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…
Blog Archives
2020/07/13 “Making Growing Thinking” |Tim Ingold (web video)
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…
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2013/07/27 Beau Lebens “Taking WordPress to the Front End with O2” (web video)
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…
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“alphaWorks 10” (web video) | Irving Wladawsky-Berger, Rod Smith, Gina Poole | Oct. 4, 2006
Rod Smith, VP, Emerging Technologies-SWG, Gina Poole, VP, Innovation and University Relations, and Irving Wladawsky-Berger, VP, Technical Strategy and Innovation, talk about alphaWorks celebrating ten years of ushering in emerging technologies that have helped shape the technology landscape. And, as…
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Cantonese Vs. Mandarin | Aug. 25, 2013 | Off the Great Wall
On our family visit back to our ancestral village at Lougang (or Lowkong), the members of the collective group mostly spoke no more than two of four dialects, from the heritage Toisanese, to local standard Cantonese, the modern Mandarin, and…
Geoffrey Bowker, “Memory Practices in the Sciences” (MP3 audio) | Feb. 5, 2008 | Library Cafe, WVKR-FM
Scientific knowledge has changed from its19th century origins, through 20th century industrialization into 21st century information economy. Have practices changed? Geoffrey C. Bowker, Regis and Dianne McKenna Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at…
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Comment on Getting better at working at the office | sacha chua :: living an awesome life
@sachac While working, I find jazz better than classical music to keep me energized. On web radio, I like The Grooveyard at http://www.jazz.fm/player/streams/index.htm , the Jazz Music Stream at http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ or Attention Span Radio on Live365 http://www.live365.com/stations/bamman Comment on Getting…
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Sean Quinlan, “Storage at Scale” (MP3 audio), O’Reilly Media Velocity Conference, IT Conversations, 2008/06/24
When massive volumes of data is expected to always be available on the Internet, how is that engineered? A one in a million hardware fluke would happen every day at Google, so reliability must be handled by smart software. In…
Daniel Klein on Adam Smith “The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Episode 1 — An Overview (MP3 audio), Econtalk, 2009/04/06
Although many cite Adam Smith, few have actually read him. Economists who have read Adam Smith’s writings find more clarity in the work that preceded The Wealth of Nations. Dan Klein, of George Mason University, talks with EconTalk host Russ…
Dambisa Moyo, “Is Aid Dead? Foreign Aid and Development” (MP3 audio), Council on Foreign Relations, 2009/04/21
Does foreign aid help the development of third world countries, or inhibit it? Roundtable Meeting: Global Health Roundtable: Is Aid Dead? A Discussion with Dambisa Moyo on Foreign Aid and Development Is Aid Dead? A Discussion with Dambisa Moyo on…
Christopher Coyne, “Exporting Democracy after War” (MP3 audio), Econtalk, 2008/04/07
After wars, countries may be helped in economic recovery. Christopher Coyne of West Virginia University and George Mason University’s Mercatus Center talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his book, After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy. They talk…
Rick Prelinger, “Lost Landscapes of San Francisco” (MP3 audio), Longnow Foundation, 2008/12/19
San Francisco has a long and interesting history. Rick started out in 01982 as an amateur collector of the un-collected. He began by collecting film out-takes, esoteric commercial films, and all the other ephemera that is usually discarded by archives…
Stephen Marglin, “Marglin on Markets and Community” (MP3 audio), Econtalk, 2008/03/10
Community and markets are two different ways in which human being interact socially. Stephen Marglin of Harvard University and author of The Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the markets…
Vernon Smith, “Markets and Experimental Economics” (MP3 audio), Econtalk, 2007/05/21
When I was in graduate school in the 1980s, experimental economics was a new area of research. Vernon Smith, Professor of Economics at George Mason University and the 2002 Nobel Laureate in Economics, talks about experimental economics, markets, risk, behavioral…
Michael Meyer, “Last Days of Old Beijing” (MP3 audio), Tech Nation, 2008/09/04
The urbanization of Beijing means that the old parts of the city are disappearing. Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with Michael Meyer, author of “The Last Days of Old Beijing,” about the transformation of a city. IT Conversations | Tech Nation…
William McDonough, “Sustainability And The Next Industrial Revolution” (MP3 audio), Total Picture Radio, 2007/07/05
William McDonough is a designer with creative approaches to sustainability. “Reflect on this: It took us 5,000 years to put wheels on our luggage. How smart are humans?” William McDonough “My goal is very simple. It’s to help create “a…
George Dolbier and David Laux, “IBM’s Gaming Business” (MP3 audio), AfterTV, 2007/01/30
Although most people think about IBM as “business machines”, the company is a significant presence in the growing business of video games. Do they play games at International Business Machines? Yes, they do and, like most other things at IBM,…
Ted Leung, “Open Source in the Corporate World” (MP3 audio), Herding Code, 2008/10/03
It’s interesting to hear first-hand accounts of histories of successes and failures in Silicon Valley. Ted Leung … works on dynamic languages and tools at Sun Microsystems and is a member of the Apache Software Foundation. We discussed a variety…
Daniel Bell, “China’s New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society” (MP3 audio), Big Ideas, tvo.org 2008/08/10
The government in China has been promoting Confucianism both internally and throughout the world. Daniel Bell is a Professor of Philosophy at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. His lecture is entitled “China’s New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a…
- Redesigning Our Theories of Theories of Change, Peter H Jones + Ryan J A Murphy (ST-ON 2020/11/19)While the term “theory of change” is often used by funders expecting an outcome of systems change for their investment, is there really a theory there? The November 2020 Systems Thinking Ontario session was an opportunity for Peter H. Jones (OCADU) and Ryan J. A. Murphy (Memorial U. of Newfoundland) to extend talks that they had given over a few days for the […]
- Learning With Humility: Systems Thinking and Reordering Priorities (Global Change Days, 2020/10/22)For the third of three workshops by the Systems Changes Learning Circle in October 2020, Kelly Okamura, Dan Eng and Joanne Dong led a Beacon Event for Global Change Days. This session was one in a series for global changemakers. Our expectation was that they would be hands-on practitioners, with relatively low familiarity with systems thinking methods and t […]
- Theoretical Grounds, Pragmatic Grounds: Methods for Reordering our Priorities through Systems Changes Learning (ST-ON 2020/10/19)For the second of three workshops by the Systems Changes Learning Circle in October 2020, we convened a session for the monthly Systems Thinking Ontario meeting. The focus of this workshop was a review of progress to date on methods by the scholarly team, informed by the adoption and use by the field team. The framing of this presentation centered on develo […]
- Reordering Our Priorities Through Systems Changes Learning (RSD9, 2020/10/14)For the first of three workshops by the Systems Changes Learning Circle in October 2020, Zaid Khan led a session for the Relating Systems Thinking and Design RSD9 Symposium. Our team had developed a set of reference slides for the three workshops, from which content that would most resonate with the audience could be selected. RSD attracts designers across […]
- Strategic Communications + The Brand Stack, Zaid Khan + David Akermanis (ST-ON 2020/09/14)Two Major Research Projects (MRPs) — they might be called master’s theses elsewhere — by Zaid Khan and David Akermanis reflect the Systemic Design agenda within the OCADU program on Strategic Foresight and Innovation (SFI). To graduate, all SFI students complete an MRP. With many subjects and techniques covered during SFI studies, only a few exercise Sys […]
- Beyond the Tavistock and S-cubed legacyWhile it’s important to appreciate the systems thinking foundations laid down by the Tavistock Institute and U. Pennsylvania Social Systems Science (S3, called S-cubed) program, practically all of the original researchers are no longer with us. Luminaries who have passed include Eric L. Trist (-1993), Fred E. Emery (-1997), and Russell L. Ackoff (-2009). T […]
- 20201/02 Moments February 2021Limited excursions outside for the month, due to extreme cold weather, and the pandemic shutdown.
- 2021/01 Moments January 2021Mild January weather during pandemic constraints, month ending with snowfalls and cold weather alerts.
- 2020/12 Moments December 2020Approaching winter solstice, the temperature in Toronto hovers around freezing, and we see a mix of rain and snow.
- 2020/11 Moments November 2020Day shortening and temperatures dropping meant bundling up for bicycling.
- 2020/10 Moments October 2020Clear autumn near home in Toronto, extended with a family vacation within Canada to Vancouver, where the Covid rates are more favourable
- 2020/09 Moments September 2020Discovering more of the neighbourhood, bicycling mostly in the mornings.
- Process-Function Ecology, Wicked Problems, Ecological Evolution | Vasishth | Spanda J | 2015Understanding Process-Function Ecology by Ashwani Vasishth leads to luminaries in the systems sciences, including C. West Churchman, Eugene P. Odum and Timothy F.H. Allen.
- The Innovation Delusion | Lee Vinsel, Andrew L. Russell | 2020As an irony, the 2020 book, The Innovation Delusion by #LeeVinsel @STS_News + #AndrewLRussell @RussellProf shouldn’t be seen as an innovation, but an encouragement to join @The_Maintainers where an ongoing thought network can continue. The subtitle “How Our Obsession with the New has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most” recognizes actual innovation, as dist […]
- Republishing on Facebook as “good for the world” or “bad for the world” (NY Times, 2020/11/24)An online social network reproduces content partially based on algorithms, and partially based on the judgements made by human beings. Either may be viewed as positive or negative. > The trade-offs came into focus this month [November 2020], when Facebook engineers and data scientists posted the results of a series of experiments called “P(Bad for the Wor […]
- 1969, 1981 Emery, System Thinking: Selected ReadingsSocial Systems Science graduate students in 1970s-1980s with #RussellAckoff, #EricTrist + #HasanOzbehkhan at U. Pennsylvania Wharton School were assigned the Penguin paperback #SystemsThinking reader edited by #FredEEmery, with updated editions evolving contents.
- 1968 Buckley, “Modern Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist: A Sourcebook”Resurfacing 1968 Buckley, “Modern Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist: A Sourcebook” for interests in #SystemsThinking #SocioCybernetics #GeneralSystemsTheory #OrganizationScience . Republication in 2017 hardcopy may be more complete.
- Wholism, reductionism (Francois, 2004)Proponents of #SystemsThinking often espouse holism to counter over-emphasis on reductionism. Reading some definitions from an encyclopedia positions one in the context of the other (François 2004).
