The Telephone Game for Freelancing Dummies

Wood beam weight support

Ever heard of the game called "telephone"? It just shows how poorly people listen and repeat a phrase: tell the first person some bit of gossip, he passes it to the next person and so on and so on. After a dozen or so repetitions, you compare the current version to the original. The more complex tee original, the greater the "drift." Today's nominee is a version of telephone in which one clueless freelancer used the work of another as his "source." Meet Madhu from Worthview.com and "How Much Weight Can a 4x4 Support Horizontally."

Madhu claimed to have gotten his information from Just Answer, but it's pretty clear he didn't use that information because a) his answer was different and b) there was an orientation difference. However, we looked at Madhu's answer and figured he'd just reworded some rubbish from another India-based content farm. Here's what he said:

"...not everyone can master the art of decoding how much suitable weight wooden beams of varied sizes can hold horizontally, with or without any vertical support."

Uhhh, Madhu, if the "beam" is "without vertical support," it's lying on the ground! He then went on to tell everyone that,

"The weight that a 4×4 beam can support horizontally depends on the type and quality of the wood used. It could be a lot of weight for a layman who has no clue about a 4×4 beam’s horizontal weight support."

OK, the first sentence is (sort of) correct, but WTF does that second one mean? And there's more:

"...people don’t want their six feet tank to be sagging from the middle of their wooden beam or plank."

Uhhhh, yeah?  But really, here's where the rubber meets the road:

"In general, a 2×4 wooden beam can support the weight up to a ton horizontally, and thus, a wooden beam of 4×4 can easily support double of the weight mentioned above horizontally."

That's bullshit. A 2x4 can't support a ton of weight unless the 2x4 is only a foot or so long. Plus, Madhu's "double the weight" estimate is, we suppose, based on his assumption that a 4x4 is twice the size of a 2x4... but it isn't: it's 3½x3½, while twice a 2x4 is 3½x3... But what can you expect from a yutz who tells you that,

"...some experts advise people to take advantage of the 2×4 wooden beams instead of the 4×4 wooden beams for supporting the weight of things horizontally because the former saves space. All one needs to do is alter the dimensions of deck or swing set to be built to fit inside the 2×4 wooden beams for supporting the weight horizontally."

We can't even parse that last... But that's not why Madhu is our Dumbass of the Day. No, he's picking up the award because he never said a word about the length the 2x4 will span and whether the weight is a point load or a distributed load. Combine that with the questionable estimate, and it's no contest. But if you'd like some accurate information, you can always ask people who actually know something...

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