Apocalypse Hal: Time to die

How quickly will you die in a zombie apocalypse?

While many consider the zombies to be the biggest killer, mother nature has a bunch of other way to kill you. Zombies may have to take a number and be patient. 

So lets look at the basics of dying. 

Don't think it won't happen, once the zombies overrun the power stations and coffee shops, exposure and dehydration will be serious issues. 

Bite off more brains than you can chew little zombies.

Mr Rimsky

Apocalypse Hal: Colloquial zombie

According to the Macquarie dictionary, there is another type of zombie. One that hides among us today. Maybe there is one at your workplace, or living in your street. Maybe your teenager is one.

We are talking about the derogatory or colloquial use of the word zombie to describe someone with no independent judgement or intelligence.

Using the word zombie to describe these people has been around for a long while but the rise of social media has given it a bit more popularity. You would have seen the various memes about people walking along staring at their phones as being zombies.  

Not that I am suggesting social media causes people to become fedora wearing, quinoa eating, latte sipping Facebook addicts. Nah. That's caused by a chemical the Government secretly adds to bottled water.

Bite off more quinoa than you can chew

Mr Rimsky

Apocalypse Hal: Zombie Speed and Range Chart

If you are being chased by zombies it is handy to know how far away they are, and therefore how much time you have before they reach you. It can mean knowing when to leisurely sip your latte or gulp it down.  

So get practicing judging distance.

Like an artist you can use your thumb to gauge scale and distance. Basically a zombie will look smaller the further in the distance it is. By comparing the zombie against you thumb held out at arms length, you can learn to estimate how far away the zombie by comparing it's size against your thumb. 

Not sure exactly how it work, the diagram I found on the internet was in Russian.

Anyway the average Australian male is 175.6 cm tall while the average Australian woman is 161.8 cm tall. Hope that helps. Probably not.

Bite off more than you can chew

Mr Rimsky

Deep down dark

Remember those 33 Chilean miners who got trapped underground in a mine disaster back in 2010. This is their story and it is gripping read about the human spirit.

It all happen because a rock fell and blocked the only tunnel out of the mine. A large rock, a rock the size of a skyscraper they called the megabloque.


It was during those first 17 days, before the first bore hole reached them and gave them contact to the world, that were most difficult. There was little food and so they were all slowly starving to death. The single meal for the day may be a spoonful of tuna or a biscuit. As time dragged out it was 2 or 3 days between these tiny meals. When they found a single peach slice they missed from a previous meal, they sliced it into 33 tiny portions to share.

During those 17 days they banded together, prayed together and helped each other out. Although there were some factions among the group, there was a sense of unity. When the rescuers make contact, and starting supplying food, water and information through the bore hole, that is when the unity started to crack. These simple working men became instant celebrities. And millionaires too, after the richest man in Chile gave all the miners a million dollars while they were still trapped underground. (Note - In Chile a million pesos is not a lot, maybe a couple of year's salary). Finally after 69 days they were hoisted to the surface but that was not the end of their story.

Survival didn't stop when they escaped the mine, it continued on in the years that followed. Some lost their money because friends and relatives where constantly begging for loans they never paid back. Most suffered PTSD. One would sit at night in the dark living room with his miner's helmet and lamp on. Those that got jobs straight away and carried on with a normal life seemed to cope the best.

For a survival aspect, it is the way the group interacted that is fascinating. For that reason alone the book is worth reading. Plus I discovered a new word, borborygmus, the scientific name for tummy rumbles, which can be a very loud sound when they are 33 of you starving.

Bite off more peach slice than you can chew.

Mr Rimsky

Apocalypse Hal: Change Impact and Readiness

A while back I talked psychographics and defined the four archetypes of the apocalypse. Plus a zombie. All that was a lead up to a really cool info-diagram using an apartment block.

Okay, there is more to it than that. The zombie apocalypse will impact on each archetype differently, and they all have different levels of readiness. So Silly Non Believers will be impacted the most, because they are totally unprepared. Preppers and Survivalists on the other hand are better prepared and so will be impacted the least. 

That's the theory.


Bite off more than you can chew

Mr Rimsky

MISS ACE: Sun Bears, Moon Bears and Zombies…oh my!

Greetings BZFers,

Last weekend I had a friend visit me in Phnom Penh. We took in many of city’s most famous sites…the National Museum, the King’s Palace and the Temple on a hill, but my favourite site was a wildlife centre that I barely knew existed.

One of the main features of said Wildlife Centre was the Sun bear. If you are unfamiliar with Sun bears, they tend to be relatively small and have short fur. Here’s one shown below in all its glory:

The Wildlife centre also had a Moon bear. Unlike Sun bears, Moon bears are bigger and have shaggy fur. I’m pretty sure this was guy was a Moon bear:

Anyways, all these bear differences got me thinking, as there are many types of bear in the bear world, there are also many types of Zombies in the Zombie world. For example:

• Frankenstein – the first zombie (knitted together and fried back to life)
• Jiangshi – Chinese hopping Zombies (highlighted in my last post)
• Slow moving Zombies (aka shufflers)
• Higher functioning Zombies (Zombies who have retained some humanity…like that guy in Warm Bodies, or Ed at the end of Shaun of the Dead)
• Aggressive Zombies (World War Z, Zombieland)
• Nazi Zombies (Dead Snow)
• Space Zombies (Zombies of the Stratosphere)
• The list could go on…

So when preparing for the zombocalypse, how does one account for the many different forms that zombies could arise in?

To get you started, I’ve compiled a list of some of the skills you will need to master to prepare for the three main types of Zombie – the shuffler, the higher functioning and the aggressive.

Zombie scenario 1: The Slow Ascent of the Shuffle Zombies

 

Shuffle Zombies are the ones who have lost much of their mobility along with their higher brain function. Don’t be fooled though – these guys can still be dangerous, especially if you get yourself stuck in the midst of a hoard. To stay on top of the shufflers, get some practice on:

• Power walking - Avoid the uncoordinated dead by walking at a slightly faster pace. With a slight spring in your step, you will leave these guys in your dust and hopefully find some safety before a hoard gathers.

• Bending over - Your mad power walking skills may have you one step ahead of the Zombies, but say you find a penny on the ground and you want to pick it up? You don’t want the Zombies to catch up to you if you are slow at bending over. So get some bending, squatting and ground movement practice in to avoid an embarrassing bite.

Zombie Scenario 2: The plight of the Higher functioning Zombies

 

You gotta feel a bit bad for the high functioning biters. These guys may retain a little bit of their humanity, so with each bite of human flesh comes the bitter after taste of guilt. But as well as having the ability to feel guilty, the high functioners also have our ability to plan, use tools and communicate. To keep a leg up on these guys, think about training the following:

• Sprinting – Consider this scenario: you are making progress in communicating with your zombified loved one…they have a look in their glazed over eyes which suggests they are thinking twice about eating you…but then an idiot co-survivor makes a move that causes your zombie’s thirst for flesh to re-ignite. Having the ability to sprint away at ease will save your life and give you another attempt at taming your zombie.

• Vaulting and climbing – As you sprint away from the Zombies, you don’t want your epic survival story to come undone if your run into traps designed by high functioning Zombies. Learning to gracefully vault, climb and land around obstacles will greatly improve your chances in evading the clever zombies.

Zombie Scenario 3: Rise of the Rage Zombies

Rage Zombies are the complete doomsday scenario. Flesh hungry monsters who can run, jump and climb without a hint of humanity. They will stop at nothing to eat you. To fight these guys, you basically need to be Batman. Master every version of martial arts, acrobatics and survival training you can find!

Here’s hoping for the shufflers!

Rise against the risen!

Miss Ace