Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies? • Hacker News Board

rogercosseboom wrote: post #20

mschwar99 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Triumph of the Nerds is great. Hopefully Cringley will make a version for this decade about Web empires.

He did make "Nerds 2.0" about the first web boom. Sadly, this has never been released on vhs/dvd.

It has been released on the Intertubes apparently: http://www.torrentbox.com/torrent_details?id=29078&filel...

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#34

Post by rogercosseboom » Mon, Jan 26, 2009, 7:39 PM UTC

mixmax wrote: post #33

rogercosseboom wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did make "Nerds 2.0" about the first web boom. Sadly, this has never been released on vhs/dvd.

It has been released on the Intertubes apparently: http://www.torrentbox.com/torrent_details?id=29078&filel...

Sadly I tried to download this a while ago and it turned out to be fake... its another (not-so-interesting) documentary on the internet.

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#35

Post by gcheong » Mon, Jan 26, 2009, 7:40 PM UTC

ideamonk wrote: post #32

I would go for some documentaries - Triumph of the Nerds, Hackers : Angels or Daemons History of Video Games another one on hacking from National Geographic, i can't recall the name Antitrust too :P

Project Ardvark about a group of interns at Fog Creek Software

EDIT: The actual name is Aardvark'd: 12 Weeks With Geeks

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=984060502281891679

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#36

Post by rogercosseboom » Mon, Jan 26, 2009, 7:41 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #30

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

Thats been one of my favorite scenes since I was a kid!

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#37

Post by mechanical_fish » Mon, Jan 26, 2009, 7:44 PM UTC

Okay, I'm insane, I know that. But I have this strange urge to nominate The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai in this category. I'm not sure I can explain why. Perhaps it's just to be perverse. ;)

There's just something about the character that rings true. He's a famous superhero, but he doesn't wear a costume or come from another planet. He's a mad scientist, but he doesn't cackle or plot or soliloquize. He's an odd guy with a diverse collection of obsessive hobbies and an even more diverse collection of friends, who are world-class experts in their fields while also being strange and geeky people. And somehow these people aren't his minions or his sidekicks: They're colleagues. He and his band work on things that nobody on Earth has ever heard of, but they don't seem too excited about that -- there are no breathless gasps. It's just part of their usual routine.

There's something about this guy, his lab, and his team that reminds me of the actual basement of the physics department at Cornell, and of the actual people who you might find wandering the hallways of such a place. A place where the pile of junk in the corner is actually the remains of a Nobel-winning experiment from 1967, and the guy who just asked you how to find the men's room is the Secretary of Energy.

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#38

Post by Shamiq » Mon, Jan 26, 2009, 7:48 PM UTC

kobs wrote: post #4

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.

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#39

Post by baddox » Mon, Jan 26, 2009, 7:51 PM UTC

kobs wrote: post #4

Antitrust: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218817/ Pirates of Silicon Valley: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/

I also highly recommend both films.

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#40

Post by biohacker42 » Mon, Jan 26, 2009, 7:52 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #11

artlogic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sneakers may be corny - but it's actually based on some serious math. Essentially one of the characters has developed a way to solve a prime factorization in what appears to be constant time (i.e. O(1)). Once you do that - well that's the end of basically all public key cryptography based on the RSA algorithm (pretty much everything in common use). Much more realistic than say, Hackers.

On the other hand, Hackers did take the time to name its characters after handles taken from 2600.

It also had Angelina Jolie.

It... motivate me to be a hacker.

And yet now that I am a hacker... I am no closer to Angelina, funny that.