Kevin's Watch

HELP! I don't understand how a bid was entered on that book 4 hours after the bidding closed.

Seems rather unfair to creator.

It was entered 20 hours before it closed: Aug 1, not Aug 2. High maximum bid, so the three bids after that one didn't beat it.

Murrin wrote:It was entered 20 hours before it closed: Aug 1, not Aug 2. High maximum bid, so the three bids after that one didn't beat it.

oh. I assumed bids were shown ordered by time.

Except, huh? If a bid for $178.50 was entered on Aug 1, why were people bidding lower than that on Aug 2?

I don't understand ebay. That's why I stay away.

The user puts in a maximum bid. So that people don't pay far more than necessary, the EBay system places (and displays) the bid as an amount just over the highest previous bid, and automatically raises it every time someone places a new bid - until it reaches the maximum the user entered. So when you bid on ebay, you don't immediately bid the amount you're paying for an item--you bid the highest amount you want to pay if bidding continues to rise, and the system sorts out the rest.

In this case, the bid placed yesterday may have been for 180, or 200, or any higher amount, and would have risen that high if others tried to outbid it, but the auction ended at $178.50.

I still don't get it and have not participated in any ebay purchasing either. Thanks for trying to explain it to us Murrin....

This is something called sniping ... basically you wait until the last 30 to 60 seconds and enter your bid ... this is an attempt to outbid your opponent before they can respond. Since they may have indicated a prior cap (ie., their bid will AUTOMATICALLY outbid you up to their cap) the game is to guess how high do I need to go. I went $130, $150, $175 ... and then time ran out!!

I probably should have stopped at $150 but 1) I wanted to WIN!! ; and 2) if I was gonna lose, it was gonna be EXPENSIVE for my opponent!! (he / she spent $178 instead on $122)

Does this explain it?

O.K. I'll try.

When you bid, you bid the most that you want to pay for an item. Say you will pay up to $50 for an item that shows a high bid of $40. When you bid, it won't show $50, it will show an amount at the next increment more than what the previous high bidder bid. Let's say the increment is $1. If the other bidder had a maximum bid of $45, when you bid $50 you would be listed as the high bidder with a bid of $46. If the other bidder had placed a bid of $55, that bidder would still have would still have a high bid, except they would be listed as high bidder at $51.

EDIT (And Creator showed why you should wait till the last minute to bid )

Ok, I think I get it.

One of my technicians and her son are reading TCOTC for the first time (she's in TIW, he's in TOT.) Just now I was showing her the eBay auctions, with one ARC currently at $500 and another at $172, and we were talking about how crazy that was....when she read this line on the page

Linden Avery, who loved Thomas Covenant and watched him die,

And she started screaming "He DIES?!"

I feel like shit.

Thanks Murrin, Damelon, and ... Asta person.

dlbpharmd wrote:And she started screaming "He DIES?!"

Ow. Ow.

Oh. Ow. Ow.

DLB! Oh my GAWD! That's sooooooo wrong, man. That sucks so much. You are lucky she just started screaming in agony. Had that been me, I might have been driven to throttling.....

I deserve to be throttled.

Yeah, you pretty much do. Ok. Enough torture. You need to just accept that what's done is done and there are no take it backs in this case. Buy her some apology flowers, really nice ones and probably some chocolates too, really good quality ones and then move on.

Wayfriend wrote:Thanks Murrin, Damelon, and ... Asta person.

Creator, wouldn't it have been easier if you'd taken a page from Prince and named your Pantheon diety after an unpronounceable symbol, instead of an alphabet scrambling name?

Well said, Jenn.

Hey!

Astavyastataa Kadna is a cool name! Especially since Mithyaat Vam and O-gon-cho are the only ones who can pronounce it!

Geshundeit, Menolly!

Whenever I see it I go into "Terminator" mode with a side of Harry Potter and inside my head Arnold's voice says: "Hasta Lavista Kedavra"

Neat, a thread about a Fatal Revenant ARC (FARC?) turns into an explanation about the ebay bidding system. Thanks, Damelon...now Murrin's makes sense, too.

dlbpharmd wrote:One of my technicians and her son are reading TCOTC for the first time (she's in TIW, he's in TOT.) Just now I was showing her the eBay auctions, with one ARC currently at $500 and another at $172, and we were talking about how crazy that was....when she read this line on the page

Linden Avery, who loved Thomas Covenant and watched him die,

And she started screaming "He DIES?!"

And she's only on TIW? Oooh boy. No soup for you!

dlb was right:

cgi.ebay.com.au/Stephen-Donaldson-ARC-F ... dZViewItem

warning: the item description includes spoilers for Fatal Revenant!!!!!

$500!!!!!!!!