We invited commenters to check out and offer a snap judgment on an app called Show Me Now, which features bite-size how-to guides for situations like fooling a polygraph, fighting off a gorilla, playing dreidel, cooking a cake in an orange, and tying a cherry stem in your mouth. The app was featured in Reuters March 14.
Here were some of the responses.
Daisy got inquisitive:
I’d be interested to see how the app is organized. Can you search for random things? What kind of things? What makes this easier than Googling, if you’re looking for a particular how-to? Does it have how to make finger-waves? Because I’ve always wanted to know how to do that.
Clare nails it:
To be able to instantly look up something new to try after a few gins is grand! I worry sometimes than my iPhone is taking over my life. But I think there’s an app for that, so it’s OK.
Nathan says there’s no substitute for good old-fashioned trial and error:
I like apps like these that purport to give people an idea how to do something, but ultimately it only presents only the general concept of how to. People need to remember this. Just because there is an app telling you how does not mean that you will actually be able to execute.
Me, I typically make it up as I go.
And Nick, channeling the Old Prospector, gets crotchety on us:
Argle Bargle,
don’tcha just wish people knew how to do stuff? I mean, come on, iPhone. Do we need to be emasculated by technology? I made sure to learn everything cool ever before I was 16 so that in a pinch I could make an orange-clove air freshener, boil the hide of an armadillo to make soup AND protective epaulettes, and sell an expensive public works proposal. bah humbug.
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Congratulations, Nick, Nathan, Daisy, and Clare: you’re our winners.