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| Today I am going to poke fun at BidRobot.com. So, for those who aren't familiar with "Ebay snipe bidding", it is the idea that you reserve your absolute maximum bid for the 6-10 seconds before an auction ends. This is to "eliminate emotional bidding wars between you and other bidders".
Now let us assume that there is indeed a maximum price that you would be willing to pay for the item you're bidding on. Now, what exactly is the advantage to keeping this price secret from Ebay until the last 6-10 seconds? Presumably because if you were to tell Ebay your maximum earlier, someone who had a higher maximum might outbid you. But this doesn't hold up. Imagine an auction between two people, one who is willing to pay a maximum of $10 for the item being auctioned, while the other is willing to pay $12. The one who is willing to pay a maximum of $10 is going to use BidRobot to submit their bid to Ebay in the last 6-10 seconds of the auction, but the one who is willing to pay a maximum of $12 is going to submit their bid a full week before the auction. Now, BidRobot does not change the outcome of the auction at all. The real loser is the person who paid up to $2.50 a week for the priviledge of placing their maximum bid at the last minute.
The only circumstance in which it might be a good idea to use a bid sniping service is if you don't actually have a maximum price you are willing to pay for a item. Note that you will not always be paying the price you tell Ebay is your maximum. Quoted from Ebay site: "eBay automatically bids on your behalf up to your maximum bid. If the item ends for less than your maximum, that's all you'll have to pay."
Apparently, even the people at BidRobot know that their service is irrational: "The best philosophy for placing your bids is to place them once at the maximum you are willing to pay for an item. If you win, that's great! if you lose then the winner paid too much for the item." (quoted from the BidRobot FAQ. | | |
| On November 18, 2003 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples violates the state's Equal Protection Clause. The court stayed its ruling until May 17, 2004. During that period, hundreds of same-sex couples were legally married in Massachusetts.
That ruling, however temporary, nevertheless created a lot of controversy. A lot of people who held more traditional views of how sexual relationships should work were disturbed, and thought the government should change the constitution so that people couldn't do this in the future. A lot of other people thought that by denying people the right to marry people of the same gender, the government was denying them fundemental rights.
On the face of it, this seems ridiculous. Marriage in today's society is essentially a pledge between two individuals not to have sex with anyone but the other. All that is needed for a divorce is the mutual agreement of the married that they no longer wish to be married; in some cases not even that. So the question remains, why would people fight for the right to pledge each other to have sex with no one else? I don't understand why people are so determined to have this right. I suppose I can understand all the white fluffiness associated with heterosexual marriage. But I don't know much about gay people's love for each other, so I can't imagine wanting to pledge my sexuality to another guy.
The position of those who are pushing for the constitutional amendment is even more far-fetched, however. They aren't trying to stop the gay people from having sex anymore; a while ago our government decided that it wasn't allowed to stop people who wanted to have sex together from having sex together. Instead they are trying to stop the gay people from pledging loyalty to each other. They're like pacifists who have given up on trying to completely destroy the military and have decided to pass resolutions to keep military recruiters from talking to potential recruits. They're only swinging at a piece of the ball. Either they're just homophobic, or they're afraid the homosexuals will steal their white fluffiness. It doesn't make sense to me.
If it was up to me, I would let gays marry each other. But I don't see why some people seem to think this right is so terribly important. | | |
| Okay, let's start with the logistics of this. Before there were public schools, there were private schools. Think wealthy boys in Ancient Greece. Thier parents paid the school to educate them. So obviously, the parents would want to check out the school and talk to the teacher and make sure the place was right for thier kids. This state of private schooling continued for quite awhile.
I give up. Go look at this.
Well basically, what I'm trying to say is, instead of education being like a commodity, something that's in demand that people pay for, want high quality of, etc., SCHOOL HAS BECOME A PRISON. That's right, a prison. Instead of parents paying the school to educate their kids, the government forces the kids to go somewhere for eight hours a day. Even if public schools still educate, 1.) Cupertino High School is definitely on the high end of public schools, taking the nation as a whole, and 2.) it devalues education. When education becomes something the federal government tries to force you to have, instead of something your parents pay someone to give you, how can you expect the same quality?
See, things really aren't fair. Think about what a teacher does and what a student does. The teachers work the same hours as the students and have the same vacation schedule, except for occasional "teacher learning days". The teacher's job is to teach and the students "job" is to learn. But when you get right down to it, I don't think teaching is that much harder than learning. Imagine if your schedule just said "1st-Biology, 2nd-Biology, 3rd-Biology" right down the line, and you had to stay in school for ten or twenty years. Yes, it would be boring. After a while, you could probably teach the class. Assuming you got over your fear of public speaking, it probably wouldn't even be that hard to do.
So what does this leave us with? The teacher and the student both work comprable amounts, but the teacher gets PAID, and the teacher CHOOSES to be there, instead of [metaphorically] being forced at a gunpoint to be there like the student.
Now any staunch public school supporter will quickly point out that the student is GETTING SOMETHING by being there, and that by virtue of the teacher's education and superior number of years, she is qualified to teach students.
Don't get me wrong, I'm in favor education as much as the next guy. Just not this kind. Because by making education something that is forced upon students, you have totally irrationalized it. Before education was something you payed for, now it's something to be dreaded. Damn, I have to go to school. Now this might happen with private schools too, but you would have your parents there, not only telling you that you need to get an education and better yourself, but that THEY PAID someone to make you smart and if you're so sure that you don't need school, you can just NOT GO.
Logically, it follows that the kids who would choose not to go to school will not do very well there. Realistically, if you walked around the school, I firmly believe that a large percentage of the students would NOT think they were getting a "gift" from the government. I'll bet that if you interviewed all of America's high school students, at least a good one in four would say that they'd rather not be there. Just take a look at the dropout rate if you want some hard statistics.
So, what we DESPERATELY need is a system of private schools. I don't think we're likely to get it. The only way to do it is do your part, believe that schools can be better than they are and try to convince others of this truth. | | |
| I finally figured it out...
You want people you respect to like your kind of music, or you want to like the kind of music that the people you respect like. And it's just the opposite for people you don't respect. The more you don't respect someone, the less you want to have in common with their musical tastes. Music is such a personal thing here in America in the 21st century. It's a funny thing. | | |
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