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How to Become A Real-World Superhero
utherdoul writes "Batman isn't from outer space and wasn't born with a mutant gene --he uses his riches, raw determination and technological know-how to equip himself to fight evil. So why couldn't the average geek do the same? I've written a story for Forbes.com that breaks down the Dark Knight's expenses and explains what it would cost to become a real-world Batman using commercially available training and technology." From the article: "Batman's suit is a modified piece of infantry armor built by the applied sciences division of Wayne Enterprises. It's waterproof, bulletproof, knife-proof and temperature-regulating. Paired with an impact-resistant, graphite-composite cowl and spiked ninja-style gauntlets, it allows Batman to protect himself against everything from swords to machine guns."
> Batman isn't from outer space and wasn't born with a mutant gene --he uses his riches, raw determination and technological know-how to equip himself to fight evil. So why couldn't the average geek do the same?
Did you miss the part about riches?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Even being totally l33t equipt and fit like Rambo wont give you the magic "perfect Luck" factor batman has.
... If you go crimefighting every night, after a few months youre chances of being a corpse in some alley are really really good.
Even if your suit will stop 99% of all bullets, and your fit enough to beat thugs people into submission 95% of the time....
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Sheesh.
:p
I started reading it this morning, and realized they were just tallying up stuff from the movie that just came out.
This is quite pathetic, but hey, it's Forbes.
Duh.
Oh, I love the truly stupid part about the "fictional forbes fifteen" list of the richest fictional retards.
Fuckabugaloo.
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
This reminds me of a quote from Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash:
:(
Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.
It's funny, because I used to think that exact thought. Then reality hit, and I realized I'm just a big pussy
The batman I know and love from comics to cartoons to movies to even the hokey 60's Adam West has always been a brilliant detective and keen scientist.
I loved Batman Begins, but I really think they missed the mark when it comes to Batman's CSI savvy.
My head was spinning when Bruce Wayne says "Am I supposed to know what that means?"
So if you want to be a real Batman, figure in another several hundred thousand dollars for advanced degrees in science and criminology.
(Also... $30,000 + 3 years in China != the ability to fight like the movies, but only the keenly stupid would think otherwise, right?)
Well it's good to see yet another spot for a crappy movie. I am glad to see that while there is so much going on in the world in technology and geekdom in general we need to beat a 4 times already dead horse. Wow this is almost as bad as the last Batman commercial... speaking of which....
I AM GETTING REAL FUCKING SICK OF THE FUCKING COMMERICALS ON SLASHDOT THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO BE DISGUISED AS ARTICLES!! FIX THIS SHIT TACO YOUR SMARTER THEN THIS CRAP!
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
They made the content a pop-up that auto advances to the next page after a set amount of time.
Dumbest. Thing. Ever.
I think 3.4 million is an underestimate. That car would be wrapped around a tree in a week.
Anyhow, fostering the presence of a superhero is not a very cost-effective way for a city to lower its overall crime figures. Legalized abortion costs the public virtually nothing and has a much greater effect on reducing crime than competing strategies such as incarceration or tax breaks to encourage millionaire superheroes to relocate.
in comics, but they do in real life. That is the real secret of Batman's success.
If your average doughnut fattened geek would try it, he would be in for a rude awakening and would come down to earth rather quickly at 9.8m/s/s...
Oh well, what the hell...
Says it all, really.
With that kind of money, "lady friends" will smarm out of the dark caves they come from to mug you automatically. Even if you smell, and have the glow of bad white skin.
You could spend $3.4 million on the batman shtick, or you could spend that money on hiring a vigilante army.
Think about it, what are they paying contractors in Iraq to do protection and security jobs where they are getting hsot at constantly. So pay for them, and then the equipment to arm them, and you'd have a wrecking crew far superior to you on your own.
Figure $250K/vigilante/year for salary and benefits and you could hire 10 of these guys for $2.5 million. Then you'd have about $1 million/year to spend on equipment for them. Body armor, assault rifles, etc.
Then whenever you want justice to be done, you give them a call and they crack some skulls for you. If you want, you can even give them bat ears to put on their helmet so they can keep with the theme.
The best part is, you don't have to worry about getting bruised or scarred. You can go to your rich parties, party it up and know that you've kept the streets safe without personally lifting a finger.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Yeah funny, "isn't real", haha! I've seen him on TV, he's real.
-An American
The real Batman doesn't have, want or need armor. The real Batman (the one in the comic book) uses the arcane fighting techniques known as "dodging" and "hiding" and a psychological trick called "FUD" to protect himself.
The idea behind "hiding" is simple. It is based on never letting your foe to know that you're there, therefore not giving them a chance to strike back. It helps a lot to wear black and operate at night when it's dark - just like the Batman does.
The idea behind "dodging" is somewhat more complex, but not tremendously so. It is based on never occupying the same point in time-space as anything that might harm you. In practice, you observe your opponent, and when you see him aiming at you with a gun, you move away from the line of fire. Obviously, this becomes exponentially more difficult the more people you fight at once, so it is recommended that you use "hiding" to find lone targets.
The last tactic, "FUD", stands for "Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt". It's idea is to strike fear to the hearts of your opponents, so that they stop thinking clearly and start making stupid mistakes (such as spreading out, buying Windows, or paying SCO for Linux licenses).
Ironically enough, there was a pretender Batman in the comic books once - a guy the real Batman had appointed to stand in for him while he healed from wounds given to him by Bane. That pretender Batman wore armor, and went mad, and got soundly beaten by the real Batman.
The point of all this is that this particular article makes me less, not more, likely to see "Batman Begins". Dear advertiser, please make sure you understand what you are advertising before you design your advertisement. Batman is not Terminator or Robocop, he's closer to a ninja.
But then again, if they cast Batman as a martial arts expert, they'd need an actor who actually knows martial arts to make it look believable. Just compare Darth Maul to Count Dooku - which one has better fight scenes ?
Maybe whatever school actors go to should include martial arts lessons in its curriculum ? They might become handy even outside the movies, once the actor becomes famous and starts attracting mentally unbalanced fans.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I know you're using this as a chance to beat your pro-legalized-abortion drum, but I have to respond.
Anyhow, fostering the presence of a superhero is not a very cost-effective way for a city to lower its overall crime figures.
If you've got dastardly supervillians who would otherwise regularly kill thousands it is.
Legalized abortion costs the public virtually nothing and has a much greater effect on reducing crime than competing strategies...
If you consider a human fetus to be worth only 1/100th of a fully-developed human being (an estimate considered too high by some and too low by most), the costs in human life FAR outweigh the benefits from reduction in homicides.
Ever since Freakonomics came out, you ostensibly "pro-choice" people have been gleefully citing Levitt's results without bothering to take into consideration the lives of the unborn children. There is a place for debate on how many and what kinds of rights the unborn have, but each side steadfastly refuses to acknowledge it. (This is also why the debate on federally-funded stem-cell research is stalled.)
By the way, that 1/100th analysis is in Levitt's book, at the end of the chapter on crime. I didn't make it up.
(Go ahead mods, mod me down. You know you disagree with me. That's what moderation is all about, right?)
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
Maybe he means Batman: Mask of the Phantasm?
Granted, it wasn't live-action, but it was a theatrical release, and it came out between Batman Returns and Batman Forever. It uses the Animated Series/Gotham Knights/Justice League continuity and was done by the TAS team.
Frankly, I consider it better than the other live-action films, with the possible exception of the 1989 Batman.
Just my $.02...
and if you had the riches what would you do?
There are no cartoonish supervillians. "Street crime" is usually taken care of by the police and is really none of your business. Imagine some moron busting the heads of the local pot dealer out of respect for "justice." If someone is really concerned about the safety of their streets and trains then they can always get a Guardian Angels' t-shirt and the little matching beret and play vigilante.
Big crime happens all the time by power structures like governments, organized religions, corporations, etc. The tools for fighting these nasties don't involve tights. They involve activism, raising awareness, getting others involved in politics, and other things that don't look real cool in graphic novels.
Not to mention if you had insane wealth, you're probably part of the problem. Check the holdings of some wealthy people, they sometimes fund some very shady companies or governments which do some fairly nasty things. Real world problems are rarely fixed with just a punch in the face and a snazzy batmobile.
I'm sure the editors of Forbes magazine have no problem with the worldview that if we just beat up some low level street criminals then everything would be fine.
At $200k per year, they're probably underpaid. At least, it would take much more than that for me to start saying "Very good, sir."
What's more, being a butler (butlering? butlerhood?) would not be an ideal career for most slashdotters. It takes way too much tact. For example: picture yourself working a tech support job. Imagine the calls for broken cup holders and missing "any" keys. Now consider that the caller is there in person, and the calls are for broken cups and missing car keys. He calls at 6:00 AM. He calls at lunch time. He calls when he wants a midnight snack. You can't hide; you live in his house. And he doesn't ever ask to speak to your supervisor; he is your supervisor. If you tell him to RTFM or that he has an ID ten T error, you will be held accountable.
Now here's the question. Which happens first, your firing or your arrest for assault with a deadly weapon?
John Hancock wuz here.
Also, Batman isn't real.
No, but Angle Grinder Man IS! And boy, does it take balls of steel to wear that outfit!