Geographic Grids for Dummies

Longitude lines

We snicker a lot at the journalism and "communications" grads who believe that they are capable of writing about any topic, no matter how esoteric, because of the superior research skills bestowed by their educations. Ha! We're especially amused by the ones who tackled technical and scientific topics at the erstwhile eHow.com, managing to show their ignorance in just a sentence or two. Take, for example, today's DotD nominee, Tamara Runzel, who took on "What Is the Geographic Grid?"¹ for Sciencing.com.

Diamagnetism, the Clueless Explanation

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?"

Rocks, Crystals, and Minerals, Dummy Style

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?"

Geodes for Dummy Earth Science Students

geode with smoky quartz crystals

When it comes to scientific information, a great many of the freelance posts we find at content farms tend to be lacking in some way or another. Much of it contains misinformation that arises from the writer's inability to translate technical terminology (usually in an attempt to avoid being charged with plagiarism). Some of it is... well, incomplete; mostly because the writer didn't know enough to consult multiple references. That's the variety we have today, a "science-y" post that only tells part of the story: eHowian Kathryn Hatter attempting to explain "What Is a Geode?"¹ for OurPastimes.com.

Latitude and Longitude for Dummy Grade-Schoolers

Latitude-longitude grid  

According to the old saying, half a loaf is better than none. We agree that, if you're hungry, half a loaf is indeed better than none – unless you're hungry for knowledge or information, because in that case half an answer just leaves you with more questions. At least we think so... which makes us wonder whether "veteran home-school educator" Kathryn Hatter would feel that her students were well-served with the half-answer she offered in her Sciencing.com post, "How to Understand Latitude and Longitude."

Glaciers for Clueless Dummies

alpine glacier with medial moraines

We are sure that there are plenty of homeschoolers out there who do an excellent job of preparing their children for the real world, though we rather suspect the excellent scores come of their students get on standardized tests are more the result of extreme "teaching to the test" than excellence in education. Face statistics: just like medical doctors, half of all homeschoolers are in the bottom half of their avocation... which brings us to today's candidate, Joannie Ham, and the little ditty she published at InfoBarrel.com called "5 Questions About Glaciers."

Frequency, Hertz and Waves for Dummies

In the Antisocial Network's staff meeting last week one of our researchers noticed that we hadn't revisited one of our favorite DotD winners for a while (not since the beginning of the month, anyway), which is something considering that she's already a 21-time winner of the award in nine – count 'em – nine different categories! We (think we) first found her holding forth on the physics of sound, so what better topic to revisit the one and only Joan Whetzel except watching her make a fool of herself in her HubPages.com post, "Frequency, Hertz, and Waves"¹ (Joan's a big fan of the Oxford comma).

Joan, as is usual, cranks up her well-oiled misinformation machine in the very first paragraph:

Mixing Oil with Water for Dummies

Oil and Water in an Emulsion

Like just about everyone else on Earth, our staff here at the Antisocial Network are familiar with the phrase "like oil and water." The phrase denotes two people, concepts, etc. that (supposedly) simply don't mix. Of course, having taken an elementary chemistry course or two (required of them, English or Journalism degree or not), our researchers are familiar with the concept of an emulsion – a mixture of oil and water (or any two immiscible liquids, for that matter). While attempting to teach about emulsions without not actually using the word, eHow.com's Kelly Sundstrom (BA in Music...) got herself into trouble with the post "How to Mix Water With Oil."

Renewable Energy and Water Power, the Dummy Version

Generating hydrogen through electrolysis of water

We hear a lot about a "polarized society" these days ("No duh!" as kids used to say). Perhaps one of the reasons for this polarization is intellectual laziness, the tendency to let others do our thinking for us; so we can do more important things like sending pictures of our latest meal to our Instagram feed or sexting with our SO in Snapchat. Really, people, if you devoted as much time to learning as you do to social media... Anyway, speaking of a lack of intellectual rigor, that's the topic of today's mini-rant. You see, we recently turned up a bit of rubbish on DailyTwoCents.com, a small chunk of content published by one Athena Goodlight that she titled "More Water Powered Cars, Please."¹

Compasses for Dummies

Ordinary compass

Remember the television commercial with the tag line, "If it's on the internet, it must be true"? The one with the pretty blonde and the soi-disant French fashion model? Does "Bone jewer" ring a bell? Sure it does! So: ever wondered why the meme "if it's on the internet it must be true" is so powerful? Well, here at the Antisocial Network we have a theory: it's at least in part because of freelancers at content farms, folks who write utter bull about anything and everything whether they know anything about the topic at all. We like to expose them... and that's why today we're featuring one of those same freelancers already seen here twelve times. Today, the one and only Naima Manal explains (and we use that word loosely) "Why Do People Use the Compass?" for the good folks at eHow.com (now at Leaf Group's niche site Sciencing.com). Of course, she doesn't do it particularly well...

Metrification for Dummy Activists (Metric System 5)

It used to be you could just pound out a few paragraphs of rubbish on your keyboard and rake in the cash at any content farm. The Google Panda update of 2011 changed all that; inserting some vague measurement of "quality" into the site's search algorithm. Immediately, wannabe freelancers began schooling themselves in SEO, branding, and a host of other buzzwords in an attempt to improve that "quality." What many of these freelancers failed to realize that the Panda update punished sites for bad content. So why did the hangers-on continue to publish utter bull? Because they already had that arrow in their quiver and it takes considerably more work to write good material. That's why hacks like DailyTwoCents.com's Deborah-Diane (sometimes known as Deborah Dian or Deborah Diane Carr) keep churning out twaddle like "The U.S. Needs to Convert to the Metric System."¹

Graphing Equations for the Innumerate (Math Week 6)

A typical table of values

The hallmark of the internet freelancer who's producing utter bullshit is the inability to answer simple questions. We see it all the time, especially on websites where people are paid for their "answers" – and yes, we mean eHow.com and, to a lesser extent, sites like Hubpages.com. This inability stems from ignorance of the topic at hand, and is often evident from almost the first words written; say, for instance, a writer's inability to define the terminology or introduce the most basic concepts. One of our favorite (NOT!) writers when it comes to faking knowledge is Naima Manal (a ten-time recipient of the DotD), whom we found attempting to explain a simple mathematical concept (and doing a lousy job of it) in "Definition of Table of Values" at Sciencing.com. Feh.

Naima says that a table of values is...

Conspiracies: an Obsession for Dummies

Map of Bermuda "triangle"

Of all the dummies on the planet, we're pretty sure the dumbest of them are the conspiracy theorists – the tinfoil-hat types, the black-helicopter spotters, the fake-moon-landing folk. No fact too damning to their theory can survive their peculiar, circular logic; and no tangentially related factoid is too trivial to be woven into their narrative of "truth." With that in mind, take a look at "The Science Behind the Bermuda Triangle" as presented by zig25 (Paul? Paula?) on InfoBarrel.com.¹ Bear in mind, of course, that this is a freelancer who has also turned his/her finely-honed intellect on topics such as Jack the Ripper, the Biblical flood, the Hope diamond, crop circles, the "truth" of the Kennedy assassination, the "truth" of Tupac Shakur's death, Atlantis, the Loch Ness monster and others... all in prose badly in need of a grammar-checker.

Compasses for Total Dummies

Simple magnetic compass

At the content farm formerly known as eHow.com – heck, still known as eHow.com – it's amusing to watch the house dumbasses thrash about to find enough factoids to meet the site's minimum word count, especially for simple questions. Take, for example, "Why Do People Use the Compass?"; answered, sort of, by the one of our most prolific dumbasses, Naima Manal at Sciencing.com. Not only does Naima drag in all manner of semirelated factoids to address the topic, she gets several of them... stupid. Take, for instance, 

"[A compass] is an instrument composed of a suspended magnetic pointer that is attracted to the polarity of the North Pole."

Quarrying Granite for Dummies

Vermont Granite Quarry

If someone were to ask you, "How do they make 2-by-4 boards?" we're pretty sure most people's answers would start out with something to the effect of "Cut down a tree." That's because most people out there know a 2-by-4 from a hole in the ground, as the saying goes. Apparently that's not the case with HomeSteady.com's Naima Manal, who fumbled the opening snap on the similar question "How is Granite Mined?"¹ Speaking of holes in the ground...

According to Naima (one of our favorite serial dumbasses, having been spotted plying her trade at HubPages as well), 

The Clueless Homeschooler's Take on Oil

If there's any industry we can talk about with at least some authority, it's the oil industry - that's where our staff geologist worked for thirty-five years. So we picked eHow.com contributor Naima Manal for today's dumbass because, in spite of her obvious lack of familiarity with the petroleum industry, she "informed" an unknown number of readers through her article "What is the Definition of Oil Drilling?"¹ There seems to be a theme here, because Naima isn't the only dummy who doesn't let ignorance stop her from writing about the oil industry...

Confusing Plumbing with Beauty, the Dummy Version

Don’t you love it when self-appointed freelancing experts “step outside their comfort zone” to write about new and exciting topics? Doesn’t it send a shiver up your spine when one of them says something absolutely ridiculous in the desperate search for pennies? If you answer “Yes” to both of those questions, meet Tammy Poague, one of the expert crap-spinners from HubPages. Today’s example of astuteness comes from an article she spun entitled “Help! My Plumbing is Leaking and I Don't know why!” After you read through it, you’ll be pretty sure Tammy still doesn’t know. 

In her zeal to educate her readers about corroded pipe, Tammy waxed eloquent about "electrolysis," including this bit of misinformation:

Pumice for Dummies

Igneous rock

If you've been paying attention, you may have noticed that the average American is damned near scientifically illiterate. Put the blame wherever you want – we're not here to discuss politics. Our problem is that, even though they don't know jack, these people try to pass along their "knowledge" through sites like InfoBarrel.com and eHow.com. Today's villain is one Joannie Ham of InfoBarrel, whose bio claims she has not one but two science degrees. Unfortunately, she likes to write about stuff not pertinent to either; and worse, she's one of those morons who homeschool their kids to make sure they pass down that scientific illiteracy. Here just read what Joannie says about pumice, in an InfoBarrel piece she calls "Facts About Igneous Rocks":