h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There was also plenty plenty european / western wars fought on "foreign" soils (wars of independence, "cold war "third party nations etc, africa, asia, latin & central america)

Wow.
We've come a way off course from dying alone
to the politics of warfare.



Then of course there are those of us who are
just waiting for Z to return. He does this from time
to time; opens a thread and just disappears.

But this time I have to wonder if maybe someone ought
to go check on him to see if he's alright.

These suspicions are further aroused by the recent
return of Mrs Zen from a many months absence.


~jwf~

[off topic] Well I suppose if we start a war then the risk of dying alone would be reduced. Maybe North Korea could be the catalyst for armageddon. Iran is said to be about a year away from developing the first islamic bomb so maybe it could kick off then. Who knows. [off topic]

I came back, and you'd all moved on to warfare... .

I am actually not scared of dying alone, but of being dead alone, and no one noticing I was gone. I think its egotistical, but I want lots of people to miss me.

Being around people at the end of their lives does make you think about it a little more.

Maybe the conversation drifted onto warfare because perhaps it was felt the thread was dying

Anyway in a few years time we will have intelligent clothing with microchips and microwave beams. Our clothes will be able to tell whether we are dead or not and will order a hearse to take us away etc, paying for it from our bank account etc.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6740325.stm

That's a scary thought. I'm quite geeky in some areas and quite technophobic in others. I *like* being disconnected rather a lot of the time.

TRiG.

>> Being around people at the end of their lives
does make you think about it a little more. <<

Aha! See! I was right!
See, see! See Post 9.


~jwf~

Still wondering about the alone bit though.
Mrs Zen seems to have resurfaced elsewhere
after a prolonged absinthe. Must confess I
was worried what you mighta done with her.

What do you think of this idea that your social media can be figured to carry on posting after you've gone?

Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder ~jwf~

I'm visiting - not sure if I'm fully back though.

>>..idea that your social media can be figured
to carry on posting after you've gone? <<

Trouble with that is determining if new postings
would actually be new ideas/formulations or just
a backlog of notions formulated before death.

Every time I find and read something new from a
long-since departed writer from pre-innerwebby times
like Joseph Conrad, HGWells, Dickens or Shakespeare,
I have to pause and consider if this is a "new thought
because I have just discovered it" or is it merely a
legacy from a life long gone.

If the latter, then I live and die in hope that perhaps
one day after I am gone, something I have said will
spark a ray of new thought into a life not yet born.

From there it is not too far a stretch to imagine that
it might even be me in some reincarnation who discovers
something of my ~jwf~ brilliance in the cyber-archives.

Yeah, I know, it's not all about me, me, meme.


~jwf~

John, you remind me of the Heinlein story "All you Zombies" -- http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Robert-A.-Heinlein-All-You-Zombies.pdf

Well spotted, Dick.

~jwf~

Well spotted, Jane.

~jwf~


I had actually gone to bed and was suffering
options-paralysis on my bedtime reading selection
when it suddenly ochered tomby that perhaps only
North Americans might twig to the Dick v Jane
conundrum of gender bias as it is presented
in their junior grade readers.

"See Dick run. See Jane run.
See Dick and Jane run.
Run Dick. Run Jane, run!"

Jane was of course the name in Heinlein's story
of the transexual Dick who stumbled upon the
zombie unicorn alpaca lips.

Couldn't have everyone thinking I was just repeating
a very old British joke with no transatlantic context
or other obvious redeeming Virtue.

Nope it was personal. Very personal.

G'night Dick.
G'night Jane.


~jwf~