Arthur (Skip) Gasch

Hi Phil,

Above are various instances of thee types of things, one red, one yellow, one blue.
The data has been fully normalized and is devoid of metric system scaling and affine distortions.
Now, how many "clusters" are there of each of the three colors? What "rule" determines how
to answer that question?

In some ways it isn't a fair question, because these things are higher dimensional, and have been
collapsed mapped onto a 2-D surface, but imagine they are locations in a 3-D space. Then again,
how many clusters or groups of yellow objects are there? and how many reds and how many blues.
Are there some singularities of yellow and red or blue ponts plus some clusters? If so, how many?

What is the frame of reference that caused the collapse mapping? Does that affect your answer?
Suppose the bottom right corner of the picture is the 'nearest' to you and the upper left corner is the farthest point away in this hypothetical 3-D space.

What if this is a 4 or n-dimensional space. How does the notion of nearest neighbor come into play? A cluster might be all objects of one color that have a distance to each other of less than K, a specific
distance. Would that make clustering easier and reduce it to a mathematical exercise?

Are the three yellow blocks singularities, or do they form their own cluster?
Red, blue and yellow here are multiple instances of only 3 properties. What if there were 1,000 colors because there were 1,000 parameters, or say 6 million colors in a genome (such as in the lifetime medical record the government is calling for)? It gets really interesting then?

Do you suppose people would be interested in investing in an AI solution for such problems, that could also expose relationships between the three colors and other outcome variables, such as the illness or wellness of the patient, or their survival at 2 years from a treatment, or their likelihood of readmission to a hospital ER within the next 30 days?

We have an information organizational structure that makes answering such questions simple algebra. We could be more specific under an NDA. Anyone interested in pursuing such matters. 

Art

Philip Spiess

Art:  Well, you've hit on the same set of inquiries, it seems to me, that I posed to my beginning museum students with my exercise of sorting out the bags of screws, nuts, bolts, nails, etc.  (To my knowledge, no one else in the entire set of professors of Museum Studies, past or present, in the whole United States -- including those in my own department at The George Washington University here in Washington, D. C. -- ever conceived of such an exercise, or thought that these were questions that even needed to be addressed.  Yet they open up a vast range of variable analysis and recognize that there are many things to be considered under the sun.)

You talk about "draining the ocean" to see certain things.  It was not until humans took to the air (and some time after that!) that archaeologists discovered that centuries-old underground remains of former civilizations (say, the Romans in Britain) could be easily seen or identified by the way in which grasses or other agricultural crops grew over them, even after millenia had passed, making them distinctly outlined areas when viewed from the air (no, I'm not talking about "crop circles").  Thus archaeologists knew where to dig.

On another note (we won't talk about "draining the Swamp" here in Washington, which is exposing all sorts of things), for centuries there had been stories and rumors about two large Roman ships, built by the Emperor Caligula (one absolutely palatial), that were sunk at the bottom of Lake Nemi, south of Rome.  Occasionally, over the many years in question, fishermen had brought up, say, a golden goblet or a portion of a statuette that suggested that something was indeed down there.  So finally, Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, in 1927 ordered Italian engineers to drain the entire lake in order to see what was down there.  And, lo and behold! there were, in fact, the two ships of Caligula that history had said were at the bottom of the lake!  The larger one included marble fixtures and mosaic floors, a heating mechanism, plumbing, and baths, technology that was not believed to have been possible until much later.  Mussolini had the two ships removed to Rome by 1929, and in 1936 the museum that was built to house them opened to the public.  However, World War II then broke forth, partly due to the machinations of Mussolini, and in 1944 the entire museum, ships and all, was destroyed by fire from Allied bombing.  Moral:  They existed for almost two thousand years, were recovered for fifteen, and then pffft!  O tempora!  O mores!

Philip Spiess

AND -- back to Skip's question:  How do you find a needle in a haystack?  Applying Occam's Razor to the question, and referencing Larry Klein's picture at Post # 4227, I proffer that, nine times out of ten, you find the needle by just casually settling back into the haystack (well in, mind you) -- and . . . the needle will find you!

Jerry Ochs

Sorry to change the subject but, does anybody remember this?

Philip Spiess

Jerry (you didn't quite change the subject:  you skipped from "Skip" to "Skippy"):  It does ring a bell, though I've never tried it.  (I do still use both products in my cooking -- but not together.)  What I do remember from the late 1950s is learning about "grilled peanut butter sandwiches" at Dick Ransohoff's house and having them there, and later having my mother, at my insistence, make them at home.  (I don't know whether this recipe was an invention of Dick's father, Jerry, who wrote a "Men's Cooking" column for The Cincinnati Enquirer, or not.)

Since Jerry has changed the subject, this may be a good time to consider other foods we enjoyed in our youth, which may be considered odd or weird by some of us, or considered now rather "out of fashion."  Yes, foods and recipes do go in and out of fashion -- witness the frozen foods and TV dinners of the 1950s, the nouvelle cuisine of the mid- to late 1970s, the petite plats of recent memory -- you'll notice how often these trends are French or "pseudo-French" -- and the current trend, at least in our major cities, of increasingly exotic ingredients, cooked (or not) in increasingly "daring" ways, and served to the diner in increasingly bizarre presentations (such shenanigans go back to the ancient Romans in the era of the writer Petronius and to the early Victorians in the era of the chef Careme).  We also have the current (and, in my reckoning, very good) trend of "farm-to-table" menus, and (in my reckoning) very pretentious and very expensive "chef's table" single sittings (with a lecture or demonstration by the celebrity chef in question) for the self-proclaimed "foodies" who attend.

So let us reflect on those "odd" foods (no, I'm not referring to those items left in the back of the refrigerator for several weeks, which suddenly seem to have turned purple and fuzzy), perhaps odd to us or others now, which we happily indulged in in our youth, but now unthought of, or no longer available, or just not eaten anymore.  [No discussions here, please, of Skyline chili or White Castle hamburgers or Graeter's ice cream; we've had plenty of those discussions, and such foods are not "odd," but are gifts from the gods.  (Possibly these were the "manna" from Heaven which the Israelites enjoyed after the Exodus from Egypt, although I don't think the chili or the hamburgers were made from quail, nor does Graeter's now make an ice cream that tastes like coriander seed that I'm aware of.)]  So I'll begin by listing some of the foods I used to eat, often at a Saturday lunch or Sunday dinner, foods which I haven't eaten in years.  (Somehow, a lot of these dishes are or now seem somewhat German to me, which should come as no surprise, given Cincinnati's and my family's ethnic heritage).

Beef Tongue Sandwiches (it's not easy to find beef tongue much any more).

Sardine Sandwiches on White Bread (the oil from the packed sardines sank so nicely into the soft white bread).

Calf's Brains with Scrambled Eggs (these were served to me at breakfast by Don Dahmann's mother after a number of sleepovers with Donald at his home in Vine Street Hill Cemetery -- and I ate them; they tasted something like sweetbreads).  Speaking of --

Creamed Sweetbreads on Toast ("sweetbreads" are the thymus glands and pancreas, usually of calves or lamb; my mother used to serve them on occasion and my father hated them, though I liked them -- I thought they were odd-tasting mushrooms; recently I've been able to order them as an appetizer in some of Washington's more exclusive restaurants).

Leber Klosse Zuppe (soup with liver dumplings; my great-grandmother, and later my mother, used to make this; you also could order it at the Temple Delicatessen, across from Shillito's).

Schmierkase ("smeary cheese," a very soft, small curd cottage cheese with a fair amount of whey, slightly sour-tasting, which we used to get from Coors' Dairy on Gray Road in Winton Place; you could also order it at Grammer's German Restaurant downtown).

Saurbraten ("sour roast," a German specialty made by marinating roast beef in a sweet-and-sour sauce, often flavored with ginger snaps, for several days, then simmering it in the sauce for several hours; my grandmother had the best; I have her recipe -- no German restaurant I've eaten in has ever come close, except maybe The Student Prince Cafe in Springfield, Massachusetts, or Schatzi's in Baltimore, now closed; my grandmother used to serve it with red cabbage and potato pancakes with either the Saurbraten gravy or Amish apple butter over the pancakes -- my favorite meal when I came home from college!).

Goose (I haven't had goose in years; my great-grandmother used to serve it at Thanksgiving).  Speaking of which --

Molded Ice Cream (these would be the desserts at my great-grandmother's Thanksgiving dinners; they were molded in the shape of turkeys and had colored, flavored ices imbedded in the ice cream; she didn't make them, but I don't know where she bought them; I've occasionally seen metal ice cream molds in antique stores, but I've never seen molded ice cream for sale ever again).

AND FINALLY (I'll stop here):  Schwartenmagen ("headcheese," i.e., meat, fat, and spices in aspic -- which my family pronounced in true "Corryville Dutch" fashion, "Schvattamagga" -- they also pronounced "wurst" "woosht"; my grandmother loved it, and I, very occasionally, would join her in eating it on crackers).

Jerry Ochs

From Wikipedia:

Goetta is a meat-and-grain sausage or mush^[1] of German inspiration that is popular in the greater Cincinnati area. It is primarily composed of ground meat (pork, or pork and beef), pin-head oats and spices.^[2] It was originally a dish meant to stretch out servings of meat over several meals to conserve money,^[3] and is a similar dish to scrapple and livermush, both also developed by German immigrants.^[4]

Limburger (in southern Dutch contexts Rommedoe, and in Belgium Herve cheese) is a cheese that originated in the Herve area of the historical Duchy of Limburg, which had its capital in Limbourg-sur-Vesdre, now in the French-speaking Belgian province of Liège. The cheese is especially known for its strong smell caused by the bacterium Brevibacterium linens.^[3]

Paul Simons

Just a quick addition - here in the Philly area Goetta is known as Scrapple and revered as a breakfast food. It must be around New York as well - there's a Charlie Parker tune called "Scrapple from the Apple" - that particular apple being  NYC, "The Big Apple", the thing that the biblical serpent used to get Adam and Eve to get into sinning, which evidently NYC has taken to skyscraper levels, But for Charlie Parker it was about pure joy, it had nothing to do with anything else. 

Jerry Ochs

When our two sons were in Cincinnati for the first time, my family introduced them to the Brown Cow (vanilla ice cream and Barq's root beer).  Did anybody else enjoy this simple treat?

Philip Spiess

Yes; we usually made them at home.  Curiously enough, about five years ago, when Browne Academy sent me as one of the chaperones on the 8th Grade trip up the Hudson River, we ended up for lunch in a massive, elaborate classic diner (with all of the neon, mirrors, and jukeboxes appertaining thereto) at Hyde Park, across the road from FDR's home.  There on the menu was a "Brown Cow" (though I don't think it was made with Barq's); I immediately ordered one, and when it came, it was huge (but good!).

Chuck Cole

I remember brown cows being vanilla ice cream and coca-cola.  Black cows were made with root bear and pink cows with red cream soda.  

Arthur (Skip) Gasch

Phil,

About the needle, better to find it quickly than let it find you.

Needles make great weapons...

In any case, no one seems too engaged in the AI discussion or its manifold applications in our society today, so I'll drop back into surveillance mode and just monitor for the next time the subject emerges.

Any serious interest, just text me directly and we can discuss it privately.

Blessings on your food fest discussion.

Art Gasch

Dale Gieringer

  Speaking of delectations from days of yore, one of my favorite Cincinnati treats was raisin bread frosted with icing on top of the crust.  It was delicious toasted with butter and sprinkled with cinammon, though you had to be careful not to melt the frosting in the toaster.    Does anyone make it anymore?

  Then there was calf's liver and onions, a dish that regularly appeared in the WHHS lunchroom and later in our dormitories at college.  It was commonplace on the menus of Boston diners back then.   I can't remember when I last saw calf's liver in a grocery store around here;  you'd have to ask a butcher (one who's not afraid of PETA).   

      Then there was chicken liver sausage (aka liverwurst),  which came in a skin-wrapped roll that you sliced like baloney.    I loved to eat it in sandwiches with mayonnaise.   Don't know where to find the sausage these days, though you can still get chopped liver at Jewish delis.

     Speaking of chickens, there was also city chicken, which was actually faux chicken made out of low-grade veal, pork or other meat chunks stuck on wooden skewers vaguely suggestive of drumsticks,  The idea came from a time when chicken was more expensive, before the modern era of chicken factories.   My mother bought city chicken frozen in pre-packaged boxes like fish sticks.  Speaking of which, we all remember when fish sticks were a Friday lunchroom staple in the days before Vatican II;  they are still on the grocery shelves, but I haven't touched one in years, except in the form of a McDonald's fish filet. 

Steven Levinson

The WHHS lunch room served City Chicken almost weekly, and I always chose it.  Eccentric sandwiches I picked up from my mother included:  (1) peanut butter and bacon; (2) peanut butter and mayonaise; and (3) cream cheese and halved black olives.  I've reverted to eating Nos. 1 and 3 lately.

Philip Spiess

Okay, Chuck, I stand corrected:  According to all of the responsible sources I just checked, they all agree that a "Brown Cow" is made with Coca-Cola and a "Black Cow" is made with root beer.  (I would have thought it was the reverse, since Coca-Cola is much "blacker" than most root beers, which tend to be brown.)

Paul:  Scrapple, that staple of the Pennsylvania Dutch (hence its popularity in Philadelphia), had obviously stretched its influence south to Delaware:  when I was in graduate school there in the late 1960s, I regularly got it at breakfast (gratis) with my fried eggs at a diner in Newark (Del.); I loved it.  Luckily, we can get it (packaged) here in the stores in Virginia.  (I have never seen much difference between it and Cincinnati Goetta, other than the name.)

Dale:  I remember the raisin bread of which you speak; Pepperidge Farm makes a very respectable raisin bread, though it doesn't have the icing on the top (probably because it melts in the toaster).  And we usually see calves' liver in the grocery stores around here (though I never buy it -- I've hated liver since my formative days in the Nursery School at the University of Cincinnati, which regularly served it to us infants).  Liverwurst, as you describe it, can also be found regularly in our grocery stores (I love to make a sandwich of it, slathered with spicy brown mustard).

As to "City Chicken," my mother used to make it regularly, and I occasionally make it as well.  There is a fine recipe for it in the 1975 edition of The Joy of Cooking (though not in the 2006 edition); we can still get city chicken (set up on the requisite wooden skewers) at our local butcher here in Springfield, Virginia.

Paul Simons

First kudos to Phil for taking the trouble to reply directly to other contributors to this site. It makes it more of a conversation rather than just calling out into the darkness. Some items are not in my "wheelhouse" so I can't speak to them but when it comes to lowbrow food lookout! I do remember fish sticks and I know everyone can say something about a liverwurst on rye with onion sandwich at Mecklenburg's. The thing on my mind now is those perfectly rectangular frozen fish items that used to be in grocery stores - perch, halibut, sole, maybe even swordfish. Frozen solid - hard as bricks - inexpensive.

Philip Spiess

Art:  Concerning the needle, I get the point.  But before we depart into any private discussions, let me inquire if you are familiar with Edwin A. Abbott's 1884 novel [?], Flatland:  A Romance of Many Dimensions.  It seems to me to possibly have some bearing on the matters that we've been discussing, even if only in a (shall we say) "tangential" way.

Jerry Ochs

Phil: As our resident historian, do you remember Dolly Madison's chocolate covered doughnuts (a dozen to a box)?

Philip Spiess

As a matter of fact, Jerry, I do not; we indulged ourselves with crullers and Virginia reels from Virginia Bakery in Clifton (to say nothing of their Schnecken).

However, as you appeal to me in my capacity as an historian, I will humor you (but not with humor):  Dolly Madison was a national bakery brand that started in 1937.  It was famous, among other things, for the "snack cakes" known as "Zingers," which, no doubt, is why it was eventually purchased by Hostess Brands.  Dolly Madison snack cakes were best known for having a long marketing association with Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" characters, which appeared on Dolly Madison products packaging from the 1960s through the 1980s.  Each snack flavor featured a different "Peanuts" character:  Cherry and Banana Creme -- Charlie Brown; Apple -- Linus; Lemon -- Lucy (no doubt because she was sour); Berry -- Schroeder; Pineapple and Coconut Creme -- Sally; Strawberry and Peach -- Peppermint Patty; Chocolate -- Frieda; and Boysenberry -- Marcie; Charlie Brown was also on "Zingers" packages.  Much later, Snoopy appeared on all flavors of Dolly Madison snack pies; he also was on the "Gems" doughnut packages.  The Dolly Madison bakery brand, which had outlet stores for its bakery from the 1980s through its closing, was liquidated when Hostess Brands went out of business in 2012.  Apollo Global Management, which acquired Hostess's "Twinkies" brand in 2013, also acquired the rights and corporate name to Dolly Madison snack cake brands, with plans to resume production of the products.  (Don't know if they ever did.)

Bruce Fette

I agree, Kudos to Phil for making this site interesting to read every day!

Philip Spiess

Note to Jerry Ochs on the matter of Limburger Cheese:  There's a wonderful sequence in Charlie Chaplin's (silent) film satire on World War I, Shoulder Arms (1918), wherein he receives a package of said cheese from home, and, despising it, throws it out of his dugout, whereby it hits the German commander on the other side in the eye, who (of course) freaks out (by the by, Limburger cheese is Belgian in origin).  The strongest cheese I will agreeably submit to is "Beer Cheese" (Bierkase), supposedly comparable to Limburger, but is, I maintain, (at least) slightly milder.

Jerry Ochs

Holy inflation, Batman.  Found this on Amazon.

Chuck Cole

Donut Gems, Twinkies and the like are well known for extremely long shelf lives.  When our graduate students present their annual research-in-progress reports, the department provides modest funds for them to purchase beer and snacks for the after-seminar get-together.  One of my colleagues requested that his students include Twinkies among the snack foods.  Several years ago, I once took a twinkie package, lost track of it in my office, and only found it several months later.  I sent it to my colleague through inter-departmental mail. He later thanked me and said it was delicious.  I don't think he looked at the "sell by" date, or perhaps it said 2020.

Philip Spiess

Jerry's Amazon package doesn't look like it has Snoopy on it, does it?  That must mean it's fairly new -- or way old!

Jerry Ochs

Chuck:

Jerry Ochs

Skip: Artificial intelligence isn't a threat to humanity. Natural stupidity is.

— God (@TheTweetOfGod) April 9, 2019