9 ms·
Halt and Catch Fire (Season 1) available on Netflix
- jlawer 12y agoNot in .au
- icpmacdo 12y agoI assume it steals every piece of data it can but this chrome extension works for US Netflix http://hola.org/ http://hola.org/
- elemenopy 12y agoMore than that: unless you buy the premium subscription, you're actually acting as an exit node for their network. So be careful of that. http://hola.org/premium http://hola.org/premium https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1qnphj/psa_if_youre_uncomfortable_running_a_tor_exit/ https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1qnphj/psa_if_your...
- iLoch 12y agoI mean honestly I just bought a VPN connection. Costs me $45 a year and (probably?) doesn't steal anything. I realized how much time I spent trying to find mirrors and torrents for things that were widely available to stream in the US, and decided it was more practical to spend the money.
- e12e 12y agoI don't really think it's "legal". In fact, I don't see how this is any more or less legal than circumventing region blocks on DVDs etc. That happens to be legal in Norway, but as I understand it would be a breach of DMCA in the US. Not sure about Australia, but I think (?) you have just as draconian content/copy-protection laws? That said, see my other comment for using ssh as a socks5-proxy. YMMW which is easier (VPN or "vpn" via ssh).
- iLoch 12y agoI'm not suggesting it's legal. The moment I can get the same content in Canada as I can in the US without buying 100+ useless channels on TV then I'll start paying for content. I have friends in the movie industry who are affected by behaviour like mine, but they can talk to the MPAA if they have a problem with it.
- e12e 12y agoApparently Netflix is cracking down on users circumventing the geolocks on content -- but if you want to try, remember that ssh does socks5 (including DNS) proxying. Spin up a VPS at eg Digital Ocean or some other provider that has US presence, and simply: ssh -D 8080 yourvps.example.com #or use putty on windoze You might want to install FoxyProxy for Firefox -- otherwise just point your browser to localhost:8080 as a socks5 server. Apparently Chrome does some funky bits with DNS over socks5 -- but as far as I can figure out the new default in Firefox is sane (DNS over socks if a socks5 proxy is defined). Not that you'll probably have to have "a US" Netflix account, unless they just use location data for determining what shows you're "entitled" to. Same works for Amazon Prime, to eg. watch the free pilot of "Man in the High Castle": http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-High-Castle/dp/B00RSI5EHQ http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-High-Castle/dp/B00RSI5EHQ Same deal -- you'll probably need to sign-out/register a "new" Amazon.com account. FYI.
- icpmacdo 12y agoIt was one of those shows that I was watching and really enjoying then other things got in the way and never finished the last third of the season. I'm going to catchup right after schools done next week. How accurate is it when they reverse engineer the computer at the beginning of the season?
- gjkood 12y agoDuring the reverse engineering scene I would assume that they are reading the BIOS which would have been stored in ROM (Read Only Memory). The ROM chip would have the same address and read control lines like any standard memory chip which could be read by setting the Address lines, the Memory Read, any additional/ancillary signaling and then reading the data lines. Once you had all the bytes read, you could in principle run this through a Disassembler to get the actual Assembly language instructions (minus any original comments). You would have to figure out the boundaries of code, data etc. I would assume in those early days, they wouldn't expect the run of the mill hackers to be able to disassemble the stored data in ROM.
- waterlesscloud 12y agoYou could just read the rom in 8 bit home computers using normal memory access, and then disassemble it. I dunno about run of the mill hackers, but plenty of people would read the code for "fun".
- WalterBright 12y agoThe Technical Reference Manual for the original IBM PC included a listing of the source code to the BIOS.
- odiroot 12y agoIt was done on purpose, just to make it harder (sic!) to do IBM-clones, due to legal not technical reasons. Cringely explains that in his Accidental Empires.
- w-ll 12y agoIn all honesty I didn't really enjoy the series. I keep watching because it felt so alien. All the characters seamed very 1 dimensional, and the writing I felt like it was reaching and not really selling. If you can, watch it, make up your own mind.
- bjwbell 12y agoI felt the same. It had the surface qualities of a series about nerdy/geeky computers in the 80s. But missed the essence. I identify much more with Mike Judge's work in Office Space & his Silicon Valley tv series.
- mturmon 12y agoA soap opera with a technical facade.
- carlesfe 12y agoWell, it's a good drama which happens to have a technological background. And it so happens, too, that this technological background is realistic, precise, and even historically accurate. It's a good advance to make tech dramas approachable to the general public. If the series, as a work of art, is bad, in the end very few people will watch it regardless of its technological accuracy. That being said, my inner geek agrees with you: too much drama. But again, maybe I'm not exactly the target audience.
- fit2rule 12y agoI also found it relatively shallow, but I mostly enjoyed watching it because it introduced the whole 80's computer revolution story to my wife, who had previously ignored the subject. She seemed to get along fine with the characters without getting too geeked out by the technology, so I imagine that there is a balancing act going on with the AMC writers behind the show. That said, we're both looking forward to the next season .. for me, mostly because I love the soundtrack and have a secret crush on Cameron .. for my wife, I guess for the same reasons. ;)
- Zikes 12y agoCan we change the link to http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70302182?trkid=13752289 http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70302182?trkid=13752289 so people can read the show information or add it to their queues before deciding whether they want to watch it?
- gjkood 12y agoI just tried to change the URL but the 'edit' feature is only allowing me to edit the Title and not the URL. Does anyone know how I can edit the URL also?
- GigabyteCoin 12y agoYou'll probably never be able to do that due to security concerns. It can be much more damanging to a website to allow arbitrary changes to the URL posted on their homepage Vs. a string of text.
- robbiet480 12y agoDon't quote me on this, but I believe that HN previously has let me change URLs but I did notice the same issue that gjkood mentioned on a recently submitted link...
- ableal 12y ago"Sorry, Netflix hasn't come to this part of the world yet" on a blank page. Kind of annoying, not even letting the possible future customers do some harmless window shopping.
- sleepychu 12y agoThis is my biggest issue with Netflix, even when you're in a country they offer the service in you can't browse their library as an unpaid member. Also it seems ridiculous to me that I found the browsing experience in a physical blockbuster store easier to use than Netflix!
- 12y ago
- nsxwolf 12y agoOnly drama I've ever seen that discussed technical details of the TI-99/4A.
- sehugg 12y agoFWIW a lot of this history is covered in PBS's "Triumph of the Nerds" documentary without the dramatic license. Kudos to the producers for attempting to make BIOS reverse engineering look exciting, though.
- sleepychu 12y agoThough it's my understanding that they could have just booted into DOS and performed list on the BIOS? (To get the compiled binary)
- sehugg 12y agoYeah, extracting would be the easy part (the engineer did say as such in the episode). I doubt they would have transcribed it by hand in 1983. Writing the spec was the hard part, it actually took nine months and a team of 15 to produce the final BIOS. (assuming we're talking about Compaq here, but the show keeps it intentionally vague)
- fit2rule 12y ago"performed list" on the BIOS? How did that work, exactly? In the very early days of the IBM PC, it wasn't so easy, alas. I guess they could have used DEBUG.COM to get a dump, but this isn't quite "performing a list": http://www.mess.org/dumping/dump_bios_using_debug http://www.mess.org/dumping/dump_bios_using_debug
- gregulrajani 12y agoThe first season start of well with lots of cool dramatised hacking and startup culture scenes. But near the middle of the first season it had turned into a unbelievable soap opera with a bit of tech as a backdrop.
- randomnumber53 12y agoSilicon Valley, on the other hand, is great.
- fit2rule 12y agoSee, this is interesting, because I found Silicon Valley puerile and delinquent -- too many dick jokes -- whereas Halt and Catch Fire is a little more intelligent. Generational difference? Possibly: I grew up with computers in the 70's.
- tiles 12y agoAs an alternate opinion for this thread, this is my most highly anticipated show this year. The drama, pacing, acting, and technical details in this show are completely unparalleled; its strengths heavily outweigh its faults. No other show comes close to the breadth HACF strives for.
- T3RMINATED 12y agothat show is so boring it does not come even close to the 1995 Hackers movie.
- ddmf 12y agoBut not in the UK :(
- fit2rule 12y agoThis show re-kindled my love for 80's music - if you haven't check it out already, and love the soundtrack, there's an AMC playlist for the show on Spotify .. worth using!