The most unrealistic part of The Avengers isn't the Norse god or the green guy with the anger-management issues -- it's the idea that a government agency would have a high-tech flying base filled with super advanced, holographic computers. In reality, today's government workers are lucky if they get the same 1998 Compaq your grandpa uses to talk to Arby's on The Face Book.

6 NASA Had To Buy Spare Parts From eBay

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NASA is the only U.S. government agency that has sent people to the moon and installed a selfie-taking robot on Mars, so it should come as no surprise that it sits at the "forefront" of technological innovation. Please note the sarcastic quote marks. For starters, before the space shuttle program was retired in 2011, NASA still tested the safety of its booster rockets with Intel 8086 chips -- the same chips used in the original IBM PC in 1981, back when the word "laptop" just meant your crotch.



Because if it's good enough for running over 8-bit donkeys, it's good enough to colonize Mars.

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Obviously, Intel stopped making that chip long ago ... so where did the official space agency of the world's mightiest nation procure this essential equipment? In the same place where you get your vintage, lightly used ThunderCats Underoos, of course ... on eBay!



"We also won the complete Lost In Space series on LaserDisc. Ominous, yet fucking sweet."

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Since the likes of RadioShack and Best Buy don't stock the 8086 anymore, NASA had to turn to auction websites to boost its ever-dwindling collection of backup parts. If you sold an old computer or some outdated medical equipment to KubrickFan69 around 2002, there's a chance your used junk has left our atmosphere at some point. And it wasn't just chips: NASA also had to plunder other arcane parts, like drives for its eight-inch floppy disks.