2025/02 Moments February 2025

March 1, 2025 daviding

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Toronto, Ontario

Full House Chinese Cuisine: Dim sum lunch for Lunar New Year had been deferred, family schedules have been busy. Youngest son arrived first with hunger, placed triple orders beyond the capacity of our stomaches. Quality food, good service, no crowds on weekends, this restaurant is becoming a favourite. (Full House Chinese Cuisine, Finch Avenue East, Scarborough, Ontario) 20250209

Milliken Mills East neighbourhood: Friendly family game of mahjong with one master and three novices. Relaxed pace, as we’re discovering the tactics of finishing off a hand to win. Not a regular player, I discovered that I picked up a few heuristics from a childhood of watching parents play with Northern Ontario Chinese diaspora. (Milliken Mills East neighbourhood, Markham, Ontario) 20250209

Four Winds Hollow neighbourhood, Mississauga: Annual Superbowl party, with the younger crowd coalescing around the kitchen table in front of a big screen. Turned down audio volume and relied on closed captioning, as our conversation was not related to sports. Enjoyed BBQ burgers from outside grill, weekend snow relented for a few hours. (Four Winds Hollow neighbourhood, Mississauga, Ontario) 20250209

OCADU Graduate Programs: Full house at #SystemsThinking Ontario session on “Evolving Styles for Learning Systems Thinking”, relating history and updates in progress for Understanding Systems course in OCADU SFI program. Relaxed conversation with some current students, alumni, and extended community in Toronto. Restarted tradition of post-session dinner on Queen Street West. https://wiki.st-on.org/2025-02-13 (OCADU Graduate Programs, Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20250213

Bakery Lane: Timed Sunday afternoon snow shovelling by hand, clearing 17cm accumulation in front of garage with precipitation ending within the hour. Plows might come to laneway by Tuesday if we’re lucky, aimed for a zone where car won’t get stuck. Placing snowbanks is an art, so that neighbours aren’t blocked. (Bakery Lane, Riverside neighbourhood, Toronto, Ontario) 20250216

Pape Village: Family Day dinner combined with deferred birthday recognition. Joined by winter storm refugee with cancelled train to Montreal. City streets moving slowly with only major routes cleared. (Pape Village, Broadview Avenue, East York, Ontario) 20250217

Assured Automotive: Three-vehicle collision that occurred 23 days ago, finally admitted our vehicle for body work with 7 to 9 days estimate to repair. Adjuster assessed not our fault, the driver in curb lane probably didn’t check blind spot, and turned left to hit the front bumper. Had “damage reported to police” sticker, car was functional except front passenger door was jammed. (Assured Automotive, King Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20250219

Jimmie Simpson Recreation Centre: Advance poll for provincial election called early since last vote in 2022. Three days after big snowfall, sidewalks and side streets are still to be cleared. Wondering if winter obstacles encourage more voters who are unhappy with the incumbent ruling party. (Jimmie Simpson Recreation Centre, Queen Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20250220

Queen Street East at Saulter Street: Thursday night walk home, discovered last leg on transit interrupted by construction. Workers on site around the clock to replace new rails and concrete. Estimated one week to complete, this means minor annoyance to walk 2 streetcar stops. (Queen Street East at Saulter Street, Riverside neighbourhood, Toronto, Ontario) 20250227

Soulpepper Theatre: Cast of Kim’s Convenience taking bows for performance, announced as extended twice before moving on to San Francisco. We didn’t see the original production, and noted the pacing as considerably faster than we experienced with the tv show. Following the family pattern of attending local Asian-Canadian plays. (Soulpepper Theatre Co., Tank House Lane, Distillery District, Toronto, Ontario) 20250228

Rethinking work, with the pandemic disruption | IJOTB (2025)
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 […]
Evolving Styles for Learning Systems Thinking | Systems Thinking Ontario | 2025-02-13
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 […]
Systems Approaches (Project Language + Literature Reviews with Generative AI) | OCADU | 2025-01-20
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 […]
Generative AI and Inquiring Systems: Ways of Patterning and Ways of Knowing | Systems Thinking Ontario | 2025-01-08
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 […]
STPIS 2024 Proceedings: Reifying Socio-Technical and Socio-Ecological Perspectives for Systems Changes
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 […]
Systems Thinking Ontario as Systems Convening | ST-ON | 2024-10-21
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 […]

What to Do When It’s Too Late | David L. Hawk | 2024
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 ›
2021/06/17 Keekok Lee | Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 2
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 […]
2021/06/16 Keekok Lee | Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 1
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 ›
2021/02/02 To Understand This Era, You Need to Think in Systems | Zeynep Tufekci with Ezra Klein | New York Times
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 ›
2019/04/09 Art as a discipline of inquiry | Tim Ingold (web video)
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 ›
2019/10/16 | “Bubbles, Golden Ages, and Tech Revolutions” | Carlota Perez
How might our society show value for the long term, over the short term? Could we think about taxation over time, asks @carlotaprzperez in an interview: 92% for 1 day; 80% within 1 month; 50%-60% tax for 1 year; zero tax for 10 years.Read more ›

Installing WordPress Studio on Manjaro Linux
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 […]
Notion of Change in the Yijing | JeeLoo Lin 2017
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 […]
World Hypotheses (Stephen C. Pepper) as a pluralist philosophy [Rescher, 1994]
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, […]
The Nature and Application of the Daodejing | Ames and Hall (2003)
Ames and Hall (2003) provide some tips for those studyng the DaoDeJing.
Diachronic, diachrony
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 […]
Introduction, “Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, volume 2”, edited by F. E. Emery (1981)
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 […]

Distractions, reflections

David Ing, at large … Sometimes, my mind wanders

2025/02 Moments February 2025

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