One thing is as sure as death: You will receive mail long after you die. My mother, who passed away three years ago, still gets direct mail ads and catalogs in the mail even though I'm pretty sure she's not going to buy anything.

I'm guaranteed to get spam in my email inbox long after I'm gone, so I'm going to leave my password to my family so they can close my account for me. The last thing I want to worry about when I'm dead is spam. As a matter of fact, I'm hoping they issue me a new email address after I die, something like [email protected]. The "provider," so to speak, will be so good that all spam will be blocked before it gets within ballistic missile distance of Heaven and all spammers will be sent directly to Hell to live together with Internet viruses.

In some ways, I envy the elderly who are able to pass away without an entire record of their existence on Facebook. In the online world, your death is bound to be announced over Twitter, and your Facebook friends are likely to know you're dead even before you do. Maybe the Internet is the answer to "lonely death" in Japan, where the elderly die alone in their houses, after which days or even weeks may pass before anyone realizes they've passed away.