• The Great Disambiguator (unregistered)

    As a native of the Sceptred Isle, with a foreign significant other, I realise that the native English use of 'garage' can be confusing to anyone else. We use it to mean pretty much anywhere a car can be put or found (where you buy one, where you fuel one, where you get one fixed, where you keep it at home, where you park it away from home). It's a pretty handy catch-all word. I believe this one is where you put juice in them.

    This has been a public service advisory. Hope it helps. For more information, please re-read.

  • networker (unregistered)

    Why is the guy who is supposed to not be the WTF in this story not raising his concern about preparing cables in the field?

    I get why he did it, because it was Friday and the cable was long so it would be difficult to run a fresh one, but if they didn't prepare them on the garage floor originally then it probably wouldn't have broken in the first place.

  • (nodebb)

    Are you sure the pub wasn't The Fox and Pig and Dog and Wolf and Cat and Fiddle and Whistle and Cock? Oh wait no that pub's for tossers. How about The Dog and Cat and Bull and Whistle and Fiddle and Cock and Pig and Wolf and Carriage and Fife and Other Wolf

  • (nodebb)

    I've run cable many times, it's the simplest part of networking. preparing the cable on the floor isn't an issue if you are running long lengths. The issue is what length are you running, you may need a repeater in. And when running these lengths you shouldn't actually put an end on it, you should put an outlet connected in the wall to attach the long length to. Then you have short lengths you can prep in a better environment in standard lengths and just use what you need to cross between the wall connector and the actual device.

  • Chronomium (unregistered)

    Credit Seymour for trying for once.

    Then remove such credit for being a git anyway.

  • Jaundicia (unregistered) in reply to KattMan

    Yes!!!

  • RichP (unregistered)

    I call BS. There's no way Marcus guessed the pinout that Seymour used when the originally wired the place. At a minimum, he would have had to go to the opposing end of the cable and re-wire that end to match...

  • Brian Nodec (unregistered)

    I thought there were standards on how to wire Ethernet. Assuming that Seymour used a standard wiring, then it should be obvious. (that was a big assumption) When i was younger and less busy I memorized the configuration. I have better things to do than that now. When I was younger I also worked on VAX'es with large serial networks using DEC VT terminals. In one office we had the rack of patch panels going to the terminals and the adjacent rack was full of serial concentrators going to the DEC cluster and a large ball of flat satin wire in between. It wasn't the best setup. But you could usually trace a faulty wire through the lump of cables to find out where it went. I created a wiring diagram with MS Paint, since we didn't have anything else. It was a thing of beauty.... ;-)

  • Kevin Jordan (google)

    There are two standard wirings, type-A and type-B. Of course Seymour may not have even known about those and did his own wiring type.

  • Avium (unregistered) in reply to Kevin Jordan

    Yeah. I've seen 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 wiring before. Which just might work (it was working) for 10M but anything faster is screwed.

    For those that don't know, there are four pairs of wires. Each pair is twisted like a DNA molecule. The twisting is important for high speeds for...reasons. The 1-2 means that one pair is used on pins 1 and 2...

    Type-A and Type-B both 1-2, 3-6, 4-5, 7-8 wiring but the colours on 1-2 and 3-6 are different (Orange vs Green).

  • Herby (unregistered)

    Every networking guy should do at least a couple of end terminations just to know how it's done. While it may not be a needed skill, it does show some humbling for everyone involved.

    Bonus is that you get a nice 10 foot networking cable out of it. Hopefully tested.

  • operagost (unregistered) in reply to Avium

    "For those that don't know, there are four pairs of wires. Each pair is twisted like a DNA molecule. The twisting is important for high speeds for...reasons. "

    "Reasons" are EMI and crosstalk in UTP cabling.

  • Screw the sotry of fxing it (unregistered)

    What happened at the pub!?!?!??!

  • ZB (unregistered)

    They drank beers, bought a cheese sandwich and some nuts, then got the hell out of there before the constructor fleet arrived.

  • Uhm (unregistered) in reply to Avium

    But shouldn't the difference between Type A and Type B be handled by the router's crossover cable detection? (even cheap ones have that builtin nowadays)

  • Avium (unregistered) in reply to Uhm

    "...shouldn't the difference between Type A and Type B be handled..."

    Newer routers and switches can usually handle it, yes. But back when the standard was written, dumb hubs (Yes, hubs. Not even switches) were common and they didn't have that. Connecting two hubs together required crossover cables (A on one end, B on the other).

  • Avium (unregistered) in reply to operagost

    "'Reasons' are EMI and crosstalk in UTP cabling."

    Yeah. I had a long, detailed explanation in there about the the twists causing impedance in wires...and then realized it was way too much info for a forum post. :-)

  • I dunno LOL ¯\(°_o)/¯ (unregistered)

    Or he could have been less of a retard and hooked up a punch-down keystone jack. You don't even need a wall plate, but it's a good idea to put the little caps over the punch terminals.

    TRRWTF was probably that Seymour was trying to use stranded crimp connectors on solid wire. There IS a difference. Solid crimp connectors have two teeth perpendicular to the wire to go on both sides of it, stranded crimp connectors have one tooth to go in the middle of the bundle of strands. Try to crimp a stranded plug onto solid wire and you will end up with a flaky connection at best.

    Stranded-type RJ-45 crimp plugs are more common on store shelves because solid wire is usually only found inside walls, punched down on both ends.

  • Quite (unregistered)

    "forgotten crimping tool"

    I believe the word you are hunting for here is "abandoned". After what has just happened here, it is highly doubtful that Seymour will actually forget about the tool for the rest of his long and productive life.

  • null null (unregistered) in reply to Quite

    This sort of witless pedantry is exactly why TDWTF editors don't read the comments section

  • TVJohn (unregistered) in reply to ZB

    Making sure to remember their electronic thumb.

  • trailmax (unregistered)

    TRWTF is driving to a pub. Drinking and driving does not go well together!

  • C0wboy (unregistered) in reply to trailmax

    Well, you can always leave your car there.

  • Brian Nodec (unregistered)

    I hope they gave the cheese sandwich to the dog they find on the way back to Authur's house after it gets flattened by the planning commission and before the vogons arrive. Do we really need to worry about driving when it's the end of the world????

  • Georgy (unregistered)

    What is with the grammar?

    "After taking a Networking 101 course, Seymour managed to get the garage online, when enabled it to monitor gas prices and perform credit card transactions." "When it came time to do more than just have the ISP arrive to show where Seymour to plug in the network cable, he was completely lost."

  • Aninnymouse (unregistered) in reply to Georgy

    Seymour took a Grammar 101 course, too.

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