Anachostic

What Do The Robots Think?

Posted by anachostic on August 23, 2025 No comments

If you weren’t aware, I have a blog and post on it every once in a while. Every one in a while over a very long while. And I don’t have any metrics or analysis trackers or cookies or other bullshit (outside of what’s the standard WordPress default) – you don’t deserve that. I have comments disabled and I don’t solicit feedback from anything I’ve written – I don’t deserve that. So that leaves me with really no idea how my writing "lands" with people.

But, a recent technological development has created fake people that can actually provide you with somewhat constructive feedback. They call it Artificial Intelligence. It’s creepy shit. And also, sometimes hilarious. Also, occasionally insightful. One day I had the idea that I should ask the fake people what they think of my blog. Of course, I don’t want them to think I’m fishing for compliments or anything, so I just ask them anonymously. Starting with an innocent question like "If you look at the blog, anachostic.700cb.net, what assumptions could you make about the author?" And, like all AI chatbots, they don’t want to stop talking, so they provide you lots of canned prompts to continue digging deeper. And "deep" is about six inches for these silicon analysts. (insert Oh My! Takai meme here)

I tried both Copilot and uh… what’s Google’s? Oh yeah, Gemini. Both had the same limitations and both generally said the same things in different ways. The limitations for both were how much they could actually access on my blog. Both seemed to be limited to pages they had already indexed, which in both cases, was probably no more than five posts, out of the (maybe) hundreds I have. What this resulted in was trying to glean as much information out of a very small source of data, and that means that they repeated themselves over and over again.

AI is well known for being overwhelmingly positive, so it’s no surprise they had no criticisms about anything I said or about my perceived personality. Despite that, they both seemed to pick up on the tone of the blog correctly, as well as the recurring themes and some of my motivations. Flattering, but I don’t take anything a machine says as an absolute truth, only as a guide or a pointer to find the truth myself.

Copilot was definitely more umm, emotional about how it presented its findings, where Gemini was more basic explanations. They both liked to use the word "authenticity" in their reports. Gemini made some very strange comparisons that didn’t make a lot of sense when trying to figure out the meaning of what I was writing about and that seemed based on the limited amount of data it had to work from. When all you know is I have a hammer, everything is related to hammers, somehow. Copilot got heavy into my style of writing, pointing out cynicism and sarcasm, talking big about my attempts to make an "authentic" impression. Copilot actually went so far as to break my blog down into "eras", which conveniently coincided with the few posts it knew from different time periods.

I specifically asked Gemini for criticisms about the blog and one comment was "As a personal blog, there is no marketing or business agenda behind the posts." Oh, well fuck me, then. It went on to soften that by saying that it might not be expected from a personal blog, but still, that hustle culture. Gemini, if you had more post data available, you’d know that I despise monetizing your life.

Overall, I’m fairly satisfied that if the reports they are giving are consistent with how a general viewership would read my trash, I’m doing things just how I want to. Now, once they index this page, I wonder if they will change their minds.

To SAV

Posted by anachostic on August 17, 2025 No comments

After my last disappointing flea market trip, I started thinking maybe I shouldn’t be so limited in where I go. That thought led to a search for the biggest flea markets in GA. Of the ones in the results, the most promising were in Macon and Savannah. Each was about 5 hrs away, so I filed it under "someday". As the week went on, that kind of became "maybe", and by Thursday, I was probably about 50/50 on whether to do it or not.

Friday, I made the choice that yes, I’d go up to Savannah after work, stay overnight, hit the flea market in the morning, some shops in the afternoon, and come back home. I booked a room, packed a bag (which highlights that I need an even smaller travel bag for literal overnighters), took the car cover off the TourX and steeled myself for the drive.

At 5 hrs, the trip isn’t the worst I’ve ever done. I’ve driven to Atlanta before, which is 8 hrs, and decades ago, I drove down from PA, which was probably 14 hrs. But, like many other things, I’ve quite out of practice, so it remained to be seen how I would fare.

The drive up was fairly uneventful. Unfortunately, the TourX had been sitting idle for a few months and the tire pressure was low, so I had to stare at a low pressure warning for most of the trip. I did have to stop for gas on the way up and also had a small stop for McD’s for sustenance. BTW, the McD’s was really good, but since I don’t eat near as much as I used to, I couldn’t really enjoy it.

I got to the hotel right on time, at 10:00, and climbed into bed. It was already an hour past my normal bedtime. And sleep, I did not. I didn’t pack a melatonin pill, so I blame that. The hours went by with eyes closed, body fairly relaxed, but no sleep. I tried all my usual tricks for getting to a sleepy state and none worked. At around midnight I got the (probably to be expected) loud fuckers down the hall. I don’t mean these were just jerks being loud, I’m talking about loud fucking. Like, does anyone know that real sex is not always like a porno? And even if it is – more power to you – that you don’t have to turn it up to 11 when you’re away from home? Luckily, unlike porn which goes on for an hour, this couple was more realistic in duration. I eventually got some sleep in the early morning hours.

Despite the poor sleep, I didn’t wake up exhausted. I checked out, got some breakfast, and paid for some air in the tires. Something curious that I wonder if it’s going to cause me a lot of trouble in the future is that the air pump had a lot of condensation in the air line. Like enough that it was spraying water vapor. I didn’t notice that until I had filled up two tires. I wonder how much water is rolling around in the tires now.

So anyway, off to the flea market. A quick summary is that it was smaller than I expected. The layout was like a series of buildings and outbuildings linked together. I did find one CD guy and I bought some things at the crystal place. CD guy recommended a music store a little ways away, so that was my next stop. It’s about noon at this point.

I arrive at the shop’s location and well, it doesn’t look like I’m going to get to go there. In this town, this is like a downtown area with residential homes right off the main street. None of the houses have driveways, so everyone has to park on the street. There’s NO parking anywhere. Downtown shops have no parking lots, just street parking. I did spy a paid parking lot a block away, but when I got there, the entrance was blocked by a FedEx truck that I guess was making a delivery somewhere. He blocked the parking lot entrance because there was literally no where else to stop – it was the only open area on the street other than cars up and down the street on both sides. I wasn’t going to fight it. I just gave up.

Instead I decided to go to the outlets, mostly because I was drenched in sweat from the flea market and I didn’t bring a change of shirt. I picked up a couple shirts from Columbia and then set the destination for home. I don’t know why, but sometimes, my car and phone do not want to cooperate with Android Auto and it just disconnects and reconnects over and over. Such was the case on the drive back. I had to briefly check the map to see what my next waypoint was and then let it crash.

The drive home was much worse, not because of traffic, but the on and off downpours of rain. But I did make it home only a shade over 24 hours after I left. A whirlwind trip for a couple of CDs, shirts, and rocks.

Post-trip thoughts: After my last rant about flea markets in FL, I only noticed long after I’d left that I didn’t see a single Trump merch booth in GA. I didn’t see any flags, banners, signs, or anything. Now I know GA in general is not a fan, but it really drove the point home that FL is full of the dumbest, bottom-feeding, most hateful, offensive, griftable people anywhere. That was my big takeaway from the trip is that things are better outside of FL.

The other noteworthy thing is NULL’s handling of my 24hr absence. More like his lack of handling it. I came back to poop on the carpet, puke on the floor, and one of my shoes dragged across the room to be beside his bed. He does seem to have separation anxiety.

The Epidemic Of Authenticity

Posted by anachostic on August 10, 2025 No comments

"Just be yourself!" It’s the guidance given to people throughout all modern times. Whether it’s dating advice, a job interview, first day of school, or anything involving being social, the long-held wisdom is that it’s best to be honest and true; be yourself; don’t be fake. The advice is well-meaning. It’s useful to not pretend or lie or be fake, because you can’t keep that lie up forever. Eventually you’ll be found out and it will be harder to dig yourself out of that mess. The follow-up to this advice was usually, "Never apologize for being yourself."

This is what is also termed "authenticity" – you presenting your authentic self to the world. Authenticity is also used a lot for high-profile people. Do they walk the walk or just talk the talk? (Not sure if that’s a proper saying, but it fits here). And if these people don’t present a level of authenticity, the accusation is "fakeness". "They’re so fake!" And that was considered pretty brutal, because if you can’t be respected, why are you a high-profile person, unless your goal is infamy?

When the Internet came about, there was a complete epidemic of inauthenticity. where people could say and do things they would never normally do just because the Internet gave them anonymity. There was a lot of hand-wringing and worry about how normally upstanding citizens were behaving badly on the Internet and what can we do about it. Oddly, the advice, "just be yourself" was not really offered. Because, in the online world, people can take on a persona, and that persona is being authentic to itself. It’s just that the persona is a terrible person. To quote Billy Joel, "They’re the faces of a stranger, but we love to try them on." It’s like role-playing, just as a villain.

Well, I hate to say it, but all that analysis and explanation turned out to be wrong. It’s not role-playing. It was always about the anonymity, and it was always the authenticity. What’s different now is that the online world has become the real world, where anonymity doesn’t matter anymore.

if you look around there are a lot of people out there that are taking the advice of "just be yourself" and doing exactly that. They’re being horrible people. And they also listened to the secondary advice, "never apologize for being yourself" and that has actually become a greater mantra for how they live their lives. If you’re offended, that’s a you problem. Go ahead and try and cancel me, I have more supporters that cheer on my behavior than you do. Even if I don’t have more supporters, who needs you and your kind anyway?

When the stigma of being shunned and cast out means nothing, and there is no benefit to being a polite citizen of the world, where do we go as a society? What greater motivation can there be when fear of isolation means nothing? And within that question is the upsetting knowledge that it was the Internet that caused it all. What started as an opportunity for bad people to act out their inner desires individually, lead to a discovery of other like-minded malcontents. And after years of testing the boundaries, they’ve all decided they have numbers large enough that isolation means nothing. So, where do we go from here?

Bak Into It

Posted by anachostic on August 10, 2025 No comments

As part of my usual morning routine, I checked Woot today and saw they had Canelbaks today. And,as part of my usual purchasing routine, I can’t pass up a good deal on quality stuff. I mean, have you seen the prices of Camelbaks lately? WTF. Even the prices of reservoirs is like $35, so when Woot is selling a Camelbak for $30, I’m going to pause. Because that’s a good price. Like my mom was fond of saying, "they paid me to take it."

Let’s have a look at the existing family member and the soon to be family members. But first, let’s stretch the leg muscles out (more on that later).

Here’s the first one I bought – the Classic. Camelbak has gone through tons of design changes over the years and mine is like 15 years old. But this is the design I have, except in blue.

So the first problem I had with it, actually really the only problem I had with it, is that it had no storage. It has a little side zipper and room enough to hold maybe your keys. No wallet, no phone, no room at all.

And I was just getting into hiking at the time. I didn’t really know much about the different models and I wasn’t really keen on spending a lot of money on one of these new things, back then when they were the only hydration pack out there, they commanded a lot of money. I suspect I probably paid $60-75 bucks for this one. Probably retail at a sporting good store.

But I didn’t spend a lot of time with it. I moved on fairly quickly to its big brother.

The big brother is called the Rogue. Again, the design has changed over time, but again, this is the design that I have. It doesn’t look much different than the Classic, but it is. The lower part is a zipped pocket that holds a decent amount, and the top flap is also a pocket that holds even more, larger things, like a modern phone.

This one was good enough to use most everywhere and it has remained my go-to pack for riding. Again, I’m pretty sure I paid retail for this, in a physical store (so retro!). The details elude me. I probably justified it by saying the reservoirs were the same size, so it was just like buying a backup.

But around this time, I was getting into a relationship with someone who was pretty outdoor-savvy. She also had a Camelbak she’d used for many years. And hers was like full backpack sized, and she carried a lot of cool stuff that you might need for outdoors and for geocaching, which we were doing a lot.

I won’t say it was envy that made me upgrade, but it was the realization that having more on the trail was important and useful. Obviously, I didn’t want everything with me. We weren’t camping overnight, but more storage space would be welcome.

But I was also happy with what I had, so I just kept an eye out.

And after a short while, Woot came to my rescue. In May, 2015, they had a sale on… Camelbaks! And this one only cost me – once again – $30! this one is the Daystar 18, which is the "female" version of the Cloudwalker model. Something about the shoulder straps and boobs or whatever. It fits me fine and it is my current choice for hiking.

You can easily tell that has a lot more cargo capacity. This holds everything I need and still has lots of room to spare. My Frogg Toggs, whistle, compass, knives, multitools, maps, hat, whatever. If I need to take a fleece or if I end up shedding a fleece along the way, there’s room to hold it.

Like I said, this is my current choice for any hikes I make. And all three of these packs are holding up well. Maybe the Rogue is wearing out a little. The letters of the logo are pretty much rubbed off, but none of them have holes, so they’re all perfectly usable.

So let’s quickly meet the newcomers.

Here are the ones coming soon: The Arete 14, Arete 18, and another Classic Light. I expect the Arete 18 will have the same capacity of the Daystar, and the Arete 14 will be a possibly "just right" size, which will eliminate the extra unused space I have in the Daystar. Both of the Arete models are 50oz reservoirs, whereas every other Camelbak I own is 70oz. So it was a little calculated to get two 50’s, so they could share a reservoir should something happen to one. And so far, I have never drained a 70oz on a single hike, so it will be interesting to see if I can get by with a 50.

But what’s up with getting another Classic? I don’t like or use the one I have now. Well, part of it is to give the latest design a try. Part of it is the bright color, which would be useful when riding on the bike, and part of it is that all of these were $30/ea and I can’t get reservoirs for that price, so having an extra 70oz, with the new hydrolock design, even, is good, even if I hate the pack itself.

So what did I do to celebrate this purchase? Grabbed my Daystar and went on a hike. It’s been so brutally hot here I haven’t been outside doing much for months. Sometimes I could get in a couple miles after work if the weather wasn’t threatening, but this was a longer planned hike. Up to my local state park, purchase an annual pass – might as well, maybe the guilt of the money spent will make me go more – and get on one of their longer trails I hadn’t been on in years. It was mostly cloudy, which meant there was a chance of getting rained on briefly, but I lucked out. On the drive home, I saw other areas around did get rain. Awesome FL weather.

I got to try my new fitness band on the walk and quickly remembered what I hate about hiking with fitness bands. I wear a long-sleeve sunshirt for sun and bug protection. This shirt gets soaked in sweat fairly quickly. After all, they are designed to wick sweat. The sweat soaked sleeve rubs against the face of the band and the stupid thing thinks that I’m touching it to pause or end the workout. That has happened with every fitness band I’ve ever had. It’s not a new thing. So you just gotta roll up the sleeve to avoid contact. So annoying.

And the hike itself? Shorter than I thought (by a mile), and the recovery I expect to be longer than I thought (by a mile). I’m out of practice, but I still remember how to do it. I have the tools (with more tools on the way!) and progress shall be made.

Those Who Can, Do. Those Who Never Get The Chance, Can’t.

Posted by anachostic on August 5, 2025 No comments

In kind of a full-circle, or multiple full-circle thought at dinner tonight, I was thinking about consulting. The beginning of this train of thought was a consultant who had been hired by my employer to help up speed things up, because right now, things kinda suck. It’s not the first time that has happened at a job I’ve been at, and to some degree, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. There are people out there that have a lot of time to dedicate to a specific skill and they can get very good at it because they are not busy adding features and fixing bugs as requested by millions of users.

Me, with my very long career and plenty of experience had a little bit of skepticism about this guy. You know, I don’t know the guy at all. But duh, there’s this thing called the Internet, and if the guy is really as good as he should be, I would certainly be able to find him online. And that search pretty much shut me up. I found a few bio pages on him and his video channel where he discusses and demonstrates what he does. And while I had a pretty good gist of what was discussed in the first video I watched, it was still on topics that I had never heard of in my years of development. Never. But you, know, I would have loved to hear about them. It’s just that work and life got in the way.

And there’s reality number one for me. If you look around, you’ll find I have a blog for programming and tech stuff. I haven’t posted in it for a very long time. I’m just sort of out of the game. I thought maybe I could retire into consulting, but now I’m not so sure. Things haven’t stopped, but I haven’t been exploring like I used to. I still try new things, but I’m not pushing the envelope like I used to. And this consultant is like in a different realm of technique and troubleshooting.

So I’ve sort of made peace that I’m probably not cut out for that life. And I probably never was, because I’m not an entrepreneur anyway. I can’t run a business, I like doing the business. And also, as mentioned, I’m out of the game. This consultant is like 20 years younger than me. Back then, I was sort of doing the same thing, out on the edge, so it’s familiar to me in a nostalgic way as well. Ah, listen to the old man talking…

And that led me to other related thoughts. The people that I work with, who are also like 20 years younger than me, they aren’t like that consultant. Given the chance, I think a couple could be, but while they have age and the drive on their side, they are being held back by where they are and what they’re doing. They’re just programmers. And now I can sort of bring everything together here.

A lot of the techniques this consultant is using, we can’t use. We don’t have the permissions to do it. That’s just how it works for any reasonable security-minded corporation. Developers can’t be database administrators. They hire specialized database administrators for that job. But DBA’s aren’t developers, or aren’t skilled developers, and even if they were, they wouldn’t be touching the code at the company – that’s another security boundary. So you have developers and DBAs that each are good at what they do, but they aren’t allowed to touch each other’s areas, and to really make things work the best they can, you need people who can work in both. That’s what the consultant can do. And when he’s gone, we won’t have that anymore. And that’s kind of why we ended up in the position we are now. So while there’s no shame in hiring a consultant to point out how we can fix our problems, to not give us the capabilities to solve those kinds of problems in the future is a little sad.

Now back to the people who could do it. Young, go-getters, eager to learn. Well, they just can’t have that opportunity working here. Best-case scenario would be that they set up a home lab and experiment at home in their free time. But it’ll never compare to real-world stuff like what we do. Each job I’ve had presented a unique technical wrinkle that added to my skillset. Two jobs ago it was database replication to 45 sites across the country. My previous job had a massive database of half a billion images. Now this job has data magnitudes greater than anything else I’ve done, but the difference this time is, I can’t touch it. I can’t experiment with it. The best I can get out of the experience is optimizing database queries. I’ll never get to see how the databases are constructed or managed. I’ll never get to experiment on them to see if I can make them any better. I could never get to try the techniques the consultant is explaining in his videos. But this is how security-minded business is. And this is also what all my co-workers are limited to as well.

And looking at that from a wide view, it’s sort of fascinating how a top-rated consultant gets there. Because once a company gets big enough, the security and the segmentation of the teams becomes a requirement, so you can’t get that blended experience from that. You can get to a certain point in startups, in that explosive growth before they "go pro", but how many chances can you get at that in life? For some doing their best programming in a large company, it might be zero. For me, I got my chances at smaller (but still significant) environments, but now in the big leagues, I’ve been shut out.

Banding, Again

Posted by anachostic on August 3, 2025 No comments

During the blog’s offline era, I took on a new hobby: cycling. I say it’s a new hobby, but it’s really just a return to being a kid again. Let’s go ahead and discuss that before getting on to the titular topic.

I don’t exactly know when or why I decided that I wanted to start riding a bike again. I had tried this a while ago with a clearance bike from Sears many years ago and that turned out to be terrible. I had a road bike many years before that and never really liked it. I hadn’t ridden in any appreciable amount for maybe 30 years? But I just decided that I wanted to do it again.

And after the road bike dislike and the cheap mountain bike experience, I was sort of lost. What kind of bike do I want? I want the most simple bike you can get. No fancy gears, brakes, or features, just a bike. This is exactly what beach cruiser bikes are, but man, I did not see myself riding one of those. And doing some research, I learned that adult-sized BMX bikes were now a reality. I found my bike.

After removing all the gaudy stickers from it, I rode that bike everywhere. Well, I rode it everywhere that I could drive it so I could ride it. Suburban nonsense, amirite? And that was really good for me. It made me happy. But, like every hobby of mine, it soon becomes not enough. I wanted more. This bike was great for riding the paved trails that were available, but trails leading into the woods kept beckoning me. My tires are road tires and the one time I tried riding in my back yard, I ended up crashing down on my side when the tires just slid out under me. So then what? Upgrade time?

Hell no. You should know me by now. You never get rid of anything. That leads to regret. The answer is another bike. And after research, I chose a gravel bike, which is midway between a mountain bike and a road bike. Not perfect for either, but can do both acceptably. And taking advice from the girl at my local bike shop, I found a deal on FB marketplace for a high-quality gravel bike.

And that was fun, until summer arrived. It’s been a couple months now that I can barely go outside at all, much less consider expending the energy to bike on a trail, paved or god forbid, unpaved. But someday, that’s going to change. And when that happens, I hope to be ready with some additional data collection. I’m talking about a new fitness band.

At lunch today, I wondered when I last had a fitness tracker. And my blog indicates it was a little over six years ago. And Amazon confirms that I had spent a little over $50 on a cheap Chinese fitness tracker. Well, times have changed and that same fitness tracker is now $10 more, but who would want to buy that same model as trackers have advanced a lot in 6 years.

Hmmm. You know, I did consider getting a band when I started biking, but at that time there was a huge tariff scare and when I researched prices, they were all really high. Not that ANYTHING is any better now, but an Amazon price tracker showed that a device with which I would be happy dropped its price nearly 50% in the last month – to a ridiculous $29. I mean, what’s the argument to not pick up one of the highest rated "budget" (I’d still just say cheap) fitness trackers at that price? And that’ll be here tomorrow.

It won’t go completely to waste. Sometimes I do get in a short hike when I can. None of that 8 mile shit right now. This weather is good for maybe 3 miles. And the tracker can still gather some data from that. I’m curious about my sleep, which I feel has kind of sucked lately. And the heart rate and SpO2 and "stress tracker" (?) will be useful at some level.

Rest easy lads, you’ll be on the road again sometime.

The Cookie Killers

Posted by anachostic on July 30, 2025 No comments

I read in the news today (oh boy) about a new thing called nitazenes which are magnitudes more deadly than fentanyl. This news sort of sucks the wind out of a post I had planned to make long, long ago on fentanyl, but I guess the story is still the same. So now’s the time to write it.

When you hear stories about overdoses on street drugs – copycat pharmaceutical drugs especially – because they’ve been cut with something much stronger, like fentanyl, the question comes up: why are drug dealers so stupid? Why kill off your customers? And while in most cases, the dealer isn’t the drug maker, you can still point the finger up the ladder: why are you killing your customers? And it’s not that they want to, they really don’t. They’re just making cookies.

If you read much of my blog, you should know I don’t cook at home. I eat out for nearly every meal. But, I can cook. You know, I can do the basics. And another basic that I can do – and I do it well, I might add – is chocolate chip cookies. So I could also be a drug maker, I suppose. And the results would likely be the same.

Let’s look at the cookie making process. If you haven’t made cookies before, it’s quite simple. Put some flour, baking soda, sugar, more sugar, eggs, and butter in a bowl and use a spoon to mix it all up. Then you add chocolate chips and mix them in. Then you portion them out and cook them. That’s really it. Even I can do that.

So let’s say that customer research has found that 7 chocolate chips is the perfect number of chips to have in a cookie. Companies that specialize in cookie making will have spent a lot of money on equipment that ensures that every cookie has 7 chips in it. No more, no less. And they will have quality control to ensure that remains true. Because when you’re selling cookies, your customers demand perfection because they are spending their hard earned dollars with your company.

But my cookies? You might have some cookies that have 7 chips, or 5, or 3, or some might have some extra, like 9 or even 12. Additionally, some cookies might have a extra mix of butter in them, which is always a treat. That’s part of the charm of homemade cookies.

The problem with drugs is, 5 chips might be a little disappointing, but 9 chips will kill you. And to be sure, I didn’t want to kill you. That’s just how the cookie crumbles.

Gimme Some Fresh Ideas!

Posted by anachostic on July 29, 2025 No comments

You know how some companies are just so far into the suck that there’s not really any harm in trying something different? Well, I feel eBay is one of those companies. They just exist. There’s no "innovation", there’s no drive, there’s no reason to use them, other than the reason that they’ve always had. And that marketspace has been going to other competitors for some time now – primarily Facebook marketplace. I mean, it’s hard to compete with free listings, right? The only thing FB Marketplace doesn’t offer is transaction settling. You have to do your own deals with cash or Venmo or even… PayPal! Yeah, the old eBay company.

So anyway, if I worked at eBay and there’s nothing else to lose, this is my idea. I’m not going to say it’s the best idea or even that it’s a good idea. But it doesn’t seem like they have any ideas right now, so they should be happy with whatever I can offer.

Let me start by saying I don’t have a huge problem with eBay. I’ve bought on it, I’ve sold on it. And my idea would make things better for sellers and not buyers. But sellers have been leaving for some time because the fees never stop climbing, and nothing else is changing. So here’s an option that a seller could choose to utilize on their auction listings: Bidding War.

Here’s the trick I live off when I’m buying on eBay. I think I’ve posted about it before, saying that other people were dumb for not doing what I do. So this new option would defeat my strategy. What I do is pre-determine the highest amount I am willing to pay, then make that bid like 5 seconds before closing. I don’t make the bid early, because another bidder could slowly peck away trying to find the upper bound of my bid. By bidding with only 5 seconds left, other bidders would not have enough time to inch up their bids more than once before close. Why people do the incremental bids is beyond me. Set your max and bid it!

So anyway, when Bidding War is enabled, the last bid will extend the closing time by whatever parameter you want. 30 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes. So that gives people that were just outbid a chance to get back in. This is more like a real live auction, where the auctioneer is bouncing between two people trying to find out who is going to tap out. And you know what, that’s the excitement of an auction. It might only happen a couple of times at a live auction, but how many times do you think it could happen on a worldwide platform?

So then we create another area of eBay – The Gallery, where you can see auctions that have ended up in a bidding war and you can watch it unfold in real time, with a live reaction chat scrolling beside it, maybe. And once it’s done, it moves right on to the next exciting listing. If the idea becomes a hit, maybe it would be a non-stop stream of auction drama to watch.

And that’s the simple pitch, but the gory implementation details would need to be addressed. What protections are there from bad actors jumping in and bidding a product up to a million dollars? Well, what’s to stop people from doing it now? And it has been done on listings that have gone viral, so it’s more than a mild concern. As part of your profile, you can set some minimum parameters of who can participate in a bidding war. Number of years on eBay, minimum feedback score, number of previous purchases, whatever. And this doesn’t totally exclude new users. Someone new to eBay can still participate up to the point the listing enters a bidding war. To participate in the bidding war, you would have to set a max bid before it starts, then you are not able to change it. However, users who do meet the standards can continue to up their bids once the war starts. See, that’s how it defeats my strategy. I believe that will prevent abuse once the listing potentially goes viral or attracts a lot of attention from the gallery.

The goal of this option is to increase the profit for sellers, which means eBay makes more money. They could probably offer a discount on fees for a listing with Bidding War enabled because they expect to make more overall from the higher sell price. The secondary goal is to create excitement and get people back to the site, maybe as watchers, maybe as participants.

What ever happened to those scam auction sites where you pay to bid and if you don’t win, you lose everything you had bid? Those also had the time extension per bid, but that was just to suck more bids from the people who thought they were getting a good deal. This actually has a bit of fairness to it.

So there you go. Just another idea for a company that has nothing to lose.

Return To MEL

Posted by anachostic on July 26, 2025 No comments

While I was rebuilding my blog post-by-post, I ran through some trip log posts I had made for drives to nearby areas looking for CDs. I thought I should revisit that idea. Last weekend, I woke up too late to get a good early start, so I planned for this week and this morning, off I went. This time I had less of a plan compared to my previous runs. My initial plan was to go to the flea market and some music stores. You know, just kind of ease back into it and see how I feel about making trips again.

The driving wasn’t bad. Took the beater car so it was loud and rough, but familiar and still comfortable. Traffic wasn’t really bad at all. Got to the flea market maybe 30 mins after opening time and the market parking lot was a little eerily empty. Overall, it wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience. I hadn’t been to Melbourne for 3 years. But I have been to flea markets in Daytona and one up north of me and it’s the same in all of them. Hold on, let’s have this discussion at the end.

I walked all the rows and there were some CD sellers there, but one was not open, and I remember they weren’t open the last time I was there years ago. So weird. And of all the others I looked at, I didn’t buy anything new, just some dupes that I plan on comparing on relative waves (something else I want to get back to). So overall, not really productive. And it was hot. It’s been really really hot this year. I don’t want to really go outside anymore it’s so bad.

So after that flea market, I did a search for music stores and found one not far away. When I got there I recalled being there years ago. Good for them that they’re still around. I ended up buying 4/$10 of new stuff. Nothing valuable, mostly just collection filler. So that wasn’t unpleasant (except for the running and screaming kids who would be scolded half-heartedly by their dad, who just wanted to buy some records – priorities!). And with that done, I located my standard roadtrip lunch – Carrabbas. And with that done, I was just ready to get back home.

And on the drive back, I had a lot of time to reflect on the flea market situation. It feels like, for about 10 years now, going to a flea market is just… offensive. I’m talking specifically about Trump merch dominating the entire place. Now don’t get me wrong, I know flea markets have always been a little offensive. It was like a Super Spencers. You could get bongs and bowls, switchblade knives, and signs that say, "Don’t like it? Suck my dick." and "All white is all right" But even with all that nonsense, there was a sense that people would buy that stuff, and maybe they really were the lowlifes that actually liked and thought that way. But you also felt assured that they would do their bad stuff with their bad friends in their bad backyards and they would still be upstanding, presentable people in public areas. But since that taboo has been shattered and that mask has come off, it seems being a racist or an asshole is just an American trait now. There’s no shame in holding those values. In fact, judging by the merchandising, it’s celebrated. And that is just so saddening.

And I have a less obvious observation on this as well. Flea markets used to be sort of a commoner’s market. People might sell their old belongings, flip or resell stuff, offer services or even do some retail sales. But there’s something different about the Trump merchers. I mean, that’s all they do. That’s a really specific thing to be selling and the customer base is pretty well set in stone. On the way to Carrabbas, I saw a dedicated trailer set up in a parking lot selling merch. What’s the lifespan for that business?

While it would be easy to poke fun or simply call these merchants stupid, are they stupid? I don’t think so. I think they’re predatory. They’re opportunists and they know who they’re taking money from. In a way, they are like drug dealers. And they’re feeding an addiction of hatred. They moved into the flea market like pawn shops and vape store move into distressed communities. And they’ve taken over.

And it’s been the same at all the flea markets I’ve been to (except for the Hispanic flea markets – go figure).

Growing Up With Less To Say

Posted by anachostic on July 26, 2025 No comments

Although it would seem to be a reflection on my posting frequency on my blogs, it’s actually sort of a metaphor for something I noticed in a band I recently found. A few months ago I picked up an album by a group called Happy The Man, and I thought it was music by a different artist who also had an album released under the name Happy The Man. As it turned out, it was nothing of the same music. The music I was looking for was soft of synth-y new age. Ironically, what I purchased was a kind of music I did like immensely – progressive rock.

The 70’s group Happy The Man only had a couple albums on a major label. I had purchased the second. And it was not long ago that I found the first album and quickly bought it as well. It was, as most debut albums are, a little more raw and disjointed, but still something I enjoyed a lot.

As is typical of my musical habits, I had to know everything I could about this new band I found. The part that interested me, and the point of this post, is that the consensus was the second album was not as good as the first. Now me, hearing the second album first, held a slightly different opinion. Now having listened to both albums to excess, I can see how the critics came to their decision. And here’s where I want to reflect on it.

If you know prog music, you know it’s some really busy shit. A lot of people can’t handle it because it’s sometimes really difficult to follow. in fact, there’s some prog groups I can’t get into because they make stuff that’s just beyond what I can follow. Happy The Man isn’t like other prog bands that play out a song for 12-15 minutes, though. Their stuff is pretty compact and easily digestible. But in that short amount of time, on their first album, they go all over the place, with sections that jump back and forth. That’s part of the excitement of prog is that the players can turn on a dime, keep the beat, switch tempos and time signatures and typically play very quickly.

But on the second album, there’s still the shorter songs, but less frequent twists and turns. And those that wanted more of the first album were disappointed. But here’s the key: the band grew up. They got more mature. And when that happens you worry less about how much you say and care more about how well you say something.

And I get that. My earlier compositions were very similar. I had many different sections all put together in a stream of madness. I had a lot of things I wanted to say and I needed to get them all out in one song. For a different example, see Emerson, Lake, and Palmer’s Tarkus. The number of things said just in the first movement (Eruption) with changes every 1 or 2 bars, is mind-blowing – if you’re into that stuff.

But when you’ve done all that, you find you want to begin making a big picture that’s cohesive. You take one theme and build it, embellish it, do variations on it, all in the same song. Looking at a melody from many different angles. That’s what a lot of classical composers did and it lets the listener relax and move with the changes instead of getting shocked by change after disjointed change. And that’s how Happy The Man’s second album is. They wanted to say one thing very well. And on top of that, they avoided making it tedious by keeping the songs a manageable length.

And when you take this "saying one thing" metaphor to another level, you can apply it to more modern trace and groove music. In these instances, they are saying one thing over and over with small colorations here and there. The intent and result is like repeating a mantra, as one would do during meditation. At least that’s my interpretation, because I can’t tolerate much of that music because I need active listening music.

So when you listen to music, especially when you listen to an entire album of an artist, consider what they are trying to say and how they are saying through the length of the songs and the number of sections within the songs. Especially the closer. Does it repeat and fade out over a long time, trying to lull you into a trance or does it end with a bang, trying to be the grand finale of a fireworks show?