I've been wondering lately about the digital implications of my mortal end. What happens to my websites when I die?

The profitable ones will be part of my estate, and the prominent community site will get an endowment. But what about the vanity sites and the blog that provide public windows to my own ego? Will the binary bit flag of the hereafter just cancel them out when my credit card fails to process the ISP's monthly charge? Or will they somehow carry on until the domain names fail to renew?

Perhaps, despite the odds, they will defy the gravitational pull of the aether and continue amusing and infuriating the masses. I still won't respond to their flurry of e-mails, of course, but at least then I'll have an excuse.

These despondent thoughts originated while seeking HatsOfMeat.com. Lamentably, this glorious site and the equally brilliant ManBeef.com had long-since dissolved into the ephemeral dust of the Internet of my youth. Oh, how I longed for images of a Brisket Yarmulke emblazoned with a horseradish Star of David!

Fortunately, The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine captured these sites in their glory, saving them for prosperity and the greater good of mankind.

While visiting The Archive, I did some ego-surfing and was amazed at the depth of its content. Even my first Interlog.com website from 1995 was there. Viewing the HTML source code was embarrassing, but nostalgically progressing through an extra chronological dimension - The Archive's periodic Internet Snapshots - was fascinating.

It's easy to make content live forever, but context dies quickly in hypertext environments where 404 pages are rotting corpses and expired domains are ashes in the wind. But that's the nature of reflecting and writing upon the fluid stream of bits. It's all temporal, like our own lives, and it's all about the "now." Properly prepared, however, it doesn't have to be.

Afterlife.org is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to archive Web sites after their authors die and can no longer support them.

MyDeath.net is a free site (set up by writer, artist and ex pop star Bill Drummond of the KLF) where you can leave full instructions for what you want done in the event of your death and write your own obituary.

Planning the digital aspect of death has never been easier. Thanks to www.deathclock.com I even know the date of my demise will be Tuesday, August 13, 2047. Now I just need to plan the party for Monday the 12th and, of course the after-party.

Cryonics being overtly creepy and coffin cams being abhorrent to me on every level, I'll probably just go for a traditional burial. I won't even make an effort to create jewelry from my ashes with LifeGem or leave my heirs a ring made of my own bone with Biojewelry. I'll ask that Captain Q. Farf say the eulogy, and that Jay Englishman sing Staring At The Sun. It won't have the panache or distinction of my grandfather's military honour guard, but it'll do, rabbit. It'll do.

A few hours later, the Dead Man's Switch (DMS) on my server will fail to be reset and numerous pre-designated tasks will execute, much to the chagrin, joy and utter horror of many. DMS is a shareware program written by Aryeh Holzer which, if not reset by a given time, will automatically post messages to websites (i.e. my blog & discussion forums where I participate), send e-mails to loved ones (or hated ones), and encrypt or destroy sensitive files.

DMS will give me the last word, as long as my server doesn't crash post-mortem. I'll get to send some appropriately intellectually substantial messages, deliver a rousing chorus of FUs, give some thanks, share some blessings and send some love. DMS will also allow me to purge anything that might be embarrassing to my successors - like bad poetry and downloaded country music.

I'll leave a full list of accounts and passwords in my will so my thirteen intended children won't need to fight companies for access that contravenes privacy policies (Yahoo, for instance, recently refused to allow a Michigan father, John Ellsworth, whose son died in Iraq in November, to access his son's e-mail). I'll also include the passphrase for my PGP key, the passwords for my computers, my bankcard PIN, a map to my buried treasure(s) and the security combination for my bike-lock. I don't understand why people are so often negligent about this.

My music, my writing and my ideas will persist in databases and back-ups on Moon-based teraflop servers. Maybe someone will even care as much for me as others did for Aaron of Uppity Negro fame and maintain the archives of my electronic life.

Of course, the web won't be the web anymore by 2047. And all the content I've created will just be quaint artifacts, like the horse and buggy at Pioneer Village.

Then, one or two steps after death, I'll lose control and let the web have its way with me and my digital bits.

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