I hate

A properly lowball speculative punt for a badly-advertised item sometimes pays off. But no, nothing in between. That's just madness.

And putting a decent bid in days before increases the chance of the seller getting his mates to bid against you to raise the game. If his mate wins, so what? He relists immediately and your final bid tells him what you are prepared to pay.

You mean, if there is a 'make offer' option? Because otherwise, wouldn't it be better to wait till the end anyway?

Honestly don't have much experience with that, the things I bid on are unfortunately always things that clearly quite a few others are keen on too...

No I mean like a £2 bid way out, when a listing is at 99p and then leave it. Got our massive Belfast sink like that a few months back (then the seller hadn't set up their PayPal acc. properly and they refunded me the lot anyway!). Bought a couple of other things (e.g. mini/micro c00ps' bike) like that. Sort of fire-and-forget lowballing, so long as a) you're not desperate for it and b) you don't get tempted to look back.

I only ever bid on something seconds from the end, but I do sometimes wonder if an item having a bid on it might put off potential bidders who are looking for a ‘only bidder bargain’. I’ve definitely not bothered with items that have a bid on already and aren’t low enough to be worth it by the time a bid of bidder two-and-fro has happened.

auctionsniper is also a good way to ensure you're not overpaying and that you don't flag your interest to others...

Ah fair enough, yeah that could be worth it - especially connected with what @AlexD is saying.

Yeah. I use gixen and almost always snipe. Mainly for ease, but also to prevent bid creep.

Tbh I went with what I wanted to pay, but just should have bid more in retrospect. I think a 11am Thursday end lulled me into a false sense of security.

Myers Briggs. Astrology for the middle classes (with many of the same comforting/flattering lies), entirely unscientific, devoid of value.

Random: I'm an INTJ!
Me: Is that short for credulous moron?
Random: No.
Me: Then you're not an INTJ.

I've encountered companies that use it in the hiring process. And walked away quickly.

Gixen seconded

Management woo.

I recently encountered a very large UK company that uses Myers Briggs.

They don't use it as intended though. They use it ultimately as a team building exercise where a whole team does it and then discusses each others results as a group and then discusses how stupid the whole thing is. Quite a good use for it!

Ha. I guess they can't try the same thing with NLP, as it's such an ill-defined pile of bollocks there's nothing to work with.

Myers Briggs. Astrology for the middle classes

Nailed it with this one Bruce!

“My music” I’m listening to “my music” are you listening to “your music?”

Unless you wrote it or performed on the recording, laying claim is a bit fucking rich. I’m off to the National To see “my paintings”, just got. Back from the cinema I watched “my film”

It’s an inference that tries to suggest that as a consumer you have some kind of input in the creative process, as if eating food somehow makes you a chef.

It's definitely my food!

What if I told you this language echoes back to a time when people owned rotating shimmery discs with music engraved on them, rather than merely paying to maintain access to a collection of database pointers somewhere?

Well technically the paintings are your paintings because they’re owned by the nation. But that is a bit of a stretch.

hoefla & chez_jay #rep

@user800813590210 - right, but if it was a painting owned by you, on your wall, you'd call it "my painting", not John Smith's painting. TBH if you referred to your painting as the artists painting, it would probably sound really pretentious.

When the Olympic Games opening ceremony was on, I was round a mates house with a few other people. I was in the kitchen talking about spoons or something when a mate rushed in all excited saying ‘it’s all my music!’ As if there was something remarkable about hearing the Beatles, the stones, arctic monkeys etc on the telly.

Interestingly, when I told him i knew Ben from Fuck Buttons/Blanc Mass he just looked at me like I’d started randomly talking about spoons.

I think my point was supposed to be about people using music to define themselves in a way that isn’t as common with art or literature, but I sort of just made it about spoons.

Spoons? Or 'Spoons?

Myers Briggs.

It doesn't take long to learn how to game it to give whatever result you want (although I've long since forgotten). Letting the interviewer know this has led to some interesting interviews.

"His ship, ergo his fault"

They own the recording in the disc, not the music