pkelly

i spoke with an electrician in a pub recently. he told me of a time when he'd been called out to fix a computer network problem. somebody had cut a big bunch of cat5e cables in the roof.

he told me here was there for the rest of the day in the roof joining the cables...with scotch locks.

a few weeks back i was in a different pub that was having problems with their ADSL dropping out. it turned out to be a problem with the setup of the ADSL router, some drip had specified the tennant's static IP address in the DNS server field - among other things.

anyway, we checked out the cabling first. i wasn't sure what was going on - i arrived late to find my boss with his head up in the roof. he got down and told me to take a look, so i hopped up and saw a sea of cables strewn over the plaster ceiling. then i saw a 27 way krone frame lying on top of this mess. after taking the scene in, i turned around and noticed the panasonic phone system propped up in some cables as well.

we didn't have the heart to tell them that there were bigger problems than their ADSL being a bit dicky.

Hi-Tech

OP pic looks like spaghetti, literally...

thanx for the laugh - needed it, those city pics are hilarious, I see a cable gun is a must in that town.... cables must be shot across from building to building.

papa-bear

This should fix that mess up:

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Close to the wire - the joys of speedcabling


Close to the wire - the joys of speedcabling

A new "sport" based around unravelling the mass of wires that can typically be found beneath computer desks the world over is taking off in the western US.


The first "speedcabling" competition took place in an art gallery in Los Angeles and was won by LA-based web developer Matthew Howell.
The challenge was devised by IT professional Steven Schkolne. Contestants are faced with a tangled mass of six ethernet cables of various lengths. Their task is simply to separate them in the fastest time.
To get them to replicate the conditions of the wires found snaking and choking their way around hard drive units, monitors and printers in offices worldwide, Schkolne first started by tangling them in a figure eight. Then he threw the bundles in a clothes dryer - no longer attached to any computer unit, naturally.

"I did a bunch of experiments and found that putting them in a dryer for three minutes works pretty well, it allows them to tangle naturally," he told BBC World Service's Digital Planet programme.

"After that, they're pretty much how they appear in nature."

Victory posture
Two years ago, Mr Schkolne began to wonder if others shared both his skill and his passion for detangling cables.

Asking around among friends and colleagues in Los Angeles, he found there was interest in a race to prove who was the king of the cables.
"You separate the cable, and then you have to hold the full cable above your head," he said, outlining the sport's finer points
"And this allows the judge to see it's been clearly separated. It also allows the winner to form a kind of victory posture - raising their arms above their head when they're done."


Crucially, the cables also have to be able to carry a network signal after detangling.

"The finals were brutal - 12 ethernet cords, some as long as 25 feet, all knotted into a nasty bundle," said eventual winner Mr Howell.

Explaining his detangling technique, he said: "Each cable is its own rabbit hole.

"So before going down one of those cable paths, up and around, weaving in and out, you have to pull it apart.

"You have to pull the pieces out, and really call on the element of air."
And to get that "air," Howell drew on some previous work experience - kneading pizza dough.

"You kind of pull it, let it go, then you let it kind of spin in between your hands - and you don't really hold onto it for too long," he said.

"Keep spinning and pulling, and it's really just kind of a 3D version of that pizza dough thing above your head, and then you see these little pieces flip out, and you pull them out."
Howell dubs his technique "fierce data cloud." His prize for winning was a $50 gift certificate for dinner at a local Italian restaurant.

MSYoung

They can have this contest at my house next because I have one of those nests behind the three computers at home.

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JulianW

Mine are all quite neat, the problem I don't have is network cabling the main type I do have problems with are power cords, I've still to figure out how two computers need so many power cords and sockets when there's only one monitor between them.

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gei_spot

You would be suprised. I run 2 monitors, cbl modem, color printer, and a 4-in-1 (fax,copier,printer scanner) wired keyboard and mouse plus a 5.1 srs. I think for my b-day I'm gonna invest in a cbl tray and wireless keyboard, mouse and camera. I feel an upgrade coming along

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JulianW

Just found this pic of the BBC's cables at Wimbledon (The big tennis tournament over here)

Attached Images

bbccables.jpg (14.0 KB, 14 views)

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"Artificial Intelligence usually beats natural stupidity."

gei_spot

Uhhh... Hows that work
At least they're color coordinated

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