Ask Lemmy

Before Mr Robit, hacking was always portrayed as some action packed race against the clock with fast typing and a lot of meaningless, magic words.

Having served in the U.S. military, I cannot unsee the fact that movies and TV shows ALWAYS fuck something up with the character uniforms-- Army rank on Air Force cadets, upside-down rank, badges pinned on the wrong side, the character is a Sergeant Major but they're wearing Major rank, the character is wearing ribbons for wars they weren't even alive to have served in, and so on.

Gaming is apparently hitting all the buttons on the controller all the time

I don't think I've ever seen blacksmithing done correctly in a movie, show or game.

Not really a hobby but I do hunt, so I find myself rolling my eyes when I hear 18 or more shots out of a pistol, 9 or more shots out of a shotgun and 31 ot more shots out of a semi-auto rifle with a pistol grips. The other eye roll is the unnecessary cocking and re-cocking of the shotgun without ever firing a round. If everything in the show Archer is true, then I may be on the spectrum lol. Except there's no fucking way I could dual focus counting rounds while shooting any gun even itmf its at the range and noone is shooting at me. Movie/tv tho im counting every one.

Basically all science but particularly biology. I'm not sure I've ever seen accuracy regarding well anything outside parts of gattica.

Assays that can't be sped up, sped up. Machines doing 5 things other than what they're actually built for. Gloves, no gloves at wrong times. Terrible technique, etc.

(Engineering)

According to movies:

1. We spend our entire workdays in the lab.

2. Whenever anything is turned on, there's a loud whirring and a big shower of sparks. Computer screens with big flashing "WARNING!" signs are optional.

3. Something is inevitably spinning on the lab bench. It's unclear if it does anything.

4. Fixing a major problem is solved when someone has an "Ah-hah!" brainstorm moment, wires up something on the spot, and it magically works perfectly.

5. Assembling a new thingymajig involves lots of power tools and pieces which fit together seamlessly. If they don't fit, they can be made to fit with some elbow grease and definitely won't fail horribly the first time you turn them on.

6. Labs are festooned in such random pieces of hazardous equipment as high-voltage power lines, random chemicals, blowtorches, and radioactive materials.

In reality, we spend a lot of our days at our desks, the equipment is surprisingly quiet (and that which isn't, you stay well away from while it is operating), and spinny stuff largely went away in the 1980s. Assembling a new thing is 30 minutes of grumbling, 3 hours of pulling your hair out, and day(s) of waiting for a new part because someone screwed up tolerances or signal polarity. The most dangerous thing in the lab is stuff sloppily left laying on the floor, which I have tripped over and nearly cracked my skull before.

In fairness, #4 happens sometimes. It's extremely rare, but occasionally you do get those moments where you figure out what the bug in the system is and can rectify it in an hour or two. Most of the time, a fast fix for one problem causes another.

Waiting and Party Down were both great about depicting the experience of food service, but gay men and Latinos were criminally underrepresented in both.

Oxygen tanks are not bombs. They won't explode or shoot fire. The reason they're painted green is because oxygen is non-flammable. (those red acetylene tanks however, are scary)

Now obviously any existing fire can be made much worse with oxygen, but it's not enough on it's own.

As the flipside to the question, pretty much any customer facing job like retail, sales, or food service have been spot on, especially if they are specifically calling those industries out. Superstore, Waiting, Office Space etc. are so damn accurate to the pain of working them.

To the original question, I think it was mentioned earlier, but anything with a gun is typically wrong. The struggling artist who can afford immense loft apartments in downtown cities. Ghost hunting/supernatural expeditions are so glamorized. They NEVER tell you how much time it takes to review everything.

Not sure if it fits or is still a thing, but it used to be that 4 stroke dirt bikes made a 2 stroke sound. Also, all propeller airplanes had the sound of a piston engine, even if it was a turbine.