Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Fear the skies

Bruce Sterling offers this fun image of a near-future fear:

The "Coalition Against GeoEngineering" and their chemtrail pals.  Anice harbinger of tomorrow's "afraid of the sky" contingent.

If carbon dioxide was a visible gas, these guys would be out of theirminds with panic already.  There must be somebody in the nexus ofirrationality who thinks that DRONES are spreading chemtrails.  Covertdrones plus chemtrails are a marriage made in  paranoia heaven.

Urban legend waiting to happen.

Larry Summer, unstoppable zombie

We still like our zombie political language, it seems:

Zombie Larry Summers Could Reappear as Head of the World Bank

That post offers one great anecdote about Summers' unsuitability for the job.  This post goes even further, not least with a fine photo:

(thanks to Jesse "Zombie Hunter" Walker)

Infocult murmurs at speed

Infocult's vast production machinery is ratcheting down a notch for the new several weeks.  The travel monster demands sacrifices, you see.

 

Found in Hollywood: one human head in a bag

California police found a human head in a bag, near the Hollywood sign.

The remains were found by a park ranger about 3:45 p.m. in the rugged hills near the 3200 block of Canyon Drive, said LAPD spokeswoman Sara Faden.

No reports of other body parts... yet.

(thanks to Peter Naegele; image via to-be-darkened Wikipedia)

Internet addiction is like booze, or maybe not

Another study claims internet addiction is real, and works like cocaine.

[R]esearchers used MRI scanners to reveal abnormalities in the brains of adolescents who spent many hours on the internet, to the detriment of their social and personal lives...

Which reminds me of Maryanne Wolf's Proust and the Squid (2007), which was solid science.

More:

The results showed impairment of white matter fibres in the brain connecting regions involved in emotional processing, attention, decision making and cognitive control. Similar changes to the white matter have been observed in other forms of addiction to substances such as alcohol and cocaine.

But.

The authors acknowledge that they cannot tell whether the brain changes are the cause or the consequence of the internet addiction. It could be that young people with the brain changes observed are more prone to becoming addicted.

And:

Professor Michael Farrell, director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Australia, said: "The limitations [of this study] are that it is not controlled, and it's possible that illicit drugs, alcohol or other caffeine-based stimulants might account for the changes. The specificity of 'internet addiction disorder' is also questionable."

It's fascinating, the ontological status of internet addiction.  It's either a real live thing, for which there are medical clinics and state policies.  Or it's a phantasm.

(thanks to Ed Webb's Diigo; image by Habi)

Tales to Terrify, new horror podcast

A new horror podcast has launched.  Tales to Terrify springs from the Starship Sofa, that great sf podcast.

One show so far, which I'm looking forward to.

Rick Perry japes into the uncanny valley

Presidential candidate, mindless mannequin, average voter: Rick Perry mixed these up neatly yesterday.  In a brief joke the Texan offered to call on a questioner who was actually a dressed-up doll.

The doll was wearing a t-shirt for a restaurant called Squat-'N-Gobble.  I've never been to the place, nor heard of it, but the name is both funny and disturbing.  I sleepily imagine some awful transformation taking place, whereby customers mutate into new shapes.

Actually, the phrase dates back quite a ways, at least to 1940.

 

Uncanny Groupon

Groupon dipped its collective toes into the uncanny valley this week.  They launched a new service, Clicky, which seems to consist of dismembered body parts.

Another example of using fearsome digital media for (intended) profit.

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

Death by Skype

A child is murdered, and Skype was involved!  Or so mutters the BBC.  

Skype child death

In a very strange article, the Beeb describes an appaling act of child-killing by parents, which seems to have involved technology... not at all.

Compare these two paragraphs:

A British man has been interviewed by police investigating the death of a little girl in Norway while the child's mother was talking to him on Skype.

Yasmin Chaudhry was arrested by police in Oslo after her 20-month-old daughter died after being plunged into a bucket of water in October 2010.

What was more important, Skype or that bucket?  The visual conversation or the tangible violence?  

If you read further, other nontechnological issues surface.  The two parents were immigrants from (presumably) Muslim-majority nations, always an issue in northern Europe.  The question of physical discipline arises. Competing legal systems.  All of that gets set aside in favor of Skype.

Shouldn't the bucket play a role, if we're looking at implements?  Put another way, would the article have named a landline telephone if that's how the murderous pair communicated?

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

Knifed for internet addiction

A Chinese boy was so addicted to the internet that his mother stabbed him.

Over time, his usage fuelled an addiction that saw him regularly steal money from his parents or “lose” the change when he was sent to buy groceries for them.

Things went further than usual one night when the boy left his parents after dinner, having pocketed his mother’s money, only to be found playing away at a Internet cafe. His parents took him home and, after reportedly beating him with a laundry rack, his distressed mother sliced into his leg with a kitchen knife.

Will some people accept, or even admire this kind of parental response to a demonized/semifictional behavior?

(thanks to Todd Bryant)