Weird Superstitions in Malaysia (and maybe other places around the world)

Inspired by a post made by SAYS. #Weirdsuperstitions


Since their list of superstitions isn't exactly complete, I thought of adding a few more of the superstitions that I've heard from my "youth".

I'll probably rewrite all the superstition they have on their Facebook post too since their grammar is atrocious... heh :P

Right, so here goes!

• Don't swallow the seeds of watermelon (or any type of fruits with small "eatable" seeds). If you do swallow them, the seeds will sprout in your tummy.

• If you don't finish your food/ if you waste food, you'll go straight to the lowest level of hell (the "lucky" number 18th) when you die.

• If you suddenly smell something odd in the middle of the night, you mustn't react to or say anything about the smell no matter how nice (perfume)/ bad (something rotten) it is or the ghost that's hanging around will latch onto you. 

The same superstition applies if you spotted "something odd" in the mirror, behind you/ from the corner of your eye or if you hear something really odd like someone calling out your name when you're home alone.

• Don't walk under a ladder (those portable ones) or you'll be very unlucky

• Don't point at the moon or you'll get an unexplained cut on your ear lobe.

• Don't use red ink to write a person's name. If you do, it's like you're cursing that person to die an early death.

• When you go jungle trekking, don't bend over and peer behind you through the gap in between your legs (especially when you're tying your shoelaces) or you'll see something that you really don't want to see.

• If you need to pee or defecate in the bushes, you must say a quick prayer to the NaTuk Kong first.

• Don't talk about how you're not afraid of ghosts while you're in the jungle or the "spirits" there will take you up on your challenge and follow you home.

• Don't sleep with your feet facing any sort of doorway. Only corpses are allowed to be positioned that way.

• Don't give anyone a clock for their birthday. If you do, it's like you're saying that their time on Earth is limited and that they will die an early death.

• Don't sit on pillows or anything that's too soft or you'll grow BiSui (a form of painful blister or boil) on your butt, making it incredibly difficult to sit without accidentally squishing it.

• Don't cut your nails at night or the ghosts will come and find you.

• Don't whistle at night either or the ghosts will come and find you.

• Don't comb your hair after midnight or you'll see a ghost in the mirror.

• You must take a proper (not Mandi kerbau-type) bath after returning from a funeral or the spirits will stick around with you.

• Don't step or sit on books or you'll become stupid.

• Don't play hide and seek at night or you'll disappear... forever...

• Don't shake your leg when sitting or you'll "shake" all your fortune/ good luck away and you'll become poor in the future

• Knock on the door before entering a rented room (like in a hotel/ motel). This is mainly used as a sign of respect to any spirits in the room and to let them know that you'll be staying there for awhile.

• Don't stab your chopsticks upright on your bowl of rice (or any food for that matter). This is because the chopsticks will then look like incense to the spirits and they will come and feast on your food instead. (Note: Food that is "eaten" by spirits will become somewhat tasteless.)

• Don't go near any banana trees in the middle of the night. There's where all the Pontianak (Malaysian vampires) like to hang out.

• Pending - I'll see if I can remember anymore superstitions that I've heard in my childhood.

I'll create share-able posts on my Facebook page this weekend (maybe) so you can easily share them to your friends.


Bonus: a TED talk on the origins of superstitions and why they still exist

Ant Farm Diaries

Okay, before you start to say anything, please note that I HAD a few small ant farms maybe around 2 years ago. Let's just say I hid them under my bed coz there's a strict "no pets" rule at home and more so if it involves insects, but my parents found out... lol *does neck cutting motion*. RIP... I don't even know how they died :(


Annnyyywaysssss... here's my experience from way back when (This post has been sitting in my Drafts folder for AGES!)


I've started my own ant farm using fertilized queen ants (the garden variety black ants, which I don't dislike as much as small and stinky red ants that bite. These black ants don't bite.) that I've collected from my lab back in Bertam - though only 3 queen ants and their off-springs survived. 

- Lesson learned: Queen ants do take in larvae from other queen ants of the same species.

Originally, there were 4 though... I'm still not sure why the fourth died, but I transferred the larvae and eggs to another queen ant with a hope that she will take them in as her own. Let's just say she did :)

- Tip learned: Cleaning the ant farm tube/ Transferring ants from tube to tube

Oh,. one advice for transferring ants from a tube home to another - I'd advise you to chill them in the fridge (NOT the freezer, mind you!!) for awhile, so that they'll get all drowsy. I've tried putting them in for 5 to 10 mins and I can then gently shake them out into a new tube, so I can clean out the old one. 

And well, I've tried feeding them several stuff and so far, these are the stuff they like and the stuff that they don't

- Tip learned: Food for black garden-variety ants

Likes:

1. Fruits (the sweeter, the better) - can last at most 3 days (but vary depending on the type of fruit), then you'll have to throw what's left of it because, obviously, they get all rotten.

2. Very tiny flying insects

3. Very tiny worms

4. Strawberry jam, processed (but then they will leave behind "something", probably the "processed part" that you'll have to throw away)

5. Small strips of meat (moist, not dry) - chicken meat, pork, etc

6. Sugar (Fine, preferably) - They are crazy over these stuff... obviously

Dislikes:

1. Small moths (even though it was chopped up and dewinged - after it was dead ofc... I'm no monster!)

2. Bread chunks soaked in water (bad advice given by an user at an ant farm forum)

- Tip learned: Designing your own ant farm container

They like the dark, so be sure to keep your transparent container wrapped in something non-transparent. Thin sheets of paper don't work as well, but aluminum foils work perfectly.

Remember to have breathing holes for air to circulate. It's best to use cotton or thick gauze to stuff the entrance. I've also tried using something like a thick and elastic "plastic cling wrap" and poked tiny holes in them -but that turned out to not be a very good idea since some ants do try to bite through these wraps. Naturally, I'd recommend against poking holes on paper or any other thin stuff since the ants will even more easily tear through the stuff and escape.

If your container is wide (in an ant's perspective), then you'll need to insert something to fill up the middle before you put soil in. This is to make the tunnels that the ants dig more visible against the sides of the container. I personally used a discarded poster (thick) to do this, but you can also use the a used toilet roll (the cardboard part).

So, if you're using a poster, I roll it up tight and compact - glossy side inwards due to the taping part, and seal it with strong tape. You'll need to seal the hollow part with strong tape as well. Poster paper can withstand semi-moist soil that your ants will need to dig in and the best thing is - there isn't any moss growing inside my ant farm. 

For soil, it's always best to get some "local soil" - meaning the soil that you think the ants came from. Those are usually foolproof, but if you can't or don't want to, well, you shouldn't get something that is too dry. Semi moist is best. And also, be sure to shake or tap your container against the ground as you pack in the soil so the soil will be more compact. Be sure to leave plenty of room at the top so that the ants can carry the soil they've dug to the surface and they have some room to walk around as well. 

~ ~ ~ ~

I couldn't continue this diary as my dad threw away my Ant Farms after I went for a trip to KL last year and I was devastated. I got over it though, but I'll always remember the feeling of having something to look after. Keeping a pet... no matter what type of pet it is... is HARD work! But I'm glad of the experience and I'm surprise to know ants do consume chicken meat and pork. 

Anyway, when I last saw them, 2 of the colonies became very huge, so much that it's actually hard for me to feed them without them trying to crawl up my tweezers (I use tweezers to place very small "bowls" of food and water in). I actually had to wait for an opportune time before I can feed them lol. 

And well, there were lots of escapees when I try feeding them (makeshift ant farm containers aren't the best way to keep these ants contained, but I did my best) - some of which I've managed to return to their homes (some of which I can find crawling up my leg after 3 days since it escaped lol - don't worry, they don't bite) while others, I can't find them so I suppose they deserve their freedom... but ants can't survive long without their colony. 

Pics soon! I'll just have to recover them from my old and now semi-broken smartphone. - Update: the phone's completely broken and I'm not sure if I could even recover the pics.

What are the signs that you are wasting your life?

Take a screenshot from Quora since I find it meaningful in a way :)

...Exactly!!!

I just love prowling around on Quora, there are so many interesting people there sharing their experience.... some of which are experiences that I will probably not be able to get - such as being a forensic scientist with the police force heh :P 

If you love reading about things.... any meaningful or helfpul stuff, Quora is definitely one of the places to go to. It's amazing what you can learn there!

Infograph: Most Popular Usernames in MMO Games

I was playing around with Canva, a web-based application that allows you to create and save infographs for free... as long as yo don't use any of their paid elements. I've gotta say though - they do have a lot of free icons and images for you to use as you please.

That said, Canva has some really nice templates, fonts and images/icons, but I really dislike that the tools provided are very clunky and restrictive. In fact, I can do an even better job using PowerPoint to create my infograph... lol... minus the free icons and stuff, of course.  

But well, if you need a somewhat freeware that can do the job (infograph) without needing any installations, Canva is a pretty good bet. 

Anyway, here's the infograph that I made for lulz (just to try out the application I mean). Oh and the info in it is pretty accurate I'd say :P

Click to Enlarge

I wanted to add a picture of various anime in the "anime" box, but well, I gave up lol. As mentioned, it's tough as hell to move things around especially when you can't see the layer order for each item and kept clicking/ moving on the wrong stuff. Texts are super tough to move as well.

It turned out okay though, so... guess there's that :P

Alright, have fun with Canva! Ima go grab some dinner now :)

Best Science Documentaries on Daily Motion

A list of the documentaries that I've enjoyed :) Have fun watching!

1. BBC Documentary - The Creative Brain: How Insight Works

BBC Documentary - Horizon_ The Creative Brain... by videoupload2014-4

2. BBC Science - Are Video Games Really That Bad?

BBC Horizon 2015 || BBC Science | Are Video... oleh Burak_Kavakc

3. NOVA Science Now - Human Brain: How Smart Can We Get

BBC DOCUMENTARY 2015 Human Brain How Smart Can... oleh Documentarychannel1

Very interesting! Writing down/journaling about your feelings and anxieties prior to a highly stressful situation helps your brain perform better... and reduces the chance of you getting that dreaded "going blank" phenomenon, especially during exams.

I used to journal on paper during my high school years - coz well, I love to write, so why not? Hehe :P But then I switched over to typing... hence, the birth of Aveyn Toh's blog... where I write prior to stressful situations like exams or rushing assignments for deadlines... I used to think I was procrastinating lol.. but now, maybe... just maybe, my brain is trying to teach me to offload the stress via my writing, so I can perform better later on :) Amazing!

4. NOVA Science Now - How Does The Brain Work?


HOW DOES THE BRAIN WORK? - NOVA SCIENCE NOW... oleh valeriivankov


5.

Battling Addiction

I was... um, I am a pretty big fan of Tyler Ward. He's a great musician... I love his songs... and he seems like he's a really chill guy.

I have no idea he had these problems though.



His video reminded me of the time when I was hooked on WoW. Granted that WoW is an excellent game and I still love it, I was very much addicted to the game... for years. It's not a major addiction, but it still affected my life and my studies (somewhat). And like all addicts, I was in denial about my addiction even though a small part of me is constantly nagging me... telling me that they (my parents) were right... that I was addicted.

I was very thankful that I have had a very strong will or I would have emerged from my addiction with even more "damage". At uni, I have a friends first policy that I could honestly say I've never broken. It's a struggle honestly... and it's not that I don't enjoy my friends' company, but the allure of WoW can be really strong... I was a total AH addict back then. I have this urge to check my listed items and relist items if I get undercut. It took up quite a lot of my time.

I also have a bit of a "kia su" (afraid to lose) attitude I suppose. No matter how much I long to play, I will still study for my exams and stuff.... but uh, maybe I just study a bit less and a bit more hurriedly, as well as study the subjects later than I would have liked (procrastinating). I got away with this (and still get OK results) for quite some time... until one day, I had a moment of terror when I completely can't recall the formulas I've memorized a few days earlier for a final exam.

It's the "blank" phenomenon... as we Msians call it and it scared the hell out of me. There I was thinking I had managed to do well with minimal studying but this one moment gave me the shock I needed. I still play WoW since then, but I'm a bit more careful about when and how long I play the game. I think that's when I realized that my future, my life... is more important than a virtual life.

And well, there's this: I have to keep my results up or I might lose my scholarship. So, yeah, I didn't went all cold turkey though... and I didn't delete any of my beloved characters, but I think they aren't there any more... it has been years since I last logged into the game.

Even after graduation, I still played the game for a bit, but I'm not sure why... the game starts to lose its hold on me. I still get addicted to games though, but now I know how to manage it... how to prioritise what real life stuff that I value more.

That said, although I still think WoW is the best MMO ever (I might try Guild Wars one day though... and maybe, I may change my mind :P) and that I would love to check out all the new stuff the game has had over the past few years, I'm now a bit afraid of playing WoW again.

Anyway, watching that gut-wrenching video of Tyler talking about his struggles made me realised how grateful I was to have a will that is strong enough to break myself free from my WoW addiction.



So.... that's all there is - my addiction story. What about yours?

Fun Times in Dirty Bomb

Let me first say that I'm not one of those really hardcore shooters... but I do relish a challenge (and not being facerolled) now and then. 

Most games that I tried for shooter games tend to have some really hardcore players who have like zero tolerance with players who are still learning the game... they expect every player in their team to be a pro. And even worse? They do not even offer any advice or help, but straightaway start flaming people.

I had my fair share of insults mind you and yes, for some of the times, I don't need someone else to tell me I've messed up (sometimes, but not always) in the game - I do that very well on my own. 

Anyway, once I've gotten sufficiently proficient at a game, I do excel at them... somewhat :P Still need to polish up lots of stuff though... like reacting fast enough to avoid a Proxy's well-placed mine, or not be stupid enough to try to have a shootout with a sniper using a submachine gun/assault rifle xD (but well, at least my teammates will know that there's a sniper there and perhaps flush him out to avenge me) 

Here are some of my moments of triumphs :)

My first match of the day - not sure why I did so well this turn, but I sure as hell know that we have a great resser :P  Oh and check out that latency... lol. It's supposed to be a SEA server and my broadband is supposed to be 30 mbps zzz

Didn't do as well in the second turn, but the K/D is pretty good :P

I switched over to playing Objective mode - my favorite mode :)

A crazily tough fight - everyone made mistakes, but we still did it :) I planted both bombs (on the 2 objectives) despite having another Bushwacker on the team. I'm lucky that my teammates saw what I was trying to do and covered me... but well, I'm not that stupid and keep rushing in to get myself blindly killed either :P Oh and they have like 2 Proxies too, who are honestly very annoying.

I have never earned an Ace achievement before. It was a rather proud moment for me :P Update in April 2016: I've gotten a few more Aces since then... yay, I'm improving my l33t skillz

I had a very good team, but they made some mistakes... I do too. 1 good team member almost rage quit-ed, but he stayed... thank goodness, and thankfully, the opponents are pretty much at my/our skill level. So, it was a very good fight. They won some skirmishes; we won some too. It's just an incredible experience, overall :)

Ah well, that said, I'm off to get in an hour or 2 of Fallout 4 :P Ciao! 

Quibblo - Quiz creator

There are plenty of quiz-creating online software freely available on the internet, however, I find Quibblo being the best of them all. Why?

Well, interestingly, once you finish the quiz, Quibblo will show you not only the answers, it will also show the statistics of each answer. For example, there are A to D answers for the question, you'll get to see how many people (in actual figures and percentage) who answered A and B and so on and so forth. It's pretty interesting.

Here's the link: http://www.quibblo.com/create

Have fun! :)


I'll put a quiz here as a demo - for you to test it out ;)

*pending*

Upcoming Masters VIVA presentation

Well, the date's fixed and it's on 28th of July :P

The bad news is that I had to write a manuscript before that date and have the slides ready... especially considering that I have practically forgotten quite a lot about my project. Guess it's time to do some intensive reading up... 

I have a really bad feeling about this VIVA... like I did when I was getting ready for my FYP presentation... but at that time, I'm actually happy with what I've gotten (results, although not that good) and I'm actually interested about the topic at hand. 

My supposed project is on TB and hopefully be able to find a way to diagnose it faster... it's a noble cause. I've done extensive research on that topic and had wasted more than half a year on it... with an interim period of 1 year plus... I guess you can understand my frustrations of not being able to do my own project because of some bureaucratic mess that could have been easily solved if someone just kept their big mouth shut and their ego deflated... and that I didn't have to waste months waiting for other people doing "side-projects" that didn't pique my interest at all, cannot be entered into my thesis or be published (I don't care much about publishing academic journals though) and is found out to be defective at the end (I've noticed something was wrong with it, but every time I said "something's not right, I want to double check using XXX method (which costs money)", I was rebuffed).

Now, my current project is not entirely my own and is about something that I have little to no interest in... and the "best" part, I had to do everything within 3 months and start writing or I'll need to shell out ridiculous sums of money for a piece of certificate that I now feel is rather worthless. 

How is it possible to get good stuff within 3 months after you had to suffer through 1 year plus of depression? I tried. The results look rather good... that is until I run them through the software and found the glaring problems. More than half of my results depends on the numbers from the software and now I can't use that part at all, unless I do everything all over again... (I've repeated everything once before). Time is not on my side.

Here comes the clincher... I got an email from my PI who received it from one of my external examiners about how dissatisfied she was with the thesis (she used less than 10 words to express this). Let's just say that this rant is due to this. She (I think it's a "she") then proceeds to use the other more than 10 words going on "student has no respect for the PI"... I was like WTF? Is this my thesis that you're reading about or is this a text-based psychological analysis of the student? If it is the latter, then IPS must have submitted my thesis to the wrong examiner...

Plus, I have absolutely no idea how she could jump to such conclusions from "boringly" written discussions about EPO, doping, assays and aptamers. Heck, it's not like I had a page added into it with "Stupid PI" written all over it. I'm extremely baffled to say the least!

And then there's the worry... if I have this sort of person as my ext. examiner, how the hell can I pass my VIVA? She obviously have some preconceived notion of me (perpetrated by whom, well, let's just say that I have some ideas, but not solid enough to throw accusations around) when she had not even met me! And with my rather weak (IMHO) results, it'll be more than a fight to the "death"! 

I'm not sure I even want to graduate anymore - to hell to those type of people. The postgrad institutions here are so weird (in a bad way) and negative. I'm sure not all people are like that, but I can't seem to find anyone that I think is cool and normal (well, besides the new lecturer who graduated from US - I'm not putting names here... but I dunno, I feel like she's being hugely affected by the very toxic, so-called "academics" there).

I just want to break free from that very mentally harmful environment forever, but I can't do that until I know my final "judgement" at my VIVA. No matter the outcome (for me at least), I think I would be glad to be rid of all these stuff... Though I could be extremely disappointed and perhaps upset to know that I've wasted my best (almost) 3 years there for an experience that has lasting harmful effects on my psyche.

... and I've seriously regretted not following my friend's advice to leave the lab when I had the chance. At that time, I had very promising results (for my previous project) and I thought it would be possible for me to finish this fast - I already know how toxic that lab can be, particularly through the effect on my very cheerful friend - she turned very gloomy at the end.

On the side note, I'll be posting up the "acknowledgement" part of my thesis here after I've submitted my final copy or if I get delayed indefinitely again (I will choose termination if it comes to that). I already saved enough cash to pay back my scholarship if I had to... which amounts to half the cash I need to buy my own car... zzzz

I'm thinking of putting up my entire thesis on scribd too... for free. I'm rebellious that way heh... well, free education and whatnots, right? :P Ah well, I won't go through with this... no guts xD


P/S: Seriously, I have to stop keeping stuff in the draft folder and forgetting about putting them up. - this was written months ago btw. Anyway, everything went well on VIVA, except where that part I embarrassed myself by being caught off guard by a simple question that I, needless to say, answered incorrectly. I did well for the tougher questions though, I think.

P/P/S: Just to let you know I have a whopping 100 drafts in my drafts folder LOL. So yeah, I'll be trying to get things up ASAP. Not sure why I suddenly reignited my passion to keep my blog up to date, but since I had that drive, I might as well make the most out of it :P

Life's a brief candle

Ever since the hungry ghost festival started, there had been a slew of deaths that I'm aware of and it has been dreary...

I know that every day millions of people die (well, I'm not really sure about the exact numbers), but when it's someone you knew, or at most someone that your friend, ex-teacher or relative knew... well, when it is that close to home, you'll realise again how short life is.

My grandaunt (my grandma's younger sister) passed away all because she stopped taking her high blood pressure medication (according to something my grandma heard her say prior to her demise), possibly getting a stroke, fell and gotten serious brain hemorrhage. 

It was too late when she was brought to the hospital despite the fact that she lived with her family. By the way, my grandma lives alone (my house is 30 mins away from hers) and she refused to move to my family's home. She's fiercely independent that way... which is something I really admire.

That aside, I'll miss my grandaunt. She's the most cheerful of the lot (I have a lot of grandaunts, most of whom has passed away) and I like her as she talks about stuff in a funny sort of way. During CNY, she'll always offer me (and also my brother) with extra chips - we love her New Year chips.

Another relative, my granduncle, whom we have been visiting during CNY for years (ever since I can remember) passed away too. He often reminds me of my deceased grandfather. His wife, who is still alive, is a very close friend of my grandma. Their place may be shabby (low cost apartment), but it is one of my most anticipated stops for CNY coz of the plenty of goodies to eat and the funny stories that Aunt Daisy will talk about - she's a huge extrovert and has met plenty of people from all walks of life. It's impressive, particularly for an introvert like me.

...And well, the main point that I'm trying to convey here is that we should really appreciate people while they are still around us and not when they are gone. Since death comes at unexpected moments in life, this means you should appreciate people at all times! 

So, yeah, life's a brief candle indeed.

P/S: I wrote the draft of this post 2 weeks ago when my grandaunt passed away, but had not been able to finish it. Well, better late then never, right? 

My thoughts on learning languages

Once during my time as a tuition teacher, a parent - the mother - approached me and asked why her daughter's Mandarin results are still so bad. 

I told her that I personally thinks tuition once a week for 2 hours is not enough for someone to learn a language... particularly when her daughter has no interest in it. Why the lack of interest? Well, it's mainly because her foundation of the language are not well-established.

In fact, her daughter is in standard 2 when she can't even read, or write on her own, words that Kindergarten kids will know. 

I told the parent that languages are unlike other subjects - they require constant use and not  merely memorization, especially for kids. If you don't use them often, languages can be very hard to learn. 

If she had asked me more, I would have told her that I would recommend her to buy some very simple chinese storybooks (short ones, for kids) and read them to her daughter every night before bed. But gradually, she should stop at the cliffhanger and help her daughter finish reading the story on her own. Most kids I know love stories and will be more than eager to find out what happened (this is another tuition anecdote for another day).

Anyway, she did pursue the topic any longer. I did help her daughter as best as I could and i had thought her daughter slightly improved - the girl told me herself that she knew what the word meant and not ting-tong-tiang. I wanted to encourage her to work on her Mandarin, so I believed her and congratulated her for a job well done. Guess, the girl might not have improved after all.

I had another kid in my class as well and she was just learning Mandarin. Her Indian parents wanted her to learn and me having to juggle standard 1 to 3 kids all in the same class, I couldn't afford her too much attention. Since she looks fine on her own, I left her to her own devices and told her to ask me if she got any problems. Eventually, after her book was completed, I made a simple test, testing her on the words, she has learned. I told her to go study again the words and we'll see how she fare. 

I was expecting older words to be forgotten while hoping that for more recent ones, she'll remember. To my surprise, she can't do any of the questions at all. She wasn't learning as I thought she was doing - she was merely copying how the words are written with no knowledge whatsoever whatt he words mean even though there's a picture associated with it. I think she thought the mandarin words she are writing are scribbles.

Tuition classes are NOT the best way for someone to learn a new language, seriously. From that experience, I know that the girl doesn't understand the lines and strokes that she was writing. The book that I was given to teach her on are practically useless.

But her English is okay, so I tried another method. I associate mandarin words with the English words that she knows. Hopefully, by writing and pronouncing the words, she can learn that these two words mean the same thing but in different languages. 

Unfortunately, somehow she got phobia to come to tuition... which according to her mum, is not because of her "fierce" Mandarin tuition teacher as she said she wanted to come to my classes only lol (she had other classes with other teachers too)... but for some other reasons that she refused to say. 

Anyway, those are my experiences. Hopefully my thoughts are written down in a coherent enough manner this time :P Have fun!

Zombies and human

I've heard something very funny today - thought I'd share :P

So there was this group of 5 or 6 Malay kids at the playground and they were deciding among themselves what to play. Then, one of them pipped up saying "Mari kita main zombie and orang!" (Let's play 'zombies and human'!). After they selected the person to play as the human, the group of kids started chasing after the 'human' in a zombie-like fashion. xD

... When I was little, I played cops and robbers, but now, time has changed I guess :P

How to play games on Facebook WITHOUT bugging your friends

Yes, I'm fairly surprised that some people do not know the amazing-ness of privacy settings on Facebook! 

This is how you should do it. (P/S: ah Pirate Kings... the scourge of every non-gamer on Facebook :P)

1. Check what permission the game requires. 

2. Set any publishing permission as 'only me'.

3. Your friends will know you play the game, but they won't see all those forced-to-publish-to-timeline posts (in order to get the goodies in the game).

4. Or if you can choose, don't publish at all. No one cares that you've reached level 5 on some FB game that you may soon ditched for another better one. Seriously.

---

Some games may require you to share for your friends to click on (like Farmville) so you can get items to unlock new stuff.

Well, in that case, create a friend list that only includes all friends who are active players of that game and label it accordingly. In the example below, I've labelled most of my gaming friends as 'gaming buddies'.

Group all your gaming friends according to the games they play - note: a person can be in more than 1 group.

You may want to be more specific than that though. For example, if you play Farmville, then create a list of your friends who still actively play Farmville and label is 'Farmville' for easy reference.

Then, you can easily set (or reset) your privacy settings so that your game posts will only show up on your gaming friends' newsfeed and you won't be bugging your non-gaming Facebook friends into unfriending/blocking you.


Furthermore, if you want to get extra stuff by inviting your friends to a game, make sure you ask them first if they will be interested via message or face-to-face. Don't just keep sending invites to them every friggin hour of the day.

It's best to just bug friends who are active Facebook gamers... they usually don't mind notification spam (invites) as much... like me lol.



So, please learn how to use your social medias responsibly. There are many things you can do to spare your friends from the annoyance of seeing your game posts clogging up their newsfeed and these things will only require a little bit of your time.

Pipette tip problems

If you work in a lab, you will definitely have some of these problems on a daily basis or perhaps weekly basis (depending how much time you spend in the lab actually doing work lol :P)

Anyway, this is just something to cheer up all the lab workers! Enjoy! :)

Post by The Lab Safety and Survival Guide.

Professional game reviewer?

I've done a quick check of all the game reviews that I've written (and sold) so far and I get the number 67! Although I aimed for 100 reviews at least before considering myself as 'professional' enough (heh), but 67 is a staggering number! Especially considering that I've done these as my part-time work! :)

This number excluded the game articles that I've written (4 of them) and the movie reviews that I've written (2 - worst experience of my life, seriously... they want me to write about movies that was popular in the time when I wasn't even born yet! Ish, I realised my mistake for offering these sort of writing services real quick and rejected any further orders from the guy - sorry!).

Anyway, just wanted to post something up to fill in the void when I won't be around (for a couple of days at least - I had to attended a friend's sister's wedding in another state). :)

Have a great day, guys! Til I return from my long voyage! ;)

The problems of being a 'girl gamer'

And I consider myself pretty hardcore too - I put in hours of gameplay per day and I will play games every day without fail (at least 30 minutes for each game that I "multi-play" :P). Currently, I have to put in 30 mins for my Sparta: War of Empires; 30 mins min for my The Settlers Online and 15-30 mins for my Pockie Defense and prior to sleep, around 15 mins of Plague Inc... 

I hardly have any left for my Borderlands: The Presequel, my castle in Roblox or my towns in Banished T.T My Kingdom of Amalur is probably buried in meters thick of dust and all my MMORPGs are under even thicker piles of dusts. And now I was hooked onto Stonehearth (Alpha) after watching its gameplay video... and I went and got it lol (even though I simply do not have the time to spend on these games). Maybe I'll write a review for the game... it's amazing. Voxel-based but the people and stuff in it are so cute!

Anyway, that's not the point of this blog post. I'm writing about all the problems that I face being a 'girl gamer'. Note that I do not agree in differentiating guy gamers from girl gamers... we are all gamers... and we are UNITED! xD However, the 'girl' part does come into the spotlight once you read what I have to say about 'girl gamers' that would probably not be applicable to 'guy gamers'.

1. Can't find a group of girl friends, who game like you do, for multiplayer

Like seriously! All my girl friends are all interested in girl things like buying new clothes or at the very most, casual games like Candy Crush Saga. If I wanted to, let's say, play Diablo III on multiplayer, there are absolutely no one that I can reach out to. Heck, even my guy friends don't play Diablo III. See my dilemma? From what I know, guys can easily find some buds to play games with, but girls can either find guys who play the same games as she does and hangs out with them or play single player all the time. If she has a brother/s, then she could always LAN with her brother/s, when he/they are in the mood lol. Most of the time, my bro is like Hearthstone, Hearthstone, and DotA... facepalm! (That double 'Hearthstone' is written on purpose btw)

2. You almost always get harassed (sexually) if you play MMORPGs or online FPS (mainly these 2 genres are the worst of the lot) once the guys know that you're a girl IRL

It doesn't even matter if you're actually hot or not lol. They will start hitting on you like there's no tomorrow. No wonder I like to play as a guy character when I first started out in my first true MMORPG, WoW. There will be nobody that will keep trying to get my attention by doing stupid stuff... like fly hacking heh (those old days when flying is not allowed in Azeroth :) ) And yes, there's this stupid guy who fly hacked just so he could show off to me and was banned on the spot xD

3. People will think that you're a tomboy for liking hardcore gaming

I'm not exactly a perfect example for this statement coz well, I'm... a wee bit tomboyish... even until now. HOWEVER! This is not true for quite a number of 'girl gamers' out there, I'm certain. Girls, don't believe in what other people say - you can be girlish or ladylike even if you put in hours of gaming every day :)


4.


[I'll add more later, gotta give this topic some 'in-depth' thinking]

Wave or study music

There had been a major hype some time ago on using the so-called 'wave' music (alpha, beta, delta waves mainly) that are tuned to resonate with your own brain waves to help you sleep or study etc etc. 

I bet there are plenty of websites dedicated to promoting these type of music and truthfully speaking, some of them are pretty nice to listen to - they sounded a bit like epic music but more repetitive :P

Honestly speaking though, I experienced a time during my university years when I just couldn't absorb anything that I've studied and it's definitely not helping that I was distracted by some other stuff as well during that time. I'm not sure whether it worked or not though, but I'm certain that writing notes out onto a paper that I've folded into a brochure format (for carrying the notes around easily) works for me :)

So anyway, what made me to think of this old and dusty draft in my blogger is because well, I've submitted an application for a position on AsapSCIENCE's team (I really hope I get it but I don't really have a lot of faith... to be honest. They did say that they will only accept remote working ONLY if that candidate is exceptional... I'm just... pretty much average).

However, since I've already written this outline, I thought you guys might be interested to know more. I did some digging, mind you, but I haven't really dug deep enough yet. I still need to verify the many cited journals on those sites that markets study music products (like CDs and stuff), but so far, from what I've dug up, it's not looking promising. And oh, if anyone's wondering, everyone can cite any journals they want for any article, but whether the results are really compelling and that the experiments and researchers are credible (or that even the journal itself is credible)... that's another question lol.

Enjoy!

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Does the so-called study music actually help improve your studying?

Students are always desperate to find a shortcut for studying… nobody likes to study for exams and will usually leave it to the very last minute or get easily distracted by the tinniest of distraction like a lizard on the wall. Thankfully, there are plenty of study aids available that actually help students to study, like mind mapping, and also some that are at the border of quack science and true science. A fine example of these sort of ambiguous ‘study aid’ is the so-called study music that reportedly uses certain frequency music to trigger the production of beta waves from the brain. They claim that this method can help improve studying and even treat ADHD.

The ‘theory’ is that this sort of music produces two different frequencies from your left and right headphones. For example, a frequency of 60 Hertz goes in one ear, while a frequency of 40 Hertz goes in the other ear. They claim that the difference in cycles (which is 20 Hertz, in this case) will result in musical beats that are in the beta pace and the brain will start to pulse in step with it. This, in short, is called binaural beats.

But why beta waves? Beta waves are scientifically associated with a mental state of being wide awake, which, when you think of it, is extremely useful if you have to burn the midnight oil. In addition to excessive caffeine intake, you will be so awake that you can sprout wings (like Red Bull). Beta waves are also connected to concentration, which is exactly what you need if you want to try to ace tomorrow’s exam with only 1 night of study. There are also several other study music that uses gamma waves (since it is associated with cognitive learning), alpha waves (associated with relaxation – they claim that you’ll need to have a relaxed and open mind in order to absorb new information) and theta waves (associated with creativity, for when you needed to get that 7000 creative writing essay done within a night).

Furthermore, music has always been known to be able to stimulate certain response in the human body.  Try watching a horror movie with the sound off (muted), then try watching the same horror movie with the sound on – notice the difference? It’s not as scary anymore. In fact, if you watch any movie or video with the sound off, the movie won’t be as good or even make any sense.

Despite the fact that brain wave entrainment is a real phenomenon, it is only useful in investigating how the brain works. There are absolutely no scientific proof and theoretical basis that it has any long-lasting effect on brain function. In fact, there may even be some deteriorating effect of constant exposure to brain wave entrainment, just so you could cram stuff the night before the exam. My advice? Don’t waste your money on these sorts of ‘study aids’ and hope for a miracle… study in advance and not at the very last minute! And of course, study smart!

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So, what do you think? Is it really that useful? Is it pseudoscience or real science? What's your experience with using these sort of wave music?

The last day of tuition class

That moment when a Form 1 kid's eyes grew as wide as windows when she realised the falcon tube of KCl solution in her hand became very chilly as she shook it...

Or that a std 1 kid exclaimed in horror/ joy (I'm not very sure which) when the shadow of his tiny dinosaur puppet became as large as Godzilla when the torchlight is placed closer to the puppet.

These are the best ways to seal the end of my tuition teacher work life.

And also, who says only magic can trigger that feeling of childlike amazement and wonder? Science can do that too! No matter how much you've learned, there will always be some science-y stuff out there that will wow you!

Oh and since I'm writing about this, I might as well go ahead with this list of 'the perks of having a science tuition teacher who....'

1. The perks of having a science tuition teacher who is a postgrad in science (who has unrestricted access to many basic chemicals in the lab)
- Live demonstrations of very basic chemical reactions in action! And some hands on too - if the chemicals are safe to handle with bare hands.
- Plenty of daily life examples and on-the-spot simple home experiments/suggestions that you can do at home

2. Or the perks of having a multilingual teacher who can teach the subject in whichever language you like (namely Malay, English or Mandarin)


3. Or the perks of having a tuition teacher who likes having fun in class and has plenty of (game) ideas (that are related to the class in question) up their sleeves
- Shadow puppet making sessions - during the chapter on shadows and light
- Hangman game for learning new words in BM and English
- bi3 hua4 jie1 long2 for recalling Chinese words that you have learnt as well as knowing how to calculate the bi3 hua4 for these words.


4. Or even the perks of having a tuition teacher who is basically crazy (in some sense).
- Funny and crazy demonstrations in class - that made the teacher seemed silly enough but drives home a point
- Chatting with your teacher - checked
- Never getting scolded... not really.

On finding your life's purpose

And trust me when I say, this is pretty much the best article out there that deals in this topic.

I'll expand this blog post a bit when I get the time to quote some very meaningful stuff in the article, but for now, feel free to head on over there (via the link below) and read the article yourself. 

Enjoy! :)

Link: http://markmanson.net/life-purpose

WoW cartoons!

So much nostalgia..... and they are seriously hilarious too :P

I've just discovered it today and thought you guys would like to know. Anyway, I've played WoW for around 5 years (and had stopped playing for around 3 years now) and trust me when I say these cartoons captures the essence of WoW perfectly! Especially the WSG episodes. Seriously hilarious! xD

This is the playlist with the 12 episodes available. They will add more to this soon (I hope!). :)