Crude Oil Prices for Dummies

sample crude oil price chart

It can be a bit scary looking for financial information, particularly if you don't really understand what it is you're looking for. That's why we strongly suggest that you find a reliable, authoritative source for the information you seek, not to mention a source that has a solid grounding in the basics. We guess, however, that you probably don't want to turn to advice from content farms like eHow.com... or their daughter site, Sapling.com. That's where we found Jerusha Hardman and her post, "How to Track the Price of Crude Oil." It was originally published at eHow under the handle Si Kingston, but – for now, anyway – we'll work under the assumption that the author is Hardman and correct it later if needed.

Scrap Gold for Dummies

There are some content farms we don't get to as often as we should, one of which is a site called Wizzley.com. Most of that particular farm's content appears to comprise fake reviews (at least what we've seen of it in the past). but we happened to stumble over a "helpful" piece posted by a repeat DotD who goes by the handle of Mary F. Supposedly Mary's from Oz, but... Whatever the case, we're pretty certain that Mary's take on "Scrap Gold Prices" suffers from a serious deficit of common sense and knowledge.

Lump Sum Payouts for Dummies

Next to plumbing and electrical wiring, one of the biggest so-called black boxes on the planet appears to be retirement planning. In Grandpa's day, it was pretty simple: you worked at some factory for 45 years and, on your 65th birthday, they gave you a gold watch and started paying you a pension. No more... people jump from job to job at a frantic pace and almost no one has a pension any more. If, however, you are eligible for a pension, you'd be wise to look for more competent financial advice than that of Aaron Marquis in his PocketSense.com post, "Lump Sum Payout Vs. Monthly Pension Benefits."¹

Insurance Deductibles for Dummies

Insurance explanation of benefits: note the circled phrase.

One of our warmer, fuzzier staffers has been known to say that there are no stupid questions, but even she was taken aback by the utterly ridiculous question expressed by someone in today's nominee. Although we tend to give credit where credit is due, there is no way we (without access to NSA records) could find out who originally asked "How to Meet a Health Insurance Deductible." On the other hand, we do know that Kendra Dahlstrom tried to answer it for AZCentral.com. That's one of the sites that bought content from Demand Media, which is why the post showed up in a site:eHow search...

401K Distributions for Dummies

Cashing out from your 401K

Back in your grandpa's day, people worked for the same company all their lives and retired with something called a "pension." You millennials may have never heard of a pension, and it's pretty likely you won't ever see one (unless you work for a governmental agency). Beginning in the '80s or so, employees have been much more likely to save cash for retirement in a self-directed plan like a 401K. But what happens to that money when someone reaches retirement age? You can be pretty sure that Alibaster Smith (fake name, no?) doesn't know, based on his answer to "How Is a 401K Paid After Retirement?"¹ for Leaf Group's Sapling.com.

ATM Cards for Dummies

ATM vs debit vs credit card

Most of the Antisocial Network's DotD nominees receive their awards because they try to answer questions on topics about which they know no useful information. A surprising number, though perhaps we shouldn't be surprised, arrive on this blog because of a combination of ignorance and greed; a combination that's especially true of people trying to answer questions on the Leaf Group of websites, formerly eHow.com. Take today's nominee, six-time winner and professional freelancer Alicia Bodine, who knew nothing about "How Do ATM Cards Work?" before taking this "assignment" at eHow (it now lives at PocketSense.com); and also knew nothing after completing it; the same as her readers.

Natural Gas Prices for Dummies

historical natural gas prices

This week, (probably) purely by accident, we've been seeing a lot of freelance posts written by people who simply did not understand the question. As a result, the answers they've provided have been off-topic, simplistic, half-right, or completely wrong. Today's award ceremony is no exception: we're visiting the Leaf Group niche site Hunker.com, where we caught familiar eHow.com contributor Rebecca Mecomber attempting to explain "How to Calculate Natural Gas Prices."¹ We're pretty sure she failed the assignment, not that anyone at Demand Media noticed...

Calculating Markup for Dummies

Calculating a retail markup

Many an intrepid entrepreneur is convinced he or she can make a killing in our service economy by selling things. Might as well, folks, now that well-paying manufacturing jobs are going the way of the dodo and the passenger pigeon! Of course, a lot of those would-bes come to the sales floor unprepared (the result of journalism and English Lit degrees, perhaps). Some are even so... benighted that they need help on the absolute basics of retail sales, asking the internet community to help them figure out "How to Markup from Cost."¹ If they're lucky, they won't be getting that help from the likes of Alicia Bodine at eHow.com. That wouldn't be helpful at all.

Alicia appears to understand the basic concept of a markup, or at least she managed to find some sort of reference (perhaps written at a fifth-grade level?) that could explain to her that

Mineral Leases for Dummies

When commodity prices are high, people crawl out of the woodwork looking for ways to strike it rich without working hard; and freelancers come out of the woodwork ready to advise them on how to do so. When gold was $1800/ounce, there were the freelancers with gold-recovery instructions. When oil was $145/barrel, there were the freelancers with typical bogus advice on how to get rich wildcatting or drilling for oil in your own back yard. Not to be left out, serial dumbass, eHow-style, Larry Parr tried to get in on the act with a little scrap of content he called "How to Buy Oil Leases."¹

Poverty for Dummy Freelancers

Based on the self-help section at the local (and online) bookstorea, one surefire way to get rich is to tell people how to get rich. Some freelancers have taken this idea to heart, preying on the less fortunate among us in the desperate search for residual income (i.e., riches). Today's dumbass, caught trying to do just that, is InfoBarrel's Shay Carmack, aka MsShay. Shay called her foray into the get-rich arena "How to Afford Presents During the Holidays." 

Carmack's four-step instructions are followed by a blank "Tips and Warnings" section – maybe she tried to publish it at eHow first? Regardless, however, her advice is simple – and mostly stupid:

Foreign Currency for the Dummy Numismatist

Miscellaneous foreign coins (mostly francs)

You'll never know who asked some of the stupid questions that get "answered" by freelancers at eHow.com, but (fortunately for us at the Antisocial Network) you usually know who answers them. You can even follow some of them around from the site's version of a profile page and see what other stupid things they've said. We did precisely that with Tom Lutzenberger, previously caught misinforming the public in Sewer Gas, the Dummy Version. Well, Tom's back today, this time holding forth on another topic about which he apparently knew nothing: "How to Find the Value of Foreign Coins."¹

Residual Income for Freelancing Dummies

Money, money, money, money!

We used to think that no content has a higher bullshit quotient than the rubbish posted by people telling you how to make millions posting your every moronic thought online. Entire sites – such as Bubblews – were built on the idea of sharing what you ate for breakfast, what your English as a Second Language teacher said in class, and how pretty today's sunset over Luzon was; all to collect a penny for every visit from other people sharing the exact same babble. Well, we were wrong: there are posts out there that have even higher bogosity quotient, and here's one of them: Saramarie (also known on other sites as Sadiemarie) sharing, on Personapaper.com, "How to make $10,000 a Month Online."

Her method? actually, we don't know. The reason we don't know is that this is what Saramarie tells her readers:

Early Retirement, the Dummy Calculation

Planning for retirement

If you were to believe the dumbass who calls himself (herself?) arvaldeco at Infobarrel.com, anyone can retire early: all it takes is some self-discipline. To prove it's possible, because (according to Arvald in his post "How to Retire at 40"), 

"Retiring at 40 is the dream for many. You have spent a good twenty years working to achieve your retirement but still have long life ahead of you and are young enough to enjoy it in a very active way..."

The guy lays out what he claims is the simple math. If you believe this dumbass (and you dream of retiring at age forty like so "many"), all you need to do is use a simple formula

Charitable Receiving for Dummies

Want a free Yugo? Probably not...

If you've spent much time online, you've probably realized by this point that the internet is mainly devoted to two things: money and pornography. As far as we can tell, though, many of the people who realized they had no hope of making boatloads of money from the porn industry decided to become freelance writers at websites like Seekyt, Bubblews, AssociatedContent or the late, but unlamented, EliteVisitors.com. Take for instance one such dumbass who calls herself (himself?) ThePen, a miscreant who's been featured here at the Antisocial Network in the past. This time, instead of spun content, ThePen's contribution to the stupidification of the internet is inanity – an article entitled "How to Get A Car From Charity."

1099 Tax Forms for Dummies

Form 1099-MISC

The sometimes stupid, sometimes hilarious, and occasionally hilariously stupid website eHow.com is infamous for the moronic answers to inane question its contributors have provided over the years. We at the Antisocial Network are well aware that the Panda update to Google's algorithm was created precisely to reduce the page rank of content like that found at eHow.com. If you've ever wondered why, all you need to do is wander around the site for an hour or two. Today, for instance, we began with a search for the word "logarithm" and, in just four random jumps, ended up at a piece by Larry Parr entitled "How to Print a 1099 Tax Form off the Computer" (it now lives at Leaf niche Sapling.com).