Bike Computer Setup for Dummies

Sensor position

We realize that now's not the time to be thinking of hopping on your bicycle and cruising the local streets/trails/whatever... but we can dream. That brought our staffers together to look at some of our collection of potential DotD nominees in the world of self-powered two-wheelers. Sure enough, we came across a post by someone whose eHow.com bio claims that he was once a "contributing writer for Bicycling Magazine." It is, of course, a claim that can't be verified; but if true, based on what Wade Shaddy wrote in the GoneOutdoors.com post "How to Set Up a Bicycle Computer," he wasn't writing about maintenance... at least not maintenance in this century.

Doors for the Dummy RV Owner

RV replacement door

A friend of ours who's read a lot of professional papers over her career says that one of the things she always looks for in the bibliography is the quality of the sources. She's taken to heart the advice of an English Comp professor she had decades ago, who said that relying on "Reader's Digest" and The National Enquirer as sources would be... questionable. We say that the same holds true for online content, so when a staffer turned up a post at GoneOutdoors.com whose sole reference was a previous DotD winner, we knew we had a strong candidate. Let's give a Bronx cheer, then, for Anna Rose and her post, "How to Install an RV Door."

Building a Horse Barn for Dummies

Becky's plans wouldn't build this barn

The people who ran eHow.com (and, we suppose, still run its many niche websites) were never particularly discriminating about their freelance contributors. Besides falling for the canard that a "journalist" could write authoritatively about any subject, they also had a bad habit of imputing expertise about every subject to someone who at least claimed expertise in one area. That's a long way to explaining why Rebecca Boardman, expert horsewoman or not, had no business attempting to tell people "How to Build a Simple One Horse Barn"¹ at GoneOutdoors.com.

Triangulation for the Dummy Hiker

triangulation on a topo map

One of our staffers thinks that the somewhat arbitrary structure forced on freelancers at the former eHow.com was responsible for more stupidification of the internet than any other feature of the site. We've seen many occasions when a freelancer who'd put together a simple answer to a question got tripped up by the details necessary to pad the post to meet the minimum word count. Today's nominee is similar, but different: she's media studies student Tatyana Ivanov, and she contributed "How to Triangulate a Position" to GoneOutdoors.com.

Shimano Drivetrains for Dummies

standard vs compact crank

After more than six years of paging through the multitudinous sins of freelancers at places like HubPages and eHow, we've become inured to the "stupidification" some of those miscreants visit on the internet as a consequence of their ignorance. We have a special antipathy, however for the writers who claim to know better and still muck things up. One such is "former contributing editor to Bicycling" Wade Shaddy, who we found mucking around at GoneOutdoors.com with a little ditty called, "Types of Shimano Gears."

Magnetic Compasses for the Dummy Outdoorsman

Magnetic declination rosette

After several years of correcting the utter bull published by ignorant but greedy freelancers, you might think we'd have become inured to the stupidity endemic to the breed. Not so: every day introduces our staffers to even more clueless journalism, history, and English lit students trying to write about the science they've avoided studying. Sometimes we wonder if physics and chemistry students freelanced about writing romance novels and interpreting poetry.¹ Be that as it may, today's nominee is art and history graduate Jeremiah Blanchard, whom we found attempting to explain "How to Calibrate a Magnetic Compass" at GoneOutdoors.com. Unfortunately, he couldn't...

Magnetic Declination Correction, the Dummy Version

setting magnetic declination

Over the years, we've noticed that more than a few freelancers are a little hazy on the basics of using maps and compasses. The concept of map projections and the resulting coordinates is a total black box for most of them, and the worst of them can't even understand directions... the worst, like eHowian Jeremiah Blanchard. The former art and history student shared his ignorance in the GoneOutdoors.com post, "How to Calibrate a Magnetic Compass."

Bike Seat Installation for Dummies

Saddle rails and seat post clamp system

If you've never tried to swap out bicycle seats, you'll probably understand why bike shops charge an arm and a leg for the job – more, even, than changing a flat. That's probably why some poor schmuck googled the question, "How to Change a Bicycle Seat" way back in 2007. Some schmuck by the name of Alex Kosmidis "answered" the question... well, not really, so in 2012 eHow.com had Dawn Quinn rewrite it. The problem? Quinn's version (now at GoneOutdoors.com) didn't do a heckuva lot to improve over Koz152's version.

Basement Vaults for Dummy Gun Owners

Basement gun vault

We run across some pretty... what, mindless? instructions from time to time in our research, but the cream of the crap seems to come from liberal arts majors who've attempted to tackle a DIY project far, far, far beyond their personal experience and capabilities. Take, for instance, eHowian Ezmeralda Lee; who took on the assignment to explain "How to Build a Gun Vault in the Basement"¹ back when she was still Civita Dyer. It's now at GoneOutdoors.com...

6-Volt Batteries for Dummy Motorcyclists

Every day, the members of the Antisocial Network's team of researchers run across stupid claims made by unqualified freelancers who are/were only in it for the money. If we'd started in on this blog ten years ago, we'd have been finding posts at AssociatedContent, Helium, and many others that have faded into the sewage treatment plant of the internet. The mother of internet stupidification, however, remains alive and (reasonably) well. It's eHow.com. So today, we honor an eHow post; one written by Darla Ferrara about "How to Charge a 6-Volt Motorcycle Battery." Leaf Group has moved it to GoneOutdoors.com...

Contours for the Dummy Topographic Map Reader

D and K are easy, Dave, but what's the elevation of A?

It's been a while since we harped on how cartographically illiterate the average person seems to be. Yeah, sure, we understand that a version of a Barbie doll once said, "Math class is hard!" but did any doll ever say, "Maps are hard"? What is it about maps that seems to turn off the brains of otherwise average freelancers? We assumed that a "former reconnaissance marine" would have a better than average understanding of "How to Determine Elevation from a Contour Map," but the David Chandler post at GoneOutdoors.com just plain disappointed us...

Latitude, Longitude, and Address... the Dummy Comparison

It's sad, but true, that a great many people out there writing for pennies have abso-lute-ly no idea what they're talking about (not unlike many a political commentator). We catch these faking freelancers making some of the most bizarre misstatements and misconceptions, which certainly makes it hard to believe anything else in that particular snippet of content. Take, for instance, eHow.com's Matt McGew, whom we caught attempting to tell people unlucky enough to read GoneOutdoors.com "How to Find Addresses Using Latitude Longitude."¹

Colorado Rocks, the Dummy Version

Geologic map of Colorado

We live by a simple creed here at the Antisocial Network, a creed based on the adage "ask a stupid question and you'll get a stupid answer." We have two additions to that saying: "Ask a freelancer a stupid question and you'll get a stupid answer even though you don't deserve one." Well, some poor schmuck asked the internet "How to Identify Rocks in Colorado" – a demonstrably thoughtless question, if not exactly stupid – and for his troubles, got an answer from Laura Hageman that ranks right there in the bottom ten for stupidity. Hageman's original was on eHow.com, it's now at GoneOutdoors.com (if you care...)¹

Carbon Fiber Arrow Fabrication for Dummies

carbon-fiber arrow shafts

If there's one thing our staffers have learned over the years of researching DotD candidates for the Antisocial Network, it's that some people will pretend to know anything for a buck.¹ Of course, in the good old days of eHow, there were no checks on abject stupidity – just on format – which allowed some people to get away with posting pretty awful content... like the time romance novelist Laura Hageman tried to convince people that she knew "How to Make Carbon Arrows" for GoneOutdoors.com. She didn't, of course, and it shows...

Gold Ore for Prospecting Dummies

Native gold in a hydrothermal quartz vein

One of our staffers spent some time as a substitute teacher specializing in science, and she will tell you that "rocks and minerals" is a subject taught in almost every elementary school; usually in fourth or fifth grade. Which is one reason why we're confused that someone who says she graduated from one of the "Seven Sisters" doesn't know the difference between rocks and minerals. That is, sadly, the case with Claudia Newcorn, who visited "How to Identify Gold Rocks"¹ on Leaf Group's GoneOutdoors.com.

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.

Finding True North for Dummies

Magnetic declination map of North America (2005)

We've heard it said (on many occasions) that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." OK, well, maybe not many occasions – except around the conference table at the Antisocial Network's weekly staff meeting. In the real world, a lack of knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially when one is pretending familiarity with the subject at hand. That's pretty much what's nailed all Dumbass of the Day winners so far. Today's candidate is a noob to our site, a onetime theater major by the name of Mark Keller.  We caught Mark as he was holding forth on geography in "How to Determine True North,"¹ now appearing at some Leaf Group niche called GoneOutdoors.com. Really...

Calculating UTM Convergence for Dummy Cartographers

Grid North vs True North vs Magnetic North

Cars Week is, mercifully, finished; but drivers everywhere are still dumber than sacks of hammers and getting lost unless they have Siri or Cortana or another GPS character (Super Mario, perhaps?) there to whisper in their shell-like ears. It won't help them find themselves if they stupidly get advice from people who know little if anything more than they do when it comes to using maps. We know these liars are out there because we looked at some of the bull they've published and, let us tell you, much of it either makes no sense or is just plain wrong. Some fits both  categories, like "How to Convert a Grid to True North," penned for eHow.com (and now appearing on GoneOutdoors.com)¹ by Sean Lancaster. That piece of content is one sad example of dumbassery gone wild!

Granite for Geological Dummies

Spheroidal weathering in granite

Ahhh, research: once we've completed  formal schooling, it's the main way we learn and verify new knowledge. Of course, doing so works best when our sources are knowledgeable, right? That's why we at the Antisocial Network do our part to call bullshit on freelancer writers whose purpose is to make money, not to share knowledge. Their motto might be "Accuracy be damned!" while ours is "Accuracy rocks!" And speaking of rocks, that's our topic this week: we put the staff geologist to work slapping around freelancers who contribute to the stupidification of the internet by saying dumb stuff. So while we're on that subject, meet eHow.com's Claudia Newcorn, freelancer and owner of a marketing business. What Newcorn isn't, though, is scientifically literate; a deficit she proved by writing "How to Identify Granite Rocks" at GoneOutdoors.com.