My understanding of string theory is that the strings are wrapped around the surface of the black hole. So in this view nothing can go down into the interior it just gets wrapped around the event horizon.
This raises the question of what happens when someone falls into a nice big black hole where the tidal forces at the horizon are small and you might think you could just cruise on through and down into the interior. However, from the point of view of an external observer no one ever gets there they just get slower and slower. From the point of view of the fallee however it takes a finite time to get to the horizon. Flip this around though and from the point of view of the fallee the external universe rushes off to infinite time - end of the universe whatever - in the time it takes to get to the event horizon. Now anything that comes in from the external universe will arrive at the event horizon at near light speed, this includes stuff like the micro-wave background which will be incoming as gamma rays and Hawking radiation from near the event horizon which will be similalrly coming in hard and energetic.
The conclusion from this seems to be that any one falling into an event horizon will be fried and turned into subatomic particles or strings before they get there. This is just a thought experiment and I would be fascinated to hear from any astrophysiscists out there who understand what would really happen.
This also implies that the simulation is somewhat misleading.
Small shop of 12 coders about 98% java code. Total source under version control 270,000 lines of code plus 130,000 lines of unit tests. We use cvs for source/version control.
The most important thing is AUTOMATE everything that you can.
We run a cycle where we do an automated checkout every 15 minutes. This is compiled and the checks below are done on all packages that have been updated or which raised errors the last time. Every three hours we do a zero base checkout and run tests across everything including running all unit tests. We also then do a complete construction of installers etc. for the products we ship and run tests on that (rather than in the developer environment). We also checkout across multiple platforms and run the unit tests on these (this is a bit more irregular). The results are collected on a company internal website and errors cause a real-life set of traffic lights to turn red (everyone can see them).
The things we automate include:
style checking (checkstyle) and some other similar packages
spelling
javadocs on all publicly accessible methods
running unit tests
we check the unit tests by running a mutation tester which checks how well the unit tests cover the code
There is more to testing than this but this certainly deals with the low level coding stuff well.
First a disclaimer I am a professor who teaches at a bricks and mortar university.
The value of an online degree depends hugely on what you want out of the degree
and on your own background.
If you are highly motivated and have a very particular aim in mind then go for
it (well modulo making sure it is not a rip-off program).
But dont forget if you were that highly motivated you could just go get some books
and read up on it yourself.
If you have poor communication skills and anything less than an iron will dont think about it.
A big part of a good CS degree is things like doing group projects, learning communication skills,
and getting a sense from your profs of what is impotant and what is not.
I have taught quite a few PhDs in my career and I absolutely refuse to do that in any situation
where I cannot have regular (at least weekly) contact with the student. Some things cannot be easily
communicated anyway other than face to face and this carries over to undergrad degrees as well.
Part of this discussion has been about the value of CS degrees in general.
I am also an employeer of CS graduates (small company 13 programmers, 6 with PhDs in CS or similar).
We have some very good programmers without a Bachelors in CS but they are limited in what they can
do when it comes to following the pure technical track. Every now and again I can see them struggling
with a problem which they cant solve by brute force intelligence. CS is getting to be a deep subject now
and some really smart people have thought up some really smart solutions to hard problems.
These can be very hard to pick up outside of a formal teaching situation.
On the other hand some of the PhDs in CS cant be trusted in front of a customer.
Know what you want to do and pick your options accordingly - there are a lot of them out there.
At http://www.rfidgazette.org/2004/11/mastercard_ones .html
they say:
A reader located on a retailer's till captures the card holder's details, with the card holder then approving the transaction in the same way they would with a Chip and PIN card, although for micro-payments - buying a 99p burger and the like - tapping in a PIN or signing a receipt can be skipped.
So looks like they do require more than just the cards presence.
Slashdot Mirror
My understanding of string theory is that the strings are wrapped around the surface of the black hole. So in this view nothing can go down into the interior it just gets wrapped around the event horizon.
This raises the question of what happens when someone falls into a nice big black hole where the tidal forces at the horizon are small and you might think you could just cruise on through and down into the interior. However, from the point of view of an external observer no one ever gets there they just get slower and slower. From the point of view of the fallee however it takes a finite time to get to the horizon. Flip this around though and from the point of view of the fallee the external universe rushes off to infinite time - end of the universe whatever - in the time it takes to get to the event horizon. Now anything that comes in from the external universe will arrive at the event horizon at near light speed, this includes stuff like the micro-wave background which will be incoming as gamma rays and Hawking radiation from near the event horizon which will be similalrly coming in hard and energetic.
The conclusion from this seems to be that any one falling into an event horizon will be fried and turned into subatomic particles or strings before they get there. This is just a thought experiment and I would be fascinated to hear from any astrophysiscists out there who understand what would really happen.
This also implies that the simulation is somewhat misleading.
The most important thing is AUTOMATE everything that you can.
We run a cycle where we do an automated checkout every 15 minutes. This is compiled and the checks below are done on all packages that have been updated or which raised errors the last time. Every three hours we do a zero base checkout and run tests across everything including running all unit tests. We also then do a complete construction of installers etc. for the products we ship and run tests on that (rather than in the developer environment). We also checkout across multiple platforms and run the unit tests on these (this is a bit more irregular). The results are collected on a company internal website and errors cause a real-life set of traffic lights to turn red (everyone can see them).
The things we automate include:
There is more to testing than this but this certainly deals with the low level coding stuff well.
First a disclaimer I am a professor who teaches at a bricks and mortar university. The value of an online degree depends hugely on what you want out of the degree and on your own background. If you are highly motivated and have a very particular aim in mind then go for it (well modulo making sure it is not a rip-off program). But dont forget if you were that highly motivated you could just go get some books and read up on it yourself. If you have poor communication skills and anything less than an iron will dont think about it. A big part of a good CS degree is things like doing group projects, learning communication skills, and getting a sense from your profs of what is impotant and what is not. I have taught quite a few PhDs in my career and I absolutely refuse to do that in any situation where I cannot have regular (at least weekly) contact with the student. Some things cannot be easily communicated anyway other than face to face and this carries over to undergrad degrees as well. Part of this discussion has been about the value of CS degrees in general. I am also an employeer of CS graduates (small company 13 programmers, 6 with PhDs in CS or similar). We have some very good programmers without a Bachelors in CS but they are limited in what they can do when it comes to following the pure technical track. Every now and again I can see them struggling with a problem which they cant solve by brute force intelligence. CS is getting to be a deep subject now and some really smart people have thought up some really smart solutions to hard problems. These can be very hard to pick up outside of a formal teaching situation. On the other hand some of the PhDs in CS cant be trusted in front of a customer. Know what you want to do and pick your options accordingly - there are a lot of them out there.
At http://www.rfidgazette.org/2004/11/mastercard_ones .html
they say:
A reader located on a retailer's till captures the card holder's details, with the card holder then approving the transaction in the same way they would with a Chip and PIN card, although for micro-payments - buying a 99p burger and the like - tapping in a PIN or signing a receipt can be skipped.
So looks like they do require more than just the cards presence.