The Antisocial Network

Reasonableness Tests for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLXXXII

2023-11-26T11:26:00.001-05:00

Waffle-weave blanket

Are you familiar with the "reasonableness test" concept? It's simple: before you provide an answer to a question or perform a task, ask yourself, "Is my response reasonable?" You could save yourself some embarrassment. For instance, you're making change at your garage sale and someone pays for that six-dollar bicycle with a crisp new ten-dollar bill. Is it reasonable to give them a ten-dollar bill in change? a twenty? Of COURSE not! Well, we don't think MrsBrown performed a reasonableness test before she dashed off a review of a cotton blanket at Kohls.com.

Here's what Brownie had to say:

"I put them in the washer when I received them, and they shed terribly! Then it got even worse in the dryer! they were washed seperate [sic] from anything else, and I emptied my lint trap 4 TIMES IN 60 MINUTES! It was completely overflowing each time! I had to snake inside my dryer to pull out all the overflowing lint!! WORST PURCHASE I'VE EVER MADE! [EMPHASIS hers]"

At first glance, this seems to be a reasonable response... but it's not. The blanket in question is a "waffle" woven blanket, which is how it keeps you warm. Think about it: a canvas tarpaulin won't keep you warm even if it weighs the same as a loosely woven blanket, because it's the air pockets in the weave that prevent body heat from escaping and canvas is very tightly woven. Because of this physical reality, MrsBrown's blanket is woven loosely enough that every thread is exposed to the air on all sides. Small wonder a bit of lint erodes when the blanket is washed and dried.

The bigger question is, how "serious" is this lint? Well, We bought the same blanket at AnHQ, and we also washed and dried the new item before using it. We also had a full lint trap when the drying cycle was over. But unlike MrsBrown, we performed a scientific test with some simple measurements and math. Here are our results:

Our blanket in the full/queen size weighs 5.5 pounds, or about 2.5 kg.
We weighed the lint that came off the blanket on our kitchen scale; it came in at three grams.
The blanket lost 3/2500 of its mass in the dryer, or 0.12% of the total.

Unlike our Dumbass of the Day, we don't think that's anything to SCREAM about.

SE - ARITHMETIC

Crawl-Space Storm Shelters Designed by Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLXXXI

2023-11-16T07:41:00.003-05:00

This is a storm shelter, Jennifer

Over the years of compiling this space, we've seen some pretty cockamamie ideas spring from the minds of greedy freelancers. It's bad enough when someone who doesn't know one end of a screwdriver from the other tries to teach people how to tune up a two-cycle engine or someone who lives in a college dorm "explains" how to build a deck, but when ignorant writers put people in danger? That's crossing a line. The line was crossed back in 2011 when eHow.com's Jennifer Dermody tried to tell the world "How to Build a Storm Shelter in a Crawl Space." That the powers that be at Leaf Group (the erstwhile Demand Media) have left this rubbish visible for over a decade speaks to the reason why eHow is the punchline of a search-engine joke.

Enough of that: let's see where Dermody went wonky. Here's a chunk of her mandatory introduction:

"...[create] a storm shelter, in the crawl space below your house that isn't deep enough for a basement. When you must take immediate shelter from a storm, the ideal location is away from windows, in a central location in your home. Whether for a few hours or even days, be prepared with supplies in a safe refuge until the storm passes."

Jennifer cribbed the business about "away from windows" from a FEMA website, apparently ignorant of the lack of windows in crawl spaces. And the notion of hiding in a crawl space "for... days" sent shivers up the spine of the staffer who found this. Dermody seems ignorant both of the duration of violent storms (days? really?) and of the dimensions of the typical crawl space.

Then again, Dermody's instructions, if you can call them that, consist mostly of a list of supplies that should be stocked in a storm shelter such as food, blankets, "sanitation items," and your baby's binky. Her only nod to actually building a shelter is,

"Create an area in the crawl space that's clear of debris and isn't located beneath large, heavy pieces of furniture on the above floor."

Even if your property has a crawl space deep enough for this area, Dermody said nothing about accessing the space – a trap door? a hatch in the foundation? – and nothing about hardening the sides and ceiling of the space.

Strangely, the FEMA document Dermody cribbed for her stock list mentions crawl-space shelters, stating that "Crawlspace foundation walls are often unreinforced and therefore provide little resistance to the stresses caused by extreme winds." Had Dermody read more of FEMA's advice, she might have learned that storm shelters should be specially constructed with resistant walls and reinforced framing. Some random space under the floorboards is better than nothing, but not that much better. An independent shelter in the yard (or garage) is a much smarter idea.

Dermody claimed to be a real estate agent in Florida, the land of slab-built buildings, Perhaps that's why she seemed so ignorant of crawlspaces... but it sure helped make her the Dumbass of the Day!

DDIY - CONSTRUCTTION

Lithium Mines for the Scientifically Illiterate - The Freelance Files MMCCLXXX

2023-09-08T07:22:00.005-04:00

smectite vs. illite

One of the staffers was browsing the default newsfeed on her phone while her S.O. binged some Star Wars spinoff when an article about a potential source of lithium caught her eye. Thinking he might be interested in the info, she forwarded the URL to the staff geologist. Once he woke up from his nap, S. G. read the "information" with increasing horror. Oh, sure, freelancer Bob Yirka managed to get a few things right; such as the importance of lithium to the modern economy and the location of the apparent deposit, but as for the rest of "New evidence suggests McDermitt Caldera may be among the largest known lithium reserves in the world" (at phys.org)? Naahhhhhhh.

Back in the earliest days of the internet, long before Insta photos of avocado toast or tweens dying from TikTok challenges, a "master" of UseNet called himself "the Great KIBO," an acronym for "Knowledge In, Bullshit Out." How prescient! because Yirka's post is a classic example of KIBO. Fortunately, he included a link to his source material, so S.G. could see where this dumbassery entered the process. It was not with the three scientists who published the material...

As we noted before, Yirka appears to have satisfactorily answered the questions of what, when, and where. It's in his attempt to transcribe the "how" that Bob fell down on the job. Here are his own words:

"Their theory posits that after a volcano erupted (creating among other things, lithium), a hydrothermal enrichment occurred—magma deep unground pushed its way to the center of what is now the caldera, leading to the formation of the Montana Mountains. As that happened, faults, fissures and fractures were created, allowing lithium to seep up toward the surface. This process also transformed much of the smectite into illite (different forms of clay minerals), which wound up along the southern rim of the basin. That, they conclude, explains why lithium is so abundant there."

Let's unpack that, misstatement by misstatement:

This volcano did not "create" lithium (or any other element). Instead, heated fluids (that's what "hydrothermal" means) preferentially enriched certain minerals in the surrounding rocks and/or sediments in lithium; in this case, clay minerals in lakebed deposits. The lake-bed claystones, much of which derived from alteration of volcanic ash, were already rich in lithium.
Lithium did not "seep up toward the surface": lithium is a solid metal. Instead, hot fluids rich in lithium (among other elements) moved through the surrounding rock.
Bob got this much right: smectite and illite are "different... clay minerals." On the other hand, we're at a loss to explain how smectite, once converted to illite, could migrate to the southern rim of the basin. Apparently, Bob didn't understand that this transformation occurs in place...

Yirka missed the point: lithium is abundant in claystone deposits throughout the caldera, in part because much of the section is sourced in the ash and other ejecta of the same volcano. The hydrothermal process further enriched smectite deposits as they transitioned to illite with exposure to higher temperatures.

Freelance "journalism" like this is why the Great KIBO was right, and why we still hand out new Dumbass of the Day awards. Feh.

SI - VOLCANOES

Linen Closet Construction for Dodos - The Freelance Files MMCCLXIX

2023-08-28T10:14:00.004-04:00

linen closet shelves

Not long ago one of the staffers was wandering the nearly abandoned halls of the original eHow.com (most of the content has been farmed out, uncorrected, to a bunch of incapped niche sites with names like HomeSteady, ItStillRuns, and SportsRec) and she ran across a post with a familiar byline. Well aware that eHow.com contributor Nichole Liandi rarely rose above freelance hack if her topic was any sort of do-it-yourself project, our staffer read through the content and added it to the nomination list. Without further ado, let's see what sort of mess Nichole managed to make of the assignment "How to Build Shelving in a Linen Closet."

Liandi's alleged references have been excised from the bottom of the post, but we found the list with the Wayback Machine. Somehow, we doubt that she actually read either Carpentry for Dummies or Home Storage Projects before jotting down her supposed instructions. Had she used real, live references like she claimed, she might have noticed her... problems. And let us tell you, her problems are many.

First things first, Nichole wanted her readers to lay out the shelf positions. According to her, this entails using a pencil tick to mark the desired height of the shelves, after which one should,

"Place a yardstick parallel to the floor at the bottom edge of each mark... Place a level against the yardstick... and draw a level line across the back wall of the closet, terminating the line at the side walls."

What's all this "yardstick" bull? Clearly, Nichole didn't know how to use a carpenter's level. Next, Liandi demonstrated that she didn't know how walls are framed:

"Place [10-inch 1-by-4 strips] on the side walls of the closet, with the top edge even with the lines you've drawn. Level each strip, and screw it into the wall with wood screws."

Assuming you've already used a level to draw the lines on the wall, you don't really need to "Level each strip" – we suppose, though, that's a version of "measure twice, cut once." Where Nichole truly screwed up is in not directing her readers to screw the ledgers (that's what those "strips" are) into studs you've located with a handy-dandy stud finder, otherwise the shelves are gonna collapse under their own weight. And finally, Nichole seemed confused about how deep your shelves should be:

"...cut three 1-by-10-inch boards to match the distance. These will be your shelves... Lay the boards across the closet so their ends rest on the 1-by-4-inch strips. Nail the boards together with finishing nails."

A 1-by-10 is 9¼ inches wide, far too shallow for a linen closet. Those shelves are rarely less than 18 inches deep. And of course, like most eHow contributors, Liandi seemed unfamiliar with the real-life measurements of dimensional lumber.

Our staffer had, not long ago, build linen closet shelves of her own using wire shelves that allow for airflow inside the closet. She used 20-inch shelving and, we think it works just great - and, unlike shelves that follow the plans our Dumbass of the Day posted, her shelves are securely mounted on the studs instead of "screwed to the wall."

DDIY - SHELVES

Rock Deformation for Moonlighting Chemists - The Freelance Files MMCCLXVIII

2023-08-22T10:32:00.007-04:00

Extreme example of ductile deformation

It's not unusual – common, even – to find a freelancer who has made a valiant attempt to transcribe¹ useful information that could conceivably be seen as tangentially related to said freelancer's area of expertise. Then again, many of them seem to have a rather loose definition of "tangentially related." One such writer is Madhu, of DifferenceBetween.com; here making her fourth appearance on the DotD podium. Madhu claims to be a chemistry student, but also appears to be the site's self-appointed geology expert based on her previous appearances in the categories of mineralogy and sedimentary petrology. Today, our madhu scientist returns to regale us on structural geology and tectonics with her post, "Difference Between Ductile and Brittle Deformation."

Madhu decided that her answer should be about earth science, which is fair (and right up one AN staffer's alley). We'll give Madhu her due for a fairly cogent regurgitation of what she called "Diffusion creep," which all but metamorphic petrologists simply call "recrystallization" (based on her off-topic dive into chemistry). Madhu had some pretty serious problems with the rest of her article, however, starting with one of her earliest paragraphs in which she tried to "inform" her readers that,

"Ductile deformation in Earth science is the production of large, open folds in the sediments or rocks in front of an advancing glacier which can develop into overfolds. This can cause the sediments or rocks to begin to undergo internal thrusting due to continued ice advance..."

Our staff geologist simply looked at those two sentences and said, "WTF? Glaciers??!! OK, well, there is such a thing as glaciotectonics but it is quite rare and it is not the cause of the vast majority of ductile deformation of rocks. No, that would be tectonic activity!"

Unfortunately, Madhu skipped all the large-scale features she mentioned in that first paragraph in her rush to get to some fine details. In the process, she glossed over folding and faulting (the macroscopic, visible evidence of, respectively, ductile and brittle deformation) to get to – wait for it – the most technical details of deformation of crystalline solids, including "mechanical twinning/kinking, grain boundary sliding, and rigid body rotation." Really, Madhu, that's not what the average eighth-grader (your presumed audience) would want to know. More to the point, rocks aren't crystalline solids.

Nope, your average middle-schooler studying earth science wants to know that both brittle and ductile deformation take place in a three-dimensional stress field, and the form of that stress field (along with rock composition) is where ductile and brittle deformation differentiate. A simple explanation follows:

Where the vertical stress, or confining pressure, is relatively low (and rocks are relatively cool), deformation is more likely to be brittle: faulting. Where confining pressure is relatively high (and so is temperature), the result is more likely to be ductile deformation: folding. If confining pressure is reduced or horizontal stress increased, folding can give way to faulting. In other words, depth of burial is a major factor, along with the physical properties of the rock bodies.

That's complex enough in and of itself without going into the sort of PhD-level discussions of microscopic deformation Madhu attempted.

Last, Madhu intoned that,

"The key difference between ductile and brittle deformation is that ductile deformation occurs at low strain rates, whereas brittle deformation occurs at high strain rates."

While nominally true, that's not the key difference between ductile and brittle deformation. The key difference is that, while both forms of deformation are irreversible, brittle deformation entails rupturing of the body while ductile deformation involves stretching and/or bending. Those are in the definitions of the terms our Dumbass of the Day was throwing around.

¹ By "transcribe," we really mean "attempt to avoid getting caught plagiarizing."

SI - STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY

Relief Wells for the Ignorant - The Freelance Files MMCCLXVII

2023-08-14T14:59:00.005-04:00

Using a relief well to kill a blowout

Way back in 2010, when the BP Macondo well blew out – what the average person remembers as the Deepwater Horizon "well" – many a TV talking head brought up the topic of a relief well. The underwater gusher was temporarily capped after almost three months, but it was another two months before a relief well could be completed 2½ miles below the surface. In the meantime, many a self-appointed "expert" explained the notion of a relief well to the world, including WiseGEEK.com's Jeremy Laukkonen warbling about the topic in his post "What Is a Relief Well?" (now at niche site AboutMechanics.com, for some bizarre reason). Jeremy's take on the topic is, to be sure, about what you'd expect from a sometime auto mechanic and real estate broker turned freelancer...

Oh, sure, Laukkonen started off on the right track (who wouldn't?), explaining in his very first sentence that,

"When a well experiences a blowout, which is a sudden and uncontrolled expulsion of natural gas or crude oil, relief wells are one way to regain control."

Unfortunately, it only took one more sentence for Jeremy to display his ignorance of his topic:

"The relief well is typically drilled so it will intersect with the blowout, either to relieve pressure or block the reservoir."

No, Jeremy, a relief well is drilled to intersect the wellbore (a blowout is a condition, not a thing). And no exploration company ever wants to "block the reservoir" – they want to be able to get the hydrocarbons out, after all. Jeremy would have been better off to say something like "plug the path of the hydrocarbons" or some such.

Jeremy later told his readers that,

"Relief wells are one of the primary means of defense against blowouts if the BOP and other safeguards have failed."

Sorry, Jer, relief could be considered a "means of defense" only in the sense of a quarterback tackling a safety to prevent a pick-six in a football game. They're last-ditch efforts to control ("kill") the well; to halt the free flow of hydrocarbons that is a blowout. They are definitely not "primary." As for Laukkonen's claim that,

"In some cases a relief well can be drilled in advance of any problems..."

Relief well for levee

...such wells are unknown in the petroleum industry, where they could entail an expense in the tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. Relief well drilling "in advance" is a practice of the construction industry, particularly in very large-scale projects such as dams and levees (see image at right). Jeremy mumbled something about this in his final paragraph, averring that,

"When the ground becomes saturated with water, the wells can be used to draw some of it out."

Once more, his ignorance is on display: what Jeremy does not understand is that such wells are drilled to relieve pressure on confined aquifers, which are continually saturated – not occasionally as he seems to suggest.

As is so often the case, Laukkonen's framework is more or less accurate. Where he failed, as did so many of his fellow Dumbass of the Day awardees before him, was in papering over that framework with misused terminology and misconception as a result of ignorance of the topic and scanty research. Feh.

SE - OIL

Box Steps for the Incompetent Carpenter - The Freelance Files MMCCLXVI

2023-08-12T11:32:00.005-04:00

Framing Box Steps

Hi again: it's been a while since we've taken to the 'net to flog greedy freelancers for their ignorance of their topics. Yet here we are again, this time giving the literary equivalent of the golf clap to yet another eHowian, one making his second appearance on the pages. Please give a... well, not warm but, tepid?... welcome to the pride of HomeSteady.com, Rick Paulas, this time gifting his attempt to explain "How to Build Box Steps" on the internet. Sadly, the one-time telecommunications major's knowledge of box steps is about the same as his knowledge of sprinkler systems – slim to none.

Paulas opened his post with an introduction that made it clear that he believed all box steps are intended to improve access to backyard decks. He's probably right... but his ignorance of the whole process of adding a deck is crystallized in one sentence:

"After the completion of the deck, homeowners may wish to add box steps for easy access from the deck to the backyard."

He said "may wish"? Well, whether the homeowner adds steps or not is dependent on the height of the access point above the ground. Building codes may not allow box steps if the elevation difference is more than a foot, and building a set of stairs is whole different animal. Thankfully, Rick wasn't asked how to perform the latter... because he did a pretty poor job of describing building box steps.

First, Paulas didn't seem to know that there are different sizes of what he terms in his blasé manner "wood." According to Rick, you build a box frame like this:

"...you will need to cut two pieces of lumber six inches in length and six inches in height, and another two that are ten inches in length and six inches in height, to create the frame. "

First, Rick seemed unaware that traditionally, frames are built of 2-by dimensional lumber; since he never mentioned thickness of his "wood." Second, those dimensions would make a frame six by ten inches, far too small for a safe step. Paulas also instructed his readers to use "nails and a hammer to nail the pieces together"; a non-optimal suggestion. At the very least, the frame should be assembled with exterior-rated deck screws; and local building code may require galvanized corner braces for structural stability.

Once you've built your box frame, according to Paulas, you add the decking:

"Attach the top of the step. [For] the example... you will need a piece of wood that is ten inches in length and six inches in height [sic]. Use a hammer and nails to connect the top of the step to the box."

Once again, Rick's ignorance of deck construction was clear. He said nothing about the thickness of the decking (usually 5/4 or 2-by lumber) and told people to use nails again. Nope: deck screws... and while we're at it, how does one "connect the top" of a board to anything?

And finally, Rick's sole reference mentioned using "blocking" for wide boxes; a concept of which he seemed rather uncertain. You certainly wouldn't need any for his six-by-ten Barbie-sized box step, but – according to Paulas;

"While most box steps are 10 inches horizontally, if you want them longer, you will need to use blocking boards to keep the steps from collapsing."

We have no idea where he came up with the notion that "most box steps are 10 inches horizontally," since that's both ambiguous – does "horizontally" refer to length or width? – and utter bullshit. But if Paulas thinks that additional support runs lengthwise, he's full of it

Come to think of it, our Dumbass of the Day is certainly full of it, and you're advised to find someone who's actually built box steps (and lots of 'em) to tell you how to complete your project. Paulas' HomeSteady post sure ain't the place!

DDIY - STAIRS

Crude Oil vs Oil Shale for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLXV

2023-04-11T10:53:00.003-04:00

Oil Shale Extraction

Know this up front: here at AN, we have great respect for those who operate professionally in a language they did not learn from the cradle. On the other hand, we find it incomprehensible that someone would pretend expertise in any discipline while operating in a second (or third) language. That is, unfortunately, often the case with the people who write/wrote for DifferenceBetween.com; an allegedly Australian site populated by south Asian freelancers like "Admin" (apparently "Olivia Dawson," probably a pseudonym). Here's admin's half-witted attempt to explain the "Difference Between Shale oil and Crude oil."

We aren't quite sure where "admin" came up with this information, but wherever that was, s/he either misinterpreted key facts or found a resource full of bullshit. No knowledgeable scientist would make this claim:

"...Shale oil contains relatively large quantities of sulfur, nitrogen, and oxygen than that of crude oil. But, the cost of production of shale oil is comparatively low."

We only included the first phrase to demonstrate admin's composition skills. The second phrase, however, is completely wrong: though there are vast reserves of so-called shale oil (a misnomer for what is more commonly called oil shale), the costs of obtaining usable hydrocarbons from the raw stock on a large scale is prohibitive.

According to admin,

"The production of shale oil is a great achievement for the global oil crisis. Because, it is a relatively low cost unconventional resource, it can be spread all over the world to address the global energy problem."

We're not certain where Olivia(?) came by her information; but her statement is, unfortunately, utter bullshit; not to mention the idea of oil being "spread all over the world" should give even the most pro-fossil fuel Texan cold chills. It won't happen, though, because the cost of converting oil shale to refinable products remains prohibitive.

Admin's problem, besides near-total ignorance of the science, is that s/he fell victim to a common misconception. "Shale oil" is not what admin called "light tight [sic] oil"; that term refers to crude oil produced from low-permeability reservoirs; e.g., the Bakken Shale. Shale oil is, in fact, immature kerogen in fine-grained rock, usually lacustrine, such as the Green River Formation of the western USA. Even the tight oil formations are not, despite her claims, "a relatively low cost unconventional resource" given that costly hydraulic fracturing is usually required to produce the reservoirs.

Pretty much the only information admin provided that is of much use is the description she parroted (from a LinkedIn post about tires!) of pyrolysis, the process used to convert oil shale to usable hydrocarbons. The result is a mashup of information about immature kerogen-rich sedimentary rocks (oil shales) and petroleum produced from shale reservoirs (tight oil, aka shale oil). As is so often the case at this site, our Dumbass of the Day didn't know enough about the topic to know where she sent wrong.

Note: our DotD included a pretty picture of sideritic laminae (two words she probably didn't understand) in oil shale; presumably assuming that the wet surface was the oil leaking out. In fact, the photographer stated that the "Contrast of the rock is enhanced by water." Duh.

SI - OIL

Sedimentary Rocks for Dummy Physicists - The Freelance Files MMCCLXIV

2023-04-05T12:16:00.004-04:00

pretty sedimentary rocks

We forget just where we were when we saw the link; but someone, somewhere cited byjus.com as an "authority" on sedimentary rocks. We couldn't pass that one up, at least not after we'd taken a look at the text of an article simply entitled "Sedimentary Rocks" (and filed under "physics"). A little research showed us that Byju's is a massive Indian online learning company with thousands of employees, which renders is impossible to name the actual author of the content. Consequently, we'll just assign authorship to byju.

The topic is fairly vague, but we're pretty certain the text wasn't written by someone with a deep background in earth science. After all, this is the same outfit that, when defining the three major rock types in a different post, told us that,

"...metamorphic rocks are formed when watery hot fluids are subjected to high heat and pressure."

Uh, yeah: someone apparently forgot that metamorphic rocks are rocks that have changed, not "watery hot fluids"! Be that as it may, we're here to debunk some of the bogosity that runs through the site's "educational" post about sedimentary rocks. So, here goes (it's not an exhaustive list, BTW):

"Sedimentary rocks are created by accumulating existing rocks or fragments of extinct organisms on the Earth’s surface." – We'd like to think that the "existing rocks" are also fragmental, not to mention that any organisms involved are merely deceased – not (yet) "extinct."
"The particle that helps in forming the sedimentary rock is called sediment." – Besides the sentence's weird construction, that's only true of clastic sedimentary rocks.
"Its structure is present in rock beds and under surfaces which help record the paleocurrent and has deposited in the rocks." – Our staff sedimentologist can decode that bushwa (just barely), but an untrained reader would be utterly bamboozled.
"Organic Sedimentary Rocks: This rock type mainly comprises coal and limestones, which are formed due to the accumulation and deposition of dead plants and animals in rock layers." – Props for knowing the use of "comprise," jeers for that "dead... animals" bullshit.
"Chemical Sedimentary Rocks: This type of rock is created when minerals that are present in rock forms undergo a chemical reaction that causes them to cool as precipitates over time before changing back to rock form." – WTF? That's a half-baked mashup of the formation of metamorphic and chemical sedimentary rocks. Simply put, all chemical sedimentary rocks precipitate from seawater.
"Quartz is a type of sedimentary rock which is used to make glass." – No, folks, quartz is a mineral, not a rock. Quartz-rich sandstone is used to make glass, hence Byju's confusion.
"Deep sediment burial causes sediment to get compressed and cemented..." – Cementation is not caused by "Deep sediment burial"; cementation requires precipitation from fluids in the pore spaces.

Enough of that; our collective head hurts! We'll leave you with one final assertion as we're on our way out the door to crown today's Dumbass of the Day:

"It helps to know what sedimentary rocks look like if you’re seeking to identify them."

Uhhh, yeah. And it helps to know what bullshit looks like if you're seeking to identify it. In this case, it wasn't particularly hard.

SI - SEDIMENTOLOGY

Repointing Masonry for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLXIII

2023-03-27T12:20:00.002-04:00

repointing stone

Like many homeowners in the era of YouTube tutorials, our staffers often research DIY home repairs before deciding to call in a professional. Unlike many of their neighbors, the majority of the folks who write for the Antisocial Network aren't afraid to tackle simple- or intermediate-level projects – which leaves out roofing and remodeling an entire kitchen. One of them recently looked into repointing some brickwork and, is their wont, decided to check on the topic at the mother lode of misinformation, eHow.com. As expected, the topic had been discussed, and by a familiar name. Let's see whether HomeSteady.com writer G. K. Bayne knew what she was talking about in "How to Repoint a Stone Fireplace." Here's a hint: based on her three previous appearances, we rather doubted it...

Right off the bat Bayne, a pseudonym for the fiction writer Kat Yares, demonstrated not only a tenuous grasp of the task at hand but also an apparent disdain of proofreading¹:

"Over time, all mortar joints will soon begin to weaken and give way. Repointing a stone fireplace is a simple task by following [sic] simple steps."

We strenuously question Bayne's assertion that mortar joints "soon... weaken and give way"; especially the "soon" bit. Perhaps GK wasn't familiar with the word "eventually"? Whatever the case, repointing is a task that will eventually befall anyone who owns a historic brick building, even just a brick chimney. All of which means that repointing masonry, whether brick or stone, is a necessary part of home maintenance. Unfortunately, her instructions wouldn't be much help.

According to the text, the would-be repointer needs, among other tools,

"Mortar chisel... Small paint brush... Step ladder... Wheel barrow [sic]... Hoe... Mortar ready mix... Small shovel..."

Strangely, most masons would begin any discussion of the methods by discussing the type of mortar to use. Not so GK, who probably had no idea there are different formulations. Too, a pro would likely suggest the use of an angle grinder and compressed air to remove old mortar; definitely not a generic "mortar chisel" and a "Small paint brush." Whether a stepladder is necessary would depend, we guess; but everyone here was taken. aback by the whole "wheelbarrow + hoe + shovel" notion. Sure enough, Bayne told her readers to,

"Mix the mortar ready mix according to the bags [sic] instructions using the hoe and wheelbarrow. Mix only a small amount at a time as the mix will have a tendency to dry out and loose it [sic] bonding strength before you can use it."

If one is only going to "Mix only a small amount," then a wheelbarrow and hoe probably aren't the best idea. We imagine that mixing in a tray or on a mason's hawk (another unfamiliar term for GK) would be a more sensible procedure. When it comes to the actual pointing process – packing new mortar into the gaps – GK instructed her victims errr, readers, to,

"...use the mortar point to carefully push the mix into the joints you have cleaned out."

We still don't know what a "mortar point" is. Perhaps she meant a pointing trowel or a tuck pointing tool? And what's the reason for the "Small shovel"? Enquiring minds want to know...

No, it's quite clear from the mashup of general masonry and repointing instructions that GK/Kat had no earthly idea what she was talking about. Given that she'd already been a Dumbass of the Day three times, that we know of (there are surely more), that comes as no surprise.

¹ One wonders what happened to the vaunted copy editor system at eHow when this one was published. Even a quick perusal yielded half a dozen grammatical errors.

DDIY - MASONRY

The Mohs Hardness Scale for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLXII

2023-03-16T17:11:00.005-04:00

talc (left) and gypsum (right)

Few occurrences are more frustrating for our scientifically competent staffers than witnessing a scientifically illiterate liberal arts graduate pretend to explain something in the reader's wheelhouse but botching the explanation... badly. Sadly, that's pretty much the business model of the website formerly known as eHow.com, at least the portion that now lives in Sciencing.com.¹ For your consideration today, we offer an example of such work: J-school grad Christina Martinez and her unsuccessful attempt to share "How to Tell the Difference Between Talc & Gypsum."

Right out of the box, Martinez jumped on the chief difference between the two minerals: they are defined as numbers 1 (talc) and 2 (gypsum) on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness. Right here, props to Christina for not pulling the usual eHow sin of inserting an apostrophe into the surname of Friedrich Mohs... after that, however, she displayed serious misunderstanding of Mohs' work, babbling that,

"The Mohs Hardness Scale is the primary scale that tests a rock’s [sic] hardness by how easily it can be scratched. Diamond has a score of 10 on the hardness scale, which is the highest a mineral can obtain. Talc has a score of 1, and gypsum has a score of 2, which makes these two minerals similar and difficult to differentiate between."

No, Christina, rocks do not have hardness, minerals do. While we're at it, minerals do not have a "score" on the Mohs scale. For that matter, a mineral's hardness on the scale isn't determined by "how easily it can be scratched," because the scale defines relative hardness: labradorite, a mineral with hardness 3½, is harder than calcite (3) but softer than fluorite (4). But that does not mean that labradorite is 3½ times as hard as talc. No, it's actually about 18 times as hard as talc on an absolute hardness scale.

Christina's ignorance of mineralogy weaves throughout (basically correct) factoids in her post, yet another example of how padding facts to meet the DMS² minimum word count so often leads to a DotD award. Take, for example, her explanation of cleavage:

"Fragment pieces of each rock with your fingernail. If cleavage fragments fall off and are tiny, the specimen is talc. Cleavage on talc is perfect. Cleavage is the quality of a split along defined planes of a rock [sic] or mineral."

We have no idea why Martinez decided that cleavage fragments of talc are "tiny." We do know that her statement that "Cleavage on [sic] talc is perfect" is a bastardization of talc's Wikipedia entry that states, "Perfect on {001} basal cleavage" – it would help had Martinez known in this context, "perfect" means smooth, shiny, and easy to create. What Martinez neglects to mention is that gypsum displays not one but two cleavage planes, one of which is also "perfect." Duh.

We also liked the ambiguity of,

"If the rock is slippery, it may be talc. If the rock isn’t slippery it may be gypsum."

Heck, Christina, if it isn't slippery, it may be diamond! And how about her attempt to explain streak:

"Scratch each piece of rock. If powder falls off and doesn’t feel slippery or greasy, it’s gypsum."

Once more, talc and gypsum are minerals. Feh.

OK, here's the answer our Dumbass of the Day should have provided:

Gypsum is, by definition, harder than talc. Gypsum's streak is always white, talc's can range from white to dark gray. The specific gravity of gypsum is about 2.3, that of talc is 2.6 to 2.8.

'Nuff said.

¹ Staffers who one wrote for eHow.com tell us that science content was found under "Hobbies, Games and Toys" in eHow's filing system. We kid you not.
² The site owners, now Leaf Group, are a direct lineal descendant of Demand Media Studios – known to many as "DMS," as in "You can't spell 'dumbass' without 'DMS.'"

SI - MINERALS

Flush Beams for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLXI

2023-03-06T11:15:00.001-05:00

flush beam in ceiling

Watching a freelancer who barely knows the difference between a hammer and a screwdriver attempt to explain framing carpentry is something like watching a slow-moving train wreck. We find that we just cannot look away, no matter how bizarre and/or useless the content. We've seen a lot of that useless content, as you can tell from the "framing" and "framing carpentry" entries on our topic list. Today's nominee adds yet another line to the list: meet "communications" grad Isabel Prontes and her misguided attempt to answer the question "What Is a Flush Beam?" for HomeSteady.com.

Isabel's lack of knowledge of flush beams is evident from the get-go, but the capper may well be probably her closing paragraph:

"If you want to purchase a flush beam for ceiling support of your residence or business, there are a lot of good places online to do so. These online vendors include Home Security Store, In Mod, Vac Depot, SafeMart and Central Vacuum Stores. It is also a good idea to check out hardware stores in your area such as Home Depot and Lowes."

First off, the online stores Isabel cited sell either security hardware (SafeMart) or furniture (inMod). Second, you don't buy flush beams (or any type of "beams") at a BigBox store. Sheesh.

According to Prontes,

"A flush beam... is a structural component that is located at the same level of ceiling joists and one that utilizes joist hangers for attachment. It is often used for framing deck forms like octagons..."

Just WTF "located at the same level of ceiling joists" is supposed to mean escapes us, and Isabel's "references" (even in the original eHow.com post) proved useless – one of her alleged references was "Home Security Store." And it wasn't even a referral link! Prontes went all wonky with her post, we suspect, because she tried to integrate information about retrofitting a flush beam in a remodel with using flush beams instead of drop beams in building decks. But never mind that; we just found ourselves constantly amused by some of her pronouncements about framing:

"A flushed [sic] beam generally works in an inferior manner compared to a cantilevered beam because the composition of the hangers and the fasteners is considerably less reliable than the attachment of wood that is directly supported and held up by wood." – Frankly, we couldn't make sense of that; but we think it's a reference to supporting a deck on drop beams instead of from the rim. Maybe.
"A flush beam is good at simplifying and making installation easier for heating, plumbing and electrical systems. A flush beam enables faster installation for these processes." – We have no idea where that bullshit came from.
"The flash [sic] beam falls under three different categories. These include the traditional flush beam (often used to open two rooms so that the beams are not visible), the upset beam (a kind of flush beam that is used in attics or in line with walls) and the drop beams (the easiest kind of flush beam to install)." – While Isabel's definition of an upset beam sucks, that pales alongside the notion that a drop beam is one of "three different categories" of flush beam. Dumbass, being dropped by definition means that a support beam is not flush!

Nope, once more we find a freelancer under the mistaken impression that her "communications" degree means that she can synthesize any information about any topic and rewrite it into useful text. Sadly, our Dumbass of the Day was wrong – way wrong.

SE - FRAMING CARPENTRY

Oil Fields for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLX

2023-02-26T17:24:00.005-05:00

This ain't no desert, Jason

One of the staffers "quiet quit" the petroleum industry a few years ago (before everyone on the planet decided to switch jobs, for what it's worth), but still retains all the basic knowledge necessary to fact-check some of the rubbish our DotD nominees have pumped out over the years. Given the average person's ignorance of the petroleum industry, it's no surprise that misconceptions and misinformation are the rule rather than the exception; which is why she's rarely surprised by freelancer dumbassery about the oil business. Once in a while, though... and today's one of those days. Back to take another bite of the oil biz apple, once again demonstrating complete ignorance of the industry, is Jason C. Chavis. This time he's answering (NOT!) the eternal question "What is an Oil Field?" for the WiseGEEK.com niche site AboutMechanics.com.

As we often do with questions (and "answers") related to this topic, we went straight to the oil industry glossary at Schlumberger.com, where we found this succinct (and accurate) definition:

"An accumulation, pool, or group of pools of hydrocarbons or other mineral resources in the subsurface. A hydrocarbon field consists of a reservoir in a shape that will trap hydrocarbons and that is covered by an impermeable, sealing rock. Typically, the term implies an economic size."

We're good with that. The site should have been good with it too, although we know well that content farms demanded more "information" (we use the term loosely) of their contributors in order to meet some predetermined minimum word count. Well, Chavis complied with their demands, in the process revealing near-complete ignorance of his topic.

Jason's failure to inform began with the first sentence in his post:

"A region of land in which vast amounts of oil is extracted from the ground is known as an oil field."

The evidence of his ignorance is the word "vast," which is rather an overstatement. Although Chavis was apparently fixated on fields like Saudi Arabia's super-giant Ghawar Field, such behemoths are the exception rather than the rule. Many fields are one tenth of one percent the size of Ghawar's 50 billion barrels. Fifty million barrels is big enough to make a few bucks from if economic and geologic conditions are favorable. It ain't "vast," though.

Chavis continued throughout his post to share his personal misconceptions and pass along multiple bits of misinformation, including such garbage as,

"...oil wells [are] large machines that bore into the earth to extract petroleum or crude oil." – Uh, no, Jason, a well is a hole in the ground. The "large machines that bore" are drilling rigs, which must be removed before the well can "extract petroleum or crude oil"; terms that, by the way, are the same thing.
"The petroleum is naturally trapped by rock and soil into large pools, which make it possible to set up numerous oil wells in order to permeate the surface." – We just bet Jason thought the pools are "underground lakes." Oh, and by the way? Learn what "permeate" means before using it!
"...the fact [is] that crude oil is found most readily in desert areas or underneath the ocean floor." – "Desert" has nothing to do with where oil accumulates; and offshore oil is not found at random locations "underneath the ocean floor," it is found near the continents where sediments eroded on land have been dumped by rivers.
"The oil field rig, the machinery which pumps the oil from the wells, is large and requires extensive manufacturing." – It's obvious here that Chavis confused drilling equipment with production equipment. Once again for those ignorant of the oil business, a drilling rig does not produce oil. Heck, some WiseGEEK drone (maybe Chavis himself) even included an image of a "pumpjack oil well"... as opposed to a drilling rig...
"Oil fields are generally remote and situated far from civilization..." – We guess that comes a surprise to the people of Long Beach (CA), New Orleans, or Houston and Dallas, Texas. Duh.
"Since the oil fields are distant from civilization, self-sufficient communities are created within the oil field..." – More of the same bushwa about deserts and oceans, we guess. Perhaps Chavis was confused by offshore platforms or maybe compounds like Cabinda and Prudhoe Bay. Who knows?
"Oil fields are scattered across the globe in many diverse regions. Some are situated in hot deserts such as those in Texas and frigid climates as in Alaska." – Again with that "deserts" business...

The closest Chavis came to explaining what an oil field is (instead of his misconception of what they are) was a phrase buried in the chaff of paragraph one: "petroleum is naturally trapped by rock and soil." Leaving aside for the moment that "soil" has nothing to do with traps, this is where Jason could have actually been informative. This business of "trapping" in a reservoir is covered in the Schlumberger definition above, as are mentions of trap shape and a sealing layer. The presence of reservoir, trap, and seal are defining elements of an oil field; not "deserts" as our Dumbass of the Day seemed to think. He glossed over that information, however, in favor of... well, in favor of showing people how little he actually knew.

More's the pity.

SI-OIL

Hunting Dinosaur Fossils for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLIX

2023-02-20T17:49:00.004-05:00

Dinosaur fossil (Mesozioc, Wyoming)

One of the more irritating habits of the freelancers who plied their "trade" at eHow.com and its many niche sites was a pair of diametrically opposite tendencies: either they turned simple questions complex or they turned complex questions simple. Being ignorant of the answer is, at least to us, no excuse; for eHow it was just "minimum word count" plus "SEO" equals cash. Sadly, some of eHow's (now Leaf Group's) freelancers are still at it: witness marine biologist and small dog trainer Marina Somma attempting to answer the question, "In Which States Are Dinosaur Fossils Found?" for Sciencing.com (with her usual little help from biologist Sylvie Tremblay). It's a rewrite of a 2011 post by Craig Colin Smith...

Smith's version was little more than the regurgitation of factoids he found on a couple of websites; basically lists of known dino species finds by state with the addition of such scintillating prose as, "No dinosaur fossils have been found in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio" accompanied by an aerial photo of farm fields, supposedly in Indiana. Duh.

Somma, however, did an even more ho-hum job of attempting to answer the question. Before we get to the details, however, let's ask the staff geologist where one could conceivably find dinosaur fossils in the United States. His answer?

"Only in those states where terrestrial sedimentary rocks of Mesozoic age are exposed at the surface."

That's not, however, what Somma said. No, instead of a succinct answer such as that one, Marina went off into what we like to call "cloud cuckoo land." Although she correctly stated that,

"The states that produce the largest number of dinosaur fossils are Montana, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming..."

...that was nowhere near enough verbiage to satisfy her masters at Leaf; not to mention not explaining why fossils are concentrated in the mountain west. So, Somma was forced to expand on that answer. That's when she started dumping out dross such as,

"If your family is looking for a spot to find dinosaur bones for kids, several different states have dinosaur tourist attractions and places to search for fossils with the whole family. Locations like the Grand Canyon, Carlsbad Caverns, Guadalupe Mountains, Dinosaur National Monument and Mojave National Preserve all contain fantastic opportunities to see and learn about fossils."

Remember what the geologist told us about the age of the rocks? To refresh, they need to have been deposited during the Mesozoic Era, sometimes known as "the age of the dinosaurs." What Marina didn't seem to know is that the first three places she mentioned – "the Grand Canyon, Carlsbad Caverns, [and] Guadalupe Mountains" – comprise entirely or almost entirely Paleozoic rocks, too old to contain dinosaur fossils.

Oh, wait, we get it: Marina seemed to think that all fossils are dinosaur fossils. That must be why she waxed eloquent about Carlsbad Caverns, telling us that,

"This park, located in New Mexico, contains a fossilized reef that dates back to the Permian Age. The fossilized reef, known as 'Captain Reef,' [sic] dates back some 265 million years..."

First, there were no dinosaurs during the Permian; second, dinosaurs (when they lived) would not have been found in a reef environment; and third, it's the Capitan Reef, not the "Captain." Oh, yeah, and Carlsbad Caverns are in the Guadalupe Mountains. Sheesh.

Apparently still short of her minimum word count, Marina decided to range even further from the original question – Where can I find dinosaur fossils? – and performed a data dump listing the count of U. S. National Parks by state. We kid you not! She introduced this padding by telling her readers that,

"Just because you don't live close to a 'hot spot' for fossils doesn't mean you don't have fossil sites near you. Find all National Park Service states [sic] with dinosaur fossils or learning opportunities here..."

Yup, our Dumbass of the Day tried to tell her readers, for instance, that you can learn a-a-a-alll about dinosaur fossils in locations such as,

"Indiana – 2 different locations including Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore"

We call bullshit. And while we're here, we need to strenuously object to Marina's implication that certain National Parks include "places to search for fossils." No, they don't: federal law prohibits the removal of fossils from national park land, even if you are "a kid."

SI - PALEONTOLOGY

Water Supply Lines for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLVIII

2023-02-08T17:56:00.001-05:00

faucet water lines

The business model of the cluster of niche sites formerly known as eHow.com was deceptively simple: collect questions asked of search engines by random English-speaking (or approximately so) knowledge seekers and send them to a stable of freelancers to answer them. We say deceptively simple because, well, the sad fact is that the freelancers often knew even less about their topics than the people who asked the question in the first place. Take, for instance, today's nominee. Like many a contributor to the mother lode of misinformation, Christopher John was a J-school grad; a career choice that apparently did not lend itself well to answering questions like "How to Replace Kitchen Faucet Water Lines That Don't Reach" (now living at niche site HomeSteady.com).

Given that the original question borders on idiotic – "For Pete's sake, buy some longer supply lines and start over!" – it's truly telling that Christopher simply did not understand the situation. Why else would he opine in his introduction that,

"If the water lines that supply your kitchen faucet are too short, the water flow will be hindered and the lines will likely leak underneath the sink."

Idiot, if the supply lines are too short, there will not be a connection between the shutoff valve and the faucet. We guess that's the ultimate "hindrance"! That's not to mention that the open end of the supply line would cause the ultimate leak!

Given Chris's lack of first-hand knowledge, it's no surprise that this idiot wasted copious page space explaining how to remove the existing lines from both shutoff valve and faucet – at worst, they're only connected at one end, because – duh – they don't reach! He also confused the supply line connections on the faucet with the larger nuts that hold the faucet to the deck. No, Christopher, you won't need a basin wrench to remove the supply lines!

Other than that stupidity, John successfully reworded instructions he found at an eHow competitor (hometips.com). He neglected to mention that some shutoff valves require a compression fitting, but hey: he probably wouldn't know the difference!

The sad fact is that John's "content editor" didn't know where he'd failed his assignment, so the work our Dumbass of the Day pounded out has spent the past decade or so misinforming the public. Feh.

DDIY - PLUMBING

Image Resolution for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLVII

2023-01-29T14:29:00.006-05:00

Out of focus does not mean low-resolution

As the adage has long told us, "'Close' only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." That's pretty much true everywhere and when it comes to imparting information, it's spot on. When you ask someone for a definition, you don't want "close": you want "correct." Although many of our nominees receive an award because their work is just plain rubbish, sometimes they get "close." Sadly, that still doesn't cut it. Such is the case of Nicolette Calhoun, who tried valiantly to transfer some technology in the OurPastimes.com post "What Is Considered a Low-Resolution Image?" Well, she got close... sort of.

Calhoun first came to our attention a few years ago when she leveraged her BA in English to school the public on a topic in basic algebra. Now she's back sharing her brand of misinformation on the topic of graphics. Unfortunately, Nicolette's background in photography, computers, graphics and printing left her pretty much bereft of knowledge – much like anyone who depended on her to answer this question.

As is almost always the case, we'll let our nominee's words speak for themselves. Here is a sampling of the bogosity Calhoun barfed up in her quest for an eHow.com stipend:

"Image resolution refers to the amount of finite detail a photo has." – We aren't certain, but given the context we think Nicolette confused "finite" with "fine."
"Resolution can be measured in the number of light and dark lines per millimeter or the amount of pixels used to make a photo visible and will often be written on a film camera as LP/mm or in megapixels on a digital camera." – We must admit, we have no idea what "the amount of pixels used to make a photo visible" is supposed to mean, but we know that the "megapixels of a digital camera" is not a camera's resolution but its storage capacity.

"An image is considered low-resolution if it uses a small number of pixels to render the image..." – No, Nicolette, it's not the number of pixels, it's the number of pixels per unit area.
"A single pixel is a small square color dot." – It ain't necessarily color, Nicky.
"Low-resolution images use fewer pixels than high quality images, and it shows." – Again, Calhoun confused resolution with file size.
"Scanners and computers use 'dpi,' dots per inch, to render the resolution of images on a computer and on the Internet." – We hate to have to say this, but you don't "render the resolution of images"; you render the image at a given resolution.
" A low-resolution image will be much smaller than a high-resolution image. If you render it on a screen, it will appear tiny..." – Sort of correct. If Calhoun had mentioned that the images must be of identical subjects, it would have helped. But she didn't, perhaps because she didn't understand.
"If you zoom in on the image you will see that the image becomes blurrier or pixilated [sic] the closer you get..." – Actually, a low-resolution image is pixelated (note correct spelling) or blurry when rendered (note correct usage) at the same size as a higher-resolution image.

We thought we'd save the most bizarre claim for last. Under the heading "Spatial Quality," Nicolette "informed" her readers that,

"Some images may have a high number of pixels and a high dpi, but may still appear blurry at a large size. These images have a low spatial resolution. The camera, scanner, or the computer that you are using to render an image, and not necessarily the image itself, causes low spatial resolution. Spatial resolution is measured in ppi, or pixels per inch."

Duh. Spatial resolution is, simply, the size of the smallest object that can be resolved in an image. It's not caused by the "camera, scanner, or the computer that you are using," it's a measure of the real-world area represented by each pixel. Low spatial resolution results from a) a low-resolution image-capturing device or, in the case of a display, image-rendering device; b) an image that covers a relatively large area; or c) both. It's pretty clear from her wording that our Dumbass of the Day had no idea what poor spatial resolution is; as is made obvious by the image she captioned "This image has a low resolution because it has a low spatial quality." In fact, the image (reproduced above) has quite acceptable resolution – witness the large photograph to the soldier's left – but the human being is severely out of focus.

Too bad Calhoun didn't know the difference.

SE - PHOTOGRAPHY

Major Landforms for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLVI

2023-01-21T12:01:00.002-05:00

Most agree mountains are a major landform

We suspect that they never thought so, but in our opinion one of the major flaws of the eHow.com business model was an inability to understand the sources of all those questions their stable of freelancers (allegedly) answered. Take the question, "What Are the Seven Major Landforms?" that nominee Andrea Askins glommed onto back in 2011 for AZCentral.com: it's fairly obvious that some middle-schooler was trying to answer a question about a specific region, such as "What are the seven major landforms in North America?" We say that because no authoritative source lists seven major landforms, only four (mountain, plain, plateau, hill). Askins got those, but she had to stretch the definition of "landform" beyond the breaking point to get the other three...

Speaking of definitions, Andrea got a tad sloppy with hers in the introduction, where she chirped that,

"Landforms are natural-made [sic] formations on the earth’s surface that often form the borders between countries, states or provinces."

The dumbassery of "natural-made" notwithstanding, we know of no plains, plateaus, or hills that "form... borders" anywhere. Mountain ranges, sort of, but the others? Naaahhhh. Then again, Andrea seemed to have a rather loose association with common sense, as illustrated by her ensuing claim that "bodies of water" includes "waterfalls." Let's take a look at some of Askins' other assertions that illustrate a high level of bogosity.

"Plains... are characterized by relatively flat stretches of land that lie less than 500 feet above sea level. " – We have no idea where this dumbass came up with the "500 feet" number, but we immediately thought of two examples that disprove her "rule": the Great Plains of North America and the Altiplano of South America. Sheesh.
"Plains... generally border a seacoast..." – Apparently, Andrea extracted that "information" from the phrase "coastal plain."
"Plateaus are characterized by high elevations, arid climates and are generally bordered on at least one side by bluffs." – Yes to "[relatively] high elevations," No to "arid climates," and Bullshit! to "bordered on at least one side by bluffs." Aridity is not a definitive attribute of a plateau, and we have no idea where the "bluffs" bit came from, unless Askins was thinking of the bluffs on the west bank of the Mississippi River.
"Mountains are the least habitable land formation and are characterized as having an elevation of more than 2,000 feet." – A) weird notion and B) that "2,000 feet" business is, again, bullshit. And while we're at it, Andrea needed to learn the difference between "elevation" and "relief."
"...hills are classified as having an elevation between 500 to 2,000 feet and have a climate that is cooler than plains but warmer than mountains..." – Bullshit to both claims. Although hikers ("hillwalkers") in the UK have some sort of classification scheme, the actual difference between a hill and a mountain is subjective. As for climate? Again, no idea where this dumbass came up with that claim.

Once she got the four actual landforms out of the way, Askins was forced to come up with three others to meet the OQ's specs. Her first nominee, valleys, is arguably a type of landform, but the other two? Well, we'll let you see for yourself:

"Glaciers are large, moving masses of ice..." – A glacier is NOT a landform. Period. Oh, and whatever Leaf Group moron barfed up the caption "Glacier floating in ocean" for a photo of an iceberg should be sent back to fifth grade for remedial earth science.
"Loess is a deposit of sediment that is formed during the climate warming in an area after a glacier passes through. While it is primarily made up of silt, the mineral most found in loess deposits is quartz." – So many words, so many of them wrong. Suffice it to say that loess is not a landform. Oh, and that crap about silt and quartz? What dumbassery...

To be clear, Askins managed to come up with a list of the four most important landforms, but when it came to adding in three more to meet some seventh-grader's homework assignment, our Dumbass of the Day blew it. Big time. Not only did Andrea get two of her nominees wildly, stupidly wrong; she also managed to get at least half of the factoids she trotted out wrong. Feh.

Trust us, we'll be watching for more of her rubbish in the future.

SI - GEOGRAPHY

Small Decks for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLV

2023-01-14T10:41:00.005-05:00

a small deck

One of the staffers was reviewing an old list of potential nominees we'd found at the mother lode of misinformation (eHow.com and its niche sites) when she ran across a strangely specific question that a previous awardee had "answered" for the site. In skimming the content, she realized that the author of the content, Steve Sloane, had two problems: first, he didn't understand the original question and second, he had no idea "How to Build an 8' X 4' Deck" – no matter how many words he pounded out (or more likely, reworded) for HomeSteady.com.

Sloane managed to spit out his content before Demand Media (owners of eHow) blacklisted the website DoItYourself.com, which allowed Steve to pretty much copy, reword, and paste some of the site's content; thereby producing some highly detailed but curiously sloppy instructions. While he was doing so, Steve clearly forgot that his assignment was to build a small deck 8 feet by 4 feet...

Sloane's unfamiliarity with the process revealed itself throughout the content, but we've chosen a few examples of odd notions penned by the young man with dual BAs in creative writing and film theory. Here you go:

Assuming that any deck, even an 8-by-4 version, would need corner posts, Steve told his readers to, "[P]lace a pre-cast pier on the center of each footing.... Cut 4 vertical posts to equal length... at the required height, and fit into the piers: drill 1/2 inch holes into the wood to connect the wood to the pre-cast pier metal post anchors..." – Wait, Steve, are those "pre-cast pier[s]" or "pre-cast pier metal post anchors"? Inquiring minds want to know.
"Install two braces on each four sides [sic] in a 'criss-cross' fashion to strengthen the structure." – Apparently Steve thought the tiny deck would be installed several feet off the ground.
"Place the deck boards on top of, and at 90 degrees to the joists." – Did Sloane actually think people would try to install the decking on the underside of the joists?
"Dig a hole 12 by 12 by 12 inches at each corner for the footings, making sure that the corners of the 8-by-12 foot area are at the center of each square. – First, your footing depth is a function of the frost line and soil type, second, what "8-by-12 foot area"? The assignment was an 8-by-4 deck, dummy.

Suffice it to say, Sloane's version of a deck, replete with 4-by-10 and 2-by-10 lumber, was a tad overengineered. At least, unlike the current version of the DoItYourself.com post, our Dumbass of the Day didn't suggest using "1.25x6-inch" lumber...

DDIY - DECKS

Horizontal Drilling for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLIV

2023-01-07T14:46:00.001-05:00

horizontal drilling

Staffers at the Antisocial Network realized years ago that some freelancers are just plain shameless. A case in point is one of the more frequent contributors to WiseGEEK.com, who we have determined is neither wise nor a geek. Partially due to her claimed educational qualifications but mostly to her obvious unfamiliarity with her subjects, she's become our "go-away-from" contributor at the site and its niches; with a back-list of crapola that rivals such greats as Joan Whetzel (eHow, HubPages) and Lacy Enderson (eHow). Here, making her sixteenth appearance at the awardee's podium, is Mary McMahon and her AboutMechanics.com post, "What is Horizontal Drilling?"

Before we get to Mary's amazing blend of ignorance and dumbassery, we'll be happy to provide a quick definition of the topic:

Horizontal drilling is the practice of turning a wellbore parallel to bedding so as to increase the length of penetration within a reservoir. It is most frequently used for thin or naturally fractured reservoirs, and has often been combined with hydraulic fracturing to increase production from low-permeability reservoirs such as shale.

Given that McMahon (back when she called herself S. E. Smith) had to reach some site-mandated "sweet spot" SEO-wise, i.e., a minimum word count; we're pretty certain that those 51 words would never have cut it with WiseGEEK or with Mary's "editor," Kristen Osborne. No, she had to pad it out and pad it she did, ending up with almost 450 words of text.

The problem? A lot of those words were... well, wrong. Take, for instance, these assertions:

"Horizontal drilling is a technique for oil and natural gas extraction involving a well dug parallel to the wellbore..." – Yes, Mary did say "parallel to the wellbore" when she actually meant perpendicular. And while we're on this sentence, no one "digs" oil and gas wells; they drill them.
"In horizontal drilling, workers start by going into the earth at a low angle, gradually increasing the angle to hit the target." – Workers don't "start... at a low angle" and they don't go "into the earth"; drillers start boring a hole a foot or so in diameter (too small to climb down) at or near vertical; the highest angle.
"[A] mud motor... works through the substrate, dragging the piping along with it." – First, no one in the business would ever call a drill string "piping" and second, the mud motor doesn't "drag" anything. The weight of the drill string – you know, all that pipe – is more than sufficient to push the drill bit forward.

"For some deposits of natural resources, traditional vertical wells are not practical. When deposits are shallow, it can take an extended period of time for deposits of oil to move towards the borehole." – We aren't sure, but we think our nominee was talking about thin reservoirs, not "shallow" ones. But who knows what dumbassery lurks in the brain of Mary?
"In the case of a relief well, horizontal drilling creates a method for accessing the area without disturbing the original well and risking a blowout while drilling." – Why wiseGEEKs (and eHowians) insist on bringing up relief wells every time directional drilling is mentioned is beyond us, but we should point out that a horizontal relief well is quite unlikely.

For these statements and a host of other misinformation, it's our solemn duty to inform Mary that she's picked up yet another Dumbass of the Day award. By our count, this is number sixteen and the fifth time she's displayed her ignorance of the petroleum industry. Feh.

SE - OIL

Laminate Countertops for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLIII

2023-01-03T17:16:00.003-05:00

flush trim bit for laminate

It's not unusual for our staffers to find freelancers who seem skilled at rewording information that is utterly foreign to them. It's not unusual for one of them to be puttering along nicely in some eHow.com instructions, and then suddenly go off the rails. One of the most common causes of this phenomenon appears to be a failed attempt to marry information from two different sources. That's how we caught today's nominee, Claudia Henning, who parlayed an "Associate of Science degree in physics/math" into a job as freelancer for HomeSteady.com, where she shared her (lack of) expertise in "How to Replace Laminate Countertop."

Henning (or, as she sometimes styled herself, Verdia Bolster) cited a how-to about laminate countertops from Lowe's, which is usually a reliable source, plus a pretty much throwaway post from a blogging handyman that didn't include any instructions, just advice. Where Henning got herself into trouble was in trying to combine the instructions from Lowe's with another set from... somewhere else; she didn't mention it.

The first hint that Claudia's version would be undependable was when she reworded Lowe's instructions to "...screw a sheet of 5.2mm import hardwood plywood" to an existing laminate top; reducing that to "Measure, cut and screw a ¼- inch [sic]¹ thick plywood board." Weird that DMS² didn't force her to retain the metric measurement, not to mention that the "hardwood" specification was more important than Henning seemed to think. Oh, and no one knowledgeable of the crafts calls plywood a "board"...

Be that as it may, the chief "tell" in Henning's post came when she tried to explain scribing the laminate to fit tightly against the wall. The Lowe's post simply said to "scribe the contours [and trim] along the scribe mark." Claudia, however, expanded this to,

"Put the piece of laminate that will comprise the top of the backsplash [sic] loosely into place. Run a strip of masking tape on the top edge of the laminate that rests against the back wall... Run the scribers tool [sic] slowly across the back wall. The pencil will translate any uneven areas along the wall onto the masking tape. Use a belt sander to smoothly remove these areas."

We're pretty certain Claudia lifted those instructions from an uncited source, one explaining how to install a laminate countertop. That's because 1) Lowe's says nothing about a backsplash and 2) how would you even use a belt sander on a sheet of laminate? Then there's that "top of the backsplash" crap: most laminate backsplashes have a rounded profile, so there's no "top." Henning also tried to tell people to use a belt sander to trim back the edges; a job typically reserved for a router and flush trim bit. Oh, well...

Or how about this misstatement:

"Shut off the water to the sink. There should be a valve on the water line that when twisted in a clockwise motion, turns off the water supply to the sink."

Never mind the typical eHowian insistence on telling you which way to "twist" a shutoff valve, just about anyone who's ever looked under the sink will tell you that there are two shutoff valves. And by the way, Claudia, removing a sink (and faucets) involves more than

"Disconnect the drain and the hot and cold water connections. Pull the sink and set it to the side."

Sheesh: is there any doubt that Henning is richly deserving of the honor of a Dumbass of the Day award? We sure don't think so... which is why she's today's recipient.

¹ That's how HomeSteady reproduced her text; but the weird string of symbols and letters is ¼ in unicode.
² DMS is Demand Media Studios, the old name of Leaf Group.

DDIY - COOUNTERS

Lengthening a Door for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLIII

2022-12-28T09:53:00.004-05:00

hollow core door construction

We know how much people like to take polls, so here's a quick, two-choice poll for you, dear reader. If you need someone to tell you "How to Lengthen a Wood Door," whose instructions are you more likely to trust:

A carpenter or general handyperson
A "professional business copywriter, journalist and photographer"

If your answer is number 2, then the rubbish that returning DotD Jenn Starr pounded out for eHow.com is right up your alley, and all you need do is follow that link. If you aren't sure, read on and we'll tell you why that wouldn't be a good idea.

Just based on her introduction, it's a pretty sure bet that Starr was talking through the metaphorical hat when she shared her "expertise." But that wasn't the only clue. No, it often takes just one sentence to demonstrate a nominee's ignorance, and we found that sentence right away. Having worked with a few doors over the years, our house home-repair guru found this particular passage quite... telling:

"If your door bottom is uneven, saw it so it is squared off. If you have a hollow wood door, you won't be able to do this part."

Yup, Jenn was apparently unaware that the entire perimeter of a hollow-core door is solid, with rails and stiles to strengthen the shape and provide an anchor for the hardware. Sheesh. Starr typed up a few other faux pas along the way as well, such as

Telling her readers they will need a "Circular saw and table"? and a "Countersink drill" ? Was the young J-school grad unaware that circular saws don't come with tables (though you used to be able to buy a Hirsh table), and that there's no such thing as a countersink drill? Bit, yeah, drill, no.
Suggesting that her readers "Determine what kind of wood your door is made of, then match it at your local home improvement store in the lumber department." Uhhh, sure: every home improvement store sells solid "lauan" to match your hollow-core door. Oh, yeah, and be certain to match the grain...
And how about this idea: "If your door is wood stained, then you can buy stain and varnish there also, or repaint or restain the entire door. Lengthening a short wood door will save on your energy bill, too." The non sequitur about energy notwithstanding, you might as well buy a new door if you have to strip and restain the damned thing!

Based on past experience, our staffers think our Dumbass of the Day missed the boat by failing to provide any information about the "addition" she kept citing. Well, except for "cut your wood strip to size on the table saw" (apparently, Starr thought a "Circular saw and table" is the same thing as a table saw. It ain't.) Someone with at least rudimentary knowledge of the work might mention ripping the strip to width and thickness, since you can't just buy "additions" at your local lumberyard and the strip is HIGHLY unlikely to be a standard width and thickness (doors are usually one and three-eights inches thick).

DDIY - DOORS

Directional Wells for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLII

2022-12-23T10:34:00.005-05:00

directional well

After years of scrolling through content farm rubbish, our staffers have codified the simplest method of determining that some freelancer somewhere was pounding out bullshit in hopes of collecting a few pennies for the "work." Ready? All you do is look for long strings of generic crapola tied together with tangentially related factoids. It's even easier when those factoids have been interpreted through the lens of ignorance. That's what we found when we did a deep dive on Christian Petersen and the WiseGEEK post, "What Is a Directional Well?" (firmly ensconced at AboutMechanics.com, for some weird reason).

Petersen opened his content dump with the anodyne observation that,

"A directional well is usually an oil well that is drilled into the ground in a direction that is other than vertical."

Kudos to Christian; it appears he knows how to google his topic... although that "usually" of his seems misplaced, if you ask us. A better definition would probably be "Any well that is intentionally drilled to a target that is not vertically beneath the surface location." But hey, that would require that the writer know that there is such a thing as a surface location. Not so Petersen...

We promised you bullshit and crapola, and without further ado, here's more of what Christian shared, just in his introduction:

"Directional drilling is undertaken when the target is not situated directly below the drilling platform..." – Ummm, Christian? What makes you think all wells are drilled from a "platform"?
"...for a variety of reasons, including a desire to preserve surface features, such as delicate terrain, various ecosystems, or historic structures." – None of our oil and gas types has ever run across direction wells intended to preserve "historic structures."
"It is sometimes useful to drill a directional well that targets specific underground features such as oil or gas bearing layers or zones" – Ummm, dude, that's the reason for all directional drilling. Does Christian think people drill wells for fun?
"...while avoiding others, such as difficult rock layers and aquifers..." – We have no idea what those "difficult rock layers" might be, nor do we know of any reason to avoid aquifers: that's what casing is for.

Moving right along, Christian shared more of his ignorance while describing the technology:

"...drilling a directional well does require specialized equipment, such as flexible pipes and specialized asymmetrical and steerable drill heads."

We suppose that "steerable drill heads" business might be Petersen's version of geosteering with a mud motor; even if directional wells were drilled for decades before the first steerable bit. And then there's this interesting construction:

"Often, a directional well begins as a standard vertical well, which, upon reaching a certain target depth, changes direction"

Gee, Christian (and "editor" Susan Barwick), didn't J-school and/or an English Lit BA teach you not to use passive voice? A well doesn't begin anything or change direction, the drillers do all that. Or how about this... understatement?

"Most directional well drilling is done by the oil and natural gas industries, but other directional wells are sometimes constructed, especially when drilling for water or exploration."

Which raises the eternal question, exploration for what? Looking for Dr. Livingston? Besides which, exploration wells are generally vertical; it's the production wells that are drilled directionally. And finally, there's this bit of dumbassery:

"Much information about the interior of the Earth can be learned by using technology such as ground penetrating radar..."

We're duty-bound to let Christian's readers know that ground-penetrating radar isn't much use for learning "Much information about the interior of the Earth," since the technology rarely penetrates more than ten feet below the surface.

Such is the typical level of knowledge shared by a freelancer blathering on about a subject he or she had never heard of before. You know, like our Dumbass of the Day expounding on deviated wells without knowing the slightest bit about the technology and methodology. Feh.

SE - OIL

Bracing A Fence Corner for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCLI

2022-12-06T13:41:00.005-05:00

T-Post Corner Brace

We don't know about you, but we hear an awful lot these days about the differences between people who live in rural settings and those who live in the big cities. While we think most of the difference is rubbish, there definitely are some things that people who grew up in or now live in rural settings know that lifelog city-dwellers don't. Based on what he wrote in "How to Make a Corner Fence With T-Posts" for HomeSteady.com, we somehow suspect that Keith Allen was a city boy (his North Dakota roots notwithstanding). We ran across his work while looking at a garbage post penned by one Jack Gerard/Jack Casteele about stretching barbed wire.

While we'd be inclined to ask how to make a "fence corner" instead of a "corner fence," we got the idea. Apparently Allen did as well, googling around until he found what appear to be instructions for hardware made by the Wedge-Loc^® company. What he did with those instructions, unfortunately, was pretty much useless.

The company kindly printed an image, reproduced above, showing how to use their product to set T-Posts for a barbed wire fence corner: You set three posts to make a right angle at the corner, then use four of the company's patented brackets and two diagonal braces to complete the braced corner. Keith's version of the instructions left quite a bit to be desired. Here's why:

"Drive the corner post." – Works for us...
"Place a second post... down the fence line. Drive this post..." – Again, works for us.
"Attach a... bracket to each end of a third post... Attach a similar bracket to the second post..." – Ummm, no, Keith, you drive the third post into the ground "down the fence line" at right angles to the existing pair (on the other leg of the right angle).
"Connect the brackets [sic] attached to the third post to the bracket at the base of the second post. Place the other end of the post against the corner post." – That isn't going to make a braced corner, Keith; that's an in-line stiffener such as might be used at a gate.

You need three driven posts and two T-posts set at an angle (they may need to be cut) to construct a braced corner, for five posts in all. Keith only seemed to think you'll need three posts total. So now you know why the J-school grad earned the title of Dumbass of the Day: he picked it up for faking a knowledge of fencing.

DDIY - FENCES

Closets and Sloped Ceilings for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCL

2022-11-27T06:59:00.003-05:00

2-by-2s and plywood? No!

Some of the most annoying examples of freelance dumbassery were foisted on the internet under the banner of eHow.com, especially the "how-to" articles written by J-school grads who had never in their tiny little lives actually performed whatever they claimed to be explaining. These paragons of bullshittery have always been easy for people with real knowledge to spot, mostly because the so-called instructions are riddled with incorrect information. Today's example, the HomeSteady.com post "How to Build a Closet Under a Sloped Ceiling" by one Jenn Starr, is no exception. In fact, it might well be the rule.

Starr, who proudly boasted a BA in "news/editorial journalism," was (unfortunately) not required by Demand Media to reveal her sources. We guess that's lucky for Jenn, given that she either didn't have any or had to use her non-existent expertise to modify loosely related content she found on a mommyblog somewhere; presumably with suggestions for remodeling a bedroom. Be that as it may, we found her content to be sadly lacking. Following are some of the many tells for Starr's lack of carpentry skills we recognized with a quick skim of her post:

"This example will use a closet measurement of wall height before slope at 36 inches. The extension out to the closet front edge is 48 inches. " – WTF does that even mean? We aren't sure, but we think she was attempting to describe the depth of the space she intended to enclose.
"Place a 4-by-8-foot plywood sheet upright from the 48-inch mark closet edge... On the plywood sheet, mark from 36 inches up one side, lay the yardstick to hit at the corner on a diagonal and draw the diagonal chalk line... This should be a perfect 45-degree angle to match the slope." – In the first place ceilings are rarely constructed at a perfect 45° angle. In the second place, why did she even have that part about "Place a 4-by-8-foot plywood sheet upright"? And last but not least, that line she described is not a 45-degree angle! And while we're at it, you don't draw a chalk line for cutting...
"Lay your first set of framing studs on the floor with the chalk line sitting outside the frame edge. Two 2-by-2-inch framing studs will lie exactly vertically from the wall on the floor." – First, why is this dumbass using 2-by-2 lumber for framing and second, shouldn't the top of her framing studs be cut at an angle to match the slope (whatever it actually is)? And last but not least, the only chalk line that she'd mentioned at this point was on a plywood sheet...
"Measure the framing studs for the slope and take off 2 inches from the measured length to accommodate the wall stud interference." – Once again, WTF does "wall stud interference" even mean?
"You could also do miter cuts on the ends of both sets to match them flush with each other..." – You "could"? We think you'd damned well better! Not to mention that people around here know what "flush" means, even if Starr didn't.
"Saw your plywood sheets to the correct size of the depth -- 48 inches -- the vertical height -- 36 inches -- and the 45-degree angle to the opposite corner, making a total of 96 inches to the corner." – We have no idea where the bozo got that "96 inches" bull. Given that her plywood (why is she using plywood, when drywall is preferable?) is a 48 x 48 square with one corner cut off, it's impossible for it to have a 96-inch side. Based on her description, we think the long side is about 49½ inches long.

The rest of Starr's project plans and instructions are equally senseless, but our staffers were so nauseous after reading steps one through four that they simply could not finish the remaining "information" our Dumbass of the Day shared. Needless to say, a quick review showed it to be every bit as useless as the rest of what she had to say. Feh.

DDIY - CARPENTRY

Recessed Refrigerators for Dummies - The Freelance Files MMCCXLIX

2022-11-18T11:05:00.003-05:00

Typical built-in refrigerator

Around Antisocial Network HQ we long ago realized that there are people out there who are perfectly happy to pound out any amount of bullshit necessary to pick up a few pennies. The self-appointed "expert contributors" to eHow.com have always been a prime example. Where else do you find a "state-tested nursing assistant" with a BS in "communications/public relations" pretending to know "How to Recess a Refrigerator"? Trust us: once you start reading the tripe uploaded by eHowian Nicole Brown, you just won't be able to look away...

We aren't certain, but we suspect that Brown took her cues from the one and only Naima Manal when it came to ginning up this set of "instructions." She may have consulted some reference for cutting a new door in an existing wall and/or building a closet in a corner, but we note that there are zero "references" attached to her post that have anything to do with recessed fridges. Nicole (like Naima before her) decided that, to recess a refrigerator into a wall, you cut a hole in the wall and shove the appliance in.

Duh: to recess a refrigerator, you build out from the existing wall, Nikki! You either include a space for it within a line of cabinets or you build a second wall at the depth of the appliance, perhaps including a pantry or other storage. You DON'T cut a hole in the wall and build some sort of box in the room on the other side of the wall. What would you do if the appliance is on an outside wall, huh?

Even if one found it necessary to follow the fifteen steps Brown rattled off, several of them are... questionable. Take the first few, for instance:

"Ensure that the wall is not load-bearing by determining if it runs perpendicular to the floor joists... Removing a section of a load-bearing wall can weaken the home's structure." – Not all walls that run perpendicular to the joists are load-bearing, Nicole. And even if it is, you could always shore up the header... if you knew what a header was.
"Check the length of the refrigerator power cord to ensure it reaches the nearest outlet. This will prevent you from having to wire a new electrical outlet." – Refrigerator outlets are almost always on the wall behind the unit. Anyone following Brown's logic will have to rewire... not to mention, most houses built in the last forty years have plumbing behind the fridge for an icemaker. What of that, Nikki?
"Measure the width, height and depth of the refrigerator with a measuring tape. Add at least 10 inches to each measurement to provide adequate clearance for the refrigerator." – Ten inches? Really? A five-inch-wide gap on both sides? Naaaahhhhh.
"Transfer the width and height measurements to the wall on both sides in the location where you plan to place the recessed refrigerator. " – How, pray tell, do you transfer those measurements to the other side of a wall, hmmm? Hint: if you're dumb enough to do this, you'll need to strip off the drywall floor to ceiling on the back of the wall.
"Cut through the drywall along the outline on both sides of the wall with a reciprocating saw. Remove the drywall on both sides..." – That construction's sure gonna look weird in the room on the other side of the kitchen wall!

Some of Brown's other dumbassery include steps like screwing studs together with 4-inch screws (the thickness of two 2-by-4s equals three inches, not four) and telling people to screw the "top plate" of her opening (actually, a 2-by-4 header) into the jack studs even though there's drywall on both sides. And we could go on from there... but we won't.

Frankly, what Brown appears to have done is built a closet that opens into the kitchen; although she didn't put a ceiling on it. We are pretty sure that a box sticking out of the wall at a random location will look like it was designed by a Dumbass of the Day! In other words, some clueless self-appointed freelance "journalist" who thought that a built-in appliance sticks through the wall into the next room. Duh.

Oh, yeah, and Brown warned people to wear gloves and goggles – duh – but did not warn them to check the wall for electrical wiring or plumbing before attacking it with a reciprocal saw. Hence the "dangerous stupidity" tag.

SE - APPLIANCES