Distractions, reflections

David Ing, at large … Sometimes, my mind wanders

2008/12/11 Walking around the Stanford University campus

More than a few of my extended family now lives in California.  After my conference group finished off our mid-afternoon meetings, we drove north to Stanford University for a short tour by my nephew Kevin.  He told us to meet him at the top of the Oval, so we wouldn’t get lost.  We started with a stroll through Memorial Court, noticing the quickly arriving dusk.

di_20081211-194110-stanford-memorial-court.JPG

The Math Corner of the Main Quadrangle is place where you might expect to find mathematicians and math students.

di_20081211-194114-stanford-mathcorner.JPG

The main quadrangle is a hub for the campus, designed in the early 1900s.

di_20081211-194142-stanford-mainquad.JPG

Geovanni, Stephen and Nancy added to the layout of Rodin’s Burghers of Calais.

di_20081211-194300-stanford-rodin-burgherofcalais.JPG

This late in the afternoon, Memorial Church was closing.

di_20081211-194652-stanford-memorialchurch-group.JPG

Kevin took us southeast through the campus.  We wouldn’t been able to drive there directly.  Stanford is at a scale and layout for bicycling.

di_20081211-195746-stanford-via-pueblo-fountain.JPG

The Department of Electrical Engineering is in the David Packard Building.

di_20081211-195802-stanford-packard-ee-building.JPG

The Cantor Arts Center has collections both outside and inside.

di_20081211-200944-stanford-artgallery.JPG

Outside, the “Gates of Hell” — one of Rodin’s bronzes distributed around the world — is at a superhuman scale

di_20081211-201124-stanford-rodin-gatesofhell.JPG

We wandered inside to browse the collection.  Kevin, in his Christmas hat, was more warmly dressed than Slab Man, by Duane Hanson.

di_20081211-202206-stanford-duanehanson-slabman-kl.JPG

Stanford has a collection of Warhol prints, significant for the mid-20th century.

di_20081211-202308-stanford-warhol.JPG

Staying on schedule, our group took Kevin out for a Cuban dinner in Palo Alto.  Since I had been travelling with these colleagues for a few weeks, Stephen made an extra effort to embarrass me in front of my nephew.  Before we took Stephen to the airport for his flight back home, we disposed of the Two Buck Chuck that would have taken him over the duty free allowance for alcohol imported personally into Canada.  Kevin doesn’t seem like a big drinker, but we were sure that some students in his dorm would welcome the refreshments.

[Start a large-image lightbox screen show over this blog post (in a supported browser)]

[See the webphotos album (with a slideshow option)]

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • RSS on Coevolving

  • RSS on Media Queue

    • 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 ›
  • RSS on Ing Brief

    • 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 […]
    • Introduction, “Systems Thinking: Selected Readings”, edited by F. E. Emery (1969)
      In reviewing the original introduction for Systems Thinking: Selected Readings in the 1969 Penguin paperback, there’s a few threads that I only recognize, many years later. The tables of contents (disambiguating various editions) were previously listed as 1969, 1981 Emery, System Thinking: Selected Readings. — begin paste — Introduction In the selection of papers for this […]
  • Meta

  • Translate

  • Creative Commons License
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
    Theme modified from DevDmBootstrap4 by Danny Machal