Toronto, Ontario.
Dr Laffa bread. Christmas eve lunch visit to Israeli resto at 2:30 p.m. full of families sharing a meal. We ordered hummus and shwarma, with a side of 4 falafel. It will be better to return to Dr. Laffa with the family to select a greater variety (Downsview) 20121224 1433
Booth Avenue berries in snow. The red berries are still on the mountain ash tree next door, boughs weighed down by snow. The first time that I’ve had to shovel the walk in front of our house in Toronto this year, after Christmas. Trying to be productive during the workdays, physical activity deferred until almost desk. (Toronto Riverside) 20121227 1655
The history of the IBM Advanced Business Institute and Palisades Executive Conference Center from the 1990s into the 2000s is related from a first-person perspective.
The February 2019 Systems Thinking Ontario meeting was an opportunity to bring those unfamiliar with the work of Christopher Alexander on methods revealed in the Eishin School and Multi-Service Centers projects.
The wholeness generated through pattern language may be influenced by stronger foundations from advances in the systems sciences, not just in built environments, but also in other domains.
An invitation to give a talk at IBM Research Almaden presented an opportunity to trace the history of science of pattern language, as it developed inside the company, and with the external community.
An invitation as a keynote presenter at the 2018 International Conference on Smart Cities and Urban Design (SCUD) was initiated on a recommendation by Susu Nousala to the program chair WU Jing. Blending the conference theme with my recent doctoral research, I proposed the topic “Innovation Learning for Sustainability: What’s smarter for urban systems”? For […]
The March 2018 lecture on Architecting for Wicked Messes for the OCAD SFI Understanding Systems and Systemic Design course was influenced having just taught Systems Methods at UToronto, and launching the Open Innovation Learning book.
Social ecology and environmental psychology described @dstokols @Social_Ecology , interviewed by @katiepatrick . References #WilliamsJames on attention. Book on Social Ecology in the Digital Age released in 2018.Read more ›
Concerns on #personaldata should be reframed as interpersonal, says @sheldrake , less the nodes and more the edge connections. “I want to take back control” superficial, @hartzog says control doesn’t scale. Agency is about negotiation in the world, more rhizomatic…Read more ›
Doing science should be wayfinding (pathfinding), says #TimIngold , gaining grounding in the art of paying attention, towards research as the pursuit of truth. Truth is more than objective facts, where science and art are embraced with materials, so that we can see the quality inside the natural world as it forms, rather than as […]
We should be more vigourous, says @MazzucatoM , in debating differences between value extraction and value creation, and between profits and rents. Lecture at Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford U., January 2019Read more ›
Most destructive analogy last 100 years @DavidGelernter @econtalker : Post-Turing thinkers decided that brains were organic computers, that computation was a perfect model of what minds do ... and that mind relates to brain as software relates to computer Read more ›
Before judging democratic systems over authoritarian, examine the functioning of governments through its diplomats, where plutocracy has an alternative in meritocracy, says @mahbubani_k @longnow @asiasocietysfx. [1:19:30] … when people compare the American government with the Chinese government, they say: “This…Read more ›
Does “the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago and the second best time is now” date back further than 1988? It is time to look long and hard at the value of the urban forest and create the broad-based efforts — in research, funding and citizen participation — needed to improve […]
Workshop led by @RohanAlexander and @prof_lyons at #CASCONxEvoke on "Barriers to Data Science Adoption: Why Existing Frameworks Aren't Working". For discussion purposes the challenges are grouped within three themes: regulatory; investment; and workforce.
“You are entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts” by #DanielPatrickMoynihan is predated on @Freakonomics by #BernardMBaruch 1950 “Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts”. Source: “There Are Opinions, And Then There Are Facts” | Fred Shapiro […]
Satire can be an antidote, says Prof. #PaulBabbitt @muleriders , to #bullshit (c.f. rhetoric; hypocrisy; crocodile tears; propaganda; intellectual dishonesty; politeness, etiquette and civility; commonsense and conventional wisdom; symbolic votes; platitudes and valence issues).
If we don’t first know “what is system is”, how do we approach an intervention? #MichaelCJackson OBE and Dr. #LuisGSambo appreciate the difference between “systems thinking” (plural) and “system dynamics” (singular), and suggest expanding theory with Critical #SystemThinking in Health Systems Research. An ignorance of history is, if anything, even more pronounced among those authors […]
