Slashdot Mirror
You, Too, Could Be Batman In 10 To 12 Years
jmcbain tips a fascinating interview in Scientific American with a professor of kinesiology and neuroscience (and a 26-year practitioner of Chito-Ryu karate-do). The question was, how much training would it take for a normal person to become Batman? The professor says: "You could train somebody to be a tremendous athlete and to have a significant martial arts background, and also to use some of the gear that he has, which requires a lot of physical prowess... In terms of the physical skills to be able to defend himself against all these opponents all the time, I would benchmark that at 10 to 12 years." The problem is, even after that amount of training, no one could remain on top of their game for more than a few years. And "Batman can't really afford to lose. Losing means death — or at least not being able to be Batman anymore."
Looking at Scientific American articles from even fifty years ago, let alone a century, shows how sadly dumbed down the magazine has become. It used to target a readership of average citizens who were keen on the nitty-gritty of scientific developments. Now it all flash and no substance, little different from Popular Science. The lesson American media teaches us: nothing good is every ultimately profitable as is.
If you want magazine that does a good job summarizing recent developments in science in layman's terms (or pretty close), I've found Science News to be pretty good. I certainly enjoy reading it, and I feel they do a good job of summarizing without dumbing down.
And did not become Batman. I started at age 33 and by age 39 I had been in Physical Therapy 3 times; once for neck pain and twice for hip pain. I was not very flexible when I started training and was equally inflexible when I stopped. At least I didn't get much worse.
On the plus side, for a while I was reasonably confident in my ability to defend myself in a fair fight against a similarly skilled and otherwise unarmed person. It's now been another 6 years I'm quite out of practice and out of shape.
So as usual, YMMV.
-- Boycott Shell
Hiro used to feel this way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this was liberating. He no longer has to worry about being the baddest motherfucker in the world. The position is taken.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
...more than a couple of attackers, and you're in trouble. Facing ten bad guys, short of some super-exo-skeleton that boosts your strength and armours your body against instantaneous impact and sustained pressure and torsion, you're going down hard, quickly. And no, they don't always helpfully attack one or two at a time: watch half a dozen cops taking down a violent drunk some time.
And if you're facing multiple bad guys with no possibility of escape, the only credible strategy is to try to put at least all-but-one of them down so hard they no longer present a threat. That means at least knocked out or injured seriously enough that they can't fight, not the cutesy pain compliance stuff. If they are weak and clueless when it comes to fight, you are fit and highly skilled when it comes to fighting, you can find some sort of weapon, you are lucky with the environment, and there aren't too many of them, you might just do this for long enough to create an opportunity to escape. Maybe, if you're really lucky.
But it's a fun read, I'll give it that. :-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
... Of course some people do have a natural ability that also gives them a benefit. So I doubt a really short person could ever be competitive in a world class basketball - unless there was a league for really short people.
Hmm, what qualifies as Really short ? I'd pay special attention to the entries for Bogues, Boykins, and Webb.
This is the exact premise of The Phantom. The son replaces the father as The Phantom, but the bad guys think it's always the same guy.
spirit award winner
This isn't much of a gloat really. "Spirit award winner" means, "Yeah, you're talented and you've got great spirit, but you're not nearly pretty enough to be Miss Teen Whatever".
That is, dealing with large strong persons with excessive martial arts experience and lots of attitude.
That's how we get the character Harley Quinn - she was the Joker's psychiatrist, and HE drove HER crazy.
(JLU spoilers ahead for those that care)
In Justice League Unlimited there's actually an episode set in the future that's very close to this. After realizing the world would always need a Batman and seeing Bats himself get older and more worn out by the job, a somewhat shady government agent starts a project called "Batman Beyond" to ensure there would always be a Batman. Her plan was to find a couple mentally similar to Bruce Wayne's own parents and overwrite the father's reproductive DNA with that of Bruce Wayne's. Once the child reached the appropriate age she was to have his parents murdered with the expectation that such a traumatic event would push him towards a similar path to Batman's. She was only able to go through the first part (the DNA ovewrrting bit), but due to a freak incident his parents were murdered anyway. The child would grow up and go on to become the new Batman in the Batman Beyond series under Bruce Wayne's wing.
There's also another episode in JLU where the government puts together a team of superheroes loyal to them (literally ... as in, they grew them in a lab and implanted false memories in them). However, it's soon discovered these manufactured superheroes are slowly dying due to a defect in the process that created them. The government knew about this and had planned to simply replace them with more clones (who would then eventually die, get replaced, etc).
Correction - it was stolen from Alan Moore's 'Watchmen.' That, in several ways, is probably the most realistic superhero book ever written.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Except, of course, that Ace is replaced by other Rimmers from parallel universes, not by his son. And when the Rimmer we know and love became Ace, that was probably the end of the chain, as by that point he was a hard-light hologram -- pretty much impossible to kill.
Damnit, don't force me to be geeky.
The Parallel-Rimmer that passed the torch to the Red Dwarf-Rimmer was clearly a hard-light hologram, and he died from a bullet wound. They say in the episode that it penetrated his hard-light and struck the light-bee inside, damaging it. When he opens his jacket, the light-bee is clearly malfunctioning, spewing random streams of light out from the bullet-hole.
In any case, Legion never said hard-light holograms were indestructible, he said "practically indestructible". He probably didn't anticipate being shot at, he was probably referring to thinks like stubbing your toe.
Comment of the year