Masked Avenger

Before the film premiered, I devoured the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes stories written by Doyle for the magazine, The Strand. Pulp like that makes me really happy (as is probably self evident by the fact that I have a blog dedicated to exploring Batman). Now, I'm no English major but I've been told that Sherlock Holmes stories aren't technically included in the mystery genre since the reader has no chance of solving the crime before Holmes does. Rather the stories should be included in Detective fiction. While I read them, I didn't really have much of a problem suspending my disbelief when it came to his intelligence and his inconcievable leaps in deductive reasoning (now refered to as Holmesian deduction). But one thing did catch me everytime: I was continually doubtful about the success of his disguises. The stories have him dressing up for days on end with not even Watson able to see past his act.


Batman (as one of the direct literary descendants of Sherlock Holmes) is often presented as a master of disguise. His aliase Matches Malone is often used but he is often portrayed as able to disguise himself as anyone.

But it seems ridiculous that the most famous man in Gotham can become completely unrecognizible by putting on some makeup and faking a limp.

So I started thinking, “Can this really be done?” I'm not talking about someone changing their look (like Evan Ratliff did for his Wired article). I mean someone taking on a bunch of secret identies to move secretly in and out of a small community of people (criminals in Batman's case) who would most likely recognize him in a heart beat.

I found the most pristine example of this working! I couldn't believe it. Ruth Reichl was once the Restaurant Critic for The New York Times. As such, she was determined not to receive special treatment while reviewing. But she soon realized just how important her reviews were to restaurant owners. She learned that kitchens had pictures of her and owners offered huge rewards to employees who recognized her.

Her solution? Secret identies.

You really have to listen to this interview I found. She starts talking about her disguises after the first half. It is really quite amazing.

I've spent quite a bit of time trying to find more examples of real-life masters of disguise but have only found a few (who I'll present to you in my next post) and only a couple of resources on learning how to properly disguise oneself.

What's the Point?

Every once in awhile I like to take a post and restate my purpose with this blog. Although I will post about Batman comics or Batman TV shows from time to time, this isn't really supposed to be a general blog about Batman. I am trying to introduce myself to as many of Batman's skills and abilities as I can. Notice it is not my intent to master any of these skills but just to try them out.

So far I've got my yellow belt in Jui Jutsu, learned to make homemade smoke bombs, tried my hand at archery, read a book on forensic science, learned to make very good, very quick estimates from very little information (These are called Fermi Problems. We estimated fun comic-book things like how much energy Mr. Freeze gets from diamonds, how much food and how much oxygen the Flash needs, how strong Spider-man must be to stop an out-of-control train, how much stronger Superman must be to catch it if it came off the tracks, how heavy is Dark Claw with his adamantium skeleton, how much Kryptonite is on Earth, what was the mass of Krypton, how many buses are in Gotham City), I started bouldering and wall climbing when ever I get the chance, I tried my hand at picking locks, I did personal experiments with sleep deprivation and caffination, I now know a variety of knots and I bought and started throwing boomerangs (so cool).

This mission takes a lot of time. It can also prove expensive from time to time so I don't post often but I try my best. I'm always looking for suggestions on what I should learn next. I put off starting martial arts training until reads convinced me that it was absolutely essential. So feel free to leave suggestions at any time.

You should also try reading some of the blogs linked-to in the right hand column. I recommend them all (that's why they are there).

Batman's the Best Martial Artist Ever

I fought in my first Martial Arts Tournament yesterday.

I don't know if you've ever been to one of these but they're interesting. That being said I'm not sure how useful they are. I spent alot of the day sitting around and very little of it actually competing. This one was multidisciplinary. I entered in grappling, self-defence and point-fighting.

• I was easily beaten in grappling. I definately need to work on this.

• I scored well in self-defence and placed high in my tier.

• I like point fighting but their wasn't enough low level belts registered in my category and so all the color belts were mixed together. I fought an orange belt from a karate school whom I'm certain considered me an easy victory.
  

For it being my first tournament I was fairly pleased but like I said, I'm interested in learning not competing and this particular tournament didn't present many opertunities to learn.

Smoke Bomb

Results:
1) The simple saltpeter/sugar recipe worked well. A significant amount of smoke was produced along with a surprisingly large flame. These smoke bombs are definitely not for indoor use. Batman would have to find another type of smoke bomb if he didn't want to ruin peoples' floors. My only complaint is that the homemade fuse sucks. When making a homemade smoke bomb, buy a fuse: don't attempt to make one. I'd suggest maybe a birthday cake sparkler. That probably would have worked quite well.

2) The recipe which added a touch of honey (or cornstarch) to the recipe was far easier to prepare. When it was lit, it behaved very similar to the first recipe (perhaps this smoke bomb burns slightly quicker).

3) The recipe that mixed the saltpeter and sugar into melted paraffin (wax) was a complete dud. I couldn't get it to light at all. Nothing. I suspect that I added far too much wax. If I were to try this again, I would follow one of the other two recipes and then just at a touch of paraffin, just so that it burned slightly slower.

So all in all, these worked surprisingly well. I would suspect that the remains of such a smoke bomb would leave virtually no clues about the user and so I suspect that Batman might actually prefer such simple homemade smoke bombs to more complex (and therefore more easily traceable) smoke grenades.

Batman Builds a Bomb

I'll be doing three different methods: 1 will be what seems to be pretty standard and the other two are variations on it. I have purchased 125g of saltpeter (potassium itnrate - KNO₃) and the rest of the stuff can be found around the house. Saltpeter is not actually hard to find. It is used in recipes to salt meats, I guess. But that doesn't mean you will find it at a grocery store. I found some at a pharmacy. Just go up to the counter and ask the pharmist (not the store employee, the pharmist). I probably payed too much ($8) for my 125g but it should be fairly cheap.

Method 1:
So I gather everything that I need for this first method:
125g KNO₃
sugar
old pan
tin foil
paper towel
matches

I poured my self a glass of wine and begin. I don't have a scale because I'm not a drug dealer so I equally divide the saltpeter by volume. I also am doing this indoors because it's winter despite people's warnings.

I pour the 125g into a measuring cup and find it to be 100ml. Therefore the density is about 1.25g/cm³ according to me and that's much different than the value 2.109 g/cm³ given by Wikipedia which probably indicates that it's not very pure potassium nitrate. I don't know what else would be in it but it's worth noting. I split the 100ml into 3 containers.

Next mix in the sugar. There's really a discrepency on the internet. Mostly I read that it's 6 parts saltpeter to 4 parts sugar. But "parts" I always take to mean volume however everyonce and a while I run into people saying things like 60g of saltpeter to 40g of sugar. Now if Wikipedia is wrong and saltpeter isn't 2.109 g/cm³ but is closer to my 1.25g/cm³ and sugar has a density of about 0.7g/cm³ then they are about the same and it doesn't make a difference so I'm going to go with volume.

So that means I need approximately 60ml of sugar (just over 1/4 cup). (People online say not to do more than about 100g per batch since it gets harder and harder to heat evenly.)

So I mix the two together.

As a side note, I'm making the poor man's fuse. So I take some of the saltpeter/sugar mixture and add a touch of warm water, stirring until it's a smooth slurry. Then I throw a bit of paper towel in, take it out and wrap a match in it. Set it aside and let it dry. Tada, the worst fuse ever.

Now I can heat up the saltpeter/sugar mixture. I don't have an old frying pan. I just have 1 frying pan. So I turn the stove on to a very low temperature and put a disposable tin-pie-plate on top of my frying pan which I realize is going to give me less homogeneous heat but I like my frying pan. So that's just the way it's going to be. This is a worry because the sugar is going to carmalize and create a thick mixture which would harden and ruin my one and only frying pan.

So I set the stove on the very lowest temperature and continuously stirred but oh my goodness! When people on the internet tell you this has to be on the very lowest temperature, they mean low like they are talking to 10 year boys who are making smoke bombs (which they probably are) but it isn't really a low temperature. I had to turn it up a bunch of times. For any reasonable person with any experience cooking, this is just a regular low, a low medium.

After about a half hour some yellow started to show. Perhaps the problem was that I was stirring too much. None of the websites said to actually stir it but they said it needed to be evenly heated so I thought it would be a good idea. Only when I didn't stir would parts of the mixture start to brown. Stir perhaps but don't stir continuously.

It really does turn into carmelized mixture. You should be able to get a pretty smooth mixture. Mine didn't start to smoke but it was just beginning to give off fumes.

I took my mixture and split them into 2 smoke bombs by pouring the mixture onto a piece of tinfoil, sticking my homemade fuse into it and then using the tinfoil to wrap it up into a ball. And now they are cooling.

Method 2:
125g KNO₃
sugar
old pan
tin foil
paper towel
matches
honey

For the second mixture, all the steps are the same but I added a little honey as a liquid fuel. You could alternatively use cornstarch, apparently.
Everything else is the same. Except it seemed to go much faster. Whether that was because it was already at a higher heat or if the honey speeds the process, I don't know.

Method 3:
125g KNO₃
sugar
old pan
tin foil
paper towel
matches
wax

This method was only found at one place and the guy said it was his own creation so we'll see. For this method, I take two tea lights and I melt them down in the tinplate(actually I melted one and thought it wasn't enough so I melted half of another - so 1 and 1/2 tea lights). Once they were melted, I slowly pour in the saltpeter/sugar mixture and stir it till it's smooth. Pour into tinfoil and add fuse. Done. No carmalizing. I'm worried about these holding together. They're a little bit flakey and not as hard as the others.

And that's our science experiment for the day. Join me tomorrow when I light them and grade the recipes.

Building Batman Builds Smoke Bombs

You're in for a treat.

Tonight the fine people who bring you Building Batman will be attempting to produce homemade smoke bombs. I have the materials, the will and the know-how. What could possibly go wrong?

Now That's Television

Am I the only one watching this or what‽ The last four episodes of Batman: The Brave and the Bold have been prodigious. Plastic Man for an entire episode, the Challengers of the Unknown getting nailed by a bunch of Starros, a war against the Green Lanterns, Aquaman on vacation with his family AND NOW Detective Chimp and a super entertaining episode with the JSA. And before those we even had a great portrayal of Captain Marvel. This has got to be the best thing on television right now.

And that's right. I did just used an interrobang, baby.

He has a sidekick named after Robin Hood, of course Batman is an archer

A family member of mine had the chance to teach me to shoot a bow and arrow the other day. Once upon a time, he must have been really quite good at it. It was really cool to learn from him.

Would Batman learn archery? I realize that there might be two potential camps on the question. One group would say that modern bows are leathal weapons that the Batman would never utilize in his war on crime and therefore since they are not potential tools would not bother to master. The other group would say that Batman strives to be an expert in all matters that might arise and archery (and firearms for that matter) are no exception. He would train in their use so that he would never be caught without the proper skills needed to solve a problem.

For this blog, I tend to side with the latter opinion.

We started with Robin Hood style tension bows (called a recurve bow). They were made of fibre glass or something but otherwise were exactly like what a merry archer would have used 600 years ago. We then moved on to compound bows. These are modern weapons engineered to be as light as possible and yet give the most kinetic energy possible to the arrow. Deadly weapons.

The obvious:
When you shoot an arrow you stand with your feet perpendicular to the direction you are aiming. If you are right handed, you hold the bow in your left hand and you keep your arm perfectly straight (your arm and your shoulders should form one staight line). You pull on the string with your index finger and your middle finger. Because the string should be hard to draw (pull back), you point the bow up at a 45 degree angle and as you pull the string back you lower bow till you are aiming at the target. Fire. See this link for a crazily in depth description.

Some important details:
Your index finger and middle finger should only just hook onto the draw string. You don't want to grab the draw string with a fist or else when you release the string to fire, your fingers are bound to get in the way. Just hook your fingers onto the string by the top most inside of your knuckle.

If the arrow keeps falling off as you draw the bow, you can hold it in place by your left index finger., just like someone who is just learning pool does to a pool cue. Once the bow is drawn, move your finger out of the way.

Don't grab the bow. Just like how you don't want to grab the string, don't tightly grasp the handle of the bow either. Just let it sit lightly in your hand. The point is that the archer will get in the way of a good shot by not being relaxed. Be relaxed and only have the most minimal contact with the bow.

When you draw the arrow back, you shouldn't pull back as far as you can. It is ideal that the string pass right in front of the corner of your lip.

Arrows have three feathers on the back end to stabilize the flight. Two of the feathers are the same color and the third is a different could. The odd color faces towards you, so that as the arrow leaves the bow, the feather isn't ripped off along the way.

Shoot on an out breath. I hear snipers do this too.

I don't actually know what else to say. Of all the things I have been introduced to for this blog, I don't think anything was more hands-on than archery. It's not particularily difficult to do but requires infinite amounts of practice to master.

Diagrams stolen from Aliran Tempur Ikhtiar.

Under the Cowl - The Real Bruce Wayne

One often stumbles across discussions about Superman's core personality. Is he really Clark Kent Midwestern farmboy who saw the world needed a hero and took up that social role not because he wanted to but because the world needed him - or - is he Kal-El, child of gods, sent to earth as savior and who as such finds it necesary to take on a human persona to ensure his humanity remains in tact. Although Kill Bill argued for the second, I tend to see Superman as the first.

This discussion is often ported directly to Batman. Is Bruce Wayne the core personality or is the Batman? I think that it is a mistake to even ask this question. Bruce Wayne can be a far more complex character than this debate allows for. Bruce Wayne is a man who choses to dress up as a monster at night and in order to hide this secret plays a fopp to the world at large.

Batman isn't a personality. He was theatrically designed to be seen as a supernatural force of justice. There is no arguing with the Batman, no talking to him or avoiding him, no getting to know him. You just pray he doesn't happen to you.

The Bruce Wayne the world at large knows isn't a personality either. He doesn't have any true intentions. He is a character cooked-up because his wealth makes him a person of interest, interest he wisely wishes to avoid.

Neither is the true Bruce Wayne. The real Bruce Wayne is not the millionaire playboy or the urban demon. He is a man who has spawned both of these characters to achieve his ends. (As an interesting side note, most of the queer readings I've come in contact with start their interpretation with the observation that Bruce and Dick live duel lives: their alteregos being their true selves and their secret identities masks that don't extend to a social life.)

It's very unlikely that DC will ever portray Batman as a villian and as long as he is a hero, they won't overtly give him mental diseases. Therefore, portraits which give Batman a split personality as striking as Two-Face's will never be canonically accepted for long periods. Stories like Darwayn Cooke's Egos which explore to just what extend Bruce Wayne is fractured will continually arise and will always allow us to read between the lines of his dual life but there is a single core personality beneath the masks and cowls. So we must approach Bruce Wayne's personna as a cohesive unit which acts out two roles in order to achieve his ends. What that personna is and what his goals are has been in a state of continuous change since 1949.

Some people look at serial characters, especially Batman, and argue that he isn't anything except what we interpret him as. According to Neil Giaman's 'Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?' the nature of this man is unconsequential as long as he fights the good fight to the bitter end. Nick Mamatas would go even further and said in an essay included in Batman Unauthorized ``Batman is good at being all ... things because he isn't really anthing more than that logo.'' He is a floating signifier meaning that he is nothing but a saved space that can point to anything we want (anything that will make DC money). While I agree with this sentiment to an extent,the serial nature of comic books with it's retrospective retellings by various authors and long established fanbase with it's retention of previous versions leads to more of an evolution of and list of accepted Batman portrails.

Paranoid Control Freak
After this Batman watched his parents' lives ripped away from him, he vowed not to get his revenge on criminals but to remove them all together. This Batman is determined to never let tragedy touch him again by being better and stronger than even the worst villian. The world will not be safe until his war on crime is won. This is the Batman from the one episode “Artifacts” of the TV series “The Batman” who left a digital copy of himself for future generations in case any of his old rogue gallary should be resurected in the distant future. This is the Batman from 'Tower of Babel' and the Batman from 'War Games'. This is the Batman who has a plan for every alien invasion, every betrayal and every improbable scenario. He's an expert in everything. Although this Batman knows the strategic value of working in teams, having allies and training partners, he always keeps himself slightly removed. Losing them as friends would cause him pain so he pushes them away.

Possessed Meglomaniac
This is the Batman of Dark Knight Returns. He isn't a hero. He's a vigilianty. No, not just a vigilianty - he's the goddamn Batman. The best version of this Bruce Wayne might just be from 'Nine Lives'. This Bruce Wayne isn't above using thugs to protect his interests. The book starts with the words: ``Bruce Wayne was a man filled with anger, spite, and greed... A man obseesed with justice.`` Later the lead character and narrator notes ''He is a cloistered man driven by gigantic - - almost supernatural forces, not simply greed as I thought.`` This Bruce Wayne is not only a violent sociopath but also a ruthless industrialist. His actions may result in a better world and that's how he may justify them but that isn't the true reason why he's become the Batman.

Haunted Hero
This Batman can never do enough. He couldn't save his parents when he was a child and so racked with remorse he tries to makeup for that terrible failing by saving others. But it's never enough good to bring his parents back. And so the mission is never over and the war never won. This is the Batman with display cases in his Batcave reminding him of fallen allies and his constant inadequacy.

The White Knight Dressed in Black
This is the Batman seen in 'Batman: The Brave and the Bold' and the 1960s television show. He is the direct desendant of Robin Hood and Zorro. Heroes dressed in black. If this Batman began battling crime out of revenge based intentions, he has long since out grown that. He is not morally ambiguous in any way but rather has unquestionable balance, walking the thin line between good and evil perfectly, like some nonchalant tightrope master. It isn't a metastable state: there is never any doubt he will tip towards evil because his perfect balance is unshakable. This is what Luke Skywalker was meant to be. While the priestly Jedi knights religiously gaurded only in the Lightside and the greedy Sith lords took advantage of the Darkside rejecting all selflessness, only Luke Skywalker balanced to the Force.

Subversive Freedom Fighter
This is the Batman from Batman: Year 100 and Batman Strikes Again. This Batman is about self empowerment. He frees people from control, be that control by the government or control by our fears of criminals. He has bettered himself into a highly skilled adventurer who nolonger has anything to fear from the cowardly criminals who killed his family. This man seeks to be an inspiration to the citizens of Gotham,. His goal is to cause others to also find the hero within themselves. This is the Batman that took Jason Todd under his wing to bring out the hero within him.

Fascist
This is the Batman Alex Ross showed at the very beginning of 'Kingdom Come', the Batman who is willing to build an army of robots to comb the streets in search of social deviatants. This is the Batman who built Brother Eye. To him the ends justify the means and the only acceptible end is the safety of the innocent. This is the Batman who demanded that Commisioner Atkins allow him command the police during War Games. It's interesting to read “The Cult”, a parable about the censorship of the Comics Code and how moralists shackled and immasculated Batman. In the story and in real life, Batman was able to escape his imprisonment and become victorious. But there is a strange and haunting subtalty in the story. After escaping from the villian who represents the bookburning rightwing, Batman returns in a tank and by force reastablishes the social structure. In two separate occasions, he allows individuals to die for the greater good of the whole and to conclude the matter he burns every the memorial of what happened. He imposes his moral code on others by threat of violence and is constantly sacrificing the rights of indivicuals for the security of the community.
I hope that I have demonstrated that there are certain archetypes to the character of Batman. Clearly, an interesting character is a multidimensional one and so some of the best Batman stories are those that mix these archetypes and put them at odds with one another. If you have thoughts about this, it would be great to hear them. I realize that even in this list foundamental building blocks for an acceptible portrail, there is room for some overlap. For example, this old blog post made me question whether or not my "Possessed Meglomaniac" was actually one and the same as the "Fascist". But after thinking about the definition of fascism and what the blogger was describing I think that he was using the term incorrectly. The Batman he was describing was not a fascist. So did I miss any cornerstones to the history of the character? Or do you think that Batman really can be anyone in the costume?

PS. You really need to check out Agan Harahap's photos.
PSS. No more Batman Essays in the future. I promise.

Batman Returns

Those of you who have been reading Building Batman for a while will have realized that every once in a while I disappear for long periods of time. I won't bore you tales of assassin cults and deadman spirits yearning for vengeance (ten Batblog-Batpoints for anyone who can correctly identify which Batbook that's a quote from) but unfortunately these periods are going to pop-up every once and a while. That being said 3 months was far too long a period to go without a single entry. Hopefully you'll forgive me for disappearing sporadically.

I may have let down my blog but I certainly haven't given up my training. For physical work, I've still been swimming and jogging. I got my yellow belt in Jui Jutsu. I've gone bouldering a handful of times. As for mental training, I've begun reading Grey's Anatomy and preparing little summaries which I've been writing as review but which I'll post on Building Batman for your pleasure. I've been introduced to archery for the Building Batman blog and tried throwing the bo shuriken. I'll write entries for these over the next couple of days.

My mission to become Batman continues.

Bang Bang, He Shot Me Down Bang Bang, I Hit the GroundBang Bang, That Awful SoundBang Bang, My Baby Shot Me Down

Technically, ballistics is the science of how projectiles travel in flight. Forensic Ballistics is a misnomer since it doesn't concern itself with a projectile's flight but rather about analyzing the firearms used in crimes. Perhaps, ballistic fingerprinting is a slightly better term. Ballistics is actually a subset of the forensic science of Toolmark Analysis. Guns are a tool and ballistics experts study the marks left on bullets by the guns. I'll explain this as we go.

Bullets are made up of three components: primer, propellant (held in a cartridge) and the actual bullet.

The primer is a shock sensitive explosive – it will detonate if struck or if a spark occurs. The primer is kept in a tiny cup in the cartridge's head. The gun's hammer has a pin on it which directly strikes the primer. The detonation goes through a small hole in the cup and ignites the propellant. The explosion in the confined area forces the bullet out the barrel. By Newton's Third Law when the bullet explodes out the barrel, the cartridge must recoil backward. A piece of metal in the gun, called the breech, stops the cartridge from flying into the shooter's face.

Pause for a moment and realize that the hammer striking the cartridge will undoubtedly leave a mark and that you could most likely tell the gun manufacturer from this mark alone. Additionally, The breech will leave a mark on the head of the cartridge. Finally, an extractor will grab the cartridge and eject it also leaving another set of traceable markings. Back to the bullet:

The bullet is now cruising through the barrel. Back when guns were first invented, the projectiles would be very unstable and tumble in the air. This made them extremely imprecise. Rifling changed all this. The barrel of the gun is given a set of helix grooves. The heat from the gun powder causes the bullet to expand slightly. It expands into these grooves and then gets locked into the tracks. When the bullet comes out of the barrel it is spinning! Get it?

Why spinning? Because the spinning adds stability (and reduces air friction apparently). Consider a spinning top. It is very hard to knock off course compared to non-spinning top. We already discussed this when we talked about boomerangs.

But clearly, the grooves have dug into the bullet. By comparing the marks on a bullet found at a crime scene to a bullet fired from a confiscated gun, an expert can determine from these marks whether or not the bullet was fired from the suspected gun.

The data from ballistic forensics is not just class evidence but can also constitute individual evidence. Every time the bullet goes through the barrel it changes the rifling grooves, just as they change the bullet. The scratches and imperfections cause each ballistic fingerprint to be different.

There are a couple of things to be aware of:
Just because two bullets were fired from the same gun does not guarantee that the markings will match. Rust build up can change the stria or repeated firings of the gun will cause an evolution of the stria – imperfections in the bullet alter the groves in the barrel or the barrel of the gun could be replaced or purposely altered.

PS It seems fitting to add that if you want to read about Batman's relationship with guns rather than forensic ballistics you should check out the definitive post over at Silver Age Comics.

Batman's Fingerprints

Pattern evidence (or here) is the oldest branch of forensic science, although it's use as individual evidence. Individual evidence is any object which can be said to come from a one particular source. There is no chance (no whatsoever, wink) that it came from any other source. The pattern evidence covered in Jay Siegel's beginner's guide are:
Finger Prints,
Firearms,
Handwriting,
Accelerant Residue
Blood Splatter

Other kinds of individual evidence include paint chips, fractured fragments of glass and of course DNA. Individual evidence should be compared to class evidence. Class evidence can not be associated with any one particular person or source. Class evidence is still useful of course. Hair and fibers are class evidence. So is ink and dye or certain physical characteristics of drugs. Show prints or tire tracks might be class evidence. Class evidence is tied to groups not to individuals.

Finger prints, forensic ballistics (a term the author has a problem with) and handwriting are all supposed to be individual evidence. They are all supposed to be able to identify whether or not a potential source has produced the piece of evidence.

Despite the fact that forensics has been using certain types of pattern evidence for over 100 years, it can justifiably be criticized. Pattern evidence can grouped into the so called “experience-based forensic sciences”. Since there can be no absolutely quantitative analysis of these, forensic “scientists” who work with these types of evidence rely on experience and judgment. That's hardly what I would refer to as hard science.

Finger Prints
Finger prints are pretty cool. You have them on your fingers, palms, toes and souls. We've all stopped to look at them in our life but have you ever wondered what they might be for? They add traction to your grip so that you can hold on to things better. The ridges appear during the eighth week of a pregnancy and remain unchanged (other than growing in size, unless of course they are artificially altered which by the way just makes identification that much easier, duh) throughout a persons entire life. The root of the ridges is in the middle layer (called the dermal papillae) between your dermis and epidermis.

Finger prints are not determined by your genes (cough... not completely determined by your genes). Identical twins have easily distinguishable prints. People argue that it is impossible for two people to have the exact same set of finger prints (although how they would have legitimate statistics on this is beyond me). In any case, finger prints are usually an acceptable form of individual evidence.

When the surface of your skin comes in contact with a surface (glass, plastic but even paper and fabric) biological (like perspiration, skin cells or proteins) and alien (like ink or oil) material is left behind forming a latent print. If the print is visible to the naked eye and needs no amplification, it is called a patent print, such as if it were left in paint or blood. If the print is actually impressed into some matrix (like wax) then it's called a plastic print.

When they are latent (i,e, invisible) they must be found. Smooth surfaces can be dusted or fumed with superglue. Magnetic powders can be used for surfaces with fine texture. Dusting isn't the only way. Chemical fuming with iodine creates temporary reddish images which must be photographed. Silver nitrate can be applied to latent prints as a aqueous solution but therefore can't be used on surfaces that can't get wet. Ninhydrin can be sprayed onto latent prints. It reacts with amino acids to forms a a colored compound. Ninhydrin even works on porous surfaces (i.e. paper!). Laser luminescence can also be used.

So they can find them but what do forensic scientists see? Fingerprints are made up of various topographical elements.

1) The print will have a sort of pattern. There are four major patterns: either the ridges loop, arch, tent or whorl. The four general types are typically broken down into eight patterns which can be seen in the figure.

2) Besides the general pattern there are little details in the ridges, called “minutiae”. Ridges can do all kinds of things:
Bifurcations - when ridges split (trifurcations occur too)
Ending Ridge – self explanatory
Dot – a tiny round island
Short Ridge – a small isolated segment
Enclosure – when a ridge bifurcates and then reconstitutes

3) And looking at even more detail (under a microscope) gland pores, the shape of edges or little scars can help to compare prints

As a final note finger prints can be used to identify some sorts of drug use by individuals.

This was a little more extended than I would have like. Tomorrow I'll cover handwriting and ballistics.

Batman The World's Greatest...Forensic Scientist?

I picked up an introductory book on forensics this weekend and thought I would recapitulate and review it for you. Batman is undoubtedly well versed in forensic science. I have read an online discussion or two on what kind of scientist Batman is.

Like a few people state: He's a forensic scientist. And it's true! Forensic scientists are multidisciplinary just like Batman. And really anybody who applies the techniques and methods of science to solving crimes is a forensic scientist.

Here at Building Batman, I'm introducing myself to everything that someone would need to know to be Batman. And so, on with forensics. Because as everybody (who's read the last paragraph) knows Batman is the world's greatest forensic scientist!

The book I picked up is generically titled 'Forensic Science' and it's written by Jay Siegel who is the “Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biology, and Director of the Forensics and Investigative Sciences Program, at Indiana University-Purdue University”. I read “ Chemistry and Biology” as a single department and “Forensics and Investigative Sciences Program” as a supplement to a diploma of some kind. Otherwise, this guy must not sleep.

In any case, he seems to have recognized the public interest in forensics due to fiction like the CSI franchise. As such, he doesn't really explain anything in the book but rather just introduces concepts and basic ideas. His intent is only to inform the general public on the topics and limitations of forensic science. He discusses the “CSI-Effect”, the exaggeration of forensic science's ability to magically and quickly collect and analyze all the evidence needed to convict bad guys. Furthermore, the CSI-Effect means that juries expect prosecutors to present incriminating forensic evidence. They tend to discount evidence that doesn't have the Authority of Science (notice the capital letters, please) backing it up.

But not only does forensic science have limitations but so do forensic scientists. Observer Bias (<---that's a great link) can creep in and corrupt the scientific method. Extra information (that may not even be true) can (and presumably does) influence the way that a forensic scientist interprets their results causing the scientist to get in the way of the science. Perhaps, forensic scientists should only be given the evidence and asked to apply scientific techniques to discover what they can. But if you think about that, it's not a very practical way of doing business. How should they know what to search for? or what tests should they apply? Perhaps the some piece of withheld information could be the key in solving a crime. Who decides what is “domain irrelevant”? It's a big question. Even wording in reports can cause subtle bias. There are other kinds of bias. There is Conformational Bias, where the results of one forensic scientist influence another's toward agreement. Or even a pro-prosecutor bias. The author certainly seems to think that regulatory bodies are lacking and that certification and supervision are needed.

And bias is definitely not the only human error that can hinder forensic science. Somehow, the evidence has to get from the scene of the crime to the lab. Only rarely do forensic investigators accompany detectives and police investigators to crime scenes. All evidence must be searched out and collected without damage, which can be tough if say the evidence is a single fiber or buried under the debris from and explosion or liquid blood that will putrefy. The author makes a very tight analogy. Crime scene investigations are immediate archaeological digs. Investigators sift through the evidence and clues to reconstruct a past event.

Forensic also should be limited by the courts. Not all evidence is relevant or competent and so not all evidence should be allowed to be admitted.
- Evidence must be material meaning it must have something to do with the case at hand.
- Evidence must be probative meaning it must prove something and not just be a fact.
- Evidence must competent meaning that it must abide by a set of rules – a spouse may not have to testify against their partner or a religious confession might not meet competence constraints.

Forensic scientists have expert witness status when they testify which simply means that they have knowledge or skills to draw conclusions from a set of facts that your average juror could not. This means that not only must they be good scientists but they must also be good teachers. Despite all this, we should remember that just because a scientist has arrived at some conclusion does not mean that it is de facto truth. People tend to believe scientists and so if they testify in a court case jurors may accept their words without question.

That's the background information. Over the next couple of days, I will summarize the material covered in “Forensic Science” by Jay Siegel. We'll talk about

Pattern Evidence
Evaluating PMI
Serology
DNA
Drugs
Fires and Explosions
Trace Evidence

Another Man's Treasure

Walking home from work tonight at midnight (it's tough to be Batman when I spend so much of my time doing real people stuff) I found a boon. Someone is doing renovations to an old apartment building and there were a few pieces of scrap wood lying against the fence. It was clearly no good to anyone else but the blocks are quite thick (maybe 4' in width and depth) and maybe only 2"6' long. They might work perfectly as a target for the shuriken I should be receiving in the mail any day now.

Now all I have to do is find a hammer... I bet the real Bruce Wayne doesn't have to ask his neighbors if he can borrow a hammer.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

I finished Batman: Arkham Asylum last night. The dream is over and it only lasted three days. Too bad. Now that I'm done the game, I don't really feel like the Dark Crusader. Too bad. So I'm back to my training: 20 laps in the pool during lunch, a 25 mile bike ride this morning and Jiu Jitsu in the evening. But before I get back into it here at Building Batman why don't I review the game for? Just a few comments.
I'll do it in a Pro-Con format and start with cons because the good drastically outweighs the bad and so I want to finish on the positive notes:
Cons:
1) The game was too forgiving. They made this soundtrack and setting that are as creepy as could be. It's really tense BUT because Batman just re-spawns whenever you screw-up, there are no consequences for my actions and therefore I'm not scared. Why did Resident Evil work so well so long ago? Because not only was it scary in all the ways that a scary movie was but if you as the player screwed up there were terrible consequences: you might not have anymore ammo for hours, or maybe you would die and have to start from a point that felt like it was at the very beginning of the game. Batman: Arkham Asylum lacked that. Since I wasn't concerned about any consequences, the tension that they worked so hard to make so good was diffused.

2) The game was very linear. Although it was placed on an island and you could theoretically go anywhere, in actuality there was only ever one path and it was always right in front of you. I'm not asking for a game like Fallout but give the world's greatest detective multiple ways to go about solving a problem.

Pros:
1) You couldn't have this game without Batman. In many ways, it's not just 'another Batman game' but it's a game about Batman. You couldn't just be anyone with a boomerang. The game actually explores his character.

2) It's not the rogue gallery vs Batman. It must have been so tempting to just trot every Batman character in and say, "Everyone against Batman!" Instead, Batman is stuck in a crazy storm. It's all about him and the Joker. When other villains show up they are there on their own terms and for their own reasons, not just as super-henchmen in the Joker's scheme.

3) Paul Dini wrote it (really the last two just boil down to this).

4) Mark Hamill is amazing.

Final Post

This will be my last post. I will no longer need to continue my Batman training.

You see, I am Batman. Buying Arkham Asylum has instantly transformed me into the Caped Crusader. And so I will nor be learning any more of the skills Bruce Wayne acquired before becoming the Batman:

Because they're all really easy on my computer.

Batman's Shuriken

I ordered shuriken today.

Shuriken...

Looking up shuriken online is a tougher than you might think. The internet seems to be overflowing with misinformation on the subject and people who do have the knowledge don't really seem all that keen on sharing it. I'm always sending you to Wikipedia to start your searches into new topics but this is one time when the article could be improved upon drastically.

Let's get one thing out of the way: we're not just talking about ninja stars.

Shuriken can be translated as "sword hidden in the hand" or "hand hidden blade" and really this shouldn't just be limited to thrown weapons but is more generally any blade which is hidden in your hand. "Shu-Ri" --> "hidden in the hand" and "Ken" ---> "blade".

You can get a lot of history but the general motif seems to be that even the most mundane items can be effective weapons. Coins, washers, needles, nails, knifes or even flat pieces of metal are potential weapons.

There are two basic forms that shuriken tend to take.

Bo shuriken are long spike-like throwing weapons. One can imagine that there will always be improvisational Bo Shuriken around: chopsticks, hair pins, nails or even screwdrivers.

The second type are shaken. While bo shurkien were straight and dart-like, shaken have some shape. Shaken can be further divided into two class. Hira shuriken are the most familiar: they are the throwing stars from the 1990's ninja craze- the ninja stars I mentioned earlier. Hira shuriken can have any number of arms. As far as I can tell roppo shaken has six arms, juji shaken have only 4 and enbangata shaken are washer-like disks that have no arms but just a sharpened circumfrence. Then finally there are senban shaken that are more like lozenge shaped (i.e. diamond shaped). Both hira and senban shaken tend to have holes in their centers which apparently improves aerodynamics and can be used to string a bunch of shaken together.

To recap:

Bo Shuriken --- long spikes

Hira Shaken --- stars

                 Roppo --- 6 armed shaken 

                 Juji --- 4 armed shaken 

                 Enbangata --- washer

Senban Shaken --- diamonds

I ordered a set of five bo shuriken from Flying Steel. Flying Steel seems like a reputable manufacturer but at a fairly reasonable cost. There were a couple of other suppliers (other than the multitudes and multitudes of junk sites around) but just like it is hard to find trustworthy information on shurikenjutsu, it's hard to find trustworthy sellers(if you are aware of any other worthwhile suppliers let me know). That being said Flying Steel seems very professional.

Now I just have to figure out what I'll do for a target before they arrive and I start practicing.

Gotham Knights Online

Locked out of Gotham Knights Online! What does this mean? I read that blog everyday.

Here I am praying that more people will follow my Batman training so that I have a larger pool of potential experts and these guys are turning people away. Weird.

Oikiryu Jiu Jitsu

I asked my sensei what school of Jiu Jitsu I'm studying today at class and found out that it is Oikiryu that I have become a pupil of.

So what do I do after class? I come home to look it up and write a detailed description of it for you my faithful readers. But what do I find out from my trusty search engine? Nothing.

Nothing at all. In the age of the internet how can that be?

So I start to get a little more creative. Maybe it's aikiryu... no, nope. If it is so young and so western then I wouldn't expect a confusion over the spelling.

So what's going on here? Did I misunderstand my sensei? Is my spelling wrong? Is it uncommon? As always if anyone has anymore information than I do please speak up. Leave me a comment.

PS. Last week we were introduced to methods for deflecting attackers armed with knives and this week we started point combat. Holy shit, Batman! Did I ever feel like a cat in water! I've never punch or kicked before this and I'm being thrown in the ring and asked to just do it! It was crazy but by the end I was starting to get the hang of it. Although, I was told I have to loosen up.

Batman's Last Fermi Problem

Diamonds are just carbon all bound together. Each carbon is bonded to 4 other carbons. If you think about that a bit you will see that means there are TWO bonds for every atom (imagine/draw a fairly large grid - count the number of nodes/intersections and count the number of connecting lines. If this ratio isn't exactly half it's because the edges of the grid might cause trouble [if you draw it smarter or bigger it will get closer to 2]). That means that there is 3eV of energy available for every atom. Let's assume Mr. Freeze's gun can access all that energy.

Now that we know how much energy we can get from each atom we need to guess how many atoms are in a diamond. To do that we need the mass of the diamonds. When jewelers talk about carats their really just talking about mass --- 1carat = 0.2g. Maybe you know what the carats of some famous diamonds are? 100 carats is a BIG diamond so let's say 30 carats or in grams: 30 carats * (0.2g / 1carat)= 6g.

How many atoms are in 6g's of diamond? Well what's the atomic weight of carbon? If you don't know, can you imagine where carbon is on the periodic scale? It's near the beginning but not first and it's nowhere near the end. So say between 1 and 100. You could then say 10g / mol. OR you could have memorized your periodic table and remembered the value is actually 12 g/mol but really what's the difference?

So now we know the number of atoms in the diamond is about 6g * (mol/12g) * (6*10^{23}atoms/mol) = (36/12)*10^{23}atoms = 3*10^{23}atoms. And since we guessed about 3eV is released from each of those which means the energy is (3eV/atom) * 3*10^{23}atoms * 1.6\times10^{-19}J/eV = 9* 1.5 *10^4J = 13.5 * 10^4J = 10^5J.

Is that alot? We said in previous questions that a person uses 3.5*10^3J every day and the energy of a subway train is 10^7J. The energy Mr. Freeze can get from a diamond is somewhere in between.

And here ends the Fermi Problems part of my Batman training - at least on the blog. But if you have any superhero Fermi problems that you think I should do on Building Batman just leave a comment and I'll give them a whirl.