Compound Miter Saws for Dummies

Compound miter saw

If you read through the bazillions of posts on eHow.com, you might come to the impression that almost everyone who searches the internet is looking for help in "troubleshooting" something. Well, at least the ones who aren't looking for porn or information about the Kardashians (those are different, aren't they?). The problem is that, if the seekers ends up at eHow, they're not gonna get much help. In fact, they're likely to end up finding junk like Patrick Nelson and his eHow.com post, "How to Troubleshoot a Compound Miter Saw."

Starter Relays for Dummies

A typical starter motor circuit

Self-appointed freelance experts: you gotta love 'em. Well, at least you love 'em if you're the Antisocial Network and you think it's fun to expose their dumbassery to the world. Take, for instance, "professional cook, baker and writer" Amrita Chuasiriporn, who somehow convinced herself (and eHow.com) that those degrees in Spanish and culinary arts qualified her to inform her readers about automotive electrical systems, beginning with her laughable discussion of "What Is a Starter Relay?" at ItStillRuns.com.

What, indeed? Well, as Chuasiriporn tells us in her introductory paragraph,

Refinishing Oak, the Way of the Dummy

Unfilled oak grain (left) vs. filled (right)

If your home was built anytime between about 1970 and 2010, chances are pretty good that at least some of the cabinetry is oak, probably with a medium finish. Besides being fairly unattractive, the style is quite dated, so many a would-be DIY redecorator wants to take brush in hand and repaint those suckers. Good on ya, folks! The problem, of course, is that painting oak isn't as simple as painting pine, so who you gonna ask? the internet, of course! With luck, you won't run into Matt Smolsky trying to explain the procedure at TheBump.com (a Leaf Group site, formerly Demand Media) in "The Best Way to Paint Oak Cabinets."¹

Setting Fence Posts, the Dummies Version

Braces set at right angles, Amelia...

There are two different kinds of people in the world: the ones who've built a fence and the ones who haven't. If they have any sense, when people in group two decide to join group one, they'll buy a book about how to build fences. If they don't buy a book, however, they'll find themselves at the mercy of internet freelancers – people who, though they're not part of group one, write fence-building instructions anyway. That's how you end up with half-baked articles like the one Amelia Allonsy posted at Leaf Group's SFGate.com, "The Best Way to Set a Post for a Shadow Box Fence & Keep it Straight."

Linear Feet of Lumber, the Dummies Version

Lumber linear footage calculator for decks

You know how retailers pipe music through the speakers that is scientifically chosen to make you buy more? We've sometimes thought that as our researchers look for internet stupidity we should be playing Bob Dylan in the background – especially the lyrics, "You're an idiot babe / It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe."¹  Well, there are plenty of people out there so dumb we wonder how they remember to breathe, and one of them is eHowian David Robinson. David's contribution to the stupidification of the internet? "How to Calculate the Linear Feet of Boards."²

Linear Feet, the Dummies Version (Again!)

Installing window film

Our editorial team just realized that yesterday marked the second anniversary of the first time we awarded the Dumbass of the Day. That was to an eHow.com twinkie who performed a woefully inadequate job of describing radiometric dating. The people at Leaf Group have moved that post to Sciencing.com now, but it's still stupid. But we digress... We've seen a bunch of repeating themes in the eHow world over those two years, and one of them is the contributors' failure to understand the concept of linear feet. For some reason, they all think that it's the straight-line measurement of something, and repeat offender Charlotte Johnson follows suit in "How to Calculate Linear Feet for Windows" at HomeSteady.com.

Ceiling Hooks, the Dummies Approach

ceiling hooks, the real deal

Unless you live in a monastery or the dorm in a military school, chances are fairly good that one day you're going to want to hang something from the ceiling. It makes no difference whether it's a mobile, a swag lamp, a plant or something entirely different, it'll need support. And that, friends, is where a ceiling hook comes in handy. Just don't try to follow the ridiculously mindless instructions serial DotD Greyson Ferguson wrote for eHow.com (now Hunker.com) in "How to Put Screw Hooks in the Ceiling"...