I've got a trick for eating nettles which involves handling the top of the leaf and carefully folding the spiny underside away, but that takes about 30s per leaf. Don't think I'd come anywhere close to placing with that strategy... no pain, no gain, I guess
If the storage process involves "putting in a dryer" I consider the cable trashed. Put the cable away properly and save yourself some time installing. Faced with a rats nest of cable I will purchase a reel of fresh wire and add my own ends.
I have spent way too much time in my youth untangling cable but haven't we all made mistakes when we were in our 20's? Eventually everyone needs to grow up, take the pills they gave you at the clinic, and recognize your time is valuable.
And yet, I find something satisfying about untangling knots. Also darning socks, repairing cheap electronics, and other "not worth my time" activities. Perhaps it is a character flaw (:
Optimizing for efficiency and optimizing for happiness can be quite at odds, and the people at the clinic sometimes miss that, I find.
You may be confused. The dryer is used to tangle the cable. The competition is about untangling it. I doubt anyone is using these cables for their intended purpose afterwards.
> A wire is considered separate when it is in contact with no other wires. Each contestant must separate each wire, and demonstrate its separation by holding the wire above their head.
The “roadie wrap” technique works on Christmas lights - you can’t do a satisfying throw and have the cable unfurl perfectly like you can with a roadie wrapped power cord but xmas light strings are usually too long to throw out to unfurl anyway plus the lights catch on the wires so throwing is out but putting the loop on the floor and having it perfectly unwrap as you pull the end never gets old :-)
More seriously, why the high heat requirement during tangling? Does that make the cables get more supple or so? Can't even imagine that 3 minutes gets it up to temperature though, kinda seems like a waste. I wonder if it's a joke in the article that I'm just taking seriously.
I don't think it's fair since both cables aren't tangled in the same way. There needs to be a DSL or something for describing cable turns and moves so that one could reproducibly recreate the runs used for the competitions :)
Half of the original describes an exact process for tangling the cables ("bundling") so that they would be tangled in a fair way for every participant.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 71.9 ms ] threadI have spent way too much time in my youth untangling cable but haven't we all made mistakes when we were in our 20's? Eventually everyone needs to grow up, take the pills they gave you at the clinic, and recognize your time is valuable.
Optimizing for efficiency and optimizing for happiness can be quite at odds, and the people at the clinic sometimes miss that, I find.
I enjoy the times when I can avoid participating in throw-away society.
> A wire is considered separate when it is in contact with no other wires. Each contestant must separate each wire, and demonstrate its separation by holding the wire above their head.
They did a bunch of playful and intellectually-interesting science + art crossovers over the years.
One that people here may remember is the hyperbolic-geometry knitting associated with Margaret Wertheim (https://twitter.com/margaretwerth).