d by dy

Wendy is a 20-year-old 3rd-year graduate student.  She is undoubtedly one smart cookie.  But with her girlish face, her petite figure, and her big round eyes, she looks younger than even she is.

For example, last week, when I went with her to a hospital last week, a little boy standing in front of us instantly identified with Wendy.  He started a conversation with her, and stated he thought Wendy was five years old.  While I was laughing, his mother tried to appease Wendy by saying to the boy:  “John, the young lady is much older than you are.”  The boy rolled his eyes, thought for a minute, and said reluctantly, “Six?”

So you can appreciate the trouble Wendy may have had trying to get into a club in Vegas for the first time last summer.  She had borrowed a passport, but the bouncer was determined not to let her in.  “Kid, I’m going to take you to the police station and let them see if you are really of age.”  Wendy did not back down.  “Take me to the police.  I want to go to the police.”  The bouncer went speechless, and simply took Wendy out of the line and waved her off.

When I spotted Autumn at Langdell, she had a book open in front of her, but her mind was on something else.  She was focused on feeding her fish in a computer game.  Click.  Click.  Her mouth was shut and her eyes looked at the screen blankly.  Finally, she spotted me and showed an embarrassed smile.

“Autumn, that looks like a really stupid game.”

“Hmm, yeah.  Dragon Warrior, why do I feel the lights here are dimmer than the lights in my office?”

“Because you are not sitting directly in front of a lamp.  You can move to the seat on your right.”

“Hmm.”

She looked at the lamp intently, grabbed its base with her small hands, and tried to pull it toward her.

“What are you doing?  The lamp is fixed to the table.”

“Yeah.  Hmm.”

Studying during holiday time makes people crazy.  Pairing up with Autumn lessens the impact somewhat.  But I hope next year will be different.

Spring course registration is almost done.  Professor Warren, who seemed like a very kind and caring person, gave me permission to take Taxation and Corporate Tax in the same term.  Because he’s an early riser, once I file his permissions, I will look forward to having 8:20 classes Monday to Friday.

The benefit of separating research and investment banking is clear:  it avoids the conflict of interest problem.  But as this article in the New York Times suggest, unintended consequences really should raise questions:

It may be true that analysts now put a lot more sell ratings on stocks than they used to, clearly a result of Mr. Spitzer’s settlement. But sell ratings are only a small part of the story. Analysts were never supposed to be just stock pickers. Ask any big institutional investor about what makes good research analysts and the answer is rarely the buy, sell or hold ratings. It is the information they can provide, the details they model and understanding the nuance of the executives. Those aspects of research don’t always end up in reports, but that’s what separates the good analysts from the not-so-good.

The second problem — which is an even bigger one — is that it is hard to find good research on small companies. All the focus has moved to large companies where the big money is sloshing around. And that makes being a small public company a very difficult task, since nobody’s paying any attention to them.

On ratings agencies’ current underrating: “Our role is to get down the hill after the battle and shoot the wounded.”

Q: Don’t you wish everyone couldd be home owners?  A: “Yes, I also wish I could eat a lot and not gain weight.”

Criticizing withdrawing rental assistance after 5 years:  similar to Marie Antoinette — let people who cannot afford rent to become homeowners.

On CDS:  the analogy is writing life insurance on vampiers.  Then vampiers started to die.

On attractiveness of high-risk investments:  “If something’s growing like a weed, it’s probably a weed.”

On Fannie/Freddie: quoting Warren Buffet, “When the tide goes out, you see who’s been swimming naked.”

A website analyzed the texts of this young blog, and this is what it thinks of the blogger:

ISFP - The Artists

The gentle and compassionate type. They are especially attuned their inner values and what other people need. They are not friends of many words and tend to take the worries of the world on their shoulders. They tend to follow the path of least resistance and have to look out not to be taken advantage of.

They often prefer working quietly, behind the scene as a part of a team. They tend to value their friends and family above what they do for a living.

It will be interesting to see how my brain evolves as the blog goes on.

M&A is in.  Tax is in.  The Negotiations Workshop is out.

The Workshop is said to be one of the best courses at the law school so it pained me to drop it.  But, the better thing to do right now is probablly to take several tough, graded courses.  WIth essentially a deep-in-the-money put option, I welcome tough courses.

I’m again thinking about doing a semester abroad in Tokyo.  It will have to be in the spring of 2010 so that I can be here for fall recruiting.  But it will be a fantastic opportunity to learn and prefect my Japanese.

Why are coke cans cylindrical?  Why do milk cartons have square cross sections?

Coke cans are cylindrical because the cylinder is the second-most optimal shape for minimizing surface area under a volume constraint.  The most optimal shape is the sphere, but you cannot stack spheres.  The minimization problem ensures that the weight of the containers, and hence the cost of their manufacturing, are minimized.

That is simple enough.  However, coke cans are actually not perfectly cylindrical.  It is thinner at the top than at the side.  Furthermore, its bottom surface is curved, shaped like an three-dimensional arch bridge.  The reason again has to do with weight minimization.  But in the real world there is the added constraint that the container must be strong enough to withstand pressurized interiors.  Does this also explain why the height of coke cans exceed the diameter of its cross section?  According to basic calculus, the surface area of a cylinder is minimized when the height equals the diameter.

So why are milk cartons not cylindrical?  I think the answer lies in the fact that milk cartons are made from paper, rather than alloys used in coke cans.  Paper is strong enough to hold non-pressurized liquid, and vastly cheaper.  Thus, for milk cartons, whatever small cost savings in manufacturing are offset by increased costs of shelf space.  To see the point of shelf space, consider the fact that you cannot fill up an entire sheet of paper with circles;  there would be gaps and wasted space.

Alloy is used in coke cans because of its strength.  Alloy and paper are not the only common materials, however.  One question remains:  why are bigger soft drink products contained in plastic bottles rather than cans?  Does plastic actually become more cost effective as the size of the container increases?

* * *

Coincidentally, after I read and thought about coke cans last Sunday, I put a can of diet Pepsi in the freezer to cool it down.  When I forgot to take it out before I went to bed, the can’s side surface broke.  That is empirical evidence that the reinforced top and the concave bottom are stronger.

The right side of one’s brain is supposed to be the creative, artistic part.  An opportunity to develop mine came about when I could no longer tolerate my own handwriting.  It is only natural to consider killing two birds with one stone:  learn handwriting with the left hand.

After a couple of practice sessions, I am still unable to draw straight lines or circular circles consistently, but I’ve seen some improvement.  Sore muscles in the left arm indicates that physically my body is adjusting to the left-handed heavy lifting.  Training will take time, but multi-tasking alleviates the time problem.  For example, last night, while watching a DVD, I drew a full page of the alphabet “a.”

I am admittedly amused by my determination to succeed at left-handed writing, that rather random goal.  I am using my left hand as much as possible in daily life—the only exception being operating the mouse, which online websites say even left-handed people use with right hands.  I have ordered three boxes of ruled paper for training grade school students handwriting skills.  A little too late?  Maybe.  But better later than never.

Sideways is not only a wonderful movie, but also a wonderful lesson in wine:

Maya: You know, can I ask you a personal question, Miles?
Miles Raymond: Sure.
Maya: Why are you so in to Pinot?
Miles Raymond: [laughs softly]
Maya: I mean, it’s like a thing with you.
Miles Raymond: [continues laughing softly]
Miles Raymond: Uh, I don’t know, I don’t know. Um, it’s a hard grape to grow, as you know. Right? It’s uh, it’s thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early. It’s, you know, it’s not a survivor like Cabernet, which can just grow anywhere and uh, thrive even when it’s neglected. No, Pinot needs constant care and attention. You know? And in fact it can only grow in these really specific, little, tucked away corners of the world. And, and only the most patient and nurturing of growers can do it, really. Only somebody who really takes the time to understand Pinot’s potential can then coax it into its fullest expression. Then, I mean, oh its flavors, they’re just the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and… ancient on the planet.

Miles Raymond: What about you?
Maya: What about me?
Miles Raymond: I don’t know. Why are you into wine?
Maya: Oh I… I think I… I originally got in to wine through my ex-husband.
Miles Raymond: Ah.
Maya: You know, he had this big, sort of show-off cellar, you know.
Miles Raymond: Right.
Maya: But then I discovered that I had a really sharp palate.
Miles Raymond: Uh-huh.
Maya: And the more I drank, the more I liked what it made me think about.
Miles Raymond: Like what?
Maya: Like what a fraud he was.
[Miles laughs softly]
Maya: No, I- I like to think about the life of wine.
Miles Raymond: Yeah.
Maya: How it’s a living thing. I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing; how the sun was shining; if it rained. I like to think about all the people who tended and picked the grapes. And if it’s an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now. I like how wine continues to evolve, like if I opened a bottle of wine today it would taste different than if I’d opened it on any other day, because a bottle of wine is actually alive. And it’s constantly evolving and gaining complexity. That is, until it peaks, like your ‘61. And then it begins its steady, inevitable decline.
Miles Raymond: Hmm.
Maya: And it tastes so fucking good.

So, why do I like food that’s bitter and liquor that burns? Hmm.