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Zombie Survival Guide, Part I: Stages

The films have been telling about the inevitable for years. One day you will probably be forced to fight for your life during a zombie outbreak. A lot of what tactics will be necessary depends on what stage the outbreak is and what, if any, enforcements are called in by the government.

Don’t be fooled: the government probably can’t protect you. They will be underprepared, undersupplied, and understaffed. In the case of a Stage II or III zombie outbreak, the person in charge of your country’s emergency management service will probably be sacked or pressured into “early retirement” or resignation by the public and his or her superiors for his failure to contain and properly manage the outbreak.

In the case of a Stage IV outbreak, the people behind emergency management will be dead, undead, or hiding in Antarctica.

Stage I Outbreak

Characteristics: Usually contained in small developing nations or rural areas of developed nations. Small number of zombies. Relatively small amount of human casualties. Civilian response expected. Law enforcement response possible. Government cover-up and media blackout likely. Maximum duration of two weeks. Your town may become the next Roswell, only with zombies.

General Advice: Option One: Leave town. Option Two: Sit tight. Gather weapons. Reinforce your doors and windows. Do not leave your home. Wait it out. Should it progress, consult the Stage II section.

Stage II Outbreak

Characteristics: Urban areas and rural areas with higher population density at risk. Less populated rural areas also at risk for large, sprawling outbreak covering a couple hundred kilometres. More than 100 zombies. Several hundred human casualties possible. Low-level military response expected. Government cover-up difficult. Media blackout unlikely, but possible. Duration up to a month or so.

General Advice: Get away from infected area. Go on holiday. Avoid islands.

Stage III Outbreak

Characteristics: Thousands of undead. Initial widespread panic. Riots and looting expected. State of emergency will be declared. Infected zone will be quarantined. Large-scale military response definite. Curfew, rations, and other restrictions probable. Government cover-up and media blackout impossible, unless they are dead. Duration could be several months.

General Advice: Join or create a group. Loot the markets for non-perishable foodstuffs and the last chocolates you may ever see before others get to them first. Stock up on petrol and ammunition. Reinforce your zombie shelter. Be prepared for government-led action to fail or for advance to a Stage IV outbreak.

Stage IV Outbreak

Characteristics: Total destruction. Billions of human casualties. Undead outnumber humans. Governments will disintegrate. Bands of surviving civilians will be only form of militia. Extinction of humanity likely. Indefinite duration.

General Advice: Stick with your group. Find uniquely skilled survivors to add to your team. Fortify your shelter for long-term. Plan on rebuilding society should you survive.

Part two of the guide will cover necessary skills and be more guide-like.

Eco-Geekery: A Rant, What You Can Do, and Other Commentary

Now, this would have been posted on real Blog Action Day had it not been for my server switching issues and the fact that I lost power due to a wind storm, hence my lack of posts as well as the lateness of my replies and returned comments.

I’m an avid lurker at Hugg, the environmental version of Digg, and EcoGeek¹ because 1) I’m really big on the environment because hey, it keeps us alive and 2) I’m a geek who loves technology.

I’m sort of obsessed with turning lights off and electronic things I’m not using and it drives my family mad. My family is fairly ignorant when it comes to the environment, no matter how much I babble. My dad, as usual, sort of makes stuff up if he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It’d be amusing if it weren’t infuriating half the time.

I’ve learned to tune him out unless he says something extremely stupid. Like people driving cars (and you know, breathing too much) doesn’t matter because Mammoth Mountain and other mountains release more carbon dioxide per day than cars.

Yep. He wasn’t particularly happy with me when I told him that the “Well, this mountain is killing trees so therefore it’s okay for humans to kill the entire planet” was possibly the worst argument I’d ever heard…and I’ve been involved in big e-drama. E-drama is notorious for it’s idiotic arguments.

My brother (age 15) says I wouldn’t be against gas-guzzling vehicles if I drove². I’ll let that sink in for a moment.

Right. If I drove I’d cease to care about the environment. Because nobody who drives cares about the planet, clearly. I never said the men of my family had good logic skills (because they don’t and generally lack common sense as well).

If the entire world owned cars at the rate USians³ do, we’d likely all be dead.

What You Can Do

Last week was No Trash Week. I didn’t participate, but I’m definitely going to try in the future. It’s a really interesting site as they have tips to help you reduce the amount of crap you throw in the bin, a FAQ, a few projects you can undertake, as well as a forum.

The Compact is a project in which you do not buy new items for an entire year. This means you don’t buy new products of any kind from stores, web sites, etc. You buy used, borrow, barter, etc. I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions because I know I’ll never stick to it, but I think I’m going to seriously try this in 2008. It’ll definitely be difficult because I have an addiction to buying books. It seems the Amazon Marketplace, eBay, second-hand shops, as well as Freecycle.org will be my friend in 2008. I also need a new computer since I fucked up my beloved MacBook Pro a few weeks ago with evil milk. I’m still crying about that, by the way.

10 of the More Obvious Things

1. drive less
2. take public transportation
3. walk to your destination
4. ride your bicycle to work
5. recycle
6. don’t let water run unneeded
7. use rechargeable items instead of disposables
8. don’t litter
9. turn off lights and other things when you’re not using them
10. donate even $/£/€1 to an organisation listed at Blog Action Day’s website or one of the top 12 environmental organisations who use their donations well.

17 of the Perhaps Less Obvious Things

1. eat less meat
2. use your own bags at shops
3. download music from iTunes and other online music stores instead of buying physical CDs, cassettes, and/or records
4. use a laptop instead of a desktop computer
5. buy local produce rather than imported produce
6. buy water-efficient showerheads
7. pay attention to packaging
8. use fluorescent light bulbs
9. quit smoking
10. start a vegetable garden
11. bring your own cup or ‘travel mug’ to your coffee shop
12. volunteer
13. join Greenpeace
14. reduce or offset your carbon footprint
15. offset your blog’s carbon footprint!
16. educate yourself on green issues–it’s a fantastic way to start
17. do something

For Teens

Many teenagers feel as if they don’t get a say and that’s often true. Your parents may not care about green issues, but talking to them (and not just once) is a great first step. There are things just you can do without involving your parents as well.

• Eight Ways to Go Green at Red is an article geared towards teens.
• Forum Thread: Looking for Suggestions for Teens to Go Green at the TreeHugger Forums
• Green Teens Hug the Web at News.com is an article about a study that says more environmentally-oriented teens flock to the internet.

A Few of Random Earth-Related Links

1. Ten First Steps from Lighter Footstep has ten ways for you to get started towards a more sustainable green lifestyle.
2. 13 Easy, Inexpensive Ways to Go Green from MSN Money is a great article for those of us for whom money is an issue.
3. Yahoo! Green is Yahoo!’s contribution to the fight against global warming. Hank Green of EcoGeek (and Brotherhood 2.0) was involved in the project. One thing you should never say to Yahoo! is “I’ll google it” because people at Yahoo! do not google things.⁴
4. 10 Amazing Sea Creatures You Didn’t Know About at Green Expander reminds me why box jellyfish scare the shit out of me. That plus sharks and the brain-eating bacteria that live in lakes remind me why I like pools. As long as the filters don’t suck out my innards.
5. Daughter’s Efforts to Save Planet ‘Really Annoying’ from the Nashville Scene includes a cute kid and irritating parents who whine about their daughter’s interest in saving the planet and her stuffed polar bear, Blanco.
6. The 10 Rarest Animals in the World and 10 of the Most Endangered Animals at Green Expander are both prime examples of how much humans have harmed the earth in the past 100+ years. Many of these species were thriving 100-150 years ago, but some are now down to as low one individual animal of the species left. Some of them are an example of how much humans harmed the environment long before cars were invented as well.
7. 10 Amazing Animals Saved from Extinction at Green Expander has some of the success stories–many of which would be far more fantastic if global warming wasn’t such an issue today.
8. Extinct in the 20th Century at Green Expander shows that while there is still a chance to save many of the species listed as endangered now, for others it’s too late.

Pictures of Seals

If you hate seals, you’re probably evil.

All images contained within this post are royalty-free and come from stock.xchng.

1. Which I found via my favourite vlog, Brotherhood 2.0–go nerdfighters! ↩
2. That’s right, I don’t drive. I drove around a local church’s parking lot a couple of times when I was 17, but never even tested for a learner’s permit. Not only am I afraid of driving, but as it says on my about me page, I’m an avid pedestrian and I’m actually fond of taking public transportation. ↩
3. A term I’ve nicked from others to refer to Americans from the US. I quite like it, but I may be alone. ↩
4. Secretly, they probably do. We all know which is the superior search engine here. ↩

Three Annoying Things Bloggers Do

1. Hiding your blog’s RSS feed(s).

Why in the hell do some blogs make it so impossible to subscribe to their feed? Do you not want readers to be able to keep track of your updates? A couple times recently I’ve just given up. I had even tried random URLs such as http://evilfeedwithholder.com/feed/ and http://evilfeedwithholder.com/index.xml

It’s bad enough to remove the <link href="http://evilfeedwithholder.com/feed" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="The Forbidden RSS 2.0 Feed" /> bit as it is, but then not have a link anywhere on your website? Not in the sidebar, footer, site page, or anywhere else? Evil.

Don’t make me work for it! Make it simple! I’m likely to never return to your site again no matter how much I liked it.

2. Mixing trackbacks & pingbacks with your comments.

Often it’s difficult to tell where the trackbacks end and the comments start again, particularly when there’s just one or two comments nestled between seemingly endless trackbacks. I generally skip over all trackbacks or anything that looks like one. I might be missing something integral to the flow of conversation in the comments because that one important comment was stuck amongst the trackbacks.

3. Lack of context in your posts.

Sometimes I’ll find a new blog that could be interesting…if I knew what the hell they were babbling about.

I hate the feeling that I’m coming into a conversation late or that I’ve just walked into a room and everyone else has just started laughing, but I’m stuck in the dark.

When you’re referring to something that’s happened in the past, particularly a specific past entry, it’s generally a good idea to link to those entries that give it context for your new or occasional readers. If it’s not in the posts displayed on your main page, chances are, I’m not going to find it and I’m not going to waste my time finding it.

Contact. RSS Feed.