Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Down with Minecraft, says the Turkish government

A Turkish ministry found that Minecraft is a dangerous game, especially for children.

“Although the game can be seen as encouraging creativity in children by letting them build houses, farmlands and bridges, mobs [hostile creatures] must be killed in order to protect these structures. In short, the game is based on violence,” Habertürk quoted the report as saying.

Some children may confuse the real world with the game world after playing Minecraft, leading them to believe that torturing animals would not give them pain, added the report, which was based on the game experience of a nine-year-old child.

 

The Family and Social Policies Ministry added another bit of fearsome digital media:

It also suggested that the game could lead to “social isolation,” while exposing children to social risks in the multiplayer form, such as abuse and bullying.

Let's see if suppression follows.

(thanks to Ed Webb)

Tableware of the uncanny

Ronit Baranga has produced some splendidly Gothic tableware.  She seems fixated on placing mouths and fingers in.... unusual locations.

(thanks to saramin!)

The serried dead beneath the shop

Under a Monoprix store in Paris are corpses.  A lot of them.

Eight mass graves have been found so far, seven of them containing between five and 20 individual human remains buried up to five deep within a 100 metre sq area. The eighth grave contained, at the last count, the remains of 150 bodies.

Isabelle Abadie who is leading the dig said there was possibly another layer of bodies below those that had been uncovered.

"another layer of bodies below those that had been uncovered": one of the most powerful Gothic observations one can make.

 

“What is astonishing is that the bodies were not thrown in, but put there with care and in an organised way. The individuals – men, women and children, were placed head-to-toe, no doubt to save space.

“It suggests there were a lot of sudden deaths, but we still have to find the cause of this sudden fatal event and whether it was an epidemic, fever, famine.”

One more detail:

Many of the skeletons, well preserved in the sand, have their arms crossed over their chests, leading experts to believe they may have been wrapped in cloth.

(thanks to saramin!)

Werewolf murders vampire: a new courtroom strategy

Paranormal romance gone bad: a California man accused of murdering a neighbor explained his actions in terms of monsters and their roles.

The first record of Andrews believing he was a werewolf, she said, dates to 1996, though she suspects he had that same delusion during his first psychotic episode three years earlier.

Murphy said Andrews believed the voice of God commanded him to kill Barga-Milbury, whom he believed was a vampire.

This wasn't a one-time-only thing,

Andrews believed a different neighbor was a vampire. Andrews left mounds of dirt and flour on that neighbor’s door and once pounded on the neighbor’s door, calling her a “bitch,” though she didn’t answer.

At his home, according to police reports, police found two lists of names, several marked “hate with death.”

As to why Andrews didn’t kill this particular vampire neighbor “God didn’t tell him to kill her” Murphy said.

Mark Andrews has believed himself to be a werewolf for the past 20 years.