wskent

A San Francisco jury found Friday that a prestigious venture capital firm did not discriminate against a former junior partner because of her gender, concluding a month-long trial that, despite its outcome, launched a wide-ranging discussion about how women are treated in Silicon Valley.

Ellen Pao had accused Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers of treating her “despicably, maliciously, fraudulently, and oppressively” and later retaliating by denying her a promotion and firing her when she complained. Kleiner Perkins, famous for early investments in Amazon and Google and which had a good track record of hiring female executives, countered that Pao was a difficult employee who simply didn’t make the cut.

The jury of six men and six women deliberated for three days before deciding in favor of Kleiner Perkins on three counts related to gender discrimination as well as a fourth count on whether Pao was fired in retaliation for her lawsuit. Pao had asked for $16 million in compensation, plus punitive damages.

“I have told my story and thousands of people have heard it,” Pao said after the decision. “If I helped to level the playing field for women and minorities in venture capital, then the battle was worth it.”

Regardless of the jury’s decision in favor of Kleiner Perkins, many said the trial remains a rebuke of Silicon Valley’s male-dominated culture and a warning sign to other technology firms and start-ups — a message that seemed to find a wide audience despite the particulars of a difficult case. These supporters point to the gender disparity in technology jobs, such as at Google, Apple, Facebook and Yahoo, where women hold 15 percent to 20 percent of those positions. And recent gender-discrimination lawsuits filed against Twitter and Facebook are likely to further fuel the debate.

The courtroom testimony in Pao's case was at times salacious, with dissections of an office affair and the gift of an erotically-charged poetry book. But the jury’s decision appeared to hinge on more subtle signs of sexism and harassment, the kind of “boy’s club” culture that women in technology have complained about for years. That’s what kept the courtroom packed -- former Yahoo president Susan Decker was among the curious driven to drop by for closing arguments earlier this week -- and made the case fodder for obsessive Twitter updates.

"It's a clear win for Kleiner Perkins," said Jason Knott, a Washington, D.C., attorney specializing in employment law and who closely followed the case. "But it still raises the issue that employers have to be sensitive to how they treat workers."

Some tech companies already have moved to make their workplaces more welcoming to women, said Freada Kapor Klein, a diversity consultant in the San Francisco area.

She said she’s been contacted for help by more than a dozen companies in recent weeks as the Pao trial unfolded. The focus is no longer about preventing just what she calls “smoking gun” acts of discrimination. Companies want advice on rooting out smaller problems.

“They are moving to dismantle unwelcoming work environments and hidden or subtle biases,” Klein said.

Joelle Emerson, chief executive of Paradigm, which helps tech companies with diversity, said she believes Pao’s case will continue to reverberate in Silicon Valley.

“My hope is that it will help other companies be more thoughtful,” Emerson said.

Pao, now 45, arrived at Kleiner Perkins in 2005 as chief of staff to the firm’s best-known partner John Doerr. She was bright. She had an electrical engineering degree from Princeton and graduated from both Harvard’s law and business schools. She was promoted to junior partner at the firm. But she was fired in October 2012, not long after filing her lawsuit.

At Kleiner Perkins, women make up more than 20 percent of the partners, making it a stand-out among competitors. Firm partner Mary Meeker testified at trial that it was “the best place to be a woman in business.”

But Pao’s attorneys claimed she was the victim of a male-dominated workplace where women were denied the same opportunities as men.

The headline moments came when Pao testified a male coworker with whom she had an affair retaliated against her by cutting her out of emails and meetings – and the firm did nothing to stop it.

"Going back I would not have done it again," she testified about the affair. "I didn't think it was inappropriate at the time."

She said she was subjected to a discussion about pornography on a plane ride with her male colleagues. She said a partner gave her a copy of Leonard Cohen’s “Book of Longing” as a Valentine’s Day gift. Pao also said she and other female employees were not invited to firm dinners at the home of former Vice President Al Gore and left out of an all-male firm ski trip to Colorado.

Kleiner Perkins lined up explanations – the poetry book was not intended to create discomfort and other women had been invited to the Gore dinners and on the ski trip. Meeker, the high-profile female partner, testified she’d dined at Gore’s house before and was invited to ski in Colorado, but declined.

But the case seemed to balance on smaller slights. Pao said she was denied a seat by Kleiner Perkins on another company’s board of directors in part because she was going on maternity leave. Her lawsuit claimed male junior partners were allowed to sit on the boards of multiple companies that the firm invested in, while female colleagues were limited to one.

Pao’s attorney said Pao excelled at the firm, leading to an investment in a company that later enjoyed great success and helping two companies merge. Two male colleagues of Pao had been promoted, even though one was called confrontational and another was accused of having "sharp elbows," an apparent reference to his treatment of other workers.

Similar criticisms of Pao were used to justify her being fired, Pao’s lawyer Alan Exelrod said.

"The evidence in this case compels the conclusion that men were judged by one standard and women by another," Exelrod told the jury this week. "The leaders of Kleiner Perkins are the ones responsible for this double standard."

Kleiner Perkins has countered that Pao was a chronic complainer who twisted facts and circumstances in her lawsuit and had a history of conflicts with colleagues.

“The complaints of Ellen Pao were made for only one purpose: a huge payout for team Ellen," Kleiner Perkins attorney Lynne Hermle told the jury.

In recent weeks, at least two more gender discrimination lawsuits have hit major Silicon Valley firms. Facebook was sued in February by a former employee who claims gender and racial discrimination, among other allegations. Chia Hong, who is a woman and Taiwanese, claims that she was fired in 2013 and replaced by a less qualified man.

Earlier this month, Twitter was hit with a class action lawsuit by a former software worker. Tina Huang, who worked at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters for six years, claims she was passed over for promotion because of her gender and then fired when she complained. Huang’s lawsuit alleges that Twitter did not openly post job opportunities, but relied instead on a secretive “shoulder tap” process that favored the “boy’s club.”

For Emerson, the Twitter lawsuit carries even more potential for changing the tech culture than Pao’s closely followed case. That’s because it’s not about the plight of one women, Emerson said, it’s about the structural discrimination that many believe exists in the tech world.

Twitter actually was a sticking point in Pao’s trial. In 2008, Pao pushed for Kleiner Perkins to invest in the popular messaging site. But the firm turned her down, only to put funding into the company later.

Pao’s attorney, in his closing argument to the jury, noted the irony that word of the verdict would be spread by Twitter now.

It just wasn't the verdict he wanted.

Associated Press contributed.

Mapping all the cities in Willie Nelson's songs

Oh my, I had forgotten about the Name of the Year site and how amazing it is. Each year, they collect the most unusual names in the world and pit them against each other in a March Madness-style bracket. Here are some of the names in the running for the 2015 Name of the Year:

Swindly Lint
Dr. Electron Kebebew
Flavious Coffee
Lancelot Supersad Jr.
Jazznique St. Junious

(A reminder...these are actual names of actual people. Somehow.)

Littice Bacon-Blood
Dr. Wallop Promthong
Infinite Grover
Genghis Muskox
Malvina Complainville
Beethoven Bong
Amanda Miranda Panda

Some Hall of Name inductees include Tokyo Sexwale, Nimrod Weiselfish, Doby Chrotchtangle, Tanqueray Beavers, and Vanilla Dong.

Tags: best of   best of 2015   language   lists

The Tom Waits Map.Click on a pindrop to see the Tom Waits lyric associated with the location. (Thanks, Colin!)

It was a fairly sleepy congressional hearing, the last in a two-week marathon of appearances by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler before lawmakers to defend his agency's net neutrality rules. But then Louie Gohmert chimed in.

Gohmert (R-Tex.), an outspoken critic of the agency's rules that prevent Internet providers from blocking Web sites or speeding some of them up over others, exploded during a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday. His voice rising to a shout, Gohmert threw a stream of accusations at Wheeler, complaining that the FCC had cut off Internet providers' ability to find new ways of making money.

"Before the FCC came in, everybody could explore new business models," Gohmert said. "You're playing God with the Internet … That's not your job.

"Congress wasn't asking you to take over the Internet," he added, referring to the FCC's congressional charter.

Wheeler didn't respond directly to Gohmert. But  during the hearing, he defended the FCC's new net neutrality rules. He also noted that some Republicans agree that there is a need to put some limits on Internet providers, pointing to a bill backed by Reps. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and Fred Upton (R-Mich.), as well as Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.).

"Mr. Walden and Mr. Upton and Sen. Thune have [proposed] legislation to ban blocking, ban throttling, and ban paid prioritization — the things we ban" in the net neutrality rules, said Wheeler. "So I think there's suggestion that people other than us" believe there is a problem.

Last month, the FCC passed strict new rules for Internet providers, voting to regulate them using the same legal tools it uses to police legacy phone service. Those rules have now been challenged by two lawsuits — one from a trade group representing Internet providers, and another from a small, Texas-based broadband company.

Catch video of the hearing here.

Finland is planning on phasing out teaching by subject (math, geography, etc.) and replace it with a teaching-by-topic approach.

Subject-specific lessons -- an hour of history in the morning, an hour of geography in the afternoon - are already being phased out for 16-year-olds in the city's upper schools. They are being replaced by what the Finns call "phenomenon" teaching -- or teaching by topic. For instance, a teenager studying a vocational course might take "cafeteria services" lessons, which would include elements of maths, languages (to help serve foreign customers), writing skills and communication skills.

More academic pupils would be taught cross-subject topics such as the European Union -- which would merge elements of economics, history (of the countries involved), languages and geography.

As a generalist, wannabe polymath, and obvious fan of a scattershot approach to knowledge gathering & dissemination, I approve. (via qz)

Update: From the Finnish National Board of Education: Subject teaching in Finnish schools is not being abolished.

The news that Finland is abolishing teaching separate subjects has recently hit the headlines world-wide. Subject teaching is not being abolished although the new core curriculum for basic education will bring about some changes in 2016.

(via @adamcreen)

Tags: education   Finland

"I always wanted to make a film on Mechanical Turkers but they were so rude whenever I inquired on reddit," writer Bassam Tariq says, "So I paid them to answer my questions." Read the rest

You can be mad that it’s raining or you can dance in the rain! The people of Seattle have grown accustomed to a lot of rain, but rather than letting it bring them down, they have a new reason to embrace the rain. Rainworks are street art stencils made by Peregrine Church that only show up when it rains. They feature positive messages and even a rainy day hopscotch game. With the sole purpose of making people smile on rainy days, Church is accomplishing his mission and creating new works often.

To create Rainworks, Peregrine Church uses superhydrophobic coatings, which are biodegradable and safe for the environment. Each piece lasts four months to a year, depending on how heavily trafficked the area is. Check out more rain activated street art on the Rain.Works website. You can also follow them on Facebook.

"Two girls who switched continents get to know each other through the data they draw and send across the pond." Dear Data is a year-long, analog data drawing project by Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec. It's also possibly the most awesome thing ever made with a series of post cards.

Dear god.

[Video Link]

Times are a'changin' at the FAA: "The Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday gave Amazon permission to conduct test flights of its drones outdoors, as long as the company obeys a host of rules like flying below 400 feet and only during daylight hours."

[Youtube link, via]

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Return at Sunrise.

I went to my neighbor’s house for something to eat yesterday.

Think about this sentence. It’s pretty simple—English speakers would know precisely what it means. But what does it actually tell you—or, more to the point, what does it not tell you? It doesn’t specify facts like the subject’s gender or the neighbor’s, or what direction the speaker traveled, or the nature of the neighbors’ relationship, or whether the food was just a cookie or a complex curry. English doesn’t require speakers to give any of that information, but if the sentence were in French, say, the gender of every person involved would be specified.

The way that different languages convey information has fascinated linguists, anthropologists, and psychologists for decades. In the 1940s, a chemical engineer called Benjamin Lee Whorf published a wildly popular paper in the MIT Technology Review (pdf) that claimed the way languages express different concepts—like gender, time, and space—influenced the way its speakers thought about the world. For example, if a language didn’t have terms to denote specific times, speakers wouldn’t understand the concept of time flowing.

This argument was later discredited, as researchers concluded that it overstated language’s constraints on our minds. But researchers later found more…
Read More…

Google Feud looks like a good way to kill some time.

A collection of pages from old science journals.

It was a big day for anti-bullying and body positivity today on the gool ol’ internet.

Free Thought Project writer and prominent organizer in the fight against police brutality Cassandra Fairbanks took a stand against the body-shaming of this man by 4chan users, calling on fellow anti-bullying crusaders to help her track down the dancing man in the photo so she and a group of almost 2,000 other southern California women could throw him a huge, awesome dance party. They helped, he was found, and the party is on. 

“Dancing Man,” read the invite. “We don’t know much about you, but a photo on the internet suggested that you wanted to dance and were made to feel like you shouldn’t be.

We want to see you dance freely, and if you would have us, we would love to dance with you.

We are prepared to throw quite the dance party just for you, if you’d have us.

To be clear, it’s 1,727 of us. And we are all women.

If this isn’t appealing, we are ok with taking no for an answer, but we’d like you to know- the offer stands.

May we have this dance?”

Dancing Man’s real name is Sean and he lives in London. When he saw the invite and realized he was an overnight internet darling he immediately responded that he’d love to join Cassandra and co. in LA for a dance-off. Cue tears. Cue his bullies feeling like jerks and hopefully learning from their mistakes. Cue Pharrell asking for an invite to the party.

Never forget the day that #dancingman was found and the internet wept with tears of cyberjoy. The web may often feel like a breeding ground for hate, but its equally proven potential for viral positivity and support is a happy antidote.

NASA’s Dawn probe has become the first ever spacecraft to orbit a dwarf planet.

Map maker Javier Arce created a world map locating 212 cities referenced in 7,681 pop songs. Click on a city and you can instantly play the related songs through Spotify.

Read the rest

“Nice try, Lao Che!” - ✊

(more…)

The voices we generally hear on public radio reflect only a narrow range of experiences, particularly with regards to race. There’s a cost to that.

[Full Story]

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts over the years, while I’m not the handiest or craftiest guy, I do make an effort to expand my DIY skills when I can. One thing that often leaves me scratching my head is purchasing lumber whenever I take on a project that requires it.

You’d think lumber would be simple; it’s just going and buying a piece of wood, right? But it’s surprisingly complex. There are so many choices that, even with a supply list in hand, I often find myself wandering the lumber section at the home improvement store for 20 minutes trying to figure out which pieces of wood I should buy. Common board? Structural? C or D grade plywood? Pressure treated?

Whenever I’ve done research on lumber, I could find some of the information that I needed in one place, and some of it in another. But I could never find one comprehensive resource that offered all the nitty gritty in a single location. So to consolidate everything for my own purposes, and for our readers, I decided to write this article. I realize most of you won’t be reading through this for enjoyment; what I hope is that you’ll be able to file it away, and refer to it whenever you have a lumber-related question of any kind.

Strap on your tool belt, and let’s do this.

Types of Lumber: Softwood and Hardwood

There are two types of lumber: softwoods and hardwoods. Softwood lumber comes from conifer trees like pine, fir, spruce, and cedar. These woods get their classification for a reason; they can be easily dented with just your fingernail. Softwood lumber also absorbs and loses moisture much easier than hardwoods, so extra care must be taken to maintain the wood’s stability over a lifetime. Pressure treating softwood is one way to maintain its soundness when exposed to the elements. More on that later.

Softwood lumber is cheaper because conifer trees grow faster than hardwoods. Consequently, softwood lumber is primarily used in construction, like in framing a house or building a deck. If you’re going to do a home DIY project, you’re likely going to use softwood lumber. You can find it aplenty at your local big box home improvement store.

Hardwood lumber comes from deciduous trees, which have broad leaves that fall off in the cold months. The most common trees you’ll see hardwood lumber come from are oak, maple, walnut, hickory, and mahogany. As you can gather from the name, most hardwoods are harder than softwoods (with the exception of balsa wood), and they aren’t as easily dented.

Hardwood trees take a much longer time to grow to maturity, so the lumber they’re turned into is much more expensive than the softwood variety. Consequently, hardwood lumber is typically used in fine woodworking, furniture construction, cabinetry, and flooring. If you want to get into woodworking, you’ll primarily be using hardwoods. Big box hardware stores don’t stock much of it though, so you’ll often have to visit a specialty woodworking store or a lumberyard to purchase it.

With the basic distinction between softwood and hardwood lumber out of the way, let’s get into the nitty gritty of each type.

Softwood Lumber

Softwood Lumber Classifications and Grades

Because every tree is different, individual pieces of lumber will show a wide range of quality in strength. To ensure that the right kind of lumber is used for the right job, the U.S. Department of Commerce established the American Softwood Lumber Standard.

There are three broad classifications of softwood lumber: Yard, Structural, and Shop and Factory. Let’s take a look at each of them in detail.

Yard Lumber

Lumber intended for ordinary construction and building purposes. Yard lumber is usually graded visually, meaning that an inspector looks at the lumber’s appearance to give it a grade. Yard lumber is broken down into two further categories: common and select.

Common Yard Lumber. Common lumber is suitable for construction and utility purposes, and is graded using a number classification:

• No. 1 Common. Highest quality of common lumber. No. 1 Common lumber will have a few small, tight knots.
• No. 2 Common. Has larger knots than found in No. 1 Common. No. 2 is often used for paneling and shelving and is suitable for general woodworking projects.
• No. 3 Common. Has more and bigger knots than No. 2. The wood is typically damaged and blemished. Well-suited for fences, boxes, and crates.

Select Yard Lumber. Select yard lumber looks much nicer than common lumber because it has no or very few knots. Because of the fine appearance of select yard lumber, it is intended for natural and painted finishes.

Select yard lumber is graded using a letter classification:

• C Select. Almost completely clear of any defects and is widely used in interior trims and cabinets.
• D Select. Has a fine appearance, but contains a few dime-sized knots.

Structural Lumber

If you’ve ever bought a 2×4 or a 4×4, you’ve bought structural lumber. Structural lumber follows a standard dimension for thickness and width. In America the “two-bys” (2x4s, 2x6s, 2x8s, 2x10s) and the 4×4 are the most common structural lumber sizes (though we’ll see in a bit that a 2×4 really isn’t 2 inches thick and 4 inches wide). While the thickness and width is standard, the length is not. You can have a 2×4 that’s six, eight, or even ten feet long. It’s still a 2×4. The standard pre-cut sizes allows carpenters and house framers to buy lumber without having to do as much cutting when they get it to the construction site.

Because structural lumber is heavily used in construction, it’s often machine stress graded so that builders know the bending stress of the board. It can be visually graded, too.

Structural lumber is classified into seven categories:

1. Light Framing. Lumber that’s 2 to 4 inches thick, 4 inches wide. Graded as either Construction, Standard, or Utility. Here’s what those designations mean:

• Construction. Small, tight knots and knotholes permitted with the following guidelines:

Nominal Width	Anywhere on Wide Face	Unsound or Loose Knots & Holes
2″	3/4”	5/8”
3″	1-1/4”	3/4”
4″	1-1/2”	1”

• Standard. Splits at end of board permitted as long as they’re no longer than the width of the board. Tight knots and knotholes permitted with the following guidelines:

Nominal Width	Anywhere on Wide Face	Unsound or Loose Knots & Holes
2”	1”	3/4”
3”	1-1/2”	1”
4”	2”	1-1/4”

• Utility. Splits allowed that are equal to 1/6 the width of the piece. Knots are not restricted as to quality and are permitted in the following sizes:

Nominal Width	Anywhere on Wide Face	Unsound or Loose Knot & Holes
2”	1-1/4”	1”
3”	2”	1-1/4”
4”	2-1/2”	1-1/2”

2. Structural Light Framing. Lumber that’s 2 to 4 inches thick, 2 to 4 inches wide. Graded as Select Structural, 1, 2, or 3. Here’s what those designations mean:

• Select Structural. Pretty much clear of knots. The knots that do exist are small and tight. Strongest of the four grades.
• No. 1. Small, tight knots up to 1-1/2” allowed. Loose knots can only be 1” wide and can only appear once every 3 feet.
• No. 2. Well-spaced knots of any quality up to 2” wide. Can have knotholes that are 1-1/4” wide every 2 feet.
• No. 3. Knots of any quality can be up to 2-1/2” wide. Knotholes allowed every 1-3/4” foot.

3. Studs. Lumber that’s 2 to 4 inches thick, 2 to 4 inches wide. Graded as Stud.

4. Structural Joists and Planks. Lumber that’s 2 to 4 inches thick, 6 inches and wider. Graded as Select Structural, 1, 2, or 3.

5. Beams and Stringers. Lumber that’s 5 inches or thicker with a width more than 2 inches greater than the thickness. Graded as Select Structural, 1, or 2, with Select Structural being the strongest.

6. Posts and Timbers. Lumber that’s 5 inches by 5 inches. Graded as Select Structural, 1, or 2.

7. Appearance Framing. Broad category of structural lumber that’s at least 1 inch thick and 2 inches wide. Aesthetics govern the grading of appearance framing. The highest grades are clear or nearly clear of any knots or blemishes. Appearance framing lumber is used in paneling and siding.There are two primary grades of appearance framing: Finish and Select. Finish grade is higher quality than Select.

Finish grading is only available in lumber from Douglass Firs and Hem-Firs. The grades are Supreme, Choice, and Quality.

Select grading applies to all Western softwood species. The grades are A, B, C, and D:

• A Select. No knots, splits, or other visible defects. Used for fine furniture, exposed cabinetry, trim, and flooring.
• B Select. A few, small defects but nearly perfect. Used for exposed cabinetry, trim, and flooring.
• C Select. Small tight knots. Can be used for shelving and some trim and flooring.
• D Select. Numerous “pin” knots and other small blemishes.

Shop and Factory Lumber

This is lumber that’s selected for “remanufacturing purposes and intended for non-structural applications.” Doors, ladders, pencils, molding, and boxes are typically made from shop and factory lumber. The grading will vary depending on how it’s going to be used. So shop lumber that’s used for doors will have a different grading system than shop lumber used to make pencils. While each use has a different grading nomenclature, the grading is typically based on how much high-quality wood you can get from that piece of lumber for an intended use.

Moisture Content at Time of Manufacturing

In addition to grading the quality of the lumber, lumber grading associations also report the moisture content at the time the wood was turned into lumber (“surfaced”). This is important to know because as a piece of softwood lumber dries, it shrinks. That can change plans for how it’s used on the job site.

• S-GRN. Surfaced in green condition.
• S-Dry. Surfaced dry. Moisture content was less than 19% after manufacture.
• MC15/KD15. Moisture was 15% or less at time of manufacture.
• KDHT. Kiln-dried and heat-treated. Dried to < 19% moisture content with core brought to 56 degrees C for 30 minutes. Heat-treating wood kills insects and fungi spores that can cause decay. Lumber that is shipped globally must be heat treated.

Pulling it All Together: The Lumber Stamp

Next time you’re at the hardware store picking up some wood for your project, look for a stamp on the lumber that looks like this:

STAND & BTR means it’s graded “Standard and Better” light framing. So at a minimum this piece of lumber is standard, but it could be Construction grade, too.

S-DRY means the lumber was surfaced dried.

The Triangle with D-FIR in it lets us know that this piece of lumber came from a Douglas fir.

That little stamp contains all the information that we just talked about above. So with just a glance you can know the type of tree the lumber came from, its classification, its grade, and its moisture content. Pretty cool, huh?

Working With Pressure-Treated Softwood Lumber

Because softwoods are susceptible to rotting from water and fungus, softwood lumber that will be exposed to the elements is often pressure treated with a chemical that preserves the wood. Things like decks, light posts, swing sets, mailbox posts, picnic tables, etc., are often made from pressure-treated lumber.

The pressure treating process is pretty simple. The wood that’s to be treated is stacked into a sealed tank. All the air is vacuumed out, causing the wood’s pores to open. A preservative chemical is pumped into a tank, and pressure is applied to force it deep into the wood’s cells. After the treatment, the wood is removed and left to dry. When you’re at the hardware store, you can tell lumber has been pressure treated by its green hue and slight dampness.

Many of the chemicals used in pressure treating lumber are classified as pesticides by the Environmental Protection Agency, so care should be taken when handling it. Never burn pressure-treated wood in your fireplace or campfire and don’t use it for mulch or compost. And you should consider washing your hands after handling it to get rid of any testosterone-sapping xenoestrogens that may be left on your skin.

Hardwood Lumber

Hardwood Sizes

There aren’t any standard widths for hardwood lumber like there are with structural softwood lumber, but there are standard thicknesses. Hardwood is cut into quarter-inch increments. Below is a chart of the standard thickness of hardwood lumber:

Rough Size	Nominal Size/Name	Actual Dimension (in)
(Inches)	(Fraction In) (“quarter”)	S1S1)	S2S2)
1/2″		3/8″	5/16″
5/8″		1/2″	7/16
3/4″		5/8″	9/16″
1″	4/4	7/8″	13/16″
1 1/4″	5/4	1 1/8″	1 1/16″
1 1/2″	6/4	1 3/8″	1 5/16″
2″	8/4	1 13/16″	1 3/4″
3″	12/4	2 13/16″	2 3/4″
4″	16/4	3 13/16″	3 3/4″

Hardwood Lumber Classification and Grading

Hardwood lumber classification and grading is much simpler than softwood lumber. For hardwoods, appearance is the primary factor in grading. The National Hardwood Lumber Association governs the standard grading system of hardwoods in the United States.

There are four possible hardwood lumber grades. Grade is determined by the amount of clear surface area a particular board has on its poorest looking side (with hardwoods one side will look better than the other). A higher grade board is long and wide with a large percentage of its area defect-free. The clear lumber can be removed from the board with a few large cuts.

• FAS (First and Second). This is the highest quality grade. An FAS board must be at least 6 inches wide, 8 to 16 feet long, and is 83.3% clear on its poorest looking side.
• Select — No. 1 Common. Board that’s at least 3 inches wide, 4 feet long, and is 66.6% clear of blemishes
• Select — No. 2 Common. Board that’s at least 3 inches wide, 4 feet long, and is 50% clear of blemishes.
• Select — No. 3 Common. Board that’s at least 3 inches wide, 4 feet long, and is 33.3% clear of blemishes.

Different hardwoods have different criteria you look for when giving the above grades. You’ll want to check the National Hardwood Association’s website for details.

Common Lumber Defects

Both softwood and hardwood lumber will have defects because of the way the tree it came from grew or from how it was machined during the milling process. While lumber defects can be worked with and incorporated into fine woodworking projects, defects in structural lumber should be kept to a minimum. Be on the lookout for the following common defects:

A 2×4 Isn’t Really a 2×4: Understanding Lumber Sizing

The most common pieces of lumber that you’ll use for projects around the house are “two-bys” and 4x4s. Again, those numbers refer to the thickness and the width of the board. So a 2×4 is a piece of lumber that’s 2 inches thick and 4 inches wide.

Except, not really.

The 2×4 (and the other two-bys) uses what’s called a “nominal” measurement. Mills typically cut a tree into lumber shortly after the tree has been felled, so there’s a lot of moisture in that piece of wood. When the mill cuts a piece of lumber into a 2×4 it actually is 2 inches thick by 4 inches wide. But as the lumber dries during its travel to the lumberyard, it shrinks. By the time you buy that 2×4 it’s actually about 1-1/2” x 3-1/2”, give or take.

So take that into account next time you’re building a project with and buying lumber.

Plywood and Paneling

An article about lumber wouldn’t be complete without discussing plywood. Plywood is heavily used in construction jobs like flooring, roofing, and siding. If you ever decide to make your own plyometrics box for your garage gym (coming soon on AoM!), you’re going to use plywood.

The reason plywood is such a go-to material is that it’s strong, lightweight, and rigid. Due to the way it’s constructed, a single panel of plywood can span great distances without bending. Even if it does crack, it doesn’t crack all the way through.

Plywood is made by layering thin pieces of wood veneer called “plies.” Each layer is alternated 90 degrees from the layer beneath it and then glued together. This layered construction is what gives plywood its strength.

Because only one side of the plywood is seen whenever it’s installed, only one side looks nice and smooth. This side is called the “face.” The rough side is called the “back.”

Plywood can be made from softwood, hardwood, or a combination of the two. Most of the plywood you’re buying from the hardware store for projects around the house is made from softwood lumber.

Plywood Grades

There are a few plywood grading systems out there, but most of them follow an A-D classification with A being the best. Plywood is also classified as Exterior, Exposure 1, Exposure 2, and Interior. The type of plywood you choose will depend on economics, how much exposure to the elements the wood will get, and whether looks are important to you.

• Exterior. Fully waterproof bond (glue) between the layers and designed for applications subject to permanent exposure to weather and moisture.
• Exposure 1. Fully waterproof bond but not for permanent exposure to weather or moisture.
• Exposure 2. Interior type with intermediate bond. Intended for protected construction applications where slight moisture exposure can be expected.
• Interior. Interior applications only.

If you don’t have a lot of money and you don’t care if your plywood is baby smooth on the surface, go for a lower grade. It’s just as strong as the nicer looking grades.

• A. Smooth, paintable surface. Repairs to the veneer like replacing knots with patches can be made, but no more than 18. Used for projects like cabinets.
• B. Solid surface. Minor splitting permitted.
• C. Tight knots and knotholes allowed. Can also have discoloration and sanding defects on the surface as long as it doesn’t impair strength.
• D. Larger knots and knotholes permitted.

You’ll often see plywood with two grades as in “A-C.” This means that the face side is an A grade and the back side is a C grade.

In addition to the above two classifications, plywood is also rated as Sheathing, Stud I-Floor, and siding. This just specifies what a particular end use a piece of plywood was designed for. Most of the plywood you buy from the hardware store for projects around the house like a workbench will be classified as sheathing.

As with softwood lumber, plywood will have a stamp with all this information somewhere on the board. It looks like this:

Well, there you go. Pretty much everything you’ll ever want to know about lumber. Bookmark it so you can come back to it next time you need to go to the lumberyard to buy some wood. I hope you found this useful!

Happy hammering!

______________

Sources

Pocket Ref, 4th Edition

University of Missouri

Michigan Technological University 

Western Wood Products Association

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