"This brought him into contact with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. Despite his fame, his accountant did not allow Page to have much money, so he approached Magee for a loan to buy an esoteric bookstore. The loan was never repaid."<p>I hope to have one paragraph in my obit as cool as that.
The Register is one of the few websites on the internet which makes tech articles worth reading. They make the reader realize the significance of tech, who might otherwise pass it off as nuances which only nerds should be aware of.
I love El Reg, and have really appreciated that it has aged gracefully, unlike most of its contemporaries. The staff are <i>really</i> knowledgable, and that isn't always apparent, from their casual approach. I learn a lot from that redtop.<p>His story is pretty much classic.<p><i>The Inquirer</i> was also quite enjoyable.<p>I like that Simon Travaglia is still penning his BOFH series. I have followed him since the 1980s.
The Register is one of the few great iconoclastically cool news sites I am truly fond of and respect, in the company of Suck.com, FuckedCompany.com, and Morph's Output on the Information Superhighway. But unlike those historic news sites of yore, it's still somehow managed to say in business, and remains relevant and interesting, after all these years.
I’ve read the register throughout the years but I never thought much about the folks behind it. The obituary tells a wild story that was heartwarmingly written by a friend. Now I’m waiting for the biopic!
> In December 2000, Magee suffered a heart attack and died on the operating table only to revive and being told that he would have to do the same operation in ten years (he didn’t). When he returned to work, he stated publicly that he disagreed with the editorial direction of The Register.<p>thats what you call "a change of heart"
<a href="https://www.theregister.com/2007/04/20/cf-y5_toughbook/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theregister.com/2007/04/20/cf-y5_toughbook/</a> this review of the Panasonic CF-Y5 is one of the highlights of the genre (I had the good luck to own one):<p>> The exterior design of the machine's casing is reminiscent of a Sherman tank cross-bred with a 1970s sports saloon, while the lid opens with the grace of a bank vault door. Yet the designers have managed to make the machine look attractive all the same, the overall effect being what you'd expect from GI Jane in a glittery ball gown.
The fate of journals wax and wane, and for me the apex of el Reg was in the era of Andrew Orlowski and (RIP) Lester Haines (they overlapped). Orlowski knows his computing history and writes really well. Haines wrote not just knowledgeably but with a carefree humour that made you feel like he was smiling with you as you read his work. His loss was a real blow.<p>I still read it regularly, but some of the spirit has gone. But you never know -- someone new could show up and revive that <i>joi deivivre je ne sais quoi</i>. Haines definitely did that when he joined.
Well, he was very, very indirectly a managing director over BOFH. It was just a matter of time.<p>Cheekiness aside, I love what he did for IT and the Internet. I'm sorry to see him go.
"The Rodgister used the slogan "Biting the Hand That Feeds IT" to reflect its"<p>The Rodgister. Is this the fucking Grauniad or el Reg?
I've been reading his drivels (in a good way) since the 90s. God speed "Mad" Mike Magee.<p>Supposingly he was friend with the current CEO of Intel, Pat Gelsinger. In the 90s during a meeting with Intel staff, Magee asked a very uncomfortable question and Gelsinger, then an engineer at Intel, kicked him under the table to stop him.<p>Since then whenever Mike reported news on Gelsinger he would write his name as "Kicking" Pat Gelsinger.<p>Magee also started Charlie Demerjian's career by hiring him as a freelancer at The Inquirer. Demerjian then made a name for himself by being a very accurate pain in the ass for Intel and Nvidia for years to come.
The man who learned basically everything about the technology industry that they didn't want us to know yet in bars outside of tech conventions, and then shared it with us in the very best traditions of tabloid media (which has mostly awful traditions). Spawned his own successor to the Register at The Inquirer and trained writers for an entire genre of spinoff platforms like Fuad Abazovic (Fudzilla) and Charlie Demerjian (SemiAccurate).<p>Dr Thomas Stewart Von Drashek will be organizing the funeral.
A very idiosyncratic house style. Both of headline and flow text. Not always clear. Perhaps as clear as mud. If you don't like puns (I love 'em) it must be a bit of a nightmare.
Up voted and thanks for covering my horror story of being invited to meet Google while along side MIT student's meeting the same R&D team at Google. If they or any tech company invites you to demo demand money upfront or don't go if you are solo inventor (if you are bro(ed) up in Silicon Valley then you might be fine yet the MIT student had connections and...).<p><a href="https://www.theregister.com/2018/11/30/google_stole_my_patent/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theregister.com/2018/11/30/google_stole_my_paten...</a>
The shop didn't last long and only published 2 book, it's now an dentists shop. More info here about the shop and other Page strangeness, including the shop's logo. <a href="https://ledzepnews.com/2024/02/21/the-history-of-jimmy-pages-equinox-occult-bookshop/" rel="nofollow">https://ledzepnews.com/2024/02/21/the-history-of-jimmy-pages...</a>
I knew him a little in his capacity as a mad Hindu cultist. He was mad, Hindu, and a cultist.<p><a href="https://shivashakti.com" rel="nofollow">https://shivashakti.com</a> is where you can find that aspect of his work.
I had a slightly poor experience with El Reg.<p>I had a bit of a story about AWS. I contacted them. There was some interest. I finished the write up (I was investigating an AWS service) and emailed it to the journalist. We'd had a fair bit of email exchange up to that point.<p>Never heard back - at all. Not a peep. I waited two weeks, just for him to reply, then gave up on it and published.<p>I later emailed an editor at El Reg about this, no reply also.<p>Obviously, what El Reg publish or do not publish is completely up to them and I have no issues whatsoever with whether they are interested or not - the only issue here is the silent treatment.<p>Not a big deal at all, but let a faintly bad taste in my mouth. I kinda stopped reading in the end after that. A friend pointed out El Reg run paid infomercial articles from AWS about the very service I investigated, but I have no idea what actually happened.