Prosthetic Conscience

I feel that this review is perhaps not entirely fair, but I can’t put my finger exactly on why. It certainly covers the same ground that my friends did after seeing the movie, but less charitably.

I think it may be that the movie has a lot of moral ambiguity to it. Even though Batman is the Hero Protagonist, his actions aren’t necessarily moral. In fact, it’s often fairly strongly implied that they aren’t, and that he is at some level personally to blame for the violence and destruction unleashed by the Joker. Maybe it’s too much to expect either reviewers or audiences to read a superhero movie at this level, but I think, or at least hope, that fans of the comic book are used to doing so.

Some of the comments in relation to the article are about as insightful as anything I could write in response, so please go read them. Karen Elliot, Binh, and R. are the ones to watch for.

The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ, whose members claim to be descended from the legendary crusaders, have filed a lawsuit against Benedict XVI calling for him to recognise the seizure of assets worth 100 billion euros (£79 billion).

Hat tip to Smygo.

The author is completely right in the technical sense, and also in the sense that the change is completely positive for the vast majority of users. I think what he misses is how bad the CA system is, in that it simultaneously manages to 1) be intrusive 2) be expensive and 3) fail to provide significant guarantees of identity. The failure of the CA system is why people are using self-signed certs.

Ways the world can end: bangs, crunches, screams, and whimpers.

Note that some categories of ‘crunch’ are actually seen as desirable by some types of environmentalist, even excluding the extreme fringe who desire human extinction (a bang).