The Evils of the Internet!

No, I'm not ranting about the 'net, in fact I'm defending it.

One of the more common complaints about the Internet is that people shout out against it. "No one learns anything on their own anymore! They run into a problem and they get on their computers and get what they need from the Web and that's the end of it."

That's partially true. In this day and age even my 70-something father-in-law will hop onto the web and look up something if he doesn't know where to begin on a project. But the rest of it? Hogwash.

First of all, there is little out there that we learn "on our own". Sure there are scientists that learn things that we never knew we were clueless about. And yes some of us learn the hard way that checking the bushes for electric fence wires before taking a whiz is a fantastic idea (trust me on this). But in the end, the vast majority of things we learn are things that are taught to us. That it is the passing along of someone else's acquired knowledge that comprises much of what we learn.

Before the internet came along and was widely available to the masses if someone were to have a car break down and need the starter replaced and they didn't know how to do it, what were their options for learning it? You could futz with it until you figured it out, but a lot of things are not all that intuitive with cars and engines and if this is your only car for getting to and from work, this is not a really good idea.

So what else can you do in the days before the 'net? You either called and asked a friend who was mechanically inclined to help you (and teach you while doing it) swap out the starter...or you picked up the Haynes manual for your car and followed the instructions. In my case it was my father-in-law who came over and helped and taught me what was needed to be done.

Another example was my father-in-law teaching me how to clean and rebuild the carburetor on a lawnmower. Never did it before, never knew how to do it before. He showed me and that knowledge has proven invaluable. His knowledge...passed on to me.

In both examples, I relied on someone else's knowledge to further my own. I didn't learn anything on my own.

A step further and my whole scholastic career was one of someone taking someone else's knowledge of Math, Science, History, Literature, etc and pouring it into my head.

So what's the problem with using someone else's knowledge gleaned off of the internet? It's the same process of taking something that someone else learned and shared and incorporating it into my own experience. It's no different from grabbing a book from a library, it's no different from calling a friend and asking them what I should do next. What's the grief?

Apart from it being from "That that newfangled intar-wab thingie" I can't think of one.

Last week my LP gas tank ran out and the stove was dead. Got fuel finally yesterday and since I was asleep and the missus was out on errands, they filled the tank and closed the valve leaving me to restore the pilot lights.

Now for a while the stove pilots were clogged. No gas came out of them at all. None. Oven worked just fine, but the burners needed to be lit with a BBQ Lighter. Not a problem but damned inconvenient. Especially when you have pyromanical children who love playing with the goddamned things and losing them because they were hiding them from each other.

Mom? Mom? You can stop laughing now. Really. I am aware of the humorous levels of poetic justice of the situation.

So when I went outside to open the valve and lit the pilot on the oven, I lifted the stove top and looked at the burners and the pilots. First thing I noticed was the burners themselves come out rather like the burners in a gas BBQ Grill. So the burners come out and I get a look at the pilot system. I'm thinking that they're clogged and are in need of cleaning. If I can only remove them. So I look it up and find out that the nozzles can be removed but that I really ought to concentrate on the screw on the side of the nozzle. Why? It's a valve control screw and it can set how much flame you have. So I open one of the two valves and sure enough I hear gas. So I light the pilot and have a foot-tall jet of flame.

Too much methinks so I set it down to the suggested height of just tall enough that there is a small spot of yellow in the flame. Groovy. Quick test and both burners on the left side now come on. Do the same thing on the other side. open till I hear gas, reduce the more modest 4-inch flame into a small blue flame with a spot of yellow and now both burners on the right work as they should.

No idea why they were off in the first place but hey! It's working.

Now I didn't have a car so going to the library was right out. We're looking at an hour and a half walk there and another hour and a half back. Can't use the bus because with the schedules we're looking at the same times both ways. Granted I wouldn't be walking and could read a book but the library is only 10 minutes up the damn road by car.

Fuck that with an agave cactus! (for you Rob...enjoy!)

And I can't ask anyone because anyone who would know about such is at work or out doing things that are more important than helping an appliance newb sort out a pilot light.

So what's left? Where can I tap into the knowledge of others and incorporate it into my own? The interwebs! Google.com is my guru!

And the last bit. "No one learns anything anymore" is pure bullshit. I now know what to do the next time I'm confronted with a pilot that won't come on. Try the set valve screw and failing that cut the gas, remove the nozzle and whack it with a pin until the clog is gone then reseat it and check the valve. No I didn't re-invent the wheel but why should I have to? Knowledge is knowledge and it make not one bit of difference where it comes from. Books, Internet, knowledgeable friends/family...If it's there I'm a damned fool for not using it.

That said one needs to take the internet with a grain of salt since anyone can post anything and may be a complete twat when it comes to whatever the topic is, but that's where common sense comes in. If it comes from a gas company's website (as mine did) then the odds are that their answer is going to be 1,000% better than someone saying to pour chemicals on the nozzle and pray for the best.