Slashdot Mirror

They are asking Russians to do it, so Chaves will be ok :)

I would love to live in a world where all presidents or whatever called heads of a state are embalmed and stored in a mausoleums for the amusement of the next generations.

What somewhat surprises me is that they don't get the wacky plastination guy in on the project. The actual product isn't really a preserved body in any useful sense(as the name suggests, the original tissue is largely replaced by polymers); but the replacement occurs down to impressively tiny details, the results look fantastic, and they last nobody-knows-how-long-but-a-long-time under normal indoor conditions.

http://www.bodyworlds.com/en/plastination/idea_plastination.html

"The left hates China because of their disgusting intolerance of any human rights"

You mean like displaying the corpses of political prisoners in Body Worlds? (second link, NSFW) (third link)

I wonder when I can see Cheng Jianping in Body Worlds?

I've got it pretty good. With only a two-year degree (in computer-aided drafting!), I'm making significantly more than the first Google link for "computer programmer salary" says I should. I've been working for the same company for 12+ years, with management that knows how to handle the business side of things, a team of subject matter experts that handle the customer side, and all we have to do is code. Topping it all off, it's a vertical-market tax software product, so it's not going anywhere until death & taxes are abolished.

Of course, at 41, I'm halfway between "wow I'm grown up now" and "gee I'm old now", so it's high time for a midlife crisis! I'm pretty sure that someday I'll quit and start my own business. Not something in this industry, though. I love my job, but I'd like to do something a bit more directly beneficial to society. Time will tell what happens, but I'm currently thinking about opening a day care center, and when it's successful, going into politics (though I'll probably have to take practicality over idealism if I want to actually get elected). But I've got sense enough to wait until my kids are out of school before making any big changes.

The one thing I do know is that I'll never get to "retire" in any sort of traditional sense. As Fate would have it, I spent 20 years married to someone who didn't understand the value of living within her means... not surprisingly, I got custody of the credit card bills. I'll be working till I die... heck, if things go as planned, I (or at least my remains) will keep working full time even in the hereafter, thanks to Dr. Gunther von Hagens!

The audio tour for Bodyworlds 2 just had a handheld device with a numeric keypad, and each display had a two digit number. You punch in that number, it tells you what you're looking at. This should be comprehensible to anyone able to use a telephone. I believe there were also pause, seek, and repeat functions, but anyone should be able to repeat the whole loop without asking for help (just punch in the number again). Not only that, but the same text was printed on a paper sign within the exhibit, along with the number in large print. There weren't any accommodations that I can recall for the blind, but I'm not sure how much they would get out of an exhibit you can't touch. There were some items not behind glass, but I'm not sure anyone wants to wander around feeling up plastinated bodies.

Anyhow, there was really no forced movement through the exhibit, and in some places not even a sense of direction of flow. There were many looping paths you could take that eventually covered everything in a theme before moving onto the next major portion. The only restriction was that once you left the first half of the display (they were in separate halls) you couldn't return there. Other than that, you were free to wander around within the current hall. The staff seemed much more preoccupied with keeping fingerprints (and kid noseprints) off the glass than with keeping any turnover rate. Everyone else crowded around the muscular and skeletal exhibits, but I was more interested in the neural exhibit in the opposite corner.

Sometimes dead simple really is better. Don't overthink the problem.

Mal-2

You've piqued my curiosity. Besided the non-intuitive economic absurdity of "wealth creation" via population reduction, can you point me to any other essays or discussions regarding other "absurdist conclusions?" Assuming they're not classified, of course...

If you're concerned about grossing me out, I just saw the German "plastination" touring exhibit here in Chicago. I handed that just fine...

If people are messing with these kinds of genetics?

How long do you think it will take before someone considers it ART!

It would apply if you said "if we managed to stick a computer in your skull after removing your useless brain". Even then I'd say it's nothing special, although somewhat cool in a gothy sort of way...

Someone, someday, will have to make a "mod" using one of those high school classroom skeletons. Now *that* would be a gothy mod:

* Motherboard (including the processor, or heart of the system) suspended in the chest cavity.

* Hard drive (long-term memory) mounted in the cranium.

* Power supply (fuel source) clamped to the spine below the ribcage, where the stomach once resided.

* Eye sockets would be a good place for your HDD activity and power lights. Also on the skull are the logical locations for the speaker and microphones.

* The right hand would hold the power cord. In the left, the peripheral connections (USB, mouse, keyboard, etc).

* Of course, the connector for the screen should be at the base of the skull. The location of the game controller port will not be discussed here.

* And to top it all off, a watercooler for the overclocked CPU can have piping and radiators throughout the body! An appropriately-colored fluid would help with leak detection.

Ooh, this is now getting *too* creepy.

On the other hand... it could be worse. Gunther von Hagens has some pretty extreme "case mods" at his BodyWorlds expositions...