Notices by Ruth Malan (ruthmalan@mastodon.social)

If you are, or know anyone, interested in these ideas and practices:

(System design and architecture chapbook pdf) https://www.ruthmalan.com/Bredemeyer/20241021SystemDesignIntro.pdf

the workshop provides an opportunity to explore them. The setting is collaborative, and we’ll have fun but also get work done. So that we experience, and reflect, and co-evolve our design sense and sensibilities.

This is an incredible line-up (DDDEU workshops) and you’ll get why I was posting about imposter syndrome and doing it anyway, the other day :)

https://ti.to/on3/aardling25

lol. The things my fingers blurt out here, that I could never, on LI

:)

Can I use that image on the program???

:D

Joking in nervous already, obviously. The more important point is that it is so much about who participates … and the goodwilling pitching in to the experience. Still… there’s anxieties… Will people sign up? Does humility and collaborative engagement have a venue “in this economy”…

Lucy Bellwood, hero to all who have internalized society’s demonz and need to deal.

https://lucybellwood.com/books/100-demon-dialogues/

“The model was developed by the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, which claims that R1 matches or even surpasses OpenAI’s ChatGPT o1 on multiple key benchmarks but operates at a fraction of the cost.”

“To create R1, DeepSeek had to rework its training process to reduce the strain on its GPUs, a variety released by Nvidia for the Chinese market that have their performance capped at half the speed of its top products, according to Zihan Wang”

— Caiwei Chen

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/24/1110526/china-deepseek-top-ai-despite-sanctions/

Mitigating and preparing for climate impacts *is* economic development, and organizations, cities, states and countries that get on that, are being smart — under pressure… This is *short term* thinking now.

“For many software professionals, the biggest mindshift when thinking in systems is also the most important one: software systems are sociotechnical. When I say our systems are sociotechnical, I mean that our thinking, behaviors, and communication patterns are inextricable from the software systems we produce.”

— @diana

Scanning for “appetizer” quotes —

‘Technical debt is how we describe the lack of cohesion in the system.’

— I hear @diana ’s voice in my mind, especially at parts like the last phrase in:

‘Donella Meadows defines systems thinking as how “parts together produce an effect
that is different from the effect of each part on its own.”

Relationships produce effects. Software becomes a system of software when “parts together” achieve something that could not exist without the “together” part.’

Next up in #PapersInSystems: we’ll be discussing Crafting Conceptual Integrity: ch 2 of Learning Systems Thinking

Discussion will be led by (the author!) @diana

Monday, February 10, 1-2pm Eastern Time

Free, but enroll for access:
https://ti.to/bredemeyer/montalion_conceptualintegrity/with/conway-on-systems

And a lovely colorful version of the (tippy) Iceberg Model (smiles)

Illustration: Sam Bradd, https://www.sfu.ca/complex-systems-frameworks/frameworks/unpacking-complexity/iceberg-model.html

Places to Intervene in a System, by Sam Bradd adapted from Donella Meadows

Source: https://www.sfu.ca/complex-systems-frameworks/frameworks/unpacking-complexity/places-to-intervene.html

Drawing Change — such a pretty template for exploring choices with: what? So what? Now what?

Source: Sam Bradd, https://drawingchange.com/resource/a-visual-tool-for-all-seasons-what-so-what-now-what/

Dragons bearing gifts!

David Zinn (on IG):
https://www.instagram.com/p/DDcHz7_JuJy/

Day 19 #AdventOfSystemSeeing

Finding Dragons and Elephants

Revisit your rich picture (Day 8) or systems map (Day 15).
Look for “here be dragons" (challenges, resistance, etc.) and here be "elephants" (elephants are things we are avoiding having direct and real conversations about). Describe the dragons and elephants, and how you orient to them.

This prompt took inspiration from Christian Nold's work on mapping sensory journeys

Image source (not secure): http://sensoryjourneys.net

This is hard to read, but important for cis people, I think, to understand more the threat and worry for trans folk in the US
https://evhaste.com/2024/12/11/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go-now/

“When I read Fahrenheit 451 for the first time,” LeVar Burton says, “I couldn’t imagine that situation in my reality. It was a shame, right? Wow. Those poor people in that misguided society. I live in that society now. That dystopian story has become my truth.”

https://www.gq.com/story/levar-burton-wants-you-to-read-banned-books

Via
https://m.ai6yr.org/@Jennifer/113634651121357362

December 1, and the start of #AdventOfSystemSeeing 2024 edition.

Like last year, there will be daily prompts on the AdventOfSystemSeeing hashtag (making it easier to follow or mute).

The idea is to do daily (15-20 minute) exercises in a System Journal (notebook). These could be a “make your own advent(ure)” sort of thing, or you can follow the prompts on the hashtag each day.

I have the 1978 titanic one so i’m good :)

But i dooooo have a workshop that already has wonderful folk (but more would be good):

https://mastodon.social/@RuthMalan/113464998328779547

Yes. *That* John Gall.

1975 edition, for those who care and have more $ than i :)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1726289830/systemantics-how-systems-work-and