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GPS Used To Find Graves In Eco-Burial Sites
Narrative Fallacy writes "Relatives and friends will use a satellite navigation device to find graves of loved ones in Australia's eco-burial site on bushland attached to Lismore Memorial Park Cemetery, in New South Wales. Reflecting a worldwide trend towards environmentally friendly burials, the deceased will be buried in biodegradable coffins between gum trees in a protected koala sanctuary. 'It's an ideal way of utilizing land and helping wildlife and vegetation,' said Kris Whitney, Lismore Council coordinator of cemeteries. 'A family can walk around the bushland and pick a site. The body can be oriented in any direction. We promise there will be no internments within five meters. We'll record accurate GPS co-ordinates.' Families visiting graves would be lent a satellite navigation device. This will be Australia's fourth 'natural burial site' with existing sites in Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia."
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
With all the technology involved in keeping this going would it really qualify as eco anymore? Cremation would certainly overall be more environmentally friendly than this, if not for the immediate habitat.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
You seem to miss the point...
Dead bodies break down nicely and help to increase the fertility of the soil. The point is to help the trees grow.
And I would not be surprised if this is being done in an area a touch short of such organic matter..
Of course, if people really cared they may want to consider that GPS is rarely accurate to 5m, its not uncommon to get an EPE of 15-20m in that arts of the world..
people, when you die, YOU WILL BE ROTTING MEAT. no different to that cat/dog you buried when you were 12.
Look at it this way, no matter how much of a useless bastard you were in life, if your buried in the ground with trees around you, you'll finally be put to good use.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Im going to look at something completely different: used land mass..
Light Map of the world.
Why this? This shows where population is via light pollution. If we pay attention to Oceania, we see that very little land mass of Australia is used, in opposition to places like the eastern US, most of Europe, and Japan.
Why would a little-used large landmass country like Australia use this, and not the densely packed countries?
Lismore will be charging about $2000 for a natural burial site, rather than $3000 for a conventional one.
I fortunately have yet to be personally involved in any funeral planning, so I have no idea if this is typical... but that seems a bit much for a cardboard box and a hole in the ground!
My home town! Woo!
(Seriously, you don't want to be buried there.)
I for one think this is fantastic. It gives one the opportunity to be buried in a way that is helpful to the environment, in a way, peacefully restore yourself to the earth, and at the same time give your family the satisfaction of knowing where you are buried. I for one like the idea that I could put my hand on a nearby tree and say that someone I loved is now a part of that tree. It may sound all fluffy-puffy, but the fact is, burials have always been charged with all sorts of religious and spiritual notions. I believe for a good number of people, this type of burial would satisfy those notions indeed.
"Taboo, like anything else, goes in and out of style."
How can they guarantee this if civillian GPS is (said to be) only accurate to 15 meters?
So, this qualifies as "News for nerds, stuff that matters" because you can use GPS to find the graves? Interesting.
Wait for it...
So by using GPS they can find the "dead" centre.
sheesh... felt like a pun was in order...
thank you I'm here all week... Unless modded -5, GET OFF SLASHDOT...
Don't the fools realise that this is exactly how ghoualas are created, their furry little faces covered in fresh corpse blood as they howl at the moon in their squeaky ghouala voices, dropping out of eucalyptus trees on grieving mourners to gnaw their ears off, using their big fuzzy ghouala ears to locate fresh bodies by the sound of the worms gnawing and their big cute ghouala noses to track the scent of newly planted meat...
Stop them now, before the ghoualas get us all !!!
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
because digging a hole in the middle of nowhere and hauling a corpse there to bury is a good use of fuel.
They can use GPS for spatial location now??
fyi if your not from down under ;) ...things like having forks in the hair or Vegemite or toothpaste spread behind the ears will deter the creatures.
the ghouala is a close relative of the drop bear. [Fron wikipedia]Drop bears are commonly said to be unusually large, vicious, carnivorous koalas that inhabit treetops and attack their prey by dropping onto their heads from above.
It ain't a question of bubble bursting, it is a matter of opinion, and for some a matter of lack of evidence. But even if you only consider it an opinion, I don't see why religion should get a free pass to get to say whatever they wish on death/origin, but other folk like atheist get lambasted because "they burst the bubble of those poor theist". Well tough luck. If it is only an opinion, both are as valid and can be told as loudly as the author want, on a soap box as high as they can make it. And incidentally, coddling too much the people don't help society/human as a whole to evolve better philosophies and societies.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Because, what could possibly be more eco-friendly than launching a satellite?
/boggle
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
I sure hope they remember to redundantly back up that database. We wouldn't want people staring at the wrong gum tree thinking their grandpa is making it so green instead of a surplus of koala poop.
Invenio via vel creo
I live in Lismore, the area is not short of fertile soil. Most of the region has volcanic soils that have had hundreds of thousands of years worth of rain forest mulched through it. This effort is purely for effect, being cremated and having the money thus saved go towards planting trees would be much more "eco".
It is because of the rain forests that all the "eco" nuts swarm to the region, leading to the rain forest further shrinking so that more houses can be built. On some of the most fertile soil in the state. Idiots.
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
...these people are digging their own graves. Its the thin end of the wedge.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
with the inaccuracy of gps how can i be sure i'm dancing on the right grave? wouldn't want to disrespect the wrong grave.
Scatter the ashes on a body of water and you can "visit" anywhere on the coastline. Of for the more practical-minded, you've got something to use to grit the sidewalk when it snows.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Why not go a step further and toss an RFID chip in along with the body-- or attach it to the body. Then you could loan the loved ones a GPS and an RFID reader-- make it cool-looking like a Star Trek tricorder (Original Series or Next Gen...??? Hmmm...)
Why not donate your body to science?
They seem to have pretty good service - and it's free. If you want to cremate the leftover parts, they will do that, too. You can pick the ashes up for free, or have them sent to you through certified mail for only $15. (Way cheaper than your local crematorium.) Either way, someone gets some use out of your leftover meat.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
In related news, a group of Cub Scounts got a shock when visiting a geocache site, expecting to find plastic figurines from Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo.
http://geocaching.com.au/dashboard/au/nsw/
You know there's going to be a murder mystery novel written now where someone tries to commit "the perfect crime" and buries their victim within 5 metres of someone already buried there.
Then they can go through elaborate GPS and radar tracking to find more victims or something.
I'm sure CSI:NSW could use a pilot episode.
What's wrong with thermal depolymerization?
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
TNLN SL TFTC
Those koalas will really be endangered when my zombie bones raise from their biodegradable coffins.
the deceased will be buried in biodegradable coffins between gum trees in a protected koala sanctuary
Oh great. Now what's going to happen to the visitors once the koalas learn that they like the taste of dead human flesh?
Okay, bear with me here. This is a bit complicated, as it involves bungie cords and dirigibles.
First I'll need a medium sized hydrogen filled aerostat. It doesn't actually have to be a dirigible, any old hydrogen filled aerostat will do. If several thousand dollars worth of fireworks could be hung from the outside, that would be lovely.
Next, I'll need about a thousand feet of bungie cord, a suit made of cotton padding or wick like material, and several gallons of gasoline. Put my corpse in the suit. Attach one end of the bungie cord to the dirigible and the other to my corpse. Securely fasten my corpse to the ground with some sort of quick release mechanism.
Douse my corpse in gasoline. Let the dirigible go until the bungie cord is nice and taut. Light my corpse, and activate the quick release.
If all goes well, my flaming corpse will shoot into the sky and collide with the hydrogen filled, fireworks encased dirigible. Hopefully the resulting explosion will vaporize my body so that not too many steaming gibbets fall back on the amazed crowd.
And that, my friends, is what I would like for my funeral.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Cremation is very eco-unfriendly. You need a really hot oven (800C or something), and you're burning the body. Burial is better. If you don't want burial, then one option permitted in some countries is to freeze the body and then use ultrasound to shatter it into dust.
I seem to recall that here in Finland, you are not allowed to bury a person just anywhere - because human bodies are classed as toxic waste. During our long lives, our fatty tissues collect so much pollution through our food and by breathing that it's not a matter of trace amounts by the time we're dead. Mercury, PCB, lead etc. After all, every food administration in the world still allows *trace amounts* of poison in your food...Don't eat animals from the top of the food chain...
Eats shoots and Braaaiinnnssss!!!!
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
I see replies pointing out the difference between the body and the soul as though these are both real concepts. Unless more evidence shows up, one of these is a real physical thing and the other is just wishful thinking. The "soul" is now what the religious want to be the part of them that continues on forever and never dies. The part of them that will experience that joyful afterlife because they realize the absurdities of projecting the physical self into the afterlife. For example, if I were to meet my grandfather after death, would he be the funny, joyful, joking man with the thick Lancashire accent that I last saw, or the angry, delusional Alzheimer's sufferer he was the last two years of his life?
Once again, unless proof shows up, the body and the "soul" are one and the same. That which you call your conscious is a function of the electrical activity in your brain. Once that activity stops everything that existed as part of your thoughts and memories is gone too. That is the scary reality that people don't want to face.
In the face of that some might take the sarcastic view of burial, but I take it as an incentive to achieve as much as possible within this lifetime without being an asshole. My belief is that I won't see my wife, kids, parents, relatives, friends or anyone else after I die. I will only live on in what people remember of me.
And if I am wrong and a nice party is waiting on the other side, it will be a very pleasant surprise.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
The thing I like most about this is the lack of embalming fluids, etc. There's nothing quite like adding a bunch of toxins to your corpse so the bugs can't decompose it quickly to improve the quality of the environment. Also, in those climates where the temperature and humidity favour it, I think drying the corpse out first is a good thing, too.
I also think there's something to be said for cremation of corpses with certain diseases. CJD (or kuru, if you will) can be spread from corpses that have been dead for a while, and other diseases fall into the same category. It's far more eco-friendly to destroy those infectious agents before interment.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
...more than likely, this will be their *only* opportunity to be buried deep in the bush.
(Sorry, I couldn't resist, nor could I be bothered to read at -1 to see if anyone else had mentioned it. It's just how I roll.)
Yeah, if there's a war and the US turns SA back on you'll be S.O.L.
Koala sanctuary? Oh, you're in the dingo feed area instead!
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Burying bodies in unmarked graves in the wilderness? Doesn't the mafia have some kind of patent on this technology?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
mod up parent, grandparent is clueless. even bottom-of-line trimble can do sub-meter under reasonable conditions. bizarre conversation, i would have expected more gis/gps people here.
...that nobody posts the GPS coordinates of the dearly departed to a geocaching site.
But don't let there be any other interments next to me and Monica....
--Bill Clinton
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