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'The troll stats saddened me as a human, but didn't surprise me as a boffin'

Plus: Google hands out infinity dollars

QuoTW This week, we saved the internet, screwed up our smart TVs and made absolutely no money from our YouTube accounts. In the process, we uttered some memorable lines.

By far, the big story of the week was the FCC's net neutrality decision. In opting to invoke Title II, the commission will force telcos to treat all internet traffic the same way. The decision, and the implication that the government could hone in on private companies, drew no shortage of comment.

Among those to give their two cents was U.S. President Barak Obama, who offered up the following:

Today's FCC decision will protect innovation and create a level playing field for the next generation of entrepreneurs. I ran for office because I believed that nothing can stand in the way of millions of voices calling for change.

Meanwhile, Microsoft's Charles Morris made the case for scrubbing old versions of Internet Explorer and starting from scratch with Project Spartan:

Our rallying cry for Windows 10 became 'the web just works'.

Yes. Mostly because nobody uses Microsoft's browser any more.

Moving on … there are two things Salesforce chief Marc Benioff does extremely well: run his company, and troll rival tycoon Larry Ellison. This week, he announced a $5.3bn quarter and took the opportunity to jab at his former boss:

Oracle keeps saying they’re growing more quickly than anyone else in the cloud. Well, that’s very easy to do when you’re starting at zero.

For those of us who don't currently sit on the receiving end of a financial firehose, there is always security research. Google recently announced that it was going to lift the limit on payouts for its Pwnium research outfit. The Chocolate Factory's own Tim Willis said:

For those who are interested in what this means for the Pwnium rewards pool, we crunched the numbers and the results are in: it now goes all the way up to $∞ million.

Elsewhere this week, researchers at Ohio State University figured out what Reg commentards knew long ago: the internet can be a very nasty place. A study found that, more often than not, users will sit idly by and watch while their peers are bullied and harangued by others. Researcher Kelly Dillon said:

The results disappointed me as a human, but they didn't surprise me as a scientist.

Let's close on a brighter note, shall we? Reg contributor Mark Pesce shared with us the story of finding out his aunt was a human computer for NASA back in the early days of the space race. The hero auntie said of her time crunching numbers with the astronauts:

This was back in the early days of the space program, and they needed to run a lot of calculations to assist with the design of the early spacecraft. It was very interesting work, but also quite difficult. They’d give us these formulas, and we’d have to translate the mathematics into instructions for the computer. That took a lot of time.

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