Ooops, meant to send to (or at least include) list: ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Michael Paoli <michael.pa...@berkeley.edu> Date: Sun, Jul 27, 2025 at 3:25 PM Subject: Re: How to ask a question? To: Richard Owlett <rowl...@access.net>
Why of course ask the smart way! http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html Uhm, yeah, strongly recommended reading - and mostly still highly relevant. On Sun, Jul 27, 2025 at 5:34 AM Richard Owlett <rowl...@access.net> wrote: > > More explicitly: > How should I [who has *ability* to hyperfocus mitigated by > distractibility {cf ADHD}] ask questions in this particular forum? > > Why do I ask? > In my read with PDF related questions, my responses were essentially > "Why are you trying to do?" rather than an answer to to a narrowly > focused question. > > A correct, but skew answer, could have been "to gain dietary information > to lower probability of another heart attack". Nutritionists had given > me answers that more a set of intermediary goals than actual things I > could apply to daily life. > > I had discovered a USDA document[1] that came close to being useful and > was trying to think of a presentation format that would meet multiple > goals. I hadn't yet determined that format, thus could not answer > questions being asked. > > In the meantime [GRIN] > I have discovered the source documents[2][3] used in preparing the > above. Now I have to relearn how to extract specific content from > spreadsheets. Something I haven't done in close to two decades. > > But *THE* question remains. > How to ask narrowly focused questions which will get answers in this forum? > > TIA > > > > > > [1] Specifically Table A4.14 of _Thrifty Food Plan, 2021_ > https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/resource-files/TFP2021.pdf > > [2] > https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/media/file/TFP_2021_Online_Supplement.xlsx > > [3] > https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/media/file/TFP-2021-Disaggregated-Market-Basket.xlsx >
