Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for November 13, 2024

You gotta look for the thing-a-majig.. not the thingee…

The lost art of verbal communication.

Try none of the cables fit

You need to take very good care of your thingee. Don’t go around inserting random thingees in the thingee of your thingee, because your thingee may get sick.  8^p

Makes perfect sense to me.

He has a unique thingy.

Perfectly clear explanation. I understand exactly what he means.

Sounds like he needs to consult a doctor.

Dispose mismatch sets and buy a new set of lights?

My ding a ling, my ding a lingI want to play with my ding a lingMy ding a ling, my ding a lingI wanna play with my ding a ling

Europe organized to one single cable type for now, and even got Apple to cooperate. I wonder when it will make sense to offer the same environment over here. It still won’t help for Arlo’s collection of old cables.

Pearls Before Swine is right after this comic for me, and Rat is also having troubles with a cord thingie.

As long as Arlo’s thingee matches Janis’…

We need universal size charge cords for anything that needs to be plugged in. I have a similar size collection of useless cords too.

One thingee to call them, one thingee to bind them, one thingee to rule them all: USB-C.

Engineers LOVE standards. That’s why there are s-o-o-o many of them.

Every day a school day …I had no idea the US spelling of ‘thingy’ was different from the British spelling.

My husbands thingee stays at the farm and my thingee stays at home. This way our thingees don’t get crossed up.

I have cables with 5 different thingees. Then to make it worse you need different thingees on both ends. It is a conspiracy done by cable manufacturers to make you keep buying dozens of cables.

I’ve been there, Arlo! It makes me feel just stupid!

What bothers me is when the guy in the store doesn’t know what you mean by “the wide one,” and you can’t open the box and check.

No one can explain it better than that.

I seem to remember Arlo having been something of a computer nerd back in the day. He would certainly know the parallel evolution of USB and Thunderbolt.

I feel Arlo’s pain.

Arlo, you may have to try turning your thingee over to put it in the other thingee! Argh!!

carging cables should have been designed to be universal.

At least he has them organized in piles. I have a group thingy party going on.

That’s what adapters are for.

And that is the reason for the EU’s ruling on cable connections.

All of the rechargeables I have now use USB-C or USB micro and I have micro to USB-C adapters. Still have a drawer of misc cables.

Actually Arlo, that pretty well sums it up in understandable terms.

And, that is why you always tag the charging card and power supply, just as soon as you open the box.

Oddly enough,it’s gotten better. In the 1990s and early 2000s we had a closet full of tangled, unmatchable wires, plugs and adapters.

Understood, Arlo…no further explanation necessary.

It’s one thing not to know where your device is. It’s quite a bit different not to know what your device is.

It’s time to standardize your thingees.

If it’s too tight, lube.

I experienced this recently. My desktop computer is a MinisForum, which is a small but powerful computer that mounts on the back of the monitor. A couple months ago the power cord broke. What happened was the USB type plug that plugs into the computer had somehow separated from the cord. Since it couldn’t easily be fixed I went in search of a replacement.

The problem was that the power cord was so unique that no one locally or on Amazon carried it. My son (who handles all our household computer issues) had to contact the manufacturer in China and order a replacement. So just over 5 weeks and $30 later, my computer is back in business.

You don’t have to explain it any better. We all understand.

Back in my teaching days, I found that the students needed to expand their vocabularies and to begin using more precise words when writing. So, I developed a list of Forbidden Words: get, really, very, good, a lot, stuff, and thing/s.

Each year, the first response was “You just destroyed my whole vocabulary.”

The connections are all defined by Standards. And as standards go, none remain standard long. Hand a standard cable to an engineer, and their first thought is, “I can do this better, faster, simpler.”

Maybe Arlo needs to try the Whatchamacallits or the Thingamajigs to see if they insert properly into the thingee….

They sell adapters…

For me the nightmare with cables started with communication cables that attached the pc with the external modem. They had a standard db25 shell with rs232 connections, but did anyone follow? Of course some did but with all the variations roll over, null etc I had two drawers at work filled with cables.

Don’t ask me. I’m still using Betamax.

A number of nations have stopped that nonsense. For example, all the phone charging cables have to have the same connector to the phone. No more making someone get a different cable for different devices as I understand it.

We always called them doohickeys.

When you do find it, mark it with a magic marker so you won’t forget it for the next time.

Let Janet handle your thingees if it is too complicated.

It’s called “progress”. It used to be called “planned obsolescence.”

Just go to the basement and check the Box-o-Cables. Doesn’t everyone have one of those?

I know exactly how Arlo feels.

sort or get rid of old cables

Planned obsolescence has become a high artform. Among many sneaky ways of making more money, like “shrinkflation.”

I attached a tag to each cable I could match with an object but I still have lots of leftovers. I do not dare to throw them out yet.

Tech wizard.

Such technical talk is over my head.

I use ‘undetermined’ cables by cutting off their connectors. The cable bits are usually pretty strong and can be used as ties – cinching Christmas light sets, for example.

Here I was thinking they were doo-dads!

It’s astonishing how many different connections have appeared over the last few decades. (reminds me of projector bulbs (slide and movie) – every projector had a Different bulb. Crazy)

I have long wondered if all the power cord connection designers have made things so nutso might be because an employment eligibility requirement is to complete a course in residential fuse box labeling.

Good thing Arlos thingy matches Janis thingy lol

USB-C …. hooray for standardised cables

When the Thingee

on your thingee

Starts to go

Ringee, dingee, dingee

That’s Amore . . .

That’s me! I have a gym bag chock full of those cables!!!

We have so many cords they decided to declare their own drawer.

I went through about 8 of those things before I found one that fit the whatumacallet.

I sort mine by color: white cable for the cellphone, black cable for the tablet.

In other words, none of the gazintas match the goesouta (or is it the other way around?)

Charging cables need to be durable. USB-C connectors aren’t.

I used to assemble RF connectors for IT data cables. Be extremely grateful we live in a time in which our devices use the few connectors they do. In the IT world, there are hundreds.