Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 December 22

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December 22

Why are some common books selling on Amazon.com for $1,000+?

I am not talking about specialty books, rare, antiquarian, or autographed books. Take for example, the 2001 paperback Your Face Here: British Cult Movies since the Sixties is selling for $1,000 new and $822 used here. I bring this up since I own a copy of this book. If it for some reason is truly "worth" $800 I shall sell mine post haste. I find this quite hard to fathom, however. Any ideas? Thanks. Zombiesturm (talk) 04:02, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Amazon apparently is also selling a 2002 (presumably updated) version here, which means the 2001 version is presumably out-of-print/rare. I also noticed that both versions are being sold, not directly from Amazon, but by independent sellers via the Amazon Marketplace, who can each set their own prices. The seller who is selling that 2001, $822+ version may also have their own motives for offering it that high. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:29, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

This was discussed before, a search of the archives should give a long discussion. μηδείς (talk) 04:42, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. Could you please provide a link to that, please, a? Zombiesturm (talk) 00:49, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

With only two copies of the book available, this is probably a result of conflicting automated algorithmic pricing systems. You can read about an even more egregious example (and a speculative explanation) here. -Elmer Clark (talk) 06:13, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

You can buy it in the UK for £0.01.[1] Thincat (talk) 08:31, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Seeing how it appears to be a single seller (Hope's Fire Online) who is selling everything for way too much, I have to wonder if Hannum was right about Barnum's fans, if they're selling drugs hidden in books, or if they're a sock account trying to make some other account's other prices seem more reasonable. Ian.thomson (talk) 09:31, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

It would certainly be an interesting money laundering scheme...but I think that the glitches in Amazon's dynamic pricing model are most likely to blame - this kind of thing has been observed many times before. SteveBaker (talk) 17:07, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Did Donald Sterling pay his $2.5 million fine

Donald Sterling#Racial remarks and lifetime ban says that he was fined $2.5 million on April 29, 2014. News stories in May quoted a letter in which Sterling told the NBA that he would not pay the fine, and I've not been able to find anything more recent. Was the fine ever paid, perhaps as part of the sale of the Clippers? Another loose thread from that article is what happened with the lawsuit (BC538659) Rochelle Sterling raised against V. Stiviano in March. -- ToE 14:27, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

It's still being litigated in federal court. In Donald Sterling v. National Basketball Association, No. 2:14-cv-04192 (C.D. Cal. May 30, 2014), he's contesting the entire thing on the grounds that the recording can't be used in any proceeding under California law (because it was surreptitiously made without his consent). They're still doing pretrial stuff. I don't see a 12(b)(6) motion, and the parties submitted a joint report on discovery. Sterling's attorneys suggested a trial date of December 12, 2016, while the NBA's attorneys suggested a trial date of March 21, 2016. So... it's going to be awhile most likely. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 15:59, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Mendaliv. Where are you getting your recent information from? Armed with the case number you gave, I found this law360 page which suggests Sterling agreed to drop the suit in June. -- ToE 20:42, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm getting my info from Bloomberg Law's docket sheet, which pulls data directly from PACER. I think the deal is that Sterling dropped the $1B claim back in June. The suit, which includes claims coming from both sides, is still going forward as of December 16 (most recent docket entry). The parties' joint report on discovery was submitted on November 13. There's a scheduling conference set for January 8th. In other words, all the boring pretrial stuff is about to begin. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:07, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

It will be interesting to watch him argue that he has a constitutional right to own an NBA team. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:37, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Well he has the right to bare arms, and his NBA team has bare arms, right ? StuRat (talk) 02:48, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Wristwatch wearing habits

I once noticed someone (not Chinese, in North America) right-handed wear his watch on his right hand. (More accurately, I noticed the latter before noticing the former, since it struck me as odd and so I was wondering which hand the person wrote with.) The only other time I remember seeing this from anyone relatively "old" who presumably would have relatively "fixed" habits was when the person had a rash on her left wrist and so didn't want to irritate things. (I'm not sure if the first person had any considerations of the sort to worry about, although that's not really something to worry about; I merely want to provide some context to my question.) However, most of my recent (and thus reliable in terms of my memory of them) observations come from people who are Chinese.

The general premise I've been taught is that one wears one's watch on the hand that one doesn't write with, but is this actually a "general" worldwide rule that's followed, or are there some cultures where this isn't necessarily the case? Where can I get more details about this? --Morningcrow (talk) 18:29, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Someone might have a good reason for wearing it on his writing hand, but common sense would tell you that you want to keep your writing hand "unencumbered", hence watches and jewelry on the left hand of right-handers, and vice versa. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:05, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

In some localities were toilet paper and wash basins are rare, they use their left hand for something else. That is why they feel offended if you offer them your left hand.--Aspro (talk) 19:43, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

'Ear vee are. A vatch for de otter hand. [2]--Aspro (talk) 19:51, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

It's also possible that someone is left handed in the sense that they naturally have more dexterity in their left hand, but they learned to write "righty" because everyone else does it that way, or because a teacher forced them to, or whatever. APL (talk) 20:43, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

OK. Lets run with that hypothesis. Practical experiment. Watch on right-hand. Move more dexterous left-hand over to right wrist to wind it up. Well? Tis easier I say, for a left handed imbecile to use his right hand to wind up a right crowned watch on is left wrist -don't you think – try it.--Aspro (talk) 23:25, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I am right-handed and wear a wristwatch on my right hand. I get asked about it occasionally, but I don't think it's considered a "rule" in any very strict sense. I've never found that it impairs my writing ability (my handwriting is equally poor with or without the watch). Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:11, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

There's no "rule" at all, it's just custom. Here's another variation: Do you wear it with the face on the back of your hand, or on your wrist? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:42, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

It reminds me of the old "Latin script is written left-to-right because otherwise the ink would smear," which I don't believe for a second. It's a custom that became virtually universal but has little rationale. I have pretty small hands, so I wear my watch fairly high up on the wrist. I haven't noticed any significant effect on dexterity even when wearing it at lower mast, though. Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:08, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

We're getting a bit off-topic here...but I'm left handed, and I grew up in a time when school kids were required to use a fountain pen for school work. I can absolutely testify, that left-handers either have to adopt a crazy and uncomfortable way to hold the pen - or they'll smear the ink on the words that they just wrote - cover their hand in ink, leave inky-handprints everywhere and so forth. For a prodominantly right-handed world, in an era where ink took a while to dry, writing left-to-right and top-to-bottom makes a hell of a lot of sense. However, there are cultures which write right-to-left - so who knows? SteveBaker (talk) 16:45, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing that up Steve as this is something that puzzles me. I'm cack-handed also. Yet I didn’t give the smearing problem a second thought until my employment required me to do a lot of writing at high speed, were upon I abandoned the ball-point and took up the fountain-pen again. They flow effortlessly across the page. It was then that colleges asked (out of curiosity I suppose) why I didn’t contort my hand like they saw so many other south paws doing. This was in a R&D environment where they expected a coherent response so I had to consider my answer with care. All I could come up with was: when I entered primary school and had to write with pen and ink, I simply held the nib up above the level on the page that my lower digits were in contact with. So no smudging! Also, instead of supporting the hand on the page with the little fingers (as my other class mates where instructed to do), one only uses the little finger as a guide to were the surface is. That way -one's hand can glide across at speed. The letters may have all been slanted the other way but the typists that had the onerous job of transcribing my voluminous verbiage said in effect “ that they found my hand easier to read than many of my right-handed colleges” (which is praise indeed coming from them). So I think, some schools, in their effort to enforce rightward slopping letters do their pupils a great disservice that both setts them back and takes the joy out of writing. Still, that didn't stop Barack Obama from become president. Although that maybe why he entered a career that relies on oral rather than written communication. Parents, let your children know that it doesn’t matter which way letters lean as long as the script is legible. --Aspro (talk) 14:10, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

• Our article (Watch#Wristwatch) might point to some things not yet considered. While women had worn them for a while, men first wore them (commonly) in a military context. While holding a long-barrelled firearm (like a rifle) would it not be easier/safer to have your watch on your wrist opposite your trigger-finger? Such watches were also (often) worn on the inside of the wrist. Make the shape with your arms as if you were holding such a weapon - support hand (non-trigger) forward. The inside of your "watch" wrist then naturally faces up and in toward your face, allowing you to check the mission-critical time without altering your aim. Now try the watch on your opposite (trigger) wrist and look what happens to your imaginary firearm. Just a series of logical deductions with a smattering of contextual understanding. St★lwart¹¹¹ 06:27, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I am right-handed and wear my watch on my right wrist. If I am writing (which I very really do these days, because I type almost everything) and I need to check the time, it's faster to look at the watch when it's actually in the place you are already looking at. Nobody told me to put it on my left wrist. Also, I have a scar on my right wrist from an accident many years ago (had an argument with a window), so it covers it up nicely. It was commented on once when I was in Japan, by an American colleague, who indeed asked this very question of whether it was a cultural thing, as he and my other American colleague both wore them on the left wrist. And as Jack would say, in a perfect example of synchronicity, I have just recently bought a watch (after years of not wearing one) and have been conscious of having it on my right wrist and thinking about the time when I was asked this. Interesting it has been asked here. :)KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 08:15, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I haven't worn a watch in quite a long time, but when I did, I sometimes wore it on my writing hand because the band happened to fit there better; my wrists are not (or were not) equally thick. —Tamfang (talk) 09:09, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I am left handed, and have always worn my watch on my left wrist, because that's what you do. (Except occasionally in hot weather the strap gets uncomfortable and I swap it to the other wrist - and something then go looking for it). It never occurred to me to wear it on my non-writing hand, any more than it occurred to me to play a guitar upside down (though some lefties do so). --ColinFine (talk) 11:19, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I've worn my wristwatch on my left wrist since I was 11 years old. Back then, watches didn't have batteries and needed to be wound up, and with the winder on the right, it would make most sense in a mostly right-handed world to wear it on the left. -- Arwel Parry (talk) 11:37, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm left-handed and back when wearing a watch made sense, I'd wear it on the inside of my right wrist. The downside of wearing it on the inside of the wrist was that the watch glass would get scratched from continually being scraped across surfaces (especially when typing). When people asked me why I wore it on the inside, I'd mime the consequences of trying to tell the time while holding a cup of hot coffee.  :-) But I honestly don't recall why that seemed like a good idea at the time.

These days, my phone, tablet, printer, 3D printer, all three monitors on my desk, car, bicycle, oven, fridge, dishwasher, microwave, calculator, TV, Roku, cable-box, ChromeCast, DVD player, coffee maker, HD radio, bedside alarm, grandfather clock and numerous wall clocks, all tell the time for me. There doesn't seem to ever be a time when there isn't at least a couple of clocks somewhere in my field of view. So having something strapped to my wrist that *only* tells the time seems a bit...redundant. I'm tempted by a pebble watch though...but not for telling time. SteveBaker (talk) 17:03, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, I use a smartwatch, which is a little pointless, really, because it tells you the time, informs you of emails, texts, or Facebook posts, amongst other things, but needs to be connected to your smartphone via Bluetooth, which you then need to have with you anyway, and the phone also does all the same things. It's just a fashion accessory, really. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 22:22, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I used to wear a watch (on my left wrist, facing outward), but (gladly) stopped once it got to the point that timepieces seem to be everywhere, and wearing one is seldom if ever necessary. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:25, 24 December 2014 (UTC)