From: kfl@KeithLynch.net   
      
   The actor Gene Hackman and his wife were discovered dead at their home   
   in Santa Fe on February 27th.  They had both obviously been dead for a   
   while.  But for how long?   
      
   Much of forensic science is pseudoscience, as proven by the large   
   number of people "proven guilty" by forensics but later proven   
   innocent by DNA.  But some of it is valid, including DNA itself.   
   (Though DNA evidence can be misleading.  Look up the Phantom of   
   Heilbronn.)   
      
   In plane crashes, we can tell who died at impact and who died in   
   the following fire by whether there was any soot in their lungs.   
   Similarly if the crash was in water and some drowned, by whether   
   they had water in their lungs.   
      
   Speaking of plane crashes, it was possible to tell which indicator   
   lights were on at the instant of impact because the way incandescent   
   filaments shatter is different if they're hot than if they're cold.   
      
   But the main way we know what happened in recent plane crashes is from   
   the planes' "black boxes" -- cockpit voice recorders and flight data   
   recorders, both of which are actually orange.  It's just as well,   
   since indicator lights are no longer incandescent.   
      
   In today's news, I learned that we do know Hackman's exact time of   
   death.  It was on February 18th.  How do we know?  From his "black   
   box."  He had an implanted pacemaker.  Like most modern electronics,   
   it's computerized, with plenty of data storage.   
      
   You know we're Living In The Future when people have built-in black   
   boxes.   
      
   We don't know the time of his wife's death, except that it was after   
   the last time she was seen on February 11th.  It's believed that she   
   died several days before her husband did, probably of Hantavirus, and   
   that the lack of her daily care of him contributed to his death.  (He   
   had Alzheimer's.)   
      
   A dog also died, presumably because it was in a cage and couldn't   
   reach food.  Two uncaged dogs survived.   
      
   Getting back to plane crashes, the NTSB was able to recover data from   
   the heavily damaged cockpit voice recorder of very violent recent Lear   
   Jet crash in Philadelphia.  But it turned out to be useless, due to   
   lack of maintenance.  It hadn't been turned on in years, so all the   
   data was from a much earlier flight.  Technology can't compensate for   
   incompetence or laziness.   
      
   (Gene Hackman is not to be confused with Larry Hagman, a different   
   deceased actor.)   
   --   
   Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/   
   Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)