{"id":211,"date":"2010-11-23T07:48:03","date_gmt":"2010-11-23T14:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/?p=211"},"modified":"2010-11-23T07:48:03","modified_gmt":"2010-11-23T14:48:03","slug":"the-ultimate-escape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/?p=211","title":{"rendered":"The Ultimate Escape"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harry Houdini was, perhaps, the greatest escape artist ever known.\u00a0 His name became and so far has remained synonymous with the ability to escape.\u00a0 None could build a trap he could not find a way out of.<\/p>\n

There have been many other escape artists, of course.\u00a0 I doubt there’s been a prison, cage or trap invented that somebody<\/em> hasn’t found a way to free themselves from it.\u00a0 That applies both to humans and the rest of the animal kingdom; no mouse or rat trap has been made which some rodent didn’t manage to elude.<\/p>\n

There is, however, one thing even Houdini could not escape, and that is death.\u00a0 He died on Halloween of 1926.\u00a0 To my knowledge, he has not returned from the dead, nor has anyone else.\u00a0 Oh, sure, there have been those who woke up in morgues or coffins because people thought<\/em> they were dead, but such folks simply stopped breathing for a moment and then resumed when no one was looking.<\/p>\n

I look forward to the possibility of immortality.\u00a0 There are scientists–notably Aubrey de Grey<\/a>–who have claimed that the first person to live to be a thousand is alive today.\u00a0 As Mr. de Grey was born only a few months before me and is likely highly concerned with being one of those first persons to live that long, I have high hopes I might be one, too.<\/p>\n

It won’t be soon enough, though.\u00a0 The reason I am on this topic today–a topic I have rambled on about before–is that my cat is dying.\u00a0 I will be taking her to the vet tomorrow morning, but her condition is poor enough that I am guessing they will recommend she be put down.\u00a0 It’s not that she’s suffering particularly; her body just seems to be failing.\u00a0 She’s fourteen years old, though, so it’s not unexpected, but it still hurts.<\/p>\n

I know, I know.\u00a0 The research on life extension is aimed at humans.\u00a0 But I am sure that as techniques are developed to arrest and hopefully reverse aging in humans, people will apply them to their pets as well.\u00a0 Certainly, the initial testing will be on animals anyway, so extending them to our beloved furry companions isn’t much of a stretch.\u00a0 I just wish the technology was already here and affordable.\u00a0 Shadow hasn’t died yet, but already I miss her.<\/p>\n

See you tomorrow, after her appointment.\u00a0 Maybe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harry Houdini was, perhaps, the greatest escape artist ever known.\u00a0 His name became and so far has remained synonymous with the ability to escape.\u00a0 None could build a trap he could not find a way out of. There have been many other escape artists, of course.\u00a0 I doubt there’s been a prison, cage or trap […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions\/212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}