
How you eat corn on the cob predicts whether you're an analyst or algebraist - JumpCrisscross
http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2010/08/analysis-vs-algebra-predicts-eating.html
======
petenixey
There is another reason why you might chose spirals over rows which is that
while spirals are more opportunist and agile, rows require you to work harder
at the start and then reap your rewards later - perhaps a little more
waterfall.

Regardless of approach, your opening bite requires pushing your teeth down in
between unharvested rows rows and clearing out a patch of cob. On the second
bite however you can now chose between the base of your newly cleared patch
which is literally the "low hanging fruit" (spiral approach) or move directly
along and open up a new row (row approach).

The base of your open patch offers good purchase for your upper teeth, high
visibility of any oddities that may be lying under the surface and a good
understanding of how much you're going to be able to expect from the next bite
based on what you just had. Should you find that the cob is too much for you,
you can also chop the remainder off, wrap it in clingfilm and keep it for
later (or feasibly offer it to another diner).

A row approach means opening up the whole cob in one go. It's hard work at the
start and you're fully committed. If you give up half way through you can't
really offer your corn to anyone else or bag it for later - it's basically a
mess. That said, after that first push you'll never need to open up any new
rows and the rest of the process is pretty formulaic - you get all of the
uncertainty out of the way at the start.

From this I'd also guess at the following correlations:

 _Row eaters:_

\- tend to start projects solo & keep going on their own

\- tend to have a lot of unfinished projects that don't work

\- like to tackle "big picture problems"

\- tend towards optimism

 _Spiral eaters_

\- happy to break projects down and collaborate. Unfussed by solo or otherwise

\- good at finishing projects

\- not that fussed by starting projects

\- tend towards realism / pessimism

 _Disclaimer_

Everything that you're currently thinking :)

~~~
lawn
Hah! Amazingly I am a row eater and everything fits (algebra as well).

I can't stop to think that everything we do can be analyzed and determine what
kind of person you are. Makes me scared of what facebook and google can tell
about a person if you can take this much out of simply eating corn.

------
gpmcadam
I buy corn in a can and heat it quickly in a microwave.

Not the tastiest, but it's quick and it gets the job done.

And yes, I'm a PHP programmer.

~~~
reinhardt
Haha, funniest comment on thread.

------
m0nastic
Apparently I'm screwed; I cut it off the cob in sheets.

So I guess that means I don't care about efficiency, but need things super
neat and orderly. I have always liked Prolog though...

~~~
froo
I'm a vertical man myself. I turn the corn on its side so the cylindrical part
is going up/down and bite downwards.

I do it so that the kernels come off cleanly and don't get stuck in your teeth
(very similar to cutting them off). I wonder where that puts me?

~~~
randallsquared
It's not clear to me how that would work unless you can unhinge your jaw. :)

------
pguertin
I grow my own corn that has just one extra-wide kernel per row, so that eating
it in spirals or in rows is the same thing.

Yes, I am a Forth programmer.

------
btilly
I _wondered_ why I had all of those hits to an old blog article. Now I know!

This is one of the odder correlations that I'm aware of. I'm glad that other
people find it interesting.

~~~
Dn_Ab
I remember enjoying this the first time and on this visit I was like woah
btilly wrote this!

I am row, algebraist, functional.

What I find interesting is, if your correlation is true and given that
Analysis and algebra are duals (in the category theoretic sense) to each other
- what does this say about what the brain is doing?

I will also suggest that functional programmers are algebraists and OOP are
more likely to be Analysts.

From day one a functional programmer is taught about disjoint unions, product
types, and structural recursion on algebraic types. The more motivated
(typically most via self selection) go on to learn all about initial algebras,
monoids, monads and algebras in general. Functional Programmers are
algebraists and not just by allusion.

Then we have OOP. I don't know how to place it since it is so broadly defined
and is not as enamored with mathematics as functional programming tends to be.
Hmm. Abstract Data types are very close to objects and are known to be
coalgebraic - like objects from analysis. OOP also has abstract classes that
are kind of like a final object.

Erlang is typically stacked with functional languages but is actually more co-
algebraic and so closer to OOP. Which says something about OOP done right - I
hope the OOP bashers don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

------
jboggan
Weird. I got heavy into algebra, algebraic topology, and graph theory early on
and never cared a whit for analysis. I eat like a typewriter.

In my home state of Georgia the two major public universities are very
lopsided in their math departments. University of Georgia is very strong in
algebra and Georgia Tech is very strong in analysis. I went to both but fit in
much better in the former department.

I have a bunch of job interviews coming up - I'm going to ask my interviewers
how they eat their corn as a wedge into discussing problem solving strategies
on their teams.

------
gxs
This is the kind of article that makes me love HN.

While I'm not a mathematician, I was a math major. I always preferred algebra,
and sure enough I eat my corn in rows - so one more data point!

~~~
jrockway
For me, it's the opposite. Maybe I actually prefer analysis to algebra, or I'm
eating my corn wrong :)

~~~
masterzora
As an algebraist who would be classified under "spirals" here I just think the
corn looks more interesting if I leave bands of kernels in the first pass and
then pick them up in the second. Definitely sounds like a more algebraist-
focused reason for it, too :)

------
pirateking
I eat in both spirals and in rows. Sometimes sticking with one method all the
way through, sometimes alternating along the way. Additionally, sometimes I
take great care to cleanly peck each and every kernel out of its socket. Other
times I mow through it like a wild animal, bits of corn strewn around my
mouth.

I have always loved math, and I always want to dive in deeper, but can never
quite figure out exactly what area to jump into...

~~~
rdtsc
Statistics?

~~~
pirateking
A large portion of my math courses in school were Statistics courses (as they
were requirements). Spending 4 weeks learning how to use R every single class
got old quick. The actual meat of the topics could have been more interesting
with a proper approach.

My favorite topics that I have messed with so far are probably Number Theory
and Logic. Pointers to resources or book recommendations welcome.

~~~
mebassett
I very much enjoyed and learned from Ireland & Rosen's "A classical invitation
to modern number theory". "Number Fields" by Marcus is also good, but that
focuses more on the algebraic side of number theory.

------
Sniffnoy
I'm very confused by the idea that OOP would be considered somehow more
"algebraic". Functional programming seems way more algebraic to me. I mean,
writing Haskell seems about as algebraic as programming gets even without
using monads or other such very-high-level abstractions. Also, odd where he
puts emacs/vi compared to where he puts programming languages, considering
that emacs uses Lisp. (FWIW, I prefer algebra, and I tend to eat corn in
patches.)

~~~
noblethrasher
Algebra is the study of sets and their operations.

In OOP you spend a lot of time defining sets (classes) and coming up with
operations on those sets (methods).

In FP you're not so concerned about coming up with sets and operations but
rather breaking things up into ever smaller pieces. I mentioned elsewhere that
analysis is about starting with big circles and making them arbitrarily small.
This is pretty much what recursion is.

------
tptacek
Nailed it. I can't stand cooked corn, and I suck at math.

~~~
signalsignal
I prefer procedural programming, so I should suck at eating corn on the cob?

Compile me confused.

~~~
edtechdev
My algorithm for eating corn is patented and proprietary.

------
arnarbi
> Going out on a limb, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that where people
> fall in the emacs/vi debate is correlated with how they eat corn. I wouldn't
> predict a very strong correlation, but I'd expect that emacs is likely to
> appeal to people who would like algebra, and vi to people who like analysis.

I would guess exactly the opposite way. Vi defines a sort of a composable
language for editing text. Commands are combined of atoms giving a verb
describing an action, number of times to repeat and movement over a range to
apply the action on. It all becomes a semi-algebraic system of text editing.

------
MaysonL
A much better split than Yegge's.

~~~
simonbrown
What was Yegge's split?

~~~
acqq
Liberal vs. Conservative:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4365255>

I agree with MaysonL.

------
carterschonwald
Hehe, I'm on both sides and it shows in all three directions. I like all areas
of math once I get to know them, and I'm currently rolling numerical
computation tools in Haskell :p (as my job! its pretty great. shoot me an
email if that sound fun and you'd like to learn more )

Great silly post to end the day with

~~~
tshile
I like the algebra side, love emacs, and am currently thoroughly enjoying
learning lisp. I eat my corn in rows :)

Was a fun read!

~~~
carterschonwald
everybody wins!

------
delinka
I'm flexible.

A) I hate getting the kernel skins stuck in my teeth. This happens when eating
directly from the cob. I spend dozens and dozens of minutes picking, flossing,
and sucking my teeth to get them clean. I'd prefer to shave the kernels off
with a knife.

If I _must_ eat from the cob:

B) Cobs _with_ husks attached-- you get these at festivals and fairs.
Sometimes they're so frickin' delicious you have to just put up with the A)
issues. I'm eating it like a dot matrix printer prints on its drum, from one
end to the other, rotate a bit and do it again. Cuz it's hard to rotate more
with the damn husk in the way.

C) Cobs without husks-- family gatherings with plastic utensils that couldn't
shave a cob in any circumstances. Start at the left end and spin the cob until
that section is clear; move slightly right, repeat.

So I'm a pragmatist. And this post had me spending far too much time analyzing
and posting about my corn eating habits.

Hi, I'm delinka, and I eat corn.

~~~
biot

      > Start at the left end
    

This brings up the issue of handedness: stem in the left hand, or stem in the
right hand? I'm guessing you're right-handed, thus the left end is the pointy
tip of the corn?

~~~
delinka
Good point. (no pun intended.) I am right handed, but the stem goes on the
left. I eat the bigger end first.

~~~
Zancarius
Interesting.

I eat corn exactly as you do in (C) (more or less in columns; clear a column
of all corn, then shift over to the right exactly one mouth width). The
difference though is that I hold it with the pointy end to my left and the
stem end to my right, but I start at the pointy end. I'm left-handed.

------
lani
I eat corn on pizza. I'm a manager

------
jawns
Fascinating! I've made this the daily poll question on Correlated
(<http://www.correlated.org>). Let's see what other surprising correlations we
can make from this!

------
Gring
Apparently Mickey and Donald are algebraists :-)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMD1fTQGego&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMD1fTQGego&feature=player_detailpage#t=275s)

~~~
mkopinsky
What is Goofy? DDoS cracker?

------
bluekeybox
Rows are superior to spirals, because you can eat up all grains while having
to turn the cob only once. The minimal number of turns you have to make when
eating in a spiral is the length of the cob divided by the width of your
frontal bite. // Full disclosure: I started liking math only after a course of
abstract algebra, and I eat corn in rows.

~~~
mistercow
But I could make just as strong an argument that spirals are superior because
you only have to move the corn from side to side once.

That said I actually have no idea which way I prefer to eat corn on the cob,
and I guess now I'll never be able to make an unbiased assessment.

------
rapind
I eat my corn in rows and usually start about 7 kernels in from the left and
almost never eat more more than 65 kernels per row.

~~~
mkopinsky
How many spaces in a tab? 4 or 8?

------
tel
I eat my corn in rings, fix a z and then scrape through theta before choosing
the next z. It's efficient and it sort-of follows the cornkernel grid.

I'm also more of a statistician who edits in vi and emacs every day and I'm
challenging myself with some category theory and abstract algebra because I
find it intoxicating.

So, I don't have a clue how to fit into this divide.

~~~
oggy
Hah, I eat corn the same way. I also use Emacs, but with viper and vimpulse
since I prefer modal editing. For programming, I'd currently favor Haskell or
Python. My undergrad major was math, and I much preferred algebra. Will I
never fit in? At the moment I'm doing formal methods and logic, guess that
could've scr __ __me up (just ask Goedel!).

Anyway, a highly entertaining article.

------
mistercow
My fiancée is a mathematician, and tells me that she eats by spirals, and she
prefers algebra, so... Myth: Busted

------
noblethrasher
Solving problems is about connecting things.

Analyst connect things by putting them in a "big" circle and then making the
circle arbitrarily small.

Algebraist connect things by showing that you can get from one to the other
with a line of operations.

I don't remember how I eat corn on the cob but I rarely finish it in either
case :(

------
mhb
By _spiral_ do the mathematicians mean _helix_?

------
dfc
Was the title changed in order to not violate Betteridge's Law[1] or just to
be more linkbaity?

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridges_Law_of_Headlines>

------
super_mario
Of course how you eat corn predicts nothing (except how you eat corn of course
:D). Most people are neither analysts nor algebraists. I'm a trained
mathematician and analyst, but I eat corn like algebraist. Now what :D.

------
radicalbyte
I prefer to eat my corn-on-the-cob quickly, with lots of butter and salt,
whilst making as much mess as I can.

It's one of the few meals where its' socially acceptable to eat like a pig :)

~~~
m_for_monkey
BASIC programmer?

~~~
radicalbyte
Basic, ASM (6510), VB, Java, PHP, Javascript, C# and several dialects of SQL.
With occasional forays into Ruby, Python and C.

I'm not had formal training in Mathematics beyond High School, though I've
worked my way though introductory texts to Calculus (single variable), Linear
Algebra and Discrete Mathematics (thanks in a large part to reading Yegge's
rants and being inspired to learn by the exceptionally smart people on HN -
really, I now wish I'd pursued Mathematics further, was in the top 5% at high
school but didn't enjoy it).

------
cafard
According to a fellow who wrote for the Washington Post, it indicated whether
you grew up in the city or the country--city was around, country was rows. (Or
maybe I have this backwards, for the column ran many years ago.)

Of course, _that_ you eat corn on the cob indicates that you are a hedonist.
Poorer societies get the hull off the corn to get more of the nutrients. Some
use mechanical means, some use chemicals like lye.

------
begriffs
Sure enough, I prefer algebra and eat in rows. Creepy.

~~~
wbhart
Another algebraist here. I eat corn in rows. Quite amazing!

------
Zenst
Sounds like a load of coblers to me, I prefer to buy it from KFC and then add
extra butter and lick it off then eat down the main shaft and and then the
ends and typewritter style the rest. Given that it would indicate I like to
outsource, male prostitute and like safe methodical approach's. Guess I should
go back to being a contract programmer!

------
msg
Spirals, functional, ... Emacs. I haven't done such high math but analysis
seems more like how I approach design problems (domains more unique, beauty
and intuition for guidance).

I have noticed that when each kernel is firm and can be cleanly separated from
the cob, I am more likely to do rows. When I do, though, I usually take a
horizontal chunk at a time.

------
joering2
Works out in my example.

Seriously -- don't be surprised to see an interviewer offering you a cob of
corn as a snack (especially since we are having summer) and watching you
eating it. While this should not be a major indication into your engineering
nature, I am sure it may add up as positive/negative points into said
interviewer decision making process.

~~~
Stratoscope
The corn-on-the-cob interview would also tell the interviewee a lot about the
company. Let's look at two variables:

* Good fresh sweet corn vs. stale starchy corn

* Butter and salt vs. no butter and salt (I'm combining "butter and salt" as a single variable for simplicity - and I mean butter and salt already on the corn, not available on the side.)

Here are my completely speculative, subjective interpretations of the four
possible combinations - and so you know my prejudice up front, I'm a fresh
sweet corn with no butter and salt guy:

1) Stale starchy corn, no butter or salt: Your company doesn't care about
quality, and doesn't even know that it doesn't care.

2) Stale starchy corn with butter and salt: Your company produces poor quality
products but tries to cover it up with a slick-looking user interface.

3) Fresh sweet corn with butter and salt: Your company doesn't know quality
when it sees it. It probably has a strict coding standard that dates back many
years, and no one dares question whether these are _good_ coding practices or
not.

4) Fresh sweet corn, no butter or salt: Yes! Can I work here? :-)

Now that I think about it, serving fresh sweet corn with butter and salt on
the side would also give the company some interesting information:

1) Interviewee immediately butters and salts the corn before tasting it: You
are set in your ways - you _know_ that corn is a starchy vegetable that needs
butter and salt to be palatable, just as you know that the one language you've
always coded in is the best for every situation.

2) Interviewee tastes corn first, then butters and salts it (or just doesn't
eat it) if stale and starchy, or eats it plain if sweet and fresh: You know
that things which appear identical are not always the same. You investigate
before coding and adapt to the situation.

(No offense intended to anyone who genuinely likes butter and salt on fresh
sweet corn!)

------
rdtsc
It is akin to choosing a breadth-first or a depth-first exploration (or corn
consumption in this case) strategy.

Analysts want to try and explore depth first hopefully to get to the result
while algebraists go in breadth first -- to leave no kernel un-eaten in a nice
systematic way.

------
logicalmind
Very interesting. Now I am very curious how some famous physicists and
mathematicians eat corn.

------
SoftwareMaven
Makes me wonder: could you change the way you think by changing the way you
eat your corn?

------
dbbolton
He predicted me pretty well: spirals, functional, vi. But even though I have a
decent amount of upper-level math experience, I can't say whether I really
prefer analysis over algebra. I think it just depends on the problem at hand.

~~~
shardling
Well, what do you consider "upper-level" math? The original article definitely
means graduate level classes, not just advanced undergrad.

FWIW, I'm a physicist and used not rows or spirals but the "columns" approach
mentioned by one commenter. :) And I probably couldn't tell you what type of
math I prefer.

------
xfhai
I once saw a girl who separated each kernel with her fingers and ate it. I
have not seen anyone else do that. She was eating in spirals, but I thought
this is something worth mentioning because I have not seen anyone else do
that.

------
unabridged
I'm a discrete mathematician and I cut all the corn off the cob with a knife
first.

------
cperciva
I don't like corn, but I checked with my parents and they both followed this
rule.

------
gweinberg
I's been a while since I ate corn on the cob, but as I recall I used to eat in
a zigzag rather than "typewriter" fashion.

When people say "spiral" they really mean a series of circles, right? I've
never known anyone to eat corn that way.

------
jerfelix
I use the Roomba technique to eat my corn. Random walks.

~~~
brianpan
Random walks? O_o

So, sociologist then? <http://xkcd.com/435/>

------
gauravsc
I eat my corn in spiral and I love analysis part of maths. I am doing my
masters in data mining. I guess, it adds another data point to your findings.

------
dleibovic
If you butter your corn, it's best to eat in spirals to ensure even
distribution of butter over time and minimal dripping.

------
ncarroll
Aren't there any random corn eaters here? Shudder not, I just bite around on
the cob until all the corn is gone.

------
Turing_Machine
I'm wondering if recursion v. iteration might be a better test than OO v.
functional.

~~~
electronvolt
Except that you'd get rather unintuitive results: recursion seems to tie
nicely to algebra, while iteration seems to tie nicely to analysis (algebra:
see group actions, modules, lattice decompositions, analysis: many proofs
require chaining inequalities together). But recursion is generally associated
with functional languages/LISP/etc., while iteration is much more associated
with traditional OO languages (and objects are pretty algebraic, the author
gets that right).

I'd say it's probably more dynamic typing versus static typing. Dynamic typing
matches up very well with the sort of fuzzy proofs that occur in analysis
("well this is less than that, and that is less than the other, so this is
less than the other by a little bit" seems close to "quacks like a duck"), and
static typing seems very much like an algebraic idea.

But, as someone working on a math masters, I can say that I prefer analysis
and really like dynamically typed languages, so this might just be my pet
theory of matching the world to myself.

------
ThePherocity
This is nonsense. You could eat your corn in rows because adding butter to a
row is a hell of a lot easier than buttering a spiral.

~~~
Zancarius
1) Fill a tall jar most of the way with hot water but enough room for #2. 2)
Add a melted stick of butter to the top of the jar. 3) Dip a cob of corn into
the jar and pull it out.

Now you have an entire cob coated in delicious butter.

