Warren Buffett To Give US$37B Away!

The value investing guru of our time, Warren Buffett, has announced that he would plan to donate 83 percent of his Berkshire Hathaway shares to several charity organisations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. At the company's current market price, this translates to about $37.4 billion US dollars.

This news may be related to the recent announcement by Bill Gates to fully move on to philantrophy by 2008, mentioned previously here.

Buffett's unmatched generous gesture is prompted by his wife Susan's death in 2004. He has also allocated 350,000 shares for each of his children, advising them to "focus the new funds and your energy on a relatively few activities" in which they could make a difference.

From today onwards, I think many of us, including myself, have a new respect for Buffett. This man has more than what anyone on Earth needs and now he is giving it back to society.

How much is enough for you? When will you be satisfied? How will you feel if you don't get it in the end?

<URL:http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=aimfM9VqxrOw&refer=home>
<URL:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/25/AR2006062500801.html>

Technorati Tags: warren buffett, charity, bill gates, donation, berkshire, shares

Bollywood Video Fun

A few years back I went to a website promoting the Fanta fizzy drink in India using a simple but cheeky Flash application. It involves picking a short Bollywood clip, coming up with wacky captions for the actors when they speak, and sharing the finished work with friends. The site is gone, but it looked like this.


The joys and nonsense one can come up with using this was endless.

Just like the sweet Madam Wing, there's a magical funniness to traditionally non-English cultures communicating or behaving like English-cultured people (replace "English" with any ethnic group or language). I love Hokkien songs sung in English and Chinese movies spoken in English. Never fails to give me a giggle, and sometimes making others worry about my mental stability.

But wait-a-minute (Indian accent), I have something for you. There is another website that has something similar! Give it a go and crack yourself up on a hot and wet Friday (at least in KL)!

<URL:http://www.grapheine.com/bombaytv/index-uk.php>

I didn't have much time to work on a good clip, but here is what I came up with in ten minutes:

<URL:http://www.grapheine.com/bombaytv/play_uk.php?id=1388035>

Technorati Tags: fanta, india, advertisement, english, video, funny, bollywood

Google To Launch New Ad Model

David Jackson from SeekingAlpha Network said that he received an invitation from Google (GOOG) to try a new ad revenue model, known as Cost-Per-Action (CPA). This is in addition to the existing Cost-Per-1000-Impressions and Cost-Per-Click models.

The site owner gets paid an advertising commission if the visitor clicks on the ad and performs a certain action. This action can be buying a product or referring more visitors to the advertiser's site. This model is similar to affiliate marketing, commonly practiced by many stores. One example is Sideshow Toys.

<URL:http://internet.seekingalpha.com/article/12363>

Technorati Tags: google, adsense, revenue model, advertising, marketing

Cell Therapeutics Signs Financing Agreement

Cell Therapeutics (CTIC) has entered a financing agreement with Societe Generale Group for the French bank to buy $55M new shares to trade on the Italian stock exchange.

Societe Generale Group will have the option to purchase an additional $17M over the next 24 months.

CTIC is a biotechnology company that develops drugs to combat cancer and related conditions. It's flagship product, XYOTAX, is undergoing trails for approval and sale.

Source: The Associated Press

<URL:http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=AP&Date=20060621&ID=5812747>

Technorati Tags: cell therapeutics, societe generale group, shares, biotechnology, xyotax, market, financing agreement

Web Degrees of Separation

Nifty view of how my sites are connected on the web:

lokety.blogspot.com

www.geocities.com/lokety/main.html

<URL:http://theresachong.blogspot.com/2006/06/web-degrees-of-separation.html>
<URL:http://www.jeffooi.com/2006/06/post_27.php>

Technorati Tags: web, degrees, separation, sites, connections

Gates To Go

Microsoft Corporation Chairman, Mr. Bill Gates, has announced his planned retirement from the position of Chief Software Architect with immediate effect with a transition from active involvement in the company in the next two years.

With the closing share price today at US$22.07, Bill's current value in Microsoft is at US$21,582,782,680, give or take a few hundred million. With his huge resources, he intends to focus on his philantrophic ventures with his wife, Melinda.

I respect Bill's choice to move on to a very respectable, noble, and useful purpose in life, besides taking over companies or crushing their existence. Since the beginning of the year, I have been contributing to charities that I feel strongly for, like the International Committee of the Red Cross (specifically for the Somali war) and Wikipedia. Help support these needy organisations to help the poor and under-priviledged people in the world!

Back to Microsoft and Bill.

I remember the time when I was tinkering with OS/2 Warp during those days when everyone else was falling into Windows 3.1. Fortunately for Microsoft but too bad for IBM, OS/2's popularity dwindled and became relegated to server verticals. Still, it had a promising start, had it not been the loss of Microsoft's blessing and the lack of a growing application development market.

So, if you're the kind of guy who has billions of dollars on hand, try to do something good for people, animals or the environment once in a while. Expect nothing tangible in return, just a Good Feeling All Over.

<URL:http://www.microsoft.com/>
<URL:http://www.icrc.org/>
<URL:http://www.ibm.com/software/os/warp/>

Technorati Tags: microsoft, bill+gates, retire, shares, charity, melinda, international+red+cross, donate, os/2, ibm