Basically, it's a zombie invasion in our nation's capital. You can change the details of the invasion in any way you choose: Zombie speed, infection rate, number of civilians, percentage of civilians armed, number of highly effective police, and more. You can play around with it to either defeat the zombies (boooooring), let them take over the city and pretend like some of their more gruesome kills are of your opposition politician of choice (take that, Michele Bachmann!), or try to make the odds even and see who really wants it more. Warning: Turn down your speakers if you're at work. The eerie post-rock soundtrack is accompanied by the expected array of flesh-hungry moans, which is the kind of thing that's sort of tricky to explain away as part of your quarterly PowerPoint earnings presentation. [Class 3 Outbreak]

First, some background. They based their methodology around three groups: zombies, those susceptible to zombie attacks, and those who are unaffected (dead zombies). They based their model around zombies who infect humans with saliva via bites, and walk in slow, irregular strides. They also allowed a 24 hour incubation period from the moment of infection to complete zombification.

What did they learn? Well if left unaddressed, a zombie attack on a sizable city would wipe out the population in a matter of 4-8 hours. If you tried to quarantine the zombies, it would essentially have no effect on the outcome because the zombies would inevitably escape, or infect the humans attempting to quarantine zombies. And if you tried to generate a zombie antidote, you'd still lose a lot of people in the process of creating the antidote, and it wouldn't revert the zombies back to a dead state, which means they could possibly infect people in other areas.

The best solution? The only hope of wiping out a possible zombie invasion is to attack the undead in focused, strategic attacks that progressively increase in intensity. This will help address the growing number of undead in the process. But even then it would prove difficult to emerge victorious, as it would take 10 days worth of heavy fighting to quell the outbreak.

But luckily, you don't have to worry about any of this because some sap mathematically proved it would be impossible for zombies to exist (along with vampires). Something about how they would feast themselves into oblivion. [University of Ottawa (PDF) via io9]

Ok, the truth, according to Pink Tentacle, is that some belligerent task master at Japan's Fuji-Q Highland amusement park thought his zombie actors had "lost their edge," and needed to be whipped back into shape. What better way to do that than to don full makeup, get in front of the cameras and participate in a military-style bootcamp?

Activities included light calisthenics, a jog on the beach (arms extended out, of course), time spent buried neck deep in dirt...aaand watermelon eating. When the Zombies failed to look dead enough, they were beat with a stick or stomped in the chest. I feel like this could catch on as a new form of exercise for soccer moms. You know, while their kids are busy pissing themselves at zombie preparedness training. [Pink Tentacle]

P.S. Oh yeah, more vids here, as well.

So, what can parents take away from this TV show prank? Well, I don't have kids and I'm rarely ever around them, but my knowledge of zombies makes me more than qualified to answer this question. Sometimes tough, scary love is the best medicine.

I know what you're thinking—won't these kids be scarred for life? Haha...probably. For most of the kids though, this is a preemptive scarring. It's like exposing your kids to chicken pox so that they don't get all jacked up with it as an adult.

And let's not forget that it teaches valuable skills. They will have the Home Alone know-how to handle intruders—whether they are undead or not. [Thanks Rodrigo!]

The zombies represent, uh, unrecycled TVs or something, I guess. And it appears that they got kicked out really quickly, so in order to make up for the lack of footage they shot them doing the thriller dance. Ohhhkay.

But in the end, their message, that TV companies should provide convenient ways for people to recycle their old sets to protect the environment, is solid. And their methods, while awkward, are helping them get the message out, this post included. So kudos, awkward zombies. [Take Back My TV]

[AR-15 via The Firearm Blog via Crunchgear]

UPDATE: I've just been informed that Google doesn't have any real robots, and zombies don't actually exist. Apparently, this is some sort of "joke" regarding a robot.txt script, which doles out permissions to other search engines trying to crawl the site. I'm not amused. [Matt Cutts via Webware]

Quarantine Trailer:

For about $90, Toscano will ship this guy to you in three macabre pieces. When assembled, they'll cover a 31½"x19½"x8" stretch of earth. That is, until the day he and his buddies claw their way completely to the surface, eat our brains, and take over the planet. Then they'll be everywhere, doing their zombie gardening with a silent stoicism, and you'll be the garden gnome. [Design Toscano via Boing Boing Gadgets]

In an interview in the Gizmondo forums, Freer claimed that, "There is still incredible value in the Gizmondo. And with the enhancements we're adding... we feel it's only the beginning of where we can go with the product."

Gizmondo version 2.0 will include a new graphics chip, Windows CE 6.0 (which comes with "a lot of 'new' goodies," Freer says), and a bunch of original content to be downloaded off the gizmondo.com website. It'll be ready by Winter 2008, and the developer community can expect more announcements soon.

Left unanswered by the interview was why Freer thinks anybody is going to trust him with anything a second time around. Maybe he hasn't heard the adage: "Fool me once, your CEO gets sent to jail for three years and your company gets liquidated. Fool me twice... well, you ain't ever gonna fool me twice." [Gizmondo Forum]

It's a much better store than it used to be, full of components, motherboards, and lots of actually _helpful_ people who know computers.

Hey, that sucker can crawl really fast. As undead as he is, he still requires three AA batteries. Activated by any noises, he's certain to scare unsuspecting passersby. That might be a thrill that makes him (it?) well worth his rather steep $38.90 purchase price. [Otherland, via 7 Gadgets]

They are just calling a million people with PCs that may have been hijacked by the badies to do evil stuff. Woo-wee. I mean, great. I am sick of spam, but it's going to take a lot more than that to kill the damn bastards. At least this is a good excuse for some great zombies and vampire videos.

A bit from British horror comedy Shaun of the Dead. If you don't have it, get it.

And yes, at last, it's Friday. – Jesus Diaz

Update: here's one who Jason just sent to me. Video guide to survive zombie attacks, by the Shaun of the Dead people. Someone send this to the FBI.

FBI tries to fight zombie hordes [BBC News]

In any case, if you're at all interested in seeing hippies and yuppies dressed up as zombies, you know where to look. – Jason Chen

Gallery [McCullagh via CNET]

Alarm Coffin [via Sci Fi Tech via New Launches]

We're glad to see that even zombies are beginning to see the benefits of green technologies. $89 and you can still rush deliver for Halloween fun. Oh, and that Mike Tyson tattoo on his face is just the watermark. – Mark Wilson Thanks Michelle!

Product Page [via AmericanInventorSpot]