See Also: Ghost, Ghoul, Haunting, Undead, Death
A Zombie is the rum drink to end all rum drinks. Observe.
2 1/2 oz Light rum 1 oz Jamaica rum 1/2 oz Apricot flavored brandy 1 oz unsweetened pineapple juice 1 oz passion fruit syrup juice of 1 lime juice of one orange 1 tsp powdered sugar 1/2 oz 151-proof rum
The other nodes cover what a zombie is pretty well. But where else can you find more about the lovable creatures? Well there are plenty of Zombie Movies old and new. They are a great resource for researching the habits of the common zombie, zombie eating habits, zombie mating habits, a good place to kill zombies, zombification (a.k.a. the zombie process), How to survive against zombies, or how to be zombified.
There are also many books that contain info about zombies. Like Green Eyes by Lucius Shepard, The Dead by Michael Swanwick, and the Anita Blake series by Laural K. Hamilton (Anita is an animator and necromancer besides being a Vampire Hunter)
Everybody loves Zombies! Zombies are buff! Even The Son of God gets into the act with Jesus Wants Me For a Zombie, Sweet creeping zombie Jesus, and Sweet zombie Jesus!. Invite The Zombies to play your next party. And don't forget about a Zombie's Best Friend.
Has your neighbor become Some Kind of Zombie? Did you upset the Zombie King? Do you have a zombie infestation or a Zombie Mob? Read HOWTO: Kill Zombies or try out new and improved Zombie Paper. Kill all you want Zombie Inc. is ready, new zombies have been animated to replace the old and we got raw material because more humans have been spewed out of the random people generator.
The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies can get the blood pumping but those crazy mixed up kids who stopped living and became zombies are a real scream.
Just be careful when you use the word zombie because calling people "mindless zombies" does not an argument make. All this and I still don't know what a zombied stutter is or what Invasion de los Zombies Atomicos is about.
Yesterday I found a green zombie mixed in with my black zombies. I hope this isn't an indication that thre is a New Breed of Attack Zombies Lurking. Worse yet, a race of redneck zombies. Blech! I'd much rather have some cool upbeat zombies. Maybe one of the keepers at the Zombie Zoo can help me out. I'd hate to have to go all the way to the Zombie College to talk to the Zombie Master. If I could only figure out how to create my own exploding zombies then I could stop wasting money in the zombie lotto
My sister was seduced by an Urban Zombie. She eventually married this filthy zombie and now attends Zombie Jamborees as a part of the Zombie Nation.
Poor Bill & Ted they died and became sleep-crazed zombies. Still two of the more popular zombies though. More popular than Romero Zombies or the Ded Bob Zombies. And nobody has heard of Gravebane Zombie or I, Zombie. Along this same note, you might be surpised to learn that Rob Zombie is not really a zombie and I believe no zombies were harmed in the production of a White Zombie album.
A Zombified Meta Node
During his lengthy visit to Haiti, Davis was able to characterize the basic procedure as follows. After the potential victim is identified, crushed glass mixed with a toxic powder is placed by the voodoun priest in a location where the individual will walk. Walking upon this trap cuts open the feet, and results in the toxin being introduced into the blood stream. After the victim is thus poisoned, he/she begins to exhibit a number of symptoms including total paralysis, a cooling of the body temperature, highly reduced respiration rate and very serious delusions. The victim is often taken for dead by his neighbours and family, and is summarily buried. Shortly after everyone leaves, the vodoun priest then unearths the body, and convinces the victim that he/she is now a zombie and is under the strict control of the priest.
As far as Davis was able to determine, this procedure does in fact take place, albeit rarely. The toxic mixture seemed to be, upon scientific analysis, mostly herbs and spices, but there was evidence of the use of a marine worm (polychaete) which contains tetrodotoxin, a powerful nerve poison. Davis believed that the reason why vodoun bokors were able to convince living people they had become zombies was due to the powerful effects of the tetrodotoxin combined with the powerful social belief in the magical power of the witch doctors.
* This is, if I remember correctly, the correct way to spell and refer to the religion widely called voodoo. Also, props go to Cletus the Foetus for correcting my errors in an earlier revision of this w/u.
wait(2)
ps
Z
A zombie is a process that's called exit(). It's given the operating system a return value. It's now the OS' job to ensure this exit code reaches the "caller" -- aka the parent process. The parent process is expected to call one of the wait*() system calls to get this code and "reap" the zombie; until it does so, the zombie stays. A well-written application will do this, possibly using SIGCHLD.
exit()
wait*()
SIGCHLD
If the parent process never wait()s, the zombie stays forever. If the parent terminates, the zombie is passed on according to the usual UN*X process rules. Eventually it can reach init, which is always wait()ing. Note, however, that a zombie is a process in a very special state. It can only cease to exist. It is never eligible for CPU time (or memory). The only resource it uses up is a process table slot.
wait()
init
As discussed by such philosophers as Daniel Dennett and David Chalmers, the concept of zombies is useful for discussing the nature of intentionality. See also martians.
zombie n. 1.
[Unix] A process that has died but has not yet relinquished its process table slot (because the parent process hasn't executed a wait(2) for it yet). These can be seen in ps(1) listings occasionally. Compare orphan. 2. A machine, especially someone's home box, that has been cracked and is being used as part of a second-stage attack by miscreants trying to mask their home IP address. Especially used of machines being exploited in large gangs for a mechanized denial-of-service attack like Tribe Flood Network; the image that goes with this is of a veritable army of zombies mindlessly doing the bidding of a necromancer.
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.
Zombies are a powerful element in horror because they have several aspects that are highly useful to the storyteller:
There are also some aspects that put their bad features somewhat in balance:
Comparisons can be drawn between Zombie attacks and human-wave military tactics when it comes to planning your defense. If you have a strong defensive position and plenty of ammo, you are pretty safe. Just like the Chinese Army in the Korean War, Zombies will exploit any penetration of the perimeter, and will attempt to wear your defense down by attrition. They won't think twice about using half their numbers to create a hole in your line, and they have the added strength of being able to convert any defender they manage to capture.
The best defense from Zombies is distance, and plenty of it.
Certain enemies in the Half-Life series of video games are named zombies, although they are not of the traditional type described in the above writeups. Technically speaking, they aren't even dead. I suggest you check out headcrabs if you'd like to know more about Half-Life's zombies.
Headcrabs, the tiny alien freaks from Xen, have the instinctive ability to latch onto the nervous systems of sentient species. By latching on this way, a headrab will gain total control of the host's body and eventually mutate into a part-alien zombie.
The zombie will share the form of whatever it was before being assimilated, but it will quickly develop common characteristic mutations. The chest of the host splits open straight through the rib cage and the headcrab begins to merge into the host's skin, which takes on a green tinge. The host's fingers extend into sharp and powerful Nightmare on Elm Street-esque claws, which it uses to bash and rend prey. The zombie then uses these claws to pick chunks of flesh off of the kill, and stuff them into its chest-gash, which serves as a grotesque parody of a mouth.
The zombie is a meat suit, shambling around without much speed, with the headcrab in full control. Headcrabs aren't too bright, luckily, so the zombie isn't much smarter.
The vertical maw is the source of the zombie's official name: The mawman. The general public had the tendency to call them zombies, however, because of their slow movement and severely limited intelligence, along with their somewhat resurrective origin. The name stuck, and now you're unlikely to hear the word 'mawman', even amoung die-hard fans.
Generally, zombies will stand around until they see prey, at which point they lurch after it, kill it, eat it, and then stand around some more. In order to compensate for their lack of speed, zombies will sometimes forcefully kick and toss objects at their prey. If a zombie is confined, it will go into a 'destruct mode', smashing everything in sight until it is free. This is often a sound tactic, as they are fully capable of clawing through a weak brick wall if the need arises.
When a zombie is killed, the headcrab may leap off of the useless dead body, if it has not yet begun to merge. Thus, the most efficient means of disposing with a zombie is to shoot it in the head, killing both the headcrab and the body at once. This is a good plan of action since zombies are resilient foes, and will continue to claw their way towards a target even if their legs are blown off. Fire is also an effective weapon: zombies are quite flammable.
If it manages to survive for around two days of feeding, the zombie will grow into a much faster, bulkier and more alien zombie, called a gonome. These enemies, featured in the expansion pack/sequel Half-Life: Opposing Force, can pull out their acidic stomach contents and toss them at you if you avoid their claws and jaws.
The zombie has been updated for the sequel of the Half-Lifes, Half-Life 2. It has has not yet been released, so updates will be added when it is.
Chances are, there's a zombie in your living room, in your den, your office or in your basement.
A zombie is the term applied to a computer remotely taken over by someone who is not its physical owner. The compromised computer is nearly always a home or office computer running one of the Windows operating systems. A zombie's intended use is usually to send spam, make other computers become zombies and to participate in distributed denial-of-service attacks. In nearly every instance, the original owner is blissfully unaware of what's going on.
Sound familiar? The term isn't coming out of thin air, although the cultural references necessitates a better than average knowledge of US pop culture. Zombie doesn't trigger quite the same thoughts with a Pole as it does with a bearded systems administrator from Texas. In any case, the term carries the same meaning to computer security people all over the world: a remotely controlled computer used for illicit purposes.
How it's done In order to become a zombie, a computer must run some kind of program so it can be remotely controlled by someone. This type of program has a lot of names depending of who talks about it and what agenda they have; trojan horses, viruses and worms. The garden variety zombie comes into being when malicious software executes on the computer, usually when the original owner visit websites with malicious content, opens email attachments or simply connects to the internet.
The malicious software exploits loopholes or security flaws in the operating system in order to run.
Why it is possible In simplified terms: When Microsoft built their operating systems out of pop rivets, chewing gum, paper clips and leftover sidings, they designed some parts well, some parts not so well and some other special parts incredibly bad. To fix the bad and not-so-well things whenever they're notified or find them themselves, Microsoft issue corrections for their Windows operating systems. This is known as patches (another cultural reference right there). When Microsoft publish a patch, they always tell you what problem it's supposed to fix and how important it is that you (yes, you!) fix it. Cue the bad guys. They now know about a flaw/weakness/loophole in Windows. Now it's just a question of time when a program to exploit them appears on the internet.
Yes, I know. Security flaws exist in other operating systems than Windows. I'll bother thinking about it when Windows drops below 96% market share.
What it does When the malicious software runs, it installs a copy of itself and executes it. It then phones home to the internet hideout where the zombie master resides to notify the internet supervillain of itself. The computer in your living room is now a zombie and part of a botnet, raring to get up and go. After a few minutes, it normally starts relaying spam to tens of thousands of recipients. It is estimated that at about half on the net's spam volume comes from zombies. Spam, in turn, accounts for 50-70% of the entire world's email volume.1
A couple of days later it's been found out by the guys who finds out about these things and whoever controls the zombie will then usually discard it.
If the bad guy has no immediate use for the zombie, he can sell it to someone else as part of a botnet. Botnets are regularly bought and sold for thousands of dollars on the internet. If you want 5,000 zombies, be prepared to pay up to a dollar a piece (excl. VAT or sales tax).
Why it's done The internet is a good idea, isn't it? Get free information, send mail to your grandmother on the other side of the world, read your local newspaper wherever you are or make shit up for foreign websites. It's almost too good to be true. Then somehow money becomes involved and the equation defining global cooperation and happiness become perverted. People found a way to make money by selling cow dung. They found a way of making money by telling other people how to make money by telling other people about how to make money.
So it's about money of course. When there's people involved in anything, it either turns out to be about sex or the almighty dollar. In the case of the internet, you could argue it's about both. Simultaneously.
Say you bought the 5,000 strong army of zombies (or botnet) mentioned above. Here's what you can do with it in order to earn some cash:
For the bad guys, a zombie has several advantages:
Remedies The best remedy is keeping your Windows computer up to date by visiting Windows Update (http//www.windowsupdate.com or http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com) use some kind of firewall on your computer or network and practice safe computing. At the very least, this will prevent your computer from becoming infected.
Some Internet Service Providers have begun blocking mail traffic wholesale from customers in order to stem the tide of spam. If you want to send mail, you'll have to use the ISP's own mail relay. In addition, a lot of legitimate mail servers are d
