Sequential versus random access
It’s inevitable that clothes get dirty with time. It’s inevitable that you have to change out of your dirty clothes and into clean clothes. It is inevitable that the dirty clothes will need to be washed. I can accept these three principles as laws of nature without needing all the math. Unfortunately, it’s also inevitable that, when all is said and done, the clothes will come back to me. Why is that so bad? It has to do with storage. At the foot of my bed, and about a foot away from my door, there’s a fancy wooden dresser that keeps my clothes and other items. It has six drawers. The two on the top row house an odd collection of bits and bobs, such as pictures, letters, lethal weapons, a hard drive or two, and a deck of cards. Below that is the underwear and sock drawer, which, coincidentally, also has a Shirasaya Wakizashi. Below that is a drawer full of books that I don’t read. Below that, my shirts. Below that, my pants.
Now, I really hate putting my clothes away. I hate getting them out too. Why? What’s so bad about my setup? Well, sequential access doesn’t facilitate my workflow. It’s very inefficient that I have to stack my clothes sequentially when I don’t have any fixed outfits. This would be easier if I could stack them in such a way that I would always be able to take the top item from my shirts and pants drawer, but I like to mix things up.
I have concluded that random access clothing storage (RACS for short, or “closet space” if you want to sound boring) is definitely the way to go. My RACS capacity is unfortunately very limited, so I will have to continue using sequential access clothing storage. I am currently looking for funding and sponsorship for large-scale usability tests to come up with new innovations in RACS. MIT has shown interest. If you want to sponsor me or send me money, please contact me via comments and I will surely get back to you.
Tags: thoughts