Sunday, December 31, 2017

Miter Saws, the Dummy Version

Sliding Compound Miter Saw
Sliding Compound Miter Saw
Ever had a parrot? Neither has anyone here at the Antisocial Network, though one staffer had a cockatiel for a while. Anyway, everyone knows that parrots can talk, and we hope that everyone knows that the birds don't know what the words they're saying mean. We see the same thing a lot with freelancers: they parrot miscellaneous information they've picked up somewhere (usually by looking at lists of words used in search engines) and try to make a few bucks for their misinformation. Take, for instance, hubbie June Campbell: We already caught her pretending to know about hand tools, now we found her over at EzineArticles.com pretending to know about the "Miter Saw – An Indispensable Tool for the DIY Woodworking Enthusiast."

Saturday, December 30, 2017

Forstner Bits for Dummies

Forstner Bit in drill press
A Forstner bit in a drill press
It's been a while since the Antisocial Network team has nailed someone for a fake tool review, but that doesn't mean we don't turn them up on a near daily basis. After all, the damned things are everywhere on the 'net. Some are the "I didn't use it but my hubby did" type, and some are of the "I heard you can make lots of money reviewing tools" type. Today's entry, compliments of a heretofore untapped source of dumbassery, is that latter type. It's "Forstner Bit Reviews," posted by some guy claiming the name Tested_to_Destruction at Wizzley.com. Oh, joy, another content farm to mine...

Friday, December 29, 2017

Biofuels for Dummies

algae biofuel generation
Algae biofuel generation
If you stick your head in the alcove where our research staffers park their laptops, it's a safe bet that you'll soon hear a snort of derision from one of them. That usually means someone has found a clumsy job of rewording. You see, most content farms were deathly afraid of plagiarism, and immediately expelled anyone who merely copied something word for word. The "contributors" at eHow.com quickly learned, however, that a thesaurus is your best friend when you're trying to reword a Wikipedia article... and that's pretty much what a staffer caught Max Roman Dilthey doing in "How Does Biofuel Work?" at ItStillRuns.com.

Thursday, December 28, 2017

Hinge Mortises for DIY Dummies

Mortising the door for a hinge
We understand completely when the person asking a question doesn't know the exact words to use. What we don't understand is when the person (supposedly) answering the question doesn't seem to know, either. Take, for example, the question "How to Make Grooves for Door Hinges":¹ we know that the proper name for that "groove" is a mortise. Based on what he wrote at HomeSteady.com, however, eHowian John Walker didn't know the word. Otherwise, he might have used it... but he didn't.

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Screen Door Hinges, the Dummies Version

installing hinges on a screen door
Pretty sure that's not Emily...
The nice people at Leaf Group have been laboriously moving old eHow.com content into niche sites, we assume the better to suck eyeballs at search engines. Sadly, it seems to work: quite often we see decade-old garbage content filled with errors at the top of the results when we Google (or Bing, etc.) a how-to question. They even seem to be replacing some of the more crapalicious content, as evidenced by all the red-letter entries on our DotD by name page. Sometimes, however, the replacement is just as bogus as the original, such as Homesteady.com post "How to Install a Spring-Loaded Hinge on a Screen Door" from the keyboard of Emily Patterson.

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Ground Anchors for Dummies

ground anchor screw
ground anchor screw
Although most of our DIY DotD awardees win for mangling the instructions they've cribbed, occasionally we find someone who – more or less – gets it right but manages to completely blow the lead-in to the instructions. That's how we spotted today's candidate, John Walker of HomeSteady.com: it was because of the desperately doofus introduction he penned for an article entitled "DIY Ground Anchor."

Monday, December 25, 2017

Basketballs and Freelancing Dummies


Well, it's Christmas morning and all the Antisocial Network elves are finally resting after the lo-o-o-ong holiday buildup. It seems to start earlier and earlier: one elf swears she saw Christmas decorations in a local store the day after Labor Day! Whatever the case, in the interests of a short blog post today, we've found a DotD candidate with just one stupid mistake for us to mock. That does not, however, mean that Alexander Callos is not deserving of the award for his SportsRec.com post, "How to Restore a Grip to a Leather Basketball."

Sunday, December 24, 2017

Amperes for the Dummy Electrician

watts up
We here at the Antisocial Network often hear complaints that scientists and technologists talk too much in "jargon." Our staffers, most of whom are scientists and technologists point out that everyone talks too much in jargon: ever listened to a business type rattle off "biz-speak"? or a social worker speaking of "empowerment" or "incarcerated persons"? Scientists are (somewhat) less likely to speak in buzzwords, but that's mainly because so many of those "jargon" words have quite specific meanings.

All this is a way of introducing one humanities type, history student Michael O. Smathers, and his failure to understand the "jargon" of physics in "Capacity of a 15 Amp Circuit [sic]"¹ at Sciencing.com...

Saturday, December 23, 2017

Cement Board Skirting for the Clueless Mobile Home Owner

mobile home skirting
That's skirting, Tim...
Abraham Maslow is credited with the saying, "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." We like that, not least because we feel as though the Antisocial Network has plenty of tools that aren't hammers. We mean that in both the metaphorical and literal senses, by the way... Unfortunately, some freelancers have just a hammer... eHow.com's Tim Anderson is one such writer, a guy who has only one arrow in his quiver as he deftly proved in the HomeSteady post, "How to Do Cement Board Skirting."

Friday, December 22, 2017

Diamagnetism, the Clueless Explanation

diamagnetic ferromagnetic paramagnetic
Diamagnetism, ferromagnetism, and paramagnetism
Opera singers aren't multilingual: even though they sing in multiple languages – French, German, Italian... – in some (or all) languages they've had to learn unfamiliar words' pronunciations phonetically. We often catch our DotD candidates trying to do the same thing in a written form, but when we inspect their content we see that they've merely thrown unfamiliar words at the page in semi-coherent order so that they don't really mean much. One of our favorite examples is serial dumbass Joan Whetzel, who we found fumbling through the terminology in an old eHow.com post (now at Sciencing.com) titled "What Materials Do Magnets Repel?"

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Splicing Lumber for the Dummy Carpenter

half-lap joint
Think you could cut this joint with a jigsaw, Nathan?
Our staffers argue quite a bit about what form of dumbassery is most egregious. Is it the copy-reword-paste job in which technical terms get misinterpreted? Is it the mashup of two sources that are actually about different topics? Or is it the specific answer to a general question that nevertheless gets it wrong? The argument continues... but for today, at least, it's Type III: meet eHowian Nathan Fisher and his specific and, quality-wise crappy, answer to "How to Splice Lumber" at Leaf Group niche site HomeSteady.com.

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Deleting Browser History for Dummies

data recovery - recover deleted files
data recovery - recover deleted files
If we've said it once, we've said it a thousand times: you can't trust the bull some random person threw at the internet just to earn a few bucks. Oh, sure, some freelancers are selective and only write about topics "in their wheelhouse," so to speak. The problem is that too many others, especially those at content farms, have merely googled a question and reworded the first half-coherent search result. A lot of them seem to have or be working on "communications" and journalism degrees, which they seem to believe makes them capable of writing about anything. They're not: witness Melissa King attempting to explain "How to Permanently Delete the Internet Browsing History on a PC" for ItStillWorks.com.

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Fuel Filters for Mechanical Dummies

Carburetor vs Fuel Injectors
Carburetor vs Fuel Injectors
It's been a while since our staffers visited HubPages.com, perhaps because they've been having so much fun patrolling all those niche sites Leaf Group has been stuffing with old eHow content. Be that as it may, there's still plenty of dumbassery over at the hub, it's just that the site's organization makes it harder to drill down to it. Whatever the case, we do occasionally feature a hubbie as DotD, and today's one of those days. Meet returning awardee Joanna Millar (msmillar) and what we suspect to be another entry from her "my hubby did this, so I'll write about it" file: "Replace a Fuel Filter - Common." Don't ask us what that whole "- Common" business is supposed to mean...

Monday, December 18, 2017

Chronometric Dating for Dummies

biostratigraphy dating
biostratigraphic dating
We're not certain about everyone, but we figure that when most people ask a question they expect a straightforward answer that contains facts; not some vague rehash of a website the writer (claims to have) read. We do know that if you don't know the answer, we'd prefer that you admit it instead of spreading around a load of bull – that's the main reason we publish this blog. Unfortunately, not everyone who "answered" questions for eHow.com was that honest... take, for example, Adrian Grahams, who penned the article "What Is Chronometric Dating?" that now appears at Sciencing.com.

Sunday, December 17, 2017

Solving Formulas for Algebra Dummies

sphere volume formula
sphere volume formula
Well, Minerals Week was fun and we found a couple of new serial dumbasses to follow around the internet, but it's time to get back to other topics. Today's topic is mathematics, a subject that appears to be extremely "tough" to lots of people (not to mention a '90s-era Barbie Doll). Today's DotD nominee is a bit of a serial candidate himself, having already been featured four times in these pages. He's Mark Kennan (a.k.a. Michael Keenan), here to attempt to explain "How to Find the Volume of a Sphere in Terms of Pi¹" for Sciencing.com.

Saturday, December 16, 2017

Crystals, the Dummies Version

Quartz and Glass structure
Quartz vs glass structure
One of the defining features of minerals is that they have an "ordered internal structure," which is a fancy way of saying that every mineral has crystalline structure at the atomic level. That's why yesterday's DotD was off base, by the way: glass is a noncrystalline solid. Believe it or not, there's a discipline of science that does nothing but study the "ordered internal structure" of crystals and how that affects their appearance and physical properties. It's a safe bet, however, that eHowian Ezmeralda Lee (sometimes known as Civita Dyer) did not study crystallography: if you want proof, consider her Sciencing.com post "What Is a Crystal and How Does it Form?"

Friday, December 15, 2017

Pumice and Minerals for the Dummy Geology Student (Minerals Week 6)

Glassy Pumice sample
Glassy pumice sample
The editorial staff had some concerns about whether or not to include the post featured today in Minerals Week, since its natural home might seem more closely aligned with a "Rocks Week" [note to intern: Check out the possibilities?]. The word "minerals," however, is in the title of the subject post and the author did manage to contribute to the stupidification of the internet by his post, so the nominee stayed. Here, without further ado, is Lee Morgan and "What Minerals Make Up Pumice?" at Sciencing.com.

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Beryl, the Dummy Version (Minerals Week 5)

not all beryl crystals are gems
Not all beryl crystals are gems
It's Thursday, and the Antisocial Network researchers still find themselves awash in bogus information about rocks, minerals, and crystals. The editorial board, however, remains convinced that it wouldn't be wise to expand Minerals Week to Minerals Year, even if it seems quite possible. Instead, we'll finish up our last three entries and move on to other subjects in which freelancers routinely contribute to the stupidification of the internet. Speaking of which, here's today's nominee: Tiffany Garden and her Sciencing.com post, "What Is the Mineral Beryl Used For?"

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Rocks, Crystals, and Minerals, Dummy Style

kidney stone composition
kidney stone composition
If the reader has more than a passing familiarity with the topic, it can be quite easy to spot a freelancer spreading around the bull. That's one reason why we're running Minerals Week: we have a couple of rockhounds on staff and it's easy for them to spot fakery from the misstatements and misinterpretations our candidates have published. We're talking misstatements such as those made by Gwen Nicodemus in her EzineArticles.com post, "What's the Difference Between Rocks, Crystals, and Minerals?"

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Quartz vs. Calcite for Dummies (Minerals Week 3)

conchoidal fracture in quartz
conchoidal fracture in quartz
Just like mineral grains are (usually) "little things," our research team members are finding that it's often the little things that trip up the freelancing fools to whom we award the DotD. Whereas real freelancing journalists (e.g., Mary Roach) investigate their topics in depth, our candidates often merely skim a wikipedia article or two and reword realistic-sounding phrases¹. It's those details that caught our staffer's eye while perusing "Physical Properties of Calcite & Quartz" at Sciencing.com, the article that earned Patrick Stothers Kwak a nomination.

Monday, December 11, 2017

Clay for Dummies (Minerals Week 2)

structure of clay mineral illite
Oops, Elizabeth: I see iron...
It doesn't matter what the subject of a content-farm post is, there will eventually be someone who reads it and reacts. The reaction depends on both the stimulus and the person who reacts, but it can range from mild amusement to inchoate rage. Today's DotD candidate, an eHowian claiming the name Elizabeth Jennings, managed to stir a fairly mild reaction – "Whaaaaa?????" – in the Antisocial Network staffer who ran across the content she wrote at OurPastimes.com under the title, "What Is Primary Clay?"

Sunday, December 10, 2017

Arizona Gems for the Rockhounding Dummy (Minerals Week 1)

gemstone prospecting
Some people prospect for gems, Bob!
A surprising number of posts about minerals have come across our desk in recent weeks, enough that the staffers decided that it was time for another "theme week." This time, it's Minerals Week. Here to show that some freelancers will say anything just to collect a few pennies, even if they can't tell a mineral from a hole in the ground, is eHowian Robert Adams. Robert's post "How to Find Gems in Southern Arizona"¹ (OurPastimes.com) was of particular interest to our staff geologist, a graduate of the U of A: Bear Down, Wildcats!

Saturday, December 9, 2017

Divergent Margins for Tectonic Dummies

Rift cross-section with sedimentation
Rift cross-section showing sedimentation
Your grandmother may remember the long-ago quiz show called "Name that Tune," where contestants tried to identify a popular song from just the opening notes. Well, every once in a while one of the Antisocial Network staffers who patrol the internet can spot a DotD candidates in just one word. That's the case today, compliments of eHowian Rebecca C. Jernigan and her Sciencing.com post "Type of Rock Found in Divergent Boundaries." As always, any grammatical and logical errors in the title belong to the OQ: eHow.com only changed (some) spelling errors...

Friday, December 8, 2017

Dueling TV Antennas for Dummies

Two antennas one output
Two antennas, one output
The eHow business model was simple: pluck search terms including the word "how" from the internet (later, they also included "what" and other interrogative words) and let a contributing writer answer the question. The problem was that, too often, that contributor knew nothing about the answer and merely found what appeared to be a good answer somewhere on line, then reworded that text. In other words, a sort of online version of the game "telephone," in which the answer came out garbled – just like the answer Alexander Callos gave at niche site Techwalla.com to "How to Hook two Antennas to One Coaxial Input" (any violations of AP guidebook rules for capitalization are eHow's).

Thursday, December 7, 2017

Roof Plans for the Dummy Builder

new roof sheathing (decking)
new roof sheathing (decking)
We're still confused about how anyone ever expected some random college student (even if he is one of those fantastically gifted J-school grads) to be able to write intelligently about roofing even though he's never done any construction... but that was the eHow.com model. That, in fact, was why the mother lode of stupidification of the internet allowed some guy named Alexander Callos to publish rubbish under the title, "How to Calculate Roof Plans" (it now lives at niche site HomeSteady.com¹).

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Cooling Fans for Sweaty Dummies

12-volt cooling fan
Where's that wall plug, Kurt?
One of our staffers here at the Antisocial Network regularly checks our entries to make certain they're up to date. He's the one responsible for the blue "Leaf Group has deleted..." footnotes and the red entries in all those Dumbasses by Name pages. He also reminds us when it's been a while since we featured a serial dumbass, which is why – five months since his last appearance – eight-time DotD Kurt Schanaman is back. This time, it's for his HomeSteady.com article "How to Make a 12 Volt Cooling Fan Run Backwards."¹

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Polenta for the Clueless Cook

Polenta in some of its many forms
Polenta in some of its many forms
One of our staffers ran across an early eHow.com contributor not long ago and was, to be honest, gobsmacked by her work. At first, she thought the problem was the author's choice of topics (geometry), but a bit of research turned up a topic supposedly in her wheelhouse. It was just as bad... So, meet today's DotD nominee, Julie Richards, and her answer to the eternal question,"What Is Polenta?"¹ at the mother site.

Monday, December 4, 2017

Planers for the Dummy Woodworker

planer in action
A planer in action
The business model of Demand Media Studios (DMS¹, now known as Leaf Group), parent company of eHow.com, was straightforward: get as many eyeballs on your content as possible through high search-engine placement. Accurate information, as most now know, was never the object. That's why so much of the technical content was cobbled together by liberal arts majors (English and journalism, mostly) in as short a time as possible. The result? Too often, it was rubbish like the HomeSteady.com article "Types of Planers,"² contributed by Charles Pearson.

Sunday, December 3, 2017

The Diagonal of a Square for Dummies

measuring a diagonal
The question said "measure"...
Over the years, we've found that reading the short biographies of contributors to what used to be Demand Media Studios (former parent of eHow.com, SFGate, Livestrong, etc., now known as Leaf Group) can be very revealing. Take today's DotD, Jana Sosnowski: her little bio mentions (of course) a degree in journalism, along with a stint as a "curriculum writer for a math remediation program." Based, however, on "How to Measure the Length of the Diagonal Line of a Square" at Sciencing.com, however, it appears that she might need some math remediation herself.

Saturday, December 2, 2017

Power Saws for Dummies

table saw miter gauge
Using a miter gauge on a table saw
Our woodworkers and carpenters are always on the lookout for interesting posts about their crafts, whether the topics are how-tos or tool advice. We don't visit EzineArticles.com all that often, but the staffer who turned up today's DotD suggested that it might be fertile ground for dumbassery based on the quality of several articles she perused. Without further ado, then, here's "Circular Saw Vs Table Saw – Pros and Cons," barfed up onto EA by one Ted Oliver.

Friday, December 1, 2017

Re-hanging Upper Cabinets for Dummies

install upper cabinets cabinet jack
Installing upper cabinets
using a cabinet jack
We're big fans of DIY here at the Antisocial Network, and our staffers have tackled a wide variety of jobs over the years. In "olden days," we'd research new tasks in our DIY library, but here in the online age there's a huge variety of help out there. We've learned, however, that a lot of that help is worth exactly what we paid for it: nothing. That's because the people who wrote the advice, freelancers like Jill Leviticus (aka Holly McGurgan) of HomeSteady.com, have no idea what they're talking about – as Jill amply demonstrated in "How to Raise Kitchen Cabinets."