Temperature Conversions for Dummies (Metric System 6)

Here at the Antisocial Network we absolutely love the sight of another self-appointed freelancer trying to collect more of those all-holy dollars by providing misinformation on a topic the average sixth-grader could handle with aplomb. Take, for instance, the thousands – if not millions – of badly-written, misguided, and just plain wrong articles about the metric system: just about any middle-schooler who's been paying attention in class (we know, we know: a small sample size) has a better handle on the topic than these greedy adults. Today's example comes from the depths of Suite.io (formerly Suite101.com) where James Hutchinson made a mess of "Celsius to Fahrenheit Temperature Conversion."¹

Oh, heck, even the most addle-brained fifth-grade student knows that there are simple formulas for going back and forth between the two temperature scales. Hutchinson, however, decided that someone somewhere needed another conversion version a few hundred words long. It's too bad that he also decided to include a little ambiguity and a collection of downright errors... errors like these:

Iron Smelting for Dummies

Home smelter or bloomery

In the bad old pre-Panda days (before Google jiggered their search results to downgrade content farms), freelance-driven websites had low standards for the factual quality of their content. The king of content farms, eHow.com, allegedly had standards, but those were by and large intended to format their content for maximum SEO. In other words, they considered format more important than quality: why else would we find so much utter bullshit at eHow.com? Consider, then, just how awful content must have been to be refused by eHow's vaunted content editors. It happened, though, and our researchers found this example at the (now-defunct) Suite.io. It's from sometime eHow contributor: Dianne Christensen-Hermance with her clumsy rendition of "Refining Iron Ore Processes."¹

Mapping for Dummies

Topographic map example (Stowe, Vermont)

We see all manner of dumbassery as our research team sifts through the internet looking for the rubbish barfed up by penny-hungry freelancers. We have admit that sometimes it feels as if we're the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike; but even though it's a dirty job, someone has to do it. That and we occasionally earn a few pennies for our efforts (not to mention lots of CAPS-rich comments from some Filipino by the name of "Deeshu" who seems to have lots of pen names). Whatever. But search we do, and we're never at a loss for another chance to skewer a dumbass. Is that a good think? No, but we do it anyway - and today, we're gonna do it to Suite's Angela Schnaubelt, who somehow managed to mess up the super-simple concept of "What are the Different Types of Geography Maps?"¹

CD Storage, some Dummy Plans

CD tower

In the old days, back before people just bought music in digital form and stored it on the cloud, bits and pieces of plastic littered the world. We're talking about compact discs (which you may remember, we called "CDs") and their protective jewel cases. Heck, some on our staff are old enough to remember 12-inch LP records, even 45s! But we digress. Storage of CDs has always been easy to come by and fairly inexpensive, but that didn't stop Suite's Dianne Christensen-Hermance from insulting the carpenters of the world with the "instructions" she published in "How to Build a CD Tower."¹ If her name rings a bell, perhaps it's because Dianne's been here before with another set of mangled carpentry instructions. 

Careful reading of the instructions suggests that Dianne wants you to make a box about six feet tall for storage. The idea (we think) is to store the CDs in their jewel cases, lying flat, with the label sides out. So far, so good. Both the instructions for constructing this edifice and its overall design are, however, "deficient." 

Sedimentary Minerals for Dummies

Fossiliferous limestone

It's bad enough to our staff here at the Antisocial Network when a bumbling freelancer does a halfwit job in the alleged "research" and transfer of information, but they're even more disgusted when they run across people who are supposed to know better doing a crappy job. A case in point: our staff geologist turned up a contributor to suite.io,¹ Alexandra Matiella Novak, who pretty much undermined the validity of the PhD she claims to have in geology with her poor research. Well, it seems Alexandra's back again, and this time she's giving short shrift to "Minerals in Sedimentary Rocks."

Faucet Leaks for DIY Dummies

Leaky faucet

For unknown reasons, some freelancers seem to find it necessary to share their latest home repair "triumphs" with the world (in hopes of getting eyeballs from others who are likewise handyperson-challenged). This is especially common with smaller do-it-yourself jobs, although some of the more brazen try to pass along whatever tiny bits of knowledge they've accumulated while watching someone competent –or for that matter, incompetent – tackle a complex task. What we have found, however, is that much of the help these money-grubbers is basically useless if for only one reason: the author has only performed the task once, and has no idea how to compose a set of generalized instructions. Take, for instance, the so-called "story" "Repair a Leaky Bathroom Faucet"¹ scribbled down for suite.io (back in the suite100.com days) by one S. Elliott. 

Bookshelf Design, the Dummy Method

Badly designed bookcase

It used to be that if we wanted to undertake a new project, we'd start with our bookshelves or maybe head over to the local bookstore to pick up a new glossy book with a few plans and lots of suggestions. In the age of the internet, though, we just google the project and hope we find something useful in all the millions of hits. Well, we're here to remind you that a good portion of the instructions out there on the internet, especially after the first page of results, may well be suspect. Let's say you want to build a bookcase: let's hope that you don't try to follow instructions like those posted to Suite.io (formerly suite.com, if anyone cares) by A. L. (Amy) Fetherlin in a "story" (that's what they call them at Suite – we kid you not) she titled "How to Make an Adjustable Shelf Bookcase.¹

Volcanoes for Dummies

Volcano

It's been more than six months since the Antisocial Network hosted tectonics week, and we're happy to announce that our staff geologist has returned from the "spa" where he'd been "vacationing." It took quite a while for him to recover from the effects of the avalanche of idiocy he uncovered during his research, but he's tells us he's ready to get back in the saddle again: what a brave guy, eh? So without further ado, let's see what utter bull Suite.io's Angela Schnaubelt scribbled down to "inform" her readers about "Understanding Mountains and Volcanoes."¹ Let's hope the poor guy survives this new shock...

Basins, the Dummy Version (Geology Week 6)

What would be worse: someone who doesn't know jack misinforming the public, or someone who should know the topic screwing up royally? Admittedly, we don't see the second very often (except perhaps coming from the mouths of presidential candidates), but we were astounded to come across a classic example in some recent research for Geology Week. You'd think that a writer who claims a PhD in geology would know simple stuff about the science, but apparently Alexandra Matiella Novak was playing hooky the day they discussed hydrocarbons in Geology 101. How else could she have written something as dumbass as her contribution to suite.io, "Major Oil and Gas Reserves in the United States"?¹ Novak's executive summary of her post says,

"The Unites [sic] States contains vast hydrocarbon reserves of oil, coal and natural gas. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve also maintains over 700 million barrels."

Geomorphology, the Dummies Version (Geology Week 2)

No matter what your area of expertise, doesn't it just chap your hind end when some birdbrain starts blathering on about something you know, and getting it wrong? Like, say, for instance you're an MD and you overhear some bozo telling everyone that stupid fairy tale about vaccines and autism? Well, a couple of times a year the Antisocial Network's staff geologist crawls out from under the bed and harangues us about people getting geology wrong. Apparently, a lot of folks think this particular corner of science is so simple even they can understand it... But they're often wrong, such as in the case of a guy name of Tom Wolsey at suite.io (what used to be suite100.com when it was just a content farm). Tom educated his readers bout his unfamiliarity with geomorphology – the study of landforms and their relation to geology – in a post he called "Galisteo--Artists, Landscape, and High Desert."¹

The Rock Cycle for Dummy Fifth Graders

The rock cycle

In olden days, when a middle-schooler was doing research for that first term paper, the school library and the family set of encyclopedias got a workout. That's not the case anymore, not in the age of the internet. The problem, of course is that way back when; you could pretty much count on the source material having been written by someone who (to put it bluntly) knew the difference between his ass and a hole in the ground (and was fact-checked by an editor). In the age of the internet, however, that's no longer the case: instead, it's written by freelance writers at content farms and toiling away on their blogs, unedited and often bereft of facts. Take, for instance, Bailey Shoemaker Richards and the suite.io post she titled "What is the Rock Cycle?"¹

Cabinet Doors, a Dummy's Tutorial

Shaker-style cabinet door

Woodworking and carpentry newbies are often dumbfounded by the broad array of tools and the specialized lingo. The measurements of lumber are particularly confusing: finished lumber has a nominal size that's bigger than the actual size. In other words, the board called a 1 x 4 isn't one inch by four inches, it's ¾ inch by 3½ inches. You get used to it... unless you're Suite.io's A. L. (Amy, Amanda) Fetherlin, who never quite got the hang of nominal measurements and also ain't so sure of the terminology. Even inexperienced carpenters will see her ignorance shining through in "Do-It-Yourself Shaker Kitchen Cabinet Frosted-Glassed Doors."¹ 

Hey, even that title's off-putting: "frosted-glassed" doors? doesn't she mean "frosted-glass" doors? But we merely quibble... where Fetherlin starts getting it all wrong is in her materials list for building a door:

Curio Cabinet Plans for Dummies

Plan for a curio cabinet

Out on the 'net, there are instructions and then there are instructions! The good tutorials have images or even videos to demonstrate complicated procedures. Heck, even the bad tutorials are image-rich in an era where phones are "smarter" than the people who own them. Not everything, however, is illustrated: take for instance "How to Build a Curio Cabinet,"¹ posted to Suite.io by Dianne Christensen-Hermance (sometimes known as Dianne Hermance). 

Not that images would have helped much (if at all) in this case...

For Christensen-Hermance, like so many other Dumbass of the Day candidates, her ignorance of her topic is evident from the first sentence. Dianne tells us,

Forest and Trees for Dummies

3-4-5 right triangle

If you've ever taken calculus, you're familiar with the phrase "it's intuitive." Being able to solve problems intuitively is why many natural mathematicians are so bad at teaching the subject. We don't know whether Barrett James, Jr., of Suite.io is a natural in the building trades or not, but it's for sure he can't teach the subject, perhaps because he can't see the forest for the trees. For an idea of this form of selective blindness, check out the story (Suite's cutesy name for its content is a "story") he called "An Easy Method to Square Foundations of Free Standing Structures."¹

The Ring of Fire for Dummies (Tectonics Week 3)

Ring of fire

Day three of Tectonics Week, and the Antisocial Network's staff geologist is happy as a pig in poop with all the material. He's already begging to turn this into Tectonics Month (or maybe year...), but a week's all he's going to get. There's just too much other material out there.

Speaking of material, today's Dumbass of the Day hails from a new site (at least one that's new to these pages) suite.io; the one-time Suite101, supposedly with the dreck trimmed out (we'll see about that). She's Linda Sue Meagher, aka Lindasue M, writing on the topic "Increased Earthquake Activity in the Pacific Rim."¹ Linda Sue got her geography kinda mixed up in that first paragraph, where she says,