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Life Manual

 Dummies Guide to Life
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(+6, -7) 		  [vote for,
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The problem with things that are REALLY obvious is exactly that. They are so obvious that nobody ever bothers to tell you. My solution to this is a book of lookup tables for any imaginable problem for the modern man/woman. Examples include:

Problem - Tired (see also sleepy) Answer - Sleep for longer or more often

Problem - Headache Answer - Take paracetamol

- and so on. I can believe that anybody would take at least one bit of useful advice from such a book if it was published.

—Alphaman, Oct 24 2002

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. http://www.instructionbook.com/
Author of "Life's Little Instruction Book" and similar tomes. [phoenix, Oct 24 2002]

Amazon.com's listing for the above book... http://www.amazon.c...104-1565748-6467907
...with links to items of similar interest. [phoenix, Oct 24 2002]

Georges Perec: Life: A User's Manual http://en.wikipedia...:_A_User%27s_Manual
Don't waste your time on feel-good self-help books; there's wonderful, meandering, surprising literature to read! [jutta, Sep 24 2006]

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       Bravo. I've made so many stupid mistakes that should have been patently obvious, that I plan to beleaguer my (future) children with all sorts of obviousities, until they look at me quizically with big dumb, "Duh, dad!"s painted on their little faces. This book would save us all lots of embarrasment.
—absterge, Oct 24 2002
   

       Darwin calls this problem "Natural Selection"
—Mr Burns, Oct 24 2002
   

       I think the problem with this idea, unfortunately, is rather obvious . If you had a source to turn to for obvious problems, you would then have an obvious solution to your obvious problem, and hence you would not turn to your obvious solution, it being glaringly obvious.
—blissmiss, Oct 24 2002
   

       Quote - Dummies Guide To Life, Page 1:"Do Not under any circumstances publish this book"
—Alphaman, Oct 24 2002
   

       better luck next time - alpha male.   

       problem - whats this site about ?   

       answer - have a quiet look round for a week or two.   

       welcome to the HB.
—po, Oct 24 2002
   

       It is really astounding how uncommon "common sense" is these days. Perhaps we could get these books into the schools and educate the morons that way??
—Aurora, Oct 24 2002
   

       I don't have the moxie to stand at a school board meeting and suggest that "there are children in our schools who may never leave home due to their ignorance, no matter what the tests say. For them, and for our prosperous retirements, we must remediate our children!"
—reensure, Oct 24 2002
   

       By all means [Alphaman] you can still take the cake here regardless. Just make sure you have two "linguistic" versions.   

       Hers: Refrigerator Grill Dust Build Up   

       "Make a bimonthly habit to swipe the louvers with a damp sponge"   

       His: Refrigerator Grill Dust Build Up   

       One action/Once in awhile method for all related dusting tasks; Shop vac with small nozzle on reverse.   

       Alternative: Attach fifty foot air compressor hose...
—hollajam, Oct 24 2002
   

       she just will NOT take the medication,
—po, Oct 24 2002
   

       _poo!
—hollajam, Oct 24 2002
   

       ...you know, I just don't get it. When I play Halfbakery everything I bake is somewhat consistent to previous examples all through out Bakery archives. In fact I use these as precedents before I annotate.   

       But I can never shake this feeling that some how to everyone else...   

       ...I come in a different font...
—hollajam, Oct 24 2002
   

       hj, a small point: I would respectfully request you consider using the "edit" function and consolidate your annotations into one. Perhaps I am alone in being somewhat annoyed to see anno after anno by the same person (not to mention it being mostly your speaking in tongue). Would you consider it?   

       Now, to the idea... which is a horrible one for at least a couple of reasons.   

       1. It bows to stupidity. It should never be encouraged.
2. The premise is incorrect. Answers are not always obvious. The two examples you give are excellent illustrations of this.		   

       // Problem - Tired (see also sleepy) Answer - Sleep for longer or more often //   

       Fatigue is very often a symptom of potentially serious health complications. Your answer presumes the person isn't getting enough sleep, while indeed it could be that they sleep 10 hrs a night.   

       // Problem - Headache Answer - Take paracetamol //   

       This answer fails to take into consideration the cause of the headache (eg. metal object lodged in skull - after all, you are targeting stupid people with this). Furthermore, it ignores potentially serious problems that could result of the person is taking other medications, or if the person has drunk several alcoholic beverages.
—waugsqueke, Oct 25 2002
   

       I didn't mind this idea as much as the rest. The problem is not providing the answers though, it's knowing who to believe. Wasn't until last year (age: 25) I finally noticed that those people who genuinely advise you to be honest with your girlfriend about everything are normally saucer-eyed idiots without girlfriends.
—General Washington, Oct 25 2002
   

       Never under any circumstances trust people with no eyebrows.
—Gulherme, Oct 25 2002
   

       <temporary aside> [Wags] I will delete the my anno~ to po soon.   

       But what of authors who delete their own anno~s in between two responses from the same author?   

       And of temporary anno~s how would one know the length of time the author intended to wait? These were questions I watched for precedence early on. Without standards such practice is subjective. </temporary aside>
—hollajam, Oct 25 2002
   

       I thought life was all about figuring it our for yourself.
—snarfyguy, Oct 25 2002
   

       I thought life was all about figuring it our for yourself. By the way, excellent & funny anno, Rods.
—snarfyguy, Oct 25 2002
   

       Problem - Infinite number of problems to write in a finite book length.   

       Answer - come up with our own answers. Its much more fun that way.
—Jinbish, Oct 25 2002
   

       Croissant from me on the grounds of comedy/irony rather than practicality. I'm half-tempted to add writing this to the list of things that I'd like to do but know that I'll never really get around to.   

       <aside>A friend of mine had to write "How to ride a bicycle - a user's guide" as interview material for a technical author job. The context was that he had to introduce the item as if it was not a familiar object to the reader (You have to define what 'handlebars' are and which way to sit on the seat.) The topic is naturally funny. The straighter you write it, the funnier it gets.</aside>
—st3f, Oct 25 2002
   

       When I first thought of this it was only for the comedy value but then I wondered whether anybody would actually take anything useful from it. This was only the start of my problems...
—Alphaman, Oct 25 2002
   


 

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