The Intrinsic Awesomosity of the Interwebs
·My washing machine broke on Monday.
Suddenly, it wouldn’t start the spin cycle or drain the water from the drum. And that left my towels soaking in a pool of dirty sudsy water, which I had to bail out.
The last time the door latch broke on the washing machine, it was $200 just to get the guy in the door to look at it. Then another $150 for the “door lock mechanism.” So now I’m thinking we’re going to be out another $200 and without laundry for a few days.
Then I thought, “wait a minute. I’m handy. And there’s this new thing called the ‘Internet’ I keep hearing about where people write answers and opinions and such. Maybe, just maybe, someone out ‘there’ has some insight.”
So I google “Frigidaire front loading washing machine wont drain” and this is the first link that came up: Frigidaire Gallery Front Load Washer Won’t Drain or Spin; washer repair with a link to a BBS with a diagram and everything. I took the base off the washing machine, loosened the flex clamp, pulled out the hose, flooded my basement, and then found a 10 cm piece of wire with linty gunk all over it inside the pump that was preventing the pump from running and draining the machine. Pulled the wire out, put it all back together, and the washing machine now works like a charm.
Next thing I did was send Samurai Appliance Repair Man $5 via PayPal for his beer fund.
This isn’t just a “guy finds cool thing on Internet” post. I was thinking about what I would have had to do to get this info pre-internet and pre-Google. Go to the library, maybe find the right book, maybe find the info I was looking for. Probably a few days in total, if I was lucky. This was literally 5 minutes to find what I needed.
We are truly living in an informational Golden Age.