PYF unnerving article or story: Why is everything always so fucking weird

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > PYF unnerving article or story: Why is everything always so fucking weird

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monny: Oct 20, 2008; dollar dollar bill, y'all

General Battuta posted:

Huh, interesting. This is (adapted from?) a short story by science fiction/fantasy author Catherynne Valente. ~~I wonder how it ended up online with no attribution~~ well some googling solved that

Do you have a link to the short story at all? I'd google, but it's 3 in the morning here and :effort:

# ? May 30, 2015 03:02

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# ? Jun 4, 2024 08:20

Dr. Video Games 0081: Jan 19, 2005

How is it possibly easier to post than google

# ? May 30, 2015 06:21

Ernie Muppari: Aug 4, 2012; Keep this up G'Bert, and soon you won't have a pigeon to protect!

Dr. Video Games 0081 posted:

How is it possibly easier to post than google

not all of us can be a doctor of video games

# ? May 30, 2015 07:21

Mx.: Dec 16, 2006; I'm a great fan! When I watch TV I'm always saying "That's political correctness gone mad!"
Why thankyew!

Does that help?

# ? May 30, 2015 07:30

Kugyou no Tenshi: Nov 8, 2005; We can't keep the crowd waiting, can we?

Invisible Games is one of Valente's projects. That's actually the original appearance of Killswitch, before the short story collection. Only the copy on Creepypasta.com was published without authorization.

EDIT: And has since been pulled from Creepypasta.

# ? May 30, 2015 07:40

Centripetal Horse: Nov 22, 2009; Fuck money, get GBS

This could have bought you a half a tank of gas, lmfao -
Love, gromdul

MissEchelon posted:

Does that help?

It helps me be unreasonably angry that a professional writer misspelled "plagiarized."

I still like the story, though.

# ? May 30, 2015 09:37

Luigi's Discount Porn Bin: Jul 19, 2000; Oven Wrangler

Centripetal Horse posted:

It helps me be unreasonably angry that a professional writer misspelled "plagiarized."

I still like the story, though.

That's the British spelling.

# ? May 30, 2015 11:01

Khazar-khum: Oct 22, 2008; Cat Army
2nd Battalion

Aesop Poprock posted:

There were still places police were raiding because of pinball in the late 70s

edit: and apparently Nashville still had a ban on children under 18 even being within 10 feet of a pinball machine up until a few years back, and it's still illegal to play pinball on Sunday in Ocean City NJ

That's because pinball was considered a gambling game. It was eventually reclassified from a Game of Chance to a Game of Skill.

In college I worked at a pinball arcade. I got pretty good. This spring my 14 year old nephew wanted to play me on a new game at the Kum and Go. I hadn't played on an actual machine since the 90s.

He found out that you can win games, that you really can get your name up on the scoreboard, that you most certainly can aim the ball, and that you can play multiball. Poor kid didn't even know what 'match' meant.

# ? May 30, 2015 11:12

Loomer: Dec 19, 2007; A Very Special Hell

Luigi's Discount Porn Bin posted:

That's the British spelling.

Whatever you say, greenman.

# ? May 30, 2015 11:24

A Pinball Wizard: Mar 23, 2005; I know every trick, no freak's gonna beat my hands; College Slice

Khazar-khum posted:

He found out that you can win games, that you really can get your name up on the scoreboard, that you most certainly can aim the ball, and that you can play multiball.

I still refuse to believe any of that is true.

# ? May 30, 2015 12:02

Chicken Butt: Oct 27, 2010

A Pinball Wizard posted:

I still refuse to believe any of that is true.

Agreed -- there has to be a twist.

# ? May 30, 2015 12:41

TheKennedys: Sep 23, 2006; By my hand, I will take you from this godforsaken internet

Chicken Butt posted:

Agreed -- there has to be a twist.

You have to have a very supple wrist.

# ? May 30, 2015 15:40

Bobby Digital: Sep 4, 2009

Luigi's Discount Porn Bin posted:

That's the British spelling.

That's 'plagiourised'.

# ? May 30, 2015 16:13

A Pinball Wizard: Mar 23, 2005; I know every trick, no freak's gonna beat my hands; College Slice

Chicken Butt posted:

Agreed -- there has to be a twist.

TheKennedys posted:

You have to have a very supple wrist.

No, the trick is to play by sense of smell.

Unrelated: I know the Max Headroom signal intrusion has been posted before, but this article has some interesting new information on the case toward the end.

# ? May 30, 2015 16:46

BENGHAZI 2: Oct 13, 2007; by Cyrano4747

A Pinball Wizard posted:

No, the trick is to play by sense of smell.

Unrelated: I know the Max Headroom signal intrusion has been posted before, but this article has some interesting new information on the case toward the end.

Fucker

# ? May 30, 2015 18:44

Centripetal Horse: Nov 22, 2009; Fuck money, get GBS

This could have bought you a half a tank of gas, lmfao -
Love, gromdul

A Pinball Wizard posted:

Unrelated: I know the Max Headroom signal intrusion has been posted before, but this article has some interesting new information on the case toward the end.

This is pretty great.

# ? May 30, 2015 20:31

Randalor: Sep 4, 2011

A Pinball Wizard posted:

No, the trick is to play by sense of smell.

Unrelated: I know the Max Headroom signal intrusion has been posted before, but this article has some interesting new information on the case toward the end.

The awful app and Safari seem to hate that link. Can someone post a summary for those of us on phones?

# ? May 30, 2015 20:46

13Pandora13: Nov 5, 2008; I've got tiiits that swingle dangle dingle

Randalor posted:

The awful app and Safari seem to hate that link. Can someone post a summary for those of us on phones?

Eh, not really.

# ? May 30, 2015 20:47

Bobby Digital: Sep 4, 2009

Randalor posted:

The awful app and Safari seem to hate that link. Can someone post a summary for those of us on phones?

I managed to copy and paste this from the Awful app.

quote:

On 22 November 1987, sports anchor Dan Roan of Chicago's WGN-TV News Network was narrating the video of the day's football highlights when something highly unusual happened. The pictures on the station monitors in the studio suddenly began to jitter and twitch. Across Chicago, countless other televisions did the same, as Dan's clips of the Bears game were lost in a brief flurry of static and replaced with the sinister, grinning visage of Max Headroom. Most viewers were familiar with the techno-stuttering character from the recently canceled television program bearing his name, and from advertisements for the New Coke soft drink. But there was something unsettling and surreal about this rubber-masked imposter.

As a low buzzing sound belched from thousands of televisions throughout Chicago, the intruder's image swayed and wiggled in front of a slowly rotating background. Half a minute later, as suddenly as it had appeared, the strange scene was gone. As Chicago's televisions reverted back to the world of the ordinary, the visibly flustered sports reporter reappeared, and commented, "Well, if you're wondering what happened... so am I."

WGN-TV's on-site technicians neutralized the "pirate" transmission by switching to an alternate transmitter, but the attacker's motives and methods were a mystery. It was not the first time a commercial television broadcast had been commandeered, but very few prior attempts had been successful. The previous year a satellite dish salesman going by the fanciful pseudonym "Captain Midnight" had succeeded in briefly replacing HBO's signal with a complaint about their prices, and earlier in 1987 an employee of the Christian Broadcasting Network had hijacked the Playboy Channel's signal. Both of these prior offenders had clear motives, and the authorities had successfully located and prosecuted the troublemakers. But this new instance of signal hacking was much more perplexing.

The Captain Midnight message
The Captain Midnight message
In spite of the quick actions of WGN-TV engineers, Chicago had not yet seen the last of of this new signal-plundering pirate. Almost exactly two hours after the first unplanned detour from normality, at 11:15pm, viewers of the PBS affiliate WTTW were absorbing an episode of the British sci-fi series Doctor Who when their TV pictures danced sporadically for a moment. With a randomly gyrating panel of corrugated metal used as a backdrop, the unnerving Max Headroom doppelganger launched into an eccentric diatribe in a highly distorted voice. With no engineers on location at the transmission tower, WTTW employees looked on helplessly as the intruder seized control of their broadcast.

One possible transcript follows:

"He's a freaky nerd!"

"This guy's better than Chuck Swirsky." (a WGN -TV sportscaster at the time)

"Oh Jesus!"

"Catch the wave." (a reference to the New Coke marketing slogan)

"Your love is fading."

(hums the theme song to the 1959 TV series "Clutch Cargo")

"I stole CBS."

(unintelligible)

"Oh, I just made a giant masterpiece printed all over the greatest world newspaper nerds."

"My brother is wearing the other one."

"It's dirty."

"They're coming to get me!"

This symphony of strangeness reached its crescendo when the rubber-masked imposter dropped his trousers, exposed his backside, and weathered a spirited flyswatter spanking from a female assistant. Moments later the picture went dark, and the surreal signal terminated in a flash of static. Viewers were dumped back into the pedestrian world of Doctor Who as though the bizarre buttocks-swatting incident had never happened. Many were confused and troubled by the display. The following day a number of viewers contacted the station to lodge their complaints regarding the "nudity." In a television interview, one flustered Doctor Who fan summed up his reaction: "I got so upset that I wanted to bust the TV set... I really did."

The Federal Communications Commission and the FBI sprang into action, launching independent pirate-hunting squads to unmask the disturbing messenger. It was clear that the fellow had a rare knack for electronics and microwave equipment. WTTW's uplink antenna was atop the 1,454 foot Sears tower in downtown Chicago, and investigators concluded that the "signal pirate" smothered the legitimate broadcast by sending a more powerful signal to this antenna. According to some experts in broadcasting, a rig of sufficient power could be purchased for about $25,000-- or perhaps rented for a few thousand dollars-- and the disassembled equipment could be transported using a few large suitcases. Agents believed that the perpetrator either beamed his message from the rooftop of an adjacent building, or that he somehow gained access to a powerful ground-based transmitter. But Max had covered his tracks well, there was no clear indication of how he had executed his sophisticated attack.

His motive was even more puzzling than his methods. The enigmatic message may have been due to a grudge against WGN-TV, since the station's call letters stand for "World's Greatest Newspaper," and he makes a reference to "greatest world newspaper nerds"; and he also mentions Chuck Swirsky, another WGN sports reporter at the time. But given the resources and risks involved in commandeering a commercial signal, the message seems disproportionate. At that time, the law allowed for a maximum penalty of $100,000 and one year in prison for such signal piracy. Perhaps the intrusion was merely a proof-of-concept-- a precursor of future ambitions-- or perhaps there is more meaning to the message than what is immediately evident. The Max Headroom television show had been set in a post-apocalyptic future where evil television corporations controlled the world, and freedom fighters spread their messages by zipping their pirate signal into live television feeds, and this subtle social commentary was not lost on investigators.

Whatever the impostor's intentions, he certainly took significant risks to bring his nebulous message to the televisions of Chicago. The exhaustive investigations by the three-letter agencies turned up nothing substantial, and over time the FCC and FBI resigned their manhunts without any significant insight into who he was, how he did it, or why. To this day the unexplained transmission of 22 November 1987 remains an historic curiosity, since it represents the last such signal of its kind... no other instance of a complete hijacking of a commercial broadcast has occurred in the US in the twenty years since. For now the mysterious masked Max Headroom lookalike remains at large, but his backside may never truly be safe from the mighty flyswatter of justice.

Article written by Alan Bellows, published on 09 January 2007. Alan is the founder/designer/head writer/managing editor of drat Interesting.

# ? May 30, 2015 21:24

InediblePenguin: Sep 27, 2004; I'm strong. And a giant penguin. Please don't eat me. No, really. Don't try.

the link pops up static and a picture of max headroom n poo poo on a browser (no audio for me thankfully)

# ? May 30, 2015 21:30

A Pinball Wizard: Mar 23, 2005; I know every trick, no freak's gonna beat my hands; College Slice

Randalor posted:

The awful app and Safari seem to hate that link. Can someone post a summary for those of us on phones?

Weird, works fine for me on android. Maybe try a different browser?

# ? May 30, 2015 22:09

Dr. Benway: Dec 9, 2005; We can't stop here! This is bat country!

Guess it could be considered Scary and Unnerving for a small group of people:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_signal_intrusion#Other_incidents

The EAS one seems awfully risky for the sake of a joke. I did find it funny though.

Dr. Benway has a new favorite as of 22:47 on May 30, 2015

# ? May 30, 2015 22:43

13Pandora13: Nov 5, 2008; I've got tiiits that swingle dangle dingle

A Pinball Wizard posted:

Weird, works fine for me on android. Maybe try a different browser?

This problem is a lack of Flash :negative:

# ? May 30, 2015 22:53

Minarchist: Mar 5, 2009; by WE B Bourgeois

Dr. Benway posted:

Guess it could be considered Scary and Unnerving for a small group of people:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_signal_intrusion#Other_incidents

The EAS one seems awfully risky for the sake of a joke. I did find it funny though.

There was (allegedly) a pirate transmission on the USAF Nuclear Command frequency that was an encoded image of Le Happy Merchant and LIAR written in 5 languages.

tagged nws since ED is sketchy sometimes

:nws:

https://encyclopediadramatica.se/July_29_Merchant_broadcast :nws:

Taking over the USAF radio must have taken a LOT of power, or was being broadcast from somewhere too close to the antenna.

# ? May 30, 2015 23:30

Zero One: Dec 30, 2004; HAIL TO THE VICTORS!

Cooper0302 posted:

Hi guys, new here, hope this hasn't got a mention before. I've read the whole of the old thread and 20 pages into this one and haven't seen it yet so fingers crossed.

This is a story about a group of friends who went for a fun day caving in the Nutty Putty Caves. I guess some folks enjoy crawling around through spaces tight enough to prevent you from taking a deep breath.... Anyway, it didn't end well. The Wikipedia entry is sparse so have a read of this instead.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50073473-76/john-cave-tunnel-josh.html.csp

This quite literally gave me nightmares when I saw it dramatised on one of those Weird Ways to Die type of programs.

I found the cave's website. They collected all the emails people sent complaining that they closed the cave because someone died and his body is still there: http://www.nuttyputtycave.com/MLSave

# ? May 31, 2015 04:29

Khazar-khum: Oct 22, 2008; Cat Army
2nd Battalion

Chicken Butt posted:

Agreed -- there has to be a twist.

I can't help it if you don't know how to play pinball.

Nutty Putty Cave is horrifying.

# ? May 31, 2015 08:26

Prokhor Zakharov: Dec 31, 2008; This is me as I make another great post

Good luck with your depression!

bean_shadow posted:

The arcade game "Polybius". There's no evidence this game existed at all but it's still a creepy urban legend, complete with insanity and shady Men in Black coming around to get information from the machines:.

I can confirm that this is bullshit. As someone who was a young child in 80s Portland I can definitively say that there were zero arcades in the suburbs.

# ? May 31, 2015 10:45

GIANT OUIJA BOARD: Aug 22, 2011; 177 Years of Your Dick
All
Night
Non
Stop

Khazar-khum posted:

I can't help it if you don't know how to play pinball.

Nutty Putty Cave is horrifying.

But can you see the lights a-flashing? Can you hear the buzzers and bells?

# ? May 31, 2015 11:01

The Mighty Moltres: Dec 21, 2012; Come! We must fly!

Even on my favourite table can you beat my best?

# ? May 31, 2015 13:57

Karma Monkey: Sep 6, 2005; I MAKE BAD POSTING DECISIONS

Maybe he plays by sense of smell.

# ? May 31, 2015 14:16

bean_shadow: Sep 27, 2005; If men had uteruses they'd be called duderuses.

A Pinball Wizard posted:

No, the trick is to play by sense of smell.

Unrelated: I know the Max Headroom signal intrusion has been posted before, but this article has some interesting new information on the case toward the end.

Fun Fact: At the very bottom it says "Suggested By: ESJ". That's me. Seriously.

# ? May 31, 2015 15:22

Cooper0302: May 25, 2015

Khazar-khum posted:

I can't help it if you don't know how to play pinball.

Nutty Putty Cave is horrifying.

But Nutty Putty Cave sounds so sweet and innocent. A nice place to spend a day out with your friends.

Until it eats you and refuses to spit you out.

I'm still having nightmares about the dramatisation of that whole adventure ffs!

# ? May 31, 2015 19:24

Dr. Benway: Dec 9, 2005; We can't stop here! This is bat country!

For whatever reason, spelunkers have an odd obsession with food. See: cave bacon and popcorn.

Might have something to do with starving to death while trapped in tight spaces.

# ? May 31, 2015 19:31

Mr. Gibbycrumbles: Aug 30, 2004; Do you think your paladin sword can defeat me?

En garde, I'll let you try my Wu-Tang style

Dr. Benway posted:

For whatever reason, spelunkers have an odd obsession with food. See: cave bacon and popcorn.

Might have something to do with starving to death while trapped in tight spaces.

Bacon? Check.
Popcorn? Check.
A tendency to confine themselves in small, dark crevices, isolated from the outside world? Check.

Spelunkers and Goons have much in common, it would seem.

# ? May 31, 2015 19:42

blunt for century: Jul 4, 2008; I've got a bone to pick.

Mr. Gibbycrumbles posted:

Bacon? Check.
Popcorn? Check.
A tendency to confine themselves in small, dark crevices, isolated from the outside world? Check.

Spelunkers and Goons have much in common, it would seem.

I wasn't familiar with cave bacon, so I googled it. It actually looks remarkably similar to bacon. Huh.

# ? May 31, 2015 19:44

Buh: May 17, 2008

Someone shared a plausible-sounding anecdote of the Max Headroom perpatrator on reddit a few years back. No proof, but I buy the explanation of his motive.

# ? May 31, 2015 23:36

Karma Monkey: Sep 6, 2005; I MAKE BAD POSTING DECISIONS

blunt for century posted:

I wasn't familiar with cave bacon, so I googled it. It actually looks remarkably similar to bacon. Huh.

Actually, it looks just like that fake vegetarian bacon. That cinches it. gently caress caves.

# ? Jun 1, 2015 01:08

RoyKeen: Jul 24, 2007; Grimey Drawer

Cave bacon sounds like a gross euphemism.

# ? Jun 1, 2015 01:10

Freudian: Mar 23, 2011

Omnishambles posted:

Cave bacon sounds like a gross euphemism.

I could go for some Jolly Ranchers right now.

# ? Jun 1, 2015 01:19

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# ? Jun 4, 2024 08:20

BattyKiara: Mar 17, 2009

I'm looking for a more freaky than scary thing. I'm sure I've seen something about freak weather causing telly signals from England being picked up in America, in 1937. I think it was a mix of a cartoon and some kind of play. There was no sound, only badly tuned images.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

# ? Jun 5, 2015 19:14

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > PYF unnerving article or story: Why is everything always so fucking weird

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