Comments on: Tapitty Tapitty Tapitty – On Screen Computing

By: Martin Lapietra

Martin Lapietra — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 02:35:07 +0000

Even at a generous estimate — say, for vertical length, the distance from lowest to highest human habitation, and for area every square kilomere inhabited by at least one human

By: G Morgan

G Morgan — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 06:44:04 +0000

I’m not certain “Hackers” deserves to be panned here The computer stuff in there is clearly meant to be stylistic instead of representative. It’s meant to evoke.

My own favorite “They got it right!” moment was in the first season of Millennium, circa 1998, when the protagonist Frank Black searches the internet for references to the word Gehenna. Not only do they actually show him typing in a real browser, the results page is what you would have actually seen in 1998, including Vampire: the Masquerade references. Excellent.

By: Flat Eric

Flat Eric — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 06:22:28 +0000

Never mind firewalls, in Independence Day the whole early plot hinges on aliens not having invented clocks, as they depend on a broadcast counting-down signal thing to ensure they all attack at the same time.

I haven’t read all the comments, but if no one mention’s Scotty’s use of a PC to ‘design’ transparent aluminium (with a few rapid key-strokes, natch) in Star Trek: The Voyage Home, then you’re all just too young to know.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:00:55 +0000

Actually, the computer that saves the world is a Powerbook 1400 so the aliens seem to be using early PPC code, which is even rarer on Earth.

By: Combaticus

Combaticus — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:14:52 +0000

For me it’s not the visuals so much—it’s THE SOUNDS!

By: KindredPhantom

KindredPhantom — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 13:17:16 +0000

Whilst watching the latest episodes of Dollhouse i could not help but to think back to this thread.

By: mootpoint

mootpoint — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:26:52 +0000

And now the main stream flows by you:

Ridiculous User Interfaces In Film, and the Man Who Designs Them

By: Masked Dave

Masked Dave — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:36:49 +0000

All that typing! Also a computer system that can get you any information instantly. So what’s the point of having the room full of analysts? It seems like CTU can be run by 5 people alone.

By: zipdrive

zipdrive — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:32:44 +0000

I’ve recently watched Hardwired which, in addition to claiming that when a company got direct access to your brain via chip all it would to is send ads, it also had an extreme dose of “hacker types really fast to make X, Y or Z happen”.

By: Wisq

Wisq — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:07:22 +0000

I always loved the scene in one of the episodes of Nikita (the TV series) in which the titular character was talked through remotely killing a process that was guiding airplanes to crash into each other, using Unix “ps” and “kill” commands.

Sure, the “kill” command took too long to execute in order to create a dramatic pause, but it was still a big break from the usual “Movie OS” crap.

The CSI (etc.) shenanigans regarding infinite zooming in on terrible images is perhaps best summed up by this image.

By: Damien Stark

Damien Stark — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:47:29 +0000

I give them some props at least for the plot twist explaining why the AI “went bad” – as opposed to nearly every other AI movie that just generally assumes all AI will turn evil and seek to destroy all humans. An interesting twist that’s actually happened to humans in other conspiracy movies.

By: Damien Stark

Damien Stark — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:38:33 +0000

Seconded. As silly as it is (3 x 3 grid of monitors to “assemble” the worm?) I love that scene. Something about the way that it depicts the process as “one guy in a room by himself for hours, with music on, taking occasional wine breaks” felt far truer to me than the “spinning phone booth” stuff of Hackers, or the “people standing over your shoulder as you tap in two or three lines of code for 30 seconds” of nearly all other movies.