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I wish we could do the same for Computer Science/Software. Movies like "Travelling Salesman" or "Pirates of Silicon Valley" or "Imitation Game" would be great s
by s_dev 5y ago
I wish we could do the same for Computer Science/Software. Movies like "Travelling Salesman" or "Pirates of Silicon Valley" or "Imitation Game" would be great suggestions but typically things like the Matrix or Ghost in the Shell are recommended which for me are great movies but poor examples of the discipline.
- gnull 5y agoSurprized you didn't mention Mr. Robot.
- s_dev 5y agoI would say "Anything that offers insight in to the world way software is" -- since Mr. Robot is entirely fictional so wouldn't qualify for me but I would add that it at least tries to be faithful to what software is. Terminology seems appropriately used it forgoes many cheap Hollywood software tropes.
- canadianfella 5y ago> "Anything that offers insight in to the world way software is" What?
- beermonster 5y agoOh, I don't know about Matrix. You get to see[1] Trinity determine a vulnerable SSH is running, using nmap, only to then exploit it to get #. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PxTAn4g20U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PxTAn4g20U
- mcphage 5y ago* Wargames * Hackers — it doesn’t get the software too right, but it nails the feeling * Sneakers — a great introduction to social engineering
- ludocode 5y agoWargames is a great hacking movie. The ending is a little meh, but the old-school tech is fantastic. It inspired the video game DEFCON. Sneakers is another great movie. It seems a lot more faithful to how hacking works in real life: as you said it's mostly about social engineering, not how fast you can type. And the device in the movie is at least somewhat plausible. A mathematician could in theory discover a critical vulnerability in cryptography and build it into a standalone electronic device. Hackers is awful. I don't get the appeal at all. I'll never understand why this movie is so popular. I'd put it right up there with Swordfish in terms of nonsensical computer voodoo.
- cbm-vic-20 5y ago> Hackers is awful. I don't get the appeal at all. 1. It has a great soundtrack. 2. Fisher Stevens is corny as hell.
- craftinator 5y ago"Type 'cookie', you idiot." =)
- amanaplanacanal 5y agoPlus you get a young and beautiful Jonny Lee miller and Angelina Jolie.
- poisonarena 5y agoHackers had a lot of influence from the scene and the vibe from 2600 meetups and even one of the characters is named Emmanuel Goldstein. The soundtrack was so good they released a second soundtrack with songs which were not even in the movie.
- spitfire 5y agoand after that they released a /third/ soundtrack, with songs which were not even in the movie.
- nickpp 5y agoAdd "General Magic" and "Halt and Catch Fire".
- vidanay 5y agoHalt and Catch Fire is the best movie ever at capturing the cyclical dream-strive-success-crash nature of technology. (With an appropriate amount of evil, mental illness, and family drama thrown in too)
- spaetzleesser 5y agoI didn't enjoy "General Magic". It barely touched the device, UI or the thinking behind it. It was the typical generic startup movie about the people, not about the tech.
- TuringNYC 5y ago"Halt and Catch Fire" seems more like something every tech-startup worker should watch, but totally agree on the recommendation -- it is literally the most real, most reflective TV series on the industry, focusing on the average/typical experience through the industry and life.
- huhtenberg 5y agoSimilarly, "startup.com" is what every startup founder wannabe must watch.
- cm2187 5y agoOffice Space is probably the most representative of this discipline!
- Eyght 5y agoHello cm2187 what's happening. I'm gonna need you to go ahead and not recommend movies while at work. So if you could go ahead and get back to it.. that'd be great.
- geocrasher 5y agoMy guilty pleasures for this genre are "Hackers" (Hack the planet!! WOOO!) and "Office Space". One also cannot mention these without adding the excellent "Sneakers" with Robert Redford.
- smusamashah 5y agoMr Robot is a TV series about hacking where hacker simply uses social tricks and can't get past 2FA. It has lots of tech jargon.
- dale_glass 5y agoI re-watched Hackers recently and it isn't that bad. They clearly did the research, and then spiced things up for more enjoyable viewing. It's not accurate, but it wasn't trying to be, and I think they got the main points across perfectly well. Eg, there's a lot of social engineering, and taking sensible precautions like not using your own connection. The villain's plot of hijacking a control system and extorting money is perfectly modern. Sure, there's a bunch of colorful graphics they put on top of that, but it's arguably a visual representation of "being in the zone", and something that's done in virtually every other piece of media ever. Any real job includes lots of boring work that never ends up on the screen, and you just get the highlights.
- mrexroad 5y agoRISC is good!
- dale_glass 5y agoI mean, today we have RISC-V and the M1. And it was a perfectly reasonable thing for those people to discuss.
- generalizations 5y ago> The villain's plot of hijacking a control system and extorting money is perfectly modern. I mean, isn't that pretty much what happened this week with that gas pipeline?
- muststopmyths 5y agoI'm probably a minority in this but I always thought "The Net" with Sandra Bullock was prescient about technology and its dangers, even if the wrapping was hokey.
- CRConrad 5y agoWe may be in a minority, but at least you're not totally alone.
- chasd00 5y agoShort Circuit (mostly a kids movie) has some interesting aspects to it from a software engineer / hardware engineer perpsective. Also some very very funny lines: Newton Crosby: Where are you from, anyway? Ben Jabituya: Bakersfield, originally. Newton Crosby: No, I mean your ancestors. Ben Jabituya: Oh, them. Pittsburgh. ---- No. 5: Stephanie, change color. Attractive. Nice software. Hmmmm. Stephanie Speck: Boy, you sure don't talk like a robot. ---- edit: how do you add newlines?
- scrumper 5y agoMy 6 & 8yr old kids adored that when I showed it to them recently. Ben's character more than a little out of place these days: he's used entirely as an object of comedy (and that as a target rather than a source), does nothing for the story, and his casting would definitely not be acceptable in 2021. The rest of the movie is fun and warm though, and the robot is endlessly quotable by little voices.
- chasd00 5y agoyeah that's a sad point about Ben's character. I'm going on about 35 years of memory since i last saw it and then just looked up a few quotes on rotten tomatoes. I like the dilemma facing engineers working on military weapons. Then also the theme around AI and those implications.
- scrumper 5y agoYeah it's all good except for that, and definitely touches on some pretty cutting edge concerns as you mention. I didn't remember the Ben stuff either. I hadn't seen it since I guess age of 10? Put it on for the kids to watch with them a couple months ago and I spent most of it praying that Ben wasn't the thing they'd remember. If you have a reason to watch it again then I'd do so, it's amazing how uncomfortable it'll make you feel with modern eyes! I think the filmmakers recognized how crap that was anyway, he's barely in it and does nothing for the story.
- 5y ago
- larrydag 5y agoNot a movie but I would suggest Halt and Catch Fire
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dgritsko 5y agoThe Social Network would be on the list for me. I remember grinning from ear to ear in the theater seeing Perl and wget on the big screen during the Harvard scenes. Great movie.
- s_dev 5y agoI would count the Social Network as well. Still lots of suggestions I wouldn't agree with below my comment. The problem is many are conflating great movies that involve software/computer concepts rather than movies based on software/computer concepts.
- nickpp 5y ago“Code Rush” was a fun documentary about the (end of the) Netscape era.
- camjohnson26 5y agoSilicon Valley on HBO is easily the most realistic tech/software story.
- latenightcoding 5y agoI mean things start making no sense after RussFest
- ffhhj 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_about_computers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_about_computers Favorites about real and fictional creators: Micro Men https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXBxV6-zamM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXBxV6-zamM Pirates of Silicon Valley Halt and Catch Fire ... and some documentaries like "Mother of all Demos", the history of Internet Explorer vs. Netscape, and the creators of the spreadsheet
- aglavine 5y agoBlackhat was pretty good
- dkarl 5y agoI think as a programmer I'm way more easy going about realism when it comes to computers in movies. I get way more picky about physics, biology, sports, and other topics where I'm just a gee-whiz dilettante.
- mdoms 5y agoThe first season of Mr Robot is excellent for computer folks.
- BrandoElFollito 5y agoTrinity used an actual exploit (ssh IIRC). This sets it apart some movies like Jurassic Park with the girl looking at some UI made of 3D shapes and says "unix, I know it). Or NCIS - of which I copied for an awareness training the part where the two geeks "go though the firewall" both on the same keyboard.
- devenblake 5y agoDidn't know this but yup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PxTAn4g20U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PxTAn4g20U - scene from The Matrix Reloaded where Trinity uses nmap and sshnuke. Looks like there's a re-creation of the on-screen display here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J2IdllfHh8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J2IdllfHh8 but the typing is faster than in the movie. Also, the Jurassic Park scene to which you're referring was a real picture of SGI IRIX's 3D file manager. It was visual fluff, but functional visual fluff.
- salgernon 5y agoJurassic Park: That was the Button Fly Demo UI from SGI IRIX. So at least it wasn't a complete mockup. (But nor is it the same as "knowing unix". If she knew unix, she would've been complaining more.)
- cycomanic 5y agoNot a movie, but the IT crowd is definitely a series in that spirit and a must see!
- huhtenberg 5y agoIt gets boring really fast.