Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for April 09, 2023

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE! HE IS RISEN!

Hope you all have a fun day… and don’t eat too many Cadbury Chocolate Eggs. ;)

Does number one awesome feature show you how to make phone calls? No, not text messages.

Of course the shampoo has directions, If it didn’t, you wouldn’t know to “repeat” (a direction that’s made explicit simply to sell twice as much shampoo).

Every time I get a new phone it takes me 3 years to figure out all the features. Then its time for a new one to learn.

Anyone havingg rabbit tomorrow?

Don’t even try to call for instructions unless you’re interested in what the weather is like in Manila, Philippines, or Mumbai, India.

If you can’t figure it out by poking around, ask ChatGPT or, of course, use a search engine like Google. Everything is out there. One of my favorite things is asking ChatGPT to give instructions in some unique way, like in poem form in the style of Emily Dickinson. Which is admittedly less useful than a dry user manual style, but way more fun.

I’m with Nancy, I really miss the days when electronic devices and tax forms came with instructions.

And those phones are all over-priced.

But still, it’s amazing what they can do.

And they are closest thing some of Us old geezers will ever get to owning a tri-corder/communicator. ;-)

I despise online instructions.

That’s how I learned my phone and new laptop.

I remember those old days when phones only had a single feature.

I don’t know if it’s the same case in English, but in Spanish there is a meme that is used to point out someone who does something stupid, who says “for people like you, shampoo has instructions”.

I’m a so-called “Millennial,” but even I barely use my phone for anything other than a phone. If I want to take pictures, that’s why I have a camera; if I want to shoot video, that’s why I have a Handycam; if I want to use the internet, that’s why I have a computer; if I want to watch a movie, that’s why I have a TV; if I want to listen to music, that’s why I have a CD player; and, if I want to talk to somebody, that’s why I have a phone.

I took an on-line course on my first smartphone device. My 5th smartphone has features what I won’t need since I am too busy for the games apps.

Yeah – Every time I just poke around on my IPhone I wind up with fewer functions instead of more functions.

No s*hit. We upgraded today from iPhone 7+ to 14 because Apple plans on removing access to services shortly. Too bad really, because I loved my 7+. Neither though came with any instructions other than to look at the Apple website.

Luann, please don’t join the Bomb Squad

They come with several hundred pre-installed apps you don’t want, need, or ask for. Some of which monitor where you are and send back information about you to the app designer. (I spend a couple weeks deleting and stopping most of them when I get a phone. But a manual would be nice to tell you what are actually required by the operating system.)

But my real complaint is that you know d*mn well the companies making the apps gave $ to the company manufacturing the phones to have their apps/spy-ware come pre-installed. If you company making the phone is making $ putting on the apps I want a discount when I buy the phone.

The essence of good ui is where there is no training required to use it. The classic example is a push/pull door. If you need a sign to tell you which to do the door designer failed.

Instructions are referring you to endless websites

Todays generation is filled with computer and technology experts.

And that repeat requirement is just the manufacturers way of getting you to use more shampoo thereby requiring you to buy more.

There’s alot of things in life that work that way…

After many years of taking photos with my camera, I recently discovered (by accident) that it has a macro mode.

I would say something about… nah…. Nevermind.

Shampoo manufactures aren’t as cheap as the makers of $1,000+ cell phones. 2 cents worth of paper they figure will tip the cost of the phone over the limit as they just have to pass that manufacturing cost on to the consumer.

The last place I worked, we got a new copy machine…my boss threw out the instruction manual. So I downloaded one online. Guess who always came to me to figure anything out!

We just took delivery of a bunch of new gear at work. Cameras, a gimbal mount, monitors, etc. The only printed instructions were “quick start guides”. Any more details were online

Yep. Been pokin round mine for 5 years now.

My Jeep came with a manual on CD. 99.9999% of it is the entertainment system. Anything useful, I have to google to find out.

Poking around to try to “figure out” how to use an electronic device, or going to various web sites to do the same is SO inefficient a way to learn how to do something…… is SO much of a time sink hole that it negates the so-called “value” of the electronics making “your life easier”. Having a d*mn manual in paper form would make things EASIER!

I love these moments of normalcy where parents have some difficulties understanding their children and the world, but there’s no drama and they’re just a bit confused. I love the calm and loving smile with which Luann explains things to her mother.

The last time looked there was a huge manual for the phone, way too big for me to print. I saved it on the computer and I might search on it to find the answer to a specific question about the phone, I might ask google the question too.

Most manuals anyway are written in Engrish. Most are incomprehensible.

All manuals are online now. The trees say THANK YOU for not wasting paper.

Luann did not come with instructions. You just poked around and figured it out.

And you wonder why some people never learn anything…because others do their thinking for them.

I miss manuals.

For my first so called smart phone I just took it over to my neighbors 14 and 16 year olds. They had it set up in about 15 minutes. I’m old.

In the 1990s, a college course I took required students to have a graphing calculator. The manual was 1/2 the size of a college textbook. The graphing calculator qualified as a computer. If I had studied the manual, I would have been able to program it.

Wow, Luann actually appearing in her own comic strip. Only on Sundays, I guess.

Phones don’t make your hair fall out, or at least no one has been able to prove it in court.

that is because only techs RTFM.

Mine had the manual on the phone when I bought it. I uploaded it on my tablet though easier to read a separate screen then work the phone

I went to my local AT&T store gave them my password and they transferred all my apps from old phone to my new I phone.

There are instructions on my microwave pizza. And Serving suggestions.

Happy Easter He Is Risen Celebrate the Resurrection.

I was once tasked with reviewing and revising a section of our hospital’s nursing Policy/ Procedure manual. The first procedure revision was for inserting a rectal suppository. In the interest of brevity, I omitted, “remove the suppository’s wrapper.”

But does your shampoo tell you when to stop?

The rise of online manuals.

I know that Frank and Nancy are supposed to represent the readers’ generation, but if the mother of a college kid and a young 20-something (Brad’s what? 23?) is this clueless about phones, something’s amiss. She’s got the body of a 50-year-old and the mind of an 80-year-old.

Or we can just pretend that it’s both 1990 and 2023 in Luanniverse.

The manual for the latest generation iPhones is over 2000 pages long.

Luann isn’t wrong.

Don’t gaslight your mother like that. Not on Easter! The manual is in the phone, of course, instead of on some papers that you’d all probably lose anyway.

I finally figured out that I could load music on my phone and play it through a bluetooth receiver. No need for record or CD players, or iPods. That wasn’t in any instructions

I have the younger people’s (also stubborn male) attitude of learn by doing. The women Ive known are often afraid of‘breaking it’. Google your problem if you hit a wall. Manuals have been good for reference if they’re properly written. Seen too many Chinese bad English ones later on.

Duke Cannon shampoo comes with the following: Directions: It is assumed you know how to use this product.

Oh Nancy, you know that if there are directions the print is too small to read.

And it does a great job, Nancy!

The majority of modern “smartphones” allegedly have more computing power in your hands than NASA used to get Americans on the Moon.

They have the ability to instantly access perhaps three-quarters of the world’s knowledge and maybe half the people living on the planet. They have video and still cameras of publication/broadcast quality—no more blurry videos of Bigfoot or Nessie if they should ever turn up. They can download apps of incredible scientific and mathematical utility.

And we primarily use them to swap emojis, cat videos, and videos of people embarrassing themselves.

This is why I keep buying the “same” phone. It definitely evens out the learning curve.

I need to replace my cheap phone that’s about 8 years old, and I STILL haven’t figured out everything it does. Googling gets you 100 different answers to common questions. I’d rather have a manual.

Rinse??

NOW it all makes sense!

Oh well, it would have fallen out anyway for one reason or another anyway.

Luann, your technique is what men have been trying on women at least since Olduvai Gorge, and it hasn’t worked all that well. (Yes, I know, you’re going to say that women are more complex than phones — but at this point, are you sure?)

The “golden rule” of programming an app is for it to be “into it tive” and therefore needs no instruction manual.

O tempora! O mores! No manuals for the blasé Phoniacs!

I’m with Nancy….

Actually, it is better for your mind if you figure it out yourself.

Oh, look! A Global Nuclear War Game app.

The manual is online

Correction, nothing comes with a physical manual anymore.

On the other side, I remember those “lather, rinse, repeat” instructions. Found out later their nefarious plot was to make you do that so you’d use TWICE as much shampoo and therefore have to buy MORE!!!

And accidentally tap into a nuclear power plant by mistake…..