One way to inspire people to live better is to tell them when they're going to die. That seems to be the philosophy held by the "Death Clock", anyway, a website that has you enter your date of birth, gender, overall outlook (normal, pessimistic, optimistic, sadistic), body mass index, and smoking status. Then a pop-up window tells you your approximate death date (with helpful "seconds left to live" clock running). The window also links to the phrase "Delay Your Date of Death" and a variety of health news items that lead to the much cheerier "Health Clock", a site whose motto is "Life is good, why not extend it?" There you'll find a WebMD-like compendium of health resources powered by "Healthology". The difference is, though, that rather than standard articles, almost everything on the site is a mini-documentary webcast. There's not much of anything on alternative health here, but there is a disease-by-disease resource and coverage of current health news in each disease arena.

Apparently taking guesses about mortality is something people find offensive––the Death Clock's owner feels compelled to explain that no, he's not a Satanist. What was interesting to me was that I enjoyed the Goth-like red and black Death Clock site––reading about Britney Spears's projected demise and seeing that my own is a good 50 years (and about a trillion seconds) away. Ironically, when I clicked over to a story on the Health Clock––all green and white and seemingly optimistic––about an illness I'm currently dealing with, I was surprised to see a much more truncated span predicted for me and my ilk by a nice-looking bearded man in a white coat. Which of course makes me think about faith and mortality. Do we put our trust in doctors who predict our future, health, and lifespan according to statistics, or do we hand it over to more random, possibly more trustworthy forces––God, nature, love, the Death Clock?