Brown Motion

I recently read a book titled 'Forty Chances' written by Warren Buffett's son, Howard Buffett.  It is interesting or ironic how I qualified his name by associating it to his famous father.  He may not want to be remembered as such. There is something about the genetic lottery (as Warren himself is known to refer), that identifies a person for who they are and what they likely become.  In case of Howard, it was indeed a fortunate accident to be born to one of the world's wealthiest people. Not to take anything away from what this son has accomplished inspite of this notoriety, is what is captured in this book.  I like the metaphor used in the writing of the book. It is about any human that is born on this earth having approximately forty good years to do what they are able to before its time to go.  Howard uses the theme to talk about forty crop cycles on a farm that an average farmer can tinker with and influence before he gets it just right to optimize productio

I have not changed my religion.  In fact I am not equipped to quite understand or follow any man made rules or regulations and therefore am a default irreligious atheist.  Its just that when I take my recyclable containers to exchange for their paid value I hand them containers to a guy called Jesus. That's right.  The recycle station is run by Jesus.  Heysoos more like - kind of like Seuss but with a Hay in front of it (or a Hey). He is an extermely extroverted, middle-aged, Latino that loves to gamble.  That is what I know about him so far.  He also tries to help me with my pokito Espanol (little bit of Spanish that I claim to speak).  We count the bottles together from uno to cincuenta or so. He mans the booth for around 8 hours a day for 5 days a week for the entertainment value he told me.  He does not need the money he says.  I have not figured out what that means.   Of course it might mean that he somehow has overcome the adage that the house always wins.  Or that some

Wonderful premise to write any story you want and claim its quite possible it might be so.  Who is going to argue?  Even if they did its only an opinion. So today I watched DIVERGENT (the movie) - with my adolescent daughter who is already a fan of the Hunger Games trilogy.   She made it a point to watch it as soon as she had put down the book version of this story a day ago. So we all did.  And while the characters are watchable the premise leaves you thinking about what you really did for the two hours in that dark hall with popcorn eating and gum chewing denizens. This story is a metaphor for what life actually was 100s of years ago in places like India - it was called the Caste System where labor and lifestyle was divided based on some kind of innate ability to perform a function - and do so well.  Potters never went to battle and Warriors never took to Professorial duties.  Each to his or her own and it functioned in an orderly manner or so I was told - when my grandmother n

For ever since we measured time much ado has centered around leadership.  Leaders are the ones that always make the press.  There are tons of books about the subject and variety of recognition follows the leader that gets identified as such. I wanted to delve into the unsung heroes.  Well maybe heroes is too poetic or squishy.  How about the unsung?  Those that follow. There will be no leaders without followers.  Let us get that straight.  So what it really means is that a leader is only good as the followers that follow.  You follow? While inflection points in society occur due to some select few taking extraordinary risk there is also the momentum of the unsung that carries the ball across the finish line. I was reading about the great inventions of the 20th century and names like Edison and Einstein and Jobs made the top lists.  That they deserve a huge level of admiration is a given. But for all their ingenuity there was also a number of competing and comlpementary forces

With Google we all got freedom to Search (unless you belonged to China). In the old days (circa 1970s) people always wanted to search high and low.  Not sure for what but that was the expression du jour.   I searched high and low for you and just now you are appearing... c'mon man... it could have been to seek Ishwar or a guy called Ishwar. Now you really cannot pretend to not know something because you can search.  Instantly.  At least as long as there is cell reception (sounds like a party thrown in a jail for new comers but its not). Then again there are new types of search that we as people constantly embark on - for purposes known and unknown. In the recent news was a cavity search conducted by border patrol on people wanting to cross the US borders illegally.  Said cavities were essentially variety of orifices on the human body that could be used as secure containers for transporting material that may or may not be suitable for storage in said cavities. Then there w

Lot was discussed yesterday about the irrational.  As in the irrational number called Pi.  Yesterday was March 14 or 3.14 which happens to also be the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter. Mathematicians had a field day explaining and expounding on it.  Other geeks also jumped in memorizing the longest strings after the decimal and some just had fun with it trying to decipher meaning where there was none.  Cooks came out offering samples of free baked circles called Pies. I for one just thought that while the letter Pi is the 16th in greek alphabet it also may have a dervation that seems eerily representative of what the Marathi language refers to as legs.  As in the hind ones of a mammal used for mobility. A stick figure representation of a person standing would show the letter Pi for its lower extremities and that in Marathi is expressed as Mansache (person's) Pi (legs). Nothing irrational about that.  In fact very rational.  Using ones legs to get arou

So? So it is fascinating.  Not that I particularly care about my own mortality but what I find rather strangely inexplicable is how a woman who produced three children in meager circumstances and then subsequently led a very limited life in terms of travel, eating variety (or lack of) food and likely not being exposed to things like the internet or mobile phones or Twitter or apps to order food managed to survive. Not in the best of health - she cannot see for the past 10 or so years but nonetheless has been able to be self sufficient for the most part - is not on a hospital bed  - has seen a fair share of family turmoil and drama and can survive. Something about the human genome I suspect is very complicated even for today's science to  compute and therefore what we think as advances are merely scratching the surface of our understanding as it relates to life expectancy. It would be interesting experiment to actually go and interview people like her and see what their chil

That would be something Ms. Puri might say to a guest who came to their door asking for her hubby.  But that is not what I am getting at. These days Americans are discovering the power of meditation anew.  From local moms and pops hopping on to mats at the end of their bz day or even during lunch hours (where such luxuries exist) to power centers like Wall Street banks asking their management (from top to the middle) to avail of the meditative perks of their workday, the rishi-culture and guru-ideas have come to roost. Americana it seems has been taken over by Om. Articles and magazines for trend setters to the mundane housewives to those for the capitalist wolves are enlightening folks to check out and chill.  Say OM. Doctors and charlatans pretending to be some kind of a healer are piling on.  On to Om.  I am just waiting for an app to come by and claim to make it even easier to relax so that you do not even have to sit in one place and close your eyes. Simply whip out your

Reader Alert - this is a long monologue that might put you to sleep - may be its only redeeming quality. I am going to tackle two complementary yet opposing ideas that I kept thinking about over this weekend. One of Anonimity -  Just like this author has the ability to express what amount to anonymous thoughts on a wide variety of subjects - without getting personal - and have a decent readership there is some credence for remaining Unknown. Another example may be one where you board a transcontinental flight and have just you and a seat mate to while away around five hours.  Chances are you may strike up an innocent conversation like making an observation about the state of air travel.  That may lead to some further banter and if the seat mate seems inclined to expand on their points of view a wonderful back and forth, all while not even introducing oneself to the other. What is this type of exchange and how does it work?  Partly because we want to enjoy expressing some though

They came, they shined, they got goodie bags, some got awards and then they partied before they left. What they did during the course of 2013 in some cases was help produce a story told via film.  In some cases it was poignant like 'Twelve Years a Slave' (sadly as cliched as it seems it still remains a topic to be discussed and shared); Some stories were about surviving when 'All is Lost' (again a played out theme) or being flung out without a tether in near space as shown in 'Gravity' (the whole gravitas of this film was the technical effort that it took to produce it). Some of them I have yet to catch up - like the B&W film called Nebraska.  That seemed interesting but will chime in when I have seen it. Others I have no idea why they were award worthy - Blue Jasmine - some tale about a wacko created for the screen by Woody Allen who remains mysterious and absent from events. Then there is a contemporary period film called HER that I do want to ca