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I have seen this, prior to the pandemic, with some odd items. I get a particular calendar every year, usually as a gift, and one year I didn't so I went to Amazon in February to look for it and a normally twenty-dollar item was selling for over 900. I couldn't believe it so I went without the calendar that year. FWIW, that was in 2018.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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I have seen first hand someone with a paid Prime subscription see a price of 4.99 for buying a TV series to stream, and then another person with a trial subscription seeing the exact same series with the same definition in the same country for 6.99.
Not that Amazon's price manipulation is underhand or opaque.....
It goes without saying
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Forward you the link to the item per email and open it on a computer with another public IP (from a private browsing session from your phone, for instance), without logging in, of course. If the prices are different than from your own session, then you have your answer.
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W∴ Balboos, GHB wrote: I shop and buy something on Amazon (in particular) and if I look to buy it again it's always more expensive.
Stop breaking things so you don't have to buy it again.
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Seriously you are just realising that now! It has been happening for years, especially with travel tickets, do some research and note down the prices then when you return to purchase the price has risen by x%. Cmon we are coders here tracking that information would be trivial, the only complex issue would be how much you raise the price to maximize the return.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -
RAH
I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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Haven't had that problem with travel tickets - which in my case would have been airline tickets.
Actually, several sites present the tickets and within my travel constraints I can usually find the same flights. The difference happens as I move the dates around.
Now, as it turns out, I usually go back-and-forth more than once since I'm generally coordinating them with available hotel reservations (also seem unaffected).
Caveat: I am generally booking well in advance to have the choices (as in vacation) and if your experience happens to depend upon the near-term, a flight selling out may have the last tickets boosted in price if they think they can get it based upon demand.
For now, Amazon stand alone in this. Walmart.com, a decent competitor in some aspects, doesn't seem to do the price boost, but the prices on some of the items they sell online can sometimes be a bargain and other times be many times (literally!) what it cost elsewhere. It's common enough where it's not an oversight. NewEgg once was a favorite of mine but now, with the Chinese majority stake (== ownership) it's looking more and more like Amazon in the pricing and even worse, selling absolute junk. Specials are not so special any more but there are "apparently" more of them.
As they said in the good 'ol days and it still rings all too true: Caveat Emptor !
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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This is why you should use multiple browsers. One to do your research, one to buy. Much easier than trying to remember to clear all the appropriate cookies. (I hate clearing ALL my cookies, a small percentage of them are actually useful!) Of course repeat purchases can still be a problem; fortunately there are lots of browsers out there! Get the item in the basket first, then log in.
Or, accept that the vendor probably isn't making much on the initial sale, and needs to average things out - otherwise prices will go up anyway. ![Java | [Coffee]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/coffee.gif)
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All my browsers flush cookies when they close - and I often do an intermediate flush if it's been browsed with for a while. For that matter, flash cookies are purged as well. Also pixel graphics are blocked and ads, as well (CP is one of the few exceptions to the ad-blocker).
In addition, I tried on more than one base IP: my home system vs. my desktop at work in another city.
Right after I bought the item that finally pushed me to post (rubber kitchen gloves) that same link showed the Small and XL at the same original price and the Large (only the three sizes available), which I had purchased, increased about 14% . I tried all the "tricks" so to speak, except I've not looked at the price via the VPN on have on yet another machine. I think the price was raised as soon as it was sold by the third-party vendor because of the increased demand. Only a theory.
The logic - that they don't make enough on the initial sale . . . . or prices go up anyway. Why would this not apply to retail stores, as well? Normally, it would seem, they take items that are good sellers (and thus attractive to the most customers) and put them on sale to draw customers into the store (in the hopes they buy other items as well).
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Long ago before there were flow control and subroutine structures all we had only GoTo's. As a result it was really hard to follow the flow of the program. We had spaghetti code.
I am currently working with a middle age programmer that has only worked with C# and WPF. Very little Windows forms. He has 15 years of WPF and is a better at it than I. But everything is binding. He hardly ever updates a control directly. Everything is binding. Working with his code you never know were things are going. It is like the new spaghetti.
So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.
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Lasagna code!
"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"
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I'm a "non-binder". Possibly a control-freak part of my nature but, when it comes down to it, everything thing is in-your-face. The closest I get to obscurity is using SQL Stored Procedures rather than hard-coding the TSQL.
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Me too, I do everything in code so I know exactly what's going on. And what's not. We have a couple apps here done by other (lazy) programmers and everything is done with binding. I have no idea how some of it works or why you'd elect to do that.
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That's what makes WPF so powerful...binding.
I'm currently working on a WPF project, and yes it takes time to wrap your head around it but once you do it's awesome.
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I already have my hands full with Qt slots/signals. Whoever #defines away a new language upon C++ is evil.
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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The nice thing about binding as a concept (not sure how it works with WPF specifically) is that it's declarative, or at least potentially declarative.
That is, what it's connected to becomes part of its *schema* not its *logic* as such..
So instead of saying the progress bar has a value, you'd say the progress bar is bound to this background worker.
it actually makes things make *more sense* in terms of designing flow, but it probably takes some getting used to.
All of this with the disclaimer that I haven't really used WPF or its binding before. I just know the concept.
ETA: I'm sure you could make spaghetti with it in complex enough project, but spaghetti is its own problem, IMO - you can end up with spaghetti designs in just about any coding medium.
Real programmers use butterflies
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It's pretty powerful once you get used to it. And it's used pretty much everywhere now - Angular, Vue, etc. I prefer to have the code (logic) and view (semi)decoupled by using bindings. It's allowed me to re-use viewmodels with different views, where I would have had to duplicate logic.
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Agreed.
For any front-end scenario where multiple clients are involved and at least one server that can propagate information to all clients, you either A) pick a binding framework or B) lose time reinventing the wheel in a non-standardized way that will become obsolete before it's ever finished.
I just hope WASM/Blazor can speed up the creation of a C#-based binding framework for the web.
I tired of debugging JavaScript. 
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The same thing happens in JavaScript when people use control.on("event").... instead of just putting the onclick into the html.
It makes it a pain tracking down where the events are.
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I'm starting learning C#/XAML in an existing project with lot of bindings.
It's weird, but it works, update the list and the UI updates automagically.
I'd rather be phishing!
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michaelbarb wrote: But everything is binding
Exactly as designed, if you are going to get the most out of WPF you are going to have to get your head around binding. Tracking down an issue can be difficult but once you understand it then it does become simpler.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -
RAH
I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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I believe everything in moderation. When binding first came out there were studies done that showed the performance cost of binding. Impact it less today but I am sure it is still there.
For binding I use the "2 Up Binding Rule". If a parameter is used more then 2 places then I do binding in all of them. If you change a parameter that is used only once on the UI and the object is easily accessible then I just write to the control. Not only is it efficient but when you read the code you know immediately where it goes. For the "Up" part of the rule, if a child needs to access a UI object on the parent, binding is the best way to go. Some believe it is the only way since all the alternatives so messy.
I always try and use the best tool for the job. I do not try and use a tool everywhere possible.
So many years of programming I have forgotten more languages than I know.
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You should learn from this guy, binding is not evil and is not spaghetti. Binding is your friend once you get used to how it works
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In a multithreaded application, binding will save you from many headaches.
Must be used sensibly though.
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i don't know what WPF is (never mind) and what binding from that perspective means, but i have a familiar feeling for what you are talking about.
does the code for every task jump around a lot from function to function and even worse, from source file to source file?
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It isn't just binding, it is true with everything.
For some reason you're not allowed to just call a function and get a result.
The function has to be through an interface which is backed up by a library or three and then there are templates for the view, for the model, for the database - and entity framework because doing a SQL call is evil for some reason and then the validation library, a number formatting widget and a dozen other random files, most of which are in Nuget package that are obsolete or no longer supported....
7 years to go... my dream job is bagging groceries.
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