Tidbits on May 27, 2010
Bob Jensen

Isn't April beautiful in the "White Mountains" of New Hampshire?

This is how it looked in late April before we had more than a foot of new snow to douse our early springtime

These were our bushes before being covered with snow

In this edition of Tidbits, I will feature various seasons of our flower gardens
The picture below was taken in April after the pond thawed and our deep snow had all melted
However, a foot new April snow covered our early springtime blossoms

The mountains are totally obscured by heavy clouds

Here are our unplanted Alyssum, Snap Dragons, and Impatience annuals still in their trays on May 24
I prefer the annual plants to perennials
Our annuals bloom all summer whereas perennial blooms are too short lived

And here's our freshly planted Alyssum, Snap Dragons, and Impatience on May 26, 2010
(Bob does the planting because of Erika's poor health)
Now we will wait for the seedlings to grow and spread (like us)

This was our garden in July 2009
In the Summer of 2009 I featured pansies, snap dragons, verbena, alyssum, and bordering yellow-bidens

Below is a Polka Weigela bush that blooms twice each summer every year

And this was a clematis vine in July 2009

And this is a Polka Weigela bush that blooms twice each summer of every year

In autumn the leaves rather than the blossoms that provide our color in the magnificent foliage season

In the winter season Erika's roses are wrapped for a 2010 Mothers Day unveiling

It's still too  early for rose blossoms in our garden,
but Erika received some beautiful Wisconsin roses from daughter Maria on Mothers Day

Mt Lafayette is adorned with a new April cap of snow (sunset looking east from my desk)

Sunrise (looking east from my desk)

After Mothers Day we got our usual crop of a million or more dandelions

And the Phlox adorned the rock garden on the south side of the cottage

 

My tractor is alongside the driveway (I didn't want you to miss that)

St. Francis guarding our garage door in Winter beside a lilac bush (his snow cap was a total act of nature)

And this is St. Francis in May 26, 2010 after I planted new seedlings at his feet
Normally I don't like statues in the yard
But this particular statue is a favorite that Erika has wanted in our yard for years

The following pictures were sent to me
They seem appropriate as we approach the Memorial Day holiday

 

For Memorial Day in 2010

My favorite slide show
Thank You America
(slide show) --- Click Here

Video:  Return of a fallen marine to New Braunfels, Texas --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VAyKZu3kZo

Video:  Awaken, Oh America --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fzKY0hS_Pw

America (Barbara Streisand) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMYCj3IJ_VQ

American Trilogy Video (Elvis) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moUifEmOcbU

Bob Jensen's other inspirational links to music and video --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Music.htm#Inspirational

 

 

Tidbits on May 27, 2010
Bob Jensen

For earlier editions of Tidbits go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron" enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and other universities is at http://www.searchedu.com/.


Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations   


Bob Jensen's Threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm

Bob Jensen's Home Page is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/

CPA Examination --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cpa_examination

Cool Search Engines That Are Not Google --- http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/06/coolsearchengines

World Clock and World Facts --- http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf

U.S. Debt/Deficit Clock --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Free Residential and Business Telephone Directory (you must listen to an opening advertisement) --- dial 800-FREE411 or 800-373-3411
 Free Online Telephone Directory --- http://snipurl.com/411directory       [www_public-records-now_com] 
 Free online 800 telephone numbers --- http://www.tollfree.att.net/tf.html
 Google Free Business Phone Directory --- 800-goog411
To find names addresses from listed phone numbers, go to www.google.com and read in the phone number without spaces, dashes, or parens

Daily News Sites for Accountancy, Tax, Fraud, IFRS, XBRL, Accounting History, and More ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm

Cool Search Engines That Are Not Google --- http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/06/coolsearchengines
Bob Jensen's search helpers --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Searchh.htm
Education Technology Search --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
Distance Education Search --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm
Search for Listservs, Blogs, and Social Networks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListservRoles.htm

Bob Jensen's essay on the financial crisis bailout's aftermath and an alphabet soup of appendices can be found at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm

Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
The Master List of Free Online College Courses ---
http://universitiesandcolleges.org/

149 Interesting People to Follow on Twitter (but I don't have time to follow them) ---
http://ow.ly/1sj5q
 
I see from my house by the side of the road
By the side of the highway of life,
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
The men who are faint with the strife,
But I turn not away from their smiles and tears,
Both parts of an infinite plan-
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
Sam Walter Foss (1858-1911)

For earlier editions of Tidbits go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbitsdirectory.htm

For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

 


On May 14, 2006 I retired from Trinity University after a long and wonderful career as an accounting professor in four universities. I was generously granted "Emeritus" status by the Trustees of Trinity University. My wife and I now live in a cottage in the White Mountains of New Hampshire --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/NHcottage.htm

Bob Jensen's blogs and various threads on many topics --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
       (Also scroll down to the table at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ )

Global Incident Map --- http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php

If you want to help our badly injured troops, please check out
Valour-IT: Voice-Activated Laptops for Our Injured Troops  --- http://www.valour-it.blogspot.com/




Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

574 Shields Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm

 




Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

The Aztec Pantheon and the Art of Empire [Flash Player] http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/aztec/index.html

From PBS:  American Experience: Earth Days ---  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/earthdays/

The Seattle Public Library: Podcasts [iTunes] http://www.spl.org/default.asp?pageID=collection_podcasts 

Textiles and Costumes: Henry Art Gallery [Flash Player] http://dig.henryart.org/textiles/

National Museums of Kenya [Flash Player] http://www.museums.or.ke/ 

Five Years Old on 911 --- http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=eDARfDJw80s


Free music downloads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

Chicago Amplified (Lyric Opera from the Chicago Public Library) --- http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Program_AMP.aspx

Lena Horne -- Activist and Singer -- Dies at 92 --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1X7GS_291E&feature=fvst

Web outfits like Pandora, Foneshow, Stitcher, and Slacker broadcast portable and mobile content that makes Sirius look overpriced and stodgy ---
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090327_877363.htm?link_position=link2

TheRadio (my favorite commercial-free online music site) --- http://www.theradio.com/
Slacker (my second-favorite commercial-free online music site) --- http://www.slacker.com/

Gerald Trites likes this international radio site --- http://www.e-radio.gr/
Songza:  Search for a song or band and play the selection --- http://songza.com/
Also try Jango --- http://www.jango.com/?r=342376581
Sometimes this old guy prefers the jukebox era (just let it play through) --- http://www.tropicalglen.com/
And I listen quite often to Soldiers Radio Live --- http://www.army.mil/fieldband/pages/listening/bandstand.html
Also note
U.S. Army Band recordings --- http://bands.army.mil/music/default.asp

Bob Jensen listens to music free online (and no commercials) --- http://www.slacker.com/ 


Photographs and Art

Carl V. Hartman & The Costa Rica Collections --- http://www.carnegiemnh.org/anthro/hartman/index.htm

Wild and Scenic Rivers --- http://www.rivers.gov/

Barnard-Stockbridge Photograph Collection (Art History) --- http://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/Stockbridge/

Masterpieces of European Painting from Dulwich Picture Gallery --- http://www.frick.org/exhibitions/dulwich/index.htm

Honor? Daumier Digitized Lithographs --- http://ir.brandeis.edu/handle/10192/5

Factory Tours USA http://www.factorytoursusa.com/

Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site http://www.nps.gov/sair/index.htm 

National Geographic: Environment --- http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/?source=NavEnvHome

The Stuart McDonald Cartoon Collection http://www.library.und.edu/digital/McDonald.htm

The Hale Scrapbook (cartoon history) --- http://cartoons.osu.edu/hale/Hale.php

Wild and Scenic Rivers --- http://www.rivers.gov/

From the Library of Commerce (History, Geography)
Rivers, Edens, Empires --- http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/lewisandclark/lewisandclark.html

Textiles and Costumes: Henry Art Gallery [Flash Player] http://dig.henryart.org/textiles/

Bob Jensen's threads on history, literature and art ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History


Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

The Stuart McDonald Cartoon Collection http://www.library.und.edu/digital/McDonald.htm

The Hale Scrapbook (cartoon history) --- http://cartoons.osu.edu/hale/Hale.php

Amswer Applied Math and Science Education Repository --- http://www.amser.org/
Especially note the
AMSER Science Reader Monthly

Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society --- http://dig.lib.niu.edu/ISHS/index.html

Chicago Amplified (Lyric Opera from the Chicago Public Library) --- http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Program_AMP.aspx

Martha Ballard's Diary --- http://www.dohistory.com/

Peter Pan by James Matthew Barrie --- Click Here

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens by James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937) --- Click Here

Margaret Ogilvy by James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937) --- Click Here

The Boarded Window by Ambrose Bierce (1842 1914) --- Click Here

Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce (1842 1914) --- Click Here   

The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce (1842 1914) --- Click Here

My Favorite Murder by Ambrose Bierce (1842 1914) --- Click Here

Can Such Things Be? by Ambrose Bierce --- Click Here

Bulgakov's Master and Margarita (Russian Novel) http://cr.middlebury.edu/public/russian/Bulgakov/public_html//index.html

Dante Worlds (Multimedia) --- http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/

The Willa Cather Archive --- http://cather.unl.edu/

The Thomas Carlyle Letters Online --- http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org/

The Milton Reading Room from Dartmouth --- http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/contents/

Ralph Waldo Emerson --- http://www.rwe.org/comm/

Anthology of Modern American Poetry (Oxford University Press, 2000) Edited by Cary Nelson --- http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/

 

Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI




Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on May 27, 2010
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2010/TidbitsQuotations052710.htm         

Bob Jensen's health care messaging updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm




I have written repeatedly about the virtual lack of validity checking of research published in the academy's leading accounting research journals --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm

Validity checking is probably highest for articles published in physical science research journals and is improving for social science research journals. There also is aggressive validity checking in some areas of humanities, notably history.

"Amazing Disgrace," by Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed, May 19, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee290
Also see http://hnn.us/articles/568.html 


"History, Not Politics," by Serena Golden, Inside Higher Ed, May 21, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/05/21/spence

Jonathan Spence came here to deliver a speech, but don't let that fool you: his address -- the 39th Annual Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, which took place Thursday -- in no way resembled the sort typically associated with D.C.

The Jefferson Lecture is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, which describes the lecture as "the most prestigious honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities." Those chosen for the distinction are typically academics or creative types (or both) -- but, given the setting, the sponsor, and the nature of the award (which "recognizes an individual... who has the ability to communicate the knowledge and wisdom of the humanities in a broad, appealing way"), Jefferson Lecturers have historically taken the opportunity to make a larger (and sometimes tacitly political) point related to the humanities. Last year, controversial bioethicist Leon Kass used his lecture to criticize the way the humanities are taught and researched at American universities; in 2007, Harvey Mansfield argued, with many subtle political allusions, that the social sciences are in dire need of "the help of literature and history"; Tom Wolfe's 2006 lecture discussed how the humanities shed light on modern culture (and lamented the current state of that culture on campuses); 2005 lecturer Donald Kagan and 2004 lecturer Helen Vendler offered opposing views on which disciplines of the humanities are most crucial, and why.

If any of those in the crowd (noticeably larger than last year's) at the Warner Theater last night were familiar with the Jefferson Lectures of years prior, they were in for a surprise.

Spence is Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University, whose faculty he joined in 1966. His specialty has always been China -- his 14 books on Chinese history include 1990's The Search for Modern China, upon whose publication the New York Times accurately predicted that it would "undoubtedly become a standard text on the subject" -- and his lecture was entitled "When Minds Met: China and the West in the Seventeenth Century." Even this relatively specific appellation, however, conveys a misleading breadth, for Spence's lecture focused almost exclusively on three men -- Shen Fuzong, an exceptionally learned Chinese traveler; Thomas Hyde, an English scholar of history and language; and Robert Boyle, also English, a scientist and philosopher of considerable renown -- and one year: 1687.

In his lecture, Spence gave what may (or may not) have been one brief acknowledgment that he'd chosen an unusually narrow topic of discourse: "It is a commonplace, I think, that the sources that underpin our concept of the humanities, as a focus for our thinking, are expected to be broadly inclusive." But, for himself, Spence dismissed that notion in one more sentence: "...as a historian I have always been drawn to the apparently small-scale happenings in circumscribed settings, out of which we can tease a more expansive story."

Thus he dedicated the rest of his lecture to the story of those three historical figures in the year 1687. Shen had traveled to Europe in the company of one of his teachers, a Flemish Jesuit priest who was co-editing a book of the sayings of Confucius from Chinese into Latin. Hyde, librarian at the University of Oxford's Bodleian Library, invited Shen there to assist him with the cataloging of some Chinese books -- and also because Hyde, who in that era would have been called an Orientalist, wanted to learn Chinese himself. After a brief stay at Oxford, Shen returned to London, bearing a letter of introduction from Hyde to his friend Boyle; the letter recommended that Boyle meet and converse with the Chinese scholar. The letter had to be convincing, Spence explained, because Boyle's reputation was by then widespread, and "he was so inundated with curious visitors that at times he had to withdraw into self-enforced seclusion...."

Shen did meet Boyle at least once; Boyle's work diary mentions their discussion of the Chinese language and its scholars (a conversation that, like all of those between Shen and Hyde, must have taken place in Latin: Shen's Latin was excellent, but he did not, evidently, know English). And Hyde maintained correspondence not only with his old friend Boyle -- over the years, the two had "discussed Arabic and Persian texts, Malay grammars... and how to access books from Tangier, Constantinople and Bombay" as well as "the chemical constituents of sal ammoniac and amber, the effectiveness of certain Mexican herbs... current studies of human blood and air, the nature of papyrus, the writings of Ramon Llull and the use of elixirs and alchemy in the treatment of illnesses" -- but also with Shen, until around the time of the latter's departure from England for Portugal in the spring of 1688.The letters between Shen and Hyde covered such topics as "Chinese vocabulary... China's units of weights and measurements... the workings of the Chinese examination system and bureaucracy... [and] the Chinese Buddhist belief in the transmigration of souls."

"All three men," Spence ultimately concluded, "though so different, shared certain basic ideas about human knowledge: these included... the importance of linguistic precision, the need for broad-based comparative studies, the role of clarity in argument, the need for thorough scrutiny of philosophical and theological principles.... Theirs, though brief, had been a real meeting of the minds. And the values they shared remain, well over three hundred years later, the kind that we can seek to practice even in our own hurried lives."

That final point was the closest Spence came to suggesting a particular take-home message for his audience; however, in an interview with Inside Higher Ed, held that morning in the lobby of the Willard Hotel, he did mention a few ideas that he was hoping to convey. For one thing, Spence said, given the current importance of U.S.-China relations, he hopes this much older, smaller-scale example of dialogue between the East and West will "give some perspective to that."

"Historians," he said, "try to get people away from just focusing on the present; they try to give them some sort of stronger sense of continuity, human continuity. And I just like the range of things, these three people that draw together, and they're writing their letters to each other, and their few meetings... and in that short time they talk about examination systems, they talk about language, competition, they talk about medicine, they talk about -- I was fascinated, they talk about chess..... All these things seemed to me to flow together, and I think they'd make an interesting -- I hope they'd make an interesting -- package about cultural contact."

There's a message in that, Spence said: "to make our range of contact as wide as possible, and to use our intelligence about how to do this."

Another issue raised in the lecture, Spence said -- "maybe a small point, but perhaps worth making" -- has to do with the teaching and learning of languages; Hyde dreamed of bringing native speakers of various Eastern languages to Oxford, to establish a college of languages. "Why should everybody else on the planet speak English?" Spence asked. "I mean, why should they?"

But on the larger importance of the humanities, and their current status in higher education and society at large, Spence was reluctant to make a strong argument. "It's not just a case of encouraging humanities in the abstract; it's having something to say.... The main search should be for what is the most meaningful thing you can achieve with the humanities, how can you share some kind of broader cultural values, or how can you learn things about yourself or other societies. The challenge is to use the humane intelligence and see what can be built on that."

And when it comes to funding, "any government has to put its priorities somewhere, and this does usually mean cutting something."

His lecture, Spence said, isn't "meant to be exactly a political speech, you know, I hope people understand that."

For the most part, those in attendance seemed more than satisfied. Spence's talk was punctuated frequently by warm laughter from the audience -- whom he indulged shamelessly, often departing from his prepared remarks to expound upon details that interested him, or to make additional jokes whenever the crowd found one of his remarks especially humorous. When he finished, the applause was long and loud, and one woman remarked audibly, "That was amazing!"; her companion replied, "Nice, really nice!"

But at least a few people reacted with more ambivalence. One group of young attendees, who identified themselves as fans of Spence, having been students of his as undergraduates at Yale, said that while they'd enjoyed the lecture, they had been hoping that Spence would make a more explicit connection between his topic and issues of current cultural or political relevance. One noted that, in his introductory remarks that evening, NEH Chairman James Leach had described the purpose of the Jefferson Lecture as being "to narrow the gap between the world of academia and public affairs," and had emphasized the Endowment's goal of "bridging cultures."

There was an "irony," this young man said, in the fact that Spence's lecture precisely addressed the bridging of two cultures, but Spence hadn't made a bridge between his own remarks -- which the audience member interpreted as "a clarion call for better scholarship" -- and any other realm. "Listeners," he said (possibly referring to himself), "want something that's cut and dry, that's tweetable."

The possibility of such complaints about his speech had arisen during Inside Higher Ed's interview with Spence that morning; he hadn't seemed concerned. "I'm not going to sort of over-apologize to the audience... they've chosen to come to hear about the seventeenth century" -- he chuckled -- "I think we announced that!"

Bob Jensen’s call for better research in the accounting academy ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting history are at
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/05/21/spence


The Power of Collective Intelligence
"Humans: Why They Triumphed:  How did one ape 45,000 years ago happen to turn into a planet dominator? The answer lies in an epochal collision of creativity," by Matt Ridley, The Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2010 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703691804575254533386933138.html#mod=todays_us_weekend_journal

Human evolution presents a puzzle. Nothing seems to explain the sudden takeoff of the last 45,000 years—the conversion of just another rare predatory ape into a planet dominator with rapidly progressing technologies. Once "progress" started to produce new tools, different ways of life and burgeoning populations, it accelerated all over the world, culminating in agriculture, cities, literacy and all the rest. Yet all the ingredients of human success—tool making, big brains, culture, fire, even language—seem to have been in place half a million years before and nothing happened. Tools were made to the same monotonous design for hundreds of thousands of years and the ecological impact of people was minimal. Then suddenly—bang!—culture exploded, starting in Africa. Why then, why there?

The answer lies in a new idea, borrowed from economics, known as collective intelligence: the notion that what determines the inventiveness and rate of cultural change of a population is the amount of interaction between individuals. Even as it explains very old patterns in prehistory, this idea holds out hope that the human race will prosper mightily in the years ahead—because ideas are having sex with each other as never before.

The more scientists discover, the bigger the evolution puzzle has become. Tool-making itself has now been pushed back at least two million years, and modern tool kits emerged very gradually over 300,000 years in Africa. Meanwhile, Neanderthals are now known to have had brains that were bigger than ours and to have inherited the same genetic mutations that facilitate speech as us. Yet, despite surviving until 30,000 years ago, they hardly invented any new tools, let alone farms, cities and toothpaste. The Neanderthals prove that it is quite possible to be intelligent and imaginative human beings (they buried their dead) yet not experience cultural and economic progress.

Scientists have so far been looking for the answer to this riddle in the wrong place: inside human heads. Most have been expecting to find a sort of neural or genetic breakthrough that sparked a "big bang of human consciousness," an auspicious mutation so that people could speak, think or plan better, setting the human race on the path to continuous and exponential innovation.

But the sophistication of the modern world lies not in individual intelligence or imagination. It is a collective enterprise. Nobody—literally nobody—knows how to make the pencil on my desk (as the economist Leonard Read once pointed out), let alone the computer on which I am writing. The knowledge of how to design, mine, fell, extract, synthesize, combine, manufacture and market these things is fragmented among thousands, sometimes millions of heads. Once human progress started, it was no longer limited by the size of human brains. Intelligence became collective and cumulative.

In the modern world, innovation is a collective enterprise that relies on exchange. As Brian Arthur argues in his book "The Nature of Technology," nearly all technologies are combinations of other technologies and new ideas come from swapping things and thoughts. (My favorite example is the camera pill—invented after a conversation between a gastroenterologist and a guided missile designer.) We tend to forget that trade and urbanization are the grand stimuli to invention, far more important than governments, money or individual genius. It is no coincidence that trade-obsessed cities—Tyre, Athens, Alexandria, Baghdad, Pisa, Amsterdam, London, Hong Kong, New York, Tokyo, San Francisco—are the places where invention and discovery happened. Think of them as well-endowed collective brains.

Trade also gave way to centralized institutions. Around 5,200 years ago, Uruk, in southern Mesopotamia, was probably the first city the world had ever seen, housing more than 50,000 people within its six miles of wall. Uruk, its agriculture made prosperous by sophisticated irrigation canals, was home to the first class of middlemen, trade intermediaries.

As with traders ever since, increasingly it came to look like tribute as Uruk merchants' dwellings were plonked amid the rural settlements of the trading partners in the hills. A cooperative trade network seems to have turned into something more like colonialism. Tax and even slavery began to rear their ugly heads. Thus was set the pattern that would endure for the next 6,000 years—merchants make wealth; chiefs nationalize it.

Agriculture was invented where people were already living in dense trading societies. The oldest farming settlements of all in what is now Syria and Jordan are situated at oases where trade routes crossed, as proved by finds of obsidian (volcanic glass) tools from Cappadocia. When farmers first colonized Greek islands 9,000 years ago they relied on imported tools and exported produce from the very start. Trade came before—and stimulated—farming.

Go even further back and you find the same thing. The explosion of new technologies for hunting and gathering in western Asia around 45,000 years ago, often called the Upper Paleolithic Revolution, occurred in an area with an especially dense population of hunter-gatherers—with a bigger collective brain. Long before the ancestors of modern people first set foot outside Africa, there was cultural progress within Africa itself, but it had a strangely intermittent, ephemeral quality: There would be flowerings of new tool kits and new ways of life, which then faded again.

Recently at Pinnacle Point in South Africa, Curtis Marean of Arizona State University found evidence of seafood-eating people who made sophisticated "bladelet" stone tools, with small blades less than 10 millimeters wide, and who used ochre pigments to decorate themselves (implying symbolic behavior) as long as 164,000 years ago. They disappeared, but a similar complex culture re-emerged around 80,000 years ago at Blombos cave nearby. Adam Powell of University College, London, and his colleagues have recently modeled human populations and concluded that these flowerings are caused by transiently dense populations: "Variation in regional subpopulation density and/or migratory activity results in spatial structuring of cultural skill accumulation."

The notion that exchange stimulated innovation by bringing together different ideas has a close parallel in biological evolution. The Darwinian process by which creatures change depends crucially on sexual reproduction, which brings together mutations from different lineages. Without sex, the best mutations defeat the second best, which then get lost to posterity. With sex, they come together and join the same team. So sex makes evolution a collective and cumulative process in which any individual can draw on the gene pool of the whole species. And when it comes to gene pools, the species with gene lakes generally do better than the ones with gene ponds—hence the vulnerability of island species to competition with continental ones.

It is precisely the same in cultural evolution. Trade is to culture as sex is to biology. Exchange makes cultural change collective and cumulative. It becomes possible to draw upon inventions made throughout society, not just in your neighborhood. The rate of cultural and economic progress depends on the rate at which ideas are having sex.

Dense populations don't produce innovation in other species. They only do so in human beings, because only human beings indulge in regular exchange of different items among unrelated, unmated individuals and even among strangers. So here is the answer to the puzzle of human takeoff. It was caused by the invention of a collective brain itself made possible by the invention of exchange.

Once human beings started swapping things and thoughts, they stumbled upon divisions of labor, in which specialization led to mutually beneficial collective knowledge. Specialization is the means by which exchange encourages innovation: In getting better at making your product or delivering your service, you come up with new tools. The story of the human race has been a gradual spread of specialization and exchange ever since: Prosperity consists of getting more and more narrow in what you make and more and more diverse in what you buy. Self-sufficiency—subsistence—is poverty.

This theory neatly explains why some parts of the world lagged behind in their rate of cultural evolution after the Upper Paleolithic takeoff. Australia, though it was colonized by modern people 20,000 years earlier than most of Europe, saw comparatively slow change in technology and never experienced the transition to farming. This might have been because its dry and erratic climate never allowed hunter-gatherers to reach high enough densities of interaction to indulge in more than a little specialization.

Where population falls or is fragmented, cultural evolution may actually regress. A telling example comes from Tasmania, where people who had been making bone tools, clothing and fishing equipment for 25,000 years gradually gave these up after being isolated by rising sea levels 10,000 years ago. Joe Henrich of the University of British Columbia argues that the population of 4,000 Tasmanians on the island constituted too small a collective brain to sustain, let alone improve, the existing technology.

Tierra del Fuego, in a similar climatic and demographic position, experienced no such technological regress because its people remained in trading contact with the mainland of South America across a much narrower strait throughout the prehistoric period. In effect, they had access to a continental collective brain.

Further proof that exchange and collective intelligence are the key to human progress comes from Neanderthal remains. Almost all Neanderthal tools are found close to their likely site of origin: they did not trade. In the southern Caucasus, argues Daniel Adler of the University of Connecticut, it is the "development and maintenance of larger social networks, rather than technological innovations or increased hunting prowess, that distinguish modern humans from Neanderthals."

The oldest evidence for human trade comes from roughly 80,000 to 120,000 years ago, when shell beads in Algeria and obsidian tools in Ethiopia began to move more than 100 miles from the sea and from a particular volcano respectively. (In recent centuries stone tools moved such distances in Australia by trade rather than by migration.) This first stirring of trade was the most momentous innovation of the human species, because it led to the invention of invention. Why it happened in Africa remains a puzzle, but Steve Kuhn and Mary Stiner of the University of Arizona have argued that for some reason only Africans had invented a sexual division of labor between male hunters and female gatherers—the most basic of all trades.

There's a cheery modern lesson in this theory about ancient events. Given that progress is inexorable, cumulative and collective if human beings exchange and specialize, then globalization and the Internet are bound to ensure furious economic progress in the coming century—despite the usual setbacks from recessions, wars, spendthrift governments and natural disasters.

The process of cumulative innovation that has doubled life span, cut child mortality by three-quarters and multiplied per capita income ninefold—world-wide—in little more than a century is driven by ideas having sex. And things like the search engine, the mobile phone and container shipping just made ideas a whole lot more promiscuous still.

Bob Jensen's threads on open sharing ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

Bob Jensen's threads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm


GPA-SAT correlations
"Psychometric thresholds for physics and mathematics," by Stephen Hsu and James Schombert, MIT's Technology Review, May 24, 2010 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/posts.aspx?bid=354

This is a follow up to our earlier paper on GPA-SAT correlations. Click below for the pdf.
Non-linear Psychometric Thresholds for Physics and Mathematics

ABSTRACT
We analyze 5 years of student records at the University of Oregon to estimate the probability of success (as defined by superior undergraduate record; sufficient for admission to graduate school) in Physics and Mathematics as a function of SAT-M score. We find evidence of a non-linear threshold: below SAT-M score of roughly 600, the probability of success is very low. Interestingly, no similar threshold exists in other majors, such as Sociology, History, English or Biology, whether on SAT combined, SAT-R or SAT-M. Our findings have significant implications for the demographic makeup of graduate populations in mathematically intensive subjects, given the current distribution of SAT-M scores.

 
There is clearly something different about the physics and math GPA vs SAT distributions compared to all of the other majors we looked at (see figure 1 in the paper). In the other majors (history, sociology, etc.) it appears that hard work can compensate for low SAT score. But that is not the case in math and physics.

One interesting question is whether the apparent cognitive threshold is a linear or non-linear effect. Our data suggests that the probability of doing well in any particular quarter of introductory physics may be linear with SAT-M, but the probability of having a high cumulative GPA in physics or math is very non-linear in SAT-M. See figure below: the red line is the upper bound at 95% confidence level on the probability of getting an A in a particular quarter of introductory physics, and the blue line is the probability of earning a cumulative GPA of at least 3.5 or so
.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm


Question
Note that a major part of financial auditing is external verification of accounts and notes receivables.
I wonder how many CPA audits are also test checking eligibility for benefits in business firms?

"Ensuring Insurance," by Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed, May 24, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/05/24/insurance

With their revenues declining and prospects for replacing them fading, colleges and universities around the country are embracing a series of tactics aimed at lowering their costs, such as redesigning entry-level courses and pruning unproductive research institutes. The measures aren't always popular, especially when they are perceived as taking cherished benefits away from employees.

That's the case in Georgia, where the state's public college system has undertaken an audit designed to ensure that health insurance coverage goes only to those who are qualified to receive it -- and to shave as much as $4.6 million off the $290 million that the University System of Georgia spends each year on employer-provided benefits. The so-called dependent eligibility audit, after an "amnesty period," requires all employees whose dependents are covered under the health insurance policy to submit documents (such as marriage licenses, birth certificates and tax returns) proving that their spouses and children warrant such coverage.

Similar audits are underway or planned at the University of Michigan, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Colorado System.

Employee groups in the Georgia system have not taken kindly to the audit. Viewed in isolation, said Hugh Hudson Jr., a Georgia State University historian who heads the state chapter of the American Association of University Professors, the idea of requiring faculty and staff members to prove that they're following the system's current policy may seem like no big deal.

But much else is happening in Georgia, Hudson said. State political leaders are imposing major budget cuts on public colleges, promising furloughs and threatening layoffs of tenured faculty members (a threat from which the university has since backed off), and legislators have taken aim at what they perceive to be the inappropriate research interests of some professors.

In that context, "we're told, 'Prove to me that you haven't been cheating.' This is the proverbial straw breaking the camel’s back." It's hard not to view the current review of benefits, Hudson said, as "part of a larger sense of growing hostility toward the value of higher education and the faculty."

Officials of the Georgia system insist that such a view seriously misreads their intent. While such audits typically find that between 5 and 10 percent of enrolled dependents should not be covered, the overwhelming majority are enrolled because of mistakes or incomplete understanding, not ill intent.

And it is just good fiduciary practice to limit health insurance to those who are actually qualified to receive it, they say -- a point of view shared by the increasing numbers of colleges and universities that are undertaking such audits.

“Many colleges and universities have recently conducted similar audits and are realizing significant annual cost savings -- some in the millions of dollars per year," Andy Brantley, president and chief executive officer of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, said via e-mail. "These kinds of audits are not meant to be an invasion of privacy and are only conducted to verify information previously submitted by the employee.... All institutions should regularly conduct these types of audits as a standard business practice.“

The university system's Board of Regents approved the audit in March, as one of a series of changes it had undertaken in the preceding months (at large part at the direction of its new chairman, Robert F. Hatcher) to shave costs from its health care programs.

"What we're trying to do is to preserve our health care plan for the people on the plan," said Wayne Guthrie, vice chancellor for human resources for the Georgia system. The dependent care audit is one way to do that, system officials said in documents explaining the plan, since "[covering individuals who are not eligible dependents raises our cost for health coverage which is reflected in the annual premiums."

The audit is being conducted by Chapman Kelly, an Indiana-based firm to which the regents agreed to pay about $300,000. (The expenditure of funds to an outside company given the state's tight budgets has also raised faculty hackles, said Hudson of the AAUP. "Is there no agency in the state that could do this work?") The review includes a weeks-long “amnesty period ... in which employees may voluntarily remove ineligible dependents with no penalties," the system told employees in its communications to them. (Employees were notified of the amnesty phase on March 29 and given until April 21.)

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm


"A New Humanities Ph.D.," by Paula Krebs, Inside Higher Ed, May 24, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/05/24/krebs 

Jensen Comment
I wonder how much of the above article can be extrapolated to accounting doctoral programs?

Bob Jensen's threads on the sad state of accounting doctoral programs are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms


Gina is not amused by the cartoon cover of the May 24, 2010 edition of The New Yorker
"Is There a Doctorate in the House?" by Gina Barreca, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 21, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Is-There-a-Doctorate-in-the/24202/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en


Graveyard for Websites

Cyber Cemetery --- http://digital.library.unt.edu/explore/collections/GDCC/


Team Learning versus Lecture Learning

May 22, 2010 message from J. S. Gangolly [gangolly@CSC.ALBANY.EDU]

Bob,
Team-based learning is an alternative to lecturing.
However, the students are tested individually as well as teams. 
As I understand, each session starts with an individual quizz and 
then the team discussion of problems (usually cases) and their solution.
Some references:
http://ctl.stanford.edu/Tomprof/postings/750.html 
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1546479 
http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/pdfs/Team_problem.pdf 
http://www.ecampus.com/bk_searchresult.asp?qtype=ISBN&qsearch=9781579220860 
Jagdish

May 22, 2010 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Jagdish,

As you describe it, your vision of "team based learning" it sounds an awful lot like the BAM pedagogy that entails virtually all self learning and no lecturing or even assigned textbooks. BAM is much like the real world where individuals or teams of individuals must problem solve assigned tasks.

Although the BAM approach can be individual self learning, BAM instructors often encourage team learning.

In the end, however, BAM requires that individuals take their own examinations that are not team examinations. If teams are graded it becomes very difficult to grade the free riders or the team player that learned a great deal about a specialty team assignment but is ignorant of the specialties contributed by other members of the team.

I discuss the BAM at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm 

It turns out that the easiest pedagogy for teachers and students is usually lecturing. The hardest is self learning. In between there is team learning which can be a great help to a free rider if team partners are very talented and hard working. Of course, the opposite is the case if everybody on the team wants to be a free rider.

A drawback of the BAM and of team learning is that instructors often take a hit on teaching evaluations that contain comments like: "Everything I learned in this course I had to learn by myself or from my partners."

What students don't appreciate is that self-learning is the best kind of learning (although not the most efficient from a time standpoint vis-a-vis spoon-fed learning).

Bob Jensen

 


May 20, 2010 message from Richard Campbell [campbell@RIO.EDU]

Respondus is a very powerful test generator and most publishers provide test banks in that format.
http://www.screencast.com/t/NTdlNzAw

Richard J. Campbell
School of Business
218 N. College Ave.
University of Rio Grande
Rio Grande, OH 45674
Voice:740-245-7288

http://faculty.rio.edu/campbell


How to Create 3-D Popup Books

May 21, 2010 message from Steven Hornik [shornik@BUS.UCF.EDU]

Fun for the weekend?  I just came across an interesting site that enables creations of short (up to 10 pages currently) pop-up books.  Whether or not this is useful for delivering basic concepts to our students is debatable but is certainly another technique to try.  It also has the added fun of being an augmented reality book, so you can use the website to read your 3-D pop book as if its resting on your hand - neat in a very geeky way, but pedagogically I'm not so sure.

The website is at:  http://alpha.zooburst.com/index.php and is currently in Alpha stage testing, I wrote up a blog article on it replete with pictures, a video and of course an accounting pop-up book:

http://www.mydebitcredit.com/2010/05/21/zooburst-3d-augmented-reality-story-telling/

 Let me know what you think,

Dr. Steven Hornik
University of Central Florida
Dixon School of Accounting
407-823-5739
Second Life: Robins Hermano
Twitter: shornik

http://mydebitcredit.com
yahoo ID: shornik

Jensen Comment
Steve Hornik is a pioneer in the use of Second Life in his accounting courses ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#SecondLife

Bob Jensen's threads on Tricks and Tools of the Trade ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm


Digital Animators --- http://animators.digitalmedianet.com/

Bob Jensen's threads on Tricks and Tools of the Trade ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm


"Replay Telecorder for Skype: Unique way to bring guest speakers to class," by Rick Lillie, Thinking Outside of the Box Blog, May 21, 2010 ---
http://iaed.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/replay-telecorder-for-skype-unique-way-to-bring-guest-speakers-to-class/

Watch the Video showing how easy it works
I use Skype with all of my classes (i.e., face-2-face, blended, and online).  At the beginning of each term, I ask students to set up a Skype account and add me to their contacts list.   I then add them to my Skype contacts list.  Using Skype changes the nature of how I connect with students.  We audio and video conference.  Skype messaging archives all messages received and sent throughout a course.  I subscribe to Skype Voicemail which allows me to send voicemail message to students.  Likewise, students can send me a voicemail message.  Skype recently added a new screen sharing featuring, which works great for one-on-one tutoring sessions.  All of these Skype features (and more) changes the nature of instructor-student interaction.

Now, Applian Technologies has created a software tool that takes Skype to a whole new level.  Replay Telecorder for Skype makes it possible to record Skype audio and video calls.  This provides a unique way to bring “guest speakers” to the teaching-learning experience, especially to the blended and online learning environment.  Click the picture below to view a short You Tube recording that demonstrates how to record a Skype call that displays in a side-by-side format.  The presentation is a little silly, but illustrates what you can do with the program.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on Tricks and Tools of the Trade ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm


"Johns Hopkins Builds a B-School from Scratch:  The elite research university launches a new Global MBA program in August. On the to-do list: AACSB accreditation, faculty, and money," by Allison Damasi, Business Week, May 10, 2010 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/may2010/bs20100510_439397.htm?link_position=link2

For years, Johns Hopkins' business offerings—mostly part-time degree and certificate programs—lingered in the shadow of the university's internationally renowned medical and public health schools. That all changed in 2006 when the university received a $50 million gift from banker William Polk Carey, leading to the founding of the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in 2007 and a new lofty mission to become one of the world's leading business schools. That vision will be put to the test this August when the school launches its new Global MBA program, with a curriculum that the school's inaugural dean, Yash Gupta, says seeks to reinvent the modern MBA.

"Since we are the new kids, we don't have to change culture; we are building a culture," Gupta says. "We are trying to change the mold."

All eyes in the management education world will be on the new B-school in the coming year, as Gupta essentially builds a new MBA program from scratch, a daunting task that few universities have been eager to take on in the last decades. The Carey School is seeking to distinguish itself by designing a curriculum that will capitalize on Johns Hopkins' strength in fields like medicine and public health, have a focus on emerging markets and ethics, and encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.

To accomplish this, the school has recruited Gupta, a B-school dean with a proven fundraising track record and 14 years of experience, and installed him in leased office space in Baltimore's Harbor East area that Carey now calls home. Gupta's most recent deanship was at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business (Marshall Full-Time MBA Profile), where he helped raise $55 million. Since his arrival at Johns Hopkins, Gupta has spent much of his time recruiting students, designing courses, and hiring a new cohort of top research faculty, with the ultimate goal of putting the Carey School in a position where it can compete with the world's top B-schools. The school is in the process of obtaining accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), an essential credential that the school will need to get students and the business school community to take it seriously. Says Gupta: "We want to play in that sandbox."

Challenges Ahead

It's an ambitious goal for a fledgling business school, which still faces a number of significant challenges ahead, says John Fernandes, the AACSB president. The school already has a number of things working in its favor, perhaps the most important being the world-renowned Johns Hopkins brand, which will help the school establish itself as a serious player early on, and what appears to be a unique niche focus for its MBA program, Fernandes says. But in the next few years, the school will have to obtain accreditation, launch a major fundraising campaign, build up its alumni network, ramp up its career services offerings, and continue to attract top-rate faculty. Says Fernandes: "It's not an easy task to go from nothing to a top school in a very short period of time."

The last large university to open a new B-school was the University of California, San Diego, which opened the Rady School of Management (Rady Full-Time MBA Profile) in 2003 after receiving a $30 million gift from businessman Ernest Rady. Robert Sullivan, the school's inaugural and current dean, says he faced numerous challenges: hiring faculty for a school with no track record; launching an executive education program to help pay the bills; and raising $110 million for a new building and other expenses, no small feat when you have no highly placed MBA alumni to tap for cash. He even had to borrow faculty from other schools. Says Sullivan: "It was really kind of Band-Aids for the first year."

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
This begs the question of what comparative advantage Johns Hopkins brings to the business school world at this point in time. The main advantage of business schools in most private colleges and universities is student recruiting. Those that dropped or commenced to starve their business studies options for students, like Colorado College did for a while, discover that many student applicants really want an option to major in a quality business school or college within the university. It would seem that because of its graduate school stellar reputations in science, medicine, law, and political science that Johns Hopkins is not hurting for applicants to its graduate schools.

Because so many students want to major in business, colleges of business are often cash cows for a university. In addition, it is allegedly easier in many instances for colleges of business to raise endowment funds from the private sector. Somehow I just don't see this as being the case for Johns Hopkins where medicine is king.

It may well be that Johns Hopkins just wants to become more of a "university." In that case it is less like Brown and Princeton than it will be like Stanford, Northwestern, Chicago, Duke, Harvard, Emory, Penn, and Dartmouth.

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/may2010/bs20100510_439397.htm?link_position=link2


Some elite schools like Brown University that do not have business schools are bringing European business schools to their U.S. campuses

European business schools are planting their flags on American soil.
"Entering the U.S. Market," by Jennifer Epstein, Inside Higher Ed, May 25, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/05/25/business

The law of supply and demand drove SKEMA, a French business school, to open campuses in the emerging markets of China and Morocco, and to start planning for expansion into India, Brazil and possibly Russia.

But the decision to set up shop in the United States was driven by something a bit more emotional. “For European students, this is a dream; America is a dream for them,” says Alice Guilhon, the school’s dean. “And it is a dream for us, to be known in the U.S.”

While Harvard Business School, the Wharton School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business might not be the kind of competition that most institutions would willingly seek out, well-regarded European business schools like SKEMA have in the last few years ratcheted up their efforts to be known and respected in the United States.

SKEMA -- created last year by the merger of ESC Lille School of Management and CERAM Business School – is hoping to build its global reputation by situating its new campuses near hubs of the technology industry, and saw a venture in the United States as key to that strategy. “To be in America is to be close to the headquarters of all the big firms, to be where the story began,” Guilhon says. “To be well-known in America, it is leverage for the visibility of the school in the world.”

In plans announced last week, SKEMA will begin offering classes in English to about 300 of its own students on the Raleigh campus of North Carolina State University, beginning in January 2011. The school hopes to have its own 40,000 square foot building open by 2013. As time goes on, the school may become more distinctly American, but at least for the first few years its faculty, administrators and students will primarily come from France and elsewhere in Europe. “It’s very important that we build the Skema culture in the U.S.,” Guilhon said. “We need to show it works there.”

Skema's decision to build a campus in the United States is an unusual one, says Juliane Iannarelli, director of global research for the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. "Most programs are partnerships, collaborations," she stays. "The establishment of a campus -- constructing a building -- is pretty rare."

At least three other major European business schools have taken recent steps that go beyond partnerships, if stopping short of Skema's dramatic step. These new efforts are more than student and faculty exchanges, offering substantial instruction in the United States, and in some cases competing to attract American students from the start.

Robert F. Bruner, dean of the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia and chair of the AACSB's Globalization of Management Education Task Force, says it is "an interesting choice" to see foreign business schools enter the U.S. market. "We have an abundance of schools here and usually the idea is to go where the competition isn't."

The schools are driven, he says, by "a desire to establish and succeed in the U.S. as a basis for validating their models." Aiming to have a successful business school in the United States “is like wanting to have your plays produced on Broadway -- the audiences are most discerning."

After three years of planning and renovations, Spain’s IESE Business School will open a North American facility just a block off Broadway. An opening ceremony for the school’s six-story New York Centerjust across 57th Street from Carnegie Hall, is set for June 3, and is intended to be a big splash into the U.S. market.

Luis Cabral, the center’s academic director and an economics professor who was hired away from New York University, says expansion into the United States was a logical step in IESE’s efforts to become known worldwide. “We’ve been in South America, Asia, Africa for quite some time now,” he says. “But if we have the goal of being truly global, then we have to be in the United States.”

Despite being ranked as one of Europe’s top business schools, “we’re not as well-known in the United States as we would like to be,” he says. “There are elements of branding here, in making ourselves known on this side of the Atlantic.”

IESE already has reciprocity agreements in place with a few U.S. business schools, including NYU’s Stern School of Business and Columbia Business School. “The problem with those agreements is that they tend to be a relatively small number of students. If they send half a dozen, we send half a dozen,” Cabral says. But offering its own courses in its own facilities gives IESE a chance to send a far greater number of students to the United States. “We’re estimating 70 to 80, at least -- a different scale altogether.”

Full-time and part-time M.B.A. students will have the option of spending a few weeks in New York for elective courses in industries like media, entertainment and finance. “The advantage of taking these courses in New York is that you have a lot of guest speakers that can just walk up to the building,” he says. “They don’t even need to take a cab. That’s not something that most European business schools can say.”

For at least the next few years, though, the New York Center will be an outpost of the main school in Barcelona and won’t offer degrees. “This is just our first step,” Cabral says. “We’ll see what we do next.”

Another Spanish school beginning its foray into the United States is Instituto de Empresa Business School, which has campuses in Madrid and Segovia. Though the U.S. market is saturated with business schools and executive education programs, IE sees room to build its own programs that will largely be offered in the United States, says David Bach, dean of programs. “You could look at this and say you have very sophisticated customers. You could say, if you’re a foreign school, stay away from the U.S. market. But we want to show that we can have success in such a competitive, difficult market.”

In March, IE launched a joint program with Brown University  – one of the few elite U.S. universities that doesn’t have its own business school – to offer an executive M.B.A. program that aims to infuse the humanities and social sciences into the typical business curriculum. The program will include five in-person sessions, four of which will be at Brown’s campus in Providence, R.I., and the fifth in Spain. “We’re expecting to attract Americans,” Bach says. “A European M.B.A. is increasingly attractive to U.S. employers who want to know they’re hiring people who understand the world, but not everybody can come to Europe for a year.” The degree will be awarded by IE.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on higher education controversies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm


New undergraduate business or finance certificate programs added on to arts colleges at Princeton, Northwestern, and Columbia

New undergraduate courses (but not degrees) are being offered at colleges like Dartmouth

Some like the University of Pennsylvania have long-standing undergraduate business degree programs

"Business: The New Liberal Art:  Interest in business is surging at elite liberal arts colleges, and schools that once shunned the business major are now offering coursework," Business Week, October 22, 2009 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/oct2009/bs20091022_146227.htm?link_position=link1 

Ever since fleeing Europe's tyranny for the New World, Americans have established a collegiate system which emphasizes a broad, liberal arts education. Even as larger state schools mimicked European universities and offered undergraduate majors in vocational fields, the Ivy League schools and their peers, for the most part, resisted. "In America, we think more in terms of a broad undergraduate education," says Paul Danos, dean of Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business (Tuck Full-Time MBA Profile). "Other parts of the world are much more specific. They believe in the benefit of students going directly into their major and taking several years of very narrow, technical work. We don't think of it that way."

But as the financial industry becomes an increasingly sought-after destination for talented undergraduates, some top schools are reconsidering that age-old bias. In the last three years, liberal arts colleges that once shunned the business major have begun making business courses available to undergrads. And with the job market in turmoil, interest in these programs has surged. At Tuck, growing demand has led the school to triple the number of business classes it offers. Columbia, which has seen increased interest among undergrads for the business courses in its catalog, is considering a program similar to one at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management that yields a business certificate upon completion. That program itself has been so popular that it expanded just a year after its inception.

Once wholly committed to their vision of students well-versed in philosophy, history, and science, these schools appear to be changing course. According to Amir Ziv, vice-dean at Columbia Business School (Columbia Full-Time MBA Profile), behind this shift in attitude is "a lot of demand from the undergrads to know something about business."

For liberal arts students, a little bit of business knowhow is a powerful thing, giving them the confidence they need to work in a business setting. "It's hard for students coming from a liberal arts education not to feel disadvantaged when they're up against students from, say, the Wharton (Wharton Undergraduate Business Profile) undergraduate program," says Charles Friedland, a senior majoring in economics at Dartmouth. Friedland, 21, accepted a summer internship offer last spring from Bank of America (BAC) without a single credit in business to his name. But as one of the students to enroll in financial accounting, the first Tuck business class ever offered to undergraduate students, he had the credit by his first day of work. "After the first or second day of the internship, it was already evident how much taking the class helped in terms of being comfortable in the atmosphere of a large finance firm," he says.

The last thing highly ranked schools want is for a large number of students to be at a perceived disadvantage when vying for full-time jobs. "Students realize that when they go to their first job they want to know something about business," says Ziv. "If you've had an accounting class, that gives you an advantage. You understand what profit-and-loss sheets are and what balance sheets are. And that helps."

The overwhelming popularity and growing necessity of the finance offerings is forcing schools to expand their assortment of classes. Dartmouth initially introduced just two sections of accounting to undergraduates and already has plans to add two more sections of marketing and eventually two sections of management. Meanwhile, Columbia is considering parlaying its selection of undergraduate courses into a more formalized concentration that upon completion would be recognized on students' transcripts, a program similar to one already offered by Kellogg.

Northwestern Succumbs In 2007, 41 years after it terminated its once well-regarded undergraduate program to focus on building a prestigious graduate business school, Kellogg responded to the unyielding demand for its business classes on the undergraduate level by reopening its doors to college-age students. Many undergrads wanted something formal, perhaps a major to put on their résumés. Kellogg compromised. It began offering an undergraduate certificate to students who fulfill a set of business pre-requisites and earn a B average in four advanced-level business classes.

"We wanted to build on the breadth of the undergraduate program," says Janice Eberly, a Kellogg professor with a hand in establishing the business certificate. "So we made the decision to layer business skills, in the form of a certificate program, on that existing, strong educational foundation that Northwestern students already have." As the economy collapsed, interest in the program has surged—not only are applications up sharply, but a second certificate in engineering and business has been added.

At Kellogg, undergraduate students can access the certificate program classes only via an extensive application process. Once accepted, undergrads have access to many of the same resources that their graduate counterparts do. Classes are taught by Kellogg professors, and a career services counselor is dedicated solely to the undergraduate job search. Among top private schools now offering some business education, it's the closest any have come to an actual business major.

Holding the Line The new and expanding business programs like those at Columbia and Kellogg are valuable for students like Tom Evans. A senior at Kellogg's certificate program, Evans entered Northwestern with a fleeting interest in physics, but within a year came to realize that finance was his calling. He majored in mathematical methods in social science & economics, and applied for the certificate program during the first year of its existence, hoping to get a grounding in the way economic theories play out in the world of business. His only regret: not being able to major in business. "It's very limiting and restricting for schools to stay stuck in their ways," he says. "They should be more conscious of the necessity to accommodate people of varying interests."

While undergraduate business offerings at liberal arts schools are gaining traction, no one expects them to morph into full-blown business majors any time soon. Danos believes that a basic understanding of finance is crucial to any learned young man or woman; from the English majors who aspire to law to the future doctors sitting in an organic chemistry class. And in spite of the steadily rising interest in business at these schools, the intellectual breadth that liberal arts schools aim to offer is as dear to them now as it was when Harvard was founded in 1636.

"The trend is to get some exposure of business," Danos says. "But I don't think that we're going to go the route of the big schools with full, two year majors in business—certainly Dartmouth won't."

Jensen Comment
One of the prestige-university holdouts that resisted a cash cow MBA program (unlike Harvard, Yale, MIT, Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth, Columbia, Stanford, Rice, and others) is Princeton University. However, I found that Princeton now offers and undergraduate certificate program in finance --- http://www.princeton.edu/bcf/undergraduate/

The certificate program in finance has four major requirements at Princeton University:

Brown University offers a wide range of finance courses coupled with the ability to customized undergraduate majors at Brown --- http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Economics/undergraduate.php

In 2006, several finance related course underwent renumbering.  The following list shows you the old and current numbers of the courses in this area.
Current Course Number. Name Pre-1996 Course Number. Name
1710. Investments 1770. Financial Markets I
1720. Corporate Finance 1790. Corporate Finance
1750. Options and Derivatives (Investments II) 1780. Financial Markets II
1760. Financial Institutions 1760. Financial Institutions
1770. Fixed Income Securities 1710. Fixed Income Securities
1780. Corporate Strategy 1330. Econ. Competitive Strategy
1790. Corp. Govern. and Manag. 1340. Econ. Corp. Governance

October 31, 2009 reply from David Albrecht [albrecht@PROFALBRECHT.COM]

This view is not universally held. At my previous school, I suggested in an e-mail to university faculty, that exposure to business classes in the gen ed core might prove to be a good thing for several reasons. One of those reasons is that students might get an exposure to another field of study and would broaden their academic experience. I was panned and mocked by everyone including business faculty, but my idea was received well by music faculty.

November 1, 2009 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi David,

The new financial certificate undergraduate programs such as those at Princeton and Columbia will not solve a basic societal problem about ignorance in personal finance and taxation, because these programs reach so few students. The same may be said about colleges having one or more elective finance courses in the general education core.

The overwhelming majority of college graduates (including most PhD graduates, medical school graduates, and law school graduates) is that they do not have a clue about personal finance, investing, personal accounting, financial risk and insurance, business law, and most importantly tax planning. I’ve encountered attorneys that, in my viewpoint, are financially ignorant even though they are advising clients about estate planning and real estate investing.

This ignorance among most of our college graduates has huge societal externalities. The fundamental cause of divorce in society is rooted in personal financial disasters and spending fights between spouses that often carries over into life-long behavioral destruction of children. How much of this could be avoided by requiring that all college graduates have the rudiments of personal financial responsibility?

Many of our graduates do not realize that personal bankruptcy laws have changed. They still believe it is relatively simple to accumulate huge debts and repeatedly declare bankruptcy over and over when needed to clear out their unpaid debts.

I’ve got news for them about Chapter 7 changes that took place in 2005 --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_Abuse_Prevention_and_Consumer_Protection_Act 

Partly as a result of their financial ignorance, many college graduates get themselves early-on in financial messes due to student loans they can’t afford, credit card balances they cannot afford, and vote for spending legislation that messes up entire communities or the nation as a whole. They do not understand the rudiments of time value of money and cannot make wise choices about such things as investing in taxable versus tax-free investments.

Unfortunately, the finance certificate undergraduate programs (such as those at Princeton) reach less than one percent of the undergraduate. Even our business and accounting undergraduate degree programs do not reach a majority of the graduating class.

And so my rant for educating all college students about personal finances and taxation goes on and on to deaf ears among higher education faculty and administrators controlling the general education curricula. There may be innovative ways to educate students along these lines. Firstly, I would try to educate the faculty about personal finance and taxation since these faculty members most likely advise students in ways that affect the lives of those students. Secondly, it may be possible to require these items as “training” requirements much like colleges require physical education by whatever name.

Bob Jensen’s personal finance helpers are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/BookBob1.htm#InvestmentHelpers


Porn's Sleazy Internet Business Model
"How the Internet Porn Business Works:  Researchers set up adult Web sites to study how the industry makes its money and spreads malware," by Christopher Mims, MIT's Technology Review, May 18, 2010 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/guest/25192/?nlid=3001

A first-of-its-kind analysis of the online porn industry reveals the economics, and the vulnerabilities, of the shady world of online adult media.

If you want to know how the online adult industry works, you must become a part of that industry. That's what five security researchers from The Technical University of Vienna, Sophia Antipolis and UC Santa Barbara did in an attempt to get a handle on how the adult industry makes money online. And they found that it's exposing everyone who consumes its wares to previously unsuspected levels of malware.

Peddling Porn in the Name of Science

By setting up their own adult websites, the researchers, who will present their paper on June 7, 2010 at The Ninth Workshop on the Economics of Information Security at Harvard University, discovered that 43% of the clicks that arrived at their own adult website belonged to users whose browsers were vulnerable to a known exploit in either Adobe Flash or handling of the Microsoft Office or Adobe PDF document types.

Lead researcher Glibert Wondracek and his colleagues spent a total of $160 to acquire 47,000 clicks from sellers of adult traffic, known in the industry as traffic brokers, of which 20,000 could have been exploited to build a botnet, according to the researchers. The researchers discovered that they easily could have leveraged their investment for a hefty profit by serving as the vector for a Pay-Per Install affiliate program, which in one instance offered $130 per 1,000 installs to drop malicious code (malware, adware etc.) onto exploited machines.

To assess how much malicious code is being injected into users' browsers by adult websites, Wondracek et al. custom-built an automated web crawler to download the content of almost a half million URLs spread across thousands of adult websites. Incredibly, 3.23% of those pages "were found to trigger malicious behavior such as code execution, registry changes, or executable downloads," five times the prevalence of malware discovered by previous research on the subject.

In a back of the envelope calculation, multiplying 3.23% by the percentage of internet users who view porn (42.7%) or even just the percentage of men who view porn while at work (20%), by the frequency with which porn is accessed, suggests that internet porn is a major vector for infection of vulnerable machines.

The Peculiar Economics of Online Porn

A likely explanation for the high rates of malware on adult websites is the almost total lack of policing or enforcement by the brokers who move traffic between adult websites. According to Wondracek et al.'s analysis of the economy of online porn sites, 9 out of 10 are "free" sites that host image or video galleries and make money by directing traffic to pay sites or even to one another. This traffic is monetized through traffic brokers - the majority of which do not even visit the sites in their affiliate networks, according to experiments conducted by the researchers.

Unlike online ad placements by Google and affiliate marketing schemes by Amazon, adult sites do not rely on code that resides on the sites sending them traffic that could help verify that traffic is generated by humans and not click bots. As a result, the researchers found that it would potentially be quite easy to defraud not only users, but the traffic brokers and for-pay porn sites that enable the vast ecosystem of free adult media sites. (No users or brokers were actually harmed in the course of this research, which was vetted by the legal department of the Technical University of Vienna.)

The intricacies of the elaborate system of traffic arbitrage that have grown up around the world of porn traffic direction on the web are way beyond the scope of this blog post, but it's possible that the rest of the media world could learn a thing or two from the way that for-pay adult sites have created a seething ecosystem of traffic affiliates constantly skimming clicks and pennies off of one another.

On the other hand, it's just as likely that these techniques wouldn't work for traditional media, because users don't appear to be as motivated to read news as to find porn. How else can we explain the fact that in the course of the experiment, users clicked many times on single links that were randomly directing them to anything but the media they were apparently after - a practice widespread among free porn sites?

Jensen Comment
Porn seekers face a high risk of Malware infection. However, gambling addicts probably face a higher risk unless they restrict their business to one or two known safe gambling sites.

There are many products and services business models on a scale from sole proprietorship cottage models (e.g., a single bedroom Webcam) to international syndicates. The overwhelming volume of porn on the Web most likely is connected in one way or the other to the Russian crime syndicates, although there is considerable competition. Who in the world really wants to connect to Russian crime syndicates? Apparently hundreds of millions of Internet users.

Years ago tax laws became a major deterrent of organized crime. As organized crime became more global, tax laws are less effective since most of the porn, gambling, and so-called security protection Web sites are outside the United States.

I stopped using some favored sites where I've obtained malware in the past. One loss is is one of my formerly favorite sites --- StumbleUpon.com. I also stopped going to any security protection sites unless the site is recommended by a very trusted source. Internet security sites in general are very, very dangerous. Since I'm still running on Windows XP I do not yet have the added protection of Windows 7, although I do keep up to date on Microsoft's daily security patches ---
http://www.update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/v6/default.aspx?ln=en-us

Parents should try to block porn and gambling sites of young children. It becomes very hard to police teens, so it is best to continually warn teens about malware and other great risks of porn, gambling, and security sites. We also continually need to warn lawyers employed by the Securities and Exchange Commission who were spending more time on porn than on trying to protect us from securities fraud and a creep named Madoff.


Google Wave --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wave

"Google Wave Has Officially Opened Its Doors," by Jill Laster, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 19, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Google-Wave-Has-Officially/24092/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en


From the Scout Report on May 21, 2010

Duplicate Cleaner 1.4.5 --- http://www.digitalvolcano.co.uk 

If you have a number of unwanted files on your computer, who might want to check out Duplicate Cleaner 1.4.5. With its eminently sensible user interface, visitors can have the program search for duplicate files across various drives and locations. After the application is completed with this task, users will be asked what they would like to do with these files. This version is compatible with computers running Windows 2000 and newer.


Scribus Portable 1.3.3.12 --- http://www.scribus.net/index.php 

For those whom might fashion themselves as the 21st century equivalent of Woodward and Bernstein, Scribus Portable is well worth a look. The program brings professional page layout to a variety of operating systems, and it also support additional features such as pdf creation and color management. Additionally, the website includes a number of video tutorials and notes on installation troubleshooting and creating effective text frames. This version is compatible with computers running Linux, Mac OS X 10.3 and newer, and Windows 2000 and XP.


Can the manufacturing industry create jobs while 'greening' the environment?
http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/Green-Economics/2010/0510/Can-the-manufacturing-industry-create-jobs-while-greening-the-environment

Investing in our Clean Energy Economy http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/05/seam_act.html

New England Economic Indicators http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/neei/neei.htm 

Factory Tours USA http://www.factorytoursusa.com/

Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site http://www.nps.gov/sair/index.htm


From the Scout Report on May 14, 2010

Shutterfly  --- http://www.shutterfly.com/ 

It's quite easy to create photo books and cards with the Shutterfly program, and interested parties may also be glad to learn that they do not have to download any cumbersome software. Visitors just need to complete a short online membership form, and they can create their own personalized photo websites. Visitors can customize their photos and albums to their heart's content, and they also have the option of sharing these albums with anyone else. This version of Shutterfly is compatible with all operating systems.


Avast Free Antivirus 5.0.545 --- http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download 

Avast Free Antivirus has been around for sometime, and this latest edition has some notable new features. Perhaps the most significant change here is the very helpful user interface, which includes a new tabbed section and a context sensitive help menu. Visitors can also use the real-time shields to protect against spyware and viruses originating from hundreds of sources. This version is compatible with computers running Windows 2000 and newer.


Lena Horne, Chanteuse and Entertainer, Passes Away Lena Horne, Sultry Singer and Actress, Dies at 92 [Free registration may be required] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/arts/music/10horne.html?scp=2&sq=lena horne&st=cse 

Remembering Lena Horne: 1917-2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2010/05/10/GA2010051001867.html?hpid=moreheadlines  

With Clipped Wings, Lena Horne Still Soared
http://www.npr.org/blogs/tellmemore/2010/05/10/126676224/with-clipped-wings-lena-horne-still-soared  

Lena Horne: About the Performer http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/lena-horne/about-the-performer/487/  

IBDB: Lena Horne http://www.ibdb.com/person.php?id=6344 

Till The Clouds Roll By http://www.archive.org/details/till_the_clouds_roll_by 

Lena Horne http://www.lena-horne.com/

 


Free online textbooks, cases, and tutorials in accounting, finance, economics, and statistics --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks


Education Tutorials

The Seattle Public Library: Podcasts [iTunes, multimedia] http://www.spl.org/default.asp?pageID=collection_podcasts 

Knowledge Weavers Project (multimedia tutorials)  http://library.med.utah.edu/km/digitalcollectkw.php 

Wild and Scenic Rivers --- http://www.rivers.gov/

From the Library of Commerce (History, Geography)
Rivers, Edens, Empires --- http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/lewisandclark/lewisandclark.html

Bob Jensen's threads on general education tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch


Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials

Amswer Applied Math and Science Education Repository --- http://www.amser.org/

TeachEngineering --- http://www.teachengineering.org/

American Association of Physics Teachers --- http://www.aapt.org/index.cfm

Carl V. Hartman & The Costa Rica Collections --- http://www.carnegiemnh.org/anthro/hartman/index.htm

NOAA's Ocean Service Office of Response and Restoration --- http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/

The UVA Bay Game (Chesapeake Bay Watershed ) http://www.virginia.edu/vpr/sustain/BayGame/

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Native American Liaison --- http://www.fws.gov/nativeamerican/ 

National Geographic: Environment --- http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/?source=NavEnvHome

National Museums of Kenya [Flash Player] http://www.museums.or.ke/ 

Bob Jensen's threads on free online science, engineering, and medicine tutorials are at --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Science


Social Science and Economics Tutorials

Let's Move --- http://www.letsmove.gov/
Let's Move! is the U.S government website that supports First Lady Michelle Obama's goal to "solve the epidemic of childhood obesity within a generation."

USDA Food and Nutrition Information Center --- http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/nal_display/index.php?info_center=4&tax_level=1 

 

Five Keys to Safer Food Manual --- http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/consumer/manual_keys.pdf

 

Mayo Clinic: Fitness Center --- http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/fitness/SM99999

Amswer Applied Math and Science Education Repository --- http://www.amser.org/
Especially note the AMSER Science Reader Monthly

John V. Lindsay --- http://lindsay.mcny.org/

Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York --- http://futureofny.org/home

Honor? Daumier Digitized Lithographs --- http://ir.brandeis.edu/handle/10192/5

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Native American Liaison --- http://www.fws.gov/nativeamerican/ 

North Carolina Health Info --- http://www.nchealthinfo.org/

Factory Tours USA http://www.factorytoursusa.com/

Sexual Assault on Campus: A Frustrating Search for Justice --- http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/campus_assault/

US Credit Conditions: Federal Reserve Bank of New York --- http://data.newyorkfed.org/creditconditions/ 

Financial Education For All:  Federal Reserve Bank of New York --- http://www.newyorkfed.org/education/econ_eduforall.html

The Federal Reserve (a five part video series) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dmPchuXIXQ&feature=related

U.S. Monetary Policy: An Introduction --- http://www.frbsf.org/publications/federalreserve/monetary/index.html

Financial Times: Podcasts --- http://podcast.ft.com/

The William Penn Foundation --- http://www.williampennfoundation.org/

Wild and Scenic Rivers --- http://www.rivers.gov/

From the Library of Commerce (History, Geography)
Rivers, Edens, Empires --- http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/lewisandclark/lewisandclark.html

Bob Jensen's threads on Economics, Anthropology, Social Sciences, and Philosophy tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Social


Law and Legal Studies

Supreme Court Nominations --- http://www.loc.gov/law/find/court-nominations.php

Sexual Assault on Campus: A Frustrating Search for Justice --- http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/campus_assault/

John V. Lindsay --- http://lindsay.mcny.org/

Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Law


Math Tutorials

Amswer Applied Math and Science Education Repository --- http://www.amser.org/

Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics


History Tutorials

Carl V. Hartman & The Costa Rica Collections (Natural History) --- http://www.carnegiemnh.org/anthro/hartman/index.htm

The Aztec Pantheon and the Art of Empire [Flash Player] http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/aztec/index.html

Barnard-Stockbridge Photograph Collection (Art History) --- http://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/Stockbridge/

John V. Lindsay --- http://lindsay.mcny.org/

Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York --- http://futureofny.org/home

The Stuart McDonald Cartoon Collection http://www.library.und.edu/digital/McDonald.htm

Masterpieces of European Painting from Dulwich Picture Gallery --- http://www.frick.org/exhibitions/dulwich/index.htm

Honor? Daumier Digitized Lithographs --- http://ir.brandeis.edu/handle/10192/5

The Seattle Public Library: Podcasts [iTunes] http://www.spl.org/default.asp?pageID=collection_podcasts 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Native American Liaison --- http://www.fws.gov/nativeamerican/ 

Factory Tours USA http://www.factorytoursusa.com/

Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site http://www.nps.gov/sair/index.htm

Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society --- http://dig.lib.niu.edu/ISHS/index.html

Chicago Amplified (Lyric Opera from the Chicago Public Library) --- http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Program_AMP.aspx

The Stuart McDonald Cartoon Collection http://www.library.und.edu/digital/McDonald.htm

The Hale Scrapbook (cartoon history) --- http://cartoons.osu.edu/hale/Hale.php

Textiles and Costumes: Henry Art Gallery [Flash Player] http://dig.henryart.org/textiles/

All Sewn Up: Millinery, Dressmaking, Clothing, and Costume http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/HumanEcol/subcollections/MillineryBooksAbout.html

Bob Jensen's threads on history tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm  


Language Tutorials

Bob Jensen's links to language tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Languages


Music Tutorials

Chicago Amplified (Lyric Opera from the Chicago Public Library) --- http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Program_AMP.aspx

OperaGlass (guide to arias) --- http://opera.stanford.edu/

Bob Jensen's threads on free music tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Music


Writing Tutorials

The Stuart McDonald Cartoon Collection http://www.library.und.edu/digital/McDonald.htm

Bob Jensen's helpers for writers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries


Updates from WebMD --- http://www.webmd.com/

May 20, 2010

May 21, 2010

May 22, 2010

May 23, 2010

May 24, 2010

May 25, 2010

May 26, 2010




The Stock Market Gets the Fast Finger (Jon Stewart Comedy) --- http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/jon-stewart-takes-on-perfect-storms.html

Ellen listens to Gladys --- http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2007/ellen-gladys-hardy-p1.php?


WHERE DO RED-HEADED BABIES COME FROM?

After their baby was born, the panicked father went to see the Obstetrician. 'Doctor,' the man said, 'I don't mind telling you, but I'm a little upset because my daughter has red hair. She can't possibly be mine!!'

'Nonsense,' the doctor said. 'Even though you and your wife both have black hair, one of your ancestors may have contributed red hair to the gene pool.'

'It isn't possible,' the man insisted.’ This can't be, our families on both sides had jet-black hair for generations.'

'Well,' said the doctor, 'let me ask you this. How often do you have sex??? '

The man seemed a bit ashamed. 'I've been working very hard for the past year. We only made love once or twice every six months.'

'Well, there you have it!' The doctor said confidently.

'It's rust!!'




Tidbits Archives --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
For example if you want to know what Jensen documents have the term "Enron" enter the phrase Jensen AND Enron. Another search engine that covers Trinity and other universities is at http://www.searchedu.com/

Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm

What went wrong in accounting/accountics research?  ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong

The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most Accountants ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms

AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW: 1926-2005 ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm

Tom Lehrer on Mathematical Models and Statistics ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfZWyUXn3So

Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the vegetable nutrition paradox) that probably will never be solved ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews

 

World Clock --- http://www.peterussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php
Facts about the earth in real time --- http://www.worldometers.info/

Interesting Online Clock and Calendar --- http://home.tiscali.nl/annejan/swf/timeline.swf
Time by Time Zones --- http://timeticker.com/
Projected Population Growth (it's out of control) --- http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/worldpopulation.htm
         Also see http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Populations.html
        
Facts about population growth (video) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U
Projected U.S. Population Growth --- http://www.carryingcapacity.org/projections75.html
Real time meter of the U.S. cost of the war in Iraq --- http://www.costofwar.com/ 
Enter you zip code to get Census Bureau comparisons --- http://zipskinny.com/
Sure wish there'd be a little good news today.

Free (updated) Basic Accounting Textbook --- search for Hoyle at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks

CPA Examination --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cpa_examination
Free CPA Examination Review Course Courtesy of Joe Hoyle --- http://cpareviewforfree.com/

Rick Lillie's education, learning, and technology blog is at http://iaed.wordpress.com/

Accounting News, Blogs, Listservs, and Social Networking ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm

Bob Jensen's Threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm 
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Tidbits --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

Some of Bob Jensen's Tutorials

Accounting program news items for colleges are posted at http://www.accountingweb.com/news/college_news.html
Sometimes the news items provide links to teaching resources for accounting educators.
Any college may post a news item.

Accountancy Discussion ListServs:

For an elaboration on the reasons you should join a ListServ (usually for free) go to   http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm
AECM (Educators)  http://pacioli.loyola.edu/aecm/ 
AECM is an email Listserv list which provides a forum for discussions of all hardware and software which can be useful in any way for accounting education at the college/university level. Hardware includes all platforms and peripherals. Software includes spreadsheets, practice sets, multimedia authoring and presentation packages, data base programs, tax packages, World Wide Web applications, etc

Roles of a ListServ --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm
 

CPAS-L (Practitioners) http://pacioli.loyola.edu/cpas-l/ 
CPAS-L provides a forum for discussions of all aspects of the practice of accounting. It provides an unmoderated environment where issues, questions, comments, ideas, etc. related to accounting can be freely discussed. Members are welcome to take an active role by posting to CPAS-L or an inactive role by just monitoring the list. You qualify for a free subscription if you are either a CPA or a professional accountant in public accounting, private industry, government or education. Others will be denied access.
Yahoo (Practitioners)  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xyztalk
This forum is for CPAs to discuss the activities of the AICPA. This can be anything  from the CPA2BIZ portal to the XYZ initiative or anything else that relates to the AICPA.
AccountantsWorld  http://accountantsworld.com/forums/default.asp?scope=1 
This site hosts various discussion groups on such topics as accounting software, consulting, financial planning, fixed assets, payroll, human resources, profit on the Internet, and taxation.
Business Valuation Group BusValGroup-subscribe@topica.com 
This discussion group is headed by Randy Schostag [RSchostag@BUSVALGROUP.COM

Many useful accounting sites (scroll down) --- http://www.iasplus.com/links/links.htm

 

Bob Jensen's Sort-of Blogs --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JensenBlogs.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New Bookmarks --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Tidbits --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Some Accounting History Sites

Bob Jensen's Accounting History in a Nutshell and Links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#AccountingHistory
 

Accounting History Libraries at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) --- http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/accountancy/libraries.html
The above libraries include international accounting history.
The above libraries include film and video historical collections.

MAAW Knowledge Portal for Management and Accounting --- http://maaw.info/

Academy of Accounting Historians and the Accounting Historians Journal ---
http://www.accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aah/

Sage Accounting History --- http://ach.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/11/3/269

A nice timeline on the development of U.S. standards and the evolution of thinking about the income statement versus the balance sheet is provided at:
"The Evolution of U.S. GAAP: The Political Forces Behind Professional Standards (1930-1973)," by Stephen A. Zeff, CPA Journal, January 2005 --- http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/105/infocus/p18.htm
Part II covering years 1974-2003 published in February 2005 --- http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2005/205/index.htm 

A nice timeline of accounting history --- http://www.docstoc.com/docs/2187711/A-HISTORY-OF-ACCOUNTING

From Texas A&M University
Accounting History Outline --- http://acct.tamu.edu/giroux/history.html

Bob Jensen's timeline of derivative financial instruments and hedge accounting ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds

History of Fraud in America --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm

 

 

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
190 Sunset Hill Road
Sugar Hill, NH 03586
Phone:  603-823-8482 
Email:  rjensen@trinity.edu