Command Line Commands for Dummies

DOS command line interface in terminal window

Perhaps because eHow.com became the internet laughingstock after Google's Panda update or perhaps for some SERPy, SEO-y reason; Demand Media (now called Leaf Group) began moving their content onto "niche sites" or selling it outright. We've noticed a problem with the move, though: the company ran a bulk reformatting that changed the meaning of some of the content, some of it laughably so. If the content was already wrong, however, it sometimes made it worse. That's what happened to "How to Copy & Paste Files Using Command Prompt" when Rhian Hibner's post was moved to Techwalla.

Science and Religion Compared for Dummies

Science vs. religion, historical context...

Although our staffers put most of their time into searching the 'net for freelancer's factual errors, they do keep their eyes open for logical failings as well. Some months ago, an Antisocial Network researcher ran across some a self-appointed philosopher on HubPages and flagged his profile for future harvests. We already pointed out William J. Prest for his scientific illiteracy once, but heretofore ignored his many posts on conspiracy theories (the Lloyd Pye theory, cryptozoology, chemtrails, fluoridation, GMOs, and other pseudoscience). But we couldn't pass up this steaming pile of twaddle: "Faith in Science as an Objectivist Religion"; not after a copy of "The War on Science" circulated through the office...

Measuring Amperage for Dummies

Suppose you wanted to make money by answering questions on the internet. Of course, you could always just put up a page with a blank that says, "Ask Question Here"; pretty much the Google model, in truth. Since that idea was already taken, the people at Demand Media (now known as Leaf Group) created eHow.com, which hired random people to answer questions that had already been asked. Unfortunately, that meant that sometimes people who knew nothing would still try to answer questions that made no sense. After all, saying "You can't do that!" wouldn't make them any money! Instead, you end up with the kind of foolishness exhibited by Bob White (he's a bird!) when he attempted to explain "How to Calculate the Amps of an Outlet Using a Multimeter" at HomeSteady.com. Ouch.

The big problem, of course, is that multimeters don't calculate anything, including amperage: they can, however, measure amperage in a bare circuit or the voltage at an outlet. White actually gets at that problem in his intro:

Locks for Sliding Glass Doors, the Dummy Approach

Sliding door with mortise lock

The Antisocial Network mole who once wrote for Demand Media (owner of eHow.com, now reinvented as Leaf Group) says that it was common for a contributor to search for assignments with the same keyword once they'd established their "expertise." That must be how eHow.com contributor Alec Preble managed to write multiple articles about locks, a topic he probably didn't study on his way to that BA in English. Among them we found one of astounding dumbassery titled "How to Install a Key Lock On a Sliding Glass Door" (now living at Hunker.com).¹

Emerald Formation for Dummies

raw, uncut emeralds in crystal form

The Antisocial Network's founder recently read Shawn Otto's The War On Science, somewhat of a polemic on the treatment of science and scientists in the modern sociopolitical climate. One of the problems, according to Otto, is that journalists are taught that there is no such thing as objectivity, even though objectivity is the foundation of science. In other words, J-school graduates know jack about science. That's certainly true of "professional journalist" (turned organic farmer) Chris Sherwood, who demonstrated his scientific illiteracy for OurPastimes.com¹ when he attempted to explain "How Are Emeralds Made?"²

Towel Rack Repair for Dummies

How hollow wall fasteners work

As our crack research team putters around the internet in search of freelance bull, they often search for answers to questions that have come up in their own lives. One of the guys had a loose towel rack not long ago and, although he fixed it without outside intervention, he searched on the topic anyway. As luck would have it, he found eHow.com's Jonra Springs (a hot tub salesman?) ready to "help" with the problem. Here's what Jonra had to say in "How to Repair a Loose Towel Rack On Wall"¹ [sic].

As we do whenever possible, we went to the freelancer's original source, though we had to use the Wayback machine to find it; and – to be frank – it was only slightly better than what Springs wrote, suggesting that to tighten up a loose hollow wall fastener you simply "squirt a nice stream of glue into the hole" (small wonder the blogger who posted it took it down). But we're here to castigate Jonra, not Mark. Springs starts off with a bang, explaining that

Rock Identification for Dummies

Igneous rock samples

After a week of overt techno-stupidity, it's time to move back into the wide world of the internet and see what dumbassery's out there that isn't published at Techwalla.com. As luck would have it, one of our researchers ran across what may well be one of the worst guides to rock identification ever printed, compliments of Kelly Townsend at, you guessed it, eHow. Here's our rebuttal of the post Kelly compiled in response to the search phrase "How to Identify Stones,"¹ which now lives (for unknown reasons) at GoneOutdoors.com.

Numerical Analysis and Error for the Dummy Statistician

Numerical analysis

Wow: a week of Techwalla silliness and we've only barely scratched the surface... maybe we should have made it Techwalla month? Whatever the case, number seven in the series is courtesy of seven-time awardee Tom Lutzenberger, now appearing in a sixth category! This time it's mathematics, a topic we rather suspect the PolySci-slash-English major with the MBA avoided like the plague after finishing high school... and that lack of knowledge was pretty obvious when he posted "Types of Errors in Numerical Analysis" at Techwalla.com.

Lutzenberger gets right to the point in his introduction, explaining that

Dummies Confused About Routers

Letter template and base for a plunge router

Apparently desperate to fill out their latest niche site with content, the Techwallas over at  Leaf Group (the folks formerly known as Demand Media) bulk-imported a lot of techy-seeming material from the mother site, eHow.com. We could have told them that's a mistake, but they know everything... except perhaps that the word "router" doesn't always refer to an electronic device. It's also a power tool, but hey: the leafies expected techspertise regardless. That's apparently how Lacy Enderson ended up as one of their wallas, and "How to Make Letters With a Router" is why she's picking up her thirteenth DotD award. We mean, really: can you make letters with your Linksys? Sheesh...

Copying Software for (and by) Dummies

Data backup utility

This is the week when we're featuring some of the stupid things Leaf Group kept when they started migrating (allegedly) technical stuff over from eHow.com to their newly-christened niche site Techwalla.com. Just because people think they're "Wallas" (whatever those are) doesn't mean they have the slightest idea what they're talking about. Whatever the case, today's the second time in a week we've found useless advice about backing up your software; this time from Nina Nixon attempting to explain "How to Make a Backup Copy of Software." Well, no, Nina, that's not how you do it...

Nina explained, as Demand Media demanded, that

Deleting Files for Dummies

Acrobat file menu

One of our staffers was reminiscing not long ago about his first programming class. The instructor asked the class members to write out an algorithm for some simple task, and he – perhaps because he was working as a bartender at night – submitted the algorithm for making a Singapore Sling. Ahhh, simpler times. Well, Techwalla (née eHow.com) likes the algorithm approach, but sometimes their hardwired format gets just a little stupid; a feature that is often exacerbated by contributors like Elizabeth Knoll when called on to answer simple questions such as "How to Delete a PDF File."

Knoll, as is required of any contributor in the Demand Media / Leaf stable, opened by "introducing" her topic:

Function Keys for Dummies (Techwalla Week 3)

Function key usage

Day three of Techwalla Week actually addresses a question one of our staff might have: we use Dell computers in the office (our founder used to live in Austin), so it's conceivable that someone might have, at one time or another, wondered "How to Turn Off the Fn Key on a Dell Laptop." Well, actually, our staff are smart enough to know that's not a valid question – one might some day wonder how to unlock a Fn key, but not how to "turn it off." But that's because they're reasonable tech-savvy, unlike Techwalla.com's Nichole Liandi.

As Liandi says in the introduction,

Excel Formulas for Dummies (Techwalla Week 2)

Excel spreadsheet

The more complex a software program, the more hidden feature; or, should we say, undocumented features. Sure, even the most technologically unsavvy person knows how to type terms into a Google's search box, but do such people know about the "inurl:" and "site:" operators? No – and that's why there are hundreds of "hacks," "missing manual" and "for Dummies" books on the market for every complex software product. Yet some people still search for help on the internet – and the unlucky ones run across old rubbish ported from eHow.com to Techwalla.com, rubbish like Athena Hessong (sometimes known as Crystal Hessong) attempting to explain "How to Delete Data in Excel & Not Formulas."

Initializing a GPS For Dummies (Techwalla Week 1)

Typical GPS initialization screen

Congratulations to the folks at Demand Media on their recent name change to Leaf Group (9 November, 2016), although we admit it makes us sad to see their DMS¹ brand going away. It is gone, though, but a lot of their crappy content remains. Their latest trick is to start parceling out all of their eHow junk into newly-created "niche" sites; so this week we'll feature legacy content that has been moved to a place they call Techwalla.com². Without further ado, let's get to one of those; a little piece of content by Techwallan (née eHowian) Kallie Johnson (aka Carrie Catalano) entitled, "Magellan GPS Won't Initialize."³ Presumably, the article should have been a how-to for troubleshooting a Magellan GPS, but Johnson had a problem.

Kallie's Bachelor of Arts in English apparently did not include a whole lot of instruction, if any at all, in how to use a GPS receiver; and, for that matter, probably didn't include anything more technical than how to turn on your Macintosh Airbook® when you get out of bed in the morning. That, we suspect, is why Kallie's understanding of the meaning of "initialization" of a GPS is that "the screen lights up," as one might infer from her introduction:

Wiring and Plugs, the Dummy Version

wiring a Two-wire plug

If there's one thing that the Antisocial Network research team has learned over the course of this project, it's that know-nothing freelancers can often be identified not because they give the wrong answer (although they often do), but because they answer the wrong question. You know, ask someone who is the greatest home-run hitter of all time and they start lecturing you on why Pete Rose belongs in Cooperstown. Today's another example, self-proclaimed diplomate in home inspection (they give diplomas? we think certificates are more likely) Bob White, pretending to explain "How to Know Which Is the Hot Wire in a Two-Wire Plug" at Hunker.com.

Copying a Program for Dummies

The likely consequences of following Tiesha's guide

Our founder's late mother-in-law, bless her cotton-pickin' little heart, was one of those people who somehow decided that she was computer-literate because she could use an electric typewriter. One time he caught her editing the system files on her Windows computer, deleting lines she didn't think were necessary. Needless to say, she needed more help than he could give her. Thank goodness this was long before eHow.com and people like Tiesha Whatley got into the "advice" business, since Whatley is no more computer-literate than she was. Want proof? Just read her post titled "How to Copy Programs to a Memory Stick" (now brought to you by ItStillWorks.com, even if it never did)...

Sonar and Parking Assist for Dummies

Active parking assist

You may have noticed that we here at the Antisocial Network hold in great disdain the liberal arts types who try (and fail) to interpret science and mathematics. There are worse freelancers, however: they're the ones who claim to have a technical background and yet still make a mess of a topic in the name of making cash. That's our complaint with today's DotD, a first-timer from DailyTwoCents.com by the name of Sharifa Sanderson, who claims a "Bsc.-Electronics and Mathematics" (really?) but demonstrates a grasp of neither subject in the post she called "How Car Sonar Helps Drivers in Parking."¹

If you can fight your way past the overwhelming number of ads and popups on the website, you'll see that Sanderson opens her little piece with the introduction, "Car Sonar Sensors- How Do They Work?" and then goes on to... well, not tell us how they work any more than

Installing a Sink, the Dummy Method

Lavatory basin installation

It's been a while since our research staffers peeked from the muck that is eHow.com, but today they decided to remind our readers that freelancers whose only qualification was greed managed to infest other corners of the net as well. Today's nominee for DotD is a returning visitor from Catalogs.com (formerly known as WhoWhatWhenWhereHowWhy, etc.) who wrote there under the pseudonym M. Dee Dubroff (known elsewhere as Marjorie Dorfman). Today, Dubroff is going to tell us "How to Install a Sink." Or maybe not...

Metric Conversions the Dummies Way

Inches to feet and inches

Let's just suppose for a minute that you have blind date with a German guy arranged through Match.com (or some other internet dating site – it makes no difference.) Being a red-blooded American, your profile states your height in feet and inches: say, 5'-8" for example. Your potential date's profile, however, is metric – and it says he's 171 cm tall. Like many of your fellow Yanks, you're a little hazy on whether that's closer to Tom Thumb or Andre the Giant, so you look it up. Lo and behold, eHow.com's Greyson Ferguson has already told everyone "How to Convert 171 Centimeters to Feet and Inches"¹! O frabjous day!

Unfortunately, Ferguson's answer is a little weak. You see, after informing us that

Two-Stroke Engine Maintenance, the Dummy Version

two-stroke engine diagram

The research team member who uncovered today's example of utter bull asked around and, perhaps oddly enough, no one on the staff at the Antisocial Network owns a motorcycle. Heck, none of them were even aware that such a thing as a two-stroke motorcycle existed, though most are well aware of what a two-stroke gasoline engine is and how it differs from a four-stroke. That, however, does not apply to eHow's Mark O'Brien, as he made quite clear in the post "How to Change Oil on a 2 Stroke Motorcycle"¹ (the missing hyphen is eHow's, not ours). Oh, and the post was moved to ItStillRuns.com, but ItStillSucks.

Changing a Circular Saw Blade for Dummies

Circular saw

A decade or so ago even a semiliterate fool could make money writing for content farms (and more than one of them did). All you needed, they pretended, was a laptop and an internet connection, and you could pull in a few bucks writing about any topic on earth. Well, sure you could -- but the reason that model doesn't work any more is at least  in part because so much of what people posted was utter bull; posts about stuff they'd never even thought of before. Take Andrew Stickel, found writing under the nom de plume Andrew Todd at eHow.com, who posted "How to Change the Blade on a Craftsman Circular Saw" (since moved to Hunker.com by Leaf Group).¹

Horsepower: the Dummy Version

Definition of one horsepower

If you're even slightly interested in cars, chances are pretty good you're familiar with the BBC show "Top Gear." Well, the principals of that show were all shown the door in 2015, and all three of them – Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May – are now doing pretty much the same show for Amazon. It's "The Grand Tour." Our car guy was watching the pilot episode one day and noticed that the visuals displayed a car's power as BHP, which got him wondering what those drones at eHow.com (now Leaf Group) think of that abbreviation. Sure enough, it was dumbassery: specifically eHowian Cheryl Ess (fake name, for obvious reasons) and her post titled "How to Convert BHP to HP" over at Sciencing.com.

Low Pressure Systems for Dummies

diagram of a low pressure system

When it comes to freelancing on the internet, many a money-grubber quickly realized the need for a pseudonym. Perhaps it was so the boss wouldn't figure out that they were gigging on company time, or maybe so prospective employers wouldn't google them and find out that they were dumber than dirt. A favorite technique was to use one's first name and phonetically spell the initial of the last name (see Annette Vee or Cheryl Ess). The researcher who turned up today's DotD says he'd use fake name, too, if he were as uninformed as Vee Enne (real name Victoria Nicks) turned out to be in "What Happens When the Barometric Pressure Falls?" which you can find at Sciencing.com.

Tidal Power for Dummies

Electricity generation by tidal power

Many Antisocial Network staffers are voracious readers of fiction, which suggests that they respect the art of creative writing. When it comes to non-fiction, however, they believe it takes special talent to use training in creative writing; special talent like that of author Mary Roach. Most of the creative writing grads we find contributing to eHow, however, are sadly deficient in that talent. Take, for instance, Oregon State's Eric Bagai, whom we caught mangling the non-fiction aspects of "Why Is Tidal Power a Renewable Energy Resource?"¹

Ice Packs for Dummies

resuable gel hot and cold ice pack

Not only are most of the daily dumbasses featured here at the Antisocial Network simply unqualified to address their topics, many of them did so anyway at a website that performed as an enabler. Because of the site's stringent word-count and format demands and exacerbated by clueless content editors, many articles posted at eHow.com didn't merely fail to inform they readers, sometimes hey did so spectacularly. Today's DotD is a possible example: English BA Susan Diranian trying to tell her readers about "Gel Ice Pack Ingredients."¹

Covering a Popcorn Ceiling for Dummies

Removing popcorn ceiling

Anyone who's lived in a house built or remodeled sometime between about 1960 and 1985 is probably familiar with the so-called "popcorn" ceiling. The rather hideous decorative effect was intended to disguise seams, sags and other defects in drywall ceilings; more recently the heavy texture has been supplanted by swirl and orange-peel effects that do pretty much the same thing. Given its dated appearance, it's no wonder that DIY remodelers asked "How to Camouflage Popcorn Ceilings";¹ but only unlucky ones took the advice eHowian Naima Manal (15-time daily dumbass) posted to HomeSteady.com.

French Drains for Dummies

french drain construction

Although no one at the Antisocial Network subscribes to the belief that a yard should look like a putting green, there are some problems that our staffers will address. One of those is poor drainage that leads to muddy dogs, a situation that found our general handyman digging a trench along the back of the headquarters building and installing a french drain. Fortunately, he didn't get tips for installing the drain from eHow.com's Sharon Sweeny, who displayed the wealth of knowledge she got in her "general studies degree" while penning "How to Use Weeping Tile for Backyard Drainage" at HomeSteady.com (in the interests of full disclosure, he used this site, among other references).

Average Speed for Dummies

speedometer and odometer

You may have heard that, "If you ask a stupid question, you'll get a stupid answer." We don't think that you deserve a stupid answer, which is one reason we like nailing fools for being the DotD. Every once in a while, though, we run across a question and answer that almost certainly deserve each other. Take, or instance, a gibberish question like "How to Calculate How Many Drive Hours Per Mileage"¹ and the gibberish answer Greyson Ferguson posted at eHow.com.

Wiring a New Plug for Dummies

Replacement 3-prong male plug

Of all the online pleas for DIY help our research staff encounters in a normal day, simple electrical repairs seem to be among the most common -- and among the most frequently "answered" by dumbasses who have no business doing so. Just take a look at "electrical" or "electricity" in our list of DotD awardees by topic if you'd like to see the wall of shame. Well, today we add a new dumbass to the list: three-time winner Kurt Schanaman, who already won once for electrical stupidity, and his post "How to Wire an Electrical Three Prong Plug"¹ at Hunker.com.

Schanaman, as always, displayed his ignorance almost immediately. First, he never bothered to explain why a power cord might have a three-prong plug (electrical ground... duh!), then he lied:

Typewriters for the Clueless Office Drone

margin levers on IBM Selectric®

Back in ye olden days, when the latest boy band members were just a gleam in their daddies' eyes; people wrote business letters, essays, and even personal correspondence on a device called a "typewriter." We suspect that if you wanted information on how to use these devices, along with 8-track players and rotary-dial telephones, you'd be wise to ask someone who has actually used one a time or two; not the likes of  eHowian Richard Kalinowski (aka James Gapinski), who we rather suspect has only seen a typewriter in a classic movie or perhaps an antique store. Regardless of the lack of any experience doing so, however, we found Richard attempting to explain "How to Set Margins on a Typewriter" at BizFluent.com... of course (it's at ItStillWorks.com these days).