A heuristic is an experience-based technique that works at least for the person who gave it. In your typical recipe, for example, you will find heuristics for ensuring the proper outcome (Bake until golden brown, wait for the spaghetti to stick to the wall, etc.).
This is not a website for recipes, however. It's for everything else. It's for your daily life recipes. How do you go about taking out the trash? I suspect some people will think this is a simple one sentence answer, and they won't much like this site. The people who do like that question may start with the response:
Well, it depends on what's in the trash, how full it is, how much stuff is laying around the house that can be put inside it, how full is the cat litter, amongst other variables...
I would hope everyone has their own unique responses, though similarities will be abundant. People can get voted on the quality of their heuristics, and that would be pretty fun and strange.
Somebody will think this is completely baked by answers.com or whichever it is. And, largely, they are right. But, this site would have a format allowing for much different answers where heuristics are the goal; not necessarily a right answer.-- daseva, Jun 01 2010 lifehacker.com http://lifehacker.com/Yet another gawker.com property. Some of the articles there veer into this general advice territory. [jutta, Jun 02 2010] Wiki.answers.com: How do I eat a pie? http://wiki.answers...ow_do_you_eat_a_pie [rcarty, Jun 02 2010] [+]'d but what's the difference if you call it an "answer" or a "heuristic"-- FlyingToaster, Jun 01 2010 An answer is more absolute, whereas a heuristic is something that exists in the context of someone's experience.
On this site, in response to the (very general) question 'how do you wash your dishes' someone might want to discuss handwashing dishes with gloves and how to properly take the gloves on and off to avoid contamination and how to store the gloves to avoid mildew deposits and the like. You'll never get this level of detail with straight forward answers.com. This site will explore the digression of nested problem solving inherent in real life, whereas the other sites are just looking for the best solution.-- daseva, Jun 01 2010 //handwashing dishes with gloves and how to properly take the gloves on and off to avoid contamination and how to store the gloves....// Horrible. Trapped inside the mind of an obsessive -- like a parody of Nicholson Baker or maybe Proust.-- mouseposture, Jun 01 2010 That's almost exactly what this will be like. In my experience, heuristics always resemble a rambling paragraph of drawn-out specifics that may or may not pertain to the given problem that you are researching. I had a college textbook that had a unit simply labeled 'heuristics'. It was closely impossible to read.-- daseva, Jun 02 2010 //I had a college textbook that had a unit simply labeled 'heuristics'. It was closely impossible to read.//
Can you tell us how you got through it? In case we are faced with a similar situation.-- swimswim, Jun 02 2010 1. Find a bookstore. 2. Purchase a 'Cliff's Notes' guide to the textbook.(yeah probably doesn't exist, but hey). 3. Open said guide and begin reading at the beginning.-- RayfordSteele, Jun 02 2010 [swimswim], in case you are having trouble with that section, I find it very easy to go to [RayfordSteele]'s first annotation on this idea. He explain things a very easy to follow fashion. If you follow his steps and still find it impossible to read then simply burn the book and say you can't afford a book. Your teacher will likely give you pity over your hardship and find you a book from someone who will be able to explain the section to you without actually having to read the thing. If you don't like people or talking to them, then your next step would be to stop burning the book and contact a tutor who would be willing to do a coorespondence over telephone or email. At this point you will probably choose email because you hate people and that includes their voice, so you will want to have an online computer at home. If you don't have an online computer at home then you will have to set one up. To do this, you must contact another source.-- daseva, Jun 02 2010 I like this idea.
When I thought of this idea too I called it "life mechanic" or "life strategy". Not the vanguard product though.-- chronological, May 11 2022 random, halfbakery