From: kfl@KeithLynch.net   
      
   Gary McGath  wrote:   
   > In today's world, I sometimes wonder if it's possible that people   
   > lie decomposing at home for months or more without anyone noticing.   
   > All their bills are automatically paid.  They may have Social   
   > Security or other payments automatically going into their bank   
   > accounts, so the payments don't run dry.   
      
   I recall a recent true-life horror story in which a woman who lived   
   alone disappeared.  Eventually her home was repossessed and auctioned   
   off.  Only well after the new owners moved in was it discovered that   
   she had never left.  She had been in the attic, part of its floor had   
   collapsed under her, and she then slowly died trapped between the   
   walls of the ground floor.   
      
   I also recall a long-abandoned high-rise building in which a skeleton   
   was found in an elevator.  The good news was that this was in China.   
   "It can't happen here."  Still, I continue to use stairs wherever   
   possible.  I do know a guy who was trapped in an elevator for a whole   
   weekend, in the US.   
      
   These stories are almost enough to get me to buy a cell phone.  Almost.   
      
   Disappearances were of course more common in the past.  Especially   
   among explorers.  More than a century after the Franklin Expedition   
   disappeared in the arctic, some of its frozen participants were found.   
   They were well-enough preserved that had they been found, not by an   
   archaeologist but by a paramedic, he probably would have tried CPR.   
   (ObSF:  The TV show "The Second Hundred Years.")   
      
   The antarctic explorer Robert Scott may have died the same day that   
   the Titanic sank.   
      
   It's been more than ten years since flight MH-370 disappeared.  It   
   still hasn't been found.   
      
   Ettore Majorana, who first predicted that neutrinos weren't massless,   
   disappeared decades before he was proven right.   
      
   Some claim MIT's Internet pioneer Philip Agre disappeared.  Others deny   
   it, and claim they're in contact with him, but he's just in hiding.   
      
   The filker Bill Wells has been a fugitive for the past seven years.   
   If anyone knows where he is, they're not talking.   
      
   > Caution is necessary about reports, though.  A few years ago a   
   > stalker falsely reported my death on Usenet and elsewhere, as a way   
   > to hurt my friends.  The report had many inaccurate details, and of   
   > course I was around to deny it.   
      
   Something similar happened to me, except it wasn't malice, but an   
   honest misunderstanding.  It was Keith Marshall who had died, despite   
   him being much younger than me.   
      
   And, due to his strong accent, I once misunderstood Yoji Kondo (aka   
   Eric Kotani) as saying that Fred Pohl had died.  He actually said   
   that Fred Hoyle had died.  (And now all three of them are gone.)   
   --   
   Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/   
   Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)