28 Apr
2003
28 Apr
'03
4:33 a.m.
On Sunday, April 27, 2003, steve wrote:
Not true! I can bid at 1 to 2 seconds left and no proxy bidding software
is going to have time to see my bid posted, download the new web page,
process the data, calculate a new bid and upload the new data, all withing
1 second.
But aside from that, NO software works that way. They work by simply
placing their bid, one time, just at the end. None look for a bid and
make a change. And no person can react in that amount of time. Upload
and download times are far slower than the fastest machine. Machine speed
is irrelevant.
I would bet monet that no person ever sees a bid placed with 2 or 3
seconds left that has time to react and change their bid.
Ebay always hides the the current highest bid,
It doesn't matter how close to
zero it is, because any sufficiently fast machine could do it. Sealed
bid auctions do not have this duration. A person or machine would
require time travel in order to react to a bid. Not even an infinitely
fast machine could do it.
--
Jeffrey Sharp