High Tech Tombstones

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MrsSpringsteen

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bizarre - "ultimate funeral experience"? "Walt Disney"? I didn't know funerals are entertainment :eyebrow:

http://www.local6.com/news/4863830/detail.html

A new company plans to unveil new high-tech tombstones with embedded flat screen monitors that would allow visitors to play memorial videos of the deceased, according to a report

Joe Joachim, who says he wants to be the Walt Disney of the funeral business, plans to unveil the Vidstone this year at the annual funeral directors convention.

What we're trying to do is create the ultimate funeral experience," Joachim said. "Funeral directors are realizing it's an important service we can offer, and and we're happy to offer it."

The solar-powered Vidstone will play a video of the person's life at the touch of a button.

It will not have speakers but a jack to plug in headphones at cemeteries.

Some cemeteries are open to the Vidstone but others said it could offend people.

"It could be offensive to some. I don't think it's appropriate or it's been tried enough on the grounds." Mt. Elliott Cemetery Association spokesman Michael Chilcote said.

The report said one of the most popular ways for people to commemorate loved ones is through short films.

The funeral directors convention is held in October in Chicago.
 
I think I just want to be buried like Nathan on SFU or cremated...haven't made up my mind. I just want the least production possible. I can't imagine being buried with a flat screen 6 feet above me when other families(alive) don't even have working TVs.
 
frankly, this plan sounds like a waste of a nice television.

besides, aren't tombstones a common target of vandalism? tombstones with plasma or lcd displays will be goldmines for some.

to each their own however.
 
I think it's a sad commentary, there's nothing wrong w/ commemorating a loved one in a video, but it is creepy to me to think of TV screens and headphones in cemeteries. Nothing seems sacred anymore. When I have to go to a cemetery I prefer low tech peacefulness, thinking about that person, praying..whatever

I read an article recently about "funeral rage" -people who curse, give the finger, cut in, etc. during a funeral procession. Some people have even stopped having processions just because of this problem. How dare someone die and inconvenience them. That's just unbelievable.
 
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MrsSpringsteen said:
I think it's a sad commentary, there's nothing wrong w/ commemorating a loved one in a video, but it is creepy to me to think of TV screens and headphones in cemeteries. Nothing seems sacred anymore.

Yeah you're right,

I'd like to see people stuffed and mounted, maybe with animatronics.
 
If that's what the people who died want, then so be it. Cemetaries have changed, and, frankly, I think those flat tombstones are an insult compared to what kind of care and attention we used to give graves.

Melon
 
MrsSpringsteen said:
When I have to go to a cemetery I prefer low tech peacefulness, thinking about that person, praying..whatever

i suppose they could have these types of graves in a separate area, so as not to offend anyone.

personally, i don't think i'm going to care one way or the other what's on my tombstone.

i'm sure that when i die, i'll have much bigger issues to deal with. :wink:
 
I can't imagine wanting to perpetuate my existence through such means.

Have a celebration at the memorial.

And dump my body at the curb (or push it into the ocean, whatever is cheaper).
 
nbcrusader said:
I can't imagine wanting to perpetuate my existence through such means.

Have a celebration at the memorial.

And dump my body at the curb (or push it into the ocean, whatever is cheaper).

I agree. I wish to be cremated, but the ashes can be thrown out with the morning garbage for all I care.
 
More and more people are choosing to cremate which is a much cheaper option. The funeral industry is feeling the pinch and is trying to come up with new ways to make money.
 
u2bonogirl said:
:laugh: somehow I find it funny that funeral directors have conventions.
I wonder what they talk about :scratch:

FD1: Geez, our business is dead. How 'bout yours?
FD2: Yeah, things are really dead around our office, too! Weird, huh?
FD1: Yeah.... weird. :shrug:


:lmao: Sorry - I just couldn't resist. :reject:


(by the way Vidstone = bad idea for me. :down: )
 
BluRmGrl said:
FD1: Geez, our business is dead. How 'bout yours?
FD2: Yeah, things are really dead around our office, too! Weird, huh?
FD1: Yeah.... weird. :shrug:


:lmao: Sorry - I just couldn't resist. :reject:

:laugh:.

But hey, I bet "life of the party" gets a whole new meaning come the Christmastime parties!

*Couldn't resist, either*

Anywho, on a more serious note...my dad's made it quite clear he wants to be creamated, too. He thinks funerals are a strange thing anyway, he doesn't want to go through all that, he just wants to be creamated and save the money that would be spent on a funeral and give it to our family instead to use for other things.

That, and he's terrified of the possiblity of being mistakenly buried alive. Me, I'm still not sure what I'd want yet-I have no plans to die anytime soon anyway, kinda want to stick around here for a good while longer...but I can see where he's coming from.

As for these video things...very odd idea. I personally don't think I'd go with the idea, but as melon said, it's up to individual people to decide whether or not they want that at their funerals.

Angela
 
People can have what they want at their funerals, it doesn't matter to me. I personally think I'd like to be cremated, I wouldn't want a big fuss. Personally I wouldn't want a video or anything. But if that's what someone wants, fine.
 
verte76 said:
People can have what they want at their funerals, it doesn't matter to me. I personally think I'd like to be cremated, I wouldn't want a big fuss. Personally I wouldn't want a video or anything. But if that's what someone wants, fine.

My mother has said for years in regards to her earthly remains:
"Salvage what parts you can, burn the rest & have a big party!"

:yes: :lol: :lol:

She, too, feels that funerals are grotesque and bizarre and doesn't want anything to do with one, even when she's the dearly departed. :down:
 
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melon said:
If that's what the people who died want, then so be it. Cemetaries have changed, and, frankly, I think those flat tombstones are an insult compared to what kind of care and attention we used to give graves.

Melon

hey, flat tombstones are better than none at all. In my town, the cemetary runs something like:

really old section - ornate or at least somewhat decorative stone or masoleum

middling-old section - plain stone

new section - plaque on the ground, if you're lucky.
 
my whole family has decided we want to be cremated. My father was a road construction worker before he retired. One time his company had to dig up a cemetary to build a new road. There was one skull they could not account for after the project so my dad drove around with it in the back of his truck for a day or so then finally took it to the state police. That pretty much convinced us to do the cremation thing.
 
reply

Kieran McConville said:


hey, flat tombstones are better than none at all. In my town, the cemetary runs something like:

really old section - ornate or at least somewhat decorative stone or masoleum

middling-old section - plain stone

new section - plaque on the ground, if you're lucky.

I myself could never understand the plastic flowers people left at gravesites. I mean plastic seems so.....artificial.

:shrug:
 
bammo2 said:



:(

ermm....just a heads up....if you post comments like that, can you please think about people who are perhaps in other parts of the world and haven't got to that part in the show yet

thanks

Shit my bad...
 
Yah plastic flowers are somewhat artificial, being plastic and all. I think ultimately cemetaries are mostly for the benefit of the living, I mean if we REALLY believe the dead person has gone on to a better place, it's not like they're sleeping in the ground, they're somewhere else... so arguably it doesn't matter what the cemetary looks like, except to the living, so fair enough I guess.
 
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