Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Tsunami ghost ship

This reads like the start of a ghost story:

On March 20, Canada's transport department spotted what it said was an empty Japanese fishing vessel 150 nautical miles south of the Queen Charlotte Islands, adjacent to the main coast of British Columbia.

It's collateral damage from the tsunami.

It's also classic ghost story site: abandoned (seemingly), linked with the memory of great power, decayed, socially marginal.

The ship has been declared a hazard to shipping, but Canada has not said what - if anything - it will do with it...

More: this ghost ship is the leading edge of a wave of trans-Pacific junk, born by wind and tide from Japan's disaster onto North America's western coast.

(via /.)

Death and the student loan

Student loan Gothic: it was probably inevitable.

“A student loan can be a debt that’s kind of like a ball and chain that you can drag to the grave,” said William E. Brewer, president of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. “You can unhook it when they lay you in the coffin.”

A parable for our times.

Glimpse of the robot catastrophe to come

Humanoid robot is chasing you:

Macho thing - see how it brushes off its creator's shove?  And the celebratory postures at the end: this is how our overlords will celebrate our defeat.

(via Creepy Robots)

Best 20th-century vampire novel is...

Best vampire story of the twentieth century?  The World Horror Convention's contest (noted earlier) has finished, with... I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson.

"Come out, Neville!"

More from the announcement:

Vampire Novel of the Century Award

HWA, in conjunction with the Bram Stoker Family Estate and the Rosenbach Museum & Library, also presented the special one-time only Vampire Novel of the Century Award to:

Richard Matheson for his modern classic I Am Legend 

This award was voted on by a jury chaired by Dracula expert Leslie S. Klinger and was sponsored by Jeremy Wagner.

(via SF Signal)

Computer game fear, the comic

Moral panics about computer games, explained in one neat comic:

Presidential Gothic, Santorum style

One American presidential candidate's campaign has offered a very dark bit of media.  "Obamaville" comes from the Santorum team, and looks pretty dystopia, as ThinkProgress says.

It's a spooky mix, between urban decay, sad landscapes, hints of suicide, suggestions of repression:

Interesting to see some of the other images, like a conformist shot, and Wall Street as negative.