Washroom rules to live by?

I found a set of funny rules on my friend’s washroom wall. I couldn’t help slightly enhancing it and adding a few extra points to come up with something useful. I guess being in a public place, we can see how our people are internally. Now, don’t we all need those rules posted in the restrooms, so people can help themselves be a bit more sensible? I came across some of these nice rules that could help us make this city a bit of a better place to be in.

1. Flush, my friend. Think like being in a crime scene – your job here is to leave no evidence. Don’t try to figure out what needs to be flushed, what can be left to disappear with the water. If it’s out there, it needs to be gone. If it’s taking time for the water to fill up in the tank, there’s no harm waiting a few extra minutes.

2. Use dry hands when you touch things that others will be using. It’s annoying to see tap/flush handles, and door locks wet. Keep it clean and dry. If needed, use extra paper. Wash your hands and make sure to use a new piece of paper to turn the dirty faucet handle(s) off!

3. Why anyone would put the Toilet Paper roll in a way that the loose end of the paper lies against the wall? Make sense people; put it on at a convenient ripping distance. There’s no way I want to get toilet rolls while hovering over a space I’d rather not touch. And keep the paper roll dry.

4. If you run out of paper, don’t sit in there. God’s not sending you one from up there, so speak up a bit. We don’t have this part in our culture, but please, do ask someone to pass one, there’s no shame in being hygienic. And if you’re asked by someone else, pass it over if it’s possible – let’s try being a good person when it really matters?

5. If you’re a guy: stand close and your aim will help a lot.  It’s shorter than you think!

6. If you are in a public place (malls/airports), don’t just start pushing the doors. You know how things are in this country, try to look for the feet, peek a bit, and be a social being.

7. If the bathroom is busy, there’s no reason to stand close to the door. Let others take their time. It’s not a parking place; and no one’s getting charged for time. Don’t make someone else rush, and don’t try eavesdropping, even if you work for the CIA.

How to deal with Cockroaches?

Remember the powder we used to use for Carrom Boards? That is the solution! Yep, it’s actually Boric Acid. This chemical works by damaging the pest’s shell cover. Cockroach’s cuticle will dry out and it will die sooner. This method is not very effective in highly-humid days in Dhaka since it will take a longer time for cockroaches to be dehydrated. Winter is the best time to do this experiment. I used Boric Acid made by ECONO Chemicals – it’s available at local medicine stores (comes in a yellow box). Try mixing it with flour to make it more appealing to the pests. This method was really cheap and effective for me.

Another way to kill cockroaches is a method called sulfur-burning. Put some sulfur on a saucepan and allow this to burn. Make sure to stay out of the house for a few hours. You can get sulfur in local chemical stores, but another common place for it is from Egg Shells! Some people also said leaving eggshells in corners. This technique keeps cockroaches away, but I’m not sure how well it kills them.

I’ve also read that cockroaches, who survive the insect sprays you buy from stores, will develop stronger immunity from this. So these won’t work as good and may make things worse. If you spray on a cockroach and if it’s half-dead, make sure you do the rest of the job. If it survives, it’ll be less immune to this spray later, and this will be passed to its offspring too! Also try using alternates brands of these chemicals to keep things effective. 

Cockroaches tend to dislike the smell of popular Pandan leafs – leave some in bookshelves or in the trunk of your car.

Researchers at Purdue tell to make the places (where cockroaches used to live) clean. Cockroaches molt their skin as they go from one nymph stage to the next, and there is a lot of skin left in the areas where they live. This dead skin become airborne and causes allergies and asthma! In addition, cockroaches are attracted to places where other cockroaches are by a chemical compound, called pheromones. Therefore, deal with cockroaches regardless of the numbers.

And for any of these methods, make sure you keep the pets away while you deal with pests. Let me know what worked for you, or if you have a trick of your own.

How private is your MSN chat?

MSN Messenger being an extremely popular IM client among us, it’s important to keep in mind that, others can see your conversations. This traffic can be sniffed very easily by anyone on your network (for example, if you use a LAN from the place you sign into MSN, or by your ISP). This is because Microsoft does not use any kind of encryption while sending data via MSN. This results in MSN data packets to be picked up very easily by someone else on the same network. This whole thing is actually very use to do than you think, and it doesn’t require someone to be a hacker or have in-depth programming skills. So even before you knew, there could be people eavesdropping to your chat sessions already.

To fight this, nevertheless, we luckily have a few free applications. Simp Lite for MSN Messenger is one of such applications that lets you encrypt your MSN data packets before sending. SimpLite-MSN authenticates your contacts using RSA keys up to 2048 bits. Encryption is done using either AES (up to 128 bits) or Twofish algorithm. In English, these proven algorithms guarantee a strong security of your online conversations.

To make a secure chat session however, you must have this application installed on both ends. That is, if you and your friend want to talk to each other making sure that no one can eavesdrop, this application must be installed on both ends. This step is obvious since the encrypted message needs to be decrypted at the other end. The software uses easy to use steps to activate encryption process, and also lets you check if the conversation you are having is over a encrypted session or not. This free version is relatively light weight and comes with no spyware.

There’s no harm in making sure of security and privacy, share this with all of your IM friends so that more of us can communicate ensuring a good level of privacy.

How long is “Eid” anyway?

As a trip to KFC with my colleagues, I was amazed to find people are still celebrating Eid, after 6 days from the actual Eid day. In an effort to understand just how long Eid really is, I used some amount of time from my ridiculously weird life to examine this closely.

I was amazed to find the opinions of course.  On average most people say Eid is 3 days, no one being able to provide reference of the information though. In some countries it’s considered as a single day event, while some celebrate it for a week. A large number of people also said, it’s extended to 5 days. Their argument was supported by television advertisements that broadcast messages like “This program will be shown on the fifth day of Eid.” Another group explained, “Eid is as long as the food you cook for Eid is left.” While an interesting perception was found that also states “Eid is as long as you have new clothes (bought in Ramadan) to wear, considering you wear a new one each day.” Wow!

So this still leaves me in a bit of confusion – just how long is Eid? 24 years, guess I still couldn’t figure it out.