Learning five new skills in a day - using YouTube
THERE’s a scene in the hit science fiction film, The Matrix, in which a character flies a helicopter off a roof to escape murderous people.
Our heroine makes a quick phone call before taking off and the information required to fly a UH-1 Huey is downloaded into her brain within seconds.
Aside from her eyes fluttering a little, she appears to suffer no ill-effects.
In she pops to the helicopter, and off she flies with a new-found skill in her head, thanks to modern technology.
It seems to me that we are not far from that futuristic vision.
I’m not much of a DIY person, but I’ve recently downloaded all sorts of diverse skills into my brain, from sharpening chainsaw blades to fixing the tumble dryer (I chickened out of that electrical skill, in the end, and called the repair man). A friend of mine even repaired his central heating boiler. It’s all thanks to YouTube.
The video-sharing site is not just a place of entertainment; it is a place where enthusiasts of all descriptions want to share their knowledge with the world. Here are a few jobs well done that, I did earlier:
PlayStation controllers are sturdily built, as reflected in their exorbitant price tag of circa €50 a pop, but even they will begin to feel the effects of repeated battering at the hands of teenagers. My sons’ controller had recently begun to suffer from “random-action” issues. It made for hilarious results while playing a game as the on-screen character was liable to perform just about any random action no matter what button you pressed.
The problem was compounded by the fact that the left joystick malfunctioned and hung limp in its socket.
Thankfully, PlayStation fans evidently love to share their problems on YouTube. A helpful video from a young man somewhere in America showed me how to carefully disassemble the sensitive controller and solve the “random-action” problem with a piece of rolled sticky tape. I fixed the joystick problem by cannibalising it with a spare part from another irretrievably broken controller.
All these skills can be learned in more traditional manner, such as talking to people face-to-face or attending courses. The difference that the likes of YouTube make, however, is that we can now get our instruction demonstrated to us in bit-form into our homes at the speed of light (quite literally) at no additional cost.
Now to master that tricky helicopter take-off…
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On a similar, previous car, I was told that to order a new key unit would cost €120. A man in Spain made a silent, but highly instructive, three-minute video on how to dismantle the faulty key unit and put it back together, this time with a new ‘shell’ (which I bought online).
It was all quite straightforward.
The most complicated task was removing the blank key from its hinge, doing likewise with the good key from the wonky casing, and swapping them around. It involved removing what I’ve since learned is a ‘slotted roll pin’. The video showed me how to do this using a drawing pin. Total cost — €20. Satisfaction — priceless.
The only problem with our old family laptop was that the ‘d’, ‘e’ and ‘3’ buttons ceased to function, having been hammered once too often over the years. I ordered a new keyboard on Ebay and it arrived two days later, at a cost of €21.
Of course, I’m not stupid: I researched it before ordering the part, and I found instruction videos on how to replace the keyboard.
As this was my first task, I rushed into it like an excited child opening a Christmas present. I had removed all the screws from the bottom of the computer and was hunting desperately for the battery, when I realised that it was a video for a different model. I found the right video soon afterwards, and I had the new keyboard installed and the old one in the bin — in five minutes flat.
Arguably, the most valuable exercise of them all as it involved a new skill that will help keep my house warm during the year-long Irish winter/summer. It also got me plenty of kudos with my father-in-law. He had never mastered the skill of sharpening the blades because he hadn’t got around to taking the time to learn how to do it with someone experienced. It’s not a terribly difficult skill to learn, but it’s not easy to learn, unless somebody can demonstrate to you visually how to do it. Thanks to YouTube, that visual expertise found its way right into my living room from some American guy who clearly loves chainsaws. He didn’t sound like the sharpest tool in the shed, but he knows about sharpening chainsaws.
This is one that I really would never have attempted in a million years without going on some sort of night-course for a few months.
The wiper mechanisms of this vintage of Fiat Punto are particular enough and are prone to corrosion. Having ordered the links, the job at hand involved removing the entire window-wiper motor, dis-assembling it all on a bench, replacing the worn links with the new ones and putting it all back together again so that it works. It’s all in a half-hour’s work to the average mechanic, I’m sure, but to me it was a brand new skill learned from paying careful attention to the video of a calm Italian man.
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