Bayonets: your essential Zombie killing weapon accessory.

[medicineman]

Ah - we need tracks.

  CCV for Anti-Zombie role?

op:

Why go with tracks when they can go with that EM-50 thing from "Stripes"? 

MM

 

[KevinB]

Enough zombie could tip it.

Plus after seeing what the Z's did to the RV in Walking Dead, a RV is the last place you'll find me in the ZA (Zombie Apocalypse)

 

[medicineman]

But it's an armoured RV...mind you they got into the M1 tank in Atlanta, so I suppose...mind you the M1 didn't have the flamethrowers on the side  ;D.

MM

 

[CougarKing]

:

link

Macroeconomic Lessons From the Zombie Apocalypse
By Matthew Yglesias


Without wanting to offer too many spoilers, the new film World War Z portrays a zombie apocalpyse and efforts by world governments to fight against it. The war is, naturally, a total war. And, like any serious contemplation of a total war scenario, it illustrates some important points about economics that tend to get lost in a lot of workaday discussion.

For example, socialism beats capitalism in terms of organizing efficient production. The problem with planned economies isn't so much that they "don't work" as that they require a high level of political consensus about what you want to achieve. In the event of a zombie apocalypse or an attempted Nazi conquest of Europe, this is pretty easy. And indeed, the Soviet Union was very good at things like building subways and launching things into outer space. The problem is that absent an imminent disaster, this kind of consensus is not going to be forthcoming and it's much better to let markets aggregate the diverse preferences of a broad population than to try to have everyone reach a collective decision about what color pants people should be wearing or about whether a Doritos taco or a Fritos burrito is more delicious.


On the other hand, socialism is not particularly egalitarian. Allocating resources through a political process rather than a market exchange process doesn't equalize the resources available; it means that resources are allocated according to political clout. The emerging society of naval flotillas and refugee camps is very much not a classless utopia—it's a place where your living standards are determined by your political clout and perceived usefulness to the powers that be.


We also see that poverty doesn't cause unemployment. There's been a remarkable tendency since 2008 to conflate things that make countries poor with things that elevate the unemployment rate. But while a zombie apocalypse is obviously an enormous negative shock to humanity's wealth, it doesn't cause unemployment. If anything, annual hours worked per adult seem to be skyrocketing. The constant toil is part of the overall collapse in living standards. You need to hustle constantly for food, shelter, survival, and to earn your keep in a place of refuge. It's not "man, we're much poorer than we were pre-apocalypse so I guess there's nothing useful for you to do."

Last but by no means least, money is irrelevant. A society on a total war footing is not a society that's free of resource constraints. On the contrary, binding resource constraints are crucial. There is only so much jet fuel, only so many bullets, only so many trained virologists, only so much food, and so forth. But one constraint that never binds is lack of money. In fact, due to the digitization of banking and then the zombie-induced collapse of the global communications grid, it appears that nobody has any financial resources at all. But such state authorities that manage to function don't fail to mobilize resources due to a perceived lack of money. They simply mobilize the resources by fiat. Historically speaking, nation states committed to a capitalist ideology have tended to maintain a skein of monetary transactions even during wartime emergencies. But these transactions take place against a backdrop of rationing, quasi-coerced loans ("war bonds"), suspensions of gold convertibility, and of course conscription of soldiers.

 

[Robert0288]

Double barrel knife launcher on an AR-15.  Because, why not?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9LmzAeQqNM

 

[a_majoor]

Evidently the Zombies have eaten all the economists, and a large part of the movie writer's brains as well.

Money is a medium of exchange and a means of record keeping, and even if there are no dollars or ATM's around, people will be using other meduims of exchange. Black marke one advantaget cigarettes come to mind, but humans have used all kinds of things as money since at least the Bronze age.

Labour shortages lead to wage increases. We see this in Alberta today, and historians saw this in Europe after the Black Death. If you need to get things done, then you need to offer some sort of incentive to get the workers to work on your project. This will be equally true during the Zombie Apocalypse, and skilled workers will be in even higher demand (especially if they have very useful or unique skills). The constant hustling that the author refers to reflects the breakdown of the larger supply chain and interlocking systems of global trade and exchange. There is an essay "I Pencil" which demonstrates just how interconnected the system really is. Without the people and institutions, you personally have to do the extra work to make up for it.

Socialism or any sort of autocratic or authoratarian system of resource allocation has only one advantage over market systems; the speed of resource allocation. OF course if the resources are allocated to the wrong thing, then you get stuck and have a harder time getting back on track. The author alludes to this but does not seem to understand just how badly misallocation of resources can harm economies. (Even in market systems this is true; F.A. Hayek warned about credit bubbles).

 

[Canadian.Trucker]

Double barrel knife launcher on an AR-15.  Because, why not?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9LmzAeQqNM

Epic!

On a related note, going to see World War Z tonight, from the trailer these buggers move too fast for bayonets to be useful me thinks, but who knows.

 

[Danjanou]

Epic!

On a related note, going to see World War Z tonight, from the trailer these buggers move too fast for bayonets to be useful me thinks, but who knows.

Oh C'mon there's a bayonet scene early on and bonus points for the use of duct tape 8)

 

[Canadian.Trucker]

Oh C'mon there's a bayonet scene early on and bonus points for the use of duct tape 8)

Very true, I was thinking about that as I watched it.

 

[Danjanou]

I was expecting to be disappointed re all the hype about it being not the book, and therefore wasn't too pissed off. There are some slight plot twists and the CGI was good, the overrunning of Jeruselum was well done and I loved James Badger Dale as the Ranger Captain in Korea.

 

[Cbbmtt]

I was expectign to be disappointed re all the hype about it being not the book, and hterefore wasn't too pissed off. There soem slight plot twists and the CGI was good, the overrunign of Jeruselum was well done and I loved James Badger Dale as the Ranger Captain in Korea.

Still can't believe there was not really any blood and gore in a zombie movie.

 

[CougarKing]

I was expecting to be disappointed re all the hype about it being not the book, and hterefore wasn't too pissed off. There soem slight plot twists and the CGI was good, the overrunign of Jeruselum was well done and I loved James Badger Dale as the Ranger Captain in Korea.

Wasn't it a bit TOO easy though how they found the WHO facility in Cardiff after haphazardly stumbling through the Welsh countryside?

Btw, isn't the so-called "USS Argus" command ship in the movie crewed by US personnel actually the British ship RFA Argus?


???

 

[Danjanou]

Wasn't it a bit TOO easy though how they found the WHO facility in Cardiff after haphazardly stumbling through the Welsh countryside?

Btw, isn't the so-called "USS Argus" command ship in the movie crewed by US personnel actually the British ship RFA Argus?


???

Well he is some sort of UN super sleuth so he probably has the location of all WHO  buildings memorized. More likely he stole a BB with the WHO version of the Timmies GPS app loaded on it off a dead passenger.

Re the ship, RN firesale? Could have been worse it could have been an RN Sub.  8)

 

[cupper]

Swiss Army Machete: Zombie Defense Multi-tool

http://www.instructables.com/id/Swiss-Army-Machete-Zombie-Defense-Multi-tool/?&sort=ACTIVE&limit=40&offset=80#DISCUSS

In preparation for the forthcoming zombie invasion I decided to gather up the gnarliest, zombie-weaponiest tools I had and store them in one convenient and accessible location.

Initially I just threw all my zombie weaponry into a sort-of "grab-and-go-a-fightin'-zombies" duffle bag, but I realized it was just too disorganized to be of any practical use in a real-life zombie situation.

Thus the idea was conceived for the Swiss Army Machete: Zombie Defense Multi-tool, and I built this proof-of-concept prototype.

To fully grasp the necessity of such a tool, please consider the following highly probable scenario:

Sam and Fred are driving down a seemingly empty street in an old Ford pickup (looks to be a 95-ish F150, in Ford-ugly turquoise) when they suddenly find themselves engulfed by encroaching swarms of ZOMBIES!!

Brilliant as he is charming and sexy, Sam slams on the breaks with an idea.

Sam: Quick Fred, get the machete out of my bag! I'll hold it out the window and drive in circles! That'll clear out this undead horde in no time.

Fred rummages through a pile of tools in an old duffle bag, finding everything BUT the machete.

Fred: Uh . . . adjustable wrench . . . rigging axe . . . auger bit . . . pipe wrench . . .

The zombies are closing in.

Sam, panicked: Hurry Fred, hurry! The machete. The MACHETE!!!

Zombies encircle the truck and begin clawing, hand-smearing and clumsily pounding on the windows . . . you know, how zombies always do.

Sam mutters something coarse and completely intelligible as he shifts into gear and hits the gas, plowing head-long into the herd, sending zombies flying.

Sam: You know Fred, you're a lousy friend. Can't even hand me a machete in my greatest time of need!

Fred: Hey, don't blame me. This highly disorganized bag of tools is practically useless and lacking in effective functionality, because there is no way to quickly both identify and access the appropriate tool for a given situation. It's not my fault you didn't organize your zombie weaponry a little better.

Sam: I am sorry; you are right. I should install some French cleats in there or something . . . I've underestimated you Fred. You are my dearest friend.

The men share a warm and fuzzy moment as the truck barrels on through the zombies toward the setting sun, rotting bits flying everywhere . . . hands, feet, still-biting and snarling heads landing in the bed of the truck.

BUT THEN . . . Zombies start to pile up under the front end of the truck!

The truck lurches to a stop, teetering on the peak of a writhing mound of zombies. Gasp!

Sam shifts into reverse and floors it. No luck! He's high-centered on zombies.

More zombies clamber up the mound and resume their zombie glass-pounding, with their hungry but dead eyes leering into the faces of their next potential meal. They break through the driver's side window and reach for Sam . . . he wields the axe heroically, yet it is not enough.

There are just too many zombies.

CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP

The End.

- - - - - ------------------------------------------

In the scenario above, if Sam had a Swiss Army Machete when he and Fred first encountered the zombies, he would have been able to quickly identify and access his machete, flip it out and lop off all the zombie heads, save the day, and be reunited with his buxom, smoking-hot wife.

But alas, he stored his zombie weaponry in a messy heap in an old duffle bag.

Don't be like Sam.

Build yourself a fully functional Swiss Army Machete today, and avoid finding yourself struggling in defenseless disorganization when the inevitable zombie invasion occurs.