How come tied shoelaces love to untie, but clumsily packed away wires love to knot themselves?
In: Other
First of all, there are 2 versions of the shoelace knot based on which way you do the first over/under. One is the correct way that stays tied well and the other is a granny knot that comes undone very easily. You might be making a granny knot by mistake. [This much made fun of TED talk on the subject is actually legit super useful](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAFcV7zuUDA).
Second, the shoelace knot is quite a complex knot because you need to be able to easily pull it open. The type of knot you get from random cables looping around themselves is a simple knot. You could tie your shoelaces like that, but then you’d have a very hard time untying them.
Third, the exposed parts of the shoelaces aren’t all that long, and are fixed at one end. If you had cables of roughly that length just dangling from the back of your PC they probably wouldn’t get tangled either. When you have long cables with both ends loose in your draw they have more opportunity to get looped, then when you try to pull them out you tie the loop tight.
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