Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Treating British children for "internet addiction"

A British clinic claims to treat young children for what the call "technology addiction."  Children here means adolescents, and kids as young as four.

They use the addiction language very precisely:

He said the symptoms were comparable to those experienced by an alcoholic or heroin addict going through withdrawal.  

The article specifically cites social media and gaming.

(thanks to Randy McCall)

Gamifying against surveillance

Anti-surveillance Germans organized a protest game this past February. It involved taking out surveillance cameras.

[P]oints are awarded for the number of cameras destroyed and bonus scores are given for particularly imaginative modes of destruction. Axes, ropes and pitchforks are all encouraged.

Smash the state for points!  Actually, this video looks like fun.

More:

A murder spied on Google Maps

What looks like a killing appeared on Google Maps:

It looks like two guys have dragged a bloody corpse onto this pier.  With dramatic shadows.

Yes, it could also be a dog tracking water onto sunlit wood.  That would be less impressive... unless the dog were in on the kill.

(thanks to jason kielbasa and Ladi)

"The Excel error that ruined the world"

Microsoft Office is a pretty non-fearsome technology, but perhaps that will change with the discovery of...

The Excel error that ruined the world!

This is one interpretation of an error in an enormously influential economics paper.  Briefly, this research article argued that very large government debt clobbered that nation's GDP.  Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff's research has played a key role in explaining current austerity policies.  However, it looks like their conclusions relied on a basic mistake in handling their data.

As one reader puts it,

If this error turns out to be an actual mistake Reinhart-Rogoff made, well, all I can hope is that future historians note that one of the core empirical points providing the intellectual foundation for the global move to austerity in the early 2010s was based on someone accidentally not updating a row formula in Excel.

Note the opening and very large "if".  It could be error, or the error a fig leaf.

This won't lead to a big groundswell of anti-Excel feeling.  But it's interesting to see that program enter the baleful spotlight of Infocult for the first time.

Cyberbullying among the rich

One of the world's richest people is crying cyberbullying.  T. Boone Pickens has changed his son with cyberbullying via blog posts.  Michael Pickens' autobiographical writings are apparently too much for the billionaire senior to accept.

What are the damages experienced by the alleged bully-ee?

“I am suffering physical manifestations of […] distress, including elevated blood pressure, which is very unusual for me,” the 85-year-old stated in written testimony. “I am deeply embarrassed by Mike’s statements and actions.” The family has asked for economic damages “at the maximum rate allowed by law.”

It's fascinating to see the cyberbullying meme migrate from junior high to the highest reaches of money.

(photo by Wikipedia)

A new search engine to fear

Shodan might be considered the scariest search engine out there.  Why?  Shodan searches not content but devices, aiming for unsecured machines and connections.  It probes the dark side, or the soft underbelly, of the internet of things.

Entertainingly, it's named after a classic computer game villain.

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

How to write a fearsome internet article

Here's a handy guide on creating an internet: threat or menace? article.  It's called Greenfielding.

For example, what not to do:

You don't really need evidence. Evidence is for bitter people who hate children. It's fine to just make your claims with confidence. If you need to back up your claims, it's fine to say you've spoken to some relevant people about this. 

This needs to be a bot.

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

Google considers your death

We hope that this new feature will enable you to plan your digital afterlife

This week Google turned its attention to the problem of your death, launching an Inactive Account manager.  The service lets you arrange for the disposition of your Google-ified data.

It's a very big move for the digital post-mortem scene, given Google's huge scope.

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

Death by hacker

Popular Science takes a turn at the fearsome media world, running a piece delightfully entitled

5 Ways Hackers Could Kill You Right Now

Or "The best bets for what counts as lethal hacking".  It's very gleeful stuff.

The way highlighted by the below image, for example, is entitled "Crashing A Drone Into Your Skull":

Being PopSci, each page balances imaginative extrapolation with practical considerations.

Holes underground for the homeless

In Kansas City there's an unusual homeless encampment: a series of holes and tunnels underground.

The local paper's description includes passages like these:

“One of the tunnels probably went 20 to 25 feet underground towards the back and veered off in another direction about six feet or so, and there was some bedding and some candles,” said Officer Jason Cooley...

Another tunnel dropped about five feet into the ground before shooting off laterally for seven or eight feet. Many of the holes were concealed. At least one had wood stacked around it and others were bare earth. PVC pipe provided ventilation.

As primal as this sounds, the story includes a cutting-edge (and potentially scary) technology aspect:

On Friday, city public works crews used a Bobcat to close up the tunnels and holes after they were searched by a police robot with a camera. 

Imagine inhabiting one of these tunnels, when a robot suddenly drops inside, crawling around and recording.

(via Naked Capitalism)