Things To Do While Waiting For Death... 2006

[Lady Die 63]

Design your own headstone.

 

View my profile for one I made earlier.

I doesn't let you select whether you want that nice green or blue gravel on your grave.

[Magere Hein 1,399]

Design your own headstone.

 

regards,

Hein

[Lady_Fiona 0]

oh if you want to join pimp agencey ,please use this link

 

http://www.pimpagency.com/signup.php?refer=550

[Godot 149]

[Lady Die 63]

Buy one of Hitler's watercolours

[Cowboy Ronnie 78]

Buy one of Hitler's watercolours

 

Now who, outside of white supremacists, would be in the market for a picture painted by Adolf Hitler? Where would you put it? "Oh, yes, glad you like it. It's a Hitler". *Guest makes polite excuse and leaves*

[Anubis the Jackal 77]

"But nobody ever said a bad word about Winston Churchill, did they? No! "Win with Winnie!" Churchill! With his cigars, with his brandy. And his ROTTEN painting! Rotten! Hitler, THERE was a painter! He count paint an entire apartment in one afternoon! TWO COATS!"

 

Mel Brooks - The Producers

 

Buy one of Hitler's watercolours

[Godot 149]

Buy one of Hitler's watercolours

 

Now who, outside of white supremacists, would be in the market for a picture painted by Adolf Hitler? Where would you put it? "Oh, yes, glad you like it. It's a Hitler". *Guest makes polite excuse and leaves*

I would definitely buy a Hitler and I'm not a white supremacist. I rather like the picture in the report. If more people had liked his paintings the Third Reich might never have happened and 6m million Jews, 23m in the Soviet Union, 7.5m Germans plus all the others might be alive today. Well, no, most would have died of old age but most of their sons and daughters, not to mention grandchildren would be alive.

 

Would much of the Middle East in that case have become a Greater Israel? Would Russia still be communist? Would Germany have won the World Cup? Would the first man (?) on the moon have been Michael Schumacher's dad? Would Einstein have settled in Tel Aviv? Would there have been a Far East war with Japan or would Japan now occupy most of Asia? Would Churchill have gone down in history as a rather boorish back-bencher who couldn't decide which party to support? Would the British Empire still be basking in the sun? Would Bob Dylan have been a bit short on material and have formed a new protest party in stead, dedicated to national socialism?

 

Yes, I'd quite like a Hitler.

[Canadian Paul 97]

On the topic of Hitler, why not check out cats that look like him?

[in eternum+ 22]

Watch yet more quality TV death fodder:

 

Death in the Deep Freeze: Stranger than Fiction

 

Cryonics believers sign up to be frozen after death in the hope of a second chance of life. This programme follows the remarkable journey of one woman from life to death, and her suspension in a tomb of liquid nitrogen, and asks if this controversial project has any chance of success.

 

C5, tonight, 9pm

[in eternum+ 22]

Watch yet more quality TV death fodder:

 

Death in the Deep Freeze: Stranger than Fiction

Well, here are some (potentially interesting) tidbits gleaned from C5's latest contribution to the world of death:

• It costs £80,000 to have your whole body frozen; it costs a mere £42,000 to only have your head frozen (which is first severed from your body): this is basically covered by life insurance;
  
• The law does not require owners/operators of cryogenics establishments to have any kind of medical training whatsoever;
  
• A brief sketch of the steps involved in the process:
  

1. The body must be cooled to just above freezing as quickly as possible (the higher the metabolic rate, the more cells are killed - especially brain cells - so it needs to be slowed as quickly as possible).

2. The body is then injected with a "cocktail of drugs" to stop the blood from thickening/clotting.

3. The blood is then "temporarily" replaced with some kind of preservative (but not formalin, I don't think).

[Note: All three first steps must occur as quickly as possible post legal death*, and there are special "ambulances" (which are big lorries with equipment in the back) deployed when someone is on their last legs, so that as soon as legal death is declared the cryonics team can get cracking on the cooling.]

4. The legally deceased individual is then transported (in the "ambulance") to the cryonics headquarters and a very complicated process called

vitrification

occurs, wherein over 60% of the body's water is replaced with the cryonic preservation solution. The programme producers were quite keen to show the television viewing audience how the torso is openned up into two halves (as it's pretty much frozen), and also how a large-looking hole is drilled into the skull to monitor the brain. The staff who conduct all of this do not requie any medical training whatsoever (not unlike embalmers, tbh).

5. Once this is complete, the body is then transferred to a crate-type box and is very quickly cooled to -110 degrees celsius.

6. The body is then transferred to a shiny silver pod-like unit, and for the next fifteen days is properly deep-frozen in liquid nitrogen until it reaches a core temperature of -196 degrees celsius.

7. Finally, the pod-like unit is lowered into a large cylindrical silver storage tube, which holds four customers altogether.

I think one of the things I find most disturbing about this whole process is that the bodies are stored vertically and head-first into the large cylindrical storage tubes, which means that you're basically standing on your head (which now bears a large, drilled hole) until they figure out how to re-animate you.

 

One of the things I found most interesting about the cryonics company that the programme followed, was that their staff - the ones who do all the openning up of the cadavers, the freezing of the bodies, and who run everything - are all simply members of the cryonics group (who themselves have signed up to be cryogenically frozen), who are then given training to perform the operations and then who do so on the other members who die. Talk about having a hands-on understanding of what's going to happen to your body after you experience legal death. It made the whole thing seem like some sort of game played by amateurs.

 

The programme producers were keen and eager to repeatedly point out that there is currently no evidence that cryonics works, or that re-animation is in any way currently a possibility. They did end the programme by mentioning the role that cryonics supporters believe nanotechnology is going to play in re-animation. It was then pointed out that the nanotechnology all of these supporters are banking on is currently nothing more than "science fiction". It was then pointed out that "man on the moon" was once "science fiction". It all got a bit petty after that, really.

 

*believers in the cryogenic process refer to this death as "legal death" because they don't believe that clinical death has occured, as the legally dead person will be revived eventually. They see this "death" as a sort of mini-break between periods of living.

[Lady Die 63]

Try some of Rose West's recipes

[Captain Oates 21]

*believers in the cryogenic process refer to this death as "legal death" because they don't believe that clinical death has occured, as the legally dead person will be revived eventually. They see this "death" as a sort of mini-break between periods of living.

But do we still get the points?

[Magere Hein 1,399]

*believers in the cryogenic process refer to this death as "legal death" because they don't believe that clinical death has occured, as the legally dead person will be revived eventually. They see this "death" as a sort of mini-break between periods of living.

But do we still get the points?

I think so. It's the cryothingy company that gets the money, though.

 

regards,

Hein

[Lady Die 63]

*believers in the cryogenic process refer to this death as "legal death" because they don't believe that clinical death has occured, as the legally dead person will be revived eventually. They see this "death" as a sort of mini-break between periods of living.

But do we still get the points?

I think so. It's the cryothingy company that gets the money, though.

 

regards,

Hein

I've got a large freezer. Maybe I should set up my own business.

[Cowboy Ronnie 78]

Thanks IE+ for that thorough review of the deep freeze show. Now, I'm no doctor, but do the cryonists really think that:

 

a) a heart that has stopped beating and is then frozen for years can be restarted? Have they tried it with rats or piglets or something already?

 

b. a brain that has been inactive and frozen for years will just respond, with all its memory intact, and start function as if it was just hibernating?

 

c) they have the right to clog up an already crowded planet on the extraordinarily off chance that a cure for whatever ailed them will come along, as well as the necessary leaps in medical science required to jump start a frozen cadaver?

 

And how long do they expect to remain frozen? One generation? Two? And who pays for it? Does the person about to die have to buy a special 20 or 50 or 100 year plan, then stump up enough cash to pay for it?

 

Sounds like a colossal waste of everyone's time.

[in eternum+ 22]

Thanks IE+ for that thorough review of the deep freeze show. Now, I'm no doctor, but do the cryonists really think that:

Aha! I reckon the cryogenists get asked these all the time, as they had their answers at the ready:

 

a. a heart that has stopped beating and is then frozen for years can be restarted? Have they tried it with rats or piglets or something already?

They answered this by stating: well, maybe it can't be done, but hearts are regularly stopped and re-started during surgery etc., so why not after a longer period of time? (This is also how they address the ethical/moral issues raised by others, a la if you disagree with cryonics, do you also disagree with paddles being used to ressuscitate people? etc.)

 

B. a brain that has been inactive and frozen for years will just respond, with all its memory intact, and start function as if it was just hibernating?

The question of memory was address by a number of cryonics enthusiasts (aka those who are fully paid-up members). The answer is that they don't know if their memories will be intact etc., but they do not see the 'not knowing' as a reason not to do it, because who knows...

 

c) they have the right to clog up an already crowded planet on the extraordinarily off chance that a cure for whatever ailed them will come along, as well as the necessary leaps in medical science required to jump start a frozen cadaver?

They are all aware that not only is the means by which to ressuscitate them a necessary factor in their re-animation, but also that a cure for their ailments is also necessary. With regard to the latter point, this was addressed by a critic at one point; unfortunately I can't remember the cryogenists' comeback.

 

And how long do they expect to remain frozen? One generation? Two? And who pays for it? Does the person about to die have to buy a special 20 or 50 or 100 year plan, then stump up enough cash to pay for it?

They expect to remain frozen for as long as it takes to find a cure for legal death and a cure for whatever killed them. Their insurance pays for it (the freezing, upkeep, research costs, and eventual reanimation are all included in the £80,000/£42,000 fee). On this note, one of the interesting points raised by the woman who seemed to be in charge of the cryonics company being followed was that: they don't know if, assuming they find a way to re-animate and a cure for the deadly affliction, future generations will want to re-animate the frozen people, or even maintain the cryonics labs. So if that's the case, what is going to happen to all of these cryogenically frozen bodies?

[Magere Hein 1,399]

On this note, one of the interesting points raised by the woman who seemed to be in charge of the cryonics company being followed was that: they don't know if, assuming they find a way to re-animate and a cure for the deadly affliction, future generations will want to re-animate the frozen people, or even maintain the cryonics labs. So if that's the case, what is going to happen to all of these cryogenically frozen bodies?

There's an plot for a SciFi novel in that. Somewhere in the future it's possible to reanimate and cure those poor buggers. Unfortunately their memories are damaged beyond repair. No worries, the colonies in the outer solar system can use a few slaves, so the frozen bodies actually become assets and targets for theft.

 

regards,

Hein

[honez 79]

Test your senses here.

[Lady_Fiona 0]

i got 13/20

[Lady Die 63]

I got 11/20

[Anubis the Jackal 77]

I couldn't read the screen.

[Handrejka 1,903]

I got 11/20

 

 

Snap

[CarolAnn 926]

12 out of 20.

[Slave to the Grave 26]

I'm fascinated by the fact that parmesan cheese and vomit have a common ingredient. I always thought the ready grated stuff smelt of sick.