User:Codeczero/notes

Extremely small categories

Movies whose credits scroll in reverse

• THX 1138
• Irréversible

Movies in which Gary Oldman's character admitted to being a "monster"

• Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg, "You're a monster Zorg." "I know.", The Fifth Element
• Spider Smith, "You can't kill the monster, without becoming him." Lost in Space
• (Perhaps he also did in the Harry Potter franchise, if so please edit this entry)

Errors frequently made in predictions of the future

Cliché

• Ventilation systems do not provide access to all parts of the building/structure/aircraft/spacecraft. It's remotely possible to gain access to a neighboring room, but in most cases ventilation ducts will not support the weight of an adult human. (On a related note, suspended ceilings will not support the weight of a person. Representative Violator: Jurassic Park)
• Short of a totally new and absurdly plentiful source of energy, there will never be flying personal conveyances of any sort. Representative Violator: The Fifth Element

Obvious

• At no time are all the buildings in a city the same age. Representative Adherer: Blade Runner
• Houses/apartments in the future will have the same amount of variation in styles. Most of the styles from the present day will still exist in the future, i.e. minimalist modernism will not replace all styles. Representative Violator: A.I.

Obscure

• For those occupations where working at home is practical, in many cases people will still go to a separate place to work. If nothing else, there is psychological benefit of switching mindsets by switching locations.
• Countries rarely merge in such a way as to lose identity (e.g. Oceania). The larger and more powerful a country is the less likely it is that the country will be subsumed into another organization. Countries do however form higher-level encompassing government entities (e.g. League of Nations, United Nations, European Union and to a lesser extent NAFTA). Higher-level entities often have very limited power because politicians in the member states are fearful of losing control.
• High security computer systems are not impossible to create. Computer security holes are due to (ordered by descending frequency):
  • User Carelessness (bad passwords)
  • Bugs (c.f. Every program ever written)
  • Programmer Carelessness (c.f. Windows)
  • Inaccurate Authentication Systems (Fingerprint readers)
  • Lazy, Forgetful Programmers (backdoors used for debugging left in)
  • Hostile Programmers (backdoors left intentionally)
  • Overconfidence in weak encryption (WEP)
• Corollary: A system built by machines (which humans are never meant to access) would probably be perfectly secure. Representative (really only) Violator: The Matrix Franchise

Profound (i.e. vague and unprovable)

• For any system, governmental, social, computer, etc.; the degree of change in the structure of the system is always limited by some backward compatibility with the previous system.
  • i.e. You can't expect everyone to throw out everything and start again at a moments notice.
  • i.e. You can't make a quantum leap.
  • i.e. Rome wasn't built in a day.
  • i.e. The future has a history too.
  • i.e. Step functions are nonphysical because they contain singularities.