Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
A vignette of urban life; or, how to get beat up
At lunch today, I was treated to the following shred of space-time:
Parked outside the window is a new-looking BMW R1200GS. A decent enough looking bike, particularly considering it starts at $15,000, and this bike has at least $2000 in extras on it.
Into view heaves a man, late 30s, sunglasses, dressed like a typical wage slave (blue button-up shirt, khaki pants). He's talking on a cellphone. I notice him because he's walked over to the bike.
He stands next to the bike, looking down the street. He glances at the bike. Back down the street. Back to the bike. By the way he's standing there, it doesn't look like he really deals with motorcycles normally, so I guess he's not the owner.
More standing and turning, looking around, talking on his little phone. He walks down the length of the bike, and I think he's going to open a sidecase and get out his helmet. Maybe he does own the bike.
Then he walks back up to the head of the bike, and looking up the street in the other direction, quickly plays his free hand all over the head area of the bike (where the handlebars, ignition and instruments are). His hand runs over the ignition switch, and down into the gap between handlebars and instrument cluster. Back out, and under the instrument cluster.
He quickly retracts his hand, and nervously tap-kicks the bike: on the front wheel, on the cylinder head, on the right footpeg. He walks away.
Now, if that had been my bike, and I'd seen this man do what he just did, I would have been out of the restaurant like a shot, with unpleasant loud words exiting my mouth, ready for a confrontation. It's not kosher to either fondle or kick another person's motorcycle, and it's a particularly poor idea in front of a picture window with 5 curious faces staring right at you. I have no reason to suspect this man owned the bike, and it certainly appeared that he had just fumbled looking for hidden ignition switches or stashed keys.
I looked for him when I left a few minutes later. He was nowhere to be seen, but there were multiple exits he could have taken without passing by me. Perhaps not the smartest move, khaki-man, the fondling of another person's motorcycle. That's a good way to get beat up.
Posted at 13:52 permanent link category: /motorcycle
On Ebay, there's this "feedback" system. It's pretty cool, allows you to let other users know of your experience with a buyer or seller. Seems like a good system.
Then, you see how people actually use it.
See, here's how it should work. The seller of an item bases his feedback on two important phases of the post-close transaction: communication and payment. Once the buyer has communicated any necessary information to the seller, and sent payment for the item, the seller is basically done. At that point, feedback can be left by the seller, for the buyer.
The buyer, meanwhile, must wait until the item in question arrives, then he must ensure that it's in advertised condition. If it is, hooray. If not, he works with the seller to come to some kind of remedy. Either way, the buyer's feedback is based upon the item arriving, and how the seller resolves any problems. The seller's feedback to the buyer doesn't change, as the seller's experience has already been solidified in the prompt (or not) communication and payment.
The way it actually works now is that the seller waits until the buyer leaves positive feedback, effectively holding his feedback (a kind of payment in the Ebay system) hostage. If I don't leave positive feedback for something I bought, I never get positive feedback from the seller, despite my transaction having gone perfectly, from his point of view.
I can just see why a seller might want to withhold feedback until it's obvious the buyer isn't going to freak out about a non-existant problem. People do that sometimes. But to actually make a policy out of reserving feedback until positive feedback has been left? Seems like a shitty way to deal with people. What if I leave negative feedback because I ordered a book and all I got was the dust jacket? Do I get negative feedback in return, despite the fact that I paid quickly, and completed my end of the transaction effciently? Seems to be so.
Ebay: further proof that no matter how well you design a system, people still suck.
Posted at 11:26 permanent link category: /misc
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater