Silver rose to prominence by forecasting the results of the last election year with eerie accuracy (he even had the amount of angry Bill Clinton finger wags down to the decimal point during the primaries!), yet his foray into Oscar prognosticating was torpedoed with the very first award given out, Best Supporting Actress. Not only did his misguided pick, Taraji P. Henson, lose to Cruz, but he also blew the Best Actor category, choosing Mickey Rourke over eventual winner Sean Penn.

How did Silver take the news? With liveblogged profanities ("7:47 PM. Penelope Cruz? F*ck. I demand a recount") and a painful Ram Jam onto an already defeated Rourke ("Perhaps we [should have] had some way to quantify someone's jackassedness: Days spent at the Betty Ford Center?"). Then, saddest of all, Silver disowned his model for predictions today in a regretful Oscar postmortem which reads like Mom (numbers-based prognosticating) and Dad (Silver) have decided to see other people. Nate Silver will soon be moving into a pre-furnished apartment by himself, and it is all the fault of a Latina spitfire we have taught to speak English. For shame, Hollywood.

• Some Post-Oscar Thoughts on Forecasting [FiveThirtyEight]

Silver had a look at guild votes and other awards histories before calculating next weekend's Oscar odds for New York Magazine. The outcome: Five of the world's six presumed favorites in the top categories haven't changed since nomination day, with only Taraji P. Henson finding new, unexpected traction in the Supporting Actress "race" (thought clinched weeks ago by Penélope Cruz). Indeed, there is actually a spreadsheet somewhere indicating that the Benjamin Button co-star has a 51% chance of winning on Sunday:

Most of the major awards in the Supporting Actress category have been won by Kate Winslet for The Reader - a role the Academy misguidedly considers a lead. That's nice for Winslet, not so nice for our computer. Penélope Cruz, who won the BAFTA for her role in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, would seem the logical default. But computer sez: Benjamin Button's Taraji P. Henson! Button, which looks like a shutout everywhere else, is the only Best Picture nominee with a Supporting Actress nod, and Best Pic nominees tend to have an edge in the other categories.

Unless we're talking about the actors' categories, in which Mickey Rourke is still favored to defeat Milk's Sean Penn and Heath Ledger remains miles ahead of Josh Brolin. But Winslet's seasonal run will pay off in Actress, where Anne Hathaway, Angelina Jolie and Melissa Leo have literally zero chance of winning according to Silver.

And Slumdog is, well, Slumdog. But really: Who's wasting their time and computer resources on this when Miley Cyrus's Kids Choice Awards status hangs in the balance? Let's crunch some real numbers next time.

• Nate Silver Predicts The Oscars [NYM]

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER NATE SILVER SPOILER OF THE OSCARS ALERT.

Slumdog Millionaire wins everything! Well, just Best Director and Best Picture. 99% confident, Nate Silver is! He's also pretty damn sure Heath Ledger is winning best supporting actor, and he has some strong ideas about other awards too, all gleaned through fancy statistical analyses, as is Nate Silver's wont. Read them all in New York magazine and then skip the damn Oscars.