Happy Birthday, BigDon.

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"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

You might be right, but death is inevitable. My dad has put the seed in my head (intentionally, most likely) that it's best to be prepared. I'm not saying it's easy, and I will need the decade or two I have to be ready emotionally, but being an emotional wreck isn't going to solve anything. Fight it all you want, but embrace it at the same time.

(Heh, I hope I'm not raining on your parade, Don.)

If death is a problem, try reading some Pratchett, especially Reaper Man, helps to get several things in perspective, even if an anamorphic one.

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And the "driving on the freeway on a scooter" analogy still holds true because the pilots are sitting in 7 to 30 ton aircraft o' doom and you are running around them in your very own Meatbody, Mark I. Beep, beep.
Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Based on reading Hogfather, if I die in a deathbed-y way (prolonged illness or whatnot), I want a glass of sherry left out for Death. And I don't even drink sherry!

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

At the moment. Plenty of researchers are working to overcome that, however. There's nothing in the laws of physics preventing an indefinite lifespan, since there is already known to be biological immortality in some lesser lifeforms. Human beings are far more complex, but we all begin our existence as single-celled organisms. So it's entirely possible that death will eventually no longer be an inevitability; "death by natural causes" could become a meaningless phrase. The trick is staying alive until that happens.


I'm constitutionally unable to embrace death. I'm more a "rage against the dying of the light" kinda guy.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Happy birthday, BigDon! Just think, two more years and you can join AARP.

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

Or don't join and be forever barraged by "join AARP" junk mail.

On the calendar being ahead or behind issue, there's one sense in which "behind" makes more sense: just before Leap Day, the Earth is behind (along its orbital path) from where it should be after four (astronomical) years.

I'm not sure if anybody mentioned it in any of the threads here, but on Friday NPR's "Talk of the Nation" show had a segment with a guy from NIST about leap years, leap seconds, and the like. It was pretty good but not nearly as geeky as the BA's blog entry. I wanted to call in and demand that they schedule the 3200-year correction... in 4800 CE.

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Bring back Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

As Woody Allan said, "I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

I also like Steven Wright's thoughts on the matter: "I intend to live forever. So far, so good."

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

Birds also started out as single cell organisms, but humans cannot fly.



In an extended human lifetime accidental death would probably play more of a roll than it does now in determining lifespans.

But I still take the entire premise as absurd.

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"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

Missing the point. As we all start as simple and develop to be complex, we have opportunities to alter the path of that development. No doubt it will be difficult, but nothing impossible about it.


No question, it will.


Why? Nothing absurd about the fact that medical knowledge is increasing. Nothing absurd about the fact that we are learning more and more about the aging process and the human body. Nothing absurd about the fact that we are getting more skilled at modifying lifeforms. Nothing absurd about the fact that there is now a good deal of research into life extension.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

the aging process isn't completely from within. You'd have to stop all external triggers of aging too.

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"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

When I was a kid in high school we were discusing this subject and at the time I argued that functional immortality just means your are commiting to an unpleasant death and the teacher, who was also a physician, replied "there *are* no good deaths" thereby killing my point.

Though my friends and I have come up with the concept of "winning".

You win the game by either cashing out in your sleep or while making love, the latter almost never seems to happen to women though. Very little terror of death and in the latter case its, "Arrgghh! I'm dying! Oh, boobs. Arrgghhh! Help!!"

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Gimme a minute to read through Jay's latest observations...

No, just alter our response to the triggers. Then they aren't triggers anymore.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

My response to boobs is generally more positive than "Arrgghhh! Help!!"

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Congrats, Big Don. I´m some million miles behind you, but looking for to reaching that mark!

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If you're careful enough, nothing bad or good will ever happen to you.

Umm, I don't want to embarass you but the sun revolves around the Earth! Anyways, at your age I could understand the confusion. Happy 38th! Oh didn't you know 40 is the new 30? Hope you stuck with the Elmer's glue because the liquid nails gives me a wicked hangover.

Maybe "embrace" has the wrong connotations. Rage all you want. I agree with that. But you need to be ready for when you finally go down in that fight, or when someone else does.

I don't "need" to be anything. I hate death. I will never be accepting of it.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort