There's a sci-fi book I read a while back that had as a plot point an alien species that had algorithmically optimized its decision-making processes so much that it was no longer recognizably conscious. I think about that now and again when I get a little too invested in some system or practice.
It was! The whole book plays a lot with various types of consciousness. Although that was a bit of a spoiler, so out of respect I'll give a somewhat obfuscated link and just say if you're reading something by Alastair Reynolds right now you should consider that before following the link:
(Reynolds' got enough books in his bibliography I don't feel like I'm spoiling anything by mentioning his name - I suspect I could come up with any random plot point and he's probably written it in somewhere)
Ah, I thought this was going to be Karl Schrœder's Permanence, in which (unless I'm confusing it with a different book) a background point is that consciousness is only really useful in some niches, and most spacefaring species eventually lose it.
John Varley had a short story with that idea, too. A spacefaring race that is only conscious when needed. Good sarcastic lecture about how consciousness is overrated by those who have it.
It was not, but that was also an absolutely fantastic book. I don't remember the sequel, Echopraxia, being as good, although there's a couple plot points from it that I do remember as weird ideas.
I find the exact opposite problem, I go with old faithful over new.
It's for this reason that when I put my clothes away I simply take the stack of clothes in my dresser out, put all the fresh stuff on the bottom, then put the clothes that were in the drawer stuff on top.
I always grab the top sweater, t-shirt socks etc and I don't think about it at all.
> A couple of months before that, start buying new models of clothes to find the best one.
This is so important. You'd think that manufacturers would just keep the same stuff for sale all the time for all time but it doesn't work that way. Lands End comes close for button shirts and wool trousers, but that formality level is wasteful for work from home.
Edit: At first the 15 copies seemed excessive since only 7 are needed for weekly laundry, but basically you can get 2x longevity out of the stock based on laundry wear.
Yeah, I'm absolutely pissed that New Balance had stopped making my favorite model of sneakers. I bought the last 5 pairs of them from a seller on eBay. Like, a model is great and it sells well, why would you stop making it?!?
> Edit: At first the 15 copies seemed excessive since only 7 are needed for weekly laundry, but basically you can get 2x longevity out of the stock based on laundry wear.
1 week of clothes does not provide enough safety buffer for forgetfulness and procrastination. Also, travelling.
Shoes and glasses frames are the worst for not being able to just buy the same thing for all time. Glasses have gotten better since I was a kid but shoes worse. I’ve given up on shoe aesthetics since Mizuno makes upgrades the same model with different colors. Looks like the current version of Wave Rider is 27.
Edit: Regarding total stock of clothes: this is a tricky balance between storage and wash cycle. Ideally I would do laundry nightly for day clothes and daily for pajamas so that no storage was necessary. With ~7 days storage already seems excessive since most days of the week there is more dirty than clean. It also only requires one load of laundry. With ~14 days that is twice the storage and while there are fewer batch operations there doesn’t seem to be a time savings since it would require two loads . . . Wait, do you scale in parallel by using a laundromat?
Lol, since we're going down this road... my clothing ends up getting stored more as a cache with an LRU policy. Every 6 months or so the items at the bottom of the drawer get assessed for eviction (donation). My favourite items are always on top, less used items are easy to find, and the unused items are easy to identify.
I mean… I’ve got a bunch of fungible black t-shirts from Costco if that counts. They fit reasonably well.
There are a bunch of more expensive unique items too. I do actually find it a bit interesting to see which ones float to the top and which ones don’t.
Funny you mention Marie Kondo though. I do roll my clothes instead of folding them before putting them away into the cubes. I don’t entirely get it but it seems more space efficient that way.
Jeans get memoization! Wear them again before washing until something changes (e.g. spilled something on them) with an expiration time (e.g. 3 days or laundry day).
You shouldn't. If you successfully manage wear leveling all you've done is make sure you have to replace your whole stock at the same time, as well as depriving yourself of regular reminders of what new-ish clothes should look and feel like, leading you to keep wearing worn-out clothes.
> If you successfully manage wear leveling all you've done is make sure you have to replace your whole stock at the same time
I've been doing this for decades, but have never encountered this problem. I think because of a combination of the fact that I didn't buy my entire wardrobe all at once to begin with and that different clothes wear at different rates.
With socks, wear levelling is actually really useful. I tend to buy a whole rotation of identical black socks, and then I don't need to pair them up individually. Also, buying 15 pairs of socks in one go isn't going to break the bank.
But what's the use in that "useful"? When I pick up a sock and it has holes, I throw it out. When the drawer gets empty enough it can fit another package, I buy one. What utility would come from worrying about when I used a particular sock?
It can be hard to find the same model sock when you need to restock. Wear leveling and replacing them all at once eliminates difficulty with matching. Also, if you don't wear level, you may have one new sock and one worn sock, and that can be weird.
Another benefit of FILO is to fulfill the social convention of wearing different colors. I purposefully acquire different colors of items in order to avoid drawing attention to my apparel. Fortunately my spouse tells me when clothes are worn-out so that isn't a concern.
That method seems like it would have more cumulative effort than loading the cleaned clothes under the stack once a week. Additionally, I would probably rumple the stack pulling something out from underneath.
I use a queue of stacks for each regularly used item type. Laundry is enqueued on one end of the drawer and popped from the other, with stacks slid over as needed.
Haha, funny. It was just yesterday that I listened to a german kabarett recording which featured the fact that women are driving consumerism. And he used the exact same example: "When does he buy new clothes? When you tell him to! He would keep his current set for a lot longer." (translated from memory)
Your linked article confirms the semi-humorous statement just a day later.
There was a YouTuber (WhiteBoy7thSt if anyone is familiar) I watched over ten years ago now that came from very humble beginnings, and when he started to make real money, his first splurge (and one he stuck with) was new socks. When I say new socks, I mean new socks most days, maybe even a new pair for every day of the year. These were normal white socks, not any nice wool socks, so it was still fairly cheap, but when he grew up, they always had beaten, old socks.
God, this blog post is hysterical. It reads like a David Foster Wallace treatment! Next time he posts something good, please -- someone -- submit on HN!