lottery

I’m going to prompt everyone up front. This article was inspired by the Mega Millions Lottery that was drawn on Friday. No, I will not do the stereotypical thing and pretend I won (yay, April 1st posting date). And no, I will not be talking about the horrendous odds of the lottery (Gizmodo had a fine article about how you’re much more likely to date a supermodel). Though I usually rail against playing the lottery, I did capitulate this time. And for my $5 (inevitable) loss, I did get a good thought exercise out of it all: I began thinking of situations when you have 3 components: willing engineering/scientific minds, free time and gobs of money. We’ve actually seen this thanks to the dot-com bubble and the people that managed to cash out.  And even beyond the dot-com bubble, we’ve seen millionaires and billionaires spring up overnight. And when they leave [...]