What is a black hole ?

A black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing can escape after having fallen past the event horizon.
The name comes from the fact that even electromagnetic radiation (e.g. light) is unable to escape, rendering the interior invisible. However, black holes can be detected if they interact with matter outside the event horizon, for example by drawing in gas from an orbiting star.
The gas spirals inward, heating up to very high temperatures and emitting large amounts of radiation in the process. While the idea of an object with gravity strong enough to prevent light from escaping was proposed in the 18th century, black holes as presently understood are described by Einstein's theory of general relativity,developed in 1916.
This theory predicts that when a large enough amount of mass is present within a sufficiently small region of space, all paths through space are warped inwards towards the center of the volume, forcing all matter and radiation to fall inward.
While general relativity describes a black hole as a region of empty space with a pointlike singularity at the center and an event horizon at the outer edge, the description changes when the effects of quantum mechanics are taken into account.
Research on this subject indicates that, rather than holding captured matter forever, black holes may slowly leak a form of thermal energy called Hawking radiation.
However, the final, correct description of black holes, requiring a theory of quantum gravity, is unknown.

Recipe: MYSORE PAK

This delicious fudge from South India has a granular texture. Do not be alarmed by the amount of ghee mentioned in the recipe as most of it is drained out at the end of the cooking process.

Cooking Time : 20 mins.
Preparation Time : 10 mins.

Makes 12 pieces.

Ingredients:
1/3 cup (50 grams) Bengal gram flour (besan)
1/3 cup (50 grams) plain flour (maida)
1/2 cup melted ghee
3/4 cup (150 grams) sugar

For pouring into the flour mixture:
3 cups melted ghee, hot

Method:
1. In a bowl, combine the gram flour, plain flour and melted ghee and mix well. Keep aside.
2. In a kadhai, dissolve the sugar in 1/4 cup of water and bring to a boil. Simmer till the syrup is of 1 string consistency.
3. Add the gram flour mixture and mix well, stirring continuously in one direction, over a medium flame.
4. Pour the hot ghee a little at a time (approximately 1/4 cup) from a height so that it trickles in a thin stream in the centre of the Mysore pak mixture.
5. Stir continuously in a circular motion on a low flame. When the ghee is absorbed, the Mysore pak mixture will increase in volume(expand).
6. Stir in one direction (clockwise or anti-clockwise) only. When the mixture settles down a little, pour more hot ghee again and stir in the same manner.
7. Repeat steps 4 and 5 till the entire quantity of 3 cups of ghee has been poured and absorbed by the Mysore pak mixture.
8. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon of cold water on the Mysore pak. If it is ready, the Mysore pak will sizzle indicating that it is ready to be poured out.
9. Pour the mixture into a tray or thali approximately 100 mm. (4") in diameter. The sides of the thali should be at least 50 mm. (2") high.
10. Allow it to set and harden for about 5 minutes. Then, crack a small hole and drain out all the excess ghee. Approximately 2 to 2 1/2 cups will get drained out.
11. Cut into 12 squares and store in an air-tight container.

Tips:
If a colander is used instead of the tray or thali to set the Mysore pak, keep a bowl under the colander to collect the excess ghee which will drain out automatically.

Free printable restaurant coupons

A site that allows you to view and print restaurant coupons.
From the website (for restaurants in the US and UK):

Face it: you have to eat. You need to feed your family. But do you really feel like cooking tonight?

Eating out may seem like an extravagance, but think again. We have coupons that you can print out and use to save money at restaurants across the nation.
Now, enjoy your dinner!

AutoRuns for Windows v9.21

This utility, which has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor, shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them. These programs include ones in your startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. You can configure Autoruns to show other locations, including Explorer shell extensions, toolbars, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications, auto-start services, and much more. Autoruns goes way beyond the MSConfig utility bundled with Windows Me and XP.

Autoruns' Hide Signed Microsoft Entries option helps you to zoom in on third-party auto-starting images that have been added to your system and it has support for looking at the auto-starting images configured for other accounts configured on a system. Also included in the download package is a command-line equivalent that can output in CSV format, Autorunsc.

Autoruns works on all versions of Windows including 64-bit versions.

Read more and download from this site.

Information on carpenter ants

When searching for information about carpenter ants (identification, control, and other such information), I came across this link that provides some information in this regard, and should help you to learn more about this problem. Here are some excerpts from this site:

The presence of a few foraging ants in the home, or 1 or 2 winged queens during swarming times does not mean you have an infestation. These foragers may merely be scout ants seeking food or nesting sites or queens that have flown in an open door.
Foraging ants have been seen entering homes along telephone wires or along branches touching the roof or even from ground trails that come under a door. In such cases, the house may be a nesting area.
If ants are coming in, there may be a nest outside the house and eventually they may establish satellite colonies in some part of the structure. Be certain they are carpenter ants and not moisture ants, termites or yellowjackets.

Most infestations were in houses with these characteristics:

* Wood frame
* Crawl space
* Cedar or plywood siding
* Moderately to gently sloping roof
* 5-25 years of age
* Vegetation (trees and shrubs) surrounding the house
* "Structures located near the edge of the forest were more liable to attack than those located further away." This is because the ants which have well-established nests in trees or stumps can easily move to the nearby house and establish satellite colonies.

Site with some chess problems

Excerpt from this site (link)

Welcome to my world of Chess. Here you will find some challenging stuffs towards the game that I loved most. Some of them are my own and the other are collected when surfing across the web. The problems are really challenging and will give some food to your brain for sure. I will be publishing the solutions to these problems as well, until then, have a good time in solving them!

The problems are in the grid below this text (below the Google Ads)

Reducing The Power Consumption Of Overclocked PCs

This is a great article about reducing the power consumption of Overclocked PC's (link). Some excerpts:

Now, that must sound pretty inane. Overclocking a PC seems to be as far apart from power saving as it can get. After all, overclockers employ all kinds of power-guzzling methods to improve their CPU's overclockability, from increasing the CPU core voltage to employing more powerful cooling systems. Even the act of increasing the clock speed increases power consumption.

Having overclocked all my PCs for the past 10 years, I am one of these overclockers. I have overclocked everything from a 300 MHz AMD K6-2 processor up to my current gem, an Intel Core 2 Duo E6850. I've even gone to the extent of water cooling almost every processor I've owned since the year 2000. So, the decision to reduce power consumption would seem insane, even to me.

However, there are a few good reasons why I would want to do this. Even though I love overclocking my PCs and making them run to the best of their ability, the increased power consumption has resulted in :

* A very hot room, especially in the afternoon!
* High electricity bill.