Films and TV only have technical experts in very particular roles, so there’s surprisingly few of them to choose from.

Here at Cindr, a day at the office looks like a scene from a film about hackers. Our cursors are underscores, we type in green and we all have cool usernames like D34dman3000. These are some characters who are almost as awesome as us.

David Lightman (Wargames)

He introduced the world to the modern definition of hacking and was the originator of the idea that teenagers could disrupt the world from their bedrooms. Luckily by the time of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Matthew Broderick was only using his powers to change his grades on the school computer system.

Data (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

Data’s not a techie, he’s a robot! Actually, we put it to you that he’s the ultimate distillation of a techie. Everyone always asks him to fix their computers and he’s awkward in social situations.

 

Miles Dyson (Terminator 2)

Not content with inventing the bagless hoover, Miles Dyson went on to bring about the near-extinction of humankind by helping create in Skynet in The Terminator films. Miles is that wonderful techie character archetype – the guy who doesn’t consider the moral implications of his pursuit of science, as oblivious to the T1000 as JJ Thompson was to Hiroshima. We also included him as Tom in the office can do a top impression of him dying. You are now free to google JJ Thompson.

Lisbeth Salander (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo)

A multi-dimensional and thoroughly modern character who is both vulnerable and in control, with technical skills that are vaguely realistic. All of which means we have nothing funny to say about her, so let’s move on…

Neo (The Matrix)

Our favourite example of The Body-Length Black Coat Paradox. Everyone in The Matrix wearing one looks like they’re super-cool and might have a shotgun. Everyone in the real world wearing one looks ridiculous and might have a hobby performing amateur magic. Presuming we all actually live in the real world of course.

Peter Gibbons (Office Space)

Your life isn’t downloading kung-fu, or flying around in a metal suit. It’s sitting in a booth knowing that if you didn’t come to work tomorrow no-one would notice. Except maybe your boss, but only because he has nothing else to do.

Harry Caul (The Conversation)

We’re just including this so everyone knows we’ve seen Coppola’s 70s surveillance paranoia classic The Conversation, which makes us seem more interesting than we actually are.

 

Bonnie Barstow (Knight Rider)

Sadly there’s really not many techie women on the screen to choose from. Trinity’s too much like a character from a computer game. Angelina Jolie’s Acid Burn from Hackers was a possible. And then we remembered Bonnie from Knight Rider, the lead engineer for Knight Industries. We were impressed by her technical and mechanical know-how, but mainly we like her because she invented ‘Super Pursuit Mode’ which is the coolest name for anything ever. We’ve also made a pact that next time one of us has a child, it will be called Super Pursuit Mode.

Who have we missed?