Last Great Internet Bubble Auction
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Feb 25, 2004 02:44 PM
from the aerons-are-comfy dept.
from the aerons-are-comfy dept.
jlouderb writes "At least that's what they are calling it. Cowan Alexander is getting ready to auction off the assets of MP3.com (now owned by CNet) on March 10th and 11th. The items up for sale include lots of those dumb Herman Miller Aeron chairs that were so popular, along with servers and notebooks that are probably hopelessly out of date. The best part, though -- a 1997 yellow hummer and a 1994 "Fat Boy" Harley. Plus, they've got pictures!"
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Last Great Internet Bubble Auction
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the MP3.COM database.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Although that Axis Systems (now part of Verisity Design) machine [cowanalexander.com] looks pretty nice. Hm, $1M initial price.. I wonder for how much it'll go now. We could use one at work for various things.
Re:the MP3.COM database.. (Score:5, Interesting)
i suppose this would be of questionable legality, but say you got permission from the original music creators- then what?
Re:the MP3.COM database.. (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Monday November 26, @06:13PM)
Would this even be illegal? If I sell you my old paper journal that I wrote in with ball-point pen (after ripping out the pages I've used) and neglect to rip out the first few blank pages and you color them in with a pencil and recover my private thoughts is that your fault or mine?
Likewise, unless you sign some sort of "I won't try to recover data from this device" agreement, how would it be illegal? Even then it would be civil -- not criminal.
Those Dumb Chairs (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.dragonswest.com/ | Last Journal: Monday November 05, @07:35PM)
It seemed to me that MP3 went due to the lawsuits and harrassment from RIAA, not because they had a particularly flawed business model (aside from the music sharing thing), though a Hummer, Harley, Pool table and other junk does suggest an overeagerness to burn through capital.
The items up for sale include lots of those dumb Herman Miller Aeron chairs
I'd still like to get one of those, but with the price of shipping and gas being what it is, I'm better off looking for one around where I live. I could certainly use a new laptop, but there's piles of those around for cheep.
I've tried the Aeron chair out and it seemed like a decent chair, are they not all they appear?
I had one of those swedish (or whatever they were) chairs you kneel in and found my upper back became very sore, so that didn't last.
Re:Those Dumb Chairs (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.deathmatch.net/ | Last Journal: Wednesday August 20 2003, @09:20AM)
Re:Those Dumb Chairs (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Well worth it-- but you *have* to spend the time to adjust it to make it work for you. They don't feel much different when you're just sitting in it-- you notice the difference at the end of the day when you're not sore from sitting in a chair. But everybody's different, and I'm sure as many people dislike them as like them, even after adjustment and extended use.
dot-com theft fun!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
So (much like the later simpsons episode) I made off with as much ethernet wire as I could.
One well-prepared bastard had the foresight to lock the super-expensive pro video camera in a filing cabinet and mark it with a distinctive scratch. He bought a lot of 25 beat-up file cabinets later at the auction for about $100, pried the drawer open, and took the camera home after selling the other cabinets for a few bucks to one of the furniture dealers.
Re:Those Dumb Chairs (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Tuesday September 27 2005, @12:14AM)
They also dissipate farts quite nicely! What fun are they if you can't share them with your coworkers ?
Re:Those Dumb Chairs (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.arkansascasereports.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday November 19 2003, @04:18PM)
Re:Those Dumb Chairs (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Those Dumb Chairs (Score:5, Funny)
The traditional office chair (the ones what have some modicum of stuffing anyways) are fart batteries! So the day after chili you switch chairs as soon as the guy in the cubicle next to you goes for a coffee or whatever. Shit yourself to your hearts content and switch chairs back. As soon as your victim sits down the fart potential stored in the battery becomes a kinetic fart wafting up to your victims nose. A whoopee cushion gone bad!
Re:Those Dumb Chairs (Score:5, Interesting)
They also take a bit of time to build up the necessary muscular structure. People who sit in standard chairs have woefully underdeveloped trunk muscles, since the chair is explicitly designed to use as few muscles as possible, as seldom as possible.
It becomes a feedback cycle. The more you use a standard chair, the more you need one.
If you're willing to adapt your desk to the chair, rather than the other way around, a simple and common Japanese meditation bench will replace the sort of kneeling chair you are talking about. The trick for comfort with these is to place the bench on a zabuton, not directly on a hard floor.
What I like to use though is a simple platform, about 30"x36" on which one can sit crosslegged, move around, change postion constantly, etc. These can be built at normal chair hight for use with a standard desk.
Once you get used to these and build up a certain amount of supporting musculature you'll be loath to every go back to a standard chair. No matter how "ergonomic" a chair is it just isn't designed to hold a person in a position for which human body was designed. The old Greek and Roman benches on which one relined were far more suitable for human use.
Good luck getting one into your office though.
KFG
Re:Those Dumb Chairs (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Wednesday November 21, @11:15AM)
Plus, they make you look goofy, cement your reputation as a flake, and cause people to laugh at you behind your back.
Heh. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.thefoodgeek.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday February 26 2004, @02:34AM)
Very clever, trying to convince everyone not to bid on the Aeron chairs in order to keep the costs down.
=Brian
Slashdot: home of expert furniture critics? (Score:5, Informative)
So by all means knock the fad surrounding it, but it's pretty silly to knock a perfectly good piece of furniture just because it became fashionable for a brief time.
Questions need to be answered! (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.everyone-wins.net/)
What the hell is This Thing [cowanalexander.com]?
Does all This Stuff [cowanalexander.com] come with the hat and the giant Pez?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Oh, and dibs on the Rocket Ship [cowanalexander.com].
Re:Questions need to be answered! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Questions need to be answered! (Score:5, Funny)
-bs
Re:Questions need to be answered! (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.evolt.org/)
Just a heads up, the giant Pez container just has many packs of normal Pez inside, not the giant Pez candies we crave.
Re:Questions need to be answered! (Score:5, Informative)
(http://perljam.net/?ref=slashdot)
"this thing" is just an artsy piece. I always snickered, because it looks like a condom. The silver stuff is a stretchy fabric. It doesn't go up and down, even though it looks like it might.
"this stuff". Heh. I don't know whose office that was. Those desks are really cool- the two sections are adjustable. There's a crank so you can bump them up and down.
The rocket ship is from the College Tour, where Goo Goo Dolls showed their reliance on ProTools.
MP3.com died because they lacked a solid business plan.
-ted, at mppp from July 99 to Jan 03.
that desk! (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://tumbleweed.smugmug.com/)
So didja have time (Score:4, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Thursday July 17 2003, @03:19PM)
Not to mention the pool table and dart board. And were the games so exhausting that you needed to do your laundry at work (what's with the washing machine and dryer)? =^)
Seriously though...what was it like working there? Inquiring minds want to know...
Re:So didja have time (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://perljam.net/?ref=slashdot)
Most of the fancy furniture and stuff was in the tech building. The business, HR, legal, and music types were in the building next door, and it wasn't dressed up quite as much. It still had some pretty cool things in it, though.
The techs were in 1-, 2- and 3-person offices. This was very nice, compared to cubes. I miss it. Some of the higher-ups had argued and managed to get those for us. I miss the care of employees that the whole tech organization had- it certainly helped motivate employees, or at least keep them from being demotivated (read Good to Great).. a lot of time was put into making sure the techies were kept happy, even through low-buck things.
Re:Questions need to be answered! (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.jgc.org/ | Last Journal: Friday August 22 2003, @11:31AM)
Dude, that's clearly an Orgasmotron.
John.
Extra stuff (Score:3, Interesting)
But if these machines have hard drivers still hooked up, then there might be lots of interesting stuff lying around on those (maybe mp3s too!)
Video games... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Video games... Couldn't do better than Galaga? (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, if you interview for a position with a company and they show you *any* video games (or other dot-com trappings such as a "coffee bar") and tout them as employee benefits, I think it should serve as a red flag. Those kind of amenities are there for one reason: to convince employees to work for a company that they would normally run the hell away from. It's almost always compensation for some other business shortcomings (i.e. excruciatingly long hours, zero job security, a paper-thin business model, etc).
"I work 80 hour weeks, no overtime, the phones went out for 4 hours yesterday because we didn't pay the bill... but we've got free video games and lattes in the break room, and my boss is so cool, he drives a Hummer. This place is great!"
You know what? Just give me a boring old cube, a desk, a decent computer, and a steady paycheck with a company where I don't lie awake at night wondering if the doors will be open when I get there tomorrow. Oh, and some old curmudgeon of a boss who's been in business for 20 years and actually knows how to run a company.
Re:Video games... Couldn't do better than Galaga? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.afp548.com/ | Last Journal: Monday October 28 2002, @11:31PM)
Just give me a boring old cube, a desk, a decent computer, and a steady paycheck with a company where I don't lie awake at night wondering if the doors will be open when I get there tomorrow. Oh, and some old curmudgeon of a boss who's been in business for 20 years and actually knows how to run a company.
I might recommend that you try working for the government. The non-shooting parts are pretty much like all you describe, besides the "competent manager" bit, but you can't have everything.
Aeron Chairs... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.everyone-wins.net/)
Re:Aeron Chairs... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://dailybugle.net/blog/)
Sorry.
Re:Aeron Chairs... (Score:5, Funny)
Typical Slashdot misspelling. That should read 'expander.'
This explain alot (Score:3, Funny)
A Hummer? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A Hummer? (Score:5, Funny)
Aerons "Dumb"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Aerons "Dumb"? (Score:5, Funny)
why pick on the Aeron? (Score:5, Interesting)
lots of those dumb Herman Miller Aeron chairs that were so popular
You got something against the Aeron? I'm sitting in one right now, I've been using it everyday for years, it is hands-down the best chair I've ever plopped my ass down in.
I used to have back pains every morning after sitting a lot, and discomfort after long coding sessions, even with an alarm that I set to tell me to stand up every 30 minutes. But all that went away with the Aeron, it is a "life changer".
It got popular during the boom, like every expensive luxary item. How come you don't say "big dumb Hummer trucks", it seems like every dotcom CEO had one.
Just sticking up for a good product. I have several other Herman Miller products, including a *very* nice Eames lounge chair, they are worth the money.
worth whose money? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem isn't that any of these items such as the Herman Miller chairs, the Hummers (although I could be convinced on that one...) or the Harleys aren't good, but that they're bought with someone else's money. Like the Tyco and Enron folks now, the dot-com people spent their investors' money as if it was given for their personal enjoyment rather than to fund a business intended to succeed. Items such as the above are good products, but their costs to individuals are not in most cases worth the benefits to the individuals. On the other hand, things like this are good if the money is someone else's; then the only comparison required is whether you could buy something else with which you would be happier with the money.
Bottom line - if these items are worth your money, buying them makes sense. If it isn't worth your own money to buy them, however, than it certainly isn't the job of your investors or companies to buy them for you, and they are ultimately counterproductive to the missions those people intended to achieve (because the money could almost certainly be used for things more likely to achieve their ends). When companies buy these things, someone else almost certain got ripped off to buy them - whether it is their customers, investors, or others in the company. Their presence says that the people running the show treat other people's money as their own personal piggy bank, and such people aren't to be trusted (at least not with my money).
same old story? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.sco.com/)
I'm just really skeptical about these auctions. I found that it really wasn't worth the effort of getting registered, calling in, etc.
Re:same old story? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope its just not me (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.p0wn3d.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday March 09 2004, @09:43AM)
cowanalexander
Something is just plain wrong with it.
MP3.com timeline (Score:5, Informative)
July 1999 - MP3.com floats, raising $344 million.
August 2000 - MP3.com pays Sony $20m in damages for copyright infringement
September 2000 - MP3.com pays Universal $250m in damages for copyright infringement
May 2001 - Vivendi Universal announces intention to purchase MP3.com
Vivendi-Universal's former chief executive Jean-Marie Messier bought MP3.com for $372m in 2001 and integrated it into Vivendi Universal Net. The rise of file-sharing, the dot.com crash and perceptions of MP3.com as a 'sell-out' resulted in the investment failing to meet its potential.
November 14, 2003
MP3.com to close
CNET has acquired MP3.com and will be shutting down the downloading service. According to an email sent to MP3.com subscribers, the site will no longer be available as of December 2nd. According to the same email, CNET is planning to launch a service in the future.
Feb 25, 2004
Complete Liquidation of 100,000 sq ft facility - 100s of Servers (Sun, Compaq, HP, & Dell) Clarion EMC Storage - 100s of PCs, Notebooks, Printers - 100s of Herman Miller Aeron Chairs - 10,000 sq ft health club - Pool Table, Foosball, Video Arcade Games, Ping Pong. Artwork, Collectable Musical instruments, Contemporary Furniture & more...
Exactly why.... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://prometheus.med.utah.edu/~bwjones/ | Last Journal: Wednesday November 28, @05:15PM)
This is exactly why I want to see first hand any startup company that I am interested in investing in. Field trips aren't just for grade schoolers.
Re:Exactly why.... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Monday November 26, @06:13PM)
Yeah but there are better ways to get it then Hummers. I'd rather have flex-time then a chance to take the company Hummer out for a spin once a month or so. I'm sure 95% of the /. readership would agree.
That's just common sense.
Why choose? (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, but why choose? They could provide *both* flex time *and* loads of goodies. Plus, stock options and high salaries. The biggest thing about the dotcoms was that they really didn't have much in the way of expenses other than bandwidth and labor. It's also worth noting that by buying these things as corporate expenses, they save the programmers buying them themselves. The company can expense these; people can't. Plus, once they IPOed, how do they *keep* the people who just became millionaires: by treating them like millionaires.
Stock options are a nice perk in stable situations, but they are really volatile in start-ups. The problem is that if the company takes off, now all your employees have enough money that they don't need you anymore. The rational thing might be to hire new employees with regular salaries; the problem was that those people would rather work for another start up and get rich.
The worst part is that people who recognized that stock prices were unrealistic were pushed aside in favor of those who were willing to ride the bubble. I remember a mutual fund m