Toronto, Ontario; San Francisco, California; San Jose, California; Sunnyvale, California; Mountain View, California; Berkeley, California
Cineplex Queensway: Tuesday Matinee viewing of Avengers Infinity War in UltraAVX non-3D is a lot to absorb, having to recall linkages over 10 years of movies. Between prior 16-day trip and upcoming 10-day trip, squeezing in regular life is a luxury. (Cineplex Cinema Queensway, Etobicoke, Ontario) 20180501 MarsDD: Connected data in graphs @fzakariya @neo4j briefing. Beyond relational databases on a LAMP stack, and document databases on the MEAN stack, now looking at GraphQL and Node.js tools. Continual learning on technologies that continue to evolve. (Mars Discovery District, College Street, Toronto, Ontario ) 20180503Pearson T1 aisle 11: Been 18 months since I last flew to USA on AC, despite have travelled to Asia, Europe and western Canada multiple times. I may be part of the statistic of fewer flyers under the current government adminstration. Pearson Terminal moved Air Canada U.S. check-ins to the far end aisles, from the middle. Agent said they did that about 18 months ago. (Pearson Terminal 1, Toronto, Ontario) 20180507SFO International Terminal: By door 06, Rufino Tamayo (1983) “Conquest of Space”, enamel paint on steel. Mexican painter with first sculpture permanently placed outside of Mexico at age 84. Waiting for pickup by AHI at departures level, wearing shorts and sandals. (San Francisco International Airport, International Terminal, California) 20180507San Jose Japantown: Driver attests to Ford Focus 5* safety rating. A sore wrist and three small pricks on the back of left hand are the only post collision symptoms. Neighbours say 4 way stop was installed only a month ago. Northbound sedan struck on driver’s side by Volvo SUV, forcing the car into the utility pole. Side and front air bags deployed. Vehicles taken to towing yard on flatbed trucks. (N.4th Street at E. Empire, Japantown, San Jose, California) 20180508
Merit Vegan: Ex-vegans @rarar @liv_bryce and omnivore @teh_allchemist accommodating my prescribed diet for tofu and eggplant in selecting a dining spot. Indulged in non-dairy desserts. Learning about each other’s backstories, there are surprises in the contexts that make sense in appreciating life journeys. Served by waiter who we’re convinced really enjoys the foods he recommends. (Merit Vegan, Merit Expressway, Sunnyvale, California) 20180510 Kolbeh: Persian restaurant sees koobideh kebab sampled by two, while the majority opts for the more familiar falafel. We’ll join the rest of the family in the North Bay, for the official ceremonies tomorrow. Genial service by head waiter, unexpected with the casual decor. (Kolbeh, El Camino Real, Mountain View, CA) 20180511 Cal Memorial Stadium: UC Berkeley class of 2018 takes 1 hour in procession to fill the seats, audience capacity of 63,000 looks two-thirds full. Maddy’s mother alumna says when she graduated decades ago, ceremonies were smaller by department, so campus-wide events are newer. Extended family attending only this event today, two more departmental events this week. Milestone sesquicentennial 150 years for UC. (California Memorial Stadium, University of California, Berkeley) 20180512UC Berkeley: Family convening for Maddy’s class of 2018 graduation at U.C. Berkeley. Lots of groups lining up for choice photo spots. Exodus from Cal Memorial Stadium at conclusion of ceremonies disperses crowds up and down staircases and the hills on campus. (University of California at Berkeley) 20180512Berkeley Art Center: Examining Jeremiah Jenkins (2018) “Jacob’s Teaset” installation, with barrier and omenous warning to preclude electrical shock. Power cord plugged into wall connects to percolator, placement of the spoon to close a circuit is noticed. Unexpected arc across spark gap between percolator and sugar bowl confirmed danger, but then we couldn’t trigger another zap by bouncing on the floor. Leisure afternoon continued with stroll along Berryman Path, and a visit to the Berkeley Rose Garden. (Berkeley Art Center, Walnut Street, Berkeley, California) 20180513Veggie Garden: Meeting AHI’s circle of friends, social media means everyone is well-briefed on recent news. Some had seen RDI on a prior trip, didn’t know there are more brothers at home. Vegan duck unanimously voted as outstanding. (Veggie Garden, El Camino Real, Mountain View, California) 20180515Yerba Buena: Partition wall sees Future Farmers (2018) “Oar Trade” blades threaded through ports. Baltimore floorboards inlaid into Seattle house, then extracted Seattle floorboards shaped into art objects. This contemporary art show was more conceptual than usual, a lot of documentaries to watch. (Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Mission Street, San Francisco, California) 20180516 SFO Museum: Isamu Noguchi (1986) “Akari Table Lamp Model VB13-T” made of washi paper, bamboo and metal. Display cases in International Terminal showing Japanese-American designer (1904-1988), where 2-dimensional origami folding influences 3-dimensional objects. (San Francisco International Airport, International Terminal G, California). 20180517 Former Weston Bread Factory: Photo installation @laird_kay 2018 “Wonder” abstracts building details of bread production lines now silent since 2014. Venue for Contact Festival at the end of our street received zoning approvals in 2017, pre-sales of condominium units should commence later this month. More construction on our block to be expected. (Former Weston Bread Factory, 462 Eastern Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20180519Pine Hills Cemetery: Igniting incense sticks shielded by the Lowkong monument and inside a metal can. Annual cemetery visit to remember clan members no longer with us, and ancestors in our lineage. (Pine Hills Cemetery, Birchmount Road, Scarborough, Ontario) 20180520 SystemsThinking/TO: Systemic insurrection after ST/TO formal program. I invited anyone who wanted to discuss “why I disagreed with 90% of the presentation on Innovation Engineering” to pull up a chair, and stay for a chat. Emergent multi-way discussion backed up by theoretical and historical recall by Stephen Regoczei. This was an emergent thread from a one-way talking-head agenda, future meetings may seek to be more participative. Photo courtesy of Chris Chapman. (SystemsThinking/TO, LoyaltyOne, King Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20180524 Sim Toronto: Vintage K-E-M editing table @simcomplete @Doors_OpenTO contrasts to digital editing suites on tours for visitors on this special weekend. Sound isolation from floating floors and 5 panes of window glass is impressive, given the busy city thoroughfares immediately outside. Viewed quick show reel in wonderful facility equipped for Dolby Atmos, but a real demo of the capabilities requires approvals and an NDA that customers normally sign. (Sim International (formerly Tattersall Sound and Picture, Adelaide Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20180526 203-205 College St.: The BMO branch where I opened an account in 1976 was replaced by a Starbucks, but now only the east wall is left to be demolished. The 5-storey building on the southeast corner of St. George Street and Beverley Street applied to the OMB for a 29-floor tower replacement. My grandparents’ house where I lived was one block west, and during my uncle’s university days, they lived one block south. (203-205 College Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20180527
Grange Park: Rear side of Art Gallery of Ontario, exterior wall colours bright on a sunny day. Bicycle had a flat tire on Spadina, decided to walk further east to position for RDI to pick up in car. (Grange Park, Beverley Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20180530
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.
Fit the people around an organization; or an organization around the people? Working backwards, say @MitroffCrisis + #HaroldLinstone, from current concrete choices to uncertain futures, surfaces strategic assumptions in a collective decision, better than starting with an abstract scorecard to rank candidates.
Should we do, or not-do? Russell Ackoff, over many years, wrote about (negative) potential consequences: There are two possible types of decision-making mistakes, which are not equally easy to identify. (1) Errors of commission: doing something that should not have been done. (2) Errors of omission: not doing something that should have been done. For […]
The final publication of the October 2016 Relating Systems Thinking and Design Symposium workshop "Some Future Paths for Design Professionals: DesignX and Systemic Design" was published as “Systemic Design Agendas in Education and Design Research” in FormAkademisk, following 2 years of rewrites, reviews and revisions.
Federated wiki is deployed on a node.js server, an environment which has become available on some cPanel shared hosting providers. Here are some instructions written while restoring a wiki site originally installed in 2014-2015 on a cloud provider.
Reading The Undoing Project, by Michael Lewis, reminded me of a PhD course at UBC with Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, before they were recognized as Nobel prize candidates.
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 ›
Talk at @gtalug on Let’s Learn Tech Online @torontolibrary with @p2pu @CiscoNetAcad @TorontoESS. Linux Unhatched online course conducted in groups of 8 to 12, meetings twice per week in person. Non-technical facilitator encourages peers to work out understanding together. Found…Read more ›
The WordPress O2 plugin with P2-Breathe theme results in a Facebook-like or Twitter-like streaming interface. The idea was first presented in 2013, evolving from the P2 theme in 2009 (originally launched as Prologue in 2008) when hosted on wordpress.com. “Beau…Read more ›
Talk at the Centre for Human Ecology, Glasgow, announced at http://www.che.ac.uk/tim-ingold-talks-about-the-sustainability-of-everything-10th-sept-2016/ Video posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncLv9Gk7XrI and https://vimeo.com/182572764 This digest was created by editing the text transcript generated by Youtube. View the video yourself for a more authentic reproduction. Lapses, grammatical…Read more ›
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 […]
Many who cite #KurtLewin haven't read the original 1947/1951 writings, say @strategybuild @ToddBridgman @kgbphd with the "refreezing" part of "unfreezing → changing → refreezing" emerging in a subsequent career of an idea that can be traced genealogically and archaeologically.
Human organizations may learn from wolves, with groups of 2 to 6 taking down elk, and cooperative expert groups of 9 to 13+ taking down larger bison. #DanielMacNulty, #AimeeTallian #DanielRStahler #DouglasWSmith (2014).
Meeting effectiveness is reduced after 7 people are involved, say @BainInsights consultants #Blenko, #Mankins, #Rogers. Follow the Rule of Seven for meetings. Who should come to a meeting is always a sensitive issue, and the basic precept is often “The more the merrier.” But more is rarely better when it comes to making decisions. Our […]
