On Having Enough Socks (2019)
gwern.net
gwern.net
> 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.
Reading accident reports, a common theme is people setting on what they think is a class 3 or 4 hike, getting lost and ending up on a class 5 technical climb. With a gradual transition from class 4 scrambling to class 5 slab (less than vertical) climbing you can very quickly get to a place where it would be dangerous to descend.
Am I missing something? The intro paragraph includes that he "immediately went on Amazon & bought a pack of 30 pairs".
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 sense of stomping around in the workshop or outdoors, in heavy duty boots, spending most of my day standing up or moving around -- not work as in sitting at a chair for 8h while wearing mildly uncomfortable but aesthetically appropriate footwear, occasionally shuffling around a carpeted floor, etc.
Anyway, that was basically a despairing effort. Unsurprisingly, everyone claiming to have the best socks did not, in fact, have the best socks.
I did end up with a stack of hard-yakka bamboo socks, which were surprisingly comfortable when worn with big heavy blundstone boots, but about a year after discovering (and building up quite a large collection) I moved to hard-yakka boots, and then found out that the combination of their bamboo socks with their boots would result in a very uncomfortable bunching of sock around the ankle.
Bonds - very popular purveyors of socks and daks and other necessities here in Straya - have some work socks that I've since settled on, though a top-up purchase made a few months ago suggest they've changed their recipe from ~18 months back, feels like a higher ratio of nylon to cotton, but alas no record was maintained of the first tranche, so I am wary, but so far satisfied.
(For actual day-job work socks, Bonds here also do a range of basic-black that come in 3-pair sets, which have tiny lines of primary colours along the toes, red, green, blue, etc - originally I thought that was quite twee as it would help maintain pairs, but in practice it just feels like a way to shift more product - as there's no reason, beyond obsession, to match 'miscoloured stripe' pairs, but when one of a pair inevitably expires, you're then left with the difficult decision of committing fully to going pairless in the sock drawer, or throwing away a perfectly fine sock out of sympathy.)
Sadly, they very much are left/right specific (unless you topologist consider that you can turn one of them inside out to flip its handedness, but then the stitching seams are now on the outside!).
They are a little on the thin side and though I bought like 10 pair, they slowly but steadily wear through and need to be tossed. I wish I could say the lefts wear as often as the rights but I appear to walk in an asymmetric way. (Or, you know, Coriolis Effect.)
Further, finding replacements that match has been difficult (I would like them all to match so that left/right is the only factor in pairing them). Though I have bought the same brand, trying to get the matching length has been surprisingly hard. I'm not sure why.
When I find them again though, I'll order at least 20 pair this time.
i think it's the brick and mortar retailers that never caught onto the idea.
RIP strangely named store that carried emergency mothers day gifts for all these years.
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.
There is no way an electric stove is quicker than a gas stove. I did a quick google search and a standard gas stove on high is 12,000-18,000 BTU, which is 3.5-5.4kw.
It's a one-hour-plus video of someone literally boiling water, so there may be issues with the testing setup that I skipped over.
Don't know where the heat is being lost, but an electric kettle is significantly faster despite its lower energy.
On gas? Around the sides of the vessel, bound for the ceiling.
Most people in the US don't make tea much, and just use an automatic drip machine or a keurig for coffee, so of course they don't have a kettle.
We have one, but it's because we drink more tea than most Americans, and since we have it for that, it's space-saving for me to also use it for pourover coffee (rather than having a drip machine).
At least, I can totally see how it would seem as such to anyone from the UK (and most of the world).
For my part, despite working at it for years, I still don't really like cheap tea (the stuff I could actually afford to drink every day, and that can be found without seeking out rare-in-the-US tea shops or ordering online), though higher-end tea is really good.
We drink a ton of iced tea, but that's easily made on the stovetop in a large pot, and can be bought in gallon-quantities at the grocery store. Having a kettle doesn't improve iced-tea-making very much.
[EDIT] Part of it may be that we drink on-the-go more than other countries. Just a guess, but might be true. Iced tea and coffee (hot or cold) are both much better for that than hot tea—one doesn't usually make a thermos-full of hot tea and drink it straight from the thermos, I'd expect (but maybe I'm wrong?) but that's normal for coffee.
I forgot about iced tea, but I'm under the impression that how popular it is depends on the region of the US you're talking about. I don't see a lot of people drinking iced tea in my area, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone make it for themselves.
Sweet tea is quite regional (the South).
Iced tea's popular in much of the country, but I think making it at home has dropped off just like making many other things at home has (how many people make their own stock or broth anymore?). These days, a gallon of store-brand iced tea is just about the cheapest drink most grocery stores stock—barely more expensive than making it at home, really, so why bother?
[EDIT] For foreigners wondering WTF the difference is between proper sweet tea and normal iced tea with sugar added: you add the sugar during or before steeping, while the water's nice and hot, and, usually, you add a lot of it. The difference in the finished product is kinda like the difference between making a mixed drink with simple syrup, versus using granulated sugar. You can cleanly dissolve a lot more sugar in hot water than cold (see again: simple syrup), and it tends to stay well-dissolved even when it cools. It's commonly believed that it also affects the flavor, not just texture and level-of-sweetness, but that may just be in our heads (I think it does, too, but can't explain why—it's not like we caramelize the sugar or anything like that)
Old-school restaurants, and especially diners, may have a mid-sized glass jar[0] of sugar with a metal lid and little metal flap on it (that flips up if you tip it, allowing some sugar out) left on the table, mainly used to sweeten coffee and iced tea. This is getting less common, in favor of little trays of sweetener packets, but you still see it sometimes. Used to be very common, 1990s and earlier.
True sweet tea (huge in the South, i.e. the part of the country that seceded during the Civil War, but much less ubiquitous outside it) is incredibly unhealthy. It contains more dissolved sugar than is easily achievable in room-temp-or-lower water/tea, by adding it during the boil, same as how you can super-concentrate sugar in water when making simple syrup (though it doesn't go that far) and it retains that sugar even when it's refrigerated. Sweetened iced tea has a much broader range of sugar levels, and may be relatively healthy, with only a little sugar, or very sugary.
Outside of the South, you'll often get sweetened iced tea if you ask for "sweet tea". It's fairly uncommon to see the real thing in Northern or Western restaurants. This sometimes leads to confusion, with non-Southerners going to the South and ordering sweet tea and getting something offensively sweet compared to what they're used to, or Southerners ordering it elsewhere and being disappointed with what they're served.
[0] Diner-syle sugar pourer: https://img1.etsystatic.com/040/0/6766475/il_570xN.635748831...
Note: this does not apply to bottled/canned teas, which are usually close to "half and half" in sweetness.
Most restaurants here serve soft drinks from a fountain rather than individual cans/bottles, so refills are free. If a restaurant uses individual containers for service, you will have to pay for refills. However, iced tea has free refills everywhere I've ever seen.
Curiosity got the better of me and I had to look this up. The US is the 35th most tea-drinking nation! And overall, there are slightly more male tea-drinkers than female. At least according to this site:
https://teahow.com/is-tea-popular-in-america-what-tea-they-d...
Also, looking at the age breakdown of US tea drinker perhaps explains the difference in our experiences. 18.5% of people in my age group (50+) drink tea. 46.2% of those in the 25-49 year age group drink tea.
I think you're right. There is a table showing the popularity breakdown of the different types of tea, including herbal, but I think that's the global breakdown, not US.
It didn't provide a stat for it, but the page does remark that the majority of black tea consumed in the US goes to making iced tea.
It sort of feels like a generational flip-flop thing to me between tea and coffee.
Men drink (black or lightly sweetened/dairied) coffee or "energy drinks", women drink espresso-based mostly-milk drinks that don't taste like coffee, or tea (often green or herbal, and also often mixed with a bunch of milk or sugar, unless herbal). Not that there isn't plenty of overlap, but that's how the landscape looks to me, to call out the two big bubbles on this particular Venn diagram.
I call those "milkshakes".
They're easier to find these days but still rare. If you ask for a hot tea at a restaurant, you'll often get a suspicious-looking teabag that has spent at least 6 months in the cupboard (iced is more available). I'm sure you can guess at the quality of most of the teas in an American grocery store; I usually wind up ordering from specialty tea shops instead.
("sun tea" is made by sticking a big glass pitcher or jar outside on a warm sunny day, with water and teabags and maybe some citrus slices in it, and waiting for it to become something resembling tea, which you may drink at its natural somewhat-warm temperature, drink over ice, or refrigerate).
Elsewhere in the thread voltage difference are brought up—that's probably what does it, typical US wall service is far lower-voltage than in Europe. That, and I've definitely had electric ranges in the US that were incredibly slow to boil water, so that might be a factor. Gas, though? At least as fast, depending on the quantity. (I hear induction electric is even faster, but have only used those a very little bit at a couple AirBnBs, so don't really know, first-hand)
The origin story for the boiling water tap is powdered instant soup, which isn't quite instant without instant boiling water... :)
Kind of: 240V is fed into homes (along with a neutral), and gets split in half.
Most receptacles are 120V for most appliances, because it gets the job done. There aren't many appliances that need more than that. The two main ones that do have 220V plugs are clothes dryers and kitchen ranges (hobs/ovens).
If you want a kettle that boils faster change your NEMA 5 socket (and breaker) that does 120V (at 15A or 20A) for a NEMA 6, and get an UK/EU kettle and change the plug.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEMA_connector#Nomenclature
(Not sure how up to code any of the above would be.)
What's not relatable to me is European (I assume?) reports of boiling water in an electric kettle, then transferring to the stovetop. My kettle's not meaningfully faster than the stovetop, and is a lot slower for quantities past a liter or so—it's only worth having for the other features. I assume that's the voltage difference making itself known.
It wouldn't be the same wattage: it would be double the wattage.
The wiring can handle 15 or 20A, and at 120V that's a practical limit of 1800W. You keep the amperage limit (no cabling replacement needed), but 240V would allow 3600W.
As a weird American I have a 1970's electric water boiler I still use that is incredibly fast at boiling water. Passed down to me from my grandparents because I enjoy tea and hate coffee. I really hope it never dies because it works way better than the plastic modern one I had in college.
But on the topic of socks: Hitting my 30's pushed me to finally invest in nice longer lasting socks. Spending $120 over the last few years on bundles of various wool socks until I found ones I like was completely worth it. Although learning to properly care for wool socks was a process. They probably aren't for everyone, but for people that like thick longer songs I love my People Socks. [https://www.peoplesocks.com/]
There can be. Typically fancy athletic socks with more fitted toe areas than normal.
I've tried all kinds of socks.
long journey got me: Darn Tough socks style 1403
https://amazon.com/dp/B000XG34G8
Cushioned, no blisters, no bunching. You get warm, dry feet on hot and cold days. They last a long time.
I’ll leave the kettles alone because that ground has been well trod (hopefully, using the best socks).
However I am concerned that you did all this sock research and somehow did not end up with toe-socks, which of course have left and right socks (unless you are the kind of maniac who would wear a sock inside out, which I gather from your studies that you are not).
Might be one of those regional thing.
You want to check out backpacking gear review sites like Outdoor Gear Lab, Section Hiker, or for the most authoritative data, Backpacking Light ($).
In the mean time, try searching for Darn Tough, Silverlight Socks or Smartwool for boot socks.
The longstanding English manufacturer Bridgedale must have been taken over by MBAs recently because it is being marketed heavily. Their socks may be fine; I don't know.
Then there is Injinji, and other two-layer (inner and outer) and toe-separated sock systems more generally. I like Injinji's sport sock (once I got over the look of my feet in socks with five separate toes). Injinji has a range of socks made from different textiles.
All of these use wool/synthetic blends, with the synthetic usually some form of nylon. Silverlight's nylon is coated with silver for antimicrobial properties (reduced stink). I have just placed an order for a five-pack. (I also spend up to 10.5 hours a day on my feet in boots.)
For non-wool, thinner socks I use Drymax, which are aimed at the running/athletics crowd. I've found them very durable (used them quite a bit for tramping (NZ-ish for bushwalking/hiking) and very easy-care. They are not left-right differentiated though.
For about a decade now, I've worn open sandals pretty much everywhere and for almost every occasion. The few times I've had to wear socks (because, dress shoes), I've found some pairs handy in my closet.
Cloud slippers are heavenly.
Whether that is a steel toe sandal or a shoe with big holes is left to the reader.
I need to really clean my shows as it was very muddy and I was not expecting to go that way so not wering my fully waterproff hiking boots.
Yes sandals are easier to clean but won't fell as comforatble
But then discovered the fun of electric skateboarding.
This necessitated wearing skate shoes and socks.. which I bought in bulk, no complaints there.
(define-solver yak-solver ()
(wax-car (car-needs-waxing have-hose)
(car-waxed)
(car-needs-waxing))
(get-new-hose (have-ez-pass)
(have-hose))
(borrow-ez-pass (return-mooshi-pillow)
(have-ez-pass))
(fix-mooshi-pillow (have-yak)
(return-mooshi-pillow))
(visit-zoo ()
(have-yak)))
(multiple-value-bind (ok? actions)
(yak-solver '(car-needs-waxing) '(car-waxed))
(assert ok?)
(assert (equal actions
'(VISIT-ZOO
FIX-MOOSHI-PILLOW
BORROW-EZ-PASS
GET-NEW-HOSE
WAX-CAR)))))1. For each type of sock you need, find only one you like best, perhaps on Amazon or at Costco
2. Get a container for each kind - I have the soft shell travel zipup kind.
3. Buy en masse and stuff each container.
4. Don’t let anyone in your house discover your sock nirvana
You never have to match pairs again
Buy these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B09SP4GGWJ?psc=1
End of list.
* you only need to pull 3 socks to have at least 2 of them match
* they are black anyway, not like someone will notice. And if they do, tell them to keep their feet fetish in check
P.S. You aren't, by chance, homeless, are you?
You get one box per type.
Then you stuff the 50 identical socks into the same box. Replenish when at 50% capacity.
It's a pretty interesting technique. You basically reweave the worn part of the dock with fresh thread/yarn.
I don't like shopping, not even amazon.
I feel a little guilty about how much I consume so try to conserve when easy.
I seem to be the only one here who has a preventative solution instead of treating the symptoms.
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.
Do you end up as someone pairing socks again or do you throw away half of your socks?
Just make sure to clean them first. :)
I only buy socks in colors or patterns I do not own. Super simple.
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.
I don't know. I've been doing this for 30 years or so, but haven't had that problem yet.
I played ball in college. They'd give us a new set of socks before every game. It was such a nice small luxury. I have that again. A gross of socks doesn't take up that much space (1' cube) in storage. If you have the space I recommend it and just chuck or goodwill all of your non-compliant socks.
In Switzerland there is a sock subscription service: https://www.blacksocks.com/
"Blacksocks knows the age of all socks" https://www.blacksocks.com/en/ageofthesocksen
It's funny, long time ago, back in my bachelor days I definitely didn't have enough socks, and wouldn't take time after work to go get some. So I would go sockless on the way to work in the morning, buy some from Target to wear for the day. Then do that each day until the weekend when I would wash my clothes. Then that eventually got me enough socks to get through the week.
40% merino, looks awesome, feels awesome, and not so much of the Precious Bodily Fluid pooling in lower extremities.
I will also +1 the Darn Tough socks. There is an appreciable difference between $6 and $26 for a pair in terms of moisture performance and comfort.
Washing them in a garment bag makes it easier to re-sort.
When I buy the next seasons socks I give the old ones to charity. I buy 14 pairs at a time.
No pairing problem, and I always have socks.
1 https://socksnob.co.uk/product/6-pairs-mens-thin-soft-100-co...
Now everyone in the family wares unmatched socks… the little one changed our family :D I am wondering whether the kids will start pairing socks when he and his older sister grow up to teenagers and start paying attention to their appearances.
> Own 30 pairs of same color socks and 30 pairs of the same colored underwear so that socks always match, and do your laundry every month.
Not that I follow it to a T, but I think there's something about standardizing everyday items to reduce the mental load. Similar to tupperware: only own two container sizes so everything nests nicely and you're never left searching for the odd lid.
Now, in latter years I've found some socks that are properly designed, with the seam not at the toe tips but rather on the top of the socks.
I own maybe 8 pairs of their thick padded crew socks in black, which are versatile and great. e.g. for boots.
Their padded ankle socks are great for sneakers + sport.
And then I collect non-Thorlo beautiful colorful socks for dress shoes.
There hasn't been much handwringing in my life about socks since I adopted this approach.
I don’t want to buy a new set because I refuse to believe 5 pairs of socks vanished into thin air…
Its probably been about a week since I washed my socks. I have mainly been putting on the same (usually dirty) pair for the last three months. Often dirty for three weeks or more. But only for a little while usually because then my feet get too warm. So they don't get particularly dirty.
My foot was itching quite a lot yesterday though, so this may not be ideal.
Buy colourful, distinctively patterned socks like [1] and pairing them up is trivial.
[1] https://www.johnlewis.com/happy-socks-classic-pattern-print-...
With my brain, it's closer to O(n!).
(This is the worst, nerdiest collection of sentences I've written in my life.)
I stopped losing socks as I began buying them in bright colors so pairs where trivial to spot in all the sock journey during laundry.
Probably not efficient, but can be therapeutic.
I was hoping HN knew the holy grail of high quality, ambidextrous, single color socks
I've yet to discard any of them, though one of the pairs from that first year is juuuuust about shot and probably needs to go.
My only other socks are a pack of cheap white athletic socks (only worn for... doing athletic things, not counting stuff like hiking) and a pair or two of very thin non-wool black dress socks that I almost never wear.
A warning: I'd avoid buying them on Amazon, I got one pair on there that I'm pretty sure were counterfeit (felt much cheaper, developed holes after just a couple wears, fit was way different from all my others) so I only buy straight from DT now.
Anyone else?