Manhattan Megastorm, Part 1: A Science Fiction Story

My name is Troy and I'm 12. Let me tell you about my experience when the super-hurricane hit New York City back in September, 2072.

My family first heard about the big hurricane on September 12. Some guy on TV said that a very large hurricane was heading north in the Atlantic Ocean, close to the eastern coast of the United States. Nobody knew where it would hit the land: maybe North Carolina, maybe Maryland, maybe even farther north.

On September 13 there were all kinds of “special reports” on TV. People were saying there was a fair chance the hurricane would hit New York City or Long Island. “Hey, it looks like I might get a 3-day weekend out of this – not bad,” I joked. But Dad knew too much about hurricanes to think this was funny.

Soon the TV guys started saying that the big storm was a “Category 5” hurricane, which is the biggest, meanest, windiest storm there is. Another guy said that the storm heading for us was a “superhurricane,” and that the earth had been getting more and more of those in recent years, because of global warming.

Dad got some extra food, and he bought a flashlight in case the power went out again. Mom came home early from work, and we sat in our apartment watching the path of the hurricane on TV. The satellite picture showed a gigantic white swirl, about as big as the state of Texas, heading right for our city. It was like this monster storm was thinking, “I love New York.”

Before long it got very rainy and windy outside. On the TV it said the gigantic hurricane was speeding right into New York City like a Metro North train.

Dad was upset. He knew that this could be trouble like this city had never seen before. He began to tell us that the flood walls around the city might be breached. They had built the huge flood walls at three places, one near the Verrazano-Narrows bridge. The flood walls were designed to keep the rising oceans from ever flooding New York City.

Dad was so busy worrying about those flood walls on the edges of the city that he failed to think enough about how to protect us right here in the apartment. He should have got a big thick roll of duct tape, and he should have taped up all our windows. But he didn’t think of that. Of course, it’s always easy to think of these things when you’re thinking about it a long time afterward.

Over the course of a few hours, the wind started howling louder and louder. We watched TV, and saw a bunch of talking heads on TV saying there would be winds of more than 100 miles an hour in New York City. They also said that the wind would be a lot worse the more floors up you were.

I thought it was kind of cool when I looked out the window, and saw a piece of paper floating by our window, being blown by the heavy winds. We were 6 stories high. A piece of paper could only get up to our apartment if the wind was blowing real hard.

Before long, more and more stuff started to float by our window: trash, paper, leaves, and lots of different things. The windows started to sway back and forth, as if an invisible giant was pushing them with his hand.

Foolishly we stood there by the window, watching the once-in-a-lifetime spectacle of all the stuff swirling around outside our window. This was just plain dumb. We should have thrown everything out of the closet, and squeezed everyone in there. It would have been very boring, but it would have been safe.

Suddenly something hit the window very hard. I don’t know what it was. It happened too fast. But it smashed the glass in the window real hard. There was glass all over the floor of our apartment.

Dad asked, “Is everyone okay?” Quickly I said, “I’m okay.” But then I looked at my arm, and saw that I wasn’t okay. Several pieces of glass from the window had lodged in my arm. My arm was bleeding.

“Oh, no! You’re bleeding!” said Mom. She ran to get the first aid kit.

“This is too serious for us to handle ourselves,” Dad said. "We’ve got to get him to a hospital.”

“You can’t take him outside now!” screamed Mom. “It’s a hurricane out there.”

“I know it’s a hurricane,“ Dad said. “But he has a pretty serious cut, and his arteries won’t wait for the hurricane to pass. We’ve got to risk it. It’s only a short walk to the subway, and we’ll be safe once we get down there.”

“No, you’ll get hit by all that stuff flying around!” said Mom.

“Dad, I got an idea.” I said. “Why don’t we grab a couple of trash can lids from the trash room. We’ll use them like shields. They’ll protect us from the stuff that the wind is blowing around.”

Mom reluctantly agreed. Dad and I put on our coats, and left the apartment. Mom cried as we left. “Go inside the closet, you’ll be safe there,” Dad said to Mom as he left.

She was worried, and she would have been much more worried if she had known what was happening at this time in other parts of the city. That’s because at about the time that we left the apartment, the flood walls were bursting in several places around Manhattan. The flood walls had crumbled like a sand castle in a rising tide, just like Dad said they would. The storm surge had raised the sea level much higher, and the sea water was now pouring into the city, over and through the broken walls. A billion gallons of trouble started to race down the narrow streets of lower Manhattan.

Dad and I took the stairs down to the first floor, and grabbed some garbage can lids to protect us. We opened the glass doors, and started running outside. “Come on, it’s only a few blocks to the subway,” Dad said. We put the garbage can lids in front of our faces, to shield them from flying objects. It was hard to walk that way, because you couldn’t see straight in front of you.

We had to just look down at our feet to see where our next few steps were taking us. The wind was blowing all kinds of stuff all around us. It was the strongest wind I had ever felt.

At one point I felt myself being pulled away by the wind, but Dad grabbed my clothes, and pulled me back real hard. A few times I felt something banging real hard against the trash can lid I was using to shield my face.

We struggled onward, pushing against the howling winds. We reached the street where the subway entrance was. We thought all we had to do was push on for another 20 feet, and we would be safe.

“There’s the subway entrance,” Dad said. “Come on, just a little way further.”

We pushed forward, but with the howling wind it was like trying to walk ahead when a football linebacker is blocking you.

Then my Dad looked down the street, and saw the most terrifying thing he had ever seen.

It was a gigantic wall of water, racing down the narrow street we were on. We were about to be buried by a million gallons of water!

It was as if some hose the size of the Holland Tunnel had suddenly been turned on full blast. The water was rushing between the buildings on our right and left, and heading straight for us as fast as a car.

Dad had only an instant to act. He could either try to save himself, or try to save me. There was no time to save both of us. He chose to save me.

Looking to his left, he saw the building next to us had an awning. An awning is one of those metal things hanging above the front door of a building, which protects you from the rain if you stand right outside of the front door. Dad grabbed my hand, and yanked me toward the awning. He put his foot up on a big stone thing below the awning. Then, pushing with all his might, he lifted me up and threw me to the edge of the awning. “GET UP THERE!” he bellowed as loud as he could. I landed on the edge of the awning, but was able to scoot myself to a secure spot on top of it. The awning was held up by 2 metal chains, and I grabbed on to one of them.

Then I saw the most horrible thing I have ever seen in my life. I saw a million gallons of water smash into my father, and carry him away.

“Dad!” I screamed as the flood waters carried him away.

I watched in horror as the water dragged Dad down the stairs of the subway entrance we had almost reached. He disappeared from sight.

I stood there on the awning of the building, terrified. The water was slowly getting higher and higher. I hollered for help at the top of my lungs.

If Dad had wanted to save himself, he could have done it by climbing up to the awning himself, and leaving me behind. But he hadn’t thought about his safety. He put my life above his, and threw me up on the awning, even though he knew that it might cost him his life. That’s something I will always remember.

I later learned exactly what had happened to Dad. The flood waters had pushed him down the stairs of the subway entrance we had almost reached. After reaching the bottom of the stairs, he was near the little glass room where they sell the subway cards you need to get into the subway. The man in this fare booth had ran away when all the water poured down the stairs, and had left the door to the little room open. Trying to save himself, Dad had rushed into the booth and closed the door. But this wasn’t such a great idea. The flood waters quickly rose up, trapping Dad inside the little room. The subway station was completely submerged under water, and my Dad was trapped down there, in a little pocket of air inside the ticket booth.

Will young Troy be able to survive the Manhattan Megastorm? Will his father survive? See tomorrow's blog post to find out.

The Mathematical Basis for Suspecting Alien Intervention in Earthly Evolution

The History Channel has a regular television series called Ancient Aliens that is devoted to advancing the idea that extraterrestrials may have intervened in human history. This television show is often guilty of laughable leaps of logic. For example, it might show a strange face on an ancient statue, and then show a modern person saying that a face so strange-looking is probably a depiction of an alien. That may seem like good reasoning until you remember that humans have a little thing called imagination, which is a much simpler explanation for a strange-looking ancient statue.

But even though Ancient Aliens won't win any logic prizes, there is actually a strong theoretical basis for thinking that aliens may have intervened in earthly evolution. The rationale is not based on direct evidence of such an intervention. It is based instead on probability considerations we can make after analyzing a variety of scenarios relating to the likelihood of intelligent life evolving on a small planet in the habitable zone of a star.

Your basic alien panspermia event

Let's crunch some numbers to throw some light on the issue. Before doing that, I will declare a general intellectual principle worth following: what I may call the principle of improbability minimization. This is the principle that given two explanations, one of which requires us to believe in something with a particular likelihood, and the other requiring a belief in something much more improbable, we should generally prefer the explanation that requires us to believe in the less unlikely occurrence (the event that is not such a huge “long shot”). For example, given the choice between an explanation that requires us to believe in no long shot more unlikely than a 1 in 100 long shot and some other explanation that requires us to believe in a 1 in 1,000,000 long shot, we should minimize the improbability by preferring the explanation that only requires belief in a 1 in 100 long shot.

For example, you notice your lottery playing friend has some additional cash, and you can explain it either by assuming that he won the 3-digit “Daily Numbers” lottery that he regularly plays (with a chance of 1 in 999 of winning), or you can explain it by assuming that he won the Megabucks lottery he also often plays (with a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of winning). Following the principle of improbability minimization, you prefer the first of these two explanations.

Now let's look at different scenarios relating to the likelihood of intelligent life evolving on a small planet like ours, in the habitable zone of a star (the "Goldilocks zone" that is neither too hot nor too cold). The most optimistic possibility is what we can call the “sure thing” hypothesis, which is the assumption that intelligent life will almost always appear on any small planet in a star's habitable zone. If this assumption is correct, then we have absolutely no need to assume that extraterrestrials interfered with evolution on our planet, because such an intervention would have been unnecessary.

But we are far from understanding how the amazing DNA molecule and the language-like genetic code appeared billions of years ago. We also don't understand how natural selection could have produced all the higher human faculties such as inner lives and self-consciousness, as I discuss in this blog post. So it is entirely possible that the probability of intelligent life evolving on a small planet in a habitable zone of a star is very low – perhaps 1 in 1000 or 1 in 100,000 or perhaps as low as 1 in 1,000,000,000,000.

It is under cases like these that the hypothesis of extraterrestrial intervention in earthly evolution becomes very useful. It helps very much in the intellectually desirable goal of improbability minimization. Under some cases, rather than having to believe in a very unlikely event with a probability such as 1 in a 1,000,000, we can believe in a much more probable event with a likelihood such as 1 in 10,000.

Let me give a specific example of what I mean. Let us gloomily suppose that the probability of intelligent life independently evolving on a small planet in the habitable zone is 1 in 1,000,000,000. The number of small planets in the habitable zones of stars in our galaxy is perhaps 10,000,000,000. Under this scenario we would expect that intelligent life would independently evolve on 10 planets in the galaxy. If we don't believe that extraterrestrials interfered in earthly evolution, we have to believe (under this scenario) that our planet lucked out with an event that had a likelihood of only 1 in 1,000,000,000. But imagine we suppose that civilizations on these 10 planets with intelligent life were able to achieve interstellar travel, and that such civilizations (or other civilizations that they helped to make possible) were able to intervene in the evolution of an average of 100 planets, helping intelligent life to evolve on such planets. Then we have a much higher total of planets on which intelligent life appears. In that case the long odds become 100 times shorter. Instead of having to believe in an extremely unlikely 1 in 1,000,000,000 long shot that blessed our planet, we only have to believe in a much less unlikely 1 in 10,000,000 long shot. We have thereby achieved our goal of improbability minimization, and we have made our end assumption much more credible.

The table below shows a range of scenarios concerning the evolution of intelligent life in the galaxy, with each row making a different assumption about how likely it is for intelligent life to independently appear.

Click to Expand

 
Most rows make the assumption that if intelligent life appears on a planet, that life will travel to other planets and assist in the evolution of intelligent life on other planets (the assumption is that an average of 100 planets will be assisted in such a way). To see the effect of improbability minimization, we can compare columns D and E. In almost all cases the odds in column E are about 100 times greater than the odds in column D. I have adjusted the numbers in cells E10, E11, and E12 to avoid having a probability greater than 1.

This table illustrates the general idea that under many different assumptions about the likelihood of intelligent life evolving on small planets, by assuming the possibility of extraterrestrial intervention in our evolution, we can end up with a less farfetched scenario that requires less of a long shot for it to occur. So contrary to the first impression you may have from watching cheesy shows like Ancient Aliens, the idea of extraterrestrial intervention in earthly evolution would actually seem to be quite respectable from the standpoint of mathematical plausibility (which does not necessarily mean it is likely that such an intervention occurred).

It is interesting to compare the principle of improbability minimization I have evoked here with another worthy intellectual principle: the principle of Occam's Razor, the old and honored principle that “entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity,” or that the simplest explanation is best. Both are good principles, and in many cases both principles lead us to the same conclusion. For example, if I see an ordinary light in the sky, then the principle of improbability minimization leads me to prefer an explanation that the light is an ordinary airplane rather than an alien spacecraft; and the principle of Occam's razor leads me to the same conclusion. But there are some cases in which the two principles may lead us to different conclusions. I may note the very interesting fact that the simplest explanation sometimes has a much lower probability than a more complicated explanation.

For example, suppose a young wife dies of an apparent heart attack in her backyard, apparently from an electrical shock. We can believe she died from a simple lightning bolt, or we can believe she died because of some complicated murder plot hatched by her husband (perhaps because of some fancy electrocuting gadget rigged up by the husband). In this case the principle of Occam's Razor leads us to favor the lightning bolt explanation – it is simpler and also natural. But the principle of improbability minimization leads us to a different answer. Following that principle, we prefer the murder plot explanation, because we wish to avoid believing in the extremely improbable occurrence of a lightning bolt killing the woman.

The question of alien intervention in earthly evolution is another case where the principle of Occam's Razor and the principle of improbability minimization lead us in different directions. The principle of Occam's Razor tends to lead us to shun the idea that any extraterrestrials intervened in earthly evolution, on the grounds that it involves introducing additional entities. But the principle of improbability minimization may lead us to think warmly of such a hypothesis, on the grounds that the overall chance of intelligent life evolving on Earth is much higher if we concede such an evolution may have received external assistance.

7 Ways a Future Hitler Could Ruin the World

On March 19, 1945, Adolf Hitler may have sensed that all was lost. On that day he issued the so-called Nero Decree, which almost seemed to have been designed to burn up Germany in a fiery apocalypse of destruction. Perhaps he thought: if I have to go, as many of my countrymen as possible are going with me. His order dictated that “all military transport and communication facilities, industrial establishments and supply depots, as well as anything else of value within Reich territory, which could in any way be used by the enemy immediately or within the foreseeable future for the prosecution of the war, will be destroyed.” That's almost an order to blow up or burn everything in his country. Thankfully Albert Speer (one of Hitler's subordinates) disregarded the order.

If Hitler could have issued an order like that, perhaps some future dictator will give a similar order. But such a dictator might not just want to blow up his country – perhaps he might want to ruin the whole world. Faced with a prospect of death or the loss of a war or the collapse of his regime, the dictator may think to himself: if I have to die, everybody else is going with me. Or perhaps the dictator might have a religious motivation. He might think he is God's agent in bringing about the Last Days or End of the World predicted by some prophet or religious book.

But how might such a dictator bring about worldwide ruin in a final orgy of global destruction? Below are some of the ways.

The Wish of an Evil Dictator

Method 1: Start a Nuclear War

A diabolical dictator armed with a nuclear bomb could probably do more than just blow up a single city. He might also be able to start a full-scale nuclear war in which hundreds of nuclear missiles get released. The dictator might spread some disinformation designed to make one superpower suspicious about an attack from a second superpower. The dictator might then smuggle in a nuclear weapon into a major city of the first superpower, and explode it. This might result in a retaliatory attack by the first superpower against the second superpower, which could escalate into a full-scale nuclear war.

For example, the dictator might spread rumors or misinformation that Russia is going to attack the United States. The dictator might then blow up a nuclear bomb in the United States. The dictator could then say: “You see? We warned you they were plotting against you.” The US might then launch two retaliatory missiles against Russia, which might then retaliate by launching 4 missiles at the US, which might trigger the US to launch 8 missiles against Russia, and so forth. The resulting nuclear exchanges might trigger a nuclear winter which kills almost everyone worldwide.

This is a frightening thought: one nuclear bomb leveraged to cause a war that kills almost everyone.

Method 2: An EMP Attack

A diabolical dictator armed with only a few nuclear missiles might be able to wipe out half of the world's electrical and computer systems. To wipe out much of the electrical system of the United States, it would be necessary merely to blow up a nuclear bomb in the upper atmosphere, in the middle of the country. The resulting Compton Effect would cause an electromagnetic pulse effect that would wipe out electricity, telephones and computers all over the country. If the dictator had four nuclear missiles, he might be able to wipe out half of the world's electricity and computer systems, by blowing up one nuclear bomb in the upper atmosphere above the middle of the United States, another in the upper atmosphere above the middle of Europe, another in the upper atmosphere above the middle of China, and another in the upper atmosphere above the middle of Russia.

Method 3: A Biological Apocalypse

By funding a few biological warfare laboratories, an evil dictator might be able to prepare a plague that could wipe out 50% or more of humanity. The laboratories might make genetic modifications of an existing bacteria or virus, modifications that might vastly increase the lethality of the germs. A recent scientific paper described a way in which a common flu virus might be modified to make it vastly more lethal.

Once his labs had developed such a super-bug, the dictator could arrange for the germ to be spread to each continent in the world. If the disease caused by the germ had an incubation period of several weeks, the disease might spread all over the world before biologists recognized the threat. By then it might be too late.

Method 4: An Asteroid Apocalypse

If an evil dictator had a space program, he could announce a plan to capture an asteroid and bring it back to near planet Earth. This could be described as a noble technological breakthrough, to help begin asteroid mining to reduce metal shortages in the future. But the dictator might have something different in mind. His actual plan might be to send the asteroid crashing into our planet, causing a devastating apocalypse. We might never know what hit us until it was too late. Looking up in the sky and seeing a new star, we might say, “Oh, isn't that nice; it's that asteroid they've dragged over here so they can mine it.” A few hours later we might be buried in dust.

Method 5: Doom from the Moon

If an evil dictator had a space program, he might also announce that he was establishing a lunar colony. Once a lunar colony had been established, the dictator could create a mass driver, which is kind of a huge electromagnetic catapult capable of launching lunar boulders out from the moon. Such a machine (possible because of the low gravity and airlessness of the moon) would actually be a devastating offensive weapon. The boulders could be launched toward our planet, and could strike it with incredible kinetic energy. A relatively small boulder could then strike our planet with as much force as a gigantic bomb. A dictator willing to send thousands of such projectiles might wipe out every major city on our planet.

Method 6: Oceanic Apocalypse

Many people are very worried about the current health of the world's oceans. Global warming is causing ocean acidification that is very troubling. An evil dictator wishing to cause an apocalypse might figure: if the ocean is the world's Achilles heel, then let me leverage that. The dictator could release a genetically engineered microbe that might lead to runaway ocean acidification, or runaway proliferation of a single microbe in the ocean's waters. The resulting ecological disaster might ruin the planet's suitability for human life.

Method 7: Air Pollution Apocalypse

Scientists recently announced the discovery of a gas called perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA), which is 7000 times worse than carbon dioxide in its global warming effects. The gas has been produced by certain industrial manufacturing processes for decades. If an evil dictator wanted to cause a global disaster, he might create a factory specifically designed to manufacture this gas and release it into the atmosphere. The factory might deliberately produce the gas for years, producing greatly accelerated global warming. The dictator might then sit back and watch the world's cities be drowned by rising seas.

A Global Government Needed?

In short, we have seen that a single mad dictator with a nation at his disposal might have a frightening variety of ways to ruin the world. This may be one argument in a favor of a global government. As soon as we get a global government, we will no longer have to worry about the whole world being ruined by one madman with a whole nation available to fulfill his heinous whims.

Changing Our Rituals for the Sake of Planet Earth

In my earlier post Give the Earth a Christmas Present by Giving Nobody a Christmas Present, I commented on the environmental costs of Christmas shopping. I suggested that it would be better for our planet for you to give no one a Christmas present, or to give Christmas presents only to small children. I also mentioned how the practice of putting up Christmas trees is lamentable from an environmental standpoint (we should we planting trees to help fight global warming rather than cutting trees down for ceremonial purposes). I forgot to mention that another environmentally friendly approach is to give a gift card, which helps to avoid the problem of landfills being filled up with unwanted gifts (since the person who uses the gift card can get exactly what he wants).

Are there any other rituals that we might want to change for the sake of the environment? I can't think of much of an environmental case for modifying the celebration of other annual holidays in the United States. An Easter basket doesn't have much of an environmental cost, nor does the fireworks we watch on the 4^th of July (because many thousands of people watch the same set of fireworks). Thanksgiving also doesn't have much of an environmental cost, seeing that poultry farming generates less greenhouse gases than beef, and only a single bird is consumed in the traditional US Thanksgiving meal.

But there are two other rituals that we might want to modify for the sake of the environment: weddings and funerals. First, let us look at the environmental cost of weddings.

In the United States the average cost of a wedding has grown to about $25,000. That's way too high for a generation that has record high levels of college debt. The modern American wedding has become an exercise in conspicuous consumption. Too many people are having weddings that are too large and ornate, for the sake of making a statement about their level of affluence. People feel under social pressure to have a big wedding so that other people will know or think they are well-off and successful.

A wedding ceremony by itself does not have a high environmental cost, nor does a wedding reception. But a big wedding might have a large environmental cost if quite a few people takes planes to go to the wedding. Imagine if you invite 20 of your friends from distant cities to attend your wedding. That adds up to 40 different jet plane trips all because of your wedding. The total carbon dioxide footprint of such a wedding might be ten times greater than the entire annual carbon dioxide footprint of someone living in a Third World country. That carbon dioxide helps to worsen global warming.

So I suggest a simple rule of thumb for weddings: do not invite to your wedding more than 10 people who will need to fly to the wedding. Also, try to set the location of your wedding at a place that will minimize the amount of air travel that will be required by your invitees. It may make a great Facebook post to put up pictures of your wedding in the middle of Yosemite Park, but if six of your most important invitees live near Philadelphia, it is much better from an environmental standpoint to have your wedding near Philadelphia. By doing in this case what's good for the environment, you will also be doing what's good for the pocketbooks and wallets of your wedding attendees.

You may be thinking: I must have a big wedding, because it will be the most important day in my life, and I will think about it hundreds of times in the future. But it doesn't work that way. From my own experience I can predict: you will quickly stop thinking much about your wedding day once it is over; you will become absorbed in your future activities; and you will almost never think about your wedding day for the rest of your life. So why bother making such a spectacle out of a day you'll hardly ever think about once it's over?

Now let's look at another ritual that we should modify for the sake of our ailing planet: funerals.

As for cremation versus burial, I see no big difference from an environmental standpoint between the two, provided that someone uses a simple coffin rather than some mahogany showpiece used as a final blast of conspicuous consumption. You use up less by cremating, but then you release more greenhouse gases, so there's no big difference ecologically.

The main way in which funerals can have a high carbon dioxide footprint is if many people use jet planes to travel to the funeral. If there are 20 attendees from distant cities at your funeral, that may end up being 40 plane trips, which may mean a carbon dioxide footprint far greater than the annual carbon dioxide footprint of the average person in the Third World.

Unless you are someone with a very strong religious belief about funerals, I advise you to explicitly instruct your family: do not have either a funeral or a wake for me if I die. This is exactly what I have told my own family, along with instructions that my body be cremated. I don't want people contributing to global warming by taking a jet just to attend a funeral or wake related to my death.

What about if someone dies who has not expressed any wishes about a funeral? I think such a person should not be given a funeral. Save the $5000 or more it will cost for a funeral, or donate the money to fight hunger or plant trees or help some other cause.

If many jet travelers attend a funeral, it just isn't green

Some people think that a loved one may be disappointed in the next life if he or she fails to see a funeral, or sees only a few people at his funeral. That does not seem a credible notion. It is quite possible that our consciousness does not survive death, and it is quite possible that we do survive death and go on to some higher state of consciousness. But if someone does move on after death to some higher state of consciousness, we can imagine that person confronting eternal issues of truth and morality, but we can hardly imagine that the person will be considering such a trivial matter as how many people went to his funeral.

If you can't give up on the idea of a funeral, but want to do something with a lower environmental footprint, consider this option: a virtual funeral. A virtual funeral is an online web site where people can write tributes to a departed love one. Anyone can create one by creating a new Blogger blog with a name such as JohnDoeFuneral.blogspot.com. The initial post can contain a picture of the departed love one, a written tribute, and an invitation for anyone who knew him or her to comment on his life. Readers can then add tributes as comments to the initial blog post.

A site like this will last for years, since Google's Blogger service does not delete blogs, even if they have few readers. Compare that to a regular funeral, which only lasts about an hour.