{"id":1965,"date":"2009-07-31T14:05:33","date_gmt":"2009-07-31T22:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=1965"},"modified":"2020-07-01T01:56:58","modified_gmt":"2020-07-01T08:56:58","slug":"the-bidding-of-the-beast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=1965","title":{"rendered":"Doing the Bidding of the Beast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am amused by <a href=\"http:\/\/offer.ebay.com\/ws\/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=170364857597\">this eBay bid history<\/a>:<\/p> <div style=\"overflow: auto ;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/offer.ebay.com\/ws\/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=170364857597\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/bid_hist.png\" width=\"738\" height=\"504\" style=\"display: block ;\" \/><\/a><\/div> <p>I'll translate: <ul><li>On 27 July, at 11:30:10 <abbr title=\"Pacific Daylight-savings Time\" style=\"font-size: smaller ;\">PDT<\/abbr>, seller posts item with an opening bid of $1.00 and some still unknown <q>reserve<\/q> price.<\/li><li>At 19:36:05 <abbr title=\"Pacific Daylight-savings Time\" style=\"font-size: smaller ;\">PDT<\/abbr>, first bidder enters a <q>maximum<\/q> bid of $6.16; this does not meet <q>reserve<\/q> price, so first bid is $1.00.<\/li><li>On 29 Jul, at 12:45:05 <abbr title=\"Pacific Daylight-savings Time\" style=\"font-size: smaller ;\">PDT<\/abbr>, second bidder enters a <q>maximum<\/q> bid of $5.00; entry <a href=\"http:\/\/pages.ebay.com\/help\/buy\/bid-increments.html\">automatically pushes bid of first bidder to $5.50<\/a>.<\/li><li>10 seconds later, second bidder enters some <q>maximum<\/q> bid more than 50&#162; than first bidder's <q>maximum<\/q> bid, and finds that his or her bid is now $6.66.<\/li><li>12 seconds later, second bidder enters some higher <q>maximum<\/q> bid, but his or her bid remains $6.66.<\/li><li>Another 12 seconds later, second bidder enters some even higher <q>maximum<\/q> bid, but his or her bid remains $6.66.<\/li><\/ul><\/p> <p>If the second bidder were to enter a bid not less than the seller's <q>reserve<\/q> price, then his or her bid would become that.  Otherwise, his or her bid will remain at $6.66 until some other bidder enters <a href=\"http:\/\/pages.ebay.com\/help\/buy\/bid-increments.html\">at least $7.16<\/a>.<\/p> <p>(<abbr title=\"by the way\">BtW<\/abbr>, I put the words <q>reserve<\/q> and <q>maximum<\/q> in quotes, because, as far as I'm concerned, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ebay.com\/\">eBay<\/a> abuses each term, one way or another.)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I am amused by this eBay bid history: I'll translate: On 27 July, at 11:30:10 PDT, seller posts item with an opening bid of $1.00 and some still unknown reserve price.At 19:36:05 PDT, first bidder enters a maximum bid of $6.16; this does not meet reserve price, so first bid is $1.00.On 29 Jul, at [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,69,4],"tags":[664,86,334],"class_list":["post-1965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disturbing-the-peace","category-information-technology","category-public","tag-beast","tag-ebay","tag-everyday-absurdity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11360,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1965\/revisions\/11360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}