麻豆传媒

Box of delights

Feedback isn鈥檛 yet on TikTok, but we can only assume our bite-size attempts at what passes for humour would go down a storm on the social media platform for the hard of attention, if only we could work out how to open the box.

Actually, opening the box is apparently a thing on TikTok, at least if a PR puff shoved under our door by a colleague with a bemused mien is anything to go by.

鈥淥ne of social media鈥檚 biggest trends is a simple phenomenon known as 鈥榰nboxing鈥� whereby influencers present packaged products before carefully unpacking them via meticulously crafted videos,鈥� it trills. This provides businesses with 鈥渆ndless opportunities for their brand鈥檚 packaging to be showcased to a potential audience of millions鈥�.

The science bit is apparently combining unboxing with the craze for gentle whispering videos designed to elicit the brain-tingling 鈥渁utonomous sensory meridian response鈥�, or ASMR. Feedback remembers reading about ASMR in these very pages (3 November 2018, p 35). Many fruitless hours of trying to induce a 鈥渂rain orgasm鈥� by watching videos of people folding towels followed.

But here we have an iteration. 鈥淭he idea of combining the relaxation of ASMR and the satisfying feeling of seeing a product being unpacked from its packaging sounds like 鈥� and looks to be 鈥� a recipe for success,鈥� our source continues.

We unsuccessfully resist the urge to be reminded of our literary hero and muse, the old grey donkey Eeyore, when he was presented with a burst balloon and a Useful Pot on his birthday following a series of implausible accidents only possible when you live in a rather boggy and sad place. 鈥淓eyore wasn鈥檛 listening. He was taking the balloon out, and putting it back again, as happy as could be鈥︹��

Feedback鈥檚 stationery cupboard isn鈥檛 boggy, at least, and it does provide ample material to join in the new craze. Expect our TikTok debut soon, sensuously unpacking A4 padded envelopes and removing ink cartridges from their boxes. If you are lucky, we may pop some bubble wrap for you, too.

Pushing pencils

Talking stationery, an alarming sign has been spotted in the Derwent Pencil Museum in Keswick, UK: 鈥�14,000,000,000 pencils are made every year and these would be able to circumnavigate the world 62 times.鈥� Our correspondent is right to say many questions spring to mind, such as 鈥淚n what?鈥� and 鈥淲ho, or what, stopped them?鈥�.

Barring a hastily arranged defensive shield of sharpeners to arrest the march of the pencils, we suspect they simply got worn down over time. But licking the end of our pencil with more than usual circumspection, we do some quick calculations of our own on the back of an envelope (A5, non-padded). If the width of a pencil is 5 millimetres, and Earth鈥檚 circumference 40,000 kilometres, then 14 billion pencils circumnavigating the world upright in lockstep would form a front that would circum鈥� errrm鈥� scribe? the world one and three-quarter times. True fact.

For that one, our thanks to Jane, whose pencil was presumably up and out the door to see the world with a handkerchief tied around its end before she could write her surname.

Catch 鈥檈m if you can

Carl Zetie writes in pointing to the website of Neutrino Energy, which he uncharitably, if perhaps not entirely wrongly, describes as the 鈥渇ruitloopiest website of the year鈥�, a possibly unique collaboration of German precision engineering and Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University that promises to solve the climate crisis and break our dependence on fossil fuels by generating energy from the 鈥渢rillions of neutrinos wastefully sleeting through our planet every second鈥�, as Carl puts it.

鈥淪top. Think. Reflect.鈥�, the website urges. Alright then. Regular readers of this magazine will have noted that mention of the word 鈥渘eutrino鈥� within these pages rarely comes without the attendant adjectives 鈥済hostly鈥� or 鈥渆lusive鈥�. Our current attempts to capture their essence come largely in the form of vast detectors that represent a significant net burden on the global energy system, not that Feedback is complaining.

That suggests an ambition in Neutrino Energy that, while noble, may be overreaching, a suspicion not diminished by the company also promising 鈥渋mmortal awareness, victory over death, and new non violent technological attainments鈥� and a new age of 鈥渟hared mental, intellectual & material abundance鈥�.

鈥淢any groups worldwide are working quietly to harness this energy source,鈥� the site assures. This is certainly the loudest assertion of the viability of neutrino power that we have seen.

While we don鈥檛 discount the possibility that somewhere up there, some civilisation may have mastered the dark arts of neutrino capture, we are forced to the conclusion that it isn鈥檛 yet one for us. Best stick to photons for the moment: there are more of them, and we know where they are.

Because you insist鈥�

Too many of you have now drawn our attention to Digby Growns, senior plant breeder at the Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority in Perth, Western Australia. Over and out.

Got a story for Feedback?

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