Slashdot Mirror
Video Tombstones
Rio writes "A new company plans to unveil new high-tech tombstones with embedded flat screen monitors that would allow visitors to play memorial videos of the deceased. Joe Joachim, who says he wants to be the Walt Disney of the funeral business, plans to show the Vidstone this year at the annual funeral directors convention. The solar-powered Vidstone will play a video of the person's life at the touch of a button."
How are they going to stop the sun from destroying the video display? It's a big problem with ATM's & McDonald Drive Thrus here in Arizona...
Hmm let's see. Large areas of land with little or no lighting and little or no security, filled with LCD screens... Sounds like the perfect opportunity for latenight theft.
More seriously:
"It could be offensive to some. I don't think it's appropriate or it's been tried enough on the grounds." Mt. Elliott Cemetery Association spokesman Michael Chilcote said.
I personally find it a little odd too but who is going to be offended by this? With all the religions and traditions in our society you'd think people would be more understanding and accepting of differences. Offended by an LCD screen on a tombstone? That's as rediculous as me being offended at someone wasting flowers by placing them around a grave instead of in nice vases and pots where, you know, the living can enjoy them.
Maybe it's just that I've always found societal views on death odd. I don't understand why people sit around crying about the fact that someone has died. Why not celebrate the life they lived? If anything, it seems like these LCD screens could do that well. Short clips of happy times, playing with their children and whatnot would be a great way to paint a nice picture of the person's life. I guess that's offensive though, nevermind.
This seems like something that advertisers would love to get their hands on.
I have to say the more I see this idea the better it is. While I'm Christian, a group that is pretty solemn about death, some people want a little more flash to their tombstone and this is a great idea.
I mean if I could have the highlights of my life played it would make people remember the best moments of my life, rather then have a few words ingraved
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a moving picture should be worth a couple million. Of course it won't last as long as either but it'll be nice when it can go a hundred years, of course let's not forget that it'll increase the chance someone will vandalize your tombstone too.
It seems to me that there's a good reason that tombstones are one thing that hasn't changed much at all with thousands of years of advancing technology.
Stone lasts a very long time. Can the same be said of LCD video displays?
You probably shouldn't click this.
The cemetary by my house has headstones from the 1890's that are still in good condition and quite readable. I'm sure that in the year 2120 these LCD screens will still be working perfectly informing visitors all about the deceased.
This is one of the stupidest ideas I've seen in a long time. The only way it'll go anywhere is if some funeral home directors manage to guilt and manipulate grieving relations into buying the damn things.
It's the land of the brave, and the home of the free
Where the less you know, the better off you'll be.
"A rash of tombstone thievery has been noted in recent months, as youth convert them into home entertainment systems. A new job market, however, has sprung up, as satellite-tracking of tombstones becomes the newest fad."
Who knew that one day, we'd have to worry about a new tombstone-trade in the black market.
Luke
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ChristianNerds.com - An Easy-to-Understand Encyclopedia of Computer Knowledge/a
Damn, that's funny. Think of all of the possibilities!
How about a video of...
an empty coffin?
dialing a phone (complete with fake ringer on tombstone).
someone else.
"It could be offensive to some. I don't think it's appropriate..."
Could someone please explain why someone would think it is offensive or inappropriate? Exactly which tradition or long held belief that anyone might hold would this patently offend?
I would think that adding services such as creating the video and making DVDs for families could be a lucrative market (and good margins) which could be more easily introduced by having this tombstone on display.
What with the growing number of cremations these days (supposedly to reach 50% in the next 10 years) you would think that these funeral directors would be looking for new ways to make money.
I still don't see the issue here...
And to be sort-of humorous for a second, but mostly serious, if these things became popular I could see people visiting cemetaries to actually view _other_ peoples grave sites and seeing their life stories. That might be interesting. Until the flat screens start going kaput...
"Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that, it's called everyone, they meet at the bar."
- Geeks jacking off in cemetaries
- People stealing tombstones\videos inside the tombstones
- Kids getting even more freaked out whilst walking through cemetaries hearing ghost noises coming from everywhere
- People still whining and annoying you after they're dead
- Advertising V1@GR4 whilst your trying to mourn, along with hopeless puns to do with stiffness and their product being to die for
- Hacking the screens to show tubgirl, goatse guy, lemonparty, various rotten photos, home-made GNAA videos and more, as if a bunch of dead people in a field isn't bad enough
- LAN parties in cemetaries, a whole new business bound to make a killing
- ???
- Profit!
In soviet Russia, you talk to the grave!Now, a graveyard can be used as a really powerful computer to calculate something difficult, after all the tombstones stay idle for 99% of all the time.
Or turning them to the Dark Side using them as spam zombies.