The Inquisitr » zombies

Left 4 Dead 2 more like Lag 4 Dead 2, amirite

Chris Greenhough — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:52:04 +0000

Well, this sucks. As I’m in the UK, I’m yet to receive my copy of Left 4 Dead 2 (hurrrry up, Royal Mail), but already people are complaining about an enemy feared by every gamer: lag. BOYCOTT!!

Specifically, it seems to be happening in the Xbox 360 version of the game. Has Valve underestimated how many people want to try and survive the zombie apocalypse?

Played online, the first Left 4 Dead ran with nary a hitch, but MTV’s Locke Webster reckons the 4v4 versus campaign is truly lagalicious:

“Every single person in the room displayed the lowest possible latency rating, and we were all jumping about and shooting rather aimlessly. We quickly exited and started up a new match, and that worked just fine.”

Yikes. Webster went on to reveal that he encountered seriously bad lag while playing a campaign alone: “I’m talking about at least a second between my input and response on screen.” Valve has apparently already released a patch for the game – possibly to deal with poor latency, nobody knows for sure – but here’s hoping it continues to address this issue.

Like, before I play, please.

[Via MTV Multiplayer]

Social media in a zombie apocalypse

Kim LaCapria — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:44:20 +0000

Similar to the plot of Diary of the Dead, a College Humor post imagines that in the event of a zombie apocalypse, the spreading horror would be blowing up Twitter and Facebook.

Add some zombie love to your target practicing

Steven Hodson — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:56:20 +0000

Zombies are everywhere and now you can even have them help you sharpen up your shooting skills. After all who needs the same old boring bull’s-eye or silhouette targets at the range when you can have your very own zombie target.

These full color targets are 23” x 35” and come in a total of five different zombie plus extra brain targets.

hat tip to geekologie

There’s zombie fun and then there’s scarring your child for life

Steven Hodson — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:15:00 +0000

Sure this whole zombie thing is kind of fun but at some point people get too carried away an this is one of those people.

Sorry but this is neither funny or right.

No related posts.

Canadian Mathematicians predict rise and fall of the Zombie apocalpyse

Paul Short — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 16:04:56 +0000

In the ultimate intersection of mathematics and pop culture, a group of mathematicians at the University of Ottawa, Canada, have published a paper modelling infectious disease outbreaks. The disease they use as an example? Zombiism.

Philip Munz, Ioan Hudea, Joe Imad and Robert J. Smith, have published “When Zombies Attack! Mathematical Modelling of a Zombie Outbreak!”

Zombies are a popular figure in pop culture/entertainment and they are usually portrayed as being brought about through an outbreak or epidemic. Consequently, we model a zombie attack, using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies. We introduce a basic model for zombie infection, determine equilibria and their stability, and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions. We then refine the model to introduce a latent period of zombification, whereby humans are infected, but not infectious, before becoming undead. We then modify the model to include the effects of possible quarantine or a cure. Finally, we examine the impact of regular, impulsive reductions in the number of zombies and derive conditions under which eradication can occur. We show that only quick, aggressive attacks can stave off the doomsday scenario: the collapse of society as zombies overtake us all.

The paper “When Zombies Attack!” is available in full as a PDF by clicking here.

Via BoingBoing. Photo: LaughingSquid.

Premature baby wakes up at his own funeral

Kim LaCapria — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:20:23 +0000

This is actually why it’s called a wake.

Before modern medicine and embalming, humankind feared being buried alive. Tales abound of mechanisms like a bell on a string to alert passersby of an accidentally buried live person. And it wasn’t completely unheard of for a dead person to be actually alive, just with barely detectable vitals.

Nowadays it doesn’t happen that much. But baby Angel Salvador (I’m almost skeptical of that) was born last week in Paraguay, weighing just 1.1 lbs. He was declared dead and his father Jose took him home for a funeral and wake.

The somber occasion was interrupted, however, when baby Angel began crying from his coffin. In a case officials are calling “very unusual,” the child’s vitals were so faint that he was declared dead mistakenly. From the BBC:

A doctor who works at the hospital’s maternity unit said staff had tried to revive the baby for an hour before declaring him dead.

“His pulse was so low that it was undetectable,” Aida Notario said.

According to medical records, the baby weighed only 500g (17.6oz).

While the hospital’s head of pediatric care admits the child’s vital signs were not properly checked, the child’s organs were not developed enough for him to survive outside the womb. His death was confirmed Monday.

Ronald McDonald is a Flesh Eating Zombie

Paul Short — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:55:57 +0000

Ronald McDonald is a flesh eating zombie.

A match making column from our near future

Duncan Riley — Sat, 09 May 2009 21:38:01 +0000

What will a match making column look like at the beginning of the Zombie apocalypse? Could the pic above be a matchmaking column from our near future?

The third ad is of note for the additional of “kids ok.” Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaains!

Google brains made safe from Zombies

Steven Hodson — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:54:08 +0000

It’s really nice to see a company to go to such lengths to protect their braintrust

What would FriendFeed look like in a Zombie Attack?

Duncan Riley — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:22:27 +0000

Inspired by the always affable Andrew Sayer, we ask the question: what would FriendFeed look like during a Zombie attack on American soil?