Rossignol

Will Self on Thanet:

I took the dog for a walk in the local park. The blackout was complete, but I was aware of the presence of many others. In any large city these might have been furtive seekers after fleeting, anonymous congress, but here, in Broadstairs, they turned out to be enormous gaggles of teenagers, wheeling around on the mown grass, their mobile phones held under their chins so that the wan uplight weirdly illuminated their vestigial features. As I grew closer to one of these gaggles I became aware of an insistent and peculiar gobbling noise; the sound of many breaking voices intoning “Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off” over and over again.

Not far from where I grew up, and a hellhole.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Gaming-Life-Travels-Cities/dp/0472116355

By Rin Nadeshico.

The soundtrack as they approach the zone is representative of the film, or Tarkvosky’s films as a whole. Drawn out, unhurried sequences in which nothing happens apart from stretching the image, the moment, out and out. Then, suddenly at the end, colour.

Fox News:

An 81-year-old Australian man has shot himself dead with an elaborate suicide robot built using plans he downloaded from the Internet.

The Gold Coast man, who lived alone, left notes of his plans and thoughts as he struggled to come to terms with demands by interstate relatives that he move out his home and into care.

He spent hours searching the Internet for a way to kill himself, downloaded what he needed and then built a complex machine that would remotely fire a gun.

He set the device up in his driveway about 7 a.m. Wednesday, placed himself in front of it and set it in motion.

“The sun-powered electro-suspension car, which needs no wheels.”

The Royal College of Art’s Ant perception system:

From WMMNA, which reports:

I played with the ant and giraffe devices while visiting the RCA show and found out that the objects do exactly what their description says: i felt humbled by the ant devices (i could not see anything of what was around me but could perceive all the tiny cracks and details on the surface of of the table i was exploring) and while doning the giraffe helmet i could only perceive the head of the tallest people in the room.

They are also developing Elephant shoes that pick up transmitting vibrations from fellows and a head mounted Theremin (!) to provide children with an enhanced spatial vision similar to the one of an electric Eel.

Comrade Campbell sends word of a collection of photography intended to document the nightmare playgrounds of the world. Take a look here.