4 ms·

I’m not sure, I think people might be over complicating socks. I have an O(n) pairing process that is about the same complexity as if I had the same socks all t

I’m not sure, I think people might be over complicating socks. I have an O(n) pairing process that is about the same complexity as if I had the same socks all the time. If I encounter a sock I haven’t paired, it’s laid flat somewhere clean. Then when I pick up a sock I can do a visual o(1) lookup to find a pair, otherwise it’s laid flat where the others are. Eventually the unpaired socks are first examined if I didn’t miss any, and then are tossed if they’re just lost a pair.

Epa095 3y ago
I use the same, but for me it's definitely n^2, because the visual lookup is not constant. Some of the problem might be that I am old, stupid, and slow, but also because I (stupidly) have a lot of socks that look quite similar, but are not the same. Sometimes I even have to lift them up and feel them to notice that they are different!
- SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
  If you have texturally distinct socks, pairing in bright light can help with this. You can also have a “sense-memory” because you touched that socks when you cached it, so if you have visually similar but textually different socks, you can still perform a quick lookup with touch-memory.
- michaelt 3y ago
  I hear a lot of people saying "buy all identical socks" to simplify pairing, but I use the opposite strategy. Buy colourful, distinctively patterned socks like [1] and pairing them up is trivial. [1] https://www.johnlewis.com/happy-socks-classic-pattern-print-socks-pack-of-5-multi/p6340126 https://www.johnlewis.com/happy-socks-classic-pattern-print-...
klausa 3y ago
You either have a very small amount of socks, or a very good spatial memory to be able to claim the visual lookup of socks on the surface is O(1). With my brain, it's closer to O(n!). (This is the worst, nerdiest collection of sentences I've written in my life.)
- SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
  I do my laundry about once a week, so I’m at most ever looking at 7 socks to pair. If it takes longer I’m still looking at less than 10 socks to pair in the cache.

Epa095 3y ago

I use the same, but for me it's definitely n^2, because the visual lookup is not constant. Some of the problem might be that I am old, stupid, and slow, but also because I (stupidly) have a lot of socks that look quite similar, but are not the same. Sometimes I even have to lift them up and feel them to notice that they are different!

SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
If you have texturally distinct socks, pairing in bright light can help with this. You can also have a “sense-memory” because you touched that socks when you cached it, so if you have visually similar but textually different socks, you can still perform a quick lookup with touch-memory.
michaelt 3y ago
I hear a lot of people saying "buy all identical socks" to simplify pairing, but I use the opposite strategy. Buy colourful, distinctively patterned socks like [1] and pairing them up is trivial. [1] https://www.johnlewis.com/happy-socks-classic-pattern-print-socks-pack-of-5-multi/p6340126 https://www.johnlewis.com/happy-socks-classic-pattern-print-...

klausa 3y ago

You either have a very small amount of socks, or a very good spatial memory to be able to claim the visual lookup of socks on the surface is O(1). With my brain, it's closer to O(n!). (This is the worst, nerdiest collection of sentences I've written in my life.)

SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
I do my laundry about once a week, so I’m at most ever looking at 7 socks to pair. If it takes longer I’m still looking at less than 10 socks to pair in the cache.