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A dot a day keeps the clutter away

scottlawsonbc.com

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Re: A dot a day keeps the clutter away

#161

Post by deciduously »

darth_aardvark wrote: post #140
randusername wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar experience with a second-hand copy of House of Leaves [0]. This was a special treat because the book itself already uses copious footnotes and cross-references from fictional characters to create a maze. And now a real person added to the effect by trying to make sense of it themselves. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Leaves

You obviously need to add your own footnotes trying to make sense of those footnotes, then anonymously donate it to a used bookstore.

That's how you get Talmud.

Re: A dot a day keeps the clutter away

#162

Post by wwweston »

refulgentis wrote: post #64
sudonanohome wrote: post #38

A lazy wall of AI slop: > I was looking for something simple. Something right-sized for my scale. > Clear boxes don't have this problem. They scale. > That's not a failure. That's the system working. I wonder if there's a simple regex that could detect these. Perhaps I should ask Claude The entirety of this post could be explained in 20 tokens: 1) use transparent boxes and bags for organizing 2) track the usage with…

It's against the rules as of 2 weeks ago, in the short term, you're more likely to get downvoted for complaining than see less of it. And it's astounding. Because this is awful writing. Author, one year ago: "you replied to an LLM generated comment. if you look at the posting history you can confirm it" Now they can't be bothered to take an edit pass on the most rote slop.

> Because this is awful writing.

Can you describe what you think is awful (beyond rhetorical choices that have become LLM markers)?

Re: A dot a day keeps the clutter away

#163

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

wccrawford wrote: post #90
stickfigure wrote: post #4

Interesting, but this seems to solve the wrong problem. I already know that the ice cream maker sitting on the shelf hasn't been used in 5 years. The problem is... what if I want to make ice cream?

This is exactly my problem. It's easy enough to say "give it away if you won't use it soon" but how do you know ? That urge might come on any time, and the act of giving it away is likely to reignite that passion. And for small things, like cables you don't often use... You never know when you'll need them. I've been telling myself I'm just going to throw them away after all, but then within a month of deciding that,…

I solve the problem by not throwing things away unless I don't have room for them. As a result, I have electronic components that are 30+ years old.

My wife's strategy on clothes I had that she didn't like was to hide them in the back of the closet. If I hadn't asked where a particular shirt was in a year, that was her signal that it was fine to throw out. Must have worked because I wasn't aware of it until she told me, years later!

Re: A dot a day keeps the clutter away

#164

Post by kashunstva »

I feel as if this is solving a problem I don’t have, at least not yet. My issue is that I’m contemplating building something and I’m sitting ordering from DigiKey and I can’t recall if I have a certain part. For example I have way too many 74xx1G14 in various SMD packages because I haven’t recalled my inventory. I finally spent much of the winter cataloguing everything in PartKeepr. Each storage area in the lab has a designated named area. Akro-Mils 64 drawer cabinets are named by letter then row and column. It ends up being a RAM-like system rather than categorically organized. SMD parts are removed from their tapes and go into AideTek 144 cell boxes. I never order anything now without checking the PartKeepr db.

Re: A dot a day keeps the clutter away

#165

Post by malfist »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #163
wccrawford wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly my problem. It's easy enough to say "give it away if you won't use it soon" but how do you know ? That urge might come on any time, and the act of giving it away is likely to reignite that passion. And for small things, like cables you don't often use... You never know when you'll need them. I've been telling myself I'm just going to throw them away after all, but then within a month of deciding that,…

I solve the problem by not throwing things away unless I don't have room for them. As a result, I have electronic components that are 30+ years old. My wife's strategy on clothes I had that she didn't like was to hide them in the back of the closet. If I hadn't asked where a particular shirt was in a year, that was her signal that it was fine to throw out. Must have worked because I wasn't aware of it until she told…

I hang my clothes from left to right, so clothes on the left have been worn recently, things on the far right have not. This makes it super simple to once a year, go through the close and just clear out things on the right of every compartment.

Re: A dot a day keeps the clutter away

#166

Post by malfist »

purplerabbit wrote: post #149
stickfigure wrote: post #4

Interesting, but this seems to solve the wrong problem. I already know that the ice cream maker sitting on the shelf hasn't been used in 5 years. The problem is... what if I want to make ice cream?

Something freeing to me that my wife said: "If you get rid of clutter, there will be cases where you'll have gotten rid of something useful at that moment. It's not about avoiding that -- it's about accepting the right tradeoff between cleanliness and functionality."

Most of us here also work in tech and get paid pretty high salaries. It's pretty inconsequential for us to buy a replacement when we need it, and donate when we declutter.

Re: A dot a day keeps the clutter away

#167

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

jimnotgym wrote: post #87

Dots are very common in real professional warehouses. They get added every time it is counted on a stocktake. Even with full electronic control, ERP, Barcodes etc. If you are auditing the count you can see everything was counted. If you find an old dusty box you know why it is not in the system. If you are looking for slow moving stock, find the ones with lots of dots. Even with electronic systems it is not uncommon…

... only to discover that the electrolyte dried up a decade ago :-)

Re: A dot a day keeps the clutter away

#168

Post by physicles »

plagiarist wrote: post #154
stickfigure wrote: post #4

Interesting, but this seems to solve the wrong problem. I already know that the ice cream maker sitting on the shelf hasn't been used in 5 years. The problem is... what if I want to make ice cream?

I read an anecdote about someone using eBay as a storage service. Buy what you want, use it, then resell. The difference in the purchase and resell price is the storage fee.

I was just trying to find a blog post that I read years ago where someone wrote about storing their furniture at IKEA. Couldn't find the post, but the idea helped me downsize during a recent move.

Re: A dot a day keeps the clutter away

#169

Post by throwawaytea »

toss1 wrote: post #139
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is called hoarding.

Not at all necessarily. It could be, but it is definitely not necessarily true. It depends entirely on usage patterns and attitudes. I just used a piece of material that was sitting on the shelf for at least ten and probably closer to fifteen years. I'd purchased it as an off-cut from a supplier just on a thought of "this might be useful, and it's a good deal". Carried it through two moves and never got around to usi…

I once read a funny comment about a young guy told by his parents to consider what everything costs vs its value if he invested it and let it compound.

25 year old buys a knife set he didn't really need because it's on sale 50% off.

If he invested that $49, eventually it's worth $200. So buying it costs $200 by the time he's old, and clutter for 40 years.

Re: A dot a day keeps the clutter away

#170

Post by throwawaytea »

I use the Costco black and yellow bins in the garage. Have probably 24 of them.

I put a strip of yellow or blue painters tape on it, and write with a sharpee a general description of the box.

Might just add another piece of tape to add marks for usage. Peeling dots would kill me.

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