Mike Lensi

@clinamina

I love the natural world and philosophies thereof. Lege feliciter. Permanent obsessions: * animal tracks * philosophy of mind / perception * Japanese history / culture * world history * cats * your mom Temporary obsessions: * shogi * knives * your dad

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Mike Lensi@clinamina· 24d

Interesting object from Yale's Peabody Museum collection. "Sword Calamity" amulet. The first kanji is the old (kyūjitai) form for sword. Here are all three kanji, in case you'd like to protect yourself from sword disasters! 劔難除劔 - sword 難 - calamity 除 - exception #amulet #sword #kanji #omamori

"Sword Calamity" amulet in Japanese script

Same amulet from the other image, where I've now traced-out the kanji using red marks

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Jun 26

The kanji 有 means "existence". But it also means "possess". There are positive ways to accumulate material goods, and when done in this manner, can tie us to the world. We become bound, stitched in a healthy way to things around us, not depressed or separated. #knives #pocketknives #kanji #有

Two knives on a desk, surrounded by sundry objects: two airplane pins, a challenge coin, keychains.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Apr 16

Much like syllable masking in psychoacoustics, the strong MASA phrase must mask the following S in SHIGA, because "Masahige" is an extremely common typo of Masashige (まさしげ). #Masashige #まさしげ #psychophysics

Panel from History of Japan in Manga: Samurai, Shoguns and World War II
Book by Kanaya Shunichiro, showing a common misspelling of "Masashige".

Misspelling of "Masashige" in Ivan Morris's Nobility of Failure.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Feb 13

Shop screen from original Nintendo legend of Zelda

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Jan 25

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Jan 5

The Wind Rises! A critic said Miyazaki sweeps hard ethical questions under the rug of beauty. But this is precisely the point: young engineers do this and will likely continue to do so. My young colleagues and I sadly included, but for "curiosity" not beauty; we wanted to push technical boundaries.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Jan 4

A secular shrine. Depressed people often divest themselves of worldy goods; to live is to live amongst material. Healthy minds hook themselves into this material world responsibly. Collecting is ethical mental health. #BookSky #Books #ResponsibleMaterialism #Ethics #Philosophy #Shrine

Two tiers of a bookshelf. Various trinkets and artworks adorn the top. The other shelf contains sundry philosophy texts, a model airplane, and some pocket knives.

Theee tiers of a bookshelf. Various trinkets and artworks adorn the top. The middle shelf contains sundry philosophy texts, a model airplane, and some pocket knives. The lower shelf is mostly filled with Japanese history and cultural materials.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Jan 2

This one’s for my fellow plane otakus. The aircraft of Jiro’s dreams, the inverted gull-wing prototype of the A5M Claude, aka Mitsubishi Experiment-9 Single-Seat Fighter (九試単座戦闘機). From Studio Ghibli’s most underrated film “The Wind Rises”. #オタク #飛行機オタク #スタジオジブリ #ジブリ #風立ちぬ #WW2 #堀越二郎

1/48 scale model of the WW2-era Mitsubishi Type-9 prototype, on fake grass with a little tree and an autumn-leaves background for maximum ambiance.

Still frames from the Studio Ghibli animated movie The Wind Rises.

Top view of scale model airplane, in progress.

1/48 scale model airplane - Mitsubishi Type-9 prototype - in front of some ukiyo-e reprints.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Dec 21

Four higonokami, traditional Japanese folding knives. #knives #higonokami #Japan

Four traditional Japanese folding knives in open position.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Dec 20

www.quantamagazine.org/how-renormal... #physics #renormalization #scale_autonomy #ontology #PhilosophyOfPhysics

A quote from the article. "Renormalization captures nature's tendency to sort itself into essentially independent worlds."

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Sep 3

Make America 2010 again #Abq #graffiti #graffito #IMissTheOldKanye #Albuquerque #505

A graffito exclaiming "I miss the old Kanye".

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Jul 23

At this rate* I'll hit a solid YEAR of listening time by 2032 ;) *out of every 16 months, one full month is audiobooks #books #audiobooks #Audible #LegeFeliciter

Audible app listening time screen showing 7 months of listening time.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Apr 29

I fucking love this stupid little chart. For its size, it punches way above its weight in terms of the anthropology and science it captures. There was a time, a long time, in which "uniform motion" was the desired characteristic of planetary motion - it was *heavenly*. But surely, truth won out...

Small chart showing three models of planetary motion:
* Ptolemaic (circa 150), which prizes uniform motion over other factors
* Copernican (circa 1550), which formally introduces heliocentrism
* Keplerian (circa 1600), which finally supplants uniform circular motion in favor of elliptical orbits

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Apr 21

Vicarious shamanism. Anyone else EDC small ritual objects? As Reader and Tanabe note of the Japanese, the spiritual is less about belief and more about ritual, custom. Thomas and Miller add: play. Small wonder my EDC are a magatama bead, mirror, and knife. #EDC #occult #三種の神器 #勾玉 #鏡 #劍 #超自然的 #遊び

Three ritual objects: a green magatama bead, a mirror, and a pocket knife.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Mar 11

Reposting from Insta. Seemed important. #CherryBlossoms #Plum #Peach #Sakura #Ume #Momo #桜 #梅 #桃 #flowers

Identification chart comparing cherry blossom, plum, and peach flowers. Importantly, cherry blossoms have notches at the tip.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Feb 26

Films: * Kwaidan - a series of spooky Japanese folk tales * The Wind Rises - #StudioGhibli and Hayao Miyazaki's underrated masterpiece of a scientific dreamer born in the tragic era of #WWII (6/6)

Promotional material for the film "Kwaidan", showing a man covered in occult bonji characters and kanji.

Storyboard images / stills from the movie "The Wind Rises", showing an inspired depiction of the experimental prototype of the Mitsubishi A5M fighter aircraft.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Feb 26

Japanese Religion / #Zen : * "Zen Training" by Katsuki Sekida Do yourself a favor: skip the shitty overviews and go straight to this masterwork. Just look at the attention to phenomenology here! (5/x)

Page from Sekida's "Zen Training" illustrating his Three Nen-Actions model of mind.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Feb 26

Sengoku Period History ( #Shogun fans, these are for you): * "African Samurai" by Thomas Lockley (this is historical fiction but the extended notes - which you get as a PDF with the audiobook too - demonstrate Lockley's seriousness) * "A History of the Samurai" by Jonathan Lopez-Vera (3/x)

Cover of the book "African Samurai" by Thomas Lockley.

Cover of the book "A History of the Samurai" by Jonathan Lopez-Vera.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Feb 26

One more in General History: * "History of Japan in Manga" by Kanaya Shunichiro Not a deep dive on its own, but some of the visuals in here are immensely clarifying as you continue your studies (e.g. this graphic on bakumatsu alliances) (2/x)

Graphic from "History of Japan in Manga" illustrating the alignment of the Kobu Gattai with the shogunate and Aizu domain in opposition to the Tobaku, itself aligned with Satsuma and Choshu (there is a typo in the graphic here) domains. Also shows each faction's foreign backers.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Feb 26

Thinking of diving into #JapaneseHistory and culture ? Here are 10 recommended #books / videos: General History: * "The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives" by Christopher Harding * "Understanding Japan" Great Courses video series by Mark Ravina (1/x)

Cover of the book "The Japanese" by Christopher Harding.

Cover of The Great Courses product "Understanding Japan" by Mark Ravina.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Feb 19

Is this not one of the most kick-ass scientific visualizations you've ever seen? It's a periodic table, and the first thing to note is it's a left step periodic table. But most strikingly, electronegativity is shown as a contour map, with toponomy inspired by physical maps. Brilliant. #PeriodicTable

Left step period table with metals on the left and non-metals on the right, and H over He, shown as a contour map illustrating electronegativity, with toponomy inspired by physical maps. From R. Vernon https://doi.org/10.1007/s10698-023-09496-5

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Feb 12

What do y'all like to collect? I collect knives, mostly pocket knives. This is a great hobby (1) because knives are useful tools, and (2) as a type of meditation on life... #collecting #knives #steel #D2 #M390 #VG10 Question: What is the value of a blade that remains in its sheath? Answer...

Part of my collection: 32 knives arranged on a bed. Most are pocket knives. Blades are between 2 and 7 inches in length. Picture taken using flash photography.

List of knife steels, arranged by pedigree. These come from "The Story of Knife Steel" by Dr Larrin Thomas. Annotations are mine, showing the majority of steels in my collection.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Jan 27

Posted without (much) comment. One book 📚 One film 🎥 One album💿 One show 📺

Cover of the book "Beyond Concepts" by Ruth Millikan.

Poster for the movie "Kaze Tachinu" aka "The Wind Rises" by Studio Ghibli.

Alternative album cover for (2010-era) Kanye West's "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy".

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Jan 8

Kanji question! Why are the cursive-style kanjis on the top of these shogi pieces different if they both supposedly mean "dragon"? For the promoted rook "dragon king" piece, I can see 龍. But what is that kanji on the promoted bishop "dragon horse"?? Thanks! #kanji #shogi @japanesetalk.bsky.social

The shogi piece for the promoted rook "dragon king" in cursive-style kanji.

The shogi piece for the promoted bishop "dragon horse" in cursive-style kanji.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Jan 7

The continued fraction expansion of the golden ratio (phi) is all 1's. The continued fraction expansion of 48/phi is [1 1 1 106 1 1 1 106 1 1 1...] (non-repeating). Interesting indeed! #math #GoldenRatio #ContinuedFractions

$A simple visualization showing the first 10 continued fraction coefficients (of the number 48/phi) as binary numbers$

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Dec 4

My top Spotify wrapped artist was Hiromi Uehara, owing almost exclusively to the soundtrack to this dope movie #BlueGiant #jazz #Hiromi #HiromiUehara #UeharaHiromi #anime

Poster for the animated movie "Blue Giant", showing one of the main characters holding a saxophone.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Dec 4

My kid's letter to Santa reminded me of Dennett "Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic." Ie everything we've ever known, including the fantastical, is of this world #Dennett #magic #Santa

A letter to Santa that begins "I really want a cat (real)"

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Dec 3

Storyboard cuts from what is by far my favorite movie, The Wind Rises. The movie was exquisitely researched. The NACA M9 and M12 airfoils mentioned are real airfoils. The calculations shown, however, are gibberish ;-) #TheWindRises #StudioGhibli #AeronauticalEngineering #風立ちぬ #スタジオジブリ

Storyboard cuts from the movie The Wind Rises, showing the main character, an aeronautical engineer, in deep thought over airfoil calculations.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Nov 20

The triangular relationship between symbols, concepts, and objects is pregnant with philosophy. What I'm sitting with right now is a new motto: "no extension without intension". [1/4] #philosophy #language #meaning #symbols #concepts #extension #intension

A triangular relationship between Symbols, Concepts, and their Referents in the world. Shown among the triangle edges are various theories of language/meaning. A red dashed line denotes where symbols and referents of the world become psychological concepts.

Mike Lensi@clinamina· Nov 16

According to Heil, qualities of objects are identical with dispositions. They co-occur. Heil notes he did not consider abstract objects. If Heil is right, perhaps abstract objects are those whose qualities are NOT dispositions: they are causes of nothing. The constellation Orion would be one such...