AllThingsD » Trent Reznor

New Facebook Profiles Susceptible to Pranks

Liz Gannes — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 22:30:52 +0000

One of the most significant changes in Facebook’s profile page redesign this week was to highlight images–both pictures of users and pictures of their friends. As part of that, users who upgraded to the new profile (more info here) now have a strip of their five most recently tagged photos running right under their basic information.

The crucial feature of Facebook photos is that, by default, friends can tag users in pictures without the users confirming that the pictures are actually of them. So with the new layout, friends can decide what pictures show at the top of a person’s profile. And for the more creative, they have five concatenated pictures in which to do so.

Facebook users are already having fun with this option, pranking each other to show inappropriate pictures and silly sequences of words. BuzzFeed ran an NSFW example of this earlier this week, with one of its users apparently pulling the suggested prank on the Facebook of a fellow named Trent Reznor.

Users worried about their profiles being hijacked for everyone to see can change their privacy settings. (For instance, a user can limit who is allowed to see other people’s photos she is tagged in.)

Top image by BuzzFeed user shwagner.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook on my ethics page.

Scoring "The Social Network"

Jim Fusilli — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 07:00:27 +0000

For the movie “The Social Network,” composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross were challenged to score a film with a complex emotional range but little action, only a whiff of violence and no traditional love story: It’s about starting a business that manufactures nothing. No major character, including Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, is fully formed in the film, because “The Social Network” is populated by narcissistic youths who lack empathy, honor and an adult worldview.

Despite these obstacles, the movie pulses with skittish tension, dry wit and bipolar energy, all of which is intensified by the music of Mr. Reznor, who’s best known as the founder of Nine Inch Nails, and Mr. Ross, who’s worked behind the scenes on several NIN albums. At times, the score seems to provide commentary and, ultimately, a moral judgment about the characters’ activities and missing values. (It’s available as a digital download for $5 at Mr. Reznor’s www.nullco.com.)

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You'll Walk Out Humming "The Gentle Hum of Anxiety"

Voices — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 19:40:47 +0000

The soundtrack to “The Social Network,” created by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, will go on sale digitally on Sept. 28 and in other formats shortly thereafter, and it doesn’t sound like it will do anything to brighten the dark portrayal of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. Reznor describes the music as “electronic in basis, but mostly organic sounding. Lots of experiments and emphasis on sound fraying around the edges….” Among the 19 tracks: “Hand Covers Bruise,” “It Catches Up With You,” “On We March,” “The Gentle Hum of Anxiety” and “Soft Trees Break the Fall.”