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A Geek Funeral
We've recently talked about a geek wedding, and now reader Sam_In_The_Hills writes in with news of his brother's geek funeral. "I've not seen this topic covered here before even though it's one that will concern us all at some time: what to do with our corporeal remains after we've left for that great data bank in the sky. For my recently departed brother (long illness, don't smoke!), I thought this nice SPARCstation would be a cool place to spend eternity. Yes, he's really in there (after cremation). I kept the floppy drive cover but for space reasons removed the floppy drive, hard drive, and most of the power supply. I left behind the motherboard and power switch and plugs to keep all openings covered. The case worked quite well at his memorial party. His friends and family were able to leave their final good-byes on post-notes. Anyone who wanted to keep their words private could just slip their note into the case through the floppy slot. All notes will be sealed in plastic and placed within the case. There has been one complication. His daughters like the look of it so much they aren't now sure if they want to bury him. One more thing: the words on the plaque really do capture one of the last things he ever said. Of course as kids we watched the show in its first run."
When we die our remains will be nothing more than a snapshot of the atoms we occupied right before we died. Had we lived a year longer, a good proportion of those atoms would have been replaced with new material we drank, ate and breathed in through the year. It is as if living is a type of standing wave through which matter flows.
My point? I wouldn't care what happened to my remains. I was a wave, and all that remains of me are ripples left behind in a shared pool of memories.
My father actually has it written that he wants bagpipe music and Admiral Kirk's speech about Spock from Wrath Of Khan at his funeral. If we can find a casket that looks like a photon torpedo, so much the better.
I think I should clarify with him whether he wants someone to recite Kirk's speech, or have that video played.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
It's already in my will that way, changed from 'cremate me, mix my ashes with 6 oz of the best weed my estate can score, and smoke me in my fave bar' that I had in it in my 20's. Guess I'm getting old...
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
I have a small-but-nice vintage arcade game collection in my living room, and it occurred to me a few years back that these old upright cabinets would make for a pretty good coffin, especially my beloved Sinistar.
Then genius struck: remove the monitor (and I guess the boards too - let another collector use 'em), slap my lifeless remains in there so my face is right behind the glass, and BOOM, we have the makings of a great open-casket for what will surely be a somber wake.
Extra points for the nerdy friend who manages to get the game's synthesized voice to occasionally cry out BEWARE! I live!.
That's not really a fair argument. After all, who ever died from not smoking?
It's a perfectly fair argument. If you die from a smoking-related illness, then you have smoking to blame for your death. If you die from an obesity-related illness, then you have too many cheeseburgers to blame for your death.
Are you going to suggest that, if someone dies from a smoking-related illness, it doesn't matter because they would have died someday anyway? Well, sure, if that's the attitude, then just shoot heroin while you're driving the wrong direction on the freeway. When you die, however, be prepared for your family to resent your callous disregard for the consequences of drug abuse and reckless driving.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
Glad that was modded Informative because I do want that for me, I am dead serious!
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http://www.alcor.org/ . My wife and I are both signed up for cryonic suspension. Even if the chances of success are low, they beat the pants off of the alternative!
Also, if I may tout my own unofficial FAQ: http://datan0de.livejournal.com/144534.html
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
Sorry, your FAQ isn't very convincing. Firstly, you're screwing over any possible dependents by making Alcor your insurance beneficiary. Unless you want to pay for two life insurance policies, you're screwing over your kids/family/whomever on some hare-brained scheme for some infinitely small chance that you might "live" again in the future. Selfish at best, unless you are wealthy.
Then there's your certainty that the company will survive for the hundreds or thousands of years it will take for technology to be at the point where they can revive you. That's incredibly unlikely, since no company in history has survived for that long (your arguments about financial stability are laughable, since there will almost certainly be several currency devaluations and government, society, and world upheavals in that period). I put the chances of you actually staying frozen for 1000 years at basically zero.
And then you think that they would bother to revive you. That too is staggeringly unlikely. Sure, they would revive a few people just to prove that it can be done. But after that, why would they bother? There'll be tens or hundreds of billions of humans around, do you really think they'll need more? They got a couple hundred thousand dollars 1000 years ago to keep you frozen, do you really think they would go to the significant expense and effort to revive you, and then reverse your aging as well? Why would they bother? There's no more incentive for them to do that at all (altruism, don't make me laugh). Even if they've conquered aging by then, that's not at all the same as reversing the aging process, and will most likely not be trivial.
Finally, what I don't understand is this certainty that being frozen and revived beats the pants off being dead. How could you possibly know that? No one knows. Maybe if you were properly dead you'd be in heaven (not that I believe in that). Instead you get to spend the next thousand years being really freaking cold. Or maybe death would be oblivion (more likely) and you couldn't form any opinion of it since you can't think, so it's not bad, or good, or anything really.
The Hudson Bay Company lasted that long. 339 years and still going actually.
But there are many other companies that have existed for much longer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kong%C5%8D_Gumi
That one survived for more than 1000 years. So yes, I think it's reasonable to assume that a company can survive, or at the very least, can ensure the safety of uhm... yourself. Just ensure that a legally binding contract ensures that you'll be kept for X amount of time. It's happened before. Guinness has a lease on its brewery for several thousand years. A contract like this can ensure that buyers of the company you originally signed up with will keep you going.
However, I agree with most everything else you said. I'm just saying... your second point is invalid.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Then there's your certainty that the company will survive for the hundreds or thousands of years it will take for technology to be at the point where they can revive you. That's incredibly unlikely, since no company in history has survived for that long (your arguments about financial stability are laughable, since there will almost certainly be several currency devaluations and government, society, and world upheavals in that period). I put the chances of you actually staying frozen for 1000 years at basically zero.
The oldest company in the world reached well over 1400 years before it fell to hard times. Link. Other old companies can be found here.
And even if we were to accept your argument of losing money over long-term (which history has shown to be false, even during turbulent times such as these), the value of gold has stayed fairly same for most of the human existence.
However, I'm not sure about the chances of getting resurrected, but that's a whole other subject right there.
Chronologically late.
Powder his ashes into an ultrafine dust, mix with iron pigment, and print ASCII art with him on acid free paper. Once he's done being printed, anyone who loved or respected him could take a piece of him with them, mount, frame, and proudly display in their respective data centers... could a bit basher ask for any possible better fate?
If only everyone was so thoughtful- I'm 6 months pregnant now and it's amazing the smokers I know who rant and rave about how terrible women are who smoke while pregnant (I have never smoked in my life, personally)... But then insist on smoking while standing right next to me, or in the same house as me. I walk away, every time, but they act so clueless. Like it's suddenly so much better because it's second hand smoke instead? Thank you for being considerate.
All of those things put vastly more stuff into the air than my cigarettes do.
Have you ever blown into an automotive gas analyser? One lungful of cigarette smoke contains as much unburnt hydrocarbon as a 1988 Volvo 340 produces in three minutes of running at 2500rpm.
Not to mention, you can actually *see* as well as smell cigarette smoke. You can't see (or shouldn't be able to see) car exhaust gases, and they don't really have much of a smell unless your engine is broken.
The dangers of cheeseburgers are also well known, but I don't hear families whose loved ones die of heart disease feel the need to get on soapboxes when people die of heart disease.
You either are not a fat guy or you don't have a family that gives a damn. Fat guys do get hassled. Now you can quit smoking altogether. You can quit drinking alcohol altogether. You can quit drugs altogether. You can't quit eating altogether without death following in short order. Unlike cravings for drugs/alcohol/cigarettes hunger for food is normal and natural and not something you want to curve. Also people have very different hunger drives and metabolise their food very differently. Makes food one of the hardest addictions.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
My great aunt, who was at a certain point the oldest women in the world, was the ueber geek. She decided when she was 85 that her body would go to science. She became 85. Her motivation? The young kids could learn from it and there would be no hassle with funerals for anybody.
The doctor who examined her made his findings public. Some morons wanted to sue that doctor for privacy invasion or something like that. Those idiots where no family, relatives or whatsoever. Thus they had no idea that my great aunt wanted EVERYBODY to learn from whatever they found.
So in a sense, she open sourced her remains.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.