About Those Fearsome Black Holes? Never Mind

Grok Headline matches for About Those Fearsome Black Holes? Never Mind

No black holes?

No black holes? 04/03/2005 05:55 PM
My first guess about this article, Black holes 'do not exist', was that it was an April Fool's joke I was just seeing. But the journal is Nature, and the physicist making the claim is from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory...

Black Holes - revisited

Black Holes - revisited 07/21/2004 05:58 PM

Direct and Related Links for 'Black Holes - revisited'

Stephen Hawking has changed his mind on his theory of black holes. ABC News has reported that Hawking now sides with particle physicists who believe that any matter swallowed by a black hole can’t just disappear. On the contrary, the matter must eventually generate a specific output….

"black holes cannot and do not exist"

"black holes cannot and do not exist" 04/05/2005 06:37 AM

Black holes - maybe there is a way out
after all (Reuters)

Black holes - maybe there is a way out
after all (Reuters) 07/15/2004 08:40 AM
Reuters - Black holes, those fearsome galactic traps from which not even light can escape, may not be quite so terminally destructive after all, according to cosmologist Stephen Hawking.

Do black holes really exist?

Do black holes really exist? 04/04/2005 12:24 AM

Do black holes really exist? One physicist is challenging conventional wisdom with his view that what we call black holes are actually stars made of dark energy, formed by the collapse of some stars. If true, there goes a staple of science fiction writers.

In addition, there's news on a "cyberman" who can control a robotic arm with his mind. This week's Science.Ars also covers a rather alarming report on the impact humankind is having on our home planet.

The most comprehensive global study on humankind’s impact on the planet has just been published, and it’s anything but good news. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, con-ducted over 4 years by 1,300 scientists from 95 countries was released on Wednesday, and makes grim reading.

Read on for a summary of the report as well as other bits of news from the world of science.

Hawking Says He Was Wrong About Black
Holes

Hawking Says He Was Wrong About Black
Holes 07/21/2004 12:42 PM
Dr. Stephen W. Hawking said today that black holes do not destroy matter and energy and that information can escape.

Hawking U-turn on black holes

Hawking U-turn on black holes 07/15/2004 01:43 PM
Stephen Hawking is saying that he was wrong about a key argument he put forward nearly 30 years ago about the behaviour of black holes.

Black Holes No More -- Introducing the
Gravastar

Black Holes No More -- Introducing the
Gravastar 01/07/2004 02:38 PM
Mark Eymer observes: "From the Space.com article: 'Emil Mottola of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Pawel Mazur of the University of South Carolina ...

Making black holes go 'round on the
computer

Making black holes go 'round on the
computer 05/29/2004 12:14 AM
Spaceflight Now May 29 2004 4:42AM GMT

Binary Black Holes Modeled on Computer

Binary Black Holes Modeled on Computer 05/25/2004 08:59 PM
Universe Today May 26 2004 1:13AM GMT

Physicist Rethinks Theory on Black Holes

Physicist Rethinks Theory on Black Holes 07/23/2004 01:27 AM
Abcnews.go.com - Wed Jul 21, 08:44 pm GMT

"Exploding black holes rain down on
Earth"

"Exploding black holes rain down on
Earth" 12/05/2003 10:14 AM

Physicist Rethinks Theory on Black Holes
(AP)

Physicist Rethinks Theory on Black Holes
(AP) 07/21/2004 07:59 PM
AP - After 29 years of thinking about it, Stephen Hawking says he was wrong about black holes. The renowned Cambridge University physicist formally presented a paper Wednesday arguing that black holes, the celestial vortexes formed from collapsed stars, preserve traces of objects swallowed up and eventually could spit bits out "in a mangled form."

Black holes turned 'inside out'

Black holes turned 'inside out' 07/21/2004 07:34 AM
Physicist Stephen Hawking puts forward a new theory that black holes do not destroy everything.

Black Holes "Do Not Exist" Contends
Physicist

Black Holes "Do Not Exist" Contends
Physicist 04/04/2005 08:35 AM

Steven Hawking Loses Bet On Black Holes?

Steven Hawking Loses Bet On Black Holes? 07/15/2004 08:34 AM
Slashdot Jul 15 2004 12:34PM GMT

Hawking unveils new thinking on black
holes

Hawking unveils new thinking on black
holes 07/22/2004 01:12 AM
USA Today Jul 22 2004 5:25AM GMT

Hawking: Black Holes Mangle Matter,
Energy (AP)

Hawking: Black Holes Mangle Matter,
Energy (AP) 07/21/2004 10:59 AM
AP - Famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking said Wednesday that black holes, the mysterious massive vortexes formed from collapsed stars, do not destroy everything they consume and instead can fire out matter and energy "in a mangled form."

Thought process about how black holes
work is changing

Thought process about how black holes
work is changing 07/16/2004 03:31 AM

Every once in a while the big brains in science come to some new conclusions. The newest about black holes may change the whole theory about what goes in never comes out. [New Scientist]

Colliding Stars May Form Intermediate
Black Holes

Colliding Stars May Form Intermediate
Black Holes 04/15/2004 01:12 AM

Down with Chip 'n PIN, mini-black holes
and cyber humans

Down with Chip 'n PIN, mini-black holes
and cyber humans 03/19/2005 02:46 AM
Letters Technophobes R us

Exploding black holes rain down on Earth
[via Jay McCarthy]

Exploding black holes rain down on Earth
[via Jay McCarthy] 12/04/2003 08:26 AM
It's raining black holes .. The New Scientist .. explanation

newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994446
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Black holes 'do not exist' - These
mysterious objects are dark-energy
stars, physicist claims

Black holes 'do not exist' - These
mysterious objects are dark-energy
stars, physicist claims 04/03/2005 06:14 PM

nature.com/news/2005/050328/full/050328-8.html
track this site | 4 links

MIND
MAPPING: SEE WHAT YOU'RE THINKING

MIND
MAPPING: SEE WHAT YOU'RE THINKING 01/05/2005 02:16 PM

Recently I've been working on a couple of projects with teams who have embraced 'mind-mapping' software. There's a lot of hype about this concept, and about this software, but basically the software is a simple mechanism for documenting thoughts and information graphically as they are generated. Or, as Wikipedia puts it, "a radial diagram that represents semantic connections between learned material". It's not significantly different from 'outlining< /a>', except that, for some reason, the graphical layouts of mind maps are more comprehensible, easier to grasp and follow, and aesthetically superior to the linear, multi-layered indentation of outliners. A good scribe with this software and an overhead projector can capture a group's consensus, clarify areas of disagreement and misunderstanding, and document the collective intelligence and ideation of a collaborative group. I've seen it work wondrously on several recent occasions focused on completely different classes of problems. The scribe needs to constantly clarify, reiterate, and question the group, and needs to learn to listen for what is not said as carefully as what is said. In addition to building and documenting consensus, this tool is useful for some other things: Taking notes from oral presentations, conversations or broadcasts, and written reports and books Brainstorming and analytical problem-solving and decision-making Individual and team learning Project management Organization of material prior to publishing or presentation Creating a story ("story-boarding") What intrigues me about this list of applications is that some of them are left-brain, deductive processes while others are right-brain, inductive, creative processes. I've often used pencil and paper to sketch out cause-and-e ffect (systems thinking) and process diagrams (which are more linear), but recently I've started playing with mind maps as a personal 'thinking out loud' tool, to organize my thoughts and think creatively all by myself. I've always learned best by writing, synthesizing and distilling books and other voluminous materials down to their essence: the message, the meaning, and the necessary actions. So perhaps this 'learning by writing down' style is the reason I find mind maps useful. I always found developing sequences of PowerPoint slides with bullets on them, which is mind mapping in a rudimentary way, useful for organizing my thoughts for presentations. Now I've learned that they're boring for the audience, so I use them to organize my thoughts but then transform them into a story, and show only graphics on my slides. With mind maps, I can dispense with PowerPoint entirely. What's interesting is that stories have a completely different structure to them than analytical discourse, so it's a major reconstruction effort to build the critical points back into the story. Sometimes you find that some of the points you planned on making are extraneous, or just don't fit, in the story. Sometimes, I confess, you're tempted to exaggerate the truth to make the story better (resist this temptation!) And sometimes you find that you've changed your mind about what you were going to tell the audience entirely. And you always learn something yourself just from the process of preparing to teach others. Using the mind map approach has had a similar impact on some of my written work. Perhaps the graphic layout stimulates the right brain and gets you thinking about how ideas and information relate to other ideas and information, pulls you out of your linear thinking habits. I even wonder whether in some way the mind map mimics the way the neurons in the brain are organized, the way they make connections across space. The existing mind mapping tools (MindManager and Inspirat ion are both excellent, but expensive, while OpenSource FreeMind, which I used for the mind map above, is less robust and a bit counterintuitive but perfectly serviceable, and it's free) -- all use a tree-structure or 'fish-bone' approach to organizing thoughts and information. That's a severe limitation. Take the lower half of the mind map above, for example. The first eight of the ten Making Your Own Way critical life skills are all applied to some extent to developing the ninth and tenth skills on this part of the map. The first eight and the last two skills would better be represented as an 8 x 2 matrix, which the mind map can't properly depict. Other thinking and deciding representations, besides matrix relationships, that mind maps don't handle well: Compare-and-contrast analysis (to make decisions from alternatives by comparing performance against certain criteria, including the consultant's notorious 2 x 2 chart) Cause-and-effect (systems thinking) relationships Sequential (flowchart) processes Despite these drawbacks, I would commend mind mapping, and the software tools described above, to anyone who hasn't used them. There's something about a quickly-produced yet elegant, legible, organized and flexible 'picture' of your thoughts that just seems to evoke more, faster, from both sides of the brain. In a business and social culture that is increasingly oral, and aspires to become more collaborative, the current explosion in use of mind mapping is likely to continue, and the ability to use these tools will probably become a skill you can add to your résumé. I'd love to hear others' successes and war stories in using mind mapping both for business and personal purposes. For the thinking and deciding applications that mind maps don't lend themselves to, I'm still using low-tech solutions: Tables for matrices, 2 x 2 charts and compare-and-contrast analyses, and graphics software to create legible versions of my hand-made systems thinking charts and flowcharts. I'm on the lookout for robust, OpenSource applications for systems thinking and flowcharting. In the meantime, there's only one tool versatile enough to handle all these graphic representations of semantic information and relationships: The lowly pencil and paper. See what I'm thinking? The mind-map above is a first cut at a radically new educational curriculum. I'll be writing about it soon, but in the meantime, teachers are welcome to jump in with their thoughts.

CHANGE YOUR
MIND?

CHANGE YOUR
MIND? 07/09/2004 11:41 AM

Seth Godin of Fast Company and Purple Numbers fame has a new BHAP (big hairy audacious project) called ChangeThis. The idea is that we need to be more open to well-articulated opposing (or at least different) points of view on important issues. The 'This' in ChangeThis is Your Mind, and by changing it, you will become part of a broader, urgent change movement. The vehicle that gets the ball rolling is something called a Manifesto. Seth has plans for some online Manifestos penned by some very big names. It's a very intriguing idea, but I don't think it will work, not because of the Internet's limited reach or because of anything inherently wrong with Manifestos, but because it's out of sync with human nature. Here's why, IMHO: What I've observed is that people want to make up their own minds. They will only read a Manifesto if they already deeply trust its author. A Manifesto by Krugman or Gladwell will go far, but the same ideas by the same source in a NYT editorial or New Yorker article will go just as far. We each have our own (usually small, or very small) audience of people who trust what we write, what we say. A Manifesto will not enlarge one's audience. It is preaching to the choir. When people write to thank me, it's not for changing their mind. It's because they trust me enough to allow me to inform them about something they're not already informed about -- Tax shifting, or entrepreneurship, or innovation, or whatever. They know me well enough to know my spin, and my blog articles help them learn about something much more quickly than reading books or doing exhaustive research. So if it's from a trusted source, a Manifesto or blog post or editorial or book review or whatever will help people Make Up Their Own Mind. On any important issue it will not change anyone's mind. People make up their own minds by reading sources they trust. They don't want to change their minds. Only ex-British private school students enjoy real debates, and that's only because they're better at them than anyone else. Most people want reassurance that they're right, and will be more inclined to read things that reinforce what they've decided than things intended to make them change their thinking. That's not lazy thinking, it's good time management. I want to be informed and make up my mind so that IF I need to make a decision (who to vote for, what to buy) I can do so quickly. Making up one's mind is a means to an end. How and when do people Change Their Minds? Very rarely, and not by reading or debate, but by direct experience. If Bill Cosby goes on the talk circuit and tells me welfare recipients are mostly lazy black women with too many babies, and I'm a conservative or a fan, I'll probably believe him (see today's NYT editorial by Barbara Ehrenreich on this). But if I volunteer at an inner city soup kitchen I learn from direct experience that Bill is full of shit -- he has his facts wrong to start with, and what he says doesn't jibe with direct observation -- the mostly-white women I meet are dying to work, if they could afford day care for their two children. I change my mind. And I no longer trust Bill Cosby -- he let me down, and the next time I hear him I'm going to be inclined to Make Up My Mind that the truth is the opposite of what he's saying. You want to change people's minds, get them the hell away from the TV, and the newspaper, and the Internet, and let them find out the truth face to face, in the streets, from direct experience. To every rule there is an exception, and the exception to this rule is that sometimes you can change people's minds by telling them a story. The reason stories are powerful and subversive is that they can be (especially if from a trusted source, or accompanied by remarkable pictures) a surrogate for direct experience. That's why the story can't be too detailed -- the listener/reader needs to internalize the story and make it their own. Then it's as if they were at the soup kitchen, and all of a sudden they don't trust Bill Cosby anymore either. And they loved Bill Cosby. But they suddenly know from 'personal experience' that Bill's facts don't add up. They've changed their minds. So my suggestion to Seth is to change the word Manifesto to Story before he launches ChangeThis. Ot at least whisper in writers' ears that their Manifesto should be a Story in disguise. This is not unique to humans. I could tell you a story... What do you think? Am I just old and curmudgeonly and cynical, or is this really how people make up their minds, and why they change them so rarely? (Diagram is from an earlier post on The Decision-Making Process)

Fearsome Communications Commission

Fearsome Communications Commission 05/26/2004 01:57 PM
Fear of the FCC forces a college radio station to go to an all-recorded format. That's right, no more live DJ's. All shows are to be taped and then reviewed by station management prior to broadcast. Not because the FCC has fined the station, but because they might.

Sony's PSP: Available in Black, Black,
and Black

Sony's PSP: Available in Black, Black,
and Black 05/29/2004 09:18 PM

Looks like all those pastel PSPs Sony was showing at E3 were just a tease. According to an interview in Japanese game magazine Famitsu, Sony claims the various color PSPs were "just for reference. We plan to make the system black." I wouldn't worry too much, though. I'm sure if the PSP does well at all, color models will start showing up in no time at all.
Read [IGN via Portagame]

Chris Abraham: Evil Man in Black and His
Evil Black Suitcases Tackled by the Good
Guys

Chris Abraham: Evil Man in Black and His
Evil Black Suitcases Tackled by the Good
Guys 04/12/2005 05:55 AM
Evil Man in Black and His Evil Black Suitcases Tackled by the Good Guys .. Permalink

chrisabraham.com/2005/04/evil_man_in_bla.html
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BLACK
HUMOUR

BLACK
HUMOUR 05/08/2004 05:30 PM

No one who has read The Boondocks has a neutral opinion about its writer, Aaron McGruder. You either love him or hate him, or vacillate between the two extremes. The twenty-something radical leftie is working on a Simpsons-style animated series that will air, ironically, on Fox, probably next year, and as the New Yorker reported last month, he's managed to outrage almost everyone of every political stripe, including other cartoonists who say that he's gotten lazy (the strip is now drawn by Jennifer Seng, though McGruder still does the writing), and that he's relentless to the point of being tedious and unfunny. He is the most banned cartoonist in history, with many of the 300+ papers carrying the strip having cut it at one time or another. But as I think the above strip from last week shows, McGruder's biting wit has lost none of its edge, and demonstrates a fearlessness that goes beyond even what Doonsbury and Bloom County achieved.

Black. Duncan Black.

Black. Duncan Black. 07/28/2004 02:44 PM
The true identity of the "mysterious" Atrios has been revealed.

Mind the Gap

Mind the Gap 08/16/2004 10:23 AM
Gap is starting to look vulnerable as it gets set to post quarterly results.

Get out of my mind!

Get out of my mind! 04/09/2004 04:02 PM
Ok, so I first have to wake up around 6 for my lesson with Jen tomorrow morning I figure I'll...

FC Now: Of A Whole New Mind

FC Now: Of A Whole New Mind 04/13/2005 05:15 PM
Yesterday afternoon, I took the train down to Philadelphia to join the local Company of Friends group at the Charter High School for Architecture and Design. Why go so far just to turn around to head home in several hours?...

Not What We Had in Mind

Not What We Had in Mind 07/09/2004 04:44 PM
Shark Tank: It's the 1990s, and this training director pilot fish orders a PC so his office can at long last be connected to the LAN -- but the computer and printer have to be ordered separately.

It's all in the mind.

It's all in the mind. 03/22/2005 04:37 PM
Neuroeconomics: "Eventually it could help economists design incentives that gently guide people toward making decisions that are in their long-term best interests in everything from labor negotiations to diets to 401(k) plans." Note the ambiguous use of the pronoun "their"--are we talking about the long-term interests of people in general or of economists?

Mind AI 0.1

Mind AI 0.1 04/18/2004 12:27 PM
An artificial mind based on some advanced concepts.

Why Would Anybody in Their Right Mind .
. .

Why Would Anybody in Their Right Mind .
. . 06/05/2005 11:52 PM
The Fair Employment licenses and the Creative Comment licenses face similar kinds of resistence. We often hear people say that no employer in its right mind would volunteer for legal liability. But this sounds a lot like people who say that noone in their right mind would ever throw away...

MIND 1.1

MIND 1.1 07/27/2004 08:11 PM
DICOM query/transfer tool

Mind you, I bet it isn't

Mind you, I bet it isn't 06/17/2004 01:04 PM
Oh My Fucking God. Please let this be a joke....
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About Those Fearsome Black Holes? Never Mind

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