I think this really is the answer. The ROI on sales with what is already a razor thin margin for them just wouldn't be there. Especially that unusually large sapphire crystals would need to be grown on a very large scale. Which would have required a whole new plant and processes for them.

My gut tells me they could have made it work if they wanted to badly enough - considering how hard sapphire really is. But they looked at the numbers and it wasn't workable for them.

So what really 'cracked' here was the accounting numbers.

I'd like to see the completion rate for people who get actual college credit for the courses - and still have the courses free.

The reason that moocs are not disruptive is because have not been given the power to be disruptive. They still allow the old institutions to get away with their many current shortcomings without facing true competition.

Colleges and universities dangle the carrot in front of everyone's face (like MIT) while not really following through to the conclusion - i.e. granting credit for the work and effort someone invests in learning the material.

In MIT's case, they could offer to have an exam proctored at a local university where someone would walk in the door and be tested. But then nobody would bother to pay exorbitant amounts to show up to the brick and mortar school.

But I submit that the emperor has no clothes. The value of having a college degree (i.e. help in gaining employment) has decreased markedly, as the workplace values cheap workers over qualified ones in the first place. Employers first priority is to make sure that their board of directors and CEOs are well taken care of before anyone else.

Students would be crazy to enter the CS field. You have employers demanding vast experience for "entry level" positions, and then that experience has to contain a long checklist of languages and methodologies. Then they face an employer who will always be looking for a way to find a cheaper H1B replacement for their American employee (regardless if they have less experience and knowledge). After that, a dozen years later their skills are "out of date" and job hunting becomes difficult - after their employer lays them off in a merger. Other employers want to hire the "hot shot" Doritos and Mountain Dew kid straight out of college.

And after all that, when they hit their 40's, they're completely unemployable now and ready to be put out to pasture. As age discrimination seems to be a widely acceptable if not approved practice in a society where other minorities are given legal protections of one sort or another.

Really kids, stay out of anything having to do with programming. Keep it as a hobby, you'll enjoy it far more.

Thank the 'patriot act' and all the ilk that drove for it. I'm looking at you, Senator Hatch.

Developers! Developers! Developers!

The fact that these towers are found next to military bases speaks volumes.

The military needs to there own version of everything to make sure things work in times of national crisis, emergency, or security. They need to have their own infrastructure to insure communications. They need to control their communications around bases and know who is saying or doing what. They need to be able to anticipate attacks. Nobody should have any expectation of privacy on or next to a military base.

Quite frankly, I'm glad to see this.

And this is the reason that Cisco and IBM can lay off thousands of engineers, so they can replace them with either contract workers or cheap oversees engineering?

Being a "good" engineer is hardly a defense anymore, which in part is what this article alludes to.

Real courage would have been to retrain those fired workers for what they needed. But he much rather pull in H1B workers who really do not have the skills either, but are a whole lot cheaper.

This really does set off the BS flag.

Their unique (if not stellar) accomplishment will quickly bring more capital into their company which will enable them to develop other more profitable medications - perhaps using the same or similar technology behind this serum.

And it should not be forgotten that this is the kind of thing Nobel prizes are made out of.

I heard the phrase "We are making a supply chain for EPMs" near the end of the video (5:33)

What he meant was Electro-Permanent Magnets described here. Which could have been the reason why the phone had problems booting in the video.