stuffman64 - Slashdot User

Programmable Quantum Computer Created 132

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday November 26, 2009 @12:41PM from the four-out-of-five-ain't-bad dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A team at NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology) used berylium ions, lasers and electrodes to develop a quantum system that performed 160 randomly chosen routines. Other quantum systems to date have only been able to perform single, prescribed tasks. Other researchers say the system could be scaled up. 'The researchers ran each program 900 times. On average, the quantum computer operated accurately 79 percent of the time, the team reported in their paper.'"

Review Scores the "Least Important Factor" When Buying Games 169

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday November 26, 2009 @06:29AM from the arbitrary-numbers-are-arbitrary dept.

A recent report from a games industry analyst suggests that among a number of factors leading to the purchase of a video game — such as price, graphics and word of mouth — the game's aggregated review score is the least important measure. Analyst Doug Creutz said, "We believe that while Metacritic scores may be correlated to game quality and word of mouth, and thus somewhat predictive of title performance, they are unlikely in and of themselves to drive or undermine the success of a game. We note this, in part, because of persistent rumors that some game developers have been jawboning game reviewers into giving their games higher critical review scores. We believe the publishers are better served by spending their time on the development process than by 'grade-grubbing' after the fact."

Proton Beams Sent Around the LHC 115

Posted by kdawson on Friday November 20, 2009 @05:40PM from the going-in-circles dept.

feldhaus writes "The BBC reports that the first beams for over one year have been successfully sent around the complete circumference of the Large Hadron Collider. Engineers do not yet have a stable circulating beam but they hope to by 0600 GMT on Saturday."

Comment Re:Great (Score 1) 357

by stuffman64 on Sunday May 31, 2009 @02:51AM (#28156241) Attached to: New HDMI 1.4 Spec Set To Confuse

How so?

Last I checked, a pair of old RCA cables can move two analog channels of audio. HDMI will carry up to 8 channels of up to 192kHz/24-bit audio.

Comment Re:Good Physics. (Score 3, Interesting) 368

by stuffman64 on Sunday February 15, 2009 @03:08PM (#26864821) Attached to: Internet Killed the Satellite Radio Star

Though it's rather a niche segment, many people watch a sporting event and tune into the radio broadcast coverage of the game to listen to the radio announcers. The team's own radio announcers are oftentimes much better at knowing what the hell's going on than the ones on TV.

Comment Re:What's the point in wating for markets to turn (Score 4, Interesting) 215

by stuffman64 on Monday February 09, 2009 @07:45PM (#26792003) Attached to: AMD Launches New Processor Socket Despite Poor Economy

Core i7 940 -> $564.99 + about $250 for mobo = $800+
Phenom II 940 -> $224 + about $150 for mobo = about $375

Core i7 needs DDR3, Phenom II 940 runs DD2 (note that the 940 is an AM2+ part, not AM3 so it doesn't support DDR3). DDR3 is somewhere around 50% more expensive than DDR2 (though falling).

For me, the fact that the i7 is only about 10-20% faster than the Phenom for more than twice the cost, it's simply not worth considering for me. Then again, I do most of my gaming on consoles.

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