Inquirer – Monday 06 August 2007:
PEOPLE TOO SHY TO REVEAL their true feelings can now pay for a service to help them do it – after they’re dead. My Last Letter will send letters to friends and relatives telling them exactly how you feel about them when you’re safely dead.
The speed of delivery depends on how much you pay – it could be several months after you’ve been hit by a bus and your nearest and dearest are just rebuilding their lives when a virtual tear-stained letter drops onto their doormat and the grieving process is kicked off again. Nice.
Perhaps you could also cause a divorce from beyond the grave by sending an old girlfriend an explicit letter detailing how good she was in bed which is opened years later by her husband. What a laugh, eh?
Seems a bit pointless to me. Once I’m dead, what difference could it possibly make?
hah, thats almost exactly the same halloween costume my g/f wore a few halloweens ago.
Sounds like a service for dicks who want to be remembered as dicks after they’re dead and gone.
Mister Mustard,
I didn’t realize the service was only available to men?!?
Women can be dicks too, EtOH.
I’m having a Demolition Man flashback where Wesley Snipes character comes across a guy at a phone booth getting emotional support from a machine…
“Seems a bit pointless to me. Once I’m dead, what difference could it possibly make?”
That depends on what the content of the letter is. Perhaps it contains a map to a hidden stash of money that you left to someone. Hey, it could happen.. 😉 I’m just suggesting that the article states only one use of this service, while I can think of several that don’t involve old girlfriends or unrequited love.
7. Jeffery A. Haremski,
I think you’re missing the point about pointlessness.
The older we get, the more we realize the too fleeting memories of friends and family are essentially our legacy – regardless of material success. So I developed a Windows program guiding a user through a series of inquires to stimulate sharing their life experiences through software. I recognize there are books so Grandma can write her reminiscence and even web sites where some can tell their tale. My goal is different: a truly personal and private space on a home computer where one can record (text, audio, and/or video) the story of their life as a gift to future generations. This Life’sSong approach isn’t intended merely to capture a quick anecdote. To the contrary, the depth of question sets allows the user to seriously explore all the aspects of their life; perhaps discovering and passing on the real soul of the individual. We’ll be ‘officially’ releasing on Grandparent’s Day; but for anyone who might want to try this software for themselves, their parents or grandparents, Life’sSong is available in beta at http://www.lifessong.com
#7 – Jeffery A. Haremski,
Getting around estate tax could be one use, I guess, for those who have both kids and estates. However, it is still not much help to the rotting meat in the box.
9. BobH,
It seems like a fairly expensive commercial product and there’s no Linux or Mac version.
Cinaedh
No Linux or Mac versions (yet) — yes, as I stated in the post this is “Windows” software. Both Linux & Mac O/S are superior but the vast market is still BillG’s bug farm.
As to the fee… our goal is to provide a quality product. This is not a shoe box. 🙂 When someone invests the time to capture their life in text, audio and/or video, they deserve to own a solution that will be secure, transportable, backed-up automatically, contain intelligent questions, easy to use, etc.
Thank you for your feedback.
This reminds me a little of the ‘dead man switch’. Essentially it was an app that ran on your computer automatically at the time of your death. (simple example process: When you boot, you enter a password, if not entered system assumes you’re dead and runs the app).
As a series of automated scripts, it would therefore be possible to automatically send emails, fill online forms, delete all the porn on your computer, and anything else you could do while on the keyboard… I’m not certain if the app is still available but the process can easily be duplicated with easy to use scripting engines such as AutoIt and AutoHotkey.