Units of Measurement
Okay, so Chris Paff and I were trying to figure out how the units of luck would be expressed. We were thinking something along the lines of the inverse of the probability of an event times the integral of the intensity of pleasure/goodness over the time that it lasts. You also have to consider the question of how to measure the intensity of an event, because pleasure is rather subjective. Paff suggested a sneeze, but who knows how universal that is. If there are any suggestions, give me a shout. Anyway, this line of thought reminded Aaron, Becky and I of the measurement of Beauty that we've discussed in the past: Helens. One Helen is enough beauty to launch a thousand ships, so naturally most discussion is done in terms of milli or picohelens. (Note that we could say that it was only her face that launched a thousand ships, and that she might be rated higher than a Helen when taken as a whole, but I think that its safe to assume that "the face that launched a thousand ships" was meant to be metonymy. After all, who wants a unit called a Helen-face?)
Our conversation turned in interesting directions… What would the average number of Helens be for a person? Along the way, these quotes came up:
"I could launch a duck!"
-Becky
"…the ability to launch a small raft, or a log with a hobo on it…"
-Aaron
Finally, we talked about negative Helens—that is, a person with a rating of some number of negative Helens causes people to launch ships to get away from them.
Quite an enjoyable night.