The AskMe Answer That Will Never Die

September 5, 2008 10:26 AM

It's the AskMe answer that will never die...

...although if it ever did, we'd know how to dispose of the corpse...

posted by benzo8 to MetaFilter-Related at 10:26 AM (62 comments total)

(BB probably got it via reddit the other day.)
posted by Plutor at 10:29 AM on September 5, 2008

yeah, blue_beetle has seemed pretty testy lately.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:31 AM on September 5, 2008

...until one of the BB'ers unpublishes it.
posted by Falconetti at 10:41 AM on September 5, 2008

Well that took a whole two replies before the inevitable.
posted by pharm at 10:51 AM on September 5, 2008

I was wondering why an ex (who knows I read the site) posted that to my facebook wall yesterday. I guess it's making the rounds again.
posted by piratebowling at 10:55 AM on September 5, 2008

Well that took a whole two replies before the inevitable.

STEAMPUNK DOCTOROW SUBWAY MASHUP
posted by Greg Nog at 10:55 AM on September 5, 2008 [12 favorites]

Thanks salim? How about 'Thanks scarabic' who crafted the comment and taught us all a valuable lesson in trying to beat the rap?
posted by Cranberry at 10:56 AM on September 5, 2008

I want my friggin royalties....
posted by scarabic at 11:00 AM on September 5, 2008 [14 favorites]

The entire Reddit thread talks about Reiser4 I had to make sure the link was right. Wow talk about off topic.

I still think scarabics answer is a bit too theatrical. Way too many places for DNA to end up. My body disposal philisophy is keep it simple!
posted by geoff. at 11:02 AM on September 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

It may never die, but we could put it in cold storage and forget about it.
posted by orange swan at 11:02 AM on September 5, 2008

That post was one of the reasons I stuck around MeFi (even if it took me years after that to get an account and de-lurk).
posted by fiercecupcake at 11:14 AM on September 5, 2008

The sweet taste of low-hanging fruit.
posted by Falconetti at 11:16 AM on September 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

Perhaps scarabic will now explain how to dispose of a zombie AskMe thread.
posted by adamrice at 11:20 AM on September 5, 2008

boingboing: the best of the web, 4 years later
posted by pyramid termite at 11:20 AM on September 5, 2008 [7 favorites]

"I want my friggin royalties...."

Uhm, let's take up a collection to get scarabic some money, please? You know we're not going to like him when he's angry.
posted by An Infinity Of Monkeys at 11:21 AM on September 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

I had to cringe at the one BoingBoinger's posted instructions on feeding a dead body to pigs. Shades of Robert Picton, the Canadian pig farmer and serial killer of prostitutes, whose farming operation was found to be contaminated with human remains.

My eldest brother is a Canadian pig farmer. But since the job description "pig farmer" now has very bad associations in Canadian minds, I normally never say he's a pig farmer. If asked what kind of farm he has, I say he's a hog farmer, or a pork farmer.
posted by orange swan at 11:25 AM on September 5, 2008 [2 favorites]

Ah, that was a quote from Brick Top in the movie Snatch...
posted by benzo8 at 11:30 AM on September 5, 2008

Hey, it may not die, but at least we know how to get rid of it.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:46 AM on September 5, 2008 [2 favorites]

Travis Scarabickle.

I've got nothing.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:56 AM on September 5, 2008

...the job description "pig farmer" now has very bad associations in Canadian minds...

Yes, because before Picton, "Pig Farmer" was somewhere between "NHL Centre" and "Firefighter" on every Canadian child's list of "Things I Want To Be When I Grow Up".
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:56 AM on September 5, 2008 [4 favorites]

You know, we could probably do some kind of updated wiki on this or something, because since that post four years ago, I've dedicated myself to doing some really innovative things in this field. Between DIY blast furnaces, Rubidium Hydroxide, and my latest efforts with man-eating-goats, I think we've got plenty of material for a follow-up.
posted by quin at 12:45 PM on September 5, 2008

STEAMPUNK DOCTOROW SUBWAY MASHUP

you forgot: DISNEY DRM
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 1:06 PM on September 5, 2008

also: PAPERCRAFT
posted by brundlefly at 1:11 PM on September 5, 2008

I hope that's not a "Who will rid me of this troublesome blogger?" shoutout re VB
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:46 PM on September 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

This proves my theory that BoingBoing is Metafilter traveling backward in time.
posted by lukemeister at 1:50 PM on September 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

Next week on Boing Boing: cat-scan.com
posted by brundlefly at 2:04 PM on September 5, 2008 [2 favorites]

Also linked today from National Review Online.
posted by Jahaza at 2:48 PM on September 5, 2008

Another type of disposal that is just jake with Cory.
posted by found missing at 3:05 PM on September 5, 2008

What I don't get is why nobody else seems to appreciate John Kenneth's Fisher's ridiculous balloon idea. The mental image of dozens of colorful balloons carrying body parts and crime evidence merrily into the sky, combined with the fact that he comes back and revises it to "just the gun, i guess," had me laughing so hard I almost choked on my tongue.
posted by granted at 3:39 PM on September 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

Way too many places for DNA to end up.

Agreed. The whole field of forensic science is predicated on the idea that every time the murderer makes contact with the body, an exchange of materials occurs.

scarabic's solution has him kicking and a splashing in the mud and the blood and the gore at every available opportunity. Bad plan.

Better to use the hit man's strategy of a quick bullet to the head in a location where nobody knows you and you don't usually go, then just leave the body where it falls and walk away.

I had to cringe at the one BoingBoinger's posted instructions on feeding a dead body to pigs.

Dan! Grab this dead cocksucker by the ankles and drag him over to Wu's place!
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:05 PM on September 5, 2008

Every time that resurfaces, I wish I'd been able to answer at the time.

This was the final exam question in my forensic anthro class in college (apply your knowledge of forensic identification techniques and write about how to overcome them), so I have a 10-page A+ paper written on the subject. I guess I should dig it out and blog it or something...
posted by gemmy at 4:51 PM on September 5, 2008 [7 favorites]

God, yes, do.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:01 PM on September 5, 2008

Yes, please do.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 5:21 PM on September 5, 2008

MetaFilter needs that paper.
posted by languagehat at 5:42 PM on September 5, 2008

Quickly, if you can. I don't have much freezer space.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:45 PM on September 5, 2008 [10 favorites]

Yes, because before Picton, "Pig Farmer" was somewhere between "NHL Centre" and "Firefighter" on every Canadian child's list of "Things I Want To Be When I Grow Up".

There's a slight difference between doing work that is not at all glamourous or exciting and doing the same kind of work everyone identifies with someone who killed 50 women, wouldn't you say?

For the record, my brother is twenty-four years married, has four children, teaches Sunday School, coaches hockey, doesn't drink at all because his wife won't let him, and to my knowledge has never consorted with nor slain any prostitutes.
posted by orange swan at 5:50 PM on September 5, 2008

Funny, the only other time I browsed to BB since the scandal, there was a MeFi link, too.
posted by grobstein at 6:13 PM on September 5, 2008

funny would have been to forward the bb link to the unpublish-discussion here.
you know, just for a day.
posted by krautland at 6:18 PM on September 5, 2008

Uhm, let's take up a collection to get scarabic some money, please? You know we're not going to like him when he's angry.

Can't you just write a new Shakespeare and sign is "Scarabic," you dumb-ass infinisimian?
posted by Mister_A at 6:26 PM on September 5, 2008

It. Sign it. Double dumb-ass on me.
posted by Mister_A at 6:27 PM on September 5, 2008

Does anyone know whether boing-boing experienced any significant drop in traffic since the VB debacle? Is there any way to find out?
posted by Crabby Appleton at 8:01 PM on September 5, 2008

Is there any way to find out?

Yes. Alexa has site traffic comparisons.
posted by clearly at 9:05 PM on September 5, 2008

gemmy, goddamnit, you gotta do this.
posted by middleclasstool at 9:15 PM on September 5, 2008

MeFi got a shout-out between Doctorow self-congratulating. Isn't that something we should ourselves be self-congratulatory about? Wait...

Man, the web is the ultimate vanity mirror.
posted by self at 9:25 PM on September 5, 2008

Thanks, clearly, clearly.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 9:37 PM on September 5, 2008

There's a slight difference between doing work that is not at all glamourous or exciting and doing the same kind of work everyone identifies with someone who killed 50 women, wouldn't you say?

I associate raising hogs with Hutterites, water table contamination, and barns you really don't want to be downwind from, myself. It's your overstatement of pork producers' national stigmatization that I half-assedly object to more than anything else.

Well, that and my dorky aversion to the term '$animal$ farmer'; you don't farm the animal, you farm the product.
/Cow farmer's easily-miffed son
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:54 PM on September 5, 2008

Cow prime rib farmer's easily-miffed son

ftfy?
posted by juv3nal at 10:15 PM on September 5, 2008

Ah yes, I fondly remember warm summer mornings spent running through sanguine fields of prime rib and redly rolling seas of ground chuck, mother chiding us for dirtying our good clothes, and father repeatedly being arrested on suspicion of being a particularly sloppy axe-murderer after a hard day's honest work...
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:12 PM on September 5, 2008

That post was one of the reasons I stuck around MeFi (even if it took me years after that to get an account and de-lurk).

it was a great post, and it was in response to a question that today would be immediately called out as "hypothetical chatfilter" and swiftly deleted. so would this question, which is the one that made me stick around and sign up.

scarabic's response is straightforward and answers the question, but the general tone of AskMe has changed a lot since then. while it may be more of a "useful resource", the green is a lot less fun nowadays. what was once an open-ended place for questions about anything is now mainly tech support and a self-help forum.

sorry for derailing this into a gripe about The Rules, but i think what started out as a well-intentioned policy against vague and unanswerable questions has slowly produced a stultifying "practical things only" atmosphere. i think it's the reason we don't see the interesting, oddball stuff like that anymore. it's a pity.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 11:15 PM on September 5, 2008

oh, fiddlesticks! that post was from the blue, not the green. i think my point's still valid, though.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 11:17 PM on September 5, 2008

alright then, in the interest of anal-retentive footnoting, i give you:

Assume no element of surprise.

The dead are rising. What do you do?

How can I measure the weight of my head without cutting it off? It's really important.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 11:27 PM on September 5, 2008 [3 favorites]

posted in: Science
posted by sveskemus at 5:41 AM on September 6, 2008

so would this question, which is the one that made me stick around and sign up.

Weird. When I first read the 'assume no element of surprise', the first thing that sprang to my mind was that discussion on two plus two about how many 5 year old kids you could fight and win.

That, and a similar discussion about whether David Sklansky could beat a chimpanzee in unarmed combat.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 8:38 AM on September 6, 2008

I am anxiously awaiting gemmy's post.

And, uh, I'm hoping never to get on her bad side.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 11:52 AM on September 6, 2008

Better to use the hit man's strategy of a quick bullet to the head in a location where nobody knows you and you don't usually go, then just leave the body where it falls and walk away.

I've always thought that a hit-ant-run with a stolen SUV would be the way to go.

Then to dispose of the SUV you get a bunch of helium-filled balloons...
posted by Mike1024 at 4:05 PM on September 6, 2008 [3 favorites]

I've always thought that a hit-ant-run with a stolen SUV would be the way to go.

You don't need to steal an SUV to get away with a hit-ant-run. People get away with hit-ant-runs every day, probably without even realizing it.
posted by orange swan at 4:38 PM on September 6, 2008

I just spent a good chunk of this afternoon literally turning our apartment upside down, looking for that paper.

I finally found where it *should* have been (with essays called "Hackettsville Forensics Case", "Self Identification: A Forensic Biography", and "Humans on the Menu: Research Paper in Anthropological Theory"), but I can't find the actual exam paper on disposing of bodies. Guess I must have put it somewhere else, and now I just can't find it. So, so, sorry to disappoint.

The upshot of the paper was that the ideal way to do it was to weigh down all the parts individually and drop the body in salt water. Normally, the problem with disposal in water is that the decomposition process creates gasses and bloating, which would cause the body to surface. Even if you weighed it down (like how they do in the movies, e.g. pouring concrete shoes), the soft tissue would soon degrade and allow for separation. But if you weighted down parts individually (or put it in a fishnet "bag" and weighted it down), the body would stay safely hidden until it was past the bloaty stage, after which it would stay down. Also, the corrosiveness of the salt water and the natural activities of the aquatic life would pretty quickly render it hard to identify without dental records, even IF someone found it.

There was a lot more to it, but it's been years since I even thought about that paper. Now I'm really bummed that I can't find it...
posted by gemmy at 4:40 PM on September 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

What I don't get is why nobody else seems to appreciate John Kenneth's Fisher's ridiculous balloon idea. The mental image of dozens of colorful balloons carrying body parts and crime evidence merrily into the sky, combined with the fact that he comes back and revises it to "just the gun, i guess," had me laughing so hard I almost choked on my tongue.

QFT

Ridiculous? It's much cleaner than dragging a corpse back to your home and getting DNA everywhere. Kill your mark at their home during the night, and use the balloons. In the morning, they night see some blood in the back yard, but that's all.

And a few days later the balloons may pop and send body parts raining down across the country.
posted by fogster at 8:29 PM on September 7, 2008

In the morning, they might see...
posted by fogster at 8:31 PM on September 7, 2008

hey fogster, it's raining men
posted by pyramid termite at 9:27 PM on September 7, 2008

PeterMcDermott writes "Better to use the hit man's strategy of a quick bullet to the head in a location where nobody knows you and you don't usually go, then just leave the body where it falls and walk away."

Preferably a long range bullet.
posted by Mitheral at 12:11 AM on September 8, 2008

It's something I've looked into for no reason other than for sheer curiosity but basically if you were to decide to murder someone and you wanted to ensure it was done effectively, efficiently and you wanted to get away with it then the most important things are planning, corpse disposal, complicating identification and weapons choice/disposal.

It's comes mostly from a UK perspective (i.e. low chance of firearms availability) and assumes you have somewhere in the region of about £5,000 disposable cash to use from beginning to end but yeah - it's nowhere near as complex or difficult as you would imagine it to be.

The main cost (other than psychological or emotional trauma...) is time. Realistically you should devote between 6-12 months to planning, equipment selection and purchase as well as target reconnaissance etc. You should also be prepared to devote anything up to a further month for disposal.

It is an interesting thought experiment and it's interesting to get several people together with knowledge of various techniques, methods of thinking and work out the methodology to commit the perfect crime. A lot of people watch CSI and read crime books and are familiar with modern crime detection techniques from watching things like Law & Order or The Wire and it's surprising how much they absorb from these sources about investigatory techniques and ways in which to foil them.

Barring some seriously major advances in crime detection technology I don't think it's that tough. Nobody ever found Jimmy Hoffa, or the guy who did it. The way people get caught is lack of planning, acting on impulse and leaving trails of paper or evidence. Oh, and work ALONE. You can't be ratted on if there isn't anyone else in on it.

Disposal is best done by digging, and digging deep. A number of killers have concealed evidence in their own backywards for decades with no discovery until suspicion is aroused by other aspects of the case.

Anyway, that's enough of that unless anyone would like more specific details. I don't want to worry anyone more than usual...

...because the suspicion might lead you to discover all the bodies.
posted by longbaugh at 9:26 AM on September 13, 2008