Toronto, Ontario; Scarborough, Ontario; Markham, Ontario.
Beach Skateboard Park. Spring has really arrived in Toronto, but people not yet wearing shorts. Transition from winter wear to light top clothes seems practically overnight. (Ashbridges Bay, Toronto) 20150502Bike helmet selection. When safety equipment all looks about the same, is made with similar materials, and ranges in price from $22 to over $200, the conscientious shopper takes quite a while to decide. The last bike helmet may be a decade old, so the perhaps thriftiness isn’t the most important attribute. (Mountain Equipment Coop, King Street West, Toronto) 20150507Yonge and Grenville Streets. Two storey storefronts demolished, foundations for @YCcondos 66 floor glass tower in progress. Intensification of downtown core, a few blocks north of Ryerson University and Yonge-Dundas Square. I don’t remember this construction project starting, the warm weather means bicycling more frequently. (462 Yonge Street, Toronto) 20150509Silver City Fairview. No lineup at suburban Tuesday matinee of Avengers movie in its second week. Stadium seating in non-3D room, a better way to enjoy a Hollywood blockbuster. (Cineplex Silver City Cinema, Fairview Mall, North York, Ontario) 20150512Table of ten. Chinese dinner on a weekday night with aunt, cousin, sister, father. Only one son attending, so our branch not dominating the table. Lobster, Peking duck, lots of Cantonese dishes, all consumed. (Perfect Chinese Restaurant, Scarborough, Ontario) 20150513
Unwin Ave bridges. Graceful bike bridge has two lanes, chunky car bridge has single lane. Just west of the entrance of the Outer Harbour Marina in the Portlands, following the Toronto Waterfront Trail. Smokestack of the decommissioned Hearn Generating Station in the background. (475 Unwin Street, Toronto) 20150514Monarch Park underpass. StreetARToronto mural by Elicser celebrates mother nature and mothers depicted in micro-financed community development by Stephen Lewis. Ribbons were cut in November 2014, just discovered in springtime bike ride east on Danforth Ave. past Greenwood Ave, with a little turn south. (Monarch Park, Toronto) 20150516Lowkong cemetery monument Annual visit to honour ancestors, with traditional whole roasted pig and chickens for standup lunch. Four of us represented our family branch, as others travelling out of town. Declined on dinner, we’ll have our own remembrance of mom and our branch in two weeks when the family can convene. (Pine Hills Cemetery, Scarborough, Ontario) 20150517Natrel Pond, Harbourfront. Congestion of canoes and paddleboats in 2 feet of water, on a busy Victoria Day at Harbourfront Centre. Walkways filled with people enjoying the weather, ships ready to tour the harbour. (Harbourfront Toronto) 20150518Tommy Thompson Park view west. Downtown Toronto from the Minor Trail Transition view over Embayment C, by the turnaround on the Multi-Use Trail Section 2. Only halfway down the way, but going further south would cross a pedestrian bridge. Shameless disregard of signs saying the Leslie Street Spit is only open on weekends, many runners and cyclists are out on a Monday 6 pm, after construction access closes at 4:30. (Tommy Thompson Park, Toronto) 20150526Cemetery visit in the rain. Family visiting from out of town meant limited window for annual visit to gravesites. Waited on car for a break in the rain, which turned out to be brief. Digging into sod for new plants deterred by hitting clay. Threaded time together with other events on a busy weekend schedule. (Pine Hills Cemetery, Scarborough, Ontario) 20150530Trinity College 8T0 35th reunion: Actually 39 years since first meeting many of this University of Toronto class at orientation week. Wine tasting in the Combinations Room, a place to to gather while dining from the buffet in Strachan Hall, then continuing to a pub on Harbord Street. Mostly recognized the faces, names were aided by wearing labels. Group photo at 8:15 p.m., for the people who could hang on that long. (Trinity College, University of Toronto) 20150530 Photo album at https://goo.gl/photos/LMe7umtd4mVioUVX7Cheongsam store. Sister shopping for formal wear turns out to influence spouse who finds a size that fits. Day visiting family turns into running errands while in the neighbourhood. Strip plaza just east of Pacific Mall has more permanent businesses with conventional storefronts. (Bo Bo Fashion, Market Village, Markham, Ontario) 20150531
National Historic site, just south of busy Highway 401, Lock 1 is southernmost, and first of 44. Constructed 1908-1912, the boats can be raised 18 feet up from the level of the Bay of Quinte. Thicker concrete allowed for wagon valves chambers along side walls, rather than more expensive sluice gates. (Lock #1 Trent-Severn Waterway, […]
Away from city centre, deli has been a Montreal institution since 1946. Single order of smoked meat platter with rye bread and fries was sufficient for three diners. Broader menu included smoked whitefish chunks appetizer with salad, plus potato latkes with applesauce and sour cream. (Snowden Deli, Decarie Boulevard, Montreal, Quebec) 20250427
Possibly obsessive purchase, it's unclear how many bagels will be consumed in a few days, and how many into freezer. One dozen poppyseed, 6 sesame, 6 blueberry, 2 pumpernickel, plus assorted others. Resorted into plastic bags on the drive in traffic. (St. Viateur Bagel, St. Viateur Ouest, Montreal, Quebec) 20250427
Pilgramage for Montreal bagels (not Montreal-style) fresh from the oven. Samples on entry of avocado cream cheese, plus spicy avocado non-dairy, suggest a Quebec version of avocado toast. Plastic freezer bag offered in addition to paper bags. (St. Viateur Bagel, St. Viateur Ouest, Montreal, Quebec) 20250427
First stop on the way home was a specialty bakery. Consuming in the car, described the chocolate croissant as enjoyable and flaky, although he doesn't have previous experience withthe butter and wheat version. The bakery was discovered on a prior trip to the city. (Parc Sans Gluten, Avenue du Parc-La Fontaine Plateaux, Montréal, Quebec) 20250427
Post-theatre dessert with family, discussing Mean Girls The Musical. We had planned to hold up letters in the theatres as the cast was taking bows, but audience rose too quickly. Continued evening in hotel lobby until after midnight. (Yoyo, Rue Sainte-Catherine Est, Montreal, Quebec) 20250426
Place des Arts: Cast of Mean Girls The Musical taking bows on Saturday night performance. Owen Kent Ing stepping up from ensemble role to Kevin G this evening. He will have appeared in 150 shows by end of tour, having joined the company last year. (Place des Arts, Rue Sainte-Catherine, Montréal, Quebec) 20250426
Seven seats ready for Saturday night performance of touring company for Mean Girls, The Musical. Nephew in cast, in Montreal for 6 days, following Dallas, Texas, and before Boston, Massachusetts. We preferred visiting Quebec, rather than London Ontario in late May. (Place des Arts, Rue Sainte-Catherine, Montréal, Quebec) 20250426
Pre-theatre family dinner, including dim sum for cousins who don't get the option as often as we do. Second order of main dishes left much to take home. Short walk away from Places des Artes. (Restaurant Chinatown Kim Fung, Rue Sainte-Urbain, Montreal, Quebec) 20240426
luminum relief Frank Stella (1990) The Pitchpoling D-17, 2X. Inspired by Herman Melville (1851) Moby Dick novel, type of harpooning with a lance. Chaotic and explosive surface, negative spaces with silhouettes. (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec) 20250426
Two years after submitting an academic manuscript and responding to double-blind reviews, “Rethinking work, with the pandemic disruption” has now been published in the International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior (IJOTB) as earlycite. The article has a DOI (Document Object Identifier), and should be streamed with an official volume and issue number soon. The […]
The 128th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario was convened in person. The classroom was filled with current students, alumni, our regular participants, and a few curious newcomers. Moderated by Zaid Khan, the conversation was sparked by Stephen Davies and myself (David Ing) on the evolving styles in learning systems thinking. Stephen has been leading SFIN-6011 […]
The “Understanding Systems” SFIN-6011 course is a requirement in the master’s program in Strategic Foresight and Innovation at OCADU. For winter 2025, the class is now led by Stephen Davies, breaking the incremental evolving of content since 2008. While still on faculty at OCADU, the original course designer Peter H. Jones is now a Distinguished […]
In the 1970s, five ways of knowing were established by C. West Churchman in The Design of Inquiring Systtems. In the 1990s, his student Ian Mitroff carried on the tradition and extended that work in The Unbounded Mind. Now in the 2020s, the technology of Generative AI opens up opportunties to query or request responses […]
For readers with an interest deeper than the 15-minute presentation given in August, the Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Socio-Technical Perspectives in Information Systems (STPIS 2024) have now been formally publishied. The invited paper on “Reifying Socio-Technical and Socio-Ecological Perspectives for Systems Changes: From rearranging objects to repacing rhythms” was reviewed by the […]
The 125th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario coincided with the closing day for the RSD13-RSDX online program. As a regular systems convening group, we’ve had monthly meetings since January 2013. Zaid Khan moderated a discussion including me (David Ing), Tim Lloyd, Allenna Leonard, and Kelly Okamura. We recollected starting as a spinoff from Design with […]
Rhythm and pitch are primordial to language. Susan Rogers, after a career becoming Prince's recording engineer, turned to complete a PhD in psychology focused on music cognition and psychoacoustics.Read more ›
David L. Hawk (American management theorist, architect, and systems scientist) has been hosting a weekly television show broadcast on Bold Brave Tv from the New York area on Wednesdays 6pm ET, remotely from his home in Iowa. Live, callers can join…Read more ›
Following the first day lecture on Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 1 for the Global University for Sustainability, Keekok Lee continued on a second day on some topics: * Anatomy as structure; physiology as function (and process); * Process ontology, and thing ontology; * Qi ju as qi-in-concentrating mode, and qi san as qi-in-dissipsating mode; and […]
The philosophy of science underlying Classical Chinese Medicine, in this lecture by Keekok Lee, provides insights into ways in which systems change may be approached, in a process ontology in contrast to the thing ontology underlying Western BioMedicine. Read more ›
In conversation, @zeynep with @ezraklein reveal authentic #SystemsThinking in (i) appreciating that “science” is constructed by human collectives, (ii) the west orients towards individual outcomes rather than population levels; and (iii) there’s an over-emphasis on problems of the moment, and…Read more ›
In the question-answer period after the lecture, #TimIngold proposes art as a discipline of inquiry, rather than ethnography. This refers to his thinking On Human Correspondence. — begin paste — [75m26s question] I am curious to know what art, or…Read more ›
In 2024, WordPress Studio was released, making installation on a local computer simpler. The instructions were modified from MacOS to Ubuntu Linux, by Daniel Kossmann, “How to install WordPress Studio in Ubuntu Linux” | Jun 15, 2024 at https://www.danielkossmann.com/how-to-install-wordpress-studio-ubuntu-linux/ I already had NVM installed, but in Terminal, with the result “command not found”. In the […]
The appreciation of change is different in Western philosophy than in classical Chinese philosophy. JeeLoo Lin published a concise contrast on differences. Let me parse the Introduction to the journal article, that is so clearly written. The Chinese theory of time is built into a language that is tenseless. The Yijing (Book of Changes) there […]
In trying to place the World Hypotheses work of Stephen C. Pepper (with multiple root metaphors), Nicholas Rescher provides a helpful positioning. — begin paste — Philosophical perspectivism maintains that substantive philosophical positions can be maintained only from a “perspective” of some sort. But what sort? Clearly different sorts of perspectives can be conceived of, […]
Finding proper words to express system(s) change(s) can be a challenge. One alternative could be diachrony. The Oxford English dictionary provides two definitions for diachronic, the first one most generally related to time. (The second is linguistic method) diachronic ADJECTIVE Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “diachronic (adj.), sense 1,” July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/3691792233. For completeness, prochronic relates “to […]
The selection of readings in the “Introduction” to Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, volume 2, Penguin (1981), edited by Fred E. Emery, reflects a turn from 1969 when a general systems theory was more fully entertained, towards an urgency towards changes in the world that were present in 1981. Systems thinking was again emphasized in contrast […]
