LOL!
HEY!! I’m reasonably intelligent, I’m just really really bad at math, and things related to math, like force field physics.
China wasn’t sitting it out - when the 600 million Chinese were mentioned it was as being one of the countries that was on the same side as the U.S.A.
As a computer dude, I may as well chime in with my favorite Hollywood tradition - not having any idea how computers are used by real people.[ul]
[li]Goldeneye. Computer expert tries to break hot girl’s codes while clicking Bond’s exploding pen in one hand. Yes, that’s right - he’s furiously trying to undo what was done to his code, time being of the essence…WITH ONE HAND.[/li][li]Speaking what you’re typing. “Is…this…a…game…or…is…it…real?” Yep. We all do that. I’m doing it right now. (I know, it’s artistic license to show the audience what he’s typing, but screw that - figure out a better way).[/li][li]Sound effect keyboard. Computer lackey types in information, every keystroke beeps and blips to simulate the high-tech amazingness of said computer. Oh yeah - I love it when I get non-stop sound feedback for every keystroke. Blip beep boop baap beep boop!![/li][li]Fastest typist in the world. Hackers in the movies apparently can type faster than any other person to ever use a keyboard. Suspicious even if they were typing actual words, but since they’re undoubtedly typing something more like this:[/li][sub]
RCS file: /opt/msmac/osxoffice/PowerPointX/app/appscrap.cpp,v
retrieving revision 1.9
diff -r1.9 appscrap.cpp
1572d1571
1579,1585c1578,1586
< LPOBJECTDESCRIPTOR lpOD = (LPOBJECTDESCRIPTOR)OLELOCK( hObjDesc );
< if ( lpOD )
< wasDisplayAsIcon = (lpOD->dwDrawAspect & DVASPECT_ICON) != 0;
< OLEUNLOCK( hObjDesc );
< OLEFREE( hObjDesc );
[/sub]
I doubt they’d be assaulting the keyboard like a stenographer. And certainly not if they were getting head from Halle Berry at the same time. Believe me, I know. :D[/ul]
You forgot that text still prints out on the screen as though it were being piped through a 300 baud modem. Sometimes more like 110.
And for keyboards that make clicky sounds, I used to work in an office with dozens of creaky IBM dumb terminals. They had little piezo-electric buzzers right in the keyboard. When we were busy, you heard a cacaphony of beepity-beep-beeps emanating from the veal-fattening pens. It was horrible. (Still in place in 1998, too.) There was a switch concealed underneath the damned things that would turn the beeping off, but I think I was the only one in the building that used it. Maybe everyone else liked to sound busy.
I like it when hackers send cryptic messages to people in movies. They always come with flashy animated effects. All the real hackers make a point of sneaking some huge new graphics-heavy executable in to communicate with you, instead of just opening an admin window. Or sending you email.
Ah yes, Larry Mudd, forgot about the ol’ “UI in the hacker program” - Goldeneye again - the hilarious “Send Spike” program complete with cartoonish image of the hacker’s FACE. Not too clever for secrecy purposes there.
(As for the keyboards, I was talking more about the obvious Foley beep-over for keys effect, although I surely remember those awful things. The IBM spring-loaded ones were even worse, IMO…)
Speaking of computers in movies, I always love how the computer guy can look at some data that the hero has given him, hit one key, and get a beautiful dynamic 3-D image illustrating what the data means and what calamity will befall the earth if the bad guys aren’t stopped.
Or folks looking at CCTV videotapes who casually say “Give me a 35X view”, and are able to pick out the jeweller’s mark on the back of the suspect’s pocket-watch, or some silly-ass thing.
A know what you mean. A few different TV shows have done this (MacGyver and Mission: Impossible come to mind). They enhance some piece of video tape until until they can see the individual pixels. It’s still not detailed enough, so they work some kind of techno-magic and the picture becomes crystal clear, and you can make out the tiniest little details.
Even when I was a teenager, I understood that once you reach the pixels, there ain’t no more detail to extract. That it, folks.
And then you’ve got Enemy of the State where it’s so high tech they can rotate the image to see something out of frame.
About the hacker sending weird personalised messages: if some could, they would, I bet. Ever download a crack? Usually there’s some fancy logo designed by a 12 year old plastered everywhere.
But The X-Files explained it by having the computer expert say, “All right, I’ll just run it through my algorithm program…”
:rolleyes:
There was an old episode of MacGyver or something, and they were doing the old kidnapper-calling-with-his-ransom-demands-keep-him-on-the-line-so-we-can-trace-the-call set piece. And they’ve got the computers to do the trace right there. Sure enough, the bad guy calls. They run the trace and get the phone number he’s calling from. So they run the program that will tell them where that phone actually is, but he hangs up before they can find out, and the equipment goes dead. All is lost.
You idiots! You know the number he called from! It’s not like that phone is going anywhere once he hung up.
They did the scene that way for tension; the sequence of steps to trace the call, almost there, almost there, click. But if you thought about it for just one second, the reasoning fell apart.
Or how about when the CPU makes a sound like a teletype, a la Star Trek? I guess in the future, they will have mechanical computer chips.
Fair enough. My recollections of the movie (Perfect Storm) are a bit vague, but I seem to remember that the dramitization of the boat going down was the lion’s share of the movie, and I don’t remember them being in radio contact with anyone. It also seems to me the movie chronicled the travails of one man who fell overboard and floated around for awhile on his life jacket, until finally an enormous wave finished him off. Maybe he was carrying a waterproof diary with him. And could write really fast.
Oh thanks God, I’m not the only one who actually hates Moulin Rouge. I’m so sick of everybody talking how wonderful and amazing this movie is, while the it is just the utter crap. Nauseous…
The lattest big disappointment - Catch Me If You Can. Apart from the opening credits…