91–100 of 186 posts
Slightly off topic, but a good hacker TV show is "Big Bang Theory" on Monday nights on ABC. It's about 4 physics PhD students at Cal Tech. The best part is that they don't water down the physics at all. One guy got dumped by his girlfriend because of their differing opinions on string theory. I just got the season 1 DVD and it's great.
I can't believe this is on network television.
Antitrust: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218817/ Pirates of Silicon Valley: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/
Fan of: The headache inducing blue ribbon winner: Pi - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/ The slightly corny but worthwhile: Sneakers - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435/
Apollo 13 has some great hacker scenes. It has, in fact, my favorite hacker moment from any movie. "We gotta find a way to make this [holds up square peg] fit into the hole for this [holds up round peg] using nothing but that [points to random assortment of crap that they know is on board].": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNDuGuerpf8
The square peg/round hole sequence is of course the embodiment of the hacker spirit (not an original thought of mine, but I can't seem to find the original URL at the moment). Another space/hackish movie would be "The Dish" about the Australian engineers in charge of one the (of course) dishes used to communicate with Apollo 11. Cliffhanger scene: the dish goes out of alignment for some reason and they need to scramb…
23 (not the jim carrey one) http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0126765/ if you've ever read the cuckoo's egg, 23 is sort of the other side of the story, following karl koch and the germans (though stoll was mostly tracking markus hess in the cuckoo's egg, not koch).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uh, hello? Venkman: "Back off, man! We're scientists!" Also, didn't they give props to a Dem mayor of NYC?
That's what he says, but they lack the skepticism of actual scientists. I love the movie - and the quote - but Venkman is clearly calling himself a scientist because it's convenient at the moment.
If anything, the part of Ghostbusters that strains my credulity is that in their universe there seem to be scientists who don't believe in ghosts. You'd think that the accumulated evidence would be pretty overwhelming by the 1980s!
Fan of: The headache inducing blue ribbon winner: Pi - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/ The slightly corny but worthwhile: Sneakers - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435/
Sneakers is my favourite film. I don't find it particularly corny, but it's very deliberately paced and most of the acting is understated (I guess apart from Dan Ackroyd) which is why I think it never got the recognition it deserved.
Antitrust: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218817/ Pirates of Silicon Valley: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/
I got a real kick out of watching Pirates of Silicon Valley.
The real Gates, Jobs, etc. are far more compelling, interesting, and charismatic than actors trying to portray them.
Sneakers. Brilliant film.
Hackers - I think it's old enough now to be allowed but it was really laughable at the time - in the kind of way swordfish will be almost respected 20 years from now.
Wargames is the Hackers of the early 80s.
Pirates of Silicon Valley is also worth a watch.
Three Days of the Condor is a fantastic film if you're even slightly old school.
The nines is one of those films you'll either get and love or won't - I loved it.
Battle Royale is an amazing film that happens to have some hacking in it.
2001 is the ultimate hacker film, even though there's not much that you could associate hacking with it. The way it's put together, the dedication to realism, the way the special effects were implemented a year before man went to the moon defines it as a hacker film for me, although YMMV.