.uga.edu.for.address> wrote in message
news:41228d17$1@mustang.speedfactory.net...
"Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, the Dark Remover"" <NOSPAM@dslextreme.com
wrote
in message news:10i41t1rkump2b6@corp.supernews.com...

It's called sniping, and there are software pkgs like snipe-it that
will
allow you to do this. But if the bidder bids the maximum sensible,
informed bid on his first bid, then the sniper is just paying too
much,
or else he needs it worse than you do.

My point. Sniping turns all auctions into sealed-bid auctions (except
for
the people who actually enjoy the sniping process as a game of
chance). The
published bids are *no* prediction of what people are actually willing
to
bid. So it's a sealed-bid auction disguised as an open-bid auction.
eBay
should make up their mind.
I've never read anything that claimed that Ebay auctions were sealed or
open. AFAIK, they just say that when the time us up, whoever has bid
the highest wins the auction. And the winning amount is equal to the
maximum of the second highest bidder (assuming there was another
bidder).

If it were a sealed bid auction, the winning amount would be equal to
the highest bidder, not the second highest.
 
"Michael A. Covington" <look@ai.uga.edu.for.address> wrote in message
news:41228de0@mustang.speedfactory.net...
"John Miles" <jmiles@pop.removethistomailme.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1b8c1c7ef82fc4fb98970c@news-central.giganews.com...
In article <4121fadc$1@mustang.speedfactory.net>,
look@ai.uga.edu.for.address says...
As it is, the sniping contest keeps the sale from going to the
person who
is
willing to pay the most. It's fairly common to miss "winning" an
item
because you didn't snipe fast enough.

That statement shows a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of how
eBay
works.

The person who is willing to pay the most *always* wins.

No... That was my point.

Sniping turns all auctions into sealed-bid auctions. That is, you
have to
decide what you are willing to pay before you place any bids at all.
In an
open-bid auction, you can use other people's bids as a guide to what
you
should bid.
Well, see my other followup to yours - it's not really a true sealed-bid
auction. And another point: you _can_ use the bidding history of past
auctions for the same item as a guide to what your maximum bid should
be. And there may be more of the same auctions going on at the time of
your bidding, so you can also use them as a guide.

eBay is, in effect, sealed-bid auctions disguised as open-bid
auctions. I
wouldn't be surprised if the people in California who license
auctioneers
would eventually take some interest in this, as a regulatory matter.

Entirely too many people have never experienced an auction anywhere
but eBay
and don't realize just how weird eBay really is.
So you're saying that it's neither sealed- nor open-bid. No??
 
"Dave Platt" <dplatt@radagast.org> wrote in message
news:10i565prlc48ia2@corp.supernews.com...
In article <41228d17$1@mustang.speedfactory.net>,
Michael A. Covington <look@ai.uga.edu.for.address> wrote:

It's called sniping, and there are software pkgs like snipe-it that
will
allow you to do this. But if the bidder bids the maximum sensible,
informed bid on his first bid, then the sniper is just paying too
much,
or else he needs it worse than you do.

My point. Sniping turns all auctions into sealed-bid auctions
(except for
the people who actually enjoy the sniping process as a game of
chance). The
published bids are *no* prediction of what people are actually
willing to
bid. So it's a sealed-bid auction disguised as an open-bid auction.
eBay
should make up their mind.

Well, even sans sniping, the eBay auctions are only semi-open. If
you're the leading bidder, others don't get to see what your maximum
bid is... only that it's at least $MININUM_INCREMENT above the maximum
bid of the next-highest bidder. An eBay auction would be fully open
if and only if each bidder's true maximum bid was visible in real
time.

I'm not at all sure that there's any way, even in theory, to prevent
sniping. You'd always have to create some rule which would
distinguish a "snipe" from a "non-sniping last-minute bid", and I
really doubt that you could create such a rule which would not be
largely arbitrary, and also rather easily circumvented.
Fuzzy timing? Make it so that each auction will end sometime during the
last minute (or some other predetermined value). If you submit your bid
at least 1 minute before the final time, you have a 100% chance of
bidding. But if you submit your bid during that last minute, the
bidding may have already ended.


--
Dave Platt <dplatt@radagast.org
AE6EO
 
The way to stop sniping is to always have to type in a "displayed" number in
order to bid. This displayed" number would be like the bitmapped numbers on
some security systems where a slightly squewed picture of a number is
displayed for verification.
 
swapemround wrote:
The way to stop sniping is to always have to type in a "displayed" number
in order to bid. This displayed" number would be like the bitmapped
numbers on some security systems where a slightly squewed picture of a
number is displayed for verification.
That would only stop computerized sniping. I (and many others) keep my
local clock within a second of NIST time, and check it against eBay's clock
before sniping manually.

--
John Miller
Email address: domain, n4vu.com; username, jsm

When you're down and out, lift up your voice and shout, "I'M DOWN AND OUT"!
 
"Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, the Dark Remover"" <NOSPAM@dslextreme.com> wrote
in message news:10i5ul6dd3ess6d@corp.supernews.com...

I'm not at all sure that there's any way, even in theory, to prevent
sniping...

Fuzzy timing? Make it so that each auction will end sometime during the
last minute (or some other predetermined value). If you submit your bid
at least 1 minute before the final time, you have a 100% chance of
bidding. But if you submit your bid during that last minute, the
bidding may have already ended.
That could work, but it would appeal even more to people who enjoy sniping
as a game of chance, rather than people who want an auction as an efficient
market.
 
Add 5 minutes every time the (apparently) winning bid increases by
at least 5%.

Would this not be vulnerable to automated snipe-ware which submits
multiple, gradually-increasing bids during the last few minutes of an
auction, seeking to "push" the winning bid upwards at a rate just a
bit below the one which would trigger the "extend an auction" rule?
It couldn't push it very far. There would have to be some consideration of
all the bids submitted by the same person... i.e., you can't submit a
thousand bids each 0.01% higher than the previous one.

Actually there are already minimum bid increments. You can't bid at all
unless you are willing to beat the current high bid by a certain (small)
percentage. This is to keep from having a hundred bids that are 1 cent
apart.
 
In article <41237a04$1@mustang.speedfactory.net>,
Michael A. Covington <look@ai.uga.edu.for.address> wrote:
Over at Astromart, they run auctions like eBay (i.e., proxy bidding) but the
auction is automatically extended a few minutes as long as the bids are
going up at a certain minimum rate. There are those who complained that
this "takes the fun out of sniping" but we think it makes a better, fairer
auction.
This has been tried on many smaller auction sites, but I don't think you
can draw any conclusions about how it would work on eBay. The sniping
phenomenon did not really emerge until eBay reached a certain (large) size.
I think that if eBay adopted auction extension rules, software would be
developed to manipulate them, and auction patterns would change in an
unpredictable way.
 
In article <10i5s3ajnv8mg18@corp.supernews.com>,
Watson A.Name - \"Watt Sun, the Dark Remover\" <alondra101@hotmail.com> wrote:

I've never read anything that claimed that Ebay auctions were sealed or
open. AFAIK, they just say that when the time us up, whoever has bid
the highest wins the auction. And the winning amount is equal to the
maximum of the second highest bidder (assuming there was another
bidder).

If it were a sealed bid auction, the winning amount would be equal to
the highest bidder, not the second highest.
Yup.

There have been many different styles of auctions run, through the
past centuries. They aren't, I think, hard-and-fast discrete models -
they are points in a fairly complex continuum of rules and
limitations, which share similarities and have differences.

Yankee, Dutch, open-bid, sealed-bid, eBay... there's no "one true way"
to run an auction. Every style has benefits and disadvantages to the
various parties involved. Given that peoples' interests are
fundamentally opposed there's not going to be a single style which is
"best" for everyone.

eBay's style is eBay's style. The fact that it doesn't map exactly
onto any of the historically-popular meatspace auction styles does not
make it any less legitimate, or any more (or less) "right" or "wrong".

It is what it is. The nature of any game is defined by its rules.

--
Dave Platt <dplatt@radagast.org> AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!
 
"George Francis" <w3ase@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:9b58ea86.0408180638.34c8a066@posting.google.com...
: Hi:
: I need a monochrome monitor ....small 8 or 9 inch or
smaller,....needs
: to support composite video and have decent resolution. Any for
sale?
: Thanks, George

Maybe! To what city would it need to be shipped?

Green color phosphor okay?
 
Dave Platt wrote:
Well, even sans sniping, the eBay auctions are only semi-open. If
you're the leading bidder, others don't get to see what your maximum
bid is...
Just as in a real live auction. You don't know what my maximum is,
do you ?

only that it's at least $MININUM_INCREMENT above the maximum
bid of the next-highest bidder. An eBay auction would be fully open
if and only if each bidder's true maximum bid was visible in real time.
So I should tell you up front, OK, let's bid, but I'll tell you
right now that I'm not going over $xxx anyway ?

I'm not at all sure that there's any way, even in theory, to prevent
sniping.
It's easy. Each succsessfull bud adds 5-10 minutes to the end time.
Just as in any real live auction. The auctioner always waits
until there is no more bids. If I'm overbid, I'm always
given the oportunity to re-bid. This whould make sure
the all eBay auctions *always* are won by the one willing
to pay the most !

And the snipers are toasted...

Jan-Erik.
 

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