If you misdirected a line about what you plan on doing with your tongue later that night to a good friend rather than your partner, I'm sure everyone can be grownups and laugh that one off. Hey, at least you have a sex life, right?

But if you misdirected such a line to your boss? Well, let's just say that pretending your personal IM or Facebook accounts got hacked (or maybe your phone was stolen) may not be such a bad idea. Post a few ridiculous things or send another message to your boss pretending it's from the perpetrator, and then complain about how scary the internet is for the next few days at work. For a certain segment of the population, blaming "the Internet" tends to work. Problem solved.

Now, if you tweet something out loud that was meant to be a Secret Message (I'm against using the term "direct message", which I feel has no flavor whatsoever) you could delete it immediately but it may still show up in your followers' Twitter feed leaving you feeling panicked and scared. Instead, try to cover your tracks with another Tweet that makes the first one seem funny or silly and something you totally meant to write but in an ironic sort of way.

Read more of Dr. Debby's love advice here during Gizmodo's Bad Valentine celebration.

Debby Herbenick, PhD is a Research Scientist and Associate Director of The Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University, a sexual health educator at The Kinsey Institute and author of Because It Feels Good: A Woman's Guide to Sexual Pleasure and Satisfaction. She blogs at MySexProfessor.com.

Oops image by ktpupp/Flickr under CC license

Bad Valentine is our own special take on the beauty—and awkwardness—of geek love.

If you misdirected a line about what you plan on doing with your tongue later that night to a good friend rather than your partner, I'm sure everyone can be grownups and laugh that one off. Hey, at least you have a sex life, right?

But if you misdirected such a line to your boss? Well, let's just say that pretending your personal IM or Facebook accounts got hacked (or maybe your phone was stolen) may not be such a bad idea. Post a few ridiculous things or send another message to your boss pretending it's from the perpetrator, and then complain about how scary the internet is for the next few days at work. For a certain segment of the population, blaming "the Internet" tends to work. Problem solved.

Now, if you tweet something out loud that was meant to be a Secret Message (I'm against using the term "direct message", which I feel has no flavor whatsoever) you could delete it immediately but it may still show up in your followers' Twitter feed leaving you feeling panicked and scared. Instead, try to cover your tracks with another Tweet that makes the first one seem funny or silly and something you totally meant to write but in an ironic sort of way.

Read more of Dr. Debby's love advice here during Gizmodo's Bad Valentine celebration.

Debby Herbenick, PhD is a Research Scientist and Associate Director of The Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University, a sexual health educator at The Kinsey Institute and author of Because It Feels Good: A Woman's Guide to Sexual Pleasure and Satisfaction. She blogs at MySexProfessor.com.

Oops image by ktpupp/Flickr under CC license

Bad Valentine is our own special take on the beauty—and awkwardness—of geek love.

Climbers who want to make the final spine-tingling scramble 400 feet up the summit cables to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park will have to get permits before they make the climb this summer.
  
Four deaths in the past four years convinced Yosemite officials that something had to be done about the weekend gridlock on the final ascent to the top of the world-famous peak.

On busy holiday weekends as many as 1,200 people jockey for position on the cables, which were first constructed in 1919. What should be the highlight of the grueling 17-mile round-trip hike has too often become a terrifying fight for survival, said Yosemite spokeswoman Kari Cobb.

Climbers who want to make the final spine-tingling scramble 400 feet up the summit cables to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park will have to get permits before they make the climb this summer.
  
Four deaths in the past four years convinced Yosemite officials that something had to be done about the weekend gridlock on the final ascent to the top of the world-famous peak.

On busy holiday weekends as many as 1,200 people jockey for position on the cables, which were first constructed in 1919. What should be the highlight of the grueling 17-mile round-trip hike has too often become a terrifying fight for survival, said Yosemite spokeswoman Kari Cobb.

A 21-year-old man spent 17 hours buried under an avalanche in the Swiss Alps before rescuers recovered him. He suffered only from mild hypothermia. The man was pinned below about 20 inches of snow and trapped next to a pocket of air, but the crushing weight of the snow proved too much for him to free himself. The man had been skiing alone, and was reported missing by his family at about 4:30pm. Searchers with dogs found his ski tracks that night, but they had to call off the rescue operation until dawn for safety reasons-not that anyone thought it could be anything but a recovery mission anyway. The next morning a search helicopter spotted movement in the slide zone, and people on the ground freed the young man. The guy is obviously insanely lucky, but you have to go a little crazy when you’re caught under 20 inches of snow for 17 hours. I’m sure he made lots of promises about being a better person if he was ever freed.

There's not a whole lot to them, but some of the best ideas are the simplest. Beste Miray Dogan, a graphic designer from Istanbul, showed that with a Google Map print out and a little ingenuity, you can make a custom envelop that pinpoints the exact location from which it was sent. How nice.

There's no template on her site, but with some trial and error I trust you'll be able to master the mapenvelope in no time. [Beste Miray via Nerd Approved]

An extremely rare shark attack in Florida ended a 38-year-old kite surfer’s life. The man was about 500 yards off-shore when a gang of juvenile great whites attacked him. It’s the first fatal shark attack in Florida in over five years. A lifeguard swam into the school and pulled the injured kite surfer out and paddled him back to shore. He was taken to a hospital where he later died.

You know how shark attacks are extremely rare, but people still worry about them all the time anyway? It’s because of these insanely freaky stories where the ocean turns turbid with dorsal fins. Sure, lightening kills way more people each year, but lightenting doesn’t creep up and try to eat you. It sounds like a freakin horror movie. Can you imagine being a lifeguard who paddled out to help the bitten kite surfer?

via The Adventure Life