David Ing @daviding@qoto.org

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/