Episode: 4626
Title: Cable Management / PC Speakers 
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4626/hpr4626.mp3
Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:23 (official HPR transcript)

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4626, for 2026-04-27
Today's show is entitled, "Cable Management / PC Speakers "
The host is operat0r and the duration is 00:18:21
The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA
The summary is "operat0r talks about his Cable Management ,speakers and green screens"
You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue.
This show was submitted in March 2025 to cover occasions like this
where there are gaps in the schedule.
Hello everyone and welcome to episode of Hacker Public Radio with your host, Operator.
So I'm changing my format, which is good for you, not so great for me, because Kenneth
is doing show notes for me and I don't know why.
So I'm going to do better about show notes, good for you, it's going to be more clear
and concise, hopefully.
And so this one's going to be about cable management, PC speakers, and just general kind of
cleanliness around the workspace of your desktop or your gaming system or your environment,
work environment.
So what I have now is I ordered actually a new ridiculous 49 inch monitor curve, so
I'm going to have maybe potentially two monitors on this staining desk.
The problem I have now is there's a steering wheel that's in the way.
So I have to tilt the monitor to play a video game, and then I tilt it back for work.
And there's a whole process, I have it for my child, it's a four-step process that says,
you know, turn wheel, switch to zero, so it turns the steering wheel off, puts bigger
desktop position, put H shifter into neutral, put pedals back to wood against the wall,
close out steam, and any other game, close out, related windows, if the monitor back to
it was returning standing desk, back to position number two setting, put chair back to
desktop position.
So like it's like, you know, whatever since that process, when he wants to do the simulator
stuff.
So I'm hoping to solve that with another monitor, nicer monitor, this is all piece
crap, HDMI $100 old, my first IPS monitor, but I'm talking about cable management.
I bought this loom, wire loom, there's BOA brand, and then there's this other brand,
which doesn't really have a name, and the store is T-E-Z, I-I-C-U-S, that's actually
the cheap brand, the one I, the good brand is BOA3, so I've already recorded this once.
And now, nope, oh, it is, it is this T-E-E-T brand, yeah, so the picture doesn't do
a justice, the picture looks just like the other stuff, but it is better.
It's $29.89, I think it's substantially more expensive than the other stuff I bought,
which is, let's see, for more, it's $20 for the cheap stuff.
For the nicer stuff, it's $20 for like, half the amount, or like, two-thirds the amount.
So, you're paying quite a difference, there's an extra $10, and you lose, so I don't
$66 per count, and then this says nothing per count, so anyways, what's all said
done?
I got two different kinds.
This BOA is the cheaper stuff, you'll see everywhere, it's pretty see-through,
hold up to the window, it's see-through, this splits the other wire loom, T-E-Z-I-I-C-U-S
store, you'll see a little picture, and I'll put it in the show notes, why choose
us, then versus us, and it shows like, you know, the see-through of the fabric, and then
it shows theirs, it's not hardly see-through at all, so it's a P-E-T polyethylene material
inferior, or polyester, multi-fluent, but it's all, like, it's the same thing, it's all,
what do you call it, whatever, so anyways, the way it works is it splits leave, now they
have regular that's not, you know, Chinese handcuffs, you have to push the cable through
the problem with that, is that if you have this giant dongle with whatever at the end, it
will fit around, then you're not going to be able to, you know, get the non-splitted cable loom
wire loom around, so I bought all-splitted loom, now to the link it look really nice, and
to keep it snug, you can put a shrink tubing, and that has the same problem as the non-slit
now to get around that, you can get bigger shrink tube, heat shrink tube, now heat
shrink tube, you don't know what's electronic thing, you put a shrink tube around wires,
and then you take a heat gun to it, try not to use the lighter, if you're going to be
doing it, if you've ever used heat shrink tubing, and you don't, and you have heat shrink
tubing, and using electronic, don't use the lighter, please go buy a heat gun, they have
a thousand and one uses, I use the heat gun all the time for all kinds of crazy stuff,
so just buy a heat gun, a nice one, and use a heat gun to heat shrink your tubing, now
it's basically a piece of rubber that goes around whatever wire it is, or anything, honestly,
and you can shrink it, apply heat to it, and it'll shrink it, now to get around the issues
with not being able to fit, you can have a bigger heat shrink tube that will fit around the
object, maybe a USB cable or a big giant dongle thing, and that will fit barely, right,
and then you get a smaller heat shrink tubing, and you split that, you cut it
in half, and then you wrap it around, you heat shrink the small thing first, and you put the bigger
heat shrink tube around that, so you kind of have a better seal around the whole thing,
because the big heat shrink is not going to heat shrink enough around the wire to get it to go
there, but with a combination of split, cut in half heat shrink, smaller heat shrink tubing,
and maybe some electric tape around towards the head of whatever the dogell is,
you can get that solid strength, I've actually used Gorilla glue before, because it expands,
so if I have a place where there's a small wire and a big old dongle thing, and then he's
going to be plugged in at the end, I will actually make it really long, and use like a long,
long thing of electric tape, and then I will heat shrink everywhere around that electric tape
that I can, and then you can put the wire loom around that, but so I've got different sizes,
the three forces is about the biggest, you would probably want to use on a computer,
if you go the one inch, I think it's just too big, so the three forces are going to be
probably the biggest you want to order, now the one fourth inch, I think is what I got,
it's pretty small, but it holds for snuggling, very snuggling, it holds for like
you know gauge 20 wires, or whatever that's beaker wire, that you crappy speaker wire you buy,
it's like you know 20 gauge or even 18 gauge, but it's tiny wire that goes through these
base shakers, and so it's for pair copper, or two pairs of like 18 gauge wire, and it snugly fits,
so it looks nice, and it's all kind of taped on there, so there's not enough not as much
chance to get a snag on something, I had some issues with audio on a kept reconnecting,
you can actually eventually just start working, but another other places, if you have a
dongle, it's a specified links proprietary, so my steel series, dongle is like three feet long,
and I don't need but like a foot and a half, you can take that cable and run it all the way up and
down itself, so kind of fold it in on itself, and what I'll do is kind of fold it into thirds,
and I'll fold it into thirds, and I'll grab each fold, and I'll fold it into itself, and then I'll
just keep adjusting the size of that, you know, that fold, the folds to reach wherever I want to
reach, and then I'll velcro the end of the folds, and then I'll put the lume around that, so my steel
series is nice and small, and then also the switch for my steering wheel is looped around itself.
So it's really only one wire that goes to there, but it's like three wires being
three or four wires, thickness, because it has to loop back on itself, and it's a switch, and it doesn't
really, it doesn't really really whatever, so I've got, I'm using it in two places, really right now,
but once I get the monitor on my move things around and change it up a little bit, but it definitely
looks nicer, and it's less confusing too, I don't even need to label some of these cables now,
but I know, okay, this cable is just, this cable is the headset, and this cable is the,
so everything I see that's got a lume around it based on the size and where it is relatively
looking, but you know, I look at this wire, I can't tell what this wire is, what is this,
and then I follow it to the label printer, so get yourself a label anchor, and do the little
stupid flags, they have specific tape for specific measuring, or for specific things like patch cables,
so if you're a label in patch cables, don't do it like a child and make a flag like I do with
everything else, they have specific labels for patch cables, they have like two millimeter,
I think it's two millimeter tape, the same width as the other tape, and it's extremely
wasteful, but it prints out in the middle, and then you pull peel this tiny little two millimeter
tape out, and then you put it on whatever, the patch patch panel or something very thin,
but it's like, I don't want to say it's like three millimeter thin, so I've used all types of
various types of tape, I always end up just using regular, regular white tape, and then I'm
wrapping around the flag, and I don't put it right up against, of course in these two, I did,
but I usually put it like three, like three or four inches away from the plug, so that way,
if I'm behind the computer, I'm looking behind it, I'm not having to look all the way where the plug
is in, so I label it close, three or four or five inches away from where it plugs in at,
so I can easily see what is what labels what for like stress cable stress, like this
HDMI cable coming out of my PC, is got a zip tie, not a zip tie, don't use zip ties ever, a twist
tie, so whenever you order something and you get twist ties, keep this twist ties, you can cut
them in half, whatever, and use them for cable relief or temporary cable management, I use
like to use Velcro for temporary cable management, double-sided Velcro or sorry, hook and loop,
and hook and loop on both sides, you can get it really thin, and it's already pre,
makes you try to get the pre cut stuff, it's not perfect, but it's nice to have like a consistent
length, and so you can cut the pre cut in half, and you know, okay, I know that if I had the
pre cut, I know if I cut it in half, that's going to be the length that I want, you know,
I like I like to have to have the pre cut, because I don't have to worry about finances or cutting
it too short or whatever, but it's up to you to cut the pre cut stuff or not, but it's a big
roll of Velcro, or sorry, hook and loop, and you just pull and it comes apart, and then you can
you know, wrap it every knee to wrap, as I'd like it temporary set up, but I've used, looks like
I've got two twist ties on here, three, no, two, because the twist ties allow me to be dynamic,
and so, you know, this twist tie is just taken off mount, because I'll move it around or something,
and I haven't 100% decided on where it's going to go, so between the twist ties is kind of more
temporary, if I know it's a cable, I'm going to swap out fairly often, so I've got like, it looks like
I've got three twist ties on my PC right now, it doesn't look great, but that's more of a function
over form, thick guy, so wherever you can put that, I use zip ties to establish mount points,
so maybe I'll drill a hole in the case, and put a zip tie through that, and that zip tie is used
for Velcro or twist twist ties for cable management, so also temporarily I have from the ceiling
for green screen and stuff, I use these little, what are they called the binder clips, these things,
I use them for temporary setups to hold stuff up, to lighting, hold lighting, and I use a little hook
ceiling, and then some, you can buy bulk, random bulk pair of cord, and I use it for all kinds of
stuff, I have some of these power guide holds for practicing rock climbing, and they have like
all the way up to like what 10 millimeter holds and then through the through the wood holes, so it's
like a little octagon, not many sides, you can go back to three school, but a shape with one, two,
three, four, five sided shape, and different holds, so if I want to call, I'll stretch out my
shoulders, so I'll put it behind me, and lean down and do, uh, get my handstrings, and do my
shoulders and stretch all that out from getting kind of forward next syndrome and all that stuff,
that's pretty much it for cable management, it doesn't look great under the desk, but there's
not wires just hanging out, I only have like one service loop under the desk, but other than that,
things are going to move a little bit when I affair them out when I get the new monitor,
I might do dual monitors so that I don't have to turn the monitor or put the monitor on, like
I was thought about putting the new monitor on a lazy Susan, and mounting it on a nice,
sturdy lazy Susan, but I don't want to be rotating a giant monitor back and forth, so I might
have like a little small office table in this room to fit somewhere else to do office stuff,
and then have the gaming machine be just for gaming, because I can't quite get this whole
double dual system to work with the standing desk, so I might take the standing desk and just,
I don't know, I don't know, I want to use it, but I can't find a way to make a dual use for
this stupid steering wheel and have it to remount the steering wheel every time, and I'm not buying
a whole steering wheel set because I don't have enough room to have monitors and PCs to
make it all worth it, so I also want to be able to play games at my PC, but I can't really do that
when if I give the whole station to the steering wheel then I have to take up the steering wheel
every time I want to play a game, so it's kind of a mishmosh, these studio speakers I bought,
apparently PC speakers aren't a thing anymore, and what you have now is the studio speaker angle,
apparently kids are just, I guess, wearing headsets, I don't know what they're doing,
I don't know what they're doing now, I guess they're all just wearing headsets, but you,
they're like $99 entry level of studios speakers, I was looking to some $100 or $200 pair,
they're about $0, $3,4, and it's because you get a tweeter, and they do sound pretty good,
but I don't have a sub, so I would like to get a sub to make your Copa boom, that's a piece I'm missing,
I had a sub prior to the last sound setup I had, and I'm looking for that again to
you know, when I'm playing games, boom, boom games, I can have nice, nice bass, now these bass
shakers actually can be used as a sub sort of, but they're more for feedback,
kept feedback on my racing games for their racing pedals, and those like 70 bucks,
but that's a whole different topic for another day, so that's the cable loom,
the nicer stuff is obviously more expensive, the cheap stuff is like 10 bucks for a lot of it,
the nicer stuff, if you're gonna do like professional audio, or people are gonna be looking
at the back of your rig, you want to use the nicer stuff, I think, because this stuff is at the
ends, it's kind of freely and freely looking even when you melt it to death, it still doesn't really
want to melt in a nice flat pattern, you might have better luck melting it by putting heating up an
object, like a plate, metal plate heating, and this heat up, heat up that metal plate, and then
smash it down in the metal plate, but then you have to separate it before it melts to itself,
and we'll welding itself closed in a closed position, so yeah it doesn't look super great,
but I think that's the reason why the the more expensive stuff looks better at the ends,
because it's a nice and denser, and so when you melt it, it melts in a nice flat,
even way, but the stuff that's more see-through and less dense, it kind of doesn't really
look super great on the ends, and that's why people would want to probably put some,
excuse me, we want to put stuff around it, let's see, um indoor outdoor double-sided non-slip,
what is this, oh the power guidance, hand board, hang boards, rock climbing holds,
yeah non-slip, nice, nice wood, one of these are on a great for a home office, you know,
on a call, stretch out, these aren't even available anymore, I don't remember how much it
calls, they're not cheap, 28 bucks, 35 bucks, prepare, and then green screen,
the green screen I use is a circular, what do you call these things, you'll, you'll know when
you hear it's a little pop out, pop up, tint, style, just twist it like a thing and you let it pop out,
so it's supposed to a chat, touch the chair, that is not what I do, I hang it from the ceiling,
so I can get the exact thing, and we put it to a chair, it's going to warp, and that warp is going
to change the color, and we change the color, then it makes the green screen stuff not super,
it kind of sketchy, so you want to just hang it from the ceiling, so you have that flat surface
to be, if I had to do it again, I'd probably just buy a square green screen that maybe was folding,
but I don't even fold it, I just throw it under the bed, I could throw it under the bed, but right
now it's just kind of slid in between the bed and the dresser that nobody cares about, but that's
pretty much it for this, you all have a good one, take it easy, and record an episode.
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