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Man Patents Self-Burying Coffin
disco_tracy writes "A California inventor has filed a patent for a coffin that screws into the ground vertically. The reason? It greatly reduces excavation labor and burial costs, decreases land use, and opens up more space for burials in unused areas of a cemetery. Writer Clark Boyd also lists 5 other unconventional burial options, including lye, ecopods, GPS devices that track bodies buried without headstones, cryogenics and — my favorite — getting buried in the sky."
Spinning in your grave. Hur hur.
Sig: I stole this sig.
You're screwed
Nullius in verba
"A California inventor has filed a patent...
Note to Submitter and Editor - you don't "file a patent" in this country, you file a patent application, which was done four years ago. The patent has now been granted, so you could say "A California inventor has been awarded a patent..."
With how often patents come up on Slashdot, we should at least make an effort to get the basics correct.
make a structure OUT OF dead people, not over them. not necessarily mausoleums and cenotaphs, but houses for the living too, or town squares: you become, literally, part of the community you helped to build/ that you loved
ok, it's a little creepy
"dad, where's grandpa?"
"in the third load bearing column by the kitchen"
at the very least, it would be a good backstory for a horror movie, or ghostbusters iii
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Don't know why the Discovery article links to the published application, but here is a link to the actual issued patent: 7,631,404
There couldn't be a better audience for this product announcement than slashdot. This is perfect for all of us who will die alone in our basements, with nobody to attend the funeral. Just flick a switch and it's done.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I immediately thought of the "Braling Economy Casket" from the Ray Bradbury story.
James
Why go to all that negative bother? A good old fashioned gator pit suits me. Not only is burial not even an issue but the hides from the happy, and well fed gators make lovely luggage. The rest of the gators harvested could be used as hog feed.
Now maybe if the civilized human race were finally able to get past the rather strange tradition of putting their loved ones' preserved physical remains into (usually rather expensive) boxes in the ground, in order to last as long as possible, filling up acres and acres of land with these, increasing on a daily basis with every new death -- then that might be some REAL progress. At some point this whole "burying" thing needs to go. It is not an infinitely sustainable model to follow.
"Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such do-it-yourself videos as "Dig Your Own Grave - and Save"
I can't help but be reminded of when my niece (who was 3) used my grandfather's homemade wooden urn as a stool so she could reach the sink to wash her hands. At least my grandfather was being useful.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. " -Voltaire
In the same way as the term 'self-basting turkey' which conjures up a much more exiting image that in reality
While I agree with the absurdities of burials, it has been working for tens of thousands of years with little trouble
No it hasn't, really -- not in the way we are doing it now. For most of those tens of thousands of years (maybe with the exception of Egyptian pharaohs and selected others), the remains were not embalmed -- and even if they were embalmed, certainly not with the level of technology now used. And the caskets were degradable, not the fancy things we use today that are designed to last and last.
I thought SCO already got the patent on this.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Then the diamond is used in a large laser device?
And then the laser is used by your children to hold the city for ransom?
It's My Tea and I'll Drink it if I Want To!