• Kiss me, I'm Polish (unregistered)

    What do you mean orange wire? They're all orange wires!

  • Kiss me, I'm Polish (unregistered) in reply to Kiss me, I'm Polish
    Kiss me:
    What do you mean orange wire? They're all orange wires!
    Actually, it should be What do you mean cut the orange wire? They're all orange wires! Brian did Hollywood on that one.
  • Dye (unregistered)

    We don't need no stinkin orange wires!?

  • Tyler A (unregistered)

    Maybe they're trying to be more friendly toward the color-blind crowd? It would still make more sense to indicate what the cable plugs into, rather than the color though.

  • Volpone (unregistered)

    Hey, don't laugh. Ed Harris could have used that when we was disarming the nuke in "The Abyss"...

  • Sid2K7 (unregistered) in reply to Tyler A

    Tyler, I am pretty sure that is it.

    Mainly, because I have seen Cat5 cables labled "red", "blue" and "green" (only colors we have) before, and I have been told that this was why they are labeled that way.

    Captcha: PAINT (brillant!)

  • Sgt. Preston (unregistered) in reply to Tyler A

    I had a colleague in the Paleolithic past who was a hardware installer. Every installation involved assembling a lot of cables with DB-25 heads and making sure the right wire went to the right pin in every case. Eventually it came to light that he was colour blind.

  • Eric Meyer (unregistered)

    I guess that makes Patrick a prisoner of the labeling scheme.

    (Ah ha ha.)

  • eh? (unregistered)

    WTF??? at this being on WTF...

    In other news, I was in the bathroom today and noticed one of the stalls was HUGE.... apparently it's for handicapped people - why do they need so much room????? WTF????

  • Alien426 (unregistered)

    Both in Sluggy Freelance and Stargate SG-1 there is a storyline where characters (Jack O'Neil and Riff) are told to cut one red wire and instead both find 5 yellow ones. They both have about 3 minutes left to do that.

    Sluggy Freelance did it first.

  • mmahler (unregistered)

    Actually.... There is a very good reason for this. Orange and Yellow, are two colors that are very difficult to differentiate for color blind people. Now I'm assuming that most of the commenters on this haven't worked with fiber cable much. Orange is usually used for multi mode. Yellow is usually used for single mode.

    Who here can tell me what happens if you wire a multi mode transceiver to a single mode transceiver? I'll give you a hint, the magic smoke escapes and and you need to replace the transceivers at both ends. Fiber optic cables are sometimes labeled as orange cable or yellow cable even if the actual color of the cable is gray or black. This isn't a WTF?!?

  • Eric (unregistered)

    I am not a number, I am an orange cable!!!

  • fcardenas (unregistered) in reply to Sid2K7

    Manufacturer must to include the pantone code, too.

  • (cs)

    Three of my coworkers are colorblind to some extent, and can't tell the difference between a green and orange cable. When I was hired, I was the first to notice that there was a failed disk in a RAID array because the only notification was that one of the disks' lights was orange instead of green. (I think the hardware was beeping too, but it was too quiet to hear on underneath the overhead chiller fans.)

  • anonymous coward (unregistered)

    if they had at least used proper german.....

  • (cs)

    Cables for use by the colour-blind?

  • Bob (unregistered) in reply to eh?
    eh?:
    WTF??? at this being on WTF...

    In other news, I was in the bathroom today and noticed one of the stalls was HUGE.... apparently it's for handicapped people - why do they need so much room????? WTF????

    When they fall out of their wheelchair in the stall they need plenty of floor to flail about on in order to attract help. Thank goodness for that need for flailing room, otherwise they couldn't get their chair in the stall to begin with.

  • (cs) in reply to mmahler

    Orange is usually used for multi mode. Yellow is usually used for single mode.

    Then the labels should read "multi mode" and "single mode". Not "orange cable" and "yellow cable".

    I suspect the label isn't a legit WTF, but rather some disgruntled sysadmin taking the piss in response to a PHB's request to make sure everything's thoroughly labelled...

  • Tunfisch (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that Orangenes Kabel is wrong in German... that adjective is not declined!

    Don't have time now to check the Korean...

  • Shinobu (unregistered) in reply to anonymous coward
    anonymous coward:
    if they had at least used proper german.....
    For those of you who don't speak German, and don't know what he's talking about, the word "orange" should officially not be inflected (or compared) in German. This is because it's not a basic colour, but a colour adjective based on some substance or object. So "rosa", "lila", "orange", "bleu", "creme", "chamois", "oliv", "ocker", "pensee", "reseda", "cognac", "türkis" and so on are not inflected. However, because these words, although not "real" adjectives, are used as adjectives, not inflecting them sounds wrong to a lot of Germans. And this is why in casual speech these words are very often inflected. For orange there are to inflections in use. One goes "oranger", "orangen" and so on, while the other goes "orangener", "orangenen" and so on.
  • Someone (unregistered)

    I'm not sure, but I think the japanese is wrong as well. As far as I know, they always put the adjectives / other attributes in front of whatever term they apply to, not after it.

  • clicali (unregistered)

    Shouldn't each letter of those tags have "Letter" stamped on it? Just to make sure?

  • Pat (unregistered)

    That's just begging to have "O RLY?" slapped on it.

  • Pat (unregistered)

    That's just begging to have "O RLY?" slapped on it.

  • (cs)

    Argh! You're all missing the point. It's not labelled with the colour. It's labelled with the flavour!

    hth :-)

  • Stef (unregistered) in reply to Kiss me, I'm Polish

    That's what is all about... Duh!

  • T$ (unregistered)

    Comment.

    There, I said it.

  • Alcari (unregistered) in reply to mmahler
    mmahler:
    Fiber optic cables are sometimes labeled as orange cable or yellow cable even if the actual color of the cable is gray or black. This isn't a WTF?!?
    Actually, that's pretty WTF...

    Why not stamp the cable with A,B,C??

    Then again, I've seen bundles of cables labelled 1,2,3,4 on one side and ABC on the other, with no appearent connection between the two.

    And I agree, It's labeled by flavo(u)r CAPTHA: Tastey

  • superpower (unregistered) in reply to werdan
    werdan:
    Argh! You're all missing the point. It's not labelled with the colour. It's labelled with the flavour!

    hth :-)

    Orange flavoured cable mmmmmm..... yummy

  • (cs) in reply to superpower
    superpower:
    werdan:
    Argh! You're all missing the point. It's not labelled with the colour. It's labelled with the flavour!

    hth :-)

    Orange flavoured cable mmmmmm..... yummy

    bites shocked

    It tastes like... burning...

  • anonymi (unregistered)

    I don't know the cable industry, but. The same colour can be blue for a native portugal, and green for an american. It is an enormous work to find many colours, that are are perceived the same way in the world. Instead they have put a label, so what?

  • xevious (unregistered) in reply to Shinobu
    Shinobu:
    anonymous coward:
    if they had at least used proper german.....
    For those of you who don't speak German, and don't know what he's talking about, the word "orange" should officially not be inflected (or compared) in German. This is because it's not a basic colour, but a colour adjective based on some substance or object. So "rosa", "lila", "orange", "bleu", "creme", "chamois", "oliv", "ocker", "pensee", "reseda", "cognac", "türkis" and so on are not inflected. However, because these words, although not "real" adjectives, are used as adjectives, not inflecting them sounds wrong to a lot of Germans. And this is why in casual speech these words are very often inflected. For orange there are to inflections in use. One goes "oranger", "orangen" and so on, while the other goes "orangener", "orangenen" and so on.
    For those of us who have no clue about language patterns in general (because we only know basic English), could you explain what inflections are, because otherwise your post is as meaningless as the one you are trying to explain.
  • anonymoron (unregistered)

    I've seen that label before, about 2 years ago with dell-supplied EMC SAN equipment. I ripped that tag off all the cables before I installed them. they come that way from the factory. Anyway, if the sysadmin did it, it wouldn't be in so many languages (or if it was, all the non-roman characters would be translations of 'I can eat broken glass, it does not hurt me'.)

    captcha: vern.. as in, "know what I mean, Vern?" RIP Jim Varney

  • cezio (unregistered)

    it's hungarian notation for networking

  • Darien H (unregistered) in reply to Alien426

    Nice catch, I never know that.

    Kudos to the Sluggy-reading SG-1 guys, it makes even more sense since Riff said "Hey, MacGuyver..."

  • anonymi (unregistered) in reply to xevious

    That means that "orangenes Kabel" is not correct in German language. It simply doesn't make many sense:)

    Long version: Many languages (not english) change the adjective according the nouns gender, case, number and definitvness (there could be more). The adjective "orange" this is not changed, so it is an exception. Samples: grosser mann - big man grosse frau - big woman die grossen frauen - the big women grosse frauen - big women mit grossen frauen - with big woben orange kabel - orange cable mit orange kabeln - with orange cables

  • Firewheels (unregistered) in reply to Bob
    When they fall out of their wheelchair in the stall they need plenty of floor to flail about on in order to attract help. Thank goodness for that need for flailing room, otherwise they couldn't get their chair in the stall to begin with.

    Actually, you can get a 'chair into any stall that has a door wide enough. All the room is so you can turn the chair around and not fall out of it when trying to get over onto the john.

    obWTF:

    The REAL WTF is why everytime I need to take a leak, there's some biped in the only stall I can get into, reading a newspaper and stinking up the place!

  • (cs)

    The Korean may actually be a WTF within a WTF; it's actually "orange cable" in English:

    O Ren GEE Sek Cae EE buhl

  • (cs) in reply to Firewheels
    Firewheels:
    When they fall out of their wheelchair in the stall they need plenty of floor to flail about on in order to attract help. Thank goodness for that need for flailing room, otherwise they couldn't get their chair in the stall to begin with.

    Actually, you can get a 'chair into any stall that has a door wide enough. All the room is so you can turn the chair around and not fall out of it when trying to get over onto the john.

    obWTF:

    The REAL WTF is why everytime I need to take a leak, there's some biped in the only stall I can get into, reading a newspaper and stinking up the place!

    While I agree with you that there is a problem with us bipeds taking up the executives stall when other stalls are available, I fail tot see the problem with "stinking up the place." Isn't that why you go there? Are you jealous that someone beat you to it?

  • (cs) in reply to Tyler A
    Tyler A:
    Maybe they're trying to be more friendly toward the color-blind crowd? It would still make more sense to indicate what the cable plugs into, rather than the color though.

    I'm orange-black colorblind!

  • guy (unregistered) in reply to Firewheels
    Firewheels:
    When they fall out of their wheelchair in the stall they need plenty of floor to flail about on in order to attract help. Thank goodness for that need for flailing room, otherwise they couldn't get their chair in the stall to begin with.

    Actually, you can get a 'chair into any stall that has a door wide enough. All the room is so you can turn the chair around and not fall out of it when trying to get over onto the john.

    obWTF:

    The REAL WTF is why everytime I need to take a leak, there's some biped in the only stall I can get into, reading a newspaper and stinking up the place!

    Where I work the stalls were built before there were rules about these things, so they had two standard stalls. When they had to make one of them handicap accessible they carved the space out of the other stall, so not there is a handicap stall and a completely useless stall. They should have just made one super luxury stall instead.

  • anonymous coward (unregistered) in reply to xevious
    xevious:
    For those of us who have no clue about language patterns in general (because we only know basic English), could you explain what inflections are, because otherwise your post is as meaningless as the one you are trying to explain.

    You're assuming me or Shinobu wanted you to understand, while we were actually just showing off our knowledge about the German language.

  • AdT (unregistered)

    Some bureaucrats may think that "orange" is not to be inflected in German, but a quick Google search shows that few people care. The Duden dictionary, which took pride in its descriptive rather than proscriptive nature for a long time (until the unholy 1996 orthography reform), should acknowledge this, if it didn't already, and allow "orange" to be inflected.

    However, I still consider "orangenes" to be bad style and would use the version that most people seem to use: "oranges".

    Incidentally, trying to enforce language by decree has never been very successful. For example, in World War I, German authorities asked people to say "Pfefferfleisch" instead of the Hungarian loan-word "Gulasch" (from gulyás). I never heard anyone use this word.

  • (cs) in reply to Sid2K7
    Sid2K7:
    Tyler, I am pretty sure that is it.

    Mainly, because I have seen Cat5 cables labled "red", "blue" and "green" (only colors we have) before, and I have been told that this was why they are labeled that way.

    Captcha: PAINT (brillant!)

    These are not Cat5 cables. They are fiber optic; that is the standard color to designate such. Way back in my days as a cable puller I always said that it doesn't matter how you designat the cable as long as it has the same designation on both ends. Of course, that assumed the designation was unique to that one cable!!!!

  • (cs) in reply to clicali
    clicali:
    Shouldn't each letter of those tags have "Letter" stamped on it? Just to make sure?
    Yeah. Just like the Burger King chain did many, many years ago. The straws were printed with "STRAW" across them and the cups said "CUP". I would joke that the employees' uniforms needed to say EMPLOYEE on them
  • texdex (unregistered) in reply to mmahler
    mmahler:
    Actually.... There is a very good reason for this. Orange and Yellow, are two colors that are very difficult to differentiate for color blind people. Now I'm assuming that most of the commenters on this haven't worked with fiber cable much. Orange is usually used for multi mode. Yellow is usually used for single mode.

    Who here can tell me what happens if you wire a multi mode transceiver to a single mode transceiver? I'll give you a hint, the magic smoke escapes and and you need to replace the transceivers at both ends. Fiber optic cables are sometimes labeled as orange cable or yellow cable even if the actual color of the cable is gray or black. This isn't a WTF?!?

    Perhaps the real WTF is that it's possible to wire it up wrong and damage equipment like that. If it's really that dangerous to do then there should be different cable types that are not mutually interchangeable.

  • Andrew (unregistered) in reply to Someone
    Someone:
    I'm not sure, but I think the japanese is wrong as well. As far as I know, they always put the adjectives / other attributes in front of whatever term they apply to, not after it.

    This is a katakana tranliteration from English. The Japanese do this often. True Japanese words are written using Kanji and hiragana.

    It is true that Japanese places adjectives before the noun. In fact, every adjective also verb conjugations; there is no "to be" construct.

  • (cs) in reply to ParkinT
    ParkinT:
    clicali:
    Shouldn't each letter of those tags have "Letter" stamped on it? Just to make sure?
    Yeah. Just like the Burger King chain did many, many years ago. The straws were printed with "STRAW" across them and the cups said "CUP". I would joke that the employees' uniforms needed to say EMPLOYEE on them

    No, the uniforms needed a label that said uniform and the employees needed to be tattooed with the word employee, otherwise you were mislabeling the uniform.

  • Drarok (unregistered)

    This looks suspiciously like a place I used to work at, but then I guess a close-up shot of any patch panel is likely to look the same. But the colours... I don't suppose this fellow really works in the logistics sector, eh?

  • Kishore (unregistered)

    Anybody know which langauage each of those lines is written in? I am particularly interested in line 4. 'naranja' is the Telugu (a south-Indian language) word for the fruit orange.

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