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 ...

Every year the Silicon Valley hosts a number of galas to rival the Oscars.  These are for geeks.  They are hosted by large successful corporations in America that mint money hand over fist each year and then like a strange historic ritual throw big parties to appease their imported slaves. These corporations by virtue of being based in the Silicon Valley of California tend to be in the software development business.  Some of this software runs back and front office functions for other larger companies while some build portals or websites where millions of people gather to read, be entertained or gather information.  By and large they either build the hardware that makes the guts for microprocessing or the software that runs on these machines.  The machines have varying form factors from large screens that can replace an entire wall to miniature versions like mobile phones or watches that users can wear and be distracted every waking second. After using ...