Slashdot Mirror
Top 10 Things Hollywood Thinks Computers Can Do
An anonymous reader writes "From blowing up your keyboards to developing a malignant sentience, Expert Reviews rounds up the things that movie makers believe computers can do, even though they use the same technology every day to write scripts." I like the summary of how you crack a password in movies. I hate that this page splits into multiple pages. Very lame.
I wish i could just yell "ENHANCE" at a photo on my computer to make it magically uncover detail that was never originally there. That would be awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU
In Star Trek, Kirk need only ask an alien computer to "Explain. The. Human emotion. Known. As.....Love", for it to go into a bizarre loop where its logical systems can't computer and it explodes.
I hate it when my machine can't computer.
I can't perform my daily sysadmin duties unless I'm getting fellatio from a chick under my desk at the same time as having a loaded gun pointed at my head while someone counts down from an arbitrary number.
Considering that one of the things it seems the article's computer *can't* do is handle a slashdotting without crashing and going up in flames, I would hardly consider linking to them being a reward.
When John Wayne fired a gun, at least two Indians dropped instantly. *At least* two. You can keep those computers, I want to better understand the technology behind The Duke's bullets...
Considering that one of the things it seems the article's computer *can't* do is handle a slashdotting without crashing and going up in flames, I would hardly consider linking to them being a reward.
I love that someone used that "going up in flames after being Slashdotted" cliche on an article about things computers don't actually do.
Try booting up Windows ME on an old Gateway. If you don't get blue screens and beeps every 3 minutes you've managed more than I ever could.
Anyone got a mirror?
Believe me .. in this case the slashdotting is a benefit and not a drawback
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
(zoomy experimental mouse/OpenGL file browser shows on Iris Crimson minicomputer...)
Lex: This is Unix! I know this!
[
I started watching The Net 2.0 and at the beginning they show the protagonist at her bank's web page checking her account balance. She dozes off and the camera zooms in on the computer screen to show her account balance rolling down until it reaches zero.
I immediately shut off the DVD player and never finished watching the movie.
It let the other guy step in and say 'I see where you're going, but let me stop you there...'. It opened up opportunities for dramatic timing and deliberate use of backspacing for comedic effect.
Kanye?
"Here's a link for the top 10 things that computers can do in movies but can't do in real life"
*clicks link*
"A rendering error occured"
If you watch all the scenes they cut from the movie, you learn how he was able to do this.
The aliens used a linksys router and left the login info as admin/admin.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
I also love it when terrorists are kind enough to color-code their wires to a standard and go to the trouble of attaching a big red countdown clock on their bombs. Very sportsmanlike of them.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Matrix Reloaded
InvalidArgumentException: movieTitle does not exist. "Matrix" collection only contains one item.
He's married to Sarah Jessica Parker. That means at least his soul is dead.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Matrix Reloaded
InvalidArgumentException: movieTitle does not exist. "Matrix" collection only contains one item.
I've seen this before, the database is obviously hosed. It also keeps returning alternative names for the only two Indiana Jones and the only three Star Wars movies that were ever made.
Easily guessable passwords are real, as tons of other slashdot stories remind us. Of course, they often can't be quite that simple, because of password security rules. But that could lead to a new Hollywood password cracking scheme:
Geek Hero: Try "password"
Hot Girl at Keyboard: That'll never work, they've got strict password rules at EvilTech
GH: What are they?
HG: Has to be at least 8 characters including upper and lower case, at least one but not more than two numbers, and exactly one special character. Can't contain a dictionary word or abbreviation in any of 87 languages, including !Kung and Klingon, nor can the numbers be a day of the month or of special significance nor...
GH: Stop right there, there's only one password which matches those rules... try this...
HG: We're In!
Ding! That was the first (of a very few) dvds I bought. While a few parts were exaggerated, the overall concept of how security testing firms do their testing was accurate (for its day).
But of course, the best part is the infamous lines:
"I want peace on Earth and goodwill toward men."
"We are the United States government. We don't do that sort of thing."
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I also love it when terrorists are kind enough to color-code their wires to a standard and go to the trouble of attaching a big red countdown clock on their bombs. Very sportsmanlike of them.
It's understandable. It only takes one or two terrorists to sync the internal timer with the clock in their workshop without realising their watch is slightly slow and (assuming they escape relatively unscathed) you've suddenly got a safety-feature evangelist.
Some Indian tribes developed a natural instinct to play dead upon hearing a gunshot. That allowed them to later recover consciousness and take revenge.
And thus having more fertile offspring, of course. That instinct is a beautiful proof of Darwinism.
The V'ger reference at the end annoyed me. It was given life by other beings, it didn't just become sentient!
Likewise the reference to Skynet - I think we can all assume they were trying to make a self-aware system. It's not like it was the OS in a vending machine and it got bored of counting quarters one day and started wondering if there was more to life. I can't, off the top of my head, think of any examples of an ordinary computer system developing self awareness independent of human interaction.
I'm pretty sure that was Nacho Libre
If I had a nickel for every time I had a nickel, I'd be richcursive!
Imagine the scene:
Our heroine has snuck into the villains office and starts to hack into the computer to find evidence of the crime. After a some furious minutes of password guessing and file browsing, she finds the incriminating file! Then, just as she prints the file, there is an error of print failure. Our hero starts a browser and starts to google for an updated driver. After a few misses, she finds one in the manufacturers Taiwanese website. But after installing the driver, the error still persists. She returns to Google and starts looking for other people with similar issues. After 20 minutes of searching she finds an obscure tip in the forums to disable PCL-emulation in the registry. After changing the setting she reboots the computer and we nervously wait for another 10 minutes for the login to complete and document to reopen.. It works! The document prints! Our heroin snatches the print and slips out of the side door just before the villain re-enters
Now that's entertainment!
..and all his oats have been eaten.