The last 23 seconds of this video of a brick in a washing machine are worth the first 56

July 31, 2010 7:55 AM

Washing machine self destructs [SLYT]
posted by alby (80 comments total)

That's not suicide. It's murder.
posted by ColdChef at 7:56 AM on July 31, 2010 [30 favorites]

Engineers everywhere, take note.
posted by TwelveTwo at 7:57 AM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

Holy shit, that's great.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:58 AM on July 31, 2010

Was the brick dirty? Because a rinse with a hose would work better.
posted by longsleeves at 8:02 AM on July 31, 2010 [5 favorites]

My flower bed!
posted by sunshinesky at 8:05 AM on July 31, 2010 [12 favorites]

they shoot horses, don't they?
posted by ennui.bz at 8:05 AM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

The person who spent a lot of time growing those beautiful plants was probably not consulted.
posted by Aquaman at 8:05 AM on July 31, 2010 [9 favorites]

What's the difference between a washing machine and a violist?

Vibrato.
posted by netbros at 8:06 AM on July 31, 2010 [9 favorites]

It was fun to watch, but I think the cameraperson is a total dumbass for standing so close. If the washing machine had spit out the brick, or had the washtub come apart, he or she would have been toast.
posted by Forktine at 8:06 AM on July 31, 2010

Please tell me this is a video study for something coming soon from Pixar.
posted by bovious at 8:09 AM on July 31, 2010 [3 favorites]

I laughed in such a weird he haw way totally freaked my cats out
posted by angrycat at 8:09 AM on July 31, 2010

I showed this to my 19 year-old, she thought it was hilarious. As did I.
posted by tommasz at 8:16 AM on July 31, 2010

I hope they bought the extended warranty.
posted by barstool at 8:21 AM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

That was incredibly risky, stupid, wasteful and AWESOME.
posted by maudlin at 8:25 AM on July 31, 2010 [2 favorites]

Without a doubt, thjis is what youtube was invented for
posted by parm=serial at 8:28 AM on July 31, 2010 [8 favorites]

I'm imagining a whole series of "self destruct" videos. Just how long will something last after you chuck a brick at it?

Window of My Car Self Destructs!
Television Self Destructs!
Antique Vase Self Destructs!
Sarah Palin Self Destructs!
posted by phunniemee at 8:30 AM on July 31, 2010 [12 favorites]

You can self-destruct almost anything by throwing a brick through its face.
posted by Casimir at 8:31 AM on July 31, 2010 [7 favorites]

I bet if you played that backwards it would look like the trailer for Portal 2.
posted by mhoye at 8:36 AM on July 31, 2010 [4 favorites]

You can self-destruct almost anything by throwing a brick through its face.
posted by Casimir at 11:31 AM on July 31

Bagger 288 laughs at your brick.
posted by Decani at 8:36 AM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

That was a bastard thing to do to a washing machine.
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:42 AM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

Curious use of the word 'self'.
posted by MtDewd at 8:46 AM on July 31, 2010 [7 favorites]

The poor machine reminds me of the Banana Jr in some weird way, especially at his most distraught.

Couldn't find the tint control comic
posted by bibliowench at 8:46 AM on July 31, 2010 [3 favorites]

Bagger 288 laughs at your brick.

So do SSI. Also, they laugh at German machines.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:48 AM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

Coming up next, the newest fad that has swept the nation: Wasting food.
posted by fleetmouse at 8:55 AM on July 31, 2010 [3 favorites]

Couldn't find the tint control comic

Hackers don't suffer obsolescence well.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:58 AM on July 31, 2010

Needs a couple dozen light sticks.
posted by warbaby at 9:05 AM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

> Engineers everywhere, take note.

No kidding, because the only reason the cameraman wasn't maimed by a flying concrete block shooting out of the base is that the supports holding the thing together are "over-engineered" by a factor of probably 50, just in case of this sort of dumb-assery.

In particular, realize that the engineers (whether at the company or at a regulator, I'm not sure what standards govern this issue) who pushed for this kind of safety factor probably did so against heavy pressure (steel is too expensive, too heavy to ship, etc).
posted by range at 9:08 AM on July 31, 2010 [10 favorites]

Looks way more fun than when I bricked my iPhone...
posted by DavidandConquer at 9:09 AM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

Does was it says on the tin.
posted by Justinian at 9:22 AM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

When my my washing machine kicks, I'm transforming it into a patio table and beer chiller.
posted by prinado at 9:33 AM on July 31, 2010

I want to see the self-destructing washing-machine to team up with the glowing toilet from two links down and fight crime.
posted by lore at 9:38 AM on July 31, 2010 [2 favorites]

"This is what happens when you put the brick on the accelerator." --my sleepy wife
posted by infinitewindow at 9:45 AM on July 31, 2010

My husband, an engineer, says that this washing machine wasn't designed for washing bricks. He's pretty sure.....but I often think he's wrong about things.
posted by hollyanderbody at 9:48 AM on July 31, 2010 [2 favorites]

I'm reminded of the demise of ED209. Or one of the many times Artoo got zapped.
posted by stevil at 10:06 AM on July 31, 2010

My husband, an engineer, says that this washing machine wasn't designed for washing bricks.

I'm sensing a market segment in need of addressing.
posted by tommasz at 10:12 AM on July 31, 2010 [3 favorites]

This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence.
posted by zoinks at 10:26 AM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

I like that I had to sign in and confirm that I was over 18 to watch this.
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 10:32 AM on July 31, 2010 [6 favorites]

In college my roommate and I had a tyrannical VCR named Skynet, and we watched it self-destruct under a couple of baseball bats in a parking lot at 2:00 AM.
posted by Beardman at 10:33 AM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

I just spent entirely too much time watching other videos of his, and there is some spectacular electrical insanity afoot. Some, like this one, made me genuinely nervous. BACK THE FUCK UP! Go now!

Not that I wouldn't do this as well. Bad decisions, etc.
posted by Stunt at 10:34 AM on July 31, 2010

I used to be half of a performance art partnership called I Could Do Better Than That - we never achieved much in the way of notability, but we did achieve a little temporary infamy as a result of our waching machine piece. Basically, we filled a washing machine with 100 pop CDs, on stage, and turned the machine on. We'd fixed the machine so it went straight to the fastest spin cycle, and while we had test to check that the machine was relatively safe to run like that, what we hadn't anticipated was that with 100 CDs inside the door didn't shut properly. We also didn't realise how far a washing machine can leap about when overloaded like that. It was at a noise music and breakcore club night so the resulting chaos went down a treat, but needless to say it isn't something we dared to repeat. Unfortunately this was a couple of years before the era of YouTube and ubiquitous camera phones, so the only evidence we have is still photos.
posted by iivix at 10:39 AM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

To view this video or group, please verify you are 18 or older by signing in or signing up.
posted by Obscure Reference at 10:42 AM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

I like that I had to sign in and confirm that I was over 18 to watch this.

This is exclusively for giving adults ideas. Not children. How could they afford a washing machine anyway?
posted by TwelveTwo at 11:12 AM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

I assume that the reason why this video was flagged as inappropriate is because the sheer stupidity of chucking a brick into a washing machine and then proceeding to giggle while standing in front of the thing might fly over the heads of some 12-year-old somewhere. Or it might fly right into it.
posted by dubusadus at 11:13 AM on July 31, 2010

.
posted by artof.mulata at 11:22 AM on July 31, 2010 [3 favorites]

I bet their neighbors just love them.
posted by hanncoll at 11:49 AM on July 31, 2010

My flower bed!

"...my Girlfriends flowers, and her mum bought them lol
I am off the pedestal as she says."
posted by StickyCarpet at 11:57 AM on July 31, 2010

Somewhere in the world there is a man.

Let's call him, oh, Charles. Charles is a senior engineer at a very large manufacturing concern. He has been working at this company for many years. Everybody who works with Charles knows that he is a hard worker and a brilliant mechanical engineer. The janitorial staff all know and like Charles, and he is on a first name basis with many of them because of all the overtime and weekends he works. When the Division Head has a problem he needs solving, he finds Charles and recruits him the project, no matter what the cost. Charles is his main man. Charles gets it done.

Occasionally, Charles entertains the idea of quitting. He is getting on in years, and he doesn't have the energy he used to. His wife, Miriam, sometimes jokes to their friends at dinner parties that she is an "engineering widow", and everyone always laughs politely at this. Charles laughs too, but he knows in his heart what she means and he feels bad about it. But Charles will never quit. He has too many things to do to quit.

Some years ago Charles worked on project. The project, a washing machine, seemed mundane to most, but this was a special project for Charles. He had been working on something for the army previously and it hadn't ended well, the government cutting funding midway. After that, building a washing machine had felt right to him. This was something that could help, something that people would actually use and benefit from. Something pure and simple and good. So Charles had signed up for the washing machine project, against his managers wishes. They thought his talent was being wasted, but Charles made his case and eventually they let him do it. It would be a nice break from serious work for him anyway.

Charles works very hard, and for this project he makes the best washing machine he knows how to make. When his colleagues take a look at the design for the first time, they stand back and whistle. They are astounded at the detail, the precision, the elegance and simplicity. "That's a hell of a design, Charles". He blushes and makes the aw shucks motion that has become an unintentional trademark for him. But Charles is proud. When the first machine rolls off the line, Charles is there personally at the factory. He stands next to it and talks to it. "You will be a good washing machine," he whispers under his breath, his hand patting it gently. "You will be the best washing machine."

This morning, someone has sent Charles a link on Youtube. Charles, morning coffee in hand, opens up the link and a little video starts playing. On the screen is the washing machine Charles designed. He smiles at it's familiar shape, then frowns as he looks closer. There is something wrong with this one. White smoke is coming out of it. "Hey," he says, to no one in particular. The video keeps playing. The machine is getting worse. More and more white smoke is billowing out of it. "Hey you should take that in for servicing" he says again in a small voice. The machine is hurt and it makes a sound then that tears into Charles's heart. He needs to find this machine and fix it. "Unplug that thing, dammit". Charles is yelling, standing up, gesticulating wildly. There is a man with a brick on the screen now. What is he doing with that? And then it happens and Charles watches in horror as his creation is torn apart from the inside. Pieces flying everywhere, the machine toppling over, Charles is helpless. A single tear rolls down his cheek. He closes the browser, then opens it and watches the video again and that's when he hears it. The man with the brick is laughing at him.

He closes the browser again quickly. Breathing heavily, he takes off his glasses and rubs the side of his face, hands shaking. A thought is forming deep inside Charles's mind and nothing is going to stop it. Minutes pass and a decision is made. Breathing slower, he makes a phone call to his wife, tells her he loves her. Then he opens up an email to his boss and begins writing his resignation letter.

Somewhere in the world there is a man, and he is very sad.

You shouldn't destroy your washing machine on Youtube.
posted by tracert at 12:04 PM on July 31, 2010 [42 favorites]

Time...to die.
posted by adamdschneider at 12:10 PM on July 31, 2010

Somewhere in the world there is a boy.

He builds castles out of wooden blocks, and kicks them over.

He grows up to be an engineer.

He is nothing like Charles.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 12:11 PM on July 31, 2010 [4 favorites]

As an inveterate autodidact appliance repairman who only quit using his sixty year-old wringer washing machine because a part finally wore out that was so esoteric and specific that it would have cost five hundred bucks to have a new one machined, I think this is just fucking awful, and wish the dying machine would have given the asshole with the brick a Darwin Award right between the eyes.

The second I hear that standard adolescent boy-naif giggle in a Youtube video, the eternal battle cry of "oooh, we're gonna do something bad—I mean bad-ASS!" I pretty much know I'm going to watch that video with a little scowl. Of course, my annoyance is assuaged by the fact that I'm watching some emotionally-stunted dick in the throes of the transition from whining spoiled suburban teen angst to complete immersion in the grim sentence of middle-class wage slave suburban frustration, forever and ever and ever, amen.

Oh honey, that's lovely. You really showed that machine, didn't you?

Quick, get back to work—gotta make those credit card payments or your FICO score will fall. You've only got 20 25 30 40 50 years or so left before you can retire and play a few rounds of golf before you have your fatal heart attack on the green.

Mind you, I enjoy a little chaos and damage as much as the next guy, but at least Mark Pauline's crew does it with a bit of panache and imagination employed in an act of creative transgressive transformation through destruction. Sheesh.
posted by sonascope at 12:20 PM on July 31, 2010 [8 favorites]

This was really quite sad to watch. Glad that they're screening out children and adolescents from being able to see it.

Disgusting. Where's the Maytag man when you need him?
posted by crasiman at 12:45 PM on July 31, 2010

Aw, poor washing machine. What did it ever do? At least the fax machine in Office Space was actually evil.

Of course it's illogical to attribute motives or emotions to machines, so why should it matter if anyone destroys one? On the other hand, why would anyone be driven to destroy one if it didn't represent to them, in some way, an actual being over which they had power/felt resentment against/wished to torture?

So I guess I'm glad this dude isn't doing this to cats. But I still kind of hate him.
posted by emjaybee at 12:46 PM on July 31, 2010 [2 favorites]

One day about 15 years ago a great big honking disk drive showed up at the local Goodwill store. From an IBM mainframe computer. Circa 1975. It was the size of, well, a washing machine, and accepted a platter cartridge the size of a layer cake. The label on back claimed it had a capacity of 80 megabytes, but it did not come with a disk cartridge. It also claimed to need 240 volts at 25 amps for power, and it had an utterly mysterious interface connector with about 40 pins each of which looked like they could handle 30 amps.

It sat in the Goodwill store for a whole year, marked $250. One day I went in and the little tag said $250 $15 SALE. I walked to the front of the store, paid them $15, then made my way to the U-Haul to rent a trailer.

And in the driveway of my house, I took that four hundred pound machine apart to its constituent components. The primary transformer weighed 75 pounds (still have it). The voice coil that drove the heads back and forth on precision rollers was 3 inches in diameter, and the permanent magnet that it worked against weighed 70 lb. (Still have it, a gorgeous example of machining). I filled a box with circuit boards and another with switches and sensors and whatnot. I traded the 240 volt 1 horsepower drive motor for a 110V unit I could use at a local shop (and that alone covered the $15 and the U-Haul rental.)

In the end I was left with a solidly welded metal frame on sturdy casters (another machine mounted on it today) and the metal side panels (made worktables out of them) and several filter capacitors that will run a small electric motor for minutes at a time (building a spot welder is on the to-do-one-day list) and a lot of truly useless antique parts.

If YouTube had existed at the time I would have certainly filmed it. That is how you destroy a machine that has outlived its usefulness. The OP stunt seems rather wasteful by comparison. (Obviously the motor still worked, it didn't even occur to the dude to salvage it?)
posted by localroger at 1:04 PM on July 31, 2010 [10 favorites]

Another vote for the self-destruction of Metafilter, I see.
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 1:36 PM on July 31, 2010

Personally, I never cared much for performance art ... did the NEA fund this?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:04 PM on July 31, 2010

localroger, any pictures? I'd love to see those before and after shots.
posted by purephase at 2:10 PM on July 31, 2010

Of course it's illogical to attribute motives or emotions to machines, so why should it matter if anyone destroys one?

As a person who shares six washing machines with 200 other people that operate like that one normally, that video hurts me. I would take that washing machine home and hug it and love it and feed it laundry every day, at any goddamn hour of the day. At least, that's my dream.
posted by gladly at 2:14 PM on July 31, 2010 [2 favorites]

I... I actually felt really sad for the washing machine. Maybe it could star in Ikea's next commerical.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 2:31 PM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

Brings back memories of 1980s David Letterman crushing various items.
posted by crapmatic at 2:32 PM on July 31, 2010

My main problem is that the link is edited open right at the money shot. The full video has a much more satisfying story arc. You see the washer struggling to overcome adversity, and just when you think this little machine with can-do spirit is going to win...
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 2:37 PM on July 31, 2010 [4 favorites]

Would have ruled if the last thing you hear is, "Dude, mom's going to be so pissed!"
posted by cjorgensen at 2:42 PM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

Anyone who knows knows that that’s not a brick. A lot of people, who can readily identify a washing machine, have never seen a chunk of firewood or looked circumspectly at a brick. They need to look again. That guy chucked a big chunk of wood into that clunker.
posted by Huplescat at 3:35 PM on July 31, 2010

What I really want to know is what Gallagher would think about this.

Oh wait... no I don't.
posted by Decani at 4:25 PM on July 31, 2010

Sheesh

You said it.
posted by Zerowensboring at 4:36 PM on July 31, 2010

What I really want to know is what Gallagher would think about this.

That gay Mexicans must've done it to spite white men.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:39 PM on July 31, 2010

purephase -- no, I deconstructed the disk drive a year or two before getting my first digital camera, and it wouldn't have occurred to me to burn film to document a thing like that. Were I doing it today, there would be a slideshow somewhere on the web and possibly even video for sure.
posted by localroger at 5:09 PM on July 31, 2010

My parents washing machine did something like this, apparently spontaneously (no bricks in it, just a normal load). It jumped several feet in the air and started advancing menacingly towards myself and my mother, who'd rushed into the kitchen at the first sounds of distress. I managed to unplug it and it slowly calmed down, but it was a while before we dared approach it.
posted by zingzangzung at 5:54 PM on July 31, 2010

But will it fix the economy?
posted by anshuman at 5:59 PM on July 31, 2010

localroger, I'd bet that drive could still be used with any plug-compatible mainframe today -- there are TONS of programs (and, equally or more important, TONS of JCL -- Job Control Language -- which is the language which interfaces between the programs and the machines) written in the 60s (and 70s, and 80s, and yesterday, probably) that still run every day, all plug-compatible machines *have* to be backward compatible, so as to run these programs, and the programs and the machines they run are were/are very tightly linked. I've not been in a mainframe shop in over a decade, almost certainly the drives used today are of a totally different architecture but I'd bet that they are still addressed the same way that this unit you purchased was addressed.

An old friend of mine had a job for over many years taking the platters of disks to companies that'd had head crashes on these things; apparently they were fairly easy to remove and replace. I wonder what it'd have looked like had you chunked a brick inside of this thing when the heads were flying full speed, maybe have been as cool as the washing machine was...
posted by dancestoblue at 6:03 PM on July 31, 2010

sonascope: " ... my annoyance is assuaged by the fact that I'm watching some emotionally-stunted dick in the throes of the transition from whining spoiled suburban teen angst to complete immersion in the grim sentence of middle-class wage slave suburban frustration, forever and ever and ever ...

... get back to work—gotta make those credit card payments or your FICO score will fall. You've only got 20 25 30 40 50 years or so left before you can retire and play a few rounds of golf before you have your fatal heart attack on the green ..."

Fact is, I enjoyed hell out of the video, but I'm forced -- Forced! -- to acknowledge the true beauty in your expression of your sentiments here, sonascope.
posted by dancestoblue at 6:58 PM on July 31, 2010

More washing machine carnage.
posted by brenton at 7:06 PM on July 31, 2010

I would have been happier had he been able to keep the camera fairly stable through most of it.
posted by Samizdata at 7:22 PM on July 31, 2010

Something about this just fills me with the urge to create, to build something physical and lasting. I guess to counter the senseless destruction. That furniture-making class I heard about last week just got even more appealing.
posted by Guernsey Halleck at 11:06 PM on July 31, 2010 [1 favorite]

I like that I had to sign in and confirm that I was over 18 to watch this.

I hate that. A simple search for 'washing machine destructs' solved that little hurdle.
posted by Twang at 4:06 AM on August 1, 2010

I don't know what it says about me, but I laughed so hard at this. Maybe it's because I've had frustrating experiences with washing machines!










(oh wait, that sounds bad.)
posted by Wuggie Norple at 6:21 AM on August 1, 2010

I wouldn't want to be those guys after the machines take over
posted by Redhush at 8:18 AM on August 1, 2010

Is this a cut scene from that Cory Doctorow novel "Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town" about how the protagonist's mom dies?
posted by wenestvedt at 11:09 AM on August 3, 2010

I finally got around to watch that video and hey, I got that washing machine! (actually, the only just slightly superior model).

It's a good washing machine.

Also, now I know that bricks should be removed before the fast spin cycle. Amazingly enough, there's no mention of bricks in the owner manual.

Thank you internet!
posted by _dario at 11:37 PM on August 4, 2010

Remixed with a mechanical soul.
posted by sonascope at 12:34 PM on August 5, 2010

Holy hell that was awesome. I fast forwarded to the 0:45 mark, just in time to see the brick get tossed in, and holy crapballs.
posted by antifuse at 6:24 AM on August 9, 2010