d by dy

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?

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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.