Emptying my burgeoning browser tabs:

• Tractors on Ebay: Differences between Internet and In-Person Auctions (SSRN)
• Interview with Richard Russell (Investment Postcards from Cape Town)
• Why did no-one revise General Electric Q1 estimates sooner? (Bespoke Investment Group)
• Microsoft launches routing based on live traffic (SEL)

I've been playing a lot with some Monte Carlos for another project, and along the way I got to messing with the old drunk/gutter/lamppost problem. You know the drill: A drunk starts at a wall X paces from a gutter, with a lamppost half-way between him and the gutter. Assuming he only takes one step at a time, and every step is randomly toward the wall (but not through it) or toward the gutter, how long does it take him to get to the gutter, on average?

Long story short, the graphs of his staggering progress are good fun, reminding me an awful lot of a typical public equity. That point was driven home recently when I had one of these graphs up on my screen and a colleague had to be convinced that it wasn't a stock.

I was talking to an entrepreneur yesterday who decided not to take money from a VC, in part because the VC couldn't really answer his question. And what was that? It was the "What can you do for me?" question. I said, "I bet you got the 'I know a guy, who knows a guy, who knows Sergey/Eric/Jerry/Bill/Steve/etc.'" answer. To which he responded, "How did you know?"

Oh, I just know these things.

Two points make a trend, and I've now heard today from people at two major IT services firms that business, especially in India, is slowing to a crunching halt. Can't be good news for Tata, et al.

Every time I think I'm away from universities, I get dragged back in. I'm newly on the Advisory Board for Berkeley's new Center for Innovative Financial Technology. Okay, okay, I'm a highly willing "drag-ee" on this one.

While in some quarters these days "innovation" and "finance" go together about as well as "magnesium fire" and "water", I think this is a great idea at the right place and the right time -- especially when the center director is my friend David Leinweber.

I look forward to working with David, et al., on this great new Berkeley center.

The quote of the day is slam dunk easy. It's from Techdirt, and it's on the proposed AOL/YHOO to fend off Microsoft:

...like trying to keep a wild animal from eating you by covering yourself with feces.

Well, yes.