Snake-Slaying Fest
Fies-bizarre Fotostrecke auf Wireds Raw File über das ein texanisches Schlangen-Schlachtfest:
Prior to his trip to the Lone Star State, his work was all about sex, drugs and partying in Kentucky where he attended college. […]
In Texas, Kasnic encountered a new type of revelry. The annual event in Sweetwater is the world’s largest rattlesnake cull with approximately 10,000 snakes dismembered and milked. Members of the public can handle snakes (after signing a waiver), skin snakes, eat snake meat and swig beer from snake-skin koozies.
“This was partying on a whole different level. Beers, smokes and snakes. Usually it’s just the first two,” he says.
Gory Snake-Slaying Fest Is Strange New Revelry for Rowdy Photog
The Settlers of Cannibal Island
Jamestown Island, Virginia, war die erste permanente Kolonie englischer Siedler in Nord-Amerika. Und dort haben sie bei Ausgrabungen im Keller einer alten Küche die Überreste eines 14jährigen Mädchens gefunden und die weisen ziemlich eindeutig kannibalistische Spuren auf. Ob die USA nun ihren Thanksgiving Feiertag den historischen Fakten anpassen, bleibt allerdings mehr als fraglich.
Owsley and his research team identified a number of features on the skull and tibia that indicated the individual was cannibalized. Four shallow chops to the forehead represent a failed first attempt to open the skull. The back of the head was then struck by a series of deep, forceful chops from a small hatchet or cleaver. The final blow split the cranium open. Sharp cuts and punctures mark the sides and bottom of the mandible, reflecting efforts to remove tissue from the face and throat using a knife.
“The desperation and overwhelming circumstances faced by the James Fort colonists during the winter of 1609–1610 are reflected in the postmortem treatment of this girl’s body,” said Owsley. “The recovered bone fragments have unusually patterned cuts and chops that reflect tentativeness, trial and complete lack of experience in butchering animal remains. Nevertheless, the clear intent was to dismember the body, removing the brain and flesh from the face for consumption.”
John Lennons bloody Glasses vs Guns
Yoko Ono hat gestern am 44. Jahrestag ihrer Hochzeit mit John Lennon dieses Bild seiner blutverschmierten Brille auf Twitter gepostet, um gegen die Waffengesetze der USA zu protestieren. Ein viel kraftvolleres Statement gegen diesen Wahnsinn kann man glaube ich nicht machen.
Over 1,057,000 people have been killed by guns in the USA since John Lennon was shot and killed on 8 Dec 1980. 31,537 people are killed by guns in the USA every year. We are turning this beautiful country into war zone. Together, let’s bring back America, the green land of peace.
The death of a loved one is a hollowing experience. After 33 years our son Sean and I still miss him. Yoko Ono Lennon
Yoko Ono uses photo of John Lennon’s bloodied glasses in plea for gun control (via Dangerous Minds)
Presidential Monsters
Tolle Toy-Serie von Heroes-In-Action-Toys: Presidential Monsters, Amerikanische Präsidenten als klassische Universal-Monster. Nixon als „Monster from the Watergate Lagoon“ und Reagan als Mumie in „The Ronmy“ würde ich mir direkt so in den Schrank stellen. Die tollen Artworks finde ich leider nirgendwo halbwegs hoch aufgelöst. (via Super Punch)
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- Zombush
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- Wolf Bill
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- Monster from the Watergate Lagoon
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- Baracula
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- Lincolnstein
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- Phantom of the White House
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- The Ronmy
Tour of fucking Las Vegas
Youtube Direktvegas, via 3Pew
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
Tour of a fucking Cruise Ship
A Realistic View on the Petraeus-CIA-Sex-Scandal:
Es gibt wenig, für das ich mich weniger interessiere, als Gossip – auch wenn er Geheimdienste betrifft. Daher finde ich es ziemlich bezeichnend, wenn ausgerechnet The Onion den bodenständigsten und realistischsten Ansatz zum „Skandal“ haben: Widening Petraeus Scandal Reveals Human Race Has Been Having Sex For 200,000 Years.
A Love Letter to Nate Silver:
Ein imaginärer Liebesbrief an Statistik-Obernerd Nate Silver: A Date with Nate. Vom New Yorker: „for a million years I liked Justin Bieber because he was so cute but now I like you. I watched you on MSNBC and HBO and on “Charlie Rose” and I can’t stop thinking about how you study polls and create probability models and predict elections and how you’re always right, which I think is so unbelievably cute, and I keep imagining you saying to me, ‘Emma, I think that there’s a 93.7% chance of me falling in love with you.’“
Drunk Nate Silver is a thing
Funniest Thing on Twitter right now und wahrscheinlich das beste – neben dem Wahlergebnis –, das diese US-Wahl hervorgebracht hat: Drunk Nate Silver. Nate Silver ist der Nerd-Gott gewordene Statistiker der NYTimes, der das Wahlergebnis fast exakt prognostiziert und damit der kompletten Rechten in Amerika eine verpasst hatte, und zwar mit Fakten. Die Wahl ist quasi sowas wie eine „Revenge of the Nerds“. I love this so much.
Hier ein paar meiner Favs:
- Drunk Nate Silver emails George Lucas the exact time and location of “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.”
- Drunk Nate Silver holds up cadaver of Punxsutawney Phil with his left hand, bellowing “Winter is coming.”
- A drunk Nate Silver just ate his casio calculator watch thus completing the transformation
- Drunk Nate Silver points at the night sky. The star he is pointing at flickers then dies.
- Drunk Nate Silver is at the New York Stock Exchange in his sweats, eating from a bowl of popcorn, and laughing at people.
- Meatloaf does that for love, Drunk Nate Silver smirks quietly in the background
- Drunk Nate Silver shames pizza delivery man into free pizza after showing graph of declining delivery time. Still tips.
- Drunk Nate Silver calls a woman who turned him down in college and whispers “There’s a 74% chance you regret it now, with an upward trend.”
- Drunk Nate Silver counting out exactly five hundred and thirty-eight french fries at McDonalds, then slowly dipping 206 of them in ketchup.
Buzzfeed hat ein paar Drunken Silvers zusammengesucht: Meet “Drunk Nate Silver”.
White People Mourning Romney, the Tumblr
Oh, the Schadenfreude: White People Mourning Romney – The most devastating day. Ich hätte das Ding ja „Idiots having a hard time“ genannt und halte es generell mit Bill Maher, der in einer seiner Real Time-Sendungen mal sagte: „I have no problem with pissing off Conservatives.“ Hell yeah! (Danke Ann!)
Mitt Romneys Transition-Website
Mitt Romneys Transition-Website war für fünf Minuten online, bevor sie den Stecker gezogen haben. Aber das Internet war natürlich schneller und hat Screenshot von dem amerikanischen Alptraum, der gottseidank nie wahr geworden ist: „It appears Mitt Romney’s campaign prepared a transition site in the event that he won. The site was quickly taken down but I saved screenshots.“
World of Warcraft-Player wins her Election
Ihr erinnert Euch an Colleen Lachowicz, die demokratische Kandidatin für den Senat in Maine, die von den Republikanern mit Schmutz beworfen wurde, weil sie World of Warcraft (Level 68 Orc Rogue) zockt? Nun, sie hat gewonnen. Die letzten Tage sind ein reines Fest für Leute, die denken können.
Buoyed by strong support from voters in her home city of Waterville, Democrat Colleen Lachowicz vanquished one-term Republican Sen. Thomas Martin of Benton to capture Senate District 25. Lachowicz’s campaign attracted international attention after the Maine Republican Party created a website to criticize her participation as a player in World of Warcraft, an online fantasy game.
‘World of Warcraft’ candidate vanquishes opponent in Waterville (via Boing Boing)
m00t on Rick Santorums Website
Keiner weiß, wie’s passieren konnte, aber ein Bild von m00t, dem Gründe von 4Chan („The black heart of the Internet“), hat’s auf die Website von Rick Santorum geschafft. Aus einer Mail von Christopher Poole (m00t): „Maybe a user created a profile using my Wikipedia photo as the profile pic, or a designer/intern someone working on the site thought it would be funny. Or I look like a wholesome Tea Partier. Who knows.“
When you navigate to Patriot Voices, a pop up box appears with a bunch of different people’s faces alongside Mr. Santorum’s, ostensibly representing patriots, which by his definition likely refers to fellow sweater vest wearers. One of those pictures, sandwiched in between two photos of Mr. Santorum, is the visage of Chris Poole–a.k.a. Moot, the founder of notorious message board 4chan. The photo is the same one used on Mr. Poole’s Wikipedia page.
Why is Rick Santorum Using a Picture of 4Chan Founder Moot on His ‘Patriots’ Website?
Hier noch ein paar weitere US-Wahl-Bits:
Nate Silver ist Statistiker und hat in seinem FiveThirtyEight-Blog bei der NYTimes das Wahlergebniss nahezu exakt vorausgesagt, weshalb er sich grade zum Nerd-Darling entwickelt. Also: „As of Thursday, November 8th, 2012, Nate Silver is probably a witch.“
His unusually accurate predictions are, thus far, explained by his use of validated statistical methods. His disregard of momentum, gut feelings, and the interpretations of people paid to promote certain viewpoints is not the result of supernatural assistance.
While we on the Is Nate Silver a Witch editorial board are strict rationalists, Mr Silver’s performance has been uncanny enough to raise small but significant doubts as to whether his methodology is entirely of this world. We are following the situation closely.
Nate Silver Facts, Fact: Nate Silver Predicts Election Outcome, Becomes Nerdy Chuck Norris
Reuters: Dead candidates win elections in Florida, Alabama
Romney sings and Obamas Datamining-Campaign
Romney singt und ist fröhlich, alles halb so schlimm. Hier noch Obama mit ‘ner Coverversion von MC Hammers „I can’t touch this“ und was seriöses hab ich auch noch: Das Time Mag, mit ein paar sehr spannenden Details zum Datamining während Obamas Wahlkampf:
“We analyzed very early that the problem in Democratic politics was you had databases all over the place,” said one of the officials. “None of them talked to each other.” So over the first 18 months, the campaign started over, creating a single massive system that could merge the information collected from pollsters, fundraisers, field workers and consumer databases as well as social-media and mobile contacts with the main Democratic voter files in the swing states.
The new megafile didn’t just tell the campaign how to find voters and get their attention; it also allowed the number crunchers to run tests predicting which types of people would be persuaded by certain kinds of appeals. Call lists in field offices, for instance, didn’t just list names and numbers; they also ranked names in order of their persuadability, with the campaign’s most important priorities first. About 75% of the determining factors were basics like age, sex, race, neighborhood and voting record. Consumer data about voters helped round out the picture. “We could [predict] people who were going to give online. We could model people who were going to give through mail. We could model volunteers,” said one of the senior advisers about the predictive profiles built by the data. “In the end, modeling became something way bigger for us in ’12 than in ’08 because it made our time more efficient.”
Inside the Secret World of Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win
Obamas Complete Presidential Acceptance Speech
„I watched Fox News just for the Schadenfreude“ (Andrew Sullivan bei Colbert).
Okay, der hier noch, dann ist Schluß mit dem Unsinn: Obama’s Complete Presidential Acceptance Speech (Transkript hier). (Und der Vollständigkeit halber: Mitt Romney’s concession speech)
4 More Years: Congrats, Prez!
„Four more Years.“ (@BarackObama)
Endlich ist der Mumpitz vorbei und Obama kann vier Jahre weitermachen (und so ganz „nebenbei“ haben Colorado und Washington Marijuana als Droge legalisiert). Herzlichen Glückwunsch, Prez! Ich hau hier jetzt einfach nochmal die Links raus, die seit gestern Nacht in meinem Feedreader aufgepoppt sind (am lustigsten ist wohl der Twitter-Meltdown von Donald Trump) und dann kann mich Politik erstmal ganz gewaltig am Hintern küssen. Für zwei Tage oder so.
Gawker: ‘I can’t stop crying. America died’: Donald Trump and Victoria Jackson Melt Down on Twitter
AnonNews: How e-voting machines compare to Vegas slot machines
Netzpolitik: Wählen per eMail – Was kann da schon schief gehen?
Netzpolitik: Infografik vergleicht Online-Wahlkämpfe Obama und Romney
Hyperallergic: Just the Facts: 2012 US Presidential Candidates Arts Positions
Wired: Wrath of the Math: Obama Wins Nerdiest Election Ever
Gizmodo: How Mitt Romney’s Plane Gets Stripped of Mitt Romney Now That He Lost
Gawker: Watch Fox News Chew Its Own Leg Off in a Fury of Recrimination
Gawker: Welcome to the Coming Race War: „Fox is getting increasingly blunt in its racial analysis. Megyn Kelly is talking openly of the ‘racial divide’ in we’re seeing tonight, and Bill O’Reilly is lamenting that ‘the white establishment is now the minority… It’s not a traditional America anymore.’“
