Philip Spiess

Thus Observatory Avenue in Hyde Park also.  The Cincinnati Observatory moved to the location you show from Mount Adams (Mount Adams' Celestial Street notes the Observatory's former presence just east, I believe, of where the incline's headhouse would later be) after the smoke from industries in downtown Cincinnati became too heavy for the Observatory to observe anything.  I believe the Observatory still contains astronomer Ormsby McKnight Mitchel's original telescope, as well as a more modern one.  And I believe the Observatory is now part of the University of Cincinnati.

Paul Simons

Phil with your compendium of intricate details it's a good thing you don't write novels. If you got into the big time along with literary luminaries like Jacqueline Susanne ("Valley of the Dolls") and E.L. James ("50 Shades of Grey") and as God is my witness Dan Brown ("The Da Vinci Codes" - that's Anthony Da Vinci from Tony's Pizza, not Leonardo da Vinci from The Renaissance) and eventually your stuff was in high school English class reading assignments somebody would come gunning for you or burn your house down or both, but then if they were historically accurate they wouldn't be allowed in the high school library or class anyway in the states where they ban such books, which are where gun ownership and paranoia are also high, but since they can't read your books you're safe. 

I was in that observatory one time maybe 20 years ago and yes there's a telescope, kinda spindly but impressive and well made. Cincinnati is an amazing town.

Bruce Fette

Paul,

When looking at the motors for the elevators, I hypothesized it to be 20 horsepower. My son informed me today that its probably 40 horsepower, about 24,000 watts.

As for spindly telescopes, perhaps you remember that Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto ( which used to be a planet), using Lowell's telescope, on Lowell's hilltop in Flagstaff (clean air & thin air). I dont know the exact measurements but the tube maybe was 5 inches in Diameter, and maybe 50 feet long, so yes it was pretty spindly too.  As for pluto, it is so cold there that methane gas freezes into frost and snow. Maybe you also remember that Percival Lowell studied the canals on Mars. 

Space travel any one?

And for those who consider the notion of someone traveling to Mars, or setting up a space colony on Mars, please consider that the sunlight is much dimmer, and the high temperature is -14F and the low is -117F.  So not exactly a comfortable place to vist, and it seems like it would not be much fun to spend a long time there. I guess you need to pack about 3 layers of antartic clothing. Probably need a nuclear reactor  to keep the hut warm.

Paul Simons

I am fortified by the way this forum is able to smoothly elide - not spasmodically lurch - from subject to subject. From Ann and Jeff's phenomenal pies including recipes which suspiciously leave out a key ingredient, the one containing cannabis, to the naming and climate of the planets and the horsepower of New York elevator motors.  From the pecan, long associated with Georgia, home of Stuckey's Pecan Pralines, also called The Peach State and now a state unconcerned with the sweet things of life but rather with disqualifying everything from the actual vote count to the outcome of the Civil War to Phil's new historical novel "The Conquest Of Clifton: Kings Or Carpetbaggers?"

But sometimes the tangential reference flies by unnoticed, precluding a visit to a realm that just might be of interest. Today, to me that realm is what you can see - and what you CAN''T see - when those elevator motors get you to the top of The Empire State Building. Specifically where you were, what you did, what happened, in fact WHO you were at those times when you were in The Big Apple. The City. The Capitol Of The World. Last time I was there I was watching flatbed trucks haul twisted tortured steel from ground zero to a site for analysis on Staten Island. This brings up the question of where The Big Apple dumps its garbage, and according to Google the answer is central New York State, Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, and recently some found its way to Florida.

Philip Spiess

Whenever I'm in New York, I always try to make a visit to the Grand Central Oyster Bar, which has been in the bowels of the present Grand Central Terminal since it opened in 1913.  Although I usually focus on raw oysters on the half-shell, its Oyster Bisque is divine; a close approximation of it is this recipe:

OYSTER BRIE SOUP:

1 stick Butter     1/4 cup Flour     8 oz. Brie Cheese (rind removed)         2 cups Milk     1 cup Oyster Liquid

1 cup Heavy Cream     1 cup dry White Wine     2 tsps. Tabasco Sauce     1/4 tsp. Salt                 1/2 tsp. Black Pepper

18 shucked Oysters     2 Tbls. chopped Scallions     1/4 tsp. Tarragon

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat.  Whisk in the flour; add the brie (in small cubes), milk, oyster liquid, cream, and wine.  Stir constantly until the cheese has melted.  Then add the Tabasco sauce, salt, and pepper.  Bring to a boil, then add the oysters, scallions, and tarragon.  Simmer until the oysters curl (4 to 5 minutes) and serve.

On two different visits to New York, I threw a cocktail party in the massive Enid Haupt Conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, each courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution (the New York Botanical Garden was one of twelve flagship museums that the Smithsonian project I was heading up was working with).

And in 1969, on a madcap trip north with friends from the University of Delaware, returning late (and I mean late) from midtown Manhattan to the Battery (where we had parked our car), the subway train on which we were riding made a sudden turn and dipped, stopped, and the lights went out -- it had parked for the night under the East River!

Jeff Daum

Thanks Paul.  For the record I can not confirm or deny 

Paul Simons

First I apologize to one and all for occupying if not defacing far more than my share of the blackboard although adding up the column inches I have no doubt that Philipedia  might be outdoing me by a factor of about 1,000. However the information supplied by that contributor is of value commensurate with its volume and I'm sure that the Philipedia research teams will be able to find information that I have been searching for in vain.

There was an oyster house in Cincinnati, probably downtown, maybe near the original Empress Chili, called something like Bocigalupous' Oyster Bay or something like that. I am offering a billion dollars to anyone who comes up with real solid accurate information about this enterprise, upon conviction and incarceration of those responsible for the current situation.

I'm writing this after trying a bowl of that soup two entries back and also a slice of each the pies shown in previous entries and am, thanks to their psychotropic characteristics, someplace else and therefore not responsible for anything. 

Philip Spiess

Oysters have had a long tradition in Cincinnati.  From 1835 on, oysters were transported live in brine and in barrels on ice on a five-day trip (the ice had to be replaced daily) from the Chesapeake Bay to Cincinnati over a stagecoach line (and later by train) that came to be known as "the Oyster Line."  The pre-Civil War Cincinnati newspapers were filled with advertisements for the sales of barrels of oysters and the occasional local oyster bar.

The longest running oyster house in Cincinnati (1893-1974), and the one where I learned to love oysters, was the Central Oyster House, founded near Washington Park by Jake Rosenfeld in 1893, but located during most of its career on the north side of Fifth Street east of Fountain Square and run by Rosenfeld's nephew, Jacob Spicer.  It was in a long building with a narrow frontage, stamped-tin ceilings, and sawdust on the floor, the dour waiters in long white aprons.  For many years the proprietors were the Spicer family, and old Jacob Spicer used to always be in the front window, constantly stirring the pots of oyster stew.  The establishment served oysters many ways; my favorite was the fried oysters, which were coated in a delicious dark-brown breadcrumb kind of batter and served with a small cup of very creamy coleslaw with one small stuffed green olive on top.

O tempora! O mores!  The Central Oyster House was forced to move when its block of Fifth Street was razed.  It moved to a 1960s-style modern restaurant with a faux half-timbered front and nautical decorations inside on Main Street below Fourth Street, across from the Cincinnati Gas & Electric Company headquarters (though it had a Fourth Street address).  The change in decor from historic Victorian to "seaside modern" made the restaurant look "cheesy," the food somehow wasn't the same either, and the place closed a few years after it was forced to move..

Bruce Fette

Well Phil,

I guess Paul owes you $1B.

Congratulations. I will be happy to help you spend it!  :)

Paul Simons

Before anyone spends any money there's a problem of definition of terms. And the conviction and incarceration haven't occurred. The definition problem is even more acute than that. "Current situation" means far more than anything that could be contained in a vat of boiling oyster stew. It couldn't be contained in the cooling pond of a nuclear power plant or the caldera of a volcano. And the conviction and incarceration of more than one individual will be required to fully rectify the current situation, although one would go a long way if it was the right one. But alas, as Chuck Berry, in the song "Memphis Tennessee" told the long-distance operator, "More than that I cannot add."

Paul Simons

With apologies to those classmates who are once again having to gnash their teeth in outrage at having to read yet another blanket accusation, another 12 theses nailed to the lunchroom door by Martin Luther Simons, or a free sample from the Encyclopedia Brittanica salesman standing on your porch who in return for the refreshing glass of lemonade you offered will provide you with everything known by man about the subject you want to know about  - with apologies to them it appears that certain elements need to be elucidated.

Now I could just refuse to comply with the law - that's in style these days. Or I could just insist that the law be changed because I don't like it - that's also very popular in the (supposed) best circles these days. Or I could just say sure, ask away, and then plead the 5th, another useful ploy. But no  I plead absolutely guilty. I neglected to address the subject which in the interest of brevity I will call the centrality theorem. In a previous post the Central Oyster House was mentioned. It was probably easy to get to from Central Parkway. Probably so was Central High School. Cincinnati is in the ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic center, if not the geographical and political, center of the country. What does this mean? Nothing. Good day.

And just to further prove the point let me quote from the great songwriter Shel Silverstein as sung by Bobby Bare:

"This broken back is the dyin' act of Handsome Harry Clay

That sticky Cincinnati night I stole his wife away

But that woman she gets uglier and she gets meaner every day

But I got her, boy, and that makes me The Winner!"

I'm

Paul Simons

https://pearl-star.com/

Cincinnati has a NEW OYSTER BAR!!

Paul Simons

It's mighty quiet here, maybe a bit too quiet. True, certain topics are off limits like whether laws apply to everybody or not or whether elections should be decided by voters or by somebody else or do vaccines work but there are other interesting topics like UFOs or in current lingo UAPs - unidentified aerial phenomena. I'm sure Mr. Spiess knows a thing or two about them and they are the only possible way certain class members who shall remain nameless got here. Personally every time I apply math to the issue, the answer to the problem "If Dave Buchholz left a hypothetical planet orbiting our nearest astral neighbor Alpha Centauri which is 25 trillion miles away going 40 times the speed of our fastest manned vehicle or 1,000,000 miles per hour - that's about 278 miles per second - how long would it take him to get to a red brick schoolhouse on Victory Parkway?" is "Wait, what?" But thanks to Google it's about 2,854 years. At a million miles an hour. He doesn't look that old. I might look that old but Dave doesn't look a day over 500 years old. If anyone managed to go that fast they wind up like peanut butter, extra creamy, not chunky at all. Or worse. And yet some are sure they've encountered aliens either in their spacecraft doing entertaining stunt flying or in line at the 7-11 by the trailer park trying not to look like the being pictured on the National Enquirer in the rack next to the checkout lane. It's an impulse buy item like a certain  "news"  network -  something meant to be consumed by those with empty lives who crave the sensational, and whether it's true or not is irrelevant. It sells.

Bruce Fette

Paul, 

So if we arrange to travel at 1 billion miles per hour its only 2.85 years. Just enough time to read "War and Peace"?

Paul Simons

Bruce - sure, why not? Your profile photo shows you with a rocket, and although I did say that those who in fact got here from another planet would remain nameless, I have to ask how it feels to travel at a billion miles an hour, and how did you like "War And Peace"? I never read it, never got beyond "The Transistor Circuit Handbook" and of course the book where all scientific facts are to be found, the bible. But not that King James, or King Donald, or King Charles version. The King Bubba version with pictures by R. Crumb.

Dale Gieringer

I hate to be a wet blanket, Bruce, but 1 billion miles per hour is faster than the speed of light.  

Steven Levinson

Dale, isnt the speed of light, in miles per hour, 186,000 X 60 X 60 = 669, 600,000, which is less that a billion miles per hour?  Or am I still math challenged? 

Bruce Fette

Yes, 1 billion miles per hour is 447,040,000 m/s which  is slightly faster than light at 300,000,000 m/s. Thats warp 1.5. 

William Shatner, Patrick Stewart and Harrison Ford each traveled faster than that  :)  :)

As far as current understanding of physics goes, mass increases as you approach the speed of light. 

However, Einstein didnt tell us what happens beyond the speed of light. And no tech has published how to achieve that. However, just like a black hole where the physics involved a non-linearity, perhaps a non-linearity may enable propulsion beyond the speed of light. I think the propulsers in star trek used dilithium crystals, but I think I would try anti-matter which is already in some non-linear domain, which a few physicists do have some comrehension about.

As for transistor circuitry, I remember reading about how to use transistors while in highschool. I read an article in a ham radio magazine. I started building circuits soon after. The magazine made it clearly easy. While a sophmore I got to work at TI, and diigital transistor circuits are even easier.  I was frequently amused how my college professors made it much harder than it needs to be.

So, Paul, Happy to help with circuits any time - relays, tubes or transistors.

I will say that I have nver seen the book you are showing, but it looks like a good place to start.

Paul Simons

To go in reverse order "The Transistor Circuit Handbook" is both practical and good reading. It made it possible for me to make a 1-transistor variable frequency oscillator which was intended to impress my acquaintances  - it didn't - but it did impress me. The early transistors were the RCA 2N109 and Raytheon CK722 (AF) and CK768 (RF) so a working 2-transistor regenerative radio was possible. I got a Philmore kit for one at Steinberg's downtown which of course doesn't exist anymore. I did a really lousy soldering job and had to take it to a TV repair shop, also now an extinct species, where the kindly proprietor took time off from the job and taught me how it's done so I finally got it working and could get "Everybody's Farm" on WLW and even music on WSAI.

About the fast velocities isn't the problem not so much going at them, but accelerating up to them? Isn't that where the G-forces come into play resulting in transformation to peanut butter or perhaps a salad dressing for cannibals? Unless you want to take many years just going from zero to say 1 million miles an hour or about 290 miles a second if my math is right it looks to me like it would be an insurmountable problem.

This is an entry point to a serious discussion of salad dressing names. 1,000 Islands? Where? Indonesia? What ocean? French? Every time I see a plate of French food there's no orange goop on it and it's mostly plate anyway. Russian? Remember when the king was constantly palling around with Vladimir Putin, did you see decanters of red slop on the elaborately set table? Caesar? We all read Julius Caesar In the original Latin. Does anyone remember one word about his salad dressing? I didn't think so. Ranch? What kind of ranch? This brings up a serious concern about who is in charge and what is happening to school lunch programs, and for that matter to the conduct of certain American business executives in general:

Paul Simons

It’s Sunday of the week before Christmas which is a United States Federal holiday. No matter what faith tradition you follow, or none, December 25 is an extraordinary day. I propose recognizing that there is something wonderful about humanity, along with all the horrific things we have done and continue to do to one another, to the plants and animals we share the planet with, and to the planet itself. There is no clearer evidence of this than the marshaling of resources and intelligence that has resulted in the existence of White Castle hamburgers.
 

Stephen (Steve) Dixon

I just want to say that this recent experience in remote learning has been intriguing and rich in memory triggers.

Many thanks to those of you who have done work>

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Heri za Kwanzaa! And blessing s on people of all faiths, and of little or none.
 

Dale Gieringer

Phil - Many thanks for posting the recipe for Osgood pie.  I made one yesterday, substituting dried cranberries for raisins, and it turned out scrumptious.  Perfect holiday dessert, like mince meat or pecan pie.  And quite simple to make, provided you do as I do and buy your pie shell ready-made from the store.  As the Greeks say, easy as pi !   .  DG

    (come to think of it, isn't that the next Covid variant after omicron?)   

Gail Weintraub (Stern)

What is Phil's Post # for Osgood Pie?

Bruce Fette

Paul,

I built that same 2 transistor radio in 7th grade.I remember showing it to the shop teacher.

And I am pretty sure I ruined a lot of CK722 transistors in my early years. :)

My kids gifted me a book on the inventors. It includes a chapter on Shockley Brattain, and Bardeen.

The book describes in detail how Brattain and Bardeen fiddled with the point contact transistor until it worked. It was interesting how they finally got it to work.It was very much an experimental approach.

But now I want a sackful of White Castles! Can FedX deliver them while they are still warm?

Philip Spiess

Gail:  My post for Osgood Pie (the Golden Lamb Inn's recipe) is Post #5781, 11-10-21.  And yes, Dale, cranberries would work great in it (and, yes, I tend to use store-bought pie shells for simplicity's sake, although I have some good recipes for homemade pie crust as well).

(Uh, Dale, Pi came at Thanksgiving, just after Omicron hit.  Now Rho will be coming, via the Supreme Court!)