Missing the Point



  • Via Silicon Bunny:

    Films rarely depict computing accurately - largely because, let’s face it, sitting in front of a terminal hacking away is hardly the most exciting thing to watch. Back in Jurassic Park, when Lex was trying to hack into the computer system to get the power back online, she used a 3D file manager. Lots of people liked to cite this as a great example of how Hollywood just ‘didn’t get’ computers.

    FSN 3D file system navigator Silicon Graphics SGI IRIX Jurassic Park

    What most people fail to realise is that FSN, the File System Navigator, was an demo system tool from Silicon Graphics IRIX. You use to be able to download it direct from the (now sadly defunct) Serious Fun freeware pages on the Silicon Graphics website. Hey, this is Silicon Graphics we’re talking about - who else would make a 3D file browser in with their OS?

    Gerhard Lenerz has some more information and some good screen grabs on his site at http://sgistuff.g-lenerz.de/movies/jpark.php - I can recommend a good browse on there as he has some great SGI resources.

    FSV, the File System Visualiser, is a re-creation of FSN for UNIX systems that have OpenGL. I can recommend grabbing it and having a play - it works under OS X for some truly silly fun.

    Film appearances aside, FSN was an interesting approach to deal with ‘information overload’ and to use powerful computer graphics to provide a simpler interface to something complex (in this case, the IRIX filesystem).

    If you want to play around with FSN under IRIX, you can grab the ELF version (for IRIX 5.3 and later) at ftp://ftp.sgi.com/sgi/fsn/fsn.tar.Z - or you can grab a local copy from here.

     

    Your correspondent respectfully disagrees with the conclusion that this means the director of Jurassic Park 'gets' computers. It's more that the guy who came up with this thing doesn't get them either.



  • Sadistic experiment: Take a keyboard jockey... we're talking a guy that hasn't seen the sun in about a month, install this on his leet linux machine and force him to use it. In fact... I'm pretty sure I could make a reality show out of that.




  •  @DOA said:

    Sadistic experiment: Take a keyboard jockey... we're talking a guy that hasn't seen the sun in about a month, install this on his leet linux machine and force him to use it. In fact... I'm pretty sure I could make a reality show out of that.

    That would lead to the same results as putting glitter powder and a fancy wrapper around Gollum's ring.



  • @DOA said:

    Sadistic experiment: Take a keyboard jockey... we're talking a guy that hasn't seen the sun in about a month, install this on his leet linux machine and force him to use it. In fact... I'm pretty sure I could make a reality show out of that.

    It would be about as funny as "comic store guy" in The Simpsons.  By which I mean, not very funny.



  • @Qwerty said:

    It would be about as funny as "comic store guy" in The Simpsons.  By which I mean, not very funny.
     

    It would probably be funnier than posting in a topic that has been dead for a week.



  • @dtech said:

    @Qwerty said:

    It would be about as funny as "comic store guy" in The Simpsons.  By which I mean, not very funny.
     

    It would probably be funnier than posting in a topic that has been dead for a week.

    Hey, don't get too carried away with this "community moderation" thingy! "A week" means merely comatose, not dead.



  • @Spectre said:

    Hey, don't get too carried away with this "community moderation" thingy! "A week" means merely comatose, not dead.

    So, who made you the judge then?



  • So does that mean I didn't need to wait a week to point out that it's been a week since anyone posted??



  •  * bump *



  • @tster said:

    * bump *
    Didn't you get the memo? There's a new graphical UI for bumping.  It's supposed to prevent you from bumping unless:

    • You have zero or one posts 
    • the thread has been dead for longer than three months.
    Please upgrade to the new UI and follow the rules for bumping.


  • Thank you... you have answered a question I've been questioning for a long time... Finally something to make me sleep regardless my broken ribs killing me... and yes ... this is borring



  • What about the scenn in swordfish in which the guy is hacking into the banks and the IP addresses are fake... chek that out It's also true...



  •  WTF??



  • @lucasjoe2k said:

    What about the scenn in swordfish in which the guy is hacking into the banks and the IP addresses are fake... chek that out It's also true...
    There's a reason for that, if you think about it. If they picked a real IP address, even a random one that followed the correct format, severalhundred thousand people like you would go andsee where they led. It would be like being Slashdotted.



  •  @Jake Grey said:

    @lucasjoe2k said:

    What about the scenn in swordfish in which the guy is hacking into the banks and the IP addresses are fake... chek that out It's also true...
    There's a reason for that, if you think about it. If they picked a real IP address, even a random one that followed the correct format, severalhundred thousand people like you would go andsee where they led. It would be like being Slashdotted.

    there are tons of IP address in reserved ranges that cannot be used on the internet.



  • @tster said:

    there are tons of IP address in reserved ranges that cannot be used on the internet.
     

    Yes, and if they would have used a 192.*, 10.* or 127.* (just to name a few) the comlpaint would be: "ZOMG HES USING A IP THAT A SERVER CAN NEVER HAVE ON THE INTERNET ROLFLOLOLOLOLO!!!1!!~1!"



  • @dtech said:

    @tster said:

    there are tons of IP address in reserved ranges that cannot be used on the internet.
     

    Yes, and if they would have used a 192.*, 10.* or 127.* (just to name a few) the comlpaint would be: "ZOMG HES USING A IP THAT A SERVER CAN NEVER HAVE ON THE INTERNET ROLFLOLOLOLOLO!!!1!!~1!"

    How about 192.0.2.0/24? There are not much addresses in there, but enough for a TV show.

    Hey, I have an even better idea! How about using real IPv6 addresses? No complaints and no slashdotting, either. Maybe it'll even help boosting IPv6 deployment.


  • :belt_onion:

    @belgariontheking said:

    @tster said:

    * bump *
    Didn't you get the memo? There's a new graphical UI for bumping.  It's supposed to prevent you from bumping unless:

    • You have zero or one posts 
    • the thread has been dead for longer than three months.
    Please upgrade to the new UI and follow the rules for bumping.
    I didn't get this memo either. So I'm not supposed to *bump* then?


  • @bjolling said:

    @belgariontheking said:

    @tster said:

    * bump *
    Didn't you get the memo? There's a new graphical UI for bumping.  It's supposed to prevent you from bumping unless:

    • You have zero or one posts 
    • the thread has been dead for longer than three months.
    Please upgrade to the new UI and follow the rules for bumping.
    I didn't get this memo either. So I'm not supposed to bump then?
    What the fuck! This thread is four years old! Why is it at the top of the forum?



  • @Ben L. said:

    What the fuck! This thread is four years old! Why is it at the top of the forum?

    I recently considered posting in a random old topic and then immediately deleting my post, because that's one way to cause the exact effect you described. I didn't do it though. Maybe CS does it also if someone just THINKS of it.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @derula said:

    @Ben L. said:
    What the fuck! This thread is four years old! Why is it at the top of the forum?

    I recently considered posting in a random old topic and then immediately deleting my post, because that's one way to cause the exact effect you described. I didn't do it though. Maybe CS does it also if someone just THINKS of it.

    There was a spammer who got loose in the forums. His post got deleted by a mod, but not before it bumped this and some other ancient stuff.



  • @boomzilla said:

    His post got deleted by a mod, but not before it bumped this and some other ancient stuff.
     

    So removing the more recent post doesn't restore the "last post" date? Minor WTF there, I guess - that should be trivial to fix.

    (I'm not suggesting that is does get fixed, just that I've no idea why the process for adding a new post wasn't the basis for removing a post)



  • @Cassidy said:

    So removing the more recent post doesn't restore the "last post" date?
     

    I think it does, but not.. always... or something. Repro circumstances not known yet.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @dhromed said:

    @Cassidy said:

    So removing the more recent post doesn't restore the "last post" date?
     

    I think it does, but not.. always... or something. Repro circumstances not known yet.

    I get the feeling that the board indices pages are cached (witness the 'delay' warning on changing a profile for instance - I'm assuming it's part of CS.)


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