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16 votes
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Pete Rose, MLB's all-time hits leader, has died at 83
9 votes -
Hall of Famer Dikembe Mutombo dies of brain cancer at age 58
10 votes -
Maggie Smith dies: Oscar-winning star of ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Downton Abbey’ was 89
61 votes -
Patrick Sergeant was a titan of old school financial journalism
1 vote -
Remembering DanBC
81 votes -
James Earl Jones, authoritative actor and voice of Darth Vader, dies at 93
75 votes -
Columbus Blue Jackets' Johnny Gaudreau killed in NJ crash involving suspected drunk driver
20 votes -
R.I.P. journalist, editor and counterculture enthusiast, Steve Silberman
13 votes -
Sven-Göran Eriksson, England's first overseas manager and winner of multiple honours at club level, has died at the age of 76
5 votes -
Phil Donahue, pioneering daytime TV talk show host, dead at 88
10 votes -
Susan Wojcicki, former YouTube CEO, dies at 56
15 votes -
Bob Newhart, comedy icon, dies at 94
22 votes -
Dr. Ruth, renowned sex therapist and Holocaust survivor, dead at 96
42 votes -
Actress Shannen Doherty, best known for roles in hit TV shows like Beverly Hills 90210 and Charmed, died on Saturday from cancer at 53
20 votes -
Richard Simmons, who believed fitness is for everyone, dies at 76
36 votes -
Shelley Duvall, Robert Altman protege and tormented wife in ‘The Shining,’ dies at 75
21 votes -
Pål Enger, talented Norwegian soccer player turned celebrity art thief who pulled off the sensational 1994 heist of Edvard Munch's famed “The Scream”, has died
13 votes -
Donald Sutherland, star of ‘MASH,’ ‘Klute’ and ‘Hunger Games,’ dies at 88
21 votes -
Prolific actor Donald Sutherland, the stately star of 'MASH,' 'Ordinary People' and 'Hunger Games,' has died
11 votes -
Lynn Conway, trailblazing trans computer scientist, dies at 85
22 votes -
Comicstorian has passed away in an accident
18 votes -
Former astronaut William Anders, who took iconic Earthrise photo, killed in Washington plane crash
34 votes -
RIP to the greatest CEO you've never heard of (2022)
18 votes -
Richard M. Sherman dead: 'Mary Poppins' songwriter was 95
18 votes -
Kabosu, the beloved Shiba-Inu behind the Doge meme, passes away at 18
36 votes -
Alice Munro, Nobel laureate and master of the short story, dies at 92
9 votes -
A scam obituary site
I attended a funeral recently for a family member. We weren’t close, so it didn’t hit me that hard, but some of the people I’m close to and care about were pretty devastated. We posted the...
I attended a funeral recently for a family member. We weren’t close, so it didn’t hit me that hard, but some of the people I’m close to and care about were pretty devastated.
We posted the person’s official obituary to the site of the funeral home, and we were surprised when someone sent us a link to their obituary on a completely different site. It wasn’t the same text — in fact it was very clearly a fake one if you knew the person at all. It was filled with broad, vague, non-denominational platitudes which didn’t work for someone who was specifically and devoutly religious. It did, however, have some correct information that felt lifted from the valid one. If you didn’t know the person that well, then it read convincingly. Think “ChatGPT writes an obituary” vibes.
On the fake obituary, there were links to buy flowers, plant a tree, etc.
We requested that the site take it down, and they did quite promptly, but it was unnerving that it even existed in the first place. It feels like the site scrapes obituary listings, automatically rewrites them so they’re not identical, then publishes them without the knowledge or consent of the person’s families. It feels especially predatory because it’s scamming grieving people, and I very much doubt that the services that you can “buy” through the site are actually fulfilled.
I don’t have a point to this other than that I wanted to make people aware of it.
27 votes -
Roger Corman, pioneering independent producer and king of B movies, dies at 98
17 votes -
Steve Albini, storied producer and icon of the rock underground, dies at 61
34 votes -
Paul Auster, the patron saint of literary Brooklyn, dies at 77
15 votes -
Remembering the man who helped save Star Trek the original series
13 votes -
Hawaii-born sumo champion Akebono Taro dies of heart failure at the age of 54 in Japan
10 votes -
O.J. Simpson dies at age 76 after battle with cancer
12 votes -
Nobel Prize-winning phycisist Peter Higgs died at 94. About sixty years ago he proposed the Higgs Boson, an elememtary particle essential in describing mass in the Standard Model of particle physics.
28 votes -
Peter Higgs, physicist who proposed Higgs boson, dies aged 94
27 votes -
Casey Benjamin, ace multi-instrumentalist for Robert Glasper, A Tribe Called Quest, dead at 45
16 votes -
Ross Anderson, computer security expert, passed away
12 votes -
Daniel Kahneman, who plumbed the psychology of economics, dies at 90
16 votes -
Louis Gossett Jr. passed away
14 votes -
Daniel Kahneman, renowned psychologist and Nobel prize winner, dies at 90
19 votes -
Sci-fi author Vernor Vinge dead at 79
32 votes -
Michael "BrolyLegs" Begum, competitive Street Fighter player with arthrogryposis, passed away at 35
18 votes -
Singer-songwriter Eric Carmen, known for hit songs All By Myself and Hungry Eyes, has died aged 74, his wife has announced
8 votes -
Akira Toriyama has passed away
64 votes -
Alexei Navalny, galvanizing opposition leader and Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, died in prison, Russia says
94 votes -
Alexei Navalny: Vladimir Putin critic dies after 'losing consciousness' at maximum security prison
14 votes -
Kelvin Kiptum, marathon world record holder, dies in car crash at 24
20 votes -
Carl Weathers, linebacker-turned-actor who starred in ‘Rocky’ movies and ‘The Mandalorian,’ dies
31 votes -
Dave Mills, inventor and longtime coordinator of Network Time Protocol (NTP), died at age 85
34 votes