Toronto, Ontario
Toronto Eaton Centre: The shooting fountain opened in 1977 remains covered and silenced, alongside many signs requesting that masked visitors keep moving. Volume of shoppers was moderate for the Friday of a Labout Day holiday weekend. It could be 2 years since I’ve been inside the building. (Toronto Eaton Centre, Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20210903Congee Queen Agincourt: An extended afternoon of straightening out my father’s mobile phone service led into a casual dinner out on a holiday weekend. My vegan diet wasn’t planned into their shopping for the weekend, so going out for dinner was an easier option. Followed by a few more hours of wrangling with smart devices that aren’t so straightforward for senior citizens. (Congee Queen, Sheppard Avenue East, Scarborough, Ontario) 20210904Front Campus: Big dig project at centre of university campus started in June as the Landmark Project, with a 3-year completion date. Boreholes 240 metres deep will enable a geothermal exchange field below a new underground parking lot. I remember the days in the 1970s when the ground would be saturated in the spring, as the submerged Taddle Creek would re-emerge. (Front Campus, King’s College Circle, University of Toronto, Ontario) 20210905Neville Park Loop: In daylight #TheliaShelton (2021) Share the Love sculpture from March @makewavesTo Luminosity exhibition doesn’t have the red glow visible at night. Installation sees empty streetcars loop from eastbound to westbound multiple times per hour. Driftwood endures beyond the one-month official period int he spring. (Neville Park Loop, Queen Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20200909Lakeshore Boulevard East: On weekends, the roadway eastbound from Cherry Street has been shut down, as the overhead concrete surfaces are being crushed and removed. There was an alternative not taken to remove the whole structure, so the pillars for a fixture for the foreseeable future. Weekday drivers to the east end are still getting used to alternative routes. (Lakeshore Boulevard East, east of Cherry Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20210911Art Gallery of Ontario: Sculpture of formica and plexiglass bound with Everlast boxing wraps @juliadault (2014) Untitled 36, reinstalled here on November 2, 2020. Brighter colours inside the loops than I recall with (2013) Untitled 26 that I saw at #ScrapMetalGallery in 2019. Exhibits on display this visit may have more content indigenous to Canada, convenient since transcontinental shipping is likely reduced with the pandemic. (Art Gallery of Ontario, Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20210915James Canning Gardens: Urban playground nearby benches where philosophical gymnastics with @zaid___khan extended beyond our western-dominated education. Late afternoon with no signs of children playing, cooling temperature called for a jacket on the bike ride home. Originally named Dundonald Street Parkette, there’s more greenspace in the sections of the Yonge Street Linear Park directly north. (James Canning Gardens, Gloucester Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20210919Lakeshore Boulevard East at Bouchette Street: Looking west from the south curb, the surface of the ramps have been removed, leading nowhere up to an elevated road that has been removed and crushed. Surface traffic appears unimpeded, with daylight a welcome change to the prior shadows under the Gardiner Expressway extension. In the distance, the CN Tower is clearly visible towards the west waterfront. (Lakeshore Boulevard East at Bouchette Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20210921Ryerson Student Learning Centre: Late afternoon weekday, few students evident on campus, light pedestrian traffic on Yonge Street north of Dundas Street. Surprised by more bike lanes occasionally reducing automotive traffic on Canada’s main street to two lanes north and south. Unseasonably warm temperatures may see one of the last days bicycling around in shorts. (Ryerson University Student Learning Centre, Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20210927
The Beaches Cinema: Arrived just in time before screening of #ShangChi at the local cinema. Unintended private screening for two, by consciously paying full price for 7pm show on a Monday. Inspection at front door for verification of double vaccination, with matching photo ID, masks on while in motion. (The Beaches Cinema, Queen Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20210927
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 […]
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 ›
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 ›
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 […]
