Cinema Saturdays: Independence Day
Today's July 4th, and around this house that means we re-watch the movie "Independence Day" I'm not sure why we do this. It's not that great of a movie, although it was good enough to watch a couple of times. I think it's the rousing speech by the President at the end of the movie, played by Bill Pullman.
As a hacker (I mean that in a good sense), Independence Day was great. Who knew? When the aliens show up, we can hack into their computer system! I sure hope those guys aren't using something outdated, like CICS or VAX/VMS. I'm not up to speed on my Big Endian assembly skills.
So let's quickly review our success with fictional aliens.
H.G. Wells in War Of The Worlds had tripods that showed up and zapped everything, only to be killed by bugs, microbes. Flash forward to The Day The Earth Stood Still, and our neighbors get pissed and send Klaatu to tell us to stop being such assholes. We generally agree, so he leaves, but only after making a bunch of boring speeches.
The Body Snatchers show up and replace everybody, but it turns out we're much happier as pod-people. Then The Thing gets dug out of the arctic ice, but Snake Plissken manages to burn down his entire camp and takes care of that.
Then? Independence Day! Turns out Jeff Goldblum had a Day Zero attack which worked because the aliens got tired like the rest of us of having to constantly update Windows. They had bugs in their software. Will Smith commandeers an alien fighter, they both fly it into the mother ship, and the earthlings manage to kick some alien booty before their anti-virus software kicked in. Bugs save the day again. Woot!
Then Klaatu shows back up and tells us that yes, he's really serious about us playing the music too loud and generally being cretins, and if we don't straighten out, he'll either call the cops or send a bunch of robot bugs everywhere. E-gads! They're using the bug thing against us! Our own weapon! He makes a bunch more boring speeches and then leaves.
The lesson here? Klaatu isn't a lot of fun at parties and if you're a hacker who collects bugs you've got a better-than-average chance of surviving an alien apocalypse.
From Space-X to a new inside-out Wenkel engine for DoD, it's been an amazing week for inventors.
Hey @bdkoepke , @dmrq70 , @fforfun , @MikeDwyer , @stevenMsmith , @AgileJazz , @XxWolfBanexX , @HappyDawn , @katamen , @SmileSyndicate , @DanielBMarkham
I've moved!
Locals is turning off their free accounts and I've decided that I'd rather go back to maintaining my own site than sign up for any more "free" services that end up changing the conditions of service later.
The new site is just like this one, only no "locals" in the name. It's https://danielbmarkham.com
Please give it a shot, and please let me know if you have any problems signing up. I think I have the configuration down but you guys will be the first 100 or so to sign up, so there'll probably be some snags.
Daniel
danielbmarkham.com
Hey @ShiroiKami , @osio , @btbytes , @QrzZDE2e , @jslezak , @gtramontina , @planti , @kavalau , @NzDan , @dadsfsadf
I've moved!
Locals is turning off their free accounts and I've decided that I'd rather go back to maintaining my own site than sign up for any more "free" services that end up changing the conditions of service later.
The new site is just like this one, only no "locals" in the name. It's https://danielbmarkham.com
Please give it a shot, and please let me know if you have any problems signing up. I think I have the configuration down but you guys will be the first 100 or so to sign up, so there'll probably be some snags.
Daniel
danielbmarkham.com
Hey @markthien , @vikdutt , @mavenllc , @Dauugavpiils , @rmonaghan , @Vic8888 , @GeorgiaLogCabin , @godfrey , @yumaikas
I've moved!
Locals is turning off their free accounts and I've decided that I'd rather go back to maintaining my own site than sign up for any more "free" services that end up changing the conditions of service later.
The new site is just like this one, only no "locals" in the name. It's https://danielbmarkham.com
Please give it a shot, and please let me know if you have any problems signing up. I think I have the configuration down but you guys will be the first 100 or so to sign up, so there'll probably be some snags.
Daniel
danielbmarkham.com
