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8:30 AM EST, Tuesday, June 5: How much to invest? A great opportunity comes along. How much should you invest in it? Invest everything and then some (through borrowing) you will enjoy massive returns (maybe) and massive risk (definitely). I'm scouring the literature for rules. I'm scouring my brain. Email me some of your thoughts.. Here are some preliminary thoughts:

1. How much control you have. Are you on the board or just a passive dummy? The more control, the more you should invest.

2. How much you can afford to lose if the whole thing does down toilet. Personal bankruptcy is increasingly less an option the older you get.

3. Your feeling about the likely success. Your "feelings" are not "feelings" but the result of extensive due diligence. We need to know the gotchas.

4. Liquidity. How fast you can get out. Listed securities and bonds are at one end of the liquidity spectrum. Private equity funds are at the other end.

5. How well you've done your estate planning. Less well equals more liquidity.

6. Your "allocation." I'm not a fan of static allocation. But too much in one field is clearly not useful. Life changes quickly. Think western desert real estate. Think bird flu stocks. Think China stocks.

7. Put more in as success builds. Get out fast if there are too many bumps.

Shooting yourself in the foot, part 2: I wrote about how much I love PhotoBooth yesterday. But today I can't tell you how much PhotoBooth costs to rent. I sent emails, left voice mails, but haven't heard back from the owner, a man called Mark Van.

Think about this. Here's an "entrepreneur" trying to get a new business off the ground. Here's an editor calling to give the entrepreneur free publicity. And the entrepreneur is too busy (or too lazy) to call back....

Tell your kids to put a PhotoBooth look-alike together together. There's money in this business. It's perfect for a talented, tech-savy high school or college kid. Far more profitable than a paper route.

Would you pay $2.48 now in return for $3.01 cash soon? Inyx is selling for $2.48. From Finance Yahoo:

NEW YORK, April 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Inyx, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: IYXI - News), a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on niche drug-delivery technologies and products, reported today that the company's Chairman and CEO, Jack Kachkar, M.D., reaffirmed to the special committee of the Inyx board of directors his all-cash offer priced at $3.01 per share to take the company private that was originally announced on March 26, 2007.

The special committee, with the assistance of an independent investment- banking firm it has selected, is in the process of evaluating the fairness of the going-private offer. It expects to complete its evaluation after the company reports its audited operating results for 2006. The special committee will then issue a recommendation to Inyx stockholders, who will be asked to vote on the offer.

The $3.01 per share offer, which matches the all-time-high closing price for Inyx's common stock recorded on March 23, 2006, has the support of Inyx's entire senior management team, which is participating in the offer along with a strategic outside financial investor.

Inyx, Inc. is a specialty pharmaceutical company with niche drug-delivery technologies and products for the treatment of respiratory, allergy, dermatological, topical, cardiovascular and pain-management conditions. Inyx focuses its expertise on both prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceutical products, and provides specialty pharmaceutical development and production consulting services. In addition, Inyx is developing its own proprietary products.

Wonderful logic: Colorado congressman, Tom Tancredo, is running for president. He's also anti-immigration. He wants a moratorium on all immigration into the U.S. for at least three years. He has a solution to global warming. This week's Time Magazine quotes him as saying:

The fact is, Americans consume more energy than anyone else, so if a person moves here from another country, they automatically become bigger polluters.

You guessed it. He is also running for president. I don't make this stuff up.

Estate planning and hedge funds: If you and your wife die, you owe Uncle Sam estate tax money in nine months. There are lock-ups on virtually all funds these days that are longer than Uncle Sam's. It's reasonable to ask your funds for a letter saying they'll release your heirs if you and your spouse die.

Unnatural selection. File under: Blinded by science. My favorite computer writer is Robert X. Cringely. He posted this a few days ago:

More than 6,000 years after the universe was created, a museum dedicated to that glorious event has finally arrived. The Creation Museum opened its doors last Monday, bringing 4000 eager faithful back to the days when Man and dinosaurs lived in harmony.

Located just outside Cincinnati, the 60,000-square foot building features dioramas of Adam, Eve, and their Old Testament homies, along with amniotronic brachiosaurs and a life-sized recreation of Noah's Ark. Did you know that the great flood carved out the Grand Canyon in just 8 minutes? These and other truly amazing science facts can be had for a $20 ticket.

Other exhibits caution against falling for pseudo-science claptrap about the earth being 4.5 billion years old, and warn secularists that belief in evolution leads directly to surfing Internet porn. But I bet you knew that already.

The museum's creators, an outfit called Answers in Genesis, have spent $27 million to prove Darwin wrong. They've succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. The great naturalist believed all humans evolved from lower species. Clearly evolution is a lot more selective than that.

If the universe was created in six days, why does it take me so long to write this blog?

French Open Tennis TV Schedule: Plenty of tennis to watch. There's a six hour time difference to EST and nine hours to PST. Tennis is basically on three channels -- ESPN2, NBC and the Tennis Channel (455 on Time Warner).