Toronto, Ontario; Shanghai, PR China; Kalamazoo, Michigan
Pearson Airport T1: Between Gates E77 and E78, colorful glass cylinders enclosing light bulbs, suspended from overhead arches. Design by Norr Architects for OTG, a company operating high-end restaurants at the airport, including Hemant Bhagwani’s Marathi Indian. (Terminal 1, Pearson International Airport, Toronto, Ontario) 20170401Shanghai Pudong Airport: Whimsical rooster themed installation on middle of airport, lightens the spirit on the long walk from the airplane, through immigration, to the Maglev train. Impressed on short ride hitting 430 km/h peak, before slowing down at western terminus. (Pudong International Airport, Shanghai, PR China) 20170402Zhangwu Sichuan: Dinner for Qingming Tomb-Sweeping Day, since public holiday on a Monday still has most people off work. Chose Sichuan resto near Tongji University, left half of dishes filled with red peppers too spicy to eat. (Zhangwu Sichuan, Shanghai, PR China) 20170403People’s Park Pond: Father with small net skimming somethings from top of pond, and placing into small bucket for son. Game players involved in own activities in the background. Tuesday is still an extended Qingming weekend holiday, the park was popular with families. (People’s Park, Shanghai, P R China) 20170404Shanghai Gallery of Art: Yin Xiuzhen 2005 TVT-Rocket installation of three cloth towers, extends from third floor in light well up to 6th. Gallery is open to public, and closer to the Bund, but maybe the Whampoa Club upstairs enjoys less traffic. (Shanghai Gallery of Art, Three.on the Bund, Shanghai, P R China) 20170404Rockbund Art Museum: Song Dong 2017 Back Image, screen plus 50 benches. Extensive show covering long career over 6 floors. Well curated contemporary art venue, building walls show a sense of humour with dimensions marked everywhere. (Rockbund Art Museum, Huangpu Qu, Shanghai, P R China) 20170404
College of Design and Innovation, Tongji U.: Ph.D. seminar @snousala on Quantitative Methods. What is the difference between data, information, and knowledge? Describing the context before diving into big data tools. (College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University, Shanghai, P R China) 20170405Tongji U: One of many bikeshare clusters on the sidewalk boulevards in Shanghai. Mobike orange, Ofo yellow and Xiaoming blue services don’t have dockng stations, it’s easy for a subscriber to scan a barcode with a mobile phone to unlock the clamp, ride away, and drop off near destination. High volume cheap bikes everywhere are a sharp contrast to the North American style of higher quality infrastructure spread further apart. (Tongji University, Shanghai, P R China) 20170406Jz Club: Thomas Stabenow presents Li Xiaochuan, world touring famous bassist lending legitimacy to local trumpeter. Went to wrong venue in the Former French Concession, had to take taxi to meet SN late. Jazz Club is truly underground, maze of tunnels opens up unexpectedly into courtyard. (Jz Club, Julu Road, Shanghai, P R China) 20170406Baker & Spice: Convenient intercept meeting in Former French Concession, with scholars coming from Canada/Finland, China/Finland and Netherlands/Canada. Multi-hour discussion in the relaxed corner of a bakery cafe, with a toddler racing circles on a tricycle. Will consult calendars for next face-to-face with extended colleagues. (Baker & Spice, Former French Concession, Shanghai, P R China) 20170407Buynow Xujiahui: Shopped for Lenovo Yoga Pad Android, tired of hoisting powerful ThinkPad X230T around. Lightweight pen-based device matches OS on mobile phone, screen larger and can sketch notes. New alternative to netbook, without Windows or Mac OS. Full experience of registering purchase with tax authorities. (Buynow, Xujiahui, Shanghai, P R China) 20170407Yangdian Taoist Temple: Upper and lower level rooms each house one or more deities representing a variety of qualities, ringing two large buildings in the courtyard centre. Gate fee gave me a bundle of joss sticks, I followed the cue of others to light them, bow four directions, and then stand the sticks up in an urn of ashes. Musicians playing, priests chanting, echoing through the large compound. (Royal Qinci Yangdian Taoist Temple, Pudong, Shanghai, P R China) 20170408
Royal Qinci Yangdian Taoist Temple:
Woman bowing 3 times in 4 directions with joss sticks that are then left to smoke in the brazier. Couple taking paper foil joss paper from a bag, for deposit into a cylindrical brazier. From a distance within the temple, wind and string musicians can be heard, while priests’ voices are unamplified. (Royal Qinci Yangdian Taoist Temple, Pudong, Shanghai, P R China) 20170408
Chinese herb pot: Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner prescribed extra large quantity of herbs, with diagnosis of bronchitis and fatigue from travel to Asia. Three bags, each to be decocted for 45 minutes for a first serving, and then with added water on a second day. Electric clay pot was originally bought by son #2, as a better alternative to simpler steel pot on stove. (Riverside district, Toronto, Ontario) 20170409Sugar Loaf Bakery: Pastries made on-premise available mid-morning, but breakfast sandwiches out, so friend had the last croissant warmed with ham and cheese. Good conversation in a quiet corner at the back, catching up on news missed over the last month. It seems as though I visit venues that are more distant, than the places just down the street. (Sugar Loaf Bakery, Queen Street East, Riverside district, Toronto, Ontario) 20170412Hua Sheng: Busy day in Spadina Chinatown, where Good Friday isn’t an observed holiday. Since local stores on the east side are mostly closed, biked cross town on a sunny day to pick up Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa cough syrup. Looking for some symptomatic relief at home. (Hua Sheng, Chinatown, Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20170414Distillery Loop: TTC driver enjoying clear weather, pausing streetcar before scheduled northbound departure. Southern terminus of the Cherry Street line is a flat wide open, usually unoccupied yet unavailable for other purposes. The 514 line started running along King Street in June 2016, complementing the 504 line that runs farther east, and then north. (Distillery Loop, Cherry Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20170415
Queen Street Dental Centre:
Watched 3-D printing of a dental crown made in 9 minutes in the neighbourhood office. Had chipped crown last installed in 2005. Dentist built up to original shape, and then use computer copy function. Onsite production saves cost of impression for temporary, and setting up room for second visit. Manufactory still expensive, maybe 5 to 7 year payback. (Queen Street Dental Centre, Queen Street East, Riverside district, Toronto, Ontario) 20170418
OCADU Richmond Campus: Full house at Systems Thinking Ontario, @DaveMallery explaining thermodynamics as a foundation for ecological economics. More of a challenge than I would inflict on a grad school class, this session was organized on request by the group while I was away. As I was skimming the prereadings, I came to appreciate how much systems theory I have internalized over 20 years. (OCADU, 205 Richmond Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20170419OCADU Richmond Campus: MuSIASEM briefing @uomo_macchina channelling @MarioGiampietro Kozo Mayumi method of accounting for analyzing socio-ecosystems, to simulate possible patterns of development. Presenting at Systems Thinking Ontario, guest visit from McGill University. Characterizing metabolic patterns of Socio-Ecological Systems. (OCADU, 205 Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20170419Sky Dragon Resto: Lowkong Society Spring Festival dinner, second course of BBQ meats being served. More casual than the fall festival, maybe a signal that winter is over. (Sky Dragon Restaurant, Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20170423Woodbine Beach: Mounds of earth signal that lagoon is man-made, and the beach is renewed each spring for warm weather recreation. Public park opened in the late 1970s was originally a marsh, with major dredging in the 1920s. (Woodbine Beach, Ashbridges Bay, Toronto, Ontario) 20170427
Shwarma King : Slight diversion for Middle Eastern buffet, surprised at homemade dishes in large variety. Oriental cuisine a welcomed change from Asian cooking, fits our family demands for dairy-frer, gluten-free lunch. Resto seems family-operated, shows that food fast didn’t have to be fast food. (Shwarma King Buffet, Kalamazoo, Michigan) 20170430
The fourth of four lectures for the Systemic Design course at OCADU SFI focused on (a) situated practice + history-making (reframing disclosing new worlds), and on (b) commitments and the language-action perspective (applying conversations for action).
The third of four lectures for the Systemic Design course at OCADU covered value(s), the science of service systems, and the socio-technical systems perspective.
A lecture on ecological systems for the OCADU SFI master's program opened up opportunities to discuss wei and wuwei, and get beyond an anthropocentric perspective the Canadian beaver in its habitat.
The second session of the Systemic Design course in the OCADU SFI master's program was an opportunity to share the current state of knowledge on Systems Change, in light of recent interest in Systems Change and Theory of Change.
A workshop with David L. Hawk at the CANSEE meeting in May 2019 led to an invitation to publish an article, "Ecology and Economy: Systems Changes Ahead?" in WEI Magazine.
Questions about governance of online social communities led to launching on the Open Learning Commons and the Digital Life Collective, while issues of content moderation on a Facebook Group has reignited.
Complementing the idea of a @longnow , @nfergus provokes the challenge of a #shortthen as the online social media platforms distract the larger perspectives on history.Read more ›
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 ›
Two ways of thinking about practice put (i) “plans as determinants of action”, and (ii) “plans as resources for action”. The latter has become a convention, particularly through research into Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW). While the more durable explanation appears the Suchman (1987) book (specifically section “8.2 Plans as […]
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).
