On top of this, if a robot is doing the work it doesn't have to be the most efficient. Do it in stages... sort by weight or rough shape. Then a second pass does the "is this a shirt or pants" computation. Then sort those piles. Finally come back to "pairing socks". Or don't. It's already saved me a bunch of effort! Let someone else figure out what to do with a pre-sorted pile and I'll just add the firmware or another stage robot. It feels very "hacker ethic" to me!