The Odd Gratuitous Inquiry (TOGI)

Featuring Nicholas Hu, who was IT guy, banker, intern, and then interior designer, entrepreneur and co-founder of Build Built. We talk about his mental allergy to tofu and switching mid-career to the design and construction industry. We explore the tensions between design and art, and function, aesthetics and clients’ preferences; empathy as the designer’s ethos in contrast to artificially intelligent machines; and applying design and project management to living life, passion and purpose.

We talk about his ethnic heritage and identity, crypto asset investing, anti-trafficking work in Singapore, and humanitarian work with schools and refugees in East and North Africa. How does he reconcile the huge disconnect between, on one hand, poor communities who are far removed from technological advances like blockchain and decentralized finance and on the other hand, his belief in the latter as the future which he is staking his assets on. Can decentralized finance, governance and political action be the way to see poor populations into a better future?

Is there an alternative to the current way we pursue criminal justice as a society? Are punishment and imprisonment the necessary and sufficient solutions to crime? I consider sociological and legal critiques of the conventional criminal legal system and explore the proposal of a restorative justice model. Restorative justice is rooted in ancient traditions, takes a problem-solving dialogical paradigm, and elevates the role of victims and the community in righting wrongs.

Is there an alternative to the current way we pursue criminal justice as a society? Are punishment and imprisonment the necessary and sufficient solutions to crime? I consider sociological and legal critiques of the conventional criminal legal system and explore the proposal of a restorative justice model. Restorative justice is rooted in ancient traditions, takes a problem-solving dialogical paradigm, and elevates the role of victims and the community in righting wrongs.

Why do people love it even though it’s painful and torturous? What about chilli makes it spicy? Where did chilli originate from? How did it become part of culinary cultures worldwide? 

Who came up with this? What good is it? Is there any science to this? What countries or cultures have such practices?

We dive into the origins of bak chang (also known as zongzi) and explore the diverse Chinese dialect variations and the diaspora who eat it. Is the Qu Yuan origin story truth or myth? Are there other cultures which have similar food?