Top 6 Tools

Do minigrabbers count as a tool? I couldn't imagine working on an electronics project with out my minigrabber stash 

Do minigrabbers count as a tool? I couldn't imagine working on an electronics project with out my minigrabber stash 

I have loads of grabbers, jumpers, clips, adapters and leads, and yet I never seem to have enough.

Never a truer word spoken.

When I worked in a shared lab I observed a strange phenomenon whereby certain items left in piles would appear to grow or disappear at different rates based upon their current quantity levels. Not dissimilar to Conway's 'game of life'. Never leave less than three knives unattended otherwise you were sure to lose them. Three or four used to be a pretty safe stable state. More than four and you would likely start accumulating more up until a threshold at which point you'd then lose about half of them in one fell swoop. It was similar with mini grabbers... I guess it's a fine line between where people think items are stored and where they think they can be freely obtained from.

That is good point about having a "self-correcting" excess. I have observed the phenomenon without considering that it might be a natural law.

DITO!!! NEVER ENOUGH!!

I'm old enough to remember reading that magazine:0

I have seen photos of phoenixcomm's workspace that look very similar 

hmmm, not quite that bad but a close second. the first pic is where I do a lot of work currently adding SF books to the db. now I go to find shelf space. the second pic is my lab/work table. The monitor on the right connects to 1 pc (NexGen host) and the web/DB server with a Raid 5 (I do my own hosting on an AT&T 1 Gb fiber). I think that I might be a hoarder.  unfortunately, I am currently stuffed into a ~1ksqft 2 bedroom apartment. and yes I have a garage as well but It's shelved out. and too much crap in the way to move around yes when I moved 2+ years ago I wrote a DB of all the boxes and where they were put, I also emptied out my storage locker as well about 10x20ft. and it came here too.  but now I have the right side of my garage with lots of vintage clothes. and left side is shelved out and most of it is numbered and on the DB. then there are two rows of shelves down the middle. plus a small area in the rear workbench and a shelf full of power tools. I think I need an intervention. 

I'm curious do mice consume them? I can never find mine when I need them. I assumed mice that visit the workspace have made off with them.

I can appreciate the environment. Not so sure about the Jenga balancing stack.

My desk while I was a college instructor was in a high-traffic area. The supervisor would encourage me to keep it clean. I teaching assistant that was involved in a few of my programs commented that "If the crazy desk resulted in the best classroom product then don't fix the desk." I never forgot those words.

What triggers a clean-up or better yet a re-alignment?