You must log in or register to comment.
I work in IT so basically everything
So two people typing in one keyboard doesn’t make the hack faster?
I loved that entire scene for all the wrong reasons
I believe that was what they were going for.
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.
I’d actually love to see a rapid ramp down portrayed in a movie like that. Sounds dramatic!
I remember reading an article from a few years ago a cop brought a handgun into the room after ignoring staff warnings… Then, hit the quench button.
EDIT: it was last year. https://ktla.com/news/local-news/lapd-officer-lost-gun-in-mri-machine-during-mistargeted-raid-report-says/
I used to install and maintain MRIs (as well as some other medical imaging modalities) and this seems to be wrong any time I’ve ever seen it in media.
- people will be shown in the magnet room with steel wheelchairs/patient tables/chairs/etc. or even their phones. None of that should be entering the room at all.
- the images shown on the diagnostics will be like a radiogram or PET or something that would not show from an MRI.
- the scan only takes a minute for a “picture”, when in reality having an MRI scan can easily take an hour. You may have some people taking only 15 minutes or so, but those are the quick ones. Clinicians will order a whole list of scans and each one takes several minutes.
I had no idea that once the current was in the magnet, no more power was required to keep it going.
I was led to believe that shipping crates open up easily with one quick pry of a crowbar. In reality, those things are built with so many nails and screws that it takes more work to tear it down than to build it.
You don’t need a huge wrench when working with the p-trap under the sink and water wont start spraying everywhere either as drains aren’t pressurized.
Sprinklers react to heat, not smoke.
Not all spriklers go off at the same time in most systems. Only the sprinkler heads affected by heat.
The water coming out of sprinklers initially isn’t clear but dark, rusty sludge. Sometimes even black as ink.
Gaming is apparently hitting all the buttons on the controller all the time
Also you can just pick up a controller cold and start playing without any load times.
All video games sound like Super Mario Bros or Call of Duty. Alternatively (if video is shown), all video games are violent zombie shooters with terrible animation.
Only children use handhelds and they are all GameBoy.
Hey, that’s how I play Super Smash Brothers!
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 worked in toxicology. Likewise, if any detective showed up in my lab for results, let alone talked to anyone anywhere near their samples, they can say goodbye to their case.
Why’s that?
One thing that bothers me, and what everyone should know, is proper placement for defibrillator pads if you’re using an AED.
It’s not 2 pads on the chest, it’s one pad on the upper chest (almost shoulder) on one side, and the other pad goes lower on their side. You’re trying to have the current go through their heart (not skip over the top of their skin).
The AEDs found in public locations are all very easy to use and all have pictures for the proper placement. Just open it up and it will tell you everything you need to do. Have someone nearby look for one at the same time you’re asking someone else to call emergency services.
They should all have razors if you need to get a little hair off (in case the person is especially hairy for one of the pad placements).
If they have a second set of pads with it; put the first ones on and rip 'em off quick, taking the hair off like a wax job. Then place the next set of pads
I work in IT so appearently i can just type override to get into any computer system. Cool…
types three characters on a keyboard I’m in.
Movies always show engineers and tech programmers as being young asocial nerds. We’re not all young.
I’ve worked with programmers who actually look after their physical health too - it’s nuts!
We’re also not all asocial, I mean, I am, but I’ve met programmers who are extremely social.
using a red-tailed hawk call whenever a bald eagle is shown
also I like to try and figure out where they filmed based on the birds I hear in the background
It’s actually very rare that Hollywood makes non-nature movies that use correct animal sounds(and it’s often not correct in animal focused ones either). For birds they especially tend to use sounds that are exclusive to North America, even if the setting is in on another continent.
There’s the classic of kids asking why they’ve never heard the “ribbit ribbit” sound in nature: The pacific tree frog only lives on the west coast of North America.
And let’s not forget almost every single time you see a bear “roaring”, it’s almost always mixed in with lion roars and such. In real life a black bear “roar” sounds more like a cow going “moo”.
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.
I’m an electrician who installs (mostly) commercial electrical systems, including fire alarm systems.
In most cases, pulling a fire alarm pull station doesn’t set off the fire suppression sprinklers. The pull station just sets off the alarm and calls the Fire Department. Sprinklers aren’t automatically activated. The water in the sprinkler pipes is under constant pressure. Sprinkler heads are just nozzles with a little heat-activated stopper in them. When that stopper heats enough, it breaks and opens the nozzle, allowing water to flow (they can also be broken by fucking with them or hitting them with something). But there’s no mechanism that sets off other sprinkler heads when one goes off. Each head needs to be heat activated individually to go off. You see in movies and TV all the time someone pulling a pull station and that setting off sprinklers throughout the entire building, or someone lighting a fire in a small closet and that setting off sprinklers throughout the building. That simply isn’t how they work.
(note: there are some fire suppression systems which do have remote activation, but those are not standard. They’re usually used somewhere like a data center or a lab where there’s extremely expensive stuff that you want to be sure doesn’t get damaged. And those systems usually use a fire suppression foam or powder, rather than water.)
Also, the water in sprinkler pipes is NASTY. It’s been sitting in those pipes for years, sometimes decades. It gets black and sludgy pretty quickly. It stains/destroys anything it touches.
I don’t actually have keys to go anywhere in the building, nor am I allowed to wear headphones at work which is stupid as fuck because there isn’t anything I need to hear for my own safety.
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.
