Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

A creepy short story about Alexa

From Farhad Manjoo's update on Alexa, a small and nicely creepy short short story:

My wife and I were just settling into bed one night when Alexa, the other woman in my life, decided to make herself heard.

Without being summoned, the Amazon Echo Dot at my bedside — one of the half-dozen devices that Alexa inhabits in our house — lit up its spectral blue ring, as if it had heard its triggering wake word, “Alexa.” But instead of offering help with some household chore, the voice assistant began to wail, like a child screaming in a horror-movie dream.

“Huh,” I said to my wife when it was over. She said something less kind.

But here’s what’s really strange: By the next morning, we had forgotten all about it.

There is also a nice coda:

(An Amazon representative offered to investigate, but said the company had never heard of such a thing happening before and didn’t think Alexa was even capable of making such a sound.)

It's interesting to see well-established horror tropes from mobile devices (the mysterious sound coming unbidden) map onto AI fears (it's autonomous! it's alive!) and combine in the domestic space (the couple were in bed).

Turning computer game fears into profit

A Rhode Island legislator has called for taxing certain computer games, in order to raise revenue for a specific budget line. To be precise, Representative Nardolillo wants a 10% tax on M-rated video games, with funds going to pay for mental health programs.

There are several interesting points here.  One is that Nardolillo is running for the United States Senate.  Perhaps he's hoping for an anti-gaming cultural current to yield support.  Or maybe he's keying off of Trump's recent maunderings.

Another is the now-classic citation of non-existent research:

"There is evidence that children exposed to violent video games at a young age tend to act more aggressively than those who are not," Nardolillo said in a statement, although he didn't provide any sources to substantiate his claim.

Perhaps we'll see a partisan dimension to game fear begin to unfold.

(thanks to Jesse Walker)

Models with severed heads: Gucci goes Gothic

Eventually everything goes Gothic.  Especially the world of fashion, which this week offered a fine example of Infocult style.  Gucci sent models down a runway lined with surgical stations, each lovely person carrying their own severed head:

As the Jezebel article observes, "what says 'you’ll never be able to afford this or even find it in stores near you' like a gorgeous severed head?"  That sounds like a challenge for 3d printing!

The runway show took place in an eerie, mint-green surgical room with Gregorian choir music, embellished with the sounds of dialing phones and ticking clocks, on the speakers.

There was more, including baby dragons and a Russian theme. but the severed heads are what drew our Gothic gaze.

(thanks to Thomas "Head Still on Neck" Burkdall)

Sinhkholes gnaw on Florida

The Earth continued her campaign against the human race this week, attacking Floridian retirement communities with more sinkholes.

They came in the night:

Frank Neumann got quite a shock around 1 a.m. on Thursday when he heard a sinkhole open up at his retirement community in central Florida. A few hours later, around 3 a.m., police knocked on Neumann's door and told him he had to leave.

"I heard some noise," Neumann tells WCJB. "I thought it was thunder. Evidently that was the ground crashing in on the sinkhole."

Five other sinkholes have opened up in the area.

Gaea has upped her game with knock-on effects, following the sinkholes' eruption:

After the sinkholes swallowed land in the neighborhood, a nearby lake quickly began to drain at a "fairly rapid pace," says Paul Bloom of the Marion County Sheriff's Office.  

CBS News reported the lake was manmade, and workers at a nearby golf course were trying to drain it to remedy the situation.

Sinkhole by sinkhole, her campaign continues.

(thanks to Steven Kaye)

When a worm loves a human eyeball very much

Here at Infocult we often turn out uncanny gaze to the fictionless world, observing how it presents itself with many Gothic terrors.  

Today's real-world Gothic moment comes from Oregon, where a poor woman discovered an infestation of worms.  In her eyeball.

Reuters' account is fairly dry, offering only this tidbit: "The researchers said the woman noticed a small, translucent worm in her left eye after experiencing irritation".

In contrast, an NPR account embraces the horror.  To begin with, the discovery:

Abby Beckley had been living on an inactive cattle ranch in southern Oregon. "There was just one cow," says the 28-year-old college student.

A few weeks later, she started to have the sensation that something was in her eye. "You know how it feels when you have an eyelash in your eye?" Beckley says. "That's exactly how it felt, but when I looked in the mirror, I couldn't see anything."

The sensation wouldn't go away. And her eye was getting more and more irritated. It was red, droopy and inflamed.

"I finally couldn't take it any[more]," she says. "I went to the mirror and decided I'm going to pull out whatever was in my eye, even if I have to rip part of my eye out."

She pulled down her eyelid and grabbed a clear, threadlike material from underneath her eyeball. Then she looked down at the thread:

"It was squiggling around on my finger," Beckley said. "I thought, 'This is nuts! A worm just came out of my eye.' "

Next, scientific confirmation and comedy:

She finally got an appointment with eye doctors at Oregon Health and Science University. At first, they didn't believe her.

"They couldn't find the worms," she says. "And they were saying things like, 'A lot of people, when they have this claim, it's usually just mucus, but wouldn't it be fascinating if there was a worm?' " Beckley says. "I told them, 'Just you wait.'"

Sure enough, an hour later, Beckley felt a worm move. "I said to the doctors, 'Look now! Look now!' "

Immediately the doctors started screaming, "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! It just crawled across your eye!" Beckley says. "Then the doctors scattered and started getting ready to take a sample."

then scientific exploration into how the critters made their way to the woman's ocular flesh:

So, basically, a fly spit the worms into Beckley's eye?

"Yes, that's right," [parasitologist Richard] Bradbury says. "The fly vomited the worms into her eye."

We can see that, looked at properly, the world is just laced with wriggling, intimate, Gothic horrors.

(thanks to Ed Webb and MetaFilter)

Earth's war against the human race shifts to Rome

The Earth's ongoing war against the human pestilence opened a new front this week.  A sinkhole opened up in Rome, dropping a street more than ten meters.

Nobody was killed or even injured. Clearly, Gaia is just warming up.

(thanks to Steven Kaye)

A terrifying viral video in Texas

Police in one Texas city are telling residents not to open a certain video attachment.  It's an interesting snapshot of how we fear the digital world.

First, one key element is that the content is allegedly kiddie porn.  There's no other information about it - "Other than being considered child pornography, Marshall police have not given any further details about the video" -  a presentation which cloaks the object in mystery.

Second, the transmission mechanism involves spoofing the identities of a given user's contact list.  Which led police to this bit of advice:

The police department told a commenter on the Facebook post that the video may come in the form of a message of someone claiming they want it to go viral. Marshall police warn people to not open messages from anyone they know.

Do "not open messages from anyone they know"?  

Third, there's hacking and suchlike: "The department also warned that the video could have viruses attached to it."

(thanks to Jesse "Was Once From Texas" Walker)