Hacker Cinema
Firefox
1982 · Film · 136 min
Directed by Clint Eastwood
The Soviets have developed a revolutionary new jet fighter, called 'Firefox'. Worried that the jet will be used as a first-strike weapon—as there are rumours that it is undetectable by radar—the British send ex-Vietnam War pilot, Mitchell Gant on a covert mission into the Soviet Union to steal the Firefox.
1 positive15 neutralfrom 16 commenters
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16 comments on Hacker News
There was a computer game by that name based on the film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_(video_game)
> Firefox used to be called Firebird and changed due to trademark disputes.
It was first called Phoenix, then a trademark dispute forced them to rebrand to Firebird, then a trademark dispute forced them off that name too. Firefox was the third public name for that project. I'm surprised they didn't also get sued by Clint Eastwood[1] and have to change again.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_(film)
Edit: Movies, unsorted, from the top of my mind:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_of_Control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_East_(2013_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter%27s_Bone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagion_(2011_film) , seen before Covid, deemed to be realistic, and therefore better than stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warning_Sign_(film) somewhere in between. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_IV_(1974_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizards_(film) The remakes of the Planet of the Apes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28_Days_Later , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28_Weeks_Later a little less so, though it had some great scenes of flying into London City Airport and the modern parts around that. Bladerunner in the original versions, the remake not so much. 2001: A Space Odyssey, the intro and first parts, spaceflight to the moon and such, the rest not. Too boring. I liked the sequel 2010: Odyssey Two better, actually. Avatar. Part one only. All of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(franchise) with the exception of the crossover stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film) for the almost cyberpunkish fuckedupness of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula_Untold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beach_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_(2005_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THX_1138 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropia_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerball_(1975_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_Dealer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southland_Tales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendence_(2014_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puppet_Masters_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Survivalist_(2015_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova_(2000_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_(2007_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_(1987_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Zero_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capricorn_One https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangar_18_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_One_(2001_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timecop Ron Silverman Badass! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(2014_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Blonde https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_the_Night_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(1997_American_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombiana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowing_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Zone_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_(1998_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adjustment_Bureau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeforce_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Protocol_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_(2013_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_(2009_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Countdown_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paycheck_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypher_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigger_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_Conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anderson_Tapes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parallax_View https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Seduction
TV-Series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors_(1975_TV_series) and the remake linked from there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Train_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jericho_(2006_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strain_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayward_Pines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silo_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_All_Mankind_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_(American_TV_series) and its prequel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_(TV_series)
WESTWORLD!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100_(TV_series) Praimfaya! Yeehaa! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterpart_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ark_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_Carbon_(TV_series) All of Black Mirror! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Experiments_Lain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelers_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_Skies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devs_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peripheral_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporated_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raised_by_Wolves_(American_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_the_Loop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschland_83 and sequels. ÄXZÄLLÄNNT! JAWOLLJA! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humans_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Night_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Worlds_(2019_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Nova_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gods_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozark_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_(miniseries) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_One https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_(American_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvation_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Dome_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_(2009_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caprica
This all began about 2006 with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica_(2004_TV_series) after having abstained from possessing a TV, or watching that by other means (with some exceptions for news and documentaries) since 1996, and mostly no cinema either.
That stuff rehooked me in a binge-watching session. Shit happens :-)
Do yoo vanna häff fries wiff thät?
/nerdsnipe off
I need a tanker truck of jet fuel and a copy of the movie FireFox from 1982.
I'll be sharing a table with Jeff at the next gun show. https://joshdance.medium.com/who-is-jeff-and-why-does-he-have-nuclear-weapons-f823de764c5e
/s
My impression is the Westerners’ best guess about the Mig-25 contributed significantly to the design of the F-15 and helped to make it what it is. Getting their hands on it was a relief, or even a let down.
The alternative scenario, where the Mig-25 really was generations ahead, plays out in the movie Firefox from 1982 where the US is so far behind they have to steal a Soviet Mig-31 superplane. Good for laugh today, but once upon a time…
The rumor I heard is Soviet intelligence infiltrated American industry and stole what they thought were plans for America’s next generation air superiority fighter. What they’d obtained were the plans for Plymouth’s Roadrunner Superbird, thus the Mig-25’s uncanny resemblance. Proof: https://robbreport.com/motors/cars/1970-plymouth-superbird-auction-autohunter-1234572534/
But we didn’t blow ourselves back to the stone age in the 50s and 60s. This fate turned out to be not quite as inevitable as “A Canticle” would seem to suggest.
Yet evidence pointing to this outcome was all around us during the Cold War, right up to the late 1980s. Development of new and more potent weapons. Serious accidents or near accidents - one crazy one I remember hearing about was one side almost launching a retaliatory barrage when the radar gave a false positive for an incoming attack. Proxy wars. Opaque succession plans in the USSR, China, North Korea, and Cuba. Sabre-rattling and standoffs all over the world.
In elementary school in the 1970s we didn't have to do "Duck and Cover" but we did have drills involving classes marching in a line down to the basement which had signs marking it as a "Fallout Shelter." Sometimes I still see them. (History: https://www.wgbh.org/news/2018/01/23/local-news/what-do-those-fallout-shelter-signs-actually-mean)
When I got a little older, I can't tell you how unsettling it was to see serious looking people talking on the nightly news about some incident on the North Korean border, or a power struggle in Moscow after Brezhnev died, or how many thousands of ICBMs each side had pointing at each other. How fucked up is it that 15 year old me understood concepts like MIRV (https://armscontrolcenter.org/multiple-independently-targetable-reentry-vehicle-mirv/) or the U.S. maintaining a bunch of B-52s loaded with nukes in the air at all times?
The news we saw and read was reinforced through pop culture that drove home the idea that we would blow ourselves to bits. In high school in the mid-1980s we were assigned Canticle as well as Neville Shute's On The Beach, which follows a similarly depressing narrative (northern hemisphere covered by radiation, southern slowly dying off, what people do as the inevitable gets closer). Red Dawn. Firefox. Reruns of Dr. Strangelove. Or the TV series The Day After.
We couldn't believe it when crowds climbed on the Berlin Wall in November 1989. That's when people were able to rub their eyes and think just maybe we weren't going to kill ourselves.
Can confirm, it's the top result - followed by Firefox the movie, and 3 "guide" results for using Firefox the browser; both on the preview results and after submitting the search.
> you will find there are lots of Chinese nationalist stories about their hero technician / scientists steal western technologies. They are literally proud of it.
Reminds me of the movie "Firefox" [1] with Clint Eastwood. The plot? An all-American hero sneaks deep into the UDSSR to steal a new high-tech aircraft. And I'm pretty sure Hollywood is still pumping out ideological crap like that.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083943/
Analog controls have a lot of physical feedback that a screen cannot mimic. Switches vs knobs. Some knobs are multi-detent switches. I can look at a radio, see the frequency, and know how many detents to get at or close to the desired new frequency while looking elsewhere because I can feel the increments happen, same for transponder codes, same for changing mode or view.
And in turbulence and/or at night, or heavy workloads, it's even more handy.
About the only replacement I can imagine being better is the Firefox (film/novel) interface. I'd even learn Russian just to have that interface. You must think in Russian.
There was something about the SR-71 Blackbird that really captured the feeling of the time. Whenever I drive the 215 past March AFB and see the one they have on display, it reminds me of the age of movies like Firefox and War Games.
I have a few thoughts about this!
What is the nature of the thought you want to transmit? How do you make sure that you are not transmitting idle day dreams? How can you be sufficiently precise for a computer?
Remember Firefox (Clint Eastwood movie) where you have to think in Russian to launch the weapons (spoiler!). Well, suppose you casually "thought" the word "shoot" or "fire" or whatever the Russian equivalent is?
Suppose your friend -- Maverick -- is goofing around with you and you're both in an inverted dive and you just think. "Oh that guy. Sometimes, I just want to launch at him."
The best way to interface is with language! You should have to say the command out loud or to type it out. That way you are being precise and deliberate.
Of course, it would be even better if you have a specialized language that was free of the ambiguity of human speech...
For a second I thought this was the story behind the 1977 book and 1982 film Firefox which were about the MiG-31. Might have been inspired though.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_(novel)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_(film)
I saw the movie "FireFox" when I was growing up. In one scene, he's trying to steal a thought-controlled Russian airplane. "You must think in Russian" his handler tells him. After the movie, we thought that scene was controversial, and spent hours wondering if people think in a particular language or just think in abstract ideas.
nice one, but Clint Eastwood pulled this off way back in 1982 in Firefox (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083943/)
This is pretty neat. What other potential, non-gimmicky solutions could be built with VR this way? What about 10 years from now?
Also, who remembers the movie: FireFox, with Clint Eastwood? :)
Same here - I was influenced in my first BASIC program by the Wargames movie and "Firefox" (Clint Eastwood, not Mozilla) and had a password protected diagram of an ascii uber figher jet.