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 Now online (2)big recycle ...and 115 guests Last 5 registered Oplandisks nothingstar N_loop yipe foxtrotromeo Browse members... |
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context: spotty wifi in my attic studio is putting me in it, and i need to run an ethernet cable from the underground basement to the 3rd-story attic. June 28, 2022 11:29PM there is a real zen to running cable. I loathe it and love it in equal parts I'm renting, but my technical expertise is trusted to the point where I don't even need to ask to... my plan will be to use the existing telephone wire going up to the attic to pull up the ethernet cable. wrinkle, though: it's stapled into the wall the whole way up and there's a lot in the way! So, my junction between the phone cable and the ethernet cable is going to have to be in engineered work of art, stable with a streamlined leading edge; some sort of lubricant like WD-40, then my thing with informational synchronization and just close my eyes and keep tension on the wire and feel the information coming back as I gradually tease the staples out all the way up the chimney |
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June 28, 2022 11:59PM Man. I need to do some yoga and breathing before I attempt this -- so I am at peak focus -- but, more importantly, so I don't get impatient and rough on it The Wi-Fi up there has a knack of tanking at the worst times and yeah I have some vacation now let's do it |
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June 29, 2022 12:35AM crap. when I ran an ethernet cable up to my office few months back, I was able to just yank the staples out by feel, but that wire was 10 or 20 years newer than this one. This wire, going to the attic, the staples are rusted brutal old things and I was yanking on one down in the basement with a pair of pliers and it just is not coming out and it's like man I don't think I can just tension finesse it out this time like that so I think I have to snake it and that's tough to do without someone on the other end but I think I'll take a stab |
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June 29, 2022 4:37AM The do or die moment has been done and there's still a bunch to do but the hard part is over there's a cable going up to the attic most of that I spent with a cable snake and my eyes closed, I can feel like okay, there's a first portal I have to pass through here and then I have to get by this AC duct they put in since I last put in wires but I can't I can feel it just repeatedly spooling up in a corner and I'm finally losing my temper and all right that's it and this makes me very sad because my other options are limited and I really wanted this but then I'm thinking I'm mad and I may as well go back to my first approach and try yanking the cable because if I snap it in half likely no one will ever even figure it out and it won't come back on me I give a yank up in the attic and and promptly snap the telephone cable in half. I have been working out but this is not promising. but then I go back and forth between the basement and the attic and I realize there aren't that actually many staples and it's got some play like I could just pull it through already if not for the staples so yeah let's just go for broke; yank it I crafted a very detailed object melding the ethernet cable with the telephone cable using electrical tape and then coated it in Pam cooking spray and WD-40 |
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and goop from inside the wall as I am drenched in sweat and in the words of Han Solo what an incredible smell you've discovered then as soon as I breathe or sigh of relief gravity begins sucking the cable back down below and it was just a momentary fake out because I grabbed it and plenty of time and tied it off I needed to get it through another wall in the basement but that's nothing compared to this. then terminate it but first a shower this would have been easier with friends but if you can believe it it's not exactly something people want to come over to help with |
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June 29, 2022 4:25PM in retrospect it was actually pretty ironic how I spoke about it and then how it panned out I said, "Man. I need to go do some yoga and breathing exercises before I do this, not just because i need to be at peak focus but so I don't lose my temper and get too rough with things and impatient" with some variance in phrasing towards the end and I did exactly this and the irony is I concluded the hasty approach was too risky at first, then i lasted almost 3 hours very patiently repeatedly failing with a cable snake and actually getting quite deep into visualizing the innards then I feel myself wearing out and I am going to get rough and impatient soon and in fact I almost already am yes sir then heck I'll give my original plan a shot since now that I think about it I would never be on the hook for this quite probably if it goes wrong and yes as it turns out I would have been better off just being impatient and yanking it though life is such that if I had just done that it would have gone wrong because I hadn't done my homework right? |
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June 30, 2022, 4:55AM found myself bemusedly thinking of that myth from the norse sagas, after having mental afterimages of sorts burned into me from using a cable snake for three hours and that myth has always nagged at me. like: is it a metaphor for the invention of language? but no, actually, i think i have it. so first off, i had to shift into the shape of a snake (gradually build a critical mass of data that would let me essentially see inside a wall i could not physically see into). then, the mead of poetry, right? and what are you trying to do with poetry but finesse words like that, to cleverly creep your way around all sorts of barriers that stop most everyone else and somehow miraculously get an ethernet cable from an underground basement to an attic the third floor above ground and also i don't think i mentioned that it wasn't just like... oh just down through the floor. that was trying to cable snake three stories down and I also guess me asking myself why I thought of that then is me probing a cable snake down around in my brain somewhere |
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TLDR: i have modern ethernet up in the attic now. it was an ordeal. i learned things. i got philosophical. i tied it into the norse sagas |
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gotta be the stop making sense version for me |
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oh yes! |
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oh, hey. i think about this. the consequences of electrocuting myself in the attic at 3am if i am so drastically unlucky as to have the cable snake fetch its way into an electrical junction box. i live alone, and the night i was doing this, my landlords are thousands of miles away, i am on vacation from work for next week or so... and, yeah... let's wear gloves. look, i wore gloves, ok? here: later i decided to sanity-check myself, and found that yes -- i was absolutely right to wear gloves while becoming a metal cable snake. i would have vastly preferred bare fingers for better bandwidth, but... yeah. then i find... they make fiberglass cable snakes, and... would that be as feely as metal though? resisting the urge to impulse buy one in any case, burning down the house, yes. in addition to not electrocuting myself in a situation where i would not be found for days, i also deeply care about not dying in a fire. as such, i'll run ethernet cable, but i'll never touch mains wiring, even though i theoretically know how. i looked into night classes for an electrician's whatever -- but no, you have to put in more hours than a commercial jet pilot. trade shit has that locked up real tight. i think my night-school dream will just be law school because then electricians will never fuck w/me |
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im really glad about the glove decision! its like, can i be bothered to spend 5 mins looking for my gloves to extend my lifespan by 40 years. i believe i have decided falsely around 15% of the time, getting away with it so far. makes you think... |
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in retrospect, this was one of those things like... oh, bicyclists have like "you know the hill might beat you but you keep along anyways" and rock climbers have "you have to keep climbing because it's dangerous to go downwards" and... i dunno, i can look back at myself here, and nod, and say: yes, i was in a practically psychedelic place from sitting in the dark for two hours meditating on a cable snake, and it was not insanity, it's almost like... a cornerstone of will. getting that cable through was genuinely emotional. but i didn't give up. and i got the job done. and now i can look back on it and have more confidence in my ability to come through even even when things go full gilgamesh. a man needs a few of these under his belt |
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