14 March 2020 | New Scientist | 53The back pages Feedback
Thou shalt not troll
Social media can be a really
unpleasant environment for anyone
who isn’t a bot, a troll or a GIF of
a piano-playing cat. That’s why
Feedback welcomes any influencer
who steps up and asks for their
followers to adopt a kinder, gentler
attitude towards their fellow users.
Take one Italian Twitter user –
@Pontifex – who goes by the
real-life name of Pope Francis.
He has been flying the flag
recently for good behaviour online,
for which we applaud him.
In a recent Ash Wednesday address,
for example, (sort of like a long,
in-person TikTok routine) he urged
the world’s Catholics to give up
social media trolling for Lent.
“We live in an atmosphere
polluted by too much verbal
violence, too many offensive
and harmful words, which are
amplified by the internet,” he
said, according to Reuters.
The period leading up to Easter, is
therefore a time to give up “useless
words”, “gossip”, “rumours”, and
“tittle-tattle”, said Francis.
This is sound advice that
Feedback may also try to follow for
Lent. Although we suspect we may
quickly run out of things to write.
Come on, surely a little bit of
tittle-tattle is OK?
No bad apples
If you want to pass for a good guy
from a movie or TV show, then buy
yourself an Apple product. Be it an
iMac, AirPods or Apple Watch, the
corporate giant’s gizmos aren’t
just high-end technological tools,
but proof positive that, if you were
a character in a cinematic work of
fiction, you would be on the side
of the angels.
This advice comes courtesy of
Rian Johnson, director of the hit
film Knives Out, who revealed in a
recent interview with Vanity Fair
that Apple is very particular about
product placement. In essence, he
said, “bad guys cannot have
iPhones on camera”.
Apart from making the identity
of murderers in detective movies
rip-off of John Cage’s Zen-like
silent audio spectacular 4’33”?
As more and more music is
produced by more and more
people, it strikes Feedback as
mathematically inevitable that
certain combinations of notes
will come up again and again.
Even if not all of them are
instantly hummable, whistleable
or – Feedback’s personal
favourite – kazooable.
Most of the time, of course,
nobody notices or indeed cares.
But if the producer of tune A is a
well-known creator of music with
substantial record sales and an
attentive legal team, and producer
of tune B is a relative newcomer
with a strangely familiar hit, then
things can get unpleasant fast.
It was in an attempt to minimise
such nastiness that Damien Riehl
and Noah Rubin got involved. This
week, the two released into thepublic domain an algorithmically
generated dataset of every
possible melody. Or, at least,
the 68 billion or so melodies
consisting of 8 notes in a
particular octave starting from
middle C and lasting for 12 beats.
So, not every possible melody at
all, really. But we digress.
The purpose of this act of
generosity was to try to set a legal
precedent. If all melodies are in
the public domain, then none can
be copyrighted, and if none can
be copyrighted, then musicians
should feel free to compose their
oeuvre without fear of litigation.
It is an interesting idea, but one
that’s unlikely to stand up in court.
Still, Feedback foresees ample
scope for a similar wheeze in print.
Bung together the 26 letters in all
possible 860-word combinations
and we won’t have to work for a
year. Brilliant. ❚ridiculously easy to guess (“swab
that Samsung S8 for bloodstains”,
“get a search warrant for the
guy using the Huawei”), the
news represents a sad lack of
imagination on the part of
big brands.
After all, real-life villains buy
phones too, don’t they? For one
of the world’s biggest technology
brands to turn its back on such
a large and possibly affluent
constituency seems like a
profound strategic error. Bad
eggs of the world: Feedback
warmly welcomes your
subscription dollars.Bloody cancer
As Feedback recalls from bitter
personal experience, working in
public relations can be something
of a mixed bag. Sure, you get the
occasional freebie and glamorous
drinks reception, but you also have
to send emails to irritable journalists
just waiting to make a fool of you at
the drop of a hat.
On which note, we would like to
thank a colleague for forwarding us
the following email sent out by an
anonymous representative from the
PR industry: “I was wondering if you
would be interested in covering the
below announcement from my
client, bloody cancer charity
Anthony Nolan.”
We all occasionally get frustrated
at our employers, anonymous
representative, but we really do
hope they are treating you properly.
Plus, look on the bright side – think
of this valuable free publicity you
have just secured for them!All the tunes
Passing off other people’s work
as your own is a dirty business.
That is why we invented the
word plagiarism to describe it.
But sometimes, reproduction
can be unintentional.
Think of the world of music,
where a half-remembered melody
by one artist often forms the
inspiration for a work by someone
else. Deliberate theft, or accidental
homage? Occasional rest note or aGot a story for Feedback?
Send it to New Scientist, 25 Bedford Street,
London WC2E 9ES or you can email us at
[email protected]Twisteddoodles for New Scientist