xkcd #3276: Recursive Trucker's Hitch

I got mine from the Lady of Caras Galadhon. She has a nice 7-for-one special she offers, where you and several other people take on a quest to throw something bad into a random volcano. I agreed to throw Lindsey Graham's phone into the Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone, and she gave me some "real elvish rope". Some other group agreed to drop Mitch McConnell's phylactery into Kilauea. We haven't heard from them, yet. You've got to be really smart about what you ask of the Lady of Lorien, too. A few years back, some dolt asked her for a single hair from her head. That group did NOT successfully throw Putin's Ring of Polonium into Eyjafjallajökull.

Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 20d (1 reply)

my local hardware store sells Immovable Objects (well, they try) so i'd assume they have Unbreakable Rope as well

Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 20d

(well, they try)

😂

It's the perfect scam. If you can haul it, half price (cash up front, you'll get 50% back when it's outta here).

Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 21d (4 replies)

Seriously though, if you learn one knot make it the trucker’s hitch. You’ll never buy ratchet straps again

Eheran@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 21d (3 replies)

Are they so simple and convenient? And you have properly rated rope? That you can also easily fix somewhere?

Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 21d

Once you’re good at them I’d consider a trucker hitch more simple and convenient than ratchet straps.

Plus you can make them out of any rope or cord to tie up various sized items. I keep paracord tied inside the cargo area of my cars and trucker hitches make securing small loads really easy.

theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 21d (1 reply)

And carry a blanket to hang from the rope

jumperalex@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 21d

Don't forget your towel

pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de · 22 pts · 20d (3 replies)

The Explainxkcd for this lead me to the Wikipedia article for Block and tackle, which lead me to Block (sailing), whose first paragraph is giving me Plumbus vibes:

In sailing, a block is a single or multiple pulley. One or a number of sheaves are enclosed in an assembly between cheeks or chocks. In use, a block is fixed to the end of a line, to a spar, or to a surface. A line (rope) is reeved through the sheaves, and maybe through one or more matching blocks at some far end, to make up a tackle.

Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de · 7 pts · 20d (2 replies)

sailing is such a fun subject because it's so fucking old and historically important that everything related to it is a thick soup of utterly inscrutable jargon

elucubra@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 19d (1 reply)

Nautical terminology is PRECISE, and for very good reasons. You don't want to be in the middle of a gale and ask for the round thingamagig on the right side, to pull or something. That is why you use starboard instead of right. Starboard is the right when looking at the bow. "To the right" on a boat can mean your right, my right, etc.

Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 18d

hoist up the thing, batten down the whatsit
what's that thing spinning, somebody should stop it
turn hard to port (that's not port!) -wait i've got it
trust me i'm in control

spizzat2@lemmy.zip · 18 pts · 21d

Explainxkcd: "Obviously, this would not work."

Me:

Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 21d

Disappointed he didn't do the math for number of loops needed (assuming no friction and infinite strength rope) .

Fleur_@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 20d (1 reply)

This is not what the trucker did to me when he said he'd show me his truckers hitch

SavinDWhales@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 20d

For it was the trucker's itch to make you his Trucker b*tch.