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BECOME A GEARS UNIVERSITY RECRUITER!
You already know MechQuest is great and getting better every week. Invite your friends and family to play too. If you give them your special recruitment link below (you can get the link in game too) to sign up then YOU will get a daily bonus equal to 10% of all the experience and credits they earn. Crazy right? It gets better… brace yourself. If your friend upgrades, then your character will receive 250 Nova Gems!
YOUR RECRUITMENT LINKhttp://www.mechquest.com/mq-landing.asp?referral=4099482
Monday, August 31, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
At least our government did not fund this study
Science ponders 'zombie attack'
By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News
If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively.
That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried out by researchers in Canada.
They say only frequent counter-attacks with increasing force would eradicate the fictional creatures.
The scientific paper is published in a book - Infectious Diseases Modelling Research Progress.
In books, films, video games and folklore, zombies are undead creatures, able to turn the living into other zombies with a bite.
But there is a serious side to the work.
In some respects, a zombie "plague" resembles a lethal rapidly-spreading infection. The researchers say the exercise could help scientists model the spread of unfamiliar diseases through human populations.
“ My understanding of zombie biology is that if you manage to decapitate a zombie then it's dead forever ” Professor Neil Ferguson
In their study, the researchers from the University of Ottawa and Carleton University (also in Ottawa) posed a question: If there was to be a battle between zombies and the living, who would win?
Professor Robert Smith? (the question mark is part of his surname and not a typographical mistake) and colleagues wrote: "We model a zombie attack using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies.
"We introduce a basic model for zombie infection and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions."
On his university web page, the mathematics professor at Ottawa University says the question mark distinguishes him from Robert Smith, lead singer of rock band The Cure.
To give the living a fighting chance, the researchers chose "classic" slow-moving zombies as our opponents rather than the nimble, intelligent creatures portrayed in some recent films.
"While we are trying to be as broad as possible in modelling zombies - especially as there are many variables - we have decided not to consider these individuals," the researchers said.
Back for good?
Even so, their analysis revealed that a strategy of capturing or curing the zombies would only put off the inevitable.
In their scientific paper, the authors conclude that humanity's only hope is to "hit them [the undead] hard and hit them often".
They added: "It's imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly or else... we are all in a great deal of trouble."
According to the researchers, the key difference between the zombies and the spread of real infections is that "zombies can come back to life".
Professor Neil Ferguson, who is one of the UK government's chief advisors on controlling the spread of swine flu, said the study did have parallels with some infectious diseases.
"None of them actually cause large-scale death or disease, but certainly there are some fungal infections which are difficult to eradicate," said Professor Ferguson, from Imperial College London.
"There are some viral infections - simple diseases like chicken pox has survived in very small communities. When you get it when you are very young, the virus stays with you and can re-occur as shingles, triggering a new chicken pox epidemic."
Professor Smith? told BBC News: "When you try to model an unfamiliar disease, you try to find out what's happening, try to approximate it. You then refine it, go back and try again."
"We refined the model again and again to say... here's how you would tackle an unfamiliar disease."
Professor Ferguson joked: "The paper considers something that many of us have worried about - particularly in our younger days - of what would be a feasible way of tackling an outbreak of a rapidly spreading zombie infection.
"My understanding of zombie biology is that if you manage to decapitate a zombie then it's dead forever. So perhaps they are being a little over-pessimistic when they conclude that zombies might take over a city in three or four days," he said.
By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News
If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively.
That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried out by researchers in Canada.
They say only frequent counter-attacks with increasing force would eradicate the fictional creatures.
The scientific paper is published in a book - Infectious Diseases Modelling Research Progress.
In books, films, video games and folklore, zombies are undead creatures, able to turn the living into other zombies with a bite.
But there is a serious side to the work.
In some respects, a zombie "plague" resembles a lethal rapidly-spreading infection. The researchers say the exercise could help scientists model the spread of unfamiliar diseases through human populations.
“ My understanding of zombie biology is that if you manage to decapitate a zombie then it's dead forever ” Professor Neil Ferguson
In their study, the researchers from the University of Ottawa and Carleton University (also in Ottawa) posed a question: If there was to be a battle between zombies and the living, who would win?
Professor Robert Smith? (the question mark is part of his surname and not a typographical mistake) and colleagues wrote: "We model a zombie attack using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies.
"We introduce a basic model for zombie infection and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions."
On his university web page, the mathematics professor at Ottawa University says the question mark distinguishes him from Robert Smith, lead singer of rock band The Cure.
To give the living a fighting chance, the researchers chose "classic" slow-moving zombies as our opponents rather than the nimble, intelligent creatures portrayed in some recent films.
"While we are trying to be as broad as possible in modelling zombies - especially as there are many variables - we have decided not to consider these individuals," the researchers said.
Back for good?
Even so, their analysis revealed that a strategy of capturing or curing the zombies would only put off the inevitable.
In their scientific paper, the authors conclude that humanity's only hope is to "hit them [the undead] hard and hit them often".
They added: "It's imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly or else... we are all in a great deal of trouble."
According to the researchers, the key difference between the zombies and the spread of real infections is that "zombies can come back to life".
Professor Neil Ferguson, who is one of the UK government's chief advisors on controlling the spread of swine flu, said the study did have parallels with some infectious diseases.
"None of them actually cause large-scale death or disease, but certainly there are some fungal infections which are difficult to eradicate," said Professor Ferguson, from Imperial College London.
"There are some viral infections - simple diseases like chicken pox has survived in very small communities. When you get it when you are very young, the virus stays with you and can re-occur as shingles, triggering a new chicken pox epidemic."
Professor Smith? told BBC News: "When you try to model an unfamiliar disease, you try to find out what's happening, try to approximate it. You then refine it, go back and try again."
"We refined the model again and again to say... here's how you would tackle an unfamiliar disease."
Professor Ferguson joked: "The paper considers something that many of us have worried about - particularly in our younger days - of what would be a feasible way of tackling an outbreak of a rapidly spreading zombie infection.
"My understanding of zombie biology is that if you manage to decapitate a zombie then it's dead forever. So perhaps they are being a little over-pessimistic when they conclude that zombies might take over a city in three or four days," he said.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Another lazy Sunday
It has been awhile since I have done a real post here. I find that Facebook, with it multiple mini-games, sucks up a lot o my computer time. So much so, that I usually forget what I got on the computer to by the time I finish checking the status of my games.
But this weekend gave me pause and I found myself reflecting on an action I took this weekend.
See, recently a friend of mine came down with Guillain-Barre Syndrome. A very nasty disorder (which eerily enough had an outbreak coinciding with a swine flu outbreak in the seventies). This friend (let's call him Q) isn't really a close friend, more like a person I game with once or twice a year, but I guess I feel sort of kinship with him in some way.
So Q was in the hospital for two months and has just recently been allowed home. I offered to take him to Madness in Plano Saturday night for gaming. He lives about 1/2 hour away from me and another 1/2 hour away from the store. And it was on the drive there that I questioned what I was doing.
I don't consider myself a real selfish person, nor a saint that usually would go out of my way to this extent (barring emergencey situations). So this is why I really had to think about the 'why' of what I was doing. I guess it is a growing sense of empathy and reliance on that old golden rule.
I think about when I was single, with no family here and if something like this happened to me. Having a bout with bronchitis was bad enough and without my saintly wife to assist in my recovery, I would have been lost.
When we bought our new house in May, I also forced myself to examine my actions. My wife seemed to care less and it was me driving the hunt and relocation. I told my aunt that I was trying to leave some ghosts (some of my same reasons for moving to Texas). Rather than deal with problems in the house and faulkts in my relationship, I decided it was easier to move. But also, I saw myself trying to become more active in the community and the new neighborhood provides more of an opportunity for that. But of course, here it is 2.5 months later and the same relationship problems exist we have a different set of house problems and I have not worked on any community issues, aside from reading the newsletters.
So, perhaps it was an attempt to assuage my conscience that prompted me to assist Q in his social life. Or a response to the impotency I feel in helping my family members back East who are suffering the loss of my uncle and aunt, these past months.
Whatever the reason, Q seemed to have a good time, as did I, and I hope to make the effort again soon.
But this weekend gave me pause and I found myself reflecting on an action I took this weekend.
See, recently a friend of mine came down with Guillain-Barre Syndrome. A very nasty disorder (which eerily enough had an outbreak coinciding with a swine flu outbreak in the seventies). This friend (let's call him Q) isn't really a close friend, more like a person I game with once or twice a year, but I guess I feel sort of kinship with him in some way.
So Q was in the hospital for two months and has just recently been allowed home. I offered to take him to Madness in Plano Saturday night for gaming. He lives about 1/2 hour away from me and another 1/2 hour away from the store. And it was on the drive there that I questioned what I was doing.
I don't consider myself a real selfish person, nor a saint that usually would go out of my way to this extent (barring emergencey situations). So this is why I really had to think about the 'why' of what I was doing. I guess it is a growing sense of empathy and reliance on that old golden rule.
I think about when I was single, with no family here and if something like this happened to me. Having a bout with bronchitis was bad enough and without my saintly wife to assist in my recovery, I would have been lost.
When we bought our new house in May, I also forced myself to examine my actions. My wife seemed to care less and it was me driving the hunt and relocation. I told my aunt that I was trying to leave some ghosts (some of my same reasons for moving to Texas). Rather than deal with problems in the house and faulkts in my relationship, I decided it was easier to move. But also, I saw myself trying to become more active in the community and the new neighborhood provides more of an opportunity for that. But of course, here it is 2.5 months later and the same relationship problems exist we have a different set of house problems and I have not worked on any community issues, aside from reading the newsletters.
So, perhaps it was an attempt to assuage my conscience that prompted me to assist Q in his social life. Or a response to the impotency I feel in helping my family members back East who are suffering the loss of my uncle and aunt, these past months.
Whatever the reason, Q seemed to have a good time, as did I, and I hope to make the effort again soon.
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