5 ms·

The most interesting part is that they even bothered to take source code that is loosely related to security stuff and not just took any source code that came a

by WA 14y ago

The most interesting part is that they even bothered to take source code that is loosely related to security stuff and not just took any source code that came across their way.

cju 14y ago
That's a strange contrast with the ridiculously precise progress bar. Probably not the choices of the same person.
- JoshTriplett 14y ago
  The ridiculously precise progress bar may actually be a case of "reality is unrealistic": if you produced a quick-and-dirty progress bar by just printing a float, without bothering to trim the precision, you'd get something like that.
  - HCIdivision17 14y ago
    I'll confirm this. When I make scripts for some SCADA recipe handling, I make sure to output with at least 7 sig-figs and ETA in DDD HH:MM:SS.###. (Properly formatted, though.) It's not useful, but it's technically true, the overhead and development is negligible, and it amuses me. "See? It's super sophisticated just like that progress bar in the movies!" Incidentally, it also makes it easier for operators to accept the computer is busy and just wait a minute.
- sp332 14y ago
  Probably the same reason they removed most of the whitespace from the code: they needed it to fill a wide-screen monitor :)
swalsh 14y ago
On the other hand, its 2013 not 1983. A lot more people today are at least casually familiar with code. Saying unrelated technical words could unwillingly make your movie a joke.
- yock 14y ago
  Saying unrelated technical words could unwillingly make your movie a joke. I think a progress indicator with figures calculated to the billionth pretty well secures joke status.
  - nonamegiven 14y ago
    It's "artistic license" in the original sense.
  - IanCal 14y ago
    Not really, calculating and displaying that much doesn't take any more time to code, in fact it takes less.
- saintx 14y ago
  I bet they could increase the throughput if they modulated the plasma coils.
- rasur 14y ago
  You mean like in "Swordfish"? Now that was a film that could be measured in facepalms per minute.
  - consz 14y ago
    Well, that was 12 years ago so it wouldn't have appeared quite as ridiculous at the time, at least to non-tech culture.
  - hkmurakami 14y ago
    But that's what gives the movie everlasting value to us now! :) Love watching the movie while drinking somewhat heavily with friends.
diadara 14y ago
I used to pause Person of Interest http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839578/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839578/ to look at the code which made no sense at all and stopped following the stupid series.I am sure I am not the only one .It's not a bad thing to pay attention to detail.
- krapp 14y ago
  You're an outlier though. Making the code look authentic means burning through valuable time and money on a special effect their viewers almost certainly won't know enough to care anything about. It's just not worth the effort for anything more than "something that looks like code."
  - diadara 14y ago
    You are right, if there is no reward for authentic looking fake stuff ,why bother.. I should stop trying to make sense out of television hackers code.
    - krapp 14y ago
      Repeat to yourself: "it's just a show, I should really just relax."
- mhd 14y ago
  I pause PoI, too, but find the results more amusing than off-putting (one episode had a genius kid writing some overblown mega-compression code, but the snipped that marvelled the main character was basic C file munging). I don't really mind abstracting anything high-level and taking shortcuts -- it's hard enough watching someone navigate a web browser in real life ("Ctrl-L, goshdarnit!"), I certainly wouldn't want to watch them go through the search results in a TV series. Just like every OP scene boils down to one dramatic event, not hours of meticulous work. I just get riled up when the basic computer operation is totally unrelated to the real world, because by now people kinda know how a computer works, it's not the early '80s anymore. Two people typing on one keyboard, 3D views etc. One thing I've accepted by now is the useless display of data when searching. Non-matching ugshots flashing on screen and the like. A progress bar just isn't very exciting. (Actually, if it wouldn't slow down the actual operation, more real-life interfaces might benefit from something like this.)

by WA 14y ago

The most interesting part is that they even bothered to take source code that is loosely related to security stuff and not just took any source code that came across their way.

cju 14y ago

That's a strange contrast with the ridiculously precise progress bar. Probably not the choices of the same person.

JoshTriplett 14y ago
The ridiculously precise progress bar may actually be a case of "reality is unrealistic": if you produced a quick-and-dirty progress bar by just printing a float, without bothering to trim the precision, you'd get something like that.
- HCIdivision17 14y ago
  I'll confirm this. When I make scripts for some SCADA recipe handling, I make sure to output with at least 7 sig-figs and ETA in DDD HH:MM:SS.###. (Properly formatted, though.) It's not useful, but it's technically true, the overhead and development is negligible, and it amuses me. "See? It's super sophisticated just like that progress bar in the movies!" Incidentally, it also makes it easier for operators to accept the computer is busy and just wait a minute.
sp332 14y ago
Probably the same reason they removed most of the whitespace from the code: they needed it to fill a wide-screen monitor :)

swalsh 14y ago

On the other hand, its 2013 not 1983. A lot more people today are at least casually familiar with code. Saying unrelated technical words could unwillingly make your movie a joke.

yock 14y ago
Saying unrelated technical words could unwillingly make your movie a joke. I think a progress indicator with figures calculated to the billionth pretty well secures joke status.
- nonamegiven 14y ago
  It's "artistic license" in the original sense.
- IanCal 14y ago
  Not really, calculating and displaying that much doesn't take any more time to code, in fact it takes less.
saintx 14y ago
I bet they could increase the throughput if they modulated the plasma coils.
rasur 14y ago
You mean like in "Swordfish"? Now that was a film that could be measured in facepalms per minute.
- consz 14y ago
  Well, that was 12 years ago so it wouldn't have appeared quite as ridiculous at the time, at least to non-tech culture.
- hkmurakami 14y ago
  But that's what gives the movie everlasting value to us now! :) Love watching the movie while drinking somewhat heavily with friends.

diadara 14y ago

I used to pause Person of Interest http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839578/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839578/ to look at the code which made no sense at all and stopped following the stupid series.I am sure I am not the only one .It's not a bad thing to pay attention to detail.

krapp 14y ago
You're an outlier though. Making the code look authentic means burning through valuable time and money on a special effect their viewers almost certainly won't know enough to care anything about. It's just not worth the effort for anything more than "something that looks like code."
- diadara 14y ago
  You are right, if there is no reward for authentic looking fake stuff ,why bother.. I should stop trying to make sense out of television hackers code.
  - krapp 14y ago
    Repeat to yourself: "it's just a show, I should really just relax."
mhd 14y ago
I pause PoI, too, but find the results more amusing than off-putting (one episode had a genius kid writing some overblown mega-compression code, but the snipped that marvelled the main character was basic C file munging). I don't really mind abstracting anything high-level and taking shortcuts -- it's hard enough watching someone navigate a web browser in real life ("Ctrl-L, goshdarnit!"), I certainly wouldn't want to watch them go through the search results in a TV series. Just like every OP scene boils down to one dramatic event, not hours of meticulous work. I just get riled up when the basic computer operation is totally unrelated to the real world, because by now people kinda know how a computer works, it's not the early '80s anymore. Two people typing on one keyboard, 3D views etc. One thing I've accepted by now is the useless display of data when searching. Non-matching ugshots flashing on screen and the like. A progress bar just isn't very exciting. (Actually, if it wouldn't slow down the actual operation, more real-life interfaces might benefit from something like this.)