Infocult: Information, Culture, Policy, Education

Most Gothic political scandal of the week

An unusually Gothic case of American politics:

 

Following the sale of his prominent Sioux Falls family’s surety bond company, [former South Dakota lieutenant governor and potential Senate candidate Steve] Kirby branched out into more exotic business terrain when he founded Bluestern Venture Capital in 1992. Among Bluestern’s portfolio companies was a Massachusetts-based biotech firm called Collagenesis ...

 Collagenesis specialized in processing donated skin off cadavers into cosmetic surgery products, and was subject to a blistering five-part investigative series by the Orange County Register beginning on April 17, 2000. “Burn victims lie waiting in hospitals as nurses scour the country for skin to cover their wounds, even though skin is in plentiful supply for plastic surgeons,” read the lede of the Register report. “The skin they need to save their lives is being used instead for procedures that could wait: supporting bladders, erasing laugh lines and enlarging penises.”

(via BoingBoing)

Killer robots coming up: it's Sharkey's day

Everyone has been telling me about this: killer robots are about to hit the big-time, according to a British computer scientist.

First, the world's major militaries are spending on improved robotics, according to Noel Sharkey.  The US is the leading player (pdf), especially in terms of growing robots' autonomy.

Next, deathrobots go open source, and enter John Robb's terror world.

"Once the new weapons are out there, they will be fairly easy to copy. How long is it going to be before the terrorists get in on the act?"

"With the current prices of robot construction falling dramatically and the availability of ready-made components for the amateur market, it wouldn't require a lot of skill to make autonomous robot weapons."

Please listen here if this post's title confuses you.

Titanic struggles of geeks and brawny men in the open sea

A gonzo real-life adventure tale comes from Wired this month.  One part Clive Cussler, one part balls-to-the-wall pulp fiction, and one bit geekery (3d modeling, new business models), Joshua Davis recounts the tale of a dangerous ship rescue.

Habib unloads coils of rope from his backpack. Descending into the sharply tilted ship will require mountaineering skills. Fortunately, Habib knows what he's doing: He once scaled a 2,300-foot frozen waterfall and recalls with fondness summiting a notoriously difficult peak in the Canadian Rockies. On the way down, he was attacked by a wolf. The faded scar makes him chuckle.

Lots of this stuff:

In the crew's quarters below the bridge, Saw "Lucky" Kyin, the ship's 41-year-old Burmese steward, rinses off in the common shower. The ship rolls underneath his feet. He's been at sea for long stretches of the past six years. In his experience, when a ship rolls to one side, it generally rolls right back the other way. 

This time it doesn't. Instead, the tilt increases. For some reason, the starboard ballast tanks have failed to refill properly, and the ship has abruptly lost its balance. At the worst possible moment, a large swell hits the Cougar Ace and rolls the ship even farther to port. Objects begin to slide across the deck. They pick up momentum and crash against the port-side walls as the ship dips farther. Wedged naked in the shower stall, Kyin is confronted by an undeniable fact: The Cougar Ace is capsizing. 

He lunges for a towel and staggers into the hallway as the ship's windmill-sized propeller spins out of the water. Throughout the ship, the other 22 crew members begin to lose their footing as the decks rear up. There are shouts and screams. Kyin escapes through a door into the damp night air. He's barefoot and dripping wet, and the deck is now a slick metal ramp. In an instant, he's skidding down the slope toward the Pacific. He slams into the railings and his left leg snaps, bone puncturing skin. He's now draped naked and bleeding on the railing, which has dipped to within feet of the frigid ocean. The deck towers 105 feet above him like a giant wave about to break. Kyin starts to pray.

Participatory mapping for US forces in Iraq

US soldiers in Iraq can use social software to fight insurgents, by adding to a collaborative mapping platform.  TIGR is designed to surface information in bottom-up, web 2.0 fashion.

John Arquilla offers a good critique, noting that the institutional structures within which soldiers work haven't changed.  A familiar issue to educators, yes?

(via Nicholas Carr)

Slashdot versus fearsome internet

An interesting Slashdot article urges readers to counter the classic online child sex figure, namely that 1 in 5 kids have approached sexually.  The post does a good, fair job of demolishing the meme.

Underground streams in Baltimore

Rona Kobell has a fine article about buried, sometimes dangerous streams in the Baltimore area.  It's a quietly Gothic article, especially with lines like this:

The practice of burying streams began more than a century ago...

Kaushal estimates that Baltimore city and county have covered over more than 900 miles of streams. The water, however, never got the message...

Many flow under roads or houses...

Get The Glass: Flash game audacity

This game uses Flash in very ambitious ways.  Get the Glass is an ad-game for the Got Milk? campaign, and features 3d animation, gorgeous art, multilayered soundtracks (music, voice acting, sound effects), a stack of minigames, charming designs, and a cast of characters.

(thanks to Andrew Connell!)

The American presidential election teeters on the Gothic brink

Today's award for "most Gothic-oriented political commentary" goes to William Kristol, for this superbly Machiavellian pronouncement:

[Obama’s] riding a wave of euphoria. She [Clinton] needs to puncture it. The way you puncture euphoria is reality, or to be more blunt, fear. I recommend to Senator Clinton the politics of fear.

Unfortunately the video once embedded on that page is now gone.

Frozen Dead Guy days

The Frozen Dead Guy Festival is held yearly in a small Colorado town.  Nederland's main street hosts a parade of dead people, "skeletons, helmeted Vikings, pompadoured Elvises and antique hearses."  Not to mention a coffin race.  An obstacle course coffin race, that is.

It started in response to one of those American weird law stories:

...a bizarre incident in 1994. That year, town officials discovered a cryogenically frozen man, Bredo Morstoel, in a garden shed. The man had been left behind when his daughter and grandson, who were in the United States illegally, were deported to their home country of Norway. In response, the town council passed an ordinance banning frozen bodies within city limits, while Morstoel, already on the premises, was “grandfathered” in...
Most residents consider Morstoel, now nicknamed “Grandpa,” an honorary citizen.
“He’s the darling of the community,” says Bo Shaffer, who keeps Grandpa’s stainless steel sarcophagus packed with dry ice. “Once, the town wanted him removed. Today, he could be elected mayor if he played his cards right.”

The event works had to be environmentally sound, too.

(via MetaFilter)

Subterranean Nazi labyrinth for stolen Russian art?

A Gothic discovery may be in the offing: an underground labyrinth may hold a Russian art treasure, buried and booby-trapped by the Nazis during the last year of World War II.  It's pulp fiction nearly come true, or a Gothic military tale about to surface:

The discovery of an estimated two tonnes of gold was made at the weekend when electromagnetic pulse measurements located the man-made cavern 20 meters underground near the village of Deutschneudorf on Germany's border with the Czech Republic.

There are family secrets, and hidden information about the hidden treasure:

He said the coordinates for the chamber had come from fellow treasure hunter Christian Hanisch, who had found them when he was going through the documents of his father, a Luftwaffe signaller, after he died in October.
 
"There was a note written next to the coordinates that the site contained Nazi party gold in 12-kilo bars. If the gold is there, the Amber Room will be too," said Haustein. 

And danger:

Haustein said it would probably take him until Easter to get into the chamber because it may contain booby traps and has to be secured by explosives experts and engineers.

"This has got too risky for us to do it alone. There could be mines down there."

There's even a Gothic double involved, since the Russian government had a replica constructed recently.

(via the bounty that is MetaFilter)