Toronto, Ontario; Mississauga, Ontario; London, Ontario
The Rex: Not yet CD for @mikedownesmusic @TedQuinlan @Larnell_Lewis @robibotos, still working towards release with original compositions. Audience rather full for a Thursday night, as jazz lovers anticipate some of the top players in town. (The Rex, Queen Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20170202Avonwick: Superbowl big screen, switched to U.S. tv station to watch commercials from original broadcast instead of Canadian simulcast. Annual event has most of us spending more time on visiting with friends, we’re not really football spectators. (Avonwick, Mississauga, Ontario) 20170205Luen Hop: Passport photo studio at back of dry goods store in Chinatown East, getting recent shot for visa for Shanghai visit in April. Studio no longer does photo processing, and only takes portraits three times per week. Weather was clear today for a quick bike ride over. (Luen Hop, Broadview Avenue, Riverdale district, Toronto, Ontario) 20170206China Visa: Drop-off visa application only 20 minutes with appointment. Fewer customers than last year, almost all Asian faces. Turnaround in 3 days as non-express, maybe a post-Chinese New Year trough. Freezing rain outside, slid on sidewalk to bang left knee. (China Visa Application Service, University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20170207The Grad Club: Leisurely roast beef with Yorkshire pudding lunch in university pub. Snowy walk across campus, weather is more wintery in this region than back home. (The Grad Pub, Middlesex Center, Western University, London, Ontario) 20170210Anestis Taverna: Attracted to resto by friendly wave from the grill at the front window. Impromptu dinner scheduled in a newer resto in Greektown, good moussaka and souvlaki Winter storm redirected driving route away from crossing 401, through to downtown and then uptown again. (Anestis Taverna, Danforth Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20170210Willcocks Street: Temperature swing up over 10 degrees C in mid February a new record for Toronto. Wore sunglasses on bike ride to U. Toronto and Chinatown. Campus may be quieter than usual, at start of reading week. (Willcocks Street, University of Toronto) 20160218Seor Ak San: Family Day leisure for Korean cuisine. Decided on Chinatown district, first restaurant choice was queued up, went to strong alternative for a change of pace. Sons assessed quality as better than equivalents in Beijing, where they ate a lot of food in this style. (Seor Ak San, Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20160120Ted Rogers School: Intro to R Programming @BigDataU with @polonglin lecturing. welcome by @regionomics. Free meetup for beginners to data science, most attendees in room are novices. Attending to see how class is taught, will discuss variants for different target audiences afterwards. (Ted Rogers School of Management, Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20170222Betty’s: After @DrupalTO meetup, social @BettysOnKing. Large group accommodated on a Monday night, casual time discussing common technical experiences. Some familiar faces from previous events. (Betty’s, King Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20170227
Dundas Street W at St. Patrick Street: Eastbound slight jog south formerly called Anderson Street in the 1910s was rerouted with alignments for the Toronto Railway Company before 1921, west of University Avenue. Further west from McCaul Street, the previously named St. Patrick Street became Dundas Street, leaving the label for north-south Dummer Street to became the new St. Patrick Street. Older cities pieced together throughways in modernity. (Dundas Street West at St. Patrick Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20160228
We enjoyed the Worst Pop Band Ever, which is actually a good jazz band playing music for a pop generation.
The name of the band — Worst Pop Band Ever — is intriguing, and the venue was The Rex, which has become a hub for jazz in Toronto. It’s easy enough to surf over to their web page on Myspace, and give the band a listen. Apostolos also listened to their music, and we agreed to meet for the 6:30 p.m. show.
The reason for the funny name is that, although the band plays pop-style tunes, they’re clearly jazz musicians. When they play Bjork’s “Army of Me”, you can recognize it, but they’re headed a different direction. I like the mix.
A CD release performance for Tara Davidson, and testing out the Panasonic FX01 camera in low light.
Toronto has a good music scence … if I’m in town to see it!
I called Andy, and asked if he wanted to go to The Rex to see Tara Davidson (an upcoming sax player) at her CD release performance. She was playing with Mike Murley (veteran sax player) and David Braid (keyboards).
The book Ecological Limits to Development: Living with the Sustainable Development Goals, published in 2002 by Routledge, was released as open access in 2023 by Taylor-Francis for readers who don’t have access to a university library. For the March edition of Systems Thinking Ontario, we were honoured to celebrate the release with editor-coauthors Kaitlin Kish […]
A special issue on “Sustainable, Smart and Systemic Design Post-Anthropocene: Through a Transdisciplinary Lens” in the Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics edited by Marie Davidová, Susu Nousala, and Thomas J. Marlowe has been released. In that issue, the journey of the Systems Changes Learning Circle from 2019 through 2022 is reviewed. The editorial team, […]
In the ISSS 2022 Plenary talk, the first 25 minutes were a blast through (a) the rising interest in system(s) change(s); (b) appreciative systems (Vickers); (c1) the philosophy of architectural design; (c2) the philosophy of ecological anthropology; (c3) the philosophy of Classical Chinese Medicine; (c4) the philosophy of rhythms; and (d) methods of multiparadigm inquiry, […]
The theme for the February online meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario was sparked from the discussion from the January session on Root Metaphor and World Hypotheses. What does it mean to have a theory? How does sensemaking contribute to this? Gary Metcalf volunteered to guide a conversation on these topics. Two prereadings were to serve […]
Philosophy underlies the distinction in the three volumes of the Tavistock Anthology: founded on the World Hypotheses of Stephen C. Pepper, the Socio-Psychological Systems Perspective and the Socio-Technical Systems Perspectives are based on Organicism, while the Socio-Ecological Systems Perspective is based on Contextualism. This thread on contextualism can be traced from the association between E.C. […]
Researching the philosophical foundations of systems theory to understand the meanings of “causal texture, contextualism, contextural” from the Tavistock legacy led to philosopher Stephen C. Pepper. The philosophical lineage and contributions of Pepper were the focus for the January online meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario. A deep reading of Pepper’s work (over a month!) was […]
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 ›
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 ›
For the @ArchFoundation, #TimIngold distinguishes outcome-oriented making from process-oriented growing, revisiting #MartinHeidegger “Building Dwelling Thinking”. Organisms are made; artefacts grow. The distinction seems obvious, until you stop to ask what assumptions it contains, about the inside and outside of things…Read more ›
In web conference, #HermanDaly says #EcologicalEconomics used to get attacked from the right, now it's from the left. Panel @revkin @jon_d_erickson @ktkish @sophiesanniti #TimCrowshaw #KatieHorner livestreamed #sustainwhat .Read more ›
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 ›
In a recording of the debate between Michael Quinn Patton and Michael C. Jackson on “Systems Concepts in Evaluation”, Patton referenced four concepts published in the “Principles for effective use of systems thinking in evaluation” (2018) by the Systems in Evaluation Topical Interest Group (SETIG) of the American Evaluation Society. The four concepts are: (i) […]
How might the quality of an action research initiative be evaluated? — begin paste — We have linked our five validity criteria (outcome, process, democratic, catalytic, and dialogic) to the goals of action research. Most traditions of action research agree on the following goals: (a) the generation of new knowledge, (b) the achievement of action-oriented […]
After 90 minutes on phone and online chat with WesternUnion, the existence of the canton of Ticino in Switzerland is denied, so I can’t send money from Canada. TicinoTurismo should be unhappy. The IT developers at Western Union should be dissatisfied that customer support agents aren’t sending them legitimate bug reports I initially tried the […]
An online version of a special issue of Paunch (1980) on "Root Metaphor: The Live Thought of Stephen C. Pepper" has been preserved on the internet Archive
