My dear friend and colleague Toshi taught an accounting course at Hunter for a few years that was supposed to have an ethics component. He has a doctorate in Accounting and was of the laughable, absurd opinion that ethics belongs more to the legal field. So, in exchange for taking me to lunch, he asked me to cover that session for him. I could better teach Yiddish than ethics (and I don’t speak Yiddish), but a free lunch is a free lunch, so there I was in front of the students. My theme was that everyone knows what the ethical thing to do is — the issue is, can you find the fortitude to do it? If I have access to the right equipment, I play Al Pacino’s Oscar-winning scene from Scent of a Woman as part of the class. The relevant lines for my presentation come when Pacino grows a little subdued and says:
Now, I have come to the crossroads in my life. I always knew what the right path was — without exception I knew. But I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard.
In keeping with that thought, it’s Emily Post’s birthday today. She was born in Baltimore in 1873. You know, — the etiquette lady. This nice quote of hers was in The Writer’s Almanac today: “Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.”
In the puzzle today at 6A the clue was “Animal cry that sounds like a Greek letter,” and the answer was MEW, the Greek letter being MU. And it is a diphthong, i.e., MU is pronounced ME-YOU.
It prompted a commenter to share this great math joke: As opposed to Mu, the Greek letter Nu is not a diphthong (it’s pronounced NEW), letting people hilariously respond to the inquiry “What’s new?” with the rakish answer, “C over lambda.” [I know — hysterical, right?]
(Explanation: the equation for converting between the frequency, nu, and the wavelength, lambda, of a wave traveling at the speed of light, which is “c,” is c = lambda times nu. So, dividing each side by lambda gives you Nu = c/lambda.)
Even Al Pacino thought it was funny.
Stuart Davidson of the Dull Men’s Club (UK) writes:
Every thing I buy I do the maths to see how long I need to own and use the item to bring the cost down below £1 per month. £30 pair of jeans must last 30 months or more to be value for money.
Our TV cost £389 on an Amazon deal 9 years 2 months ago. It’s cost me £3.53 per month to date. I need to continue using it for another 279 months or just over 23 years to be “value for money.”
I am now developing a spreadsheet with all items in my house, date purchased and cost to show visually when an item can be replaced.
Now obviously food, cleaning supplies other disposable items are not included. [Obviously.]
I have another 5 days before I return to work. I should be able to complete this task before then.
Jamie Lee chimed in:
I always do cost effectiveness / value for money, but nowhere near this extent, and personally feel aiming for £1 a month is a bit low, especially due to inflation, and some items need a different scale altogether, such as a car or bike, hiking boots for instance are generally a lot more expensive than trainers, yet used less, but wear quicker per mile, as is the design, so items may need their own categories to correctly scale them, but I like it, and hope you get it all done in time.
Neill Birch: Can’t wait to see the spreadsheet!
Jonathan James Guscott: I truly am impressed by the abhorrently dull nature of this post. I take my rather dull tweed flat cap off to you (bought from M&S ( already below £1 per wear)).
Pauline Fleming: Your poor wife!!
Clem Williams: I’ve been noting date of purchase on some items for a while now – petrol and diesel in storage containers, elementary footwear (double pluggers in Australian terminology), shaving gel, and other aerosol products. Car servicing records need such data anyway, I don’t see anything odd about this practice. Besides, I’ve reached an age where I really don’t care what anybody thinks of what I do, they can all go take a running (&@$ at a rolling donut.
You tell ’em Clem!!
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 