eBay is pissing me off <semi rant>

[BackAgain]

I used Bluelight for a while.  Beat AOL, Earthlink and NetZero.

[HA Dave]

I used Bluelight for a while.  Beat AOL, Earthlink and NetZero.

At the time.... my wife's (teenaged) daughter lived with us... so I had two phone lines (no available broadband). We had AOL (ISP) that the wife used on one line. Then I'd use the Blue Light (and later NetZero) on the other. Windows 98 supported multipliable video cards... so I used two monitors and would display the ad's on one monitor and use the other. 

[BackAgain]

I tried another local ISP for a while too.  Their offices were not too far away.  On sign up, they sent me the install kit ---  something like 20 3.5" diskettes.

[Knightrider]

I had a 2400 baud modem that dialed a bulletin board and telneted to the mother gopher. Modem connected with parallel port.

[Brian H]

Can't remember the speed. My first had rubber cups. You put the telephones handset into after dialing it. 

[BackAgain]

Probably 300 baud, acoustic coupler.

[Brian H]

Probably 300 baud, acoustic coupler.

That does ring a bell. Thank you for the information.

[dave w]

Yeah, I remember 300 baud. The telegraph was faster. 

[BackAgain]

^^  Send a message, go make a pot of coffee, come back and wait for the message to finish being sent.

[Noam]

If I remember correctly, I think the modem we had attached to our old Apple ][+ (the limited-edition black Bell&Howell model) was a 300 baud one - but none of the BBSes my brother used to dial up to ran at that high a speed. I don't think I ever used the modem with it. I most used it for games and some very basic BASIC programming.

[BackAgain]

Back to topic, they sure don't like to be told how bad they've screwed the site up.

[brobin]

Since we're talking about Amazon, here's a service that actually has saved me some $$. It's called "Honey" and whenever you look at an item on Amazon (and some other sites) it gives you price change info and recommendations on lower cost offers for the same product from other sellers on the same site. For example, if you're looking at a $30 item sold by Amazon with Prime, it'll show you another seller (with or without Prime) on Amazon with a lower price even if the only difference is no sales tax. I'm sure they're capturing info on what I'm looking at but so is everyone else.

[HA Dave]

…… if you're looking at a $30 item…….. I'm sure they're capturing info on what I'm looking at but so is everyone else.

My wife often refers to our Echo devices as "she". It's natural to personify pets and even machines. But the "they" (and "everyone") you refer to... is merely servers... running programs. Sure Amazon could condense the numbers down to a more-or-less "human-manageable" handful of customers... but for what purpose? The algorithms work well with their business model. THIS... is what AI looks like. This (in part) is how it works. AI will be a huge part of our future (whenever the future is).

[bkenobi]

Maybe I need to revise the title.  Now the package that I ordered for the 4th time* from China and the USPS held while out of town has gone missing.  Maybe I should include the USPS into this.  They aren't responsible for ebay, but their one job is delivering parcels.  Or, maybe this outsourcing of everything shipped direct from China isn't the answer.


* 1st was never shipped, 2nd was a scam,  3rd was wrong item, 4th was "delivered"

[Knightrider]

I lost my waterfall pump last Saturday.  Ordered a new one. Estimated delivery via USPS is Friday. USPS tracking says it hasn't been received yet.

I don't think I'll have it by the weekend.