Top 10 Things Hollywood Thinks Computers Can Do 874
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.
ENHANCE (Score:5, Funny)
Worst ever use of computer lingo in film (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU [youtube.com]
FTFA (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Hollywood is partially right (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:then don't reward them? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Computers? Big Deal... (Score:5, Funny)
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...
Re:Worst ever use of computer lingo in film (Score:5, Funny)
Site with the article is down =/
This is Numb3rs' description of how IRC works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2rGTXHvPCQ [youtube.com]
Re:then don't reward them? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:ENHANCE (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ENHANCE (Score:5, Funny)
The best example of this was in Red Dwarf: Return to Earth. They zoomed in on a business card, then zoomed back out. Found a reflection behind the people in the picture, enhanced the reflection, then found a water droplet on a telephone pole, enhanced the reflection from that, and THEN they used a window seen in the reflection on the water droplet to see the back of the card. Then, they flipped the image...all so they could read the address on the back of the card.
It was fsking epic.
Re:They forgot the beeping interfaces (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Re:Slashdotted already :( (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone got a mirror?
Believe me .. in this case the slashdotting is a benefit and not a drawback
Re:Must be controlled with a keyboard... (Score:3, Funny)
(zoomy experimental mouse/OpenGL file browser shows on Iris Crimson minicomputer...)
Lex: This is Unix! I know this!
Re:My personal favorite (Score:3, Funny)
I immediately shut off the DVD player and never finished watching the movie.
Re:Mistaking dramatic license for technical error. (Score:5, Funny)
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?
Irony (Score:3, Funny)
"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"
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:My personal favorite (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My personal favorite (Score:5, Funny)
Matrix Reloaded
InvalidArgumentException: movieTitle does not exist. "Matrix" collection only contains one item.
Re:ENHANCE (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks, I would have thought the sci-fi comedy show, Red Dwarf, was seriously suggesting this was possible. I can now sleep soundly thanks to your enlightening post.
Re:My personal favorite (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My personal favorite (Score:2, Funny)
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.
The password thing (Score:5, Funny)
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!
Re:My personal favorite (Score:3, Funny)
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."
Re:My personal favorite (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Survival of the fittest (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Re:ENHANCE (Score:3, Funny)
Not only the average person... copied from [clientsfromhell.net]:
Client: “I’ve sent the image. I can’t wait to see the final product.”
Me: “This image is 115px x 148px at 72dpi. Typically we need images around 1000px and higher with around 150+dpi.”
Client: “Can’t you just Enhance the images like they do in CSI.”
Re:V'Ger (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Re:Very lame indeed. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ENHANCE (Score:5, Funny)
That is nothing. Much cooler would be if they found a reflection on a planet approximately 1005 lightyears away from earth, and recorded the birth of Jesus Christ...
Re:Yet another rant on hollywood computers, huh? (Score:5, Funny)
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!
Re:Worst ever use of computer lingo in film (Score:4, Funny)
I bring you NBC's Life's take on Prince of Persia: http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/prince-of-persia-on-nbcs-life/129534 [gametrailers.com] (Sorry for the ad-filled site; I can't find it on YouTube anymore.)
The lingo is awful, but the entire premise makes no sense whatsoever-- how do you hide a spreadsheet in a Xbox which can only be viewed if you make it to "level 10" on Prince of Persia? Moreover, does Prince of Persia even have a "level 10?" (No, it does not; the levels are names of different areas of the palace.)
Truly hilariously awful. Watch the actress whose fingers twitch while watching someone else playing the game.
I hope Ubisoft didn't pay anything for this product placement.
Re:Hollywood is partially right (Score:5, Funny)
You had me at 'fellatio'.
Re:My personal favorite (Score:2, Funny)