Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Snowden’s Rubik’s Cube

da5is.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 90 posts

Re: Snowden’s Rubik’s Cube

#61

Post by krapp »

cousin_it wrote: post #50
JadeNB wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know …?

For starters, it's the only time travel movie that explains why time travel doesn't drop you somewhere in deep space where the Earth used to be.

But the real answer to that is "because time travel is a dramatic device." This is just as true for Primer as it is for all fictional scenarios involving time travel. Unless the story is about how time travel would "really" send you spinning off into space, the rules are whatever the plot requires.

It may be that the "science" behind Primer appears more coherent and reasoned out than H.G. Wells' Time Machine, but it's still fairy dust.

Re: Snowden’s Rubik’s Cube

#62

Post by hisham_hm »

curiousgal wrote: post #8
cmrx64 wrote: post #7

This movie looks like is has a good chance of doing a better job than even The Imitation Game at ruining and fundamentally misrepresenting a topic I care about and a person I respect.

The Imitation Game was bad?

Besides all points presented in other replies, two other problems with the movie come to mind:

* They presented Turing's characacter as the generic caricature of the pedantic genius, kind of like The Big Bang Theory's Sheldon. Other reports I read on Turing's personality didn't match that at all.

* Holywood seems adamant to have a romantic man-and-woman relationship going along with the story, even if it had to be a platonic one since the lead character is famously gay.

Re: Snowden’s Rubik’s Cube

#63

Post by throw88889 »

cookiecaper wrote: post #54
deepnet wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snowden wasn't 'on-site', AFAIK he had remote access as a private contractor. One of Snowden's main revelations was how little oversight there was. He was motivated to come forward by the abuses he saw the NSA database put to, rather than its mere existence. Snowden has reported his colleagues reguarly exfiltrated 'dirty pictures' from the NSA database. Snowden says 'nudies' were a 'commodity' traded around his colle…

Do the people with that kind of access simply not understand the power they have? If Snowden had access, surely there are at least dozens of other 20-somethings running around able to read the correspondence of almost anyone in the country. Are we to believe that they really are so self-disciplined the only thing they'll look at are nude photos? Why haven't we seen industrial and political fallout from these guys?

I worked for a well known computer software company, and one of the close by teams worked on a photo-sharing web-app, which also allowed for private albums.

While analyzing the metadata someone discovered that a certain rare and expensive camera model was used almost exclusively to shoot models, including nude ones. Searching the storage for pictures made with that camera model became a popular activity in that team :)

So it's pretty easy to trivialize privacy breaches and rationalize it as "no harm was done"

Re: Snowden’s Rubik’s Cube

#64

Post by bigdubs »

waynecochran wrote: post #56

"especially considering that cube wasn’t released until 2013" This cube is different than those released in the 1970s?

It's largely the same, the speed cube just replaces the stickers with plastic tiles. The internals are also tweaked to make it easier to spin and to make it resist "popping" where the cube would jettison some pieces if you were moving it too fast / hard.

Re: Snowden’s Rubik’s Cube

#65

Post by throw88889 »

The cube sequence doesn't make sense to me.

What kind of guard will let a cube not pass through the system like that? If I were that guard I would find that cube throw highly suspicious.

And while we are at it, wouldn't it be easier to hide the microSD card under the tongue for example?

And lastly, where exactly are you supposed to stick that card into in the facility? Even low-level security companies glue all USB/card reader inputs.

Re: Snowden’s Rubik’s Cube

#66

Post by imrehg »

Vexs wrote: post #41
ipsin wrote: post #39

If you X-rayed the cube with the card on top or bottom, I wonder if the card would be distinguishable? I imagine that, if the cube was on one of the sides, it'd be practically impossible to see.

On the side, you might see a slightly brighter line. Here's an xray of a uSD card: http://rusolut.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/msd1xray.jpg And an xray of a rubiks cube: https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4138/4859926370_10d2a0d071.jpg Overall, doubt you could see it without looking very carefully.

I just had some teeth X-rays at a pretty regular dental clinic here in Taiwan. They were showing me the results and explaning what they have found. I was totally amazed how thing that look super-light tiny shadows for me at one place they say "we must check", while elsewhere they were "nothing". What you see totally depends on the expertise you have and I think it wouldn't be hard at all to spot things that for us outsiders are just "maybe a little bit lighter".

Re: Snowden’s Rubik’s Cube

#67

Post by proksoup »

toyg wrote: post #57
atmosx wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This movie is made by Oliver Stone right? Judging by prior work like The Doors (Jim Morrison) and Alexander (Alexander the Great) I don't have high hopes. Oliver Stone likes to destroy characters on the big screen paying attention to the flaws rather than the charisma of his charactes. Jesus, I didn't remember a single battle scene from the movie "Alexander" and this guy went from Greece to India on horse battling hi…

No director is perfect. Oliver Stone had a few duds, but he also made some excellent movies: JFK, Any Given Sunday, Platoon, Talk Radio, Wall Street... If you have to criticize him, you could say that his recent movies have not been up to the bar he set in the '90s -- but it definitely was a very high bar. I'm much more worried about Gordon-Levitt playing Snowden, from the trailer he looks pretty bland.

I've been impressed with Joseph's other recent work like "hit record". For me personally I can't think of anyone better for the role.

Also maybe relevant is his opinion not an opinion after meeting Snowden for research on the role:

> "Now, as he would say, it’s not for him to say whether it was right or wrong. That’s really for people to decide on their own, and I would encourage anybody to decide that on their own. I don’t want to be the actor guy who’s like, ‘You should listen to me! What he did was right!’ I don’t think that’s my place. Even though that is what I believe – that what he did was right.” [1]

[1] http://www.ew.com/article/2015/09/18/joseph-gordon-levitt-sn...

Re: Snowden’s Rubik’s Cube

#68

Post by thangalin »

discardorama wrote: post #31

I'm sure the nerds here will find ample opportunities to tear this movie apart, but keep in mind that the "average American" (a) doesn't know much about Snowden, other than "he stole secrets and hid in commie Russia, so he must've been working for them", and (b) just believes what the government says. To counter the powerful voice of the government, you need an equally powerful voice like Hollywood. Maybe this movie…

https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=1355

Average Americans know nothing about Snowden.

Re: Snowden’s Rubik’s Cube

#69

Post by discardorama »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #53
discardorama wrote: post #31

I'm sure the nerds here will find ample opportunities to tear this movie apart, but keep in mind that the "average American" (a) doesn't know much about Snowden, other than "he stole secrets and hid in commie Russia, so he must've been working for them", and (b) just believes what the government says. To counter the powerful voice of the government, you need an equally powerful voice like Hollywood. Maybe this movie…

> To counter the powerful voice of the government, you need an equally powerful voice like Hollywood. They're separate?

Often they're the same. But once in a while a director like Stone will go his own way, luckily for us.

Re: Snowden’s Rubik’s Cube

#70

Post by sopooneo »

waynecochran wrote: post #56

"especially considering that cube wasn’t released until 2013" This cube is different than those released in the 1970s?

The colors are embedded tiles rather than stickers, and it's made to allow the sides to twist faster and more smoothly. https://rubiks.com/store/product/rubiks-speed-cube
Post reply on HN