Geeking Out

Twaggies.com takes tweets and turns them into cartoons, which they’ve been doing since 2009. Follow @twaggies on Twitter and (shhh) Instagram.

A Bosnian man played a full soccer match with a 9mm bullet in his head this past weekend, and only discovered it when complaining about a headache. While some soccer players are masters of making dramatic flops, he managed to make getting shot in the head one of the least dramatic injuries on record. And he only let up one goal, too. Dusko Krtalica, a 51-year-old amateur goalie, thought that the pain in his head came from banging it against a goalpost while making a save, but became more concerned when he felt numbness in his arm and had trouble speaking. After he was driven to a hospital, doctors were shocked by X-rays that showed a bullet lodged in the side of his skull. The hospital’s neurosurgeons performed an operation and reported that the foreign object was successfully removed. Krtalica is now in stable condition. Upon investigation, police found 12 shells in the vicinity of the field where Krtalica had been playing. The likely source of the gunfire? A wedding, of course. It turns out that there were three weddings in the area on that day, and one or more guests decided that a few celebratory gunshots were in order. Thankfully, Krtalica was the only person harmed, especially lucky since children often play on the same field. Investigators reported that they had arrested a 42-year-old man named Seyne Ligata, who had been a guest at one of the weddings, for firing the shots. Though Krtalica will hopefully have a full recovery, might we suggest less dangerous ways of celebrating a wedding? No one’s ever gone to the hospital for too much rice being thrown at them. Well, probably not. We hope. (via Yahoo Sports, image via Flickr) Meanwhile in related links This gun fires coins and more, making surgeons’ lives an endless mystery of what objects they’ll find lodged in unusual places A Chinese reporter covered an earthquake while in her wedding dress Shaq has his own soda… look, we don’t do sports, okay?

At a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier today, FBI Director Robert Mueller said that the agency uses unmanned drones to conduct surveillance in the United States. The admission came in response to questioning from Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA). According to Mueller, drones are used by the FBI to carry out domestic surveillance missions “in a very, very minimal way, and seldom.” Of course, in the opinion of many, “seldom” is about a zillion times more often than unmanned drones have any business being used in surveillance domestically. Taken in combination with recent revelations about the NSA’s surprisingly broad policy of requesting phone and Internet records, the FBI using eyes in the sky to monitor people in the United States may not be a huge surprise, but it certainly adds to concerns over a national security community seen by many as overreaching their authority in the name of security. Pressed by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Mueller could not say what policies were in place to prevent the agency’s drones from invading people’s privacy unnecessarily. The FBI isn’t the only law enforcement agency to use drones  in the U.S. of course. Police departments from Miami to Seattle have used drones for a variety of purposes, while other federal agencies use the machines to monitor U.S. borders. The practice has consistently come under fire from citizens’ groups, though, to the extent that the Seattle Police Department grounded their drones earlier this year in the face of public pressure. (via Wired, image via flickr) Meanwhile in related links I’m not even sure I’m OK with drones delivering pizza… We’re not the only ones monitoring our own citizens from the sky, though I wonder if these are on Linux, like the Navy’s drones

The Learning Channel isn't necessarily a place you normally go to for toy-collecting interests, but this week's episode of Cake Boss featured renowned sculptors the Four Horsemen, and their relaunch of the Wayne Barlowe-designed Power Lords toys. Meanwhile, on last night's The Daily Show, John Oliver picked a fight with WWE's fake Tea Party caricature Zeb Colter, though I think he got confused when he started blaming Colter for remarks by the commentary team. Regardless, he issued a challenge and got some surprising backup; I can't imagine Vince McMahon will miss the chance to capitalize. The Daily Show with Jon StewartGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook Next week: Lilo & Stitch demolish Toddlers and Tiaras, while the Duck Dynasty boys get bought out and downsized by a vengeful waterfowl named Scrooge. Alas, only in my dreams.

The PRISM scandal has everyone upset, and for good reason — we all knew deep down that our data wasn’t necessarily protected by companies like Google or Facebook, but it’s still a shock to the system finding out just how unprotected that data is. Makers of the search engine DuckDuckGo are probably pretty pleased, however, because only a week after hitting the 2 million search-a-day milestone, they’ve already surpassed 3 million daily searches and are only getting more popular. Good for you, DuckDuckGo! Way to make a really awful situation into a successful business venture. Launched in 2008 by entrepreneur Gabriel Weinberg, DuckDuckGo touts itself as the only search engine that does not track or bubble (meaning that it doesn’t filter searches based on your past history) its users, making it a completely anonymous experience. DuckDuckGo’s data is so anonymous, in fact, that Weinberg postulates it would be completely useless to the NSA should they come calling. They announced this new milestone on their Twitter yesterday: It took 1445 days to get 1M searches, 483 days to get 2M searches, and then just 8 days to pass 3M searches: https://t.co/u4HCuL2e1W — DuckDuckGo (@duckduckgo) June 18, 2013 While it’s still going to take a lot to break most people from their Google habit — for example, I may or may not have googled DuckDuckGo to get to the site, which is really unfortunately ironic — DuckDuckGo has ramped up their media presence in the past couple of days as a response to the extra attention and seem pretty confident that they can deliver exactly what Google can’t in terms of privacy. They’ve even got an app for iOS and Android (once again, kind of ironic) so you can keep your searches anonymous while on the go. If you’re curious about the record button currently placed the DuckDuckGo logo above, when you hover your cursor over it on the official website it says, “Stop Watching Us,” and when you click it you’re taken to the official Stop Watching Us website that puts you in touch with your local legislators to protest the NSA surveillance programs. (via TNW, image via DuckDuckGo) Meanwhile in related links Google’s looking to erase all child porn from the internet so there’s that Remember that DuckDuckGo billboard from two years ago? That was cool. Here’s how much the government would spend on storing your phone calls (if that were a thing it might be doing)

Black Canary Check out more of Elizabeth Beals’s art here! [Elizabeth Beals | via io9]

Nick Cave doesn't create art just so you can stare at it. The Chicago-based artist's work is meant to be explored, experienced and, in some cases, even worn. In Sojourn, the newly opened exhibition at the Denver Art Museum, Cave has created a weird and wonderful fantasyland filled with sculptures built from flea market objects, button-adorned walls, and his wearable, noise-making Soundsuits. "I've made the decision to take you on a journey," Cave explained to Wired. "To create a exhibition that will take you back to this sort of dream state."

Next month Guillermo del Toro will release Pacific Rim, his first directorial effort in five years. Wired went to the film's set to catch the filming in action.

After years of benefiting from the bug bounty programs of other companies, Microsoft is finally stepping into the bug bounty business itself by offering three new programs to encourage and compensate researchers who find vulnerabilities in the company's software.

I really love my job here at Geekosystem, but it turns out I’m in the minority. According to a Gallup survey only 30% of the 100 million Americans with a full-time job are “actively engaged” at the workplace. Half the workforce is “not engaged,” and the remaining 20% are “actively disengaged,” meaning they straight up hate their job and, “roam the halls spreading discontent.” The levels of how “engaged” workers are might sound a little vague, so to clear them up I’ll use examples of the last three jobs I’ve had. As I’ve said, I love my current job at Geekosystem. I’m what Gallup would call “actively engaged.” When I’m at work I actively try to help this site do better. I enjoy what I do, and the atmosphere in which I get to do it. Just 30% of the American workforce feels the way I do about their job. Before coming to Geekosystem, I worked as a substitute teacher. I didn’t love teaching, but I certainly didn’t hate it. I wasn’t miserable at work, but I was far from “actively engaged.” I showed up. Reviewed the lesson plans, and just tried to get through the day so I could go home and take a nap. I was “not engaged.” 50% of workers in America feel that way about their job. It’s not the worst thing in their lives, but it’s not what they’re passionate about. Before subbing, I worked as a waiter and bartender in a chain restaurant, and I hated it. I hated serving people. I hated the company I worked for. I hated the customers. I hated the food we offered. I hated most of the people I worked with. When my manager asked me what he could do to make me happy at work I said, “You could fire me,” and he did. I was as “actively disengaged,” as a person could get. To the 20 million people who currently feel that way about their jobs: These numbers are important because the commonly held belief is that an “engaged” workforce is more productive. It’s not just good for you to have a job you love. It also benefits the company you work for, and thus the economy. (Gallup via The New York Times, image via mickyc82) Meanwhile in related links If you’re calling out sick from that job you hate, don’t use these terrible excuses This reporter loves her job, she covered an earthquake that happened during her own wedding This guy outsourced his own job so he could just goof off online all day