Toronto, Ontario, Tokyo (Haneda, Kiba, Ookayama), Osaka (Fushimi), Tokyo (Harajuku, Shinjuku, Toyama, Waseda)
Pearson gate E77. Short escape from chilly Toronto for rainy Tokyo. No courtesy upgrade today, so will sleep vertically against the window wall. Enjoyed chicken pho with vegetarian broth in Maple Leaf Lounge, multiple refills die to small bowls. (Toronto Pearson Airport Terminal 1) 20150224Haneda arrival gate corridor. Speedwalk fronted by windows in makes the long trek in daylight from international arrivals to the immigration hall less tedious. Airline terminal formerly just domestic fights, now includes Air Canada from Toronto. Easy walk to monorail, much closer to central Tokyo than Narita airport way out east (Tokyo Haneda Airport) 20150225Kiba Park Bridge and fountain plaza. Rainy walk to Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo on a different route from past trips. Path from Kiba station north through park leads to landmark Kiba Koen Ohashi bridge, over Kasaibashi Street and the Sendaiborigawa River. (Kiba Park, Tokyo) 20150226Scholarly after-lunch discussion. Beyond formal presentations, privilege of relaxed time for conversation of speculative ideas about the future. Wide variety of perspectives and backgrounds add to a rich dialogue. (7th floor, 9 West building, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Ookayama, Japan) 20150227Symposium on Service Systems Science. @JimSpohrer saying Moore’s Law for Service Systems may be found in Smart Service Systems with Cognitive Assistants, at the 8th annual symposium hosted at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Full day of lectures by experts, some regular participants in the invited workshops. (Tokyo Institute of Technology, 9 West Building) 20150228Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum. Learning about varieties of rice used, and how sake is made. Small samples at end of tour still more alcohol than I’ve consumed in a year. Rainy day deterred outdoor sightseeing. Rode shinkasen bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto, day of touring, then continuing route by car to Osaka. (Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum, Fushimi, Japan). 20150301
Fushimi Inari Shrine. Beginning of ascent through thousands of vermilion torii gates at Shinto shrine, on a rainy late afternoon in early March. Brief sightseeing opportunity on routing from Tokyo to Kyoto on shinkasen, continuing on to Osaka in the car of a colleague. (Fushimi Inari Shrine) 20150301Fox Capture Plan, Club Metro. Jazz fusion trio in Kyoto basement music venue. Stood for an hour on concrete floor for band to start, our group double the age of the target audience. Japanese music lovers appreciative but enthusiasm restrained as compared to western audiences. Fox Capture Plan opened, we stayed halfway though set by Jizue before jet lag suggested leaving early. (Club Metro, Kyoto, Japan) 20150301Coleading systems workshop. Graduate students for systems-inspired leaders in material science immersed in learning. Started with self-introductions of participants with narrow specialities, then exercise for pairs and trios to find a synthesis of their expertise. Lecture on systems concepts will be followed by more exercises. (Osaka Prefecture University) 20150303Osaka Castle. Wandered into park when contemporary art at Osaka Prefecture Government doesn’t exist anymore, then Museum of History closed today. Loose schedule, so riding subway around town not quite randomly. (Osaka Castle Park) 20150303Takeshita Dori. Quick trip to Harajuku to visit the Daiso dollar store, since couldn’t find the one in Shinjuku. After 8 p.m., still some young people hanging on Takeshita Dori, but Wednesday isn’t the most popular night out. (Takeshita Dori, Harajuku, Tokyo, Japan) 20150304Toyama Park. Mountain biker hopping up steps in forested ravine between apartment buildings at dusk. On walk from Okubo district to Waseda University, got turned around on descent then ascent into green space. Large map signs every few city blocks combined with compass clarified navigation on confused mobile phone. (Toyama district, Tokyo, Japan) 20150305Pit Inn Shinjuku. Jazz duo with masters Fumio Karashima on piano and Yoshio Suzuki on bass. Repertoire of jazz standards, with creative variations far from the originals. Strings ringing, two musicians, nowhere to hide. Great acoustics in historic basement venue, maybe one-quarter full for the second set on a Thursday night, 9:30 to 10:40 p.m. so that patrons can get the subway home and go to work on the next day. (Pit Inn Shinjuku, Tokyo) 20150305Temple at Kikuicho. Carp in pond at temple, one of six pauses extending the 30-minute morning walk to an hour. Water trough here had toothbrushes and facecloths out, perhaps for people who don’t have a home. Temple is partially behind a 7-11 store, no English labeling for less fame than the Honshoji temple a little further south, and the Seigenji temple a little further west. (Kikuicho, Shinjuku, Tokyo) 20150306AsianPLoP 2015 introduction. Experienced pattern language shepherds start off the conference by demonstrating how a writer’s workshop works. The AsianPLoP style can have a more interactive dialogue with author, than the rigourous PLoP style where the author remains outside the discussion. (4th Asian Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs, Waseda University, Tokyo) 20150306AsianPLoP Day 1 plenary. Hiroshi Nakano, “Japanese Spirituality and Pattern Language”, insight into Christopher Alexander’s pursuit of: “What is beauty? What is good?”. Described some history of the past 50 years, now suggesting “project language” for specific works that might accumulate to a “pattern language” over time. A “manual for a centering process” has episodes that connect with and enhance the prior episodes, repeating endlessly to become the timeless way. (4th Asian Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs, Waseda University, Tokyo) 20150306Mebius Yotsuya. JinoMasaJay Fusion Rock live music with Kenji Jino Hino (bass) Masa Obama (guitar), Jay Stixx (drums) in small basement club. Complimented by band for finding the venue, as even locals have problems finding it. I was probably the only person in the room not understanding Japanese language. Trio seemed to enjoy show, with jams rolling through tunes by Pat Metheny, Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jackson, plus others. (Mebius Yotsuya, Tokyo) 20150306
Hoshoji temple, Tokyo. Bright orange torii gates looking west from Waseda station mark stairs for long climb up to orange gate for Buddhist temple, with statues inside windows on both sides. In the main building, a bride, groom and two parents seemed to be in the midst of a private marriage ceremony with a monk. Just one of the many temples just off the Waseda University campus. (Hoshoji temple, Nishiwaseda, Shinjuku, Tokyo) 20150307
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.
The idea of managers being proactive only dates back to 1964, as classes of functions described by Abraham Zaleznik: homeostatic, mediative, and proactive. Predispositions may or may not be altered through educational development.
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 ›
The story of #JosephNeedham by @simonwwriter, about the scholar behind the 27-volume Science and Civilisation in China starting in 1954 and continuing after his death in 1995. Arriving in China in 1942, Needham discovered gunpowder, printing and the magnetic compass…Read more ›
“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 […]
In deciphering Yin-Yang and Five Elements (Five Phases) thinking, #Kaptchuk (1983) has a footnote and then an appendix that clarifies the way forward for appreciating foundations of Chinese medicine favouring the former.
The field theory in psychology by #KurtLewin 1943 derives from classical field theory (viz. electromagnetism and gravitation), predating quantum field theory (viz. subatomic particles). For psychology, Lewin wrote in 1943 how history (and a subjective view of the future) matters. It is correct that field theory emphasizes the importance of the fact that any event […]
