The whole genre is completely played out for me.

Sucks for you, you're going to have to live with missing out on this.

McCoy, the beauty of their approach is that you don't have to accept their assumptions. The assumptions are all documented and the trail of equations is there.

(This doesn't copy properly, but it'll give a notion of the detail the authors went to)

Susceptibles can become deceased through ‘natural’ causes, i.e., non-zombie-related
death (parameter ). The removed class consists of individuals who have died, either
through attack or natural causes. Humans in the removed class can resurrect and become
a zombie (parameter ). Susceptibles can become zombies through transmission via an
encounter with a zombie (transmission parameter ). Only humans can become infected
through contact with zombies, and zombies only have a craving for human flesh so we do
not consider any other life forms in the model. New zombies can only come from two
sources:
The resurrected from the newly deceased (removed group).
Susceptibles who have ‘lost’ an encounter with a zombie.
In addition, we assume the birth rate is a constant, . Zombies move to the removed class
upon being ‘defeated’. This can be done by removing the head or destroying the brain of
the zombie (parameter ). We also assume that zombies do not attack/defeat other zombies.
Thus, the basic model is given by
S0 = ???? SZ ???? S
Z0 = SZ + R ???? SZ
R0 = S + SZ ???? R:
This model is illustrated in Figure 1.

(after which it gets complicated)

Leu said many non-Asians don't appreciate "the Asian culture, where there is a deep work ethic that America hasn't really bought into yet."

Racist assumption

post 11050:

where do all the hobby farmers and organic farmers fall? because they are farmers but i doubt most of them would adapt to a hostile environment very quickly

i also think you overstate my peer group's abilities in general

Asian-Americans make up half of the Bay Area's technology workforce, and their double-digit employment gains came from jobs lost among white tech workers,

So there has been no job growth in silicone valley?

No, the article is misleading on that point. There has been net job growth in Silicon Valley over the past decade, though clearly not as dramatic as the high-tech sector job growth in Asian countries.

For the zombie inclined, DayZ could be a really interesting game centered on the premise. The mod based on Arma2 was pretty good.

In the great Zombie apocalypse draft, don't forget water and probably fishing. I have no idea where the group in Walking Dead are getting water from, but I think they'd have died of thirst by now.

you're going to have to live with missing out on this.

The number of better ways to spend my time is astronomical.

I don't play video games.

I can't say I never have. I played asteroids. On an MIT mainframe around 1973. Also pong.

Much preferred pinball machines, so I never got into it.

GB--thanks very much. I appreciate it.

Seconded, Thirded and Fourthed. I never saw the appeal beyond the campiness of the original George Romero works.

In fairness, then, as your intestines are being devoured like gourmet sausages expect to hear 'We told you so'.

The purpose of the ZA in serious works is to intensify conflict and thereby intensify meaning. It's probably a sign of our jaded times, though, that we need that intensification. Love isn't difficult or interesting enough until ravening ghouls dot the landscape. Sad to say, it also legitimizes mass murder. If we ran around the landscape killing dozens of human beings, we'd be branded monsters. Turn those human beings into shadows of themselves and the thrill of killing is still there, but the guilt largely disappears. That's one reason zombies are typically not allowed to retain even traces of their humanity, as that would interfere with the pleasures of killing them.

Zombies are just too easy to kill, impair, outrun, and avoid infection from for them to ever overtake humanity or seriously impair us.

Depends on the zombie type. A Walking Dead zombie could never take over. The infection takes to long to zombify, and they are too weak and easy to kill. A 28 Days Later zombie (fast infection, fast and strong zombie) could easily take over, with only a natural border being able to stop it.

Tommy Hanson for Jordan Waldon. Atlanta has a really good bullpen.

post 11050:

where do all the hobby farmers and organic farmers fall? because they are farmers but i doubt most of them would adapt to a hostile environment very quickly

i also think you overstate my peer group's abilities in general

Maybe so, but having only acquired many of a homesteaders skills (somewhat different, I grant you, than a farmer's skill set) over a very long time, I'm in awe of folks who can do it all. I just figure anyone who can figure out just about anything is way ahead of the game, once the ghouls show up en masse. My immediate neighbor is a great old soul of 82 with serious COPD issues, but he can still shoot, garden, carpenter, find edible plants anywhere, and fix anything. He's the kind of generalist (grew up on a farm, worked as plumber in Brooklyn for a decade and a half, turned farmer again then turned b&b owner) I'd draft high if the world ended. The summer he turned 80 he was a little bored so he sketched up an addition that doubled the size of his b&b, acted as his own general contractor, did all the plumbing, and ran the bulldozer as needed. A union man back when, and I've never met anyone more generous.

I'll guess hobby farmers are people who came to the practice comparatively late in life and don't have nearly the broad skill set those born and raised on farms possess. A lot of hobby farmers 'farm out' (sorry) mechanical and electrical and construction work, key Not sure about organic farmers--some of those folks grew up on farms and found the organic niche as a way to make a living. Others came to it late after tiring of more conventional lives. Not sure where they fit or how they'd do.

as someone who has seen people at less than their best i think it's important to remember the skills that can get you through the transition from civilized world to rustic world are not the ones that will help you prosper in rustic world

that's why its a group thing. you need folks who can be pretty hard (some might say ruthless) to get you through the immediate chaos and then you get into some kind of equilibrium state. who knows how long the transition state lasts.

My immediate neighbor is a great old soul of 82 with serious COPD issues, but he can still shoot, garden, carpenter, find edible plants anywhere, and fix anything. He's the kind of generalist (grew up on a farm, worked as plumber in Brooklyn for a decade and a half, turned farmer again then turned b&b owner) I'd draft high if the world ended.

Unhealthy octogenarians are your new market efficiency? Sorry Zombieball-guy, that #### won't work in the apocalypse.

Passing this along, since some on this board may wish to evaluate the merits of the sentence "Squeezing 15 tracks into its half-hour run-time, Light Up Gold is made up of college-rock nuggets that, at their best, recall early Pavement singles, just with a Wowee Zowee-era production."
Scroll down to Parquet Courts

phew. only 79. yr can't off me

The number of better ways to spend my time is astronomical.

I don't play video games.

I get that. As a huge fan of the postnuclear genre, I enjoyed the storytelling and worldbuilding in the first Wasteland (1988, so before it got done to death) as much as any of the fiction I read.

that's why its a group thing.

QFT. Very, very few people would survive completely on their own, or as a couple. Like Harvey, I have a well, lots of stored food and a large garden, wood heat, and enough deer in my back yard to to keep me in meat for a long time. I went out to get some firewood the other night and one of them blew (anyone who knows about deer will know what I mean) and scared the hell out of me. There were two does, only about 20' away from me, and I whistled a bit to get their attention. I think I could have probably got them to eat out of my hand, but it was too cold and I got tired of it.

cold

you don't want to hunt nearby if you can avoid it because once you do animals sense the smell of death and avoid you. you need to range away as much as possible so that hunting nearby is your fallback in a pinch. like if you get hurt and can move some but not much and need to rely on a fresh kill to survive

that's why its a group thing.

Thirded. Groups are critical as is being able to function together. In some ways attitude matters as much as skills.

the Romney internal polls

A handful of outlets have reported that Team Romney’s internal polling showed North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia moving safely into his column and that it put him ahead in a few other swing states. When combined with Ohio, where the internal polling had him close, Romney was on track to secure all the electoral votes he needed to win the White House. The confidence in these numbers was such that Romney even passed on writing a concession speech, at least before the crotchety assignment-desk known as “reality” finally weighed in.

The delicious irony in this is that the one thing Romney was supposed to bring to the party was hard-headed competence, "business sense," the organizational and technical skill and knowledge to do things well and correctly. And instead he and his team utterly bungled one of their most crucial tasks, that of collecting and understanding intelligence regarding the electorate and what to expect. Wow.

as someone who has seen people at less than their best i think it's important to remember the skills that can get you through the transition from civilized world to rustic world are not the ones that will help you prosper in rustic world

that's why its a group thing. you need folks who can be pretty hard (some might say ruthless) to get you through the immediate chaos and then you get into some kind of equilibrium state. who knows how long the transition state lasts.

True, this. The people who are best in crises (instinctive decision makers, quick to act, combative, willing to fight) can tear groups apart when it comes to patiently grinding through the day to day stuff of living.

Speaking of vote fraud, in a development that will surprise exactly no one,

In an exclusive report by the Palm Beach Post, several prominent Florida Republicans are now admitting that these election law changes were geared toward suppressing minority and Democratic votes.

Former governor Charlie Crist (R-FL) and former GOP chairman Jim Greer (R-FL), as well as several current GOP members, told the Post that Republican consultants pushed the new measures as a way to suppress Democratic voters. Crist expanded early voting hours in 2008 despite party pressure, but Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) targeted early voting almost immediately when he took office in 2011. Scott’s administration claimed the new laws were meant to curb in-person voter fraud, despite the fact that an individual in Florida is more likely to be struck by lightning than commit voter fraud.
Current party members and consultants confirmed the motive was not to stop voter fraud but to make it harder for Democrats and minorities to vote:

Wayne Bertsch, who handles local and legislative races for Republicans, said he knew targeting Democrats was the goal. “In the races I was involved in in 2008, when we started seeing the increase of turnout and the turnout operations that the Democrats were doing in early voting, it certainly sent a chill down our spines. And in 2008, it didn’t have the impact that we were afraid of. It got close, but it wasn’t the impact that they had this election cycle,” Bertsch said, referring to the fact that Democrats picked up seven legislative seats in Florida in 2012 despite the early voting limitations.

Another GOP consultant, who did not want to be named, also confirmed that influential consultants to the Republican Party of Florida were intent on beating back Democratic turnout in early voting after 2008.

[...]A GOP consultant who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution said black voters were a concern. “I know that the cutting out of the Sunday before Election Day was one of their targets only because that’s a big day when the black churches organize themselves,” he said.

Though the state ultimately went to President Obama, the Republican effort to suppress votes was largely successful. A post-election report found that new voting restrictions led to a huge increase in provisional ballots, which are cast when there is some question of the voter’s eligibility.

While crying voter fraud, the Florida GOP had to confront its own scandal when a voter registration firm they hired turned in hundreds of fraudulent registration forms in several Florida counties. The GOP hastily cut ties with the group when the state opened a criminal investigation into their operations.

For the zombie inclined, DayZ could be a really interesting game centered on the premise. The mod based on Arma2 was pretty good.

The problem with DayZ is nothing seems to happen. In every walkthrough I've seen on youtube some guy runs and runs and runs through an empty landscape, then an empty industrial area, then an empty landscape, then empty RR tracks,... It just doesn't look very exciting.

In the great Zombie apocalypse draft, don't forget water and probably fishing. I have no idea where the group in Walking Dead are getting water from, but I think they'd have died of thirst by now.

They've gotcha covered. T-Dog, bless his departed soul, mentioned a nearby stream that could easily be brought in through a culvert under the fence to provide water for crops.

edit: @11071--that really struck me too, Steve. The one thing you figure he should have been able to ace, he completely whiffed on.

I thought all the apparent confidence in October was the usual campaign bluster. It never occurred to me that Joe was polling more accurately than the campaign.

I'm thinking cardio/endurance training is the way to go here. Combined with enough strength training to carry heavy amounts of gear a very long way. Doing a lot of rough hiking and/or rock climbing would probably be helpful.

Parkour.

You know nothing.

Dies.

the Romney internal polls

Someone should tie Joe to a chair and force him to read and re-read that article, until it finally sinks in on him that his entire set of assumptions about the 2012 electorate were based largely on wishful thinking. But then in that respect he wasn't any more delusional than his candidate.

ZombApoc is pretty much your paleodiet/Crossfit workout dream.

Paleo diet is crap. Most of a caveman's scavenged protein came from insects or small animals like mice and frogs. If you're eating nice big steaks, you're putting totally different amino acids into your body than the guy you're supposedly trying to emulate.

All fad diets are crap

Fixed that for you.

basic item for minor consideration is that someone who can attest to the taste difference is that grass fed grazing animals taste very different from corn fed. 50 years ago people shot deer because they wanted a trophy or to eat. and if to eat you were considered dirt poor because venison tasted like sh8t. marsh grass and acorns ain't much for eating.

remember the scene from crocodile dundee where he pulls out the canned goods versus eating off the land? that is very true.

Most of a caveman's scavenged protein came from insects or small animals like mice and frogs. If you're eating nice big steaks, you're putting totally different amino acids into your body than the guy you're supposedly trying to emulate.

I do love when haters gonna hate. I mean, you're nitpicking the marketing term of a protein heavy diet. It's beyond silly.

The model uses some assumptions that I don't really agree with (I believe).

Well, that's the whole thing. There are lots of different kinds of fictional zombies. The assumptions that you make in defining exactly what a zombie is and how it works will make a zombie apocalypse seem more or less realistic. Are they dead bodies animated by voodoo magic, or animated corpses under the control of alien parasites, or the righteous dead returned to seek vengeance on those who wronged them, or powered by an unknown chemical interaction from radiation and industrial waste, or what? Do corpses rise from the dead passively in any context, or is active intervention of some sort needed? Does animation require the application of some substance or the performance of some kind of ritual? Are they fast or slow? Can you kill them by damaging the brain, or do you need to destroy the entire corpse? Can they think? Consciously pursue goals? Communicate? Use tools? Are they immediately evident as zombies, or can they pose as the living until they start to rot? Will they suffer from attrition as time passes? Is it only people that can come back from the dead, or will animal corpses do so as well?

I mean, you're nitpicking the marketing term of a protein heavy diet. It's beyond silly.

No, I'm nitpicking the philosophical underpinnings of that particular protein-heavy diet. If you think people should eat that particular balance of nutrients, fine - use science to show why. But cavemen don't have anything to do with it. That's just a load of soft-headed marketing horseshit, designed to separate dippy consumers from their money.

You know what fad diet works well?


BRAAAAAAIIIIIIINNNNNNNS

Most of a caveman's scavenged protein came from insects or small animals like mice and frogs.

Cite? The fact is, we have no idea what quantity of protein sources were used by paleolithic hunter/gatherers. We can measure animal bones at a site, but we can't determine which ones were eaten by humans.

No, I'm nitpicking the philosophical underpinnings of that particular protein-heavy diet.

Define "protein heavy".

Nate Silver on tech, silcon valley With a side of technological edge leading to incompetent internal GOP polling and "ORCA"

I haven't looked at the site but knowing a little about modeling, if you set the ???? low enough I am sure you can get this model to spit out "Zombie Apocalypse is no problem" rather trivially.

Since we have no real data on zombies to fit.

Cite? The fact is, we have no idea what quantity of protein sources were used by paleolithic hunter/gatherers. We can measure animal bones at a site, but we can't determine which ones were eaten by humans.

We actually can, to an extent, because of cut-marks on the bones of butchered animals. My understanding is that this is something of an emerging field of research, even though people have been working on it for 60 or 70 years. Recent work has, for example, used butchering marks to make some inferences about the social order of early Homo sapiens groups, and also about their (our!) place in the food chain.

With a side of technological edge leading to incompetent internal GOP polling and "ORCA"

This is one of those things I expect to be transient -- while most tech workers are liberal NorCal/Washington types, it's not as though there isn't an enormous contingent of right-libertarian techies out there. I expect the 2016 candidate, whoever he is, to have a lot of people on his staff. Liberals should feel good about tapping into the data revolution more effectively the last two cycles, but don't expect it to continue.

It's the demographic bomb that's a problem. Running wealthy Cubans isn't going to solve it, either.

the Romney internal polls

This is really crazy. In Romney's internal polls, he was losing the election. His internal polls, which were incredibly unrealistic and way off in Iowa, Colorado and Minnesota, still had him losing 267-271. Remarkably, when his own polls showed him losing, he still thought he was going to win so much that he did not prepare a concession speech.

Wow.

Nate Silver on tech, silcon valley With a side of technological edge leading to incompetent internal GOP polling and "ORCA"

Democrats’ strength in the region is hard to separate out from the growth of its core industry — information technology – and the advantage that having access to the most talented individuals working in the field could provide to Democratic campaigns.

Companies like Google and Apple do not have their own precincts on Election Day. However, it is possible to make some inferences about just how overwhelmingly Democratic are the employees at these companies, based on fund-raising data. (The Federal Election Commission requires that donors to presidential campaigns disclose their employer when they make a campaign contribution.)

Among employees who work for Google, Mr. Obama received about $720,000 in itemized contributions this year, compared with only $25,000 for Mr. Romney. That means that Mr. Obama collected almost 97 percent of the money between the two major candidates.

Apple employees gave 91 percent of their dollars to Mr. Obama. At eBay, Mr. Obama received 89 percent of the money from employees.

Over all, among the 10 American-based information technology companies on Fortune’s list of “most admired companies,” Mr. Obama raised 83 percent of the funds between the two major party candidates.

And tying it back into the article I posted earlier, a very high proportion of these young, ultra-tech-savvy, and affluent Democrats are Asian-American.

Which just leads me to think, (a) man I love my homies, and (b) could there possibly be a more vivid illustration of the structural disadvantages the GOP has systematically constructed for itself?

This is really crazy. In Romney's internal polls, he was losing the election. His internal polls, which were incredibly unrealistic and way off in Iowa, Colorado and Minnesota, still had him losing 267-271. Remarkably, when his own polls showed him losing, he still thought he was going to win so much that he did not prepare a concession speech.

Wow.

Mittmentum, baby!

while most tech workers are liberal NorCal/Washington types, it's not as though there isn't an enormous contingent of right-libertarian techies out there.

Speaking from out here, the fact is that there is not an enormous contingent of right-libertarian techies, at least not as measurable by any polling or electoral data. From Silver's article:

Mr. Obama won the nine counties of the Bay Area by margins ranging from 25 percentage points (in Napa County) to 71 percentage points (in the city and county of San Francisco). In Santa Clara County, home to much of the Silicon Valley, the margin was 42 percentage points.

Over all, Mr. Obama won the election by 49 percentage points in the Bay Area, more than double his 22-point margin throughout California.

Although San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley have long been liberal havens, the rest of the region has not always been so. In 1980, Ronald Reagan won the Bay Area vote over all, along with seven of its nine counties. George H.W. Bush won Napa County in 1988.

Republicans have lost every county in the region by a double-digit margin since then. But Democratic margins have become more and more emphatic. Mr. Obama’s 49-point margin throughout the Bay Area this year was considerably larger than Al Gore’s 34-point win in 2000, for example, or Bill Clinton’s 31-point win in 1992.

Not exactly indicative of an enormous contingent of right-libertarian techies.

his entire set of assumptions about the 2012 electorate were based largely on wishful thinking

Speaking of - hilarious post-election interview with Dean Chambers
The pic alone is worth the click.

We actually can, to an extent, because of cut-marks on the bones of butchered animals.

Agreed. What we can't do is measure the percentage of protein from those sources compared to others like grubs. We can't measure protein as a % of daily calories either.

There will never be a zombie apocalypse and not because it is a fantasy concept but because a zombie outbreak would never get large enough to cause human society to collapse and the world's population diminished by any great degree.

You might be right, but I thought this slideshow is fairly realistic portrayal of society breaking down after a zombie outbreak.

Most of a caveman's scavenged protein came from insects or small animals like mice and frogs.

Cite? The fact is, we have no idea what quantity of protein sources were used by paleolithic hunter/gatherers.

Some good background on paleolithic and neolithic entomophagy here.

Not exactly indicative of an enormous contingent of right-libertarian techies.

(1) True enough. I guess what I meant is that there are enough right-libertarian techies that they should be able to get good people to run their operations.

(2) I was, weirdly, just g-chatting with a friend of mine who works for Google, and I asked him about this question. His input was this: though the libertarian streak is powerful in his experience of the tech community*, there's also a very strong pro-science bias among techies, and Republicans are going to have to come to Jesus (pun fully intended) on that subject before they start capturing any significant portion of that community, wealthy and libertarian though it may be. He also pointed out that both parties are pretty good at pissing off (small-L) libertarians right now: Republicans socially, Democrats economically. He said his sense (whether or not this is widely true) is that the social stuff is much more difficult to swallow at the moment.

*He's from Oregon and lives in Washington, though, so that might exaggerate this contingent in his mind.

(3) As a left-libertarian, this squares with my feeling. I usually vote Democratic because I find Republican social stances odious and the economic messages of the parties, despite all the caviling that goes on over them, not radically different. Neither is particularly interested in actually restraining the size of government -- they just want to waste the money in different places. If Republicans could moderate on science & social issues, they might find an audience in people like me. They would have 40 years ago, for sure. I probably would have voted for Nixon at least once, had I been born in 1950 instead of 1980.

the economic messages of the parties, despite all the caviling that goes on over them, not radically different. Neither is particularly interested in actually restraining the size of government -- they just want to waste the money in different places. If Republicans could moderate on science & social issues, they might find an audience in people like me.

If the economic messages of the parties are not radically different, and they just want to waste the money in different places, why should the hypothetical science-&-social-moderated-Republicans find an audience in people like you?

They would have 40 years ago, for sure. I probably would have voted for Nixon at least once, had I been born in 1950 instead of 1980.

I'm a straight white guy with a Ph.D in a hard science; Nixon is also the last Republican presidential candidate I would've voted for. Republicans these days love Reagan, but he's where I say \"#### that ####."

If you think people should eat that particular balance of nutrients, fine - use science to show why. But cavemen don't have anything to do with it. That's just a load of soft-headed marketing horseshit, designed to separate dippy consumers from their money.

Have you ever met a human being?

why should the hypothetical science-&-social-moderated-Republicans find an audience in people like you?

Taxes.

I'm a straight white guy with a Ph.D in a hard science; Nixon is also the last Republican presidential candidate I would've voted for. Republicans these days love Reagan, but he's where I say \"#### that ####."

Yep. I'm working on an MFA instead of a PhD, but that's pretty much where I land.