I found myself marvelling at the wonderful food I’ve had on my recent business trips.
An Cafe Vietnamese Street Food – Brisbane
An Cafe Vietnamese Street Food – BrisbaneAt this small vietnamese shop, I’ve had the best chips(fries), ever. Of a standard thick cut, it is so soft on the inside and crispy (but not overly crispy or dry) on the outside. A perfect temperature and texture, and seasoned aptly!
Appetito Pizza Restaurant – Melbourne
I then chanced upon the most perfect non-italian pizza shop in Carrum Downs, which does make pizza with pineapple on top! They are not the flat-crusted pizza type. However, the pizza had a soft and fluffy base, and tastes like a cloud. Generous amounts of cheese so that when you lift a slice, tasty strings of melted cheese appear! The most important thing? Nothing on the crust is burnt, and it was delicious, and I didn’t realise what I’d been missing all these years eating pizza with oft-burnt crust! 🙂
The shop was quite empty when I walked in, but the front entrance made me grin. It had a neon sign spelling “You can’t make everyone happy, you’re not pizza!” and the year for when the pizza shop was started (They’ve been in business for almost 30 years)!
These shops served such wonderful, well-prepared food that I felt compelled to write good reviews for them, knowing just how hard it is to get organic traffic these days. Please support good businesses with a review, it may be a small gesture but it means a lot to people who are in business! 😀
In 2024, I conducted a research project on cyber bullying against adults. The project report analyses real-life and serious cases of cyberbullying campaigns and how it was dealt with in different scenarios. My project aims to provide the public with tools to approach the internet safely.
I was moved by the distressing case of Amanda Nickerson, who was cyberstalked, and realised that we lack tools to deal with cyberbullying in an increasingly digitized world. Our parents and indeed ourselves are still grasping how the internet is impacting us and how to deal with the excessive exposure.
Australians are not completely without support. The esafety commissioner has regulatory powers to enforce online safety laws which is fantastic, protecting children and women – the most vulnerable targets of cyber incidents. However, I realise there is need for a more generalised set of guidelines for the individual to protect themselves, especially when they don’t have the capacity to enlist legal and professional help.
That is why I have looked at three case studies and analysed with reference to extensive literature review:
Amanda Nickerson – unknown cyberstalker of private individual, unknown perpatrator and intent was unknown until later
Zhu Yilong – mass cyber smear campaign on public figure
Iskander v Barcos [2023] VCC 2074 – fake bad review on individual business by another business, known perpatrator and clear intent
Here is the summary of how to prevent and react to cyberbullying online:
Read the full version of case study in the power point with list of references here:
Hello friends! If you told a younger me that my first blog post is going to be on townplanning of all things, I would have looked at you in a very, very confused manner. Nonetheless, this has been very interesting to me recently.
Townplanning has recently come to the attention of the NSW government due to the housing crisis that is happening in Sydney, and to be honest, if I was a fresh out of high school this would be a really great course to study.
First things first, I highly recommend watching this youtube video on urban planning in Melbourne:
It really highlights a few things:
planning involves both the macro and the micro – from designing road and housing structures to putting a flower stall in the square to add a bit of colour
how planning can change the face of the city
how people congregate or thin out depending how you design the structures
how little resources town planners had in the past, and some policies/rent tricks they had to pull to get things done
planning is a long-term effort and the result often comes in 5, 10 or 20 years
For me townplanning almost feels like building an aquarium. For example, I’m going to put a little cave here, so the fish will naturally go there when they want to feel safer. Then I’m going to plop some aquarium grass seeds here so in a few months it’ll grow into lushness, and organisms can munch on them. I’m also going to place the filter and pump in the corner so it doesn’t disturb the fish in the caves.
For townplanning, we’re doing it with people instead of fishes. By creating the structures that foster growth, organisms will find a way to be comfortable/grow on the structures that you created. If you are quite good, you will have studied human behaviour enough that you know what delights them, what drives them away, what draws them together and simply install a typology has that specific function.
I was very excitedly discussing with my friend about how townplanning is biological, and the city and humans grow and weave together to create that chapter you’ll see in 5-10 years. The flow of humans through the traffic and streets swirled around and became the flow concept that’s in fengshui in an interior designer’s drawings (see Dear Modern‘s hilarious videos) and then my friend said: “You know what, that’s why they had fengshui masters planning the city shopping centres!”
“Oh my God, you’re right!” I said excitedly. It was customary in the past to consult a fengshui master before building any big structure or buying a house. Some very common fengshui sayings include: the back of the house should not be in the direct line of sight of the front door, house sits in the north and faces the south, water brings in wealth, etc. Consulting a fengshui master would be great for the commercial building – they would check the position of the sun, the wind strength, the surrounding context and visualise the movement pattern of people, what plant/water/sculpture/seating needs to occur to “bring in the wealth” (aka so people will stay/have fun there). No wonder they were paid a lot back then and in hot demand today too.
As my other friend aptly put, townplanning, architecture, interior design, fengshui, they are all studies of environment and the human interaction. The position of the sun, the flow of the wind, the bustling of that coffee shop, the low speed limit that makes the streets much more welcoming for the pedestrians – they are all designs that take into account the human behaviour. But it’s also much more than that – to be an outstanding townplanner, one needs to take a long-term view because humans and cities will grow with it and become part of the fabric of change.
Think of it another way – To see examine your gardener’s skill, just look at how they plant and cut their plants. Do the plants grow nicely into shape in the future, or does it require constant trimming and extra effort to maintain it because it was never planted in the right place in the first place? That’s the difference between someone who can trim and someone who masters gardening.
