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."
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.
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.
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]
and Ray Bradbury's story comes true (Score:3, Informative)
I immediately thought of the "Braling Economy Casket" from the Ray Bradbury story.
James
Re:You're not only dead (Score:2, Informative)
Wow... It's as if you read the title of TFA.
Re:Not sustainable... (Score:2, Informative)
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 last.