Written by Natty

So you’ve decided that going to bars kind of sucks.   It’s not that you’re having so many one night stands that you are tired of getting laid all the time.  It’s that you kind of want something more.  So you end up joiningMatch or whatever site you choose and try to meet that special someone.

Little did you know this is an entire world unto itself.  Personally I like online dating as that’s how I met my wife.  It’s easier, cuts out all the bullshit and you can definitely get laid if you want to.  Yay!

But if you are serious about being successful in online dating then I would suggest you follow these five rules….

1. Use an Accurate “Less Good” Picture of Yourself

I can’t tell you how many faux pictures there are out there of girls online.  It’s like they want you to think they’re hot in the picture and then you meet them, see that they’re not and you’re not supposed to care?  Wrong.   What I would recommend is that you get a picture of yourself that is slightly LESS good looking than you are in real life.  That way if they’re attracted to that picture you’re golden on a first date.   Undersell and over deliver.    Don’t do it the other way around.

2. Become a Picture Wizard

Learn the ropes in identifying pictures of the opposite sex.  A couple of key points.   If a girl only posts pictures of her face?  She doesn’t have a good body.  Same with guys.   Look for way too much airbrushing or makeup.    You want pictures with barely any make up because then you’ll have a clearer picture.  You must master picture identification.

3. Learn to be funny on IM

This is your intro folks.  Most likely you’ll be chatting it up with someone.   Using IM conversations is a great way for you to have time to think of what to write.  Don’t screw it up.

4. Be Simple, and Don’t Scare them off

Remember, you haven’t met these people yet.  I’ve had girls tell me they want to get married, have kids, etc etc.   I guess there’s merit in telling the truth right off the bat but wait a couple of dates for that stuff.  It’s really not necessary at the beginning.   Don’t get too deep too fast unless you really click on that first date.

5. For God’s Sake Don’t Lie

Don’t say you’re 5’10 and wind up being 5’0 tall.   HOW in the world do people do this?

Bonus: Do you know the meaning of Alphabetic letter’s?

Written by Steve DiCarlo

College relationships are a pain in the ass on both ends. But while there are lists all over the internet of things college girls wish their men did differently, there are significantly fewer websites which feature requests that college guys have for their women. Girls, hate to break the bad news, but you aren’t without flaws either. Here’s a list of a few things us guys want you to stop doing…immediately. If you want us to change… we expect you to follow suit.

1. Invading Our Privacy

That text your boyfriend just got? It was from his buddy Slappy who is drunkenly texting, whilst humping a telephone pole, outside of the local bar. It wasn’t from another woman. If you can’t trust your boyfriend enough to not ask him “Who was that?” or “Are you talking to that whore from your philosophy class?”, then it won’t be long before he is talking to that whore from his philosophy class. Not every call or text is from a girl, and even if it is, it doesn’t mean he’s fucking her. So seriously, stop asking.

2. Calling Us ‘Cute’

Puppies are cute. So are babies. But guys don’t want to be ‘cute’ – ‘cute’ is the kiss of death. It is basically saying, “Aw, look at you, aren’t you precious!” Why would we wanna hear the same thing from you, that our bat-shit-crazy old aunts say at family reunions. And for heaven’s sake, don’t call our dicks ‘cute.’ They hate that word even more so than we do.

3. Licking Our Ears

I guess I can’t speak for all guys on this, but come on. I’ll never get why girls think this is an acceptable form of foreplay. Ears aren’t cleaned out as often as they should be. Licking them might feel good for a few seconds, but then your tongue just tastes like earwax. Utilize your mouth for something else. There’s no earwax on our junk.

4. Sending Emoticons

Some girls think receiving hearts ( <3 ) and kissy faces ( ;-* ) in text messages is some sort of extreme turn-on for guys. It’s not. In fact, it’s fucking annoying. Use your words. Sexting is awesome (albeit complicated when you get those steamy messages whilst in the middle of a two-hour college class on political science), but only when done correctly.

5. Talking to Our Families Without Us

Every guy wants a girl he can bring home to mom…sort of. But no guy wants his girlfriend to have a better relationship with his mother than he does. Don’t send our families Christmas presents, or call to ask how things are going without consulting us first. This is college; I don’t talk to my parents and neither should you.

6. ‘Testing’ Us

Girls, don’t pretend you’ve never done it. You’ve all pulled the classic “Oh, it’s fine, we don’t have to hang out tonight. Go chill with your friends”, just to later be pissed about it. We’re tested enough in college; we don’t want to deal with that shit when we’re out of class too. Just tell us how you really feel – don’t expect us to know what you’re thinking at all times. If you’d stop being such a secretive, manipulative bitch, maybe we’d actually want to hang with you instead of our boys.

Bonus: Dear Boyfriend

Challenge accepted.

Source

Written by David Harfield

Would you recommend this to your friends?

If you are reading this, stop now. You have stumbled on to an iPhone website that has clearly lost its mind and is telling you reasons why you shouldn’t own the item that it so clearly is obsessed with. Up is down, black is white, left its right and right is wrong, the world has gone mad! Still, as you’re still here, let’s look at the 8 top reasons why you shouldn’t own an iPhone.

1. The Signal Is Terrible

“What? Yeah, I’ll meet you by the Apple Store! By the Apple Store! By the App-! Yeah, the Apple Store, I’ve got to return my iPho-, what? I can’t hea-, no, I can’t hea-, I can’t hear you! F*%k it, I’ll just keep the damn thing!” If this conversation is reminiscient of any exchanges that you may have encountered due to the poor signal strength of the iPhone, you have our sympathy. In some parts of the country, you’d be better with a carrier pigeon.

2. Everybody In The World Has An iPhone And It’s Newer Than Yours!

“OMG, have you seen my new – oh, you’ve already got one. And it’s a newer model. How come, I got mine yesterday?!” iPhones are so prevalent in today’s society that it would be more cool and alternative to have an old Nokia; plus, they are so quickly outdated that you might as well save up for the iPhone 2000.

3. iPhones ALWAYS Crash

Why make app games that are so damn addictive if the screen just crashes on the final level?!!!

4. Android Is Soooo Much Cheaper Than iPhone

By the time you’ve bought the latest model, insured it and kitted it out with the latest accessories, not to mention getting a premium payment plan so that you can let all of your friends know just how cool you are via text, calls and WAP, you could have bought approximately 6 billion Android phones. And they’re pretty similar anyway.

6. The Insurance Excess On An iPhone is $1,000,000

Or something like that.

7. If You Have A PC, installing iTunes Is A Pain In The Ass

Ok, so you’ve bitten the bullet and decided to venture over to Apple for all of your mobile needs; however, you’re sticking with your trusty PC, after all, when’s it ever let you down? No worries, but to run an iPhone on it, you have to install iTunes. Yep, no more playing your music through Windows Media Player, it’s iTunes or nothing for you Mister, and guess what? You’re gonna lose that Tori Amos B-side collection in the switch. (Solution: Get a Mac, loser.)

8. There’s No Flash Support On An iPhone

Oh, this one really takes the biscuit. According to Apple, “the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards — all areas where Flash falls short.” Thus, your iPhone and iPad will not show flashing animated banners on any website in Safari, nor will it play the embedded videos on sites like YouTube or Facebook without jumping to the site’s app, which is a royal pain. Ironically, iPhoneAppCafe’s flash advert banners can’t be viewed on iPhones. Sometimes Steve Jobs, just sometimes, you can get a bit too big for your boots!

If you made the grave mistake of already buying an iPhone and are really ticked off with it, check out 10 Most Annoying iPhone Problems (And How To Solve Them!)

If, for some unknown reason, you are really into your iPhone, you may want to look at 10 Warning Signs That You Are Addicted To Your iPhone. May God help you.

Written by visualnews

Last months TED conference featured a moving film about Chinese artist Ai Weiwei highlighting his treatment by the government, social change, the power of social media and Weiwei’s hopes for the future of China. Now he has been detained by authorities which has prompted concern from TED HQ and the global community. Chris Anderson of TED says:

“The film, which was shown as Ai Weiwei himself watched live over the web in the middle of the night, prompted a huge standing ovation from the TED audience.

TED is a nonpartisan, nonpolitical organization, and we understand the Chinese authorities’ concern at anything which might provoke social unrest. But for anyone who believes in the power of ideas, of human imagination, it is heartbreaking to see one of the world’s great artists shackled in this way. We will be tracking developments carefully.”

Watch this video in Youtube

Writtten by Whitson Gordon Photo by kopp0041

Since Twitter’s inception, it’s been looked down upon as a place for self-centered technophiles to share the mundane details of their lives. We at Lifehacker know better than that, though—here are our favorite ways to turn Twitter into a useful tool, without becoming one yourself.

We’ve shared some of our non-breakfast related Twitter uses before, but over the past few years Twitter has evolved, grown more popular, and we’ve just discovered more clever and productive uses for it. Some of these you may recognize, but even the ones we’ve discussed before may have been updated, so be sure to check them all out if you’re looking to upgrade your Twitter usage.

10. Quickly Access Productivity Tools

We’ve mentioned before how easy it is to add tasks to Remember the Milk or send memos to Evernote using Twitter, which makes using our favorite productivity tools super quick and easy—almost like a productivity command line. Since then, we’ve discovered even faster ways to use this to our advantage, likeperforming those tasks straight from the address bar, or using Google Voice actions to just speak it to our phone. Twitter allows you far more than just one more access channel to your favorite productivity webapps. Since Twitter is everywhere these days, it opens up a ton of different options for super-quick access, so you can add a task to your to-do list and get on with your day.

9. Get Search Results for Timely News

As hard as news sites and blogs try to be up-to-the-second sources for news, the fact of the matter is that Twitter is just the best place to find out what just happened. Whether you want to keep up with this year’s Oscar winners without sitting through the show, find out who got voted off American Idol, or finding out that Comcast’s DNS went down (and how to get around it), all you need to do is hit upsearch.twitter.com. Within seconds you’ll have all the information you need, even if it isn’t up yet anywhere else on the internet.

8. Find a Job

Full size

We already know the internet is a great tool for the unemployed (or just unhappy at their current job), but you can actually find a good number of listings on Twitter. We’ve talked about how to do this with free serviceTweetMyJobs, which lets you pick the field your interested in and get real-time Twitter updates of job listings you might be interested in. Furthermore, reader AlphaGeek notes that you can just search Twitter for the hashtag #jobs, and perhaps a hashtag for your industry or city. You’d be surprised at what you can find. Again, it certainly won’t be your only resource, but its another good one to add to your arsenal. Photo remixed from an original by Janet McKnight

7. Get Up to the Minute Updates on Your Favorite Software

One of my favorite Twitter uses is following my favorite software developers and finding out immediately when they update. Whether it’s big programs like Firefox and XBMC or smaller ventures like Adium for the Mac, I’ve never gotten a faster notification than on Twitter. Not only will you find out as soon as a new update is ready, but you’ll find out about the cool stuff coming up in future versions, nightly builds, and sometimes even handy tips you didn’t know about.

6. Use it as a Quick-Access Cloud Notebook

If you aren’t using something like Evernote, that doesn’t mean you can’t still use Twitter’s quick-post nature as a notebook—reader Epellsays its a great place to jot down ideas as soon as you think of them. Just protect your tweets, disallow discovery of your account by email address, and use it as your own personal notebook. If you’re the more introspective type, you can use it as a short-post journal, too—whether public or private.

5. Discover News and Articles You Otherwise Wouldn’t Have

Using Twitter for news is hardly a new idea—following accounts like @cnnbrk are Twitter 101 (plus, if any news starts breaking, the other folks you follow will probably be quick to talk about it). What I find especially cool about Twitter is that I find news and articles I otherwise wouldn’t have discovered. Since you can follow anyone with just a click, you probably end up following more people (and a more diverse group of people) than you would on, say, Google Reader. As they tweet out interesting links (or retweet others you don’t follow), you might find articles or blog posts that weren’t hugely popular, but still useful or interesting. Sure, at a certain point this can get more "noisy" than helpful, but this is why you should routinely unfollow people to keep your feeds clutter-free.

4. Get Alerts and Inspiration on Pretty Much Anything

Aren’t sure what you want to make for dinner tonight? @cookbook can give you a bit of inspiration with her 140-character recipes. Not sure what’s good on TV tonight?@TVGuide can give you some ideas. There are a ton of Twitter accounts out there that send out useful alerts or inspiration for things in your daily life. Other examples includepreviously mentioned @queuenoodle, which alerts you to expiring movies on Netflix Instant, or @amazonmp3, which keeps you alerted to the best deals (and all the free tracks of the day) on Amazon MP3. Your local businesses might also have some cool accounts, too—a few of the local bars where I’m from will tweet out special drafts that aren’t publicized anywhere else, so only their followers know to come in and ask for it specifically.

3. Control DIY Home Automation Projects

Whether you need to send a quick command or get alerts for something happening at home, Twitter has become a very popular tool for home automation projects. You can do something simple like control your PC from afar with TweetMyPC, or do a more complicated project like tell your coffee pot to start brewing, water your plants, or evendispense Halloween candy. With the Twitter API and an Arduino, there are pretty much no limits to what you can control.

2. Get Instant Customer Support

Lots of companies have taken to providing support on Twitter, and it’s more than just a way to get in on the fad. @JetBlue and@ComcastCares are two accounts that have made the format popular, and with good reason—some people are getting faster responses via Twitter than they are the customer service phone line. Other companies using Twitter this way include Microsoft for the Xbox, Time Warner Cable, and Dell, though with a bit of searching you’ll find a ton more.

1. Get Specific Answers and Advice from a Knowledgeable Pool

Those that follow us on Twitter know that one of our favorite uses is asking questions from you guys, and getting specific advice. Whether you’re looking for the best app for a particular job, the best coffee in New York, or just advice on a good new band to listen to, the Twitterverse has opinions and they aren’t afraid to share them. The more followers you have, the more answers you’ll get, obviously—but if you can get a few more popular followers, you can often get your question retweeted and get a lot of good advice back.

These are some of our favorite clever uses we’ve discovered over the years, but there’s bound to be more out there. So if you have a clever way of using Twitter (productive or not), be sure to share it with us in the comments below.

Bonus: Batcrab?

Written Tom Chivers

Quora, the ‘online knowledge market’, has been running for nearly a year. We pick 10 of our favourite questions from the site.

Plato (left) and Aristotle. Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Photo: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

For those of you who don’t know, the idea behind Quora is that users ask questions, those questions are answered by other users, and, finally, those answers are assessed by other users. Its creators envisage it as a storing-house for all the world’s information and a generator and exchanging-point of knowledge.

And perhaps it is. But it is also a repository for odd questions. Here are our favourites:

1. How many different methods are there for tying your shoelaces?

Some people might think that one method would be enough. These people would not only be wrong, they would be catastrophically wrong. They would also show a serious lack of ambition. As user Hema Manickavasagam would tell them, there are at the very least 18 methods: “Ian Knot”, Ian’s Secure Knot, Standard Knot, Two Loop Knot, Two Stage Knot, Surgeon’s Knot, Turq. Turtle Knot, “Better Bow” Knot, “Freedom Knot”, Loop the Loop Knot, Double Knot, Double “Ian Knot”, Crossed “Ian Knot”, Mega “Ian Knot”, Halloween Knot, One Handed Knot, Reef Knot and the Better Bow Knot. Hema herself prefers the Better Bow Knot. Who the prolific knot-inventor Ian is remains unclear.

2. A seagull pooped on my face. What should I do?

“Catch the seagull. Punch it in the crotch. It’s the only way it will learn.” This is the new wave of human knowledge-sharing, right here. Interestingly it is a follow-up question to “I stepped in dog poop. What should I do?” and related to “Is there scientific basis for the position that a dog’s poop should be firm?” Clearly, “poop” is among the hottest of hot topics.

3. Who would win in a fight between Aristotle and Plato?

The author of this article did philosophy at university, and is appalled to realise that at no stage was this question ever addressed, let alone satisfactorily answered. Educational standards really have slipped. We’d pick Plato – all that stuff about military service and philosopher-soldiers makes him sound pretty hard. One killjoy user says “Neither. They’re both long dead.”

4. How many ping pong balls can fit into a 747?

This is genuinely interesting. Apparently, it’s a job interview question at places like Google. The question is fairly satisfactorily answered: “The 747-400 has a passenger volume of 876 cubic meters, plus a cargo volume of 159 cubic meters, for a total of 1035; the balls have a diameter of 40mm; this gives about 22,870,000 ping pong balls.” The answerer notes that the weight of this many balls would prevent the aeroplane from taking off.

However, the really interesting answer is not, in a sense, an answer at all. It comes from a fund manager who claims to have asked the question in interviews, and he says it’s not so much to demonstrate the ability to estimate the size of a 747 and divide it by the size of a ping-pong ball, but instead the ability to think laterally: “Candidates who would ask things like, “What about the space in the galleys – can I use the ovens?” or, “What about the fuel cells in the wings?” were the ones who were distinguished in my mind.”

Interestingly one of the related questions is “How can I order 10,000 ping pong balls direct from the manufacturer?“, suggesting that at least one person is going to attempt to put it into practice.

5. How many cans of beer can fit in an upside-down regulation frisbee, taking surface tension into account?

Five and a half. You’ve always wondered, now you know.

6. If aliens from outer space landed in San Francisco, what should be the first thing I do?

Why San Francisco? No idea. “Put down the bong”, one wag suggests unhelpfully. But someone has put some serious thought into it, and produced this majestic breakdown of what to do if you are humanity’s first contact with aliens. “Most historians and scientists agree this would be the most important moment in human history”, it says. “So, you’re going to be the most important person in history. Think bigger than Jesus.” On the downside, “You’ll probably be killed”.

7. What have been the most absolutely mortifying, horrendously awkward social moments for Quora users?

It’s your classic “tell us your embarrassing stories” angle, but it’s pretty funny. We particularly like the high-school boy who didn’t know why the girls in his class sat out swimming lessons for one week a month, the misunderstanding over the phrase “man beats off bear”, and the following: “On a conference call, using a wireless phone with headset. Head to the loo and urinate, forgetting to put the phone on mute. 100+ people on the call.”

8. Where is God?

Sure, lots of classic “God is everywhere and nowhere” stuff. But also, some good ones. “God is the tea in Russell’s teapot, the sauce in theFlying Spaghetti Monster” says one guy, who we think may be an atheist. And “I saw him having coffee at the Starbucks just 10 minutes ago. He was having a discussion with the Devil about the fate of humanity. He ordered his coffee black.”

10. • Am I an elitist to think that most people are stupid? Or am I just too smart?

Well, we’ve all thought that from time to time, haven’t we? Because, seriously, people are idiots. It’s somewhat frowned upon to say it out loud, though.

11. • What will happen if I ask a nonsense question on Quora?

Quora goes meta. It’d be nice if the answers were “A universe-ending paradox” or “you unlock Secret Quora and receive tribute from all users”, but actually someone just says “A Quora user will either attempt to salvage the question by editing it, ask you to edit it directly in a comment, or, if the question is entirely unsalvageable, delete the question.” Hey ho.

Bonus: Batman needs to toughen up

Written by Marta Kagan

It’s no secret that the marketing landscape has changed dramatically over the past few years as social and mobile technologies have “jumped the shark” from the early-adopter crowd to the mainstream.

Still, there are plenty of traditional marketing stalwarts out there who aren’t buying all of the social media hype or can’t convince their boss or marketing team to experiment in the brave new world of inbound marketing.

So we’ve rounded up a dozen powerful stats that are sure to be eye-openers, if not total mind-changers.

1. 78% of Internet users conduct product research online.

That means your website stands a good chance of being a prospect’s “first impression.” That also means your new business card isn’t a business card—it’s Google.

2. In the past year, Web-based email usage dropped a staggering 59% among 12-17 year olds, who prefer to communicate via text, instant messaging, and social networks.

If 12-17 year olds aren’t your primary customers, you may think, “So what? They’re just kids.” But web-based email usage has been on the decline among ALL Internet users under the age of 55. And by the way, today’s kids are tomorrow’s customers—and they’re probably not going to be reading your email.

3. 78% of business people use their mobile device to check email.

So that means pretty much everybody that can check email on a mobile device, does. Is your email newsletter optimized for mobile devices?

4. 40% of US smartphone owners compare prices on their mobile device while in-store, shopping for an item.

Is your business website optimized for mobile devices? If not, you may be missing out on hundreds of sales opportunities.

5. 200 Million Americans have registered on the FTC’s “Do Not Call” list.

That’s 2/3 of the country’s citizens. The other 1/3, I’m guessing, probably don’t have a home phone anymore.

6. 91% of email users have unsubscribed from a company email they previously opted-in to.

We’re getting savvier with technology and less patient with unwanted solicitations. And it’s just so easy to hit ‘delete’.

7. 84% of 25-34 year-olds have left a favorite website because of intrusive or irrelevant advertising.

Frankly, I’m surprised this stat doesn’t read “100%” and apply to a much wider age range.

8. 57% of businesses have acquired a customer through their company blog.

Finally, some good news! Blogging is good. Intrusive adds are bad. See how simple it is?

9. 67% of B2B companies and 41% of B2C companies have acquired a customer through Facebook.

If this stat doesn’t poke a hole in the “Facebook is not useful for B2B companies” myth, I don’t know what will.

10. The number of marketers who say Facebook is “critical” or “important” to their business has increased 83% in just 2 years.

That’s right—critical or important. When a channel generates not only leads, but real revenue, you can’t call it “experimental” any longer.

11. Companies that blog get 55% more web traffic.

The more you blog, the more pages Google has to index, and the more inbound links you’re likely to have. The more pages and inbound links you have, the higher you rank on search engines like Google—thus the greater amount of traffic to your website. Which is why we repeat: Blogging is good.

12. Inbound marketing costs 62% less per lead than traditional, outbound marketing.

That’s right—62% less. The average outbound lead costs $373. The average inbound lead costs $143. And as we love to say around here, “if it don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense.” Outbound marketing just don’t make sense anymore.

Bonus: I must go