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.
My personal favorite (Score:5, Insightful)
In Terminator 3, the Terminator T-X is able to take over complete control of automobiles simply by sending a virus to their onboard computers. Forget that none of these cars (most of them older ones at that) have any way for the onboard computer to access steering, acceleration or brakes; the real kicker is when the movie shows one of them actually shifting into gear on its own. And not ONE of them was even a Toyota!
And, on the opposite side, I would like to recognize the movie "Wargames." It wasn't perfect (the AI is certainly exagerrated), but it's definitely one of the most realistic computer films to ever come out of Hollywood. If they remade that today, they would probably show Joshua blowing up buildings and sending robotic minions after David. As it is, Wargames makes a simple ringing phone and a countdown clock way more suspenseful than anything ever produced with CGI special effects. Kudos to John Badham for getting away with making a movie that's pretty thoughtful and low-key--and just a year after Tron showed us how evil programs can suck you into the digital world with a laser, no less.
then don't reward them? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate that this page splits into multiple pages. Very lame.
Then...don't reward them by linking to them?
"BAD, Johhny! Don't pull your brother's hair! Here's an ice cream sundae."
Plot tools (Score:4, Insightful)
That’s what they are.
Plot tools.
Must be controlled with a keyboard... (Score:5, Insightful)
They forgot the beeping interfaces (Score:5, Insightful)
copying files deletes the original (Score:5, Insightful)
However, if DRM really gets a grip, this could become fact not fiction.
Yet another rant on hollywood computers, huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hollywood does not actually think computers can currently do nor do they think they ever will do these things.
Hollywood does think is that having computers do such things in a story usually (not always, but usually) makes it easier or faster to tell the story the way it is intended, rather than getting bogged down in the real life technicalities that are actually involved that would bore almost anybody.
The only real problem with this is that some people could be left thinking that computers do or can do some of these things. But that's more a case of those people not being able to tell fiction from reality, which has nothing to do with how Hollywood tells stories, it has to do with what sort of education and life experience a person has.
Re:My wish (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh but don't you know? In real life nobody uses keyboards!
This article is totally a joke all around. The only difference between these guys, and the Hollywood guys, is that the hollywood guys are going to make a lot more money while demonstrating their lack of computer knowledge.
Re:copying files deletes the original (Score:3, Insightful)
Whether its the EMH or just a mundane collection of data. Once it's been copied from its original place the orginal has gone.
So *this* is where we got the notion that piracy==theft from!
storytelling (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just an aspect of storytelling. Most stories are about conflict and resolution between the characters, not the intellectual masturbation of what layer in the network stack is responsible for ack/response. Details like that don't matter. Struggling against time, intrigue, and moving the plot along: that's what matters.
In the movie House of Flying Daggers, there's a swordfight scene where the two rivals finally clash in an epic struggle as the seasons change from summer to fall to winter all around them. Obviously nobody can fight for nine months. Obviously the sword choreography was on a completely different time scale to the environment they were in. Details like this matter if you're a weak-minded literalist. As pretty as the visuals were, it simply communicated a story like a line in a novel. It was a powerful visual metaphor.
Next time the guys in CSI can scan a DNA sequence in a matter of minutes (or perhaps hours, as the camera briefly observes an analog clockface), don't nitpick the usual technical constraints of a process that usually takes days or weeks or months. Just insert "no technical challenge will stop this team." Even for geeks who enjoy the technical aspects, some details are like watching paint dry.
Mistaking dramatic license for technical error... (Score:5, Insightful)
I was using ICQ back in 1998, and it had the option of displaying each chat character as it was typed. It meant you could express more complex thoughts, without requiring the other person to sit and wait patiently for you to develop a whole paragraph. 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. It was more 'live' than a one-line-at-a-time chat modality, despite its warts. While this style of online chat may not be particularly popular today, it was (and still is) readily available.
In real-life telephone conversations, you don't get to review each sentence before it goes out over the wire; if you choose the wrong word you just have to live with it.
To the other point, I just have to say -- what? People can perform tasks flawlessly in movies? It turns out that unless required for dramatic effect (as a somewhat-lazy shorthand to convey nervousness or poorly-concealed deception), characters always speak in clear, perfect setences and never use the word "um". Their shoelaces are always tied, their hair is always perfect, and they never miss the bus unless their character is required to be unlucky or miserable. People in movies seldom need to visit the washroom, and then only to have private conversations -- never to defecate, except as a route to teen-movie fart jokes.
Movies are a projection of reality, not an exact duplicate. People tend to do non-visually-arresting and plot-irrelevant things faster or behind the scenes. Watching someone make typos for two hours isn't my idea of a good time.
Re:Computers? Big Deal... (Score:4, Insightful)
Start small, like with the JFK "Magic Bullet" theory. Once you grasp that, you can move on to The Duke and such puzzlers like the 24-shooter that really looks like a 6-shooter.
Re:Must be controlled with a keyboard... (Score:5, Insightful)
The bandwidth of ten fingers and 104 keys is far greater than a two-dimensional vector and a couple buttons.
Another version... (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, i'd like to point out that the Expert Reviews version used really poor examples for their #1 case that computers which are just left on will develop intelligence. V'ger didn't develop intelligence on its own, the original primitive computer was massively upgraded and reprogrammed by some aliens who found it, it wasn't just "left on." In Skynet's case the basic computer was powerful enough to develop sentience and did so almost immediately after being turned on, there was no "just leave it on long enough" involved. The WarGames example from the cracked article was better because it didn't show any signs of intelligence immediately after being turned on, and it involved completely understandable and by now quite outdated technology that clearly would have a hard time opening a modern webpage, much less developing intelligence.
Re:copying files deletes the original (Score:2, Insightful)
When I move things around the same file system with mv it is done instantly(I hit enter and I get my prompt back). When I move things between file systems (or copy the file), it takes time(hit enter, wait for my prompt to come back).
So no, mv is not copy then deleting when running stuff around the same file system.
(Maybe calling mv "rename" when it is on the same file system might be a better thought, and then cp & rm when on separate file systems)
Oh please (Score:3, Insightful)
You pick the one most plausible.
I know it's popular to rag on that, but it's actually plausible:
1) They studied the system for years.
2) The system might not have been a Mac. Could have been a custom OS.
3) There a hive mind race. they would not have any really need for security.
4) Electronics are electronics faster smaller. But from a black box approach, no different.
5) You Assume that the system would some how be perfect.
6) He exploited a trusted system by exploiting another trusted system.
Of course those scenes are rediculous.... (Score:5, Insightful)
but the fact is, doing a scene where a sysadmin bangs around in a terminal typing commands just isn't fun for the viewer. The reason we laugh so hard at these things though is because technology is our thing. It's true for almost anything in an entertainment-oriented (as opposed to educational) movie. Try some of the following:
Watch a few cop movies with actual cops.
Watch some hospital-based TV shows with some doctors, nurses and paramedics.
Watch a couple of movies that focus on car chases/stunts with some mechanics.
The list goes on and on. What you'll see though is, those people will have the same general reaction to Hollywood depictions of their areas of expertise that we have regarding use of computers/technology. Accuracy and entertainment just don't always go well together.
Re:My personal favorite (Score:3, Insightful)
All I remember from the first film was that one of the octets in an IP address was in the 300s. Boy did that ruin an otherwise spot-on movie.
Yep - a blog elsewhere says "75.748.86.91" and "23.75.345.200" were used.
IPV4.5?
Thats would have been purposely done to prevent people deciding to attack a real IP belonging to someone out there after seeing it in the film, something along the lines of the 555-xxxx phone numbers they usually use. Of course they could have just used a 10.../192.168.../172.16.. address instead.
Re:storytelling (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My personal favorite (Score:4, Insightful)
Not totally inexplicable. Using some of her covering to create servos in the cars wasn't much of a risk, because it would be easy to recover later. This is quite different from bullets, which are often unrecoverable, so the T-X would have been slightly diminished every time it fired.
As for the melee aspect, the point is made several times in the films and spin-offs that the Terminators are infiltrators. Skynet has things like HKs for longer-distance killing of exposed enemies. The Terminators are designed to go into the resistance's bunkers and kill them.
Re:#8 now true (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, no IM system that people actually use shows each character as it is typed.
Seriously, who uses Google Wave regularly? Or Google Buzz, for that matter?
Yup, It's Obligatory (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:clone53421's now posting as AC to "fool others" (Score:1, Insightful)
Random third party opinion here, looks like YOU are doing the stalking dude.
Re:Must be controlled with a keyboard... (Score:3, Insightful)
It takes two seconds to decide upon which special-function key to press
I got that quote into this post by copying and pasting it here. I used command-c and command-v without thinking. It took far less than two seconds; about the same amount of time as it takes me to hit any other key on the keyboard. I don't decide which special-function key to press at all; I send high-level commands from my brain to my spine and it sorts it out. I don't think about typing letters either. I actually can't spell a number of words that I type regularly - I think the word and my muscle memory produces the finger movements required to enter them.
Deciding among abstract symbols is a high-level cognitive function. Not only is this decision not boring, the user actually experiences amnesia! Real amnesia! The time-slice spent making the decision simply ceases to exist
And there's the problem. I'm not thinking about symbols at all. I'm thinking about gestures. I produce a shape with my left hand and I get a cut, copy, or paste action. The human motor system is incredibly good at quickly generating gestures. It is linked to our ability to use tools, and the ones that weren't good at it died out well over ten thousand years ago.
It's a question of familiarity, which makes me think his study group was skewed. It does take two seconds to think of a keystroke for an action that you don't use often and if you already have a hand on the mouse, or finger on the touchpad (a big if; when you're in the middle of text entry this is not the case), then it may take you less time to find a menu item than to think of the shortcut.
This is also highly dependent on Fitts' Law, because the time taken for finding menu items is dependent on the size of the screen. That article is from 1989, so probably refers to a study performed with the original Macintosh, with its 9" monitor. You will get very different results if you compare a modern OS X system and a 23" monitor.
It does make one important point though: users are really terrible at estimating what is fast. Unfamiliar keyboard actions really are not as fast as you think they are (and here have been several more recent studies showing this) and mouse actions are faster than you might believe.
Re:There's a Famous Story, in Certain Circles... (Score:5, Insightful)
....is still churning out shit that no one in their right mind would want?
They've got a license to print money with their AppStore and have made many people incredibly wealthy. What have you accomplished by comparison? You don't even have a Slashdot account.
Re:Must be controlled with a keyboard... (Score:4, Insightful)
There are other problems: their #1 problem is "Left long enough, a computer becomes intelligent", citing Terminator and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
However, the computers weren't just "left long enough" in either movie. In Terminator, SkyNet was an AI designed by the military to have intelligence. The surprise wasn't that it became intelligent, but that it decided to kill everyone. In Star Trek, Voyager was discovered by an alien race of intelligent robots (or something like that) who repaired and upgraded Voyager.
Re:Oh please (Score:4, Insightful)
No. Its not plausible. At all. If you had any idea how difficult it is to migrate a program from English to French, you wouldn't be saying that. Decimals to Comma's, that alone messes up tons of Accounting databases.
1) They still didn't know how it worked, they mentioned that.
2) Regardless, the idea is that its a human OS and not alien.
3) Then they wouldn't have shields.
4) Not all electronics work the same. This is why there are issues with video games on differing video cards, why you can't run MS-DOS on Solaris machines, etc etc.
5) No, I'm assuming that the system is beyond our skillset to manipulate. Like if they use quantum computing and quantum encryption, we wouldn't have the means to inject our own code into a stream. Not too mention our own code, C or assembly or even Matlab won't run on alien architecture, like how most Windows games don't run on Macs.
6) His exploit was mystically deciphering an entire alien legacy of computers and machinery in order to disable one function. If I had that power, I would have turned off the cooling systems for the plasma firing weapons. Have them blow themselves up.
Re:storytelling (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh please (Score:1, Insightful)
I have a bit of a problem with the outright denial of something implausible that isn't impossible. Impossible now, perhaps not so much later would be a better approach to things regarded as impossible (like faster then light travel). Just because something violates our current understanding of possibility does not mean that it isn't so. I remembered a quote from that famous scientist everyone knows:
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” - Albert Einstein