David Ing @daviding@qoto.org

There's something seriously wrong in the global financial markets, when banks are offering mortgages at zero or negative rates.

> Jyske Bank, Denmark's third largest, has begun offering borrowers a 10-year deal at -0.5%, while another Danish bank, Nordea, says it will begin offering 20-year fixed-rate deals at 0% and a 30-year mortgage at 0.5%.
> Under its negative mortgage, Jyske said borrowers will make a monthly repayment as usual – but the amount still outstanding will be reduced each month by more than the borrower has paid.

"Danish bank launches world's first negative interest rate mortgage" Aug. 13, 2019 at https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/aug/13/danish-bank-launches-worlds-first-negative-interest-rate-mortgage

Web video of Systems Changes: Learning from the Christopher Alexander Legacy, extending #patternlanguage especially Eishin School and Multi-Service Centers methods-in-practice. For #SystemsThinking Ontario, up the learning curve on ongoing research. http://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/systems-changes-learning-from-the-christopher-alexander-legacy-st-on-2019-02-11/

Web video of presentation of Evolving Pattern language towards an Affordance Language, 2018, on week visiting#RaphaelArar and #JimSpohrer at Almaden. Insider's history of science and prospects http://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/evolving-pattern-language-towards-an-affordance-language-almaden-2018-05-09/
#systemsthinking #patternlanguage

Web videos of keynote presentation "Innovation Learning for Sustainability: What's smarter for urban systems" for 2018 International Conference on Smart Cities and Design (SCUD) in Wuhan. http://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/innovation-learning-for-sustainability-scud-2018-04-21/

Web videos of lecture "Architecting for Wicked Messes: Towards an affordance language for service systems" #OCADU_SFI 2018, two sessions for @redesign and #JeremyBowes. One slide set, two slightly different talks on my research to that point. http://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/architecting-for-wicked-messes/ #systemsthinking #patternlanguage

Extreme weather conditions could lead to disruption in regional food supplies, says an IPCC report published in August 2018.

> It is projected that for every degree of global warming, the world's yield of wheat will fall six per cent, corn by 7.4 per cent, and rice and soybeans both by a little more than three per cent each. Together those four crops account for two-thirds of the calories consumed by people, and with the population growing by 80 million people each year on average, the world needs to produce more food, not less.

"Canadian food supplies at risk if climate change not slowed: UN report" | Mia Rabson (The Canadian Press) | Aug. 8, 2019 at https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/canadian-food-supplies-at-risk-if-climate-change-not-slowed-un-report-1.4540890

> Cynthia Rosenzweig, a senior research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City and one of the coordinating lead authors of the IPCC report, said much of the world relies on trade to access food, which increases global vulnerability if food production is affected across several regions at the same time.

"Climate change could trigger a global food crisis, new U.N. report says" | Denise Chow | Aug. 8, 2019 | NBC News at https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/news/climate-change-could-trigger-global-food-crisis-new-u-n-ncna1040236

"Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems" | Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change | August 2019 at http://www.ipcc.ch/report/srccl/

While we should be satisfied with "making do", we should also appreciate that it's human nature to be (sometimes) frivolous.

> Making do is a deeply pragmatic philosophy. It means asking of our things the only question we should ever ask of them: “Can you fulfill your intended use for me?” [....] Taken literally, it simply means making something perform – making it do what it ought to do. [....]
> The challenge, of course, is that making do is at odds with human nature. As products of evolution, we are predisposed to seek novelty, variety and excess; now, we hunt for bargains, not mastodons. [....]
> In other words, to be frivolous is to be human. To aspire to pure pragmatism – to own only necessities – is misguided.

"The life-changing magic of making do" | Benjamin Leszcz | July 13, 2019 | Globe & Mail at https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-life-changing-magic-of-making-do/

Agriculture responds to climate change, with chicken farmers switching to ducks, and shrimp fisherman switching to crabs.

> The advantages of ducks for farmers such as Akter [in Bangladesh] are several. Chickens catch infections much more easily than ducks do when they get wet, too hot, or too cold, Helal Uddin, the BRAC agriculturalist who first came up with the duck program, told me. [....]
> Nor is it just ducks. In the southwest of Bangladesh, crab fattening is on the rise. Its proponents hope crabs, which sell at high prices—especially the meatier ones—can form part of a new coastal economy, stemming the tide of migration to the cities.

"To Survive in a Wetter World, Raise Ducks, Not Chickens" | Susannah Savage | July 13, 2019 | The Atlantic at https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/07/bangladesh-climate-change-floods-ducks/593581/

Single Large or Several Small (SLOSS) sees a systems approach where individuals care for their property in a way that benefits all.

> ... while emphasizing connectivity may help threatened species be more resilient, Dr. Fahrig says that it should not be taken as a reason to disregard small pockets of nature that are not connected to anything. On the contrary, such places could be more important than their size and isolation suggest because they offer a final redoubt for some populations of plants and animals in a particular region.
> To some extent, this runs contrary to the emphasis on protecting large, undivided natural spaces. The debate is known by its acronym, SLOSS, for “single large or several small.” Dr. Fahrig maintains that while it’s always better to conserve more habitat than less, it needn’t be all in one place and there may be no lower threshold for what size of area matters.

"As Canada’s habitats disappear, conservation needs to start on our doorstep" | Ivan Semeniuk | June 22, 2019 | Globe and Mail at https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-biodiversity-doesnt-stop-at-the-city-limits-and-conservation-needs/

Fit the people around an organization; or an organization around the people? Working backwards, say @MitroffCrisis + #HaroldLinstone, from current concrete choices to uncertain futures, surfaces strategic assumptions in a collective decision, better than starting with an abstract scorecard to rank candidates. The Unbounded Mind is an easier-reading follow-on to The Design of Inquiry Systems by C. West Churchman. http://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/inquiring-systems-and-asking-the-right-question/

Our house is on the edge of a flood plain. We know this, because the end of our street in Toronto Riverside was at Lake Ontario, before landfill in the early 1900s. Not everyone knows about what's under the place where they live.

"Poor flood-risk maps, or none at all, are keeping Canadian communities in flood-prone areas" | Matthew McClearn | April 23, 2019 | Globe & Mail at https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-poor-flood-risk-maps-or-none-at-all-are-keeping-canadian-communities/

Toronto and Regional Conservation Authority, Flood Plain Map at https://trca.ca/conservation/flood-risk-management/flood-plain-map-viewer/

An open education system encourages scholarship that embraces perspectives from around the world. The Scholar Rescue Fund is a hopeful initiative that, in a perfect world, wouldn't have to exist.
"Canada playing major role as safe haven for at-risk academics from strife-torn countries" | Danielle Edwards | April 23, 2019 | Globe & Mail at https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/education/article-canada-playing-major-role-as-safe-haven-for-at-risk-academics-from/
http://www.scholarrescuefund.org/

Moving from coal to green energy for Dong (nee Danish Oil and Natural Gas) started in 2008, leading to an CEO change in 2012, to a 2017 divestment of fossil-fuel bases businesses. Perseverance can pay off, but patience goes through trials.
"A tale of transformation: the Danish company that went from black to green energy" | Eric Reguly | April 16, 2019 | Corporate Knights at https://www.corporateknights.com/channels/climate-and-carbon/black-green-energy-15554049/

Public libraries can become hubs for peer-to-peer learning. In the Let's Learn Teach Online program, #TorontoLibrary has partnered with #P2PU, #CiscoNetAcad, #TorontoESS, and #GBCollege to facilitate "Linux Unhatched" and "Introduction to IoT".

Larysa Essex shared their experiences at the @gtalug meeting on April 9, 2019. https://daviding.wordpress.com/2019/04/20/2019-04-09-larysa-essex-linux-unhatched-learning-circles-at-toronto-public-library-web-video/

Afternoon break in 200-year-old mid-lake pavilion included zhong, quail eggs, kumquats, sesame peanut blocks, preserved plums. Following afternoon visiting two art museums, the snack re-energized us into discussing philosophy, following the tradition of those frequenting Chinese teahouses. (Yuyuan Tea House, Yu Garden, Shanghai, PR China) 20190331 @marcocataffo

Dinner with @rms @fsf inviting the activists #CivicTechTO to gain some insight into discussions on privacy concerns #QuaysideToronto. We outlined but didn't delved into the complexity of three levels of government involved in #WaterfrontTO. (Royal Myanmar, Homer Avenue, Etobicoke, Ontario) 20190208

#Wiki was invented by Ward Cunningham in 1995, to support the Portland Pattern Repository http://c2.com/ppr/ .

#FederatedWiki was invented by Ward in 2011, enabling parallel editing in a community. Renaming a "wiki page"​ as a "card"​ may make it more intelligible to novices (even those who don't remember #hypercard).

Restarted #federatedwiki for sharing #patternlanguage .
https://ingbrief.wordpress.com/2019/01/02/federated-wiki-for-pattern-languages/