Why I wear the same shirt every day • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#101

Post by Turing_Machine » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 11:39 PM UTC

jhuckestein wrote: post #66

Strage reaction here. I'd assume that the thought of dressing the same every day has at least crossed most people's minds on HN. It's an engineer's (lazy man's?) solution to a common problem. For me that problem has more to do with clothes management and what to do when your favorite outfit isn't available than with the paradox of choice. As for what to wear, if you're in a startup you should wear your logo as much a…

Yep. I've been more or less this for years, although I have a white set and a dark (black or navy blue) set.

As soon as the current set starts to show wear (holes, ripping out when putting them on), I demote all the socks in that set to cleaning rags and buy a dozen or so new pairs, all exactly alike.

I don't think it's especially wasteful -- assuming the socks are chosen at random they should all be about equally worn, and I do recycle the old ones for cleaning, shoe polishing, and so on. They're actually great for that, especially if you turn them inside out so the rough texture is on the outside.

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#102

Post by aggie » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 1:12 AM UTC

saraid216 wrote: post #44

dromidas wrote: post #20

>I rep a Grouper t-shirt every, single day. The comma there confuses me.

It is permissible to use commas to indicate a verbal pause.

It's not good writing. There is no authority on language, so "permissible" has nothing to do with it. Writing guidelines are drawn from what makes the communication effective and pleasing to the reader; often this amounts to "everyone else does it this way," which is where the "rules" you learn in elementary school come from. That said, misuse of commas can be very distracting as they can convey a variety of syntactical operations which readers must parse. They are the most distracting punctuation when used in an unexpected manner. In this case the author would do better to use "Every. Single. Day."

/pedantry (few threads seem more appropriate for it)

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#103

Post by ricardobeat » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 1:38 AM UTC

mhurron wrote: post #48

ricardobeat wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with that? The colors match ;)

Yes, but you then look like a walking ball of snot. Also they may not be complimentary shades of green.

that was a joke.

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#104

Post by trafficlight » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 1:59 AM UTC

sadga wrote: post #91

dlokshin wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Along these lines, Steve Jobs didn't wear his iconic turtle neck and jeans when he was just a startup. Markula impressed upon him early that if he didn't dress well, people wouldn't trust him. So steve Jobs wore suits. An bowties. And looked really nice. [1] Early days: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2_JFL5szJk4/To0Tl8nuP2I/AAAAAAAADq... [2] Jobs and the Mac: https://s3.amazonaws.com/hackedu/jobs1984.jpg

Those pictures say goofball to me, not Serious Business. Those bow ties seem like the hoodies of the 80s.

Our Lt. Governor likes his bowties. http://governor.mt.gov/ltgov/images/ltg_400.jpg

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#105

Post by batista » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 10:15 AM UTC

lotharbot wrote: post #52

batista wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not so much "saving 10 seconds" as it is "avoiding cognitive context switching". Humanity FAIL. As if you have some very crucial things to decide on the 15 minutes you spend waking up, dressing, shaving and such... What "context switch"? You are not an OS, and you are not even fully awake, heck you're not even awake before coffee, much less just after you woke up.

> "As if you have some very crucial things to decide on the 15 minutes you spend waking up, dressing, shaving and such..." I'm a stay-at-home dad. I very often wake up thinking about how to approach my son's disability, and I'm glad that I don't have to deal with interruptions to my thought process for something as pointless as "which shirt should I wear today". I just pull the top shirt off the pile and keep thinkin…

>I'm a stay-at-home dad. I very often wake up thinking about how to approach my son's disability, and I'm glad that I don't have to deal with interruptions to my thought process for something as pointless as "which shirt should I wear today".

Sorry, but "stay at home dads" don't get to be interrupted by clothing choices anyway. It's not like the public is gonna see what you are wearing. Why even wear a shirt? Pyjamas would be equally OK. So you're not the kind of person I wrote my comment for (the same way the advice of wearing the same shirt every day would be totally worthless for a fashion model).

That said, all health to you and your son, man.

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#106

Post by seunosewa » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 2:24 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #76

wookietrader wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why not wear the same thing all the time? Because it's not considered to be "normal". If you wear the same clothes every time, people will notice and think you are weird. You don't want people to think you are weird if you startup.

> people will notice and think you are weird. You don't want people to think you are weird if you startup. What a terrible reason not to do something that makes sense to you. If your success in the startup world is so strongly linked with how others perceive your superficialities, that's not a healthy environment to be in. You might as well add "don't be ugly" too, because everyone knows that beautiful people tend to…

"Well, even ugliness can be corrected with plastic surgery, so there's no excuse for that."

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#107

Post by lotharbot » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 6:30 PM UTC

batista wrote: post #105

lotharbot wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "As if you have some very crucial things to decide on the 15 minutes you spend waking up, dressing, shaving and such..." I'm a stay-at-home dad. I very often wake up thinking about how to approach my son's disability, and I'm glad that I don't have to deal with interruptions to my thought process for something as pointless as "which shirt should I wear today". I just pull the top shirt off the pile and keep thinkin…

> I'm a stay-at-home dad. I very often wake up thinking about how to approach my son's disability, and I'm glad that I don't have to deal with interruptions to my thought process for something as pointless as "which shirt should I wear today". Sorry, but "stay at home dads" don't get to be interrupted by clothing choices anyway. It's not like the public is gonna see what you are wearing. Why even wear a shirt? Pyjama…

"stay at home dad" doesn't mean I'm in a cave all day. I go to the grocery store, the park, my yard, the neighbor's house, my son's therapist, and so on. I can't just walk around in boxers and slippers. I do have to dress at least somewhat sanely.

But even if I wasn't a stay-at-home dad, the same argument holds: some people are thinking about important things in the morning. Maybe you're not; maybe you walk around like a zombie until your second cup of coffee. But some people focus in the morning, and for those people, "automate unimportant decisions" is one strategy to let them stay focused on whatever important thing it is they're thinking about.

(I wasn't always a stay-at-home dad.)

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#108

Post by batista » Sun, Sep 09, 2012, 10:43 AM UTC

lotharbot wrote: post #107

batista wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a stay-at-home dad. I very often wake up thinking about how to approach my son's disability, and I'm glad that I don't have to deal with interruptions to my thought process for something as pointless as "which shirt should I wear today". Sorry, but "stay at home dads" don't get to be interrupted by clothing choices anyway. It's not like the public is gonna see what you are wearing. Why even wear a shirt? Pyjama…

"stay at home dad" doesn't mean I'm in a cave all day. I go to the grocery store, the park, my yard, the neighbor's house, my son's therapist, and so on. I can't just walk around in boxers and slippers. I do have to dress at least somewhat sanely. But even if I wasn't a stay-at-home dad, the same argument holds: some people are thinking about important things in the morning. Maybe you're not; maybe you walk around li…

>"stay at home dad" doesn't mean I'm in a cave all day. I go to the grocery store, the park, my yard, the neighbor's house, my son's therapist, and so on.

Still, not the typical subject of the original post.

Outliers need not apply.

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#109

Post by qq66 » Tue, Sep 11, 2012, 2:49 PM UTC

jason_slack wrote: post #96

qq66 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also don't need to wear the same thing every day to avoid thinking about what to wear. I never think about what to wear, just put on clothes randomly from the drawers. Sometimes my girlfriend has to tell me to go change, like when I wore a green sweater and green pants.

I had to laugh here because sometimes my wife will tell me I have worn the same jeans and t-shirt all week and it is time to get out something clean/new. She then reminds me to shower. At least our girls get it :-)

Wearing the same jeans and T-shirt all week is not advisable.