On Rotating The Dishes | Hacker News Reader

On Rotating The Dishes

greg.org

14 pointsblasdel15 comments

The guy who wrote this must have forgotten what it's like to be single...

As a "convicted bachelor," I can tell you that I don't just use one dish at the top of the stack. I go through the stack over the course of a week, and put a week's worth (or more) of dishes in the wash bin or dishwasher (depending on current apartment amenities) all at once. In other words, I treat the existence of a stack of dishes in the cupboard as an excuse to put off doing dishes in the first place...

Or to put it back on HN terms, I don't perform garbage collection until memory's full...

Same. But when I don't use all the plates, I put them on the top. Who cares if my $1 IKEA plate set doesn't wear evenly?

> I don't just use one dish at the top of the stack

I'm a bachelor as well; you should re-consider how big your stack is in the first place. Why do you have more than 2 of anything?

Hope springs eternal.

Exactly, I lived in a house full of bachelors for 6 years (4 of us), and we had exactly the opposite problem: there were tons of cups/plates/bowls/pans (everybody brought their own to the house), but none of them were ever clean and in the cabinets. This problem is almost unsolvable in such a house, but the real annoyance is that there's so many dishes in the sink at all times.

At some point I solved this problem by removing all but 4 of each item, and locking them up. That way you at least limit the dirty pile and force people to clean the dishes semi-frequently. If you're having 7 people over for dinner (never happened), just ask me for the key :)

My plan is as follows:

1. Get two dishwashers

2. Put all the "clean" dishes in one dishwasher

3. As the dishes are used, put them in the other dishwasher

4. Once they're all dirty, run the dishwasher

5. Repeat from step 3.

This system has the following advantages:

* Even rotation of dishes (and dishwashers!)

* Cupboards available for other storage--all dishes in a dishwasher

* No time spent putting away and getting out dishes

Surprisingly, my girlfriend approves.

I am currently practicing this algorithm with dirty+clean hampers for my clothes (I travel a lot). I've saved myself the aggregate time of moving my clothes from closets to boxes and back once a month.

There's a dishwasher from Fisher/Paykel that has two dishwasher drawers in a normal-sized dishwasher container.

http://www.fisherpaykel.com/product/dishwashing/dishwashing/...

I've heard they leak a bit, though.

Great idea! Also, mount the dishwashers a few feet above the floor to avoid all that leaning over.

My algorithm:

1. 4-6 dishes are kept on the shelf (household size: 2)

2. When we eat, I pull the top 2 dishes from the shelf

3. Dishes get washed and put in drying rack

4. Next time we eat, we pull from the shelf.

5. In order to wash the dishes, we have to remove the dishes from the rack (our drying rack is pretty small). Sometimes we can fit two or three cycles on the rack, it doesn't make that much difference. When pulling the dishes off the drying rack back to the shelf, a random picking order is used.

6. Sometimes the dishes get left in the sink for a few cycles until they get washed

7. We have parties once every few months where all the plates come out, and go to the rack, then get randomly picked and split to the shelf and cabinet.

After a few cycles the wear should be evenly distributed.

---

* shelf => L1 cache

* table => cpu

* sink => L2 cache

* rack => write buffer

* cabinet => non-volatile storage

(or something like that.)

I employ my drying rack as a cache of frequently-used dishes and utensils. Items are usually retrieved using a LIFO scheme (easier to get items near top). Only occassionally is there a cache-miss requiring a cabinet lookup and retrieval. Every once in a while I have to empty the cache completely for guests but the cache is refilled after the exception condition.

At the bottom of the article, there is a link to a well-written essay by Roger Ebert on losing his ability to eat and drink.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/01/nil_by_mouth.html

I have the more generic version of this neuroticism. I see things in real life that use one data structure, and should be using another. This is clearly an example of using a stack, when he should be using a queue!

A queue is more expensive because you either need more shelf resources or you need to do more work.

My parents have this solved. They always put the dishes back on the bottom of the stack. It takes a bit of juggling but it ensures completely even wear.

But then, I grew up in a large household and it wasn't uncommon to go through nearly the whole stack in a day.

You could circumvent this problem entirely by not owning too many dishes in the first place. Some problems don't need to be solved.

If you randomly shuffle them every few months, that should do it. Each dish will get roughly equal time as the "frequent use" dish.

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