[amelius]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_man%27s_switch

It is very tricky though. You probably want to have a bunch of fail-safes in place.

[smallpipe]

Yeah there's no way it's worth it for an obituary. You need it out in good time, so you can't have a delay longer than a few days. But it's definitely possible to be knocked out (or in a no-signal zone) for a few days and survive.

[amelius]

This being HN, let me say it could work as a service where the service (a human) would check if you are still alive after a timeout.