Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Uncanny sleeping epidemic in Kazakhstan

Dozens of people are sleeping, according to the Siberian Times.

More than 100 people in the remote village of Kalachi – which has been given the nickname Sleepy Hollow – have been afflicted by the unexplained disorder, which has left doctors and scientists puzzled. Almost all of the victims have fallen asleep suddenly, some literally as they walked, and remembered nothing at the point of awakening.

Theories include local radioactives.  One might consult the first volume of Sandman (1989).

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

Some cyberfear from the 1980s

The Atlantic has a short piece on some signs of fearing computers back in the 1980s.

Mostly these tidbits appear in journalism and popular books.  Examples:

"The most important thing to remember about computerphobia is that it's a natural reaction to something unfamiliar,"

"fear of breaking the computer, fear of losing power, fear of looking stupid, and fear of lacking control."

"fear of physically touching the computer or of damaging it and what's inside it, a reluctance to read or talk about computers, feeling threatened by those who do know something about them, feeling that you can be replaced by a machine, become a slave to it, or feeling aggressive towards computers."

How much of that is alive today?

And here's an interesting bit of comparative technology fear:

In 1985, The New York Times suggested watching computer tutorial videos on television—a less threatening screen than a computer monitor for those who were used to TV but new to computing. ("And unlike the more common floppy-only interactive computer programs, these, with their familiar video images accompanying the lessons, help to make personal computing comfortably commonplace...")

You can see tv receding from its position as boob tube to becoming a comfort.

 

Mashing up 1990s commercials with Gothic horror

This clip starts off as a well-done version of late 20th-century childrens' commercials.  It's about some kids and a fruit drink.  Stick with it, Infocult readers, as around :50 things get gory. 

Nice John Carpenter Thing ref. Enjoy some Liquid Slam!

Teletubby terror revealed

Teletubbies look so innocent in full color, don't they?  But view them in black and white and their creepy nature is revealed:

Those dead eyes, like skull holes!  The blasted landscape!  It's like a lost Bergman alien invasion movie, with a doom metal soundtrack.

Twitter comments unfold this in detail.

(thanks to Jesse Walker)

Fridging the dead in Detroit

This week's Detroit Gothic: police discovered dead people in a woman's freezer.

Court officer Lee Gordon said her crew entered the home at the Martin Luther King Apartments on Tuesday to clear the property. Just inside the door, she said, was a small, deep freezer.

When they opened it, she saw a body...

[It] had a black plastic bag laid on top of it and there was frost on the face of the person, who she thought was an older woman.

But the bodies were those of children, it seems.

The world just keeps generating real life Gothic events.

Fetus-stealing by Craigslist

A Colorado woman responded to an ad for baby clothes on Craigslist, then plunged into actual Gothic horror:

A 34-year-old woman was arrested Wednesday after Longmont police say she attacked a woman who was seven months pregnant and cut the victim's unborn baby from her womb...

Police have not determined a motive. The suspect has two children of her own.

The sequel is also disturbing:

Longmont police Cmdr. Jeff Satur said the suspect later showed up at an area hospital with the deceased baby, claiming a miscarriage.

Creepy dolls on NPR

America's National Public Radio has a story about creepy dolls - haunted dolls, to be precise.

One account:

Anne McLaughlin grew up with a cabinet full of dolls — including a pretty dancer doll and a set of wooden nesting dolls. But one, she says, stood out.

"One of the dolls in the cabinet was absolutely terrifying," she says. "Very tall, thin doll, and her face was not a doll face. It was a grown woman, so she didn't have big eyes she didn't have a smile. She had tiny little eyes. She always looked like she stepped out of one of those New Orleans ghost stories."

The lady doll was also a music box, and it spun slowly to music when wound. The doll gave Anne the creeps.

NPR notes priciness:

"There was an advert for something which was a sadistic, perverted, haunted doll," Hutchcraft says. "It was this little, menacing-looking sort of troll." Intrigued, he noted that the bids kept going up, with 10 people in the running. That doll that looked like a possessed little troll sold for more than $1,400."

(thanks to Christy Broadel)

Some American haunted houses

Slate has an article about a new Infocult-friendly book on American haunted houses.  13: An American Horror Story looks at a Goth's dozen of home where people killed each other, killed themselves, or mysteriously disappeared, and ever since the places have decayed about become scary-looking.

Two examples:

"The Haught Mansion in Brush Park, Michigan, used to be a brothel. Several dead bodies were later found in the cellar."

Or:

"The Doll House in Mansion in Philadelphia is an abandoned mansion full of dolls, saws, and other tools neatly displayed on metal shelves throughout several rooms."

(thanks to Chris Worden)

My name is tiny talking Barbie

Barbie will now offer a new way to be disturbing.  An upcoming version, Hello Barbie, will record words spoken to it by owners (or anyone nearby, really), then talk back after some data-crunching.

This presents all kinds of creepy possibilities:

• Privacy: what happens to a little girl's most private whispers, ingested by Mattel?
• What does Barbie's voice sound like?
• Will the Mattel backend process only allow for a few statements, turning Barbies into Sybils, issuing the rare, oracular pronouncement?
• When will the first Hello Barbie warble "I'm Talky Tina!"

 

• The hacking possibilities.
• Explanation: "Because Barbie told me to."
• Will the doll pick up any sound nearby?  The results could be strange/entertaining.

(thanks to Elena, Todd Bryant, and all other friends of Infocult)

Georgia versus monsters

In the American state of Georgia a legislator wants to make laws about serious matters - namely, the creation of semihuman monsters.

Specifically, "state Rep. Tom Kirby, R-Gwinnett, is proposing legislation that would prohibit scientists from attempting to create human-animal hybrids in laboratories by experimenting with DNA."

But Infocult's allure was not to be denied.  The representative contemplated the marriage of mythic monsters and mad science:

[Kirby] went down a laundry list of such creatures:

Mermaids: "Y'know the mermaids in the ocean, that's been around for a long time," Kirby said. "I don't think we should create them. But if they exist, that's fine."

Centaurs: "Y'know I really don't like centaurs," Kirby said of the half-man, half-horse mythological character. "They really have bad attitudes most of the time and we've got enough people with bad attitudes as it is."

Bird-men: "I think man has been trying to fly forever," Kirby said. He approves of bird-men, he says, "if it's a natural genetic mutation." He acknowledges such a mutation could help solve Georgia's transportation issues.

Werewolves: "We don't want to laboratorily create the werewolf," Kirby said. But "naturally occurring in the environment, absolutely." (emphases in original)

Politics is always, eventually, Gothic.

(via Reason)