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[Frumple]

Cooking... you have the internet. There's recipes everywhere, for basically everything. Look at what food stuffs you have available, give a search online, see what pops up. Other than that, read the directions given, follow the directions given, and keep an eye on what you're cooking. Basic cooking really is no more complicated than that, and gives a firm basis for branching off into more advanced things. As for basic kitchen implements, if you've got a pot to boil water with and a pan to cook stuff, you have a tremendous body of material you can produce. Even without that, you've got a lot you can do. Cooking really doesn't take much unless you're getting incredibly fancy, and even then you can do a lot with a very limited tool set. Especially if you have the right seasonings and spices~

Painting... which sort of painting? Artistic, or just, like, painting walls a single color? The latter... again, internet, if you're looking for detailed instructions. Mostly you just paint up and down until there's an even coat, and move along. Make sure you don't have too much paint on the brush or (preferably, it tends to go a lot faster and produce a more even paint job) roller. There's not terribly much too it.

Sewing, I can't help with, ha. Depends on what sort of sewing you want to do, too. Just repair work, full textile assembly, etc. Again, though, if you've got internet, you've got a massive resource of tons and tons of free material. Local library (or libraries) almost certainly will have manuals for varying sorts of cloth work, as well.

Actually, if the library doesn't have texts on hand (or able to be called in via interlibrary loans) for all of that, I would be incredibly surprised. Cookbooks and sewing guides are common to have on hand in libraries, if my experience in them have been any indication, and art texts are fairly common as well.

[Lectorog]

There are too many resources. And many of them assume basic knowledge of the topic, which I don't.
Painting is the artistic kind.
Sewing is full assembly, but repairwork seems like a likely start.

[Aklyon]

Have you tried looking for basic resources, then?

[Frumple]

A starting sewing guide, with a few resources at the bottom. Seems specifically if you've got a sewing machine, though. Was the third hit in "how to start sewing" on google, with several other apparently useful hits on the first page. Add "by hand" and you get a lot of stuff for doing it sans machine.

"How to start painting" pops up a crapload of beginner stuff, as does "how to start cooking". Any time you run into a term or technique that you don't know or isn't explained by the resource at hand, a quick search for "What is <that thing>" will usually clear things up.

And yeah, if it's a possibility, swing by local libraries and ask if they've got anything on hand, or know of any institutions that are offering resources -- it's not uncommon for one or more groups in an area to be offering that sort of basic instruction on the cheap, perhaps even outright free.

[Lectorog]

Cool, thanks. I was trying "how to X", not "how to start Xing", which was unproductive in terms of basic resources. ~

[i2amroy]

Generally I find basic cooking no more difficult then:
1) Googling instructions for what you want to make
2) Acquiring needed ingredients
3) Following instructions.

Really the only "hard" thing about basic is learning how long it actually takes to cook a given recipe (which is more just a matter of practice) so that if you are cooking multiple things simultaneously they all end at the same time.

Of course IMO there is a fairly large gap between that and more "advanced" cooking, which requires you to have enough experience with the basics that you know the variety of different herb/seasoning tastes by heart in order to mix them in a way that is pleasing.

[Lectorog]

Step 0, figuring out what you want to make, can be difficult. In my experience.

[FearfulJesuit]

I have had an idea for a reality show. What would happen if eight chavs from Newcastle became exchange students in an underperforming inner-city American high school?

[Aklyon]

I have had an idea for a reality show. What would happen if eight chavs from Newcastle became exchange students in an underperforming inner-city American high school?

Depends on if people are interested in said reality show.

[Frumple]

Step 0, figuring out what you want to make, can be difficult. In my experience.

I find randomization methods (RNGs, coin flips, etc.) greatly simplify this process. Put everything you can and/or are willing to cook in a Random.org list, hit randomize five times. Cook the top one. Alternately, pull out X (roll a d6!) number of ingredients, cook whatever you can make out of those.

Stuff like that. As others have noted, if whatever you end up on is sufficiently not to your liking to nix it, then you obviously had some sort of (conscious or otherwise) objection. In which case you go to the second option, haha! Different way of looking at it, if you've got nothing to bias you towards one thing or another, anything will do. So pick anything. Spin three times and point. Etc., so forth, so on.

There's clean and easy ways to overcome decision paralysis, basically.

[ed boy]

How would this work as a television show:

-A bunch of modern artists have decided that they want to exchange ideas/work together/show off work to each other
-They bring a couple examples of their own work and discuss each other's over the course of a couple days
-At the start of the first day, the hosts say that they'll fund the whole venture if they can use it as part of a reality show
-The artists are told that one of them is not a famous artist at all, and just an actor pretending
-The artists are told that if they can identify the actor at the end of the day, they'll have their future projects funded
-The actor is told that if they can keep their identity secret, they'll win a prize
-In reality, they're all actors

[Lectorog]

It works as a story idea. It would depend on the other aspects as to whether it would be enjoyable to watch. Timing, music, characterization, etc.

@Frumple, thanks for reminding me of randomization methods.

[Furtuka]

My younger cousin got this cryptogram as homework, and it's got the whole family perplexed. Can any of you guys solve it/explain how to?

And my dad figured it out immediatly after I posted this nevermind

[My Name is Immaterial]

Post it anyway.

[Lectorog]

You know Bay 12 loves puzzles. We've had multiple threads for them too! So you could necro one of them or post it here.

Question:
What's the agreed-upon place to stop shaving the leg when the entire body is covered in hair?
Their leg needs to be bare for cultural appreciation for wearing not-pants, but shaving elsewhere is not necessary.