Snob

torbakhopper

1. apple_crumble1

The Colombian serial killer Pedro Alonso Lopez, who is known as the Monster of the Andes, raped and murdered over 300 girls from Ecuador, Peru and Colombia. However, after he was caught and imprisoned for 18 years, he was put in a psychiatric hospital. There he was reviewed, declared to be sane and was set free, in spite of his blatant avowal that he fully intends to kill again.
Since he was released in 1998, nobody knows where he is or what he’s doing.

2. wasdo

Some tumors can contain pockets of hair, teeth & very rarely, grow more complex organs such as eyes, feet, hands as well as other limbs.

3. chockfulloffeels

The FBI estimates that at any given time, there are from 35 to 50 active serial killers in the U.S.

4. jrminoh

That this condition exists. Patients with the Charles Bonnet syndrome may see small people and animals, bright moving shapes or distorted and scary faces. Many people call this syndrome a portal to a parallel reality.

5. SpirizZ

Meth can be transmitted anally by pissing into someone’s anus while on meth. Not creepy at all…

6. crimsontactics

Everyone has parasites living inside their body.

7. EternalTeaTime

If you’re looking at a Victorian photo and one of the subjects in the photo is clearer than the rest, they’re probably dead.

8. citizen_coping

If you’re attacked by a bear it won’t try to kill you like other predators would, it’ll just start eating.

9. RyanGoesRawr

There are more juggalo’s than polar bears in the world.

10. dj-jaw

That bears can smell the menstruation.

11. loukitch

You have tiny maggot-like beings in your eyelashes that feed off your skins naturals juices.

12. thejokeworld

That if you damage a certain part of your brain, be it genetically or via accident, you will not recognize faces anymore, you will see what they are made of but you cannot put them together to form faces but you can still recognize everything else without problems.

13. Walks500Miles

Most people die within 50 miles from where they were born.

14. Martlar

On a typical day going to work in London, you will be filmed by something like 300 cameras.

I heard this from a documentary about 10 years ago so that’s probably gone up.

15. oh_thetruthhurts

A man received the heart of a suicide victim, married his widow, and years later killed himself on the same day the donor did.
Link.

16. qauron

Eventually the universe won’t be able to support any life and there will be total darkness forever.

17. tbkrida

Picturing myself dead and decomposing in a coffin creeps me out. Not knowing for sure that there is an afterlife creeps me out even more!

18. rsashe1980

That we eat dead things so that we may live.

19. Jpjoshuapeter

There is a haunted island in Mexico covered in dolls. A little girl drowned in the river awhile back, and the owner drowned in the same place in 2001. Natives say the possessed dolls killed him. They also say the dolls open their eyes and move on their own…

20. NO_NEW_FRIENDS

There are more molecules of water in a cup of water than there are cups of water in all of the oceans combined.

21. alberttico

If you are a ghost believer, I saw a page on Facebook share about an island in Italy which was the site of: wars, a deportation site for plague victims, and an asylum. It is supposedly SO haunted that the Italian government will not allow public access to it.

Island name is Poveglia, worth a Google search.

22. FemaleBro

Your body has more foreign/bacterial cells on and in it right now than cells containing your own DNA.

23. StickleyMan

The 300 richest people in the world have more combined wealth than the 3 billion poorest people in the world.

24. Nomascus25

The United States government said that they were testing smoke screens in St. Louis to protect against Soviet aerial attacks in the 1950s. They were actually spraying citizens with radioactive particles to study the effects.

25. Raven_Night

There was a woman named Joyce Vincent who died in her apartment in 2003 and wasn’t found by anyone until three years later. The only reason anyone found her is because a police officer smelled the stench, of which her other neighbors had ignored, and finally entered the apartment to find her body.

That’s terrifying to think that even if you’re sociable and well liked that you can be forgotten that easy in death.

26. ferisflash

Jell-O has pig feet in it.

27. likethemapples

The San Fernando Massacre. It was the mass murder of 193 people by Los Zetas drug cartel in Mexico. They kidnapped victims who were then killed and buried in 47 clandestine mass graves. Female kidnapping victims were raped and able-bodied male kidnapping victims were forced to fight to the death with other hostages, similar to a “gladiator fight from ancient Rome,” where they were given knives, hammers, machetes, and clubs to find recruits who were willing to kill for their lives.

28. Eponarose

Creepy: Eating boogers actually helps boost your immune system & keeps you healthy.

I’d rather be sick.

29. A_Game_of_Scones

That there is something called a tarantula hawk and I am too afraid to Google it.

30. AHugeBagel

That even with private browsing they can see what you look at.

31. metaranha

Right now as you read this, millions of tiny creatures are eating, living, fucking and shitting all over your face.

32. usefulantelope

As well as holding hands when they sleep so they don’t float away from each other, otters also rape baby seals to death as a bonding experience.

33. Kage_Mishima

Radiation Poisoning causes anal bleeding, because stomach lining decays.

34. maddawg5

Nearly a third of all bottled drinking water purchased in the US is contaminated with bacteria.

35. LuminiferousEthan

At any moment, at any time, in the next five minutes or the next thousand years, Earth could be hit by a Gamma Ray Burst which would extinguish most, if not all life on the planet.

36. nnadie

In rare instances, gas created due to decomposition of the body after death, has enough pressure to cause a decomposing pregnant women to expel the fetus. Known as Coffin Birth.

37. Dfry

Capgras syndrome. A certain kind of brain damage severs the connection between your visual cortex and the emotional center of your brain, but the link to your higher cognitive areas are intact. You can see your own mother (or anyone important to you), know for a fact that she looks identical to your mother, but something will feel “off” and you will be convinced she is an impostor.

38. RahulLaoDeshBachao

A man accused of genocide is the strongest contender for India’s Prime Ministerial post. Link.

39. paulyv93

The combined weight of all the ants in the world is heavier than all the humans in the world.

40. Evandmeier

Ed Geenes. Killed people and ate them. Used the skin of his victims for various purposes. Google the man

41. ThePnuematicPsycho97

Without mucus, your stomach would digest itself. I’d be a horrible death too. Acid eating away at you inner body. Reacting with all the bases in your gut. A truly horrible way to die.

 
I don’t know what genius came up with the idea of putting inspirational fitness slogans about “never quitting” over people who have consumed waaaaaaaaaaaay too much alcohol, but I do appreciate it!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

En FAKings tenemos trabajo para ti.

¿Quieres ser actriz porno pero no sabes por dónde empezar?

Acabas de llegar al sitio adecuado para empezar tu carrera como actriz porno. En FAKings producimos todas las semanas y estamos especializados en trabajar con chicas nóveles.

Nosotros te pagamos desde la primera escena y te guiaremos en este mundo ya que además colaboramos con las principales productoras porno nacionales.

Si estás decidida y quieres más información rellena el formulario que tienes justo debajo o escríbenos un correo con tus datos de contacto (imprescindible) y un mínimo de tres fotos a casting@factoriarnaldo.com. Siempre buscamos nuevos talentos.

¿Existe algún límite de edad o físico?

En FAKings tenemos ofertas de actriz porno para todas las chicas que ya hayan cumplido la mayoría de edad (a partir de 18 años ya cumplidos). Este requisito es totalmente IMPRESCINDIBLE para grabar con nosotros.

Por otro lado el físico no es determinante para grabar escenas, lo importante es que te guste y disfrutes del sexo, que seas una chica divertida, que tengas ganas de vivir nuevas experiencias y pasarlo bien.

¿Cuánto puedo llegar a ganar como actriz porno?

Con nosotros empezarás a ganar dinero desde la primera escena, sí, sí, has oído bien, en Fakings te pagamos desde el primer día y te aconsejamos que huyas de todas las webs o falsos productores que te propongan hacerte un casting gratis.

Lo que puedas llegar a ganar depende de ti, de las ganas que tengas de trabajar y del cómo te desenvuelvas delante de la cámara. Lo que si te podemos asegurar es que a día de hoy tenemos muchas chicas que viven bien (y muy bien) gracias a su trabajo como actriz porno.

¿Se me tiene que ver obligatoriamente la cara?

En FAKings producimos un amplio abanico de escenas entre las que también se incluyen las de un corte más amateur en la que no es necesario mostrar el rostro.

Pero tienes que tener en cuenta que si no quieres que se te vea la cara, además de recibir menos dinero por escena (como es lógico) tendrás menos opciones de grabar con el resto de productoras con las qué colaboramos.

No obstante es algo que dejamos a tu elección y que estaremos encantados de explicarte personalmente.

¿Tendré que hacer cosas que no me gustan o que considere desagradables?

No, los límites los pones tú y antes de venir ya sabrás de antemano el tipo de escena que vas a desarrollar. Sin sorpresas. Todo lo dejamos pactado “antes de” para no crear ningún tipo de confusión entre nuestras chicas.

¿Puedo grabar con mi pareja?

Sí, también tenemos ofertas para escenas porno con parejas amateurs. Si estás interesada en grabar exclusivamente con tu chico (o siempre con tu chico delante), contáctanos con las fotos de los dos y te contestaremos explicándote nuestras condiciones.

¿ Dónde grabáis las escenas? ¿Me tengo que desplazar?

Nuestras producciones se desarrollan principalmente en cuatro ciudades: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia y A Coruña. Tanto el viaje (desplazamiento), como la estancia (hoteles de ser necesarios) y dietas (comidas), corren de nuestra cuenta una vez hayas decidido grabar con nosotros. El dinero que te ofrecemos siempre es líquido (limpio) para ti.

Me interesa, ¿qué tengo que hacer? Haz click aquí para rellenar el formulario o escríbenos un correo a casting@factoriarnaldo.com, con tus datos físicos, de contacto (mail y teléfono) con un mínimo de tres fotos.

TELÉFONOS DE CONTACTO:

MÓVIL: 635 25 90 81 (Teléfono SÓLO para chicas) – Chicos rellenar el formulario.

Shigeru Miyamoto quiso contar una bonita historia sobre desamor, adicciones, un deseo sexual ligeramente enfermizo y la búsqueda obsesiva de la mujer ideal. Para contar esta historia creó a un personaje hoy por todos conocido. Contó esta historia a través de Mario.

Muchos ven en él a un personaje simpático y bonachón. Romántico, trabajador. Un luchador. ¿Qué se esconde detrás de esta imagen? ¿Qué sucede si desmenuzamos su arrolladora y compleja personalidad?

Los amigos de Brazzers han intentado darle una vuelta a la psico del personaje en una tragicomedia de 22 minutos de duración repleta de simbolismos. Un claro ejemplo es el cómo el tema de las adicciones está continuamente presente. No obstante, las setas no aparecen explícitamente en pantalla, pero un ritmo frenético donde las secuencias de imágenes se suceden para producirnos cierta sensación de confusión nos recuerda cómo los alucinógenos nublan los sentidos y la voluntad del fontanero de procedencia italiana.

Mario cree ver en la Princesa Peach a la mujer ideal, con la que no podrá disfrutar del amor hasta que supere una serie de pruebas que resulta ser infinita. ¡¡Ai, Dulcinea!! Lejos de ser la dama que él cree ver, la Princesa es la triste bala perdida que intenta superar sus problemas de autoestima entregándose a la perdición follándose a todo lo que se mueve. Y hoy lo hace con Bowser, quien la azota y humilla hasta que los dos hermanos italianos hacen su aparición. Le quitan la vida al malechor de un barrigazo y aprovechan que la princesa está amordazada para follársela sin miramientos, añadiendo a una tercera persona a su relación incestuosa. Pero mientras ellos ven a una digna mujer de sangre azul, el espectador puede percibir a la decadente meretriz interpretada por una Brooklyn Chase que clava el personaje comiéndose pollas a dos bandas.

Nada. Que si queréis seguir leyendo tonterías sobre Mario, podéis ir a la frikipedia. Pero si queréis ver la mayor frikada pornográfica que los de Brazzers se han currado hasta el momento, con Keiran Lee y Toni Ribas follándose a una princesa maniatada mientras sus movimientos a lo 8 bits estimulan al nerd que todos llevamos dentro, estáis en el lugar correcto.

La entrada Super Mario Porn aparece primero en POR NO BUSCAR PORNO |XXX|.

El extraño mundo del sexo a veces nos depara sorpresas.

  

I never have any money and my dog still manages to be poorer than me, but cats are true hustlers. In fact, there is a whole blog out there dedicated solely to cats posing with huge piles of money. The site, Ca$hCats, is open to user submissions, so if you happen to have a loaded feline, you might consider sending in your own images. 

Of course, here at Neatorama, we are always open to pictures of all animal images, whether or not they happen to contain balling kitties, so you can always send in images like this to us (at jill@neatorama.com) as well. 

Via Geekologie

National Geographic magazine has several features surrounding an article about rising sea levels. One is a map that shows where the world's current coastlines are and where they would be if all the world's icecaps, icebergs, and glaciers melted. If that happened, sea levels would rise 216 feet. That might not seem like much, until you realize how many people live in those coastal areas that would be affected. At the site, you can get a good look at every continent, including Antarctica, which shows the biggest difference of course. -via Digg

 
A few of you may be familiar with the WWII-era poster proclaiming that “98% of all procurable women have venereal disease.” Of course, there’s absolutely no way to prove such a figure, since they didn’t have the data necessary to reach those kind of conclusions. In fact, since prostitutes were among the first to embrace safer sex technology, many public health experts actually believe soldiers were the largest transmitters. Note the happy, healthy little servicemen in the bottom corner of the final picture?

Regardless, the epidemic of syphilis at the time generated a lot of materials warning of the dangers of “procurable women,” some thinly veiled, some fairly explicit. Below is a fantastic little collection of propaganda, each piece somehow managing to make venereal disease look totally worth it. Those are some foxy working girls!
 

 

 

 

 

 
And of course, the classic…
 

 
Via Insert Pseudonym

“Social media manager” is an important position at corporations. Through websites like Facebook and Twitter, brands have a great opportunity to attract attention and influence purchase via “earned” (read: free) media, as opposed to “paid” media (TV, print ads, etc.). The insider industry term for this free media is “eWoM”—electronic Word of Mouth.

Tom McElligott, founding creative partner of the great Minneapolis ad agency, Fallon McElligott Rice, once said, and I paraphrase because this was pre-internet 1980s: I would much rather overestimate than underestimate the intelligence of the consumer. That quote really stuck with me in ad school, and McElligott became an early hero of mine. You can see some of his creative work, which includes the brilliant Rolling Stone “Perception/Reality” trade campaign, here.

McElligott was a very smart ad man. Today, many of the social media managers at large and important companies are, by contrast, not very smart ad men. To say that they regularly underestimate their customers’ intelligence would be a great understatement. They seem to believe their customers have the brain power of a baked potato.

I’ve collected eight recent social media posts by large companies. Most of these updates are from the last month. To try to pick the abjectly stupidest one would not be easy. You can go ahead and give it a try, though.

All of these update images are via the Condescending Corporate Brand Facebook Page, one of the few reasons to ever actually “engage” with Facebook. I recommend “Liking” them.

KLM is the oldest airline in the world still operating under its original name. It has close to 32,000 employees worldwide. One of those employees writes KLM Middle East Facebook “engagement” updates like this one. This looks like a question on a third grade geography quiz. Egregious “Like-grubbing” posts like this one are unfortunately de rigueur by even seemingly sophisticated brands.

There’s no question that Microsoft is fairly frantic to try to keep Internet Explorer in the future of web browsing conversation. But, comparing it to BDSM porn is beyond hopelessness, reaching a historical level of unintentional brand irony.

DOVE body bar, now in new Desperation Sweat scent.

#IsItBehindTheDog? #IsItADog’sEar? #AreYouFuckingKiddingMe?

Now, I can see why watching someone smash a pumpkin would appeal to a certain segment of the Dove Men demo. But what does adding body wash to the process achieve? No, I don’t know if they grubbed their 5,000 Likes, but I’ll wager a yes. Related: I do feel like scrubbing myself after experiencing this “engagement” attempt.

Sweet Jesus fucking Christ.

Even the cat knows how pathetic this is. It’s trying to cover the dog’s eyes so that it doesn’t read the results. The winner? The Both.

The fact that at least 169 people retweeted this proves that the Wheat Thins sophisticated engagement matrix is resonating strongly with core users. Secondarily, it proves that there is probably no reason to worry about saving the planet for our children’s children.

Previously by Mark Copyranter Duffy - Prudential Proudly Presents: The Most Depressing Financial Commercial Ever Produced

@copyranter

El ir al cine y tomarse unas palomitas es para muchos un matrimonio indisoluble y un gesto que se ha convertido en todo un ritual, pero ¿de dónde surgió esta estrecha relación? Hace unas semanas que la revista Smithsonian relató en su publicación la historia de esta unión, cuyo origen comenzó en la Gran Depresión del 1929 y acabó instalándose definitivamente durante la II Guerra Mundial.

Nos encontramos en los años veinte, cuando los cines estaban reservados a las clases pudientes y aún mantenían un estilo decorativo parecido a una ópera o un teatro. Llenos de lámparas costosas, mullidas alfombras y demás objetos decorativos, los empresarios no querían que sus salas fuesen manchadas con ningún tipo de alimento, y se procuraba que la gente no entrara con comida a sus proyecciones.

Pero en 1927 cuando se introdujo el sonido, el cine se abrió a todo tipo de público. Ya no hacía falta saber leer para acudir a ver una película, así que con el crack del 29 y la Gran Depresión, el cine constituyó unos de las pocos entretenimientos para la población norteamericana, y dentro de esta salida de ocio el único lujo que se podían permitir era un cucurucho de palomitas, que compraban en los puestos callejeros situados a las entradas de las salas.

Fue en Missouri cuando una mujer con vistas de futuro, Julia Braden, convenció a los dueños del Linwood Theater para que permitieran poner un puesto de palomitas en el interior de su local. Tal fue el éxito de su negocio, que en 1931 ya tenía cuatro puestos en distintos cines, con el consiguiente beneficio que esto le reportó, más de catorce mil dólares de la época.

El público, con poco dinero y bastante hambre, necesitaba ser llenado con un producto barato que saciara en las largas sesiones cinematográficas y además que no costara demasiado, pero lo más importante, que también reportara buenos beneficios.

Así que cuando los dueños de las salas se percataron de este floreciente negocio, eliminaron al intermediario vendedor y comenzaron a gestionar ellos mismos directamente esta actividad, con la consiguiente subida de los beneficios en la sala, muchas de los cuales pudieron sobrevivir a esta época gracias a la venta de palomitas y otros snacks.

Fue en la II Guerra Mundial cuando ya definitivamente el ir al cine quedó unido irremediablemente al consumo de palomitas en la sala. La escasez de azúcar en esta época hizo que los vendedores de caramelos fueran desapareciendo al ser racionados, y las palomitas, fabricadas con un producto abundante como era el maíz, ganaron posiciones.

Y prueba de ello es que cuando acabó la guerra, más de la mitad de las palomitas que se consumían en Estados Unidos se tomaban en el cine, constituyendo el 85% de sus ganancias.

Era 1940, el aroma a palomitas y mantequilla ya formaba parte de las salas de cine para quedarse hasta nuestros tiempos.

Imágenes | Albert Barden | Sandra Besga
Vía | El economista
En Directo al Paladar | Comer taquitos de jamón en el cine
En Directo al Paladar | Cine con menú gourmet

-
La noticia ¿Por qué comemos palomitas de maíz en el cine? fue publicada originalmente en Directo al Paladar por Esther Clemente.

read more

En el contexto del desprecio que la televisión emite como normalidad se ha formulado una moneda inesperada y no falta la gente que incluso termina tatuándosela:

Capítulo 52: “Dinero de contienda”

Acabo de leer en zig zag el catálogo oficial de juguetes del Corte Inglés para la Navidad 2013-2014. A continuación, algunos de los mejores nombres de juguetes del Aquí y Ahora:

-Gimnasio Pataditas.
-Perrito Andarín (“camina en círculos todo el rato”).
-Funny Pluto Quack Squad.
-Bólido Chiflado.
-Orbeez Colour Splasherz Estación Estética (“incluye divertido tratamiento para tus pies”).
-Yogurtinis (“bebés blancos, ricos y dulces como el yogur”).
-Mi Dragón con Bolas.
-Blublú (“suavito bebé delfín que te pide pescaditos cuando tiene hambre”).
-Mickey Mouse Policeman.
-Triciclo-Boutique Minnie Mouse.
-Muñeco Recién Nacido Bambolino (“76cm”).
-Samby el San Bernardo (“tiene hambre, se asusta, tiene sueño, quiere atención, pide cariño”).
-Trash Can Contenedor de Basura de la Calle (“tamaño real”).
-Conejo Grande.
-Monos Locos (“no hay en el mundo monos más locos que los de esta palmerita”).

Esto pasó.

Este año se me ha pasado pero para el siguiente no cabe la duda: disfraz de novio y novia españoles sentados en un sofá tapados con una mantita viendo series de la tele bajadas de internet con subtítulos elaborados por sudamericanos en el ordenador portátil junto a un plástico de una pizza “Ristorante” del Dr. Oetker reposando vacío a merced del aire del invierno en una mesa blanca de PVC. ¡Disfruta ya del Halloween más terrorífico en el Corte Inglés!

 
According to The Sunday Times, these are hipsters.

I’ve got nothing else to add. There is nothing more to say.

Via Boing Boing and Gideon Defoe

"Broly", an alleged member of the Knights Templar Cartel, posing for a selfie with his handgun. (All images courtesy of Antoine Nouvet / Open Empowerment Initiative.)

Members of Mexico's drug cartels are really starting to harness the power of the internet, using it to run positive PR campaigns, post selfies with their pistols, and hunt down targets by tracking their movements on social media.

Antoine Nouvet from the SecDev Foundation, a Canadian research organization, has been working with drug policy think-tank the Igarapé Institute on a project called the Open Empowerment Initiative. The project looks into "how cyberspace is empowering individuals and rewiring relations in Latin America" and has uncovered a wealth of information about how cartels are using the internet to their own nefarious ends.

Some gold weapons posted on a cartel member's Facebook page.

The first point Antoine touched on was how cartels have utilized cyberspace in much the same way as a TV company's PR department might: "They advertise their activities, they conduct public relations initiatives, and they have basically turned themselves into their own media company," he explained. "Colombia's cartel groups or drug traffickers in Myanmar in the 1990s were very sophisticated at public relations, but they didn't have this massive broadcasting platform."

Not all cartels want to be seen as the bad guys these days. After Hurricane Ingrid tore across northeastern Mexico in September, the Gulf Cartel uploaded a video to YouTube that showed them distributing aid to those in need. It quickly went viral and has racked up nearly half a million views.

The video-sharing site has also been used as a platform for cartel announcements that, for obvious reasons, aren't usually broadcast by mainstream media. For example, a speech by a leader of the Knights Templar Cartel—a guy known as "La Tuta"—has had over 900,000 views, 60 times the amount of hits received by the Mexican president's September 2013 State of the Union Address (which is dragging its feet at around the 15,000 mark).

The Knights Templar Cartel's Facebook page

The Knights Templar (or "Caballeros Templarios," in Spanish) are particularly seasoned when it comes to social media. The group used to run a Facebook page under the immediately transparent pretense of being a "small business," which gathered over 10,000 Likes and regular messages of support until it was shut down earlier this year.

Of course, there's another way of garnering attention online when your group page gets closed by the mods: incessantly posting selfies of yourself with guns. Antoine pointed me in the direction of a guy calling himself "Broly," who lists his employment history as Knights Templar and has posted photos of his high performance 4x4, his gang of weapon-toting colleagues, and many, many more that are just him pouting and holding firearms.

"Broly" pouting

Other cartel profile highlights include a Twitter account of a prominent member of an "enforcer gang," which contains photos of his gold-plated machine guns; a profile purporting to represent the Sinaloa cartel with pictures of what looks like a pet tiger; and an Instagram photo of a cartel member holding an AK-47 out the window of a sports car. All of these cartel profiles are public—something that must be starting to get slightly humiliating for the law enforcement agencies pumping millions of dollars into catching them.

"Broly" and his friends

Cartels also have analysts working for them, monitoring social media "to find out what Mexicans are saying and keeping an eye on the movement of troops in and out of a city," according to Antoine. Doing so means the bosses can direct their own forces appropriately without picking up any unwanted attention on the ground. Cartels are also using encryption techniques like Onion routing to stay one step ahead of the law. "They are aware of the need to cover their tracks in cyberspace," Antoine said.

It's important to note that the cartels' application of this kind of approach, while relatively new, is far from crude. In May of this year, one half of the duo behind Blog del Narco—the most read and influential blog on Mexico's drug war—disappeared. His partner, who goes under the pseudonym "Lucy," told the Guardian he had called her phone, before saying "run" and hanging up immediately. The pair had agreed to use "run" as a codeword for fleeing the country when things got really dangerous, but it's unknown whether Lucy's partner ever made it out as he hasn't been heard from since. 

If the cartels did get to him before he made it across the border, they wouldn't have done so easily. "It has been done by advanced means: reverse hacking and finding out the identity of the people who are behind what are often anonymous posts online," Antoine explained. "It takes some technological savvy to find out who's behind them and then to track them down and kill them in real space."

It's similar technology that would account for the rise of a whole new kind of crime: "express kidnappings," which are typically planned and carried out in a number of hours rather than days and usually don't involve anyone being taken hostage at all.

A car filled with weed.

According to Antoine, "New technologies such as smart-phones are leaving people very vulnerable to kidnappings." After hackers have compromised a device belonging to a target, the target receives a call telling them that their relative has been taken hostage—a claim legitimized with location data and other information taken from the phone. They're also told that they're being watched, with the criminals tracking their whereabouts through GPS. The victim is then told that they must not hang up, before being directed to an ATM and getting in a taxi to head to a meeting point where they've been told to hand over the money.  

Once they arrive, the criminals can simply take what they want and drive away, all without leaving the comfort of their keyboard. Of course, this technology could also be used by cartels to very easily trace an assassination target, or even for the hitman to take the lazy approach and lure the mark out to wherever they wanted, before putting a bullet between their eyes and driving off without undertaking any of the traditional legwork.      

Whatever the outcome, it's achievable with very few resources and was impossible before the increase of cheap, readily available smart phones.

A photo of a cartel member's suped-up 4x4.

However, with the cartels becoming more reliant on the internet, it could also easily become an Achilles' heel. "At the moment it gives them an edge," Antoine told me, "but it could backfire very quickly."

This vulnerability was already demonstrated when Anonymous conducted attacks on the Zetas cartel in 2011, accessing their private data and threatening to reveal members' names. However, the cartel quickly retaliated by "hiring" its own security specialists, and Anonymous backed down after one of its members was allegedly abducted. 

Clearly, cartels aren't packing their members off to computer science evening classes at the local community college, and it's likely the more specialized experts have been kidnapped. "They may be engaging young computer scientists in Mexico and giving them a good salary, but if they still require a skill, they just kidnap someone who has it," Antoine explained. "As of 2012, we had at least 36 cases of engineers who were snatched by the cartels, including an IBM employee, never to be seen again."

But even if they're kidnapping the best of Mexico's technological talent, this greater dependence on the internet could be the cartels' eventual downfall. "Technology that benefits the cartels suddenly turns out to be one of their key vulnerabilities," said Antoine. "And that could be the case in Mexico if the government adopts better skills and laws to counter them in cyberspace."

Follow Joseph on Twitter: @josephfcox

More stories about Mexico's cartels:

Is the Los Zetas Leader's Capture Really Such a Good Thing?

Anabel Hernandez Thinks the Mexican Government Is Behind the Country's Drug War

The Fugitive Reporter Exposing Mexico's Drug Cartels

Vivo como ningún otro, el lenguaje del fútbol apoya a menudo su creatividad en el recurso lingüístico de añadir a una palabra prefijos y sufijos. De entre estos últimos, cabe mencionar la productividad de -ismo, presente en términos como cholismo, cerocerismo o resultadismo.

Esta semana más que nunca, cuando todavía colea y rasca por injusta la ausencia de Simeone entre los candidatos a mejor entrenador del año, es momento de reivindicar el denominado cholismo. ¿Qué significa este sustantivo? Aunque solo sea a modo de aproximación, el cholismo podría definirse como la ‘manera de concebir el Cholo su fútbol’ o el ‘modo de imprimir el Cholo carácter ganador a sus jugadores’.

Podría entenderse, pues, que el sufijo -ismo aporta aquí un matiz cercano a ‘doctrina o filosofía’, algo así como un protestantismo deportivo, no tanto por lo religioso, claro está, como por la disconformidad con el poder establecido y por atreverse a cuestionar el dominio omnipotente del Barcelona y el Real Madrid en estos últimos años.

Por otra parte, también podría interpretarse el cholismo como el ‘conjunto de seguidores del Cholo’, de acuerdo con el paradigma apreciable en mourinhismo o, sin personalizar tanto, en celtismo, barcelonismo o sevillismo, entre muchos otros sustantivos con que se alude a los aficionados de estos equipos, a sus hinchadas respectivas.

Sea como sea, lo cierto es que esta racha victoriosa colchonera (ayer volvió a ganar contra el Athletic) sobreviene sin que Simeone haya impuesto a sus jugadores un esquema ultradefensivo o poco vistoso. Muy al contrario, en lo que va de temporada los rojiblancos han logrado espléndidas goleadas, convencidos de que el camino al triunfo no puede pasar jamás —perogrullada incluida— por la racanería del cerocerismo.

En este sentido, si los goles dan vida a los partidos y son la médula de este deporte, el cerocerismo, el ‘predominio de marcadores que indican cero a cero’, supone una especie de cáncer óseo futbolístico, tal y como se desprende de otros sustantivos como alcoholismo o tabaquismo, en los que el sufijo -ismo expresa enfermedad.

Sin llegar a ese extremo, no faltan los entrenadores que oponen al fútbol vistoso un pragmático resultadismo. Por analogía con victimismo o derrotismo, el sufijo -ismo designa una actitud: ¿el fin justifica los medios?, ¿hasta qué punto es lícito torturar a los espectadores con un estilo soporífero con el único objetivo de alcanzar la victoria?, ¿no se desvirtúa la esencia del fútbol como juego si, obsesionado un equipo con el resultado, se desentiende de disfrutar el partido en sí?

El sufijo -ismo, en definitiva,  puede añadir numerosos matices a la palabra a la que se incorpora, desde la idea de doctrina hasta la de conjunto de seguidores, desde sugerir enfermedades hasta reflejar actitudes. Afortunadamente, el lenguaje futbolístico explora todas estas posibilidades y nos ofrece sobradas creaciones para que el espectador aprenda o tome conciencia de ellas.