Cheese cooked in meat pan?

Question: If one cooks cheese (Grilled cheese) in a meat pan, does it make the cheese not kosher, and therefore a sin? List sources please.
Comment: How can cheese be a sin?
Comment: @ezra We've had this conversation before. You want to close every question tagged [tag:halacha]. What do you see in this question that indicates it's asking about practical Halacha?
Comment: Questions like this need to be directed towards a qualified rabbi who can give you a definite answer. Voted to close as this question is asking for p'sak halacha.
Comment: @DonielF It's that this question is extremely case specific and it sounds like he's asking based on something that happened to him
Comment: @ezra Most questions here are extremely specific. If they're not they'll get closed as too broad.
Answer: The cheese does become not kosher and it would be a sin according to Torah for a Jew to eat it, IF it falls under scenario #2 below, but not scenario #1 below; as follows:
(We are assuming the OP is talking about an accident. Of course, we do not use meat pans for making grilled cheese.)
The first classic question is if the meat pan was actually used for hot meat within the past 24 hours? Also, was it clean?
1) If it was not used in the past 24 hours, and is currently clean, then the old taste of meat within the surfaces of the pan is called "nosen taam lifgam" or "a spoiled taste". This kind of meat taste cannot cause the grilled cheese to become forbidden. (see Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 103:5)
The pan must be kashered. (S.A. Y.D. 93:1)
R' Yosef Karo (Sefardi custom) says there that meanwhile, the pan may be used for pareve (neither milk nor meat) foods. However, the Rema (94:5) and the Shach (93:3) forbid this by Ashkenazi custom.
2) If the pan was in fact used for cooking meat in the past 24 hours, then both the grilled cheese (absorbing potent meat flavor) and pan are forbidden. The food is thrown out and the pan is kashered. If the pan actually contained real meat residue, then the grilled cheese touching real meat is certainly a problem. This can happen more often with disposable pans.
BTW, I do not remember the source, but if you do not know when you last used the pan then you may assume it was longer ago than 24 hours.
Please use this as a general learning about the Halachic issues. There are many other issues that may come up and new cases might not be comparable. If you have a real question, consult your local Orthodox Rabbi.

Cheese cooked in meat pan?


DLL for convert latex equation to image

Question: I need to convert a latex equation to image format. The better if i can find a DLL  (i found a mention of such possibility here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10137105/delphi-component-or-library-to-display-mathematical-expressions/10140214 but can not find DLL)  that take a latex equation string and return any image format. If it not possible what is a minimum set of files that can do such task, the TeX distributive is large enough, the conversion need only for equations.
Comment: Are you looking for something like [LaTeXIt](https://www.chachatelier.fr/latexit/latexit-features.php) ?
Comment: Only part that convert latex to image format, no other. The better if they will have a smaller size as possible.
Answer: If you're willing to move your equation into a separate file, you can use the tools provided by your TeX distribution and need nothing else.  I assume you're using TeXlive.
First, you need a file containing your equation with no page numbers, e.g.:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\pagestyle{empty}

\begin{document}
\Huge
\begin{equation*}
  a^2+b^2=c^2
\end{equation*}

\end{document}

Run pdflatex on this file (say, temp.tex).
Next, run pdfcrop on the generated temp.pdf getting temp-crop.pdf.
Last, run ghostscript on temp-crop.pdf to generate an image file.  ghostscript is shipped with TeXlive and the binary is called rungs.  A sample invocation can be like this:
rungs -q -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dTextAlphaBits=4 -dGraphicsAlphaBits=4
-sDEVICE=png256 -r600x600 -sOutputFile=temp.png temp-crop.pdf

Check this link for usage options and this one for devices/formats.
Comment: The TeX distribution is very large. I need a simple and rather small solution, like a http://latex2png.com/ but in DLL and in-memory transform without using files.
Answer: There are lighter TeX distributions, and you could probably strip those down further.  Or MikTeX can install packages as required, meaning you could start with a minimum installation.  These would still all use an executable with file I/O rather than calling a function in a DLL, because TeX works in a Unix-style way, where passing through files is the norm. It also was developed for systems with very little memory.
Defining the minimum set of files required isn't simple -- it depends what you need in your equations.  Do you, for example, need blackboard bold numerals, or triangle symbols, and the ability to combine them.  Both of these arbitrary examples would require the ability to add \usepackage to the preamble. You could dump all of the classes except standalone, many of the fonts, TikZ (probably) etc. and save a lot of disk space, but disk space is cheap.

DLL for convert latex equation to image


How does the Alliance work?

Question: So, in Firefly, the Alliance controls all of the planets in the system. But I don't think it is ever explained in much detail how that works. Is it a democracy of some kind, or something else entirely? How does the Alliance govern its people, and how are the leaders of said alliance determined?
Answer: The Alliance is a totalitarian-appearing government, controlled by a Parliament and a concordance of worlds who maintain control over those worlds using a rigid, authoritarian government linked to an oppressive military force. It is the sole government of the Firefly universe, and was the winner in the Unification War against the Browncoats, spoken about regularly during the show.

In Serenity, the movie set in the Firefly universe, it is revealed that the Alliance is run by a branch of the government called the Parliament. --Wikipedia Entry > Alliance (Firefly)

The two main worlds of the Alliance are Londinium and Sihnon. The Alliance supposedly leads a multi-racial, multicultural and multi-religious universe. It has strong overtones of Corpocracy, since advertising and media are pervasive and mostly done by the omnipresent "Blue Sun Corporation."
Answer: In any large bureaucracy, there will be a failure to communicate. At this writing, (11/2013) there is a scandal in the USA about the NSA which apparently, during the GW Bush administration, began recording the phone calls and emails of friendly foreign governments and elected officials. This continued into the Obama administration, without the senior political levels being made aware of the practice. (Perhaps just a case of "don't ask, don't tell").
Never put down to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity, laziness and incompetence.
The Alliance is so-called because it was formed from an alliance of the US democratic government and culture and the Chinese one-party government and authoritarian culture. Even today, large businesses are strong voices in both cultures.
The Alliance was formed originally on Earth-That-Was to coordinate the exodus.
In practice, although the Parliament seems to be an elected body, we have seen that there are slave-holding societies and indentured worker societies (Higgin's Moon) . Some worlds, like Persephone (Shindig) have an aristocracy. For American readers, yes, it is possible to have an aristocracy and still be democratic, for example the United Kingdom and most of Scandanavia are both.
It is possible that not every world allows universal suffrage. It is possible that each world sets its own standards for voters.
It seems likely that the "rigid authoritarian government" and "oppressive military force" may be less thorough in their control than the Browncoats imagine/believe. Again, in Train Job, the medicine for the miners is being sent by the central government. There is no mention that this medicine will only be available to those who can pay for it. And in the same episode, the theft is contracted to Serenity by a criminal who seems to act with impunity -- he even has his own space station (War Stories)-- in spite of the chaos uncontrolled criminality causes in society. A rigid government with an oppressive military force available would be shutting Niska down, well before he gets to such control.
Blue Sun Corporation is a vast and almost monopolistic organization. Again, in any large bureaucracy there are going to be outliers who have their own projects, unnoticed by the central authority. Some will be benign, even useful to the company and the general public, others will be dangerous.
It seems likely from what has been said by Whedon and in the various books and commentaries, that The Academy where River was subject to experiment/torture, was not technically a Government facility but a Blue Sun facility, likely under contract to some part of the Government. In the BDM, the Operative is upset that Dr. Mathias has allowed River, a psychic, in the same room as senior officials with grave and dangerous secrets, so there is definitely a cross-over.
Comment: Interesting answer, do you have any canon references to back this up?

How does the Alliance work?


spark plug problem in service

Question: I took my car in for a routine annual service at a local garage.  During the service, a piece of debris from a broken spark plug fell into the engine. The garage says it was 'just one of those things' that could not be prevented, and I have to pay for the cost of repair (including sending the head away to a specialist). Is this right - ie is it really the case that reasonable care on their part could not have prevented this happening?
Comment: I think it comes down to what it's reasonable to expect. So my question is - should a competent mechanic be able to change a spark plug without getting debris in the combustion chamber, or is it possible that some debris would fall in even though they took all reasonable precautions?
Comment: Thank you, Blacksmith. I believe it was a bit of the ceramic insulation that broke off and fell into the combustion chamber. Surely that should be avoidable?
Comment: What kind of car is it and was the engine run?
Comment: Sounds unusual ;However, I have had 2 platinum center electrodes fall out of 2 Bosch plugs in one engine. Fortunately , as far as I know they did not do any damage.
Comment: It's a Ford Focus 1.6 Titanium.  After looking for the piece of debris, they couldn't find it and thought perhaps it had dropped on the floor and got lost. They road tested the car, and returned it to me.  I drove it about 5 miles and then the engine warning light came on.  The engine was also sounding not right - I guess mis-firing. They now want to strip it down to get deeper in to find the debris, and repair any damage.
Answer: Usually, reputable garages would in these kinds of circumstances pay for the accident. However, reputable garages have a higher labor rate than non-reputable garages, so you get what you pay for. I would first try to negotiate with the garage, then find out about the consumer protection laws in your country if that doesn't help.
About sending the head to a specialist: I don't believe there's any reason to do that if there's no reason to suspect the head is bad. I presume the idea is that if the head is removed from the engine, it's a good opportunity to test if it is good, but considering you didn't require a typical repair of a damaged head gasket, there should be no reason to suspect the head is bad. How much did the specialist service cost, and what percentage it was of the final price? I probably would have omitted this specialist step if all that happened was just a broken piece of spark plug in the engine.
Comment: From a consumer protection point of view, I think it comes down to whether the garage acted to the standard of a competent professional.  Should a competent professional be able to avoid this problem (ie not drop debris into the engine, and then run the engine), or is it simply impossible to ensure that no such debris gets into the combustion chamber even if you take all reasonable care?
Comment: Great comprehensive answer. +1
Comment: Thank you, that's helpful. They are a small, but well regarded local garage. It's interesting that you say that the head repair is not necessary. I've no reason to believe it was not 100% fine when it came into their hands!
Answer: Not an answer per se; but in similar situations I've had great luck putting the contaminated cylinder to BDC by hand, filling up the cylinder with foamy shaving cream, and then adapting a shop vac nozzle to fit over the spark plug hole.
Somebody holds the shop vac in place while somebody else cranks the cylinder back to TDC slowly by hand - mindful of any binding.
I have a borescope to inspect the success, but if you didn't you can sift through the vacuum canister to verify the offending contamination was removed.
My "answer" would consist of no, that's perfectly avoidable by any competent mechanic.  And certainly should have been rectified at no cost to the customer.  A proper spark plug socket would not let any insulator pieces fall out past the socket and into the cylinder.
Comment: Thanks guys.  I'm afraid my unfamiliarity with this site means that I have probably not used it properly; but thank you all for your help. @juhist
Comment: Some Mustangs came with only ceramic connecting the treaded portion to the hex portion.  These tended to break leaving the threaded portion in the plug bore.  There are workarounds for this.

spark plug problem in service


How to scale entire document including Maths symbols?

Question: I'm trying to make a cheat-sheet for my Math class. I wonder is there a way to scale the entire document so that I can fit more formulas and theorems into it. It doesn't need to be super tiny though. I tried tiny font, but it still waste too much space. Have anyone done it before could share me some experiences? Thanks in advance.
Comment: Is your document just one page? Have you tried using the `geometry` package to resize the page dimensions? Could `\resizebox` from the `\graphicx` package be appropriate?
Comment: Thanks. Haven't tried out those things you have mentioned. I would say it's more than 3 pages in length, but I want to fit all of them into one page. There are many many formulas.
Answer: The best way to create some space in your document is to use a combination of geometry (for setting/removing margin dimensions) and some standard documentclass font settings:
\documentclass[10pt]{article}% default is 10pt font

However, in terms of creating a cheat-sheet that should condense a number of pages on (say) a two-sided single piece of stock, I would suggest creating a document as per usual and then creating a second document that includes the pages of the first in "n-up" style, depending on your page count. Let me explain...
Consider your original straight-forward document that has a bunch of content in it, including formulas and nifty how-to's:
cheat-material.tex
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[margin=1cm]{geometry}% http://ctan.org/pkg/geometry
\usepackage{blindtext}% http://ctan.org/pkg/blindtext
\usepackage[english]{babel}% http://ctan.org/pkg/babel
\begin{document}
\Blinddocument% Creates a 8-page document in the current style
\end{document}

The above is just a mock-up of your document using the blindtext package. It creates 8 pages of wholesome cheat-sheet material.
Now I create my second document using the pdfpages package to insert output of cheat-material.tex in n-up style (I chose 4-up, since 8 is divisible by 4):
cheat-sheet.tex
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pdfpages}% http://ctan.org/pkg/pdfpages
\begin{document}
\includepdf[nup=4,pages=-,frame]{cheat-material}
\end{document}

pages=- includes all pages of cheat-material.pdf, and frame adds a page border around each included page.

This way you're not bound as much by trying to modify things - you're merely creating a document (cheat-material) and squeezing it as needed into a specific shape (cheat-sheet). This is especially helpful if you have multiple pages that you want to condense, as seems to be the case for you.


How do 'forget gates' know not to remove essential information from the Cell State in an LSTM?

Question: This isn't completely clear to me. Say you have a massive passage that you want your LSTM to learn off of, how is it making sure it doesnt remove details from the first paragraph?
Answer: I believe this paper will be of help. It explains the backpropagation algorithm.
Also note that for LSTM's that process passages, multiple LSTM blocks are used in a sequential and parallel manner. And additionally, neural networks are black boxes: we don't know how the work internally, and they make up which details are important themselves.


Can I drill smaller holes in granite?

Question: Can I drill smaller holes in granite? I want to install aluminum shelves on a vertical backsplash behind the stove. I will need to drill 7 holes for screws and or mollies. If I can ascertain the studs I can use screws.  Would there be an advantage of drilling a smaller hole in granite say 1/8" to 1/4"?  Meaning less stress and risk of fracture?  Could I use carbide or do I need diamond tip?  I do have scrap to practice on.
Answer: For best results, when it comes to drilling into stone, always use diamond drill bits. Don't let the term diamond scare you away from buying one. They're readily available from such vendors as Amazon for much less than you might think, a 5 piece 5/32" – ½" is $8 there. As another user here posted, DO NOT use the hammer drill setting on your drill. Easy does it, with a water spray bottle if you can't continuously run water at the drill site. As for mollys, I think you'll get the best results using something like a Powers mini dropin internally threaded expansion anchor. They take a machine thread screw that you can cut to whatever length you might need.
Comment: What drill speed is suitable for granite, slow, fast, or somewhere in between?
Answer: Carbide works well on granite.
It's best if you can provide cooling by drilling under water.
If you're stuck with vertical tiles, frequent squirting might keep the drill bit and granite reasonably cool.
Answer: depending on the weight loaded on the shelves and the thickness of the granite, drilling through the granite (and attaching the brackets or standards to wall framing)  would produce the most stable and sturdy shelves. The wall anchors would work also, but using the wall framing is more reliable. Drill using a carbide bit slightly larger than the screw diameter. Carbide tipped bits last longer than masonry bits, but cost more. If there are many holes use carbide (they will also drill faster if the drill has an impact or hammer selection switch). If you find the bit spinning off the mark use a nail set (or masonry nail) to gently and softly tap a starting dimple for the bit. Drill at low/ slow RPM's to prolong carbide life. Heat will dull drill point. Spritz with aqua if needed. Retract bit occasionally when drilling to remove granite dust to facilitate drill speed. I'd just be sure that when you are tightening the shelves to the wall that you don't over torque the screws. If the granite is not supported  (because the wall is bowed)  or against the wall, it might crack from over driving the screw.
Answer: Diamond tip is the only way to go and yes you need to spray it with water while you drill it whatever you do do not use the hammer or impact function on your driver just let it nice and gently turn its way into the material you can run painters tape criss cross across the whole you're getting ready to drill sometimes that will prevent chipping on the surface. Going into studs is definitely your best bet there is a new type of toggle bolt now that goes in with a long plastic insert and then they break off and you can use them at different depths depending on how thick your granite is they are about a dollar a piece you can get boxes of 30 of them at Lowes I used them recently to put handicap rails up on some old thick ceramic tile they work wonderful and they can hold plenty of weight I have to agree with the one answer that says do not over tighten your fasteners but I definitely would go with the diamond bit and once again above all do not use the hammer function on your drill.

Can I drill smaller holes in granite?


Why is there complementary base pairing for DNA?

Question: Why is there complementary base pairing for DNA? Why can't A pair with C given that they can all form hydrogen bond?
Comment: When you say that "A pair with C" can you please provide a diagram to show what you mean and how you envision they would fit together?
Answer: It's to do with the physical space the base molecules occupy. There are 2 classes of molecules in DNA bases, purines and pyramidines.  One of each always pair together as there will be a total of 3 ring moieties present.
E.g., Adenine (a purine) pairs with Thymine (a pyrimidine).

If you were to pair 2 pyrimidenes together, you would induce a kink in the DNA backbone and destabilise it.
That said, there is no chemical reason 2 purines or 2 pyrimidines can't hydrogen bond, and they do. This causes mismatches and DNA mismatch repair enzymes recognise the torsion it induces in the DNA backbone and they replace the mismatched base in the proofreading process. If the enzymes miss one mispairing, which can happen as it occurrs often (but the enzymes are very effective), then you end up with a mutation.
Comment: When you say that two purines can hydrogen bond to form an anti parallel double helix, or alternatively two pyrimidines can hydrogen bond to form an anti parallel double helix, can you draw or describe how you envision the H-bond donors and a H-bond acceptors would align with each other?
Comment: I don't have/can't find a good diagram of this from a quick look. Maybe someone else will find one. It is structurally less stable, so the bonds are likely semi-transient, switching between single, double, and triple bonds depending on molecular vibrations and so on. They all contain O, N and H groups with varying electronegativity though so the most proximal of those are likely to interact. I'm afraid I don't have a very good answer for you though.


Taking a break close to lunch time

Question: Company policy allows employees to take a 15 minute break during each half of their shift. The policy also states that this break cannot be taken in conjunction with your lunch (to essentially extend your lunch period). Would it be considered appropriate to take the break 30 minutes before lunch or is that too close? In this situation the employee will typically run and grab their lunch from a local food establishment so they have food for their actual lunch period.
Comment: Could go either way, ask your manager.
Comment: Generally you are expected to stay on site for your 15 minute breaks.
Comment: 15 minutes is not a lot of time to grab a lunch and come back unless the food establishment is really close to your workplace.
Answer: In my opinion (and were I your manager) I would see what you described as being in conjunction with your lunch.  You are in fact extending your lunch period, you're just not doing it contiguously. Moreover, your break would be taken for the express purpose of getting your lunch.
Also as a manager, that would leave a bad taste in my mouth about the person doing it because it's clearly trying to get around the intent of the policy (which is that you take a break apart from lunch) on a technicality.
But yes, you need to talk to a manager of yours or HR. We can only speculate.
Comment: I don't really see how it'd be wrong.  Unless there is a stipulation as to how your break can be taken, as to whether you can go off site, etc.  How would it be any different if you did this, or took it 2 hours before lunch, and went and grabbed something and put it in the fridge for lunch?  Unless it's in your employee handbook, you can do what you will with your break.
Comment: That's why mentioned getting around intent with a technicality. Also, most employee handbooks having wording that permits the company to make policies in addition to what's in the handbook. It's always better to work with intent. You don't want to give the impression as someone who tries to find loopholes rather than continuing what was intended. Were I the manager and someone did that, I'd say "Fine, have it your way" and put in writing a detailed policy saying when and where you can have your breaks to prevent future issues in that regard.
Comment: This reminds me of a former co-worker who asked if she could leave early if she only took a half hour instead of an hour for lunch and then she left to go get lunch for her half hour lunch, but ate it at her desk without working during what was really her work time (and took an hour at it) and then left early. She didn't last too long when people caught on.

Taking a break close to lunch time


Using 交番 as a する-verb

Question: 交番{こうばん}, meaning "police box," is listed as both a noun and a する-verb in JMdictDB. I'm curious as to what「交番する」would mean. Literal translation doesn't make any sense to me, and I can't find any example sentences with this usage. Is it something along the lines of "to police"? Or does it have another meaning?
Comment: I believe that is saying that the table generates a word + する conjugation for any word that is marked as a する-verb. The marking as a する-verb is not, I believe, done automatically.
Comment: [*] This table has been automatically generated. It should not be assumed that any single conjugation is as frequently used or as natural as any other, or is used at all.
Comment: Googling 交番する doesn't show any results that are useful....
Answer: デジタル大辞泉, a monolingual dictionary, also says 交番 can be used as a suru-verb:

こう‐ばん〔カウ‐〕【交番】
  [名](スル)
  1 交替で番に当たること。また、役割・位置などが入れ替わること。「世代―」

But when you click the 例文 tab, you can see there is no real example of 交番する in the list, so it must be (and have been) rare.
Personally, I haven't heard or seen 交番する, either. But I found 憲兵条例 which took effect in 1881 uses 交番する like this:

第6条 憲兵の常務を分つて二種とす 昼夜交番して非違を視察するを巡察とし臨時に探偵逮捕する為めに派遣するを検察とす

And apparently this 交番する means the same as 交替する. This more or less aligns with the usage of 交番する in physics, where it means "(for an electric current, magnetic field, etc) to switch direction periodically":

電磁調理器では、インバータにより商用電力から変換して得た数十kHzの交流電流を、電磁調理器の天板の内部に近接して配置されたコイル(通常は視認できない)に流し、その電流と同じ周波数で交番する磁束を生成する。 (from 電磁調理器 on Wikipedia)
Comment: Interestingly, JMdictDB doesn't list 交番 as being able to be used as a する-verb with the meaning of "alternating", but only with the meaning of "police box". Your monolingual dictionary doesn't seem to attach parts of speech to each meaning, though, only to the word itself. It's possible that the する-verb annotation was simply mistakenly applied to the wrong meaning.
Comment: @WillKunkel I agree, 交番する seems to be an almost obsolete verb meaning 交替で番をする, not something like "work in a police box".
Answer: According to wikipedia:
The name kōban derives from the name of the earliest structure built in 1874, which were indeed simple boxes meant for standing watch (立番 tachiban) in rotation (交替 kōtai), thus creating a compound word consisting of kō (交) and ban (番).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dban
So the first kōbans were very similar to the British Royal guards, where the policeman had to stay standing for several hours and then be replaced by another policeman.
The policemen would "rotate shifts", which is what 交番 literally means.
https://kathrynwarmstrong.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/changing-of-the-guard.jpg

Using 交番 as a する-verb


What exactly are "clipped" wings?

Question: What exactly does "clipped wing" mean? Been having a rather heated debate. My understanding is that clipped means the tips were removed after manufacture. The other party claims that if it was designed squared off and built that way, it is called clipped.
Comment: I have only ever seen the term used with wings that were shortened after manufacture.
Answer: As far as I can find you may both be correct. The term originally was used to describe a stock aircraft having it's wings shortened after-market.
Here is a reproduction of the December, 1970 issue of SPORT AVIATION Magazine article comparing stock vs clipped
http://home.xcountry.tv/~dann/id72.htm
This modification has become well known and the clipped wing design sought after that there are planes (at least kits) being manufactured with "clipped" wings.
http://www.monocoupe.com/
It appears that whether is was done 'aftermarket' or manufactured that way, clipped wings are those that have been shortened from original design to improve aerobatic capabilities.
Hopefully that will give you some more points to debate over!
~Hoff
Answer: The term clipped wings can mean many things. As @Fodder Hoff said, sometimes aircraft have their wings clipped after manufacture, but sometimes variants of certain aircraft are manufactured with clipped wings. A common example of this is the supermarine spitfire. The first Spitfire models had beautiful elliptical wings that were not clipped. Then, starting with the Spitfire Mk.V (Mark 5), some had their wings clipped to increase the roll rate and low altitude performance of the fighter. This was done because the Focke-Wulf-190 outperformed the Spitfire in those two aspects.
Answer: The term "clipped" far pre-dates 1970 and generally--as in the Spitfire context-- means a design modification that created a wingspan shorter than the original design.  It generally does not mean that someone came along with a chainsaw and shortened the wings after the aircraft was already built-- although in the context of modern civil aviation, occasionally that is exactly what it means.

What exactly are "clipped" wings?


Uploading to Someone Else's Google Drive

Question: I have a huge chunk of data on my hard disk which I'd like to give away to someone else. Unlike me, this other guy has a lot of available storage space on his Google Drive. Thus, uploading the data to my Google Drive and then sharing it with him is impossible (and isn't either really my objective: I want to give it to him not share with him). Is there a way for me to upload the data directly to his Google Drive other than by signing in to his account?
Comment: @Isaac - 25 GB?!? How long are you willing to wait to upload this? How long is he willing to wait to download it?  It would probably be faster to just mail the guy a 32 GB microSD card, or, even better, walk it over to him...
Comment: I know of no way to upload data to a Google Drive unless you actually signed into the Google account in question.  You should just purchase additional space and/or open an additional Google account.
Comment: @Isaac: How much data are we talking about (ballpark)?
Comment: @AlEverett: about 25 GB
Answer: Yes, it is very possible. Here is how:

Have the person create a collection just for the data you want to give him.
Have him share that collection with you (make sure he gives you edit permissions).
Open the Google Drive web interface and drag the collection from "Shared with me" to "My Drive"
Get the Google Drive desktop app (if you don't have it already, click on "Download Google Drive" in the web interface)
While setting up Google Drive, used the Advanced options to choose which collections to sync.
Choose the collection (currently empty) that was created in step 1
Copy the files you want to upload into that collection (folder) on your hard drive. It will then sync the files to their Google Drive folder.
When you are finished, just stop syncing the Collection and/or he can un-share the collection with you.

It may look complicated, but it's actually much simpler than you might think. I use this for shipping very large amounts of data around. The fact Google Drive has a maximum file size of 10Gb helps too.
Comment: Did not work. I tried your advice but the message says that I have "insufficient storage." Instead of uploading to his/her drive, I ended up mine instead!\
Comment: This no longer seems to work unfortuntely, I tried this exact method and it used my storage, possibly as well as theirs
Answer: There is EntourageBox, which allows you to upload directly to someone's cloud storage, including Google Drive.
Ask him to visit entouragebox.com and create a share URL for his Google Drive. Then visit the URL and upload your files to his Google Drive.
Comment: EntourageBox seems to have disappeared now.
Answer: With that much data to transfer I can see why it will not all fit into a default sized Google Drive. All I can say is you either need to sign into your friends account or consider an alternative.
ADrive offers free 14-day trials for 50GB and up, so you can sign up for one of these and use the free trial instead of your friends Google Drive. I cannot, however, grantee that you are under no obligation from the trials, because I have not tried one. Be sure to read the agreement.
If all else fails you could get a flash drive and send it snail-mail.
Answer: We created the https://driveuploader.com/ exactly for this purpose.
The person can create an upload page. Anybody who knows the link to this page can just drag&drop very large files (hundreds of gigabytes) to his Google Drive account (if he has there enough free space).
The people who are uploading don't even need a Google account - just a web browser.
See this video:

The service is available completely for free - and it supports the unlimited size of the files. There are advertisements on the uploading page.
You can use the DriveUploader.com for business (with your company branding, embedding in websites to receive data from your customers, or integration with products or workflow with APIs and webhooks) which is then paid.


Gauge pressure vs. absolute pressure?

Question: What are the key differences between Gauge pressure and absolute pressure?
Are there any other forms of pressure?
Answer: just wiki it. Anyways I will give you a oneliner from wiki itself-

Absolute pressure is zero-referenced against a perfect vacuum, so it is equal to gauge pressure plus atmospheric pressure.
Gauge pressure is zero-referenced against ambient air pressure, so it is equal to absolute pressure minus atmospheric pressure. Negative signs are usually omitted.
Differential pressure is the difference in pressure between two points.
Comment: negative gauge pressure (w/o the sign) is called vacuum pressure.
Answer: It's just a matter of defining your 'zero point'.
In a real, actual gauge, pressure is measured relative to the atmospheric pressure. If  there was 1 atmosphere of pressure inside a container (so it's the same pressure inside the container as it is outside it), the gauge will not read 1 atm, but rather 0 atm, as the pressure inside the container would just be the same as the pressure outside. Relative to the outside world there would be no pressure in the container. This is gauge pressure.
Absolute pressure is technically what we think of when we say pressure - the force that the gas is applying per unit area of the container.
If the gas is applying 101,300 Newtons per square meter, then the absolute pressure would be 101.3 kPa. On the other hand, the gauge pressure would be 0 kPa, as 101.3 kPa also happens to be the pressure of the atmosphere outside the container.
Answer: Assuming you are in air at sea level and you have an open container the pressure inside and outside will be the same - so a pressure gauge will read zero. That's gauge pressure PSIG
But there is 1 atmosphere of pressure inside the container - so 1atm of absolute pressure.
Now pump the air out of the container to give a vacuum, you have zero absolute pressure and -1 atmosphere of gauge pressure. Although negative gauge pressures are rarely used as they are confusing
Answer: absolute pressure= pressure thats actually inside the vessel on which a gauge is fitted.
gauge pressure= pressure shown by gauge which will be <<1 atm>> lesser than actual pressure as atmosphere exerts 1 atm pressure on the gauge.
vacuum pressure= pressure less than atmospheric pressure.
Answer: Pressure above atmospheric pressure is gauge pressure.  If atmospheric pressure is 1 then gauge pressure will be 0. Vacuum pressure is pressure less than 1 atm.  absolute pressure=gauge pressure+atmospheric pressure while pressure absolute=atmospheric-vacuum pressure.
Comment: This answer can be improved a lot by using proper interpunction and spelling for better readibility. Also, I think there is not a lot different with the accepted answer?

Gauge pressure vs. absolute pressure?


Which of the previous Star Wars films does one need to watch before Rogue One?

Question: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story takes place between the original and prequel trilogies and looks like it has some old and new characters in it. But which  films are necessary to watch before seeing Rogue One to fully understand the film and all of the characters in it?
Comment: How do you define "Need"? You can probably get away with watching Rogue One without ever seeing a single Lucas film, although you probably wouldn't get nearly as much enjoyment out of it without ANH
Comment: @DVK edited a bit
Comment: Hm. Still a bit subjective but I'll try to answer.
Comment: Rogue One comes after episode 3 & episode 4. I suggest to watch episode 1, 2 & 3 then Rogue One & then episode 4, 5 & 6
Comment: @anvesh.veerelli Ah! I asked you to elaborate it, not post it as comment.
Comment: @DVK particularly with Rogue One the word "need" is neccesary, I truly beleive there is no way that it can be more enjoyable without Episode IV context. If it is a great movie standing alone, it is way better with the context. So the answer would be, yes it's preferable too have some context before. The minimun context neccesary in my opinion is watching Just Episode IV.
Answer: Technically speaking, you don't need to watch any.
The setting is of course heavily related to the Original Trilogy and the Prequel Trilogy, especially A New Hope, but as a story it's self-contained and can be almost fully understood without knowing details of either of the Lucas films, even Episode IV.
Yes, A New Hope introduces some characters (as does Revenge of the Sith), but Rogue One fully explores their motivations, and as such, doesn't require them to be watched first.
This is especially true if you know the culturally bare minimum about Episode IV (e.g. who Darth Vader is, and what Empire is, what is a Rebellion and what is Death Star).

Of course, you would get much more enjoyment out of Rogue One if you have seen A New Hope (and my recommendation is to actually do a series of A New Hope=>Rogue One=>A New Hope rewatch for most enjoyment). While not required, A New Hope introduces the larger setting in detail (Empire, Rebellion, Death Star, Mon Calamari) and characters (Mon Mothma, Vader, and to an extent, Grand Moff Tarkin. I don't really count Leia as a character per se as there isn't much role for her in Rogue One; nor do I count assorted useless Easter Eggs like Pondo Baba).
Revenge of the Sith introduces some of the characters (Mon Mothma, Bail Organa) but frankly, just doesn't offer all that much useful information to make it even remotely required as prerequisite.

As a side note, as per twitter answer Pablo Hidalgo of Lucasfilm Story Group, the most critical scene from A New Hope to watch before Rogue One is the 2-minute scene where Vader, Tarkin and Imperial brass are discussing how Death Star fits into imperial geopolitics (and Vader commits workplace harrassment).

A separate consideration is spoilers.

Rogue One does not, in my opinion, spoil A New Hope at all, and thus can be watched before it.
On the other hand, being an immediate prequel, Rogue One's ending is, of course, 100% spoiled by A New Hope :(
SPOILER ALERT:

 They successfully get the plans away and to Yavin, and destroy the Death Star.
Comment: Great answer. This is however a question that is of interest for people new  to the Star Wars universe; abbreviations like OT or ROTS are then not a good idea.
Comment: Yeah, but in what film ever would they *not* have succeeded in their endeavour of getting those plans out? I hope the good forces will win and they get those evil Death Star plans. Yeah well, it's a Hollywood blockbuster, they won't. And even when knowing *A New Hope* the actual fate of the crew in *Rogue One* is still quite surprising.
Comment: @Taladris - you can earn 2 rep points by [editing](http://movies.stackexchange.com/posts/65222/edit) proper terms in ;-)
Answer: Rogue One is a very interesting movie, but if you've already seen A New Hope, and you're watching Rogue One to find out how it ends, you're wasting your time. We all know that they

 Get the plans and blow up the death star, only to have another built and thus destroying that one also, saving the galaxy, the end.

If you are a Star Wars nerd, you know the big-picture ending, but it's still nice to see what happens to the new characters in Rogue One. Needless to say,

 They all die. No "happily ever after" here. Move along white suburban families.

If you've never watched a Star Wars movie before and you are trying this out, I would suggest watching Rogue One before you watch A New Hope. So, for newbies, go 1,2,3,Rogue One,4,5,6,7. (1-3 are optional, for reasons that will become blatantly obvious if you try to watch them. Warning: Consume at your own risk.)
1-3 are just the long way of explaining who and how Darth Vader Became who he is, through methods of terrible late 90's, early 2000's low-budget CGI and all-star acting. Either way, I love these movies, freaking watch them.
Comment: Downvote for a terrible recommendation of Star Wars watching order for somebody who's never seen any of it. Definitely see 4 and 5 before the prequels. Personally I would say 4 before Rogue One, but that's more subjective
Answer: Rogue One I'd say stands on its own and doesn't require prior viewing of other movies in the saga to understand it.  Ep. I-III would provide the backstory for The Force, Darth Vader, and how the Empire came into power, but I wouldn't say it's strictly necessary to have seen them first.  For someone who has seen neither Rogue One nor A New Hope, I would recommend the viewing order as Rogue One first then A New Hope as this follows the correct timeline of events.  The start of A New Hope picks up seamlessly where Rogue One ends.


What is the proper convention for writing onomatopoeia?

Question: Say I'm attempting to write a sound, as in 'poof', 'thud', or 'clank'. What's the correct convention to write something like this?
Is there one, or is it a grey area as long as it's clear to the reader?
Answer: I think there's a slight difference between your title and your question. Onomatopoeia refers to actual words: clank and thud are both in the dictionary, and there is no reason to write them differently because of their origin. Sounds that are not [yet] words are usually put in quotation marks if made by a person ("Aaagh!") or italicised if not ('The snow made a soft plomp as it fell').
Bear in mind that "The cat meowed", "The cat said "Miaou"" and The cat made a meow of agreement" all refer to the same action, but with different emphasis.
Answer: You might consider looking in the dictionary first:

poof 1 |po͞of, po͝of|(also pouf )
exclam.
  1 used to convey the suddenness with which someone or something disappears: once you've used it, poof—it's gone.
  2 used to express contemptuous dismissal: "Oh, poof!" said Will. "You say that every year."
thud |THəd|
noun
  a dull, heavy sound, such as that made by an object falling to the ground: Jean heard the thud of the closing door.
clank |klaNGk|
noun
  a loud, sharp sound or series of sounds, typically made by pieces of metal meeting or being struck together: the groan and clank of a winch.

If you don't find it, you can just make something up. But include some context, or you risk not being understood:

She dropped into the chair with a plooomp.

If we hadn't been told what was happening here, we might not be able to determine what the ploomp sound signified.
Comment: The one thing you neglected was when it is a sound made by a person without context. As in this example.

(bump)
"Hey watch it, buddy!"
Answer: Grammatically, onomatopoeias are verbs, nouns, or interjections:

The cat meowed.
  It landed with a dull "thud."
Tic-tic-pomp! The man's fingers fell on the wet pavement with a shower of blood.

Typographically, onomatopoeias present the same choices as thoughts: Set them normally, quoted, or italicized. Style guides recommend using one style consistently, whichever you choose. But set verb onomatopoeias as normal text, especially if they're common words.
EDIT: Notwithstanding the source, it's good practice to set all onomatopoeias as normal text – it maintains consistency between verb and other onomatopoeias, and doesn't require you to make a clear distinction between onomatopoeias and other words.
Comment: The thud-quoting example is wrong, @rdhs
Comment: I think you'd soon get in a *lot* of trouble if you opted for *quoting* all onomatopoeic words, and tried to apply this consistently. Nearly everyone agrees *beep, moo,* and *cuckoo* are onomatopoeic, but what about *chatter, fizz,* and *snort*? Special typography for *thud* is fine when writing *about the word*, or maybe in a particularly florid prose style. But not for normal writing.
Answer: Sneeze and drip are both onomatopoeia, so my approach would be to treat poof, thud, and clunk as you would any other word, as long as the context is clear through punctuation, typography and context.


Back sweeten Wine Question

Question: I am an avid brewer but have just finished fermenting my 1st muscadine wine. It has been fermenting for 6 months and has been racked once. Even though it's really clear I just added sparkaloid along with campden and potassium sorbate. I am planning to bottle within 2 weeks. Will the sparkaloid affect the campden and potassium sorbate? I added them to deactivate the yeast for back sweetening. I am hoping it won't cause the two to precipitate out.
Comment: The use of "Back sweeten" is a nonsensical term that you will never find in a brewing or winemaking textbook. Just say you want to sweeten or add sweetness.
Answer: Sparkaloid, acording to the SDS, is composed of, "natural diatomaceous earth - amorphous silica (CAS number 1344-95-2) , alginates". None of these really interact with sodium metabisulphite or potossium sorbate. There is some potential reaction between sodium bisulfite and alginates (but requiring presence of nitrites). Bisulfites can react with aldehydes in the wine and form a precipitate but the amount would not be very noticeable.  As both campden tablets and sorbates are reasonably soluble in water/wine and are only present in small quantities there would seem to be little chance of them precipitating because of the Sparkaloid addition.
One might wonder why, if the wine was really clear, Sparkaloid was used.
Comment: I  disagree with farmersteve on this point. Bottle bombs are always a possibility but are not at all probable if bisulphite and sorbate are used to inactivate the yeast.
Comment: Used it because I had some that is the only reason.
Comment: Just make sure you store your wine somewhere like a garage because it will turn into grenades on you and they will explode unless you drink them right away.
Answer: The only way to truly "deactivate" the yeast is to sterile filter the wine to .45u (microns). That's right about 1/2 of a Micron. Otherwise, you will likely end up with a sparkling wine or a grenade that will explode when it gets warm outside. You can kill yeast using Mutage (a french word) by adding enough alcohol or heating up the wine to kill the yeast. Either is not preferable.
Comment: From everything I read using both Campden and potassium sorbate together will halt further fermentation. Have you had a batch kick back off after using both of these? Doesn't seem to be a problem for most.
Comment: I'll just say that professional winemakers hate using sorbate. It changes the flavor substantially. Plus if you don't get the dosages just right all it takes is one viable yeast cell to kick off. Then there is also the problem of bacteria, which sorbate does nothing against. MLF could kick off in the bottle, producing a fair amount of CO2 and changing the flavors substantially. Then sorbate only works for so long before it breaks down and no longer is effective. So drink up quickly!
Comment: I found this good article on the subject. I never used sorbate in 20 years of winemaking. http://winemakersacademy.com/potassium-sorbate-wine-making/

Back sweeten Wine Question


How to mark a new message/new notification as `unread`?

Question: I want to mark some of my chat messages and/or notifications as unread after I read it?
Answer: Marking messages as unread after reading them
Go to your inbox, click on a message, click on "Actions" and then "Mark as unread"

Marking friend notifications as unread
There is no direct way to do this but until you have responded to a friend request (either accepted or declined), a count will be shown (like in the image below):

Marking notifications as unread
Again, I don't see a direct way of doing this. One work around would be to go to Settings > Notification Settings and turn on email notifications. You can mark the email as unread until you wish to do so!

Hope this helps!


First use of the term "warp" to denote travel/speed?

Question: I have just watched Space Battleship Yamato (2010) and they used the term "warp" to denote a type of drive. I think Star Trek is the obvious place where this term was first used to describe faster than light travel, is it where it originated?
Comment: @DavRob60. Nicely edited you can tell English ain't my strong pint!
Comment: @NominSim The term was in wide use long before Alcubierre showed that there was a solution to GR that might work that way... I mean seriously, Star Trek (the original series) dates from the 1960s.
Comment: Are you talking about [Space Battleship Yamato (2010 film)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Battleship_Yamato_%282010_film%29) or the [anime series](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Battleship_Yamato)?
Comment: The question is too broad, so its off-topic..
Comment: @DavRob60 sorry,I meant the 2010 movie. I am curious as to wether the term was used prior to the STAR TREK series.
Comment: Just a side note, it's also a nautical term. [Here](https://books.google.com/books?id=GuE5CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA139&lpg=PA139&dq=warping+a+ship+onto+a+beach&source=bl&ots=JlQpkxd_jd&sig=ICTofO-ykWhsCcWOuKH62uJVvMw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj0pu3Hq5TLAhUDHh4KHUM4BpkQ6AEIIzAC#v=onepage&q=warping%20a%20ship%20onto%20a%20beach&f=false) is a example: "...using the ship's cables to 'warp' or pull the ship along. ... hauling the ship onto a beach..."
Answer: I found a reference to an "an interstellar space-warp drive" in Future science fiction: Volume 1, Issue 1, edited by Robert W. Lowndes. That was in was either "Nobody Saw the Ship" by Murray Leinster (my guess) or "The Miniature Menace" by Frank Belknap Long. The publication date was May 1950.
Per aneroid's suggestion, I had first done a Google ngrams search to get to this point. If there's an earlier reference to "warp drive" or "Warp drive" (entirely possible), then it hasn't yet been scanned by Google books.
Edit to add: For a more famous story, check out this excerpt from "I, Robot" (by Asimov), also published in 1950:

"You get it, chief?" The general manager was wildly jubilant. "You get
  it? There isn't any industrial research group of any size that isn't
  trying to develop a space-warp engine, and Consolidate and U.S. Robots
  have the lead on the field with our super robot-brains." (p. 145)

(This one was found by searching for "space warp" instead of "warp drive".)
Further edit to add: Clearly the phrase "space warp" was already in use by 1947, Google ngrams notwithstanding, as these notes from a symposium suggest:

The term "space warp" does not mean anything without elaborate
  explanation.

For an earlier use of FTL travel that does not use the word warp, there's Gray Lensman, written in 1939 by E. E. Smith. He refers to a "5th order drive" that can "voyage anywhere in the universe at millions of times the speed of light."
Edited to add: With thanks to @user14111 for pointing it out in the comments, there's an even earlier reference (written between 1915 and 1921) to FTL travel, The Skylark of Space, in which E. E. Smith writes:

Hurtled onward by the inconceivable power of the unleashed copper
  demon in its center, the Skylark flew through the infinite reaches of
  interstellar space with an unthinkable, almost incalculable
  velocity—beside which the velocity of light was as that of a snail to
  that of a rifle bullet; a velocity augmented every second by a
  quantity almost double that of light itself.

I haven't read the whole story yet, but it's not clear to me if E. E. Smith was aware of Einstein's special or general theories of relativity.
Comment: Doc Smith was aware of relativity, but chose to ignore it for Skylark, and handwaved about intertialess drives in Lensman. He never wrote about a space warp drive that I'm aware of, though.
Comment: @user14111: I think the information displayed to me at the time differs from what you're seeing now. I did not realize that Leinster's story had been reprinted, so you're probably right. It would also be interesting to see if the 1945 instance holds up.
Comment: Evin in the works of Edward Elmer Smith, FTL travel goes back to [*The Skylark of Space*](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?112880) published in 1928, long before *Gray Lensman*. But Smith was not the first author to send spaceships flying faster than light.
Comment: "warp-drive" appears in Amazing Adventures, Volume 2, Monsters of Living Flame from 1951. "This ship works by warp-drive. It warps space, so that it can travel even faster than light!"
Comment: Technically the "5th order drive" appeared in E. E. "Doc" Smith's novel [Skylark Three](https://goo.gl/UWnCgC) (1930), not Gray Lensman. All the Lensman novels used the "inertialess drive".
Comment: The Skylark and Lensmen novels did not use warping of space to achieve FTL.  Skylark ignored the speed of light limit and Lensmen bypassed it by neutralizing inertia.  This answer therefore does not properly address the question of warp drives.
Comment: @Corey — I did make a point in my answer to differentiate the 1950 stories that did mention warp from the earlier ones that did not.
Answer: warp drive (n.) 1948
As far as the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction knows, the earliest citation for "warp drive" is in the 1948 novella "Flight of the Starling" by Chester S. Geier in Amazing Stories, January 1948, available at the Internet Archive. Quoting from p. 10, col. 2:

The atomic engines of ordinary space vessels attained only a small fraction of the inconceivable velocity which Alward claimed for the warp-drive of the Starling.

warp (v.) 1946
According to the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction, the earliest known use of "warp" as a verb meaning "to travel through space by way of a space warp" is in the short story "Placet is a Crazy Place" by Fredric Brown in Astounding Science Fiction, May 1946, available at the Internet Archive. Quoting from p. 129, col. 1

Tomorrow the Ark would leave Earth, with the shipment of conditioner that would solve one of our problems—and with whomever Earth Center was sending to take my place. It would warp through space to a point a safe distance outside the Argyle I-II system and come in on rocket power from there. It would be here Friday, and I'd go back with it. But I tried not to think about that.

space-warp generator (n.) 1944
Among the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction's citations for "space warp" I found this one from the novelette "Circle of Confusion" by George O. Smith (as "Wesley Long") in Astounding Science Fiction, March 1944, available at the Internet Archive. Quoting from p. 53, col. 2:

The alphatron is still in fine shape, and the space-warp generator can still do a job.

warp (v.) 1938
The word "warp" is used in reference to space travel in the 1938 novelette "Men Against the Stars" by Manly Wade Wellman, first published in Astounding Science-Fiction, June 1938, available at the Internet Archive. Quoting from p. 8, col. 2:

"Sixty ships, Tallentyre. Sixty of 'em—and two hundred and forty-two men started from Earth. Fifty-six ships, and two hundred and twenty-two men reached Luna Port. Eighteen men lost on that little hop. Four ships blew their tubes—and that bloody six-man experiment first of all.
"But fifty-six ships landed, and we warped 'em off to Mars. And how many of those fifty-six got through?" His grating scream roared in the cubbyhole office and pounded through its flimsy metal door. Tallentyre's eyes moved toward the door.
DeWitt's roar dropped to a whisper as the man leaned abruptly forward, close to Tallentyre's moveless, sun-blackened face. "Four. Four got to Mars, my friend. The rest were pretty, red firecrackers in space."

Unfortunately, I don't think this is the kind of "warp" we're looking for. Wellman's spaceships did not have spacewarp drives; they were rocket ships fueled with atomic hydrogen. I don't know what Wellman meant by "warp"; maybe he used it in the sense of "cast, throw, fling".
warp (v.) 1932
The word "warp" is used in reference to interdimensional travel in Clifford D. Simak's 1932 novelette "Hellhounds of the Cosmos" in Astounding Stories, June, 1932, available at the Internet Archive.
Quoting from p. 342, col. 1:

"It is a matter of the proper utilization of two forces, electrical and gravitational," proudly explained Dr. White. "Those two forces, properly used, warp the third-dimensional into the fourth. A reverse process is used to return the object to the third. The principle of the machine is—"
The old man was about to launch into a lengthy discussion, but Henry interrupted him. A glance at his watch had shown him press time was drawing perilously close.
"Just a second," he said. "You propose to warp a third-dimensional being into a fourth dimension. How can a third-dimensional thing exist there? You said a short time ago that only a specified dimension could exist on one single plane."

From p. 342, col. 2:

The light did not waver or sparkle. It did not glow. It seemed hard and brittle, like straight bars of force. The newspaperman, gazing with awe upon it, felt that terrific force was there. What had the old man said? Warp a third-dimensional being into another dimension? That would take force!

From p. 344, col. 2:

In a line stood the men who were to fling themselves into the light to be warped into another dimension, there to seek out and fight an unknown enemy. The line was headed by a tall man with hands like hams, with a weather-beaten face and a wild mop of hair. Behind him stood a belligerent little cockney. Henry Woods stood fifth in line. They were a motley lot, adventurers every one of them, and some were obviously afraid as they stood before that column of light, with only a few seconds of the third dimension left to them. They had answered a weird advertisement, and had but a limited idea of what they were about to do. Grimly, though, they accepted it as a job, a bizarre job, but a job. They faced it as they had faced other equally dangerous, but less unusual, jobs.

From p. 345, col. 2:

Then he knew. He was not alone. Here, in this one body were the bodies, the brains, the power, the spirit, of those other ninety-eight men. In the fourth dimension, all the millions of third-dimensional things were one. Perhaps that particular portion of the third dimension called the Earth had sprung from, or degenerated from, one single unit of a dissolving, worn-out fourth dimension. The third dimension, warped back to a higher plane, was automatically obeying the mystic laws of evolution by reforming in the shape of that old ancestor, unimaginably removed in time from the race he had begot. He was no longer Henry Woods, newspaperman; he was an entity that had given birth, in the dim ages when the Earth was born, to a third dimension. Nor was he alone. This body of his was composed of other sons of that ancient entity.

From [p. 346, col. 1[(https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v10n03_1932-06/page/n59/mode/1up):

He felt himself grow, felt his body grow vaster, assume greater proportions, felt new vitality flow through him. It was the other men, the men who were flinging themselves into the column of light in the laboratory to be warped back to this plane, to be incorporated in his body.
Comment: +1. However, in a comment to my answer you mentioned that Edward Smith referenced FTL travel in Skylark of Space in 1928, but that others had described FTL travel even before that. I think this answer would be improved by including the Skylark of Space reference and/or a reference to the earliest description of FTL travel you can find. If it predates special relativity (or demonstrates ignorance of it), it's still interesting, but less so, IMO.
Comment: @BenHocking Thanks for the suggestion. However, I understand the question as being about the science-fictional use of the word "warp", not the history of FTL travel in fiction, so I don't see the relevance of "Skylark" etc.
Comment: @BenHocking The point of my comment on your answer was that you could improve the last paragraph of that answer by mentioning *Skylark* as well as (or instead of) *Lensman*.
Comment: agreed. I'll update mine accordingly, but I didn't want to steal your thunder when I saw you had an excellent answer.
Comment: Wellman is presumably using "warp" in (a future extension of) the nautical sense: "To move (a vessel) by hauling on a line that is fastened to or around a piling, anchor, or pier".
Answer: Islands of Space by John W. Campbell, Jr., in 1930. (emphasis mine)

"To move around near a heavy mass—in the presence of a strong gravitational field," Arcot said. "A gravitational field tends to warp space in such a way that the velocity of light is lower in its presence. Our drive tries to warp or strain space in the opposite manner. The two would simply cancel each other out and we'd waste a lot of power going nowhere. As a matter of fact, the gravitational field of the sun is so intense that we'll have to go out beyond the orbit of Pluto before we can use the space strain drive effectively."

Also, P. Schuyler Miller in Astounding Science Fiction wrote about this story:

"Arcot, Wade, Morey, and their computer, Fuller, put together a ship which will travel faster than light ... they give us what may have been the first space-warp drive. The concept was simple; to make it plausible wasn't—unless you were John Campbell."

Sourced from http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20988/20988-h/20988-h.htm
Comment: First serialized in *Amazing Stories Quaterly* spring edition, 1931.  Refer here: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?958425
Comment: Worth noting that Campbell probably picked up the term from books and articles discussing Einstein's theory of general relativity, since non-mathematical expositions tended to talk about the idea of mass causing a "warp in space" (and early ones sometimes used the synonym 'strain', similar to Campbell's 'warp or strain space'), for ex. see [here](https://books.google.com/books?id=YanvAAAAMAAJ&dq=warp&pg=PA56) and [here](https://books.google.com/books?id=yqVZAAAAMAAJ&dq=warp&pg=PA95) and [here](https://books.google.com/books?id=cVcZAAAAIAAJ&dq=warp&pg=PA444)
Answer: On this site of science fiction "firsts" there's an entry for space warp which cites a story from 1936, "The Cometeers" by Jack Williamson, along with the following quote from the story:

"Every atom of ship load and crew was deflected infinitesimally from the space-time continuum of four dimensions, and thus freed of the ordinary limitations of acceleration and velocity, was driven around space, rather than through it, by a direct reaction against the space warp itself."
Answer: Just poking around the Wikipedia, I find that Heinlein's Starship Troopers (from 1959) is credited with using the phrase.
It wouldn't surprise me if there were much earlier uses in the pulp magazines.
Answer: First use in movies or first use ever? Geometric warping is used for "basic solutions of the Einstein field equations" - which are based on 'curved space'. Not sure when those solutions were first found but - Einstein: 1879-1955; Riemann: 1826-1866 (~1854); Lorentz: 1853-1928.
"Warping of Wood" as a known fact is probably hundreds or thousands of years old. So I would put 'warp' to denote 'travel' being around Einstein's time.
For something more concrete/definite: Alcubierre drive - that's 1994.
A google books ngrams search might get you its first ever use.
Comment: Just celluloid  man!
Comment: lol. Well, when you say "originated" like that... :-)
Answer: 1942: The earliest science-fictional space-warp drive that I know of is in Ralph Milne Farley's novelette "The Immortality of Alan Whidden", first published in Amazing Stories, February 1942 (available at the Internet Archive):

Gravity, Einstein had explained as being merely a warping of space-time in the fifth and higher dimensions, in the vicinity of masses of matter. Alan Whidden himself had supplied the older scientist with the following two-dimensional analogy — Whidden was good at analogies. Stretch out a thin sheet of elastic rubber, Whidden had suggested, and place upon it a number of metal balls of various sizes and weights. Each ball, in proportion to its mass, will distort this two-dimensional rubber sheet into the third dimension, just as gravitating bodies distort our own four dimensional space-time into higher dimensions. The balls on the rubber sheet will roll together, just as masses gravitate together in our familiar space.
The idea now occurred to Whidden: "If I distort the rubber sheet by some other means than the metal balls, as by poking my finger into it, I will have thereby created an artificial gravity. If I move this distortion along, by running my finger along ahead of one of the balls, the ball will follow my finger. Why not then artificially distort space in advance of a space ship, and thereby pull the ship along after the distortion, at any desired speed? It will be like holding a carrot on a pole in front of a mule's nose, to induce him to move."
Whidden took a brief run over to Princeton and discussed the idea with Albert Einstein. The latter disagreed quite emphatically, but could not formulate the reasons for this disagreement. Being a true scientist, Einstein's ideas always developed first as pure hunches, and then required months of abstract research for their formulation, followed by years of observation and experiment for their verification.
But Alan Whidden could not wait for all this. His malady was piling up on him like figures on a taxi-meter. Being the same sort of true scientist as his mentor, he too plunged into a mathematical analysis of his hunch; and when he believe that he had deduced the correct formula for an artificial space-warp, he set about producing it in his laboratory, preferably by electricity.
He found the way. He built a small model space-ship. He was able to cause it to set up a disturbance ahead of it, which would make it gravitate in that direction, its tail held down by a piece of rope. Substituting a spring-balance for the rope, he was able to measure the force of the pull of this artificially induced gravity, and thus learn the law of its strength. Also he found out how to direct the pull in any direction around the little model — this would be useful in steering and stopping his full-sized ship when built.

Unfortunately his full-sized ship is wired slightly differently, with the result that it won't move in space at all, it can only move backwards in time.
Answer: 1931
John W. Campbell's novel Islands of Space would be the very first mention of warp drive so that's 86 years


Writing about inner conflict

Question: I have a blind depressed character and I'd like to write a chapter that talks only about his internal conflict, i.e, struggling with his inner self, like going inside his mind, but I find difficulties not knowing on what should I focus and what should I describe exactly, so I can get people empathize with the character.
Comment: If you know someone who has been depressed and is willing to talk about it, I would recommend going to them first to hear their experiences with it.
Comment: Yeah, that describes a lot of what we struggle with as authors. Make your question a little more specific so we can give an answer.  You're looking for advice on writing the inner thoughts of you character while making him sympathetic. That's pretty broad.  Is it because you feel his depression makes him less sympathetic? Because his blindness makes him less relatable? Does this answer your question? https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/16637/clear-steps-for-developing-a-powerful-inner-conflict
Comment: Thank you. I'm not great with first-person. I find depression is often started by problems, but they get out of control and cycle around and around unproductively. Surprisingly, depressed people are actually more rational (able to make accurate factual assessments) than normal people. You have to be a little self-deceptive to believe everything is going to be all right, but often believing it makes it so. Some research on depression will be a good place to start, if you can get past all the drug ads.
Comment: What I mean by this question is that after externally showing the symptoms of depression, I'd like to go through his mind and describe the way he's struggling with his inner self, what he is feeling, like fighting against himself(knowing that I'm writing in the first POV, so the character himself will describe what's going on with him)
Answer: A good way to talk about something that's going on inside a character's head is through a dream. You could have a dream that shows the character remembering what happened to make them depressed, or a dream explaining something about specifically their depression, etc.
Comment: "what happened to make them depressed" Something got messed up in their brain chemistry, that's what.
Answer: Apart from the previous answer, you could incorporate the character's thoughts in the way they interact with their world. For example, he might be fumbling with his bedsheets until he feels a fascinating embossed texture on it. He then wonders what that texture might look like, suddenly feeling frustrated that he might never know.
Or he could simply begin giving meaning to every little thing. The way he hears the wind blow through the trees, for example, could seem to him like the scuffling of feet from people rushing to get away from him. From that thought, he could begin contemplating his loneliness.
Key to these sort of character scenes is to make it seem a natural part of him. Depression, of course, is not something you'd wish to be someone's daily reality, but it is the brutal reality of your character. Establish a simple scene of him doing everyday activities and have his reactions to these activities mingle with his own dark thoughts. It gives a sense that this sort of struggle happens to him every day, in every little circumstance, and it's beyond his control.
Convey the gravity sensitively. For readers to empathize, don't go overboard with his misery. Instead, showcase that his heavy feelings can be triggered by small things and still make him completely miserable. Show and don't tell, as always, and know that the most powerful way to connect the readers with your character is for them to see themselves in him in some way. His condition is interfering with his life, not defining it.
All the best!

Writing about inner conflict


do Gettier cases challenge JTB

Question: My question is about quite basic epistemology but I am stumped.
To what extent do Gettier cases challenge the proposal that knowledge is justified true belief? Should we care?
Comment: To most epistemologists, Gettier cases plainly refute that K=JTB, see [SEP, Analysis of Knowledge](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/#GettProb).
Comment: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/15762/can-gettier-problems-be-resolved-by-assuming-jtb-as-the-formal-definition-of-t/15777#15777
Answer: Welcome letha
First pass
Material is easily available online about the Gettier problem and associated Gettier cases. Such cases describe situations in which someone, S, believes that p, p is true, and S is justified in believing that p - but in which S does not know that p. Justified true belief (JTB) is not sufficient for belief, this is the claim involved.

In a Gettier-style counter-example or Gettier case, someone has justified
   true belief but not knowledge. Such cases were first proposed by Edmund
   Gettier to show that the traditional analysis of propositional knowledge as
   justified true belief is incorrect. Typically, one does not have knowledge in
   such cases because an element of luck in the way in which the belief is
   formed prevents it from counting as knowledge. (Corine Besson, 'Logical Knowledge and Gettier Cases', The Philosophical Quarterly (1950-), Vol. 59, No. 234 (Jan., 2009), pp. 1-19: 1; E. Gettier, 'Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?', Analysis, 23, 1963: 121-3.)

An element of luck? Well, consider one of Gettier's examples:

Gettier challenges this [the JTB] analysis by constructing counter-exam-
   ples with the help of certain entailments. He introduces the first
   counter-example by telling us that Smith and Jones have applied
   for the same job, and that Smith has strong evidence for the following:

(P) Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has ten
     coins in his pocket.

The evidence might be, Gettier tells us, that the company president has assured Smith that Jones will get the job and that Smith
   has counted the coins in Jones's pocket ten minutes earlier. P logically entails the following:

(Q) The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket.

That P entails Q is so obvious that S(mith) can be presumed to
   know it. Since S is justified in believing that P, it follows that S is
   justified in believing that Q. As it happens, unbeknownst to
   Smith, he and not Jones will get the job; also unbeknownst to him,
   he has ten coins in his pocket. So, Q is true. But, S does not know
   that Q. So, on the reasonable assumption that S can believe what
   he is justified in believing, i.e., that he can believe that Q, it fol-
   lows that Q is a counter-example to the analysis of knowledge as
   justified true belief. (Don S. Levi, 'The Gettier Problem and the Parable of the Ten Coins', Philosophy, Vol. 70, No. 271 (Jan., 1995), pp. 5-25: 6.)

Refinement
To refine matters:

You might think that knowledge is justified true belief, i.e. that S knows that p if and
   only if it is true that p, and S believes that p, and S is justified in believing that p.
   This elegant account is known as the tripartite theory of knowledge, and it captures
   several plausible ideas about knowledge, including that falsehoods cannot be known
   and that unreasonable or irrational beliefs, even if true, do not amount to knowledge.
   However, it is subject to a family of counterexamples, known as Gettier cases. We
   can divide these into three types. First, there are cases in which someone reasonably
   infers a true conclusion from a false premise that she believes with justification. The
   cases from Gettier's paper (1963, pp. 122-123) are of this type. Second, there are
   cases in which someone believes some true proposition, and is justified in so
   believing, but in which her belief is caused by something other than the truth of that
   proposition. Roderick Chisholm's (1966) case of the sheep in the field (p. 23n) is of
   this type. Third, there are cases in which someone believes some true proposition on
   some basis, and is justified in so believing, but in which an unusual or abnormal
   environmental condition makes it such that she would easily have believed
   something false on the same (or a similar) basis. Carl Ginet's (1988) fake barn case
   (p. 106) is of this type.
In these cases, it seems that the person who believes that p does not know that p,
   despite its being the case that it is true that p, that she believes that p, and that she is
   justified in believing that p. Justified true belief is therefore insufficient for
   knowledge, and the tripartite theory of knowledge is false. The premise that, in
   Gettier cases, the person who believes that p does not know that p, has been widely
   endorsed by epistemologists. The basic form of the Gettier problem, therefore, has
   consisted of a challenge for theorists of knowledge: amend or replace the tripartite
   theory of knowledge with a theory of knowledge that is immune to (at least this kind
   of) counterexample. (Allan Hazlett, 'The maturation of the Gettier problem', Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic
  Tradition, Vol. 172, No. 1, Special Issue: THE GETTIER PROBLEM AT 50 (January 2015), pp.
  1-6: 2; R. Chisholm, Theory of knowledge. London: Prentice-Hall; C. Ginet, 'The fourth condition', D. F. Austin (Ed.), Philosophical analysis (pp. 105-117). New
   York: Kluwer.

Hazlett probes the development of the Gettier problem and the different responses it has generated. As the problem now stands in the literature it has only a distant association with the light but penetrating sketch that Gettier gave in his 3-page article.
Answer: Geoffrey Thomas has explained it widely and precisely.  https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/69166/43419
To sum up and to add some info:
It is widely agreed that Gettier cases refute JTB conception of knowledge. Gettier's cases feature lucky guesses, more than what we'd usually call "knowledge".
A Gettier case. Imagine that I take bus line 2, which I believe will take me to the library. I've checked the route and it does stop near the library. However, there has been an unnoticed technical error and the screen shows the incorrect line number in each bus. A bus of line 3 approaches to my stop, but its screen shows line 2 information, so I get in. This bus shouldn't stop near the library, but near the train station instead. However, there is a demonstration I didn't know of and the road is cut, so the bus changes its route and stops near the library, only for that day. Then, even though my belief that "This bus will take me to the library" was true and justified, most people will think that it was mistaken, and that I didn't know at all what bus I was taking.
It is important to note that the extent to which Gettier cases defy the JTB conception of knowledge is dependent of the (epistemic) intuitions on if there was knowledge or not in such lucky cases. You may find that different authors differ in their epistemic intuition on a variety of counterexamples.
Finally, Gettier's challenge has definitely had an impact in contemporary epistemology, and that's a reason to care about it. Since the publication lf his article Is JTB knowledge? in 1963 there has been a flourishment of alternative epistemologies, primarly approaching to ethics: there you have virtue epistemology (Ernest Sosa), the studies on epistemological responsibility (Lorraine Code, James Montmarquet, Linda Zagzebski), and also the epistemology of testimony (Miranda Fricker), which is highly topical today.
Comment: Welcome to SE Philosophy! Thanks for your contribution. Please take a quick moment to take the [tour](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/tour) or find [help](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/help). You can perform [searches here](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/search) or seek additional clarification at the [meta site](https://philosophy.meta.stackexchange.com/).

do Gettier cases challenge JTB


Low Poly Cinema 4D Graphics

Question: I have been trying to make a 3D model like [1] in Cinema 4D, but with no success. How can a graphic like this be made and is there a better program for it?
[1] http://thenewblack.goffgough.com/post/9175258571
Answer: Cinema 4D will definitely give you the result you're after.
You can make your geometric shape the way joojaa suggested. A sphere set to Type: Icosahedron and Segments set to <10 will work similarly to a platonic shape. Make the object Editable, then randomly select vertices all around the object, and either move them one by one, or select multiple vertices and use the scale tool to scale them out uniformly.
To get the very faceted look of this polygon, go to the Object Manager and delete the phong tag next to the object (icon with two brown spheres diagonal from each other).
Next, copy the object. Without moving it, scale the copy up so that it is slightly larger than the original (you will no longer see the original as it is inside the copy). Create an Atom Array object and drag the copy so that it is a child of the Atom Array. You can play with the scale of the cylinders and spheres in the Atom Array attributes.

Adding some simple materials and lights will get you something like this:
Answer: Mostly any 3D application will do. For practical purposes you may want to start of with a Icosaherdon, or a dodecaedron [1]. then just randomly move the points about. Copy mesh offset make struts, spheres and render.
[1] Platonic solids, Wikipedia

Low Poly Cinema 4D Graphics


What is an MQ and why do I want to use it?

Question: On my team at work, we use the IBM MQ technology a lot for cross-application communication. I've seen lately on Hacker News and other places about other MQ technologies like RabbitMQ. I have a basic understanding of what it is (a commonly checked area to put and get messages), but what I want to know what exactly is it good at? How will I know where I want to use it and when? Why not just stick with more rudimentary forms of interprocess messaging?
Answer: All the explanations so far are accurate and to the point - but might be missing something: one of the main benefits of message queueing: resilience.
Imagine this: you need to communicate with two or three other systems. A common approach these days will be web services which is fine if you need an answers right away.
However: web services can be down and not available - what do you do then? Putting your message into a message queue (which has a component on your machine/server, too) typically will work in this scenario - your message just doesn't get delivered and thus processed right now - but it will later on, when the other side of the service comes back online.
So in many cases, using message queues to connect disparate systems is a more reliable, more robust way of sending messages back and forth. It doesn't work well for everything (if you want to know the current stock price for MSFT, putting that request into a queue might not be the best of ideas) - but in lots of cases, like putting an order into your supplier's message queue, it works really well and can help ease some of the reliability issues with other technologies.
Comment: @RobHolmes: typically, you can still *enqueue* it into your local queue - it will be transmitted to the queue server when it's back up - and **yes**, it **IS** more resilient than a typical web service .....
Comment: So what do you do if the MQ server is down? It's no more resilient than a web service, is it?
Comment: how do you measure software resilience? why we should accept a mq is more resilient than a web service?
Comment: @marc_s, how do we enqueue to local queue in RabbitMQ? How does it get synchronized to queue on MQ Server?
Answer: MQ stands for messaging queue.
It's an abstraction layer that allows multiple processes (likely on different machines) to communicate via various models (e.g., point-to-point, publish subscribe, etc.). Depending on the implementation, it can be configured for things like guaranteed reliability, error reporting, security, discovery, performance, etc.
You can do all this manually with sockets, but it's very difficult.
For example: Suppose you want to processes to communicate, but one of them can die in the middle and later get reconnected. How would you ensure that interim messages were not lost? MQ solutions can do that for you.
Answer: Message queueuing systems are supposed to give you several bonuses. Among most important ones are monitoring and transactional behavior.
Transactional design is important if you want to be immune to failures, such as power failure. Imagine that you want to notify a bank system of ATM money withdrawal, and it has to be done exactly once per request, no matter what servers failed temporarily in the middle. MQ systems would allow you to coordinate transactions across multiple database, MQ and other systems.
Needless to say, such systems are very slow compared to named pipes, TCP or other non-transactional tools. If high performance is required, you would not allow your messages to be written thru disk. Instead, it will complicate your design - to achieve exotic reliable AND fast communication, which pushes the designer into really non-trivial tricks.
MQ systems normally allow users to watch the queue contents, write plugins, clear queus, etc.
Answer: MQ simply stands for Message Queue.
You would use one when you need to reliably send a inter-process/cross-platform/cross-application message that isn't time dependent.
The Message Queue receives the message, places it in the proper queue, and waits for the application to retrieve the message when ready.
Comment: So it sounds like MQs are technologies that sacrifice performance for reliability generally?
Answer: reference: web services can be down and not available - what do you do then?
As an extension to that;  what if your local network and your local pc is down as well?? While you wait for the system to recover the dependent deployed systems elsewhere waiting for that data needs to see an alternative data stream.
Otherwise, that might not be good enough 'real time' response for today's and very soon in the future Internet of Things (IOT) requirements.
if you want true parallel, non volatile storage of various FIFO streams(at least at some point along the signal chain) use an FPGA and FRAM memory. FRAM runs at clock speed and FPGA devices can be reprogrammed on the fly adding and taking away however many independent parallel data streams are needed(within established constraints of course).


What is trademark tarnishment or dilution under US law?

Question: What is a person not allowed to do with a trademark in the US, beyond using falsely to sell goods? In what ways can a trademark owner prevent tarnishment (disparagement) or dilution (blurring)?
Answer: The key provision of the law is 15 U.S.C. 1125 (Section 43 of the Lanham Act): False designations of origin, false descriptions, and dilution forbidden.
Paragraph (a)(1)(A) forbids classic trademark infringement, where an actual trademark, or something confusingly similar to one, is used to deceive or confuse customers about "affiliation, connection, or association" or "the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities"
Paragraph  (a)(1)(B) forbids

[The] use in commerce [of] any word, term, name, symbol, or device, … or any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact, which

...

in commercial advertising or promotion, misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin of his or her or another person's goods, services, or commercial activities,

and authorizes a civil suit for actions which violate this.
In addition, paragraph (c)(1) provides that:

Subject to the principles of equity, the owner of a famous mark that is distinctive, inherently or through acquired distinctiveness, shall be entitled to an injunction against another person who, at any time after the owner's mark has become famous, commences use of a mark or trade name in commerce that is likely to cause dilution by blurring or dilution by tarnishment of the famous mark, regardless of the presence or absence of actual or likely confusion, of competition, or of actual economic injury.

Paragraph (c)(2)(B) says that:

"dilution by blurring" is association arising from the similarity between a mark or trade name and a famous mark that impairs the distinctiveness of the famous mark.

and

"dilution by tarnishment" is association arising from the similarity between a mark or trade name and a famous mark that harms the reputation of the famous mark.

Paragraph (c)(3) excludes:

(A) Any fair use, including a nominative or descriptive fair use, or facilitation of such fair use, of a famous mark by another person other than as a designation of source for the person's own goods or services, including …

(i) advertising or promotion that permits consumers to compare goods or services; or
    (ii) identifying and parodying, criticizing, or commenting upon the famous mark owner or the goods or services of the famous mark owner.
    (B) All forms of news reporting and news commentary.
    (C) Any noncommercial use of a mark.

This means that suit for tarnishment or blurring can only be in response to a use of a mark in trade either:

in a way that is similar to a protected mark so that the protected mark becomes less distinctive, that is more generic, or
In a way that falsely or misleadingly harms the reputation of the protected mark.

Note that this is narrower than is often thoguht, or claimed by trademark holders. It will not apply to the actiosn of anyone not engaged in selling or advertising goods or services, so cease & desist letter addressed to people who have only engaged in non-commercial speech/writing will have no legal force.
Even for those engaged in trade, it will not apply to comparitive advertising. That is, the sellers of BrandX may avertise "BrandX is better than BrandY because ..." using BrandY's trademarked name without fear of a dilution suit. It will also not apply to any other case where BrandY's trademark is used to identify BrandY, as long as the goods sold or advertised are not falsely described or implied to be BrandY, nor to be sponsored or authorized by BrandY or its makers.
In particular, parody of, criticizim of,  or comment on BrandY, even by those promoting BrandX, is allowed. Reviewsl, even highly negative reveiws, are not grounds for suit under this law. Neither is any news report, or any non-commercial use of the trademark.
Note also that suit under this provision is only for dilution of a famous mark. Famous here means:

widely recognized by the general consuming public of the United States as a designation of source of the goods or services of the mark's owner.
  (Par (a)(2)(A))

Marks that are not famous do not have this protection.
Moreover, US courts have further limited the concept of  trademark protection because of First Amendment rights under the US Constitution.
The article "Balancing Free Speech and Trademark Rights" points out that:

courts adopted the doctrine of nominative fair use, which allows a third party to use or refer to another's mark when necessary and not misleading to consumers. Specifically, nominative fair use is not trademark infringement because there is no likelihood of confusion as to the source of the goods or services

and

use of an otherwise protectable mark in an expressive context is often protected free speech or otherwise considered fair use.

The Article "Free Speech Challenges to Trademark Law After Matal v. Tam" from the Houston Law Review (2018)  points out that:

In Matal v. Tam, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified that trade-mark laws are speech regulations subject to First Amendment scrutiny when it held that the federal trademark law denying registration to potentially disparaging marks was unconstitutional.

The article goes on to predict that some areas of current trademark law will be found unconstitutional. It says:

Some trademark laws will survive First Amendment scrutiny after Tam* because they regulate speech that is not protected by the First Amendment. Government regulations of fraud and misleading commercial speech are generally constitutional because the First Amendment does not protect these categories of speech. Thus courts should find trademark registration and enforcement laws targeting fraudulent speech or misleading uses of marks in commercial expression to be valid regulations.
  …
  On the other hand, the U.S. Supreme Court has declared that speech regulations are presumptively unconstitutional and subject to strict or heightened scrutiny analysis when the law regulates noncommercial speech based on its content, or restricts any type of expression based on its viewpoint or ideas.
Heightened First Amendment scrutiny may be appropriate when considering the validity of the federal trademark infringement statutes since they do not explicitly exclude noncommercial uses of marks from their scope.(See 15 U.S.C. §§ 1114(1), 1125(a)(1)(A) (2012) , ...Lamparello v. Falwell, 420 F.3d 309, 313–14 (4th Cir. 2005)) Some courts have interpreted the language in these statutes in a speech-protective way to require commercial use of the mark for liability.(Radiance Found., Inc. v. NAACP, 786 F.3d 316, 322–24 (4th Cir. 2015); Utah Lighthouse Ministry v. Found. for Apologetic Info. & Research, 527 F.3d 1045, 1051–54 (10th Cir. 2008); Bosley Med. Inst., Inc. v. Kremer, 403 F.3d 672, 676–77 (9th Cir. 2005); Taubman Co. v. Webfeats, 319 F.3d 770, 774–75, 778 (6th Cir. 2003). ) But other courts believe infringement law is not limited to profit-seeking uses of trademarks and have applied the law in noncommercial contexts.(United We Stand Am., Inc. v. United We Stand, Am. N.Y., Inc., 128 F.3d 86, 92–93 (2d Cir. 1997) (applying the infringement statute to defendant's confusing use of the mark UNITED WE STAND AMERCIA to associate itself with the political movement that sponsored Ross Perot's presidential campaign). )  If the defendant's expression is not commercial in a trademark dispute, the court cannot reject a First Amendment defense on the ground that misleading commercial speech is not constitutionally protected.

...

After Tam, courts should either require commercial use of a mark for infringement or determine that application of infringement law to this noncommercial expression satisfies strict scrutiny analysis. If the expression is misleading and consumers are confused by unauthorized use of the distinctive marks of political groups and other non-profit organizations, the law may be constitutional. However, if this noncommercial use of the mark is not misleading, courts should refuse to find infringement

...

[O]ne area of trademark law that is unlikely to survive First Amendment scrutiny after Tam is dilution law. The federal dilution statutes prohibit unauthorized use of another's famous mark which is likely to cause dilution by blurring or dilution by tarnishment. Dilution by blurring is an association arising from the similarity between a mark or trade name and a famous mark that impairs the distinctiveness of the mark, while dilution by tarnishment is use of another's famous mark in a manner that is likely to harm the reputation of that mark. Both dilution laws regulate expression that is inconsistent with the brand message or ideas conveyed by a famous mark. Moreover, courts often apply the tarnishment provision to expression that some may find offensive.(V Secret Catalogue, Inc. v. Moseley, 605 F.3d 382, 388 (6th Cir. 2010)) After Tam, these dilution statutes should be subject to heightened First Amendment scrutiny because they prohibit and punish commercial expression based on its ideas or viewpoint. This constitutional analysis will be fatal, as the dilution laws cannot even survive the Court's intermediate scrutiny test for regulations of non-misleading commercial speech set forth in Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Pub. Serv. Comm'n of N.Y., 447 U.S. 557, 564 (1980).

Thus it seems that restrictions which trademark holders often which to enforce on the use, particularly the non-commercial use of their marks may not be valid under US law.


Food accidentally cooked on Yom Kippur

Question: If one b'shogeig cooked food on Yom Kippur, would he able to eat that food after Yom Kippur, assuming he waited after Yom Kippur the time it took to cook it?  I know that the rule of food cooked on Yom Kippur is different than the rule of food cooked on Shabbos.  (See Rav Yitzchok Zilberstein)
Answer: TL;DR should DEF CYLOR
(having said that, in the interest of learning would like to take a stab at it)

The Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 611:2 establishes the principle that Yom Kippur is like Shabbos:

כל מלאכה שחייבים עליה בשבת חייבים עליה ביום הכפורים וכל שבשבת פטור אבל אסור גם ביום הכפורים כן
Any laborous activity for which one is liable on Shabbat, one is liable on Yom Kippur; anything which is forbidden on Shabbat without liability is also forbidden on Yom Kippur

Following this principle that Yom Kippur = Shabbos, let's see what the Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 318:1) says about one who cooks food accidentally on Shabbos:

המבשל בשבת  [או שעשה א' משאר מלאכות] [טור] במזיד אסור לו לעולם ולאחרים מותר למ"ש מיד ובשוגג אסור בו ביום גם לאחרים ולערב מותר גם לו מיד ואם אמר לעכו"ם לעשות מלאכה בשבת ע"ל סי' ש"ז סעיף כ
One who cooks food on Shabbos [or performs any one of the other forbidden acts on Shabbos][Tur]; if done intentionally, the food is forbidden to eat forever, but other people are permitted to eat the food immediately after Shabbos. If done accidentally the food is forbidden to him during the day but may be eaten by everyone, including him, immediately after Shabbos. [If one ordered a non-Jew to perform a Melacha for oneself on Shabbos, see above Siman 307 se'if 20].

If we follow the rules that Yom Kippur = Shabbos, perhaps one could suggest to extend this halacha found in Hilchos Shabbos to Hilchos Yom Kippur. Namely, that if one accidentally cooked food on Yom Kippur then perhaps said food may be eaten by everyone (including him!) immediately after Shabbos.
Again, this is purely conjecture and SHOULD NOT be relied on in any way: please be sure to CYLOR
Comment: Don't be so unsure your 100% correct that Yom Kippur is like shabbos the questioner clearly misheard something quoted in the name of Rabbi Zilberman

Food accidentally cooked on Yom Kippur