Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Here's a nice fantastic fable about books and their people, "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore" (2011):

(thanks to Robert Fagerlund)

The Haunting of Sunshine Girl

The Haunting of Sunshine Girl is a Web video series that follows two women and their paranormal experiences.

Like other YouTube series it starts off with a low budget and basic, personal/webcam style. For instance, this scene from a bathroom, or this nicely creepy daytime incident:

Sunshine offers lots of nice, knowing Gothic touches, from locating many scenes in the bathroom to a potent hidden object.  Good, low-budget multimedia creepiness as well, like unsettling audio, mysterious correspondance, disturbing digital glitches, ghost-photo-style pasted-in images, and EVP:

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The whole story is divided into chapters, of which I've only worked through the first two ("The Original Haunting", "Haunted Hotel Road Trip") so far.  Chapters consist of dozens of short clips, each usually preceded by explanatory or epigraphic title cards.

Overall it reminds me of young adult fiction, partly due to the emphasis on the teenage daughter's perspective.

(thanks to Sally Gilman)

Fearing Google Glasses

They barely exist in the world, yet already there are ways to fear Google Glasses.

Forbes broods about surveillance:

Imagine how helpful this could be for reporting crimes. If you witnessed a boy being attacked in your yard, or a hit and run, or a robbery, you could immediately upload that file to police databases. Inevitably, we would all become watchmen, critical parts of the surveillance society. Alternately, law enforcement could use cell location tracking to figure out who was in a certain area at a certain time and get a warrant (or subpoena) for access to their vision logs.

Interesting how the author finds good surveillance alongside the bad. As she concludes, "It’s creepy. It’s awesome."

Meanwhile, Gawker: "the 'Google Goggles' unveiled today take creepy tech to the next level."  That text focuses on intrusiveness and data collection. 

At a third level, this video pokes fun at the possibility for too much/too intrusive advertising.

It's early days, so there hasn't been much time for other media fears to kick in.  Google Glasses depraves children, is being used by eQaeda, enables horrific copyright violation, ruins relationships, wounds, kills: expect 'em all.

(via Reason)

How to trigger a volcano, a supervillain's guide

Wired offers a nice how-to on kickstarting a volcano.  Just what every villain needs.

Professor Klemetti even identifies some likely targets, and picks the biggest challenge (hint: not getting explosives).

Bonus points for referencing Crack in the World (1965).

A challenging form of documentation

This is how you do documentation Infocult style:

Carved from old software manuals

(via William Gibson's Twitter)

The Shining, the sitcom

A fine mix of The Shining as a tv sitcom.  Laugh!

Bonus Benny Hill finale.

(thanks to Steve Taylor)

Fake murder on Facebook

Live murder on Facebook!  Or so went the idea, which was only a stunt. A Welsh man threatened police, promising mayhem to his Facebook friends, but it all fizzled.

Perhaps some potential anxiety still attaches to Facebook.

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

Animated horror from Flux Machine

Flux Machine is a splendid series of animated gifs. Each one takes a historical photograph then warps it with Lovecraftian/surreal elements.

Some are subtle and eerie:

Others are comic slapstick:

Some are more explicit horror:

(thanks to Ed Webb's shadowy Diigo realm)

The poster which kisses you back

More creepy tech from Japan: behold the wall poster which responds to your kiss.

The “poster” is displayed on a screen and displays a variety of images depending on the distance from the user, which is measured using an overhead ultrasonic sensor. As the user leans in to plant one on the poster, the image changes from a default image, to one showing the moment of smooching, to a coy blush afterward.

The article mentions some immediate fears, like social diseases.  Imagine, too, when such a poster becomes cruel, or abusive.

Videodrome: the great movie for our time.

(thanks to Peter Naegele)

Fear the terror game

eQaeda is back, and scheming in computer games, shrieks the Sun.  Call of Duty and Halo multiplayer are venues for terrorists, it seems.

Last night, a source [heh] said: “It’s a terrifying reality. These people waste no time finding a secure method of chatting."They are logging into group games over the internet and discussing terror plots. Security people know about it.
“For millions who love these games this will be a huge shock."

Why spread such stories?  One commentator observes:

The claims come a month after it emerged that the government is set to announce new laws to require communications companies to store all information passed between users online.

What remarkable timing…

(thanks to Charles Cameron)