Yes, Apple may be a bit over-represented. (MacBook Air? Sure its form factor sparked a slew of of copycats known as 'ultrabooks', but it didn't exactly change the UX or how the general public used computers) But to use 'software libre' as the reason why they shouldn't be in this list at all is just stupid. For all that FOSS has done, it has been almost nonexistent as far as influence in general personal computing, largely because FOSS for the most part has still not figured out how to make UX not suck. And that is what this list is about - those products that have caused a watershed in how the general public does computing.

"Schooling" is mandatory. "Education" on the other hand often seems to be actively discouraged.

Just because one high speed happens to be slower than another high speed doesn't mean it is not high speed. In this case, as we are talking about collisions, high speed means significantly faster than the average 35-40mph that crash tests are generally done at. 70mph, 80mph and 155mph all satisfy that definition of "significantly faster than 40mph" and therefore all can be considered high speed when discussing collisions.

Part of the problem is that much of math education is based on rote memorization rather than problem solving, and writing a program to do your homework for you is frowned upon and often considered cheating. If writing programs to solve your math homework was generally accepted as legitimate, we would have both fewer kids flunk out of math and more kids going into programming, as those kids would be actually learning how both math and programming are used in the real world.

The only thing that's "hurting" iPhone 5c sales is that unexpectedly more consumers are choosing the faster, better designed, and more capable iPhone 5s, despite it being a higher cost & higher margin product. That's certainly a problem I wouldn't mind having.

Yeah, when scientists say "This shouldn't happen according to current models", they are really saying "Holy shit, this is awesome! We get to come up with new models!".

Meanwhile, the mainstream media hears that and reports it either as "Scientists say this shouldn't happen. The universe is fucked up" or "Scientists say this shouldn't happen. Science is fucked up" depending on their political bent.

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.