Yes, if PKD was still alive it would be quite lovely of Google to have him over for tea, up on podiums, etc., and no doubt they'd have done it.
But they'd have done it because obviously they like him, not because it would be "right" or he would have any legal rights or standing of any kind, which he would not.
The "because we like you", or even the "cool thing to do" rationales that might apply to PKD do not apply to his heirs. They have certain legal rights that ought to be respected, but a universal claim on any use of 'Android' and 'Nexus' in association with each other is not amongst them.
If not inventing and then honoring bizzare new notions of Intellectual property rights is your conception of "Evil" I don't think Google shares it, or should.
"My thinking on the matter is that this family SHOULD go through the motions of trying to protect themselves even if it is fruitless, because if the shit ever hits the fan in regards to the the Android and Nexus products (for example, their batteries start blowing up) they can then distance themselves quite succinctly: 'We tried to stop them from using these names. We have nothing to do with the products that killed people.'"
Yeah, and maybe they should worry about people getting hurt falling on scissors and blaming them; they never should have let the licensees name the move "Blade Runner".
Worrying that someone will think PKD is responsible, from beyond the grave, for the battery designs of Googles smart phone? That sounds like a reasonable motivation for a lawsuit to you?
Besides, they'd do better in that case taking credit for the warning. PKDs book is totally clear: 'Nexus' is an Android that sometimes kills people.
Oh, I think intent is obvious. They clearly intend to say the work of PKD is cool and they like it. But doing that does not require the permission of his heirs under any legal system I am aware of nor any moral framework I would accept.
Indirectly referencing the famous works of others isn't something you need their permission for.
"It's pretty obvious that the Google names were inspired by the book. Perhaps it's only that an engineer who read the book in the far distant past, pulled the name out of the blue, but it happened."
I think it's clearly a considered, intentional reference to the book.
"So I think PKD can arguably say, 'Hey, that was my idea!'"
No he can't, he's dead. But by using the name "Nexus One" Google is already saying they think PKD is cool and that his ideas were an important part of our cultures conception of what an Android is.
But PKD didn't invent the word "Nexus", nor suggest it as the name of a phone. Using it isn't an attempt to ride on PKDs coattails, it's an attempt to compliment PKD. You don't need permission from someones heirs to compliment that person.
If Google wants to handle this without lawyers, they'll send the heirs a letter explaining that the heirs lawyers are ripping them off, because this case is idiotic.
"Any sufficiently large set of information is going to give you some matches on just about anything you search for."
Yes, but not a sufficiently large rate of matches. If the researchers are competent, they can calculate what percent of the data would be expected to match their search even if the data is just random, and decide if the match rate exceeds that by a significant margin. The 'researchers' of the Bible Code were clearly not competent in exactly this way.
As opposed to the paperback book market, Nature does not tend to print whatever comes across it's desk.
Of course, if you're writing code for the purpose of getting others to give you something other than code in return, you might consider whether you prefer to write OSS for a TShirt or proprietary for oodles of cash.
That's great kid. But as long as we're relating our tales of momentous events, let me tell you the one the big Usenet flamewar of '89. Now there was a battle of true significance to our culture, which ought never be forgot...
Playing about in a pretend world can be fun. Expending emotional energy on an irrelevant argument with strangers you'll never meet is stupid. Still caring years later, kind of sad.
Please calculate the mass & speed of an asteroid whose kinetic energy, converted entirely to heat, is equal to... let's say 1% of what the the earth receives from the sun in a day. Feel free to approximate wildly. Then let us know if there is reason to believe such an asteroid exists.
Batteries for devices with radically different requirements in terms of power regulation, form factor, heat dissipation, safety requirements, and probably a dozen more things, cost different amounts. How could this be? Obviously capacity should be the only factor that impacts battery price, because thats the only factor handled by one bloggers recollection of his high school physics class.
"This blog investigates" by speculating it must be just price gouging, because obviously people are more vigilant about prices in the tiny electric-lawnmower market than the much more competitive laptop market.
Oh, the blogger also investigated by asking some PR people, but then he had to post fast, because one actually replied with some stuff, and he didn't think much about that because that would have taken time, and he might have learned something that would get in the way of his rant.
Ahh, the random midpoint displacement algorithm. Thanks for pointing out that neat thing they do this century. Mind you, it's genuinely cool stuff, and you shouldn't be less excited about it just because other people were excited about it previously. But that "soooo 90's" is pretty damn funny, since what you're describing is probably the same thing the OP is talking about, and it is actually... soooo 80's.
At least, I wrote a little program to play with it in 1991 after reading about it in a book published in the late 80s.
"His company handles over a billion in investment cash that chases any green-smelling contract or startup."
Which ought to make them slightly less efficient than every other fund manager or VC firm, that just chase investments based on payoff, green or otherwise, and who can just as easily profit off a boom in "green" technology as Mr. Gore.
Your complaint seems to be that Gore invests in companies that show promise in terms of dealing with global warming, and that he also pushes a political agenda of trying to make it more profitable to deal with with global warming.
That could certainly be a nefarious plot, but it seems awfully convoluted. And it seems the same things would make sense if Gore actually believed GW was a problem. I mean, why make stuff up? Why not pick an actual problem to make money solving?
Anyway, I might take your ravings more seriously if you knew the difference between the carbon offsets Gores company sells and the emissions permits envisioned by cap & trade.
"... Al Gore, and his fellow investors, who are positioned to make billions of dollars through the absurd selling and trafficking in carbon credits."
How exactly are you imagining Al Gore stands to make billions on carbon credits? Does he have a secret stockpile he will be selling? That would certainly be absurd. "trafficking" certainly sounds nefarious, but I'm not sure I see how that's going to happen... pass a law creating carbon credits, stockpile them, then outlaw them so he can absurdly sell them on the black market?
Seriously though, skipping past your loaded language, you appear to think Al Gore stands to make money when cap-and-trade goes into effect in some way not available to others. I don't see it.
"Please explain to me how a weapons locker aboard ship containing rifles, pistols and shotguns represents a threat."
I don't claim it is a threat. The guy who claims it is a threat is the port authority of every random place your ship stops. Feel free to explain to him what is a threat and what isn't. He probably won't have the authority to change the rules no matter how convincing you are, so you can explain it to his superiors too. Have we mentioned sitting still in port for a day costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars? Take your time. Maybe you could speed things along by telling them their government is a "lost cause".
"These pirates can be deterred (and if that fails, defeated) with small arms."
These pirates might well be killed with small arms, but that won't deter the next bunch. They live in Somalia, where they quite rationally expect to be killed by small arms before they are 25 in any case.
"However, the risk of being blown in to a fine pink mist might deter me."
You don't live in Somalia. If you were one of these pirates, violent death before age 30 would be your expectation. The question is whether to be a grunt in a pirate organization or in one side of the civil war. You might like to say no to both of these opportunities, but the civil war guys in particular aren't fond of that answer. So do you want to risk probable violent death in the near term fighting for the warlord who pays well or the one who doesn't?
So you can't deter them.
You can stop them a variety of ways. None are likely to make such an impression on the next group of pirates that they will give you less trouble. Some are likely to make such an impression on the port authorities anywhere else in the world that they will give you more trouble.
A) and deal with the hassles of sailing an armed vessel into every port you visit; which ports will be in a dizzying array of sovereign countries with all manner of different regulations. That this is a problem that should lead you to throw nets at pirates may be, in your opinion, stupid. Feel free to explain that to the port authority in Whereeverthehellistan and see how well that goes.
B) It's SOMALIA. The "fuckers" are already shooting each other at a far greater than you will ever contemplate, and no shortage of new fuckers is apparent.
So I guess drug runners with enough money to buy jet bots (or airplanes) wouldn't need to be drug runners any more?
The pirates in question have millions of dollars. They support entire cities, and help fund one side of a civil war in which they buy armored vehicles, machine guns, and many other things that cost much more than jet boats.
You, and others, seem to be under the impression the guys in the boats are acting alone, on their own behalf, like bank robbers in some caper movie. This is not the case. The guys in the boats are the low level grunts, working for the big-wigs on land, who have been taking in many millions a year in ransoms for quite some time now.
They don't "need" to be pirates in the same sense any wildly successful industry doesn't "need" to continue operating.
"I would classify pirates as nether civilians nor armed/uniformed combatants. They are irregulars and not sure on this, but I don't think the Geneva convention covers them. If you want to fight a war you got to war a uniform if you don't you are just like a violent bank robber and the Geneva convention doesn't come to play. "
Of course they are civilians; as are bank robbers.
"I think international governments should force countries to enforce piracy laws. Somalian pirates shouldn't be able to capture a boat and then go to shore and hold everyone hostage. They should be outlaws when they come back and should be fired apon/commandoed. Yeah it would suck for a few crews that might die in the process but afterwards word would get around that you can't come to shore if you are a pirate, which makes it a lot harder to do your raping and pillaging in your off time."
Your grasp of the nature of civil society in Somalia may be imperfect. The pirates are the dominant local industry. They are not fired upon when the approach port, because they run the port, and everyone within many miles of it eats because of them.
International pressure cannot force the national government to take action against them, because pressuring the only people who call themselves the national government would involve figuring out what bunker they are hiding in, and their taking any action would involve their leaving it without being killed. The more local de-facto government won't take action against the pirates, because they are the pirates.
It's a multi-million dollar business, supporting entire small cities. The pirates have official spokesmen to handle their press conferences. You can't see anyone selling them boats? You understand there are people who sell them rocket propelled grenades?
They may pirate to keep their stomachs full, but also to fund their side of the civil war. In which they find enough funds to buy armored vehicles, machine guns, etc. And they certainly find people willing to sell them those things. I'm not imagining boats would be a problem.
Seriously, where is your image of these guys coming from?
It's like doubting anyone could pull off an armed robbery at the local liquor store because how would they afford a gun and who would sell it to them?
"By removing the GIMP, they're just encouraging people to think that linux is 'not ready for serious users.'
For people who are used to working with photoshop, the GIMP is different - hence cumbersome."
For people (like me) not used to working with either, GIMP is utterly incomprehensible. "Dumbed down" is not the worst thing ever. In picking the default, preselected software to put on a system, you are inherently picking software for those users who have not yet taken the time to event think about what they want. If you have not taken any time to think about image editing software, and have no idea which program you might want, GIMP is not the program you want.
About every 6 months, I want to touch up some red-eye on a snapshot, or draw a funny mustache on a picture of my brother. From conceiving of the idea, to opening the first image editing software I find on the system and getting it done, I'd like to spend about 10 minutes. This includes learning enough about the software to do it, because I don't do it enough to be familiar with any software. If that first software I find is something that came free with a digital camera, or even MSPaint, no problem. If that first software I find is GIMP, it's obviously not happening. (I am a stubborn and prideful geek; the last time this happened and it was GIMP, I got the mustache drawn. Normal people would have given up after the first hour.)
"Serious users" who have the motivation to figure out GIMP can't figure out how to get it installed on Ubuntu? I mean, I can see how that would be rough, it's at least 3 mouse clicks.
I love the way they conflate "the space program" with "human space flight".
Outsourcing launches of humans to low earth orbit to the private commercial sector sounds like a fine idea, even though they've never done it before.
Even better would be outsourcing the task of deciding if any particular task in LEO is best served by launching a human, because maybe there is a good reason they've never done it before.
Yes, obviously I though Science came out of a magic book, that's why I was dissing dialogue...
Wait, no. Actually, I was complaining about people entirely making shit up in order to push the idea that what they work on is a good idea. Agenda=[fund my research, not some other research]
Saying this drive technology will make a mission to Mars take 39 days isn't a rough figure; it's meaningless. It's like estimating the time to move across town using wheels without specifying what you're moving or whether the wheels are attached to roller skates or a semi. And you've though about wheels a bunch, but never used one yet. It's not the start of a scientific dialogue. It's marketing.
Add theory, speculation, a whiteboard, and massive amounts of government funding, and some researchers will have a nice career. They might even do something worthwhile, but that's not the objective served by the guy saying "39 days".
"In three paragraphs we go from 89 days to 39 days. So which is it?"
Either estimate is based on using a non-existant upscaling of an engine whose much smaller proto-type is scheduled for testing maybe 4 year from now. An of course, attaching that engine to an entirely unspecified payload. So really, who cares if it's 89 or 39? Anyone making such a specific estimate at this point is making stuff up, almost certainly to push some agenda.
CopaceticOpus specifically references an unmanned craft. We could argue how exciting that would be (I think very), or whether anything manned is likely in our lifetimes (clearly no) or ever (probably not).
But once we assume we're doing an unmanned flyby, 0.5C gets you somewhere between hours and weeks of taking better pictures than you could from Earth. How much depends on the quality difference of instruments on earth vs on the probe; which will obviously be huge, but it's hard to say exactly how huge.
That's a pretty hypothetical, but the real world is more complicated.
I have only one good option for broadband. They are named Comcast. They violate net neutrality to throttle Bittorent traffic. No competitor has arisen; it seems unlikely one will, but possible a legal solution will force them to stop.
If you think you can exploit the huge market demand for unfiltered bittorrent to roll over the minor advantages Comcast enjoys as an established player, please feel free to enter the market. But don't expect me to invest in your stock.
BTW, who will you be buying "raw bandwidth" from? Why do you imagine they will not violate neutrality to do nasty things?
Slashdot Mirror
"This statement assumes that competencies was attempted in that case."
Not at all; Ignorance does not become wisdom simply because it is willful.
Yes, if PKD was still alive it would be quite lovely of Google to have him over for tea, up on podiums, etc., and no doubt they'd have done it.
But they'd have done it because obviously they like him, not because it would be "right" or he would have any legal rights or standing of any kind, which he would not.
The "because we like you", or even the "cool thing to do" rationales that might apply to PKD do not apply to his heirs. They have certain legal rights that ought to be respected, but a universal claim on any use of 'Android' and 'Nexus' in association with each other is not amongst them.
If not inventing and then honoring bizzare new notions of Intellectual property rights is your conception of "Evil" I don't think Google shares it, or should.
"Are you sure?"
Yes.
"My thinking on the matter is that this family SHOULD go through the motions of trying to protect themselves even if it is fruitless, because if the shit ever hits the fan in regards to the the Android and Nexus products (for example, their batteries start blowing up) they can then distance themselves quite succinctly: 'We tried to stop them from using these names. We have nothing to do with the products that killed people.'"
Yeah, and maybe they should worry about people getting hurt falling on scissors and blaming them; they never should have let the licensees name the move "Blade Runner".
Worrying that someone will think PKD is responsible, from beyond the grave, for the battery designs of Googles smart phone? That sounds like a reasonable motivation for a lawsuit to you?
Besides, they'd do better in that case taking credit for the warning. PKDs book is totally clear: 'Nexus' is an Android that sometimes kills people.
Oh, I think intent is obvious. They clearly intend to say the work of PKD is cool and they like it. But doing that does not require the permission of his heirs under any legal system I am aware of nor any moral framework I would accept.
Indirectly referencing the famous works of others isn't something you need their permission for.
"It's pretty obvious that the Google names were inspired by the book. Perhaps it's only that an engineer who read the book in the far distant past, pulled the name out of the blue, but it happened."
I think it's clearly a considered, intentional reference to the book.
"So I think PKD can arguably say, 'Hey, that was my idea!'"
No he can't, he's dead. But by using the name "Nexus One" Google is already saying they think PKD is cool and that his ideas were an important part of our cultures conception of what an Android is.
But PKD didn't invent the word "Nexus", nor suggest it as the name of a phone. Using it isn't an attempt to ride on PKDs coattails, it's an attempt to compliment PKD. You don't need permission from someones heirs to compliment that person.
If Google wants to handle this without lawyers, they'll send the heirs a letter explaining that the heirs lawyers are ripping them off, because this case is idiotic.
"Any sufficiently large set of information is going to give you some matches on just about anything you search for."
Yes, but not a sufficiently large rate of matches. If the researchers are competent, they can calculate what percent of the data would be expected to match their search even if the data is just random, and decide if the match rate exceeds that by a significant margin. The 'researchers' of the Bible Code were clearly not competent in exactly this way.
As opposed to the paperback book market, Nature does not tend to print whatever comes across it's desk.
Of course, if you're writing code for the purpose of getting others to give you something other than code in return, you might consider whether you prefer to write OSS for a TShirt or proprietary for oodles of cash.
That's great kid. But as long as we're relating our tales of momentous events, let me tell you the one the big Usenet flamewar of '89. Now there was a battle of true significance to our culture, which ought never be forgot...
Playing about in a pretend world can be fun. Expending emotional energy on an irrelevant argument with strangers you'll never meet is stupid. Still caring years later, kind of sad.
Please calculate the mass & speed of an asteroid whose kinetic energy, converted entirely to heat, is equal to... let's say 1% of what the the earth receives from the sun in a day. Feel free to approximate wildly. Then let us know if there is reason to believe such an asteroid exists.
Batteries for devices with radically different requirements in terms of power regulation, form factor, heat dissipation, safety requirements, and probably a dozen more things, cost different amounts. How could this be? Obviously capacity should be the only factor that impacts battery price, because thats the only factor handled by one bloggers recollection of his high school physics class.
"This blog investigates" by speculating it must be just price gouging, because obviously people are more vigilant about prices in the tiny electric-lawnmower market than the much more competitive laptop market.
Oh, the blogger also investigated by asking some PR people, but then he had to post fast, because one actually replied with some stuff, and he didn't think much about that because that would have taken time, and he might have learned something that would get in the way of his rant.
Ahh, the random midpoint displacement algorithm. Thanks for pointing out that neat thing they do this century. Mind you, it's genuinely cool stuff, and you shouldn't be less excited about it just because other people were excited about it previously. But that "soooo 90's" is pretty damn funny, since what you're describing is probably the same thing the OP is talking about, and it is actually... soooo 80's.
At least, I wrote a little program to play with it in 1991 after reading about it in a book published in the late 80s.
"His company handles over a billion in investment cash that chases any green-smelling contract or startup."
Which ought to make them slightly less efficient than every other fund manager or VC firm, that just chase investments based on payoff, green or otherwise, and who can just as easily profit off a boom in "green" technology as Mr. Gore.
Your complaint seems to be that Gore invests in companies that show promise in terms of dealing with global warming, and that he also pushes a political agenda of trying to make it more profitable to deal with with global warming.
That could certainly be a nefarious plot, but it seems awfully convoluted. And it seems the same things would make sense if Gore actually believed GW was a problem. I mean, why make stuff up? Why not pick an actual problem to make money solving?
Anyway, I might take your ravings more seriously if you knew the difference between the carbon offsets Gores company sells and the emissions permits envisioned by cap & trade.
"... Al Gore, and his fellow investors, who are positioned to make billions of dollars through the absurd selling and trafficking in carbon credits."
How exactly are you imagining Al Gore stands to make billions on carbon credits? Does he have a secret stockpile he will be selling? That would certainly be absurd. "trafficking" certainly sounds nefarious, but I'm not sure I see how that's going to happen... pass a law creating carbon credits, stockpile them, then outlaw them so he can absurdly sell them on the black market?
Seriously though, skipping past your loaded language, you appear to think Al Gore stands to make money when cap-and-trade goes into effect in some way not available to others. I don't see it.
"Please explain to me how a weapons locker aboard ship containing rifles, pistols and shotguns represents a threat."
I don't claim it is a threat. The guy who claims it is a threat is the port authority of every random place your ship stops. Feel free to explain to him what is a threat and what isn't. He probably won't have the authority to change the rules no matter how convincing you are, so you can explain it to his superiors too. Have we mentioned sitting still in port for a day costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars? Take your time. Maybe you could speed things along by telling them their government is a "lost cause".
"These pirates can be deterred (and if that fails, defeated) with small arms."
These pirates might well be killed with small arms, but that won't deter the next bunch. They live in Somalia, where they quite rationally expect to be killed by small arms before they are 25 in any case.
"However, the risk of being blown in to a fine pink mist might deter me."
You don't live in Somalia. If you were one of these pirates, violent death before age 30 would be your expectation. The question is whether to be a grunt in a pirate organization or in one side of the civil war. You might like to say no to both of these opportunities, but the civil war guys in particular aren't fond of that answer. So do you want to risk probable violent death in the near term fighting for the warlord who pays well or the one who doesn't?
So you can't deter them.
You can stop them a variety of ways. None are likely to make such an impression on the next group of pirates that they will give you less trouble. Some are likely to make such an impression on the port authorities anywhere else in the world that they will give you more trouble.
A) and deal with the hassles of sailing an armed vessel into every port you visit; which ports will be in a dizzying array of sovereign countries with all manner of different regulations. That this is a problem that should lead you to throw nets at pirates may be, in your opinion, stupid. Feel free to explain that to the port authority in Whereeverthehellistan and see how well that goes.
B) It's SOMALIA. The "fuckers" are already shooting each other at a far greater than you will ever contemplate, and no shortage of new fuckers is apparent.
So I guess drug runners with enough money to buy jet bots (or airplanes) wouldn't need to be drug runners any more?
The pirates in question have millions of dollars. They support entire cities, and help fund one side of a civil war in which they buy armored vehicles, machine guns, and many other things that cost much more than jet boats.
You, and others, seem to be under the impression the guys in the boats are acting alone, on their own behalf, like bank robbers in some caper movie. This is not the case. The guys in the boats are the low level grunts, working for the big-wigs on land, who have been taking in many millions a year in ransoms for quite some time now.
They don't "need" to be pirates in the same sense any wildly successful industry doesn't "need" to continue operating.
"I would classify pirates as nether civilians nor armed/uniformed combatants. They are irregulars and not sure on this, but I don't think the Geneva convention covers them. If you want to fight a war you got to war a uniform if you don't you are just like a violent bank robber and the Geneva convention doesn't come to play. "
Of course they are civilians; as are bank robbers.
"I think international governments should force countries to enforce piracy laws. Somalian pirates shouldn't be able to capture a boat and then go to shore and hold everyone hostage. They should be outlaws when they come back and should be fired apon/commandoed. Yeah it would suck for a few crews that might die in the process but afterwards word would get around that you can't come to shore if you are a pirate, which makes it a lot harder to do your raping and pillaging in your off time."
Your grasp of the nature of civil society in Somalia may be imperfect. The pirates are the dominant local industry. They are not fired upon when the approach port, because they run the port, and everyone within many miles of it eats because of them.
International pressure cannot force the national government to take action against them, because pressuring the only people who call themselves the national government would involve figuring out what bunker they are hiding in, and their taking any action would involve their leaving it without being killed. The more local de-facto government won't take action against the pirates, because they are the pirates.
It's a multi-million dollar business, supporting entire small cities. The pirates have official spokesmen to handle their press conferences. You can't see anyone selling them boats? You understand there are people who sell them rocket propelled grenades?
They may pirate to keep their stomachs full, but also to fund their side of the civil war. In which they find enough funds to buy armored vehicles, machine guns, etc. And they certainly find people willing to sell them those things. I'm not imagining boats would be a problem.
Seriously, where is your image of these guys coming from?
It's like doubting anyone could pull off an armed robbery at the local liquor store because how would they afford a gun and who would sell it to them?
"By removing the GIMP, they're just encouraging people to think that linux is 'not ready for serious users.'
For people who are used to working with photoshop, the GIMP is different - hence cumbersome."
For people (like me) not used to working with either, GIMP is utterly incomprehensible. "Dumbed down" is not the worst thing ever. In picking the default, preselected software to put on a system, you are inherently picking software for those users who have not yet taken the time to event think about what they want. If you have not taken any time to think about image editing software, and have no idea which program you might want, GIMP is not the program you want.
About every 6 months, I want to touch up some red-eye on a snapshot, or draw a funny mustache on a picture of my brother. From conceiving of the idea, to opening the first image editing software I find on the system and getting it done, I'd like to spend about 10 minutes. This includes learning enough about the software to do it, because I don't do it enough to be familiar with any software. If that first software I find is something that came free with a digital camera, or even MSPaint, no problem. If that first software I find is GIMP, it's obviously not happening. (I am a stubborn and prideful geek; the last time this happened and it was GIMP, I got the mustache drawn. Normal people would have given up after the first hour.)
"Serious users" who have the motivation to figure out GIMP can't figure out how to get it installed on Ubuntu? I mean, I can see how that would be rough, it's at least 3 mouse clicks.
I love the way they conflate "the space program" with "human space flight".
Outsourcing launches of humans to low earth orbit to the private commercial sector sounds like a fine idea, even though they've never done it before.
Even better would be outsourcing the task of deciding if any particular task in LEO is best served by launching a human, because maybe there is a good reason they've never done it before.
Yes, obviously I though Science came out of a magic book, that's why I was dissing dialogue...
Wait, no. Actually, I was complaining about people entirely making shit up in order to push the idea that what they work on is a good idea. Agenda=[fund my research, not some other research]
Saying this drive technology will make a mission to Mars take 39 days isn't a rough figure; it's meaningless. It's like estimating the time to move across town using wheels without specifying what you're moving or whether the wheels are attached to roller skates or a semi. And you've though about wheels a bunch, but never used one yet. It's not the start of a scientific dialogue. It's marketing.
Add theory, speculation, a whiteboard, and massive amounts of government funding, and some researchers will have a nice career. They might even do something worthwhile, but that's not the objective served by the guy saying "39 days".
"In three paragraphs we go from 89 days to 39 days. So which is it?"
Either estimate is based on using a non-existant upscaling of an engine whose much smaller proto-type is scheduled for testing maybe 4 year from now. An of course, attaching that engine to an entirely unspecified payload. So really, who cares if it's 89 or 39? Anyone making such a specific estimate at this point is making stuff up, almost certainly to push some agenda.
Why not?
CopaceticOpus specifically references an unmanned craft. We could argue how exciting that would be (I think very), or whether anything manned is likely in our lifetimes (clearly no) or ever (probably not).
But once we assume we're doing an unmanned flyby, 0.5C gets you somewhere between hours and weeks of taking better pictures than you could from Earth. How much depends on the quality difference of instruments on earth vs on the probe; which will obviously be huge, but it's hard to say exactly how huge.
That's a pretty hypothetical, but the real world is more complicated.
I have only one good option for broadband. They are named Comcast. They violate net neutrality to throttle Bittorent traffic. No competitor has arisen; it seems unlikely one will, but possible a legal solution will force them to stop.
If you think you can exploit the huge market demand for unfiltered bittorrent to roll over the minor advantages Comcast enjoys as an established player, please feel free to enter the market. But don't expect me to invest in your stock.
BTW, who will you be buying "raw bandwidth" from? Why do you imagine they will not violate neutrality to do nasty things?