Rascal Flatts - Riot

Lyrics:



I'd be ridin' in a cab goin' downtown
Findin' faces I know in a big crowd
Tryin' to drink the pain away, mhmm
And I'd be stayin' out all night, never goin' home
Girl you know I'd lose all control
If I lost you

There would be a riot
Breakin' of my heart, I'd try to fight it
I could go out every night but I'd be lyin'
If I said I could live and breathe
Without you
There'd be a lot of lonely
Wishin' and prayin' that you would hold me
I would do most anything baby
If only you would come back to me
Come back to me
There would be a riot
Oh yeah, oooh

I'd be checkin' on my phone every minute
Waitin' 'round for it to start ringin'
And prayin' it would be you
I don't know what I'd do

There would be a riot
Breakin' of my heart, I'd try to fight it
I could go out every night but I'd be lyin'
If I said I could live and breathe
Without you
There'd be a lot of lonely
Wishin' and prayin' that you would hold me
I would do most anything baby if only
You would come back to me
Come back to me
There would be a riot
If I ever lost you
If I ever lost you

There would be a riot
Breakin' of my heart, I'd try to fight it
I could go out every night but I'd be lyin'
If I said I could live and breathe
There'd be a lot of lonely
Wishin' and prayin' that you would hold me
I would do most anything baby if only
You would come back to me
Come back to me
There would be a riot
If I ever lost you

There would be, there would be a riot
Breakin' of my heart, I'd try to fight it
There would be a riot
If I ever lost you

Yuna - Langit (Sky)

Great song! Deepest condolences to all who have lost their loved ones in MH17, MH370 and QZ8501. #flyinghigh



Lyrics:


I can see the sky
The bird are flying
Cloud are moving by my heart is light
The moon will be my witness tonight
In my dream I see myself fly

Terbang terbang tinggi walau
Tanah di kaki kan ku cari langit
Terbang terbang tinggi
Awan biru menanti bersama pelangi

Always thought that I
Could be on my own
They make me feel alive
And I don't feel alone

The moon will be my witness tonight
Coz in my dream you and I, we both fly

Terbang terbang tinggi
Walau tanah di kaki kan ku cari langit
Terbang terbang tinggi
Awan biru menanti bersama pelangi

Terbang terbang tinggi
Walau tanah di kaki kan ku cari langit
Terbang terbang tinggi
Awan biru menanti bersama pelangi

I can see the sky
The bird are flying



Translation for the chorus which was sung in Bahasa Melayu

Terbang terbang tinggi

[Fly, fly high]

Walau tanah di kaki kan ku cari langit

[Although the soil is beneath my feet, I will still seek the sky]

Terbang terbang tinggi

[Fly, fly high]

Awan biru menanti bersama pelangi

[The blue clouds await with the rainbow]

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb movie review

A review with no spoilers... yay! xD

This movie isn't as good as expected. If you've seen the trailer, then you've already seen 80% of the more-hilarious jokes in the movie. There are many jokes that just fall flat. Replaying the same jokes once or twice is still okay, but the movie seems to stretch it way beyond that, to the point where I'll be like -.-||| ... like it ran out of story line and had these replays as movie fillers.

Good parts? Certain moments in the movie can be really heart-warming (again, no spoilers! :P) and there is a cameo by someone from the X-men ;)


Verdict: Worth watching, but don't get your expectations too high. Doesn't have a really memorable story despite being the last sequel for the Night at the Museum series.

https://www.facebook.com/NightAtTheMuseumMovies?fref=ts


- As copied and pasted from my FB post :)

Happy New Year... in advance!

So, yeah... I've been absent from this blog for quite some time I suppose... it's not that I don't have anything to post - just take a peek into my drafts folder lol... it's just that I needed the time to fully focus on finishing my thesis as soon as possible. 

Surprisingly, I'm even more tired since coming back from my 1 week vacation, although the vacation is extremely fun and exciting - I get to go to Melaka! :D

Anyway, I suspect that it is probably because of my introvert tendencies... my energy does drain pretty fast when communicating with people (not only strangers, I get tired fast when hanging out with my relatives... seriously).

Ok, ok... enough of the derailing thoughts. I just wanted to post this up to tell you guys that I will be absent for, at least, the new year.. so I'm going to take this opportunity to wish you guys an early Happy New Year! Do keep those new year resolution list in check coz I'm probably going to do one of my own and put it up here next year :P A comparison between last year's ...ahem... barely completed list and this year's would be great I suppose. 

So, I've not yet abandoned this precious blog of mine.... not just yet anyway! Heh. If you are reading this, then do stay tuned next year for more cool stuff (or at least stuff that I think is cool) :)

Oh and also, if any of you have Facebook, don't be shy and like this blog's page on Facebook. I don't spam your wall with crap.. don't worry! The posts will mainly be about cool scientific discoveries, and other science stuff and ofc, awesome game news... all of which are shared from respectable sources! :)

Again, Happy New Year and oh, a belated Merry Christmas! Have a great end-of-the-year guys! 

Me out!

P/S: I may be active around FB though since I rely on it to keep myself updated on the news of flooding in my country (3 cheers for online news portals). My grandparents and other relatives in Kelantan was affected, but perhaps not as severely as most people. I'm still concerned though. Hope they will be alright!

Attaining a balance between working and slacking

This is a great way to earn a reputation as the office moron. This is a great way to get your supervisor, manager, or co-workers (any of whom might one day be promoted to the other categories) to see you as this obtuse idiot who takes 45 minutes or longer to communicate basic things, the one who's always at their desk doing something but strangely never seems to actually get any work done.

Take it from someone who has hired and fired people. If you really want to minimize effort, don't see it as tricks to avoid doing work. This stuff just gets you a reputation and if not outright fired, gets you passed over for things like bonuses and promotions and you never know when your next job might call your last one before hiring you. See it as tricks to maximize apparent output per unit of input, instead. Oh, and yes, sometimes doing as little work as possible means doing extra work. It's an ounce of prevention kind of thing.

Of course, the following tips are assuming you have zero interest in being an honest or ethical employee and do not have any particular aspiration or ambition of career-climbing in your current job. If that's not the case, just do your job, do it well and eagerly. With that out of the way...

Figure out what tasks are most visible to your boss, and specialize in them, do them better than anyone else. The truth is, no distribution of tasks is equal, and if you specialize in the most visible, urgent, and important tasks, you'll appear to be doing more than you really are and people will think twice before criticizing you since you're doing critical things.

Figure out which tasks absolutely cannot be put off without interfering with others, and which tasks can be safely blown off for a while or delegated. Nobody ever advertises a task as being unimportant, but of course there are less important tasks in a job - as I said, no distribution of tasks is equal. The art of slacking comes down to knowing when to slack, not how to slack. Any idiot knows how to slack, and being good at it is no great feat. It takes more observational skill to uncover when it will be noticed and when it won't.

Take advantage of what you're best at, productively speaking. If you know you tend to blaze through things in the hour or so after your 3PM coffee break, plan on doing as much work as possible then. If there's one task you just seem to fly through, or a task you do well that others struggle with it, do as often as possible. Nobody is equally productive at all tasks, at all times of the day. Do what you're best at and take advantage of the times you work best. Yes, this is actually doing work, but again, it's about maximizing apparent output per unit of input, and sometimes that means actually producing output. Bosses, managers, supervisors do pay attention to your output. It can't be absent.

Never, ever, ever neglect work in ways, places, or times that can be seen by clients/customers, or by your boss's boss - there is no better way to get your ass fired than by pissing off whoever signs your boss's paycheck. Don't think of your coworkers as your peers, friendly and sympathetic people who understand your slacking and sympathize with it. From their perspective, you're the jerk who is making their workload heavier by not holding up your share of it, and you can't know which one will be motivated to do something about it - either right now, or way the hell down the line. Remember, your peer is one promotion away from being in a position to do something about you and people can be surprisingly vindictive.

Oh, and above all else, never flaunt having free time. It just pisses off everyone else who doesn't like their work and it's important to maintain a good image. Confirmation bias is a job-killer - if you get a reputation of being lazy or avoiding work, then everything you're seen doing that is not work, even innocuous stuff, reinforces that notion in people. It's a lot easier to get away with the occasional laziness if you have a reputation as a hard worker. If you really have no work to be doing, you can take the lazy-but-possibly-deserved route and ask to leave early (at least then you're not seen not working, and I'm sure you'd rather be home anyway), or the brownie-points-but-extra-work route of asking if you can be of use somewhere else. But don't take the video-games-at-your-desk route, that way lies termination.

- Adavaas, 14/12/14

Source: http://gizmodo.com/how-to-do-as-little-work-as-possible-without-getting-fi-1669882263?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebook&utm_source=gizmodo_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

This is IMHO very good advice. Thought you guys might enjoy this. :) Have fun!

Furthermore, if you like reading these sort of stuff, check this out: http://lifehacker.com/5952456/how-to-master-the-art-of-looking-busy 

These are all good advice by the way.

I don't agree to slacking on the job 24/7 but I do agree that nobody can work non-stop for 8 hours (working hours) straight, especially if you're like me who loves to blast through a day worth of work in a couple of hours of extreme hardwork and would like to have the remaining time to slack off and chill.

P/S: I've edited my This War of Mine review with the proper review. You can check it out if you like - there are plenty of nice screenshots! :P

S.H.E - 最近還好嗎 MV

SHE rocks so much when I was in my high school years (right into my university years in fact). :) I wonder how they are getting on with their own lives? It'll be great to get another album from them again.

Lyrics:

挑一张耶诞卡

写上满满祝福的话
地址写的是心底
你能不能收到它
天有点冷 风有点大
城市宁静而喧哗
这一个冬天
我得一个人走回家

问自己习惯了吗
没有你每到夜里
回声变得好大
有没有什么好方法
让寂寞更听话

你最近还好吗
是不是也在思念里挣扎
你说会记得我 还记得吗
你最近还好吗
忙碌吗累吗 心还会痛吗
如果真不得已忘了我
快向快乐出发

有再多的牵挂
都已没有权利表达
旧情人给的问候
比陌生人还尴尬
昨天远了 明天还长
回忆模糊但巨大
这样的深夜眼泪
要怎样不流下

问自己习惯了吗
没有你每到夜里
回声变得好大
有没有什么好方法
让寂寞更听话

你最近还好吗
是不是也在思念里挣扎
你说会记得我 还记得吗
你最近还好吗
忙碌吗累吗 心还会痛吗
如果真不得已忘了我
快向快乐出发

你最近还好吗
是不是也在思念里挣扎
你说会记得我 还记得吗
你最近还好吗
忙碌吗累吗 心还会痛吗
如果真不得已忘了我
快向快乐出发

Pinyin lyrics:

Tiāo yī zhāng yé dàn kǎ

xiě shàng mǎn mǎn zhùfú dehuà
dìzhǐ xiě de shì xīndǐ
nǐ néng bùnéng shōu dào tā
tiān yǒudiǎn lěngfēng yǒudiǎn dà
chéngshì níngjìng ér xuānhuá
zhè yīgè dōngtiān
wǒ dé yīgè rén zǒu huí jiā

wèn zìjǐ xíguànle ma
méiyǒu nǐ měi dào yèlǐ
huíshēng biàn dé hào dà
yǒu méiyǒu shé me hǎo fāngfǎ
ràng jìmò gèng tīnghuà

nǐ zuìjìn hái hǎo ma
shì bùshì yě zài sīniàn lǐ zhēngzhá
nǐ shuō huì jìdé wǒ hái jìdé ma
nǐ zuìjìn hái hǎo ma
mánglù ma lèi ma xīn hái huì tòng ma
rúguǒ zhēn bùdéyǐ wàngle wǒ
kuài xiàng kuàilè chūfā

yǒu zài duō de qiānguà
dōu yǐ méiyǒu quánlì biǎodá
jiù qíngrén gěi de wènhòu
bǐ mòshēng rén hái gāngà
zuótiān yuǎnle míngtiān hái zhǎng
huíyì móhú dàn jùdà
zhèyàng de shēnyè yǎnlèi
yào zěnyàng bù liúxià

wèn zìjǐ xíguànle ma
méiyǒu nǐ měi dào yèlǐ
huíshēng biàn dé hào dà
yǒu méiyǒu shé me hǎo fāngfǎ
ràng jìmò gèng tīnghuà

nǐ zuìjìn hái hǎo ma
shì bùshì yě zài sīniàn lǐ zhēngzhá
nǐ shuō huì jìdé wǒ hái jìdé ma
nǐ zuìjìn hái hǎo ma
mánglù ma lèi ma xīn hái huì tòng ma
rúguǒ zhēn bùdéyǐ wàngle wǒ
kuài xiàng kuàilè chūfā

nǐ zuìjìn hái hǎo ma
shì bùshì yě zài sīniàn lǐ zhēngzhá
nǐ shuō huì jìdé wǒ hái jìdé ma
nǐ zuìjìn hái hǎo ma
mánglù ma lèi ma xīn hái huì tòng ma
rúguǒ zhēn bùdéyǐ wàngle wǒ
kuài xiàng kuàilè chūfā

The Science Love Song

This is so nerdy and romantic! :D

Lyrics:

I'll be the spark, if you'll be the flame
Start a reaction that can't be contained
Balance your pH by sharing my base
I'll be your star, if you'll be my space

'Cause there is no distance that I wouldn't go
Through spacetime and wormholes my matter would flow
To the edge of the universe

I'll be your G, if you will be C
Or I can be A, if you will be T
If there's a mutation I'll fix every base
Working as your zinc finger nuclease

Just like an atom, don't rip us apart
Unless you want a big BOOM in my heart

We can take it fast or really slow
But we can't know with certainty where we'll go
If at first we don't succeed, we'll try two more times
So our failure's a statistically significant try

Like an equation, it all works out
If we balance the sides there's no need to doubt

CHORUS:
This is your science love song
A place to start our chemical bond
A research endeavour
We can write the conclusion together

Just like the movies I'd steal your heart
But then you'd die...so I won't do that

If we broke up I'd be no more
I'd give up H2O for H2SO4
Take away gravity, I'd still fall for you
Share my last electron in a covalent bond for two

'Cause you're like that angle, A-cute and you're smart
Your labcoat and goggles go straight to my heart
Except that's a lie, cause the heart doesn't feel
When it comes to love the brain seals the deal

REPEAT CHORUS

'Cause you matter to me

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.

Tyler Ward - Without You (ft. Alyson Stoner)

Lyrics:

I could take a trip around the world see everything
Sit down have a drink with the kings and queens
See my name in lights, parties every night, highest of the high
I could take a trip around the world see everything (everything)

But you know
Without you without you
It wouldn’t be worth it
Without you without you
It would mean nothing
I could hear my song playing loud on the radio
And if you’re not singing along this is how it’d go
Without you without you
It wouldn’t be worth it

Face on the cover of Time magazine
I’m boardwalk baby like the game of monopoly
One man show, always on a roll, as high as high goes
Just my luck, but luck’s not what I need

Without you without you
It wouldn’t be worth it
Without you without you
It would mean nothing
I could hear my song playing loud on the radio
And if you’re not singing along this is how it’d go
Without you without you
It wouldn’t be worth it

Without you without you
This would be nothing
Found you found you
You’re really something

Without you without you
This would be nothing
Found you found you
You’re really something

Without you without you
It wouldn’t be worth it
Without you without you
It would mean nothing
I could hear my song playing loud on the radio
And if you’re not singing along this is how it’d go
Without you without you
It wouldn’t be worth it

Without you without you
This would be nothing
Found you found you
You’re really something

Without you without you
This would be nothing
Found you found you
You’re really something

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.

Hooked on music - What makes music so catchy?

The site claims that the results have the potential to provide insights into long term musical memory and therapeutic benefits to Alzheimer's and dementia patients. 

Ready to start contributing? Head on to this site: http://www.hookedonmusic.org.uk/

For more 'tests' such as this one, feel free to check out my other posts:

How Dark is Your Personality?
Stanford Sleepiness Scale: Are You Getting Enough Sleep?
Which TED Talk are you?
Find out your EQ score!
How old are your ears?
How many colours can you see?
Whose #brainchild are you?

Do you ever have trouble telling right from left?

Kuku Kube - Test your eyesight!

Twitch Reflex Challenge!
How Well Do You See Colour?

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! ;)

How humans learn to subconsciously connect with their eyes

Humans are the only primates with a large, highly visible sclera - the white part of the eye - which makes them easier to track and read than the eyes of many other animals. Imagine trying to read the emotions of a hamster without any physical cues other than what’s going on in those black, beady pools. Those adorable little enigmas...

Have you ever wondered why humans have sclera (the white parts of your eye ball) and an iris, while animals don't have the sclera?

This article just prompted me to think about this lol and I think it's fairly interesting to warrant a share on my blog :P Enjoy! 

Link: http://www.sciencealert.com/how-humans-learn-to-subconsciously-connect-with-their-eyes

My mountain of shame

Based on the similarly titled article on PC Gamer and as usual, this post has been in my drafts section for ages lol :P

So, this mountain of shame refers to the huge pile of installed games that you have on your computer that are so dusty from being terribly under-used and ignored.

I'm usually not the sort who install only one game at a time and play it until I've gotten bored of it and then install a new game (while removing the old game). I like variety (who doesn't?)! So that I can play different games of different genre depending on my mood. :) 

Not to mention, I have loads of installed MMORPG games that I will NEVER finish playing on my computer as well... even though I have not logged in more than 10 minutes, or even at all, in a very very long time. That unfortunately includes my Ragnarok Online 2, Rift, WoW, Dragon Nest... etc. I still miss my WoW characters very, very much though!

There are even some games that, even though I've finished playing, I could not bear to uninstall - and I'm not even sure why. Perhaps I was thinking of playing it a second time, but at a higher difficulty (if there is such a thing in that particular game). Most of those are indie games like Aarklash, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Banished and Don't Starve, and some of them are casual games like Castle Storm, Disney: Infinity, Toy Defense, Plants vs Zombies... lol

(Edit: I've started playing Banished again and I finally knew why I abandoned it in the first place... once I get my population up to around 150, my villagers will die off even with thousands of food available lol. Anyway, I did some googling and now I'm sitting on almost 300 pop spread across 2 major towns :))

Anyway, what's YOUR mountain of shame? Feel free to comment below! :) 

Rant - Zeus

I haven't done a rant in quite a long time (since like my undergrad days)

Anyway, I came across this article and it got some of my blood boiling...

As a PhD (or postgrad) student, for several years you’re paid to study something you care about and learn how to think creatively. 

Source: http://qz.com/174811/enroll-in-a-phd-program-but-leave-academia-as-soon-as-you-graduate/

..........uhm, some poor postgrads (I'm not naming names here) PAY the university to do work that other people GET PAID for. In fact, the people who actually GET PAID to do the work, did not do their work and push all their work load to you... the student and you cannot really complain to anybody since A. Your PI doesn't care (and he/she also 'asks' you to do his/her work all the time - you're practically his/her personal secretary + lab manager + science officer + store/inventory keeper + intern/undergrad/mix-mode trainer and unofficial supervisor + middle man with suppliers) and B. If you don't do the work, your life at that place will turn into a living hell. It's a great system, huh?

P/S: Just ignore the 'zeus' in the post title - it's just s way for me to keep track of my different rant posts since I can't seem to remember the last number that I was at (and I'm too lazy to go find out). :P

P/P/S: This was actually written ages ago (like a week ago lol) but I've forgotten to post it up - it remained in my drafts folder until I found it today :P

Baba Yetu - Civilization IV Theme Cover - Peter Hollens feat. Malukah

You've never heard epic music if you've never heard of this amazing song! This cover totally blew it away!

Lyrics:

CHORUS
Baba yetu, yetu uliye
Mbinguni yetu, yetu, amina!
Baba yetu, yetu, uliye
Jina lako litukuzwe.
(x2)

Utupe leo chakula chetu
Tunachohitaji utusamehe
Makosa yetu, hey!
Kama nasi tunavyowasamehe
Waliotukosea usitutie
Katika majaribu, lakini
Utuokoe, na yule, milelea milele!

CHORUS

Ufalme wako ufike utakalo
Lifanyike duniani kama mbinguni. (Amina)

CHORUS

Utupe leo chakula chetu
Tunachohitaji utusamehe
Makosa yetu, hey!
Kama nasi tunavyowasamehe
Waliotukosea usitutie
Katika majaribu, lakini
Utuokoe, na yule, simovu mwehu (?)

Baba yetu, yetu, uliye
Jina lako litukuzwe.
(x2)

Swordsman brief review

Seriously, since I've stopped playing WoW and Rift, I can't seem to find a nice and new MMORPG to settle down again... until I found this. I love the combat system (though not its looting system). Instead of button spamming, you actually need to direct where you want to punch or kick at. Plus, it's a martial arts-based game. 

Plenty of players around, awesome soundtrack and graphics, love the storyline... this is a game that is should have been so much more... maybe it's on its way there :P

If the title of the game seem familiar, well, it's because this game is based off a movie with a similar title (that stars Jet Li) as well as a popular novel by renowned wuxia author, Louis Cha.

Screenshots!

Post by Aveyn's FB.

Landmark Beta review

I've gotten myself a Landmark key ages ago and I played the game (not that long ago). 

It's a pretty good voxel-based game that focuses on gathering, crafting and constructing. You can claim a land for your won and build your cave, house, fortress or whatever on it, but you have to pay a sum to keep the land or the land will be returned to the game and someone else can come along and claim it for their own.

I was interested in this game since A. I like voxel games (very creative) and B. I like survival games too (gathering and crafting). However, I find the constructing part of the game a bit too complicated for someone who isn't a pro-builder like myself. The blocks are very tiny and there is no drag option (to quickly replicate the same blocks in a line) and I had plans to build a huge, double-storey house lol.

One of the stuff that I love the most in this game is the mining feature. You can practically dig yourself a cave in there :P There are also secret places on the map for you to find and explore. These places are usually caves and have monsters inside that you can kill :)

On another note, the graphics are amazing! It makes the block look realistic and not at all cartoony (like most of the other voxel-based games).

Lastly, screenshots! :)

Post by Aveyn's FB.

P/S: Bam! I've written this within like 10 minutes lol :D

This War of Mine review and tips

My review is down at the bottom of this blog... enjoy! :)

I've been reading through the reviews and I found this haunting... in a world where war is so dehumanized and can seem so far away from our daily comforts, this game let us, somewhat, feel the pain and horror of war. You are not an elite soldier fighting enemies in a foreign land... you are one of the locals, scavenging and hiding from the soldiers - fearing for the lives of the people you care for, day and night. 

Excellent review by Grimno.

Entered a building with other people.

The building's description had said "Danger" which ment hostiles. Bandits.

I grabbed my knife and was ready for those bandits.

I saw one bandit and after breaking in through a window, she ran calling for backup.

One guy showed up with a shotgun and chased me off but I waited.

He searched, and couldn't find me and then I got the drop on him.

We fought, he couldn't shoot, and three stabs later he fell.

I grabbed the shotgun and went inside.

My friends needed food, and these bandits were killers. They deserved what they got.

I grabbed food, supplies, and another bandit showed up!

I fired at them with the shotgun, and they dropped with a gurgling scream.

One bandit ran after me! Surely they had a knife!

No... she ran past me to the man's corpse.

She was crying. She called me a murderer.

I fired again and she dropped.

There was silence then, and I had to hurry up and grab the rest of the supplies before more bandits showed up.

I opened a closet, and snagged the food.

But, the inventory of the closet said "Private"

Someone owned this wardrobe?

I looked outside toward the other building, and between the two.. a garden someone built?

One guy had mentioned they were running low on meds.

This.... no.. it couldn't be. It just couldn't be!

This wasn't... this wasn't an abandoned building being picked clean.

This was another group's safehouse.

These people are.... were.... survivors!

...and "I" was the bandit.

I'll expand this review after I've actually played the game. In the meantime, you can enjoy looking over its YouTube videos or buy it yourself! :) It's an indie game that deserves so much more attention!

Steam link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/282070/ 

Update!!

I've finally played the game and boy... it's rather nerve-wrecking to see the characters in the game go into depression one-by-one... especially when I was sneakily stealing supplies from an elderly couple and I panicked when I was discovered... leading into a violent butchering (in my first playthrough when I had thought the old grandpa was going to kill my character). 

But on my second playthrough, I just steal the stuff and left them alone - they pleaded with me to spare their lives and I did, but on my return trip there a couple of days later, I saw there are corpses on the bed of the house.... Nerve-wrecking right?)

It's an emotionally-taxing game that's for sure... especially when you're so attached to your characters after learning about their regrets (during the war) and their background stories that are unraveled as the game goes on and as they STAY ALIVE... It's heart-breaking to get your favourite character killed by thugs while you're desperate to get food for your team of survivors. 

The game is very tough when you approach the higher levels. I'll explain more later.

Since I kept restart the game whenever I'm left with 2 survivors (with others dead and rotting), I've noticed that the major game events are consistent - so you might want to start your first playthrough as some sort of tutorial. For example, you can predict when winter will come (around Day 30++) and you can get as much fuel (and water, coz during winter, you'll need to waste fuel AND filter to get water from snow) stocked up BEFORE winter.

Tips and hints (The list will get messy down there, sorry! :P):

1. [Workshop tips] One of the first things that you must build is a metal workshop - for tools (lockpicks, crowbar and shovel). This is vital!

2. Next, build 1 less beds for your team, for example, if you start off with 4 people (This happened on my 3rd playthrough lol), you will need at least 3 beds. Chairs are unnecessary earlier on.

3. [Upgrading tips - VITAL] Then, start gathering materials to upgrade your workbench first.  You will need workbench level 2 to reinforce your home from future attacks (less supplies stolen in raids - let's just say I had an experience where all my food (6 meat) was stolen in just 1 raid) and also to build animal traps for a steady, but unpredictable supply of food. 

4. For food, a way to 'cheat' the system is to only let your peeps eat raw food so that they will remain 'slightly hungry'. If you can get canned tuna, eat those first (vital members of the team will get first dibs ofc) as these are one of the few stuff that will definitely get stolen by people if you get raided at night. Food on the stove will not get stolen - so if you want to store a lot of food, cook a batch of them and leave them on the stove. You can never have too much food... seriously :P

5. Stove and radio is optional - radio is not really useful despite its tooltip. Stove is only needed when you have shtload of water to cook some nicer food (not that it makes much of a difference) for your peeps.

6. [Upgrading tips - VITAL] In anticipation of winter, get your metal workshop upgraded, so you can get that axe crafted. Then, head over to chop all the useless furniture in your house (you can also chop furniture in other places as well, but for now, just stick to your house since chopping causes a LOT of noise). - you can easily get loads of wood and fuel this way

7. [Trading tips] Stock up on meds and use meds as trading materials (if you're careful, you won't need too much meds to cure/heal your peeps) - since the supposedly 'ultimate' trading materials (cigarettes and coffee) are rather worthless.

8. [Trading tips] Diodes cost quite a lot (if you trade for cheap stuff) and you don't need it (except for radio) earlier on, so my advice is to sell the load of them for more vital stuff, like food.... which are very sparse.

9. [Before winter tips] Save up for water before winter coz during winter, you'll need to waste fuel AND filter to get water from snow.

10. Note that some of the members in your team may have orange lettering underneath their 'likes' or 'are best at'. These can be troublesome. For example, Bruno the Cook is a smoker. So, if he doesn't get his smoke and he is depressed or sad, he will pick fights with other team members and may cause severe injury. Some members of your team may crave coffee as a way to cool down their nerves as well. Although these are not exactly necessary, it's still an easy (but 'expensive' and rather slow) way to get their EQ back to normal.

10. [Defending your home] Also note that your team can use crowbars and axes as weapons in response to any raids to your house, so make sure all your guards have a weapon. You don't need to craft knives if you already have crowbars and axes.  Unfortunately though, SHOVELS are somehow NOT considered as WEAPONS.

11. Don't forget to keep food stocked up as well.

Screenshots!

Post by Aveyn's FB.

Stonehearth (Alpha) review

There's even day-and-night cycle in the game! :) Look at mah double-storey house!

An excellent voxel-based game that has a survival, resource-gathering theme. After watching the sample gameplay video put up by the developers, I knew I simply must try this game out. And guess what, I enjoyed it very much! :)

However, there are plenty of glitches still in the game - like workers becoming idle and not returning to work even after days (they don't even go to eat). It is as though they were caught in some invisible quicksand and was unable to budge. 

There's another bug with beds (P/S: I didn't put them very closely together - I left some space in between beds so they could walk to their beds). There will be beds available but some of the workers go ahead and decide to sleep on the floor - they even have the nerve to complain about it after they woke up lol. Stand-alone walls are not working - cannot build those yet as well as some jobs that are not yet available. 

Since the game is still in alpha, I guess I can excuse a lot of the glitches. But from what I've seen in the game, I have high hopes that the final, released version of this game will be extremely good. :) I have faith in that. It's just that there are some tweaks needed for the current game mechanics and there are more content that are on their way into the game. The devs have a lot to do! :)

Cute little buggers, they are!

My workers stockpiling stuff on the stockpile.

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]

Plague Inc - A guide to conquering the world with your disease!

And kill off the entire human population. :P

Okay, so it's very easy to do conquer the world in Plague Inc and I'll just cut to the chase. Do note that I've only started playing and am still using bacteria as a way to infect people, but I reckon the principle of the game is pretty much the same even if you're using viruses or something else.

1. Start your disease in a poor country

First, it's best to start in a poor country. These countries have low hygiene, low capability to develop a cure, has a huge base population and low medical personnel. The perfect cauldron for your disease! 

However, once you get pro at this game, you can easily try to start your disease via the european countries (those cluster of countries around UK looks juicy lol - plenty of transportation access).

2. Increase your disease's infectivity!

Since you're starting in poor countries, these countries are usually hot, humid and arid. So, the best way of transmission would be Insects (Best), Blood (Secondary) or Airborne (Secondary). You should also get Rats once you hit countries with more urban areas. 1 level of evolution into these is sufficient - you don't need to get level 2.

For symptoms, anything that can increase infectivity should be your first choice. Rash and Cysts are good choices for starters and for poorer countries. You should gradually spend DNA points on symptoms that will increase infectivity in urban and wealthy countries too.

Once you get any of those, I must simply emphasize on getting Water 1 transmission. This is the only way you can get to that pesky island up north (hint, hint, Greenland). Get this early on so that you can widen your spread and cover all the countries in the world.

3. Increase the resistance of your pathogen

Once more and more people get infected, your disease will become known to the world. This is the time to spread even faster (before they can develop a cure) by making your disease as resistant as possible. The first to max out is bacterial resistance. Then, drug resistance (so that you can infect people more quickly in wealthy countries) as well as cold resistance (Hint: the wealthy countries up north).

You should also start spending points on inhibiting any attempts by countries in developing the cure.

4. Increase severity and lethality of your disease

Once (or slightly before) you get complete global infection, start getting symptoms that increases lethality AND inhibits the progress for a cure. These will usually cost a lot of DNA points, so you may want to de-evolve some of the 'increase infectivity'-only symptoms or methods of transmission since you have no use for those. Do note that de-evolving only gives you back 2 DNA points - it's really pitiful - so consider it for some time before de-evolving a symptom.

Furthermore, keep stacking up abilities that slows the progress of the cure! Don't forget to pop all bubbles that pops up, especially the blue ones!

If you get any mutation bonuses, then good for you :)

This is also the time where you shouldn't be spending any more DNA points on transmission.

5. Laugh evilly at the screen

Get those 'muahahahaha' ready when your disease managed to caused the extinction of the human population!

Enjoy!


P/S: I've just started on virus and I can say that the gameplay is pretty much the same except that for virus, it has a higher rate of mutation so you may want to de-evolve some symptoms in order to lower its lethality. :)

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!

----------------------------------------------------

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!

-------------------------------------------------------------

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.

Bleachers - I Wanna Get Better (Against The Current ft The Ready Set) cover

Awesome song! :)







Lyrics:

(Modified to fit the lyrics in this cover.... enjoy! :) )

Hey, I hear the voice of a preacher from the back room
Calling my name and I follow just to find you
I trace the faith to a broken down television and put on the weather
And I've trained myself to give up on the past 'cause
I frozen time between hearses and caskets
Lost control when I panicked at the acid test

I wanna get better

While my friends were getting high and chasing girls down parkway lines
I was losing my mind 'cause the love, the love, the love, the love, the love
That I gave wasted on a nice face
In a blaze of fear I put a helmet on a helmet
Counting seconds through the night and got carried away
So now I'm standing on the overpass screaming at the cars,

Hey, I wanna get better!

I didn't know I was lonely 'til I saw your face
I wanna get better, better, better, better,
I wanna get better
I didn't know I was broken 'til I wanted to change
I wanna get better, better, better, better,
I wanna get better

I go up to my room and there's girls on the ceiling
Cut out their pictures and I chase that feeling
Of an eighteen year old who didn't know what loss was

Now I'm a stranger

And I miss the days of a life still permanent
Mourn the years before I got carried away
So now I'm staring at the interstate screaming at myself,

Hey, I wanna get better!

I didn't know I was lonely 'til I saw your face
I wanna get better, better, better, better,
I wanna get better
I didn't know I was broken 'til I wanted to change
I wanna get better, better, better, better,

Better, 'cause I'm sleeping in the back of a taxi
I'm screaming from my bedroom window
Even if its gonna kill me
-music-
Woke up this morning early before my family
From this dream where she was trying to show me
How a life can move from the darkness
She said to get better

So I put a bullet where I shoulda put a helmet
And I crash my car 'cause I wanna get carried away
That's why I'm standing on the overpass screaming at myself

Hey, I wanna get better!
-music-

I wanna get better, better, better, 

Better.

I didn't know I was lonely 'til I saw your face
I wanna get better, better, better, better,
I wanna get better
I didn't know I was broken 'til I wanted to change
I wanna get better, better, better, better,
I wanna get better

All the fake posters in 22 Jump Street

Those sequels are sooooo good :P But I gotta admit, the ending in this movie rocks :)

Here are the screenshots from the movie. Enjoy!

Post by Aveyn's FB.

Kuku kube - test your eyesight

Note: You'll need a good enough computer for this :)

Test your eyesight by clicking the different shade of colour in a group of colours in Kuku kube. You gotta choose fast and accurately.

Can you spot the different shaded cube yet? This is fairly obvious :) But you got to choose fast in order to get a high score!

Ready for the challenge? Click here to find out! Feel free to post your scores in the comment below... and I'll get the ball rolling by saying that my best score is 24 (I've played it only once lol :P).

So... what's yours? :)

Feel free to also share your score on Facebook, Twitter or any social media using the hashtag #kukukube. Enjoy!~ 

Update!

Here's another Kuku kube-like test that you can try - it is more forgiving than Kuku kube and provides an easy way for you to share your score on Facebook.

As you can see, I did rather badly :P when you didn't have enough sleep, well, this stuff happens.

For more 'tests' such as this one, feel free to check out my other posts:

Face Memory Test - Do you have the superhuman ability to recognise faces from just a glance?
How Dark is Your Personality?
Stanford Sleepiness Scale: Are You Getting Enough Sleep?
Which TED Talk are you?
Find out your EQ score!
Whose #Brainchild are you?
How old are your ears?
How many colours can you see?
Do you ever have trouble telling right from left?
Hooked on Music - What makes music so catchy?
Twitch Reflex Challenge!
How Well Do You See Colour?

The sort of lame jokes that I crack

Here you go!

I'm red btw ;)

Eating Shit

Transcript:

Blue: I don't want to eat shit

Orange: (zzzz)

Green: (Good!)

Red: Eat shit?

Red: (Om nom nom nom)

Red: (zzzzz)

Red: (Puke)

Orange: (WTH)

(Yiruma) River Flow in You - Sungha Jung

Seriously! Is this music even possible to be played on the guitar?! Wow!~

This dude is extremely talented indeed! Do check him out if you've got the time for some very nice instrumentals :)

Enjoy!




P/S: I've listed this post as being an 'epic music' because it certainly deserves that credit :)

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

Borderlands: The Prequel review and tips

I'm awfully sorry for the lengthy silence - I was way over my head with work and was drowning lol. However, I've decided to give myself a break (at least a day's worth) next week and I intend to use it to try out my brand new Borderlands game :)

Do expect plenty of screenshots and a coherent review (heh) coming up soon. How soon is soon? Well, I can't say for sure, but it should be out any day within next week. So stay tuned!

Peace out!


Updated: Since I'm too busy ...ahem... playing to actually write a review, but I can say that the game stayed true to its crazy roots and the characters are as crazy and as nonsensical (in some sort of way) as Borderlands 2. Anyway, as a teaser, here're some of my many screenshots in the game.

Enjoy drooling *Troll face* :D (I'm so bad... lol)

Post by Aveyn's FB.

Update: Okay, so I encountered a couple of 'tough' quests but somehow I managed to complete it (yay!). I thought I could share it here for people who are still trying to get the quest done.

1. System Jammed
- Don't waste your time standing in the decontamination chamber. Walk out.

2. Nova? No Problem!
- This is tricky but you cannot complete the quest if you stood right in the middle of the room. You'll need to stand closer to the wall nearest to the safe. And btw, the fifth CCTV is the safe itself (crazy huh?), so you'll need your shock wave to hit the safe too.

P/S: I used my Tediore gun to blow my shield off by wasting a bullet, then reloading it (Tediore guns are thrown when reloaded and they explode after being thrown - I throw it towards the blue laser cage thingy).

You can try with a grenade, but be careful though... grenade explosion will cause you to move from your position and your shock may not hit all the cameras in the room (unfortunately).

P/P/S: For people who cannot find this area, you should go downwards instead of upwards :)

Stand here. Stick to the wall on the right while facing the safe (with its blue electric lasers). *I've already completed the quest in this SS... obviously :)

The Tediore gun that I used - explode like a grenade when reloaded... hella useful here! Just fire off a shot and press reload. Saves your money on grenades too!

3. Getting the ECHO files for Captain Zarpedon
- I spend a good 1 hour trying to jump my way up lol, but I jumped the wrong way.
- the third ECHO is easy to get, the first and second may need a bit of tweaking.
- Anyway, once you reached the place where there's a jump pad and there's a huge gap in the middle of the ship and the second ECHO is right above your head, go to the jump pad and use 'v' on the little electrical box (on the floor) right next to the jump pad.
- Then, once the electrical box started to shoot out electric sparks, quickly go to the jump pad and use it to jump, you should be able to reach the (second-topmost) platform on the other side. Go near to the lift (on your right) and there should be a locked cage with your first ECHO inside. Shoot the lock and get the ECHO.
- To get the second ECHO, you'll need to do some serious jumping. You should be at the bottom of the lift now (since once you get the first ECHO, the cage will crash downwards).
- Repeat the previous step with the jump pad. Use 'v' on the electrical box and then use the jump pad, but this time, use your Oxygen boost to boost yourself up to the topmost (and very narrow) platform (there should be a mini-safe a.k.a. loot box up there).
- Okay now, the tricky part. Get ready to jump to the other side where your second ECHO is located. Run then at the very edge of your platform press 'spacebar' to jump, then at the right moment, use your oxygen boost to boost yourself to the platform on the other side. This may take a bit of trial and error though. :)
- Anyway, it is doable - so just keep trying. Once you get to the other side, grab that second ECHO and drop down to the platform with the O2 generator and you're done. :)

See this electric box... well... destroy it!

When its spitting out blue sparks, then you've done it right! Be ready for the hyper jump!

When you jump, aim for that ledge over there (look at my gun's target).

Hope this helps!


P/S: I've completed the game and have had no other problems. So, I think you should be fine for the most part :)