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Ooooooooooooooooooo, I forgot about that. Oh yeah, this is going to get brutal.

Residual neural activity, or "spillover" from the virus' electrical activity spreading slightly along the existing neural paths. Probably strong at death, gradually diminishing as the brain dries out or decays.

Cranky meter up ten notches. -_-

I thought that's when a rogue comet collided with a passing meteor, dumping exotic particles all over the planet, which interacted with the LHC and created a micro black hole, in turn triggering global seismic and volcanic activity, resulting in glacial melting, thereby creating a snowball earth scenario with the additional water and clouds reflecting more sunlight back into space and ultimately freezing us all to death.

Or something like that. All of the best and most respected doomsayers are in agreement. I asked one of those fellows with a sandwich board and pamphlets, he said Nostradamus and Cayce visited him in his sleep and told him that's how the world was going to end, and he verified it with ancient Mayan prophecies and alien texts left behind thousands of years ago.

So it can't be zombies. If it were zombies, I would've heard something on the moving picture box by now, right?

...

*twitch*

On a more serious note, I'm still convinced that we've grown too enamored with apocalypse, and some day, when yet another predicted "end of the world" has passed and nothing happens, civilization is going to go completely bonkers and tear itself apart, viciously and eagerly.

Because you're in that dimension. Your perception of time in that dimension is the same as everyone else's perception of time in that dimension. If the mission text stated that you were encapsulated in some sort of temporal bubble, then it would make sense to expect a visible indication of increased passage of time. As it stands, though, when you step through the portal and set foot on that world, you also enter that dimension's temporal status.

I'm hoping that it was the location of a cache of food or weapons, or a safe place, but it was more likely the revelation that everyone is host to the virus/microbe/fungus that turns people into zombies.

We'll find out next year.

If I have to wait a whole year, I'm starting my own zombie apocalypse. *twitch*

You've uncovered my true plot. I've been engineering this for five years. Did it work?

And as I mentioned, there are government reports of canned foods still being edible after decades. There are many factors which determine shelf life for canned goods. As you noted, the type of container used. Temperature. Exposure to moisture. Preservation technique used to prepare the food (salting/pickling, de-oxygenation, precooking, sun-drying/jerking, dehydration, etc.). Cleanliness of the container. Even the food itself, the stage of growth or what form it's in (pasta noodles, bread and some cereals, for instance, are all made with wheat flour, but they have different shelf lives and spoilage factors).

Your average off-the-shelf, found-in-any-modern-grocery-or-convenience-store cans of food, those are typically given an expiration time of 1-3 years. They may last 10 or 15, they may be inedible despite having 2 years left on their shelf life, but a good average to expect is 18 months. That gives you a few months after the 1 year products' expiration dates, when it may still be edible (meaning, free of bacteria) and gets the 2+ year products out of the way before they expire.

And while it may be edible, there's still no guarantee that it will be nutritious. Regardless of how well food is preserved, it loses nutritive value over time (more quickly outside of carefully monitored and maintained environments). At some point, even if it eases hunger, it won't give the body the sustenance it requires.

That's what Rick and Co. can expect. They'll be able to get viable food from supermarkets for a while, but not forever. Not even 5-6 years, absolutely not 50 years. Those cans and jars will be sitting in heat and water in the summer, freezing in the winter, and very quickly losing their nutritive value even if the seals remain intact. If they haven't all but exhausted pre-existing food supplies within 18 months of power loss, well... I'll make a lot of frowny faces and grumble about bad writing (unless there's a scene showing them throwing away most of the cans and keeping a select few presumably good ones).

Dehydrated foods last longer than factory canned foods, and I would expect the CDC to have stores of that rather than cans, so they may simply write away the food situation by having the group stock up on CDC supplies and ignore it thereafter.

As long as there's a hotel nearby. >.>

More seriously, Bear probably could. Rudy Reyes could. So could Dave Canterbury and Myke Hawke. They've all had military training and experience in avoiding enemy detection in hostile territories. Les Stroud, Ray Mears and Cody Lundin could survive indefinitely in unoccupied territory, but not indefinitely in battlefield conditions because avoiding detection is directly contrary to basic survival training.

In the short term, either type of survivalist will suffice to keep a small group of people alive, regardless of enemy presence. Survivalists with military training will be more suitable for bunkering down and creating a defensible base, or getting that group out of a hot zone with minimal risk of detection and capture. Survivalists like Stroud and Lundin would better serve in safer areas or long-term habitation of a relatively safe location (even if it's in occupied territory, depending on the intelligence of the enemy. in the case of zombies, Stroud or Lundin would be fine, as they have sufficient skill to build small traps, warning devices and other security measures to warn, deter and kill when necessary).

In the end, though, continued survival is going to come down to the group's ability to replenish their supplies regularly, and the most reliable and certain way to accomplish that is through farming. Even a solitary survivor, regardless of expertise, will eventually deplete the resources in a region, forcing him/her to pack up and move on or start growing crops and husbanding livestock. That's when the survivalists like Stroud or Mears will be most beneficial, because they know what plants grow where, when they're in season, etc. You'll have no assurance of being able to get corn, wheat or other typical crop seed, so you'd be taking what's already growing and transplanting it to a managed location. They could also help secure wild game without killing it, allowing you to try to domesticate it, or at least keep it alive and relatively healthy for use later.

Long-term survival depends primarily on your location. In the show, the group is scavenging supplies from Atlanta. This gives them approximately 18 months of available food, minus however long they were there before Rick joined them. That's the average shelf life of canned food, 18 months. Some is only good for a year, some is good for 3-5, and there have been examples of canned food still being edible and bacteria-free for as long as 46 years, but a good average is 18 months. After that, they'll start to run out of readily available food and have to resort to what the land provides, even if they've been supplementing their canned food with fish, game and edible plants.

Ideally, under similar circumstances, you'd want to move on to a location near a river or a river-fed lake, where you would be least likely to exhaust the supply of fish and have access to fertile soil and fresh water. You'll have to start growing crops and domesticating animals (deer and wild fowl) or recapturing domesticated animals (cattle and chickens) sooner or later, though, because fishing, hunting and gathering is much more difficult during winter months, especially if you're feeding several people. Fresh fish, plants and whatever game you could catch should sustain the group through the first year, and hopefully the winter, but after that, you'd better have your fields sown and livestock reproducing, or you're going to risk depleting the local game and flora before you reach a point of self-sustainability. Could always move on, of course, but if you've managed to make an area safe, it's more efficient to finish what you started with the farm than to keep relocating.

Greater assurance of long-term survival. Not a guarantee, but more certainty than a lone survivor can expect.

That's the best you can do? Weak attempts to redirect the heat with grade school insults? I expect better in an argument. I demand better. If you're going to insult me, do me the courtesy of being clever, or at the very least, less unoriginal and predictable.

I'm not an expert. I would never refer to myself as an expert. I'm functionally incapable of thinking of myself as an expert, in any aspect of my life. I certainly didn't give any indication that I would call myself an expert, or want anyone to address me as such. Nor have I implied that I know everything. More than you? Yes, based on your own admissions and unintentional revelations when you were posturing, but everything? Quite the opposite, in fact, I stated that no-one, not even experts, know everything or can prepare for everything, thus the need for companions.

But I am capable. I had to learn survival skills to take care of myself, and if I weren't at least moderately competent, I'd already be dead several times over, from exposure, starvation, injuries.

Mom has a basement now? Good for her. I haven't seen any of my family in over fifteen years, so I wasn't sure how they were getting along.

My primary system is SHODAN. System Shock 2.

My backup system is Alice. American McGee's.

My laptop is SPC-43983. System Shock 2 again.

Mp3 box, Dorothy One. Big O.

Computer at a former friend's house is Konoko. Oni.

Mac Plus project (building a mini-PC inside a Mac Plus case), R. Dorothy Wayneright. Big O again.

Rayne (Bloodrayne) was disassembled so I could use some of the parts in a computer for someone else. Trinity (Matrix) was going to be my DVR, and Mina (LXG) my television viewer, but the wiring in the house won't support running more than two computers at once on the second floor, so I set both of them aside, incomplete. Selene (Underworld) would have been a file server, but I reconsidered that plan after the hurricane flooded the basement a few years ago. And I'd started collecting parts for another Alice (Resident Evil), but I honestly couldn't think of anything I needed another computer for, so I never finished it.

Not a chance.

Twenty five years practicing survivalism. I've walked miles with a collapsed lung, spent weeks nursing third degree burns, stitched my own leg after opening it up with a machete, gone without food for ten days, camped out in a foot of snow, started a fire in a thunderstorm... I'll forget more about how to survive than you'll ever learn.

You aren't charming enough to get me to stop on my way out of the hot zone, you aren't bright enough to con me into stopping and you certainly aren't going to convince me to turn around and rescue you when you're waving a weapon. And if you're just shooting anyone you happen to see, you'll be dead before the zombies find you. You keep yammering on with this idiotic "I'm the toughest mothertougher that ever toughed" foolishness, but it's not proving anything except your own inability to think more than a few seconds ahead of your actions.

Survival is a matter of using your brain, not your balls. Shooting random strangers to distract zombies will accomplish nothing useful or positive. You drive away anyone who might be willing to help you, you attract zombies and people who are like you, who will just as readily shoot you as you would them, and you "win" nothing except a greater chance of dying sooner.

Daryl's smart, or at least smart enough to survive. He knows when to shut his mouth, put it back in his pants and follow the leader. He chooses to stick with the group and take orders, because he knows his own limitations. You're no Daryl. You're Ed. And you'll end up like Ed.

I thought he made it into the decon room in time. Did I miss something? I didn't see any shots of wounds on his hand or fingers. Gloves contaminated and dissolving, but no scratches, cuts or burns on the skin. The automated system also appeared to be capable of detecting contamination almost immediately, so if he were infected, it should have warned him or killed him before he left the shower.

I don't think it really matters, in the long run. He was alive and lucid when he needed to be, to open the doors for the survivors, so if he turns now, it's one zombie. Rick and company are still safer in there with him than they ever were outside, and they've got access to what has to be a decent stockpile of supplies (CDC Man was drinking wine, he's probably not starving either). They can handle one zombie easily.