I think this state law goes a bit overboard. That I can think of, municipal fiber is only a problem in two types of cases. Sometimes, city council just isn't very good at running an ISP - they are mostly car dealers, real estate agents, and insurance agents, not networking experts. So they waste taxpayer money with their toy ISP. The local voters can probably handle that most of the time.
Many of us probably recall Google announced they'd build out Google fiber only in cities where the local government didn't get in the way too much, dragging out permit processes for years, demanding kickbacks, etc. That reminds us that cities can and sometimes do make it very difficult, time consuming, and expensive for ISPs to offer improved services. Suppose you're councilman Jones. Two years ago, you proposed spending $50 million of taxpayer money building Muninet, run by the city. You get Muninet operational, a bit over budget, but it's providing 25 Mbps for $35. You and the rest of the city council aren't experienced at running an ISP, so sometimes there are glitches, but it should recover the $50 million investment over the next 12 years. You've taken some heat from the local newspaper for increasing taxes to pay for mediocre service, but you'll probably manage to get re-elected - you can spin it as a reasonably successful project, in it's first two years.
Now Google comes knocking, wanting to offer gigabit for $70. That makes your Muninet 25 Mbps look like utter shit. If Google is allowed to offer gigabit, nobody will pay for Muninet service anymore and your record will show taxpayers (voters) were left holding the bag for the $50 million construction cost. Are you going to approve Google fiber ( the death of Muninet) or are you going to do everything you can to keep gigabit at bay, protecting your Muninet project?
When the politicians who are responsible regulating / approving services are also running a competing service, they have a conflict of interest. That does need to be addressed somehow, but I don't think it means tax payer ISPs need to be banned.
This study says that for the average job, half of it can be automated (the repetitive part).
Fifteen years ago, I would spend one hour writing software, then two hours testing it. Now the testing is mostly automated. I write code and when I check it in the automated system runsva bunch of tests. It then alerts me of any problems revealed by the automated tests. Automating half of my job has meant I can spend more time creating new software and less time testing, while producing higher quality because I never forget to run one of the tests.
> What about when it's all kinds of jobs? What happens when you only need 1 human to maintain 300 machines who can each do the work of 500 people?
You can read about what happens, that was the 1980s and 1990s. My grandfather was an accountant. At the time, that meant he was also a bookkeper - he wrote things down in a ledger, and used a desk calculator that spit out paper of the results.
My mom was a computer programmer. She wrote software so computers could do the job that my grandfather used to do. She led a team of people maintaining the computers.
I'm also a programmer. I write systems that allow a cloud-based cluster to do the kinds of things my mom used a datacenter full of discrete machines to do.
Half of what my mom used to do as her job is now automated - I don't have to do those things. For example we have an automated system that runs unit tests on the code as I check it in. I don't have to manually run all of those tests. Partially because half the job is automated compared to her day, my team releases a new version every two weeks, rather than every two years like my mom's team did. We get more productive work done in less time since the drudgery is automated. Because I can do a lot of productive work in a short time, I'm well paid.
Muffet is saying it's "major league fuckwittage", while acknowledging that the main point is true: Facebook could in fact intercept messages.
Jacobs says "well duh, if you send a message without verifying keys" - and Whatsapp does just that, automatically resends the message before you have a chance to verify the key.
Sure you'll go to jail and probably lose your right to vote if you swat at a bee now, but the big thing is you better hope it's not at your house. If an endangered species decides to visit your property, your house becomes property of the bee. You lose all rights to use your property as you need to, because rust bubble bees are far more important than people. Of course that doesn't excuse you from paying the mortgage - you still owe the bank. The EPA isn't going to pay off your mortgage for you, theyv just tell you you can't use your property anymore. It belongs to the bee, in case he decides to come back.
As someone else said, if you've got a half million dollar mortgage on a farm and you spot a bee or other endangered species visiting your farm, you have two choices:
A) Stop farming and producing income to pay your mortgage, ceding control of your property to the visiting bug. You'll go bankrupt, of course, with no farm income to pay the mortgage.
B) Quickly and very quietly destroy any evidence that the bug ever flew across your property. You can then continue to earn a living.
Note that (b) is illegal. Legally, you must do (a) because democrats don't understand that reality isn't governed by liberal ideals. The actual laws of physics and the way things really work aren't a folk song, unfortunately.
> Being slightly sick, will cause you staying home, for a long period of time.... which result of you being fired, for no reason of course.
And if I did *not* tell them I'm sick they wouldn't notice that I stayed home for a few weeks?
Also I'm confused, you said "staying home, for a long period of time.... which result of you being fired, for no reason of course." Is this a new form of English or did you say the reason the person had to be replaced was because they stayed home for a long period of time? Maybe you have a job where you don't actually do anything useful, so it doesn't matter if you stay home for a long period of time?
Funny, that's *exactly* what I thought after I read your other post and the first few words of this one. "This guy should write dystopian science fiction." You're good at choosing the right words to make utter fiction sound almost real.
Yes, I do want my boss to know when I'm sick. I'm curious what you're getting at.
I let my boss know when I'm sick because a) I might not come in to the office, or might not get work done, b) I don't want to pass the ilness to my boss by them spending much time in my office, looking at a screen together (with our faces side-by-side), etc. and c) if they notice I seem a little off, sluggish, or even anti-social, they'll know why.
Are you suggesting that you lie to your boss and take sick time when you're not sick? If that's what you're talking about, I have a policy of not lying, so that's not an issue for me. (Of course I screw up from time to time, but since anything I do, I do to extremes, my *policy* is to never start lying or stealing, lest I soon lie and steal to extremes.)
In the Geek Squad case (which is not yet decided), the technicians were paid by the GOVERNMENT to search computers belonging to private CITIZENS. Therefore there is a fourth amendment issue.
Microsoft is not an agent of the government, so there is no fourth amendment issue. Also, Microsoft is not searching your computer, they are searching their own computers.
Right now I'm looking on my computer to see what, if anything, you put anything on my computer. Do you think it's illegal for me to look at what's on my computer? Under what law? Do you think the fourth amendment says I can't look at my own computer? You might want to read the Bill of Rights, if that's your understanding.
Right now, Microsoft is looking on Microsoft's computer to see what, if anything, you put on Microsoft's computer. You may not like that, and you may decide to not use Microsoft's services, but there is no law against Microsoft looking at their own equipment.
> As in the same legal protections that require a law enforcement agency to obtain a warrant
That would be the fourth amendment, which says the federal government not unreasonably search our "houses, papers, and effects". It does not say you may not search your own house, and it does not say Microsoft may not search theirs.
The 14th amendment, as interpreted, applies the 4th to state governments. Microsoft is not the government, and it's not your house - it's Microsoft's.
> Doesn't give them any legal right to read it just because it sits on their truck
Did you mean "moral right" and accidentally typed "legal right"? The United States Postal Service is in fact authorized by law to open packages at their sole discretion. UPS and Fedex open packages - you can read about it on their web sites.
Because USPS is part of the government, they are constrained by the fourth amendment and therefore don't open first class letters without a warrant (but don't need a warrant for packages). Microsoft is not the government and is therefore not constrained by the fourth. Like Fedex and UPS, they can and do open packages customers hand them.
> while raping privacy laws
Which privacy laws would those be, exactly?
Frankly, it's very common to think about what you think the law *should* be for any situation and for some reason our brains confuse that with what the law *is*. I'm not sure why, but intelligent people tend to do that for some reason.
> Perhaps it should be clarified, since there is a significant legal difference in rifling through employee data vs. customer data.
Legally, in the US, Microsoft is rifling through their own hard drives. Note I'm not suggesting I think this should be the law, I'm stating this *is* the law, as affirmed by many courts over many years. Suppose a hacker, who is neither an employee nor a customer, put malware on the machine. How would Microsoft find malware that bad guys have hidden on their servers? Only by thoroughly looking through the whole drive. Is Microsoft allowed to look through their own servers, in order to find malware, file corruption, deduplication opportunities, or any other reason they want to look at their own equipment? Yes, under US law. There are good arguments for changing that, and there are good arguments for not changing it.
> Employees sign documents and accept that usage of corporate systems and networks
Customers agree to 20 pages of TOS too. Part of the TOS *informs* the customer that MS already has the right to examine their own equipment. Once you hand a document to a service provider, saying "please put this on your web server for me" or "please take this to Gmail, and ask them to take it to Bob", they may look at what you've handed them before they do anything else with it. That's good when bad guys hand them a malware file, asking MS to distribute it.
> Hm, what about that exception for technical companies providing "a place" for users and not being responsible what is published on their servers?
I'm not sure what statute you might be referring to. Are you thinking of DMCA safe harbor? DMCA is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Service providers aren't liable for *copyright* violations if they follow the prescribed procedure for handling complaints - and following the prescribed procedure normally involves looking at the material which is the subject of the complaint in order to match up the hosted resources with the specificity of the complaint. (Don't take the whole site down if one image is the subject of dispute.)
> I'm mildly curious as to the nature of the law that allows the company to effectively act as law enforcement
By that you mean "look at what's on their servers"? You can of course look at see what is on your computer. Similarly, Microsoft can look at what is on their computers.
This was well established in cases in which companies were monitoring their network and their computers, which employees were using for personal use as well as for work. Companies, including ISPs and mail providers, can for example have filters to block users from sending out spam. In this case, Microsoft has decided they don't want child porn and certain other material on their systems, and has taken steps to remove it.
Unfortunately, either policy - allowing companies to access their own systems, or not allowing them to access their systems, has problems. If users cared, standard mail clients and other GUI clients would have made GPG/PGP easier, everyone who cared would have been using encrypted email for the last 20 years and it wouldn't be an issue. For whatever reason, people don't care enough to use a GPG/PGP enabled mail client.
On an aircraft, model or otherwise, it's not "weight per volume" (density) that matters, but "weight per strength" (specific strength). I care about the weight of a wire that is strong enough, not the weight of a wire of a certain diameter.
Brass is lower weight for the same strength than common steel. (Though not drastically so.)
> But seriously, there's no need to make up stories about Trump. Just put a Twitter connected smartphone in his hands and he'll do the job of discrediting himself.
Yeah I never understood telling lies about nasty people like Trump and Clinton - you only discredit *yourself* when you tell lies. If you want to point out that Trump and Clinton suck, just quote what they actually said. They are self-flaming.
That's true, the epoxy resin most commonly used with carbon fiber is quite brittle. I was thinking of some CF I've broken. I'm not sure what the polymer is, but I know vinyl and polyester can be used, along with other polymers. There are two main types of carbon fibers, turbostratic and graphitic, and many types of weaves and layup methods. So there are a lot of combinations with different properties. Some common combinations are quite brittle. If you want a different failure mode, you can have it.
> because it lacks most of the properties of steel. It's not elastic, it's not machinable, it's brittle, it doesn't wear well.
Maching carbon fiber is a bit different from machining carbon steel, just like machining stainless steel is a bit different. It most certainly is machined. Actually in some ways the machining of carbon fiber is very similar to stainless steel.
Carbon fiber is slightly MORE elastic than steel. The modulus of elasticity is about 150Gpa with steels ranging about 150-180Gpa.
"Brittleness" (KIc) can't be directly compared since carbon fiber is a composite, but generally cracking is localized - it's not particularly brittle.
"Doesn't wear well" isn't scientifically confined, so I can't give hard numbers for that. We can note that the two major typesnof fiber tows and the many available resins allow a designer to choose the wear properties appropriate for the application.
The big advantage steel has over carbon fiber is cost. While the cost of carbon fiber has reduced significantly in the last ten years, it's still $10/pound in quanity. That definitely matters if you need thousands of pounds of it. It's not too significant if you need less than a pound of material for something you're already spending $30+ on.
Brass is considered where you want better corrosion resistance than steel (plumbing fittings), shine (visible hardware, knobs), lighter weight (musical instruments) or a softer material (non-scratching, non-sparking tools), or a bit of self-lubrication (locks and keys).
I have many hobbies and most end up using brass for something. I do electronics, where brass terminals are used for connections. I do model aircraft, which use brass rods because they are lighter than steel. I do pyrotechnics, where steel is forbidden due to sparks. Very often, if steel isn't a good choice for any reason, brass is a likely alternative.
Of course that doesn't mean brass is *better* than steel. Often you want the harder metal. Each has their own uses.
I doubt *any* material will completely replace steel. The particular properties of steel, it's strength combined with easy machining and reasonable cost will always be right for some applications, much as brass is still used. Steel didn't completely replace brass, carbon fiber didn't completely replace steel, and this new material won't completely replace any of it's predecessors.
However, steel allowed us to make things that couldn't be made with brass, carbon fiber works better than steel for some things, and this new material will be the best choice for some things.
Wiki has annual expenses of around $48 million and growing, and cash reserves about half of that - six months of expenses. Because their expenses for the next six months will be higher than the last six months, it's prudent for them to have a higher than average reserve - their expenses will be higher.
A separate question is whether the expenses are too high. Half of their expenses are salaries. They may have engaged in too many development projects that weren't worthwhile. You would expect SOME development efforts to go bad - if they never try anything that doesn't work, they might not be trying enough things.
Slashdot Mirror
I think this state law goes a bit overboard. That I can think of, municipal fiber is only a problem in two types of cases. Sometimes, city council just isn't very good at running an ISP - they are mostly car dealers, real estate agents, and insurance agents, not networking experts. So they waste taxpayer money with their toy ISP. The local voters can probably handle that most of the time.
Many of us probably recall Google announced they'd build out Google fiber only in cities where the local government didn't get in the way too much, dragging out permit processes for years, demanding kickbacks, etc. That reminds us that cities can and sometimes do make it very difficult, time consuming, and expensive for ISPs to offer improved services. Suppose you're councilman Jones. Two years ago, you proposed spending $50 million of taxpayer money building Muninet, run by the city. You get Muninet operational, a bit over budget, but it's providing 25 Mbps for $35. You and the rest of the city council aren't experienced at running an ISP, so sometimes there are glitches, but it should recover the $50 million investment over the next 12 years. You've taken some heat from the local newspaper for increasing taxes to pay for mediocre service, but you'll probably manage to get re-elected - you can spin it as a reasonably successful project, in it's first two years.
Now Google comes knocking, wanting to offer gigabit for $70. That makes your Muninet 25 Mbps look like utter shit. If Google is allowed to offer gigabit, nobody will pay for Muninet service anymore and your record will show taxpayers (voters) were left holding the bag for the $50 million construction cost. Are you going to approve Google fiber ( the death of Muninet) or are you going to do everything you can to keep gigabit at bay, protecting your Muninet project?
When the politicians who are responsible regulating / approving services are also running a competing service, they have a conflict of interest. That does need to be addressed somehow, but I don't think it means tax payer ISPs need to be banned.
This study says that for the average job, half of it can be automated (the repetitive part).
Fifteen years ago, I would spend one hour writing software, then two hours testing it. Now the testing is mostly automated. I write code and when I check it in the automated system runsva bunch of tests. It then alerts me of any problems revealed by the automated tests. Automating half of my job has meant I can spend more time creating new software and less time testing, while producing higher quality because I never forget to run one of the tests.
> What about when it's all kinds of jobs? What happens when you only need 1 human to maintain 300 machines who can each do the work of 500 people?
You can read about what happens, that was the 1980s and 1990s. My grandfather was an accountant. At the time, that meant he was also a bookkeper - he wrote things down in a ledger, and used a desk calculator that spit out paper of the results.
My mom was a computer programmer. She wrote software so computers could do the job that my grandfather used to do. She led a team of people maintaining the computers.
I'm also a programmer. I write systems that allow a cloud-based cluster to do the kinds of things my mom used a datacenter full of discrete machines to do.
Half of what my mom used to do as her job is now automated - I don't have to do those things. For example we have an automated system that runs unit tests on the code as I check it in. I don't have to manually run all of those tests. Partially because half the job is automated compared to her day, my team releases a new version every two weeks, rather than every two years like my mom's team did. We get more productive work done in less time since the drudgery is automated. Because I can do a lot of productive work in a short time, I'm well paid.
Muffet is saying it's "major league fuckwittage", while acknowledging that the main point is true: Facebook could in fact intercept messages.
Jacobs says "well duh, if you send a message without verifying keys" - and Whatsapp does just that, automatically resends the message before you have a chance to verify the key.
Sure you'll go to jail and probably lose your right to vote if you swat at a bee now, but the big thing is you better hope it's not at your house. If an endangered species decides to visit your property, your house becomes property of the bee. You lose all rights to use your property as you need to, because rust bubble bees are far more important than people. Of course that doesn't excuse you from paying the mortgage - you still owe the bank. The EPA isn't going to pay off your mortgage for you, theyv just tell you you can't use your property anymore. It belongs to the bee, in case he decides to come back.
As someone else said, if you've got a half million dollar mortgage on a farm and you spot a bee or other endangered species visiting your farm, you have two choices:
A) Stop farming and producing income to pay your mortgage, ceding control of your property to the visiting bug. You'll go bankrupt, of course, with no farm income to pay the mortgage.
B) Quickly and very quietly destroy any evidence that the bug ever flew across your property. You can then continue to earn a living.
Note that (b) is illegal. Legally, you must do (a) because democrats don't understand that reality isn't governed by liberal ideals. The actual laws of physics and the way things really work aren't a folk song, unfortunately.
> Being slightly sick, will cause you staying home, for a long period of time.... which result of you being fired, for no reason of course.
And if I did *not* tell them I'm sick they wouldn't notice that I stayed home for a few weeks?
Also I'm confused, you said "staying home, for a long period of time.... which result of you being fired, for no reason of course." Is this a new form of English or did you say the reason the person had to be replaced was because they stayed home for a long period of time? Maybe you have a job where you don't actually do anything useful, so it doesn't matter if you stay home for a long period of time?
> Maybe I should write a novel :)
Funny, that's *exactly* what I thought after I read your other post and the first few words of this one. "This guy should write dystopian science fiction." You're good at choosing the right words to make utter fiction sound almost real.
Yes, I do want my boss to know when I'm sick. I'm curious what you're getting at.
I let my boss know when I'm sick because a) I might not come in to the office, or might not get work done, b) I don't want to pass the ilness to my boss by them spending much time in my office, looking at a screen together (with our faces side-by-side), etc. and c) if they notice I seem a little off, sluggish, or even anti-social, they'll know why.
Are you suggesting that you lie to your boss and take sick time when you're not sick? If that's what you're talking about, I have a policy of not lying, so that's not an issue for me. (Of course I screw up from time to time, but since anything I do, I do to extremes, my *policy* is to never start lying or stealing, lest I soon lie and steal to extremes.)
> Some folk take this site seriously
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Including programmers
In the Geek Squad case (which is not yet decided), the technicians were paid by the GOVERNMENT to search computers belonging to private CITIZENS. Therefore there is a fourth amendment issue.
Microsoft is not an agent of the government, so there is no fourth amendment issue.
Also, Microsoft is not searching your computer, they are searching their own computers.
Right now I'm looking on my computer to see what, if anything, you put anything on my computer. Do you think it's illegal for me to look at what's on my computer? Under what law? Do you think the fourth amendment says I can't look at my own computer? You might want to read the Bill of Rights, if that's your understanding.
Right now, Microsoft is looking on Microsoft's computer to see what, if anything, you put on Microsoft's computer. You may not like that, and you may decide to not use Microsoft's services, but there is no law against Microsoft looking at their own equipment.
> As in the same legal protections that require a law enforcement agency to obtain a warrant
That would be the fourth amendment, which says the federal government not unreasonably search our "houses, papers, and effects". It does not say you may not search your own house, and it does not say Microsoft may not search theirs.
The 14th amendment, as interpreted, applies the 4th to state governments. Microsoft is not the government, and it's not your house - it's Microsoft's.
> Doesn't give them any legal right to read it just because it sits on their truck
Did you mean "moral right" and accidentally typed "legal right"? The United States Postal Service is in fact authorized by law to open packages at their sole discretion. UPS and Fedex open packages - you can read about it on their web sites.
Because USPS is part of the government, they are constrained by the fourth amendment and therefore don't open first class letters without a warrant (but don't need a warrant for packages). Microsoft is not the government and is therefore not constrained by the fourth. Like Fedex and UPS, they can and do open packages customers hand them.
> while raping privacy laws
Which privacy laws would those be, exactly?
Frankly, it's very common to think about what you think the law *should* be for any situation and for some reason our brains confuse that with what the law *is*. I'm not sure why, but intelligent people tend to do that for some reason.
> Perhaps it should be clarified, since there is a significant legal difference in rifling through employee data vs. customer data.
Legally, in the US, Microsoft is rifling through their own hard drives. Note I'm not suggesting I think this should be the law, I'm stating this *is* the law, as affirmed by many courts over many years. Suppose a hacker, who is neither an employee nor a customer, put malware on the machine. How would Microsoft find malware that bad guys have hidden on their servers? Only by thoroughly looking through the whole drive. Is Microsoft allowed to look through their own servers, in order to find malware, file corruption, deduplication opportunities, or any other reason they want to look at their own equipment? Yes, under US law. There are good arguments for changing that, and there are good arguments for not changing it.
> Employees sign documents and accept that usage of corporate systems and networks
Customers agree to 20 pages of TOS too. Part of the TOS *informs* the customer that MS already has the right to examine their own equipment. Once you hand a document to a service provider, saying "please put this on your web server for me" or "please take this to Gmail, and ask them to take it to Bob", they may look at what you've handed them before they do anything else with it. That's good when bad guys hand them a malware file, asking MS to distribute it.
> Hm, what about that exception for technical companies providing "a place" for users and not being responsible what is published on their servers?
I'm not sure what statute you might be referring to. Are you thinking of DMCA safe harbor? DMCA is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Service providers aren't liable for *copyright* violations if they follow the prescribed procedure for handling complaints - and following the prescribed procedure normally involves looking at the material which is the subject of the complaint in order to match up the hosted resources with the specificity of the complaint. (Don't take the whole site down if one image is the subject of dispute.)
> I'm mildly curious as to the nature of the law that allows the company to effectively act as law enforcement
By that you mean "look at what's on their servers"?
You can of course look at see what is on your computer. Similarly, Microsoft can look at what is on their computers.
This was well established in cases in which companies were monitoring their network and their computers, which employees were using for personal use as well as for work. Companies, including ISPs and mail providers, can for example have filters to block users from sending out spam. In this case, Microsoft has decided they don't want child porn and certain other material on their systems, and has taken steps to remove it.
Unfortunately, either policy - allowing companies to access their own systems, or not allowing them to access their systems, has problems. If users cared, standard mail clients and other GUI clients would have made GPG/PGP easier, everyone who cared would have been using encrypted email for the last 20 years and it wouldn't be an issue. For whatever reason, people don't care enough to use a GPG/PGP enabled mail client.
On an aircraft, model or otherwise, it's not "weight per volume" (density) that matters, but "weight per strength" (specific strength). I care about the weight of a wire that is strong enough, not the weight of a wire of a certain diameter.
Brass is lower weight for the same strength than common steel. (Though not drastically so.)
> But seriously, there's no need to make up stories about Trump. Just put a Twitter connected smartphone in his hands and he'll do the job of discrediting himself.
Yeah I never understood telling lies about nasty people like Trump and Clinton - you only discredit *yourself* when you tell lies. If you want to point out that Trump and Clinton suck, just quote what they actually said. They are self-flaming.
That's true, the epoxy resin most commonly used with carbon fiber is quite brittle. I was thinking of some CF I've broken. I'm not sure what the polymer is, but I know vinyl and polyester can be used, along with other polymers. There are two main types of carbon fibers, turbostratic and graphitic, and many types of weaves and layup methods. So there are a lot of combinations with different properties. Some common combinations are quite brittle. If you want a different failure mode, you can have it.
That should say:
180-200 for steel, 150 for carbon fiber.
Anyway the elasticity is similar.
> because it lacks most of the properties of steel. It's not elastic, it's not machinable, it's brittle, it doesn't wear well.
Maching carbon fiber is a bit different from machining carbon steel, just like machining stainless steel is a bit different. It most certainly is machined. Actually in some ways the machining of carbon fiber is very similar to stainless steel.
Carbon fiber is slightly MORE elastic than steel. The modulus of elasticity is about 150Gpa with steels ranging about 150-180Gpa.
"Brittleness" (KIc) can't be directly compared since carbon fiber is a composite, but generally cracking is localized - it's not particularly brittle.
"Doesn't wear well" isn't scientifically confined, so I can't give hard numbers for that. We can note that the two major typesnof fiber tows and the many available resins allow a designer to choose the wear properties appropriate for the application.
The big advantage steel has over carbon fiber is cost. While the cost of carbon fiber has reduced significantly in the last ten years, it's still $10/pound in quanity. That definitely matters if you need thousands of pounds of it. It's not too significant if you need less than a pound of material for something you're already spending $30+ on.
Brass is considered where you want better corrosion resistance than steel (plumbing fittings), shine (visible hardware, knobs), lighter weight (musical instruments) or a softer material (non-scratching, non-sparking tools), or a bit of self-lubrication (locks and keys).
I have many hobbies and most end up using brass for something. I do electronics, where brass terminals are used for connections. I do model aircraft, which use brass rods because they are lighter than steel. I do pyrotechnics, where steel is forbidden due to sparks. Very often, if steel isn't a good choice for any reason, brass is a likely alternative.
Of course that doesn't mean brass is *better* than steel. Often you want the harder metal. Each has their own uses.
I doubt *any* material will completely replace steel. The particular properties of steel, it's strength combined with easy machining and reasonable cost will always be right for some applications, much as brass is still used. Steel didn't completely replace brass, carbon fiber didn't completely replace steel, and this new material won't completely replace any of it's predecessors.
However, steel allowed us to make things that couldn't be made with brass, carbon fiber works better than steel for some things, and this new material will be the best choice for some things.
Here are a couple of videos for you:
http://911speakout.org/wp-cont...
Check YouTube for videos of the 100+ people who saw it happen while sitting in traffic.
Wiki has annual expenses of around $48 million and growing, and cash reserves about half of that - six months of expenses. Because their expenses for the next six months will be higher than the last six months, it's prudent for them to have a higher than average reserve - their expenses will be higher.
A separate question is whether the expenses are too high. Half of their expenses are salaries. They may have engaged in too many development projects that weren't worthwhile. You would expect SOME development efforts to go bad - if they never try anything that doesn't work, they might not be trying enough things.