* Posts by julian abbs

20 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Aug 2014

Epic payment: Fortnite maker pays record $520m to settle FTC case

julian abbs

Re: Is it only me...

"Have you ever been chased down 5th ave by irate rubes and a couple of cops?

Of course you would choose to work for Epic."

Translation:

"Have you ever suffered the consequences of being a card shark on the streets of New York?

Working for Epic would of course be an improvement on that."

Shee, you guys are so unhip it's a wonder your bums don't fall off.

Astroboffins baffled as black hole at center of Milky Way suddenly a lot hungrier than before

julian abbs

you get string

Apple strips clips of WWDC devs booing that $999 monitor stand from the web using copyright claims. Fear not, you can listen again here...

julian abbs

Re: Streisand Effect

The Internet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDbyYGrswtg

Fancy a .dev domain? They were $12,500 a pop from Google. Now, $1,000. Soon, $17.50. And you may want one

julian abbs

Re: Spam coming soon

I assume you mean typos?

Unless you are talking about something belonging to typo, or something typo is doing...

Japanese astronomers find tiniest Kuiper Belt object yet – using cheap 'scopes and off-the-shelf CMOS cameras

julian abbs

small? or far away?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMiKyfd6hA0

Supreme Court tells Big Cable to shut up for once: Net neutrality challenge shot down

julian abbs

Re: Grammar Police

I’m bored of morons like you who try to assert control over the development of the English language by insisting on the use of archaic forms while railing against modern usage. Get over yourself, you don’t own English and your opinions about what is or isn’t correct usage have about as much value as the opinion of any other self-important twat.

Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired for opposing hiring caps on white, Asian male nerds

julian abbs

Re: Reverse discrimination is now political correctness.

well said tfb, i only wish i could upvote you more, interesting to see those who are prepared to put their own names or handles to their opinions here isn't it...

The idea that hiring people has ever been about merit is laughable, at best it's a box ticking exercise where the relationship between the boxes to be ticked and the requirements of the role are nebulous to say the least, and since that's the case why not add a few boxes so that at least you're not hiring people just because they look, talk and think the same as you

Why is Wikipedia man Jimbo Wales keynoting a fake news conference?

julian abbs

well i fucking love wikipedia

a free and open source of knowledge that i can correct as i see fit when i see fit*, however wrong it might be in certain instances and tribal it might be in others...

to those of you hiding behind online anonymity to assert that you tried to edit something, and were right because authority... i say, give us the name of the article and the fact you tried to correct, lets all go and look at what it says now, and argue about who is right because that's it's fucking beauty

*i never see fit to edit, though i do occasionally correct spelling which is amusing 'cause i can't spell for shit and punctuate with a shotgun

We're doing SETI the wrong and long way around, say boffins

julian abbs

Krikkit

For a while they flew on, motionless against the starry sweep of the Galaxy, itself motionless against the infinite sweep of the Universe. And then they turned round.

"It'll have to go,"

Did you know ... Stephen Fry has founded a tech startup?

julian abbs

Re: well i like him

i wanted to go for

Stephen:

"So, in a sense, in a sense, in a sense, Duncan, we are left with those two. Two. None other. Nary another, not one other more. We have, on the one side of the divide, the gulf, the chasm, the DIVIDING LINE, if you please, we have the beauty of ideas, and on the other, the other side, oh, I don't know, the other term of the equation if that's nicer, we have the idea of beauty. Am I sensing through? Am I connecting?"

Hugh glances at the camera in friendly fashion....

but i would have had to post the entire set if i did that

julian abbs

well i like him

i particularly remember

"Imagine a piano keyboard, eighty-eight keys, only eighty-eight and yet, and yet, new tunes, melodies, harmonies are being composed upon hundreds of keyboards every day in Dorset alone. Our language, Tiger, our language, hundreds of thousands of available words, frillions of possible legitimate new ideas, so that I can say this sentence and be confident it has never been uttered before in the history of human communication: "Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers." One sentence, common words, but never before placed in that order. And yet, oh and yet, all of us spend our days saying the same things to each other, time after weary time, living by clichaic, learned response: "I love you", "Don't go in there", "You have no right to say that", "shut up", "I'm hungry", "that hurt", "why should I?", "it's not my fault", "help", "Marjorie is dead". You see? That surely is a thought to take out for a cream tea on a rainy Sunday afternoon."

Hugh looks at camera, opens mouth as if to speak, decides against it.

TalkTalk admits losing £60m and 101,000 customers after THAT hack

julian abbs
Alien

Re: £60m

"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"

"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."

"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."

"I did," said Ford. "It is."

"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"

"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."

"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"

"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"

Woman dumps ultra-rare $200,000 Apple 1 computer in the trash

julian abbs

i assume you mean an Atari 800XL, i beat mine to death with it's own joystick when i failed to load gauntlet once too often

Why are all the visual special effects studios going bust?

julian abbs

Re: Seems to me that a rarity...

the recent Dredd was indeed even worse than the sylvester stalone version, two hours of my life that i'm never going to get back.

which reminds me i still owe a punch in the face to the person who recommended it to me. If you're reading this could you meet me on the terrace...

Drinking games: Tapper 1983, this Bud's for you...

julian abbs

i got tapper as a christmas present in one year

worst present ever (including the years where i got nothing), i still feel the same sense of outrage i felt then that anyone i was related to could possibly think i would like it

French Google fund to pay for 1 million print run of Charlie Hebdo next week

julian abbs

Re: Well done Google fund

indeed, we are not afraid

When algorithms ATTACK: Facebook sez soz for tacky 'Year in Review' FAIL

julian abbs

have an upvote, you talk some sense

El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

julian abbs

it was a bit of a shock, coming as it did on top of the guardian redesign i felt overwhelmed... (that's not sarcasm, sadly) it is a bit bright too, was the logo really that red before?

julian abbs

i like it

not a lot, but it's ok

however despite many years of reading the register i have to say i hadn't quite realised what a miserable whining bunch of entitled bastards my fellow commentards are, so you have my sympathy there...

p.s. One issue (forgive me if it's been mentioned before, i lost the will to live after the first page of whinging) is that the site search overlaps the link to "WEEKEND EDITION" in the nav when active

Goog says patch⁵⁰ your Chrome

julian abbs

how do you do the superscript "⁵⁰"

in windows, i can do "²" and "³" (alt+numpad"+"+numpad"0178" for "²") but i can't seem to reproduce other superscript characters without copying and pasting

sorry if it's off topic but enquiring minds want to know