jgpo (01/26/83)
Of course, if your house has the new plastic supply and waste plumbing, you're not going to accomplish anything. If you have the time to fabricate some electrodes, you can attach one to your left arm and one to your right leg and pass a current through your body this way. The electrodes should be as large (high surface area) as possible (to reduce the current density) and should be applied to your skin as tightly as possible (to prevent arcing). This will reduce the likelihood of painful burns. The 60 Hz AC current, passing through your chest, will cause fibrillation and death will result from cardiac standstill. For esthetic reasons, you may want to put a timer on the circuit so you don't continue to (literally) cook until someone finds you. Five minutes should be more than enough time to accomplish the intended goal without too much heat buildup. Happy thoughts, John
neiman (01/27/83)
Who came up with this particular method of suicide? It seems fairly
tacky and not nearly foolproof enough. Imagine how you'd feel if
you woke up the next morning on the *cold* bathroom floor with one
foot still in the john, a bump on the back of your head, second degree
burns on one finger and a blown fuse. The method lacks the basic
simplicity and elegance of taking a simple bath and dropping in a line
cord.
But I guess it depends on how you want to go. I think I'd prefer
a) spectacular, and b) as painless as could be arranged. With these
constraints, I modestly suggest the following methods.
1. Find a nuclear test site. Camp out near ground zero. Bring a
paperback to keep you busy while waiting. This has the advantages of
being instaneous. The problems of actually finding the test site,
evading security, and leaving the obligatory note in readable form,
I leave to the ingenious potential suicide.
2. Rent (or buy, you won't need the money anyway) a hang glider.
Take a jump off a convenient mountain. Hang gliding is widely
recognized as a socially acceptable form of suicide anyways and
you will have several chances to off yourself during the course of
your flight. Most spectacular would be to climb as high as possible
and unstrap. This is not particularly fast, but I, at least, would
be so interested on the way down that I don't think I'd mind.
Of course, the problem with this method is that you might get so
interested in hang gliding that you'd forget what you were up there
for. Not to worry. See previous comment on hang gliding.
3. Become a security guard on the Starship Enterprise (you know, one
of those guys in red who always get snuffed in the opening teaser)
Probably haven't been much
help,
dann :-)