I'll always remember the day my grandmother died. As my family stared down at the frail, skeletal form laying in the hospital bed, tears in our eyes, the only sound on the hospital ward was the steady, rythmic beeping of the machine. Beep...beep...beep... "Excuse me," I said to the nurse. "Is there any way you could turn that off?" "No," she said, not even looking up from her Gameboy.