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Science

Study Shows People In Power Make Better Liars 265

Posted by Soulskill from the practice-makes-perfect dept.
oDDmON oUT writes "MSNBC is reporting that a Columbia Business School study shows those who hold power over others make better liars. According to one of the study's coauthors, 'It just doesn't hurt them as much to do it.' For the average liar, she said, the act of lying elicits negative emotions, physiological stress and the fear of getting caught in a lie. As a result, she added, liars will often send out cues that they are lying by doing things like fidgeting in a chair or changing the rate of their speech. But for the powerful, the impact is very different: 'Power, it seems, enhances the same emotional, cognitive, and physiological systems that lie-telling depletes. People with power enjoy positive emotions, increases in cognitive function, and physiological resilience such as lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Thus, holding power over others might make it easier for people to tell lies.'"

Comment Re:Missing poll option: When is Diablo 3 comingout (Score 1) 408

by Willtor (#30377286) Attached to: Between last big computer upgrade and the next ...

Intel (and other manufacturers) caters to whatever market segment their customers want. /. has a disproportionate number of people who buy shrink wrapped CPUs, but that's a piddly market. Chip manufacturers sell to computer makers like Dell, H.P., and Apple. If these companies want gaming CPUs, Intel and AMD will sell them gaming CPUs.

All that said, I'm not clear on why you're complaining. Are modern chips not fast enough for you?
Graphics

NVIDIA Predicts 570x GPU Performance Boost 295

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the lets-talk-about-diminishing-returns dept.
Gianna Borgnine writes "NVIDIA is predicting that GPU performance is going to increase a whopping 570-fold in the next six years. According to TG Daily, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang made the prediction at this year's Hot Chips symposium. Huang claimed that while the performance of GPU silicon is heading for a monumental increase in the next six years — making it 570 times faster than the products available today — CPU technology will find itself lagging behind, increasing to a mere 3 times current performance levels. 'Huang also discussed a number of "real-world" GPU applications, including energy exploration, interactive ray tracing and CGI simulations.'"
Technology

New Nano-Laser Created 84

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the very-small-breakthroughs dept.
Many sources are reporting that researchers have created the world's smallest laser since the inception of lasers almost a half-century ago. Dubbed "spasers," as an acronym for "surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation," their incredibly tiny size could become a critical component for future technologies like "nanophotonic" circuitry. "Such circuits will require a laser-light source, but current lasers can't be made small enough to integrate them into electronic chips. Now researchers have overcome this obstacle, harnessing clouds of electrons called 'surface plasmons,' instead of the photons that make up light, to create the tiny spasers."
Technology

Several Quantum Calculations Combined At NIST 91

Posted by timothy from the can-we-entangle-the-katies? dept.
Al writes "Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a crucial step toward building a practical quantum computer: multiple computing operations on quantum bits. The NIST team performed five quantum logic operations and 10 transport operations (meaning they moved the qubit from one part of the system to another) in series, while reliably maintaining the states of their ions — a tricky task because the ions can easily be knocked out of their prepared state. The researchers used beryllium ions stored within so-called ion traps and added magnesium ions to keep the beryllium ones cool and prevent them from losing their quantum state." In related news, another reader links to an Australian study indicating that quantum computers "can continue to work perfectly even if half their components, or qubits, are missing."
Television

Boxee vs. Zinc vs. Hulu 116

Posted by timothy from the we-had-to-invent-tv-and-we-liked-it dept.
For those with a Windows PC and some time for TV, DeviceGuru writes "Which is the best Internet media streaming application for a media-center PC? Boxee, Zinc, or the new Hulu Desktop? A post at DeviceGuru.com reviews these three media streaming platforms and draws some interesting conclusions. Key pros and cons are tabulated and numerous screenshots are included. Interestingly, despite lots of Boxee hype, Zinc already has a number of valuable features that Boxee is scrambling to add to its next version, due out in the fall. On the other hand, Boxee boasts far more third-party content-access applications support."
Input Devices

Lenovo Tinkers With Larger Delete and Escape Keys 586

Posted by timothy from the boffins-are-everywhere dept.
Slatterz writes "After a year's research, Lenovo boffins have decided the time is right to install larger Delete and Escape keys on their updated ThinkPad laptop T400s range. While it is a small change, it is fairly radical to tinker with an area of hardware which has been largely unchanged since the 19th century. What convinced them to make the size-change was doing some tests on users to see which keys they use the most. They found that on average, people used the Escape and Delete keys 700 times per week, yet those were the only non-letter keys that Lenovo hasn't made any bigger." The article says Caps Lock may be next on the agenda; death is too good for Caps Lock.

Comment Re:Extension cord (Score 1) 291

by Willtor (#27547997) Attached to: My laptop's battery generally lasts ...

I notice you didn't sudo. Aren't you worried that some nemesis will break into your (mom's) house and change all your passwords or download Metallica music or google "osama + bin + laden + bomb + making + instructions + pr0n" or post to /. under your username while you're taking a bio break?
Games

Journal Journal: America's Army on MacOSX

Journal by Willtor

Sadly, America's Army v.1.9 seems to be extremely unstable on my Macintoy. 1.7 was fine, but 1.9 is buggy as anything. Sometimes I can barely get through a single round. Gotta wait for a patch, I guess. Too bad Macintosh is so undersupported...
Books

Journal Journal: OpenGL SuperBible 2

Journal by Willtor

Wow, this is a great book. Having wanted to learn OpenGL for some time, now, this has really helped me get started. I browsed the first few chapters of the Red Book and I felt like I couldn't play with it (it being a platform neutral book). Even though the SuperBible is Windows and I use OS X, all it takes (thus far), is a minor tweak to most programs including header file

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