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On Having Enough Socks (2019)

gwern.net

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Re: On Having Enough Socks (2019)

#71

Post by ubermonkey »

Jedd wrote: post #18

There's a few comments - seemingly from our American friends - that seem to suggest that left / right socks are a thing. I'm hoping I'm parsing those comments poorly, but ever since the revelation that Americans don't have kettles , I'm prepared for the worst. I got fed up with poor socks a few years ago and embarked on a project to try to find the best, or at least consistently decent, work socks. That's work in the…

Is it really so surprising that we don't (as a rule) have electric kettles? I think the reasons are pretty clear.

First, Americans are mostly coffee drinkers, not tea drinkers. The coffeedrinkers are mostly using coffee machines that heat the water for you, so you don't need a kettle to do it. This is true from the low-end $30 drip machine to multi-thousand-dollar espresso machines.

Second, America is on 110, not 220. Kettles in the UK do boil CRAZY FAST, but the electric kettles I've used in the US aren't really any faster than using a stovetop kettle. American tea-drinkers often have those.

Re: On Having Enough Socks (2019)

#72

Post by RunSet »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #42
FredPret wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No what I mean is you buy 30-50 identical socks per type. You get one box per type. Then you stuff the 50 identical socks into the same box. Replenish when at 50% capacity.

How do you do wear-leveling? The socks may start as 20 identical pairs, but in a few weeks to few months, they will be all shades of grey.

> How do you do wear-leveling?

I seem to be the only one here who has a preventative solution instead of treating the symptoms.

https://www.sockclip.com/

Each and every pair of socks is mated for life and wear-leveling is only a problem to the extent that I favor my dominant foot.

The clips have a high retention rate such that no more than one clip comes loose each wash cycle, which means it is obvious which socks made the failed escape attempt.

Re: On Having Enough Socks (2019)

#73

Post by aaronax »

bugmen0t wrote: post #9

So, what's the solution to pairing socks? Buying many pairs from the same. Sure. That makes sense. But what happens when half of them are lost or damaged and you can't buy the same kind? Do you end up as someone pairing socks again or do you throw away half of your socks?

In my 20s I used to think it was awesome to have all the same cheap white tube socks, just a drawer full of them that I didn't have to pair. Then somehow I got interested in merino wool socks and liked them. So eventually (expensive!) I built up a collection of them and most are different which means they all get paired after drying. Now I don't mind pairing them.

Maybe as one gets older they are less likely to mind pairing socks? Maybe as they get wealthier (as employment became much less immediately necessary to my comfort, something "snapped" and now I enjoy working (working hard) on things around the house). Maybe just having more expensive socks means one doesn't mind spending time with them.

Re: On Having Enough Socks (2019)

#74

Post by caturopath »

inconceivable wrote: post #23
Jedd wrote: post #18

There's a few comments - seemingly from our American friends - that seem to suggest that left / right socks are a thing. I'm hoping I'm parsing those comments poorly, but ever since the revelation that Americans don't have kettles , I'm prepared for the worst. I got fed up with poor socks a few years ago and embarked on a project to try to find the best, or at least consistently decent, work socks. That's work in the…

more americans have kettles now because they're cheap and easy to buy on amazon. and home-made real coffee is more popular. also there are more 2nd gen americans these days with parents from asia. i think the venn diagram of rice cooker owners and kettle owners is pretty large. i think it's the brick and mortar retailers that never caught onto the idea.

I would be pretty surprised to walk into a Target or a Bed, Bath, and Beyond and not find multiple electric kettle options.

Re: On Having Enough Socks (2019)

#75

Post by throwaheyy »

ubermonkey wrote: post #71
Jedd wrote: post #18

There's a few comments - seemingly from our American friends - that seem to suggest that left / right socks are a thing. I'm hoping I'm parsing those comments poorly, but ever since the revelation that Americans don't have kettles , I'm prepared for the worst. I got fed up with poor socks a few years ago and embarked on a project to try to find the best, or at least consistently decent, work socks. That's work in the…

Is it really so surprising that we don't (as a rule) have electric kettles? I think the reasons are pretty clear. First, Americans are mostly coffee drinkers, not tea drinkers. The coffeedrinkers are mostly using coffee machines that heat the water for you, so you don't need a kettle to do it. This is true from the low-end $30 drip machine to multi-thousand-dollar espresso machines. Second, America is on 110, not 220…

I’m Australian, it is mildly surprising. America is the land of convenience, and I’ve found an electric kettle even at 120v is still faster than boiling water on an electric stove, and much faster than boiling on a gas stove.

Re: On Having Enough Socks (2019)

#76

Post by dmonitor »

throwaheyy wrote: post #75
ubermonkey wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really so surprising that we don't (as a rule) have electric kettles? I think the reasons are pretty clear. First, Americans are mostly coffee drinkers, not tea drinkers. The coffeedrinkers are mostly using coffee machines that heat the water for you, so you don't need a kettle to do it. This is true from the low-end $30 drip machine to multi-thousand-dollar espresso machines. Second, America is on 110, not 220…

I’m Australian, it is mildly surprising. America is the land of convenience, and I’ve found an electric kettle even at 120v is still faster than boiling water on an electric stove, and much faster than boiling on a gas stove.

Electric kettles are starting to catch on in the US, I think. I just got my mom one to use with an aeropress, and now she uses it to boil water for things like spaghetti (adding the kettle water to the stove pot)

Re: On Having Enough Socks (2019)

#77

Post by jerf »

> be gwern

> notice I don't have socks

> write 10,000+ words on not having socks

> four years later

> still haven't bought socks

I believe there's a sci-fi/fantasy novel by Alan Dean Foster in which he writes about a trap in a standard dungeon on a mountain which is a path that just very slowly gets steeper and steeper. At first, you don't think you need anything to deal with it, so you're not in mountaineering gear, but at some point you've been gradually lulled into walking down a path you can no longer return up.

I don't think it would work in real life but it was a neat idea. In particular, I don't think it works if you can easily see out ahead of you. But in real life, there's plenty of cases like this where you either can't see out ahead of you, or it's too cognitively expensive, or it simply never crosses your mind to think. I think a lot of the subtle controls exerted in society are like this... you are gradually corralled into doing things you never would have agreed to do if asked baldly, or if you could see that's where you were going to end up, but one step at a time you slowly walked somewhere you never would have voluntarily gone until it would be very expensive to get back out, and it's easier just to take the next step down. While I sometimes wonder if this is deliberately done, it is also certainly a situation that can arise naturally in many cases. Investing has a lot of cases like this... it's really easy to be unwilling to accept a loss or something and take the next step down the road of losing more, when you should pay the price, bail out, and accept the initial loss.

Re: On Having Enough Socks (2019)

#78

Post by throwaheyy »

pantulis wrote: post #4

In order to avoid the effort of pairing socks, I once had the genius idea of buying them all the same colors. Then all hell broke loose as the color may be the same, but they were from different pairs still and so became more difficult to pair: you will lose an individual sock but not a pair. I stopped losing socks as I began buying them in bright colors so pairs where trivial to spot in all the sock journey during l…

The trick with same color socks is to introduce new pairs to the rotation over time instead of all at once.

Re: On Having Enough Socks (2019)

#79

Post by JohnFen »

Jedd wrote: post #18

There's a few comments - seemingly from our American friends - that seem to suggest that left / right socks are a thing. I'm hoping I'm parsing those comments poorly, but ever since the revelation that Americans don't have kettles , I'm prepared for the worst. I got fed up with poor socks a few years ago and embarked on a project to try to find the best, or at least consistently decent, work socks. That's work in the…

The vast majority of socks in the US are not tailored for left or right feet, but there are some specialty types that are.

Re: On Having Enough Socks (2019)

#80

Post by throwaheyy »

dmonitor wrote: post #76
throwaheyy wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m Australian, it is mildly surprising. America is the land of convenience, and I’ve found an electric kettle even at 120v is still faster than boiling water on an electric stove, and much faster than boiling on a gas stove.

Electric kettles are starting to catch on in the US, I think. I just got my mom one to use with an aeropress, and now she uses it to boil water for things like spaghetti (adding the kettle water to the stove pot)

I do the same, a small amount of water starts heating on the gas stove but I completely fill the kettle. Way faster, and in areas with hydro, better for the environment.
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