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Belfast Telegraph

Drive-thru viewings at funeral home Belfast Telegraph A US funeral home is offering drive-thru viewings allowing people to pay their respects while on the move. Also in this Section. Toilet discovery reveals art theft · Good to be free says book shop man · Soccer ace Falcao has English roots · [TICON-A VIDEO] ... and more »

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#everythingisterrible

The emerald ash borer, which is destroying ash trees in a large swath of the nation, has apparently spread to a different tree, according to a researcher at Wright State University. Professor Don Cipollini has found that the invasive green beetle has apparently begun to attack white fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus).

White fringetree is native to the United States and grows wild from New Jersey south to Florida and west to Oklahoma and Texas. It is also a popular ornamental tree that has been planted in other parts of the country.

“It appears that emerald ash borer is eating more than ash trees,” Cipollini said. “It may have a wider host range than we ever thought in the first place, or it is adapting to utilize new hosts. This biological invasion is really something to worry about. It’s having drastic ecological and economic consequences, and you can’t always predict what’s going to happen.”

Native to Asia, emerald ash borer was introduced to the United States near Detroit in 2002. It is believed to have been in ash wood used to stabilize crates during shipping.

So far, the insect has spread in all directions, killed tens of millions of ash trees and threatens to kill most of the 8.7 billion ash trees throughout North America. It is estimated that the borer will have caused $10 billion in economic damage by 2019.

The borers attack trees by laying eggs on the bark. The serpentine feeding galleries of the larvae inside the bark disrupt the flow of nutrients and water and starve the tree.

There are efforts to try to save ash trees from the borer. Pesticides can be injected into the trunk or poured into the soil around the tree and taken up by the roots. And there have been releases of parasitoid wasps.

“But it’s hard to stop this thing because the borer has reached such high densities,” Cipollini said. “And it is now spreading to parts of the country where white fringetree grows.”

White fringetree, a relative of ash, is a deciduous shrub or small tree that can grow up to 30 feet tall. It has white flowers and a purple, olive-like fruit. It is known for its relative lack of pest and disease problems and has never been reported as a host to wood borers related to emerald ash borer.

Cipollini, who has studied emerald ash borer for nearly 10 years, has been working with colleagues to come up with new strains of ash trees that would be resistant to the insect. With colleagues and students, he has co-authored seven publications on the insect, with several others in review or preparation.

He discovered that borers were also attacking white fringetree in August when he acted on a hunch.

Cipollini was examining some white fringetrees that had been planted by the Yellow Springs Tree Committee near his home in the southwestern Ohio village when he spotted a telltale borer exit hole with the characteristic “D” shape on one of the trees.

“I walked up to the tree, saw the hole right in front of my eyes and said, ‘Oh my gosh, there it is,’” he recalled.

He got permission from the committee to peel back the bark, discovered what appeared to be the typical feeding gallery of emerald ash borer and determined that attacks on this tree had begun at least two years earlier. He later found similar infestations in another white fringetree in Yellow Springs, one at Cox Arboretum in Dayton and one at Ferncliff Cemetery in Springfield.

Cipollini collected the larvae, took them back to his lab and put them under the microscope. The larvae were consistent with those of emerald ash borer — from the bifurcation of the pronotal groove to the abdominal segments becoming increasingly trapezoidal.

“Based on the larval morphology alone, I’m confident that this will turn out to be emerald ash borer,” he said. “There was a good paper that was published two years ago describing the physical characteristics of emerald ash borer larvae, and this meets those that I can determine. If it turns out not to be emerald ash borer, it has to be a close relative and likely non-native. And so it would still be a concern for the same reasons as emerald ash borer.”

Later Cipollini was able to exhume part of a dead adult beetle from the tree that failed to emerge two years ago. This specimen also exhibits key characteristics of adult emerald ash borer, he said.

He then sent photos of the larvae and a larval specimen to experts at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Cipollini was told the larvae in the photos appeared to match those of emerald ash borer. The same is being done with the adult specimen in order to confirm its identity.

APHIS, which investigates invasive species that impact agriculture, horticulture and forestry, would be the agency that would quarantine white fringetree to try to control the spread of the borer.

“Wild populations of this tree, along with horticultural specimens, are now seemingly under threat like ash trees are,” Cipollini said.

Cipollini quickly wrote up a short paper on his discovery and sent it to the Journal of Economic Entomology, one of the Entomological Society of America’s main publications. The editor asked Cipollini to conduct DNA tests on the larvae to further confirm its identity, which he is currently doing. He also plans to rear additional adults from infested wood to confirm their physical characteristics.

Cipollini is scheduled to present his findings to APHIS officials and researchers at an emerald ash borer research review meeting on the Wooster campus of The Ohio State University on Oct. 15.

Cipollini said that if the emerald ash borer destroys white fringetree, the birds, insects, and other wildlife dependent on the tree’s leaves and fruit may also be threatened.

“It’s one of these unexpected consequences of biological invasions,” he said. “Even when you think you have a handle on something and you understand what it does and what it may cause, these kinds of surprises pop up.”

Cipollini said the threat to white fringetree is the latest example of the narrowing of the plant ecosystem, which provides humans with such things as fuel, water purification, and erosion control.

“It gets harder and harder for Mother Nature to handle that for us as you further and further reduce the pool of species that are present and their abundance,” he said.

Read more at:

- Wright State researcher finds emerald ash borer may have spread to different tree

Original Source

by vorDa

dungeoncrawlersltd:

oldschoolfrp:

Skeletons on patrol.  (David Sutherland from the AD&D Monster Manual, TSR, 1977.)

"Hi Bob"

"Hey Ted! How’s it going?"

Buried in an article on Warner Bros.' casting choices for their Suicide Squad movie is the news that DreamWorks has reportedly gone after Scarlett Johansson to star in their live-action adaptation of Ghost in the Shell.

Read more...

A majority of Americans believe the Ebola virus can be spread by sneezing or coughing and more than a third fear that they or someone in their immediate family may contract the deadly disease in the next year, according to a Harvard University poll. Some 85 percent of people who responded to the Harvard School of Public Health/SSRS poll said they thought the disease spread through sneezing or coughing, despite the fact that the World Health Organization regards that type of transmission as unlikely.

submitted by Fittyakaferrari to Portland [link] [138 comments]

Jaw-Dropping Proof That NASA Rocket Scientists Carve the Best Pumpkins (VIDEO), via Gizmodo:

The internet’s chock full of wonderful ways to carve a Halloween pumpkin every year, but few can hold a glowing candle to what the scientists, engineers, and researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab come up with. Every year the lab holds a pumpkin carving competition and the results, and the carving techniques, are exactly what you’d expect from the geniuses who landed the rovers on Mars.

Entries included everything from complete solar systems, to space battles, to aquariums filled with living fish. And the real winners were the geniuses who found a way to get out of an afternoon of work.

Read more.

---

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Each weekday this month we’ll be bringing you ideas and projects for an Electronic Halloween! Expect wearables, hacks & mods, costumes and more here on the Adafruit blog! Working on a project for Halloween this year? Share it with us on Google+, in the comments below, the Adafruit forums, Facebook, or Twitter– we’d love to see what you’re up to and share it with the world (tag your posts #ElectronicHalloween). Tune in to our live shows, Wearable Electronics with Becky Stern, 3D hangouts with Matt, Pedro, and Noe, and Ask an Engineer, featuring store discount codes, ideas for projects, costumes, and decorations, and more!

When we obey God, we're not doing it for God...we're doing it for ourself. Because God takes pleasure when we're happy. Do good 'cause God wants you to be happy. When you come to church, when you worship Him, you're not doing it for God, really. You're doing it for yourself because that's what makes God happy.

Rouches said the father works at Intel and the car was in a large company parking lot.

Music festival style — think crochet dresses, crop tops, and glitter makeup — has never been praised as being particularly tasteful. But one staple, the Native American headdress, is seen by some as an especially tacky choice — and now some organizers are banning it. The U.K.’s Glastonbury Festival decided this week that the sale of headdresses would be restricted on the grounds of the fest, and Canada’s Bass Coast Festival has forbid them entirely.

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retroworks writes WSJ blog reports on Austin, the third city to get fiber-optic high speed internet networks laid down by Google (Kansas City and Provo, UT were the first and second). The service averages 1 gigabit per second, about 100X the average US household speed, and costs $70-120 per month (depending on television). Google promotes the roll-outs by holding "rallies" in small neighborhoods. The sign-up process starts in December, focusing on south and southeastern parts of Austin, a Google spokeswoman said Wednesday. It was announced that fiber was coming to Austin back in April.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A TV series? On Ebola?

The Hollywood Reporter has the details:

As the Ebola virus continues to dominate the headlines, producer Lynda Obst and director-producer Ridley Scott are bringing the deadly virus to the small screen with a limited series for Fox TV Studios based on Richard Preston’s 1994 best-seller The Hot Zone.

Ever since the Ebola outbreak began in West Africa earlier this year, and even after a few cases have occurred in the United States and Europe, the most sensible advice for most of the world is: Do. Not. Panic.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped people from freaking out anyway, and Obst and Scott aren’t letting a global health emergency go to waste. Twenty years after optioning The Hot Zone, they say they’ve been “quietly” working on adapting the book for TV for the past year—though the quiet part appears to be over.

 

Admittedly, "hold it horizontal man, be professional" is a line from the song Childish Gambino (AKA Donald Glover) was performing. Call it audience participation, we'll call it setting a good example.

I had heard rumors that the Motörhead “Motörböat” cruise ran out of booze before the trip was over. Of course that’s not shocking news when you’re talking about a boat full of hard-drinking headbangers.

Etsy's prolific legions have risen to the occasion and preserved, via arts and crafts, the horror of the ebola pandemic of 2014. And — lucky for people with a sick sense of humor or no sense of decorum — the holiday season is approaching. Do with this information what you will.

There’s one man, some Republicans say, who kept the public from learning about the chemical shells littered around the Iraqi battlefield. He was Bush's most important political adviser.

Hundreds of Hong Kong police staged a dawn raid on Friday on one of the key sites occupied by pro-democracy protesters, removing barricades from roads and clearing out most of the demonstrators in an another setback for their movement.

So this happened.

I guess because Bill Maher’s battle of wits (in absentia) with Ben Affleck over Maher’s latent Islamophobia went viral last week and Jon Stewart could be having none of that, Stewart invited on Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly last night ostensibly to promote O’Reilly’s newest book — something-something-General-Patton-no-one-cares — but really with the singular goal of getting Papa Bear to admit the existence of White privilege (video after the jump).

And, if that was Stewart’s goal, he failed utterly at it. Instead, what we were left with was an incoherent 12-minute sputtering contest between an avowed liberal so flabbergasted by conservative obstinance that he was rendered largely speechless, and a Fox News anchor who looked for all the world like he was being held hostage on set.

Unsurprisingly, when asked to defend his disbelief in regards to White privilege, Bill O’Reilly once again ran straight to the Model Minority Myth; I’ve already written an entire post as to why Bill O’Reilly’s last invocation of the Asian cultural canard is as wrong as it is racist.

On the Daily Show, O’Reilly’s basic argument is that if White privilege exists, so too must Asian privilege. To back this up, O’Reilly cites the high median income of Asian Americans versus other racial groups ($71,709 for Asians, $56,203 for Whites, and $35,564 for Blacks). Since these statistics appear to show that Asian Americans as a whole make more money, O’Reilly concludes that either Stewart must acknowledge the existence of Asian privilege or neither White privilege nor Asian privilege must exist. And, thinks O’Reilly, since Asians are people of colour and liberals never cross the minority special interest groups… Checkmate!?

Well, no, not really.

Stewart fails utterly at presenting a nuanced summary of the Asian American diasporic politic to Bill O’Reilly; instead he walks right up to the edge of where a good counterargument exists and then inexplicably falls flat on his face. (“What kind of Asians?” asks Stewart. “Asian Americans,” responds O’Reilly. “Depends on where they’re from?” They’re from Asia!”. Stewart is rendered speechless, although to be fair, that was also the point at which I face-palmed so hard I left a mark.) And, in a world where Asian American guests make up less than 3% of those appearing even as guests on political talk shows, it’s not entirely surprising that there was no Asian American (or indeed no person of colour at all) to help salvage this travesty of a Whitesplaining moment.

So, since my request to Bill O’Reilly’s publicist to have Papa Bear appear on the next episode of Reappropriate: The Podcast is still pending, here’s everything Jon Stewart should have said and didn’t.

Whether or not one agrees that Asians experience some limited degree of skin privilege in very specific sectors of the workforce, Bill O’Reilly’s citation of median household income by race to assert a general Asian privilege is profoundly flawed. First of all, median household income is calculated by combining the aggregate incomes of all residents into a single household pot, with the basic assumption that everyone’s household is basically the same size. Yet, this is simply not the case: Asian Americans have among the largest household size of all races with an average of nearly 4 adult members per household compared to Whites, who have the on average the smallest households at 2.55. So, Asian American median household incomes are approximately 20% higher than Whites when we consider that we have nearly twice as many people contributing their incomes to a household pot than do Whites. Instead, when one considers the per capita income of Whites vs. Asians — that is, the median income per person rather than per family — the stark gap in annual salary narrow to a mere $3,000 difference ($28,000 for Asians vs $25,000 for Whites).

In addition, calculations of either median household or median per capita income fail to take into consideration the geographic stratification of Asian Americans versus the larger White population. Whereas White Americans are found in all 50 states in America, Asian American populations are largely concentrated in specific states — more than half of us live in California, New Jersey, New York, and Hawaii alone due predominantly to residual aftereffects of this country’s immigration history. Yet, these four states also top the list as the most expensive states to live in, which will skew the apparent income earned by households located here. Thus, a recent study of the Asian American community by AAPI Data and the Center for American Progress opines:

…accounting for regional costs of living [for Asian Americans] would lead to adjusted estimates of per-capita income that would be significantly lower for Asian Americans than for whites. Furthermore, the disadvantage faced by Pacific Islanders would be even starker than what we find in the case of per-capita income without cost-of-living adjustments.

This quote highlights the final problem with citing an aggregate median household income statistic to make monolithic (and monolithically wrong) pronouncements about the Asian American community: Asians Americans aren’t just generic “people from Asia” (as O’Reilly retorts). I mean, does O’Reilly not realize that Asia isn’t a country but a continent encompassing roughly one third of the world’s landmass?

The Asian American and Pacific Islander political identity consists, in reality, of a diasporic coalition of people whose experiences are more varied and distinct than one homogenizing number could ever reveal. As Stewart tries, and fails, to point out, the AAPI communities include not just Chinese Americans and Indian Americans — two groups whose median incomes are among the highest in the country — but also a range of ethnic communities whose economic indices scarcely reach parity with the US average, including: Samoan Americans, Cambodian Americans, Hmong Americans and Laotian Americans. This is without even accounting for geographic stratification — remember, again, that most of these AAPIs are found in states with higher overall costs of living.

These ethnic differences in household or per capita income arise almost entirely from a single factor: American immigration policy. Roughly two thirds of AAPI are foreign-born; thus, it’s not hard to agree that immigration policy has a prominent influence over the demographic makeup of our community. The vast majority of “high achieving” AAPIs are comprised of ethnic groups whose entry into America occurs predominantly through work- or education-based visas (or as the immediate family of those entering through such visas); thus, the apparently high median income of these groups arise as a consequence of an immigration policy that selects for immigrants with high existing education or economic capital with which to invest into measures of achievement. Meanwhile, AAPI ethnic groups with below-average median income are overwhelmingly Southeast Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders who arrive with limited access to educational or economic opportunities in their countries of origins, and may include a higher proportion of immigrants entering as refugees.

Meanwhile, O’Reilly simply ignores a host of other factors that would contradict his argument regarding Asian affluence. While overall poverty rates are low among AAPIs, senior poverty rates are twice as high among Asian Americans as Whites, and poverty rates are growing by as much as 36% in parts of the AAPI community including among women and children. Asian American unemployment rates are low, but our rates of chronic unemployment are second highest in the country. And while Asian Americans are well-represented in a variety of tech industries, ongoing discrimination produces both a “bamboo ceiling” against professional promotion and depresses earned income relative to White and non-White peers.

In the end, O’Reilly isn’t going to stop using his one flawed statistic about median household income (in ignorance of all the others data that complicate his argument). What should be more worrisome is how he’s making a flawed point: one that is based entirely upon a misunderstanding of the word “privilege”. For Bill O’Reilly, privilege and affluence appear to be synonymous terms. Hence, O’Reilly’s rebuttal of White privilege involves invocation of Obama and, more specifically, Oprah — Oprah’s wealth, in O’Reilly’s mind, negates any possibility that African American women might be underprivileged. O’Reilly goes on to point out that there are many economically underprivileged White people in America, as if this were some meaningful counterargument against White privilege.

The problem is, quite simply, that privilege and income are not synonymous terms. Oprah can give away cars on her show and still be racially profiled in a retail store. Meanwhile, Whites (and Asians) can still grow up in households that earn thousands of dollars less than affluent Blacks and Latinos in California and still have better access to higher quality schools than their wealthy underrepresented minority peers. Even the most impoverished White family still enjoys the benefits of skin privilege, which includes not just the privilege of not being Stopped-and-Frisked (or shot to death) under the assumption of colour-coded criminality, but also the greater likelihood of being born in traditionally White enclaves (like O’Reilly’s Levittown) that enjoy greater access to educational capital and government investment.

And, while O’Reilly is correct that no one is forced to live in ethnic enclaves anymore, O’Reilly fails to account for the latent cultural factors that continue to limit entry into traditionally homogenous neighbourhoods. Non-White families that attempt to integrate a predominantly White enclave like Levittown must build the resources to move, find local employment opportunities, and oftentimes defy local resistance to their entry; ironically, the first African American family to attempt integration into another Levittown found themselves at the epicenter of a riot. Thus, not suprisingly, only 11% of Americans move, and just under half for housing-related reasons such as entry into a better home or neighbourhood. O’Reilly’s hometown of Levittown, half a century after the end of overt racial segregation, remains 95% White. That is the cultural residue of redlining.

Meanwhile, Bill O’Reilly’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge his own skin privilege would be far less obnoxious if he would stop using Asian Americans as his model minority cudgel with which to chastise other groups, and Jon Stewart’s sputtering would’ve been far less obnoxious if he had thought to invite an AAPI and a few other people of colour to contribute to the debate over the minority experience.

Instead, two White men got on camera last night to spend a quarter of an hour to tell us all about racism. But this is America, where White privilege doesn’t exist, right?

Read More: The Culture Canard of the Model Minority Myth

Original Source

So, for a short period of time, I’ve had a profile on online dating site OKCupid. I’m not going to write about my experiences except to say that I have been lucky enough to meet some wonderful women. From talking to those women, though, I came to understand that their experience on OKCupid is very different from that of the average guy—and not in a good way. In fact, their experience can be frustrating, angering, and downright terrifying. I thought I’d write about some of what I’ve learned from them in the hopes of, well, making their experience a little more pleasant and a little less what the fuck.

See, the problem is with us, guys. Not all of us but some of us. Some of us suck. A lot. Now, if you are one of those guys, the guys who suck, this is for you—and for the women you frustrate, anger and terrify (note: if you are convinced that you are not one of those guys, then you almost certainly are one of those guys).

 

They owe you nothing

First—and this applies to your entire dating life, on and offline—understand, know, and accept that no woman owes you a damn thing. All those women you may want to date? They owe you nothing. Nothing. No. Thing. And that goes times infinity for sex. Accept that—that no woman ever, anywhere, owes you sex for anything—and you’re already ahead of the curve. The only woman who could possibly be defined as owing you sex is a prostitute, and you would’ve paid her (very well, I’d hope), and I would argue that even she doesn’t owe you sex, that if all she did was punch you in the mouth and walk away with your cash you would’ve gotten exactly what you deserve—maybe even more than you deserve since she actually touched you.

But let’s pretend you’re smart enough to assume that none of the women on OkCupid are prostitutes, this means that they do not and never will owe you sex. In fact, they don’t even owe you a response to one of your messages. Sounds harsh? It isn’t. It’s reality. If there’s one thing online dating has done, it’s finally grant women the undisputable right to act as gatekeepers of themselves. They get to decide how, when or if they will interact with you. No matter how polite, how nice, how charming you think you are, they still owe you nothing. They have all the power. Does it suck to have an entire group of people, a whole freaking gender hold an inordinate amount of power over an important part of your life? Yes it does. Welcome to every damn day in the average woman’s life, mudder fugger. Now quit whining and know that you still have a huge advantage.

See, these women are using an online dating service, which means that, by definition, they are at least somewhat open to going on dates. That takes a huge chunk of uncertainty out of the game. Now, all you have to do is give them a reason to grant you the privilege of a date. How do you do that? Glad you asked.

 

Don’t turn her off with your photo

I’ve heard from more than one woman that a shirtless profile photo is an immediate deal breaker. In fact, a few women I’ve spoken to have said that they promptly hide any profile that includes a shirtless photo. Understand that the hide button on OKCupid is a female user’s best friend. They click that thing like it gives them pleasure. Don’t give them a reason to. Put a shirt on. You just lost a bunch of weight and wanna let all the ladies know about it? Congrats. Put a shirt on. You go to the gym six times a week and wanna let all the ladies know about it? Good for you. Put a shirt on. You think your naked manboobs are funny and endearing? They’re horrifying. Put a shirt on.

Just look at these two photos and guess which of the accompanying profiles most women would elect to visit:

The first one? Really? Sorry. I’d put my money on the adult-sized toddler up there. Any day. At least he seems to know how to dress himself in polite company.

 

Don’t list “lovemaking” or “massages” as something you’re good at

I’m still shocked that I actually have to write about this. Honestly shocked. A woman once showed me one such profile. The dude had listed both massages and lovemaking as two of the things he was good at. I laughed. Then she showed me another one. And another. Then a different woman told me about another. And another. Then I saw one in which the guy had listed lovemaking twice (his list was, like, twenty-eight items long). I wasn’t laughing anymore. Seriously, I don’t even have to deal with that scary shit and it pisses me off.

I know, women all love massages and backrubs and footrubs and all of that, but when you throw it out there it just comes off creepy as, well, a sneak massage. And you’re proud of your lovemaking skills? That’s great. Here’s an idea: show don’t tell. At an appropriate time. After you’ve been given the go ahead. Loud and freaking clear. Okay? Okay.

Just stop creeping her out. You might think listing massages as a skill speaks of your sensitive, nurturing side, but no matter who you are or what you look like, the woman is now picturing this:

 

Don’t waste her time

This next part will clear up a lot of the confusion among men on OKCupid. See, as a man, you can expect to get, maybe, one message a day. From what I gather, if you’re getting four or five messages a day, you’re doing very well. Women, though, can expect to get between ten and twenty messages a day. So while for you receiving a message is a special treat, for her it might’ve actually become a chore. This is especially true when you consider that many of the messages she receives will be creepy, rude, or pictures of dicks. I wish I were kidding. I really, really wish I were kidding.

Now the above is good and bad. It’s good because, with only a modicum of effort, you can come off better than the douchebags and penis-peddlers who’ve contacted her on any given day. So just by not being creepy or batshit insane, you’ve beaten out maybe as much as a third of those men who’ve sent her a message. It’s bad because, even if we were to knock off a third of her messages, that’s still upwards of a dozen messages.

It’s not to say that the competition will end you, it’s just that you might be message eleven of twelve (not counting the creeps), and she was sick of this shit after four. So when your turn does come around, do you really want to waste it with something like “Hi, how are you?” She’s just sifted through two requests for pictures of her feet, three descriptions of violent sexual acts, and one close-up jpeg of human testicles, do you really want an honest answer to that question? No you don’t.

If she doesn’t answer your message, don’t write again. Move on. Maybe she’ll reply later, once she’s gotten over all the scrotums, or maybe she’s just not interested. Too bad. You have no say in it and, nope, she owes you no explanation or reason. But maybe you were boring.

Next to being creepy and/or offensive (they often go hand-in-hand), the worst possible thing you can do is be boring. How do you avoid being boring? I can’t answer that. But avoiding boring questions is usually a safe bet. You could try referring in some way to her profile, after actually reading it, which leads us to . . .

 

Read her profile

Just read it. Pay attention, then use it as a means to not be boring. Studies have shown that women who participated in a conversation with a man who asked several questions about her later rated the man as more charming and interesting, even though he may have not said a single thing about himself, meaning the women knew nothing about him . . . except that he came off charming and interesting. Reading her profile is the equivalent to asking questions about her and—here’s the truly important part—being genuinely interested in her answers.

 

Don’t challenge her

Challenging a woman on the skills she listed is not cute or funny. She doesn’t know you and you don’t know her, so if she listed “hockey goal tending” as something she’s good at, don’t send her a message saying she couldn’t handle your slap shot. You might think it comes off roguish and charming, but to her you’re just another chauvinist.

Again, always assume that every one of these women receives at least a dozen messages a day, and further assume that a sad portion of those are offensive. So yes, these women are on the defensive. Understandably and legitimately so. They aren’t necessarily looking for a reason to ignore you, but they’ll take whatever reason you give them. So don’t give them any. If your message contains even a hint of douchebaggery, you’re done. It’s not cruelty or arrogance on their part, it’s just plain self-preservation. When you go out on a date, you fear rejection. When she goes out on a date, she fears physical violence. So what you might see as harmless teasing, she sees as a red flag.

And, hell, why wouldn’t she write you off for that? She’ll have twelve more messages in her inbox within twenty-four hours, and maybe one, just one will be respectful of and interested in her stated abilities.

 

Use proper spelling, punctuation and grammar

I can hear you already: “Aw, man, women get away with bad writing all the time!” Yup, that’s true. I can attest to that. Want that to stop? Fine. Do not message or respond to any women who don’t use proper spelling and grammar. Even the hot ones. Now, get all the other men on OKCupid to follow your lead. Impossible? Well, the ladies have managed to organize in just that fashion, so tough testies for you. Deal with it. Show yourself, her, and the English language respect and you’ll not only come off as a higher class of man, you’ll attract a higher class of women.

 

Stop, stop, stop whining about the “Friend Zone”

You’re such a nice, sweet, caring guy but no matter how much you listen to women, do kind things for them, and otherwise allow them to walk all over you, they still end up with the bad boy, the better looking guy, the richer guy. Women are all just shallow and don’t actually know what they want. If only one of them would give you a chance, but they just keep shoving you into the Friend Zone. Right? Aw, yeah, I feel you, dude, I’ve been there . . . In high school. Then a funny thing happened: I grew the living blue fuck up. I suggest you do the same.

Here’s what happened. I stopped thinking of it as being placed into the Friend Zone, stopped calling it the Friend Zone altogether, and realized that, holy shit, I just made a new friend. And—bonus!—this new friend is a woman. Do you really feel you have too many friends? How about female friends? Got too many of those? Yeah? You’re a dick, because you clearly don’t appreciate whatever friends you have (and, I agree, you do have too many friends, ’cause you don’t deserve them).

Guys complain about the Friend Zone for two reasons and two reasons only. They didn’t have the guts to make a move when they should have and let the opportunity pass them by, but can’t accept it so they blame the woman for unfairly “downgrading” them to friend; and they didn’t learn that very first point I made, that no woman owes him a goddamn thing, and especially not sex. When you complain about being relegated to the Friend Zone, you’re really just complaining that, despite all the nice things you did for her, this woman isn’t jumping gratefully into your bed. And that’s bullshit—and gross.

You know what she’s done for you in return for all those nice—i.e. friendly—things you did for her? She’s accepted to be your friend. Do you know how freaking wonderful a female friend can be to a straight single guy? All those questions I can’t answer? They can. All this information I’ve had to give you? They could’ve told you all of this, if you’d only asked. A good female friend will be glad to look over your profile before you make it live. She might even look over a message you were planning to send. She’ll give you advice no guy ever could. That’s freaking gold. That’s the terrible, horrible Friend Zone.

Cherish the Friend Zone, and articles like this one will become completely useless to you.

Original Source

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