Selena Gomez and I are scheduled to meet at a low­key coffee shop in Encino. Not wanting to keep the superstar waiting, I arrived at nine, 20 minutes early. As I was catching up on e­mails, Selena quietly scooted into the seat next to me. No bodyguard. Not even a drop of makeup. She was ten minutes early and no one else in the restaurant looked up so much. Selena was wearing Bebe shorts. She had a baby face and ordered a hot chocolate.

    After making small talk about what she wore for the shoot, she dived into the subject of her career. Selena declared 2012 the year of movies. She filmed three: Spring Breakers, a drama; The Getaway, an action flick; and Hotel Transylvania, a comedy. Each is a marked move away from the teen style that made her a household name.

    Now that her Disney days are behind her, Selena is at that unstable point in a child star's career where she is trying to grow up—both as a person(she turned 20 in July)and as an artist. “Being part of the Disney Channel was such a blessing, and I'm super happy with what my show accomplished, but acting is something I would like to take on more seriously.” She continued, “I don't necessarily feel accomplished. I want to create a whole different person when it comes to acting.”

    Selena has been working fulltime since she was seven years old and scored a role on Barney&Friends. In 2007, when she was offered the lead in Wizards of Waverly Place, Selena, her mother, and her stepfather uprooted from Texas to LA , where they are settling now.

    An interesting study posted on Facebook recently shows how men and women develop new interests as they mature(成熟).

    While women tend to take exercise seriously from the age of 34, men will wait until their 45th birthdays before working hard to get in shape.

    The average woman spends more time talking about sports, politics, career and money as she gets older.

    Women's interest in books reaches its peak(顶峰) at the age of 22, while that of men does so when they are in their 50s.

    Men start to change their focus from the workplace to other things after age 30, while women do not do so until eight years later. Both, however, care most about fashion at age 16.

    The research used anonymous(匿名的) data donated by thousands of Facebook users, recording the statuses, 'likes' and 'interests' they had posted on their profiles.

    It found the average woman talks about television most at 44, while men peak much younger, at age 31.

    Men are also most likely to see a film in a cinema at age 31, while women go out to see films most when they are only 19.

Men are most interested in travel at 29, women at 27, while women talk most about food and drink at 35, and men at 38.

    And if you are middle aged, a safe topic for anyone is the weather, which is a key interest for many as they reach 60.

    Stephen Wolfram, the British scientist who carried out the research, says, “It's almost shocking how much this tells us about the changes of people's typical interests.

    “People talk less about video games as they get older, and more about politics.”

    Google, one of the world's outstanding tech companies, was attacked. It wasn't its search engine that was attacked or its advertising platform or even its social network. Google⁺. Instead, it was a building.

    Two web security experts hacked (侵入) into its Wharf 7 office in Sydney, Australia, through Google's building management system (BMS). One of them, Billy Rios, says, “My colleague and I have lot of experience in web security, but it is not something that people couldn't learn. Once you understand how the system works, it is very simple.

    They found the system on Shodan, a search engine that lists devices connected to the Internet, and then ran it through their own software to identify who owned the building. In the case of the Google hacking, the researchers had no immoral purpose and just informed Google about what they found.

    According to Mr Rios, who runs security company Whitescope, there are 50, 000 buildings currently connected to the Internet, including research institutes, churches and hospitals, and 2, 000 of those are online with password protection, Martyn Thomas, a professor of IT at Gresham College in the UK, says, “It is beyond doubt that attempts to attack building management systems are happening all the time.”

    Making a building smart generally means connecting the systems that control heating, lighting and security to the Internet and the wider corporate network. There was a strong reason for doing this, said Andrew Kelly, principal security consultant at defence company Qinetiq.

    “Energy savings are the biggest factor in connecting building management systems to the corporate network,” he says. “It gives those who run the building better control and offers between 20% to 50% in energy savings,” he adds.

    But it also makes them less secure. And if any of these feels like a Hollywood filmy, think again.

    Personal computers and the Internet give people new choices about how to spend their time.

    Some may use this freedom to share less time with certain friends or family members, but new technology will also let them stay in closer touch with those they care most about. I know this from personal experience.

    E-mail makes it easy to work at home, which is where I now spend most weekends and evenings. My working hours aren't necessarily much shorter than they once were but I spend fewer of them at the office. This lets me share more time with my young daughter than I might have if she'd been born before electronic mail became such a practical tool.

    The Internet also makes it easy to share thoughts with a group of friends. Say you do something fun, see a great movie perhaps-and there are four or five friends who might want to hear about it. If you call each one, you may tire of telling the story.

    With E-mail, you just write one note about your experience, at your convenience, and address it to all the friends you think might be interested. They can read your message when they have time, and read only as much as they want to. They can reply at their convenience, and you can read what they have to say at your convenience.

    E-mail is also an inexpensive way stay in close touch with people who live far away. More than a few parents use E-mail to keep in touch, even daily touch, with their children off at college.

    We just have to keep in mind that computers and the Internet offer another way of staying in touch. They don't take the place of any of the old ways.

    Whether it's music, art, stage, screen, restaurant and bar deals, or the great outdoors – there's always something interesting going on in Hong Kong

    Tim Yip: Blue – Art, Costumes and Memory

    What: A well-known visual artist, costume designer, and art director for stage and film (particularly on his work for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, for which he won an Oscar), Tim Yip has been a proud promoter of Eastern aestheticism(唯美主义)for 30 years. For his first large-scale solo exhibition in Hong Kong, Yip explores the nature of human imagination and the depths of the subconscious mind. Organized by Mark Holborn, the exhibition is expected to be praised due to Yip's vision of “New Orientalism”.

    Where: HKDI Gallery, Hong Kong Design Institute, 3 King Ling Road, Tiu Keng Leng, Tseung Kwan O

    When: Until March 31, 2019

    Alice's Adventure at Starlight Garden

    What: Introduced last year, this exhibition became a huge hit, with more than 6,000 photos and videos posted online every day. Created by 27 multimedia digital artists from Korea, the exhibition features a 30-foot rabbit hole for visitors to explore the fantasy world made famous in the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This Christmas, New Town Plaza delivers a brand-new interactive digital version of the literary work. In particular, check out the seventh floor, with its bright lighting, glittering mirrors and rose-shaped decorations.

    Where: New Town Plaza, 18 Sha Tin Centre Street, Sha Tin

    When: Until January 13, 2019

    We Travel in Our Minds

    What: This exhibition of sculpture aims to present ideas of theatricality, the fantastical, travel and exchange, with figures that take the forms of humans and animals. Made by artist Ethan Murrow, a professor at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston, these dream-like objects are inspired by puppetry (木偶戏), music, trade, navigation and beyond, with mixed effects of materiality, sound and imagination.

    Where: Duddell's, Level 3, Shanghai Tang Mansion, 1 Duddell Street, Central

When: Until March 10, 2019

    A new restaurant in Indonesia is on a mission (使命) to support locals trapped in poverty, many of whom are earning less than $25 a month, by providing them with an alternative way to pay for their food.

    The Methane Gas Canteen, run by husband and wife team Sarimin and Suyatmi, is located in an unexpected place for an eatery — Jatibarang Landfill. The landfill is a mountain of purifying waste, where poor locals spend their days collecting plastic and glass to sell. Meanwhile, the couple, who spent 40 years collecting waste before opening the restaurant, is busy cooking.

    What makes the restaurant unusual, aside from its location, is that no cash is required to pay for meals. Poor people have the option to pay for their food with recyclable waste instead of cash. Sarimin weighs the plastic customers bring in, calculates its worth, and then deduct that value from the cost of the meal, giving any extra value back to the customer. The scheme is part of the community's solution to reduce waste in the landfill and recycle non-degradable plastics.

    “I think we recycle 1 tonne of plastic waste a day, which is a lot. This way, the plastic waste doesn't pile up, drift down the river and cause flooding,” said Saimin. “It benefits everyone.”

    The restaurant seats about 30 people and serves meals that cost between $0.40 and $0.80 each. Since opening the canteen Sarimin and Suyatmi have seen their daily income more than double to $15 a day.

    “I'm happy to see our customers enjoying their meals,” Sarimin told NHK World. “The poor must also have the right to enjoy healthy eating. I want to give them that chance as much as possible.”