Speaking of Assholes.....and ethics....and posting of private e-mail to the group.... I'm sure that most [if not all] of those horrible "eBay resellers" who sent him offers...offered more than your lousy $100 lowball attempt! Common..Get a life and quit with the griping. Craig Chuck McManis wrote:

Not that I really care personally---but behavior and and/or language like this is offensive to most "civilized" people and really has no place in a public forum. As has been stated several times in the past: Grow Up Sellam. Craig Sellam Ismail wrote: Common..Get a life and quit with the

On Fri, 3 Nov 2000, Jeff Hellige wrote: Well, you see, this is the exact problem with posting private replies back to the public list. Not only is it uncalled for, but it usually results in outbursts like this, making the offense doubly obnoxious. Michael Melland is a big turd. Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org

Thanks Jeff..... I believe Chuck and I buried the hatchet between us and made peace prior to 4:00 PM this afternoon. Like I told Chuck.... I apologize for resending his mail to me to the list. We put our problem to rest and hopefully everyone else can too. That's the problem with computers.... too easy to hit the send button before the brain engages. Regards, Mike Melland

On Fri, 3 Nov 2000, Chuck McManis wrote: As much as I hate seeing this type of thing happen, I'm really glad it's happened to someone else so I can comment on it as an uninvolved third party. Taking a private message and posting it to the list shows that: a) you have little, if any, integrity b) you have no respect for the mailing list community c) you don't feel you have any strength in your argument, so you bring it to a public forum perhaps in the hopes that people will rally to your side and support you Whatever the reason, pulling this kind of shit only shows what sort of an immature and insecure asshole you are. If any sort of conduct deserves a physical beating, this is it. Private mail is sent as such for good reasons, and it is neither appropriate nor welcome for anyone to take a private message and post it to a public forum under any condition. If your intent is to embarrass your adversary, you are only serving to embarrass yourself and demonstrate what a dick you are. Otherwise, pick your excuse from either A, B or C above and hang your head in shame. I concur with this assessment. Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org

At 12:58 AM 11/6/00 -0800, Mike wrote: And other message took me to task for some "low ball" bid. But both Mike and Craig have expressed a misunderstanding that is important for people to avoid. The Market Price (MP) is defined between the set of all buyers for a product and the seller of the product. The "Worth" of something is defined by a successful transaction. When someone offers something for sale anywhere, whether it is on this list, at a garage sale, or at the supermarket, they can either "pre-price" it or simply ask for offers. No matter what prices are offered they are "fair" in the sense that this is what the buyer is willing to pay for the product. They may not be accepted by the seller, in which case there is no market and thus no determination of worth. Sellers have something that they think is "worth" $X Buyers see something that they this is "worth" $Y What are these people really thinking? That they would participate in a transaction where the price was acceptable to them. Now of course anything under $Y is acceptable to the buyer and anything over $X is acceptable to the seller, so if you graph it, it could be something like: Price -> Seller ............$X******************* Buyer ************$Y................ ^ +-- Sales price Price -> Seller ..............$X**************** Buyer ***********$Y................... ^ +-- No Sale is possible Price -> Seller ..........$X*************************** Buyer ***********************$Y.............. ^ +-- Mucho haggling is possible This is just an expression of price elasticity done in a slightly different way. Now one could make the argument that the "Fair" price, if a sale was possible, was one that right at the center between $X and $Y (assuming $X < $Y) which would give the seller a premium over their price and the buyer a discount under their price that was equal, but it doesn't really work out that way. In fact the situation is more like this: Price -> Seller ..........$X*************************** Buyer1 ********$Y.............|................ Buyer2 *************$Y........|................ Buyer3 *********************$Y|................ Buyer4 ******************$Y...|................ Buyer5 ************************$Y.............. ^ +-- "Fair" price Here there are multiple buyers and the "fair" price is mathematically defined as just over the price of the next highest buyer's limit. Did Buyer1 try to "low-ball" this seller? No they just had a lower price that they were willing to pay for the product. If the buyers are finite then the next time the seller sells one of these widgets the price will be _lower_ because the "best" buyer already has one. At the next level you add multiple sellers and multiple buyers and now you're doing differential equations to figure out prices :-) --Chuck

At 09:52 AM 11/6/2000 -0800, Mike Ford wrote: I'm never embarrassed by the bids I make. I find it interesting that you make the same point, but present it as argument. Your statement "When 'i' am buying 'fair market price' doesn't mean a rodents[sic] behind to me." says, if I my paraphrase, that you bid what you think a thing is worth to you. (you say as much above, I'm just restating the obvious) And when you said "$35" for that box at the ham fest you were being honest right? And the vendor got all offended but you weren't trying to "low ball" him were you? You had simply said what it was worth to you right? I totally agree with this sentiment. And as you and I both have recent experience with, even when you're going through life being happy and honest, other people sometimes get really bent out of shape and do or say impolite things. I guess the trick is learning how to ignore the affront caused by that feeling of being unjustly criticized. --Chuck

Chuck, That was RUDE and totally uncalled for. Michael clearly asked for opinions of what the EC-1 was worth. He didn't ask for offers. He could have just as well put it directly on E-bay without saying a thing about it on this list. If you think he was "trolling" and "had no integrity" then you shouldn't have made him an offer. Frankly, if I don't like someone's methods I won't do business with them period, no matter how rare the object or how appealing the deal is. In any event, I KNOW of the amount of several of the offers that he recieved and they were far in excess of your's so you wouldn't have gotten it anyway. Furthermore, I have now seen his offer to sell it to the highest bidder on this list with an opening bid of $350 and I KNOW that he had already recieved a bid of $350 so I feel that he is doing the list members, and yourself, a favor by keeping the bidding to list members only. No, I'm not going to bid on it. I have no interest in this item other than curiousity so I think reasonably neutral in this matter. Joe Rigdon At 11:49 AM 11/3/00 -0600, you wrote: