Statistical Mechanics Finds Best Places To Hide During Zombie Apocalypse 247
HughPickens.com writes Eric Mack reports at Cnet that a team of researchers at Cornell University, inspired by the book "World War Z" by Max Brooks, have used statistical-mechanics to model how an actual zombie outbreak might unfold and determined the best long-term strategy for surviving the walking dead: Head for the hills. Specifically, you should probably get familiar now with the general location of Glacier National Park so that when it all goes down, you can start heading in that direction. The project started with differential equations to model a fully connected population, then moved on to lattice-based models, and ended with a full US-scale simulation of an outbreak across the continental US. "At their heart, the simulations are akin to modeling chemical reactions taking place between different elements and, in this case, we have four states a person can be in--human," says Alex Alemi, "infected, zombie, or dead zombie--with approximately 300 million people."
Alemi believes cities would succumb to the zombie scourge quickly, but the infection rate would slow down significantly in more sparsely populated areas and could take months to reach places like the Northern Rockies and Glacier National Park. "Given the dynamics of the disease, once the zombies invade more sparsely populated areas, the whole outbreak slows down--there are fewer humans to bite, so you start creating zombies at a slower rate," Alemi says. Once you hit Montana and Idaho, you might as well keep heading farther north into the Canadian Rockies and all the way up to Alaska where data analysis shows you're most likely to survive the zombie apocalypse. The state with the lowest survival rate? — New Jersey. Unfortunately a full scale simulation of an outbreak in the United States shows that for `realistic' parameters, we are largely doomed.
Alemi believes cities would succumb to the zombie scourge quickly, but the infection rate would slow down significantly in more sparsely populated areas and could take months to reach places like the Northern Rockies and Glacier National Park. "Given the dynamics of the disease, once the zombies invade more sparsely populated areas, the whole outbreak slows down--there are fewer humans to bite, so you start creating zombies at a slower rate," Alemi says. Once you hit Montana and Idaho, you might as well keep heading farther north into the Canadian Rockies and all the way up to Alaska where data analysis shows you're most likely to survive the zombie apocalypse. The state with the lowest survival rate? — New Jersey. Unfortunately a full scale simulation of an outbreak in the United States shows that for `realistic' parameters, we are largely doomed.
I'm not worried about zombies... (Score:2, Funny)
I am definitely not worried about a zombie invasion. They seek brains, so I'm quite safe.
Right, but does it correctly model... (Score:2)
Okay, good work. But in their model, do they make the assumption that everyone on the continent is trying to make for Glacier National Park? Because, now that they've told everyone that's what they should do, I think their model should account for that.
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It also doesn't account for the previously established fact that any proper zombie outbreak originates in BRITAIN.
I love USA as much as the next guy but seriously, you need to stop copy-catting every British hit.
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Wait... I thought the first proper zombie movie was Romero's Night of the Living Dead, set in Pennsylvania.
Besides, you have Triffids... be happy with that.
--
(That reminds me - you also have Quatermass; when the frig is someone over there going to resurrect that series?)
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Although they're technically vampires, I'm still going to go with Richard Matheson's "I am Legend" (1954.) Other than the fact that they weren't specifically after your brainz, Matheson's hordes of mindless, aggressive, human-seeking infected pretty much cover all the bases.
I agree. Also, they had giant wasps -- Keith Robert's "The Furies." Awesome boo
Re: Right, but does it correctly model... (Score:2)
That was my thought. In world war Z the governor tells everyone to head to Canada without proper planning and then moves the entire Armed forces to California and defends the west coast only.
If the government tells people to head for the hills the safest place will be a high rise tower that you empty and block the lower levels on. My personal favorite would be a 2-3 story warehouse so you can store equipment inside. Warehouses have limited stairs to make securing the upper levels easier.
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Your warehouse might work, but a high rise tower would be a terrible position. You have to figure that the power grid would go down and emergency generators would soon be out of fuel, so no elevators. How many flights of stairs do you want to climb on a regular basis while carrying food, water and fuel?
Being in a tower with only a couple of escape routes also leaves you very vulnerable to human predators who will be looking to steal everything you have.
If I actually lived in such a place, I'd probably try
Re:Right, but does it correctly model... (Score:5, Funny)
That is never the best solution.
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"The state with the lowest survival rate? â" New Jersey."
They say this like it's a BAD thing....
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"The state with the lowest survival rate? â" New Jersey."
They say this like it's a BAD thing....
Or like it isn't a true statement regardless of zombie apocalypse.
Re:Right, but does it correctly model... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the best solution is to head to a harbor. I don't know how fast or how well a zombie can swim, but I'd bet it's slower than and not as well as a ship can sail. A decent sized ship with fishing gear could fish for food and send out "landing parties" (where absolutely no one wears red) to raid the coast for supplies as needed. If it's large enough (think yacht) those landing parties could even rescue survivors and keep them in quarantine (separate locked cabin, trailing the ship in a lifeboat, etc.) for a time to ensure they're not infected before letting them join the normal complement.
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The only problem is, there are way fewer ships than there are people. If you go to a harbor and get a ship, that's great. If they're all gone, congratulations, you're most likely in a middle of a large city with no escape route.
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1) Head to a large multi-story building (like a big school)
2) Destroy all staircases leading up from the ground level
3) Grow food on the roof, use rope ladders to send out raiding parties for other supplies as needed
Seriously, I am so sick of the protagonists in zombie movies & shows always hiding behind stuff that can simply be pushed over by a mindless horde (chain link fences, doors, etc). Gain some elevation that requires equipment to ascend. Or even use something like a simple commando-style rope [sas.org.hk]
seriously (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are there so many studies about a non-existent problem ? If you want to model a disease, why not a deadly flu ?
Re:seriously (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like zombies are being used in this model as a fun generic template for easily communicable diseases. The model they created could just as easily apply to any highly virulent doomsday outbreak.
Re:seriously (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, traditional zombie-ism is modeled like a disease that is highly contagious, highly virulent, and requires direct contact to transmit. Truthfully, the prominent characteristic of zombie-ism is that the infected are easily distinguishable.
Imagine a highly contagious disease which was transmitted by physical contact with two symptoms: it drastically increases the infected subject's sex drive, and it reduces social inhibitions. It also has exactly one prognosis: It renders 100% the infected subjects totally and incurably sterile.
How fast do you think that would burn through the population? What steps do you think the uninfected would take?
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It's basically modeling a pandemic. It's a less scary thing for the public to handle as zombies don't exists. It's kind of like the zombie survival classes for women. They're basically how to fight off a rapist class, but disguised to make it not seem so....rapey.
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It also keeps people thinking about the problem abstractly. If you cling to how diseases worked in the past, you're going to be surprised by something that works differently.
Also... you can talk about enforcing quarantines and possibly shooting people who try and breach those conditions with more candor if you just think of them as zombies. They look like people, but they're not actually alive.
Re:seriously (Score:4, Insightful)
When has any military operation ever considered "the enemy" human? In fact a great deal of military training, not to mention wartime PR campaigns, are designed specifically to dehumanize the opponent so that there's less backlash against deploying more "effective" strategies. How many hundreds of civilians have we killed in the middle east for every one of our soldiers that have died there? Far more than anyone would accept if they were "human"
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Why are there so many studies about a non-existent problem ? If you want to model a disease, why not a deadly flu ?
People don't pay attention to scenarios involving plain old flu. Zombies are essentially a placeholder for all types of disasters. Responses to zombie outbreaks include quarantine, crowd control, logistics, evacuations, communication with media and the population, areas blocked off due to a natural disaster(flood, earthquake, etc) modeled as "infected area", etc. For people, a zombie "bug out bag" containing water/food/medicine is good to use if you lose power or have to evacuate to a shelter during stor
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People don't pay attention to scenarios involving plain old flu.
They don't pay attention to made up zombie outbreaks either. Unless they are idiots, and then all hope is lost anyway.
Zombies are just a generic disaster that cover pretty much every facet of any kind of disaster response
Except that zombies are slow and dumb, easily recognizable, and need to bite their victims to spread the disease. Flu infected people are normal people flying by plane, and visiting theatres, and can infect people with a sneeze or by touching a door knob. So, the parameters are all different.
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Best idea is not to hide. (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Zombies are stupid
2) Humans rule the world because we are smart, not because we are strong, not because we are hard to kill, nor because we are numerous. One smart human with 30 minutes to prepare makes a spear and scares off a lion, wolf, or even a bear. Why? Because we are some sneaky, devious, son's of bitches that outwit enemies.
3) Everyone always says your average human can defeat one zombie in pretty much every single movie or book. the zombies only are scary in large numbers.
4) So please tell me how in the real world a single zombie can infect all the rest of us?
It simply can NOT happen. The zombies will have surprise on their side for maybe 10 hours - and that's assuming it turns zombie close to nightfall. But even then, the surprise won't last long.
Come the day after the zombie outbreak ends, they will all be dead. They will NEVER take an entire city. At best they might take over a small town/rural community before word gets out, and humans arm ourselves with spears, axes, shotguns, torches, etc. Yeah, a few new zombies would be created after the surprise wore off, but if 1 human kills on average 3 zombies before they themselves become a zombie, then the number of zombies would drop like a bar of lead dropped out of an airplane.
Zombies are the stuff of nightmare only for children and sick people. To a human in the prime of his life they are an excuse to have some violent fun.
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Pretty sure the main premise for many zombie apocalypse settings is that the zombie outbreak is caused by a disease that infects healthy, regular humans, possibly killing them, possibly not. When they die, however, they become zombies. This means that there is an unknown disease spreading, potentially worldwide, that infects people *before* we start seeing zombies. That's not a single zombie infecting the rest of us.
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It all depends upon the STORY being told.
If the "infection" has already happened (you're a zombie when you die whether or not you were bitten) then that changes the math.
Then it comes down to how fast you become a zombie once a zombie bites you. Seconds or days?
And, finally, it comes down to whether this is going to be a book or a movie/TV show. In a book the protagonists can employ non-FPS means to deal with zombies. Otherwise you're stuck with hand-to-hand and guns.
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As others have pointed out, these zombie studies are generally based on epidemic/pandemic disease spread. I think your zombie list is interesting, but all those things are highly dependant on how a zombie outbreak might occur, specifically on modes of transmission. Are you infected if a zombie bites you? What if some blood gets on your skin? Will that infect you? What about in a paper cut? What about if you get zombie blood in your mouth, eyes, or lungs? What happens when you set off a bomb in the middle of
Re: Best idea is not to hide. (Score:2)
Because the initial outbreak no one will admit that they are zombies and so won't be prepared and instead panic stupidly.
Because most people panic first and then act.
The zombie universe rules are skewed (Score:2)
Skewed in favor of an unstoppable infection. Military weapons are posited as ineffective, even WW Z (the film) made it seem like walls of any height were ineffective (they were able to just dogpile against them until they had a ramp up).
I'd guess the story isn't any fun if at the end of chapter two it reads "...and then the AC-130 gunship decimated the field of zombies, the end."
I also wondered if "human intelligence" could work in the form of curved passages where zombies run in, but curves in the passage
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The military weapons not being effective was part of the political "agenda" of slant of the writer. I really hated the book because it showed just such a lack of effort. For example using C-130s instead of C-17s or C5s because they burned less fuel. Ahhh No. Per ton of cargo a C-17 or C-5 blows a C-130 away. You only use a C-130 if the runway is too short or the load is too small for a larger aircraft. BTW they talked about multiple flights oc C-130s to bring in supplies to cities. They even talked about i
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If 95% of the entire world population was converted into zombies magically overnight, it would take the other 5% 20 days at 1 zombie a day to eradicate the horde. If any reasonable model of infection is consulted, a sizable enough portion of the worlds armies would remain uninfected to solve the issue in a matter of hours.
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If 95% of the entire world population was converted into zombies magically overnight, it would take the other 5% 20 days at 1 zombie a day to eradicate the horde.
How long would it take the 95% to eliminate (or convert, if you prefer) most of the 5%?
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Suppose we get some terrible flu/rabies hybrid pandemic that essentially creates the zombie scenario with mindless, violent, highly con
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Ah, but you're not considering all the mosquitoes, ticks, and even flies that will carry infected material away. I mean come on - if the disease can continue to thrive in dead flesh then that fly that walked across your sandwich when you weren't looking has almost certainly infected you. The whole biting thing is just folklore.
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As a case in point, chances are that nobody ever caught ebola from a fly.
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If the zombies began in a small town, the uninfected would be evacuated and quarantined (to make sure they don't turn). Zombies would be either contained or killed.
If the zombies began in a large city, containment might be more difficult. Just try to evacuate New York City and you'd see that it would be nearly impossible. Even assuming that NYC fell totally zombie, though, the army would be called in to surround the city and destroy and zombies who tried to make it out. It would definitely be a huge los
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It's a good thing you're not a script writer. You're no fun at all.
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The problem is that zombies either bite and infect or bite and kill/eat. From watching the various movies and TV shows, the bite and infect starts for the first few generations of the disease but turns to bite and kill once there's a sufficient number of infected. Thus the number of people that are infected are lower and the number of people that are infected and mobile (still have legs/arms) is probably lower still. The WWZ movie makes the infection almost instantaneous which allows you to boost the num
Zombies versus Predators (Score:3)
Nevertheless, this is silly.
Humans are the most deadly predators that the planet has ever had. Killing stuff is what we're really really good at. Making weapons is something we're really really good at.
Zombies... their weapons are teeth and fingernails. Their tactics are go straight in and attack regardless of tactical situation.
They wouldn't have a chance.
Re:Zombies versus Predators (Score:4, Insightful)
Humans are the most deadly predators that the planet has ever had. Killing stuff is what we're really really good at. Making weapons is something we're really really good at.
Actually, making tools and organizing labor is we're really good at. I personally have never killed anything larger than a bug in my life; I suspect a lot of other people haven't either. I've never had to, because there have always been other people who are willing to do those unpleasant tasks for me, in exchange for modest amounts of money.
Granted, I could learn those skills (and others) if I had to, but it would probably take me some days or weeks before I got good at it. It's not clear I would survive long enough to learn them.
So yes, humanity is the most deadly predator the planet has ever had. Any particular human being, OTOH, most likely is not -- we're more likely to be the most effective C++ programmer the planet has ever had, or the best Fedex deliveryman, or some other not-so-helpful-during-the-zombie-apocalypse skill.
Re:Zombies versus Predators (Score:5, Insightful)
In an actual zombie apocalypse I think my list of threats would be:
1. Opportunistic bastards (thugs, gangs)
2. Desperate bastards (hungry, cold, afraid)
3. Devious bastards (poisoned, stabbed in sleep)
4. Survival skills (and fighting for the good spots)
5. Zombies
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You can turn in your man card at the desk on the way out.
Wah. Allowing some stranger dictate to you what you must do or be, based on his own arbitrary conception of masculinity, is a pretty spineless way to live.
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The parent's point is that with a Zombie infection, we'll kill them all pretty quickly. So, even if they happen to have a small exponential increase in the beginning, the same function (1 person killing 3 zombies) will have a damping effect. The fact that zombies need contact and a shotgun simply needs proximity will also tip the balance in favor of the humans.
Comparing zombies to other pandemics leaves out one key point: we could stop the other pandemics in their tracks if we weren't trying to save the inf
Not always (Score:2)
Shaun of the Dead was in a world where zombies were known, but most people were dismissive of it. Of course, that might've also been one of the tipping points to really get zombies into mainstream culture (2004), as many of the movies tended to be rather gruesome things that only appealed to a limited audience.
I want to say that the (excellent) book Ex-Heroes might've had zombies as a known thing as well. Of course, that one's set in a world that also has super heroes (who are fighting against the zombie
I AM SICK OF ZOMBIES! (Score:3, Insightful)
Zombies are worse than Pirates and Ninjas!
Zombies are not REAL, Zombies as an exercise isn't realistic, as you just applying basic game rules to a model.
Zombies as a literary element is about a lone or a few people against a mindless horde. So we can feel good that a guy with intelligence 1 standard deviation from the mean, can be victorious against such a hord, by outsmarting them. So us normal people feel good about ourselves, that we can somehow be better than the rest of the population.
This meme needs to go away, it is old and tiresome.
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Zombies have been a popular story trope since long before memes, or even tropes, were invented.
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Maybe before the words were invented, but that's like saying breathing was popular even before air was invented.
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I am not saying that they didn't have zombie fads before. But the current fad has gone on for too long. There is too much thinking about zombies as a problem. We need to focus on more serious fictional characters such as wizards.
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We needed /some/ horde of faceless bad guys after Nazi Germany and the USSR fell, so now we have zombies.
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We needed /some/ horde of faceless bad guys after Nazi Germany and the USSR fell, so now we have zombies.
Uh, we needed some more bad guys?
Because the hordes of actual bad guys blindly following extremist religions causing real deaths (ISIS) somehow doesn't count when discussing imaginary scenarios?
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Naw we have ISIS or ISIL, Russia, and the French.
We always have the French.
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We do now. We didn't in the '90s when zombies started becoming popular.
Nobody takes the French army seriously anyway. :P
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I've enjoyed a lot of the zombie books and movies and even the Walking Dead TV series. It is fiction after all, and some of it has been good.
The genre has definitely been thoroughly exhausted over the past few years however. There are only so many unique twists you can put on the same basic story. It was fun while it lasted, but you're definitely not alone in thinking that it's getting boring.
Science better keep up with Hollywood. (Score:2)
Boy, it sure is a good thing we've got such a sound model in our heads as to exactly how humans will act and behave once we are "zombies".
Infected people better be running around with an IQ of 50, superhuman strength, an uncontrollable appetite for brains, and are easily defeated by beheading.
Otherwise, there's gonna be a lot of people who are pissed that the real-world version of a viral outbreak isn't anything like what Hollywood has so clearly defined as a "zombie".
A zombie vegetarian with an insatiabl
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Given human response to things like the Black Death, I'm hoping that we are extremely disappointed by any actual pandemic.
Re:Science better keep up with Hollywood. (Score:5, Funny)
No, vegetarian zombies have an insatiable appetite for GRAAAAAIIIINNNNNSSS!
can we stop it with the f'in' zombie $#!+? (Score:2)
they aren't real. they were never real. they never will be real.
if you're talking fiction and you want to talk about WWZ or Walking Dead, or whatever game it is you all are still playing, fine.
But stop posting crap like this where people make simulations about zombies and apocalypses as if this shit is real.
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National Park? I'll take a stroll down the street (Score:5, Insightful)
To my city Zoo. 1.4sq miles with its own working train, planetarium, and 10ft concrete walls designed to keep big cats from jumping them. Open exhibits with moats instead of caged pens which are perfect for herding zombies into or keeping criminals. Indoor areas for winter exhibits to take shelter in. A petting farm with a barn full of sustainable livestock animals to live off while using some of the wilder animals to keep both snoops and zombies at bay. Every entrance is heavy pad locked gate or 6ft carousel style gate. It's own water tower, sewage, and generators. Two natural spring fed ponds, gardens, and multiple snack stations loaded with food. Tranq guns, mancatchers, and stun equipment for dealing with humans and wildlife. Massive parking structure with a helipad.
Come at me bitches!
Zombies Freeze in the Cold (Score:2)
The interesting thing about Zombies is they're for the most part fictional. In our Canadian winters up here, they'd likely freeze solid and they'd pretty much be easy targets at that point. Even if freezing solid doesn't kill them which is odd, there's no cold-blooded animal out there that is active in winter.
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I'd even go so far as to say entirely fictional. Don't forget that even the slightest damage to the extremely delicate bones, blood vessels and nerve bundles that make up our senses would make them first thing to rot away. Oh, and then there's the laws of thermodynamics.
I for one am willing to put that all aside for a fun story. But the thing is, its easy to fantasize how you'd survive. I guess a main draw of zombie stories is its easy for anyone to picture themselves a hero.
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Just make sure you don't blast them to pieces while in a steel foundry otherwise they'll just liquify and raise again.
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If you live in Canada, you should definitely be conducting drills where you deploy the military to your southern border. It won't be zombies, but in the near future, it could very well be hordes of starving or thirsty refugees from the USA.
Zombie apocalypse universe rules (Score:5, Interesting)
While I enjoy the genre, I find that the "rules" of zombie apocalypse seem designed to limit the ability to humans to fight back by imposing arbitrary limits on the effectiveness of weapons.
Brooks quickly discounts the effectiveness of military weapons like cluster munitions, Gatling guns and other kinds of weapons designed to put a large amount of shrapnel or projectiles into an area quickly. Even if it didn't result in killing of an entire horde, I would expect it to kill a large number and greatly reduce the threat of most of them by seriously degrading their mobility through damage to their ability to walk or move.
I'd like to see a Mythbusters episode where they take a 7.62mm Gatling gun and fire it into a simulated zombie horde at average head height to see what kind of damage it would do. It's probably beyond practicality to setup that many targets, but it would be an interesting simulation nonetheless.
I think the simplest way to deal with a horde would be a minor adaption of a machine designed to clear minefields -- the demining flail. These slightly resemble a combine bolted onto the front of a tank, with the "combine" being basically a bunch of steel weights on the ends of chains designed to beat on the ground to set off mines.
It's not hard to imagine a much lighter weight device (since zombies don't explode) spinning 5 pound weights in the air. It would completely pulverize zombies and turn clearing zombie hordes into something akin to mowing the grass.
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No, no, no. Haven't you guys seen James Bond [wikipedia.org] movies? What we need is big snowblowers.
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I think a gatling gun might be overkill honestly. A simple .50 Cal machinegun should suffice as a single round would probably be enough to disassemble multiple zombies. The Hydrostatic shock can seperate limbs from torsos making for a much less threatening mob.
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I just use the Gatling gun as an example, I think you're right that the .50 BMG round is probably superior for this purpose because of its energy and the benefits you'd get from overpenetration on massed horde as well as reduced ammunition consumption. There might be some technical benefit to the GAU-19 Gatling version of this gun with a cyclic rate reduced to M-2 levels just to limit barrel wear and heating.
But overall, there's just a whole arsenal of military weapons that could be devastating on massed
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You can't fit 14 million bodies in one place at one time.
Broadway Avenue in Yonkers is about 105 feet wide, so shoulder to shoulder you could fit 70 bodies across it. With only a 50% hit rate, a single M134 minigun could kill 21 ranks of zombies a minute, or a horde of 1500 about 45 feet deep.
If a zombie can move at human walking speed, they can advance at 270 feet per minute, so a battery of 18 miniguns, allowing for 6 firing concurrently, could kill the horde faster than they can advance. Probably fewer
I may regret sharing this.... (Score:5, Interesting)
...but my refuge for the zombie apocalypse?
The town water tower. Specifically, INSIDE/atop.
First benefit is that (until now) nobody else would be going there, and you avoid the panic-rush when everyone gets stuck on the freeways.
Many/most(?) stations have emergency generators already built in and by law well-equipped for sustained operation.
Ample fresh water, obviously, and a great situation for catching clean rainfall.
Most of our local towers are largely flat, and basically immune to severe weather and heavily insulated, meaning you'd have a secure, highly defensible place with great sightlines (to signal/communicate other survivors, if that's something you want to do), so high that even if they were attracted to your location, they'd have to pile up so high they'd pretty much liquefy at the bottom before getting to you.
Bring your acetylene kit as you evacuate*, and you could really build a nice home in there, including ziplines to nearby roofs/buildings for foraging (granted, getting back up there if there were zombies around your entry might stink).
*lots of small communities actually have a fair amount of tools stored right inside in the base for maintenance, saving you a lot of work.
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What type of water towers do you have? This is what pretty much all them around here look like:
http://www.mrkscience.com/plan... [mrkscience.com]
New Jersey? (Score:2)
Best place is New Jersey (Score:2)
Because everybody else is going to leave now, right?
Is this "What color is that dress" part 2? (Score:2)
Really? We have run out of problems now that time can be spent on all this drivel?
I personally have heard that zombie brains make excellent dip, so get the chips ready.
Old News (Score:2)
Anyone else notice that the article and blog post are from March, 2014.
Yes, this is a /. article about a blog post from a year ago.
Nothing to see here...
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"Realistic" Parameters (Score:2)
Critics point to an alternate simulation showing that for realistic parameters, zombies wouldn't last long in real life [cracked.com]
They didn't model (predictable) human behavior (Score:2)
Realism (Score:2)
Guy1: "What would you do if a horde of zombies would approach your house?"
Guy2: "I'd blast them to dust with my pocket atomic bombs."
Guy1: "Oh come on, be realistic!"
Please.. enough with the zombiepocalypse already (Score:2)
Ultimate Safety (Score:2)
I should think the safest place to hide would be among fundamentalists.
No large concentration of brains there to attract hungry zombies.
Re:Of Course (Score:5, Interesting)
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Which makes
>Unfortunately a full scale simulation of an outbreak in the United States shows that for `realistic' parameters, we are largely doomed.
so much more comforting...
It's cold up there (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a reason that Glacier National Park has fewer zombies. It has fewer people to start with so there would be less "feed stock" to make zombies. But there is a reason there are so few people in the area. It's very cold and hard to survive there. So maybe Key West would be a better alternative. And of course, if everyone tries to get to GNP, it will be very crowded with people... and zombies.
Yep (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. Speaking as a Montana fellow, and being quite familiar with Glacier park, I can confidently inform everyone that if you try to live up there in the winter without a well-insulated and extremely well supplied domicile away from any steep slopes (locations for which there is a very limited selection, btw), Glacier park will calmly, without any particular effort, make you dead. For that matter, given the terrain and some of the species still wandering around up there, I'm none too sanguine about anyone's chances through the other seasons, either. And a bunch of people? You'd just kill each other.
No zombies required.
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Well see, there's the answer - dead people don't become zombies, so you'll be safe from the zombie pandemic. Also dead, but don't sweat the details.
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If a bear eats a Zombie's brains...what will happen?
Re:Yep (Score:5, Insightful)
OMG - RUN! ZOMBEARS!!!
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The Zombear is born.
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I can finally stop worrying about my picnic lunch?
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Speaking from a scientific angle accounting for what urban legend tells us about zombies and extrapolating from ancient vampire-like mythology (vampyr, revenants, SE Asian penanggalan. Celitic dearg-due, or Africas anbosamthe) which, although need blood to sustain their existence, don't need a working circulatory system or functioning organs. It would seem if a walking corpse, if truly undead, wouldn't be hindered by cold conditions as they would feel no pain. Perhaps incapacitation could start when the r
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"Not so in a vampiric takeover of the world, which would be more systematic, cunning and disguised for as long as possible and happen incrementally with stealth, bribery, imitation and manipulation at the beginning and rely on apathy and propaganda dissemination by media as well as seditious humans that agree to work with vampires for gain or power, kapos, if you will."
Sounds like Wall Street to me...
The south goes under (Score:2)
It's the tyrannical foreign government zombie invaders that'll get you in the end. They can feel the hate. And they want your brainnzzz.
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They did this on their own time and own dime....Riiiiight?
Well, *someone* has to find a safe hiding place for all the Senators and Fortune 100 CEO's... you don't think they have time to find that on their own, do you?
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I think we need to do realistic, full-scale test runs of this concept with the intended participants. Just to, er, get them some practice.
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In that case, I humbly suggest they do a trial run at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, where no zombie would think to look for fresh brain matter.
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It's more likely that their research had some other useful reason for existing, and using "zombies" in their model was simply a lab joke that turned into a hook to get people to read the paper.
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