How That 'Extra .9%' Could Ward Off a Zombie Apocalypse

netbuzz writes "The questioner on Quora asks: 'When is the difference between 99% accuracy and 99.9% accuracy very important?' And the most popular answer provided cites an example familiar to all of you: service level agreements. However, the most entertaining reply comes from a computer science and mathematics student at the University of Texas, Alex Suchman. Here's his answer: 'When it can stop a Zombie Apocalypse.'"

Comments

That's not the question

[phantomfive]

The question isn't how to ward off the zombie apocalypse. The question is how could a zombie apocalypse realistically happen at all. Any explanation is a huge stretch.

Re:That's not the question

[Sussurros]

A zombie apocalypse happened in Britain and was shown in a BBC documentary by Derren Brown.

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

Well aren't you the genius.

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

There are parasites which take over a host and can cause it to do things, such as kill itself. It's not far fetched to think a parasite could cause it's host to go after the non-infected so that it may spread itself.

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

Any explanation is a huge stretch.

Bath salts are a huge stretch?

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

That's called the American Way.

Re:That's not the question

[Azure Flash]

Let's not research this too much shall we?

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

That's called the American labor union.

FTFY

Re:That's not the question

[Cryacin]

Well aren't you the genius.

The only difference between genius and insanity is that all the voices get along.

Re:That's not the question

[phantomfive]

por supuesto

Re:That's not the question

[wonkey_monkey]

A zombie apocalypse happened in Britain and was shown in a BBC documentary by Derren Brown.

I don't even know where to start pointing out what's wrong with that sentence.

Re:That's not the question

[lxs]

No Bath Salts are what happened to John McAfee i.e. going nuts and paranoid perhaps to the point of shooting your neighbor. Any connection to consuming shitty stimulants and actual flesh eating was and remains wild and unproven speculation.

Re:That's not the question

[Joce640k]

Start by looking at yourself in a mirror. Maybe you'll see something whooshing over your head.

Re:That's not the question

[rioki]

For example rabies. Sure the the infected are not "undead" but the world in 28 days later was not a fun place to be.

Re:That's not the question

[goose-incarnated]

The question isn't how to ward off the zombie apocalypse. The question is how could a zombie apocalypse realistically happen at all. Any explanation is a huge stretch.

Nope. Off of the top of my head I can come up with a few:

Viral hallucinogenic infection: causes humans to bite one another and pass it on. Long incubation period (10 days) causes mass infection before anyone realises whats happening.

Biological weapon gone wrong: causes humans to bite one another and pass it on.

Mutated bacteria in water supply: Causes humans to hallucinate, go feral and (you guessed it) bite one another and pass it on.

And that's just off of the top of my head - gimme a few days to think about it and I'll have a scarily realistic scenario. Of course, I've already written a short story about Zombies, and thus have already thought about it somewhat.

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

It can happen when we sell shiny plastic idevices to plastic ipeople and they spend all their time looking at them, thinking about them, buying new ones, comparing them, and ignoring the real world.

the zombie apocalypse has already started. we're just in generation one. People already can't go a single day without playing with their idevices. Most of them have forgotten how to drive. To walk. To talk to each other without pressing buttons and repeating one line memes and taglines.

Now imagine the children of the children today. they will be incapable of interacting with each other in the real world and will wander about like mindless drones.

they won't be looking for brains tho. or maybe they will. their own sure won't be doing much at all. and their state will be infectious.

It's only a matter of time until those not infected decide to start shooting to save themselves.

Re:That's not the question

[tehcyder]

Just because people bite other people doesn't make them zombies. If they're not undead, they're not zombies.

You can't write a story about a world where some weird virus makes people want to bite each other's necks and drink their blood and say it's about vampires. It's about a weird virus that makes people want to bite each other's necks and drink their blood.

Re:That's not the question

[AK Marc]

Yeah, because if you don't follow Vampire Canon, the vampire FBI will hunt you down and turn you.

Re:That's not the question

[91degrees]

Zombie apocalypse is just the writer being cute. This applies to any potential pandemic.

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

Might be possible to have a virus that made humans extra horny and go around kissing people (and thus spreading the virus).

Re:That's not the question

[Spy Handler]

Ok they sound plausible. However in all such cases, the zombie apocalypse would be very short lived - the infected humans simply wouldn't be able to survive very long.

There's a reason rabies didn't result in a rabies apocalypse...

Re:That's not the question

[goose-incarnated]

Just because people bite other people doesn't make them zombies. If they're not undead, they're not zombies.

You can't write a story about a world where some weird virus makes people want to bite each other's necks and drink their blood and say it's about vampires. It's about a weird virus that makes people want to bite each other's necks and drink their blood.

So, basically, whether or not they behave like zombies is irrelevant, they have to be literally be killed and then reanimated? Leaving aside the levitating goalposts, I can still work with that (off of the top of my head) in a plot involving a defib or similar. Human bodies are remarkably easy to bring back to life as long as certain constraints are adhered to ... for example the countdown time limit before reanimation. So .. the viral infection -> hallucinations part of symptoms -> host infects others via biting -> symptoms only show themselves after heart stops -> heart restarted.

No more goalpost moving - that's a realistic plot; adding constraints like "if they are reanimated then they are still not undead", or "The heart must stop and stay that way" is goal-post moving.

Re:That's not the question

[goose-incarnated]

Ok they sound plausible. However in all such cases, the zombie apocalypse would be very short lived - the infected humans simply wouldn't be able to survive very long.

There's a reason rabies didn't result in a rabies apocalypse...

Not a problem - increase incubation period to five years, make the change gradual over that time, make the blood infected (hence transmittable by sex or biting, etc) ... people who are bitten won't admit to it, they gradually get more aggressive over a five year period, transmitting the infection via either sex or biting.

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

in the author'z hypothesis, its airborne

Re:That's not the question

[MaskedSlacker]

I wish such an agency existed. Then we wouldn't have that sparkling bullshit.

Re:That's not the question

[deimtee]

It's not a virus, it's a parasitic protozoan that is common in cats.
It's called toxoplasmosis gondii and it makes men violent and women horny.
Rats also get it, and it makes them attracted to the smell of cat piss.

Re:That's not the question

[Pax681]

A zombie apocalypse happened in Britain and was shown in a BBC documentary by Derren Brown.

I don't even know where to start pointing out what's wrong with that sentence.

.. i do.. it was channel 4 for s start

Re:That's not the question

[Pax681]

No Bath Salts are what happened to John McAfee i.e. going nuts and paranoid perhaps to the point of shooting your neighbor. Any connection to consuming shitty stimulants and actual flesh eating was and remains wild and unproven speculation.

McAfee was into bath salts?.. i am pretty sure that with his budget and location at the time you suggest he could get better than bath salts pretty canned cheap................. you have any proof he was into bath salts or proof he shot his neighbour? any connection between what YOU have claimed and actual facts remain wild and unproven speculation... wouldn't you say???

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a bit like saying that functional software can only be achieved by adjusting all the bugs until they cancel each other out.

It's possible for somebody to be a genius by means of some abnormality. You can develop an amazing talent in one area and become a genius in that field by having a balance thrown off somewhere in your brain, and as a consequence you are lacking in some other attribute. That's a possible route to genius.

It's not the only type of genius. Seriously. It's possible to just be very smart, without anything else being wrong. I'm sure most people can think of at least a few examples. Some people have an amazing talent for comprehension and understanding, not just in their specialist field, but throughout their entire life, and it shows in most things they do.

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

My kingdom for mod points...

Re:That's not the question

[ceoyoyo]

If you want to be boring replace "test for zombification" with "mammogram for breast cancer."

Both are examples of why we have so few screening tests. That's why full body CT is detrimental when used as a screening test.

Re:That's not the question

[ceoyoyo]

Or any disease at all. What he's really pointed out is that you need to have an extremely specific test before you can even consider using it for screening. The textbook example is mammography.

Re:That's not the question

[glaurungn]

undoing bad mod

Re:That's not the question

[Miamicanes]

No, bath salts are what likely caused the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_cannibal attack last year (truly, one of those classic "only in Miami" incidents that horrify the world, and leave Dade County residents convinced that we live in an ever-so-slightly fucked up parallel universe where normal sanity doesn't necessarily apply.

The fact that John McAfee ended up in Miami is just a coincidence. Now, had McAfee's neighbor face been *eaten*...

Re:That's not the question

[jbengt]

i am pretty sure that with his budget and location at the time you suggest he could get better than bath salts

He was into designing and testing new psychoactive substances in his expensive lab, not buying them cheap off the street.

Re:That's not the question

[Hognoxious]

So, basically, whether or not they behave like zombies is irrelevant, they have to be literally be killed and then reanimated?

Yup. Otherwise they're just pseudozombies. Or zomboids, if you prefer.

Re:That's not the question

[leonardluen]

How about a bacteria that generate an electric charge similar to an electric eel. when they have a large enough population they are able to control the muscles in their host via this electric charge. this would potentially still work for a while after the host is clinically dead.

someone else can figure out how the bacteria can make a human keep their balance while walking.

Re:That's not the question

[Endo13]

Ok, so was the movie Zombieland about zombies or not?

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

i for one welcome our parasitically mind controlled horny women overlords.

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahahahaha. Can't believe this was rated flambait....

Re:That's not the question

[DragonDru]

I for dumber for having read TFA.
It could have been education if they had walked through the math for the kids in the audience.

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you didn't like the eye slash extensions and instant makeup associated with the transformation!? Oh!
And of course the teen angst driven drunken camera work of the first movie.

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

There are parasites which take over a host and can cause it to do things, such as kill itself. It's not far fetched to think a parasite could cause it's host to go after the non-infected so that it may spread itself.

The problem is that those parasites don't kill the host before they take control, and the hosts capabilities and vulnerabilities while controlled remain the same as when it was alive. "Zombies" of that sort could bleed to death for example, thus making them on the whole less of a threat than a regular riot (the paracite doesn't have the tactical abilities of an angry mob of humans). That's more consistent with the "mind control" genre than the zombie genre.

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you actually read the wikipedia entry you linked? It states that toxicology reports found no known bath salts. All it says is that police and a toxicologist claimed that his behaviour was consistent with someone who is using bath salts. That is anecdotal evidence and far from definitive. You could no more say that bath salts likely caused the incident than you could say that solar radiation of Cthulhu were the cause. Or, a more likely cause, is that he marijuana that was found in his system was contaminated. His behaviour could have been brought on by chemicals in the soil where the weed was grown or pesticides or artificial fertilizers that were used to grow it.

Also, and this is really the most important part here, unless the guy who was bitten dies and then reanimates and starts attacking people then he is not a zombie.

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

So, basically, whether or not they behave like zombies is irrelevant, they have to be literally be killed and then reanimated?

No, they must possess all the essential properties of the zombie horror genre:

1. Mindless, no possibility of rehabilitation
2. Able to remain animate with levels of damage impossible for a human (only killable by destroying the head/brain)
3. Able to spread their condition through biting
4. Eats the flesh of other humans but not other infected.

None of your ideas have addressed #2, and the laws of physics are strongly against you there. However without it you've got "zombies" that will die from a good chest wound, and would likely bleed out from a severed limb. Those are a lot less scary than the typical fictional zombie and most people wouldn't call them zombies.

Re:That's not the question

[Hunter Shoptaw]

Yes please, inform us of literally anyone in the world who held a genius level intelligence and didn't have something wrong.

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the running water bullshit and that Arithmomania bullshit.
I mean, short of sparkling, the Twilight vampires rank among the most bad ass: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vampire_traits_in_folklore_and_fiction#Weaknesses

Re:That's not the question

[iamhassi]

I for dumber for having read TFA. It could have been education if they had walked through the math for the kids in the audience.

here's the article for those who don't read: some anonymous computer science college kid explains why a test for zombie disease that's 99.9% accurate is better than a test that's 99% accurate. Why anyone cares what anonymous computer science college kid says about hypothetical zombie disease test is beyond me. April fools?

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

As another poster pointed out, "If they're not undead, they're not zombies". If someone's heart is beating then they are not undead and therefore not zombies. Goal posts remain in place.

Keep in mind that just because a persons heart stops beating and then starts beating again does not mean that they have died and then come back to life or reanimated. If you actually listen to the pattern of a heartbeat there are a few milliseconds between each beat where it's "not beating". That doesn't mean you die and then come back to life 60-100 times per minute. Likewise, if your heart stops beating for 30 seconds that still doesn't mean that you have died and come back to life.

I realize that to you, the difference between a "zombie" and "a person suffering from hallucinations who bites people and the bitten people then suffer from hallucinations and bite more people" is a semantic distinction but I still feel it's an important one to make. Namely because a zombie is a work of fiction and I believe it is best left in fiction. A person who suffers from a hallucinations brought on by mental health issues, disease, infection, or drugs should not be called a zombie. And more importantly they should not be treated like a zombie since the only treatment for a zombie is destruction of the brain. Violent behaviour from people suffering from hallunciations is a real-world problem, zombies are not. The former should be contained and treated in a manner that prevents harm to the person and people around them. The latter, however, should get a crossbow bolt to the face courtesy of Daryl Dixon.

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you see the movie "Blade?"

It was a vampire movie in which vampirsm was explained as viral activity in the blood.

So, apparently, you can do that.

Re:That's not the question

[Quirkz]

I think I smell a new Tuesday late-night independent channel crime drama! "Vampire FBI: Supernatural Victims Unit"

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a bit like saying that functional software can only be achieved by adjusting all the bugs until they cancel each other out.

That assumes that all voices are bugs. Personally, we do not consider that to be the case. Well, one of us does, but none of the rest of us do.

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually wonder if the old (read:pre-20th century) zombie concept is based on experiences with rabid patients.

A guy gets bit, becomes unreasonable, violent, etc. then uncoordinated, etc. During his violent outbursts, he bites someone who then catches rabies and slowly 'turns' just like the last guy.

A rabid person biting one or two others can easily end up with 20 or 30 "zombies" in a small town.

Re:That's not the question

[Anubis IV]

It's worth noting that the the effects they cause on humans are small enough that they are only detectable when measured across large samples of people, and even then, only to a very small degree. The last time I saw a study on it, the impact was something like a 1-2% difference in reported moods/tendencies across a sample of, I believe, around 100 people, and while I think the report said it was statistically significant, even they admitted that for any particular individual it's nearly impossible that you'd notice any differences between their mood before and after an infection.

Of course, the headline for the article where I first heard about the report was rather sensationalist in nature, and that's what everyone else picked up and ran with, rather than reading the actual findings from the report.

Re:That's not the question

[RobertNotBob]

Just my luck... This post comes along on a day where I actually HAVE mod points... but you're already at +5.

I'll just have to ""Friend"" you instead...

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but which one is which?

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

FACT: The only difference between genius and insanity is self control. So stop trying to exert your subconscious emotions by screaming over them!
That's what eye do and it works for are non-localized, relativistic, percept driven viewpoint of existence... :D

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

One is taking place in Ottawa as sure as we can be!

Re:That's not the question

[Artifakt]

Granted freely, but the majority of those parasites occur in insect hosts. The only exception I can think of is a parasitic isopod that causes a host fish's tongue to atrophy and the isopod resides in that spot as it grows. The fish may just arguably have a psychological change - that is, it may think that what is occasionally touching the roof of its mouth is still just its normal tongue. I don't know offhand how you would prove or disprove that.
            As to whether a 'zombie' inducing parasite is far fetched in 'higher' species though, isn't there something seemingly very odd about the concept of a tiny creature with at most a very limited nural system, trying to get evolutionary advantages out of controlling something that is normally controlled by a human grade brain? That's still assuming the host isn't actually damaged much by whatever caused its death, and that the body hasn't taken further damage by post death processes before the parasite can take over. From your post, I'm visualizing a tiny worm-like parasite spread by bite, and weighing, say half an ounce. Then I'm imagining it developing a five ounce brain, just to be able to control basic bodily functions in a case where the host has, say, suffered a broken arm during the zombie apocalypse, so it's smart enough to keep that host body walking without that broken arm flopping around, turning itself into a compound fracture with protruding bone ends, and causing the host to rapidly bleed out.
          When you try to come up with a naturalistic mechanism that could allow zombies as they are seen in movies, you end up with a lot of unexplained parts. When you stick to what seems reasonable by real science, you end up with something I wouldn't call a zombie, i.e. a host that has vital signs, appears more as though it was a rabid animal, at worst, rather than undead, and that would still be subject to death from blood loss if you shot it somewhere else besides the head.

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't write a story about a world where some weird virus makes people want to bite each other's necks and drink their blood and say it's about vampires.

Why yes, yes you can as described in numerous mainstream movies and stories about vampires. Get with the times!

(edit: captcha "corpse")

Re:That's not the question

[geekoid]

Me.

Re:That's not the question

[cyberchondriac]

You may have confused Derren Brown with Danny Boyle... ;-P
But if not, I wanna see that Derren Brown special, he does some seriously cool stuff. You know you're a good magician/mentalist when some people think you're the "real deal", (even when you admit you're not). I guess that makes him the Kreskin of the times.

Re:That's not the question

[geekoid]

Ignoring the fact you don't actually no much about the examples you give, lets look at the big picture.

In all case, after, say 100 people get it, people become aware that something is wrong and then take action.

"Viral hallucinogenic infection: "
Too slow.

"Biological weapon "
too vague. You might as well say 'magic happens'

"Mutated bacteria in water supply: "
so it survives the gut, not easy, gets into the blood system, then infects the brain?

Zombies are only a threat in a magic world were infects are instantaneous, and the walking dead don't rot, and no one takes action.
"and I'll have a scarily realistic scenario. "
no you wont.

Maybe you should learn how the human body works?

Re:That's not the question

[geekoid]

" Human bodies are remarkably easy to bring back to life as long as certain constraints are adhered to ."
you watch too many tv shows. The majority of attempts right at the moment of death fail.

"symptoms only show themselves after heart stops"
You are really underscoring your ignorance of how the human body work,. you should stop before you run right out of ignorant and into stupid.

" that's a realistic plot;"
no, no it is not. It's a fine hand wavy plot device for a story, or a game. Nothing more.

Re:That's not the question

[geekoid]

More magic hand waving.
Did you even think about that at all?

Now you moved the goalpost from biting to sex and biting. I would call you but you whined about goalpost moving earlier.

Anyways, that scenario would be pretty easy to stop.

You are emotional attached to your little pet idea. let it go.

Re:That's not the question

[Hunter Shoptaw]

What is that line about how only the sane know they're insane?

Re:That's not the question

[Hentes]

The reason rabies doesn't result in a zombie apocalypse is because humans react very differently to it than animals. Turns out a simple virus can't manipulate us the same way it does with nonsentient mammals.

Re:That's not the question

[operagost]

A crafty bacterium could use KWOP as a training simulator.

Re:That's not the question

[goose-incarnated]

Ignoring the fact you don't actually no much about the examples you give, lets look at the big picture.

Ok, lets do that - I don't normally argue with those who prefer to remain ignorant of biology, but what the hey - why not?

In all case, after, say 100 people get it, people become aware that something is wrong and then take action.

"Viral hallucinogenic infection: " Too slow.

I notice that you had to snip out the part I put in about lengthy incubation periods - perhaps you should read up on biology? Learn how it works?

"Biological weapon " too vague. You might as well say 'magic happens'

Well, bio weapons *do* exist, including hallucinatory ones. I'm sorry that you don't believe in that.

"Mutated bacteria in water supply: " so it survives the gut, not easy, gets into the blood system, then infects the brain?

Yes, much like many of the bacterial infections that abound now - survive the gut (certainly - our guts breed bacteria after all) and affect something else. Hit up wikipedia (I'm not going to do your homework for you) for the various bacterial shit that infects our guts.

Zombies are only a threat in a magic world were infects are instantaneous, and the walking dead don't rot, and no one takes action.

Actually, yes - zombies are fiction, but there's no reason to believe (as you seem to do) that it can only be by "magic" when natural examples for posthumous animation exist. I'm guessing you also believe in intelligent design too, right? After all, the arguments you are presenting are similar to "well, there's no missing link, so evolution is false!". (Yes, you read that right - plenty of experiments show that corpses can be animated).

"and I'll have a scarily realistic scenario. " no you wont.

Maybe you should learn how the human body works?

I know. My undergrad biology courses were wasted - dissecting frogs and so forth. Also, my medical research must have been wasted as well - I should have informed my past employer that they had no business employing me as a research scientist.

They should have listened to some random slashdotter spouting gibberish about human biology (hey, did you even cover the basics in school?)

Re:That's not the question

[steelfood]

Well aren't you the genius.

The only difference between genius and insanity is that all the voices get along.

99.9% of the time instead of 99% of the time.

Re:That's not the question

[operagost]

That explains why crazy cat ladies are not necessarily known for their horniness.

Re:That's not the question

[goose-incarnated]

More magic hand waving. Did you even think about that at all?

Now you moved the goalpost from biting to sex and biting. I would call you but you whined about goalpost moving earlier.

Anyways, that scenario would be pretty easy to stop.

You are emotional attached to your little pet idea. let it go.

Why are you following me around and throwing insults? Are you so insecure that you need to hurl insults? The only hand-waving being done is by people like yourself who constantly move goalposts - the original was "no way a zombie apocalypse could realistically happen". I pointed out a number of different ways that a "people-biting-each-other" apocalypse could happen. Then the morons with no biology under their belt crawl out of the woodwork to sputter (like you have) "but but but ... but they're not technically zombies, even if everyone calls them that because they resemble fictional zombies in all their physical characteristics!!!"

I think you should have just stayed in church for this one.

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

Dammit! Why couldn't I have read that before covering myself in cat piss?

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

I think there is not likely a relation. Zombies are and I believe have always been described as being slow and necrotic in appearance. A person suffering from rabies would not likely be slow moving nor would their flesh be necrotic. Also, human to human transmission of rabies is exceedingly rare and even among those cases is linked to transplants of infected organs or tissues and not biting.

Re:That's not the question

[Sussurros]

Yeah. Derren pulled out all the stops and actually got one man to believe that he was in the middle of a zombie apocalypse for days on end. It was a masterpiece, Derren's best work in my opinion.

Re:That's not the question

[Sloppy]

I think I understand what you're trying to protect, and I didn't like "28 Days Later" either. Romero's zombie is the ideal zombie and nothing else matches its perfection.

But nevertheless, if non-undead virus-altered humans are eating people, or non-undead virus-altered humans are sucking their blood, then it is reasonable for the characters in that story to call them zombies and vampires. If the "28 Days Later" scenario happens to you, nobody is going to give you shit for calling those things "zombies." When you say that word, it will be clearly understood.

Furthermore, your problems are going to be very similar to the problems endured by those living in the undead apocalypse in ways which are distinct from the Triffid scenario, or the Survivors or Captain Trips scenario, so I'm not just lumping all post-apocalypses together into one group and asking you to accept them all as zombie stories.

And if the characters in the story are running away from things they call "zombies" and which act like zombies, how isn't it a zombie story?

I think it's a valid zombie story. It's just different, and your emotions are probably triggered by the fact that "28 Days Later" was simply a bad movie made by people who didn't know how to operate cameras -- although you didn't actually mention that movie so maybe I'm projecting and grinding my own axe. ;-) If you want to subdivide the zombie scenario into classic slow Romeroesque undead (of course it's our favorite), faster, more dangerous O'Bannon undead, fast/reasonably-dangerous-as-individuals virals (28DL), and very dangerous virals (which I'll admit is different enough to be borderline; some of the problems become distinct), that's totally cool and I highly approve of you taking it seriously enough to have a refined taxonomy. People doing that are why we get to have our important Kirk-vs-Picard debates. But please, give the non-undead zombies their due.

Re:That's not the question

[SleazyRidr]

Haven't there been a few stories recently on the "no possibility of rehabilitation" part? When your M.O. is kill the zombies on sight, how are you ever going to know if you can help them?

Re:That's not the question

[Daetrin]

I guess you haven't heard of Toxoplasma Gondii then?

Re:That's not the question

[Anonymous Coward]

I tip my hat to you sir

Re:That's not the question

[rioki]

AFAIK the "original" zombies come from voodoo beliefs and in these cases it is undead. Not to be confused with the old beliefs about undead in Hunagary, where they stake their dead: Vampires.

Statistics 101

[blackicye]

An example we were given in my Intro to Stats module once upon a time used the Space Shuttle Program.

The numbers following the decimal point are very important when it might mean the difference between a Space Shuttle failing catastrophically instead of leaving / returning through the atmosphere intact.

And the vast differences in manufacturing costs between a 99.9%, 99.99% and 99.999% fault tolerant component and why
it would be necessary in the bigger picture of the complete system.

Re:Statistics 101

[cusco]

I read once that one of the most important things to come out of the entire Apollo program was the concept of 'zero defect manufacturing', which until then had only been possible in small custom workshops.

Re:Statistics 101

[girlinatrainingbra]

Yes, but the other key item is the incidence of "false positives" and "false negatives". Both of these incidences are very dependent upon the penetration of the disease in the general population in the first place. See the concept of sensitivity and specificity for more details.
.
But the summary is a test that is 99% accurate (for both true positives and true negatives) with the zombie incidence rate shown would have : the possibility that a positive test result being a true positive of only 1/6 = 16.66%

whereas a test that is 99.9% accurate would have

the possibility that a positive test result being a true positive of only 2/3 = 66.66%

for the incidence of Zombies (Mad Human disease) given in that student's example.

Re:Statistics 101

[Cryacin]

Unfortunately 'zero defect manufacturing' was quickly negated by 'rubber stamp testing' and 'austeric quality manufacture'

Re:Statistics 101

[sjames]

Which meshed perfectly with the epidemic of management 9 envy. Er, Um, SURE, the stapler is five nines, six sigma, ISO 9000, and CORBA compliant.

Re:Statistics 101

[Solandri]

Actually, the Challenger disaster hinged on a different failure in statistics. Originally the SRB segments were mated with 2 O-rings. Inspection of the SRBs after launch revealed the O-rings were failing at a higher than expected rate. So to mitigate the risk they redesigned the system and... added a 3rd O-ring. The reasoning was that if a single O-ring had a (say) 1% chance of failure, then two would have a .01^2 = .01% chance of failure, and three would have a .01^3 = .0001% chance of failure.

Unfortunately, that reasoning only works when the failures are independent events. If a single event (like cold weather) can cause the failure of one O-ring, it can also cause the failure of the other O-rings, so that failure mode is not independent. And your chance of all three O-rings failing is closer to 1% instead of 0.0001%.

Same thing happened at the Fukushima nuclear plant. They had something like a dozen diesel generators under the theory that even if a few failed to start, it was highly unlikely that all would fail to start. They completely missed the possibility that a single common event could cause all the generators to fail the same way.

Re:Statistics 101

[AK Marc]

Yeah, but if you say "zombie" then it's suddenly fun and interesting.

Re:Statistics 101

[stiggle]

Which is why you'd make the O-rings out of different compounds, and install no set with all the same type.
Locate the diesel generators in 2 or 3 power houses around the site.
2+ server rooms on site with replication between them (with additional replication off-site).

But how much resource do you throw at the problem? Its easy for us after the events to decide if NASA should have used O-rings of differing compounds or Fukashima have multiple power houses on different levels.

Re:Statistics 101

[drinkypoo]

Actually, the Challenger disaster hinged on a different failure in statistics.

Yes, the specification sheet for the O-Rings stated that they would fail in those conditions 100% of the time...

Re:Statistics 101

[digitig]

Which is why you'd make the O-rings out of different compounds, and install no set with all the same type.

Which still doesn't eliminate dependent failures, because the failure of one O-ring increases the stress on the next O-ring (particularly the burst of pressure as the first O-ring fails).

Locate the diesel generators in 2 or 3 power houses around the site.

Which doesn't eliminate dependent failures when the failures are due to a contaminated fuel delivery.

2+ server rooms on site with replication between them (with additional replication off-site).

Which doesn't eliminate dependent failures when the failures are due to common software running on all sites.

But how much resource do you throw at the problem? Its easy for us after the events to decide if NASA should have used O-rings of differing compounds or Fukashima have multiple power houses on different levels.

For that you could call me in. Working that out what I do for a living.

Re:Statistics 101

[Electrawn]

You do realize that the SRB bands were completely redesigned following Challenger? Not just add a third O ring and be done?

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/images/srb_mod_compare_3.jpg

A retainer band around the pins, longer pins, changing the mating feature (Clevis and Tang) from a U to more an S to further prevent gases from escaping. And joint heaters for cold weather.

Re:Statistics 101

[Anonymous Coward]

Your way off about the o-rings. There's video called the normalization of deviance. They go indepth about the challanger disaster, and yes, the o-rings are what failed. But the worst part was they lowered their standards, which is why it happened. After they discovered that the o-rings were begining to fail (which they thought could not happen under the conditions), they started running tests to simulate the conditions and tried to make the o-rings faill. When the test o-rings showed more resiliance, they decided it was ok to lower their standards on when they needed to be replaced, using them longer than the manufacturer had stated they were good for. Next thing you know, you got a flaming ball of left over shuttle streaking across the sky. The video is very good, about an hour long, and well worth a look. Here's a brief article if you're intrested which talks about it.

http://www.paci.com.au/downloads_public/risk/11_NormalisationOfDeviance.pdf

Re:Statistics 101

[Requiem18th]

Be the kind soul to explain me why a test that works in 99 out of 100 times in the lab only actually works 1/6th of the time when applied in the real world?

Re:Statistics 101

[Anonymous Coward]

there two types of failures- false positive (saying you're a z when you're not) and false negative (you're a z but we say you're not)
lets say 1/1000 people are z, our city has 1M population

then we have 1k zombies, with 10 falling through our test. (99%accuracy)

we have 999000 humans- 9990 humans would be identified as z (1% chance of mislabelling a human as a z)

so, our test identified 10980 zombies- of which only 990 are bona fide z!

Re:Statistics 101

[roc97007]

(Insightful content snipped.)

> Same thing happened at the Fukushima nuclear plant. They had something like a dozen diesel generators under the theory that even if a few failed to start, it was highly unlikely that all would fail to start. They completely missed the possibility that a single common event could cause all the generators to fail the same way.

It may not have been that simple. In that area tsunamis are fairly common. There are (according to articles, I've never been there) stones hundreds of years old along the shore line on which there are carved the Japanese characters for tsunami danger.

And so, according to one account, the designers of the nuclear plant had originally designed the generators (or at least some of them) to be elevated on towers above what was thought to be the maximum height a tsunami could reach.

And then there was a lawsuit claiming that a bunch of diesel generators on stilts would spoil the view of the ocean. So the idea was scrapped and the generators were built out at ground level.

The rest of the story you already know.

Re:Statistics 101

[Lemmeoutada Collecti]

Just think, if you are right 99.9% of the time, then you spend 8,640 seconds per day being wrong - or 2.4 hours.
If, however, you are right 99.9% of the time, then that reduces to 864 seconds, or 0.24 hours.

So based on that, I can only conclude that my wife is the 99.99% one and I am the 0.1% one.

Re:Statistics 101

[Samantha Wright]

Or, y'know, instead of hogging all of the test kits, you could just use the bad test twice on one person. If the chance of failure is fully independent, then you suddenly have a 99.99% accurate test. Even a test that's only partially independent is likely to yield better results than a single use of the 99.9 test when repeated—and in the real world, medical tests rarely give false positives consistently, especially for something as dramatic as the presence of an incubating pathogen.

Re:Statistics 101

[suutar]

The key factor is that the trait being tested is rare; only one in 500 people has it. In this case, the false positives can still be (substantially) more frequent than true positives.

Say you test 50,000 people. 100 have it, 49,900 don't. Of the 100 who have it, there will be 99 correct 'yes' results and one incorrect 'no' result. And of the 49900 who don't have it, there will be 49401 correct 'no' results and 499 incorrect 'yes' results.

So total, we have 598 'yes' results. But 499 of those are false positives, which is 83.4444%; only 16.5555% of the folks who test positive are really positive.

Re:Statistics 101

[cyberchondriac]

Your math is terrible. ;-p There are 86,400 seconds in a day. 1% of that 864 seconds, not 8,640. You calculated for 10%. 864/60 = 14.4. You'd only spend 14.4 minutes a day being wrong.

Re:Statistics 101

[Aspomwell]

1 out of 500 are actually infected. With a 99% accuracy, you would likely get 6 positives. Only 1 of whom is actually infected.

Re:Statistics 101

[Anonymous Coward]

Your math is terrible. ;-p There are 86,400 seconds in a day. 1% of that 864 seconds, not 8,640. You calculated for 10%. 864/60 = 14.4. You'd only spend 14.4 minutes a day being wrong.

14.4 minutes... plenty of time to write a slashdot post... :-)

Re:Statistics 101

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. That also is the reason why the toxic bonds of the 2008 crisis should never have been highly rated. They received a high rating because they came from independent sources; however, all sources had similar qualities, which resulted in failure in similar circumstances.

You've got cancer!

[complete loony]

A better answer; False positive medical tests.

Re:You've got cancer!

[sapphire wyvern]

Actually, that's pretty much the context that the zombie plague answer is given in.

Re:You've got cancer!

[Anonymous Coward]

You've been on WebMD about that cough again, haven't you?

Re:You've got cancer!

[eennaarbrak]

Spot on. I once spent some time (fruitlessly) trying to explain to a guy that a cheap test for HIV that has a false positive rate of 5% will be useful in sub-Saharan Africa (where the occurrence of HIV is around 10-20% of the population), but that very same test is useless in Scandinavia (where it will almost always report a false positive).

Re:You've got cancer!

[steelfood]

We all have cancer, just like we're all eventually going to die. It's a matter of whether it's under control or not.

Re:You've got cancer!

[geekoid]

Thanks to denial, I'm going to live forever. - Fry

Re:You've got cancer!

[Darinbob]

Except that if it really was known that a zombie apocalypse could result, they'd take the chance on the 99% test, thus curing one proto-zombie while harming five uninfected people (who won't all die). If it's the fate of all mankind, then should you quibble over that?

Morgan Freeman reading my obituary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the US military must have invented the eternal youth elixir as a side-effect of the Extermination day program.

Re:Morgan Freeman reading my obituary?

[lxs]

Morgan Freeman will outlive us all.
God is immortal you know.

Re:Morgan Freeman reading my obituary?

[dkleinsc]

I, on the other hand, am content to have Samuel L Jackson reading my obit.

Re:Morgan Freeman reading my obituary?

[OlRickDawson]

That didn't work for George Burns

Re:Morgan Freeman reading my obituary?

[MiniMike]

I'd rather have one of his great, great, great grandchildren read mine.

Re:Morgan Freeman reading my obituary?

[Anonymous Coward]

God is black, but god is also a she, so it can't be him.

Re:Morgan Freeman reading my obituary?

[Darinbob]

I know Halle Berry has millions of worshippers, but is she actually God?

Re:Morgan Freeman reading my obituary?

[Anonymous Coward]

She was a goddess some years ago. Today - not so much.

Shame on you Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't link to a blogspam site that rips off the entire original article's content - link to the original site.

Re:Shame on you Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't link to a blogspam site that rips off the entire original article's content - link to the original site.

Think of it as a tribute to Roland.

Re:Shame on you Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't link to a blogspam site that rips off the entire original article's content - link to the original site.

Think of it as a tribute to Roland.

Roland Roland Roland
Keep those posts Roland
Rawhide

Re:Shame on you Slashdot

[dkleinsc]

For those kids who don't know what that's all about: Back about 5 years ago, Roland Piquepaille, an enthusiastic tech writer, was submitting dozens of stories a day to Slashdot, and they were all linking back to his blog. The suspicion was that he was trying to increase his blog's Google rank and advance his career by piggybacking on /.'s relatively good reputation.

Roland died in 2009, so this is a bit of a dated joke.

Re:Shame on you Slashdot

[larry bagina]

Quora started out as a useful q/a site but they're now expert sex change 2.0. I.e., if you don't log in, you can only view the first answer. They've also done some questionable things wrt privacy (the founder is a former facebooker) like showing a list of all questions you've read.

Just Let It Die

[ButchDeLoria]

This zombie fad is getting worn out. Just stop it, stop referencing it, stop producing zombie-related media, just STOP.

Re:Just Let It Die

[wonkey_monkey]

Just Let It Die

I'm trying, but it just keeps coming back!

This zombie fad is getting worn out. Just stop it, stop referencing it, stop producing zombie-related media, just STOP.

Alternatively, you could stop trying to be the arbiter of what is good and worthy and just indulge in the media you do enjoy. I'm very sorry* if you feel marginalised by those who have an interest in all things undead and shambling, but no-one's actually forcing to watch The Walking Dead or Jersey Shore.

*I'm not really

Re:Just Let It Die

[ButchDeLoria]

But people are liking things that I don't like!

Re:Just Let It Die

[lxs]

But but but, I want to dehumanize my neighbors to the point where I can treat them to shotgun blasts without feeling guilt.

Re:Just Let It Die

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but only a zombie apocalypse actually happening can make it go away.

Re:Just Let It Die

[Anonymous Coward]

Just Let It Die

I'm trying, but it just keeps coming back!

This zombie fad is getting worn out. Just stop it, stop referencing it, stop producing zombie-related media, just STOP.

Alternatively, you could stop trying to be the arbiter of what is good and worthy and just indulge in the media you do enjoy. I'm very sorry* if you feel marginalised by those who have an interest in all things undead and shambling, but no-one's actually forcing to watch The Walking Dead or Jersey Shore.

*I'm not really

Fron Smalltown New Jersey : The Walking Shore.

Re:Just Let It Die

[cbiltcliffe]

Just Let It Die

How? It's already dead.

Re:Just Let It Die

[TimHunter]

Congratulations! You just won the Slashdot Sourpuss Prize. The award used to be a b.j. from the supermodel of your choice, but we realized you'd just think of something to gripe about it so we quit giving it out. Enjoy your fame.

Re:Just Let It Die

[BenEnglishAtHome]

...you could stop trying to be the arbiter of what is good and worthy and just indulge in the media you do enjoy.

I can take that attitude towards media but the GP has a point. It's spread past mere "media".

Offhand example - Many makers of firearms and accessories have taken up the whole "zombie marketing" angle. One manufacturer took a normal-priced line of cartridges, changed the packaging to something featuring drippy fonts and garish green and red colors, re-named the line "ZombieMax", and seriously jacked up the price. The stuff immediately started flying off the shelves. (And this was way before Newtown.)

The power of marketing gimmicks is sometimes a serious blow to my faith in the reasoning skills of my fellow humans.

Re:Just Let It Die

[Anonymous Coward]

Just Let It Die

How? It's already undead.

FTFY!

Re:Just Let It Die

[roc97007]

> I'm very sorry* if you feel marginalised by those who have an interest in all things undead and shambling, but no-one's actually forcing to watch The Walking Dead or Jersey Shore.

I think you nailed it. Jersey Shore is The Walking Dead with better make-up.

But seriously, the existence of these shows (Walking Dead: soap opera with zombies. Game of Thrones: soap opera with swords. Battlestar: Soap opera with spaceships. Revolution: Soap opera with flintlocks) makes me sad, but I don't begrudge their existence. It's more reason for me to turn off the TV and do something productive. It's all good, really.

I do think the OP has a point, though. It's challenging to get away from zombie discussions, even on purported technical forums.

Re:Just Let It Die

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no, there are shows that have characters, and the characters have conflicts! It's a soap opera!

Put down that schlocky Larry Niven novel, neckbeard. By the kind of criteria you're apparently using, everything Shakespeare wrote was a "soap opera."
  "Soap opera" is a show that borrows the form of the great operas, with a broad cast of characters dealing with intrigue and rivalry between them, and puts it into a daily television form with soap commercials interrupting every now and then. It doesn't mean they're not any good (though that's generally true) even if you think it does. And Game of Thrones doesn't even have any fucking commercials to hawk soap or anything else.
  You suffer from a form of cultural snobbery.

Re:Just Let It Die

[roc97007]

We've discussed this before in slashdot, and we're not going to solve it here. The issue is characters behaving stupidly, or performing actions that no reasonable person would do, or if necessary behaving out of previously established character, or the "character" is an amalgam of whatever is necessary to be contentious, all characteristics of which have the sole goal of continuing the melodrama. But again, I am not yet required to watch any of these shows, so it's not really an issue. I don't understand why people watch Survivor either. Shrug.

Re:Just Let It Die

[dlingman]

Battlestar wasn't a soap opera - it was a SPACE Opera. Yeesh. Difference should be obvious.

In space, noone can smell your reek.

Re:Just Let It Die

[Anonymous Coward]

Or... given that pepole are still referencing it and producing zombie-related media, maybe it isn't worn out? Maybe you're the problem? Maybe you could just ignore zombie-related media and get on with your life?

I dunno. Just an idea. Based on, y'know, you not being the boss of everyone.

Re:Just Let It Die

[geekoid]

Another example of the violent stupid giving money for any excuse for the possibility to be violently stupid.

Re:Just Let It Die

[roc97007]

Battlestar wasn't a soap opera - it was a SPACE Opera. Yeesh. Difference should be obvious.

In space, noone can smell your reek.

My humble apologies. You are correct.

Re:Just Let It Die

[cyberchondriac]

.. but no-one's actually forcing you to watch Jersey Shore.

LOL!
How does their mantra go, "Gym, Tan, Laundry, Braaaainss..."
Well, if you are what you eat, that can't be right.

Re:Just Let It Die

[Darinbob]

I'll take a soap opera any day over a reality show.

Re:Just Let It Die

[Anonymous Coward]

This zombie fad is getting worn out. Just stop it, stop referencing it, stop producing zombie-related media, just STOP.

No, *you* stop it!

Invalid reasoning.

[Alex Belits]

1. 1 in 500 infection rate was not included in the initial premise or anywhere in the article itself, but used in calculations in footnotes.
2. Decision, to administer or not to administer the cure in the case of zombie apocalypse was determined by an arbitrary criterion by an author. In reality, it would matter if the author calculated the possible outcome of detection and administering cure at maximum available rate, vs. spread of infection at its (supposedly proportional to the density of zombies) rate.
3. Zombie apocalypse is not a realistic scenario. A zombie apocalypse with disease spreading through the air is not even known fictional scenario.

This is how you DON'T WRITE THINGS, be they fictional, or non-fictional, and it's certainly how you don't write things that involve math.

Re:Invalid reasoning.

[rioki]

The epidemic has become so widespread that population experts estimate one in every five hundred humans has been zombified.

Reading comprehension is not one of your strong points?

not even known fictional scenario

Although not technically zombies, in "I am Ledgend" (movie and book) the infection spreads by air.

Can't refute point 2. But I think the epidemiology here is somewhat more complicated in all other cases. Can enough cure be produced to counter the spread? Can enough tests be produced? You you have enough bullets? What about Madagascar?

Re:Invalid reasoning.

[Xest]

"A zombie apocalypse with disease spreading through the air is not even known fictional scenario."

Isn't that how it works on The Walking Dead? Given that you turn into a zombie on that show if you die even if you were never bitten? That's the implication I took away from it - that it was an airborne disease that simply infects you and then turns you when you die.

Re:Invalid reasoning.

[Anonymous Coward]

"A zombie apocalypse with disease spreading through the air is not even known fictional scenario."

Do games count as fiction? From what I understand in the "Left 4 Dead" series the "green flu" can spread (though the details are a bit fuzzy) by air. The characters in the game are some of the few humans with a natural immunity, hence the reason they are still alive while walking through heavily infected areas. In that series they are even immune to bites & scratches, it should be noted though that I do not think the "zombies" from that series are "undead zombies". They can be killed with (a lot of) chest shots. They are simply insanely violent, don't feel pain, and want to eat you.

Re:Invalid reasoning.

[larry bagina]

So, in a population of 500 people, 1 is infected. The test (99%) will finger 5 people, 4 of them are false positives. He then claims it's no good because 4 will die so 1 can live.

But it's really 4 dying vs 496 living.

Or, you could just isolate and lock them up for a couple days. 1 dies (as he would) and 4 are inconvenienced a bit.

Is it statistics or the contagion that makes people stupid?

hm

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't anyone getting bored of the whole "Zombie Apocalypse" thing? (You know, where something is funny because it references "Zombie Apocalypse"?).

Anyway, zombie apocalypse!!

I think we should all..

[maroberts]

go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over.

This zombie fad is getting worn out. Just stop it, stop referencing it, stop producing zombie-related media, just STOP.

That's not the question either

[Anonymous Coward]

It's probably of deep significance for cultural anthropologists where this zombie meme came from, but I'm actually sick&tired of the whole thing. Zombies == instant unfunny guarantee.

Re:That's not the question either

[tehcyder]

It's probably of deep significance for cultural anthropologists where this zombie meme came from, but I'm actually sick&tired of the whole thing. Zombies == instant unfunny guarantee.

What's worrying is not so much that there's a stupid meme, but that people can even begin to try to rationalise it and behave as though it could actually happen.

Personally, I just think it's feeding the insane "survivalist" mentality that is spreading like a virus through the US. Oh, wait...

Re:That's not the question either

[Anonymous Coward]

"Zombie" preparation is really just arming up against tough human opponents (what sort of humans can't be reliably brought down with a shot to the chest?) while keeping things light hearted and not all ruby ridge. Then the internet autists got ahold of it and took the zombie part seriously

Re:That's not the question either

[Sarten-X]

...people can even begin to try to rationalise it and behave as though it could actually happen.

It's also an educational opportunity. I occasionally do mentoring, and I've used zombies as a good example for a worst-case scenario for emergency preparedness. It provides a good narrative to cover a wide variety of situations where everything's gone wrong, without entering into a ridiculous movie-plot-specific series of impossibly unlikely events. By starting out with the assumption that we're already in a worst-case scenario, where the survivor is one of only a few to survive an epidemic, it's not a terribly large stretch to assume that the car won't start, or that there's a storm coming, or that an earthquake has broken gas lines, and the survivor can't rely on government services.

Speaking of how impossible a zombie is, the zombie apocalypse also provides some ironically humane ways to discuss epidemiology, biology, medicine, and ethics, because pop-culture zombies are a convenient infection without suffering. The actual conversion process is rarely a focus in stories, and once the zombie is a zombie, they're too mindless to even fear harm. They just keep wandering, not even bothering to eat regularly... which brings us to discussing chemistry and thermodynamics.

Personally, I just think it's feeding the insane "survivalist" mentality that is spreading like a virus through the US. Oh, wait...

Jokes aside, we don't have any Communists or Nazis today to worry about, or Confederates, or British, or Spanish, or Visigoths, or Persians, or even rival tribes. We do have terrorists to fear, but there aren't any terrorists likely to launch a full occupation of the US. The survivalist mentality has always been here, but now we don't have any looming evil that we need to survive. While minor emergencies (such as those requiring the aforementioned preparedness) may happen, the barbarians aren't at the gate. They're in their living rooms, shouting insults into their XBox.

Re:That's not the question either

[Anonymous Coward]

I am one of these people that you have so arbitrarily labeled as having a survivalist mentality. Volcanoes, sinkholes, children murdering and raping other children, wars, nuclear threats every day, economical collapse world-wide, and not to mention the very basic fact that most of the people in america just blow-and-go through their lives, as though this version of america will last forever.

So although I agree with you about there not being any actual brain-eating zombies, and I also agree that the zombies are more likely going to be the result of idiots degrading into larger idiots, I feel that to negate all surrounding elements of danger and alerts to be the actual zombies here, following what they wish to be life, even though there is no sign around them that things will just suddenly turn around 180 from the way they've been going over the last 20 years. That's just silly.

The world needs to change, and it's not going to change in a good way by following the current way of life. You tell me how many people you know that suddenly after 30+ years of eating wheat, are suddenly allergic to it. Fuck man, wheat's in *a lot* of stuff that we eat in america. You like the things that they're doing with food modification, cool. I'm not, because I'm one of these people that suddenly became allergic to wheat, and I know several others. Funny, we all started this allergy around the same time, within 2 months of each other. That's forced me to look into my diet. In doing so, I have been forced into learning about different properties of the food that we buy from the stores, and how it's grown. it's all started a change in me to grow my own food. Does that make me a survivalist? Fuck man, if you eat food, does that make you a survivalist?

Stop playing into this idea that everyone is crazy. We're all experiencing this together, and if we don't embrace each other, we're all going to continue to get further apart until we cannot exist without constant conflict. We're close to that, but some of us are hopeful that by in large, people are good and are struggling to have inner freedom that we all strive for.

Re:That's not the question either

[Zeromous]

It's also a wonderful stand-in for all aspects of a real Pandemic emergency.

It's really the perfect pandemic hypothetical, which is why you see people preparing for Zombie Apocolypse. (read: any and all eventualities resulting from infectious disease significant enough to halt modern civilization).

Re:That's not the question either

[Anonymous Coward]

Zombies come from a fear of the mob, more generally a fear of a mindless, right-wing fascist mob that hates minorities and anyone who's different from themselves. They long to make the world completely homogenous and shut down all contrary thought, by violent means.
    This explains why zombie movies are more popular when people are voting Democrat; when they vote Republican, it's all about the vampire movies.
  Vampires, of course, are arrogant cultural elitists from Europe with funny accents and "unconventional" sexual habits who long to control people, steal our women, and suck the life out of us. Most of them snuck into the country during the night, too. They are the embodiment of the "east coast liberal parasites" that the right wing is always on about.

Re:That's not the question either

[Artifakt]

It's a useful hypothetical for training. For example, I just recently saw a bit of some TV show about firefighters, where they were trying to rescue a trapped person in a warehouse accident, and some worker there assured them none of the materials stored there were flammable. They got out an acetylene torch to cut the trapped person free of fallen shelves and such, and found out the hard way the worker was wrong. Zombie scenarios give the designer an excuse to present the trainees with lots of people who won't cooperate (i.e. the parents who have locked zombie Little Suzie in the basement rather than reporting her, hopeing it's just a phase she's going through), or who can't cooperate (the living but injured man who the trainees supposedly should identify as not a zombie even though he is blood splattered and staggering). There are plenty of other ways to craft a tough scenario, for example having some people play-act as though they don't speak any language the trainees try.
            I've got mixed feelings about using zombies in training scenarios. First, the usual goal of such training is supposedly best met by 'tough, realistic scenarios', and zombies may add to the tough part but they certainly take away from the realistic part. Second, it involves dehumanising part of the problem set, so it's somewhat like older era military training, where the enemy was called gooks or ckinks or whatever. A realistic scenario might be a post-disaster confrontation with survivors who are from a minority population and that don't trust the civil authorities. Using zombie scenarios in such ways sends a seriously wrong message.

Re:That's not the question either

[Zeromous]

I think it sends the right message. IN this scenario, other people are not your friends. If you don't heed this warning or possibility, you will be one of the dead ones.

Re:That's not the question either

[geekoid]

"and I've used zombies as a good example for a worst-case scenario for emergency preparedness"

You use a scenario where the best way to survive is killing others. Pretty pathetic.
The people around need to be brought together and work for survival.
Train how to do that safely, and you have chance at long term survival of the tribe/species.

Every generation has barbarians at their gates, there are called 'kids'.

Re:That's not the question either

[BranMan]

The benefit of using zombies in a training scenario is that they are NOT part of any cultural group. Think political correctness - who can be ticked off about a training scenario with zombies? No one. Who can be ticked off by anything else you mentioned ? That's right - someone will.

Re:That's not the question either

[Sarten-X]

Zombies don't necessarily have to imply an each-man-for-himself festival of backstabbing. Zombies just make a nice set of boundary conditions and backstory.

• You're camping on a mountain with two others, and one of your party has just sprained his ankle pretty badly. You have your smartphone, but calling 911, you are greeted by the groans of the undead. Get your whole party to the safety of the cars in the woods below.
• A horde of zombies has damaged the building you've been hiding in. and it's starting to collapse. Going outside is lethal, of course, but you may be able to survive the building's collapse if you're in a sturdy-enough place. Find or build one with these common household supples.
• You've escaped the horde by taking a makeshift raft down a river, but it falls apart in some rapids. Getting to shore is unlikely, though probably safe once you get there... but you have to survive the rapids first.
• In your haste to escape the Canadian zombies (They're like regular zombies, but they want "bbbbrrrraaaaiiiinnnnssss, eh?"), you escaped in a car with a full tank of gas, but very little traction, and now you're stuck in foot-deep snow on the side of the road. The horde is coming after you, and they'll likely find you before a tow truck does.
• The zombie menace hasn't hit your city yet, but the panic has. Rioters and looters have run rampant, and fires are spreading uncontrolled. You still have some valuable supplies, but you and your significant other need to find a safe place to spend the night before escaping the city.

Of course, these are plain old boring preparedness scenarios, just dressed up a bit. Rather than trying to justify that the survivor has to think for themselves by saying "911 isn't available in this area" or "there's a really bad storm outside", or "you were in a hurry and didn't load your snowmobile in your pickup truck", it's zombies. Zombies are just versatile stand-ins for the big bad anything, and they make the exercise a bit more memorable than a bog-standard lecture on preparedness.

Re:That's not the question either

[bdwebb]

Damn fine point. We should do Zombie Apocalypse war games in S Korea.

Re:That's not the question either

[operagost]

what sort of humans can't be reliably brought down with a shot to the chest?

Ones wearing body armor or under the influence of certain drugs.

Re:That's not the question either

[volmtech]

The term now is "prepper". We are prepping for the economic collapse. If the EBT system goes down millions of people will have no way to buy food. How long can the US government run trillion dollar deficits? We stock food for when the stores are emptied out and guns to keep non peppers away.

Promotion?

[Zemran]

Is this supposed to get us interested in Quora? If so, it failed. If this is an example of the level of intellectual masturbation on Quora now I will continue to stay away from that boring site.

Re:Promotion?

[naroom]

If this is an example of the level of intellectual masturbation on Quora now I will continue to stay away from that boring site.

As opposed to Slashdot, where we discuss posts about blogs about Quora answers. Much more interesting..

Re:An even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Trolls trolling trolls trolling trolls trolling trolls...

I look forward to the day that the Universe Simulator prunes such as you from its computational domain.

Poor judgement in TFA

[GauteL]

"You can't justify subjecting 5 people to the negative effects of the cure in order to save one zombie, so your discovery is completely useless."

No. You would administer it and risk killing many healthy humans, because the alternative is certain annihilation of the human race.

The premise of the story is fine though. Although my zombie analogy would be the difference between a 99% chance of no zombie outbreak in a year vs. a 99.9% chance. The former would mean a 37% chance of a zombie free century. The latter would mean a 37% chance of a zombie free millennium.

Re:Poor judgement in TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

How does 99% over 100 years work out to only 63%? Either I've completely forgotten statistics, or your math is screwy somewhere.

Re:Poor judgement in TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

how about running the test twice or more ?

Re:Poor judgement in TFA

[Kvasio]

is anyone outside USA (and not exposed to horror movies) really worried about zombie apocalypse? Really?!

Re:Poor judgement in TFA

[Too Much Noise]

How does 99% over 100 years work out to only 63%?

P(no zombies in 100 years) = p(no zombies in year 1)* ... * p(no zombies in year 100)
= p(no zombies per year)^100 = 0.99^100 = 0.36603... or about 36.6%

similar for the second case, 0.999^1000 = 0.36769... or about 36.8%

I suppose the better illustration of probabilities would be:
99% for a zombie-free year = 36.6% for a zombie-free century
99.9% for a zombie-free year = 90.5% for a zombie-free century
99.99% for a zombie-free year = 99% for a zombie-free century

Re:Poor judgement in TFA

[Too Much Noise]

Even poorer judgment, in fact, as his probability calculation relies on an actual rate of infection of 1 in 500. For such a highly contagious disease the rate of infection will grow (well, duh!) So if 1 in 500 gives about 83% false positives, when the infection rate reaches 1 in 50 the false positive chance drops to 33% and for 1 in 5 to 4%.

So indeed 99% is quite good for a high contagion rate, not so good for low contagion and useless for something that's exceedingly rare (for a disease that affects only one person in 10000 a test that has a 99% detection rate will have 99% false positives)

Re:Poor judgement in TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a bigger flaw is: The article fails to consider the change in infection rate. Suppose you refuse to administer the cure when there is a 83% chance of false positive. As the pandemic spreads, more and more people are infected and the infection rate goes up. When 1 in 50 people is infected (2%), the false positive rate becomes 33% and the drug becomes feasible.

Re:Poor judgement in TFA

[Too Much Noise]

... and of course this uses his assumption for the chance of false positives, which is basically ... wrong. Quite embarrassing for a math student, since instead of stating it as an independent variable (as he should have) he assumes that

P(test positive | not infected) = 1 - P(test positive | infected)

where in fact the right hand side is P(test negative | infected), quite a different thing from the left hand side.

If otoh your zombie test has 0 false positives, that .9% will be irrelevant as anyone flagged positive by the test is in fact infected so you'll not be administering the cure to healthy people.

Re:Poor judgement in TFA

[Kelerei]

Even poorer judgment, in fact, as his probability calculation relies on an actual rate of infection of 1 in 500. For such a highly contagious disease the rate of infection will grow (well, duh!) So if 1 in 500 gives about 83% false positives, when the infection rate reaches 1 in 50 the false positive chance drops to 33% and for 1 in 5 to 4%.

That said, one could argue that then the infection rate reaches those levels, it would be too late for the cure.

In fact, it may be able to prove (or disprove) this with the equations of motion that we learned back in elementary physics (here's a refresher if you've forgotten them). Substitute velocity with rate of infection, acceleration with how the rate of infection grows, and displacement with number of people infected (obviously, time stays as is), and you'd have a pretty decent starting point. Now, we just need to get Randall Munroe on this.

(Disclaimer: the "too late for cure" statement above obviously excludes Will Smith.)

Re:Poor judgement in TFA

[ceoyoyo]

You've just made the third most popular statistical error. Multiple measurements on an individual are almost certainly not independent. That is, if the test gives a false positive the first time, it's much more likely to give a false positive the second time.

Re:Poor judgement in TFA

[ceoyoyo]

I didn't read his math because I'm not registering for a Quora account, but from what his text describes he's come up with the right answers. I think you've got your conditional probabilities the wrong way around.

He states early on that the test is 99% accurate, with equal sensitivity and specificity. 99% specificity implies a 1% false positive rate.

it's what remains that counts

[Kvasio]

putting it on completely different subject: if a filter stops 99% of pollutant, you get 10x pollutant unfiltered when compared to the filter with 99.9% efficiency and 100x than with filter of 99.99% efficiency.

Is Slashdot Run by 12 Year Olds Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. This garbage is NOT what brought people here. It IS what will drive people away!

Re:Is Slashdot Run by 12 Year Olds Now?

[ceoyoyo]

Does it drive away people who aren't bright enough to recognize a real world problem illustrated with an entertaining example but decide to bitch about it anonymously instead?

We are

[Anonymous Coward]

the zombie apocalypse

The maths don't work - prior not static

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a minute....this doesn't follow! As more and more people become infected the priors change, and applying the test becomes rational!

Furthermore, unless there is P(death) = 1 from the cure, then taking the cure is still preferable to waiting a few weeks for the inevitable end, especially if it has ongoing immunitative effects on at the actual zombie (you can't be infected twice).

Brains

[meta-monkey]

I was with him until he said one of the perks of being the plague-stopping hero was having your biopic narrarated by Morgan Freeman, when I'd obviously much rather have Zombie Morgan Freeman doing the VoiceOver.

"Brains. My, my, my, some sweet delicious brains would be mighty fine indeed. Brains."

You know you just read that with Morgan Freeman's voice in your head.

Re:Brains

[nightfury]

Admittedly, halfway through, I went from Morgan Freeman to Anthony Hopkins. "Thpthpthpthpthpthpthpthpthpthp."

Re:An even better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

We are all atheists, comrade, we don't believe in your Christian bullshit. Once America is gone, the whole Christiandom will be gone. Except the Orthodox branch in Soviet Russia, where it helps us keep the population in control.

uh... 99 vs 99.9 seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

if you were going to discuss 99.99 vs 99.999 maybe there'd be something interesting here, but the difference between 99 and 99.9 is significant. Didn't you ever see the Matrix movies?

why is everyone sitting so gingerly on the thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it because the joints are made of wax and subject to breakage unless you are a skinny person who doesn't plop down?

Who buys a chair that is only used eight times and self destructs?

I suppose this might work in Germany in a sex shop. I have heard that some people enjoy hot wax on their body parts. Then you would only have a 1 in 8 chance of catching something at the most.

Buy his used car -- 99% chance it won't break down

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I have to question their definition of 99% accurate for positives and negatives, where you test someone, it's positive, and somehow you only have a 16.6% chance of being right.

News, what?

[warGod3]

Let me make sure I have this correct, these guys wrote something to address 99% versus 99.9% applying it to a zombie apocalypse?

Are you kidding me?

Wow... so if I demonstrate 99.9% vs 99.99% vs 99.999% about the forthcoming alien invasion, would someone make a big deal out of that?

Re:Buy his used car -- 99% chance it won't break d

[Lithdren]

Just because it's not intuitive doesn't mean it's not true.

Plenty of people already pointed out how this works above, try reading sometime, you can learn some amazing things.

Hmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Clinical trials indicate that your test is 99% accurate (for both true positives and true negatives). Remembering your college statistics course, you run the numbers and determine that someone testing positively will have Mad Human only 16.6% of the time [1]."

If you tell me that your test is 99% accurate, it had better mean that 99 out of every 100 cases it'll give me an accurate result, not 16.6 out of every 100 times.

Re:Hmm.

[larry bagina]

As they say, lies, damn lies, and statistics.

His math is based on 1/500 (.2%) being infected. So you test 500 people and 6 people (1% of 499 + 99% of 1) test positive. But 5/6 of them are false positives and only 1/6 is a true positive (16%).

What about the 99% (495) that were found to be infection free? He wants to ignore that and pretend it has no value.

Consider this: You go out clubbing. There are 500 hot girls at the club and you know that 1 of them is a dude in drag. 99% of men have an adams apple but only 1% of women have adams apple (Hmm, maybe the zombie apocalypse is a more accurate scenario for slashdot...)

Anyhow, a girl asks if you want to hook up. If she doesn't have an adams apple, you know she's a girl. But if she does have an adams apple, there's a 16% chance she's a dude. You don't want to have sex with a dude. But if you accuse a chick of being a dude, she won't hook up.

Statistics guy would go home and masturbate. Real world guy would hook up with a chick that doesn't have an adams apple.

Re:Statistics 101 (O-rings)

[Tablizer]

And why just settle on one letter? Also have P-rings and Q-rings and R-rings etc. to cover more of the alphabet to distribute risk.

So who works our solutions to the ...

[Anonymous Coward]

So who works our solutions to the Engrish-Dependent problems?

"Working that out what I do for a living."

I think I know what you mean, but you know what happens in risk assesment and planning when you ASS--U--ME!

Does that translate?

Re:So who works our solutions to the ...

[digitig]

What happens in risk assessment when you assume is that you have to state, justify and validate the assumptions (once they're more than a baseline level of assumption, such as "the laws of physics, as we understand them, will continue to apply").

Or perhaps you were just pointing out that my posts on /. don't go through the multiple levels of peer review and editorial review that my safety work does? :)