Hi All,
Below is your weekly dose of a list of things I’m reading, watching, listening to, or thinking about from my Friday Five No. 237 July 5 2024 newsletter. If this message was forwarded to you, sign up for this newsletter using this link.
Quote of the Week
The moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman. He has no further claim to be considered as an artist. — Oscar Wilde
Video of the Week
Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) represents the average revenue per unit of electricity generated needed to recover the costs of building and operating a generating plant over its financial life. It’s used for investment planning and comparing different methods of electricity generation.
Imagine you love pizza and you spend $30 every week on it. Over a year, that adds up to $1,560. Now, if you plan to keep eating pizza for the next 25 years, you would spend a total of $39,000, assuming the price stays the same. However, pizza prices usually increase over time due to inflation, so the actual cost could be much higher.
Now, suppose a pizzeria offers you a deal: pay $20,000 upfront for a “Lifetime Pizza Card” that lets you eat as much pizza as you want for the next 25 years. This is a big upfront cost, but it could save you money in the long run.
To decide if this deal is worth it, you need to calculate the average cost per pizza slice over the 25 years. This is similar to calculating the LCOE for energy projects. The LCOE is the total cost of building and operating an energy project (like a power plant) divided by the total amount of electricity it will produce over its lifetime. It helps you compare different energy sources by giving you a single number that represents the average cost per unit of electricity.
LCOE is like figuring out the average cost per slice of pizza over 25 years, considering both the upfront cost of the Lifetime Pizza Card and the total number of slices you expect to eat.
Article of the Week
Advice From Life’s Graying Edge on Finishing With No Regrets is an article about the key takeaways from Karl Pillemer’s book, “30 Lessons for Living.” The individuals interviewed for the book share their advice on what they thought they did well and not so well during their lives. Marriage, Careers, Parenting, Aging, Regrets, and Happiness are the six categories interviewees provided invaluable insight on. Here are a few of my favorite quotes in each category:
On Marriage: “Too many young people now are giving up too early, too soon.”
On Parenting: “Spend more time with your children, even if you must sacrifice to do so.”
On Aging: “Embrace it. Don’t fight it. Growing older is both an attitude and a process. Don’t waste your time worrying about getting old.”
On Regrets: “Always be honest.” “Travel more when you’re young rather than wait until the children are grown or you are retired.”
On Happiness: “You are not responsible for all the things that happen to you, but you are completely in control of your attitude and your reactions to them.”
Film of the Week
Anatomy of a Fall is a legal drama film starring Sandra Hüller as “a writer trying to prove her innocence in her husband’s death.” The film primarily takes place “in an isolated mountain chalet near Grenoble, where “novelist Sandra Voyter decides to reschedule her interview with a female student because her husband, university lecturer Samuel Maleski, plays music loudly in their attic, disrupting the interview.” The student leaves Voyter’s chalet and Voyter’s blind son Daniel takes their dog Snoop for a walk. When Daniel returns from his walk, he finds his father Samuel dead from an apparent fall from the second-floor window. What ensues is a court case on the primary suspect, Voyter.
Book of the Week
South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion are “two extended excerpts from notebooks she kept in the 1970s; read together, they form a piercing view of the American political and cultural landscape.” Didion takes a road trip with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The book is her observations about the small towns they pass through, “her interviews with local figures, and their preoccupation with race, class, and heritage.” I will be the first to admit this book is about as far from a book that I thought I would enjoy. It is not my favorite book, however, I loved the writing about the small towns she visits.
