The Internet - Oh How I Love Thee
I still continue to be amazed at what I can find on the internet as well as what I can accomplish with it. For example just last night I was trying to fix my washing machine. I wasn’t sure how to open it up to gain access to the motor and wiring but I figured I could just take off the rear panel. After fighting it for an hour I decided to Google it, and sure enough I found the answer. A guy with the handle “Fyxer” posted videos on “How to Open a Kenmore Washer” at Metacafe. If I had searched first I would have saved a lot of time and frustration. It is amazing how much I rely on the internet. It has become my external brain and Google is my main access to that brain. In a New York Times article titled “The Outsourced Brain,” David Brooks explains this phenomena writing,
“…I had thought that the magic of the information age was that it allowed us to know more, but then I realized the magic of the information age is that it allows us to know less. It provides us with external cognitive servants - silicon memory systems, collaborative online filters, consumer preference algorithms and networked knowledge. We can burden these servants and liberate ourselves.”
I just hope I don’t become so reliant on the internet that I cease to be able to think and do for myself in any meaningful way. I want the internet to augment my brain, not replace it.
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Ahhhh yes. The Internet - how do I love thee? Let me count the ways! Not a day goes by where I don’t google something. I’ll read an article, or hear a news piece and start to wonder… The double-edge of the sword is that I get lost and have a hard time finding my way home.
For instance, I heard some various comments about Israel in the news, and then remembered several historical books I had read that spoke of various facets of palestine and the Jews from the old-school, to the zionists and the arabs and so on. Before you knew it I was researching Jewish history and political structure for the rest of the afternoon.
And speaking of wash machines. When we were up junking in the cities, we picked up a front load Maytag, and an awesome dishwasher. The dishwasher works fabulous is quite an upgrade. But, the wash machine had some issues. Now, I know Cameron picked it up thinking “Certainly there can’t be too many things that can go wrong with a wash machine. It’s all fixable.”
Well, it didn’t work - and I forget what it failed to do, but Cameron did some trouble-shooting and figured out where the failure was. He googled it, and sure enough - there was a gentleman who had the answer to the problem. The part from Maytag was in the hundreds - but then Cameron googled some more, and found another gentleman who told how to build the part. So Cameron bought $20 in circuits and whatnot from Digikey - and voile! It works like a charm.
The Internet makes junking work - that is BLISS!