Slashdot Mirror
How To Have an Online Social Life When You're Dead
A wave of new companies are springing up to offer such things as virtual cemeteries, alerts to remind loved ones about the anniversary of your death, and even email services that send an alert to your sinful relatives in danger of being left behind when the Rapture carries you away. "People have a desire to perpetuate not only for themselves, but for their loved ones, the story of their lives, and technology has all these new great ways of doing that," said John McQueen, owner of the Anderson McQueen funeral home.
Just a simple flash game where a yeti can send my head flying with a spiked mace will suffice.
My work here is dung.
Maybe the U.S. Constitution can have a social life now.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Here http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3145432
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
you could really creep out your enemys after you're gone, but you wouldn't be able to enjoy it.
still just knowing ahead of time. :-D
Based on this and the latest poll, I feel I should send my heartfelt sympathy to the recently bereaved.
Sites like tributes.com are popping up to make the death experience more facebook-compatible.
Online guest books, youtube videos, massive databases of the dead, etc.
It makes sense given the decline of the newspaper and the traditional paper obit.
CommentBot 0.7a running with args "-module irritate,disagree -target random"
Bad enough we have all those dead bodies cluttering up meatspace. Now they'll be cluttering up cyberspace too!
mmmm...forbidden donut
Seems like its a little creepy and might interfere with the grieving process. I'd love to see what a psychologist would say about all this.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
is bad enough you have to filter through friend requests in facebook, now you have filter through dead people wanting to be your friend too?? wtf is wrong with that?
How do you kill that which has no life?
This site, mentioned in the article, is particularly hilarious. I like how the way they know the rapture has happened is based on if enough devout christians they've hired to login everyday don't. It'd be cute if those people just lost internet access and everything were sent out early... or would that cause the RAPTURE? ;)
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
How dare you imply that the undead do not have a social life!!! Vampires are suave and sophisticated, indeed much more so than normally-lived people. They have a "von" in their name. They're educated. And they plan for the long term. To assert anything else is simply speciesist propoganda!
Bruce Perens.
My father just died on the 5th and I'm still torn over it, but the idea of... whatever the Hell this is supposed to be is just downright hilarious.
I miss him and he'll forever be in my thoughts, I won't need reminders of when he died or an artificial ghost of him to haunt the internet with.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
The relevant question is: will these post-mortem emails have an unsubscribe link?
The whole custom of periodically visiting the graves of your loved ones always seemed puzzling to me. What exactly are you visiting and why? If you can do it online that much less hassle I guess.
If you really have to go a particular place in order to remember your dead grandparents, it seems better to visit places where they lived, where you actually have memories of them alive. In any case, since 82% of Americans believe that their dead relatives are actually still alive, seems more "logical" (in a demented sort of way) to visit a psychic or something.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
'Yearly reminder; Stingrays, NOT harmless.'
I'm feeling better..... really
No your not, your dead.
"TV, a medium as it is neither rare nor well done." Ernie Kovacs
Hey, Betamax isn't dead; It lives in my apartment. Seriously though, the Internet truly is the graveyard of technology. Where else could you find someone who offers Betamax cleaning instructions and repair service? Hang in there Superbeta HiFi!
I don't need all that, I'll just come back and haunt everyone.
To: My Stupid-ass Kin
From: Your Vengeful Relative
Subject: BWAHAHAHAHAHA
Dear Weaselly Bastards,
If you're reading this, I'm dead. Since I'm sure you're all feeling really bad about treating me so rotten (especially you, Uncle Phil, for not lending me 5 grand for that Camaro), but I'd like to take this opportunity to rub it all in by hiring this company to Internet stalk you forever. Every birthday, holiday and anniversary of my untimely demise, this company will send you insulting messages reminding you of how great I was, and how deficient you all were (excluding Cousin Sally, who always put out for me, oops, that was our little secret).
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This is pretty old stuff. Just before I died I configured a server to send out updates of my status and opinions to various online sites like Fark and Slashdot. It even alters the content based on the site. For Fark, it takes into account my general state of decay and runs the algorythm to come up with just the right level of troll and anti-social behavior.
For Slashdot, it takes the measurements from my corpse and runs it through a similar algorithm that pulls in the date, the most recently updated wikipedia entry, and combines the information from "Define:" google searches and returns the result.
So far the results have been promising. My Fark Algorythm has succeeded in broadcasting just the right amount of vile comments to hook a few responders and my Slashdot Algorithm has reposted just the right amount of plagiarized wikipedia entries to earn me enough "Insightful/Informative" comments to earn me enough karma for a comforable after-net-life.
Don't think I've forgotten about power. I requested that I be burried next to Edward R. Murrow and that a few loops be placed around his grave. With a simple RSS feed to our current 'news' sites like Fox, CNN, etc. I think this server is set to run into the next millenium.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
How odd that this story would come up today.
Ben wasn't my uncle for long, and I didn't know him well, but we lost him on Saturday in the most senseless way. My other uncle, who knew him since childhood, posted a tribute to him on his blog.
I only met Ben once, when my grandfather married his mother, but I could tell he was a great guy then. I wasn't the only one. Why people have to die like this is beyond me, but at least now more people can know who Ben was, and what he meant to his community.
I'd say signing me up for a dating service posthumuously would be pointless, except that it might actually garner a lot of interest from goth girls and Twilight fans...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
If you need some kind of alert to let your "loved" ones know that you are dead and it falls on the same freaking day every year, then maybe you should reconsider who your loved ones are, or atleast, get some loved one before you die.
I fully intend to write some bots before I croak, just so I can creep people out -- get it to send txt msgs, tweets, facebook status updates -- the lot. Maybe even sperad rumours that my demise was greatly exaggerated...
There was this sort of thing in an episode of Max Headroom, where you could leave a few videos of yourself for your loved ones to interact. Of course, the implementation was backed by a corrupt industrialist, who had coin slots on the interaction kiosks, soaking people for their cash.
Hopefully in our world Edison Carter will be there to right the wrongs this new technology will cause.
This was a quote of Kurt Vonnegut that didn't fit.
"That gives me an idea. Delayed emails that do not get sent until after my death. "
It's been done.
http://www.deadmansswitch.net/
www.eFax.com are spammers
Your son is dead.
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The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
This reminds me of a preacher on the Radio -- Dr. J Vernon McGee. He started a Bible teaching radio program featuring himself teaching through the Bible. You can listen to it today on any day of the week, or even download his podcasts.
Here's the thing -- He's been dead since 1988. The current organization just keeps playing his tapes over and over again.
Hello,
My name is Maybelle Mongumbo. I am a dead Nigerian widow with access to millions of dollars worth of bearer bonds and gold coins. I have spoken to god personally, and he assured me you were the person to help me transfer this money to the afterlife. First, I need you to send me you SS number, full name, birthdate, PIN, bank account information, and your mother's maiden name.
God bless you.
Life needs more saving throws.