Wed. Mar. 22, 2023 – 03222023 – some thoughts on reselling at auction

By on March 22nd, 2023 in culture, decline and fall, ebay, personal

Cool, but warming.   We are supposed to get warmer through the week, and into the 80s.   National forecast has us clear today and rainy tomorrow.   There were very scattered and light spattering showers yesterday as we were on the edge of a rainy zone.

I spent time with a friend yesterday, and actually went thrifting.   He got some good stuff and so did I.  We had some time to talk too.  Then I spent some time sorting.

Today I’ll do more sorting, a couple of pickups, and I should be able to drop off stuff for one of the local auctions too.

Speaking of which, a commentor asked some questions last night and as I was writing the answers, it grew to post size.  I decided to put it here today.


So, some answers and thoughts about reselling, based on my more recent experiences.

@nick, when you bring items to one of your local auctioneers, do you have any input as to the starting bid? And what percentage of the winning bid do you wind up with if you don’t mind sharing? I have a few bins of ~$20-$30 items that I should be listing on eBay but never quite get a ‘round tuit’.

WRT starting bids at my auctioneer, he doesn’t like them to be too high. Buyers like to start low, even if it ends up high. I can insist on a minimum, but again he doesn’t like it (he has to manually manage the process). It comes down to you have to trust the buyers (and have enough of them.) For my side, it means curating what I bring him to be things I think his buyers will like, and accepting that something might go cheap. On the gripping hand, if no one ever got a bargain, they wouldn’t keep coming back, so the occasional item that goes too cheap is really an investment in the future.

WRT costs, my two favorite auctioneers take between 30 and 40% of the hammer price, plus they get a “buyer’s premium” on top of that paid by the buyer, not me. The actual percentage they take depends on my negotiating skill, and the quality of the stuff I bring them. Their labor is pretty much the same for a $10 item as a $100 item, so they prefer the bigger items. That said, the majority of their items seem to be $10-$40 sale price, with some higher, some lower. I shoot for $20-$50, with the occasional $100 item, and am sometimes surprised, and sometimes disappointed.

The upshot of selling at auction is that you ‘make your money’ when you BUY the item. It has to be REALLY CHEAP relative to the price you expect. That way you are covered if it sells at the low opening bid. If you pay too much, it’ll never sell at auction with a starting bid high enough to cover your breakeven.

 

There are lots of pricing strategies, lots of different ways to approach profit margin. If you are listing on ebay with a ‘buy it now’ you have more control over the price, but you will never have a surprise hit, like I did with an antique book. I’d have been happy to get $20, but it sold for $400.

I watch youtubers that will pay up to half the expected sale price for inventory. That’s nuts. You lose a third to ebay/paypal, shipping might eat into the profit, and you have time involved in packing and shipping. Plus if the item is a slow mover, because you’ve priced it at the upper end of the range, your money is tied up, you have to store and manage the item, and you might take an offer for lower, just to move the item. It’s easy to end up breaking even on a low cost item, or even losing money just to make the sale. And that is before counting your time, or the income tax.

There are exceptions. If you have a lot of identical items, and they are very easy to ship, you can either list them with a “select a quantity”  and sell singles or multiples over time, or you can lot them in multi-item lots so you have one sale of 4 or 6 and your margin on that one sale is high enough to be worth it.

Listing and Shipping (packing) are the biggest time sinks for me. Taking the stuff to my local guy saves me both of those costs.

Testing/fixing/cleaning can eat up a lot of time too, so I tend to put it off, and then do it in batches.

I plan to restart listing on ebay but only for items that will sell for $50 or more.   I’ll let my kids list the cheap stuff, and fulfill those orders too.  (yeah I’ll still be doing the work, but they’ll be learning the skills and hopefully my involvement will diminish over time.)    I was going to set my personal limit at $100 but decided I’ve got a lot of items with good profit potential at $50 that I might as well sell.   And I’ll only list items that I am sure won’t sell well in one of the local auctions because the pool of buyers is too small, or to geographically dispersed.

I should also mention that I got all the low priced inventory because for a while, people were only buying “smalls” for around $20.  My big stuff wasn’t moving and I needed stuff that was.   My  priorities have changed though, so it makes sense for me to concentrate on moving up the food chain a bit, and to not spend my time ‘grinding’.

Other people will make other choices based on their own calculations, or their emotions, or by reading sheep’s entrails, but I’m going to try it this way for a while.

I’m hoping to reduce my inventory, and increase my stacks…

Because stacking is good, if the stuff is good.

nick

69 Comments and discussion on "Wed. Mar. 22, 2023 – 03222023 – some thoughts on reselling at auction"

  1. brad says:

    The obvious solution to this difficulty is not to have friends.

    That’s an excellent suggestion. Some days, my general opinion of the human race is pretty low. Today is definitely one of those days.

    Given the neighborly difficulties, my wife makes drooling noises whenever we see some TV program where someone is living miles away from the nearest person. Yesterday, there was a BBC program about an Australian woman (originally from Switzerland!) who lives alone on 2400 acres out in the middle of nowhere.

    I can see the attraction…

  2. Nick Flandrey says:

    I can see the attraction…   right up until you are trapped between your 4wheeler and the garage wall… or you have a mishap with a chainsaw or hatchet…

    —67F and overcast, but the sun is trying to poke thru

    99%RH practically goes without saying.

    n

  3. Nick Flandrey says:

    @brad, I think it was you extolling the virtues of robotic lawn mowers?   Anyway, not an option for me at the BOL.    The main yard (lakeside) slopes dramatically, with 15ft change in elevation over 85ft of travel.    The area that was trenched for the  septic system drip lines is furrowed like a farm field.    There are fire ant mounds as big as basketballs.   There can be branches and sticks on the grass.    And it’s about ½ acre in size.     The front of the house has two areas of grass, one with 15 ft of elevation change in 40ft, the other a long skinny mound.   The sloped one has the septic access hatches, LP gas tank, and some other obstructions sticking up, and lots of lumps and bumps.

    I get tossed around on the lawn tractor, sometimes have to shift my weight so the drive wheel makes contact with the ground, and routinely bottom out the edges of the mower deck or the blades on high spots.

    n

  4. Nick Flandrey says:

    Well bend me over and spank my behind, there’s a computerized equatorial mount for my FREAKING ‘scope in the auction this week..   list price is over $3K and ebay is still $1500.   You know I’m bidding on it!

    n

  5. SteveF says:

    right up until you are trapped between your 4wheeler and the garage wall… or you have a mishap with a chainsaw or hatchet

    With one exception when I was about ten*, I don’t recall anyone ever being there to help when I was in or might be in serious trouble. I had to get myself out of trouble. Sometimes this involves flagging down a passer-by and getting a ride or brief assistance but it never involves someone that you’d expect to be checking up and helping out, whether a neighbor or a “public trust” person like a cop, school teacher, or senior NCO.

    Some of this may be because I’m self-reliant and never ask for help. Of course, I’m self-reliant because I’ve learned that I can’t count on anyone, so there’s a positive feedback loop.

    I handle it by being conscientious in whatever I do (habitually, not just with dangerous tasks) and being prepared for emergencies. When I cleared part of the forest behind the house, I wore protective clothing, paid attention to what I was doing every moment that the chainsaw was running, and carried bandages  and a tourniquet. Count on neighbors to notice a problem? No way. Count on an ambulance responding quickly enough to a 9-1-1 call? No way.

    * The lifeguard at a swimming area in a river. I jumped in, smacked my head on a rock, and got carried out by the lifeguard.

  6. Denis says:

    @brad, I think it was you extolling the virtues of robotic lawn mowers?   Anyway, not an option for me at the BOL.    

    That was I. It is a pity your lawn is not suitable. A robot is a fantastic time and effort saver if it can be used. We even managed to inspire our next-door neighbours on one side to get one, which is great – no more Saturday ICE mowing noise from there… now if only some genius would invent a quiet leaf blower for the autumn!

    The obvious solution to this difficulty is not to have friends.

    Everyone can aspire to be SteveF, but not all of us achieve his level of perfection… 

  7. Denis says:

    I get tossed around on the lawn tractor, sometimes have to shift my weight so the drive wheel makes contact with the ground, and routinely bottom out the edges of the mower deck or the blades on high spots.

    Sounds like you need to get a little digger and do some landscaping in your copious free time!

  8. SteveF says:

    Nick should just pile all the grass trimmings and dog poop on the low spots. They’ll eventually become dirt and raise the low spots to be even with the high spots. Winning!

  9. Nick Flandrey says:

    Sounds like you need to get a little digger  

    –yeah, I think I’ll have to rent a mini-excavator and small skid steer to do all the concrete removal and grading myself.   There just isn’t anyone to do it.   If I’ve got it there, I intend to do what I can to smooth out the furrows at least.     I was going to borrow my neighbor’s tractor with a “box scraper” attachment but the hill made him nervous.

    n

  10. brad says:

    Wasn’t me with the robotic lawn mowers. We don’t have much of a lawn, but what we have is a bit rough’n’ready, so I’m not sure a robot would do very well. There was a lot of settling after constructing the new house.

    Now that a couple of years have gone by, I really ought to re-surface the lawn area to smooth things out. Then maybe a robot would have a chance.

  11. Denis says:

    I’ll have to rent a mini-excavator…

    Just be sure the rental company explain the features of the machine correctly. I had a sleepless night some years ago after I got a rented unit stuck half in a trench and couldn’t manoeuvre it back out again. It turned out that the delivery guy had retracted a track (a feature of very small diggers, to reduce the width for passing through doorways), but neglected to tell me. All it took to get the unit back out of the trench was to hold up one track by pushing down with the bucket arm on that side and extending the track to its normal width, putting it beyond the lip of the trench. In fairness, the rental guys didn’t charge me for the call out, since they hadn’t told me about that feature…

  12. paul says:

    The Keystone canned meats are good.  Chicken falls apart. Turkey stays together. The beef, pork, and ground beef are real tasty.  Without going through all of my saved e-mail, I paid from $5 to $7.75 per 28 ounce can.

    It seems pricey but it’s ready to heat and eat.  No refrigeration needed. When I checked the other day, the oldest I have is from 2017 and the cans look fine.

    That’s buying from Walmart.  Not from a third party selling on Walmart’s site and asking $28 per can. 

    You can buy directly from Keystone.  I just looked and the beef is $9 a can in a case of 12 plus $34 UPS shipping.  So $11.80 per can which considering how prices have gone up on everything, an extra $4 a can seems reasonable. 

  13. paul says:

    “and tiny pinholes in the foil pouches.  Don’t know if the bugs got in”

    The bugs got in. Buy some bay leaves to repel the bugs.  I finally did and huh, they work.  The weevils are gone.  I bought this:

     https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09JPHN6QF?tag=ttgnet-20  

  14. SteveF says:

    Everyone can aspire to be SteveF, but not all of us achieve his level of perfection…

    -sad nod- I’m fated to forever stand alone at the pinnacle.

    9
    0
  15. mediumwave says:

    -sad nod- I’m fated to forever stand alone at the pinnacle.

    True, but once you’ve reached the peak of perfection, where else is there to go but down?  😀

    7
    1
  16. Nightraker says:

    Physical Silver sales explode. Card table wobbling. Precious metal dealer reports a years’ worth of business done last week.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8qANIXF250

  17. nick flandrey says:

    Carvana may survive after all…

    Carvana Surges After Announcing Restructuring Which Would Shrink Debt By $1.3 Billion, Slash Interest By $100 Million

    If the offering is fully subscribed, the exchange offer to existing creditors would reduce the face value of its outstanding $5.7bn of unsecured bond debt by $1.3bn and its annual cash interest bill by roughly $100 million.

    –wonder how AutoNation and the ‘virtual’ dealers like Vroom are doing

    n

  18. nick flandrey says:

    Anyone try or even heard of Optimum as an internet service provider?

    They claim to be able to provide service at the BOL, but I’m sceptical.

    Their TOS says they collect —–Internet Services. If you are an Internet customer, we may automatically collect and associate with your account certain information concerning your use of our Internet service, such as the IP address(es) assigned, MAC addresses of equipment that is used, bandwidth used, system and connection performance, browsers used, dates and times of access, and Internet resource requests. We also collect usage statistics and network traffic data and geolocation information.

    Which sounds a whole lot like collecting everything about everyone connected, including full browsing history.

    Anyone know how this compares to ATT or one of the big providers?

    n

  19. ITGuy1998 says:

    I just assume all traffic is sniffed multiple times.

  20. Greg Norton says:

    Physical Silver sales explode. Card table wobbling. Precious metal dealer reports a years’ worth of business done last week.

    Someone is making a serious effort to suppress GLD again.

    My only position is almost at the break even point, where I wanted to sell.

  21. SteveF says:

    Nick, I’m pretty sure that that data collection is standard. If other providers don’t explicitly state that they’re collecting it, that just means they’ve buried it in waffle words in their ToS.

  22. Greg Norton says:

    Carvana may survive after all…

    The vending machine was still stocked when we drove by the South Austin location last week, but, long term, they’re still holding too much inventory which they purchased at insane prices.

    Plus all of the pending lawsuits.

    They’re toast.

  23. Ray Thompson says:

    Finally back home.

    GPS says we drove 2,968 miles. 32 hours of AIS (Ass In Seat) time. Spent $356.00 on fuel. I spent $248.00 in food. I spent $362.00 in hotels (I refuse to stay in a place that has exterior entrances to rooms). Currently raining. Apparently, there was about 4 inches of rain during the 18 days we were gone.

    I traveled on some private toll roads in Texas. I expect to get a bill from the companies within the next three or four months. The Texas owned toll roads will be free of charge.

    Damn VA. I was sent by the VA to a local hospital to get an X-Ray. The radiology company has billed me multiple times and each time I have gone to the VA clinic to get the bill paid. Last time I was told it would get taken care of immediately. Today I got a letter from a collection agency. The VA person lied. Again, I called the VA clinic, told them of the bill, and the collection notice, and was told it would be taken care of immediately. Anyone want to lose money making bets that the VA will take care of the issue. Cretins.

  24. Greg Norton says:

    Which sounds a whole lot like collecting everything about everyone connected, including full browsing history.

    Anyone know how this compares to ATT or one of the big providers?

    The ISPs track IP header information routinely, but browser type is not  part of that data and requires peering into the payload. That’s a legal grey area without the TOS agreement, and I’m wondering how they’re doing that in the age of “HTTPS Everywhere”.

  25. SteveF says:

    we drove 2,968 miles. 32 hours of AIS (Ass In Seat) time. 

    I question those numbers. You averaged almost 100MPH?

  26. Geoff Powell says:

    @nick:

    Everyone sniffs (or, at least, logs) your traffic. All you can do is attempt to make it more difficult for that logged data to be associated with your personal identity.

    In that regard, running everything through a VPN, at some colo facility may be worthwhile. Although that only pushes the first sniffing point one step further away from you. Depending on your threat model, on which I cannot advise you, that may be worthwhile.

    The thing to remember about “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” is that the saying is incomplete. It’s missing one word – yet. Also, everybody has something to hide, even if that something is only your password for some online service.

    One last point. If you’re browsing the ‘Net , and not using an adblocker, why are you doing that? You should be minimising the amount of data that can be sniffed from your traffic, if for no other reason than advertisers have no right to such data, and should be prevented from collecting it.

    My personal threat model does not, yet, extend to blanket use or a VPN or, a fortiori, TOR, but I’m not you, so that’s a decision you have to make for your own circumstances.

    G.

  27. ayjblog says:

    JimB

    Forgive the typo

    Never but never use any capacity that was not available since 2 years, i.e. HD more than 4 TB is ok, today. 

    should be

    Never but never use any capacity that was not available since 2 years, i.e. HD more than 4 TB , today. 

    there is a sweet spot between brand new high capacity and make it cheap enough, blackblaze should have statistics on that, in a mood, like the cars, never manufactured on monday or friday 

  28. SteveF says:

    If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear

    Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.

    You don’t have to have done anything wrong. With enough data and enough correlation, something suspicious can be found. You bought antihistamines and vinegar in the same shopping trip? Data analysis shows that 40% of accused terrorists have done the same. Probable cause!

  29. Greg Norton says:

    To reiterate, Bill Gates wants to be Richard Feynman, but he would settle for being Bob Metcalfe, with his name at the top of one of the most important papers ever published in Computer Science.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/22/technology/turing-award-bob-metcalfe-ethernet.html

    Yeah, paywalled by Pinch’s brood.

  30. Greg Norton says:

    You don’t have to have done anything wrong. With enough data and enough correlation, something suspicious can be found. You bought antihistamines and vinegar in the same shopping trip? Data analysis shows that 40% of accused terrorists have done the same. Probable cause!

    Beer and baby diapers — WalMart’s big data mining correlation.

  31. Lynn says:

    Given the neighborly difficulties, my wife makes drooling noises whenever we see some TV program where someone is living miles away from the nearest person. Yesterday, there was a BBC program about an Australian woman (originally from Switzerland!) who lives alone on 2400 acres out in the middle of nowhere.

    Our 500+ lot neighborhood is 1.0, 1.2, 2.0, and 2.5 acre lots.  Our home is on a 1.2 acre (4,850 m^2) lot and the side neighbor homes are 80 feet (25 m) away from ours.  Nice but not too far for help.

    When we had the deep freeze last December, I was able to go tell the neighbor that his sprinkler water supply pipe was broken and pumping about 10 gpm into our yards. He was working on a very nice sized pond between us, mostly frozen of course.

  32. Lynn says:

    Well bend me over and spank my behind

    TMI ! ! ! 

  33. Ray Thompson says:

    I question those numbers. You averaged almost 100MPH?

    As you should. I mistyped. It was actually 54 hours. I did average about 54 MPH as a lot of the driving was on I-states doing 70 or better.

  34. Greg Norton says:

    we drove 2,968 miles. 32 hours of AIS (Ass In Seat) time. 

    I question those numbers. You averaged almost 100MPH?

    Ray is in training to try for the Cannonball record, but, IIRC, it went below 30 hours during the Pandemic. That will be tough to break.

    I drove from Orlando to Portland in three days, 50 hours “Ass In Seat” time in a 4Runner.

    I don’t want to repeat that again. I was sore for a week.

    While I miss the 4Runner, the ride left a lot to be desired on long trips.

  35. Lynn says:

    “BACK OFF VLAD ! Incredible moment US B-52 nuke bomber is flanked by six Nato fighter jets in V-formation in warning to Putin”

        https://www.the-sun.com/news/7692798/moment-us-bomber-flanked-nato-jets-warning-putin/

    Oh yeah, now we are comparing appendage sizes with Russia.  This will not go well.

    Hat tip to:
    https://www.drudgereport.com/

  36. Geoff Powell says:

    @stevef:

    Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.

    Or as Cardinal Richelieu is claimed to have said, “Give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, and I will find therein the means to hang him.”

    That applies with even more force today, the good Cardinal would be having wet dreams at the amount of data available to him on every one o us.

    G.

  37. Lynn says:

    Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.

    Or as Cardinal Richelieu is claimed to have said, “Give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, and I will find therein the means to hang him.”

    That applies with even more force today, the good Cardinal would be having wet dreams at the amount of data available to him on every one o us.

    Today, the good Cardinal would be fed feet first into a wood chipper by the angry unwashed.

    4
    0
  38. Tony Russo says:

    When I lived in NY on Long Island I had Optimum. They are a regional cable company that was bought by Altice a few years ago. When I had them I thought my Internet rates were reasonable, but the cost for TV service I thought was too high for what was offered. When I had issues and needed service, the service people seemed okay and got the problem solved. Seems odd they would be in Texas as that is so far away from their home base.

  39. nick flandrey says:

    @geoff, thanks for the specifics.   I know that ATT fiber here requires the use of their own DNS servers so that they can log and track that history.   I get around that for the PCs but not the ‘appliances’ like the streaming boxes.

    piHole is on my todo list… but there is more to it than just building one and putting it on the network.

    The Optimum service is very cheap, so I assume they are making money off me a different way, and that would be by selling my info.  I don’t think they can actually provide service to the BOL.  No one else has been able to, especially not someone that delivers over (non-existent) cable infrastructure.   Wife has signed up for an install appointment so I guess We’ll See ™.

    I may set up a VPN to here at home so I can feel better about how many providers are tracking me.

    n

    (wrt browsers and ad blockers, oh yes, I’ve been a long time user.  currently using uBlock Origin which seems to be the best compromise between what gets blocked, and sites that don’t work.)

  40. MrAtoz says:

    Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.

    tRump comes to mind x 1000. The PLTs want to GET tTRUMP for porn hush money. Really? If he is indicted, arrested, and convicted of a “felony” we will know the fix is in. And, the Rumblicans will sit their with their thumbs up their asses. “Let’s make a committee and investigate this for four years.”

    If a Redumblican is elected President, it’s first act should be to pardon/release all J6 fall guys.

    9
    1
  41. MrAtoz says:

    @geoff, thanks for the specifics.   I know that ATT fiber here requires the use of their own DNS servers so that they can log and track that history.   I get around that for the PCs but not the ‘appliances’ like the streaming boxes.

    You could also get a router that supports VPN in firmware for the whole house.

    3
    0
  42. nick flandrey says:

    @Tony, thanks, from their TOS and other online docs, it looks like they are based in NY.  They must have taken a bunch of  that sweet sweet .gov money and bought other regional players.   I will not be adding TV or phone service even if they manage to get me service to the house.

    n

  43. Lynn says:

    “Report: Most HDDs Die After Almost 3 Years, Newer Models Are Less Reliable”
         https://www.extremetech.com/computing/report-most-hdds-die-after-almost-3-years-newer-models-are-less-reliable

    “The study found that drives made before 2015 were more reliable than newer drives.”

    Most drives installed in PCs now are M.2 drives or SSD drives which are less than $200 for 2 TB. The only spinning drives that I buy now are for office LAN backup in the size range of 10 TB to 14 TB.

  44. Ken Mitchell says:

    @nick, have you checked with the BOL’s electric utility to see if they offer internet via fiber?  Several of them do; one of the houses that we considered when planning our move to San Antonio was near Bandera, and the Bandera Electric Cooperative offered gigabit fiber. 

  45. Alan says:

    >> @alan, that is the Tasty site, and the recipe is the directions off the box… but I can’t find anywhere to buy the box, which has the critical “spice pack” in it. 

    @nick, have you checked Kroger’s? From their site it seems to be available in your local stores (well, at least at one I picked at random at 1801 S Voss Road – in Aisle 8)

    https://www.kroger.com/p/tasty-chicken-tikka-masala-dinner-kit/0001600017581

  46. EdH says:

    Anyway, not an option for me at the BOL.    The main yard (lakeside) slopes dramatically,…

    Tractors can be dangerous on slopes, but they come in different styles, some more suitable.

    That said, a ’drag’ is a poor man’s box scraper.  But you have to do it before a rain or hose things down afterwards, or you will make enemies of your neighbors with the dust.

  47. Brad says:

    piHole is on my todo list… but there is more to it than just building one and putting it on the network.

    I put one up a year or so ago. Remarkably painless. Recommended. 

    “The study found that drives made before 2015 were more reliable than newer drives.”

    They do note that they only see failed drives, which biases the numbers a lot. The Backblaze report is more balanced. 

    The PLTs want to GET tTRUMP for porn hush money. Really? If he is indicted, arrested, and convicted of a “felony” we will know the fix is in.

    Trump may be a different breed from your average Washington politician, but both are species of pond scum.

    Trump is a good showman, but I wouldn’t let him run a McDonald’s. He needs to pass his followers on to someone about 40 years younger.

  48. paul says:

    I don’t know if it is still available but last year or so Duck Duck Go had a browser extension for Firefox that showed the various cookies and trackers while blocking them.

    I added the info to my HOST file.  It took a couple of weeks.  Not a high priority thing. But now most of the blogs I like to read have Adblock Plus disabled.

    If I was smart I’d figure how to put the contents of my HOST file into the Pi.  But to be fair, the Pi does a great job as it is so, why risk breaking it? 

  49. Geoff Powell says:

    @brad:

    Trump is a good showman, but I wouldn’t let him run a McDonald’s

    I wouldn’t trust him to speak my weight.

    Which latter statement applies with even more force to UK pols. As witness Boris “Haystack” Johnson.

    G.

  50. Alan says:

    >> I’ll answer your auction questions in tomorrow’s post.   My answers got quite long.

    Good questions!

    @nick, thanks for the detailed answers. Gives me some things to chew on. And reason to get out to meatspace.

  51. paul says:

    By the little bit of shopping I have done, there are two kinds of M.2 drives.  One, the cheaper one, is NVME.  The other is SATA.

    I think NVME is a bit faster.  Both look like RAM sticks but the contacts are on the end, not along one of the long edges.  They have notches so you can’t install the wrong SSD. 

    It’s crazy.  One notch, two notches, three notches. Length varies, too.  

    Yeah, I’m out of touch. 

  52. Alan says:

    >> I can see the attraction…   right up until you are trapped between your 4wheeler and the garage wall… or you have a mishap with a chainsaw or hatchet…

    Not to worry … as soon as the Discovery Channel camera crew gets enough good footage of you on the frozen ground writhing in pain, they’ll try to call for help.

    https://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/2015/06/life-below-zero-sue-aikens-crash-injuries-interview/

    Sue watched last week’s episode, and her response was perhaps the same as many viewers: “dude, get there”–as in, she wanted the camera crew to get to her aid more rapidly, though it was only a minute or so before they rushed to her aid.

  53. Alan says:

    >> Well bend me over and spank my behind,

    Now how do I unimagine that?!

  54. SteveF says:

    Now how do I unimagine that?!

    Problem solved.

  55. SteveF says:

    So, my daughter, being a teenage girl, can’t help but involve herself in teenage drama. She doesn’t have any dating drama of her own so she’s helping a friend.

    How? you may ask. In possibly the most dreadful way possible: By coming up with cheesy pick-up lines for her friend to use on her would-be boyfriend.

    Are you an appendix? Cause I don’t understand you but I want to take you out.

    (Later research found that others have come up with similar to this one, but she came up with them on her own.)

    The horrible aspect is, knowing the other two kids, I can see the cheesy pick-up lines actually being helpful. Gah.

  56. brad says:

    By coming up with cheesy pick-up lines for her friend to use

    Oh god. No. Can’t she just…like…ask him out? Normally?

    What would life be like for teen girls, without unnecessary drama? Probably not worth living…

  57. Rick H says:

    Any pickup line a girl (women) uses on a boy (man) will be accepted.

    Boys (men) are stupid like that.

  58. paul says:

    Boys (men) are stupid like that.

    Then I’m even stupider.  I’m oblivious.  Then later the other guys that were there were all like “dude, she was trying to pick you up, you dummy”.  I’m like “what?”.

  59. SteveF says:

    Just … ask him out? Without agonizing and chickening out and talking about it endlessly (safely out of his hearing, of course)? What are you, crazy?

  60. Lynn says:

    By the little bit of shopping I have done, there are two kinds of M.2 drives.  One, the cheaper one, is NVME.  The other is SATA.

    I think NVME is a bit faster.  Both look like RAM sticks but the contacts are on the end, not along one of the long edges.  They have notches so you can’t install the wrong SSD. 

    It’s crazy.  One notch, two notches, three notches. Length varies, too.  

    Yeah, I’m out of touch. 

    I think that there are three kinds of M.2 drives.  The NVME drive is the fastest.  And appears to be the cheapest now.  $56 for 1 TB or $160 for 2 TB.  I have the 1 TB in my office pc, it is screamingly fast:

        https://www.amazon.com/WD_BLACK-SN770-Internal-Gaming-Solid/dp/B09QV692XY?tag=ttgnet-20/

    There are apparently two different types of SATA boards, my daughters old laptop had the slowest one installed.  I used a special M.2 to USB board to load it on her new desktop (M.2 to USB Adapter, RIITOP NVMe to USB 3.1 Reader Card Compatible with Both NVMe (PCI-e) M Key SSD & (B+M Key SATA Based) NGFF SSD):

        https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08FWZXT2N?tag=ttgnet-20/

    The first M.2 to USB adapter that I bought did not work as the SATA M.2 board was so old.  So I bought another adapter that reputedly handled both SATA M.2 boards and it worked.

  61. paul says:

    I might be, no, I am, weird.  It was about and hour and a half on the bus everyday.  Each way.  600 or so kids in the high school and yeah, maybe 20 Anglos and two were my sisters.  Ick right there.   I dunno.  Mexican chicks can be just about drop dead gorgeous but she’s not going to look at me.  And, as hot as they are, they just don’t turn my crank much at all. 

    School in Mobile was weird to this kid from Oceanside.  They talk funny in Mobile.  Moving to the Rio Grande Valley?  Oh, shit.  They talk even more funny and now I have to learn Spanish?  Nope.  FU. 

    So about 15 miles from school or anywhere else and no wheels but a bicycle.  Near Edinburg and Mission, Texas.   Yeah, what social life?  With three hours a day on the effing bus?   High School, for all the noise people make about it being SO GREAT didn’t go to my high school.  Where the announcements on the PA system were in Spanish.

     Graduating was like a dropping a couple hundred pounds off of my back. 

    I’m still cranky about it all and Yeah! Bi-Centennial  Seniors are the best!!!  Rah Rah.  Whatever.

  62. EdH says:

    Bi-Centennial  Seniors are the best!!!

    Oh, you young whippersnapper you….

  63. nick flandrey says:

    Thanks for the link to Kroger.   I didn’t even think to look since I stopped shopping there.  Seems crazy that the manf doesn’t even list their own products as products.

    Kroger’s website is horrible.   No way to have it show you the nearest store where the item is in stock…   and it’s really  not clear that the item is in fact available in store, when all the actual enumerated options show “unavailable.”   And no price, which I’ve been trained by the zon  means “not in stock.”

    Still, I need ice cream so I ‘ll stop in tomorrow and see if it is in fact there.   Just hope they’ve moved the aggressive homeless away from the doors.

    n

  64. drwilliams says:

    A lot of the grocery store chains seem to have terrible websites.

    There’s a Piggly Wiggly store in WI that has an excellent website. They carry all the products from a local smokehouse. Best natural casing sausage I’ve ever had, and even better after two months in the refrigerator losing more moisture. If I ever fly to Milwaukee again I’m taking two empty suitcases.

  65. drwilliams says:

    @Greg Norton

    To reiterate, Bill Gates wants to be Richard Feynman, but he would settle for being Bob Metcalfe…

    although the reality is that he’s PeeWee Herman.

  66. lpdbw says:

    A lot of the grocery store chains businesses seem to have terrible websites.

    FIFY

  67. brad says:

    A lot of the grocery store chains businesses seem to have terrible websites.

    Ugh, yes. I visited a website just a couple of days ago. Small company, not quite sure how small, but they submitted an offer for managing the building where we have our guest apartment. Website comes up with all image links (logo, etc.) broken. Click “About” and get a 404-error. Yeah, those are people I want in charge of…um…

  68. Nick Flandrey says:

    damn caffeine is keeping me up.   I had some iced tea after 5 pm and I’m not sleepy.   Gonna try anyway, turned off the youtube shorts.   Freaking thing got me AGAIN.   Worse than crack.

    n

Comments are closed.