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The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

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Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much agree, many people I've talked to about Hackers don't seem to get this "it shows what it feels like", and get hung up on interpreting details literally, like the favorite complaint "screens don't project a sharp image onto the wall behind you". I also like Swordfish for this. Him dancing at the keyboard while programming is very much what it feels like when you have a good hack going.

I suppose it all depends on when you grew up and got into computers. I always thought Hackers feeling/vibe was kind of clowny and not representative of computer enthusiasts and hackers. The hackers I grew up exposed to (mid-80s, early-90s) were not cool kids riding rollerblades with wacky hairstyles saying "duuuuuude" and listening to techno. Wargames and Sneakers were a lot closer to the actual vibe. Normal clothes,…

I do suspect that the scene changed by the mid-90s. Although, it might also be that the American scene was a bit different from the European scene? It's worth mentioning that the movie Hackers was made by a Brit, and perhaps his vision was more influenced by the European scene at the time, despite the movie being based in NYC?

I came of age during the height of the demo scene in Europe, and enjoyed the pre-warez offshoot where pirated games always included exciting intros/cracktros. So hackers making electronic music and cool visuals was the baseline that every noob had to meet to be "elite". Of course in real life we still all wore "normal clothes" and lived careful, quiet lives - but the dream was to be these rockstars that the movie Hackers turned to 11.

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#162

Ripe fromage. If I were writing the sequel, it would be a series, and it would be about how they grew up and now they all work leading security at platform companies and government agencies. While reversing a worm that was unleashed by trolls to sabotage a social-credit/Nosedive-like app, Kate/acidburn finds the encoded string "that place where I put that thing that time," which has to be a reference to their old cre…

> grew up and now they all work leading security at platform companies and government agencies

The exact opposite of a hacker. If they instead run their own company, built their own products, or open sourced an amazing tool the yeah. Otherwise do we really want a series or movie about their daily stand-ups?

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#163

Ripe fromage. If I were writing the sequel, it would be a series, and it would be about how they grew up and now they all work leading security at platform companies and government agencies. While reversing a worm that was unleashed by trolls to sabotage a social-credit/Nosedive-like app, Kate/acidburn finds the encoded string "that place where I put that thing that time," which has to be a reference to their old cre…

Where do I send my money?

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#164
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Carmack was also constantly working on the cutting edge. I think that makes a big difference. IIRC from reading MoD, he was the first person to get true side-scrolling working on an x86 chip, before it was thought to not be powerful enough vs the chips used in consoles at the time. Problem is that most of us just don't get to work on the cutting edge usually. A lot of the software that needs building often doesn…

Is John Carmack also a genius? Sometimes I can’t tell, but I suspect so.

If you’re going by IQ I’d bet he’s at least in the 145-159 highly gifted range.

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#165
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'23' is a great movie. 'Who am I' deserves a mention too.

Do you have any tips for finding 23 with English subtitles? Obviously I'm trying Google (and excluding "Number 23" and attempting to exclude "23 blast" (Google is treating my minus as a plus when excluding both)).

That movie is on Archive.org, so maybe you could try to look for subs for those specific titles.

https://archive.org/details/23-nichts-ist-so-wie-es-scheint-...

https://archive.org/details/Hackers_-_23_part_-II_-

The second one says part II but is the complete movie.

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sneakers really doesn't get enough love, probably because I'm not sure people knew what to make of it. Names so big the billboards couldn't hold them all, but doing things with computers that didn't make sense to your average viewer. So punk, even if half of them are in suits. I love Hackers, but it's like a generational sequel to Sneakers.

I re-watched Sneakers a few months ago based on comments like this. I didn't really enjoy it when it came out and I didn't enjoy it this time either. Not sure why it doesn't work for me.

Truly sorry to hear that. I guess not everything can be for everyone. But maybe there are some movies out there you do enjoy more!

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#167
Highly flawed film; bizarre sense of style, ropey acting, terrible culture references, insane computer representations.

All so bad, its agelessly bad, like only a true cult film can be.

But there is one huge redeeming thing for me, and that is I find it a really fun caper.

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#169

Between Hackers, Masters of Doom, and other rad 90s hacker-coder media, software development really seemed like a much more awesome career than it turned out to be. If I had a time machine I would warn young me that it's really more like a combination of Office Space and Wolf of Wall Street. It would be awesome to listen to Prodigy or Megadeth while hackin' with the gang though. I'm still down for that if it exists s…

I wish I could code in the time when there were no deadlines and you could gradually plod away at incredibly complex assembly code while hanging out with some like minded folk. That probably stopped being a thing in the 70s though.

https://kansasfest.org

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#170
post #72

The Hackers soundtrack is the root node of all my electronic music discoveries… It all started with Orbital, Underworld, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Leftfield…

I literally listened to Halcyon & on & on for something like 2 years on loop while teaching myself programming in QBasic and assembly language.

Orbital recently released a great remix of it on 30 Something. The original is one of my favourite songs of all time.
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