August 2006 Archives

I'm gonna take a break from my running journal and jump back into my series on films and the internet, with 1995's HACKERS. I was under the impression this film was older than THE NET, but it turns out they were released in the same year. Let's see what HACKERS has to offer.

Our protagonist, Dade Murphy (aka Zero Cool, aka Crash Override) is played by Johnny Lee Miller, who met and married Angelina Jolie after making this film. Jolie plays Kate Libby (aka Acid Burn), and she first meets Dade while they are simultaneously hacking some cable TV company.

Dade just moved to NYC, so he goes to his new high school and immediately meets the dynamic Kate, but he has to use his hacking skills to ensure they are in the same class.

Damn, if only I'd been more of a nerd, I could have used computers to help woo my high school crushes!

It's great how Dade immediately falls in with the cool hacking crowd at his school, especially because it allows him to meet this wannabe Jedi:

They don't really explain why he answers the door like that.

Eventually Crash, Burn and co. take on a company where they have uncovered one of those Superman 3 money-skimming schemes, and that means taking on Penn (minus Teller) and Fisher Stevens' hack team:

They need a bit of help, so they call in the international hackers, first going to London:

I'm fairly certain that is a real shot from London, but they must have blown their budget getting it, so they resort to inventive set design to replicate these Japanese hackers:

Well, that about sums up the plot, let's take a look at some favorite scenes of mine:

There are multiple shots of boys taking showers in HACKERS, perhaps they wanted to make a statement about the stigma of smelly computer nerds. I suspect, however, that they were appealing to the ladies' demands to see Johnny Lee shirtless:

If Matthew Lillard has ever looked funnier, please let me know.

That hooded-guy actually ends up being this cool dude who pulls a Living Color, Corey Glover move donning this goalkeeper jersey and spinning records:

Hacking mostly involves sitting at a desk and typing, so let's make it more extreme and hack on top of buildings!

In perhaps one of the most regrettable scenes ever put to film, someone thought Dade acting out his Travis Bickle was a good idea.

Finally, I couldn't stop thinking about how British actor Johnny Lee Miller must have practiced his American accent while watching FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF. Take a listen.

Well, do you hear it?

HACK THE PLANET!

Well, I made it to 100 miles yesterday, but due to Cabel's "Operation Stealth Surprise" I managed to only take 2nd place in the race to 100.

Mr. Sasser employed expert strategy by running many miles without uploading his progress, lulling me into a state of complacency, and then in a burst Saturday morning he uploaded his running totals for the week, and captured the 100 mile total and shot into first place in the 2nd month of the UHAC.

Well done Cabel, well done.

However, all members of the UHAC are humbled by this man's endurance test. Yep, 50 marathons in 50 days. Wow.

I look forward to hearing more about Cabel's tremendous work rate, in a competition he's dubbed "the multi-player game of the year" (more evidence that kids could be motivated to become more athletic if they saw cool, visual progress).

Finally, I was pretty bummed to find out I couldn't get my power song to play on my last half-mile to 100. As suggested by Dan, I had picked out "100 Miles and Running", only to be greeted by the friendly lady giving me a status update every time I hit the center button. Oh well.

After a month with the Nike+ system, I figure it's time for an update.

Before I committed to this program I was mostly a casual runner, doing my 3.5 mile neighborhood course a few times a week, never seriously committing to running, because, let's face it--running is boring. No matter what runner's high I might achieve, I'd still much rather be kicking a soccer ball. However, since playing a team sport is a lot more difficult to organize than throwing on some running shoes and hitting the pavement, running it will be if I am to stay in shape for that day that I return to the soccer pitch (or futsal, stay tuned!).

However, with the Nike+ system I have forced myself to achieve and exceed both distance and pace goals. No longer left wondering how far I might have run, I am instead greeted with a detailed visual representation of my progress. The ability to track and graph my runs, along with the knowledge that my friends are racking up miles motivated me to run past my previous 3-4 mile comfort distance. When Josh sent me an ichat message saying he had just run 6+ miles, I went out the next day and did the same. It felt awesome hearing Lance Armstrong come on at the end of my run to congratulate me on my longest run. A couple days later I ran to Forest Park, then ran on the trails, and came back--& I couldn't wait to see how far I'd gone--8.26 miles.

Without this system I seriously doubt I would have even considered running more than twice as far as my usual route takes me.

I should also thank Mr. Cabel Sasser for motivating me to run as much as I did. Since I'm not always an early adopter, I waited a week to get in on the action, thus allowing my friends a head start on the mileage challenges. Seeing Cabel consistently push his first-place lead gave me the extra motivation to run 6 days a week, and jump from 13.58 miles one week to 25.84 the next, and 32.02 in the final week of the 30 day challenge.

Running 20 miles in 3 days before the end propelled me into first place, and still Cabel almost caught up with me! (I suppose I owe some thanks to the WWDC folks for keeping him occupied.)

I love the amount of stats you can see with the Nike+ system, especially when you find out you finished 158th in total mileage for the week. Now, if only it told you how many people were in the system, but I think it's safe to assume there are thousands. I've already decided to take it down a notch this week, but I'll be back to show when I hit the 100-mile mark in a few days.

Next up in my series is 1995's THE NET, starring Sandra Bullock. The movie starts with an awesome crane shot into our protagonist Angela Bennett's house, as she plays Duke Nukem and chats with her employer. He asks her to dinner, but she "has a prior engagement", which we then find out is ordering pizza.

Oh, look--it's pizza.net! Which, 11 years later, is "the world's largest pizza search engine." Who knew? At least I can say I've ordered pizza on the internet before, so let's give credit to the foresight shown by THE NET's creators.

After some slices we find Ms. Bennett chatting with her cyberfriends, and the movie feels compelled to make things more aurally interesting, so all of the chats are spoken in computer voices.

How great is "the net is ultimate condom"? Very great.

Angela obviously needs to take a break from this stressful life, so she goes on vacation, but first she needs to make her airline seat reservation:

Despite the basic graphic, this is another instance of THE NET actually delivering on a technological promise.

When Angela shows up at the airport the next day, things have gone a bit haywire due to, yep, a computer malfunction.

Would they really say "Hijacked"?!

Eventually she makes it to her destination, where she meets this alluring gentleman, who makes the moves on her with his smooth words "We're sitting on the most perfect beach in the world and all we're thinking about is where can I hook up my modem."

Brilliant sexual metaphor man!

Okay, I've grown bored of describing the plot, so here are the rest of the movie's highlights:

Don't mess with dudes who know computers, they could give you virtual VD.

When your budget is tight, call on Dennis Miller for the love interest.

Then kill him off because no-one is buying it.

Look at how cute that laptop is. Awwww.

Just don't press that button.

Now you did it.

I enjoyed THE NET more than I thought I would, mostly as a historical artifact. The movie really preys on the early internet privacy fears, and is probably the reason people still won't order things off the internet, but will instead call up some catalog and provide a live human with their credit card number. I can't wait for THE NET 2.0.

One of my favorite Netflix features is the queue. With a simple click I can decide "yes, I do want to watch Generic Action Film over Some Classic I've Been Meaning To See For Years" and I've just jumped my latest pick up to the top.

Another great use of the queue is the ability to create a series of films. I caught myself recently criticizing the presentation of technology in films, and more specifically the unrealistic visuals of the internet and hackers. So, in order to illustrate my point I will be watching a variety of films from the past dozen or so years and analyzing how realistically they portray technology and the internet.

In no certain order my first film is 2001's SWORDFISH. Let's jump right in and take a look at some photos from the film.

An early highlight is this scene where Hugh Jackman attempts to crack a password encryption with a gun to his head *while he receives a blowjob*. He of course passes the test because "he just sees the passwords in his head."

No doubt you are now bored with all the guns and computers, so the movie provides you with this.

Back to the technology, my favorite scene in the film has to be this one, where Hugh Jackman works on a password worm thing on a dozen monitors while he drinks wine, smokes, and jumps up and down.
He is totally Hack-Dancing!


Oh, and if there is any truth to the visualization of this worm thing, please let me know.

Most films about technology feature a shot where someone asks for a close-up enhancement, and SWORDFISH doesn't let you down.

Hmmm, I can't quite tell who those people are.

Yep, it's them--let's get em!

Truth be told, there are a couple good film references in SWORDFISH, but they all come courtesy of Travolta, and how can you really care what he is talking about when he looks like this.

So, in conclusion, SWORDFISH presents a false impression of how hacking works, gives us boobs so we don't care, and then shows us how cool and hip typing on a computer can be. If only they taught Hack-Dancing in schools...