With my parents
A birthday breakfast podcast in Bayside with my parents, Dr and Dr Winer. We talk about idea processors, Macs, eBay, buying and selling online.
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Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated.
So you say something now. Good
morning everyone. This is Dave,
it’s podcast. No, it’s not Dave
, it’s podcast. It isn’t. Who
are you? Who’s deaf whiner?
That’s me. Oh, that’s the new
one.
Well, it’s Dave. Well, I’m the person that made this all possible. Oh yeah, you’re taking credit for it. I do, because without me it would be so cool. So you don’t want to take responsibility. Maybe credit is the right word.
See, here, let me just light it up for you. Hello everybody.
This is the Nerdfest. Where are we? We’re in Flushing. What is this? Is this a music play or what? Is this a podcast? Do you do music? It can play music and it can record. We’re recording right now, actually.
Can you show pictures? Yeah, and it can play videos too. Oh, okay. So that’s pretty good. D icap? Dicap? Dicap? For me it’s the regular one. I want regular , not dicap. Regular coffee.
Yeah. Coffee, yeah. What’s this ? That’s the regular one. She’s going to bring another one. And for you? I’ll have the regular one also. You are the regular, not she. How did the tea? She made a mistake. She made a mistake.
I can’t think of my mind what to have. Well, that’s good problems. So the podcast that you and I did was very popular.
People say ipsic everywhere now . Idea processors improve quality and no. You mean you don’t remember it? Oh, wait. Oh, sorry. Idea processors save time and improve quality. It’s not that complicated. It’s not supposed to. It’s designed so you’re supposed to remember it. So do you know what you want? Do you know what you want? Yeah, I know what I want. I think I know what I want. So go ahead.
I’m going to have two eggs over easy with toast, nothing else.
Potatoes? No, just three eggs.
All we do is fine. I’ll have two scrambled with cottage cheese and two slices of white toast. White toast, no? White toast.
I’ll have a western omelet with Swiss cheese and no toast, no potatoes. Can I have two sugars ? Oh, wait. I mean with juice? No . Thank you. No, we’re going to eat something. Are you going to team up with somebody to market your product, your idea, your item? No. And how will you cash in on that? Oh, well, I’m not worried about catching it on. I want to enable people to make outlines that then can be shared, you know, between, put on the internet and then linked with each other. Like a freeware? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’m not worried right off the bat how to make money with it. I’m not really, you know, thinking about that. I’m thinking about, I just want to sort of create, sort of like you’ve got, you know, RSS is good for time- based information and outlines are good for knowledge, you know, and for, you know, for, you know, how things relate to each other and how people’s work relates to other people’s work and stuff like that.
Yeah, yeah. Both of them. And I ’d like to get it for Unix too, because if we could get it for Unix, then it would run on things like this ARCOS. And that would be nice to be able to take the outliner with you.
Don’t think that Windows run on Unix also? No. Oh, there are. Yeah, but that’s, yeah. Some programs.
There are emulators. But em ulation isn’t, yeah, maybe that works.
I don’t know. That would work.
Is the Macintosh operating system related to any way to Un ix? Oh, yeah. It is Unix.
Why? Underneath it is Unix. Under neath all the icons and menus and stuff like that, yeah. It’s Unix plus a lot. So it’s a special flavor, a proprietary flavor of Unix.
It was a review in time. It must have been about phone and table phone. Yeah, sure.
He was very happy with the new Macintosh after this. And I said it’s so good that people who use Windows might be motivated to change.
I just got it. I’m going to install it.
Oh, you mean Tiger. Tiger. Yeah . I read his review.
It’s 10. 4.
10. 4. So you got it already? I haven’t installed it yet.
Well, apparently it’s very easy to install. I’ve read that.
Yeah, if they say it takes about half an hour, if you already have a Macintosh, you just put it on the hard disk as a CD and get the thing started and it just basically goes to work after some questions.
They also offer seminars, online seminars in future how to use it. But I think that’s an insult.
Really? If anybody gets a Macintosh, you don’t have to go to seminars. You just sit down and look at it.
There are some people I think seminars would be a good thing.
Of course seminars are good.
Because there are a lot of concepts that people who just sort of learn by doing, they don’t figure out.
Of course.
They don’t learn those things.
And if you could improve the quality of your work, you know.
No, I don’t dispute that. But I say somehow it’s kind of true.
It’s not natural. It hasn’t been natural.
No, probably for you it wouldn ’t be necessary anyway.
No, even for me. Because there are so many things in that operating system that you just basically don’t know unless somebody shows you.
Yeah.
Like there’s one command I use very often. You go like this.
You go apple key and shift and tap number four.
And then your pointer becomes, I don’t know exactly what to call it. I guess it’s like a screen grabber.
Yeah.
It’s like a rectangle and the thing becomes a picture.
Right.
And then you can open that up with any graphics program.
Right.
You can edit it. You can save it.
Yeah.
So how’d you find out about that? I don’t know. I don’t remember anymore. I don’t remember how I found that. What’s the bread about? You can buy books that have all those.
Sure.
Yeah.
But think they’re fun to read because you get those kind of little secrets, right? Yeah.
If I could get a book that’s, in fact I wouldn’t want a book.
I would want a website.
Where you basically tell the website what kinds of things you like and then it tells you, well this is how you feed them.
That’s called the blog.
You say? That’s called the blog.
The blog? You put it on your blog and then you try to get a lot of people to come look at it and then they answer your questions for you.
That’s right.
My blog is like that. I can basically put a question on there and if it’s the right kind of question, I’ll get an answer within seconds.
Within seconds.
Well I only need one.
I know.
I get lots of answers. I mean it’s really weird how that works.
I had an XML file that had an error in it and I swear I couldn’t find the error in it, right? So no matter what application I tried to read it in, they would always say can’t read it.
They would always point to the same place but that wasn’t where the error was.
It was just where it found the error.
So I finally said, oh you know, and this was after like, you know, it’s the kind of thing that you’re embarrassed to ask the question because you’re supposed to be an expert on these things, right? And you know, finally I just said the hell with it.
I said don’t flame me, okay? And it worked.
Nobody did flame me actually.
One guy said, I was tempted to flame you but you said not to do it.
I thought well, that’s very polite.
You always say this isn’t my problem, the friend of mine has to.
Well but still I have to admit that it’s mine.
Because you didn’t know the answer.
Right, and so I put it up there and literally it was within two or three minutes I had an email .
It said go up there and you’ll find that there are two item statements right in a row and they’re throwing everything off basically.
And that sent me right to the bad piece of code and I fixed it within a few minutes.
I put up on the blog that okay, this has been solved.
I now know the answer.
It doesn’t matter.
People, they don’t read that part.
They just read the question and they stop and they say oh great , I get a chance to show off.
You know, that I know something .
People like to be, people are generous and they like to show off.
Yeah, oh sure, especially the last part.
Well yeah, but if it weren’t for being generous, they might say well, why should I help them, right? You know, okay, yeah.
There are users groups that never first met that I could talk to one of those.
I don’t think there really are users groups anymore.
Are there? They used to be.
They used to be.
I think so.
I think there are.
I have a problem with my printer.
I have a free function printer which includes scanning.
The scanning doesn’t work.
And I’m almost certain it’s a software product.
Well, scanners don’t work.
That’s been my fault.
No, it used to work.
Yeah, I know.
That’s the way it works.
Scanners, every scanner I’ve ever had works for like a week or so and then it stops working .
And then you have to go out and get another scanner when you have a job.
Luckily, they’re very cheap.
So, you know, it’s like.
Well, it uses my scanner.
You have one, yours still works .
Yeah.
See some people.
But we can’t get a fax working on that.
Yeah, yeah.
Facts is a level higher than sc anners.
They have very bad fax karma and very bad scanner karma.
They just don’t work for me.
They say, oh, well, this is Dave’s house.
We don’t work here.
Why? Why? Why? No, that’s been on the floor.
We don’t do this.
Oh, okay.
I have a good idea.
I have this good idea.
You know, went into my head, went out of my head and went into my head.
And now just back in my head.
So, ask me quickly.
What is it? What is it? Connect the fax to your cellular phone.
Can that be done? Why not? Oh, that’s my phone.
I have a new ringtone.
That’s a phone, right? Because your cellular phone has no- That’s fine.
-has no- -let’s try that because I really need a fax.
Try it.
People still expect you to have a fax.
They do.
That wasn’t my phone.
Don’t get a plug on your phone where you can plug something in .
Yeah, like down here.
Uh-uh.
Actually, there probably isn’t.
What you would need is like a modular phone jack.
Do you see one on here? This is for the charger.
Okay, what you do is you go to Staples.
You tell them what you want to do and ask them, do they have a cable? They might.
And does it work? There’s no output device on it.
What’s that? There’s no plug on her phone.
There needs to be some kind of a jack.
Yeah, and there’s no jack at all.
Let’s see.
I don’t know.
There are a bunch of ringlets on that plug.
Are there? I think so.
No, I don’t know.
Are those just for power? Well, no, there are too many just for power.
This is the charger.
Oh, you have a new phone? I haven’t seen this one.
It’s not as modern as yours.
I don’t know about that.
You have T-Mobile.
Do you like that? Well, T-Mobile is a good one.
T-Mobile is a good one.
They’re okay.
I have 18T, which sucks at my house.
It’s funny.
Like, I live in a place where cell phone coverage is very bad .
And the rare places because they’re trying to really cover all of them.
It’s the sticks.
Well, Europe’s much better.
Europe, they have a law that says they have to cover 99%.
Yeah.
I should not have changed my ringtone.
Now, I don’t know.
It’s my phone.
I was sitting on the plane board today and I said, “Let’s change the ringtone. " You know, by the way, I’m recording this.
I had a feeling that you were recording this.
Oh, I’m sure it’s a great thing to do.
I don’t know.
I mean, I never turned it off.
I had a Nobel Prize.
It’s funny.
People find you very entertaining.
It was really… People find me entertaining? Yeah.
Yeah.
They really did.
I got a lot of compliments on that podcast.
Let me give you an excuse for that.
Yeah? I spent about 40 years in front of classrooms.
Yeah.
All right? Yeah.
And I found out a long time ago that I was ready to play it live.
I had to be happy.
Yeah? Yeah.
And it’s kind of national.
Well, I think the reason is that there aren’t many voices in the… You know, there are more and more podcasts, right? There are mostly people that are much younger than we are.
Right? I mean, I know I’m through myself.
Oh.
You’re in our generation.
Well, I’m not in your generation.
I’m not in your generation.
No.
No.
No.
By definition, I’m not in your generation.
That’s right.
You and I are not going to be in the same room.
No.
No.
But I’m now a senior citizen.
I’ve got a great beard.
I’m getting a lot of great… Well, okay.
So there are a lot of young voices and there aren’t that many… Mature.
Mature.
Mature.
I was looking for the right word.
I mean, mature, seasoned, great .
And so, you have a kindly voice and you say things that are different and that are interesting and they like that.
I mean, I think they also like the rapport that we have, too.
The rapport that we have, they hear me in a different context talking with my father.
I mean, that’s different from the way they hear me all the time, which is, you know, I try to do podcasts with people, you know, as much as I do them by myself.
I’ll go to a dinner tonight and there’s going to be, you know, 20 people there who are totally podcast, podcast.
Did you hear that I list just now? Podcast.
I used to list, right? No, I don’t think you ever did.
Oh, yeah.
You don’t remember.
Boy.
Yeah, I did.
You did? Uh-huh.
I had to go to speech therapy.
There were a lot of them.
There’s no letters, no letters, no nothing.
I think the white post… I put in for you.
That’s fine.
But would you bring the white post? Would you bring some jams and jelly? Yes, sir.
See, she’s on a podcast today.
Legally, I should probably get a release from her.
But I won’t.
You know what? She can have her attorney call my attorney.
Yes, sir.
And they’ll work it out.
Yeah.
I got half a pound.
So, um, so yeah, at tonight’s dinner, there’ll be 20 people who, all of whom will be interesting with people to have on a podcast, and many of whom have never been on one.
Really? Yeah.
Ever been one? On one.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, most people don’t do it.
Maybe they’ll be self-pitches.
Well, that’s my job to help them not be self-pitches.
Right.
You know, you just put the thing down on the table, and it ’s almost like it isn’t there.
But this thing has a very sensitive microphone.
It’s so sensitive that when I put the headphones on, I’m sitting in the airport, and I turn it on and start recording.
I can hear conversations through the headphones that I can’t hear, but just with my ears.
They’re more sensitive than your ears.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which may mean that my ears aren’t that sensitive anymore, huh? They probably have something to report.
Obviously, something’s going on there, but I found it fascinating.
I could see with my eyes who they were talking, but I couldn ’t hear what they were talking about.
I would say you probably still have another 10 years to come here.
Really? Well, it depends.
I don’t know.
You didn’t do a lot of heavy metal music.
Oh, yeah, I did.
What do you mean, “heavy metal music”? I mean, you know, in the lab… It would sound work for rock bands, but I was a teenager.
If you remember, it was like you weren’t listening 10 hours a day.
No, but I did damage it.
Well, I mean, everybody experienced some damage.
I was in the Army, and I’d fly at once, and stuff, but I didn ’t do anything.
Why don’t you tell the podcast about that? Yeah.
About being in the Army? I’ll leave it after.
If you don’t want to.
About being in the Army.
What? Well, it’s part of your life experience, right? Being in the Army? Yeah.
I suppose.
I was talking earlier about remembering what we were doing at the age of 50.
Yeah, well, what were you doing ? Well, I just wrote a vlog about it.
You did? Yes, eatdescripting. com.
Uh-oh.
No, I can’t run this.
That’s for sure.
Well… I had to get your URL in there, right? I didn’t get posted.
This is my post.
I didn’t.
That was funny.
That was sneaky.
Now, I sort of like have an ethical thing that I have to run this.
And I also linked to you in my blog because you said you wanted to see links today.
It’s working.
Because it’s a blog about you.
So, um, but we only remembered when he was 50 that it was the year you got 10 years.
You said 10 years at the pace.
What? That’s the year you got 10 years.
What? When you turned 50.
About that.
It’s not even a year earlier.
I don’t remember for sure.
I don’t.
Let’s see.
When was it? 15 for you was 79? For him it was 79.
1979.
That was the year that I moved to California was 79.
Okay.
That was a good year.
Yeah, for me too.
Why? Um, I became a licensed psychologist.
I completed my doctorate the year before and that was the year I took the exam.
My 50th year.
I passed it.
Which was very nice.
But you weren’t 50 that year, were you? Not yet.
You were still 47.
47.
I got my degree in ‘81 at the age of 49 and I got my license in ‘82 but right before, you know, six months before I turned.
And I got my license at the age of 49.
Okay.
And can you bring me a refill of the tea cap? I thought you had regular.
You want tea? No, we have one similar.
No.
You want tea cap? With a second cup, I want tea cap.
I don’t get to cheat.
In the third I give you tea.
My tea also has calories.
That’s cute.
Not all tea guys, huh? No, not all tea.
And then for the fourth cup, I get tequila.
Water.
And then for the fifth cup, I get gin.
Oh, that’s the best.
Hey, are you recording, Ted? Yes.
Yeah, we, you know, we got it all.
We got the part where you were saying our waitress is absent and then as she was walking.
Yeah.
I could change this kind of.
Thank you.
I was like, I did a podcast the other day of a thunderstorm.
Yeah, I did that.
I read that.
I read that.
You want some? I don’t want anyone.
Yeah, yeah.
I’m a regular guy.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Very good.
Thank you.
So in this, while I was doing the podcast, she heard this already.
Yeah.
But he didn’t hear it.
That’s right.
So I was just, you know, at the beginning I wasn’t like, I didn ’t get the hang of it.
Then, and I was just listening to it again.
And by about 10 minutes into it , I wouldn’t tell them when the lightning bolt had happened.
Because that would clue me in that there was thunder about to happen.
So then I could like talk and then pause right when I thought the thunder was going to come.
Added emphasis.
So I saw a big lightning bolt and I knew I could say something very powerful.
Because I knew that God was there getting ready to make a big statement.
So I called that a Godcast.
Did you hear that? I called it a Godcast.
A Godcast.
I’m sorry.
I can’t hear everything.
Too much noise.
What if I miss it? Never mind.
Never mind.
Never mind.
Never mind.
Never mind.
Never mind.
My hearing is definitely not a problem.
No, it’s not a problem.
That’s a problem.
That’s only a problem.
That’s a problem.
That’s only a problem.
My wife yells at me sometimes.
All the time.
I don’t know if he hears my problem.
Oh, you’re not yelling because you’re angry? No, I get louder.
She’s angry.
No, I’m not.
Listen.
That’s fine.
This is good.
This is great stuff.
What happens is it’s mis interpreted.
It’s not true.
What happens is I say something .
I get no response.
So I up the volume.
So he considers that yelling.
Yeah.
I heard you.
Well, I didn’t know you heard me.
How long have you been married? 50 years.
52 years.
52 years? No.
Yeah, it hasn’t been 52 years.
It’s a lot of years, eh? No.
She’s getting very cranky lately.
Really? What do you do about that? What can I do about that? I can tell her quick things.
All right.
Does that work? No.
Absolutely not.
Because it’s not true.
It’s okay to be cranky.
Yeah, let’s get it over.
You’re the one who’s still in this room.
So you have your IP program, and you have a what? You have a web address? I want to tell somebody to use it.
So I give them a web address, and I can go download it.
It’s not ready yet.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yep.
Okay.
And they download it, and then they use it.
And then install it.
Yeah? They don’t.
It’s not going to be a huge program.
Not by today’s standards, no.
No.
So downloading.
Yeah, go ahead.
Pay.
You have to dial up.
The downloads might be a couple of minutes, or 10 minutes, or what? No way of 10 minutes.
No.
It’ll probably be about four megabytes.
Four of that.
That’s nothing, right? And with the wide band, it’ll be like this.
Yeah.
It’s a lot, you know, yeah.
It’s less than a podcast.
Our standards for what’s big has really gotten really changed, right? I suppose so.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I have this wide band.
It’s amazing that you can download it in a short time.
Yeah.
You have Time Warner, right? Yeah.
Very good.
Yeah, very good.
Time Warner, very good.
So this little thing, this Arch os thing I got here, also has Wi -Fi in it.
Sorry? It has Wi-Fi.
It has Wi-Fi.
So when you go to your house, I can go online.
Sure.
It has a web browser in it.
What’s that? A web browser? I know, but what are you talking about? This thing, this little box here.
Oh, that thing.
It has, it can get on the internet.
I mean, like Netflix.
Except for Sopra.
And you can download the New York Times.
You can look at the New York Times.
Kind of small, isn’t it? Yeah, but they make websites especially for that.
Sorry.
I’d say that that’s a neat factor thing.
You know what I mean? It’s neat.
It’s neat.
You can do that.
Not necessarily useful, but neat.
Often, or sometimes, is, just means that useful is a few years away, right? I’m familiar with it.
Yeah, you’ve seen that a lot, right? I’ve seen cameras, too.
Well, cameras have been totally revolutionized by digital, right? Well, these more than that, we ’re getting the small one now.
You have a small one, right? Well, it’s pretty small.
Which one do you have? The Nikon? The Nikon Coolpix.
That is actually the one that’s coming in the way.
What? The Nikon Coolpix.
He has a Nikon Coolpix.
A Nikon Coolpix.
It’s like the bottom of the line.
I don’t know.
I had a Nikon one.
I wasn’t really happy with it, and I switched over to Canon.
And that worked quite well with Canon.
I’m a Nikon guy.
I like Nikons.
Sorry? I like Nikons.
I bought a Sony camera, and I should have bought a Nikon.
No, Sony’s not good.
Sony was too expensive, too.
I bought a Sony $600 camera.
I like the Nikon $200 camera much better.
See, I’m a $200 camera guy, basically.
I’m a point and click guy.
I don’t need lenses.
I don’t need, you know, I don’t want to adjust things.
I just want to point, take picture, and be done with it.
Well, I’m sure that Nikon has improved considerably, because I was one of the worthy buyers.
And I spent a lot of money, and I was really disappointed.
I didn’t think I was getting my money’s worth.
So, by now, they’re probably better, but there’s one area that I’m very interested in, that’s the single lens view lens.
And that’s what Canon really is .
Yeah, they do a good job.
What kind of camera do you have at Canon? Two Canon.
Two Canon.
We have another one coming.
Really? Can you imagine how many Canon ’s? Two people.
It’s like three cars.
It’s all right.
I mean, you don’t need three cameras, but you wanted this one, right? No, what happens is, if we really like the new one coming in this week, we sell the middle one in eBay.
The selling is so easy.
It’s not that it matters.
That’s cool.
So you guys are eBay hackers? Absolutely.
I have something on every week.
I put something on.
She’s a weird kind of guy.
Yeah? What was the last thing you sold? Clowns.
I sold them all of Jefferson Nichols.
And they weren’t that old, actually.
And I got double the face back.
That’s good.
Yeah.
So what have you learned? You started to say you really learned.
Yeah, I’ve learned about reserves that I put in reserves , because I don’t want to get sunk on anything.
What is a reserve? I don’t know.
I mean, this price, I won’t sell it under.
You won’t sell under that price .
And that is usually kept secret from the buyers.
Really? Sometimes a buyer will write me and say, “What is your reserve ?” Then I’ll tell them, “We have reserves on the canvas, too. " Because sometimes it’s a quiet time, but they don’t bid.
It’s something you can relate to.
You don’t have that hard layer and soft layer or server.
Oh, no, no.
Let’s not talk about that.
Not with this running.
No, no.
We talk about that later.
There are some things we don’t talk about.
Your reserve and that is… Right.
Now you get the picture.
Sure.
I didn’t mean that.
I understand what you were saying.
But what I don’t understand, though, is that there’s something automatic about the reserve, right? You pick it.
Well, you pick it, but then what does it do? In what way does that configure ? It doesn’t sell officially.
But don’t you ultimately, in the end, have a choice not to sell it the price that’s accepted? No.
You’ve got to sell it.
But you do have a choice, actually.
You don’t actually have to do the transaction.
No, but then they throw you out of eBay.
Right.
Because people do that the other way, too.
They make bids on things and then they don’t… They don’t like that, right? They discourage that.
There was a case where somebody was selling a domain on eBay and they had a bid of $150,000 for it.
And the guy said, “Well, you know, I don’t really think this guy’s for real and to come back in two weeks and you should be able to get it for a lot less. " So… Well, that’s probably very unusual.
It’s unusual.
It’s very straightforward.
It’s not very expensive stuff.
But what if you sell something and it’s a con? You don’t actually sell… You report that to eBay.
And it’s fraud and they come arrest you? They come arrest you, they throw you off eBay.
I guess you get ratings and you want good ratings.
People value you as if… So basically, people are honest ? So far, we’ve had… Do you buy anything on eBay? I refuse because I don’t want to acquire anything.
But I would if I had… What about buying your camera? You just bought a camera.
I wouldn’t buy it on eBay.
Why not? You can’t buy a camera on eBay.
There’s a lot of people out there who are not very well informed.
And they pay outrageously fast.
A lot of people don’t.
They pay too much.
So if I wanted to buy a camera on eBay, and I said, “Okay, I’m willing to try that one.
I’m willing to pay a few hundred bucks. " The camera will probably be able to sell for five weeks.
That’s what we’ve experienced with selling.
Oh, so you want to be in the business then? Why don’t the economics settle out on this thing? So basically, anybody… So you want to set up a business on eBay.
Go buy 500 of these cameras.
And then retire on the profits.
People are making money on eBay .
They must be making lots of money.
No, I’m behind my point.
And I sell a lot of silver coins.
And I know they must be second in another market that they sell on eBay.
But I just don’t know where that market is.
And I’m buying it as a collector, respectively.
Do you know that? There’s too much demand for it.
Yeah, let me tell you a story.
There’s a very big retailer that has an eBay photo video.
Yeah, I’ve been there.
Okay.
And they have a special one, the second floor, where you sell your equipment to them.
So you hang out there.
Pay the clerk a little money so he doesn’t chase you out.
I wonder if the customer comes in with a camera.
And the clerk says, “Okay. " Anybody? No thanks.
I’ll have some more, yeah.
The clerk looks at it.
He says, “I give you 300 for it . " And you know that you can sell it on eBay to 600.
So the buyers in eBay are stupid.
So the seller is there, why should I take the 200? He said, “I give you 200 for it . " And you buy it off because they come to buy it.
Then you go home, put it on eBay.
Well, they kick you out.
The second, P&H would kick you out in a second.
Actually, what do they care? They don’t really want it.
Well, I don’t think that happens.
They don’t think a little about it.
Maybe they would kick you out.
Of course they would kick you out.
You’re competing with them.
They should get hip and get onto the eBay thing.
Anyway, all right, so you stand outside, all right? You see a guy coming in.
You know that economics on this has to settle out at some point , right? It’s inefficient now.
No, I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what the signature is.
May I? Yeah, sure.
We can always get more.
eBay is a very low cost operator.
P&H cannot possibly compete with them.
No, but they can sell their stuff on eBay.
P&H could turn around and sell all those cameras that they buy or use.
They might do that.
They might give it to their employees.
Well, I think there must be places in New York City that dump stuff onto eBay for people.
Let’s go over this one more time.
P&H, okay, I just sold the camera.
Okay, I think it’s 650 and no, no.
If you could find that camera at P&H, it could probably be 650.
I sold it for 650 on eBay.
So the selling price was the same.
But no way could P&H make a living paying any more than, say, 300 for that camera.
Why? If they wanted to resell on eBay.
They have the clerk, they have the sales.
And they have to keep the camera for some unknown period of time.
So they have their money tied up.
You double your money, my God.
Well, that’s what retailers do.
Retailers double their money.
They pay 50% of the ultimate selling price.
Although expensive watches, it ’s even less than that.
They pay maybe 10% of what the ultimate selling price is.
So if eBay shines, it makes an extremely low cost separation from eBay’s point of view.
They have no cost.
Well, they have some cost.
They have to keep the computers running.
Yeah, it’s very low cost.
They have to keep the computers running.
Under that system, the buyer finds it attractive to pay a much higher price than I could get if I took my camera at P&H.
In fact, I emailed P&H, P&H, and I said, “I have such and such camera.
I have what you do pay me for it.
I don’t need it. " They wouldn’t buy it.
They didn’t want to buy it.
Yeah, there was no problem with selling it.
Because P&H knew that this camera, if they bought it, would stay on their shelf for a long time.
All right, so let me understand something.
You can buy new things on eBay, right? Yeah, new things.
You can buy new things, right? In their boxes.
Oh, there were computers being sold.
All right, so when you buy one of those, will you pay more than less price for them? No, you pay the same as me.
But people won’t look in the newspaper to see what the published prices are, and they’ll just pay more than one thing.
In fact, you don’t go in the newspaper.
You go on the web.
Right.
And you get competitive prices, and you see trying many places so low.
Lower prices than what you pay on eBay.
Because I just bought this thing.
I got the best price on the web for $620 for this.
There were the other places, like if you bought this at J&R, I think it was like $800.
So it was like $200 more.
J&R is not cheap.
J&R, pretty much.
But you know what? J&R gets it to you quickly.
They get it to you quickly.
Without any fuss or must.
I mean, it’s really, really easy to order it on J&R.
CDW is the same way.
You pay this price.
Have you ever used New Egg? New Egg.
New Egg? Yeah.
How do you spell that? Just the way it sounds.
A-E-W-E-G-G.
Com. com.
The way I got through them was through the web.
I had never heard of them.
And I don’t even know which site I used.
But somehow, from the search engine, I longed that it was one of these little guys who list a bunch of retailers.
Right.
And they show ratings for each retailer.
Yeah.
And this one, the rating display was four smileys.
And color one was would recommend to other people.
Wood or wood? Wood.
Wood, yeah.
And the smiley, not only had a smile, but he had rays coming out of his face.
So everybody really likes these guys.
Yeah.
And they had good prices.
And they also had the lowest price.
Wow.
So that’s the place to go.
That’s the place I went.
I placed the order for this driver.
I was doing your van.
Almost immediately delivered, like overnight.
No extra charge.
As you live in New York, you get great delivery in New York.
It’s different.
Then come from New York.
I know.
No sales tax.
Right.
But when, it doesn’t matter.
New York, you get great delivery.
Sure.
You have the Water Airport.
Oh, you have Kennedy Airport.
Yeah.
You have everything.
You have shipping.
Yeah, no.
And everything comes through New York.
It’s incredible how good it was .
Just incredible.
I’ve never heard of them.
And yet they were perfect.
So at the same time, you get publishers.
This is a debate that’s going on right now.
I know this is going to sound different, but it really turns out to be the same thing.
These publishers want to put ads into their RSS feeds.
And they say they need to put ads into their RSS feeds because they need to pay money to the authors to write all the reviews of the articles, you know, of all the products that come in, because this is how people get information about products.
But it isn’t how people get information about products anymore, about services, companies.
You get information about products from users, and they don’t need to be paid.
Right.
You don’t want them to be paid.
Right.
You don’t want them to be paid.
Yeah, if they’re getting paid, then all of a sudden you have to worry about, you know, I mean, when I was a writer for Wired, it was like what, a year and a half? I mean, there were times when I was introduced to manufacturers reps at parties.
And nobody said, you know, write something favorable about these guys’ products.
But it was understood that, you know, I remember one situation where the publisher introduced me to this guy, and he was this, now he’s a vice president for T oshiba, a big Japanese PC guy.
And the guy comes over and he says, “David, you really ought to check out these guys’ computers .
“They’re really great, you know ?” And I look at him and I say, " Don’t you guys make clones?” In other words, aren’t you selling the same computer everybody else is selling? And he hustled the guy off real quick, like, oh no, no, you weren’t supposed to say that, did you? Because this was their chance to mix it up with the editorial people, right? You know, this was the advert iser’s chance to Wait, I have to get my credit card out.
I don’t remember which pocket it was.
So the thing is that we’re getting so good at supplying each other with information.
And why do we do it? I mean, in other words, why did those people contribute the information about New Egg, you know, to put all the smile ys on them, and somebody was making money off of the Somebody was making money off the recommendation that, you know, the knowledge that this was the best price that you could get.
They were getting some money for the referral, right? Right.
But no, why would you be grud ging that? But you didn’t need to pay anybody for editorial content there.
I mean, basically, you know, you didn’t get any ads, and you didn’t need The reviewer’s a user is going to write a better review, a more interesting, more useful review to another user.
Again, anybody working in a magazine is going to be able to do But let me pay devil’s advocate .
What if the people that were reviewing these products on this website were all shills? No, no, wait a minute.
Wouldn’t the truth eventually out? No, let me clarify something.
Let me take myself clear.
The review was of the retailer and not of the product.
Right. Well, she said it could be for wife, but the question is, couldn’t it be a shill for the retailer? And the answer is yes, it could .
But the There’s one thing I haven’t told you yet.
There were 13,000 reviews.
Yeah.
There’s a summary of 13,000.
Now, maybe that was a lie, right? Maybe it was 12 reviews, not 13 ,000.
You guys believe in eBay, right ? No, it wasn’t eBay.
I understand, but if you believe in eBay, why would you believe in this? Because, you know, basically it ’s the same idea.
It’s basically exactly the same idea.
Your reputation is the most valuable thing.
Right, exactly.
And you try to build up a good reputation and then you avoid doing anything at all that might support you.
Obviously. And these guys really I mean, those that the display of the smiley’s are statistically effective.
Sure, it is.
Well, it should be assuring to know that.
There are four smiley’s.
One for “Would you recommend another one?” for “I’m a delivery, low price, blah, blah. " The only one that comes first one.
What was the first one? “Would you recommend?” If you would recommend, that means the others have to be good.
I think you have to get into this broadcast about your dead cats.
About what? You can do another one.
There’s a possibility that the recording quality 40 minutes, by the way.
I got to tell you, 40 minutes has been scientifically determined to be the absolute best lane.
We’re at 40 minutes and 37 seconds.
So next time, get the dead cats .
Okay, so everybody, this was morning coffee notes for May 2nd, 2005.
There may be another one later today.
But we’re going to go back back to my parents’ house and I’m going to upload this.
And it’ll be on the web very shortly.
Assuming that the quality is any good, right? So what I’m going to do now is I’m going to click on the stop.
Well, it’s Dave. Well, I’m the person that made this all possible. Oh yeah, you’re taking credit for it. I do, because without me it would be so cool. So you don’t want to take responsibility. Maybe credit is the right word.
See, here, let me just light it up for you. Hello everybody.
This is the Nerdfest. Where are we? We’re in Flushing. What is this? Is this a music play or what? Is this a podcast? Do you do music? It can play music and it can record. We’re recording right now, actually.
Can you show pictures? Yeah, and it can play videos too. Oh, okay. So that’s pretty good. D icap? Dicap? Dicap? For me it’s the regular one. I want regular , not dicap. Regular coffee.
Yeah. Coffee, yeah. What’s this ? That’s the regular one. She’s going to bring another one. And for you? I’ll have the regular one also. You are the regular, not she. How did the tea? She made a mistake. She made a mistake.
I can’t think of my mind what to have. Well, that’s good problems. So the podcast that you and I did was very popular.
People say ipsic everywhere now . Idea processors improve quality and no. You mean you don’t remember it? Oh, wait. Oh, sorry. Idea processors save time and improve quality. It’s not that complicated. It’s not supposed to. It’s designed so you’re supposed to remember it. So do you know what you want? Do you know what you want? Yeah, I know what I want. I think I know what I want. So go ahead.
I’m going to have two eggs over easy with toast, nothing else.
Potatoes? No, just three eggs.
All we do is fine. I’ll have two scrambled with cottage cheese and two slices of white toast. White toast, no? White toast.
I’ll have a western omelet with Swiss cheese and no toast, no potatoes. Can I have two sugars ? Oh, wait. I mean with juice? No . Thank you. No, we’re going to eat something. Are you going to team up with somebody to market your product, your idea, your item? No. And how will you cash in on that? Oh, well, I’m not worried about catching it on. I want to enable people to make outlines that then can be shared, you know, between, put on the internet and then linked with each other. Like a freeware? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’m not worried right off the bat how to make money with it. I’m not really, you know, thinking about that. I’m thinking about, I just want to sort of create, sort of like you’ve got, you know, RSS is good for time- based information and outlines are good for knowledge, you know, and for, you know, for, you know, how things relate to each other and how people’s work relates to other people’s work and stuff like that.
Yeah, yeah. Both of them. And I ’d like to get it for Unix too, because if we could get it for Unix, then it would run on things like this ARCOS. And that would be nice to be able to take the outliner with you.
Don’t think that Windows run on Unix also? No. Oh, there are. Yeah, but that’s, yeah. Some programs.
There are emulators. But em ulation isn’t, yeah, maybe that works.
I don’t know. That would work.
Is the Macintosh operating system related to any way to Un ix? Oh, yeah. It is Unix.
Why? Underneath it is Unix. Under neath all the icons and menus and stuff like that, yeah. It’s Unix plus a lot. So it’s a special flavor, a proprietary flavor of Unix.
It was a review in time. It must have been about phone and table phone. Yeah, sure.
He was very happy with the new Macintosh after this. And I said it’s so good that people who use Windows might be motivated to change.
I just got it. I’m going to install it.
Oh, you mean Tiger. Tiger. Yeah . I read his review.
It’s 10. 4.
10. 4. So you got it already? I haven’t installed it yet.
Well, apparently it’s very easy to install. I’ve read that.
Yeah, if they say it takes about half an hour, if you already have a Macintosh, you just put it on the hard disk as a CD and get the thing started and it just basically goes to work after some questions.
They also offer seminars, online seminars in future how to use it. But I think that’s an insult.
Really? If anybody gets a Macintosh, you don’t have to go to seminars. You just sit down and look at it.
There are some people I think seminars would be a good thing.
Of course seminars are good.
Because there are a lot of concepts that people who just sort of learn by doing, they don’t figure out.
Of course.
They don’t learn those things.
And if you could improve the quality of your work, you know.
No, I don’t dispute that. But I say somehow it’s kind of true.
It’s not natural. It hasn’t been natural.
No, probably for you it wouldn ’t be necessary anyway.
No, even for me. Because there are so many things in that operating system that you just basically don’t know unless somebody shows you.
Yeah.
Like there’s one command I use very often. You go like this.
You go apple key and shift and tap number four.
And then your pointer becomes, I don’t know exactly what to call it. I guess it’s like a screen grabber.
Yeah.
It’s like a rectangle and the thing becomes a picture.
Right.
And then you can open that up with any graphics program.
Right.
You can edit it. You can save it.
Yeah.
So how’d you find out about that? I don’t know. I don’t remember anymore. I don’t remember how I found that. What’s the bread about? You can buy books that have all those.
Sure.
Yeah.
But think they’re fun to read because you get those kind of little secrets, right? Yeah.
If I could get a book that’s, in fact I wouldn’t want a book.
I would want a website.
Where you basically tell the website what kinds of things you like and then it tells you, well this is how you feed them.
That’s called the blog.
You say? That’s called the blog.
The blog? You put it on your blog and then you try to get a lot of people to come look at it and then they answer your questions for you.
That’s right.
My blog is like that. I can basically put a question on there and if it’s the right kind of question, I’ll get an answer within seconds.
Within seconds.
Well I only need one.
I know.
I get lots of answers. I mean it’s really weird how that works.
I had an XML file that had an error in it and I swear I couldn’t find the error in it, right? So no matter what application I tried to read it in, they would always say can’t read it.
They would always point to the same place but that wasn’t where the error was.
It was just where it found the error.
So I finally said, oh you know, and this was after like, you know, it’s the kind of thing that you’re embarrassed to ask the question because you’re supposed to be an expert on these things, right? And you know, finally I just said the hell with it.
I said don’t flame me, okay? And it worked.
Nobody did flame me actually.
One guy said, I was tempted to flame you but you said not to do it.
I thought well, that’s very polite.
You always say this isn’t my problem, the friend of mine has to.
Well but still I have to admit that it’s mine.
Because you didn’t know the answer.
Right, and so I put it up there and literally it was within two or three minutes I had an email .
It said go up there and you’ll find that there are two item statements right in a row and they’re throwing everything off basically.
And that sent me right to the bad piece of code and I fixed it within a few minutes.
I put up on the blog that okay, this has been solved.
I now know the answer.
It doesn’t matter.
People, they don’t read that part.
They just read the question and they stop and they say oh great , I get a chance to show off.
You know, that I know something .
People like to be, people are generous and they like to show off.
Yeah, oh sure, especially the last part.
Well yeah, but if it weren’t for being generous, they might say well, why should I help them, right? You know, okay, yeah.
There are users groups that never first met that I could talk to one of those.
I don’t think there really are users groups anymore.
Are there? They used to be.
They used to be.
I think so.
I think there are.
I have a problem with my printer.
I have a free function printer which includes scanning.
The scanning doesn’t work.
And I’m almost certain it’s a software product.
Well, scanners don’t work.
That’s been my fault.
No, it used to work.
Yeah, I know.
That’s the way it works.
Scanners, every scanner I’ve ever had works for like a week or so and then it stops working .
And then you have to go out and get another scanner when you have a job.
Luckily, they’re very cheap.
So, you know, it’s like.
Well, it uses my scanner.
You have one, yours still works .
Yeah.
See some people.
But we can’t get a fax working on that.
Yeah, yeah.
Facts is a level higher than sc anners.
They have very bad fax karma and very bad scanner karma.
They just don’t work for me.
They say, oh, well, this is Dave’s house.
We don’t work here.
Why? Why? Why? No, that’s been on the floor.
We don’t do this.
Oh, okay.
I have a good idea.
I have this good idea.
You know, went into my head, went out of my head and went into my head.
And now just back in my head.
So, ask me quickly.
What is it? What is it? Connect the fax to your cellular phone.
Can that be done? Why not? Oh, that’s my phone.
I have a new ringtone.
That’s a phone, right? Because your cellular phone has no- That’s fine.
-has no- -let’s try that because I really need a fax.
Try it.
People still expect you to have a fax.
They do.
That wasn’t my phone.
Don’t get a plug on your phone where you can plug something in .
Yeah, like down here.
Uh-uh.
Actually, there probably isn’t.
What you would need is like a modular phone jack.
Do you see one on here? This is for the charger.
Okay, what you do is you go to Staples.
You tell them what you want to do and ask them, do they have a cable? They might.
And does it work? There’s no output device on it.
What’s that? There’s no plug on her phone.
There needs to be some kind of a jack.
Yeah, and there’s no jack at all.
Let’s see.
I don’t know.
There are a bunch of ringlets on that plug.
Are there? I think so.
No, I don’t know.
Are those just for power? Well, no, there are too many just for power.
This is the charger.
Oh, you have a new phone? I haven’t seen this one.
It’s not as modern as yours.
I don’t know about that.
You have T-Mobile.
Do you like that? Well, T-Mobile is a good one.
T-Mobile is a good one.
They’re okay.
I have 18T, which sucks at my house.
It’s funny.
Like, I live in a place where cell phone coverage is very bad .
And the rare places because they’re trying to really cover all of them.
It’s the sticks.
Well, Europe’s much better.
Europe, they have a law that says they have to cover 99%.
Yeah.
I should not have changed my ringtone.
Now, I don’t know.
It’s my phone.
I was sitting on the plane board today and I said, “Let’s change the ringtone. " You know, by the way, I’m recording this.
I had a feeling that you were recording this.
Oh, I’m sure it’s a great thing to do.
I don’t know.
I mean, I never turned it off.
I had a Nobel Prize.
It’s funny.
People find you very entertaining.
It was really… People find me entertaining? Yeah.
Yeah.
They really did.
I got a lot of compliments on that podcast.
Let me give you an excuse for that.
Yeah? I spent about 40 years in front of classrooms.
Yeah.
All right? Yeah.
And I found out a long time ago that I was ready to play it live.
I had to be happy.
Yeah? Yeah.
And it’s kind of national.
Well, I think the reason is that there aren’t many voices in the… You know, there are more and more podcasts, right? There are mostly people that are much younger than we are.
Right? I mean, I know I’m through myself.
Oh.
You’re in our generation.
Well, I’m not in your generation.
I’m not in your generation.
No.
No.
No.
By definition, I’m not in your generation.
That’s right.
You and I are not going to be in the same room.
No.
No.
But I’m now a senior citizen.
I’ve got a great beard.
I’m getting a lot of great… Well, okay.
So there are a lot of young voices and there aren’t that many… Mature.
Mature.
Mature.
I was looking for the right word.
I mean, mature, seasoned, great .
And so, you have a kindly voice and you say things that are different and that are interesting and they like that.
I mean, I think they also like the rapport that we have, too.
The rapport that we have, they hear me in a different context talking with my father.
I mean, that’s different from the way they hear me all the time, which is, you know, I try to do podcasts with people, you know, as much as I do them by myself.
I’ll go to a dinner tonight and there’s going to be, you know, 20 people there who are totally podcast, podcast.
Did you hear that I list just now? Podcast.
I used to list, right? No, I don’t think you ever did.
Oh, yeah.
You don’t remember.
Boy.
Yeah, I did.
You did? Uh-huh.
I had to go to speech therapy.
There were a lot of them.
There’s no letters, no letters, no nothing.
I think the white post… I put in for you.
That’s fine.
But would you bring the white post? Would you bring some jams and jelly? Yes, sir.
See, she’s on a podcast today.
Legally, I should probably get a release from her.
But I won’t.
You know what? She can have her attorney call my attorney.
Yes, sir.
And they’ll work it out.
Yeah.
I got half a pound.
So, um, so yeah, at tonight’s dinner, there’ll be 20 people who, all of whom will be interesting with people to have on a podcast, and many of whom have never been on one.
Really? Yeah.
Ever been one? On one.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, most people don’t do it.
Maybe they’ll be self-pitches.
Well, that’s my job to help them not be self-pitches.
Right.
You know, you just put the thing down on the table, and it ’s almost like it isn’t there.
But this thing has a very sensitive microphone.
It’s so sensitive that when I put the headphones on, I’m sitting in the airport, and I turn it on and start recording.
I can hear conversations through the headphones that I can’t hear, but just with my ears.
They’re more sensitive than your ears.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which may mean that my ears aren’t that sensitive anymore, huh? They probably have something to report.
Obviously, something’s going on there, but I found it fascinating.
I could see with my eyes who they were talking, but I couldn ’t hear what they were talking about.
I would say you probably still have another 10 years to come here.
Really? Well, it depends.
I don’t know.
You didn’t do a lot of heavy metal music.
Oh, yeah, I did.
What do you mean, “heavy metal music”? I mean, you know, in the lab… It would sound work for rock bands, but I was a teenager.
If you remember, it was like you weren’t listening 10 hours a day.
No, but I did damage it.
Well, I mean, everybody experienced some damage.
I was in the Army, and I’d fly at once, and stuff, but I didn ’t do anything.
Why don’t you tell the podcast about that? Yeah.
About being in the Army? I’ll leave it after.
If you don’t want to.
About being in the Army.
What? Well, it’s part of your life experience, right? Being in the Army? Yeah.
I suppose.
I was talking earlier about remembering what we were doing at the age of 50.
Yeah, well, what were you doing ? Well, I just wrote a vlog about it.
You did? Yes, eatdescripting. com.
Uh-oh.
No, I can’t run this.
That’s for sure.
Well… I had to get your URL in there, right? I didn’t get posted.
This is my post.
I didn’t.
That was funny.
That was sneaky.
Now, I sort of like have an ethical thing that I have to run this.
And I also linked to you in my blog because you said you wanted to see links today.
It’s working.
Because it’s a blog about you.
So, um, but we only remembered when he was 50 that it was the year you got 10 years.
You said 10 years at the pace.
What? That’s the year you got 10 years.
What? When you turned 50.
About that.
It’s not even a year earlier.
I don’t remember for sure.
I don’t.
Let’s see.
When was it? 15 for you was 79? For him it was 79.
1979.
That was the year that I moved to California was 79.
Okay.
That was a good year.
Yeah, for me too.
Why? Um, I became a licensed psychologist.
I completed my doctorate the year before and that was the year I took the exam.
My 50th year.
I passed it.
Which was very nice.
But you weren’t 50 that year, were you? Not yet.
You were still 47.
47.
I got my degree in ‘81 at the age of 49 and I got my license in ‘82 but right before, you know, six months before I turned.
And I got my license at the age of 49.
Okay.
And can you bring me a refill of the tea cap? I thought you had regular.
You want tea? No, we have one similar.
No.
You want tea cap? With a second cup, I want tea cap.
I don’t get to cheat.
In the third I give you tea.
My tea also has calories.
That’s cute.
Not all tea guys, huh? No, not all tea.
And then for the fourth cup, I get tequila.
Water.
And then for the fifth cup, I get gin.
Oh, that’s the best.
Hey, are you recording, Ted? Yes.
Yeah, we, you know, we got it all.
We got the part where you were saying our waitress is absent and then as she was walking.
Yeah.
I could change this kind of.
Thank you.
I was like, I did a podcast the other day of a thunderstorm.
Yeah, I did that.
I read that.
I read that.
You want some? I don’t want anyone.
Yeah, yeah.
I’m a regular guy.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Very good.
Thank you.
So in this, while I was doing the podcast, she heard this already.
Yeah.
But he didn’t hear it.
That’s right.
So I was just, you know, at the beginning I wasn’t like, I didn ’t get the hang of it.
Then, and I was just listening to it again.
And by about 10 minutes into it , I wouldn’t tell them when the lightning bolt had happened.
Because that would clue me in that there was thunder about to happen.
So then I could like talk and then pause right when I thought the thunder was going to come.
Added emphasis.
So I saw a big lightning bolt and I knew I could say something very powerful.
Because I knew that God was there getting ready to make a big statement.
So I called that a Godcast.
Did you hear that? I called it a Godcast.
A Godcast.
I’m sorry.
I can’t hear everything.
Too much noise.
What if I miss it? Never mind.
Never mind.
Never mind.
Never mind.
Never mind.
Never mind.
My hearing is definitely not a problem.
No, it’s not a problem.
That’s a problem.
That’s only a problem.
That’s a problem.
That’s only a problem.
My wife yells at me sometimes.
All the time.
I don’t know if he hears my problem.
Oh, you’re not yelling because you’re angry? No, I get louder.
She’s angry.
No, I’m not.
Listen.
That’s fine.
This is good.
This is great stuff.
What happens is it’s mis interpreted.
It’s not true.
What happens is I say something .
I get no response.
So I up the volume.
So he considers that yelling.
Yeah.
I heard you.
Well, I didn’t know you heard me.
How long have you been married? 50 years.
52 years.
52 years? No.
Yeah, it hasn’t been 52 years.
It’s a lot of years, eh? No.
She’s getting very cranky lately.
Really? What do you do about that? What can I do about that? I can tell her quick things.
All right.
Does that work? No.
Absolutely not.
Because it’s not true.
It’s okay to be cranky.
Yeah, let’s get it over.
You’re the one who’s still in this room.
So you have your IP program, and you have a what? You have a web address? I want to tell somebody to use it.
So I give them a web address, and I can go download it.
It’s not ready yet.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yep.
Okay.
And they download it, and then they use it.
And then install it.
Yeah? They don’t.
It’s not going to be a huge program.
Not by today’s standards, no.
No.
So downloading.
Yeah, go ahead.
Pay.
You have to dial up.
The downloads might be a couple of minutes, or 10 minutes, or what? No way of 10 minutes.
No.
It’ll probably be about four megabytes.
Four of that.
That’s nothing, right? And with the wide band, it’ll be like this.
Yeah.
It’s a lot, you know, yeah.
It’s less than a podcast.
Our standards for what’s big has really gotten really changed, right? I suppose so.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I have this wide band.
It’s amazing that you can download it in a short time.
Yeah.
You have Time Warner, right? Yeah.
Very good.
Yeah, very good.
Time Warner, very good.
So this little thing, this Arch os thing I got here, also has Wi -Fi in it.
Sorry? It has Wi-Fi.
It has Wi-Fi.
So when you go to your house, I can go online.
Sure.
It has a web browser in it.
What’s that? A web browser? I know, but what are you talking about? This thing, this little box here.
Oh, that thing.
It has, it can get on the internet.
I mean, like Netflix.
Except for Sopra.
And you can download the New York Times.
You can look at the New York Times.
Kind of small, isn’t it? Yeah, but they make websites especially for that.
Sorry.
I’d say that that’s a neat factor thing.
You know what I mean? It’s neat.
It’s neat.
You can do that.
Not necessarily useful, but neat.
Often, or sometimes, is, just means that useful is a few years away, right? I’m familiar with it.
Yeah, you’ve seen that a lot, right? I’ve seen cameras, too.
Well, cameras have been totally revolutionized by digital, right? Well, these more than that, we ’re getting the small one now.
You have a small one, right? Well, it’s pretty small.
Which one do you have? The Nikon? The Nikon Coolpix.
That is actually the one that’s coming in the way.
What? The Nikon Coolpix.
He has a Nikon Coolpix.
A Nikon Coolpix.
It’s like the bottom of the line.
I don’t know.
I had a Nikon one.
I wasn’t really happy with it, and I switched over to Canon.
And that worked quite well with Canon.
I’m a Nikon guy.
I like Nikons.
Sorry? I like Nikons.
I bought a Sony camera, and I should have bought a Nikon.
No, Sony’s not good.
Sony was too expensive, too.
I bought a Sony $600 camera.
I like the Nikon $200 camera much better.
See, I’m a $200 camera guy, basically.
I’m a point and click guy.
I don’t need lenses.
I don’t need, you know, I don’t want to adjust things.
I just want to point, take picture, and be done with it.
Well, I’m sure that Nikon has improved considerably, because I was one of the worthy buyers.
And I spent a lot of money, and I was really disappointed.
I didn’t think I was getting my money’s worth.
So, by now, they’re probably better, but there’s one area that I’m very interested in, that’s the single lens view lens.
And that’s what Canon really is .
Yeah, they do a good job.
What kind of camera do you have at Canon? Two Canon.
Two Canon.
We have another one coming.
Really? Can you imagine how many Canon ’s? Two people.
It’s like three cars.
It’s all right.
I mean, you don’t need three cameras, but you wanted this one, right? No, what happens is, if we really like the new one coming in this week, we sell the middle one in eBay.
The selling is so easy.
It’s not that it matters.
That’s cool.
So you guys are eBay hackers? Absolutely.
I have something on every week.
I put something on.
She’s a weird kind of guy.
Yeah? What was the last thing you sold? Clowns.
I sold them all of Jefferson Nichols.
And they weren’t that old, actually.
And I got double the face back.
That’s good.
Yeah.
So what have you learned? You started to say you really learned.
Yeah, I’ve learned about reserves that I put in reserves , because I don’t want to get sunk on anything.
What is a reserve? I don’t know.
I mean, this price, I won’t sell it under.
You won’t sell under that price .
And that is usually kept secret from the buyers.
Really? Sometimes a buyer will write me and say, “What is your reserve ?” Then I’ll tell them, “We have reserves on the canvas, too. " Because sometimes it’s a quiet time, but they don’t bid.
It’s something you can relate to.
You don’t have that hard layer and soft layer or server.
Oh, no, no.
Let’s not talk about that.
Not with this running.
No, no.
We talk about that later.
There are some things we don’t talk about.
Your reserve and that is… Right.
Now you get the picture.
Sure.
I didn’t mean that.
I understand what you were saying.
But what I don’t understand, though, is that there’s something automatic about the reserve, right? You pick it.
Well, you pick it, but then what does it do? In what way does that configure ? It doesn’t sell officially.
But don’t you ultimately, in the end, have a choice not to sell it the price that’s accepted? No.
You’ve got to sell it.
But you do have a choice, actually.
You don’t actually have to do the transaction.
No, but then they throw you out of eBay.
Right.
Because people do that the other way, too.
They make bids on things and then they don’t… They don’t like that, right? They discourage that.
There was a case where somebody was selling a domain on eBay and they had a bid of $150,000 for it.
And the guy said, “Well, you know, I don’t really think this guy’s for real and to come back in two weeks and you should be able to get it for a lot less. " So… Well, that’s probably very unusual.
It’s unusual.
It’s very straightforward.
It’s not very expensive stuff.
But what if you sell something and it’s a con? You don’t actually sell… You report that to eBay.
And it’s fraud and they come arrest you? They come arrest you, they throw you off eBay.
I guess you get ratings and you want good ratings.
People value you as if… So basically, people are honest ? So far, we’ve had… Do you buy anything on eBay? I refuse because I don’t want to acquire anything.
But I would if I had… What about buying your camera? You just bought a camera.
I wouldn’t buy it on eBay.
Why not? You can’t buy a camera on eBay.
There’s a lot of people out there who are not very well informed.
And they pay outrageously fast.
A lot of people don’t.
They pay too much.
So if I wanted to buy a camera on eBay, and I said, “Okay, I’m willing to try that one.
I’m willing to pay a few hundred bucks. " The camera will probably be able to sell for five weeks.
That’s what we’ve experienced with selling.
Oh, so you want to be in the business then? Why don’t the economics settle out on this thing? So basically, anybody… So you want to set up a business on eBay.
Go buy 500 of these cameras.
And then retire on the profits.
People are making money on eBay .
They must be making lots of money.
No, I’m behind my point.
And I sell a lot of silver coins.
And I know they must be second in another market that they sell on eBay.
But I just don’t know where that market is.
And I’m buying it as a collector, respectively.
Do you know that? There’s too much demand for it.
Yeah, let me tell you a story.
There’s a very big retailer that has an eBay photo video.
Yeah, I’ve been there.
Okay.
And they have a special one, the second floor, where you sell your equipment to them.
So you hang out there.
Pay the clerk a little money so he doesn’t chase you out.
I wonder if the customer comes in with a camera.
And the clerk says, “Okay. " Anybody? No thanks.
I’ll have some more, yeah.
The clerk looks at it.
He says, “I give you 300 for it . " And you know that you can sell it on eBay to 600.
So the buyers in eBay are stupid.
So the seller is there, why should I take the 200? He said, “I give you 200 for it . " And you buy it off because they come to buy it.
Then you go home, put it on eBay.
Well, they kick you out.
The second, P&H would kick you out in a second.
Actually, what do they care? They don’t really want it.
Well, I don’t think that happens.
They don’t think a little about it.
Maybe they would kick you out.
Of course they would kick you out.
You’re competing with them.
They should get hip and get onto the eBay thing.
Anyway, all right, so you stand outside, all right? You see a guy coming in.
You know that economics on this has to settle out at some point , right? It’s inefficient now.
No, I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what the signature is.
May I? Yeah, sure.
We can always get more.
eBay is a very low cost operator.
P&H cannot possibly compete with them.
No, but they can sell their stuff on eBay.
P&H could turn around and sell all those cameras that they buy or use.
They might do that.
They might give it to their employees.
Well, I think there must be places in New York City that dump stuff onto eBay for people.
Let’s go over this one more time.
P&H, okay, I just sold the camera.
Okay, I think it’s 650 and no, no.
If you could find that camera at P&H, it could probably be 650.
I sold it for 650 on eBay.
So the selling price was the same.
But no way could P&H make a living paying any more than, say, 300 for that camera.
Why? If they wanted to resell on eBay.
They have the clerk, they have the sales.
And they have to keep the camera for some unknown period of time.
So they have their money tied up.
You double your money, my God.
Well, that’s what retailers do.
Retailers double their money.
They pay 50% of the ultimate selling price.
Although expensive watches, it ’s even less than that.
They pay maybe 10% of what the ultimate selling price is.
So if eBay shines, it makes an extremely low cost separation from eBay’s point of view.
They have no cost.
Well, they have some cost.
They have to keep the computers running.
Yeah, it’s very low cost.
They have to keep the computers running.
Under that system, the buyer finds it attractive to pay a much higher price than I could get if I took my camera at P&H.
In fact, I emailed P&H, P&H, and I said, “I have such and such camera.
I have what you do pay me for it.
I don’t need it. " They wouldn’t buy it.
They didn’t want to buy it.
Yeah, there was no problem with selling it.
Because P&H knew that this camera, if they bought it, would stay on their shelf for a long time.
All right, so let me understand something.
You can buy new things on eBay, right? Yeah, new things.
You can buy new things, right? In their boxes.
Oh, there were computers being sold.
All right, so when you buy one of those, will you pay more than less price for them? No, you pay the same as me.
But people won’t look in the newspaper to see what the published prices are, and they’ll just pay more than one thing.
In fact, you don’t go in the newspaper.
You go on the web.
Right.
And you get competitive prices, and you see trying many places so low.
Lower prices than what you pay on eBay.
Because I just bought this thing.
I got the best price on the web for $620 for this.
There were the other places, like if you bought this at J&R, I think it was like $800.
So it was like $200 more.
J&R is not cheap.
J&R, pretty much.
But you know what? J&R gets it to you quickly.
They get it to you quickly.
Without any fuss or must.
I mean, it’s really, really easy to order it on J&R.
CDW is the same way.
You pay this price.
Have you ever used New Egg? New Egg.
New Egg? Yeah.
How do you spell that? Just the way it sounds.
A-E-W-E-G-G.
Com. com.
The way I got through them was through the web.
I had never heard of them.
And I don’t even know which site I used.
But somehow, from the search engine, I longed that it was one of these little guys who list a bunch of retailers.
Right.
And they show ratings for each retailer.
Yeah.
And this one, the rating display was four smileys.
And color one was would recommend to other people.
Wood or wood? Wood.
Wood, yeah.
And the smiley, not only had a smile, but he had rays coming out of his face.
So everybody really likes these guys.
Yeah.
And they had good prices.
And they also had the lowest price.
Wow.
So that’s the place to go.
That’s the place I went.
I placed the order for this driver.
I was doing your van.
Almost immediately delivered, like overnight.
No extra charge.
As you live in New York, you get great delivery in New York.
It’s different.
Then come from New York.
I know.
No sales tax.
Right.
But when, it doesn’t matter.
New York, you get great delivery.
Sure.
You have the Water Airport.
Oh, you have Kennedy Airport.
Yeah.
You have everything.
You have shipping.
Yeah, no.
And everything comes through New York.
It’s incredible how good it was .
Just incredible.
I’ve never heard of them.
And yet they were perfect.
So at the same time, you get publishers.
This is a debate that’s going on right now.
I know this is going to sound different, but it really turns out to be the same thing.
These publishers want to put ads into their RSS feeds.
And they say they need to put ads into their RSS feeds because they need to pay money to the authors to write all the reviews of the articles, you know, of all the products that come in, because this is how people get information about products.
But it isn’t how people get information about products anymore, about services, companies.
You get information about products from users, and they don’t need to be paid.
Right.
You don’t want them to be paid.
Right.
You don’t want them to be paid.
Yeah, if they’re getting paid, then all of a sudden you have to worry about, you know, I mean, when I was a writer for Wired, it was like what, a year and a half? I mean, there were times when I was introduced to manufacturers reps at parties.
And nobody said, you know, write something favorable about these guys’ products.
But it was understood that, you know, I remember one situation where the publisher introduced me to this guy, and he was this, now he’s a vice president for T oshiba, a big Japanese PC guy.
And the guy comes over and he says, “David, you really ought to check out these guys’ computers .
“They’re really great, you know ?” And I look at him and I say, " Don’t you guys make clones?” In other words, aren’t you selling the same computer everybody else is selling? And he hustled the guy off real quick, like, oh no, no, you weren’t supposed to say that, did you? Because this was their chance to mix it up with the editorial people, right? You know, this was the advert iser’s chance to Wait, I have to get my credit card out.
I don’t remember which pocket it was.
So the thing is that we’re getting so good at supplying each other with information.
And why do we do it? I mean, in other words, why did those people contribute the information about New Egg, you know, to put all the smile ys on them, and somebody was making money off of the Somebody was making money off the recommendation that, you know, the knowledge that this was the best price that you could get.
They were getting some money for the referral, right? Right.
But no, why would you be grud ging that? But you didn’t need to pay anybody for editorial content there.
I mean, basically, you know, you didn’t get any ads, and you didn’t need The reviewer’s a user is going to write a better review, a more interesting, more useful review to another user.
Again, anybody working in a magazine is going to be able to do But let me pay devil’s advocate .
What if the people that were reviewing these products on this website were all shills? No, no, wait a minute.
Wouldn’t the truth eventually out? No, let me clarify something.
Let me take myself clear.
The review was of the retailer and not of the product.
Right. Well, she said it could be for wife, but the question is, couldn’t it be a shill for the retailer? And the answer is yes, it could .
But the There’s one thing I haven’t told you yet.
There were 13,000 reviews.
Yeah.
There’s a summary of 13,000.
Now, maybe that was a lie, right? Maybe it was 12 reviews, not 13 ,000.
You guys believe in eBay, right ? No, it wasn’t eBay.
I understand, but if you believe in eBay, why would you believe in this? Because, you know, basically it ’s the same idea.
It’s basically exactly the same idea.
Your reputation is the most valuable thing.
Right, exactly.
And you try to build up a good reputation and then you avoid doing anything at all that might support you.
Obviously. And these guys really I mean, those that the display of the smiley’s are statistically effective.
Sure, it is.
Well, it should be assuring to know that.
There are four smiley’s.
One for “Would you recommend another one?” for “I’m a delivery, low price, blah, blah. " The only one that comes first one.
What was the first one? “Would you recommend?” If you would recommend, that means the others have to be good.
I think you have to get into this broadcast about your dead cats.
About what? You can do another one.
There’s a possibility that the recording quality 40 minutes, by the way.
I got to tell you, 40 minutes has been scientifically determined to be the absolute best lane.
We’re at 40 minutes and 37 seconds.
So next time, get the dead cats .
Okay, so everybody, this was morning coffee notes for May 2nd, 2005.
There may be another one later today.
But we’re going to go back back to my parents’ house and I’m going to upload this.
And it’ll be on the web very shortly.
Assuming that the quality is any good, right? So what I’m going to do now is I’m going to click on the stop.