Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.
So after keeping a watchful eye on PS3 pre-order sales on eBay thanks to this handy link I noticed that pre-orders were being stopped from becoming delisted by eBay in the past few days. Apparently eBay has come up with a special set of rules that applies to the sellers of the consoles only, and not to the buyers. This seems like an attempt to protect the buyers from getting scammed I guess but it also means that people who only casually use eBay are going to be screwed out of trying to sell their pre-sale order on eBay until they have the actual console in their grubby hands on 11/17. I haven't been able to find an offical listing of this on eBay anywhere but a number of the live and unpulled auction have this information listed in them, check it out:
So if you're an Average Joe who hasnt sold or bought enough stuff on eBay to have 50 feedback or more you have to sit on your hands and watch pre-sales going for $1700+ and up until you can list your non-pre-sale-actually-exists-in-your-hands PS3 unit on launch day. In addition to following the above rules all pre-sale auction have to follow the below rules as take from this page on eBay's site:Sellers must have 1. I must have a Feedback of 50 or more. 2. My Feedback score must be 98% or above. 3. I may only list one system. I may list 1 PlayStation 3 and 1 Nintendo Wii with a photo of my pre-order receipt for each system. 4. I must accept PayPal as my only payment option. 5. I must include a photo of my receipt in the listing. 6. No Buy It Now will be allowed. 7. No one day listings will be allowed.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/pre-sale.html
Pre-sale listings are those that describe items for sale that are not in the control or possession of the seller at the time of the listing. These listings generally consist of items that are sold in advance of a delivery date to the public.
eBay permits Pre-sale listings only on a limited basis. The seller must guarantee that the item will be available for shipping within 30 days from the date of purchase (i.e., the day the listing ends or the date the item is purchased from a store front listing). The seller must also clearly indicate within the listing the fact that the item is a pre-sale item with a delivery date that indicates the item will be shipped by the 30th day from the end date of the listing. Additionally, this text must be no less than the default font size of the eBay Sell-Your-Item form. Currently, the default font size is HTML font size 3.
Violations of this policy may result in a range of actions, including:
* Listing cancellation * Limits on account privileges * Account suspension * Forfeit of eBay fees on cancelled listings * Loss of PowerSeller status
Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.
So after keeping a watchful eye on PS3 pre-order sales on eBay thanks to this handy link I noticed that pre-orders were being stopped from becoming delisted by eBay in the past few days. Apparently eBay has come up with a special set of rules that applies to the SELLERS of the consoles only, and not to the buyers. This seems like an attempt to protect the buyers from getting scammed I guess but it also means that people who only casually use eBay are going to be screwed out of trying to sell their pre-sale order on eBay until they have the actual console in their grubby hands on 11/17. I haven't been able to find an offical listing of this on eBay anywhere but a number of the live and unpulled auction have this information listed in them, check it out:
So if you're an Average Joe who hasnt sold or bought enough stuff on eBay to have 50 feedback or more you have to sit on your hands and watch pre-sales goes for $1700+ and up until you can list your non-pre-sale PS3 unit on launch day. In addition to following the above rules all pre-sale auction have to follow the below rules as take from this page on eBay's site:Sellers must have 1. I must have a Feedback of 50 or more. 2. My Feedback score must be 98% or above. 3. I may only list one system. I may list 1 PlayStation 3 and 1 Nintendo Wii with a photo of my pre-order receipt for each system. 4. I must accept PayPal as my only payment option. 5. I must include a photo of my receipt in the listing. 6. No Buy It Now will be allowed. 7. No one day listings will be allowed.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/pre-sale.html
Pre-sale listings are those that describe items for sale that are not in the control or possession of the seller at the time of the listing. These listings generally consist of items that are sold in advance of a delivery date to the public.
eBay permits Pre-sale listings only on a limited basis. The seller must guarantee that the item will be available for shipping within 30 days from the date of purchase (i.e., the day the listing ends or the date the item is purchased from a store front listing). The seller must also clearly indicate within the listing the fact that the item is a pre-sale item with a delivery date that indicates the item will be shipped by the 30th day from the end date of the listing. Additionally, this text must be no less than the default font size of the eBay Sell-Your-Item form. Currently, the default font size is HTML font size 3.
Violations of this policy may result in a range of actions, including:
* Listing cancellation * Limits on account privileges * Account suspension * Forfeit of eBay fees on cancelled listings * Loss of PowerSeller status
Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.
   So after keeping a watchful eye on PS3 pre-order sales on eBay thanks to this handy link I noticed that pre-orders were being stopped from becoming delisted by eBay in the past few days. Apparently eBay has come up with a special set of rules that applies to the SELLERS of the consoles only, and not to the buyers. This seems like an attempt to protect the buyers from getting scammed I guess but it also means that people who only casually use eBay are going to be screwed out of trying to sell their pre-sale order on eBay until they have the actual console in their grubby hands on 11/17. I haven't been able to find an offical listing of this on eBay anywhere but a number of the live and unpulled auction have this information listed in them, check it out:
So if you're an Average Joe who hasnt sold or bought enough stuff on eBay to have 50 feedback or more you have to sit on your hands and watch pre-sales goes for $1700+ and up until you can list your non-pre-sale PS3 unit on launch day. In addition to following the above rules all pre-sale auction have to follow the below rules as take from this page on eBay's site:Sellers must have 1. I must have a Feedback of 50 or more. 2. My Feedback score must be 98% or above. 3. I may only list one system. I may list 1 PlayStation 3 and 1 Nintendo Wii with a photo of my pre-order receipt for each system. 4. I must accept PayPal as my only payment option. 5. I must include a photo of my receipt in the listing. 6. No Buy It Now will be allowed. 7. No one day listings will be allowed.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/pre-sale.html
Pre-sale listings are those that describe items for sale that are not in the control or possession of the seller at the time of the listing. These listings generally consist of items that are sold in advance of a delivery date to the public.
eBay permits Pre-sale listings only on a limited basis. The seller must guarantee that the item will be available for shipping within 30 days from the date of purchase (i.e., the day the listing ends or the date the item is purchased from a store front listing). The seller must also clearly indicate within the listing the fact that the item is a pre-sale item with a delivery date that indicates the item will be shipped by the 30th day from the end date of the listing. Additionally, this text must be no less than the default font size of the eBay Sell-Your-Item form. Currently, the default font size is HTML font size 3.
Violations of this policy may result in a range of actions, including:
*
Listing cancellation *
Limits on account privileges *
Account suspension *
Forfeit of eBay fees on cancelled listings *
Loss of PowerSeller status
Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.
I wonder if this is what it is like in Los Angeles and other parts of the country? I wonder just how limited supply is really going to be. After all, supposedly GameStop/EBGames is going to have an online order reservation system going up at some point once they have a better grip on their supply of consoles. However if it is anything like the number of slots I am seeing per store tonight then the PS3 is going to be one of the hardest consoles to purchase this Christmas season.
I imagine selling these things on Ebay should make some folks rather tidy profits if this is any indication of what is to come.
Update: 3:10AM, we just had two Irvine PD cruisers come by and ask why we were loitering in front of the mall. But its all cool.
Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.
I wonder if this is what it is like in Los Angeles and other parts of the country? I wonder just how limited supply is really going to be. After all, supposedly GameStop/EBGames is going to have an online order reservation system going up at some point once they have a better grip on their supply of consoles. However if it is anything like the number of slots I am seeing per store tonight then the PS3 is going to be one of the hardest consoles to purchase this Christmas season.
I imagine selling these things on Ebay should make some folks rather tidy profits if this is any indication of what is to come.
Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.
So I'm in a friends car last week Tuesday evening driving up to Hollywood for that evnings LA Philharmonic show at the Hollywood Bowl. About halfway up the drive I get a call on my cellphone from an area code I dont really recognize, but there are some work related activities going on at the time so I take the call just incase. Turns out its the Executive Director for the Libertarian Party in California. As it happens one of the incumbents for the position of Los Alamitos/Rossmoor Water Sewer District didnt file their papers in time, giving a 3 day window of opportunity where anyone could register with the Registrar of Voters in Santa Ana to run for the position and would end up running uncontested. I ask him to send me an email with more information because I have to admit to being at least curious as to what this is all about. Below are copies of the email correspondance, enjoy:
From: druprecht@ca.lp.org Subject: Your elected office Date: August 15, 2006 5:31:38 PM PDT To: des@t-k.com Daniel, I'm so glad you are giving this serious consideration. I personally am running for the water district up here in the San Gabriel Valley. The office is the Rossmore/Los Alamitos area sewer district. Filing is free and very easy. You just go to the Registrar of Voters, Neal Kelley, at 1300 South Grand Ave., Bldg. C in Santa Ana 92711 - 714-567-7600 fax 714-567-7556. www.ocvote.com
You must do it by 5 PM tomorrow, Wednesday. As I said, noone else has filed, so it could be a slam-dunk. If someone doesn't file, they'll just appoint one of their cronies... and we really don't want that! If you have any questions, please call my home # 626-355-8529.
Thanks. Dave Dave Ruprecht Executive Director Libertarian Party of California 877-884-1776 Mind you, I found this all out the day before the deadline, and I attempted to go online and elsewhere to find information about what such a position would entail from a time and responsability standpoint and wasnt able to come up with too much beyond the fact that I would be compensated $190 per day worth of board level meetings I was involved in. But nowhere could I find a mention of time requirements which is rather critical to me due to obvious reasons presented by my classload at UCI and my consulting work and other consumptions of my time (like sleep!) so I wrote the Party back and said:
From: Daniel Spisak Subject: Re: Your elected office Date: August 16, 2006 10:46:48 AM PDT To: druprecht@ca.lp.org Reply-To: des@t-k.com Dave, As much as I would like to be able to help the Libertarian party in its cause I am afraid I simply don't have the time available to be able to commit to this seat. I tried to lookup at the Registrar of Voters and a few other places what the duties of the seat are and I was able to find a little bit of information but nothing that could give me an idea of how large a commitment I'd be attaching myself to. I must also confess that I am curious how the Party came to see me as a potential for this seat? I am a somewhat colorful person and am involved already as a volunteer for the state Office of Emergency Services which I have just enough time for. Seeing as I am a full-time undergrad student at UC Irvine until the end of 2007 and I am also working for two different consulting firms on the side to help pay for my education I feel I would not have the time available to devote to the seat to be able to make a fair representation of the Libertarian Party. However I am honored that
the Party would ask me for its help.
Daniel Spisak dspisak@nonmundane.org http://blog.nonmundane.org/ Cell: 562.331.1603 Which elected this response back. No harm no foul.
From: druprecht@ca.lp.org Subject: Re: Your elected office Date: August 16, 2006 11:01:24 AM PDT To: des@t-k.comDaniel, Of course, that's very understandable. We found you because you are a registered Libertarian in one of these few special districts where the incumbent didn't file by the normal deadline and we have a 3 day window to get a Libertarian file there for what will probably be an un-contested office. And, believe it or not, being a "colorful" Libertarian is not that odd. Anyway, thanks for you time and good luck with your - what sounds like - extremely busy life.
Dave Dave Ruprecht Executive Director Libertarian Party of California 877-884-1776 So that is the story of how I almost ended up being on the November ballot as a Libertarian candidate. I have to admit I did really want to give this a go but I just couldnt jump head first into something involving the city I live in without first understanding what would be required of me or what I would need to do. Perhaps next year I can think about this again with a more serious mind and some preparation.
Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.
Recently I was watching Stephen Colbert doing his bit over at The Colbert Report on Comedy Central when I had the opportunity to see him talk about a subject that I happen to find just as important as he did. That topic of course was voter turnout in America. Colbert talked about how in Austrailia peopl
e get small fines for not voting come election day. If you ask me its a pretty easy way to help ensure that American's might be more motivated to get out of the house and vote come the next election.
Of course, Colbert's spin on what this would creat in America I find especially hilarious, given that I believe I already live in a Dumb-ocracy what with Bush and his cronies getting elected back into power for a second term in a row. One can only hope people have learned their lesson and will give
Before I saw the Colbert clip however there was this hilarious running gag going on between Colbert and Jon Stewart on The Daily Show regarding Stewart having to apologize to Geraldo Rivera and Bill O'Reiley. Stewart of course has no idea what Colbert is talking about which prompts them to roll a clip from O'Reiley's show on FOX where he and Geraldo basically bad mouth Stewart and Colbert as insignificant chuckle hucksters in a narcissitic attempt to justify their only blowhard like self-worth. It's totally worth downloading and watching.
Also of humor was what The Daily Show did with their projection backgrounds on the set on the way out to commercial break. Check it out in the picture to the left.
Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.
School life is still busy here in the land of Dan. Next week is finals so things will get short shrift here till Thursday next week likely. However, I have an urgent need to get rid of the plethora of open tabs in my browser here so allow me to point out some interesting stuff!Lou Dobb's not being an asshole for once, and hes right in this case http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/08/15/dobbs.august16/index.html
Pluto was downsized by the fat cats running the International Astronomers Union (IAU) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060824/ap_on_sc/planet_mutiny
An exchange of views between my friend Jerry Pournelle and Joel Rosenberg about the war in Lebanon http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/JoelLebanon.html
Is windows inherently more vulnerable to malware attacks then OS X? http://weblog.infoworld.com/enterprisemac/archives/ 2006/08/is_windows_inhe.html
An excellent replacement for the Apple battery monitor on OS X http://www.orange-carb.org/SBM/
A compelling video from the 5,000 strong âLaw Enforcement Against Prohibitionâ on the never-ending failure of the never-ending âWar Against Some Drugs.â http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LayaGk0TMDc
A look at how hard drives are going to grow beyond Terabit per square inch capacities http://news.com.com/2100-1008_3-6108687.html
Robert Spencer took part in a documentary that was recently in the theaters called, "Islam: What the West Needs to Know." The documentary discusses the religion of Islam, its main tenants and its relationship with other religions. http://www.q-and-a.org/Program/?ProgramID=1086
You too can spend 45 dollars on a buger with *54* toppings. Check it out! http://jimmylin.imeem.com/blogentry/8TViehBk
An interesting concept in airline ticket purchasing can be found at Farecast.com. They use historical pricing data for airline tickets to try and predict when the best time to try buying tickets will be. http://farecast.com/ 
In other news the RIAA is trying to get a blanket gag order on all litigation they are involved in with so-called copyright violators. When will these people learn to buy better PR people, its not like they dont have enough money to get good people. http://digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com/2006/08/10/ riaa-asks-for-blanket-gag-order/
Wal-Mart may contemplate distributing E85 ethanol based alternative fuels at its gas stations. It's a shame America wont consider sugar-cane based ethanol which is has a positive net energy balance compared to corn based ethanol production. http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/08/news/companies/ pluggedin_gunther.fortune/index.htm?cnn=yes
Continuing our green trend we've got a story in the LA Times about a car shop down in Silverlake that is converting diesel cars into bio-diesel capable vehicles. While I like the idea there is a part of my brain that wonders how you go about doing long trip driving in these converted cars. How would I keep this kind of car fueled if I drove from LA to SF? http://www.latimes.com/classified/automotive/highway1/ la-et-oilcar5aug05,0,7841765,full.story?coll=la-home-highway1
Originally published at Daniel Spisak on Technology. You can comment here or there.
So, DEFCON 14 was....interesting. Some highlights from this years con include:
Riviera Hotel security having SWAT on-call Saturday night. No joke.
Riviera Hotel security basically forcing the clearing out of the *entire* penthouse level of the Monaco Tower on Saturday night due to noise complaints from 4 or 5 levels below the penthouse. Riviera has only ONE pool! And it closes at 7PM? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? That has to change next year somehow.
Some asshat decided on Friday it would be fun to hack into the HVAC controls for the Riviera and turn off all the AC in the hotel for 3 hours. His ass got caught and dealt with.
Some *other* asshat decided it would be a good idea to trip out of illegal substances in his room somewhere halfway up the Monaco Tower and throw a full can of Red Bull out of his window. Which then hit one of the hotel security guards. These asshats were swiftly 86'ed from the hotel and I think one had their badge removed as well.
Party-wise the 303 had a kicking party and the Ninja Hackers had a decent one as well but apprently they got caught having a minor drinking at their party. So of course everyone has to card at these parties now. Of course Cezars party was this lame party within a party at the Ninja Hackers party. Makes no sense to me why the groups have to be such elitest pricks about who can party with them. Siviak had a rocking party going on in his penthouse suite on Friday and Saturday night but I forget whom was sponsoring the party
Talk-wise there was some fun stuff at this years con. Some of my favorites included wifi sniffing using high powered amature model rockets, bump keying, safecracking, and the talk about how Hollywood gets hacker culture right and wrong. Other talks on wireless driver exploits and data forensics were pretty useful also.
For next year I am going to try and make sure I can stay at the Riv instead of Circus Circus because while its across the street its still to damn far to walk if I need to drop shit off.
ComicCon 2006!
Well this was the first time I'd been to Comic Con since my first time in 2000. If anything Comic Con is even bigger then I remember it being back then. After driving in rush hour traffic from Temple City all the way down to San Diego I managed to just barely get there in time before registration closed. Let me say that getting registered and your badge for Comic Con before Saturday morning is increadibly imperative. Basically, the line to register Saturday spans the entire length of the San Diego Convention Center, and then some because it folds on itself once or twice and can extend all the way to the adjacent hotel. At around 1 or 2PM that day they stopped letting people enter the line because they were not going to be able to get registered before reg closed at 7PM. Crazy shit.
I managed to check out a whole slew of places in the dealers room and met up with a bunch of actors I recognized from 24 and a few other shows like B5 which was a lot of fun. Also ran into Vincent at the Surge of Power booth where he was hawking the DVD for the movie (I worked on it as a 2nd assistant director, it was fun to make). I also ran across the THQ games booth and saw a demo of an upcoming PC game called Supreme Commander, an RTS game coming out in early 2007 most likely. Some of the cool features of the game included the ability to use a dual head display to play the game in along with extensive varieties of detailes unit types. Other nice aspects of the game include the ability to coordinate timed strikes with groups of units and my favorite feature of all: tacital and surgical nuclear strike capability! When a nuke goes off on the screen the whole screen flashes white for about 10-20 seconds where you can't see anything. The open beta of the game will be coming to
GameSpy.com in about late September or mid October. Look for it!
For now I shall leave you all with a photo of my friend Matt using the hotel hair dryer to try and dry his wet Browncoat's t-shirt. I kept telling him to just wear it damp and it would be dry by the time we got to the con floor but he just wouldnt hear me out. So onto the silly public humilation!
Looks pretty cool. Now I have to figure out how to hook WordPress into this sucka!
