Secretly.made.0f.birds

So I found this coconut on the beach in Costa Rica and when I opened it THIS was inside. I think it’s the endosperm (or whatever you call the thing that develops into the tree). The coconut water itself wasn’t as sweet as usual (probably because it had sprouted), but the little sprout boi tasted sweet on one end and salty on the other. (submitted by @jewishpangolin)

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op, their classmates, and their botany professor:

stupid as all fuck but has good intentions (for him) & pegs him (for her)

Area Man In Awe of his Amazing Wife (note: the characters need not necessarily actually be married to fit this trope)

but sir, that’s my emotional support fictional mom & dad

“everyone, meet my monster/alien/robot boyfriend”

The Visual Representation of Complexity: Definitions, Examples & Learning Points

Sustainability practitioners have long relied on images to display relationships in complex adaptive systems on various scales and across different domains. These images facilitate communication, learning, collaboration and evaluation as they contribute to shared understanding of systemic processes. This research addresses the need for images that are widely understood across different fields and sectors for researchers, policy makers, design practitioners and evaluators with varying degrees of familiarity with the complexity sciences. The research identifies, defines and illustrates 16 key features of complex systems and contributes to an evolving visual language of complexity. Ultimately the work supports learning as a basis for informed decision-making at CECAN (Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus) and other communities engaged with the analysis of complex problems. A research process was designed to identify sixteen key characteristics of complexity and to inform the development of new images and descriptions. In order to gather ideas from academics, sustainability practitioners and designers with expertise in the complexity sciences, systems mapping and design, I collected 50 surveys at The Environment, Economy, Democracy: Flourishing Together RSD6 (Relating Systems Thinking and Design) conference in Oslo (October 2017) and ran two participatory workshop in London (November and December 2017). The images, definitions, examples and learning points were developed with this research process. 1. FEEDBACK - When a result or output of a process influences the input either directly or indirectly. These can accelerate or suppress change. Examples: a) A stampede in a crowd, as individuals panic, others around them panic more (positive feedback); b) We sweat or shiver to maintain a constant body temperature (negative feedback); c) As the climate changes, permafrosts melts and releases more greenhouse gases. These feedback into the climate system (positive feedback). Learning Points: a) Feedback loops can lead to runaway effects, or can create inertia through dampening of effects–two extremes; b) Positive feedbacks are reinforcing and accelerate change; c) Negative feedback suppress change and are stabilizing/regulating. 2. EMERGENCE - New, unexpected higher-level properties can arise from the interaction of components. These properties are said to be emergent if they cannot easily be described, explained, or predicted from the properties of the lower level components. Examples: a) A market price is an emergent property, arising from the interaction of many buyers & sellers; b) A traffic jam is an emergent phenomena, caused by the interaction of drivers; c) Consciousness is an emergent property of the interactions of the neurons in our brain. Learning Points: a) Completely new and unexpected properties or things can arise simply from the interaction of lower level entities. These new properties can be difficult and sometimes impossible to predict; b) Consider how to understand unpredictable emergent phenomena in your domain….

4. LEVERS AND HUBS - There may be components of a system that have a disproportionate influence because of the structure of their connections. How these behave can help to mobilise change, but their behaviour may also make a system vulnerable to disruption. Examples: a) A community champion can be a hub, but if she leaves, an initiative may stop being promoted; b) If a keystone species becomes extinct there may be cascading extinctions amongst other species; c) A bank collapsing may lead to multiple knock-on effects across the financial system. Learning Points: a) identifying hubs and levers can help identify best places to intervene in complex systems; b) Structure matters; knowing the structure of interactions in a system is crucial to understanding how it will behave, change, or fail….