Ask Lemmy

I work in IT so basically everything

Click click clickety-click... I'm in! Click click click... okay, I've hacked the corporate security system and unlocked all the doors, click click... here's the floor plan.

Can you disable the cameras?

Hang on... click click... okay you're good.

there's a scene in "Silo" where a character needs to repair a massive steam-powered turbine that is off-balance, scraping at the housing, and heading towards collapse. all fine and we'll, it's sci-fi, so whatever, they can make magic quick fixes to move the plot along.

what really bugged me, for some reason, is how characters started touching the internal components immediately after it powers down - I have to wait for significantly smaller motors to cool off before handling them, especially if they're rotating poorly with a bad bearing, and burning from friction.

If you broaden it a little from job/hobby to living in the real setting of a movie, you'll notice characters going places that make no sense at all. Like if it's Seattle they might start a boating scene on Lake Union and ends up at Mercer Island, swinging by Alki beach on the way.

I have not unlocked a single chasity belt, it doesnt even come up as a service they might need.

About anything to do with computers. Anything.

Retail workers spending the day doing shenanigans while barely doing any work, I'd kill for time to do some stupid time wasting shit.

Sorry I can't join your impromptu wedding for two workers whose name I forgot.

I don't think I've ever seen my job in a movie. The only place I could imagine industrial embroidery ever showing up on screen would be as the setting for a chase scene or something.

If any of the detectives from Law and Order come in to my bar I absolutely will not remember that random patron from five days ago.

I almost never see accurate sword fights. If they last more than two or three swings, they’re likely wrong. And Achilles jumping at the beginning of Troy was just comical. Footwork is so vital to sword play that leaving the ground is insane. But realistic sword play would be boring as fuck. It would be over in half a second and you would barely see any movement.

TL:DR: Everything? Like, literally everything.

If it's about driving? They're looking everywhere except the road in front of them

Computers? It's cringe, all I will say

Flying? Not even close

Brushing teeth? Put some tooth paste FFS!

Sex, perhaps? As bad as porn videos are at showing realistic sex situations, movies and especially TV shows are typically way worse with all the requirements to not accidentally show a nipple, omg!

Martial arts and fighting? The worst offenders. After twenty punches to the chest that will have broken half of the ribs, the protagonists now suddenly finds the strength in thinking about keeping his little girl safe and now he beats up 20 guys with those broken ribs

Being punched unconscious or getting some chloroform and they wake up the next day? Lolololollll. Humans are notoriously hard to keep them "out" without killing them, it's why anesthetists are paid so well, it's a very complicated job. When you're out from an impact to the head, you need medical attention, you likely have a minor amount of brain damage. If you're out for more than ten seconds, it's brain damage for sure. If you're out for over a minute, you're likely not waking up with full abilities, you're likely going to be a vegetable at best

Okay, doctors then? Saving a patient's life with the buzzer? Yeah no. When the heart stops, that defibrillator won't make it "go" again, the defib actually stops it in case of heart rithm problems. Also, CPR outside a hospital will result in death for about 90% of the cases, give or take, and Har % goes up by another 2 after 3 weeks later. The tiny % that does survive likely will have issues ranging from benign to being a benign vegetable.

3d printing - it prints flawlessly and the first time.

Call centers: that there is time between calls. That people have time off the phone to form friendships with coworkers.

Handyman: we have sex with clients.

IT: that we can just code anything we want regardless of standards, policies and best practices.

Gaming.

There is no way that this obvious secret wasn’t discovered until now. If there are as many gamers as you show, it would’ve been found within 2 weeks maximum. Looking at you, ready player one. Cringy McCringeCringe can’t be the only one who found these obvious secrets after literal years.

MRIs

Far too many movies and TV shows use the magnet to cover for their lazy writing by treating it like something that can be turned on and off like a light.

The magnet in an MRI is one of the coolest things in medicine, and writers get it wrong all the time. In the vast majority of cases, it's always on.

In simple terms, an electromagnet works by running a current in a circle and creating a magnetic field. In an MRI, the current is flowing in what is essentially a closed loop of wire. However, in this case the wire is cooled with liquid helium so it becomes a superconductor.

They induce a current in the wire which creates the magnetic field ("ramp up" the magnet). Because it is superconducting, the current doesn't stop. Once it's ramped up, it no longer requires any external power. As long as the current is flowing the magnetic field remains.

There are only two ways to "turn off" the magnet.

One way is to "ramp down". Essentially the opposite process that is used to get it running in the first place. That's what they do if they need to stop it for service.

The other way is to quench the magnet. You hit the emergency stop and vent off the liquid helium. Without the helium, the wire warms and resists the current and the flow stops.

Quenching a magnet is a magnificently dramatic process. Someone hits the panic button, and there is a loud roar as the helium escapes. Clouds of condensation form around the exterior of the building as the cold gas escapes. In the event some construction crew screwed up and accidentally sealed the vents, there could be an explosion from the rapidly expanding gas.

If writers want to use an MRI as a plot device, have an accident and require someone to quench the magnet to save a life. You'd have the immediate drama from the accident and the quench, and then you'd have the long term drama of the hospital trying to figure out where the money to fix the MRI would come from.

https://youtu.be/9SOUJP5dFEg