Friday, January 21, 2005

Today, I was reading about an interesting field called "game theory". Tracing back to to the history of fundametal principle behind the game theory leads to noble man John Nash. But surprisingly, this man does not seem to have lived in a common man's world. Probably his imagination with the ability to construct mathematical formulations of real life events, seem to have some real good impact in his story. (Read more on "Syvia Nasar" Book "a Beatiful Mind".)

I have read in an article by Sri Ravishankar (Guru of Art of Living Technique) some time back where he says, that mind symbolizes sky (one of the five principal elements of universe, others are land, water, fire & air), but can one really leverage the un-imaginably huge potential of one's brain, in a controlled fashion. Recent years I have felt in many occasions that human brain requires practice and training to leverage its potential. Even the organized education (primary, higher secondary, under graduation, graduation, etc), I think is a way to acheive some of it, BUT NOT ALL OF IT. Training a human brain starting from its childhood in a certain fashion, will it make this possible?

John Nash was gifted with the opportunity of events and fate where his brain was trained or forced to get trained in this way (even though he went thru some bad times in his life). But, using some of his real life incidents and probably trying to make some siginifcant learning from his experiences, our next generation learning and thinking process, could eventually be revolutionized and turn them to fast thinking machines, than they will be.

Is there someone started thinking of increasing human think speed (like processor speed) at the rate of what moore's says in his law??

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

In the midst of e-world, there are e-market places growing everyday trying to make buying and selling easier than ever before. One of the usual techniques used in these sites are auctioning. Just out of curiosity I collected various auctioniong techniques used in market place. Beleive me, what I have listed is still incomplete, there are still many more ways....

Basics of Auction
Auction:
Seller: Puts the product in a public forum expecting bids from interested buyers
Completion: Product is sold to the highest bidder
Bid
Amount of money offered by an buyer during an auction for a interested product.
Types of Auction
Straight/English
Price of the product on auction increases with every bid. When no more bidders for the product, highest bidders buys the product for his bid amount.
Reserve Price: Minimum price set by the seller, and the seller will sell the product only if the maximum bid amount goes above the reserve price

Dutch
When there is more than one qty to sell in a market, this type of auction is used.
Here is how it works:

# Seller: starts by listing a minimum price or starting bid for a product and the quantity or number of units for sale.
# Bidders: specify both a bid price and the quantity they wish to buy.
Conditions:
# All winning bidders pay the same price per item - the lowest successful bid.
# If there are more buyers than items, the earliest successful bids get the goods.
# Higher bidders are more likely to get the quantity they asked for.
# Bidders can refuse partial quantity. For example, if you place a bid for 10 items and only 8 are available after the auction, you are not obliged or bound to buy any of them.

Reverse Auction
This type of auction is just the opposite of the Standard auction. The auctioneer sets the starting bid and the bidders drive the price down as they attempt to outbid each other. The lowest bidder at the close of the auction is the winner. This type of auction is perfectly suited for auctioning of jobs, services, or items wanted.

Sealed/Blind Auction
Auction in which the bid prices are un-disclosed. It is like Tender where one party does not know the price offered by another party. Sometime this auction is also called RFQ auction.

Sealed Bid Type 1: First Price Auction
In a first-price auction, the bidder with the highest bid wins the item, and pays the price she bid.

Sealed Bid Type 2: Second Price (Vickrey) Auction
A second-price auction is one in which the bidder with the highest bid wins the item, but pays the price offered by the second-highest bidder.

Sealed Bid Type 3: Third Price Auction
Similar to Second Price Auction, but winner pays third highest bidder.

Fixed Price Auction
Fixed Price auctions allow the auctioneer to sell an item at a predetermined price to the first bidder that places a bid. As soon as a successful bid is placed, the auction is closed and the bidder wins the item.

Turbo Auction
This is like standard auction except no reserve price allowed and lowest starting price (say $1).


Barter Auction
Auction exchange goods, cash, or combination of both as preferred by the seller. Seller's preferred bidder will win the auction.

Buyer Bid Auction
n-Buyers and 1-seller is involved the Auction. Highest bidder (buyer) pays the moneyto seller and gfets his product.

Seller Bid Auction
n-sellers and 1-buyer in involved in this auction. Lowest Bidder gets to the do the service for the buyer and buyer pays the lowest bid amount.

Double Auction
A system in which buyers enter competitive bidders and sellers enter competitive offers simultaneously, as opposed to the over-the-counter market, where trades are negotiated. Examples are the NYSE and the AMEX.

Monday, January 17, 2005

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