[HN Gopher] I told a cat food company how much they'd save by us...
___________________________________________________________________
I told a cat food company how much they'd save by using taller cans
(2020)
Author : Tomte
Score : 220 points
Date : 2021-02-06 13:49 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| dekhn wrote:
| another example of "why don't you just"- the tendancy of
| technical people to tell other people technical people how to do
| their job better, without the necessary context to understand why
| it is a way (chesterton's fence).
| LanceH wrote:
| Your post is an example of attributing to technical people the
| bad habits of all people. Much like, "engineers are bad at
| business" -- people in general are bad at business.
|
| Every person out there has a brilliant idea that just needs to
| be implemented (by someone else), fitting nicely into the "why
| don't they just".
|
| Engineers are conspicuously good at _something_ and then it 's
| fun to make fun of them, but I don't think their behavior in
| this regard is any different than anyone else, except that they
| may more frequently give thought to solving something.
| 300bps wrote:
| Agree absolutely. It also reminds me of, "For every complex
| problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong."
|
| I don't know how people have the ego to think they're going to
| study a problem for an hour or two and discover solutions that
| have eluded competent people that have spent their careers
| studying the problem.
| toast0 wrote:
| I've run into all sorts of things in my career where
| competent people completely ignored parts of the problem.
| Someone, qualified or not, spending two hours studying the
| problems would apparently have been the first two hours
| spent; and to good use.
|
| Many times, I've stumbled across reports from other fields
| about solving problems in ways well known for their field,
| but unknown in mine that would apply well for some problems
| in my field. A (kindly worded) suggestion and reference from
| someone who thought to be helpful would be useful.
|
| Of course, some fences are Chesterton's fences, and some are
| just randomly placed fences in weird spots.
| jiofih wrote:
| It's much more complicated than that. Sometimes the people
| who start from scratch actually lead to real innovation while
| the scholars are stuck in their old world view. There is room
| for both types of exploration.
| koonsolo wrote:
| I get your point. But that innovation comes from experts
| too, not someone who watched 10 YouTube videos on the
| subject.
|
| I would say most novices soon find out why things are done
| the way they are done. True innovation is really
| exceptional.
| rm445 wrote:
| It's interesting to see this exchange, though, because it's
| high-trust: I would bet the professor's initial letter was
| courteously written, and asked if there were other factors
| besides purely surface area to volume. The responder wrote a
| clear technical letter without any marketing flim-flam. We are
| in a golden age of communication in some sense, with blogs and
| technical online communities. But I could hardly imagine
| getting a letter from a corporation of this quality.
| h_anna_h wrote:
| > the tendancy of technical people to tell other people
| technical people how to do their job better
|
| "why don't you just" is a question, and if they had not asked
| said question they (as well as the readers of their book) would
| not know the (right) answer to it.
| Closi wrote:
| Why don't the IDIOTS at Heinz just make goddamn spherical
| ketchup?! Everyone knows that a perfectly spherical ball
| would reduce the amount of packing material per ml of ketchup
| yet they are just closing their ears and not listening to the
| maths.
|
| And don't get me started on the cereal box people... THEY
| SHOULD BE CUBES.
|
| And I'm looking at you water bottles - if you were all cubes
| too don't you realise how you could nest to avoid air during
| shipping? They could have cut outs in the bases for lids...
| Idiots everywhere!
|
| I'm going back to my car. It runs on petrol because the
| idiots in engineering haven't worked out it could just run on
| hydrogen yet.
|
| _(All the above have reasons for being the way they are, and
| I think it 's usually a good idea to understand why something
| is the way it is before you try to change it)_
| tshaddox wrote:
| It's clearly phrased with the implication that the person has
| never thought of doing it the way the speaker is suggesting.
| grumple wrote:
| Sometimes it's important to answer those questions: it spreads
| knowledge and generates trust in the expertise of the person
| being asked. Sometimes the suggestion might actually be a good
| one, too.
| kstenerud wrote:
| Chesterson's Fence is the act of DECIDING without knowing.
| There's nothing wrong with SUGGESTING without knowing. In fact,
| that's a very desirable thing. Different disciplines bumping
| into each other and making such suggestions is how great ideas
| and great solutions are hatched.
| Closi wrote:
| I think there is another one to add to the list, which is
| _assuming something is wrong_ without knowing enough about
| the problem to know why something is the way it is right now.
|
| E.g. Instead of telling a cat food company how much they
| would save with a different size, you could ask a company why
| they don't optimise for the lowest surface area, or if they
| have considered it. The first assumes _you_ are right and
| _they are wrong_ from the get go, while they are the domain
| experts.
|
| Really interesting dialogue though!
| kstenerud wrote:
| Assuming wouldn't be a problem either. Since the person
| assuming is not in a position to decide policy, no harm can
| come of it, and possibly a benefit could result if he
| happens to be right.
| Closi wrote:
| I just think it's just good practice to remain humble,
| and consider that the people who own a giant tinned cat
| food packaging line just _might_ know more about tinning
| cat food than you do, with your degree in maths, and
| frame the question as 'why do you not optimise to the
| minimum packing material?' rather than 'you should
| optimise to the minimum packing material'.
|
| I personally find that approaching problems with an
| attitude of "Why do you do it like that instead of like
| this?", or even "have you considered this?", usually
| provides more insight and a more collaborative discussion
| than "You should do it like this".
| rgoulter wrote:
| "Ask vs Guess" is one difference between people.
|
| Roughly, "it should always be okay to ask, since they can
| always just say no" vs "saying no is a bit awkward, so
| only ask for things if the answer is going to be yes".
|
| In terms of the above:
|
| Sure, the person doesn't have to apply the suggestions.
| But the only reason you'd make a suggestion is if you
| think something's wrong or could be improved. And
| suggesting something is wrong if it isn't is awkward.
| etc.
| renewiltord wrote:
| It's strange. Almost everyone I know in real life, when told
| "Why don't you just do X instead of Y" treats it
| enthusiastically as a chance to share some nuance about their
| field.
|
| Two instances recently come to mind, my asking my father (an
| orthopaedic trauma surgeon) why we don't just make hips (in
| total hip replacement) out of dead people's bone instead of out
| of whatever material they do now, and my father's asking me
| something about why blue LEDs are supposedly so hard (why don't
| you just wrap them in blue film).
|
| On the Internet, everyone is always like "you guys always think
| you can do our job better!". In real life, everyone is always
| like "hmm, that's interesting. Let me explain why". But perhaps
| it's just everyone _I_ know.
|
| I saw this the other day too in another HN comment0 where
| people assume that "Why don't you just" and questions like that
| are demeaning.
|
| 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25826835
| zebnyc wrote:
| I presume this has to do with how you frame the question and
| the recipient perceives your intent.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I'm sure I agree, but surely there is something to how so
| many commentators here clearly immediately assume that the
| Prof's question must have been framed so that the best
| interpretation is condescending.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| It's all about the context.
|
| When you ask your father why something is done a certain way,
| you're seeking information. You're not questioning the
| competence of his field or implying that you have seen an
| obvious solution that his entire field has simply missed.
|
| However, when engineers say "This change will require 4-6
| weeks" and their boss says "Can't you just add a form field
| and run a database migration and ship it tonight?", the boss
| is casting doubt on the team's assessment of the situation
| and their competency in executing.
|
| The demeaning nature varies with intent. If someone is asking
| a simple question ("Why can't we just ship it tonight? Help
| me understand") it's nowhere near as bad as a boss waiving
| away objections with an over-simplified order ("Just change
| the code and ship it tonight!")
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't think anyone would object that that kind of
| negative reaction to a repeat offender (the hypothetical
| manager) who has demonstrated through repeat behavior that
| they have little respect for their employees' expertise.
|
| What is a bit more pervasive, though, is a growing belief
| that _any_ question of the form "why can't you just...?"
| is inherently condescending and rude.
|
| Yes, I agree that a "help me understand"-style question is
| the ideal way to ask, but I think people have definitely
| become more (IMO unreasonably) sensitive against the "why
| can't you just...?" form, when often it's asked innocently
| and without a trace of disrespect.
|
| Something I always try to remind myself: I can't control
| other people's behavior, but I can control how I react to
| it. We should try to gently correct truly bad behavior when
| it is safe and constructive to do so, but it generally does
| us no good to get all worked up about it in the first
| place, especially if it's something as benign as a poorly-
| worded question. And being impatient with these sorts of
| things can be to our detriment; sometimes a fresh, layman's
| perspective can provide an insight we hadn't considered.
| tompccs wrote:
| Absolutely - in fact in 2021 you might even be accused of
| mansplaining, when actually the purpose of asking these
| questions is to genuinely learn more about why the world
| works the way it does! (And of course there are the
| occasional examples of genuine insights gained from having a
| fresh perspective - I remember reading about Alan Sugar
| discovering that he could make satellite dishes for a tenth
| of the cost by contracting the manufacture out to a bin lid
| factory)
| lallysingh wrote:
| I ask that all the time, but start with "Pardon my ignorance"
| or "I know you must have good reason, but..."
| t0mas88 wrote:
| That's also a useful managment tool. I often ask "Uninhibited
| by any actual knowledge, I would think X is the easier
| solution, what's the real story?" A competent team will
| either explain why things are the way they are or give you an
| improved version of X that may be faster than what they had
| you if you're willing to accept the associated limitations.
| Often that dialogue on limitations is valuable because the
| client facing people may know some things about what
| limitations can be accepted without client impact and are
| thus good choices.
| mark-r wrote:
| I did that just yesterday with a comment here on HN:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26044548
| Cogito wrote:
| For those interested in the original source, one of the replies
| [0] links to [1] which says that you can find the letter in
| Applied Mathematics by Farlow & Hagggard (Pub. Random House,
| 1988) p613.
|
| > "There is a nice letter from the Carnation canning company
| which is reproduced in Applied Mathematics by Farlow & Hagggard
| (Pub. Random House, 1988) p613 on why cans do not adopt this
| optimal shape."
|
| 0: https://twitter.com/theohonohan/status/1235646988357701632
|
| 1: https://plus.maths.org/content/comment/8352#comment-8352
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Does that mean the twitter account is either Farlow, Haggard,
| or just somebody posting things as their own?
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| A cursory scan of their twitter account shows that it's the
| latter.
| dandanua wrote:
| Also they reposted the story wrong, assuming cans were
| short.
| kemayo wrote:
| The tweet-author being the original letter-recipient is
| not necessarily inconsistent with them also having
| forgotten exactly what they suggested 35 years ago and
| just substituting in a general sense of what current cat
| food cans are like. Particularly since they'd be, you
| know, 84.
| Zancarius wrote:
| I feel kind of stupid reading this since I sometimes
| (often?) forget the exact details of things I've written
| just 3.5 days ago (!).
| CrazyStat wrote:
| What makes you say that? I skimmed through a couple pages
| of tweets and it seems consistent with the twitter account
| belonging to Farlow.
|
| Somewhat surprising for an 84-year-old math professor to
| have an active twitter account, but not out of the
| question.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| Strong evidence that the account is indeed Farlow: the
| profile links to a pinterest board [1] which is listed by
| the NCTM [2] as being run by Farlow.
|
| [1] pinterest.com/mathematicsprof
|
| [2] https://www.nctm.org/tmf/library/view/75908.html
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| It would be a strong evidence if the linking were the
| opposite way.
|
| If I link to the potus piterest page from my twitter
| page, it would not mean anything.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| > if the linking were the opposite way.
|
| the linking goes both ways: the pinterest page also
| points to the @mathematicsprof twitter handle.
| gostsamo wrote:
| Thank you, I really hate when people post an image of text and
| consider themselves smart for shortcutting normal posting.
| dekhn wrote:
| I don't want a tall cat food can. we feed the cat out of the can,
| it can't reach the bottom of a tall can. Also, if you don't feed
| out of the can, now you have to store half a can of wet food in
| your fridge (ew).
| jiofih wrote:
| Poor cat. Must have hurt his tongue so many times and you won't
| ever find out.
| dekhn wrote:
| I'm curious about this (since I don't want to hurt my cat).
| Wouldn't he show pain or have a bleeding tongue?
| tom_mellior wrote:
| > we feed the cat out of the can
|
| Don't you get problems with sharp edges that way? Also, even
| short cans have a geometry that I would expect to be hard to
| clean out completely with a cat's relatively short tongue.
| Also, cans are very light, doesn't the cat move the can all
| over the place compared to a heavier feeding dish? So many
| questions...
|
| > Also, if you don't feed out of the can, now you have to store
| half a can of wet food in your fridge (ew).
|
| Around here many people have reusable plastic lids to put on
| open cans, those work well. The bigger problem is feeding
| fridge-cold food to your cat, which is apparently not ideal.
| When I had cats we mostly fed them with individual portion-
| sized pouches. That generates a lot of non-recyclable waste
| though.
| dekhn wrote:
| for the sharp edges, I haven't noticed a problem with that.
| The cat sort of eats from the middle, not the sides. We put
| the can in a larger plastic thing- which would normally hold
| a cat food bowl (IE, it's the thing that holds the cat food
| bowl in place) so it doesn't move around.
| nether wrote:
| Get a lid:
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0746MLFB7/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_...
| mhb wrote:
| A while ago, I noticed that the bread I eat sometimes had the
| twist tie twisted clockwise and sometimes counter-clockwise
| (annoying since that is the direction it should untie). I called
| the company to ask why and they left a message with an
| explanation. It wasn't a great explanation, but I was impressed
| they responded. They said that the breads comes off the conveyor
| belt and are routed two ways and the twisters are different.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| I grew up in a house with a left-handed dad and sister. Half
| the time, the twistie was 'the wrong way' and in opening it,
| I'd instead twist it into a hopeless knot.
|
| Was a bachelor for 3 years on my own, and counted my blessings
| every time I opened a loaf of bread. Then got married. To a
| left-handed woman.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| Get some spring clips: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VJJWSL9/r
| ef=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_...
| Wistar wrote:
| Nice find. Ordering now.
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| I just fold the end of the bag over and use the weight of
| the bread to weigh it down.
|
| That way I also have an excuse to not eat the last slice.
|
| Come to think of it, I haven't kept bread around for at
| least a year.
| usefulcat wrote:
| Just use a clothes pin? It's faster too.
| mhb wrote:
| I wouldn't have expected that the CW to tighten things
| convention was linked to right/lefthandedness. Especially
| since many people seem to not have a notion about the
| convention.
|
| But maybe that's my right privilege talking.
| leetcrew wrote:
| I think it's more natural to twist things thumb-over-index.
| index-over-thumb is a slightly awkward movement, at least
| for me. this corresponds with the right-hand rule (relative
| to your hand).
| lallysingh wrote:
| You get more power pushing with your thumb than pulling
| with it. My thumb is stronger over one way over the
| other.
| leetcrew wrote:
| sorry, confused myself with that bit about the "up"
| direction of the bag. I think we agree.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| Righty tighty, lefty loosey, right? But I don't think there
| _is_ a convention when it comes to twist ties, because a
| twist tie isn 't something that gets tighter or looser.
| It's more closely related to spinning.
|
| I'd bet lefties spin tops counterclockwise, too, by and
| large. Seems to me it comes down to external rotation of
| the wrist being easier than internal.
| kevincox wrote:
| When I twist something I prefer to twist the top of my
| hands out, so I would twist something different if I was
| holding the tie with my left or right hand. So I
| absolutely believe that the handedness affects this
| because it will change which hand holds the bread and
| which holds the twist tie. If I hold the bread in the
| left (twist with my right) I would twist it clockwise
| (righty tighty) and if I held the bread in my right I
| would use my left and twist counter-clockwise.
| snarfy wrote:
| As a lefty I visualized myself spinning a top - it's
| clockwise. That's because I'd use my right hand to spin a
| top. Do righties not use their left hand to spin a top?
| jstanley wrote:
| > Righty tighty, lefty loosey, right?
|
| This phrase always irked me, because when you're rotating
| something, it's not moving either left or right. The top
| of it moves right, the bottom moves left. Is it
| tightening or loosening?
|
| Further, the only time a phrase might be needed to work
| out which way to tighten something is when it's
| unusually-positioned, for example upside down or facing
| away from you, and in those cases "righty tighty, lefty
| loosey" gives exactly the wrong answer (to the extent
| that it gives an answer at all, since "clockwise" and
| "right" are not the same thing).
|
| I prefer the phrase "clockwise moves the thing you're
| turning away from you, anti-clockwise moves it towards
| you", which I'm hoping will catch on.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Righty tighty, lefty loosey
|
| I remember an old mechanic sarcastically saying this when
| I was a kid and as as he worked on an old car that had
| wheel nuts that did up the other way on one side of the
| car.
|
| It really pissed him off.
|
| A quick search seems to show that this was a thing.
| https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-old-Chrysler-cars-have-
| lug...
| kelnos wrote:
| I read the first answer there, but it didn't answer the
| related question: why don't _all_ cars have that weird
| setup now? Is there a modern design feature that we have
| nowadays that allows for normal threading on the left-
| side wheels that keeps them from coming loose?
| davchana wrote:
| Think of the vantage point of observer standing (& his
| land under his feet also rotating with circle causing him
| to always rotate along the rotation.) at the center of
| that circle. ACW will always be right moving to him, CW
| will be left.
|
| The other is, follow the fingers not thumb.
| leetcrew wrote:
| I feel like this is the sort of thing that actually makes
| less sense when you develop explicit reasoning skills. as
| a child, "righty tighty, lefty loosey" made perfect
| sense. it never occurred to me that right/left could be
| relative to the bottom (from my perspective) of a jar
| lid. only when I started learning about math and
| coordinate systems did I think "right/left relative to
| what?".
| tzs wrote:
| I'd guess it is related to the conventional way steering
| wheels work--turn clockwise to steer the vehicle right,
| counterclockwise to steer it left. Hence, clockwise gets
| associated with right and counterclockwise with left.
|
| I have no idea why steering wheels work that way. If I
| had to guess it would because most steering wheels are
| below eye level so it makes sense that you move the top
| of the wheel in the direction you want to go.
|
| Note that if you are holding the top half of a steering
| wheel that follows this convention, then when you turn
| the vehicle the centriwhatever force on you will tend to
| oppose the force you are using to turn the wheel. If the
| steering while used the opposite convention, that force
| would reinforce your force. That positive feedback would
| make it a lot easier to lose control during the turn.
| LiberatedLlama wrote:
| Without power steering, holding the steering wheel at the
| top gives you more leverage than holding it at the
| bottom. When holding the wheel at the top, turning right
| is a matter of moving your hands to the right.
| gliptic wrote:
| I prefer "clockwise lockwise".
| tshaddox wrote:
| The phrase is talking about the top surface of the circle
| as the circle is facing you, since that's normally where
| your vantage point is when you're turning something with
| your hand. You have to think things through more
| carefully if the circle is oriented differently (imagine
| reaching through a broken window to turn a doorknob).
| wl wrote:
| I've adopted the right-hand rule: The screw goes the
| direction my thumb points when my right hand closes. And
| if it's something left-handed like a bike pedal, it's
| easy to just use the other hand.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > This phrase always irked me, because when you're
| rotating something, it's not moving either left or right.
| The top of it moves right, the bottom moves left. Is it
| tightening or loosening?
|
| And the answer is "You look at the top, of course, why
| would it mean the bottom?"
| issamehh wrote:
| I'm right handed yet I generally use my left hand for twist
| ties. I twist them counter-clockwise too. I never put any
| thought into it beyond wanting bread.
| siver_john wrote:
| As the only left handed member in my family, I'm now curious
| if I ever did that to my family. Though for tasks of that
| nature I may actually use either hand, or maybe I just
| started using the right hand because I was the weirdo (asking
| my mother she said she never noticed but assumed I probably
| just adapted and used my right hand).
|
| As a bachelor I virtually make all my own bread so I don't
| really notice, but I think I do take time to figure out which
| way to twist before opening so maybe that is a thing.
|
| This is just to say, the things you never think about, and I
| enjoyed the irony of your situation from the reverse side.
| samizdis wrote:
| > As a bachelor I virtually make all my own bread
|
| I so wish that the status of bachelor automatically
| bestowed the gift of being a baker. Sadly, in my case, it
| has not done so. I've tried to make all kinds of breads,
| from flatbreads to sourdoughs to leavened and unleavened to
| soda breads - all sorts. I would wish consumption of my
| output on only my worst enemies.
|
| Happily, though, I can buy packets of bread mix in the
| supermarket and put them in a bread-making machine.
| siver_john wrote:
| I honestly only did it because I was cheap and I wanted
| to remake a sandwich I had consumed before. I started
| with a simple foccacia recipe and went from there. But I
| started baking with my mother years earlier so I had some
| experience.
|
| I now for better or worse have the Toll House cookie
| recipe memorized, but I'm terrible at making baked goods
| look appealing.
| teach wrote:
| You should check out The Tassajara Bread Book by Edward
| Espe Brown; it's a masterwork of clear technical writing.
| The first basic recipe is expanded over 20+ pages,
| explaining not only what to do but _why_.
| samizdis wrote:
| OK, I will do that, thank you. I'm a fan of Cooking for
| Engineers, and particularly like the schematics. Scroll
| to the bottom of this recipe to see what I mean:
|
| http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/36/Meat-Lasagna
| Lukas_Skywalker wrote:
| For an easy and delicious recipe, try Andy Jones'
| "quarantine bread" [1]. I was rarely baking bread before,
| but this recipe changed that completely. As he mentions,
| it is really really hard to mess up. I once put it in the
| oven without folding. Thought that this was
| irrecoverable. It wasn't. Turned out great.
|
| [1] https://andyljones.com/posts/bread.html
| peter_l_downs wrote:
| I am pretty sure this letter/meme has been around for years and
| this twitter account isn't the original author, but it's a good
| explanation of why cans are like they are, maybe, if anybody
| involved in this story exists.
| crazygringo wrote:
| While this thing is ancient (it's dated 1987 after all), it's
| funny that the Twitter caption gets it so wrong.
|
| The Twitter caption is supposedly about making short cans taller,
| while the letter is clearly a response to making tall cans
| shorter (points 2, 4, 5).
|
| If you're going to make a repost at least get it right ;)
| dano wrote:
| Ancient? I resemble that remark :-)
| lostlogin wrote:
| This is funny, but did you mean 'resent'?
| adventured wrote:
| It's a common joke to say that you resemble a remark when
| it applies to you. Dano is joking that they too are ancient
| like 1987 (you know, from the prior millennium).
| fctorial wrote:
| This letter argue that a tall-thin can is better, but most of the
| cat food cans in market are short and wide. Only the first and
| third point argue for short-wide cans (while promoting tall-thin
| cans as well).
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=cat+food+can
| nonick wrote:
| "Most cans" you see there are the small ones. But as the
| quantity grows, it is the height of the can that grows, and not
| the diameter.
| https://www.google.com/search?q=large+cat+food+can
| kalleboo wrote:
| The letter is from 34 years ago. What did most cat food cans
| look like then?
| Xylakant wrote:
| There are obviously more concerns that are relevant. Most of
| these containers contain single servings or maybe a few. Open
| cans of cat food smell. Thin cans of single servings would be
| narrow, getting the food out would be a pain.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Exactly! Now explain 'tomato paste'. Comes in tall thin cans
| like miniature tomato-juice cans, but just 1" wide.
| Impossible to get all the paste out! Or even, any of it. Why?
| Why? Why?
| chipsa wrote:
| Take off both ends. Slides right out.
| leni536 wrote:
| I always rinse out the remaining with a little bit of
| water. The water will boil out anyway when I cook.
| jimueller wrote:
| I think the way to do it is to cut one end of, then the
| other and use it to push the paste out through the can.
| Doing that I've never had a problem.
| alchemism wrote:
| Thats also the trick for sliding out the cranberry jelly-
| loaf things.
| WWLink wrote:
| Ocean Spray realized this and made the bottom of the can
| un-openable. So now you either have to use a knife or
| squeeze the can enough to loosen the cranberry jelly
| loaf. I've found the same trick works on refried beans,
| but it's not as amusing. lol.
| trcollinson wrote:
| They make lovely squeezable tubes. I would suggest giving
| them a try! They are much better.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| I guess I'm reluctant to eat acidic stuff out of plastic.
| But I suppose tin isn't much better.
|
| I just reduce my own tomatoes if I need paste.
| trcollinson wrote:
| Oh! The tubes from Cento, which is a particular good
| brand, are metal. I understand the acidic substance from
| plastic concern. Though reducing your own is a good idea
| as well. If you grow the tomatoes they will be
| significantly better.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| They have that at WalMart! Sounds good, will give it a
| try. The case-of-12 description is a little concerning.
| Its apparently 'Adult Unisex'. Not sure what they think
| I'm going to do with the paste...
| riversflow wrote:
| >I guess I'm reluctant to eat acidic stuff out of
| plastic.
|
| It might help to realize that plastics are extremely
| resistant to acids. Hazardous Industrial acid products,
| far stronger than anything a consumer can purchase, are
| stored in Polypropylene barrels. Generally speaking
| plastics are considerably more resistant to inorganic
| chemicals than even specially formulated metal
| alloys.[1](link even lists the resistant data for tomato
| juice :)) Additionally, metal used for canning is
| usually(always?) lined with plastic[2] to keep metals
| from leaching. Ironically canned foods with bpa liners
| are one of the biggest vectors of BPA intake we know
| of.[3]
|
| [1]https://www.usplastic.com/catalog/files/charts/LG%20CC
| .pdf [2]https://www.ewg.org/research/bpa-canned-food [3]h
| ttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S001
| 39...
| [deleted]
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| All cans are lined with plastic, also a reason why you
| shouldn't use metal utensils to scrape all the contents
| out of the can
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Enamel, surely?
| jiofih wrote:
| They are all metal tubes, and I guess the lining, which
| is plastic, is exactly the same as in the cans.
| coryrc wrote:
| Possibly ironically, the plastic lining cans is usually
| toxic but regular tubes are made of polyethylene which is
| safe!
| Sharlin wrote:
| At least here (Finland) the "standard" cat food can is taller
| than it is wide [1]. Smaller, shorter containers are mostly
| used by the more "premium" brands.
|
| [1] https://www.puprise.com/whiskas-tuna-in-jelly-wet-cat-
| food-c...
| internet2000 wrote:
| Classic example of a STEM person getting out of their lane and
| thinking they know it all.
| roel_v wrote:
| LOL I can imagine how this went down when this letter came in at
| this cat food factory.
|
| Marketing: Hey you engineering nerds. We just got this letter
| from an actual Professor, saying we can save money changing the
| designs you made us use for the cans! Fix your mistakes or prove
| why the way you made it is better!
|
| Engineers: Hold my beer.
| gambiting wrote:
| The most shocking part of this to me is that someone had the time
| and knowledge to reply to this. Is this common in any companies
| anywhere still? In my experience customer support usually knows
| nothing about the product, they are there to read off a script
| and maybe authorize a repair/replacement. That you'd get a reply
| from someone who understands thermal requirements for
| sterilisation sounds almost surreal.
| eterm wrote:
| Yes, you could tell this letter was very dated and not just
| from the type. I don't think you'd get a response like this at
| all these days (if at all).
|
| Maybe if the brand hooked into it as a marketing effort they
| might publish a response all over their socials, but you'd
| certainly not a private reply.
| sonofhans wrote:
| If you look at the end, you'll see the letter was signed by an
| "Assistant Product Manager." In tech we might call that
| position "Junior Product Owner" or "Technical Product Manager."
| It's exactly the position I'd expect to either have the
| answers, or have good enough relations with engineering to get
| the answers.
|
| My dad had various Plant Manager and Production Superintendent
| roles at Goodyear for many years. He could tell you exactly how
| each machine the factory operated, and why, and what the
| functional tradeoffs were of different designs. He had a
| Master's in engineering, which again is a common path to this
| sort of role even in tech -- join as a capable engineer, learn
| the product and industry, and somewhere along the way learn
| that you have either talent or interest in management or
| communication.
| kalleboo wrote:
| You might be able to get a response like this today if you
| mention the brand on Twitter - that's usually a more marketing-
| oriented support channel.
| fctorial wrote:
| Author sent the suggestion to the marketing, marketing
| forwarded it to engineers and the engineers took that
| personally. It was sort of like Torvalds C++ response.
| LittlePeter wrote:
| I had to Google, and I think this is what is meant with
| "Torvald's C++ response":
| http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/c++/linus
| [deleted]
| thenickdude wrote:
| If you ask support questions of AWS, you often get connected
| directly to the engineers responsible for the product, who are
| able to hunt down the cause of quirks for you by direct
| reference to their code.
|
| What impresses me the most about this is the quality of triage
| required to pass just the questions that really need it on to
| the engineers to avoid oversaturating their bandwidth. I got
| connected to them almost immediately.
| gambiting wrote:
| Well yes, maybe I worded my question incorrectly. I work at a
| games studio and if we need to, we can get direct access to
| the engineers working directly on the Xbox firmware and ask
| them questions. It's possible.
|
| But I'm also 100% certain that if someone sent a random
| letter to Microsoft offering advice on the design of their
| Xbox console, it wouldn't even make it to their engineers,
| much less actually get a response from anyone within the
| department.
| chiph wrote:
| My UPS will occasionally go on battery because the incoming
| line voltage crosses it's "too-high" threshold (127V). I sent
| the power company a dump of the logs and requested they adjust
| the tap on my house's transformer.
|
| No response, and I'm pretty sure I'm on their "this guy is a
| crank" list now.
| NoOneNew wrote:
| It's also cheaper to just buy a normal bag of ground coffee and
| brew it in a french press/percolator/whatever than buy those
| coffee pods which taste more like boiled cat shit than actual
| coffee. Keurig would make the same letter to the same high horse
| professor. Are you going to say Keurig is stupid for not selling
| bags of coffee instead?
|
| Doesn't matter how smart someone is, they always forget that
| economics doesn't give two shits about their feelings or how
| shiny their degrees are. Fancy little prefixes and suffixes to
| your name doesn't help change reality.
|
| People buy things for a multitude of reasons. Because people are
| unique and allowed to do what they want for themselves, they tend
| to like and value things different from _you_. Companies
| capitalize on that.
|
| Hell, want to get into some real nerdy math academics and
| economics? What about that Japanese chalk so many of them love to
| use? Something so exquisite and special to the professors of the
| world for black board lectures. They went out of business. Why
| couldn't your fancy letters and diplomas save that _important_
| product? Where are the equations for that one?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| No, the response had good reasons, not like your "lol yeah but
| people be crazy" stuff.
| NoOneNew wrote:
| Current cans of cat food are setup as either a single meal or
| enough for 2 meals a day for a cat. Short to no time spent in
| a fridge with a weak lid. People do not want to have an
| opened can of cat food leeching stench into their fridge for
| long periods of time. No "reusable" lid I ever found could
| keep the smell out instead of ziplock bags, which get slimy
| and nasty if your reuse them but then you're constantly
| buying more bags.
|
| A majority of the market won't buy bigger cans because they
| prefer the convenience of one time, limited use to
| potentially having your fridge smell like low quality fish
| and chicken product gruel.
|
| But that doesn't make for an interesting response to the
| ravings of an uppity math professor. They didn't quite feel
| like trying to explain the habits of normal, regular people
| to a lunatic is worth their time. So they decided to have a
| laugh in kind.
| reaperducer wrote:
| This is an example of the sort of foible of which people on HN
| are constantly guilty.
|
| Just because you're an expert at one thing does not make you an
| expert at everything.
| [deleted]
| Tsiklon wrote:
| This is true, though that said, on the flip side of things;
| exchanges like the one between the letter's author and the cat
| food company are exactly the sort of thing that helps expand
| one's understanding outside of their own domain of knowledge.
|
| Be it out of hubris or genuine interest, that the author of the
| letter felt compelled to write to the company, they (and by
| extension us) received an insight into the decision making
| process behind one of the more mundane pieces of engineering we
| see on a daily basis (I certainly did)
| pp19dd wrote:
| It was a good reminder that creation of many things takes
| overlapping disciplines. It reminded me of a joke about a
| mathematician optimizing a farmer's operation. He returns
| after several months bursting with excitement, promises of
| improved profits.
|
| "First, we assume a perfectly spherical cow..."
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| _More scrap metal is generated as the diameter is increased._
|
| Can anyone comment on why that is?
| lancebeet wrote:
| If you imagine cutting out rectangles from sheet metal, you can
| completely tile the plane. Punching out circles, you'll use a
| maximum of roughly 91%. So I imagine the more of your material
| you use for the sides, the less scraps you'll end up with. I'm
| sure the problem is a lot more complicated than this though,
| with deburring, corrugation and whatnot.
| lmc wrote:
| Edit: Disregard this. The other answers are better.
|
| I guess it's because of the fat ends - if these have constant
| thickness, the volume will only increase as diameter changes.
| Cogito wrote:
| My first thought was for the ends, and for a similar reason
| that the smaller diameter cans pack more densely.
|
| If you're punching circles out of sheet metal, you'll get more
| waste with larger circles.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| > If you're punching circles out of sheet metal, you'll get
| more waste with larger circles.
|
| I don't think you would. The design can be scaled up or down
| without impacting the proportion of the area which ends up
| being 'useful'.
| blt wrote:
| The percentage waste per circle remains the same, but the
| absolute amount of waste per can goes up.
| johnp314 wrote:
| One explanation could be the following based on the supposition
| that one starts with rectangular pieces of metal. To minimize
| waste for a circle one begins with a square piece and cuts out
| the maximum circle contained therein. The waste is (area of
| square) - (area of circle). If the circle was to be 4 inches in
| diameter (2 inch radius) cut from a 4-by-4 square the waste is
| 4^2 - Pi _2^2 = 3.43, whereas a 2 inch diameter circle cut from
| a 2-by-2 square has waste of 2^2 - Pi_ 1^2 = 0.86. The
| cylindrical side needed to achieve a given volume is
| rectangular so has no waste in either case.
| nonick wrote:
| From a 4-by-4 inch square you can make 4 2-by-2 inch squares,
| therefore the loss from 4 small squares would be 0.86x4=3.44,
| same as one large square.
| nabilhat wrote:
| One factor missed in other answers, mentioned in the letter, is
| that the ends are made from thicker stock than the cylinder,
| and increase in thickness as diameter increases. The scrap
| ratio of the ends doesn't change in area, but the volume of
| scrap per can does.
|
| What's interesting is how the letter's scrap argument has aged
| - take a look at cans in common household sizes today. Most are
| only capped on one end. The cylinder and opposite end are a
| single deep drawn [0] unit. That can body will consume a round
| portion of material and _definitely_ increases overall scrap
| ratio over old double-capped cans.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_drawing
| Tsiklon wrote:
| I note that here in the UK, cans of soda tend to be deep
| drawn, capped at the top, and that most food/soup cans are of
| the traditional double capped variety. I wonder does this
| come down to the pressures of the contents or is there
| another reason involved.
| nabilhat wrote:
| I do a lot of manufacturing adjacent and overlapping work.
| The primary justification for cans (by a long shot) is
| going to be process steps and cycle time. Very roughly
| counting manufacturing operations, while surely overlooking
| tons of other handling and preparation common to either
| method:
|
| A double capped can has 7 specific manufacturing tasks: 3
| cutting steps (2 ends, 1 center), 1 roll forming step, 1
| weld step to close the cylinder, and 2 end capping steps.
| Forming ribs into the cylinder and can should happen
| simultaneously when the cylinder is roll formed and when
| the ends are punched from sheet stock.
|
| A single capped can has 4 specific manufacturing tasks: 2
| cutting steps (1 blank for the can, 1 lid), 1 draw form
| step, and capping the end. Trimming the edges of the draw
| formed can should be combined with the forming operation.
|
| Draw forming tools are expensive, the world is still full
| of cheap, perfectly functional, secondhand canning
| equipment. Either way, cans sell for cheap and at low
| margins. Takes a lot of volume to make ROI. _Or_...
| Aluminum! Aluminum is far more expensive than steel and is
| finicky to weld reliably. Draw forming soda cans eliminates
| any need for welding and allows manufacturing of thinner
| can walls, which reduces material consumption, and the
| bottom can be shaped to hold pressure with less material.
| Tsiklon wrote:
| Thanks for sharing! I assume it's the dome shape on the
| bottom of a soda can that's specifically there for
| holding pressure in that case (a balance of accommodating
| the greatest strength per unit surface area measured
| against the cost of the forming process)
| CamelCaseName wrote:
| The title doesn't mention the interesting part -- the company
| responds with reasons why they made their cans a certain size.
| Definitely worth clicking through.
|
| I'm not sure about 1987, but today, Carnation is a lot more than
| "a cat food company".
| kps wrote:
| It's Nestles all the way down.
| plasticchris wrote:
| I did something similar once, mailing v8 about how they could
| make their cans squatter. I even wrote a script to find the
| optimal shape. I think it went straight into their crank file.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| What is left out from the letter is that the marketing department
| probably have a say in the design too. Nowadays they probably
| have tested which geometries that sell best to different target
| groups.
|
| And then we also have the user perspective. A short wide can is
| easier to scoop from.
| mentos wrote:
| Yea I was expecting an argument that their cans stand out on
| the shelves and lead to higher sales.
| throw982739182 wrote:
| Okay but what really bothers me are square powdered juice
| packets. This is the only way powdered juice comes in my country
| and we're all poor and re-fill soda bottles, so WHY the hell are
| they square? Powder spills everywhere. Why are they not tube
| shaped. And why aren't there ones for small water bottles for on
| the go? One of these days I will write to the companies...
| ChickeNES wrote:
| This is so odd to read, as in the US there are certainly tube-
| shaped single serving drink mixes (indeed, I have one sitting
| on my desk right now). For example:
| https://www.powdermixdirect.com/Gatorade-Sqwincher-Single-Se...
| [deleted]
| dmitrygr wrote:
| This reinforces the old saying. "Don't take down the fence until
| you know why it was put up." I wish more computer science
| programs taught this as an important principle. Too many people
| today assume that if something is newer, it is necessarily
| better, and rush to rewrite or replace things that had been
| working well, and would continue to do so, with new and untested
| and unproven replacements.
| adav wrote:
| I wonder if the customer service department at a large FMCG
| company would be so empowered as to send such a detailed response
| these days. I'd expect either no response or a generic answer
| with goodwill a voucher.
| jolmg wrote:
| I was impressed they'd send such a letter at all. On seeing
| your comment, I now notice that the letter was written in 1987.
| [deleted]
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Highly recommended related YT video:
|
| _The Engineering Guy: The Ingenious Design of the Aluminum
| Beverage Can_
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUhisi2FBuw
| Hamuko wrote:
| I know for a fact that I've watched this before but still I
| just had to rewatch it.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Well, besides the reasons given I'd say they probably buy these
| cans ready made so custom cans would cost a lot more due to
| economies of scale.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-02-06 23:02 UTC)