Microblog Memes

This has happened to me, which is why I now have an entire section of a cupboard dedicated to parts and cables. I'm not entirely sure an ISA card would ever be needed today, but you never know!!!

Label and bind cables, throw them into a big plastic bin with lid, label the lid with contents. Repeat as necessary.

Work at retirement home doing tech. My drawer has grown to a closet of old cords.

It pays off weekly. Too many people with too many different generations of tech. Never know what you'll run into.

Amateur radio checking-in: the cables and adapters are just the beginning. There is no "box"—it's simply "storage"

My spouse the other night: "Where is the camera?"

Me: "In your phone?".

Apparently we have a digital camera, which I'm sure we have no way to connect to our current computers, and he is convinced someone stole it even though it's from like 2004.

I could probably get rid of some of the cables in my cable box, but that damn thing came with my on my sudden cross country move and was almost immediately useful so no one will ever convince me to throw it all away.

I threw away my weird cables when I moved two years ago. How fucked is future me?

It’s settled then. The VGA cable stays.

Have none of you learned the law!!?? The act of throwing the cable away is what created the need for that cable. The cable gods MUST be appeased. (Also applies to adapters and random hardware.)

Trim it down to one of each cable. You don't need a half-dozen patch cables. That weird wall-wart with the proprietary DIN plug for the laptop you no longer have, or the voltage- and milliamp-specific application you'll never need. The 4 SATA cables...etc.

Pare it down in order of likely need. You might need a couple USB cables and maybe a couple SATA cables, but you don't need 3 34-pin floppy drive ribbon cables.

Yes. The correct approach is to get rid of all the cables that are not needed, and to keep the few cables that might come in handy. Throwing away a collection in bulk is risky.

It'll be a cold day in hell before I give up my cable box.

I'll need this LPT cable eventually, then you'll see. You'll all see.

I took the middle road: use cable zip ties to bundle them and put all in a bag. Since finding a cable is infrequent, you don't need to optimize for that case.

The cable knot must grow.

It's true. That box has the utility of the highest utility cable in it. Which means it's a lot. Worth taking up space under a bed you aren't using. Anti-horder culture goes too far. It's more complicated than dogmatically throwing away everything or keeping everything. Don't throw away things with real utility. Civilization is built on accumulated utility in durable goods.

My box of cables shall be passed down through the generations!

A few months ago I FINALLY organized my cluttered box of miscellaneous technology and cables into one of those plastic bin drawers with wheels. I now know what I have and can keep it all fairly organized. Found some stuff I could've thrown out, but this post just told me not to. So thanks!