Decluttering Cables - DTNS Weekend

Roger Chang (0:17)

Welcome to DTNS Weekend Edition, the show where we deep dive into technology and tech events shaping the world around you.

I'm Roger Chang, your host for today, and today we're wrestling with one of the most important topics you can possibly deal with as a tech person who owns their own home, or actually even if you don't own your own home, cables. You know that closet bag or plastic tub full of them? I actually just have Ziploc bags full of them, but you know what I mean.

Patrick Norton (0:44)

Particulously organized and labeled.

Roger Chang (0:47)

Exact. You know what? I should do that, which reminds me, I didn't even talk to me about it. But joining me now in that voice off camera is none other than fellow old guy and cable collector, Patrick Norton.

Patrick Norton (0:59)

I'm delighted that I have upgraded from cable hoarder to cable collector, or at least keeper of highly functional cables.

Roger Chang (1:11)

It's a weird thing, but before we get too far into it, I want to give a shout out for everyone who's been supporting the show, supporting DTNS, because without your support, shows like this wouldn't be possible. Supporters like David Smith, Horace, Sean Whittier, and Sabrina Hackney. You're actually a part-time therapist, at least for me.

Why do we hoard cables? I have this little cable that's just a three and a half inch millimeter to a three and a half inch millimeter, just sitting around.

Patrick Norton (1:38)

Well, first of all, it's not three and a half inches, it's 3.5 millimeter, 3.5 millimeter or one-eighth of an inch. And because invariably, right? The way, if you're a certain type of geek, and I think of like, you know, my old boss, your old boss, you know, who was an incredible influence, it's Jim Latterback, who, like, at one point, we had some weird thing in the lab, and I couldn't find a cable for it. And Jim's like, oh, I got one, and opens up this desk drawer in his office, reaches in with both hands, you know, like fingers spread like big salad tongs, and pulls up this giant snake ball of like, literally like 18 inches across, like two feet long, and drops this ballast of cables onto the desk. And we start sorting through it, and invariably we found whatever bizarre cable we needed.

And I got to, you know, went back to the lab finishing review. But, you know, there's this sort of be prepared mindset.

You know, it's thrifty, you know, you've never, anybody who's ever not been able to finish something or not get a job done or not, you know, anybody who's been through Christmas morning and not had a USB cable with the right end on it to charge a new toy is like, I will never, you know, I will never be cable-less again, right? And it's, I laugh because one, there used to be on some levels, it feels like there used to be a lot fewer cables, but we'll get into why that's not true later on in the podcast. But, but essentially, you know, it's like literally because you might need it some day, because, because you, you know, you have, so you have a replacement. I literally in my backpack, I have, you know, basically what amounts to a laptop charger, a laptop charger with multiple USB ports, and I have at all times a minimum of two USB to lightning cables. Because, you know, if you, if you use cables enough, especially USB cables, they start to break down over time no matter how good they are. And there's nothing worse than, you know, running out of power when you need to do something on your phone and you're 800 miles from home. You know, and nobody's seen a pay phone in a decade, right? Or again, Christmas morning, like somebody's missing a cable, but you can charge their whatever it is because you've got that cable stored away in the garage.

Roger Chang (4:06)

So let me ask you this, because I have only come across this in my own life. And granted, it isn't a very lengthy one at this point, hopefully longer, that have you come across like, man, I am really glad I kept on, I held this cable because it is proving to be invaluable at this point in time in my life.

Patrick Norton (4:28)

There was a point a few years ago where I, there's a point about, gosh, probably before I left California when I was like, okay, I am never going to use a SCSI cable again. And if I do for some reason find a hard drive with SCSI connections on it, I will get SCSI cables and terminators, and I will figure out where to buy them, whether it's on Craigslist or eBay or Facebook Marketplace. But whatever it was, I was just like, there was a bunch of cables like, I didn't have any FireWire drives left. I didn't have any SCSI drives left. I didn't have any SCSI devices left.