Live forever or die trying
Due to the ticket fiasco, many people may not be able to go to Burning Man this year. I’ve started a list of conferences/events/festivals that I think might appeal to many Burners.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArM4SmspDEEAdDk4cmhmazU4QWJ6NWtDMlpnNDVRamc
Please feel to expand, edit, or forward the list!
Dutch auctions (1) have the following advantages:
1) Everyone pays the same price.
2) Everyone has an incentive to reveal how much they’re willing and able to pay for a ticket.
3) It’s simple: you just enter in the price you’re willing to pay/ticket, and how many tickets you want.
4) Everyone knows whether they will have a ticket as soon as the auction ends (so that they can start planning).
5) It’s resistant to scalping. (Although, personally, I have no objection to scalping).
How a dutch auction works:
Tickets are filled from highest bid to lowest bid, until all the tickets are claimed. Then everyone pays the price of the lowest winning bid. So bidding higher increases your chances of getting tickets because you’re more likely to place a bid that’s above the threshold bid.
The optimal strategy is to bid the amount that you value the ticket.
So, for example, if a ticket is worth $500 to you, you should bid that much.
If the lowest winning bid (threshold bid) turns out to be $300, then you will only pay $300 (and be happy doing so, as you valued the ticket at $500).
If the threshold is $700, you won’t get a ticket, but that’s okay, because the ticket was only worth $500 to you, and enough people valued the tickets at $700 and above that they consumed the available supply before your bid was filled.
If the threshold turns out to be $500, then you’re right on the cusp, and you were among the lowest winning bidders to get tickets. You just beat out those who only valued the tickets at $499.
If BMORG must make a certain ticket price to be profitable, they can set a reserve price, below which the threshold price can’t fall.
Poor people who can’t pay the threshhold price could be handled by a scholarship program (either formally through BMORG, or informally within camps).
Here’s a sampling of historical uses of Dutch auctions to allocate goods (including tickets):
Google IPO shares:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/10/business/for-google-going-dutch-has-its-rewards-and-its-risks.html?scp=3&sq=dutch+auction&st=nyt
Randal Monroe (of xkcd.com fame) sold his book tour event tickets via a dutch auction:
http://auction-bot.appspot.com/
Bruce Springsteen benefit concert tickets:
http://www.pricingforprofit.com/pricing-strategy-blog/what-do-prices-for-rock-concerts-initial-public.htm
David Friedman has an interesting article about why Dutch auctions
aren’t used to price goods more often:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/econ_and_evol_psych/economics_and_evol_psych.html
- ear down your house. Put it in a truck. Drive 10 hours in any direction. Put the house back together. Invite everyone you meet to come over and party. When they leave, follow them back to their homes, drink all their booze, and break things.
- Pay an escort of your affectional preference subset to not bathe for five days, cover themselves in glitter, dust, and sunscreen, wear a skanky neon wig, dance close naked, then say they have a lover back home at the end of the night.
- Stack all your fans in one corner of the living room. Put on your most fabulous outfit. Turn the fans on full blast. Dump a vacuum cleaner bag in front of them.
Beautiful.
“These buildings are constructed in douglas fir and sweet chestnut, employing a wide range of complex mortice and tenon joints.
Short term these are secured together using steel pins. In our permanent buildings these joints are fixed with seasoned oak pegs capable of withstanding forces between 3.75kn and 5.0kn(around a ton!)
The hall and the lodge can generally be erected in a day.
The frame sits on a sill plate, which in turn is supported on wooden blocks. The struture is then covered with a canvas roof and walls which are tensioned on the frame itself.
The frames are delivered and erected by our team of professional craftsmen, with every attention to detail and safety.”
“PayPal has frozen the account of the Flux Foundation – a large crew of Bay Area artists and burners that is headed to the Black Rock Desert this week to build the most ambitious Temple in Burning Man’s 25-year history – claiming the right to profit from the money until the group formally attains its nonprofit status from a backlogged federal government.”
Posted via email from crasch’s posterous
“Finally, I wanted the corset to be as beautiful as it was functional. For this, I specifically chose quality Occidental Leather tool holsters which compliment the design of the corset. This juxtaposition of reinforced feminine curves and sturdy sensibility was exactly what I wanted in a haute couture work garment. In addition, the cherry leather and hand-dyed laces to match are the perfect compliment to the classic Carhartt carmel brown.”
Posted via email from crasch’s posterous
Posted via email from crasch’s posterous