Caleb Wilde
(218 comments, 980 posts)
Posts by Caleb Wilde
“Head in a Jar” prank instructions for all you weirdo pranksters
Here the “How to” from “
Hungry? Scare those fridge-bound famished food foragers with a head in a jar!
Using a photo editor, two pictures are blended together to create flat image of a head, which is then laminated and submerged in a jar. When the flattened image in inserted into the curved jar, along with the distortion from the water, gives the illusion of a decapitated head in a jar of preserving fluid.
Here’s what you need to make your own:
- Photo editing software
- Large jar
- food colouring
- printer + access to lamination service (local print/copy store)
Making your own head in a jar is easy, but requires some photo editing skills. I’ve included a tutorial on how I made mine, and took me about 30 minutes to compose. Personalizing this prank will make it more effective. But, if you’re not a pro with photo editing, you can download my flattened head image below.
Click HERE for the link to farther instructions:
What If We Could Manufacture Immortality?
WHY CAN’T HUMANS BE IMMORTAL?
There are some animals that don’t show signs of aging. These animals don’t have a decline in functionality nor do they lack virility. This characteristic is called “negligible senescence (or negligible aging)” and is seen in the Rougheye rockfish (which can live up to 205 years), the Ocean Quahog clam (405 years), the Aldabra Giant Tortoise (255 years) and lobsters, which some scientists believe can live the longest of the above list.
Then there are creatures that are biologically immortal. These creatures are not immortal in the “can never die” sense, they simply have no cellular senescence and would live “forever” barring disease or injury. Although, theoretically, there is an aging plateau for these creatures that occurs from exterior damage, not from internal dying.
Biologically immortal creatures include the Turritopsis nutricula Jellyfish, Hydra, some lobsters, and planarian flatworms.
If the lobster can have eternal cell reproduction, and the Giant Tortoise has negligible senescence, why can’t humanity?
This question is being asked by fringe think tanks like the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, the Methuselah Foundation and the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence. It’s being asked because scientists like Marios Kyriazis are suggesting that negligible senescence is inevitable and biological immortality is likely in humans.
OUR FIGHT WITH NATURE
The history of humanity has been defined by our relationship with nature. For the majority of our history, nature played lead character in our drama, determining how we lived and how long we lived. Whether it was drought, deluges, famine, earthquakes, prosperity, fertility, such was the force of nature that humanity sought for ways to bargain with the capricious Mother of life and death. We invented gods. Gods that we believed controlled weather. Gods who controlled fertility. And we sought to offer sacrifices of livestock and obedience if only to move the gods in our favor.
The dawn of our Enlightenment came when we realized that gods weren’t the puppeteers behind the workings of the world, but that world’s workings were made of realities that we could manipulate through science, technology and medicine. This epic discover in the history of humanity began to level the playing field with nature. No longer did we need our gods; today, we bow to science, and science responds to our sacrifices.
BIOLOGICAL IMMORALITY: THE HOPE OF MANY
The last enemy remains untouched. For 1,000s of years, we’ve dreamed of not just living healthy lives, but lives that continue indefinitely, in this world or another. From the Tree of Life to the Fountain of Youth, men and women – for reasons greedy and benevolent – have sought some form of life eternal. And what the gods could not give to our physical bodies, we now, once again fix our hopes on science.
Who wouldn’t want immortality? Isn’t this the end that ALL of us are seeking? Isn’t it an innate desire planted within each of us?
Heaven and its various forms have motivated thousands of souls towards acts of glory and acts of … well … acts like the Crusades. Many of us are on a search to rediscover Eden.
What will happen if we get what we want?
What will happen if/when we engineer a pill/a medication/a five calorie juice drink that creates negligible senescence?
What happens when we produce Methuselahs on a regular basis?
What if Jesus’ view of heaven … of eternal life … happened … here … on earth?
MORTALITY DEFINES OUR HUMANITY
While biological immortality is certainly tempting, it is our morality that creates our humanity. While greed and wars can be attributed to the violent fulfillment of our needy and fragile state, it’s also our empathy, our desire to create and reproduce and charity that is undergirded by the fact that we are mortal. Remove our mortality, and our humanity is likewise removed.
I do not know whether the advancement in bionics, medicine and artificial intelligence will fulfill our quest for immortality. I don’t know what such immortality would look like. And I don’t know if will be positive or negative. But, I DO know that if a kind of immortality takes place, those who become “eternal” will cease to be the species of human that we know today. Mortality is such a defining characteristic of humanity that to remove it makes “us” into something entirely different. It is that next evolutionary step.
CREATING GODS
If ever such a “Methuselah Pill” is manufactured, it will probably also be marketed. It will be bought and sold by the powerful few who will amass their wealth and power over hundreds of years, creating a race of legitimate superhumans.
Such a race could/will rule the world.
Death as we know it is humanity’s accountability. You can only become so powerful in one lifetime. Your hatred can only last so long. Death, in many ways, is humanity’s greatest grace.
Yes, the world as we know it exists because of death. Death defines our way of life. And while I’m sure that if we’d have the ability to create a “Methuselah Pill” that we’d have the tech to solve overpopulation and the other sundry problems. A whole new world would come into existence. A world where the prevalence of immortality could only be rivaled by the lack of immorality.
A world with human immortality is a world we can’t fully comprehend. It would be a world of gods. A new race … a new stage in the evolution of mankind.
And all this begs the question: Do we REALLY want biological immortality?
10 Ways Funeral Directors Cope with the Stress of Death
Me and my son on a hike.
Here’s 10 coping methods I’ve seen funeral directors use.
The first five are coping methods that are negative techniques.
The last five are positive coping methods. One or more of these methods MUST be used if a person is to stay in this profession AND maintain a healthy personal and family life.
NEGATIVE COPING METHODS
One. Displacement.
Funeral service is a business that is both uncontrollable and unpredictable. Since funeral directors can’t control death and death’s schedule, we attempt to control those things and/or people that we DO have power over. We too often take out our frustrations, fears and anger on those closest to us.
Two. Attack.
And we often displace those emotions on those closest to us with some kind of aggression. In an attempt to cope and find a sense of control in our uncontrolled and unpredictable world, we will often emotionally and verbally manipulate and control our family, co-workers, employees, associates and those closest to us, making us seem nearly bi-polar as we treat the grieving families that we serve with love and support and yet treat our staff and family with all the emotional turmoil that we’re feeling inside.
Three. Emotional Suppression.
We are paid to be the stable minds in the midst of unstable souls. We withhold and withhold and withhold and then … then the floodgates open, turning our normally stable personality into a blithering, sobbing mess, or creating a monster of seething anger and rage. During different occasions, I have become both the mess and the monster. The difficulty is only compounded by the fact that you just cannot make your spouse or best friend understand how raising the carotid artery of a nine-month old infant disturbs your mind.
Four. Self-harm.
We cope with alcohol. I know a number who attempt to waste their troubles away with a bottle.
Substance abuse.
Sexual callousness. The sexual philandering that occurred in Six Feet Under was not just for higher TV ratings.
Five. Trivializing.
Compassion fatigue happens to all of us in funeral service. If we can’t bounce back from the fatigue, we begin a journey down the road to callousness. Once calloused, we tell ourselves that “death isn’t as bad as ‘these people’ are making it seem.” Once we trivialize the grief and death we see, we can easily justify charging the hell out of the families we serve.
POSITIVE COPING METHODS
Six. Avoidance.
If this business is wrecking your life and the lives of those around you, then salvage what you have left and quit this business. Quitting doesn’t make you a failure. Quitting doesn’t make you weak. You know more than anyone that you only have one life to life. Live it to its fullest by doing something that breathes life into your soul.
Seven. Altruism.
Learn to love serving others. Probably the best means to cope with the funeral business is found in the people we serve. Love them intentionally and don’t be afraid to find joy in meeting their needs. Don’t be afraid to hear their stories and become apart of their family.
Eight. Problem-solve.
Don’t be passive with the burdens you carry. Actively attempt to find positive ways to deal with your burden. Exercise. Eat better. Take a vacation. Go out with your friends. If you can’t shed your burdens on your own, seek counseling. Find a psychologist. Find a psychiatrist. Talk out your problems with someone wiser than you.
Nine. Spiritual Community and Personal Growth.
Using religion as an opiate to ignore reality is something I speak AGAINST on a regular basis. Instead, seek a community where there’s faith authenticity. Find people who can encourage you with their love and support as you worship together and ponder the mysteries and truths of a better world.
Ten. Benefit-finding.
Emerson said, “When it is darkest men see the stars.” We try our best to deny the darkness of death; we consciously and unconsciously build our immortality projects, hoping that we can live immortally through them.
And then death. Weeping. Our projects come tumbling down. And it’s in those ashes, in the pain, in the grief, through the tears, we see beauty in the darkness. This is a perspective that funeral directors are privy to view on a constant basis. And, in many cases, the darkness can be beautiful.
