suicide

Can you laugh about suicide?

Can you laugh about suicide while you're trying to sell someone a car?

It seems that someone at one of Hyundai's ad agencies felt that selling a healthy car merited flogging a dead man. Or, at least, a man who wanted to be dead by his own hand.

The perfect opportunity, the agency must have thought, came with the Hyundai iX35. It has 100 percent water emissions -- nothing noxious, you see. That's a killer feature.

So they made an ad in which a man tries to commit suicide in his garage … Read more

Foxconn, which was plagued by worker suicides a few years ago, has denied a report out of China that a female employee jumped from the roof of one of the manufacturing giant's factories last week.

According to a post on the Chinese microblogging Web site Sina Weibo and reported by Kotaku, a woman unhappy with job security issues jumped Friday morning from the roof of Foxconn's Shenzhen factory but survived. It was also reported that three other employees were also on the roof, threatening to jump.

Foxconn, which produces consumer electronics for companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, … Read more

In the wake of tech activist Aaron Swartz taking his life earlier this month, there has been a lot of discussion about how to get suicidal people help before it's too late.

Facebook, which has already done work on suicide prevention, is upping its efforts on seeing what more it can do to prevent future suicides.

The social media site recently started working with suicide prevention group SAVE to see if user data on how suicidal people act on social media -- in the weeks and days leading up to their deaths -- could be helpful in pinpointing early … Read more

The 7/7 bombings, a series of suicide blasts that took place on London's public transport system on July 7, 2005, were among the deadliest terrorist attacks of the post-9/11 world. Since then, efforts have been made to mitigate the possible damage of future attacks on public transit, and a group of British engineers from Newcastle University is doing its part by designing blast-proof trains.

SecureMetro, a collaborative project funded by the European Union, launched three years ago with the goal of developing blast-resistant and fire-proof above-ground and underground metro trains that minimize death and injury in the event of a bomb attack.

The video below shows the progress on the project. First you'll see a decommissioned train, highlighting the potential collateral damage exploding trains can cause. Doors, windows, and pieces of the carriage fly through the air. The interior of the train is also demolished, as furniture and ceiling panels prevent any survivors from easily escaping the carriage.… Read more

The Justice Department official who oversaw the criminal case of Aaron Swartz before the Internet activist's suicide last week defended her office's handling of his case.

Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, was prosecuting Swartz on charges of illegally downloading a large number of academic papers. A vocal advocate for open access rights to documents on the Internet, Swartz had faced the possibility of as much as $4 million in fines and more than 50 years in prison if convicted. Critics of the prosecutors in the case accused the feds of unfairly trying to make an example … Read more

The suicide last week of Internet activist Aaron Swartz has led a Democratic congresswoman from Silicon Valley to call for reforms to computer fraud laws linked to his death.

Swartz, who championed open access rights to documents on the Internet, was arrested in July 2011 and accused of stealing 4 million documents from MIT and Jstor, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers.

He had faced $4 million in fines and more than 50 years in prison if convicted. Critics of the prosecutors in the case accused the feds of unfairly trying to make an example out of the … Read more

Just hours after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pledged an investigation into its role in events leading up to the suicide of Aaron Swartz, online hacktivist group Anonymous defaced the school's Web site.

Swartz, who championed open access to documents on the Internet, committed suicide on Friday. The 26-year-old was arrested in July 2011 and accused of stealing 4 million documents from MIT and Jstor, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers. He faced $4 million in fines and more than 50 years in prison if convicted.

After MIT President L. Rafael Reif issued a statement this afternoon … Read more

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced today it will conduct an internal investigation of the university's role in the circumstances that led to the suicide Friday of Internet activist Aaron Swartz.

Swartz, 26, was arrested in July 2011 and accused of stealing 4 million documents from MIT and Jstor, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers. Authorities claimed he broke into a restricted-access computer wiring closet at MIT and accessed that network without authorization.

A champion of open access to documents on the Internet, Swartz faced $4 million in fines and more than 50 years in prison if … Read more

NFL players and teams have turned to Twitter to express their sorrow after learning that Kansas City Chiefs player Jovan Belcher shot his girlfriend to death before turning the gun on himself.

The 25-year-old linebacker shot Kasandra Perkins, 22, with whom he had an infant daughter, this morning before driving to Arrowhead Stadium, where he shot himself to death in front of Chiefs staff, the Kansas City Police Department said.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the Chiefs and the families and friends of those who lost their lives in this terrible tragedy," the NFL said in a … Read more