Hollywood portrays hackers as superpowered math geniuses who can intimidate computers into giving them whatever they want through intense keyboard mashing. But in reality, it's so much easier. And that's because computers are secure, and never will be.
Whether it's rock and roll with its blistering solos, classical with its ominous overtones, or jazz with its black people, music is already pretty damn cool. The only way it could get cooler? These:
Being a movie villain is not easy. Nobody respects your work, women refuse to date you, and the heroes are always in the business of trying to straight up murder you.
in the course of looking down our noses at the nutjobs who spread urban legends and conspiracy theories, we have to sometimes stop and point out that there are downright terrifying historical precedents for even their craziest of claims.
Sad attention grabs are something you expect from reality show characters or self-important activists, people who don't really have any dignity to lose. Surely our civic institutions are above all that. Right?
Most supervillain schemes are pretty stupid, when you think about it: Lex Luthor wanted to get rich with a ridiculous real state scam in the first Superman movie, and that's considered a classic. Again: a real estate scam. YOU HAVE MISSILES, DUDE!
We usually think of fighter pilots as kick ass cowboys of the sky, living out our video game fantasies and handing out bitchin' nicknames all day long. But today's fighter pilots have nothing on the first of their kind -- the ones who appeared in the first world war.
The key here is the characters aren't just really smart, they're incredible and borderline supernatural scientific ubermenschen who are better at their jobs than anyone has ever been at anything.
Darth Vader and his underlings apparently planned every last subtle detail, right down to the color of the spaceships and Vader's own robot voice, according to what science says works.
As brave as undercover cops have to be to rub elbows with mob bosses and murderers, we submit that there is one group with even bigger balls: undercover journalists. So let's pause to salute these folks.
Animals aren't extremely ambitious. Sometimes, however, all they need is a little helpful prodding in the right direction to start conquering everything around them like warlords.
