Man Patents Self-Burying Coffin 159
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. (Score:5, Funny)
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Already been done (Score:1, Informative)
In a Ray Bradbury story called 'The Coffin.' Although Bradbury's was fictional, it had the benefit of being a lot cooler, with little arms that dug the hole and a portable record player that did a eulogy. It even covered itself in earth once it was done.
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You're not only dead (Score:2, Funny)
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Wow... It's as if you read the title of TFA.
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Well I hardly think that's likely.
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Yeah, that's also pretty sad, because this is otherwise a pretty neat idea to reduce the plot sizes in cemeteries. But people are going to think the tagline, and go for some large conventional stretch coffin instead.
It's like Chevy would never be able to break into manufacturing light aircraft, just because of their silly "Like a Rock" tagline.
Oh well, it's just a matter of time before we have little "condo-crypt highrises" for the deceased like they do in South America. Or maybe the small little cremator
Preview of my eulogy (Score:2)
Do a barrel roll!
Do a barrel roll!
Do a barrel roll!
Ooooookay (Score:1)
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Honestly I don't see this going anywhere, with the patents and stuff this will probably cost more than a simple casket that any company can produce without a licensing fee. I can't imagine any family choosing this, if they were willing to screw grandpa into the ground and have him rest vertically they'd probably be just as inclined to choose cremation first.
Only people I could imagine opting for this is the US
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I can't imagine any family choosing this, if they were willing to screw grandpa into the ground and have him rest vertically they'd probably be just as inclined to choose cremation first.
Paupers cemeteries would probably be interested, if the price was right, and they didn't have rocky soil.
I suspect the previous problem was getting the head of the coffin 6' under. On a regular 8' coffin you'd need a hole 14' deep - that's pier-setting equipment, not the auger on the PTO of a tractor.
Still, over the course
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Come to think of it, with a plug-type burial, a 'top-kill' of 12 bags of cement should be easy enough. No need to even mix - pour in the fast-set in a 4' sonotube and be happy if it's set up in a month's time.
how deep does this go? you may hit pipes / power l (Score:2)
how deep does this go? you may hit pipes / power lines?
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typically they don't put graveyards in areas that are covered in pipes and power lines...
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unless it's an ancient indian burial ground.
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It'd be a lot more fun if they did... imagine the hilarity that would ensue when the recently deceased bursts out of their coffin after hitting a high voltage line.
That sounds like something out of a moive (Score:2)
That sounds like something out of a moive
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Filed... in 2006 (Score:2, Informative)
"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.
mix the ash with concrete (Score:4, Interesting)
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
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People have been making ossuaries [wikipedia.org] for hundreds of years. Your idea is probably less creepy.
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Surely that's better than being a mouldering corpse for hundreds of years.
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I wanna be turned into oil, like the dinosaurs. Well, maybe an accelerated process.
They can market me and others as "Oil Green". Not because it's good for the environment, but because... ... OIL GREEN IS PEOPLE!
My mum has given me all these instructions, pretty basic shit. Either way, every time she brings it up, I tell her I'm going to have her stuffed and mounted like a grizzly bear snarling and clawing. She will be on display just inside the entrance of the place, so that when you walk in, BAM! I think i
Yes, it did issue. (Score:2, Informative)
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 [google.com]
Appropriate (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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Yeah, but who the hell wants to be buried and visited like some sort of shrine for the next decade or so? Cremate me please, it's the only way to go......
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Cremate me please, it's the only way to go......
No problem, are you free around 3pm? I'll meet you at Bob's BBQ Shack.
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Nah, I want an open air Roman style cremation. Think the County Health Department will give me any fits with that? ;)
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Nah, I want an open air Roman style cremation. Think the County Health Department will give me any fits with that?
You're dead and burned up, what are they going to do?
(just set enough aside to make it worth sombody's while)
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I know someone whom has in their will to have a viking funeral. Payout of the estate is contingent on this. Also in the estate is an escrow fund to pay the fines for and purchase the following:
desecration of a corpse
open air cremation of a corpse
lighting a boat on fire in a waterway
the boat
the fuel to place in the boat
the cost of a accurate archer
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While that is true, it still makes for an awesome will. And fact of the matter is we plan on carrying it out if at all possible, not only because that's what he wants, but because of the (awesomeness is really the wrong word, as is novelty but I don't know the right word...) of it.
-nB
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he has no kids.
sad, in a way, but makes the family situation a little easier. Us friends likely won't see a dime of the money anyway, always could use some, but don't really need it. What counts is he is our friend, and we want to see his wishes borne out.
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Just flick a switch and it's done
Not exactly...
According to TFA, "Self-Burying" isn't an accurate description. It's slightly (100%) wrong.
Per TFA:
The idea is that coffin would then be torqued into the ground, either by machine or even by hand.
Basically, your body is installed into this big ass screw. A cap is fixed to the top and it's *ready* to be screwed into the ground. This coffin can bury itself just like my lunch can eat itself.
On the topic of lunch... After looking at the patent drawings, it occurs to me that this device needs to be fairly robust to withstand the pressures of being screwed into the ground. I didn't see any
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Basically, your body is installed into this big ass screw. A cap is fixed to the top and it's *ready* to be screwed into the ground. This coffin can bury itself just like my lunch can eat itself.
Oh well, at least the nerdly occupant has one final, desperate, chance to get screwed.
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Well, getting nailed in the coffin wouldn't be so bad.
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We, as geeks, are often interested in unconventional ways of doing things, and what to do with our bodies after death is probably no exception. I'm sure many of us here have a desire for something other than the traditional funeral/casket/burial/headstone approach. I for one have always been intrigued by the idea of a Viking Funeral. Put my body on a wooden boat, send it out to sea, then shoot a FLAMING ARROW at it and watch it burn. Hell yeah. Though, I highly doubt I'll actually ever put that in my will.
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Yeah, I have little doubt that somebody here is going to end up combining the Klingon Opera thing with their funeral.
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It’s one of the ways I wouldn’t mind being disposed of when the time comes.
Sure, it’s not that I have a real interest in it either way, but it’d be cool.
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or get shot out of a cannon like Hunter S Thompson
Ka...
.
wait for it...
.
boom
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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.
Um, who's going to flip the switch? alone in the basement remember? Your dead?
Now a deadman's switch, okay, that will work.
and Ray Bradbury's story comes true (Score:3, Informative)
I immediately thought of the "Braling Economy Casket" from the Ray Bradbury story.
James
if you want something done right do it yourself! (Score:1)
Independent minded?
Can't rely on others for important things?
Then do it yourself. It is the only way to make sure it gets done right.
My Favorite (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Screw that (Score:2)
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ditto.
I want to be preserved, in an airtight casket, with medical texts etc. then sent into deep space ala voyager.
Great... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Trouble is cemeteries are green space in cities that developers can't get their hands on.
Gotta take what you can get these days.
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Not quite. Usually developers can get their hands on parts of it, but usually... they don't want to. Every now and then this comes up in the city near where I live.
Additionally, if you mean green as in grass and trees. Often these places are pretty full of graves, which aren't particularly green. In fact, I live in the hills (not in the city), and there's trees and grass everywhere, except the grave yards. Because they are packed in there, with only room to walk between each. Also gets heaps of foot traffic
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It is not an infinitely sustainable model to follow.
Neither is the universe if we want to get completely nihilistic about it.
Filling up cemeteries isn't a problem, and when it is, we can easily fix it with a few backhoes (which you would need anyway if you wanted to build there) and a few changed laws.
You really think Cemeteries are what's holding back 'REAL progress'? And all this time it was not being able to develop on that land that was holding back 'REAL progress'.
You know, what's funny is that if our
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That is a poor counterargument, as methods such as cremation are (while not infinite, I suppose), still far more sustainable than burial.
Filling up cemeteries isn't a problem, and when it is, we can easily fix it with a few backhoes (which you would need anyway if you wanted to build there) and a few changed laws.
You really think Cemeteries are what's holding back 'REAL progress'? And all this time it was not being able to develo
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That person can be honored anywhere. It doesn't have to be at the site where his/her Earthly body is now in a box in the ground.
Facebook to the rescue!
Not sustainable... (Score:2)
While I agree with the absurdities of burials, it has been working for tens of thousands of years with little trouble.
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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 la
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A decline in the birthrate does not mean a decline in population. It means our still rapidly growing population is growing slightly less rapidly than it was before.
Hence the rate at which we produce new corpses to bury will continue to accelerate.
Even if our living population were shrinking instead of growing, our deceased population would still continue to grow -- until such time as our living population reaches zero.
So no, the problem will not become less acute in the future.
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According to the Cremation Association, burying is already dying out [cremationassociation.org], with over 1/3rd of deaths currently resulting in cremations and they're projecting over 50% by 2025.
However I see nothing wrong with burying the dead, it's deeply rooted in many cultures and religions [wikipedia.org] and to say someone is wrong for burying their dead is equal to telling them their culture is wrong.
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Re:Great... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no problem telling someone their culture is wrong if it is wasteful and unsustainable. We're all the same species, created equal and therefore qualified to comment on one another.
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There, fixed that for you.
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Aquamation [aquamation.info] may supercede cremation due to releasing less greenhouse gases and otherwise wasting less of the body's nutrients.
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That's the great thing about this invention. It gives ageing Republicans a way to screw the planet after they're dead too.
Obilg Simpsons (Score:5, Funny)
Not my choice for spending eternity (Score:1)
not sure which is worse (Score:5, Funny)
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I have a couple of old tombstones stacked up to make a nice set of stairs leading up to our garden.
One of the perks of being a cemetery caretaker (former)
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You got fired for stealing tombstones? (j/k)
I had some paving stones that were "outtakes" from a gravestone cutter near Austin Texas. One of them was lovely, with colorful hot air baloons on it. There must have been a quality control problem because it wasn't completed. They sold these by the pound and it was a lot cheaper than regular quarried granite. I'd be surprised if the new owner moved those stones or even would recognize what they are :-)
Every now and then, a gravestone gets chipped, or breaks, or r
Mafia movies (Score:1)
To be crushed into a diamond... (Score:2)
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Imagine, if you will, a great-granddaughter with a diamond ring or necklace who, upon someone’s expressed admiration, says “oh, yes, it’s a memento from my great-grandfather.”
Then imagine the expression of the inquirer upon explanation that the diamonds themselves are bits of the great-grandfather. Priceless.
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I never understood how you can know they aren't just taking the ashes, throwing them in the trash, and giving you an overpriced diamond in return.
Similar Results (Score:2)
It greatly reduce excavation labor and burial costs, decreases land use, and opens up more space for burials in unused areas of a cemetery.
Cremation does the same thing. So does a burlap sack and a roadside ditch. Seriously people, you're dead. Get over it.
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You're wrong about what happens when you die. It's not an eternity of nothingness.
When you die you're going to go to
your favorite place in the whole
world. And you're going to be with
Screwdrivers (Score:2)
This means that the cemetery security guards now have to keep on alert for shady characters with really large screwdrivers.
It's an evil conspiracy! (Score:1)
These coffins are actually big, evil drilling machines designed to penetrate the walls of Zion, allowing swarms upon swarms of robotic killers loose on what remains of the human race!
hmmm (Score:2)
I'm not too sure if this is practical though.
Think about it, you would need quite a bit of force or leverage to screw that thing in. Having a huge, dirty, bright yellow backhoe driving in granddad while spewing diesel smoke and making lots of noise doesn't quite feel the same as the coffin gently descending in its hole with a discrete pulley system with soft music playing in the background.
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You could always have the pallbearers do double duty.
Though I suspect this is more intended for places like Japan, where cemetery space is becoming a problem.
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Not really, cremation is the traditional method of corpse disposal in Japan. This would be a step back for them.
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Bah, think bigger, fire them from low orbit, you could spin them up in space, have some kind of guidance system on them...
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the internment of a" THUNK!...
Then one Veloci-Coffin employee says to another, "uh, I think you need to aim about 3 feet further away from the pastor next time Mike"
EOL (Score:2)
My current preference: (Score:2)
She prefers traditional burial.
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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?
Broadband growth in the U.S. is Slowing (Score:2)
There's an important story to be covered and we get ... this?
Seriously, mods. Do away with voting on the firehose, or at least override it when a story is clearly off-topic and puerile. Leave this crap for Fark.
Man Patents Self (Score:1)
Why? (Score:2)
Why do this? Seriously? If you're not into traditional funerals, why not just be cremated and save the land for someone living? It seems like this is a series of inventive ways of mangling an unnecessary tradition. Is there someone out there saying "I want to be buried the traditional way, but inside some morbid transformer that can drill me into my final resting place"?
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If you're not into traditional funerals, why not just be cremated and save the land for someone living?
It depends on what you consider 'traditional': You might still follow the religious tradition requiring burial (or prohibiting cremation or other body disposal methods) but acknowledge that the traditional horizontal plot may be less socially-considerate than a vertical grave.
Hey, it's PMR! (Score:2)
This reminds me of perpendicular recording but for meatspace. Cool! When do we get the option to screw them in three deep?
You Made Your Coffin... (Score:2)
Now just lie in it, and it will do the rest.
That's perfect! (Score:2)
Oblig. Bible quote (Score:2)
"Let the dead bury the dead."
Vertical burying (Score:2)
I have always wondered why the coffins need to be buried horizontally. It seems we could get two or three times as many graves in a cemetary if they were buried vertically, whether they are self-burying or not. There would still be room for flat stones and flower holders too.
Reminds me of a great movie (Score:2)
Anyone else think of the movie theloved one? [imdb.com]
Coffins are a waste. (Score:2)
I can't possibly be the only person around who thinks coffins are a waste of good resources. Back in the old days a pine box was all you got, and that wasn't so bad. Now they're full of steel, brass, aluminum and who knows what else.
Shouldn't those materials be used on the living?
This corkscrew coffin seems like it would require MORE of these things, not less.
Plow my carcass into a field for fertilizer, there's no reason to waste resources to build an empty shell to put my empty shell in.
maybe it's just me (Score:2)
But I don't care what happens after I die. I'll be dead. do what you want with my body.
I don't need a tombstone, nor do I need a grave. Maybe other people in my family want me to have that stuff, but I don't. not my problem.
Nice auger job... (Score:2)
I can't help but be reminded of the smiling face of Chuck Yeager in the "Chuck Yeager Flight Simulator", after planting an SR-71 into the ground in a power dive from 100,000 feet... and his words "Nice auger job!"