How to solve traffic jams

This week on Ted.com I watched a video which was done by Jonas Eliasson about how to solve traffic jams. Road congestion is a phenomenon that exist all over the world and Jonas Eliasson has said on his talk that self-organizing is a complex social system that is very deep inside and when you want to resolve these social problems the best way is to create incentives. Someone from stolkholm came up with a crazy idea and that is by charging drivers one or two euros at these bottlenecks and believe it or not one or two euros was more than enough to make 20 percent of cars disappear from rush hours and besides congestion charges were introduced  in Stockholm on January 2006. And after it was introduced the congestion reduced substantially as 20 percent of the cars on the streets has been taken away. The video was also discussing about the public's support for congestion pricing of Stockholm and when it was introduced in 2006 people were against it and sooner or later they changed till the extend that 70 percent of the citizens in Stockholm have started to support the congestion pricing. And the people didn't actually change their minds, they were actually comfortable with congestion pricing all along which means Stockholm has reduced traffic by 20 percent and reduced congestion by a huge number.

Week 10 (Thank You Julia)

This is my final journal for this subject and for the entire semester. I am going to miss doing this so much as it brings me a lot of joy and it does help me to unwind myself most of the time. If only I was a little precise with my time management for this task I might have done a little bit more but the amount of effort I have put in to complete all my reflective journals in such a short period of time is considered really great. I thought it was completely impossible to finish all of it but then my determination level was just so high till the extend I never chose to give up. Winning in life has and will always be my ultimate option I have proven that I do not give up easily in life no matter any kind of situation because I was made that way. Thank you Julia for always believing in me and giving me high hopes and also pushing me to the extreme core to complete all my tasks, if it wasn't for you I am sure I would be failing this subject badly. You have also taught me many things especially when it comes to essay writing, I have improved so much after all your guidance. You are a very memorable lecturer and I will never forget you. Thank you so much once again Julia. Hope we can meet in the future.

Selling condoms in the Congo.

This week on Ted.com I watched a video by Amy Lockwood which is about Selling condoms in the Congo. HIV is a well known disease and it is a very serious problem in Congo, and aid agencies have flooded the country with free and cheap condoms and yet citizens over there choose not to purchase it. There are many health issues in DRM and the main problem would be  HIV as the prevalence rate is 1.3 percent among adults. In other words 930000 out of 76 million people are infected by this HIV disease and due to the poor infrastructure of the country only 25 percent are lucky enough to receive the life-saving drugs that they need. Some amount of the drugs are supplied by agencies at low cost or maybe free of charge at times. The donor agencies implied a few messages on their condoms which are fear, financing and fidelity. Based on Amy Lockwood's perception the donor agencies had just missed out on a key aspect of marketing which is understanding who are the audience. In conclusion it doesn't really matter what you are selling, you just have to contemplate who is your customer and what are the message that is intending to convey to them in order to change their behavior.

Week 9

This week I have completed most of my assignments for all the subjects including the Introductory to Maths assignment which was very tricky because it involves a lot of statistics and data measurement. I have also learnt my lesson that time management is very important when it comes to completing assignment and homework as last minute job is very stressful. And procrastinating is a negative attitude as it might add more stress to yourself when it comes to deadlines. In my next semester I am going to be even more precise with my work management and my time management, I am also going to put a stop by being lazy and being over confident at times.

How we can make the world a better place by 2020

This week on Ted.com I watched a video which was conducted by Michael Green on how to make the world a better place. Michael Green said that in the month of September the leaders of the world had a meeting at the United Nations in New York and they have agreed to a new set of global goals for the development of the world to 2030. Back  in the year 2001, the UN agreed another another set of goals which is known as the millennium development goals and believe it or not the flagship target there was to obtain halve the proportion of people living in poverty by 2015. The target was reduced from 36% which was on 1990 to 18% which is today. It is a very drastic fall.

However economic growth seems to have really helped in the fight against poverty, but it doesn't seem to be having much impact on achieving the target of Global Goals hence there are two reasons which are the using up of easy wins from economic growth and economic growth comes with costs as well as benefits. Hence we can't achieve global goals with just economic growth and certainly not with business as usual. To achieve Global Goals, the human race has to give more attention for social progress, and really scale solutions around the world

Week 8

This was a very easy going week for me, Julia asked our class to hand in our writing portfolio 5 submission. Our group wrote about Poverty and the assignment was worth 25 marks hence I had to put in some extra effort in writing it. I referred to some tips from the website called thehungerproject.com and I have learnt a lot from this website such as the region that is suffering the most from poverty, the exact figure of people who are suffering from poverty and many more. It took me a few days to construct my essay as I had to gather a certain amount of accurate and relevant facts. Apart from that Julia has also pushed and encouraged me to complete all my assessment tasks as I have been falling behind in all these, I never fail to put in effort in all my tasks because the marks for it is really high. I have also learnt my lesson by being a more responsible person when it comes to completing my assignments.

The surprising way groups like ISIS stay in power.

This week on Ted.com I watched a video about The surprising way groups like ISIS stay in power. Benedetta Berti is unique in the sense that she doesn't focus on the headline-grabbing activities of groups like ISIS but instead she looks at what they do when they're not committing atrocities and she also shows why counter-terrorism strategies must not focus purely on the military system. In the past years wars used to be between states but it is now between states and non-state actors. And armed group these days are more complex organizations, this is because  they set up a political party, a social-service network, and a military apparatus to increase their power and control. Besides they also set up complex communication machines such as TV channels, Internet Websites and social media.

And armed groups also never fail to invest in complex fund raising, setting up low-key businesses for an instance construction companies and etc. Besides they also build stronger bonds with the population by investing in social services such as building schools, run hospitals and they also set up vocational-training programs. Moreover terrorist groups are hard to defeat because they fill a gap left by the government, and they never fail to rise in both armed and political, engage in violent struggle and provide governance.

Week 7

This week was quite a hectic week for me because I had to submit all my last minute submissions and I also had an IT test. I wasn't really good at IT and it was never my favorite subject hence I am not going to expect for such fantastic marks for the test. This time round Excel was the main topic for the test and it wasn't easy at all, there were many formulas that I had to memorize to complete the question. Besides that I purchased a new iPhone back leather casing for my phone and it feels good and looks good however the price was rather high. Julia insisted our class to complete all our remaining assessment tasks such as Blogger, Vocab.com, Writing Portfolio (Only for foundation students) by this week because she is going for her year end vacation next week and I hope she has fun. Julia has been a very helpful lecturer and a very understanding lecturer of course, despite knowing my group are a little left behind in our tasks she never fails to push and encourage us to do our best and give our best shot and I would like to thank her someday for what she has done.

How germs travel on planes and how we can stop them

This week on Ted.com I watched a video which was conducted by Raymond Wang which was about How Germs are traveled on an aircraft and how to avoid them. The fact that scared me the most is there was this guy that decided to go on the plane and in the matter of a single flight actually spread the disease to 17 other people. Besides, there was this other guy with SARS, who literally managed to go on a three-hour flight and spread the disease to 22 other people. Raymond Wang the physics genius came up with a model that can help prevent this occurrence because inside the aircraft, there is air coming in from the top of the cabin and from the side of the cabin and then the air ventilates out of the filters that will eliminate 99% of virus. Hence Raymond Wang came up with this model or in other words "solution" which is called the patent pending and with that it is possible to reduce the virus by 55 times and increase the fresh air inhalation for the passengers. With this solution it is possible to prevent diseases such as H1N1, SARS and Ebola to be transmitted on the aircraft. Patent pending works in a way where we have to fix this small piece of composite material into the existing spots that are already in the plane inside the plane. This method is considered to be super cost effective to install and it can also be done overnight. 

Week 6

I'm doing my week 6 blog in the 9th week because I'm falling back but I have somehow managed to catch up in my work because of my drastic improvement in this subject. This week Julia asked 3 of my group members to complete our slides for our group presentation and believe it or not, we have done quite a bit in such short period of time and I feel that we are going to do well for this assessment. It was quite a hectic week for me because my class had to submit an IT assignment which was really very hard.

Link between employment and terrorism

   
This video from Ted.com is about Mohamed Ali talking about the link between unemployment and terrorism. Personally speaking, one of the main reasons for terrorism is because youngsters these days are unemployed although they have completed their education. Not getting a job is one of the most stressful element any human being can go through. Since there are many terrorist groups around they tend to brainwash younger generation by joining them in exchange of food, money and shelter. There are thousands and thousands of youngsters who have joined  terrorism through this way and their network is getting bigger as time goes by.

Week 5

Its still the week 8th and I'm trying to catchup what I was supposed to do 3 weeks back. On this week, Julia urged all the students in our class to catchup on what that has been due. Everyone seems to be busy as a bee because they need the minimum marks to atleast pass this subject.

I bought a new fossil watch this week though because I got bored with the old one. I've always liked wearing good watches because its symbolises good fortune and a good watch brings luck as well. I had quite a relaxed week because there were no exams and I'm looking forward for the coming christmas break.

Athletes getting better, faster and stronger

This week I watched a video about "Are athletes really getting faster,better, stronger" on Ted.com. This video was made by David epstein and he was discussing about the major upgrade in sports when it comes to the athletes. Jesse owens who was an american runner in the year 1936 held a record of 10.2 seconds and if he were to be compared with the current olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt which his record is 9.77 seconds, he would finish 14 feet back. Besides that basketball players have became even taller in size, in other words there are 10 men in the NBA that are at least 7 feet tall which makes it even more easier for them to score during any match. Female gymnast's size requirements have relatively became smaller which is from 5'3 to 4'9.

These is what i've learnt from this video today.

Week 4

Its the eighth week today but I am still doing the task which I was supposed to do four weeks back. I've fallen back badly in my blogger due to my lack of focus and my attendance. I really need to catch up at the moment and thanks to Julia I was able to get back on track. Julia and I had a small catchup session at the computer lab on what are the assessments that are due for me to complete and I am feeling much more confident and motivated now. I have planned and divided my time so that I can complete all my tasks and also concentrate on my other subjects. I have always motivated myself to do well in life and nothing is going to stop me from achieving my goals, nothing is impossible is one of the ultimate quotes that has always sticked into my mind for a very long time. I will make it.

Learning about vocabulary

This week Julia introduced us to this new website called vocabulary.com. This website contains synonyms of words, dictionary, opposite of word meanings and dictionary as well. I was a little excited at first when Julia said that she's going to introduce us a new technique of learning vocabulary which is via internet, this is because as back in Malaysia we would usually learn in from books given by our teacher. Well we had to sign into our swinburne account and open the file called "Week 3" and we commenced our task from there onwards.

Our ultimate task was to set up an account and use our swinburne email as the username, second was to gather a vocabulary list which is one list for the second till the seventh week and the second list which is from the eighth till the thirteenth week. Right after that, we were assigned to watch a video on that website which teaches us how to fully operate the website by using all its key features. The video showed us many quick and easy ways to improve our vocabularies. Vocabulary.com challenge was also taught via the video, besides we learned that each word that exists on the website has a definition and an example sentance.

Preferred learning styles

When i started learning since Year one that would be when i was 7 years old, our class teacher would usually teach us by explaining what she has written on the BLACKBOARD! not whiteboard.The class would move on in a way where we will copy whatever she has written down on the blackboard. To come and think of it, its kind of boring at times because it was a passive learning method. We as 7 year olds wouldn't ask her a word about our learning method as it was known as being "Rude" to question your teacher about her teaching methods.

Personally, I feel that group work is the best learning technique as each individual can share their thoughts and opinions about a certain topic. Every individual deserves to interact with others to share and receive information from. Besides that i feel that group discussion is also better because it can help the teachers to maintain of what is being thought as they are capable of guiding the discussion. I have been in many group discussions throughout my school life and also college life, I find it much easier to learn and the workload is slightly lesser. My friendship bonding with people whom i don't know has also tightened ever since.

In a nutshell, my preferred learning styles would be group discussion.

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Goals

Hello to everybody out there. This is a big shoutout to my lecturer Julia who gave me the opportunity to write my own blog ever since i came to swinburne. To be honest i've never knew what a blog was till I came to my university. I might have heard people talking about it but i've yet to use it first hand.

When i arrived at melbourne on the first day the weather was tremendously cold and i was shivering like never before. For a moment i thought that i was at Alaska. The weather at melbourne is very unpredictable in fact, some people say that melbourne is the only city where there are 4 seasons in a day and its true.

The people over here are rather friendly and its easy to blend in and mix with. They are straight forward at times and they do not like to beat around the bush and i like that. I'm living at east camberwell and that's 3 train stops to my campus.