Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

"Ghostly Specter Haunts the ‘Coldest Place in the Universe’"

You might call it the Boomerang nebula, but NASA prefers another, more scientific phrase:

 "Ghostly Specter Haunts the ‘Coldest Place in the Universe’"

What?  Yes indeed:

At a cosmologically crisp one degree Kelvin (minus 458 degrees Fahrenheit), the Boomerang nebula is the coldest known object in the universe -- colder, in fact, than the faint afterglow of the Big Bang, the explosive event that created the cosmos.

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile have taken a new look at this object to learn more about its frigid properties and to determine its true shape, which has an eerily ghost-like appearance.

"At the Sound of the Beep"

What horrors live in the phone?  "At the Sound of the Beep" (mp3 download) is a fine, cruel example of horror by answering machine, created by digital audio genius Julie Hoverson.

The story consists entirely of answering machine messages, played back and sometimes manipulated (the identify of the machine's operator only becomes clear towards the end).  A variety of voices outline multiple plot threads, all of which coalesce into the main narrative.  Its emotional power builds through a chilling climax.

Julie Hoverson has been doing fantastic work for years. Check her out, o devoted minions of Infocult.

Zone One

A very fine zombie novel, maybe the best one yet, Zone One takes place during three days late in a zombie apocalypse. Zombies (never named as such, always called "the dead", or "skels") have overrun most of the world and devoured the majority of the human race.

The main character, "Mark Spitz" (a nickname; we never learn his real name) works on a team of soldiers clearing out Manhattan, renamed the titular Zone One - "obviously, sightseeing had taken a hit over the past few years" (73). They work through city buildings room by room, exterminating any leftover zombies, helping prep the area for eventual resettlement. North of their "sweeping" stands a giant wall across the island, from which soldiers rain down fire upon a fairly steady stream of invading zombies. New York is a magnet for human stagglers from around the northeast, a safe haven and place for action. America, led by a new government in Buffalo, is getting ready for rebirth.

Alongside this martial action in the present, half of the book is flashbacks and stories. Indeed, a major theme of Zone One is the role of memory, its fragile construction and the doomed passion with which we hang on to it. Whitehead seeds the novel with hints of the past, returning to each one later, fleshing out main and secondary characters. This focus is one way the book seems to reach out beyond the zombie subgenre.

The world is very well realized through these frequent detours into the past. We also see the many ways America reinvents itself, from a new anthem/theme song to corporate donations to a pervasive armadillo logo. Additionally, Whitehead has fun inventing terms and nicknames: skels, for zombies; stragglers, the malfunctioning and poignant living dead; the American Phoenix, a kind of rebranding/imposed social movement for post-zombie reconstruction (adherents are "pheenies"); Last Night, the zombie onset; PASD, Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder; No-no Cards, helpful behavioral instructions from the new government. The satire is grim, reminding me of Margaret Atwood in her post-apocalypse trilogy.

Speaking of satire and style, Whitehead's prose is a pleasure to read, combining sensual details, a wry eye, and rich (for the subgenre) language. For example,

What's scary, sometimes

Here's a powerful thought about what makes things scary, from that dark rides story:

People have told me that if you’re scared by something that’s not that scary, it has more of an impact on you. You say, “Wow, I can’t believe that thing made me jump out of my seat.” Compared to what I’ve seen on TV, on video games, or at an IMAX theater, if this little thing makes me jump out of my seat, then I guess it’s pretty good.

For example, 

As a kid, one of the most frightening sounds I ever heard was in the Laff in the Dark Pretzel ride we had at Crescent Park. It had an actual car horn installed at the very end of the ride, just before you went out into daylight. You saw your last figure, and you were in darkness. You could see a little bit of a crack between the two doors. You’d think, “OK, we’re going out.” And all of a sudden, a Chrysler Imperial car horn went off. Instantly, you went back to that time you were trying to cross Pawtucket Avenue, and some car sped up and almost hit you. That would play to your emotions, a simple thing like that.

Good point.

Creepy doll on the porch

As we close in on Halloween, The Onion offers this Gothic vision: Horrifying Doll Sitting On Neighbor's Porch Whether It's Halloween Or Not.

Building a new Frankenstein's monster

Two British roboticists have built a kind of artificial man, a cross between Victor Frankenstein's charnel house and a Maker event:

Like Frankenstein's monster, cobbled together from a hodgepodge of body parts, the bionic man is an amalgam of the most advanced human prostheses — from robotic limbs to artificial organs to a blood-pumping circulatory system.

How good is the result?  "The bionic man successfully simulates about two-thirds of the human body."

(thanks to Charles Cameron)

On dark rides and where they took us

Here's a fine article on dark rides, American amusement park rides which were designed to scare visitors.  It's a fine history and meditation.

(via MetaFilter)

The ghostly voice of the dead president

Venezuelan television played a video of its national anthem, sung in part by the recently dead Hugo Chávez. Google Translate says:

The solemn national anthem played by the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra were replaced by a live audio of the voice of former President Chavez, probably taken at one of his rallies.

The terrifying army of the dead

Who are these doomed souls marching through the land?  Medievalists.net has a fine post about a wild hunt story.  This one comes from 12th-century Normandy, and offers a vivid description of horrors.

For instance,

Then came hundreds of women, riding side-saddle on horses, but the saddles were marked with red hot nails. As the women rode, they would jump off their saddles and into the air, and then land back on the nails, leaving them burned and stabbed.

And

On the biers sat men as small as dwarfs, but with huge heads like barrels. One enormous tree-trunk was borne by two Ethiopians, and on the trunk some wretch, tightly trussed, was suffering tortures, screaming aloud in his dreadful agony. A fearful demon sitting on the same trunk was mercilessly goading his back and loins with red-hot spurs while he streamed with blood.

What connects these horrors with the classic wild hunt?

There are several tales about Hellequin’s Army, or Hellequin’s Hunt, some of which involve King Arthur or other medieval legends. Church writers apparently associated this ghostly ramble with Purgatory, offering a horrific example to the living on what awaits those who sinned when they died.

Quite an antecedent to zombies.

(thanks to Charles Cameron)

Game leads to Middle Eastern violence

The latest game-blaming story involves parents seeing Grand Theft Auto V as causing Middle East violence.

“In the week of GTA V’s launch we’ve witnessed unprovoked attacks in Iraq, shootings in Afghanistan, sectarian violence in Lebanon, street clashes in Egypt, tribal warfare in Yemen, drone strikes in Pakistan, warmongering in Israel and don’t even get me started on Syria,” said Heather Chode of the International Mothers Against Violence In Videogames Association.

That's a powerful game!

Inevitably there's a call for censorship:

“Clearly this appalling game has had an immediate impact in normalising violence and teaching impressionable adolescents that violence is an acceptable form of conflict resolution, and should be banned with immediate effect before the situation worsens.”

Clearly.  Games are important!

EDITED TO ADD: the Pan-Arabian Enquirer turns out to be a satire site.  Well done, you lot.

(link via Ed Webb's Diigocloud; photo by Mike Mozart)