Category Archives: Fun

Almost Brilliantly Evil?

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From Coding Horror….

In short, swoopo is about as close to pure, distilled evil in a business plan as I’ve ever seen. They get paid for everything up front, and as they drop ship everything there’s no inventory or overhead to worry about. It is almost brilliantly evil, in a sort of evil genius way. You can’t stop people from endowment effect fueled bidding when they have the individual chance, however small it may be, to win a $2,000 television for $80 — while collectively sending the house $10,000 or more.

Read the whole post to get the details of what Swoopo does. I have to say that I don’t understand what this guy is getting on his high horse for. Does he call casinos evil and get all outrage by them?

I would not call these people honorable businessman out to provide a needed service. But there are a lot of companies out there there who rip people off in worse ways. At least these people are up front about how everything works.

Still, I share his sneaking admiration for their brazen upfront manipulation of human psychology for their own profit. But I don’t think they will make money for long. If they don’t get shut down under some obscure hypocritical law (How can any state that has a lottery prosecute these guys with a straight face?) they are going to face a whole bunch of competition from other people looking to do the same thing. That will drive down profit margins in a big way. Why pay 75 cents for a bid when some other site will let you do it for a nickel or less?

I also think that greed got the better of them when they started offering cash auctions. That is just asking to be shut down. They would have been better off sticking solely with auctions that gave you an actual product. At least then they would a have a little bit of a fig leaf to hide behind when they got accused of being a gambling site by some regulator.

Just So You Know…..

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From the Telegraph….

Teachers who mark work in red pen could be inflicting psychological damage on their students, according to new guidelines.

Australian educators are being urged to correct homework in less aggressive colours like green and blue, in an attempt to improve mental health in the classroom.

Makes you wonder how the older generation manged to grow up with their mental health intact. At the very least, you would think that the suicide rate for young people would have been higher back in them days wouldn’t you?

I am bothered by the lack of transparency

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From the Chicago Tribune….

Blagojevich is accused of a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy, including alleged attempts by the governor to try to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama in exchange for financial benefits for the governor and his wife. Blagojevich also is accused of obtaining campaign contributions in exchange for other official actions.

In my opinion, there are only two things that make this wrong. Number one, the dang guy was going to be selfish and he was going to keep all the money for himself. Number two, the bidding process was not transparent and open to to all comers. Other then that, I think selling it to the highest bidder is a great idea and one that Governor Paterson in New York should give serious thought to.

Look, New York State is short of money. People spends millions of dollars trying to win a senate race in New York state. I say that instead of giving all that money to TV stations to torture us all with ads, they should just put the money straight into the treasury to benefit everyone in the state.

Now some fools might protest that we won’t get the best person for the job this way. But given that Paterson is most likely going to appoint someone with no political experience to Hillary’s vacant spot just because they have a famous last name, I don’t think that argument holds much water.