Hacker Cinema
Contra
2020 · Film · 104 min
Directed by Sönke Wortmann
With his uncouth manner, Professor Pohl doesn’t enjoy the best reputation at the university where he works. To make matters worse, he makes a racist remark when student Naima arrives late for his lecture. Unfortunately for him, a video of his verbal outburst spreads like wildfire on the Internet, and the university’s president, Lambrecht, is called to deal with the incident. But Pohl is not dismissed. Instead, he is put to the task of helping Naima prepare for an important debating competition. The lecturer and the student could not be more different, yet they are thrown together to work as a team.
3 neutralfrom 3 commenters
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3 comments on Hacker News
Whats nuts is that my middle school Lake Tahoe Bus Station sold MONDO - and for a middle schooler, it was pretty expensive... I Think it was ~$7 or maybe $5.99 - regardless, it was NUTS in 1989/1990 F I cant even recall the time...
But the sold it in LAKE TAHOE. IN 1990-ish!
UHM, was also a subsccriber of 2600 and a total phreak (built blue/black boxes that fit into film canisters, and had an official captain crunch cereal whistle when it was released)
We used to troll 411 (in the early US, you could call "411" for "information" and it would connect you to operator who you then ask "Connect me with [BUSINESS] or [WHAT IS THE TELEPHONE NUMBER WITH PERSON X IN CITY Y]
So we wou;d have contests on how long we could keep the 411 OP online, and social engineer where they live, where work, how big call center, etc... we were like 14 years old and just doing this for laughs in 1988 or such.
I also pulled the famous 'packing tape on dollar bill' hack (theft) to play video games ;
So there was this 'hack' where you put a strip of packing tape (folded over itself such that the sticky parts are together) - you put them on a $1 or $5 bill\
You put the dollar into a vending machine at the post office to buy stamps.
You buy the cheapest amount of stamps, then you YANK the dollar-in-packing-tape from the machine...
You receive the stamps, the change from the yanked bill, take the change to the Safeway (grocery store) next door and you play the video games they had in them ; Defender and Contra.
It took us $25 in stolen quarters from the post office machine vuln to this attack to beat contra.
My buddy who I did this with is now EVP at Blizzard.
"You implied that cartoonish violence like Contra will have substantially negative psychological effects on children."
I do believe they have negative effects on children but I don't believe that extends to school shootings.
Are you sure it was a lack of video games and movies that let you to have trouble forming relationships? My anecdote is that even though I had virtually no video games (except at friends houses) or television until highschool I was still able to form (and maintain for 30+ years) friendships with my peers who had very different rules than I did, and had a full social life all through school (I do consider myself a strong introvert and have had social anxiety issues in past, but I would never point at lack of TV/games growing up as a root cause).
Like you said, neither one of us has hard data, only anecdotal stories with different outcomes for similar "media" parenting strategies.
Even if there is no negative consequence on an individual child relative to their peer group, I still believe (can't support with evidence obviously) that exposing children to violence in video games and movies is a net societal negative that I don't intend to contribute to.
edit: Just wanted to say I appreciate your perspective as it's one I hadn't even considered before and gave me some food for thought.
You implied that cartoonish violence like Contra will have substantially negative psychological effects on children. I've never seen any support for that and my own experiences tell me the opposite. A quick google search shows evidence going both ways, so lacking time for an exhaustive analysis I'm sticking with my experiences.
Take my anecdotes with as big a grain of salt as you like, but analytically the benefits didn't outweigh the cons in my case. Not having access to the same video games, movies and entertainment as my peers greatly damaged my ability to form relationships at a young age. The only upside was perhaps a marginal increase in analytical thinking skills, which was easily offset by the anxiety/insecurities and resultant academic underperformance I had as a result of underdeveloped social skills. Your kids' mileage may vary.
Sure I grew up and that's all long in the past now, but that doesn't mean it was useful, justified, or harmless. When the fiancée and I decide to have kids, I intend to give them every opportunity I can within reason, that includes the resources for a vibrant social life if they want. Obviously I won't be buying them Grand Theft Auto at age 6, but Star Wars? Absolutely.