Meanwhile, the same sampler is OPENED UP on Sunday but with a Free Fall price game; no buyers show up until Tuesday when suddenly 6 buy one unit each, then no action for 2 more days! All 6 bought 1 unit 2 days ago (Tuesday). The price falls to under $44.55 before resetting to $66.35. So you should be able to hit the 45 mark, a more sure shot than the $45 "Bid to Win" price (B2W) in the first auction, above, because you could get outbid up there. Ends Saturday evening. Units available = ? -- Max. purchase quant. = 2
btpcm wrote:
With 12 minutes to go, 10 winners currently. That could increase in the last few minutes.
This Falling Price feature is quite fascinating.
In the lot# referred to above, I went to the trouble of taking a statistical small sample of the data.
Here's what I got:
The price starts at $65 +/- 1.48~1.15 and falls to $45 +/- 1.46~1.24.
I didn't find the std. dev. or any other parameters.
The system seems to be using something like a random number seed for deciding what price to start at, what increment to deduct this time, how long to display the lowered price, how much more to deduct for the next lowered price, how long to display that one, and so on, until the bottom price comes up at which time some function with a random number seed (the same r. no. or a different one?) decides what the lowest price will be, or, at least at what moment the falling price is interrupted with the word,
"Resetting...", and finally, how much above or below the monument high price the newly reset price will be and precisely when it would be displayed. I say that because some of the prices reset quickly, like 8 seconds, and others more slowly, and some seem to take over 20 seconds to reset. That could have been due to some other factor such as a hesitation in my wifi. See below.
The time duration each price is displayed changes fairly constantly, with an average of 1.3 seconds up to about 8 seconds, while every so often the price appears to stall while the end time countdown timer continues to run. I have had to resort to refreshing the page to get the falling price to resume falling! This apparent stalling is sometimes due to my wifi connection faltering in which case, the countdown timer's continuing to run implies that is something like an applet, or Flash, or borrowed program that is running on my own computer and doesn't need to have an Internet connection for it to keep going, since the timer runs until it reaches zero, then stops automatically. But the Falling Price feature
does need the Internet connection to keep going, which explains why it sometimes stalls, like when the wifi stalls.
Several things have to be operational for a viewer to have the ability to make a bid that registers on the Cigar Bid site.
If any one of those things are interrupted, no bid or purchase can take place.
These things include but are not limited to the following:
- Viewer must be a member in good standing and must be signed in to his account.
- Member must have his Internet connection operational.
- If running a laptop on battery power, the battery must not be on the verge of running low on charge.
- Computer must not be
overheating because it can *suddenly* shut down when it gets too hot.
- Computer's hard drive or flash drive must be in proper order and not about to crash.
- If running on AC power the grid has to be UP and no interruption of power imminent (which is why battery is better).
- Computer must have sufficient display screen time left, so as not to time out just when you're about to make a bid.
- Website must have sufficient connection time left, so as not to time out just when you're about to enter a bid.
- The lot being bid on must still be open for bids.
There are no doubt other criteria that I haven't thought of.
*Sudden shut down can be resolved by opening the air cooling duct and removing accumulated dust ball that can be found clogging the fan exhaust port,
but meanwhile the lot# you hope to bid on could end!!!
