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Earth News Technology

GPS Used To Find Graves In Eco-Burial Sites 171

Posted by kdawson from the no-plastic-flowers-please dept.
Narrative Fallacy writes "Relatives and friends will use a satellite navigation device to find graves of loved ones in Australia's eco-burial site on bushland attached to Lismore Memorial Park Cemetery, in New South Wales. Reflecting a worldwide trend towards environmentally friendly burials, the deceased will be buried in biodegradable coffins between gum trees in a protected koala sanctuary. 'It's an ideal way of utilizing land and helping wildlife and vegetation,' said Kris Whitney, Lismore Council coordinator of cemeteries. 'A family can walk around the bushland and pick a site. The body can be oriented in any direction. We promise there will be no internments within five meters. We'll record accurate GPS co-ordinates.' Families visiting graves would be lent a satellite navigation device. This will be Australia's fourth 'natural burial site' with existing sites in Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia."
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GPS Used To Find Graves In Eco-Burial Sites More

GPS Used To Find Graves In Eco-Burial Sites

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  • Way to go to make me feel like a goldfish (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cryacin ( 657549 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @03:08AM (#23168576)

    For coffins, we'd rather people used woven wicker, plantation pine or recycled cardboard.
    So let me get this straight? I pay money to be buried in a cardboard box?
    • If you are a baby out here they'd do that for free...

    • Re:Way to go to make me feel like a goldfish (Score:5, Informative)

      by Fizzl ( 209397 ) <fizzl@@@fizzl...net> on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @03:57AM (#23168774) Homepage Journal
      I don't get it, why people find their earthly shells so importnt that they should be buried in expensive coffins with huge ceremonies.
      It doesn't concern me one bit what happens to my carcass after death.
      I recall my father once said he'd like his body just dumped to ocean in a bag after he's dead. Later he switched to wanting to be cremated and the ashes sprinkled in a forest where he used to play as a kid.
      Well, he was cremated but my gradparents found it atrocious for him to be buried in common land and after all they got a burial place on "blessed" land for the urn.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by tezbobobo ( 879983 )
        Prove it. When you're dead, arrange for your body to be sent to me. What should you care what I plan for it.

        • Re:Way to go to make me feel like a goldfish (Score:5, Insightful)

          by vidarh ( 309115 ) <vidar@hokstad.com> on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @05:11AM (#23169012) Homepage Journal
          I don't get why you find it difficult to believe. I have the same attitude.

          But I wouldn't send my body to some random stranger for the reason that it might matter to my relatives. I might not care, but if they do, then I'm not going to rob them of the possibility of having a ceremony or whatever they'd like.

          If they decide they'd be happy to let you do whatever you have in mind to my dead body, then what do I care?

          It's not like I visit the grave sites of m dead relatives - I'd rather think of them in happier terms than as a rotting corpse, so the whole obsession with funerals is really quite distasteful and alien to me.

          • I agree 100%.

            I'm dead. Gone. I'm not going to care what happens. As far as I'm concerned, you can truck my body to the local electrical plant & throw it in, to help provide cheap electricity to warm people's homes.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Kozz ( 7764 )
            Generally, I have the same feeling. Tradition (alone) makes me somewhat guilty for not visiting the graves of my own dearly departed, but my memories serve me well. I've always been fully interested in donating any and all usable organs upon my death. I've even considered donating my body or skeleton to my former school for teaching purposes. The main thing that gives me pause is that I don't know how these things (organ donation, body donation?) impact the ability of my loved ones to have a ceremony of
        • Uhh... Okay. Would you prefer UPS or DHL?
      • why people find their earthly shells so importnt that they should be buried in expensive coffins with huge ceremonies.

        The ceremony's not for the dead. It's for the ones left alive, so they have a sense of closure.

        • >>>"It's for the ones left alive, so they have a sense of closure."

          Like I care. I'm dead. The ones who are left alive have a far better deal than what I've got (non-existence).

          • The people left alive are the ones paying for the ceremony. Why do you care what they do with the money?
          • Well, you're not the one who's going to be doing the burying at your funeral.
      • The ceremony isn't for you, it's to help your relatives and friends through the grieving process. You might not care about what happens to your body, but for your family, it's all of you they have left. If you've got no one who cares about you, then sure, feed your body to sharks. It doesn't really matter.
      • I don't get it, why people find their earthly shells so importnt that they should be buried in expensive coffins with huge ceremonies.

        believe it or not, the irony of it all is that the cerimony and the "holy place" is not for the dead person, but for the ones still living....

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )
        I have a friend who wants to be cremated and slipped into the tea at the funeral.
    • You are missing the big picture here

      "Um, yeah we buried Grandma right here at these coordinates.. Right see we don't use headstones and we made sure the ground looks exactly like it did before we buried her here so you might not even be able to tell that we buried anyone here at all! What do you mean you think I just ditched the body in a ditch somewhere and then told you it was buried here? That is preposterous!"

      I would be impressed if "eco" burial meant that they ground your loved one up for compost and t
    • So let me get this straight? I pay money to be buried in a cardboard box?

      Well, it's not exactly like you'll notice...
    • Better a cardboard box than a giant toilet.

      "gather the bereaved around to say good by"... Flush

    • So let me get this straight? I pay money to be buried in a cardboard box?
      That's the difference between you and my ex-wife.

  • Eco?! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by rishistar ( 662278 )
    With all the technology involved in keeping this going would it really qualify as eco anymore? Cremation would certainly overall be more environmentally friendly than this, if not for the immediate habitat.

    • Composting... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thesupraman ( 179040 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @03:21AM (#23168650)
      You seem to miss the point...
      Dead bodies break down nicely and help to increase the fertility of the soil. The point is to help the trees grow.

      And I would not be surprised if this is being done in an area a touch short of such organic matter..

      Of course, if people really cared they may want to consider that GPS is rarely accurate to 5m, its not uncommon to get an EPE of 15-20m in that arts of the world..
      • I can confirm this. unless you have very expensive gps gear that has been calibrated off a known survey point, your best accuracy is 20m.

        but honestly, does anyone believe the claim no one will be buried within 5m? when they start running out of room the temptation to make that 5m to 2m will be too great.

        • Re:Composting... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @06:08AM (#23169234)

          when they start running out of room

          Yeah, right. Australia is really "running out of room".

        • I can confirm this. unless you have very expensive gps gear that has been calibrated off a known survey point, your best accuracy is 20m.

          Wow. My GPS must be something real special then. Funny, it only cost me $100. You'd figure such an unusually accurate device would cost a hell of a lot more.

          Come to think of it, my friends Car GPS seems to be just as accurate....tracked us right to his exact address....

          but honestly, does anyone believe the claim no one will be buried within 5m? when they start ru

        • Re:Composting... (Score:4, Informative)

          by paskie ( 539112 ) <pasky@u[ ]cz ['cw.' in gap]> on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @06:48AM (#23169438) Homepage
          You, sir, have apparently never geocached. My $75 GPS can be accurate up to 3m in very favorable conditions, and 5m-9m accuracy is normal.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by ozmanjusri ( 601766 )
        They allow headstones made from local rock. 15m should be close enough for most people to find the grave.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Psychotria ( 953670 )
        Unfortunately many Australian plants are adapted to live in low-nutrient conditions. The area (Lismore), however, maybe supports rainforest trees in the area where bodies are to buried. Rainforest trees don't mind the high nutrients (although, not all species would be accustomed to the increased nutrient load). But, the article speaks of Koalas. Koalas do not live in rainforest--they live in areas dominated by Eucalyptus and other sclerophyll species. It could be argued that, this being the case, that the b

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by MichaelSmith ( 789609 )

        Of course, if people really cared they may want to consider that GPS is rarely accurate to 5m, its not uncommon to get an EPE of 15-20m in that arts of the world..

        I regularly get 4 metre accuracy in Australia. I used my ETREX to mark the locations of my wife's grandparents graves in Malaysia a couple of years ago. But I backed it up with photographs showing the site in context with the surroundings. The pics ensure reasonable accuracy.

        I used a GPS on that occasion because it was in a huge overgrown Chinese cemetary and the people who guided us there won't be around forever either. I plan to leave the data with my nephew who will know how to use it in the future.

      • I live in Lismore, the area is not short of fertile soil. Most of the region has volcanic soils that have had hundreds of thousands of years worth of rain forest mulched through it. This effort is purely for effect, being cremated and having the money thus saved go towards planting trees would be much more "eco".

        It is because of the rain forests that all the "eco" nuts swarm to the region, leading to the rain forest further shrinking so that more houses can be built. On some of the most fertile soil in the
    • It certainly seems overly complex. Eco? Who knows? How are those GPS satellites maintained? Oh, kudos for keeping sight of the forrest...

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by kitsunewarlock ( 971818 )
        Don't forget your encouraging humans to go into Koala habitats. And place "litter" (glass vases with flowers, picnic supplies, or even worse depending on the family and their practices) and their smell around the area (wild animals hate the smell of us as much as we hate the smell of them and they hate the smell of one another...).

        Really I totally agree with dumping bodies in the woods (ok, burying them deep even to make sure stupid animals don't try to eat our preserved, disease ridden, Prozac and Rita
      • It strikes me that catacombs were probably the most 'economical, ie. least disruptive to the environment - thousands in a very small area. And you wouldn't need a GPS, a map would do.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by ozmanjusri ( 601766 )
        It certainly seems overly complex.

        The eco-burial cemetery in Western Australia is Pinnaroo, and if you'd seen how it works, you'd realise it's not particularly complex in practice.

        All cemeteries maintain burial records, normally based around plot and grid numbers. In the eco-burial system, GPS coordinates are used instead. Likewise, family who wish to visit graves aren't dumped in the bush with a GPS and ration pack. There are walking trails around the cemetery, and the burial plots are not far off the

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )
          "Likewise, family who wish to visit graves aren't dumped in the bush with a GPS and ration pack."

          Aw, too bad. Count me out then.

    • Re:Eco?! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Yvanhoe ( 564877 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @03:42AM (#23168728) Journal
      Eco doesn't mean technophobic. It means that it is workable for everyone on the planet to do the same in a sustainable fashion.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dintech ( 998802 )
        Yes but last time I checked, putting 3 GPS satelittes into space wasn't an eco-friendly operation.
        • and now he wants everybody to have one? A GPS reciever, of course...sustainable?
        • They're already *in* space though, so why not make use of them? Surely it would be more wasteful to burn all those resources putting GPS satelites up there, and then not use them because it was so polluting to launch the things.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Yvanhoe ( 564877 )
          Well, I do know there are technophobic ecologists out there, but because something is polluting doesn't mean it is not ecological or sustainable. We can afford to create non degradable stuff, to put greenhouse gas into the atmosphere up to a certain extent.
          Put a satellite into orbit, plant a few hundred trees. Ecology is about sustainability. It is about preventing the release of non-recyclable materials and depletion of non renewable materials.
          Based on this, the eco friendliness of orbital launch depends

    • Cremation ecoUNfriendy (Score:2, Informative)

      by xaxa ( 988988 )
      Cremation is very eco-unfriendly. You need a really hot oven (800C or something), and you're burning the body. Burial is better. If you don't want burial, then one option permitted in some countries is to freeze the body and then use ultrasound to shatter it into dust.

  • rotting carcass (Score:5, Insightful)

    by timmarhy ( 659436 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @03:22AM (#23168658)
    I astounds me that people buy shit like "freshness liners" for coffins, or give a crap about the softness of the coffin pillows.

    people, when you die, YOU WILL BE ROTTING MEAT. no different to that cat/dog you buried when you were 12.

    Look at it this way, no matter how much of a useless bastard you were in life, if your buried in the ground with trees around you, you'll finally be put to good use.

    • Re:rotting carcass (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Creepy Crawler ( 680178 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @03:31AM (#23168680)
      And your viewpoint is what makes atheists look very bad. Why?

      Religion has two major things it accomplishes: a creation myth and a death myth. Many, many people cannot grasp the idea that you will be worm food when you die. They instead seek things like Heaven, enlightenment, or Valhalla as a means to cope with what they do not understand.

      As long as these people are peaceful, let them have their beliefs, as it does not hinder what happens. And if somebody is 10% more efficent/successful/happier because of it, I see no reason to burst their bubble.

      • Re:rotting carcass (Score:5, Insightful)

        by BSAtHome ( 455370 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @03:56AM (#23168762)
        Both religious and non religious people are allowed to voice their own thoughts and ideas. Yes, let the religious have their believes, but could you then extend the courtesy to me too when I say that my believe is no believe? I am very comforted by the fact that I will be wormfood when I die. Call it my personal heaven to know that I'll be recycled by nature. I don't need religion to accomplish any comfort for either creation or death.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Inverted Intellect ( 950622 )
          "Call it my personal heaven to know that I'll be recycled by nature." Reflecting on this statement makes me realize something about myself... this thought also gives me an immense sense of comfort, which I find odd. I'd like to be of use after my death, preferably through organ donation and/or being laid to ground in some way. I've considered signing up as a post-mortem test-subject for medical studies, but the thought makes me somewhat uncomfortable for some reason. I may or may not change my mind on tha

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ch-chuck ( 9622 )
            Take the eco-trend another step toward it's science fiction future: to help feed the poor, we are going to recycle your remains into foodstuff (cue Charlton Heston! [imdb.com])

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Inda ( 580031 )
          Fair play to you for wanting to give something back after you die. I feel somewhat the same.

          C02 is my aim. Give the trees their breath. It's a greenhouse gas for me.

          Yours truely,

          Evil bastard, who is is hellbent on taking my revenge on the living. I hate you all... :)

      • And where did i mention religion or atheism?

        the concept of an afterlife in modern religions is purely spiritual, people are well aware their bodies will rot when they die.

        good job revealing your bias in your attempt to drag the conversation in a different direction though.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jmv ( 93421 )
        Many, many people cannot grasp the idea that you will be worm food when you die. They instead seek things like Heaven, enlightenment, or Valhalla as a means to cope with what they do not understand.

        The two aren't incompatible. A religious person (which I'm not) can believe that their body becomes worm food, while their soul/spirit/coredump goes somewhere nicer. That's probably how eco-burial should be sold (and probably how it already is).

      • Re:rotting carcass (Score:4, Interesting)

        by value_added ( 719364 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @04:54AM (#23168970)
        As long as these people are peaceful, let them have their beliefs, as it does not hinder what happens.

        My own preference is to be buried in an unfinished pine box somewhere in my backyard, preferrably under a big tree (for the shade, of course) or a garden of some sort, but California prohibited that kind of thing a hundred years ago. So much for allowing personal beliefs. ;-) Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if burying one's pets in a similar natural, eco-friendly manner is just as illegal.

        Anyone familiar with different funeral traditions knows the subject is complex, and often inseperable from one's upbringing or culture. The Orthodox (the folks who cross themselves east to west), for example, don't believe in cremation, and the church canon expressly prohibits it. IIRC, it was only recently that Greece (a country with mostly rock as soil) allowed cremations to take place, but only for the minority that isn't Orthodox.

        For most westerners, I suppose, the subject doesn't evoke strong opinions one way or the other, save for the excesses of those choosing to be buried a '57 Cadillac, or more typically, in silk-lined, stainless steel, hermetically-sealed coffins.

        • California prohibited that kind of thing a hundred years ago. So much for allowing personal beliefs. ;-)
          What if whoever owns the house in 50 years time believes that he doesn't particular like finding skeletons when he's gardening?

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by value_added ( 719364 )
            What if whoever owns the house in 50 years time believes that he doesn't particular like finding skeletons when he's gardening?

            I doubt many folks garden at depths of six feet. And if they did, the well fertilized flowers/shrubs might make up for the inconvenience.
            • But there's your problem - are amateur undertakers going to bother digging down that far? Is it even possible in built environments due to cabling, pipes and the like? And there are health issues too, I believe cholera has been known to spread that way.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jamesh ( 87723 )

          My own preference is to be buried in an unfinished pine box somewhere in my backyard, preferrably under a big tree

          How about being stuffed and mounted on a hammock under that big tree? The view would be better!

          I'd bequeath my body to science, but I have a feeling they'd bequeath it straight back again (apologies to DNA :)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Hatta ( 162192 )
          Why bother with the box?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jandersen ( 462034 )
        I think timmarhy has a very valid point - I don't know of many religions, vertainly not in the West, where the physical remains of a person are of any significance, even if you believe in life after death in some form. And I find it deeply revolting to see how the burial industry preys on people when they are most likely to be vulnerable.

        On a personal note - I have indicated very clearly to my children that I don't want them to spend money on cemetries and memorials. Instead I want to be cremated; then they
      • It ain't a question of bubble bursting, it is a matter of opinion, and for some a matter of lack of evidence. But even if you only consider it an opinion, I don't see why religion should get a free pass to get to say whatever they wish on death/origin, but other folk like atheist get lambasted because "they burst the bubble of those poor theist". Well tough luck. If it is only an opinion, both are as valid and can be told as loudly as the author want, on a soap box as high as they can make it. And incident

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kklein ( 900361 )

        Huh? How does he make atheists look bad? No "modern," widespread religions believe that the body is anything other than rotting meat. The soul is eternal, not the body.

        Christians talk about being really physically resurrected when Jesus comes back in their "resurrection bodies."

        I don't believe in heaven (anymore), but even if I did (and even when I did, in my evangelical Christian upbringing), I wouldn't really care about my body after death--my soul would be with Jesus, etc. Just not even a concern

      • "Many, many people cannot grasp the idea that you will be worm food when you die."

        I'm not sure where you're coming from on this issue, but I think you miss the point of the difference between body & soul.

        Heaven AND 'rotting worm food' are not mutually exclusive.
        • Id go further id say they heaven lists being rotting worm food as a dependence.
          It conflicts with hell (some body should probably tell bush that) which also depends on rotting.
          The dependency on purgatory was recently removed though
          It may have some conflicting libraries with atheism, but nobody is quite sure what the libraries do or which libraries it uses, so it s often safe to ignore this conflict.

          Ive always planned on being buried upright in a cardboard box, and my mother whos fairly religious has no probl
          • I've also always wanted to be buried in something quickly biodegradeable - I'd like to know that some tree grew stronger or taller because of me.

            However, you'll find in the US that this can sometimes be problematic. Nevertheless, I've discovered in my state (MN) that in most cases you can be buried on private property without the cement vault required.
      • Many, many people cannot grasp the idea that you will be worm food when you die

        Actually since i'm narcoleptic, I'm afraid of being fed to the worms while taking one of my naps.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by mh1997 ( 1065630 )

      when you die, YOU WILL BE ROTTING MEAT
      Correction: when YOU die, YOU WILL BE ROTTING MEAT. I on the other hand plan on living forever - 40 years and I haven't died yet!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kozz ( 7764 )

      But oddly, nearly all burials here in the US (save for certain religions which require a plain wooden box, etc) most of the time your body is placed in a casket and THEN the casket is placed within a concrete vault in the ground.

      Now that's something I don't really get at all. Why the concrete vault? What purpose does it serve? (It proves all those "floating caskets" in the movie Poltergeist are bogus, eh?)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cdrguru ( 88047 )
        There is the issue of groundwater contamination. Without the concrete vault, literally thousands of bodies buried each day come into contact with groundwater and can leech biological contaminates into the groundwater. This makes life unpleasant for everyone nearby.

        Jewish cemetaries which accept unsealed burials I suspect are far more regulated. Being there are fewer of them and fewer Jewish burials, this is probably not as big a problem and can be managed. I do not know how it is managed, but it would n
    • Muslims bury their dead in simple white shrouds. No coffin, no lining, no Armani suits.

      We are against worshipping graves though. And there is a thin line between saying Salaam to a dead person and worshipping (asking for favors, intercession, etc.) that we should be careful not to cross.

      The shrines that you see in the Muslim world are shameful reminder that Shaitan is whispering to everyone.
    • I see replies pointing out the difference between the body and the soul as though these are both real concepts. Unless more evidence shows up, one of these is a real physical thing and the other is just wishful thinking. The "soul" is now what the religious want to be the part of them that continues on forever and never dies. The part of them that will experience that joyful afterlife because they realize the absurdities of projecting the physical self into the afterlife. For example, if I were to meet
  • Im going to look at something completely different: used land mass..

    Light Map of the world [lightpollution.it].

    Why this? This shows where population is via light pollution. If we pay attention to Oceania, we see that very little land mass of Australia is used, in opposition to places like the eastern US, most of Europe, and Japan.

    Why would a little-used large landmass country like Australia use this, and not the densely packed countries?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Fizzl ( 209397 )
      Totally off-topic, but I find it interesting how dark Norway is. I think they have as dense population as Sweden which is much brighter and much denser than Finland, which is bright in the southern part and dark in the north.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vidarh ( 309115 )

        Totally off-topic, but I find it interesting how dark Norway is. I think they have as dense population as Sweden which is much brighter and much denser than Finland, which is bright in the southern part and dark in the north.

        Norway has a population density of around 13 people per square kilometer, and of that population, about a quarter is located in a small region in the South East, with most of the rest in a narrow band around the coast. Sweden has twice the population, concentrated heavily in the south but more evenly spread out over a larger region of the south than in Norway (the entire centre of the bulbous part of Southern Norway is mountains).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by allcar ( 1111567 )
      I would have thought it was precisely because they have so much land that they can do this. Only one body in 75 square metres. No British cemetery can offer the same.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )
      I expect this burial method would take up MORE space, not less. You can be buried in any orientation, wherever you want (so long as you're not within 5m of someone else). Standard cemeteries lay everybody out on a grid, which you can bet is designed with the intention of packing in as many bodies as possible.

      Plus cemeteries demand the most space where population density is highest anyway, because (for some reason) people like to visit graves. So even in Australia, where there's tons of empty land, cemete

  • Fabulous Idea (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bluemetal ( 1269852 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @03:31AM (#23168682) Homepage Journal
    I for one think this is fantastic. It gives one the opportunity to be buried in a way that is helpful to the environment, in a way, peacefully restore yourself to the earth, and at the same time give your family the satisfaction of knowing where you are buried. I for one like the idea that I could put my hand on a nearby tree and say that someone I loved is now a part of that tree. It may sound all fluffy-puffy, but the fact is, burials have always been charged with all sorts of religious and spiritual notions. I believe for a good number of people, this type of burial would satisfy those notions indeed.

  • GPS Accuracy (Score:2, Insightful)

    by zanderredux ( 564003 )

    We promise there will be no internments within five meters.

    How can they guarantee this if civillian GPS is (said to be) only accurate to 15 meters?

    • Mostly because [common handheld civilian] GPS is accurate to around five meters now-a-days. Surveyor grade GPS is down to centimeters.

  • Dead bodies in a koala sanctuary?!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by clickety6 ( 141178 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @05:09AM (#23169004)

    Don't the fools realise that this is exactly how ghoualas are created, their furry little faces covered in fresh corpse blood as they howl at the moon in their squeaky ghouala voices, dropping out of eucalyptus trees on grieving mourners to gnaw their ears off, using their big fuzzy ghouala ears to locate fresh bodies by the sound of the worms gnawing and their big cute ghouala noses to track the scent of newly planted meat...

    Stop them now, before the ghoualas get us all !!!

    • Don't the fools realise that this is exactly how ghoualas are created, their furry little faces covered in fresh corpse blood as they howl at the moon in their squeaky ghouala voices, dropping out of eucalyptus trees on grieving mourners to gnaw their ears off, using their big fuzzy ghouala ears to locate fresh bodies by the sound of the worms gnawing and their big cute ghouala noses to track the scent of newly planted meat...

      I think you got it wrong. Ghoulas are created in axotl tanks.

      • That's axlotl [wikipedia.org]. You may retain your geek card if you can name one or more Bene Gesserit who succesfully infiltrated the Bene Tleilax.
  • ...these people are digging their own graves. Its the thin end of the wedge.

  • gps accuracy (Score:4, Funny)

    by DMoylan ( 65079 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @08:27AM (#23170092)
    with the inaccuracy of gps how can i be sure i'm dancing on the right grave? wouldn't want to disrespect the wrong grave.

  • I prefer cremation and scattering (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jollyreaper ( 513215 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @09:08AM (#23170438)
    Scatter the ashes on a body of water and you can "visit" anywhere on the coastline. Of for the more practical-minded, you've got something to use to grit the sidewalk when it snows.

  • Why not go a step further and toss an RFID chip in along with the body-- or attach it to the body. Then you could loan the loved ones a GPS and an RFID reader-- make it cool-looking like a Star Trek tricorder (Original Series or Next Gen...??? Hmmm...)

  • Science (Score:4, Informative)

    by Bender0x7D1 ( 536254 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @09:46AM (#23170810)

    Why not donate your body to science? [anatomicgift.com]

    They seem to have pretty good service - and it's free. If you want to cremate the leftover parts, they will do that, too. You can pick the ashes up for free, or have them sent to you through certified mail for only $15. (Way cheaper than your local crematorium.) Either way, someone gets some use out of your leftover meat. [terrybisson.com]

  • In related news, a group of Cub Scounts got a shock when visiting a geocache site, expecting to find plastic figurines from Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo.
    http://geocaching.com.au/dashboard/au/nsw/ [geocaching.com.au]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ashitaka ( 27544 )
      Damn you! Now that song is going to be in my head for the rest of the day with visions of slowly turning helicopter blades!!!!!

  • What's wrong with thermal depolymerization [wikipedia.org]?
  • the deceased will be buried in biodegradable coffins between gum trees in a protected koala sanctuary

    Oh great. Now what's going to happen to the visitors once the koalas learn that they like the taste of dead human flesh?
  • I seem to recall that here in Finland, you are not allowed to bury a person just anywhere - because human bodies are classed as toxic waste. During our long lives, our fatty tissues collect so much pollution through our food and by breathing that it's not a matter of trace amounts by the time we're dead. Mercury, PCB, lead etc. After all, every food administration in the world still allows *trace amounts* of poison in your food...Don't eat animals from the top of the food chain...

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