
Africa by Toto to play on eternal loop 'down in Africa' - rmason
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46861137
======
sgt
That installation won't even last a week before being destroyed by weather.
Cool concept though, but I was expecting a bit more than just a few tiny
speakers and a wire.

~~~
vertexFarm
"Mr Siedentopf says he hopes the song will play for another 55 million years."

I think I can hear the engineers over at the Long Now foundation pissing their
pants with laughter: [http://longnow.org/clock/](http://longnow.org/clock/)

They are _only_ aiming for 10,000 years. A walk in the park compared to this
apparently godlike and immutable mp3 player atop a painted plywood box. Has
this guy even heard of atomic diffusion? Not like it'll last long enough for
that to even come close to becoming a relevant factor.

Where do people get this idea that machines are eternal? It's outrageously
rare to find a machine more complex than an adjustable wrench that lasts half
a lifetime, let alone surpasses generations, but in nearly all of fiction
machines are portrayed as ageless things that dwarf our puny lifespans as
fragile meat-beings. It's simply not true.

This is a weird tangent, sorry for derailing.

~~~
jpindar
It's not rare to find a 50 year old car or motorcycle. Did you mean something
that functions for that long without maintenance?

~~~
vertexFarm
It's pretty rare if you consider it percentage wise, as in proportion to all
the vehicles on the road. Because there's so many hundreds of cars we
encounter every single commute, even small percentages are reliably
represented which makes rare things seem commonplace--after all, you see them
every day. But the percentage of cars and motorcycles on the road that are
older than fifty is still pretty dang low. Rare isn't the same as nonexistent,
after all. I believe the average age of a vehicle on the road in the US is
around eleven years, which is a record high.

My BMW R50/5 just turned 47, getting real close to that over-the-hill party.
I'm planning to buy it a cake in a few years, plus I've got the parts for a
top-end reseal. Going to be real classy. Definitely looking forward to it.

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trimbo
> The 1982 track is quadruple platinum, and was the most streamed song in
> 2017, with over 440m views on YouTube

That can't be right. Despacito has 5.9bn views on Youtube now and came out in
January, 2017.

~~~
hk__2
Strangely, it links to an article [1] that says “It was _one of_ the most
streamed songs in 2017” (emphasis mine), not the most streamed one.

[https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-45810659](https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-45810659)

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sneakernets
I bet this thing will be rickrolling the desert in a few weeks.

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microtherion
Hasn't this continent suffered enough already?

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john_alan
It will be functional for about a week.

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hnburnsy
Looks like Mr. Siedentopf is safe as none of the PROs[1] seem to collect
royalties in Africa. I'd hate to get the bill for a perpetual public
performance license fee.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_rights_organisatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_rights_organisation#International)

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tim333
The artist has been amusing himself in London too
[https://news.artnet.com/art-world/tate-modern-viewing-
platfo...](https://news.artnet.com/art-world/tate-modern-viewing-platform-
binoculars-1395007)

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clamprecht
The Weezer remake is really good too, and Weird Al is in the video. How can
you beat that?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk5Dwg5zm2U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk5Dwg5zm2U)

~~~
petecox
I'm partial to Leo Moracchioli's metal version, myself.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH9FyLsfDzw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH9FyLsfDzw)

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mothsonasloth
The wiring detracts from the overall presentation of the art piece.

Cool idea though

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bryanrasmussen
there's quite a distance between that and the serengeti which was somewhere in
the lyrics, so what I mean is I think this might be at the wrong place.

~~~
saghm
The lyrics also mention Mount Kilimanjaro and (in a metaphorical sense) Mount
Olympus. I think it's probably generous to assume that the lyricist had a
specific place in mind :)

~~~
bryanrasmussen
Serengeti National Park and Mount Kilimanjaro are both in Tanzania though.

Metaphorical Mount Olympus must lie in every human heart.

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kahlonel
First time I heard this song in a Family Guy episode. Have it in my playlist
ever since.

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andrewstuart
It's running on eternal loop in my head since i read this.

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matte_black
How would you better engineer this instead for it to actually last 55 million
years?

Edit: For the defeatists, I meant if you had access to all the Earth's
resources and the full effort of mankind.

~~~
ajuc
Make a sphere from glass that is hard to scratch. Put everything inside,
including the solar panels and the speakers (make the speakers touch the
sphere surface so you can hear it from outside).

Sphere should be mosty empty so that it has lower density than sand - it will
float on it no matter how the dunes change.

Add small electric engines that rotate against the sphere in 2 axis, that will
move the sphere back to its desired geographic position slowly.

~~~
sametmax
The mp3 player itselft won't last 55 milions years. It will break way before.
And be buried in the sand by the first sand storm, no matter how flotty the
sphere is. Footballs get buried in the desert, no matter how light they are.
Source: I lived in Bamako.

~~~
ajuc
I think if it moved a little every so often it would get unburied. But I don't
live near a desert so maybe I'm wrong.

~~~
sametmax
You will have so many sand storms in 55 millions of years. And one is enough.

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andybak
Naysayers aside ("it won't last a week"? How about the healing power of music
you cynics...)

What I want to know - who's going to sort out the mess this is going to cause
with streaming fees?

~~~
freehunter
If I play a song from a legally-owned MP3 in public but no one is around to
hear it, do I have to pay licensing fees for a public performance?

~~~
schoen
"To perform or display a work “publicly” means—

(1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place
where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family
and its social acquaintances is gathered; or

(2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work
to a place specified by clause (1) or to the public, by means of any device or
process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the
performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and
at the same time or at different times."

17 USC §101

(note that this doesn't appear to answer your question!)

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Is this Namibian law?

~~~
schoen
Nope, that's a great point!

Here's the Namibian copyright act from 1994

[https://laws.parliament.na/cms_documents/copyright-and-
neigh...](https://laws.parliament.na/cms_documents/copyright-and-neighbouring-
rights-protection-7133f08250.pdf)

which does include an exclusive right to "perform in public" a copyrighted
work, and doesn't seem to further define or clarify this concept.

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ams6110
Cross that off my list of places to visit. One of my most hated songs of all
time.

