Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

What's more frightening, computer games or daily life?

The Economist has a long article exploring the phenomenon of people diving deeply into computer games, at the expense of the rest of their lives.  

It's a curious piece.  At first the author, Ryan Avent, seems to be treading the familiar games-are-evil line, with stories of young men opting out of work, relationships, and the rest of life.  

There is addiction... And games become the destructive vice of choice for some sets of players, taking the place of drugs or alcohol in a tragic but familiar narrative.

Then he turns to what he sees gamers escaping from, and becomes either more sympathetic or more depressing:

A life spent buried in video games, scraping by on meagre pay from irregular work or dependent on others, might seem empty and sad. Whether it is emptier and sadder than one spent buried in finance, accumulating points during long hours at the office while neglecting other aspects of life, is a matter of perspective.

The article has some odd gaps and weaknesses, like not exploring the role of people only having a high school education, or misogyny.  But it's more important as an unusual piece, one that takes the scary digital meme seriously, then turns that hostile, anxious gaze back on the rest of the world.

(thanks to Jesse Walker)

Evil puppet story from Key and Peele

Key and Peele offer a fine skit about a creepy puppet in "Little Homie".  It's barely four minutes long, so just watch: 

It hits so many classic scary mannequin elements: the uncanny link between puppet and puppeteer, breaking out into disagreements; puppet as puppeteer and audience's id; the puppet achieving autonomy; the creepy slide from childhood to adulthood.  

(thanks to Son of Infocult)

Gaea versus humanity in Mexico City

A quick glimpse of the Earth's campaign against the human race, in Mexico City:

In Iztapalapa, a suburb of approximately 2m people built on the ancient lake’s southern shores in the city’s south-east, 15 primary schools have crumbled or caved in, and a teenager was swallowed up when a gaping crack appeared in the street.

That's all there is about the events in that article.  Mysterious.

(thanks to Charles Cameron)

Updates on postmortem social media and AI

"Dead, IRL" updates us on technologies for recreating human identity after death. Laurie Segall looks into several methods, including postmortem tweets, video recordings, and bots using social media to imitate a dead person's self.

The latter should remind readers of this Black Mirror episode, or the fine LifeAfter podcast.

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

Haunting 19th century experimental media

The following image appeared from a Twitter account, which describes it thusly:

1860s French Stereoscopic card - The Laboratory of Satan

Click the image or this link to see the image animated.

If the description is correct, remember that we haunt every medium we make.  Even stereoscopic cards.

(via Jesse "Satan's Helper" Walker)

Sinkhole attack gets the Florida treatment

Earth's relentless campaign against the human race reached out to Florida, only to receive some unique touches from that state.

It was like a scene out of a horror film, as dozens of alligators gathered around a giant sinkhole lined with vultures as hikers watched -- standing as still as statues -- from a distance.

We can only await the arrival of Florida Man.

(thanks to Steven "Gaea's minion" Kaye)

More fearsome technology movies

MTV reports on three recent films about scary technology.  On deck is Personal Shopper (2016), about a creepy iPhone.  Following is Human Surge (2016), which connects characters through technology (more in this review).  Last is Unfriended (2014), concerning spectral revenge for online bullying.

By hewing to the present, movies like these lay out the ways our lives have already merged with our machines, and they’re able to do so without succumbing to the built-in moralism of dystopia as a genre. Whether modern communication is good or bad is almost irrelevant — even if there were a definitive answer to the mystery of technology’s effect on human behavior, would we care enough to actually stop using the devices that bind us?

Vice offers an engaging history of deadly clothing, both in fiction and real life.

Good range of materials here, from labor history to folklore.

(thanks to Jaime Townsend via Facebook)

Turning Alexa into a talking skull

The brazen head entered the world of home automation this week.  Someone modded Amazon's Alexa to feature an animated, talking skull:

Infocult approves.

Instructions for building "Yorick" can be found here.

(thanks to Steven "Roger Bacon 2.0" Kaye)

Agony and death of a Furby

On Twitter a woman recalls her Furby ordeal.  It involves feeding, pleading, stabbing, skinning, and crushing.

A sample:

(thanks to Jesse Walker)