Ultimate Screw-ups
Telecom's messiest wiring?
Sylvie Barak
12/10/2012 5:31 PM EST
Getting your wires crossed. It’s something that can happen all the time. Especially in engineering. But sometimes it’s very hard to see the method in the madness, like in the case of the following picture of some rather confusing telephone wiring in Beirut, Lebanon.
The image was posted on popular social site Reddit, and has garnered quite a trail of comments.
“That resembles a neural network instead of a junction box,” commented one Redditer. “You don't fix it, you negotiate with it.”
"Yes, we have about four lines down. Could you go out there and fix it up?” added another, adding "Worst day to be a cable engineer with a switch box like this.”
No joke.
Of course, messy cabling doesn’t just happen over in Beirut. Another Redditer pointed to the following YouTube video showing some rather sloppy home grown cabling, purportedly from Verizon Wireless.
Got any pictures of some tangled tech you want to send us? I feel a little competition coming on! Messiest desks part two.
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The image was posted on popular social site Reddit, and has garnered quite a trail of comments.
“That resembles a neural network instead of a junction box,” commented one Redditer. “You don't fix it, you negotiate with it.”
"Yes, we have about four lines down. Could you go out there and fix it up?” added another, adding "Worst day to be a cable engineer with a switch box like this.”
No joke.
Of course, messy cabling doesn’t just happen over in Beirut. Another Redditer pointed to the following YouTube video showing some rather sloppy home grown cabling, purportedly from Verizon Wireless.
Got any pictures of some tangled tech you want to send us? I feel a little competition coming on! Messiest desks part two.
Related Stories:
Photo gallery: Engineering's messiest desks
Life Is Messy
Are you a genius? (Well, how messy is your desk?)
Can an engineer keep a clean desk?
Dealing with wires in a wireless world
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iniewski
12/10/2012 6:38 PM EST
As long as it works who cares how it looks ;-)
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SylvieBarak
12/10/2012 6:56 PM EST
As Steve Jobs has taught the world.... it's all about good design!
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resistion
12/10/2012 10:46 PM EST
..or at least marketing.
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Kevin N
12/11/2012 12:59 AM EST
The Cray-1, while a nice machine, had some pretty messy-looking wiring.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3608/3598449023_6001e8787d.jpg
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adkozin
12/13/2012 12:01 PM EST
The wiring in the Cray was routed as short and direct as possible in order to improve speed and reduce crosstalk. It doesn't look neat, but it's the way it had to be in order to work.
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David Ashton
12/11/2012 7:39 PM EST
In a couple of decades in a previous life swanning around various countries in Africa, I saw plenty of things like this. I did take some pics but whether I can find any I don't know.....doubtful....
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Guru of Grounding
12/12/2012 4:22 PM EST
IMHO, it's far worse when system documentation takes this "layered patchwork" form ... or doesn't exist at all!
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DP23
12/12/2012 5:24 PM EST
"But sometimes it’s very hard to see the method in the madness"
So what is the method here? If there is one, I'm not seeing it :-)
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WKetel
12/15/2012 3:45 PM EST
There was a photo published a few years back that showed a similar mess of wires in a city in India, with the caption: "And this is the country where we call for tech support?" What we have is a lack of organization, which is not the same as a lack of neatness. Some of the very most disorganized messes that I have ever come across were quite neat, but there had clearly never been any consideration about being organized. And, No, there was no method in the madness.
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