eBay

EBay profit rises but shares fall 5 percent: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

EBay listings surged 19 percent from a year ago, after suffering declining growth much of last year. But growth in active users eluded the company, rising a mere 1 percent.

I'm not terribly surprised by the apparently plateau of eBay's userbase at all. It almost mirrors my own experience as a buyer and seller of used goods and trinkets through the auction site. I used to buy a lot and sell a little over the years since 1994 (I think). I've bought and sold Hot Wheels, electronics, software, games, ephemera, printer suppliers, and camera equipment.

But, I've decided to avoid buying anything there. Frankly, I've grown tired of:

• Auction Fees--too many fees for this service: listing fees; final value fees; fees to bold your auction; fees to use templates; fees to use an automated listing client; etc etc etc. There is no end to fee-age.



• PayPal Fees--as an eBay buyer/seller, you are virtually locked into their payment system, PayPal, which charges you an extra few percent for allowing others to pay you through the system. This on top of the auction fees.



• Fraudulent sellers--I bought a new cell phone on eBay and that was a BAD MISTAKE. The phone was marked by Sprint as stolen and the seller disappeared. "No matter", I thought, "there is the Buyer protection guarantee." HA! Little did I know what a farce that is. It took a month of going through all of eBay's steps to resolve the matter with the seller (no response) and filing the proper paperwork, to only have eBay deny my $200 claim. Luckily, I had used a credit card through PayPal and I filed a claim in 15 minutes over the phone with my credit card company and received a credit without a hitch. PayPal sucks and this incident was the beginning of the end for me on eBay. I no longer feel safe in ordering from any seller there.



• Pricing -- You have to know your prices on eBay, even for commodity goods. Just because it's on eBay, it's not always a good deal.



• Counterfeit or Misrepresented Goods -- It's well known that eBay is a thieve's den of counterfeit goods. How do you know what you're getting? I've ordered used stuff on eBay and they showed up as not quite the same thing as listed. And the seller? Nowhere to be found. Jerks. And if you want it resolved? Heaven forbid you'd want...



• Customer Service -- Since you're ordering from any number of people on eBay, you're beholden to varying levels of customer service. Some are good, some are great, but some are just lousy. It's difficult to gauge and frustrating to resolve if you need to return or resolve anything.

So, it is no surprise that I have relegated eBay to the back burner of my Internet shopping, unless I'm looking for something truly odd or weird. I am of the opinion any money I might have saved shopping on eBay is better spent on piece of mind and customer service from more reputable online dealers. "You get what you pay for," is not always the case at eBay--sometimes you get less.

Bugs and Oil Barrels

A silicon valley firm claims to have genetically engineered a strain of bacteria to produce a petroleum by-product near to distilled gasoline--somehow the company, LS9, has convinced a few E. coli to poop gas, which is the highly technical term. The article goes on to present their claims as well as explain to us their discovery is "carbon-negative".

Can this be true?

Frankly, I'm skeptical. Remember a few years ago in 2003 when turkey offal would be converted into light crude via thermal depolymerization? "It's the silver bullet!" we (or at least I) thought. Five years later, they're still relying on subsidies for a profit and fighting the local government to even stay open (apparently nobody likes the smell of turkey offal).

This current fad for green technology and the resulting gold rush for alternative fuels feels like a haven for snake oil salesmen and hucksters looking for easy money from soft-headed capitalists. This firm's claims sound too much like a penny stock spam email than real scientific results:

Mr Pal holds up a small beaker of bug excretion that could, theoretically, be poured into the tank of the giant Lexus SUV next to us. Not that Mr Pal is willing to risk it just yet. He gives it a month before the first vehicle is filled up on what he calls “renewable petroleum”. After that, he grins, "it’s a brave new world".

or (emphasis mine)

Bob Walsh, 50, who now serves as the firm’s president after a 26-year career at Shell, most recently running European supply operations in London. "How many times in your life do you get the opportunity to grow a multi-billion-dollar company?" he asks. It is a bold statement from a man who works in a glorified cubicle in a San Francisco industrial estate for a company that describes itself as being "prerevenue".

As much as I want to believe we can simply grow gas and lesson our dependence on imported oil (and I do hope we get there one day), the truth of the matter is our foreseeable future lies in oil pipelines and not in pipe dreams.

F-35B First Flight

sdd_f35testb_012
Originally uploaded by kawfeadikt

A long time coming, and much anticipated. The F-35B (BF-1) lifted off for its maiden flight yesterday, flown by British pilot, Graham Tomlinson--a nod to our allies who are in line to purchase the B variant along with our own Marines.

This aircraft cannot come soon enough, replacing an aged Harrier fleet and providing expanded capabilities to the USMC. Next up in the program for Lockheed-Northrop-BAE will be the C variant, the replacement for the Navy's F/A-18.

Even now, as the B variant begins its test program, AA-1 continues its flight testing, there are A and B test articles in production, the first C variant (CF-1) has probably begun assembly, and LRIP is beginning for all variants as well.

The ONLY downside to my current job is missing being on the "inside" of the JSF program. Not only were there great amounts of satisfaction from participating in the aircraft's development, but observing everything coming together in an intricate dance to produce each variant was wondrous. Heady times for the engineers there!

More problems with the 787

Will Boeing please fix this plane and get it flying? Don't turn the Dreamliner into a nightmare please.

Ratting Out the Telemarketers

I keep getting called by some organization where the caller ID only shows "331", as I generally make a habit of not answering calls from number I recognize, I send them to my voice mail. However, they are so persistent I decided to snoop around. Good thing there is a website called "Who Called Us" that is a website containing user-generated reports about phone numbers--telemarketing or phishing. The 331 number is reported to be outsourced junk phone calls to India or Pakistan or even phishing.

The website seems to be legit and on the up and up and if nothing else, it's a good starting point for information.

Damn you telemarketers! Damn you!

Missile hits a satellite

A missile launched from a Navy cruiser soared 130 miles above the Pacific and smashed a dying and potentially deadly U.S. spy satellite Wednesday, the Pentagon said. Two defense officials said it apparently achieved the main aim of destroying an onboard tank of toxic fuel.

Should I be waiting for Ted Kennedy and all the others who said this could NEVER work back in 1983 to apologize??? No, hell would have to freeze over first. Thank you Regan, Bush, Clinton and Bush for giving us a basic BMD system that can also protect us from rogue satellites. Yes thank Clinton because he didn't kill the program like he promised to do.

I Hear Voices (in Wikipedia)

Like most netizens, I turn to Wikipedia for general information and pointers about a topic. Of course, I read Wiki with a healthy dose of skepticism, knowing full well that any doof with a grudge can poison the well, as it were. The very strength of Wiki, the democratization of the encyclopedia, also means it's pretty common to encounter bias, inaccuracies and outright value judgments. Another drawback of the Wiki is the loss of a single voice for articles, it's difficult to find a well-written article that is cohesive in its presentation of information, in fact, reading some articles is much like an archaeological dig--you can detect layers and layers of edits and re-writes. Still, it's oft the only game in town for some subjects. Who can beat the price? Leading to the number one rule:

caveat emptor

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5 Years after Challenger

Five years ago this month, the Space Shuttle Challenger was lost as it returned to earth. President Bush's response was to not abandon space or just write it off as the cost of doing business, but to change the focus of NASA manned space flight from going into orbit to having destinations like the Moon and Mars.

Greenpeace Co-Founder: "My bad. I likes the nuclear power."

Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace now co-chairs the "Clean and Safe Energy Coalition"--a nuke industry association. Money quote:

As a co-founder of Greenpeace, even though I was a scientist, I made the same mistake in those days as all the rest of my colleagues did. We kind of lumped nuclear energy in with nuclear weapons as if all things nuclear were evil. It was an honest mistake.

An honest mistake? Doh. "My bad."

An interesting interview, although I am suspicious of his motives, since he is currently serving as a nuclear industry spokesman of sorts. His interesting take on solar:

Solar photovoltaic simply has no place on the grid. All the money that's going into subsiding solar is a waste of money because it could be being used on more effective technologies that we already have that are not unreliable and intermittent.

His statement rings true concerning the reliability of solar, but I have to, again, question his motives in stating that solar has absolutely no role in supplying our energy needs. Still, it would seem there is hope reasonable people will come around.

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Changing all the rules

The title is borrowed from The Harrow Group, which used to publish a technology newsletter and they pointed out how certain inventions would change all the rules to the game.

The iPhone is one such devise. I do NOT have an iPhone nor plan on buying one, but it has changed how the phone makers and the wireless networks in the US related to each other and how this can and likely will end up with the customer being able to use their phone on more then one network (instead of each phone being locked down to a particular network) and the carriers making a lot more money.

Hat tip Hugh Hewitt. In reading the comments on his blog about this, a story about a phone and most of the comments are about politics. People need to get a life as there is more to life then presidential politics.

Ultra-capacitors

Capacitors are being used on a limited basis for short range vehicles.

Now capacitors instead of batteries are being used in one drag racer, yes you read that right drag racer.

While the modified EV1 isn't the fastest car out there, yet, its the fastest in its class (electric) and ran the quarter mile in 15.79 seconds. Its top speed was almost 80 MPH. Yes, there are gasoline and alcohol powered vehicles that will top out at 200 MPH and this electric vehicle won't be challenging them at the moment, but this vehicle is powered by capacitors not batteries or any other energy source.

The paper shows there is room for improvement and areas the students will be looking at to increase efficiency of the vehicle and the energy source. It would be very cool if they were able to work out the issues so the car was able compete and beat the conventional drag racers.

I thought weekends were for fun

Well, it shows what I (don't) know. Tonight have to meet with my class team for 3 hours, Sunday meeting with them from 9 to 11am and Saturday will be my time to write. Sigh. 7 weeks to go and then freedom. Saturday I also HAVE to get to the gym or my doctor will be very upset with me (ok more then usual). So it will be a busy weekend.

On to the news:

The OTC diet pill Alli has been approved by the FDA. Before then it was only sold by prescription and it will block about 25% of the fat eaten being absorbed by the body. Of course the side effects can be embarrassing. As the displays warn, wear dark color pants and bring a change of clothes with you to the office.

What should be done at ground zero in New York City? Alica Colon thinks the twin towers should be rebuilt. While I emotionally agree with this, I'm not sure it will make economic sense. I don't know if I would want to work up high in a high target building. Hat tip Lucianne.

The civil war in Gaza continues. However, you don't hear much about it in the press nor about the civilian casualties. After all, any civilians killed in Iraq (especially if killed by US forces) or Lebanon (especially if killed by Israel) make front page news. Are the Palestinian civilians not worth the same coverage even if Israel is not to blame? Hat tip Lucianne.

Finally, a jet engine was tested that was able to reach 10 times the speed of sound. When they can put that on an airplane, then trips to Asia will be fun and not pure yuck instead. Hat tip Lucianne.

Have a fun weekend and enjoy it, you could be doing homework like me.

Monday Roundup

3 items to talk about today, all from Instapundit.

1. Income Taxes, April 15 is near and the number 1 tax item missed so far is the Telephone Excise Tax credit. Don't miss it. If you use Turbo Tax or TaxCut it should catch it for you.

2. California has just passed legislation that would divest pension fund money from companies that do business with Iran. US companies were already banned from doing business with Iran since around 1979. Nice that the states are finally going to get on board, if US companies can't do business with Iran, why are public pension funds investing in European and Asian companies that do? While I generally don't like divestiture for political reasons (the Presbyterian Church USA have proposed or passed a policy to divest from companies doing business with Israel), I do like putting pressure on Iran where possible. Instapunid link here.

3. New X-prize competition. This one is for automobiles. The car must be a production capable, no design cars or experiments, and it has to reach 100 MPG. Should be interesting. Now this concept car just looks cool and at 225 MPG would be fun but maybe not practical to own.

Two weeks of school left for this semester, papers, projects and presentations to finish up. Busy but then its over, until the next and last semester on my MBA quest.

Amazing tech

Some very interesting research that might make heat stroke and hypothermia a thing of the past, not only for the military, but outdoor folks and athletes (and those of who pretend to be by working out).

Hat tip Instapundit

Story on Starbucks and how it may not have a lock on the market Wall Street thinks it does (enjoy Rob)

Hat tip Instapundit