Illustration by E.R. Ronny

Let’s get to the point; we don’t have enough time for silly introductions. I am going to show you how to survive, and if you can’t fight off dumb little zombies, you don’t deserve to survive at all! This is war, comrades, and I expect you to behave like soldiers!

First things first: you hear about people biting each other, you do NOT wait. You wait, you die. It’ll be risky with all the zombies running around and no one having a clue what’s going on (except you, of course), but it’s the best chance you have to gather resources before humans are overrun– that includes banding together in a small community. You wait more than three days, you deserve to die. Hell, I’ll be surprised if you can wait three days. Zombies are hungry, can smell you, and break doors.

But I am going to be realistic. This is Day 2 and you FINALLY decided to put Zombie Apocalypse Plan in action. I am assuming you know where to get weapons. You don’t need a fancy one – we are not dealing with robots or armoured aliens. They have human bodies with toned down human vulnerabilities. You need to shoot a lot, and be accurate enough to blow their brains off. That’s the only sure fire way to kill zombies, regardless of what Zombieland tells you. I prefer submachine guns with at least .357 hollowpoints. Anything less than .305 will kill, but lacks stopping power. Unfortunately, they are hard to come across so you will have to settle for Uzis and AK-47s. Handguns with .22 calibers or less won’t stop a zombie unless it’s a headshot. You’ll also need a melee weapon: Katanas will be over your head, so you’ll have to make do with a machete.

It astounds me that people in the movies don’t wear some kind of armour during an invasion, seeing as how infections spread through bites. Get a lightweight Kevlar and/or a padded leather jacket as soon as possible, as well as a backpack to carry enough food in the form of protein bars (anything else will just slow you down) and water for a week. Antibiotics and painkillers are a must, as is some sort of ADD medication to help you keep yourself concentrated.

It is absolutely imperative to group together and fortify a building. Zombies tend to do what they were doing while they were alive, so crowded areas like a school or a mall is a big no-no. An apartment building will work great, and a warehouse with very few entrances will be even better. Surround yourself with cameras, booby-traps, flashlights, and don’t forget to keep guard! It’s a warzone outside! And get ammunitions. Lots and lots of ammunitions.

Zombies aren’t smart. They’ll probably die of starvation sooner rather than later. They never seem to get around the idea of refrigerators. So my strategy is to wait them out. But if you are going to travel anyway, bikes are fast and preferable if you are alone (there won’t be any electricity, so you need and can siphon off fuel faster), but cars are safer. Travel in groups of twos to the least, and definitely not with any one who can’t use a gun.

In a worst case scenario where you are the only one left, you should move north. I really don’t think zombies can survive long in the cold, and snow will slow them down. There should be enough canned food in Alaska, if not, you can always hunt. Always keep a line of communication open. It’ll be likely that some army base somewhere or a nuclear submarine have survived as well. And when you all group together, it will be time to form an army to wage war! It will be time will come to take back what’s rightfully yours! It will be glorious!

The Other Side by Emil

Hello, hello and hello, my zombie minions. I am your all-powerful Undead Overlord. Welcome to the new age world. As you most assuredly must have realised by now, ALL of you are zombies. No, don’t look so yellow. Or, I guess that’s not your fault. It’s not important how it happened, or why, or when. I doubt you could process such delicate information with your rotting brains. In fact, it’s taking a toll on me just to maintain this ITF (Intelligent Telepathic Field). Anyway, the only thing that matters is that we are all zombies and the only thing that can satiate our hunger is the salty, and strangely sweet, flesh of the common human being.

Yes, you are dead. Yes, you are impervious to pain. Unfortunately, you are not invincible, nor are you immortal. And if you thought runny noses were annoying, wait till you get bouts of runny skin and runny limbs. The less you have to eat, the more of that it will happen. So, it’s vital that you find sustenance as often as you can. The more you get, the stronger you will be. Who knows, someday your brain might even be as developed as mine. Well, actually. Never mind.

There are some things that you have to keep in mind. Some rules of thumb that you should follow.

Pack life: You better start getting used to pack life, and working as a team. Never, ever fight among yourself. Firstly, flesh of your kind is poison, so don’t bother trying to go for the easy way to survival. Hunt in groups. In very, very large groups. Go alone, and you will most assuredly re-die. Go with a buddy or two, you will re-die. So when I say hunt in large groups, I mean REALLY large. Surround your target (singular, preferably. More targets = more guns in your faces), and share the meal like the good little deadbeats that you are.

Choose your location: Be wise. Be very, very wise when you’re choosing your targets. That should go hand-in-hand with choosing the location of the kill. You can afford to be picky if your targets are the crippled and the bedridden, but otherwise, you need to be careful. Closed spaces will provide you with the possibility of cornering your target into a dead-end. But the advantage of your massive numbers will mean nothing when you’re running through corridors and hallways. Any half-brained dolt would be able to pick you off one by one with a Smith & Wesson 500. Open spaces, like roads and what not, will favour numbers better, but be careful of targets wielding assault rifles or any burst fire guns.

Accessories: All of you have numerous accessories at your disposal. When besieged by groups of zombie hunters, use distracting tactics to split the team apart, and pick them out one by one. God knows how much of these instructions you lot will be able to retain, but I can hope for the best. Remember, getting shot does NOT stop you. Nothing stops you short of having your brains blown out. You never tire, you never sleep, and you never stop. Lost a hand, make a human lend you one. One of your legs ran away? Crawl to your prey. You are unstoppable forces of unnature, and THEY are just flesh and blood, ripe for your picking.

The Magnum: Yes. You heard that right. They WILL be carrying this. If you come across anyone armed with this. Either take ‘em out quick, or run and pray for your unlives. We’re lucky the .500 never became very popular. Being shot by that is like being hit by a magnet-train. Heck, even being in the near vicinity of it being fired runs the risk of your brain turning to jelly and oozing out. Find and destroy these weapons/ammunitions of mass destruction as much as you can. And don’t make the mistake of underestimating its little brother- the .44- either.

Forget the crappy zombie movies you’ve seen where those dead things are sluggish and dumb. They don’t know everything about us, and we don’t know everything about them. Avoid getting shot, if possible. And remember, that infection is not your first priority. Kill, eat, and THEN infect failing the first two. You are as fast as a human being. You may be falling apart, but you still have legs, and hands, and a body. USE it! Go for the diaphragm, the hamstring, aim for the groin, the eyes, carpe jugulum! They are few, you are many. They have everything to lose, you don’t. The world is your lawn. Go. Carry on, my undead sons. Bring me the world.

Published in Rising Star, The Daily Star, 13 April, 2010 in collaboration with Shahriar Shamim Emil

Santa Claus in a bear costume

According to the news (not this one, though, can’t find the link), the officials did not follow procedures that would lead to unbanning of Facebook – they emailed, rather than using the Report Abuse link, so the unban was delayed.

I imagine what they put in the report abuse details to be something very similar to this:

Report Abuse:

Dear Sir/Madam,
I represent the People’s Republic of Bangladesh on behalf of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission. If you don’t know where Bangladesh is, it is juuuuuust beside India and just a little off Myanmar. Now, it has come to our attention that your website Facebook is hosting several “fan pages” that are offensive to our communist liberal sensibilities. Our primary concern is the fan page “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” which was created because of attempted censorship by known terrorists, so as People’s Republic, and under public pressure from groups of fundamentalists that represent all of Bangladesh, we are censoring Facebook to counter the counter of censorship, all arising from the cartoon pointing out censorship doesn’t work. As you can see from the 0.002% loss (approximate) of daily hits of your 400,000,000 user base, this is working.

There are also some hot and sexy pics of our great country’s leaders on two other groups (which I can not name because I never heard of them before), all fake of course, as you can tell by the shadows. These pictures are bad for our country’s perfect image – and you should know from your recent campaign for better privacy, image is important. We demand the pictures of the country’s progressive and change making Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and of the opposition leader (a lesser being) Khaleda Zia’s to be removed immediately, along with all related or non-related, political or otherwise, caricatures or pictures that paint our leaders in bad light. Unfortunately, failure to do so would result us prolonging the ban, as supported by the “freedom of speech” clause in our democratic country’s Constitution.

That being said, although the Mohammed page is our primary concern, we might lift the ban on facebook users in Digital Bangladesh (a term that is open to interpretation since we have not defined it) once you delete the groups concerning the totally uncorrupted and honest leaders, which under no circumstances arose from disappointment, anger or general dislike for douche moves like banning an entire media based on the actions of a few.

Thank you for your co-operation,
Hussain M Elius

P.S. You can tell that I am an official because I have a passport photo in my profile.

We read at various media that you’ve mentioned Avro is a pirated version of Bijoy. Could you please elaborate on that?

I have write-ups published in newspapers and my website on the issue, so you might refer to those. Last Tuesday, an article was published on The Daily Sangabd, which has the detailed information. However, for your clarification, when the keyboard layout used in Bijoy is used in any other software, it is defined as piracy.

To refute your claim, an article was recently published in The Daily Janakantha on behalf of Avro team. In that article, it was mentioned that Avro shares an 8-keystroke difference with that of UniBijoy’s layout.

Law does not understand an 8-key stroke difference. If you refer to the Copyright Law in 2005 and go through its related divisions – which I have mentioned in my article at The Daily Sangbad, you will easily understand.

Do you plan on taking legal actions?

I don’t want to go through legal actions. I have already complained at the Copyright Office and they have already sent a notice demanding an explanation to Avro. I’ve received a copy of it myself today. There are laws in the country. You can easily write against someone in blogs, websites or newspapers, but that does not mean law cannot be enforced. If you claim that it is not pirated, then elaborate through legal references. The answer does not lie with one’s verbal claims of 8-keystroke or 10-keystroke differences. I did not make the copyright or patent myself. Copyright or patent registrar has given it to me. If you have issues regarding copyright, you can approach the Government and complain that your copyright has been taken. I have even mentioned at Janakantha that you can impose a libel suit against me if needed.

Apart from this, are there any other measures you plan on taking?

Firstly, I’ll see what actions Copyright Registrar takes on the issue. If they can resolve it, I don’t need to take any further steps. According to the country’s legal infrastructure, I can go to court under Copyright, Patent or Trademark Law. I didn’t want to approach the court about these issues since 2003; however given the provocative and defaming language used against me, it seems as though my biggest mistake was simply making Bijoy. Yet, the person who has copied my keyboard and distributed openly in a website has not apparently committed any crime. My crime is mine. It’s my copyright, it’s my patent and in spite of it, I am the one at flaw here.

It seems claims have been that in blogs that Avro is open source…

It is not open source. It’s a freeware. Open source means software’s source is publicly open. Please refer to a copy of Prothom Alo from last Friday. Avro’s Windows version does not have its source open. Many freeware in the world were distributed free of cost initially, and charged for its proceeding versions. It’s almost like creating hype that you’re distributing something for free. I have no problem with free distribution of your own software, but why will you distribute someone else’s work? Bijoy is not his product. He has Avro Easy and other keyboards – I have no complaints against them. Why will he use my work? He, himself has admitted 99% has been copied, and now he is claiming 8-keystroke differences. Basically, the characters used to map Bangla letters using A to Z is the same, and in his said differences, we all know how many times does one use chondrobindu or bishorgo – and those are not related to fingering. In spite of all this, he claims he has not copied.

Thank you for your time, Mr. Jabbar.

Mustafa Jabbar, proprietor of Bijoy shares his take on the debate between Bijoy and Avro. The telephone interview was taken by Hussain M Elius on 2 May, 2010.

This was a trimmed down version of what was supposed to go along this article on Star Weekend. But the said article got cut off in the wrong places during editing and this one was not included at all . Oh well =(

Tesla was brilliant. And not just Professor X-like brilliant, but “holy crap my head just exploded” brilliant. This Serbian dude from Croatia spoke eight languages, almost single handedly developed technology that harnessed the power of electricity for household use and invented things like electrical generators, FM Radio, remote control, robots, spark plugs, fluorescent lights and a giant machine that shot million volts lighting bolts over hundreds of feet. At least video games got something factually correct. He had a photographic memory and an insane ability to visualize even the most complex pieces of machinery before building it the guy did calculus and advanced physics in his head, and some of his prototypes can’t still, a hundred years later, be replicated because he did not leave blue prints behind. For instance in 2007 a group of lesser geniuses from MIT threw a party because they could wirelessly transmit electricity at a distance of seven feet, when in comparison Tesla lit up 200 light bulbs from a power source 26 miles away he built at 1899 in the middle of a god-forsaken desert!

Like many other giga-geniuses and diabolical masterminds, Tesla was also completely insane. He suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and had many unusual quirks and phobias. He did things in threes and was adamant about staying in a room number divisible by three. He was physically revolted by jewellery, but loved pigeons and the pet cat he had as a child – The Magnificent Macak. He pathologically feared contact with dirt and germs, and even though there were many women vying for his attention, some madly in love, Tesla remained unmarried and celibate. Basically he was the ultimate mad scientist.

During his 86 years of life, he held over 600 patents while many of his inventions were not even held under patent protection. After he moved to the US, he worked with Thomas Edison who promised him $50,000 (which is approximately $1.2 million today) if he could improve Edison’s inefficient motors and generators. In 1885 when Tesla inquired about payment for his work, Edison replied, “Tesla, you don’t understand American humour.” They had been adversaries since, and neither received the Nobel Prize because they refused to share the honour. Later, Tesla came out victorious in The War of the Currents where he advocated the use of AC as opposed to DC (promoted by Edison), which ushered in the Second Industrial Revolution.

Tesla once generated resonance in several buildings (except his own) surrounding his lab, causing complaints to police. Just as the police arrived, he was forced to apply a sledgehammer to terminate the experiment. It is rumoured that he later claimed he could cause an earthquake, and with enough power, split the Earth in two. No one dared question him. If this was mythology, Tesla could and would have single handedly taken down Thor and Zeus… blindfolded.

Oh, and he also claimed to have invented death rays, which, and I quote, “send concentrated beams of particles through the free air, of such tremendous energy that they will bring down a fleet of 10,000 enemy airplanes at a distance of 200 miles from a defending nation’s border and will cause armies to drop dead in their tracks.” Fortunately (?), he died with all the schematics in his head before his ideas ever became reality, but the FBI confiscated away all his personal belongings… just to be safe.

Nikola Tesla walked the thin line between “sheer genius” and “utter madness”. His groundbreaking discoveries in the field of physics, robotics, steam turbine engineering, magnetism, and melting his assistants hand by overloading it with X-Ray, which although is not scientific, but still pretty cool, shaped the world. And honestly, if there was any man who could claim that he could destroy the entire world and get away with it, it was Tesla. That alone should qualify him as a righteous badass.

Published in Rising Star, The Daily Star, 13 May 2010

Even if it wasn’t the local news, many of the two/three panel comic strips published worldwide are more than mere comic strips, but rather works of art. I find myself re-reading Calvin and Hobbes or Peanuts now and it blows my mind how relevant they still are today, and how more thought provoking I find them today than I did in yesteryears.

As my news consumption has changed, so has how I consume my little pleasures in life. I therefore introduce you to a (obviously biased) short list of my favourite webcomics. Rule of the thumb is that you should go back to the first issue and start reading from there, and if you like it, you can subscribe to them via RSS.

xkcd.com and Abstruse Goose.com are for those who keep in touch with internet memes , nerd culture jokes, and did not forget their O level maths. xkcd, with it’s passion to bridge love for technology with love for someone, has gone to become one of the most successful comic strips in recent times (some even compare it with Calvin and Hobbes, but I have my reservations) while The Goose, new to the game, takes a leaf from xkcd and is quickly gaining popularity.

Am I scaring you with all the science-y comics? Well fear not! Cyanide and Happiness is one of those comics that make you laugh by bordering on the side of insanity. I like to compare it to the Simpsons really, as it starts of going in one direction and ending it another.Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal is yet another fun web comic that does not foray into any particular theme but rather points out; sometimes quiet painfully, the absurdities of real life.

Back to our themed webcomics, I give you Ctrl+Alt+Del, a comic venturing in the realm of video games. Of course, how can I put comics and video games in one sentence and not mention Penny Arcade? Really, if you are into games, try them out. DO NOT ARGUE! You will love me forever more for pointing you to their direction.

But the popular ones aren’t the only ones. And if you are like me, you won’t restrict yourself just with the popular ones. There are thousands of comics scattered all over the interwebs. And you can get access to the funniest ones of the day by typing isitfunnytoday.com in your browser, where they are rated in typical internet fashion on their funniness. It is a great place to find the jems like Garfield minus Garfield, Sinfest or Amazing Super Powers.

I can go on and on, but I fear I’ll take up all your day. If you have never read any web comics, or think they are a waste of time, try them out just once. You can thank me later.

Published in Rising Star, The Daily Star, 06, May, 2010