Updated to compare the put clean dishes on bottom option!

I put dishes away a lot – every day, it seems. From time to time I wonder – should I put the clean dishes on the bottom, in order to make sure I use them evenly? Or does it really matter – I do use all of them from time to time, so maybe that mixes them up enough?

Since my math is far too poor to do this analytically, I built a simulation. And since my primary “language” appears to be web pages, I built it in javascript on a web page.

It appears from running a few variations of the parameters that you can end up with some relatively unused plates even after several years worth of wash cycles, especially if you model the dish usage on a normal distribution. Uniform distributions recycle things pretty efficiently after 100 days or so. As one would suspect, putting the clean ones on the bottom gives you almost perfect uniformity!

THIS summer the unvarying male uniform in the precincts of Brooklyn cool has been a pair of shorts cut at knickers length, a V-neck Hanes T-shirt, a pair of generic slip-on sneakers and a straw fedora. Add a leather cuff bracelet if the coolster is gay.

In truth this get-up was pretty much the unvarying male uniform last summer also, but this year an unexpected element has been added to the look, and that is a burgeoning potbelly one might term the Ralph Kramden.

And this “trend” – in men’s fashion, no less – no wait, men’s casual fashion – no wait, men’s casual fashion with freakin’ potbellies! – somehow warranted 750 words.

via Noticed – It’s Hip to Be Round – NYTimes.com.

Slate’s callout: The Bogus Trend Stories of Summer

And for those looking for a more typical Times kind of lifestyle story, they’ll have to settle for the Post, which explores the recessionary suffering of Westchester in a 5-page (OK, that’s Post online pages) article “Squeaking By on 300,000“  Can’t say I could drag myself to the end.

Yet the proposed “looks” — a young man in seersucker shorts, a young woman in a blue blazer over a low-cut blouse and short madras skirt — appeared better suited for a nearby yacht club. After Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions at Kenyon College, was shown photos of those outfits, she rendered her review.

“I burst out laughing,” she said.

via Before College, Costly Advice Just on Getting In – NYTimes.com.

On average, people were able to withstand the pain for significantly longer if they cursed than if they did not. Swearing also increased heart rate and decreased subjective reports of pain.

And before anyone criticizes me for Tierney’s politics, he’s not the author of this post.

via Cursing and Pain Relief – TierneyLab Blog – NYTimes.com.

So there you have it. Southerners have little access to healthy food and limited means with which to purchase it. It’s hard for them to exercise outdoors, and even when they do have the opportunity, it’s so hot, they don’t want to.

The image is kind of alluring, too, at least in the foreground:

via Why Are Southerners So Fat? – TIME.

Most Managers are Logical Sloths, says New Rotman Research

Strategic managers, lacking training in how to build their own situational models and reasoning strategies as opposed to “implementing” blueprints and recipes, tend to choose easy problems to make sense of their predicaments and use sub-optimally simplistic methods of framing complex problems, shows new research from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.

via The Public Interest Newswire.

I think this sells most managers (including yours truly) short. We are sloths in many respects, not limited to our logical optimization. Not only do we see complexity and recourse to blueprints and recipes – we see hard work and call in sick, we avoid conflict, defer difficult decisions, punish the innocent and promote the undeserving, marshall evidence to support whatever we’ve already concluded, extrapolate from insufficient evidence, and miscommunicate efficiently so as to confuse everyone who takes part in a project.

I’m just getting started!

into something thoroughly respectable, ideally in a melange of shiny stainless steel and earth tones? Well, here’s a hint:

Respectable Sliders?

Time Wastes Too Fast – And the Pursuit of Happiness Blog – NYTimes.com.

With recovery elusive, a population doddering into old age and perhaps a decade of deflation in prospect, Japan may start mulling the most radical monetary policy of all — the abolition of cash.

To fight deflation, abolish cash. Could Japan make reality of ‘science fiction’? – Times Online.

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