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Ask Slashdot: Worst Computer Scene In TV or Movies?
Cuban Devil writes "Yesterday I rented a copy of The Social Network. I won't comment on the story, but the Zuckerberg character's narrated performance on hacking Harvard servers made me wonder: what's the worst computer-related acting performance ever? I leave here my vote: Independence Day, when I had to see Mr. Goldblum upload a virus, using a Mac, when it did not connect even to an ethernet network, compromising the entire alien fleet. What other major technological gaffes have you seen?"
Seriously... there are several scenes in that movie that are unbelievably bad. Pick your favorite!
I'll create a GUI interface using Visual Basic, see if I can track an IP address!
Was Independence Day a film? I thought it was a really long PR ad for the U.S.? Kind of like the recent AD "Australia" with Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman.
One deleted scene referenced that modern computers were derived from the Area 51 alien spaceship. The deletion of that scene created the plothole, but the plothole isn't really a plothole.
A) They studied the tech for years.
B) The raise is a hive mind. As such crime wouldn't be an issue.
C) minimal to no software virus protection
D) He can write an emulator.
That movie complaint is unwarranted.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The screens in Hackers are obviously a visual metaphor, and a good one at that. The technological nit that did annoy me is that the film doesn't seem to understand the difference between a username and a password.
Are all the docter cringing when they see Dr House ? (probably)
Yes. Polite Dissent is written by a doctor who reviews medical issues as portrayed in House as well as other media (comics, other tv shows, etc -- today's page has him tearing into classic "train to be a nurse at home" ads from a bygone era). He rates the medicinal errors from "major" to "minor" to "nitpicking", and he explains it all in layman's terms so medically illiterate people like me can understand.
Sure no cyborgs, and we're still working on ED209, but back in 1987 Robocop had:
- computer interfaces that resembled web sites
- a device for tracking Robocop that looks suspiciously like a smartphone
- digital video recording, as well as DVDs (didn't exist until '93)
Plus:
- stupidly oversized cars that wasted gas (6000 SUX)
- ultraviolent games for the whole family (Nukem!)
- Ford Taurus police cars (back when Crown Victorias were standard issue, they looked very "futuristic")
- ads for medical services (unheard of in '87)
- privatized police, military, prisons, and spacecraft
- and autoflush urinals!
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
In some CSI type show I was watching the other day, they were able to "enhance" the footage from a security camera in order to "widen the field of view" and see someone "off camera".
I have to think writers just chuckle to themselves when they add something so silly.
Then you may be surprised to learn that there are security cameras that actually work that way, and are available now. You can buy a camera with a 180 degree fisheye lens and high resolution sensor that records everything within sight, and then run software that lets the user virtually pan and tilt in every direction, straightening the image so that it looks like it was shot by a normal security camera. I'm not saying that the CSI camera was one of these, but they do exist. Mobotix makes one that looks like a smoke detector.
In some situations the "enhance" that lets them "zoom in" on a face is also reality. If there is motion in the scene, such as you might get with a panning view of a scene or with a moving subject, the differences between frames holds extra information. There is frame stacking software available that can interpolate the edges between pixels. (Thierry Legault used this technology to produce some amazing images of the shuttle Discovery with a ground-based telescope, as reported on /. a few days ago http://legault.perso.sfr.fr/STS-133.html .) By measuring the shift in values as those real edges approach the edge of a pixel, the software can extract enough information to figure out where the real edges are. You can kind of think of it as "ClearType in reverse" or "anti-aliasing in reverse". But of course this technique only works in certain circumstances, when the subject is moving in a fashion that is cooperative with the technology and resolution of the camera. Six frames of the back of a fleeing suspect's head is still not going to let you zoom in on the zit under his nose.
And these techniques are in use by video forensics analysts today. The lab guys I know may not be quite as sexy as the ones on TV, but they get results that yield convictions by making some pretty poor video useful in a courtroom. And I know the operators of these systems chuckle when their equipment helps bring down another bad guy.
John
What's also really amazing is that in NCIS, Abby (the forensic expert in the basement of the NCIS headquarters) is actually a forensic expert in real life with a masters in forensic science!