Is there a kind of 'rule' which decides whether the male of female is bigger?

Question: In human race usually males are larger than females, and probably is this for all primates. But some animals there are the females bigger, but what determines whether the male or female should be bigger. Is this just random with no logical system as evolution can be or are there some marks which indicates that it is better that the female should be bigger?
Comment: I seem to recall that some primates show dimorphism in which females are larger than males.
Comment: See [Sexual dimorphism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism)
Answer: In short, there is not a rule of thumb whether a given species will have bigger males or females. In some cases females are larger (often insects, invertebrates or fish), in other cases males are larger (often mammals and birds) but even these generalizations have exceptions (Ralls (1976)).
When a males and females of a species have morphological differences other than differences in reproductive organs, this is called sexual dimorphism. These dimorphisms can be thought of as adaptations which have evolved due to a specific evolutionary pressure.
In males, larger sizes can evolve from sexual selection on males in competition with other males for mates. Simplified, the bigger males are better competitors. In females however, larger sizes can evolve from a number of different pressures, but rarely due to competition for mates. More common pressures resulting in larger females are rearing success, competition for resources other than mates.
Whether males or females of a species are bigger is certainly not random, but rather a precise outcome of numerous trade-offs and benefits of being bigger.


What makes "fine art" fine art?

Question: I've always been shy to refer to any of my work as "fine art"... preferring instead to call it "still life". But I recently had an interesting conversation with an Art History major who said that my work wasn't in fact "still life" because there were no people in it, and that to be "still life" it needed to be of people or animals in their daily life activities. Instead she says my work is "fine art". So what is it that actually defines "fine art"? Is it the content? Is it the style? Is it the presentation?
Comment: I think your art history friend is confused. A still life is a composition with an arrangement of inanimate objects.
Comment: I would also add that still life _does_ have a specific meaning, and that fireworks probably doesn't fall under it, and that generally, pictures of flowers in nature don't either. The _arrangement_ is important.
Comment: @mattdm you'll note I said "major" and not "graduate". I agree she's a wee bit off base, but haven't found a very satisfying definition. Hence the question.
Answer: Fine arts are to be contrasted with Useful arts.
Fine arts were originally understood to mean visual things created primarily for aesthetic purposes and judged for its beauty and meaningfulness whereas Useful arts were decorative work or craftwork such as tapestry etc. They appealed to the 'finer senses' and also reflected social distinctions (some would say social pretensions).
Now Fine Arts are split into Visual Arts, Auditory Arts and Performance Arts.
The defining characteristic of Fine Arts is the purity of the discipline in its pursuit of aesthetic beauty without reference to usefulness or truthfulness..
References
1. Fine Art (Wikipedia)
2. What is visual art?
3. Fine art: definition and meaning
Comment: @mattdm. truthfulness in this case means it need not more or less  accurately depict any thing or any event. For example product photography, family photography or photojournalism are required to be, in some sense, truthful. Fine art does not have these constraints, it pursues aesthetic beauty regardless. Or to put it another way, the aesthetic beauty of the result takes precedence over truthfulness.
Comment: Usefulness, okay. Truthfulness, though? Care to elaborate on that?
Comment: "All art is quite useless." Oscar Wilde, *The Picture of Dorian Grey*, Preface.
Comment: The question of fine art and beauty is also an interesting (albeit highly academic) one, and arguably one the biggest question in art in the last century.
Comment: In other words, Beauty with a capital letter, but not concerned with lower-case truth.
Answer: There are really two rather different ways "fine art" is used.
One is to refer to a category of photography. Here what matters isn't necessarily the quality of the photograph, but the intent.
Consider, for example, another possibility. If my primary intent in taking a picture is to document a newsworthy event, then I'm going photojournalism, even if I don't work for a newspaper/TV station/magazine/whatever. If my pictures are good enough, I might be able to get them published; if they're poor, I probably won't. Their later publication or lack thereof, doesn't change the fact that what I'm doing is photojournalism though.
Likewise, if I take a picture with the intent that people will look at it and like it simply because I've taken a beautiful picture, then I'm going fine art photography, even if my result is an abject failure.
By this usage, the intent when taking the picture is (at least primarily) what places it in one category or another. Whether it succeeds in that intent or not is an entirely separate question. By this standard, I think it's fair to say that essentially all still lifes, landscapes, nature photography, etc., falls under the category of "fine art" photography, regardless of how good or poor it might be.
The other usage is what (at least IMO) others have commented on: the actual quality of the photograph in question. I'd tend to agree with what I see as the essence of the opinions already expressed: this falls into the domain of opinion and taste, not fact. Not to put it too crassly, but from this perspective, "fine art" tends to be whatever you can manage to sell -- and the higher price you can sell it for, the "finer" it is. Yes, there are "authority figures" whose opinions on what constitutes fine art tend to be trusted. These can have a huge effect on prices -- but in all honesty, I (for one) consider them mostly self-fulfilling prophecies; when they commend something as great art, the price goes up, largely because of investors (who often either don't have, don't trust, or just don't care about taste of their own) who pay a lot for the work, in the expectation that it'll become valuable because of what the authority figure has said.
Comment: I wonder if there's a badge for having the accepted answer that no one else has voted for? I've come back to this question many times since asking it, and this one really resonates with me. It answers the asked and unasked question very well.
Comment: Two, actually: "Tenacious" and "Unsung Hero" -- though I don't think I'm anywhere close to qualifying for either.
Comment: This definitely addresses the question in the most accurate manner.  I, for one thing, consider a photograph "fine art" if it expresses some significant artistic intent.
Answer: It turns out that there is an entire Wikipedia article simply about different disputes about the classification of art. That has a paragraph which I think is useful to this discussion:

The second, more narrow, more recent sense of the word "art" is roughly as an abbreviation for creative art or "fine art." Here we mean that skill is being used to express the artist's creativity, or to engage the audience's aesthetic sensibilities. Often, if the skill is being used in a lowbrow or practical way, people will consider it as craft rather than art. Likewise, if the skill is being used in a commercial or industrial way, it will be considered design instead of art. On the other hand, crafts and design are sometimes considered applied art. Some thinkers have argued that the difference between fine art and applied art has more to do with value judgments made about the art than any clear definitional difference (Novitz, 1992).

As I mentioned in a comment above, some of what you do is probably indeed still life, and some of it might not be. Some photography certainly falls into a practical realm; product photography, family snapshots, journalism. Art is a slippery term no matter how one tries to define it, and certainly some work within those frameworks can wear the label comfortably. But some doesn't, and that's okay too. There's some interesting discussion on this on popular photo blog The Online Photographer — Why Is It (Not) Art?. If you're interested in this, it's worth reading that and the surrounding articles and comments.
Most of my photographs aren't taken with art in mind. They're taken to be photographs. I'm happy with that — although I wish I had more time to devote to working on making art intentionally, as well.
Comment: @JoséNunoFerreira, in my region where we do a lot of mountain hiking we see many examples of rock art. There is intense debate about their meaning and in my opinion the matter is still not understood. But what is striking is that for the most part we agree that these simple paintings are stylistic representations of surprising artistic quality. Did they see it that way? Or is this wishful projection on our part? We have no way of knowing but I find myself wanting to believe that these hard hunters in a rugged landscape saw beauty and felt the need to reproduce it.
Comment: One of the comments you referenced said this 'For me the primary criteria for art is that it must convey a meaning, emotion or idea that transcends the subject of the piece'. Agreed. But remember the adjective 'Fine' conveys the idea of excellence. So Fine Art is art that strives for (or achieves) excellence in the way that it 'conveys a meaning, emotion or idea'. Specifically that excellence is recognised as aesthetic beauty.
Comment: I think there's a lot of room to argue over what exactly "fine" implies. I'm good with the definition you give, but I think it might be too narrow to encompass everything one might find hung on the walls of a "museum of fine art" or a "gallery of fine art".
Comment: there is much to be said about "making art intentionally", and whether some photos are art or not. I'd say everything can be art; maybe not good art, but still art. Consciousness is rather relative, here: i doubt the prehistoric folks were very conscious of the artness of the drawings they made on cave walls :)
Comment: I've heard 'fine' art used to distinguish it from other arts, such as literature, language, etc. As to whether art must be beautiful, I disagree. Even accounting for variety in taste, as beauty is a subjective concept, there is plenty of fine art that is created with anything but beauty in mind. The whole genre of shock art is an example. Photographs can be fine art with no attempt at capturing a beautiful image. I think the distinction that others have drawn about reportage vs art is more significant than beauty.
Answer: This is the answer a friend gave during the above referenced conversation. I provide it here as the low bar for future answers to shot to overcome.

Fine art is like pornography, I can't tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it.
Comment: Awesome -- a pre-set low bar!
Answer: I can't tell you what fine art is in photography, even though I suspect this definition is not dependent on the subject, but on the techniques used.
One thing I can tell you: no way still life is related with people or animals! from wikipedia:

A still life (plural still lifes) is a
  work of art depicting mostly inanimate
  subject matter

sure, what you do is still life.
Comment: Although I'd be loathe to characterise fireworks as inanimate!
Comment: @fmark - well, that's... uh. I thought about it. Common sense says you're right, but "inanimate" could be seen as "not alive" or "not moving willingly". like, leaves are inanimate objects, they can be blown by the wind and still be considered inanimate, see my point? maybe it can't be called still life... Flowers and fruits, instead, strictly speaking are alive, but they make for some great still life. Maybe "fireworks photography" is a dignified form of art in itself ;-)
Answer: I'll take a shot at "low bar, part II".
Beyond the literal definition (art for art's sake), I've heard that it's "fine art" if someone will pay money for it -- presumably if they didn't commission the work to begin with (ie, a paid portrait).
I think the idea here is that you've seen something you consider art-worthy, captured it with your camera, and presented it to others in a form that makes at least some of them agree that it's art-worthy.  The "pay for it" part is merely an indication that the appreciation rises above "meh".
Answer: I think that a photograph to be classified as fine art must awaken a deep emotion in the heart and mind of the observer.  It must move us. The emotion could be love, pity, tenderness, joy, admiration, awe, etc. Or the emotion could be contempt,hatred, fear,indignation etc.  The deeper the emotion or the impact that the image awakens in the observer the greater the art. If the image doesn't move us or awaken an emotion then it's not fine art. A truly fine art image must be indelibly impressed on the mind of the observer so it won't be soon forgotten.

What makes "fine art" fine art?


According to Catholicism, is the power of exorcism the fruit of the true church?

Question: According to Catholicism, is a Catholic priest's power of exorcism acceptable evidence of the Catholic Church's truth and validity of its claim to be the one true church?
Comment: Surely the answer is "Only if non-Catholic Christian ministers do not have that power" (which is a matter of logic rather than doctrine).
Comment: If the question needs tweaking to become on topic please feel free to alter its wording as I would very much like a perspective on this. Thank you in advance.
Comment: David, if my edit doesn't capture your intent, please make another [edit] or explain here in comments what you are trying to understand.  A question like this needs to ask for a particular tradition's perspective, as different denominations will disagree (obviously, Protestants wouldn't agree that an exorcism by a Catholic proves Catholicism is true!).
Comment: @nathaniel cheers mate:)
Comment: Hi David, please [edit] this into one of these question formats: [Types of questions that are within community guidelines](https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3409/6071)
Comment: @Nathaniel I don't think this one's a valid edit. But then I can't think of any way in which this could be turned into an actually good question, it would be rather circular no matter whose perspective you ask for.
Answer: Is a Catholic priest's power of exorcism acceptable evidence of the Catholic Church's truth and validity of its claim to be the one true church?
The short answer is no.
The Catholic Church affirms the following, but no more:

The present rite of exorcism as given in the Roman Ritual fully agrees with patristic teaching and is a proof of the continuity of Catholic tradition in this matter. - Catholic Encyclopedia

Generally speaking, Catholic priests may seem more efficacious in this field, but that may be more due to a combination of Church authority and training of exorcists, as well the spiritual aides that we call the sacraments, especially confession and Communion. But this does not constitute unique proof or fruit of the Catholic Church.
Since the foremost authority on exorcism, Fr. Gabriele Amorth admits that some members of other Christian Churches such as Anglicans, Orthodox and Protestants, can and do (at times) perform real and valid exorcisms, I do not see how one can claim the above statement be in the affirmative. No such statements will be found in the writings of Catholic theologians.
First of all, let us look at what Scripture tells us about this subject.

9 Then calling together the twelve apostles, he gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases.
2 And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.
3 And he said to them: Take nothing for your journey; neither staff, nor scrip, nor bread, nor money; neither have two coats.
4 And whatsoever house you shall enter into, abide there, and depart not from thence.
5 And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off even the dust of your feet, for a testimony against them.
6 And going out, they went about through the towns, preaching the gospel, and healing everywhere. - Luke 9: 1-6
37 John answered him, saying: Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, who followeth not us, and we forbade him.
38 But Jesus said: Do not forbid him. For there is no man that doth a miracle in my name, and can soon speak ill of me.
39 For he that is not against you, is for you. - Mark 9: 37-39

Although Christ affirms that the Apostles have such powers and others though apostolic succession, Scripture do not deny this gift to those who believe, though not in total unity with the Catholic Church. Fr. Gabriele Amorth wrote that many Protestant exorcists consulted him about particular issues at hand.
A priest who performs an a public and solemn exorcism does so in the name of Jesus Christ and his Church.
Historically speaking, some great saints who were not priests were quite well known as exorcist. Most notable were St. Peter the Exorcist, St. Anthony of the Desert and St. Benedict of Nursia. In fact, St. Benedict is the patron saint of exorcists and the now famous Medal of St. Benedict is used in the protection against the demon.
It  seems that the greater the sanctity of an exorcist is, the greater is his ability to liberate souls from the hands of Satan.
In his book An exorcist tells His Story, Fr Gabriele Amorth states the following:

Who Can Expel Demons?
"The Holy Spirit, with divine freedom, gives his charismas however and to whomever he pleases. These are not given to be the glory or benefit of the receiver but as a service to his brothers. Among these charismas is the power to liberate from evil spirits and to heal from illness. These gifts can be given to individuals and also to communities." (Page 155)

Fr Gabriele Amorth was exorcist for the Diocese of Rome prior to his death  in 2016. He equally states that Christians of other denominations do expel demons during their prayers for liberation of a person from the grippes of Satan and his Legions. This admission is not limited to the Orthodox Churches, but also encompasses mainstream Protestant denominations. He does admit however that he was occasionally consulted by "exorcists" of other churches of particularly hard cases to liberate.
As Catholics, we have more available aides in combatting evil than our Protestant brethren.

In his book An Exorcist Tells His Story, Fr. Amorth lists the following prayers to help combat evil; however, Fr. Amorth and many other priests have stressed that the number one protection from evil is the Sacrament of Confession and the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. Often times people want esoteric rituals to deliver them from evil, when in reality what they need is to become right with God. Along with regular Confession and reception of the Holy Eucharist, these prayers should be coupled with Our Lord's Prayer and the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. - 5 Prayers Recommended by an Exorcist to Combat Evil

The fact that within the Roman Catholic Rite only an authorized priest with the local bishop's permission may perform an exorcism (while using the Rituale Romanum) is a question of Canon Law and church disciple. Rome can change this rule at any moment if the need were serious enough. Some Eastern Orthodox exorcists are married deacons or subdeacons. The Orthodox have valid sacraments and priesthood!

The practice of exorcism was not confined to clerics in the early ages, as is clear from Tertullian (Apology 23; cf. On Idolatry 11) and Origen (Against Celsus VII.4). The latter expressly states that even the simplest and rudest of the faithful sometimes cast out demons, by a mere prayer or adjuration (Mark 15:17), and urges the fact as a proof of the power of Christ's grace, and the inability of demons to resist it.
Thus the Apostolic Constitutions (VIII.26) say expressly that "the exorcist is not ordained", i.e. for the special office of exorcist, but that if anyone possess the charismatic power, he is to be recognized, and if need be, ordained deacon or subdeacon. This is the practice which has survived in the Eastern Orthodox Church. - Catholic Encyclopedia

And just a final thought on this whole issue is that Origen, a Church Father, credits Jews with a special talent for exorcising demons (Against Celsus, book 4).
Addendum: Even within in the Church, some exorcisms are not successful in liberating souls from a diabolical possession by a Catholic priests who fulfill the necessary requirements for performing them. If exorcisms are the "fruit" of the true Church, then this fact begs the question as to why some cases of possession do not succeed, even if they are extremely rare.
One such case can be read here, although more do exist, this is the most well known.
Answer: The ability to legitimately perform an exorcism is linked to jurisdiction according to Canon Law:

Can.  1172 §1. No one can perform exorcisms legitimately upon the possessed unless he has obtained special and express permission from the local ordinary.
§2. The local ordinary is to give this permission only to a presbyter who has piety, knowledge, prudence, and integrity of life.
Comment: Quotes alone almost never make for a sufficient answer - explanation is needed too.
Comment: This talks about the legitimate use of exorcism within Catholicism, but doesn't address why (illegitimate) exorcisms aren't a "fruit of the true church."  So I'm not sure how this is an answer – perhaps a bit of explanation before the quote would help make the logical connection.
Comment: Some  non cleric Catholic saints have had the gift of driving out demons without using the Rituale Romanum.
Comment: Ahh, I see - so no, is what you're saying?
Answer: The short answer is yes, most likely, Roman Catholics consider exorcism to be a fruit of the One True Church.  To understand this, one has to understand the nature of a Catholic Priest.  Let's start from the OP question and back into what it means.
Exorcism in the Catholic Church is considered a sacramental, which is distinguished from their seven sacraments.  As such, there is no formula per se, but rather the exorcism depends on their being a valid and licit authorization and faith of said person.  In other words, the exorcist must be a duly authorized priest.
So, with that in mind, the concept of valid priest in the Catholic Church is known by holy orders.  Do other Churches have holy orders?  Some claim to have it, but there are additional requirements as to validity.  For example, as some define it, a tracing a physical lineage back to apostles, the intentional offering of bread and wine as a propitiatory sacrifice, and of course, submission to Peter's successor.
So, whether others attempt exorcisms, for the Catholic Church, it requires one of their duly ordained priests to produce its fruit.
Comment: Rome acknowledges the fact that the Orthodox have valid sacraments , priests and bishops. The fact that only an authorized priest may perform an exorcism with the local bishop's permission (while using the Rituale Romanum) is a question of Church discipline. Rome can change that at any moment. Some Orthodox exorcists are married deacons. Believe me when I say: "Some non-Catholics have had success in freeing souls from the demon."
Comment: How does this fit with Matthew 723 where Jesus said casting out demons in His Name did not imply He even  knew thosr who did it?
Comment: Re Mt. 7:23, the OP doesn't ask whether it is true or not, just whether Roman Catholics view it as such.  And to the second comment, yes, I agree one doesn't need to be of a valid priesthood defined by Rome as one in succession to or agreement with Peter's so-called successor.  Hope that clarifies.  If not, perhaps the OP can change the question.
Comment: Do you have a source that states that "Roman Catholics consider exorcism to be a fruit of the One True Church?"
Comment: "Most likely" is the wording and then I explain why.  For someone to disagree, you'd have to dismantle the idea that only "valid priests" with "valid sacraments" may produce said fruit (exorcism).  As someone noted above, Orthodox presumably have those two beliefs (valid priest, valid sacrament) and may conduct exorcisms.  I further mention the validity idea specifically regarding "one true church" as a group that submits to the successors of Peter.  So, apparently one may conduct exorcisms, but the package of one true church is so noted.
Comment: Even "most likely" does not support your reasoning without a reasonable quote about the validity of your statements. Where does your **most likely** statement come from?
Answer: When we think of exorcism, at least, when I do, I think of the "May the Power of Christ compels you" being uttered by an old Priest and a Young Priest. There is a bigger picture here, one that is often missed and overlooked when we consider what exorcism is. When Christ died on the Cross, he defeated through his sacrifice, the dominion of Satan, thereby exorcising Satan from Power in this world.
So is exorcism the Fruit of the Church? As with everything the Church teaches concerning sacraments and sacramentals, exorcism or indulgences or whatever you can think of,  Christ did it first, and the Catholic by uniting themselves to the sufferings of Christ, share in that very same sacrifice.
We cast out Demons because Christ cast out demons, we offer our suffering for others, because Christ offered himself for others and so on.
Rather than saying "Exorcism is THE Fruit of the Church".  I think it would be more accurate to say "Exorcism is A fruit of the Church"  The True fruit is Christ himself, and the understanding of his salvific sacrifice and our  participation in those sufferings as an Obedience of Faith.
I saw this Quote from Dostoevsky

"Of the pride of Satan what I think is this: it is hard for us on earth to comprehend it, and therefore it is so easy to fall into error and to share it, even imagining that we are doing something grand and fine."

The devil fights hard for our destruction and even though he has already lost and knows it, destroying us brings him satisfaction.  The Church fights the tricks of the devil by countering them with the Cross of Christ which is directly in opposition to those tricks, Humility rather than Pride, Charity rather than Covitiveness, self-denial rather than lust.  When a Catholic embraces the sacraments, embraces the evangelical counsels or the cardinal virtues, it is manor of exorcising the fallen world from the temptations of the Satan.
So when for example a person says to me, "Christ did everything and there is nothing that I can do to be saved"  I think to myself "The Power of Christ compels you"  Just kidding, a little humor makes the medicine go down.
Comment: With all the Catholic sources available, you quote a Russian Orthodox! Take the next step and add a Catholic source.


Are there refuted analogues of the Riemann hypothesis?

Question: The classical Riemann Hypothesis has famous analogues for function fields and finite fields which have been proved.  It has by now very many analogues, many of them still open.  Are there important analogues that are now known to be false?
Comment: Look up Beurling primes.
Answer: There is a well-known example of Davenport and Heilbronn of a Dirichlet series that in some sense is not so different from the Riemann-zeta function but that has zeros off the critical line.
The function is defined
$$\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}  \frac{a_n}{n^s}$$
where $a_n$ equals $1, c, -c, -1, 0$ for $n$ equal to $1,2,3,4,5$ modulo $5$, resp., with
$c$ a certain algebraic number [see the reference at the end for the actual value].
This function then fulfills a functional equation similarly to the Riemann-zeta-function and (thus) can be continued to the entire plane (for details see again reference below). Yet as mentioned above it has (nontrivial) zeros off the critical line.
And, it might be worth adding that for other Dirichlet series with periodic coefficient sequences (for example, Dirichlet L-series) one expects a generalisation of RH to be true.
For some recent computational investigations on the zeros of this function see for example
Zeros of the Davenport-Heilbronn Counterexample Mathematics of Computation, 2007.
For an 'axiomatic' framework where no exceptions to (the analog of) the Riemann Hypothesis are currently expected while capturing many/most Dirichlet series that appear in practise see the Selberg class.
Comment: Most Dirichlet Series(those one without Euler Products) with periodic coefficients badly violate RH( see arxiv.org/abs/0807.0783).
Comment: See also the question and my answer http://mathoverflow.net/questions/45912/function-zeros-in-strip-0-re-1/45919#45919
Answer: There are examples of Epstein zeta functions defined by Dirichlet series which (1) have a meromorphic continuation to the entire plane, (2) satisfy a functional equation similar to the Riemann zeta function, (3) have infinitely many zeros on the critical line, yet are known to have nontrivial zeroes off the critical line.  One construction of this form is as follows:
Let $Q(x,y)= ax^2 +  bxy +cy^2 $ be a positive definite quadratic form, and form the Epstein zeta-function $\zeta(z,Q)= \sum_{n,m} \frac{1}{Q(n,m)^{s}}$. Assume the class number of $h(d) >1$ (where $d=b^2-4ac$ is the discriminant of $Q$). Then  $\zeta(z,Q)$ has infinitely many zeroes to the right of the $1$ line.
For details, see: Davenport, H.; Heilbronn, H. On the Zeros of Certain Dirichlet Series. J. London Math. Soc. S1-11 no. 3, 181.
Comment: A particularly nice example is the Epstein zeta function of $\mathbb{Z}^4$ (ie $Q(x_1,x_2,x_3,x_4)=x_1^2+x_2^2+x_3^2+x_4^2$) which is given by $8(1-2^{2-s})\zeta(s)\zeta(s-1)$.  Clearly there are zeros on at least two vertical lines.
Answer: I wrote a paper investigating the Shintani zeta function (associated to the space of binary cubic forms) from an analytic point of view. Although my investigations were for the most part inconclusive, I determined that this zeta function does not satisfy RH. (I was motivated by the examples that quid and Mark Lewko mention above.)
The general principle seems to be, more or less, that the following are equivalent for a Dirichlet series $L(s)$ with analytic continuation and a functional equation: (1) $L(s)$ satisfies RH; (2) $L(s)$ has an Euler product; (3) $L(s)$ is the $L$-function associated to some automorphic representation. Needless to say, this is far from proven.
However, for any such Dirichlet series without an Euler product, it is typically easy to disprove the Riemann hypothesis: there will be zeroes off the critical line, and numerical methods and software due to Rubinstein, Dokchitser, and others allow one to go poking around for them.
Comment: I hoped you would also say something on this question. In fact, I meant to mention your work, but then got scared by the idea of misrepresenting it 'in your presence.'
Comment: Of course showing anything implies (1) seems out of reach at present. But there is some very interesting partial progress relating (2) and (3). In particular, there is a line of work started with Conrey and Farmer which shows (roughly) that if a Dirichlet series has a functional equation and Euler product (of a certain form) then it must arise from a modular form.  See: http://www.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=1360623
Answer: It is some time ago that I read it, so I hope I recall the details correctly but:
in Eisenstein series and the Riemann zeta function (Automorphic Forms, Representation Theory and Arithmetic, Springer-Verlag, Berlin-Heidelberg-New York (1981) 275-301)
Don Zagier shows that the RH is equivalent to the unitarity of a certain (non-admissible) $SL(2, \mathbb{R})$ representation. Next he gives a second construction of this representation in terms of the adeles over $\mathbb{Q}$. Then a rather surprising punch line follows: he applies the same construction to the adeles over $\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{2})$, thus obtaining a similar represenation and shows that this representation is not unitary (by exhibiting an invariant subspace that is not a direct summand).
Although it is more a variant of an equivalent reformulation of the RH that is shown false than a variant of the RH itself, at least it goes to show, as Zagier points out, that any proof of the RH should exploit some very special properties of the rationals not shared by just any global field.
EDIT: I just found an online version of the paper and it turns out I remembered it wrongly. Apparently the unitarity of the mentioned representation is not equivalent to RH but strictly stronger. In particular it would also imply that the zeroes of zeta are simple (which is believed to be even harder than RH according to the answer to this MO question: Are the nontrivial zeros of the Riemann zeta simple?.) Apparently this harder conjecture is known to be false over fields other than $\mathbb{Q}$ and it is this fact that is used to construct the counterexample to the unitarity of the analogous representations coming from other fields (also, to my surprise, $\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{2})$ is mentioned nowhere explicitly). So not an answer to the original question after all, I'm sorry. Still the article is quite interesting.


Can I load and play audibooks on the iPod shuffle 2GB?

Question: Can I load and play audibooks on the iPod shuffle 2GB?
If so, how many standard novels can I fit on there, am I only allowed to download from the iTunes shop or can I also load from the library?
Answer: Yes you can load audiobooks onto the shuffle, The amount you load depends entirely on the size of the books. But to answer your question a 5 CD audio book uses about 120mb of data.
The formatted iPod Shuffle has in the region of 1966mb of free space. So using those numbers you will fit on average 16 full audiobooks on to the iPod Shuffle.
You can download audiobooks from anywhere iTunes, Audible or even Audio CD's you own, as they can be imported into iTunes.


Why do electric trains arc at high speeds?

Question: When I watch videos of high speed trains I always see explosions of electricity near the top, or arcing. Why does that happen? I know that the Acela does it a lot but other high speed trains have it, too.
Comment: It can also occur with 'low speed' trains.
Comment: Hi user3831089, welcome to Engineering SE. Please keep in mind that this is not a discussion forum, so you should try to be direct and brief with your questions, giving all the necessary information to describe the problem and no more. This helps experts read and understand your question so they can give an effective answer. You might want to review our [help] article, [How do I ask a good question?](https://engineering.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask)
Comment: Actually I have seen this much more often on low speed trains than on fast ones. Does someone have data on whether it really happens more often on fast trains?
Comment: @Nobody Arcs happen roughly equally on all trains, it's more of a maintenance cost trade-off. Low-speed overhead lines are usually in a much worse shape (so there are arcs even at lower speeds), but they don't require to be readjusted every couple of years like high-speed lines do. Of course, if you go at 300 kph on a low-speed line, you'll have an arc almost non-stop (that is, until your pantograph melts).
Answer: Several factors influence this:

at high speed, there's a higher chance of the pantograph losing contact with the catenary wire: at higher speed, bumps in the wire cause a more violent excursion that can exceed the capability of the suspension of the pantograph.
Low-speed trains can show arcing too.
high-speed trains often use high voltage (15 or 25 kV), which is capable of arcing across longer distances than the lower voltage (e.g. 1500 V) used in older trains.

The point where the pantograph of an electric train makes contact with the trolley wire creates one of the most complex and challenging environments for rail component manufacturers and test engineers to understand, let alone predict and improve.
For trains to operate efficiently, the pantograph must maintain constant contact with trolley wires suspended from catenary systems. Yet these wires and their support structures exhibit different vertical stiffnesses along any given section. The catenary system zigzags in 30 to 100 meter intervals to prevent grooving. The force the pantograph applies to the wire must stay
  within a well-defined range (70N to 120N). If it is too low, loss of contact results in arcing, which not only causes the train to lose power but damages the trolley wire and the contact bar through etching and overheating. If the force is too high, the resulting friction wears down the
  wire and contact bar prematurely.
Delivering the right amount of force requires variable vertical motion. But when trains move at higher speeds, pantographs lose their ability to react appropriately. Even when the trolley wire is as flat as possible, it is only flat when it hangs undisturbed. When the pantograph lifts the wire, the
  resulting deformation creates a wave. If there is too much uplift, the pantograph creates a much larger waveform that causes contact problems for the next pantograph coming down the line.

The catenary wire isn't stationary: it gets moved around by trains and by the wind.

In general, when a pantograph runs underneath the catenary, it sets up a wave-like disturbance which travels down the wire with a speed determined by the tension in the wire and its mass per unit length. When a train approaches this critical speed, the pantograph catches up with the disturbance, resulting in dangerously large vertical displacements of the wire as well as contact interruptions. The top speed of the train is then limited by the critical speed of the catenary. This problem was central to the test runs, since it was desired to test set 325 at speeds well above the critical speed of standard TGV catenary.
Comment: @CarlWitthoft: See the [comment elsewhere](https://engineering.stackexchange.com/a/15734/86) about the inductive nature of the load. Higher current means higher voltage when that current is suddenly interrupted.
Comment: In addition, a train that's accelerating or running fast draws a lot more current than when it is running slow.
Comment: @DaveTweed  that's true, but arcing is almost entirely a function of the electric field strength, not the current behind it.   Once an arc is struck, then certainly the available current affects the amount of damage (welding/cutting) that takes place.
Comment: @CarlWitthoft The amount of light produced by the arc is proportional to the current in it, not to the voltage. Once the arc is lit, it only drops a fraction of the overhead line voltage.
Comment: @DmitryGrigoryev  Correct.  I should have specified that it's the **striking** of the arc that depends on field strength (and dielectric constant)
Answer: It is due to the high voltage still causing a connection when the contacts separate due to an irregularity (bump etc) between the contact and the wire.
Comment: With a prominent example being ice on the overhead wires.
Comment: High speed vastly exacerbates the problem - minuscule irregularities over which the pantograph would just slide smoothly, retaining contact at all times, its flexibility yielding and pushing following the surface, in case of high speed cause it to jump and create a gap - which causes sparking.
Answer: As others have posted, a temporary gap between pantograph and overhead conductor is part of the answer, however that's not the complete story.   The other big factor is that the train's motors are an inductive load, which seriously complicates what happens when the circuit is interrupted.
When there is an interruption of a circuit with an inductive load, the current through the load cannot go to zero instantly.   Instead, current continues to flow through the load, generating an voltage spike at the point of interruption.  (The extra energy to do this is actually come from the inductive load.)  The voltage rises suddenly until a breakdown (e.g. arc) occurs.   One an arc has formed, the voltage drops, but less voltage is needed to sustain an arc because plasma is more conductive than air at typical temperatures.
The currents flowing for a high-speed train will typically be much higher than their low-speed counterparts, so the voltage developed when the circuit is interrupted will be higher.
Comment: This is wrong: motors are never connected directly to the pantograph circuit, except on toy trains.
Comment: Do you have a citation to show that the engine's internals don't have back-surge suppressors?
Comment: No *economically viable* power conditioning circuits between the pantograph and motors changes the fact that it's still effectively an **inductive load**. The fact that arcing may occur at the pantograph has been long accepted, so absorbing transients in electronics rather than at the pantograph seems economically unwise.  @CarlWitthoft, do you have a citation showing otherwise?
Comment: @Burt_Harris Train motors cannot run at 50/60 Hz all the time (which would mean constant speed), so the line voltage is first converted to DC, and the DC bus is managed to absorb the current generated during braking, if that's what you call "inductive load". May I ask what kind of experience you have with trains?
Comment: @DmitryGrigoryev - in DC overhead systems, 1500v to 3000v, the motors in classic multiple units and locomotives  can be started with resistance in series, and series/parallel switching, and then speed up until the motors are connected directly to the line, via protection such as circuit breakers of course.
Comment: Also classic third rail and third/fourth rail rolling stock.
Answer: The upforce on a pantograph is 15-40 pounds, 60 pounds at the outside.  (7-18kg, max 30 or so).
The trolley (contact) wire is made of solid bronze or copper, typically 4/0 to 400kcmil (107-200mm^2), with a stranded steel messenger (catenary) wire of 3/8-1/2" (10-13mm) diameter.   The messenger wire is supported every 100-200 feet (30-60m) and it supports the contact wire every 6-10' (2-3m).  So the contact wire is free to rise up even a foot (0.3m) as the train passes.  It often has a stabilizer bar to keep it from moving laterally but is free to move vertically.
As discussed, any irregularity in the contact wire, or in how it's hung, can cause pantograph and wire to separate for a moment.
Wave action in the wire can also cause a momentary separation.  Sufficient wire or train movement can cause the wire to move out onto the curved "horn" of the pantograph.

src
Irregularities in the pantograph's running surface can also cause arcing.  There are typically inset copper or bronze slides; physical damage to a slide or simply a burned spot from arcing may cause the wire to lose contact.
Also a pantograph typically has two slides, fore and aft, and the pantograph has either linkage or strong springs to keep it level. If there is any binding or broken linkage or a fatigued or broken spring, it may not be level and may ride on its heel or toe, causing poor contact.
The arcing of course is caused by current.  Current might remain continuous through the arc (that tendency being proportional to voltage, more likely on the high voltage systems used in high-speed rail) -- however high speed air movement is likely to snuff out the arc, severing power to the train momentarily.  Talk about voltage spikes!
Comment: "Pan" is the slang term for pantograph.  It was also sometimes spelled "pantagraph", depending on which company was supplying them.
Answer: It's not about voltage*, it's about current.
*line voltage
When a high-current circuit is interrupted (especially an inductive one), an arc is formed between the contacts breaking away. The high current then sustains the arc: ohmic heating turns air into plasma, while the plasma conducts the current. It's the basis of arc welding, which uses hundreds of amps at voltage as low as 20V.
Welding at high speed 5000 fps (close-up arc, spatter visible)
Even low-voltage (usually 600-800V) trams moving at walking pace do produce arcing and sparks at breakpoints in catenary, while subway does same at the level of the power rail.
Subway Sparks | New York Snowstorm 2017
Because of the high-current requirement, sparks happen mostly when the train is accelerating (eg from a standstill), or when it draws lots of power to sustain high speed, but they never happen when it's coasting at idle power, despite voltage being the same.
In low-speed operation, this happens mostly when a break of contact is introduced to the wire-shoe system externally, eg by a physical gap separating different circuits or by contamination from ice, snow or leaves.
In high-speed operation, in addition to all the low-speed ones, extra breaks are created by the pantograph jumping on catenary irregularities, just like an off-road truck which gets it's wheel momentarily airborne when it goes too fast on bumps. Some of those irregularities are introduced by the pantograph itself: one can imagine pantograph on a catenary as an upside-down acrobat on a tightrope. Instead of gravity acting on the acrobat downwards, the pantograph pushes the catenary upwards via a spring, so the whole system jumps up and down when passing under suspension points.
Comment: Well, sort of... current is related, but it's actually a voltage spike that starts the arc in the case of a pantograph.   See my answer re inductive loads.
Comment: @Burt_Harris What I've meant is that line voltage doesn't matter, as 25kV train arces as much as 800V subway, and not even remotely as much as 20V welder. I kinda overlooked that welders are inductive and there is a voltage spike.
Answer:
When I watch videos of high speed trains I always see explosions of
  electricity near the top, or arcing. Why does that happen?

There is a gap in the contact, the electrons shooting through the gap turn the air into a plasma and breakdown the air. Because the air is a plasma, it can conduct current, this happens at around 3kV/mm so you know there is some voltage involved.
Comment: 3kV/mm is very optimistic. You can easily get an arc of several cm with 25 kV.
Comment: The plasma effect is only peculiar to that particular air.  On a train moving fast, it is likely that air will be blown away by the wind force, tending to snuff the arc.  In fact, blasts of air are often used to snuff arcs in large contactors.
Comment: @Harper, yeah thats why I wrote around 3kV/mm instead of exactly 3kV/mm
Answer: Another factor is that overhead line profile changes much more rapidly at high speed. The contact wire isn't at exactly the same distance from the rail all the time.
The pantograph is constantly readjusted to apply a constant pressure on the contact wire, but at high speed that doesn't happen fast enough. When the pressure on the contact wire is insufficient, a small bump is all it takes to send the pantograph down a few mm, creating a visible arc.
Just for reference, low-voltage trains are capable to create quite visible arcs just as well (the lower voltage is usually compensated by the fact that it's DC), if they go fast enough or the contact wire is in a bad shape.


How long should I be planning on doing a reinstall?

Question: I'm planning on doing a clean install from Windows Vista 32-bit to Windows 7 64-bit.
How long should I plan for this to take?
Comment: Community wiki? There is no real answer to this question, the installation time varies too much depending on the hardware.
Answer: Depends on your hardware. It took me about 15 minutes on an i7 box with 6GB DDR3. Your DVD drive's read speeds can also have an effect.
Answer: a normal Windows 7 installation will take about 15-30 minutes until you're at the desktop and ready to do stuff. Then you likely want to plan for driver installation for any non-trivial hardware that you have and also Windows Update.
If it's a critical machine and you need a solid time plan I would estimate around 2-3h for the whole procedure, depending on your amount of hardware and your personalization settings you want to add.
Answer: Give it a few hours. Actual install (for Vista, XP was hella slow) shouldn't be very long at all, but configuration and making sure everything feels right will take more time.
Answer: depends on how well you have prepared yourself for the 'big day'.
have you got all drivers handy?
did you check your machine for any incompatibility issues? (if not, run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to see if your PC is ready for Windows 7)
other than that, the installation of the OS itself won't take much longer than 15-20 minutes on a decent system.
Comment: On a clean install doesn't the hard drive get formatted?
Comment: I do believe if you are going from Vista to 7 you can just "upgrade" without a format, but I could be wrong.
Comment: you can, with an upgrade disc, but it wouldn't be my preferred method. during a clean installation the hard drive will be formatted (hence the term 'clean'). if you're looking for an in-place upgrade, you may rephrase that question of yours.
Answer: On a dual Core AMD 4400+ with "nothing special" and 6 GB of RAM the 64 bit install took me 26 minutes from disk insertion to a "start" menu.  Strangely, it took +/- a minute exactly the same time to install on my AMD based dual core laptop with 2 GB of RAM.  (Ultimate version installed on both).  And, not surprisingly, it took about the same time on the 32 bit version on a Win7 desktop I am using as a media center with 2 GB of RAM and the same AMD 4400 CPU in it.
Answer: Install 32-bit to windows 7 64-bit?  I am not sure how I (we) could do that.
My advice is don't even take the celophane off the DVD until you have run the Windows 7 Upgrade advisor
As for the upgrade it took me 90 minutes.
I do believe you will be looking at a fresh install.  My advice is take the longest time anyone tells you then add on 30 minutes.


Permanent Residency for EU citizen

Question: I have just submitted the application after more than 5 years residency in UK. I am required to send some documents together with the application including my passport. Do you know how long it takes to get the passport back from the Home Office? To note: I tried the Passpoort Return Service but it seems there are 4 weeks or more as waiting time and the documents must be sent within 10 days.
Answer: For all I know you will get your passport back when your application is accepted or rejected, which will easily take three months, and quite possibly longer. I would try to call around if there is a place where you can use the passport return service earlier, even if it is in a less convenient location.
Comment: Other workarounds to consider: does the country of citizenship issue national ID cards, and are these sufficient for the applicant's needs while the application is in process?  If not, does the country of citizenship issue second passports?  Many do, although the current circumstances would not necessarily qualify in every country.

Permanent Residency for EU citizen


Addicted to a particular pleasure even when you know it has its drawbacks.

Question: There's a passage where the Buddha says that the reason we get so stuck on sensual desires, sensual pleasures, is because we don't see any other alternative to pain. But when you see that there is the alternative and, as you reflect on it, you see that it has fewer drawbacks, greater rewards, and that you can learn how to tap into it when you need it, then it can be your new attachment—a better one. Does anyone know in which sutta that this passage is found?  Could someone help me in this?
Answer: Even after one has seen and understood that there's a better way, that's still not sufficient to abandon sensual pleasures. One would need to attain and experience the higher path himself. As taught in MN 14:

Even though a disciple of the noble ones has clearly seen as it actually is with right discernment that sensuality is of much stress, much despair, & greater drawbacks, still — if he has not attained a rapture & pleasure apart from sensuality, apart from unskillful mental qualities, or something more peaceful than that[4] — he can be tempted by sensuality. But when he has clearly seen as it actually is with right discernment that sensuality is of much stress, much despair, & greater drawbacks, and he has attained a rapture & pleasure apart from sensuality, apart from unskillful mental qualities, or something more peaceful than that, he cannot be tempted by sensuality.
Comment: Thank you for finding the source @santa100. So it is in Cula-dukkhakkhandha Sutta: The Lesser Mass of Stress (MN 14) - by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. If there wasn't any gratification at all in our old indulgences, we wouldn't go for them. And we won't understand it enough to really let go of it if we never know the difference as to whether the gratification really is worth the price.
Comment: We tend to only focus on the "gratification" side of sensual pleasures, not its darker side. That's why the Buddha taught us to look at sensual pleasures in all aspects: the gratification, the danger, and the escape. And right discernment is only the beginning. One would need to follow the gradual training to cultivate all the limbs of the 8-Fold Noble Path to really put an end to craving and ignorance.
Answer: Upasaka Saptha Visuddhi,
interested reader,
My person does not give you the desied target here, but maybe support for the problem:
Althought Jhana is a good alternative, still one can develope desire for it, so focus on Vipassana, here or there, or where ever one might be, removes the fetters actually.

"In one who keeps focusing on the drawbacks of clingable phenomena, craving ceases. From the cessation of craving comes the cessation of clinging/sustenance. From the cessation of clinging/sustenance comes the cessation of becoming. From the cessation of becoming comes the cessation of birth. From the cessation of birth, then aging, illness & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair all cease. Such is the cessation of this entire mass of suffering & stress."
— SN 12.52

More on Drawbacks, adinava, here.
[Note: This is a gift of Dhamma, not meant for commercial purpose or other wordily gains]


An example of a Z-PBW algebra which is not a PBW algebra?

Question: Can anyone provide an example of a (quadratic) Z-PBW algebra which is not a (quadratic) PBW algebra? I am using the definition of Z-PBW algebra given in Polishchuk and Positselski's book Quadratic Algebras. I have tried verifying the assertion made about the algebra in the example at the bottom of page 97. However, to the best of my knowledge, that assertion appears to be false.
Answer: I have just rechecked the assertion in the Example at the bottom of page 97 and to the best of my understanding it is correct.
I can imagine one cause of a possible confusion, namely, the variables are not listed in the order of their increase in the sense of the ordering that makes them Z-PBW-generators.  The order should be $x^{\sigma+1,\sigma}>y^{\sigma+1,\sigma}>z^{\sigma+1,\sigma}$, the order of monomials being the lexicographical order corresponding to this order of generators.  It is presumed that the surviving monomials in the PBW-basis are those that cannot be expressed as linear combinations of any smaller ones (modulo the relations).
Specifically, the quadratic monomials that do not survive (do not belong to the set $S^{\sigma+1,\sigma-1}$) are $x^{\sigma+1,\sigma}y^{\sigma,\sigma-1}$ and $x^{\sigma+1,\sigma}z^{\sigma,\sigma-1}$.  Given their form, it is immediately clear that the PBW condition is satisfied.
UPDATE.  Well, another source of a possible confusion is a misprint in our formulas.  It should be $b_{\sigma+1}=-1/c_\sigma$ and $c_{\sigma+1}=-1/(ab_\sigma)$ and not the other way around.  To put it simply, the constants $b_\sigma$ and $c_\sigma$ are chosen in such a way that the terms $x^{\sigma+1,\sigma}x^{\sigma,\sigma-1}$ cancel out in each relation.
Answer: Thank you very much Dr. Positselski. I now agree that the example is correct.
Perhaps you could shed some light on the following (vague) questions.
(1) Are there any hints or reasons to suspect a given quadratic algebra is Z-PBW? In your example one can get rid of "inclusion ambiguity" (the common $x^2$ terms of the relations) using the Z-PBW idea.
(2) Do you know any examples in the literature of quadratic algebras whose Koszulity has been proved by verifying Z-PBW (without PBW)?
I am trying to prove Koszulity of some algebras which do not appear to be PBW. However I have found some monomial orderings for which there are only a few "overlap ambiguities". I'm using the terminology in Bergman's paper on the Diamond Lemma.


Meaning of "Похоже, ты к нему клеишься"

Question: Похоже, ты к нему клеишься

Please let me know, which of the following translation is better for this?

1- Looks like you stick to him.
2- Sounds to me like you're going towards him.
3- Sounds to me like you fell in love with him!
Comment: Some context would help. Like, who says this to whom about whom and based on what observations. But yes, the answer by @БаянКупи-ка is the best possible guess.
Comment: and what is your preference and why you still have doubts?
Answer: I don't think any of the variants fits.

It seems you're making a move on him
  It seems you're hitting on him / trying to get with him
Answer: All three are off, but 3 is the closest.
"Клеиться" in this case means "flirt" or "hit on". It describes an action, not a sentiment. The flirting might be inspired by anything from undying love to a passing interest.
Answer:
Похоже, ты к нему клеишься
1- Looks like you stick to him.

No, because stick is about glue.

2- Sounds to me like you're going towards him.

No, because [going towards] is just a fact of phisically going up to somebody. It does not mean any love interest.

3- Sounds to me like you fell in love with him!

No, because fall in love is something deep and mental, but [клеить] is just about sex.

Looks like you're picking up him.

To me this is the closest.

Here is imporant detail.
Direct litteral translation to Russian:

Looks like you're picking up him.
Похоже, ты его клеишь.

Direct litteral translation to English:

Похоже, ты к нему клеишься.
Looks like you're making him pick up you.

10-15 years ago pickuper was a man who professionally on constant basis [клеит] girls to have sex with them.
But today we live in the world where woman is the same or in feminist oriented countries even more rightfull than a man, so nowadays it is ok to say that a woman pickuped a man. But 10-15 years ago only a man could pickup a woman and a woman could be only pickuped. Therefore if it is initiative of woman to make a man to pick up her, we use passive voice.
[ты клеишься] - is passive voice - making yourself to be picked up by someone
[ты клеишь] - is active voice - you pick up someone

[клеить] as [to pick up] is a slang word
[клеить] means [to use glue to stick things together] or simply [to glue]

Meaning of "Похоже, ты к нему клеишься"


How to make the most of practicing guitar

Question: I have playing guitar for a while - I have done all of the rockschool grades and am currently in two bands - and I've recently realised that I am making far less progress than my friends. My question revolves around this: Are some people naturally better at guitar (or any instrument for that matter) and if so, how can I work to get the same out of guitar as they do? I practice daily for around an hour. I play scales, riffs, songs and exercises but make no progress. Is there anyway that I can speed up my learning process?
Comment: See this question: http://music.stackexchange.com/q/545/1379
Answer: I feel like I'm kind of in the same boat as you as far feeling a lack of progression. I dabble with many instruments and do not channel all of my energy and attention into mastering any instrument! I do consider myself an above average guitarist and multi-instrumentalist for that matter.
I've currently been working on advancing my guitar and piano skills, although I have no teacher. What I would suggest is learn some very difficult songs and then analyze them theoretically. A teacher can help you with technique and suggest pieces for you to play, but the real way to improve is to play with the same motivation and hunger that you did when you first began. It's hard to keep your practicing fun, but it must be done.
Identify your weaknesses. Do you want to be a better finger picker? Do you want to play better Jazz Rhythm? Do you want to play some really fast bluegrass? Then proceed to achieve your goals. It's also very important to analyze the music that you're playing. You can learn some tabs, but to understand what the composer played gives your learning a lot more meaning and can help with composition and improvisation if those are areas of interest to you.
If all of your practice is playing with your bands and whatever your teacher assigns you, there's a chance that you're not playing the music that you want to play. It's one thing to have a song assigned to you or your band, it's much more rewarding when you play and learn the songs that you want to. As aforementioned, go for the difficult songs that you feel are out of your reach. Suffer now and reap the rewards later.
Answer: Of course some people are better at some things than others. It's life. You sound like you need some goals for your playing. Exams may seem like a drastic measure, but they will galvanise you into learning for a purpose. Have a look at R.G.T. syllabi - they're for electric, acoustic, classical, bass and rock guitar. With a deadline to meet (the exam), you'll have some purpose.
Playing with others is also a great incentive. You'll learn from those better, help those who aren't and there will be an inbuilt pressure not to 'let the side down'.This includes playing with other instruments as well as guitars.
Mainly, though, a teacher (as we have said numerous times here) will generally be your best motivator, and give goals for you to reach. Often, one can be very forgiving with one's own expectations. Good luck !
Comment: @TimHargreaves- supposing you did well with RS. you'd probably go in at 6/7 on the electric. Discussion with your teacher will be productive.Assuming he's au fait with RGT. Other suggestions - if you rely on tab to learn solos, try figuring them out tab-less.Have a go at working out the chords to a song with nothing except the track to listen to. Learn to read dots - there's a challenge lots of electric guitar players could take on. More work about for readers !
Comment: I'm sorry that I didn't make this clear but I am not just starting out. I have done all of the rockschool grades, am currently in two bands and have a teacher. I'll update my question be clear of this. Thanks for the response though.
Comment: @TimHargreaves - thanks for the edit ! If you've done all that, you can't be that bad ! Give yourself and the band a work-out. Play the numbers you do in different keys, in different time sigs, play solos differently from the standards if it's cover stuff.Still have a look at R.G.T. - it's quite different from Rockschool.
Comment: I'll take a look at that. Would it be worth redoing grades though?
Answer: Talent is something that is very individual. If you have less natural talent, you have to make up for it with more work to get to the same level.
There might be some things that comes more natural to your friends than it does to you. Other things might come more natural to you. Everyone are different.
You might want to step out of the "practice mode" now and then, and just play around with your guitar. You might end up discovering new riffs that does not sound like anything else you know, but sound cool and is more natural to you.
Even if you don't use these riffs in playing with others, it will be a help in improving a more natural way of playing that can help you relax more. Then try to use that feeling when playing the stuff you want to improve on.
Answer: Are you practising with a metronome? That is a way to find out weaknesses, and you also get a tangible measurement on improvement. After a couple of weeks you realize that you can play that hard part consistently at a higher BPM.
It's common to put a lot of emphasis on speed by guitarists. If it's about solos and the other guy is shredding away like crazy, focus on melody instead. There are already a lot of arpeggio masters out there...
One hour of focused practise should be enough to make progress. If living arrangements allow, always have the guitar present, play in front of the TV and so on, in addition to the dedicated practice. That helps in being able to play without thinking about it.
Good luck!
Answer: You're learning what you don't know which means you're making real progress. You want to make more progress? Besides the obvious - play more time per day - take some extra time and learn some piano. Practice singing. Practice without the instrument in your hand, during the day. Go over stuff in your head (invaluable if you're trying to memorize music). Listen to music outside your comfort zone and listen to how it's put together. How musicians handled grooves and time through the years, especially before MIDI (early 80s).
Answer: After playing classical and blues guitar for 40 odd yrs., here is a universal "truth" about guitar playing skill: The longer you play, the harder it becomes to improve enough to play more difficult pieces. I know I don't practice near enough to improve as it needs a lot more practice than it used to, in fact I just know I'm getting worse as I get older!


Is there a recommended and/or compatible antivirus software and/or tool available for Tor Browser Bundle

Question: Specifically, for window OS, is there a recommended and/or compatible antivirus software and/or tool one can use to increase the security of the system. The point being, if there is a malware on the system, all the security Tor provides could be in vain. Is Tail in anyway safer to use, having its own OS in the sense of malware presence on the system OS?
Comment: Alos, Make attention with your BIOS maybe infected!
Answer: Assuming you download and burn Tails from a known virus-free computer, running Tails is much more secure that just adding an anti-virus software.
Tails does not only protect against virus, software keyloggers and similar that may be present on the system OS installed on your computer, but Tails also prevent many possible information leaks Tor Browser cannot protect against (e.g. leaks from other applications on your system).
About anti-virus software, be careful! Some anti-virus software leaks what files you have on your computer (e.g. files you downloaded through Tor Browser) to the company behind the anti-virus software. This is especially true if the anti-virus software uses cloud technology. Check the settings and privacy policy carefully.
Remove all malware:
Do a complete format and reinstall of your computer, using CD/DVDs you already got/burnt.
Avoid malware:
Do not install any untrusted software or games on your computer (e.g. downloaded from warez sites or bittorrent). If you OS tells you a file may be a virus, assume it is. AdBlock Plus plugin to Firefox helps a lot.
Comment: Could you suggest some of less hostile antivirus software to be used with TBB. Or you may suggest not to use Antivirus software at all, meaning cost, benefit equation of antivirus softwares do not justify their use.
Comment: If you are at all unsure/afraid you may get virus on your computer, you should use an antivirus software. If you have virus on your computer, it is as you said, no security/anonymity can any longer be guaranteed. I cannot suggest any however, since I don't use them. Someone else have to help you here with recommendations.


What does les eaux mean in the plural?

Question: The French word l'eau means water in the singular. But what does it mean in the plural? In English, if we say "waters", we typically refer to bodies of water like seas, lakes, or oceans. Does it have the same meaning in French? If not, what does it mean?
Comment: Varieties of water, bodies of water, instances of water (to boil down what has been said, hopefully comprehensibly). I summarize it this way because that's a frequent function of the plural for mass nouns.
Comment: does "waters" really refer to bodies of water in English?
Comment: @martinjakubik Not often, but see for example Genesis 7:18.
Comment: @martinjakubik Or this NBC headline: "The world's most pirate-infested waters".
Comment: yeah, I'll take the NBC one :)  wiktionary has some examples too. You're right it's definitely used, but offhand I would say it comes up in different contexts in English than les eaux in French.
Comment: Water is an uncountable noun in English.  The meaning of *waters* depends on the context it's used in but it is usually used to discuss a collection of bodies of water or water sources.
Answer: "Water" as in English can designate a or some particular waters or water by its substance (same case as "fire", for instance).
Often, "l'eau" using singular is relative to the substance and often the plural is to indicate specific ones. But there is a plurality of meanings (please have a look here).
Some examples to illustrate the point, but please don't forge a too strict opinion about them as we can surely imagine a variety of meanings using this word:

"L'eau est un élément composé d'hydrogène et d'oxygène" (substance)
"Les eaux nationales" (particular areas)
"L'eau s'est écoulée sur la table" (we are talking about a particular water, probably identified before)
"De l'eau s'est écoulée sur la table" (here the nature of water matters)
"L'eau du puit est consommable" (is particular but refers the nature of the water)
"L'eau de pluie est souvent polluée" (the substance)
"Les eaux de pluie sont souvent polluées" (the substance in its variety as they are inhomogeneous, also "rain" can be considered as particular areas too)
"L'eau terrestre est différente de celle de Mars" (the water in general)
"Les eaux terrestres sont différentes de celles de Mars" (the variety of waters that can be found on earth)
"L'eau thermale est bonne pour la santé" (thermal water is good for health in general, by its nature)
"Les eaux thermales sont bonnes pour la santé" (all thermal waters, whatever they contain, are good for health)
Answer: Les eaux has indeed the same meaning in French as Waters in English.
Depending on the context it can refer as you suggested to bodies of water.
Also, when a woman is about to give birth and her water(s) just broke French people say that "elle vient de perdre les eaux".
Answer: Also, "prendre les eaux" means go to a thermal city, like Bath in UK or Baden-Baden in Germany.
Comment: In English there is the same phrase, "to take the waters" :-)

What does les eaux mean in the plural?


Dust collection for my shop

Question: I have read many articles about dust collection and the differences between a shop vac and a dust collector. I am still stuck on one major issue for me; how does one connect table saw, mitre saw, router table to a 4" dust collector when all their ports are 2 1/2"? My understanding is that the reductions severely inhibit the dust collectors ability (which was also my experience as I tried it). I switched to my 6.5 hp shop vac but it cannot handle more than one or two at a time at best and when I add a dust deputy into the mix, everything gets worse. Would really appreciate some direction. Thank you
Comment: usuall a shop Vac is used for only one tool at a time. A dust collection system on the other hand is usually hooked up to a system of pipes, which are in turn attached to machines. I you have ports you can close so only one pipe extracts dust, I do not see a problem with reducing the diameter for the attachment to the tool. I would avoid 90° bends in the pipes though.
Comment: If your tool has a 2.5" dust port then it has a 2.5" dust port. You use a reducer to go from your 4" main run to the 2.5" port. You're only sucking through a 2.5" pipe for a few inches in the tool and to the port exit, after that, you're into the 4" dust collection piping and all is good.
Answer: There are many adapters and reducers available for dust collection hoses and fittings.
Here is a link to one: 4 to 2 1/2 reducer.
Will the reduction reduce the ability of the dust collector? Sure, but it's still doing a better job than the shop vac. And most can handle running multiple tools at the same time.
The advantage of the dust collector vs. a shop vac is in CFM, or how much air it can suck/cycle. If you look at a 2hp dust collector, the CFM will be around 1500cfm vs. a 6hp shop vac around 180cfm. That's moving a lot more air.
With my table saw, I have a dust collector hooked to the back port and an additional over the blade suction. Removes most of the dust.

Dust collection for my shop


Why did the animals need to be destroyed in the mabul if they do not have bechira?

Question: We learn that the people were killed because of their aveiros. But animals don't have bechira so why did they deserve to be killed as well?
Answer: Rashi (to Bereishis 6:7 DH "mei'adam v'ad beheimah") seems to be bothered by your question, and he answers (2nd answer) that since everything was created for the sake of mankind, what is the point of keeping the animals around, if there's no man to benefit from them?

מאדם עד בהמה. [...] דָּבָר אַחֵר הַכֹּל נִבְרָא בִּשְׁבִיל אָדָם וְכֵיוָן שֶׁהוּא כָלֶה מַה צֹּרֶךְ בְּאֵלּוּ:
Another answer: Everything was created for the sake of man; since he is being destroyed, what need is there for these [animals]?

This verse on which Rashi comments appears before Noach is described as being righteous and worthy of being saved. Perhaps even after that point, only an amount of animals proportional to the human population is required.
Answer: Besides Rashi's comment on Bereishis 6:7 gives both reasons for destroying the animals.

Mankind had not only corrupted himself, he had forced the same corruption and degeneracy upon the natural world. Thus, the animals as well deserved destruction because of what had been done to them.

Consider that the Torah commands that an animal with which a person has committed bestiality must be put to death. This was even more extreme. Also the medrash states that the Ark only allowed in animals that had never been corrupted.

Even had Man not done so, the animals would no longer serve a purpose on the world and thus, were to be removed.

from man to cattle: They too corrupted their way (Gen. Rabbah 28:8). Another
  explanation: Everything was created for man's sake, and
  since he will be annihilated, what need is there for these [the
  animals]? (Sanh. 108a).

Rav Hirsch points out that this shows the greatness of Man and the degeneracy that he had inflicted on the world. Not only had he brought himself down but he had inflicted the same immorality and destruction on the natural world. This meant that Hashem would not have been able to destroy mankind and then create (or raise up from one of the species of animals) a sentient being that had been given free will in order to take over Man's position. The entire world had to start from scratch.

Hashem, the same mercy, the same Hashem of Love, that had placed Man on
  earth, now proclaims the decision for his destruction. The degeneracy
  was so great, that the extermination itself was an act of mercy. Even
  in the moment of his destruction, the greatness of Man shows itself in
  the fact that his destruction dragged the destruction of the whole
  living world with it. Not the world itself, but פני האדמה, the surface
  which belongs to mankind as the ground for its mission. It is not just
  merely a physical bond that joins men to things. It consists also of a
  moral relationship. When mankind sinks, the world mourns and withers.
  This fact runs through all the books of the תנ"ך. Further, it does not
  say אמחה את האדם, absolutely, but witht he addition of מעל פני האדמה.
  It does not exclude the possibiity that even this destruction was a
  relative one, removal from the earth. Whether even then the Godly
  element in Man is not preserved for other spheres, other conditions,
  that we can only dare interrogatively to hint at. The actual words of
  the text, anyway imply only relative destruction.


Laptop Wifi problems

Question: Two different Dell Laptops, a Latitude D820 and an E5510 both running Ubuntu 11.10.  Both will connect to wireless, but immediately drop the connection and then make me reinput the wireless key.  The wireless router is a Cisco WRVS4410 using WPA-Personal security and is working fine for several windows laptops, Kindle Fires, Wii, Xbox360 etc.  Its just these two Ubuntu laptops that won't stay connected.
Answer: Are you using network manager?  If so, try using wicd.  (I literally just had this problem 2 days ago, and this is how I solved it.)
<code>sudo apt-get install --reinstall wicd
sudo service network-manager stop
sudo apt-get remove --purge network-manager network-manager-gnome
sudo service wicd restart
</code>
I think network manager struggles with WPA for some reason.

Laptop Wifi problems


Is it possible to prevent high magnitude earthquakes by induced earthquakes?

Question: As we know, earthquakes can be induced by human activities. Can we induce earthquakes around faults regularly so that the energy releases regularly, and hence prevent high magnitude earthquakes by stopping large amount of energy releases at one time?
Answer: The idea of trying to limit energy released by earthquakes and the damage that may result via the use of controlled smaller blast induced quakes is an interesting idea.
One of the problems with this is that we don't know enough about the snags along faults that cause stresses to accumulate during the normal movements along a fault. We also don't know enough about fault surfaces (shapes, undulations and friction factors) of individual fault surfaces. The other thing we don't know is where the snags are located on fault surfaces: along and down the fault surface.
The strength of snags is one factor which determines how much energy accumulates and is eventually released suddenly when the snag fails.
The other factor is the type of movement at the fault zone. Do the fault surfaces slide past one another laterally, does one sub-duct beneath the other, or are they spreading apart.
With some faults, wedge failures may produce large blocks that act a snags. Other snags can be very hard, strong protrusions of rock firmly cemented in the fault surface. Corrugations can also act as snags.
Another possible mechanism by which quakes can happen, particularly in the subduction zone is that part of the fault surface that is riding over a subduction zone might hang with no support, due to undulations or point support. If the overhanging rock is not strong enough it can fail and drop. The impact of the dropping block then causes an earthquake.
The ways in which earthquakes occur are varied and sometimes complex.
Answer: The main problem with this entire proposal is that of simple "Trust:"
Causing an earthquake is hardly like causing a spring rainstorm! "Human activities" may indeed cause earthquakes, but determining the "Magnitude" of the proposed earthquake in advance is, in all practical senses, an actual "crap-shoot."
Further, it's exceedingly difficult to get available "Earthquake Experts" to arrive at any meaningful consensus. For example: How much "push," at what point along the fault-line, will be sufficient to cause how great a magnitude of earthquake?
Asking a dozen "top" experts will result in as many answers.
Nor, evidently, is it possible to get anything resembling any sort of "guarantee" as to when a "Natural" (as opposed to our hypothetical "Induced") earthquake to take place.
There's not even anything resembling a consensus of opinion as to when a "Natural" earthquake will happen--- or which "test" is the most accurate? Runaway pets in general? Runaway cats only? The actions of birds? The responses of fish? Subsurface Infra-sonic wave generation within the fault-line? Surface bulging or subsidence? What? Which is the "more-accurate" way?
This is not an activity the public would welcome with smiles and serene gazes; considering the real-world possibilities of "worst-case scenario events" such as the taking-place of "multi-earthquake-propagation(s)" along portions of an entire branching fault-line.
A cloud-seeding experiment that went awry may break vehicle windows, costing the governments (should government agree on compensation) a few tens of thousands of dollars; a goof creating an earthquake in hopes of reducing the severity of some purportedly-pending natural earthquake that had, instead, propagated into a "Scale-Topper" earthquake could have the potential of causing hundreds if not thousands of injuries and/or deaths, with the potential of tens of trillions of dollars in damages. Most governments would be bankrupted if they even considered assuming financial responsibility.
With the almost-unimaginable risk-potential inherent in this, I can't see any "sane" individual being willing to risk his career---and his very life---in a "crap-shoot" that the unknown true potential of the experiment won't get out of control.
Conversely, I am not certain I could honestly trust any person with such a serious and LITERALLY EARTH-SHAKING RESPONSIBILITY. Particularly if he had been (or had only seemed) majorly self-assured with his predictions.
Nor do I feel that the public as a whole would have confidence in the individual(s).
I am frankly very curious who would have both the guts and either monumental arrogance or staggeringly-huge self-confidence to push such an monumental, untried, scientific agenda through, against the increasingly-worried face of what would surely escalate into a monumental confrontation of public-opinion worries and fears versus government-mandated actions.


How often should you defrag a Server?

Question: Have a few servers and they have not been de-fragmented for two years. Is there a standard for what percentage should be fragmented before defragmenting?
The servers are Windows 2003.
Answer: I in fact never defragment the data on  my servers. I haven't seen enough of a performance gain in file serving to make it worth the performance hit of the time it takes to defrag.  In fact most servers won't ever really finish defragmenting unless you take them offline for a few days.  If you're using a relatively modern file system (which unless you chose to change the defaults on Windows 2003 you are) it shouldn't matter much anyhow.  Also if you're running any sort of striping RAID the fragmentation of files is a non issue since they're already broken down across many disks.
If I have a server where I really want the data clean and defragmented for some reason I am far more likely to back it all up to tape, wipe the drive and restore it.  That will write them all down in perfect blocks.
Comment: I'm interested in your comment on fragmentation not affecting stripe sets - to my knowledge it is still an issue irrespective of the RAID approach you go for.  There's a lot of stats out there that demonstrate effects of fragmentation on RAID sets.
Comment: I am sure it does make a difference.  I just don't think for most applications it makes an appreciable difference to user experience. Performance testing, and backups will see improvement. Most users are reading or writing a single file, and over a raid set with any sort of decent caching and multiple disks they won't see any read/write delay to a fragmented drive, especially when you add in network latency to the equation.
Answer: Just about the only use-case I know of for defragmenting a Windows server is to improve backup performance. Backups are just about the only large scale sequential I/O a file-server does, and that's the kind of I/O that notices fragmentation. The kind of I/O file-servers do when users are hitting them is very random, and in that case fragmentation can sometimes improve performance.
At my old job we had a file-server that we'd just migrated to new hardware. Immediately after the migration, the backups were running on the order of 450MB/Minute (this was many years ago, mind). Two years later, that server was backing up around 300MB/Minute. We then defragged it for the first time, and speeds rose back to 450MB/Minute again.
If you're having trouble getting all of your backups done on time, and it looks like it is the server being backed up that's the bottle-neck, a defrag may help with that.
The other use-case for defrag is a backup-to-disk system with the archive stored on NTFS. Backup and restore on that kind of volume is entirely sequential, and that notices fragmentation. However, if the underlaying storage is abstracted enough (such as an HP EVA disk array) even this kind of I/O won't notice fragmentation.
What this all boils down to is that massively sequential I/O is the type of I/O that notices fragmentation the most. If that's not the I/O you're concerned about, then defragging isn't a concern.
Answer: I would concur that you often don't need to and shouldn't if performance is your goal (the constant defrag doing more harm then good).
Like any rule however there are some exceptions:
If you are, or at some point where very low on disk space (<15% free), then you should probably do a defrag when there is time. Even modern file systems have trouble avoiding fragmentation when there are so few sectors to choose from.
If you are running specific types of applications that cause unavoidable fragmentation you may wish to invest in a server specific defragmentation program (these are designed to run continuously in the background and defrag when/if needed). The type of application that would cause unavoidable fragmentation in a Windows environment would be those that do a lot of lazy writing across multiple files (most robust server designed software avoids this, but something like a desktop download manager, especially some specific BitTorrent clients, exhibit this kind of aggressive fragmentation behavoir)
Comment: An excellent point about the servers with very low disk space.
Answer: I ran Diskeeper on the servers in an earlier job and so a measurable performance improvement on both file servers and applications servers.  I don't think we got near their published stats but we definitely saw some benefits.
It was set to defrag on idle and in set schedules to limit impact with some additional bits that kicked in at boot time.
Comment: Same here, using Diskeeper on our file servers and noticing much faster response.
Comment: Also had experience with Diskeeper on a database box. It Worked well for a good while but we then started getting odd disk access hicups. We ended up going through a few RAID controllers and HDs with no luck, and we ended up turning off Diskeeper during one big hardware change. Since it seemed to work correctly after that we never turned it back up, but we could never prove if it was Diskeeper acting weirdly or just a string of bad controllers.
Answer: One tool to thing about is Smart Defrag, by IOBit. It defrags in the background, when your computer is idle, and has Deep Optimize and other capabilities.  It seems useful, so you could put it on there and not have to worry about defragmenting.
Answer: AFAIK, RAID is not immune from fragmentation effects; despite the number of physical disks, the FS still has to issue a separate I/O request for each fragment, right?
Yeah, a nicely defragged system finishes backups faster. Also agree that low space and fragmentation are not a good combination...best to avoid that situation.
If defrag time/scheduling is a concern, a background defrag solution like one of the Diskeeper Server editions (not free!) is a good choice. It defrags using only idle resources, so there ought to be no impact even on a production server. Some of our servers here use DK, and the admins seem pretty pleased with it.
BTW, some of the BT clients (utorrent comes to mind) have a pre-allocation option for the torrent, so there is no fragmentation during downloads, as long as there is sufficient contiguous free space to accomodate the file.
Answer: The consensus (which I agree with) seems to be don't defrag on servers because the benefits aren't worth the performance hit during the actual defragmentation.
However, TechNet's article on doing Physical to Virtual conversions recommends defragmentation as a method to reduce the amount of time required to do a P2V. This is especially important if you have a limited maintenance window in which to complete your P2V.

To help minimize the time required for the imaging phase, perform a disk defragmentation on the source computer's hard drives. Also, ensure that you have a fast network connection between the source computer and the host.

How often should you defrag a Server?


Remove 'ethics' tag?

Question: There are only 4 questions tagged ethics in 2 years, all by the same user. There is no usage guidance for this tag, and all four questions are about the card game bridge, making the intended scope even more unclear. We have four related tags that are more common and better defined: etiquette, cheating, legal, and perhaps tournament.
Comment: I would consider the ethics tag different then etiquette, cheating and tournament though I am not sure if it is needed or not.
Comment: I'm not familiar with bridge, but is [tag:ethics] a phase of the game, like fuseki in Go?
Comment: @SocioMatt Bridge (from my limited understanding at least) seems to have a lot of rules that deal with how players share information between partners, and the questions seems to be about when you can deviate from your prior agreements with your partner (I think, more or less, maybe...)
Answer: It appears that "ethics" has a specific meaning to Bridge players, so as an immediate fix I propose that the existing tag be renamed to bridge-ethics and given corresponding usage guidance by a user who knows more about bridge. The tag isn't used much yet, but perhaps bridge players will start using it more once it's clearer what it's for.
As other answers have pointed out, there are ethical questions that might belong on this site like the ethics of king-making or of making a game that reinforces stereotypes. If and when such questions get asked in the future, we might consider making a new ethics tag.
Comment: I suspect most questions about things like kingmaking would just be social questions, not actual ethical questions.
Comment: yeah. that works.
Answer: (This is more replying to "Is it used properly in the bridge questions?" than to the original question; but it is still an answer rather than a comment)
Bridge has (nearly universal) rules that cover the inevitable mistakes; if you revoke by playing one card when you were obliged to play another there is a two trick penalty, reduced to one if the effect was smaller than usual. These rules, deliberately, do not cover the intention of the player; they are purely mechanical, and questions about them use the rules
tag.
Like most games involving money and international prestige, bridge also has occasional cheating scandals; international pairs have recently used the positioning of their bidding cards to show partner what they hold. This is flagrant contempt for the whole rules system, and questions about it (if on-topic), use the cheating tag.
But there is also a huge area between the two, covering for example how long you are allowed to hesitate before a bid, when you must (and must not) warn the opposition about the unusual meaning of a bid, and what conventions you can play at a particular tournament. These points are covered by "Rules and Ethics" guidance given by the various rulemaking bodies (mostly but not always national), which usually attempts to 'put the players in the same position they would have been in if everybody had played properly'. Since most people believe they played properly to start with and it is impossible for an adjudicator to know what the player intended, this is not easy, and very many of these questions are discussed at all levels in the bridge world. If they are asked here, ethics is the only reasonable tag.
Answer: I think that the ethics tag is just fine but it may or may not be appropriate on the questions it is tagged. As I am not that familiar with bridge I am unable to judge if those tags are used properly or not.
A couple of areas where I think the tag does have some use. Questions about king making in games where a player causes someone else to win/lose while they themselves can't win or the actions prevent them from winning. Another area is co-op games where something may be legal according to the rules but may or may not be against the spirit of the rules.
I don't know if this tag will see a lot of use but I don't see anything wrong with it.
Answer: I'm not a bridge player, but I think those questions could all be tagged cheating.
Those four questions appear to all essentially ask whether something is considered cheating in a formal context. If the subject of the question is permissible, it's not cheating, though I suppose it could still be bad etiquette. If it isn't permissible, it's cheating, though it might be a relatively mild form of it.
So the core question is "is this cheating?", and cheating seems appropriate.
I suppose we could consider whether ethics or cheating is a better name for the whole concept. ethics is less loaded, but it's also less specific and not as obvious (only one user has used it?), so I tend to favor cheating.
Comment: From my point of view something being ethical or not in the game is not dependent on it being cheating or not. To really get into the ethics is a much deeper topic.
Comment: @JoeW I agree, but that's not how the tag was used. The "ethical" issues raised appear to all be just asking "is this allowed in formal/serious bridge play?" It looks like bridge players may tend to use the word "ethics" to describe this, but it's what would be called cheating (or not) in most contexts.
Answer: In the context of board games from the user perspective. The primary arena that really has "ethical" concerns would be publishing. (Is it ethical to report on a publisher that has rejected my game?). That and maybe modern sensitivities (Such as the question of Puerto Rico and the brown colonists cubes). Also the ethics of making a game that reinforces harmful stereotypes. Questions such as Would making The Train1 a fun game instead of an interesting one be ethical? or Should I include slaves in my historic civil war game, or Is it right to make money on a game that causes people harm and others like that.
The thing is I can't imagine many questions with descrete answers appropriate for Stack Exchange, that are also ethical in topic. So yeah in inconsideration with the fact that we have etiquette, cheating, legal, and tournament. I don't see a need for ethics. And based on four questions in two years form one user. It sounds like no one else in the community can come up with a use for them either.
1 - The Train - Designed by SCAD Professor Brenda Brathwaite is a pick up and delivery game in which at the game's conclusion it's revealed that the delivery items are jewish people being delivered to Auschwitz
Comment: I would disagree with that and say it has as many or more in game play itself. Also I think you are confusing offensive with ethical.
Comment: I'm not confusing them but I might not have been clear enough to get my point across. That said while I think I'm reasonably versed on the ethics of board game design, I'm less so on board game play and if you do have reason to believe there are ethical dilemmas that come across in board games worth the effort of stack exchange query I would read your argument.  Beyond Kingmaking and pile ons and general issue like that I'm drawing blanks.
Comment: just noting that while I was writing this you appear to have made your own answer.
Comment: I don't think the examples you gave have anything to do with ethics but rather something that is designed to be offensive

Remove 'ethics' tag?