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A Critical Look At Walter "Scorpion" O'Brien
1729 (581437) writes Back in August, there was speculation that the "real life" Walter O'Brien (alleged inspiration for CBS's new drama Scorpion) might be a fraud. Mike Masnick from Techdirt follows up on the story: "The more you dig, the more of the same you find. Former co-workers of O'Brien's have shown up in comments or reached out to me and others directly — and they all say the same thing. Walter is a nice enough guy, works hard, does a decent job (though it didn't stop him from getting laid off from The Capital Group), but has a penchant for telling absolutely unbelievable stories about his life. It appears that in just repeating those stories enough, some gullible Hollywood folks took him at his word (and the press did too), and now there's a mediocre TV show about those made up stories." Masnick's article is a fascinating look at a man who appears to have conned both TV executives and journalists into believing his far-fetched Walter Mitty fantasies.
I'm happy to suspend disbelief for a good show. Scorpion is not a good show. It's impossible to suspend that much disbelief for the junk they threw at us.
I don't understand why it'd matter. Just look at him as the writer of the series.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
And decided it wasn't worth my time. It's not just a crap show, it's a fake crap show and there's no way it's based on anybody's life, any more than that Lazzarr guy worked on an Alien Spacecraft at Area 51. If you believe any of that crap, I've got a nice bridge to sell you.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
So a person's story used to make a fictional drama for entertainment purposes on TV turns out to be fictional drama made for entertainment?
So let's suppose he's a "fake". He would therefor be guilty of turning a lie into a profitable entertainment venture.
Isn't that exactly how every author, producer and actor makes their living?
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
The guy told exaggerated or made up stories about himself. People who are TV writers made a TV show out of them. None of that is fraud.
Even if the writers believed him - and I think that's doubtful - he's still just telling tall-tales to writers who then write about them.
The writers are crappy writers anyway. Let them write crap.
Everything and everyone is an aspect of Gd. So remember to show proper respect!
He has claimed that his misused image recognition software caused 2600 casualties in the Iraq war, and also later claims that Scorpion has 2600 employees across the globe...
What's his fascination with this number? I think Emmanuel Goldstein (Eric Corely), publisher of 2600 Magazine, has grounds to sue. And so does Captain Crunch (John Draper).
I'm willing to bet this guy couldn't program his way out a paper bag, and I've known and befriended hackers who were many times smarter than this fraud.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
It's bloody horrible. It's so loaded with fake, unbelievable nonsense it's not even watchable. In episode one, they were racing a ferrari or a lambo or something underneath a jumbo jet, so that they jumbo jet could drop an ethernet cable down to a waiting hot chick who inserted it into a laptop. 2 seconds later they had magically retrieve a backup of the communication software for the fucking air traffic control towers. Which they then uploaded to every air traffic control tower in the country so they can FINALLY land all those planes.
Aside from ogling catherine mcphee or whatever her name is, there was NOTHING watchable about this epicly bad pile of rancid monkey shit.
"If you love someone, set them free. If they come home, set them on fire." - George Carlin
I watched the first episode but only made it to the part where the stereotypical Asian woman was telling the stereotypical black government agent to not shoot the Radio Shack quality keypad at the "data center" that was obviously a self-storage vault, after the rest of the contrived story line (yes, of course, the aviation industry has no backup plans for backup plans if a tower goes dark and EVERYONE WILL DIE ; emergency vehicles in LA are only allowed to use the freeway and cannot bypass traffic ; you have to drive to a data center to get a hard drive ; software at an air traffic control sysem is only backed up 12 hours, every five minutes), collection of stereotypes (the Smart Ethnic People, The Guy in the Bowler Hat, The Unknown Genius Kid and The Misunderstood Autistic Guy. Not to mention The Eye Candy Waitress Who Isn't Just Eye Candy And Tells You About It) and over-used hacking tropes (I just hacked your video camera system from a diner in three seconds).
I turned the TV off and read a book about a English policeman who is also a wizard, which was far more believable that the utter crap which Scorpion was. I read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, so I'm not opposed to the fantastic and/or the outlandish -- but Scorpion just pulled the same old tired crap out of the file, changed the names, crapped out a script, spent a pile of money and called it done. There are other shows on television with fantastic or scifi elements that are entertaining and fun to watch -- Doctor Who and Sleepy Hollow to name two current series, and there have been plenty in the past which have done a credible job -- The X-Files, Fringe, Alias, LOST, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, 24 to name a few. Some varied from "light mind candy" (e.g. Alias showed off Jennifer Garner's abs at 30 minutes in every time) to serious business (LOST, BSG), but Scorpion just missed on everything -- plot, story, characters, originality. It's just terrible to watch.
Pilot episode was unwatchable. Characters were annoying caricature of "nerds". I wanted to punch people at CBS after about 15 minutes.
"Based on true story" can mean only one fact is in the whole story, it's Hollywood. Relax people! It's entertainment , either watch it or don't, hate it or love it or anywhere in between.
Yeah, the show is mediocre, but it starts off with an end tag so what do you expect. I saw the end of the show first and wound back to see if they had started with a matching open tag, but no. Nobody there has a clue what they are, just "web stuff."
Look, compared to network tv shows, it's in the top third. Would you rather have another reality show about an ugly woman and her abusive husband who both have an IQ of 98?
See if you can maintain a perspective on all this.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
I watched 10 minutes of it the other night (on accident I swear!) and had to spend another 10 minutes explaining to my wife why I was laughing so hard. They were tracking down some cyber-bad guy (ugh) through the internet and one of the characters stopped working to do the obligatory "I'm going to explain how the internet works to the seasoned tech-illiterate detective who fears technology" part of the episode. He then proceeded to explain how data flows through many points on the internet to get where it needs to go (okay so far). He told the cop that these points are called (I am NOT kidding) "Router-hubs". These router-hubs each keep a "shadow copy" of every document (shut up shut up SHUT UP!) that flows through them for months (what the hell?) and that they could find the document they needed by going to some random data center with one of these router-hubs (it hurts to type that) and getting the shadow copy.
Then they went to some random building start doing things on a computer next to a long row of what appeared to be rack-mounted LED lights. Oh, and there was a smokey haze in the DC for some reason. Probably some atmospheric bullcrap. Anyway this show does have entertainment value, but only if you look at it as a parody.
This space for rent...
The way I see it, the only possible problem is that the network claims that the show is based on real life. Otherwise, pretty much everything on TV is a made up story, including everything on "reality" shows, some of the stuff on the news, and perhaps even the occasional sporting event.
Proverbs 21:19
Modern day gladiators. I.e. the "circuses."
For everyone saying "it's just a show": that's not the problem. Walter O'Brien is using his credibility from his show to promote himself as a real super-genius consultant. He has news programs touting him as the person who solved the Boston marathon bombings. He spent two hours on the radio last night promoting his "concierge" service. It's not just a bad TV show; the guy is perpetrating a real-life fraud.
There will always be people willing to capitalize on the ignorance of others. O'Brien may be laughable, but he wasn't the first, nor was Michael Synergy, nor will either of them be the last.
thank you.. This is the problem, this assclown is representing his delusions as state of the art in the Infosec world. None of us in that community had heard of this dude before.
We have enough problems with the world at large assuming that everything we do is magic. Walter's bullshit is actively damaging to our field.
Because CBS keeps pushing news articles that present Walter as a respected expert in the infosec industry. None of us had heard of him before the show. He does not speak for us.
On TV, an IQ as low Albert Einstein's (165?) is a joke.
Big Bang Theory, Fringe, Criminal Minds, etc; I think everybody has an IQ of 190, or better.
Furthermore, I would think that everybody on slashdot would know that computer security is all about high speed car chases and gun fights. It's not as if computer security people just sit around in front of computers all day.
Hollywood has an idea shortage.
True, but there is another point you might want to consider: media fragmentation.
It used to be that there were only three TV networks, and most people could only see a movie by going to the theatre (which didn't have 12 different screens in those days either). For music, there were a limited number of radio stations.
Now, there are many different cable channels, plus YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, Rhapsody, and DVD rentals or purchases. For consumers this is great, because you can watch what you like, when you like it.
But Hollywood is unhappy because it's much harder now to build a new franchise. As a result, Hollywood is recycling old franchises, even if the end product has very little to do with the original.
For a bonus, many people who have purchasing power now have fond memories of things they watched as kids.
Thus, you have crazy stuff like the Battleship movie; I'm pretty sure they literally started with the brand name, and ginned up a movie project to put on it. I submit to you that Battleship isn't an example of scraping the barrel for ideas, but rather an example of jump-starting the marketing for a movie by building off a well-known pre-existing brand. It's gotta be the same thing with Tetris: we have this brand, how can we leverage it to sell movies?
Many of the reboots and sequels have little to do with the original source material; and I think in many cases Hollywood just took some script and said "we can shoehorn this into a pre-existing franchise" and did it.
Also, in my opinion the reason Guardians of the Galaxy was so successful was that it was made with love, and well-made at that; the third-tier Marvel characters are so obscure that they didn't really bring much to the marketing. I, for one, saw it because the previews made it look fun and because I read some really favorable reviews.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Isn't this person, it's how useless news media is and how little fact checking goes on.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The number "2600" appears a lot in his stories. Phreaker wannabe?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I really don't understand why "OW MY BALLS!" isn't a real show on Spike. Or SyFy.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
LA Times article on Dux.
http://articles.latimes.com/19...
More like Chuck Barris and his confessions of a dangerous mind.
too easy:
Fixed that for you. However, some do need bombing. Really.
The basic problem is that the writers are not smart, let alone geniuses, so they simply do not know enough to write a show about geniuses.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Because if so then I sort of admire the guy, because that is some EPIC level trolling he's managed to pull off:
I've only seen one clip of the show, but I kid you not it was some of the dumbest "hollywood take on tech" shit I have ever seen. Something to do with having to download some software from the onboard computer of a commercial airplane and the best way to do it was... DANGLE a goddamn ethernet cable down from the airplane mid-flight to the protagonists in their fast car so they can plug it into their laptop and download the required software.
really only a zero?
Hey, but at least the second episode was better than the first, at this rate after another 98 episodes or so it may reach mediocre
Are you perchance "weird" al-vin-rod?
Cause a suggestion such as that reminds me of only person that would keep that much tin-foil handy.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"All of the lazy copy and paste repurposed articles written about O’Brien after he helped sell a TV show are based on one initial article in The Irish Times." ref
...like passing a cat5 cable down a wheel well of an airliner and into the waiting hand of someone in another vehicle (without scraping engine nacelles on the runway - yeah, those wheels were NOT down and locked) while travelling over 200mph and waiting around long enough to download some firmware that for some reason couldn't be done entirely from the aircraft (what, nobody on board had a fucking ipad??) then bringing a Ferrari to a stop before it pancaked into a steel barrier, from 200+ to 0 in less than fifty feet - sideways, without flipping? All in the space of SEVEN SECONDS??
Not far fetched at all.
By the way: SPOILER ALERT.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
It's so loaded with fake, unbelievable nonsense it's not even watchable. In episode one, they were racing a ferrari or a lambo or something underneath a jumbo jet, so that they jumbo jet could drop an ethernet cable down to a waiting hot chick who inserted it into a laptop. 2 seconds later they had magically retrieve a backup of the communication software for the fucking air traffic control towers. Which they then uploaded to every air traffic control tower in the country so they can FINALLY land all those planes.
I bet you loved McGyver...
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
A techie mailing list I'm on has multiple people ranting about the absolutely bs that happens - not the way aircraft comm works, not the way this, that and the other work, and the plot...um, what plot?
mark
"Breaking In Season 2 Episode 1"
"Breaking In"
http://www.selimoglunakliyat.c...
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