Statistic tells us that 87% of people [in developed countries] have a washing machine. In that case, these 87% must know that washing machines break from time to time. The remaining 13% probably realize it too – pretty much anything electronic breaks. Sooner or later, everything breaks – this is a fact confirmed by Murphy law and the second principle of thermodynamics, and I fully agree with this thesis.

    The question is if it’s going to happen sooner – or later. To answer that question and to have some fun, particularly in relation with washing machines, Which?, a British product testing company has set up an experiment called Overload. They took a washing machine, stuffed it full of clothing, and started the washing process – without planning to stop it until the washing machine breaks. “Breaking” in this case would mean a mechanical failure causing washing machine’s drum to stop spinning; but if the machine explodes – it will, I guess, count as well

    The washing machine is under a constant watch of four live webcams. A lot of added agitation around this intriguing experiment comes from the fact that if you guess the exact time of failure, you will win 1000 UK pounds [about $1600]. The process has started November 8, 2002, and so far the machine works quite well. The organizers don’t expect it to survive 24-7 operation for very long however – in the field specifying the predicted days of operation a maximum selection is “60”.

    Well, in order to quicken this experiment, guys from Which? are going to add a foreign object into the washing machine on every Friday, 11:00 GTM. Each object is determined by a vote of all participators; for upcoming Friday, I was presented with a choice of rubber ducks, colander, an action man figure, a plant in a pot, or Ulrika Jonsson’s autobiography. I voted for a rubber duck, but the current leader is the autobiography for some reason.

    I bet only thing everyone is wondering about is how long will the washing machine survive if a flower and a pot were to be thrown into it?