Inaccurate physics in movies ...
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- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 40 comments
Does TV count? (Score:2, Informative)
NCIS [youtube.com] argh!
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NCIS is a terrible show. I hate the characters more than anything else, never mind the physics.
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I actually really enjoy it, but have to employ sufficent suspension of disbelief and treat it as total fantasy. When I first started watching it I couldn't believe they had a forensics team of one person, when shows like CSI already concatenate forensic specialties and test runtimes to the extreme to keep the number of character the audience has to relate to to a minimum.
The thing I've noticed the most about NCIS, and also CSI Miami, is when other shows have an officer related shooting, there's investigatio
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In our house we have this theory that the writers for CSI rank plots from believable (10) through to total codswallop (0). Anything above an 8 gets considered for CSI:LV, from 4 through 7 it's slated for CSI:NY, anything below a 4 is written up for CSI:Miami.
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My favourite was a CSI episode where they had analysed the blood splatter to determine the type of weapon that was used. They came up with a peculiar shaped knife (I'm not sure how that'd be possible but I'll let that part slide.) Then they 'enhanced' the image and zoomed in, to be able to read the inscription on the handle.
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Madness! Everyone knows you need to zoom in, THEN enhance!
Re:Does TV count? (Score:4, Interesting)
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I've read a few articles talking about how it's making it harder to convict criminals in jury cases because they expect every case to have evidence as detailed and unequivocal as a CSI episode.
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you are in effect sentencing many more innocent people to a much more grisly death at the hands of murderers.
I am responsible for what I do. I am not responsible for what murderers do. Full stop, end of fucking story.
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Doc Smith? (Score:2)
That sounds like an apt summary of E. E. 'Doc' Smith's Lensman series...
Then, a book or so later:
My little pony (Score:2)
The inaccurate physics, enhances my escapist enjoyment of My Little Pony: Friendship is magic.
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I was surprised and delighted that Dexter actually took a reasonably realistic approach to most things. Sure, there were some DNA tests that took less than 24 hours, but otherwise it's pretty damn solid. So far, anyway. I'm only on season 2 right now.
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How is that related to physics? :P
Re:Does TV count? (Score:5, Funny)
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I miss 1980's TV, where cars would fly off a cliff, then for no reason, explode in mid air.
...and if it was The A-Team you'd always, always see the passengers crawl unscathed out of the wreckage afterwards.
Landmine goes off under your jeep? "Aahhh, that's gonna ache a bit tomorrow..."
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I'll see your NCIS and raise you a CSI.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uoM5kfZIQ0 [youtube.com]
The hacking thing was dumb and hurt to watch. CSI broke my brain.
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What worries me about CSI, NCIS etc. is that they are disguised as "real life" shows, raising the risk that the general public (possibly including judges, politicians and policemen) might believe it... even the ones that might just about grasp that Star Trek and Doctor Who aren't real.
(obligatory XKCD [xkcd.com] if nobody's already posted it)
What worries me even more is that I'm pretty sure that the most scientifically accurate show is Futurama - or, at least, the most likely to hang a whacking great illuminated la
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Wow... just wow....
Impressive. I can't wait until our technology gets there !
Re:Does TV count? (Score:4, Informative)
Oh man, I had to stop about 20 seconds in. UNCROP from a printed picture, WTH?
Its Red Dwarf - they're deliberately taking the piss.
Just in case your geek card is away being cleaned, this entire episode was a parody of Blade Runner, which featured an almost equally implausible photo enhancement scene.
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It's Annoying (Score:5, Funny)
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too vague (Score:3)
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I agree, if something is needed to make the story work it gets a pass on me. Even something as glaringly bad as The Core I could have let go if they had just gotten right the stuff that had absolutely nothing to do with the storyline.
Ship that can get to the core... sure, it is "The Core" after all. Microwave radiation nonsense... why not, they have to make it exciting somehow. Nuclear fuel from the reactor boosting the power of the bombs... you couldn't think of anything better than that?. Ship generat
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You can't just make power from heat, the heat has to travel from somewhere hot to somewhere cooler. There wasn't anywhere cooler for the heat to travel to, it would be like powering a refrigerator from the ambient heat of your kitchen. They're called the laws of thermodynamics, not the general guidelines. And my problem isn't that the ship was able to survive at the core, it was the stupid, stupid, stupid, physically impossible, violating the laws of conservation of energy explanations that I have a prob
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I can believe the writers may have been aware but no one else. The writers, producers, directors, marketers, costumers, and set designers all thought they were making a straight up action movie; at least, I see nothing beyond the writing that points to anything else.
And really, if I made a material that could do half of what the guy claimed his could in the movie, I would call it unobtanium too, because "Holy crap I just made an infinitely strong perpetual motion machine!" Oh, it would have some other off
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Using the word "clip". Racking the action unnecessarily many times, for effect (and despite being loaded, nothing is ejected). Handguns with 30+ rounds in each mag (American History X is a particularly distinct example). "M16's" that fire continuously for several minutes. Shotguns that send people flying at c
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Acronyms (Score:5)
... seriously I cant stand acronyms for something simple to type. IANAL and other silly acronyms are annoying. Please stop.
Maybe you should consider joining the AAAAA, also known as the American Association Against Acronym Abuse.
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... seriously I cant stand acronyms for something simple to type. IANAL and other silly acronyms are annoying. Please stop.
Maybe you should consider joining the AAAAA, also known as the American Association Against Acronym Abuse.
Actually, it's the AAAAAA -- American Association Against Acronym Abuse of America.
Re:Acronyms (Score:5, Funny)
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"FTL" in a physics poll is vague? It's a pretty standard acronym, used by physicists and sci-fi geeks the world over, and even if you genuinely didn't know what it referred to I think it's unnecessary to be so obtuse.
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To be fair there were only about 15 good original treks. That's 15 more then the later ones.
The rest of the series is crap like Star Wars.
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I like it. (Score:3)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Smithee [wikipedia.org]
Inaccurate physics in movies ... (Score:2)
Are guaranteed to make it into a new Mythbusters Episode within 10-12 months.
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Are guaranteed to make it into a new Mythbusters Episode within 10-12 months.
Which I think is a total waste of a good show with talented people. Any idiot can write silly things in to a movie plot. I see no reason for Adam and Jamie to waste their time seeing if it's possible to actually do it.
Many things people are citing as implausible were merely plot devices to make the story possible. In Star Trek, for example, warp drive was a postulate. It was assumed to be there, it worked, and it made stories involving interstellar travel possible. Star Trek wasn't about warp drive; it wa
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Which I think is a total waste of a good show with talented people. Any idiot can write silly things in to a movie plot. I see no reason for Adam and Jamie to waste their time seeing if it's possible to actually do it.
I think they could stand to do less movie myths, but I see the appeal - they're pretty easy (particularly for a room full of SFX vets), and they look good on camera (both the "reveal" and the humor of watching them try to rig something that's obviously unlikely). Sadly, I suspect the desire to inform the folks who *don't* understand movie physics is also a very real motivator.
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Side note: I'm dismayed at the number of people who don't seem to understand that movies like 2012 and
Apollo 18
are works of fiction.
Same crowd that doesn't understand most of the nightly news is a work of fiction?
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Same crowd that doesn't understand most of the nightly news is a work of fiction?
Turn off Fox and try the factual goodness of PBS.
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The problem is that they busted almost all of the myths worth busting in the first couple of seasons.
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Like advertisements, you become immune (Score:2)
After a while all the gaffes just pass you by, just like all the exhortations to buy whatever wonder goop is being hawked this week. It's a bit like spilling mistooks on the 'net: very soon you realise there's nothing to be gained by pointing them out and you can't fix 'em all.
What does bug me though, is the credulous individuals who see something on TV or in a film (films are worse: their bigger budgets and production values add authority and "reality") and assume that unless it's completely outrageous -
Re:Like advertisements, you become immune (Score:5, Funny)
It's even worse when it's the PHB who has his/her/its expectations raised and won't take "it breaks the laws of physics/biology/common-sense" as an answer.
There are Laws of Common Sense?!? Why the hell wasn't I informed? I'm going to make a ton of citizen arrests now!
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What does "Inaccurate" mean? (Score:3)
Inaccurate can mean a lot of things.
For example in a science fiction/fantasy movie the plot is generally based around a premise that can't match up to any known conceptual frame work - yet I don't complain when I see time travel or teleportation or weapons that fire beams of light that travel at a slow enough speed that you can see them moving.
On the other hand there are things like cars squealing their tyres on dirt roads that really make me cringe.
But when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter how accurate/realistic a plot device is as long as it is used consistently and intelligently across the entire performance.
But going off on a slight tangent, I find that SF authors who go out of their way to explain "why" their plot device works in the physical world write a lot less interesting stories (and as a result fill their stories up with mind numbing facts) than authors who effectively say "Object A behaves like this - deal with it" and never explain how the behaviour works, and just get on with telling a good yarn - As recent example for me, Robopocalypse falls into the latter category.
Re:What does "Inaccurate" mean? (Score:5, Funny)
Armageddon [imdb.com].
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Further Example: The Star Wars franchise was doing fine until Midichlorians were brought in to "explain" The Force.
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So.
Tired.
Of this misconception.
Midichlorians don't "explain the Force" any more than retinas explain QED.
Midichlorians are a handy measurement, the sort of thing you'd expect in a scientifically advanced society that regularly interfaces with an important but poorly-understood phenomenon that is, in their universe, a very real and verifiable thing and not, in fact, paranormal at all.
Da Nile ain't just a river in Egypt (Score:3)
Friend, the healing can't begin until you acknowledge the loss.
Depends on the movie (Score:2)
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If it's a cartoon or comic book adaptation, I'm a little more willing to accept comic book physics along with the comic book plot and characters.
I should agree with you, but with one irrational exception:
Gambit, from the X-Men.
I can suspend disbelief for invisible people, force fields, laser eyes, indestructibility, magnetism and even the ability to generate thermodynamically unfeasible quantities of ice, so can anybody explain why I just can't accept the ability to project exploding playing cards as a comic-logic-feasible genetic mutation?
Is it just me? Its like the writers wanted a gambler character who had uncanny card-playing powers and were
Degrees of inaccuracy (Score:2)
Define "inaccurate".
I mean, you can't have cheesy giant monster movies without at least a few violations of physics, and those are generally great, stupid fun. Most car chases require overlooking how cars and suspension systems work, and superhero movies or fantasy films... well, those should be rather obvious. All that is quite excusable for the story and/or fun.
But, when you have stuff like every damn thing equal to the size of or bigger than a toaster exploding into a giant fireball at the slightest pr
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Wasn't the Nazi car dropped from a crane or helicopter for the long shot?
Now I'm going to have to go rsearch it, there goes another deadline ;P
Who can even notice the physics? (Score:2)
Almost every movie makes such enormous errors of fact, consistency, dialog, math, and so forth that something like someone stopping in the middle of a free-fall and not being wrenched by it is hardly noticeable.
Missing Option: Doesn't generally bother me (Score:3)
Most movies are about a heightened sense of reality, as such they get all kinds of things wrong. I have yet to see any profession accurately portrayed. It is just part of the language of filmmaking. I just accept that. The point isn't if something is accurate or not, it is if it is believable in context.
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That is a very good observation, and it is very old. This is from the poetics of Aristotle:
"that which is credible but impossible, is preferable to that which is possible but incredible."
makes it a comedy (Score:2)
Those movies form the majority (Score:2)
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Wait, did physics play a notable role in Children of Men (great movie, btw...)?
Don't watch movies anymore (Score:3, Insightful)
How about an option "I don't watch movies anymore"
I've seen them all. Nothing left but remakes of sequels of remakes of old movies / books / comic books / cartoons / TV shows. In the unlikely event I have 2 hours off, the last thing I want to do is watch the same old stuff...
Is there anything worth seeing from Hollywood that isn't a remake or sequel or incredibly tired formula? Hollywood is kinda like McDonalds. They just keep punching out big macs like license plates. There do exist customers for that, and that's great for them, but I'm done with consuming that, and prefer a more "gourmet" use of my time.
Its a pity, because I have a fat stack of cash, and I'd like to spend it to watch something cool. Unfortunately, there's nothing cool to watch.
Re:Don't watch movies anymore (Score:5, Informative)
Its a pity, because I have a fat stack of cash, and I'd like to spend it to watch something cool. Unfortunately, there's nothing cool to watch.
My heart bleeds for you. Discover Black and white. Discover Foreign Film. (There's also foreign films in black and white). Discover silents. There's a whole century of this art form out there. Stop picking stuff from the "Latest releases" and head for the classics shelf, or the old fusty, cobwebbed ones down there in the basement.
Alternatively, if you've spare cash I've a few suggestions involving your $$$ and my bank account.
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None of these suggestions are Hollywood but they might be to your taste for exactly that reason. Russian Ark was shot in one 96 minute scene and has over 2,000 actors, definitely worth watching. Look for a Polish/Japanese film titled Avalon, it's a somewhat depressing dystopian future film but the minimal special effects and drab palette give it an interesting feel. And if you're after something less serious watch the Dutch film titled Everybody's Famous; a laid-off man tries to kidnap the country's most
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Oh, man, Russian Ark...
I almost had to use toothpicks for keeping my eyelids open. Not that the movie was bad from an aesthetic point of view, I mean, great idea and all, and nice that they pulled it off, but it was utterly boooooring. I don't regret watching it, but I wouldn't do it again. And I would certainly warn people before suggesting it to them, like "you should see this, there's this guy walking around talking in a museum while there are lots and lots of people dancing around him and the camera jus
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Books? I've read them all.
Always the same alphabet used to display some words on paper.
Its a pity, because I have a fat stack of cash, and I'd like to spend it to read something cool. Unfortunately, there's nothing cool to read.
Seriously though, if you're tired of Hollywood productions, here are some less-known but IMHO great movies.
Bonus points for watching them in original language + subtitles:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0314067/ [imdb.com] Filantropica
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118843/ [imdb.com] Black Cat White Cat
http://w [imdb.com]
Armaggedon vs Deep Impact: (Score:2)
Both these movies came out when I was working on my Thesis, which was about the impact hazard, so being something of an expert on the subject I knew I had to see these movies, and I knew I'd probably get annoyed by broken physics in both of them.
Paradoxically however, I loved Armageddon way more than Deep Impact. Armageddon just threw out any notion of reality right at the start and instead distracted me with stupid stunts and amusing one liners. Deep Impact kept trying to get things right, and kept just mi
Depends (Score:2)
Suspension of disbelief. (Score:2)
Technology use annoy's me more... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ob. http://xkcd.com/683/ [xkcd.com]
If I see one more person mashing a keyboard of an MacBook to hack into the FBI in 5min, to re task a satellite, and have it zoom in to someone reading a newspaper, and enhancing the picture, so they can read some article, I am going to lose it.
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Ob. http://xkcd.com/683/ [xkcd.com]
There was one episode of CSI where a reality TV crew was making a "documentary" about CSI techniques and the dialog went something like this:
Nick Stokes: Two pieces of duct tape, both have been swabbed for DNA and fingerprinted. Grissom wants you to compare adhesives. He's looking for a match.
Hodges: Ok. That'll take a laser ablation test. That's good.
Nick Stokes: Why's that good?
Hodges: Well, laser ablation is both visual *and* dramatic.
Nick Stokes: Are you looking for the video crew right now?
Hodg
Same thing with other professions (Score:3)
Usually annoys mildly... (Score:2, Interesting)
I can tolerate a little suspension of reality. It is, after all, a movie.
The one thing that really bugs me, though, is the way mirrors always seem to work in the movies. Apparently in movies all mirrors are special mirrors which reflect things back in TWO DIRECTIONS. To the actor who's looking in the mirror. And also to us, the audience, through the camera.
One of the cardinal rules of filmmaking is don't look at the camera. There are only two reasons an actor should look directly at the camera. Either the c
Get out of my head Slashdot! (Score:2)
I only watch documentaries (Score:2)
Not inaccurate (Score:2)
All physics in movies in accurate for the movie. It's simply that real life offers inaccurate physics from the movies point of view.
In other words, if you are disturbed you are not immersing yourself enough.
Depends on all sorts of things (Score:2)
My reaction ranges anywhere from don't care to "sheesh, that's stupid", depending on the movie. There's this little thing called suspension of disbelief, which I can often manage if the movie is good enough, but struggle with when it's not. If Rule of Cool [tvtropes.org] or Rule of Funny [tvtropes.org] is in play, then it's less likely to bother me. If it seems like they simply Did Not Do The Research [tvtropes.org], then it can piss me off a bit. (But not a lot--it's not like my expectations were going to be high going in.)
Warning, all links in th
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Warning, all links in this post lead to a site that may trap you for hours. Click at your own risk.
Been there, done that, have the written warning for goofing off to prove it. (j/k) (a little)
The one the drove me nut was, (Score:2)
---
Relativity [feeddistiller.com] Feed @ Feed Distiller [feeddistiller.com]
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Does it matter? (Score:2)
Do they have to be realistic? As long as the story works, it's okay. Maybe some slightly bizarre event can actually support the story better? If the movie is explicitly built around some real historical event, then it's another thing of course. But there's more to it than trying to every time "reach as realistic physics as possible".
The ridiculous computer systems in movies is a similar topic. If the guy gets e-mail, just show an icon of an envelope and some text. The story does not really benefit from show
Doesn't bother me (Score:2)
Movies are full of impossibly beautiful people in impossible (or at least highly improbable) situations, and who are generally shown in - or pursuing - ridiculously unlikely relationships. Why should I single out inaccurate physics as something to care or complain about?
depends on the physics (Score:2)
Come on..... (Score:2)
All is relative (Score:2)
Out of ten people having a scientific background, nobody (but one) noticed that all the machinery running on the Moon ground was pretty noisy - while they should run silently (no air/atmosphere capable of carrying sound).
Inaccurate physics in movies is relative to the scientific level of the viewer. The majority of the viewers are not annoyed by inaccuracies, since they don't see them.
A Thought Experiment (Score:2)
How do you like those physics?
Bad physics are a healthy reminder (Score:4, Interesting)
I value the bad physics of movies because they serve as a healthy reminder that everything in movies is fake, nothing is real or realistic, and you should never view them as more than a child's scribblings of an interesting dream. They have no relevance to real life. Very few of the people watching them seem to understand this.
While the bad physics (and worse computer science; "It's got a PCI bus," etc) of movies may be their most visible failing, they fail in other areas.
1. The way people interact on a personal level in movies is just as wrong as the physics. People are not that dramatic, nor that prone to action, nor do they interact with a series of obvious symbolic gestures. Reality is far more complex and interesting, and less emotional.
2. Every street scene in movies is wrong. Even the extras are staged, so that life in our modern world resembles an orderly, purposeful existence. Reality is far more random.
3. Combat scenes make no sense. I'm no expert, but people in movies live through punches that would destroy your average person. Bullet wounds hurt more and are more dangerous than are portrayed in movies. Deaths are less clean and symbolic.
4. Daily life is shown as convenient. People park their cars wherever they want, and don't lock them. No one ever has to run screaming from the room with an urgent taco digestion issue. Everyone has consistent energy all day long.
I understand why movies are this way. They cut out the boring parts of life and make an entertainment product out of the rest. However, I think it's dangerous, especially for kids, to watch movies because they portray a completely unrealistic reality as a result of that process. It's good that Hollywood is incompetent enough with physics and computer science so I have easy talking points with my kids, so they won't be influenced by this misleading garbage.
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It is possible to have an accurate fake though. Someone not being knocked back back when they get shot with a handgun or the bullet not leaving sparks when it hits something would both be good examples of an accurate representation of reality despite the fact that they're not real.
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They are actually more about emotion. You can't make hacking look cool without flashing shit across the screen.
However there is one series of movies that actually does it deliberately; James bond.
How the bad guys die, James his hair getting straight back into shape after comming out of the water and jumping on fighter yets just almost makes me fall out of my chair from laughing sometimes.
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This was something the remake of The Italian Job actually did somewhat better. While it was still essentially movie magic hacking, they did go to the effort to show that the hacker had to do a lot of prep. work before they could actually exploit the system.
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Just be sure not to expand it to the Dumb Science/Technology drinking game and watch any CSI/NCIS/Bones episodes or you will need a liver transplant. :P