It would be odd to find 1 in the first 1000 samples if the probability of detection was the same for every object out there. But not all planets have the same probability of detection.

The shorter its orbital period, the more likely it is that it will be detected as it will take less time to determine a pattern. Consider, it would take E.T. multiple years to detect Earth simply because they would have to detect multiple transits of Earth across the sun which of course happen once a year. It might take them 10 years of observations to be sure, as other planets transiting might screw up the signal. Whereas a planet that orbits in a couple of days will provide the same quality of data in a couple of weeks or months.

I've just looked at the data from an armchair perspective, but my understanding is that they only declare a signal to be a planet once they are pretty darn sure that it is. Kepler found several thousand planet candidates with a relatively high certainty, but they have so far only declared a few hundred of them as actual planets as they are confirmed by separate observations preferably using different techniques.

In the case of Kepler 78b, they got both a transiting signal from Kepler and a doppler signal from a ground based telescope. So something is making this star wobble towards and away from us, while simultaneously dimming it at the point when it is closest to us in the wobble. The only reasonable explanation is a planet.

That's the key.

Hot jupiters have been found as close as 0.0165 AU from sun-like stars. Again, they're very rare, but they exist.

"Stable" is a relative term. According to TFA, Kepler 78b's orbit is unstable, and will degrade in about 3 billion years. "Immediately" in astronomical terms can mean millions or billions of years.

That, and the results of both of our effective planet detecting schemes - transit and doppler - skew proportionately towards these hot worlds, as for both methods a shorter period will give a stronger signal and therefore be more likely to be detected. So just like with the hot jupiters detected by the doppler method, they are probably actually a minuscule fraction of the planets out there but happen to be the easiest to detect. So even though they are rare, we are guaranteed to see them, and then muse about their rarity.

Very true about it not just applying to technology companies. A really good example I have mentioned before on /. that is even farther removed from the tech sector is JC Penny. Their radical plan of no-nonsense pricing was a good idea (prices in whole dollar amounts rather than $x.99 bs, as well as reasonable everyday prices as opposed to artificially inflated prices with periodic "sales" to trick consumers into thinking they're getting a good deal) which could have really paid off if given enough time for consumers to get used to it. But in the short term, consumers shied away from it, they had a couple of bad quarters, wall street freaked out, and they shitcanned the CEO.

There is a massive difference between taking it private and buying out the shareholders for the purpose of shutting it down, even if the first step looks the same on the surface. I have no idea what Mr. Dell is planning, but in general operating a business in a way that makes shareholders happy is not necessarily the best strategy for a technology company. Shareholders want to see the goods on a quarter-by-quarter basis, and if a particular quarter is down, the shareholders interpret that as a hiccup in the company's strategy and punish the stock accordingly. However, running a technology company requires a long-term view of the future, and a roadmap for how to get there. That roadmap may require some sacrificial quarters where emphasis is put into future R&D rather than maximizing current sales. If done properly, future awesome technology to come from that R&D more than makes up for a couple of flat quarters. But the markets don't see it that way. So the only way to be able to fully achieve the potential of the roadmap is to take the stock market out of the equation.

Best comment ever in the history of slashdot. Pretty much sums this place up completely.

The key to good design, on the other hand, is making it work in the way the user expects it to work, not in the way the user tells you they want it to work. More often than not, those two are quite different.

Most users don't want customization settings. They want it to just work the way they expect it to work. Putting in lots of fiddly options isn't design. It's punting on design.

My understanding was that Babbage's own programs were more akin to today's Hello World in complexity, just as a proof of concept to show that his machine would work in the first place. Ada's program on the other hand was a complete implementation of an algorithm to compute a mathematical sequence (Bernoulli numbers) based on a mathematical formula provided by Babbage. So whether Babbage or Ada was the first programmer would depend on whether you consider Hello World to be a proper program or not.

"Dodging taxes" implies moving hiding income so that it is never taxed, such as when corporations claim to operate out of the caiman islands. Apple does not 'claim residence' in Ireland. They claim residence in Cupertino, California. All sales in the US pay US sales tax, and there is no dodging there. They own a subsidiary in Ireland where they aggregate revenue from sales outside the US. But for all of those sales, they already pay sales tax to the countries in which the sales were made. They just hold that money in Ireland, because the US has very high repatriation taxes, in effect causing all foreign sales to be double taxed. Is it unethical to keep money outside of the US that never originated inside the US to begin with just because the feds want an extra slice of the pie?

Yep. Not only do you have to use it for it to be defensible, but you have to actively defend it as well. Failing to take action to protect your trademark is legally implicitly agreeing that you no longer wish to retain exclusive ownership of that mark. That is why anybody can market their moving staircase contraption as an Escalator, and Otis Co. has no say in the matter anymore.

Yep, came here to post exactly that. Slashdot is the last comment board on the internet with truly threaded conversations where you can see at a glance who is replying to whom. That, I think, is the greatest strength of the comment section layout, and is completely lost with the redesign. My eyes hurt after a while trying to follow tab indentation for thread depth. Also, completely agree with being able to hide idiot posters below a certain score threshold. I wish the rest of the internet had a way of hiding all "-1 Troll" comments.

Here's a good one:
http://www.space.com/22996-spacex-launches-falcon-9-rocket-test-flight.html

The MO of SpaceX is to under promise and over deliver. But adding new technology on top of more new technology increases the probability of failure rather than decreasing it, until that technology has been tested and the bugs are ironed out. Today's launch was one of those tests. They were testing new technology that will let them relight the first stage after separation and bring it back for a controlled landing. That new technology adds additional complexity that had a nonzero chance of making the rest of the rocket fail due to untested redesigns.