Tidbits on June 29, 2010
Bob Jensen
On Sunday, June 6 while I was pruning our
wild roses out front, a man introduced himself
and asked permission to photograph our wild roses and other wild flowers
He's a retired school teacher named Wes Lavin from Ashland, NH
He carries a huge camera on a tripod and does professional-quality photography
Here's a beautiful sunrise picture that he later sent to me.
We live about 100 yards from the Sunset Hill House Hotel that
is behind our grove of trees
Mountain views from the hotel are the same as our views of the
White Mountains (East) and
Green Mountains (West)
As a favor to our good friends Lon and Nancy, I posted some of their
pictures below
NH's beautiful White Mountains are
New England's
classic summertime destination. Hiking,
swimming, picnics, fishing, golf and flowers
- It's all there. Here are our favorite
activities and happenings so you can
experience the best of NH's summertime at
NH's premier country inn. That's Sunset
Hill House in Sugar Hill - the place
with those amazing views.
Hope to see you soon,
Lon and Nancy
Henderson
World's Happiest Innkeepers
Sunset
Hill House
800 786 4455
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Sugar Hill Meeting House
Restoration ---
http://www.sugarhillnh.org/app/index.php?option=com_morfeoshow&Itemid=88
Now we turn to Bob Jensen's strictly amateur
pictures
We've had a great, albeit cool, summer this year with adequate rain
Our Front Porch before I planted my annuals
It's hard to believe that these big wild
turkeys actually fly off if I get too close
I took this picture behind the window in front of my desk
Our Back Deck with the lilac bushes in
fragrant bloom
This is the view from my desk looking toward
the Kinsman Range of the White Mountains of New Hampshire
This is our wildflower field
Erika is phasing out of pain pills in favor
of pain patches
She seems to be doing much better in managing her pain
It has been a great summer for peonies
This is our back deck looking south
And this is our back deck looking west
toward the Green Mountains of Vermont
A tulip I planted last autumn near our well
The tulip bulbs slept all winter under this
white blanket
Here are some clever ideas that you probably would never dream
up in 100 years ---
http://thereifixedit.com/
Then again, maybe you dreamed up some of these but thought they were too dumb to
give a second thought.
A clever idea for hefty clips
Amy Dunbar says this worked for her
Here are some not-so-friendly mountains on the other side of the globe
Remember these brave men and women on July 4
Video: I Fought for You ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTb6qdPu8JE
Video: US Navy Presidential Ceremonial Honor Guard Drill Team ---
http://www.whc.net/rjones/USN/USN_team.html
Video: What a Way to Fly Our Flag ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEP9gwmz9hw
"The Rockets' Red Glare": Francis Scott Key and the Bombardment of Fort McHenry
http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/137FOMC/137fomc.htm
"Four Reasons There Shouldn't Be a Mosque at Ground Zero," by John
Hawkins, The Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2010 ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnHawkins/2010/06/15/four_reasons_there_shouldnt_be_a_mosque_at_ground_zero
Jensen Comment
These reasons might apply for Russia, China, Iran, Israel, or the Sudan, but the
fact that this is America is reason enough to encourage with great joy the
building of a Mosque near Ground Zero. We are not and never should be the
enemies of over one billion deeply moral, deeply respectful, and deeply
religious people of the world. We should be grateful they want their mosque on
near Ground Zero.
Walter Brennan Reading Mark Twain ---
http://earideas.com/earideas/explore/show/92250/Walter+Brennan+Reading+Mark+Twain
"The Pageant of America" Photograph Archive (over 7,000 photographs) ---
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?topic=culture&col_id=187
From the University of Missouri: Collection of
Fourth of July Speeches ---
http://digital.library.umsystem.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=jul;cc=jul;tpl=home.tpl
A Biography of America ---
http://www.learner.org/resources/series123.html
"The Pageant of America" Photograph Archive (over 7,000 photographs)
---
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?topic=culture&col_id=187
General Eisenhower’s Message Sent
Just Prior to the Invasion
U.S. Army ---
http://www.army.mil/d-day/message.html
Soldiers, Sailors and
Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are
about to embark upon a great crusade, toward which
we have striven these many months. The eyes of the
world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty
loving people everywhere march with you. In company
with our brave Allies and brothers in arms on other
fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the
German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny
over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security
for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be
an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well
equipped and battle hardened, he will fight
savagely.
But this is the year
1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of
1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the
Germans great defeats, in open battle, man to man.
Our air offensive has seriously reduced their
strength in the air and their capacity to wage war
on the ground. Our home fronts have given us an
overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of
war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of
trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free
men of the world are marching together to victory!
I have full
confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and
skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than
full victory!
Good Luck! And let
us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon
this great and noble undertaking.
-- Gen. Dwight D.
Eisenhower
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Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on June 29,
2010
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2010/TidbitsQuotations062910.htm
Bob Jensen's health care messaging updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
Tidbits on June 29, 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/
U.S. Debt/Deficit Clock ---
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Facts Clock ---
http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf
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
Find a College
College Atlas ---
http://www.collegeatlas.org/
Among other things the above site provides acceptance rate percentages
Online Distance Education Training and Education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
For-Profit Universities Operating in the Gray
Zone of Fraud (College, Inc.) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud
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/
-
- 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)
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/ )
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
- With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The Accounting
Review (TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier
- With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by Professors
Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams
- With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the Profession of
Accountancy Ignores TAR
- With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating Accounting Research
into Undergraduate Accounting Courses
Gaming for Tenure as an Accounting Professor
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTenure.htm
(with a reply about tenure publication point systems from Linda Kidwell)
"So you want to get a Ph.D.?" by David Wood, BYU ---
http://www.byuaccounting.net/mediawiki/index.php?title=So_you_want_to_get_a_Ph.D.%3F
Do You Want to Teach? ---
http://financialexecutives.blogspot.com/2009/05/do-you-want-to-teach.html
Jensen Comment
Here are some added positives and negatives to consider, especially if you are
currently a practicing accountant considering becoming a professor.
Accountancy Doctoral Program Information from Jim Hasselback ---
http://www.jrhasselback.com/AtgDoctInfo.html
Why must all accounting doctoral programs be social science
(particularly econometrics) "accountics" doctoral programs?
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
What went wrong in accounting/accountics research?
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
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
Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the
vegetable nutrition paradox) that probably will never be solved ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews
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
Video: Wolfram Alpha has gotten much better ---
http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html
It is best described as a search engine that will perform complicated
computations
Video: Former US General Warns of
Chemical Attacks Against Israel ---
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=136
Video: Population Growth in Viet Nam and
Seafood Contamination ---
http://www.vimeo.com/11817894
The Secret Life of Scientists (PBS Nova) ---
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/secretlife/
From Africa: Rain Sound By Clapping (Close your eyes)
---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcN1oMeFMJI
Video of the Gulf Oil Spill ---
http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/evolution-of-deepwater-horizon-oil-spill-april-20-june-13
The Second Verse of the Star Spangled Banner ---
http://www.thefoxnation.com/culture/2010/06/07/watch-marine-stuns-crowd-tea-party
Structures 2 [pdf, Flash Player]
https://open.umich.edu/education/tcaup/arch324-winter2009
Teach. Genetics: Epigenetics
[RealPlayer] ---
http://teach.genetics.utah.edu/content/epigenetics/
Glimpse of the Past: A Neighborhood Evolves [Flash Player]
http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/glimpse/index.html
Amazing Cells [includes videos]
http://teach.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/
Video Ted Talk: Let’s raise kids to be entrepreneurs,"
Simoleon Sense, June 17, 2010 ---
http://www.simoleonsense.com/video-ted-talk-lets-raise-kids-to-be-entrepreneurs/
Video on the Ghost of Plagiarism Past
Et Plagieringseventyr ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwbw9KF-ACY
Free music downloads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
NPR's Best Music Of The Year So Far: Classical
---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127911387
Band Of Gypsies: Haydn And Brahms At Spoleto
Festival (full concert) ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127879942
Bring Back the 50s (Carolyn) ---
http://carolynspreciousmemories.com/50s/sitemap.html
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
"The Pageant of America" Photograph Archive (over 7,000 photographs) ---
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?topic=culture&col_id=187
Lightning Hitting the Sears Tower ---
Click Here
http://www.businessinsider.com/awesome-photo-of-lightning-hitting-sears-tower-and-trump-tower-at-same-time-2010-6
Or was this simply some Rolling Stone messaging from Afghanistan to Chicago?
MIT Visualizing Cultures ---
http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/home/
Video: What a Way to Fly Our Flag ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEP9gwmz9hw
Van Gogh’s Starry Night Updated ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/post.aspx?bid=358&bpid=25338&nlid=3126
The Victorian Web (from Japan) ---
http://www.victorianweb.org
Victorian
Britain: Early photographically illustrated books ---
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/earlyphotos/index.html
History of York ---
http://www.historyofyork.org.uk/home
British History Online ---
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/
"A Tonic to the Imagination": Costume Designs for
Stage and Screen," by B.J. Simmons & Co., 1889-1959
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/web/bjsimmons/
Stage Costumes ---
http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/theatre_performance/features/Costume/index.html
History of
Costume
Fashion in Color ---
http://ndm.si.edu/EXHIBITIONS/fashion_in_colors/
Just Passin' Through: The Lincoln & Victory
Highways in Nevada ---
http://www.knowledgecenter.unr.edu/specoll/photoweb/lincolnhwy/
Spectacular USAF Photo of the Day: F-22A Raptors
Fly Over Langley AFB, Virginia, USA ---
Click Here
http://chamorrobible.org/images/photos/gpw-200905-UnitedStatesAirForce-050909-F-2295B-095-F-22A-Raptor-stealth-fighter-jets-fly-over-Langley-AFB-Virginia-20050909-medium.jpg
Sugar Hill Meeting House Restoration ---
http://www.sugarhillnh.org/app/index.php?option=com_morfeoshow&Itemid=88
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
History of York ---
http://www.historyofyork.org.uk/home
British History Online ---
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/
Amazing Cells [includes videos]
http://teach.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/
Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library ---
http://www.reaganlibrary.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
Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on June 29,
2010
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2010/TidbitsQuotations062910.htm
Bob Jensen's health care messaging updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
"Student Evaluations, Grade Inflation, and Declining Student Work Effort,"
by Richard Vedder, The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 19, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Student-Evaluations-Grade/24926/
The Chronicle's Susannah Tully has brought
my attention to a
great article in the prestigious Journal of
Political Economy by Scott Carrell and James West dealing with
professorial approaches to teaching, student evaluations and student
performance. It seems professors who do more than teach the basic bare-bones
knowledge and are in some sense more rigorous tend to get poorer student
evaluations (no surprise there). The less rigorous professors even get good
performances out of their students in the courses taught but those students
subsequently, in follow up courses, do poorer than the more rigorous
professors who do more than teach to the standardized test. Sounds
reasonable to me.
This got me thinking more about student evaluations
and some other evidence. Specifically, I would note that student evaluations
began to become popular during the 1960s and early 1970s as a common
evaluation tool for faculty. I would also note that most of the great grade
inflation in America has occurred since evaluations began, with national
grade point averages probably rising from the 2.5 or 2.6 range in about 1960
to well over 3.0 today (admittedly, this is based on limited but I believe
likely correct evidence). Professors to some extent can "buy" good
evaluations by giving high grades, so the evaluation process is probably a
major factor in grade inflation.
So what? What difference does it really make if the
average grade is a B- or C+ instead of a B or B+? This is where another
working paper of the National Bureau of Economic Research comes in. Philip
Babcock and Mindy Marks present evidence in Working Paper 15954 that in
1961, the average student spent 40 hours a week engaged in their
studies—attending class and studying. By 2003, this had declined by nearly
one-third to 27 hours weekly.
One advantage of getting old is that you gain some
historical perspective, and I have been in higher education for over a half
of century and believe that Babcock and Marks are right. Students do less
reading, less studying, even less attending class than two generations ago.
Why? They don't have to do more. With relatively little work they can get
relatively high grades—say a B or even better. And student evaluations are
one factor in explaining the underlying grade inflation problem. Go to the
campusbuddy.com Web site and see for yourself evidence on the
grade-inflation phenomenon. The colleges of education, which in my judgment
should be put out of business (topic for another blog), are the worst
offenders, but the problem is pretty universal.
College is getting more expensive all the time—and
students are consuming less of it per year as measured by time usage. The
cost of college per hour spent in studying is rising a good deal faster than
what tuition data alone suggest. Why should the public subsidize mostly
middle-class kids working perhaps 900 hours a year (half the average of
American workers) on their studies?
What to do? We could move to reduce the impact of
student evaluations, or even eliminate them. One reason for their
existence—to convey knowledge to students about professor—is usually met
separately by other means, such as the
RateMyProfessors.com Web site. Alternatively,
colleges could by mandate or the use of financial incentives encourage
faculty to become more rigorous in their grading. If state subsidies started
to vary inversely in size with grade-point averages, state schools would
quickly reduce grade inflation. In any case, we need more research into WHY
students today are working less. But I would bet a few bucks that grade
inflation and student evaluations are part of the answer
Bob Jensen attributes most of the grade inflation problem in North America to
teaching evaluations that greatly impact hiring (for faculty seek a new
employer), promotion, tenure, and other factors affected by performance
evaluations. In fact I call grade inflation the Number One Disgrace in Higher
Education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#GradeInflation
Now that I'm retired, I've cherry picked from the stacks of teaching
evaluations and plan to carry only the best outcomes when I eventually confront
St Peter at the
Pearly Gates.
But there's a nasty rumor among my retired professor friends that St Peter has
online access to grading distributions. Better watch out!
Publish Poop or Perish
"We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research," by Mark Bauerlein,
Mohamed Gad-el-Hak, Wayne Grody, Bill McKelvey, and Stanley W. Trimble,
Chronicle of Higher Education, June 13, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/We-Must-Stop-the-Avalanche-of/65890/
Everybody agrees that scientific research is
indispensable to the nation's health, prosperity, and security. In the many
discussions of the value of research, however, one rarely hears any mention
of how much publication of the results is best. Indeed, for all the regrets
one hears in these hard times of research suffering from financing problems,
we shouldn't forget the fact that the last few decades have seen astounding
growth in the sheer output of research findings and conclusions. Just
consider the raw increase in the number of journals. Using Ulrich's
Periodicals Directory, Michael Mabe shows that the number of "refereed
academic/scholarly" publications grows at a rate of 3.26 percent per year
(i.e., doubles about every 20 years). The main cause: the growth in the
number of researchers.
Many people regard this upsurge as a sign of
health. They emphasize the remarkable discoveries and breakthroughs of
scientific research over the years; they note that in the Times Higher
Education's ranking of research universities around the world, campuses in
the United States fill six of the top 10 spots. More published output means
more discovery, more knowledge, ever-improving enterprise.
If only that were true.
While brilliant and progressive research continues
apace here and there, the amount of redundant, inconsequential, and outright
poor research has swelled in recent decades, filling countless pages in
journals and monographs. Consider this tally from Science two decades ago:
Only 45 percent of the articles published in the 4,500 top scientific
journals were cited within the first five years after publication. In recent
years, the figure seems to have dropped further. In a 2009 article in Online
Information Review, Péter Jacsó found that 40.6 percent of the articles
published in the top science and social-science journals (the figures do not
include the humanities) were cited in the period 2002 to 2006.
As a result, instead of contributing to knowledge
in various disciplines, the increasing number of low-cited publications only
adds to the bulk of words and numbers to be reviewed. Even if read, many
articles that are not cited by anyone would seem to contain little useful
information. The avalanche of ignored research has a profoundly damaging
effect on the enterprise as a whole. Not only does the uncited work itself
require years of field and library or laboratory research. It also requires
colleagues to read it and provide feedback, as well as reviewers to evaluate
it formally for publication. Then, once it is published, it joins the
multitudes of other, related publications that researchers must read and
evaluate for relevance to their own work. Reviewer time and energy
requirements multiply by the year. The impact strikes at the heart of
academe.
Among the primary effects:
Too much publication raises the refereeing load on
leading practitioners—often beyond their capacity to cope. Recognized
figures are besieged by journal and press editors who need authoritative
judgments to take to their editorial boards. Foundations and government
agencies need more and more people to serve on panels to review grant
applications whose cumulative page counts keep rising. Departments need
distinguished figures in a field to evaluate candidates for promotion whose
research files have likewise swelled.
The productivity climate raises the demand on
younger researchers. Once one graduate student in the sciences publishes
three first-author papers before filing a dissertation, the bar rises for
all the other graduate students.
The pace of publication accelerates, encouraging
projects that don't require extensive, time-consuming inquiry and evidence
gathering. For example, instead of efficiently combining multiple results
into one paper, professors often put all their students' names on multiple
papers, each of which contains part of the findings of just one of the
students. One famous physicist has some 450 articles using such a strategy.
In addition, as more and more journals are
initiated, especially the many new "international" journals created to serve
the rapidly increasing number of English-language articles produced by
academics in China, India, and Eastern Europe, libraries struggle to pay the
notoriously high subscription costs. The financial strain has reached a
critical point. From 1978 to 2001, libraries at the University of California
at Los Angeles, for example, saw their subscription costs alone climb by
1,300 percent.
The amount of material one must read to conduct a
reasonable review of a topic keeps growing. Younger scholars can't ignore
any of it—they never know when a reviewer or an interviewer might have
written something disregarded—and so they waste precious months reviewing a
pool of articles that may lead nowhere.
Finally, the output of hard copy, not only print
journals but also articles in electronic format downloaded and printed,
requires enormous amounts of paper, energy, and space to produce, transport,
handle, and store—an environmentally irresponsible practice.
Let us go on.
Experts asked to evaluate manuscripts, results, and
promotion files give them less-careful scrutiny or pass the burden along to
other, less-competent peers. We all know busy professors who ask Ph.D.
students to do their reviewing for them. Questionable work finds its way
more easily through the review process and enters into the domain of
knowledge. Because of the accelerated pace, the impression spreads that
anything more than a few years old is obsolete. Older literature isn't
properly appreciated, or is needlessly rehashed in a newer, publishable
version. Aspiring researchers are turned into publish-or-perish
entrepreneurs, often becoming more or less cynical about the higher ideals
of the pursuit of knowledge. They fashion pathways to speedier publication,
cutting corners on methodology and turning to politicking and fawning
strategies for acceptance.
Such outcomes run squarely against the goals of
scientific inquiry. The surest guarantee of integrity, peer review, falls
under a debilitating crush of findings, for peer review can handle only so
much material without breaking down. More isn't better. At some point,
quality gives way to quantity.
Academic publication has passed that point in most,
if not all, disciplines—in some fields by a long shot. For example, Physica
A publishes some 3,000 pages each year. Why? Senior physics professors have
well-financed labs with five to 10 Ph.D.-student researchers. Since the
latter increasingly need more publications to compete for academic jobs, the
number of published pages keeps climbing. While publication rates are going
up throughout academe, with unfortunate consequences, the productivity
mandate hits especially hard in the sciences.
Only if the system of rewards is changed will the
avalanche stop. We need policy makers and grant makers to focus not on money
for current levels of publication, but rather on finding ways to increase
high-quality work and curtail publication of low-quality work. If only some
forward-looking university administrators initiated changes in hiring and
promotion criteria and ordered their libraries to stop paying for low-cited
journals, they would perform a national service. We need to get rid of
administrators who reward faculty members on printed pages and downloads
alone, deans and provosts "who can't read but can count," as the saying
goes. Most of all, we need to understand that there is such a thing as
overpublication, and that pushing thousands of researchers to issue
mediocre, forgettable arguments and findings is a terrible misuse of human,
as well as fiscal, capital.
Several fixes come to mind:
First, limit the number of papers to the best
three, four, or five that a job or promotion candidate can submit. That
would encourage more comprehensive and focused publishing.
Second, make more use of citation and journal
"impact factors," from Thomson ISI. The scores measure the citation
visibility of established journals and of researchers who publish in them.
By that index, Nature and Science score about 30. Most major disciplinary
journals, though, score 1 to 2, the vast majority score below 1, and some
are hardly visible at all. If we add those scores to a researcher's
publication record, the publications on a CV might look considerably
different than a mere list does.
Third, change the length of papers published in
print: Limit manuscripts to five to six journal-length pages, as Nature and
Science do, and put a longer version up on a journal's Web site. The two
versions would work as a package. That approach could be enhanced if
university and other research libraries formed buying consortia, which would
pressure publishers of journals more quickly and aggressively to pursue this
third route. Some are already beginning to do so, but a nationally
coordinated effort is needed.
Continued in article
June 17, 2010 reply from Alexander Robin A
[alexande.robi@UWLAX.EDU]
This all, and a number of other threads, I find
quite depressing. I entered academia under the false notion that academics
were in the field because they liked it and they did research because it
interested them. Being stubbornly idealistic it took me some years to
realize that, at least in business schools, published paper were the product
that most faculty are interested in and I encountered a number of very
successful (in terms defined for tenure and promotion) actually cared little
for the advancement of scholarship and viewed the publishing game as just
that - a game where the goal was tenure and promotion.
My background may have contributed to my illusion.
I spent quite a few years as a student at UW - Madison's math department
where the faculty were very interested in their work and animated discussion
on math and other subjects took place in the math lounge and nearby taverns.
Now UW's math department was huge (80 or so faculty and over 200 graduate
students) and at the time was rated in the top 10 in the nation. Entering
business schools as doctoral student and then faculty was a culture shock.
The general lack of interest in the "deep" questions and extreme interest in
publishing was an anathema to me and I did not do particularly well in that
environment. But I am a slow learner and it took me many years before I
finally just quit.
The problem with counting publications and
factoring in student evaluations is the same with any measure: the measure
becomes more important than the more fundamental goal of knowledge and
imparting learning. I find that most still don't get the connection with
this and the frustration that most of us had at students who were more
interested in their grade than in what they were learning. The students'
preoccupation with grades is similar with faculty preoccupation with number
of published papers. As long as the measure is treated with more importance
than that which they attempt to measure I believe that the results will be
the same: mediocre research and mediocre learning on the part of students.
There is no easy solution to this conundrum that I
can see. Some way will have to be found to really encourage learning on the
part of the students and meaningful academic work on the part of faculty.
Extrinsic motivation (grades, number of published papers) will never be
effective in my opinion. We need to tap into people's intrinsic curiosity
and desire to learn. I believe it's there but academia very effectively
crushes it in many cases. I was lucky. I was floundering as an undergraduate
until a wonderful soul inspired me to really delve into mathematics and then
I was able to appreciate its beauty and was internally motivated to study
it. The grades followed as a secondary outcome as I went from a C to an A
average. Had I continued to worry about grades primarily, I'm sure that
would not have happened.
Robin Alexander
Gaming for Tenure as an Accounting Professor ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTenure.htm
574 Shields Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
- With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The
Accounting Review (TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier
- With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by
Professors Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams
- With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the
Profession of Accountancy Ignores TAR
- With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating
Accounting Research into Undergraduate Accounting Courses
What went wrong in accounting/accountics research?
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
Malware Detection, Removal, and Protection
From:
AECM, Accounting Education using Computers and Multimedia [mailto:AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU]
On Behalf Of AMY HAAS
Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2010 4:08 PM
To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU
Subject: Help my computer has a security alert virus
How do I get rid of this one? A
danger symbol appears in my task bar and I keep getting pop-ups warning me
about virus. A program called defense center now appears in my program list
and I can't seem to delete it using the remove software in the control
panel. My symantec program has not eliminated it!
Amy Haas
From:
AECM, Accounting Education using Computers and Multimedia [mailto:AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU]
On Behalf Of Jensen, Robert
Sent: Sunday, June 27, 2010 6:48 AM
To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU
Subject: Re: Help my computer has a security alert virus
Hi
Amy,
You might
first get a free scan from Microsoft ---
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-US/center/howsafe.htm?s_cid=mscom_msrt
We should thank John (below) for
this testimony as a user of Stopzilla ---
http://www.stopzilla.com/products/stopzilla/home.do
Stopzilla is
outstanding spyware/adware software but probably should not be used in place
of a hardware firewall or more general cyber attack software like Symantec.
Good spyware/adware software alternatives might work better than Symantec
for spyware and adware, but they are not as broad based as Symantec and
Norton Anti-virus ---
http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,2806,4796,00.asp
There is no single best alternative, and you cannot always trust the media
that is dependent upon advertising revenues.
There are of course arguments
about what is the best spyware/adware protection ---
http://www.pctools.com/
Microsoft is in the game with
what I think is a very good malware protection alternative ---
http://www.microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.aspx
Most of
these alternatives offer free and fee alternatives. The typical free version
is a bit of a come on in that it will scan your computer for infections and
possibly quarantine the culprits, but for removal you must buy the removal
software. And there is always the possibility that code for removing the
newer infections has not yet been written by anybody other than the
criminals that created the infections.
I still
think the best general advice I can give is to communicate with the Help
Desk of your college.
Bob Jensen
Bob
Jensen’s threads on computer and networking security are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#SpecialSection
From:
AECM, Accounting Education using Computers and Multimedia [mailto:AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU]
On Behalf Of John Anderson
Sent: Sunday, June 27, 2010 1:55 AM
To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU
Subject: Re: Help my computer has a security alert virus
Amy,
Stopzilla is an anti-spyware and anti-adware defense program which has
always been the top rated such product since people have started surfing the
web. It essentially gives you real-time control of your computer and will
fight anything that tries to take away this control and download without
your permission!
McAfee used to have a product called “Stinger” or “Striker,” but hard to
believe they just gave it away. For some reason most of the commercial
products out there are all focused on virus profiles only. They will do an
excellent job of telling you what has got you … and how bad it is … but I
prefer preventative medicine … not an autopsy! iS3 created Stopzilla. They
are out of Palm Beach County Florida and will provide a support window for
you on the phone for probably 15 hours a day.
http://www.is3.com/home.do
I
now have lifetime licensing on all machines we own.
If the machine is badly compromised it may take Stopzilla a week to
stabilize the situation, but it will do this by preventing rogue processes
and websites from downloading to your machine without your permission or
writing to your computer’s registry without permission. (It is quite
surprising to look at the logging of the stuff it stops! You would never
know!)
I
also still run anti-virus, but it picks up very little after-the-fact … and
nothing serious!
I
can’t recommend Stopzilla enough!
Best Regards!
John
John Anderson, CPA,
CISA, CISM, CGEIT, CITP
Financial & IT
Business Consultant
14
Tanglewood Road
Boxford, MA
01921
jcanderson27@comcast.net
978-887-0623 Office
978-837-0092 Cell
Bob Jensen’s
threads on computer and networking security are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#SpecialSection
Especially Note the Graphic: Connect the For-Profit University Dots
"Who Enrolls the Most Students With Post-9/11 GI Benefits?" by Ron
Coddington and Michael Sewall, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 13,
2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Enrolls-the-Most-Students/65923/
Why do you think the private universities are so popular given that online
degrees are available from most state universities?
"Want a Higher G.P.A.? Go to a Private
College: A 50-year rise in grade-point averages is being fueled by private
institutions, a recent study finds," by Catherine Rampell. The New York Times,
April 19, 2010 ---
http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/109339/want-a-higher-gpa-go-to-a-private-college?mod=edu-collegeprep
“Gaming for GPA” by Bob Jensen
So your goal in education is a gpa
That’s as close as possible to an average of A;
First you enroll in an almost unknown and easy private college
Where your transcript records accumulated knowledge.
But take the hardest courses in prestigious schools
Where you accumulate transfer credit pools;
Then transfer the A credits to your transcript cool
And bury the other credits where you were a fool.
And when the Great Scorer comes to write against your name
It’s not a question of whether you won or went lame;
You always win if you know how to play the game
And for a lifetime there’s no transcript record of your shame.
For-Profit Universities and the Gray Zone of Fraud ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud
"Mounting Congressional Scrutiny of For-Profit Colleges," Inside
Higher Ed, June 22, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/22/qt#230647
Five Congressional Democrats on Monday
asked the U.S. Government Accountability Office to begin a study of
for-profit higher education that would look at
institutional quality and business practices. The request comes just days
after a House of Representatives
hearing on accreditation that included criticism on the sector,
and on the same day that witnesses were announced for
Thursday's Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on
the for-profits. (The
group scheduled to testify has a decided slant
against the sector. The witnesses are Kathleen Tighe, the U.S. Department of
Education's inspector general; Steven Eisman, an investor who
has warned that the sector is "as socially
destructive and morally bankrupt as the subprime mortgage industry"; Yasmine
Issa, a former student at the for-profit Sanford Brown Institute; Margaret
Reiter, a former California deputy attorney general and consumer advocate;
and Sharon Thomas Parrott, chief compliance officer at DeVry, Inc.)
The request for a GAO review came from the chairs
of the House and Senate education committees -- Rep. George Miller of
California and Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa -- and three other influential
members, Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois and Reps. Timothy Bishop of New
York and Ruben Hinojosa of Texas. Citing "recent press reports [that] have
raised questions about the quality of proprietary institutions" in a letter
to the GAO, the members requested information on the sector's recent growth,
as well as data on program quality, student outcomes and the amount of
corporate revenues that comes from the Title IV federal financial aid
program and other government sources. They also asked for a consideration of
whether the Education Department's regulations on Title IV program integrity
(in
the process of being revised) do enough to
safeguard against waste and fraud.
Harris N. Miller, president of the Career College
Association, the sector's largest lobbying group, said he welcomes the
review. "We have every expectation that the GAO, using facts and figures,
will provide a full and fair review." He also asked that the Education
Department hold off on issuing final regulations aimed at ensuring integrity
in federal financial aid programs: "Secretary Duncan has said repeatedly he
wants to get the regulatory changes right, and waiting for the GAO to
conduct its study is one way to further that goal."
Appeals Court Reinstates $277M Judgment Against U. of Phoenix
A federal appeals court on Wednesday overturned a lower
court's 2008 decision that shielded the Apollo Group, Inc., from a jury's $277
million verdict against it in a shareholder lawsuit. The ruling by the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit essentially reinstated
the jury's 2008 finding
that a group of stockholders in the parent company of the University of Phoenix
were harmed by the company's approach to disclosing information about a critical
government report. Although the jury called for Apollo to pay $277.5 million in
damages, a federal judge
overturned that verdict
in August 2008, ruling in Apollo's favor. But in its ruling Wednesday,
which Apollo critiqued,
the Ninth Circuit appeals panel said that the lower court judge had "erred" and
that the damages award should stand.
Inside Higher Ed, June 24, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/24/qt#230888
"Want a Higher G.P.A.? Go to a Private College: A 50-year rise in
grade-point averages is being fueled by private institutions, a recent study
finds," by Catherine Rampell. The New York Times, April 19, 2010 ---
http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/109339/want-a-higher-gpa-go-to-a-private-college?mod=edu-collegeprep
“Gaming for GPA” by Bob Jensen
So your goal in education is a gpa
That’s as close as possible to an average of A;
First you enroll in an almost unknown and easy private college
Where your transcript records accumulated knowledge.
But take the hardest courses in prestigious schools
Where you accumulate transfer credit pools;
Then transfer the A credits to your transcript cool
And bury the other credits where you were a fool.
And when the Great Scorer comes to write against your name
It’s not a question of whether you won or went lame;
You always win if you know how to play the game
And for a lifetime there’s no transcript record of your shame.
Bob Jensen's threads on for-profit colleges ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud
Bob Jensen’s threads on for-profit colleges are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud
Gaming for a Community College Rejection
"For-Profit Colleges Find New Market Niche," by Tamar Lewin, The
New York Times, June 24, 2010 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/education/24profit.html?hpw
Kaplan University has an offer for California
community college students who cannot get a seat
in a class they need: under a memorandum of understanding with the
chancellor of the community college system, they can take the online version
at Kaplan, with a 42 percent tuition discount.
The opportunity would not come cheap. Kaplan
charges $216 a credit with the discount, compared with $26 a credit at
California’s community colleges.
Supporters of for-profit education say the offer
underscores how Kaplan and other profit-making colleges can help accommodate
the mushrooming demand for higher education.
The number of California students choosing
for-profit schools has been increasing rapidly, state officials say.
At the same time, government officials have become
increasingly concerned that students at for-profit colleges are far more
likely than those at public institutions to take out large loans — and
default on them.
For better or worse, the tough times for public
colleges nationwide have presented for-profit colleges with a promising
marketing opportunity. “We thought, in light of the budget crisis and the
number of community college classes which are being canceled, if we have
that same class here, we would give students the opportunity to take it at
Kaplan,” said Greg F. Marino, president of Kaplan University Group, a
profit-making business owned by the Washington Post Company.
Kaplan signed the memorandum of understanding seven
months ago.
In Massachusetts, Bristol Community College, which
has to turn away many qualified applicants for its nursing and other courses
in the health professions, has entered into a partnership with Princeton
Review.
The Review, a private company, will expand the
programs — and then charge $8,000 tuition, about double the regular Bristol
rate.
“It will be our students, our courses, our
curriculum, taught by our faculty, but Princeton Review’s going to pay some
of the startup costs,” Sally Chapman Cameron, a Bristol spokeswoman, said of
the two-tiered pricing plan. “Some private colleges nearby charge a lot more
than Princeton Review will. Our region needs more health care workers, and
without this partnership, we don’t have the resources to expand our nursing
program.”
In California, the memorandum of understanding also
requires each community college taking part to sign a credit-transfer
agreement with Kaplan — and most of the state’s 112 community colleges are
not eager to do so. Thus far, Kaplan has no takers for its courses.
“Faculty from across the state were uniformly irate
and disappointed about the memorandum of understanding,” said Jane Patton,
president of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges, partly
because faculty members were not consulted.
At the academic senate’s spring meeting, faculty
members voted to urge the chancellor to withdraw from the memorandum of
understanding, which they said “signaled the chancellor’s willingness to
outsource the California community colleges’ mission to private for-profit
entities.”
Jensen Comment on Gaming for Rejection
If community colleges reject students appearing to be the lowest achievers and
those least likely to graduate, it will be interesting to see low achievers hope
for public college rejections because of their perceptions that than can get
higher grades with less effort from a for-profit college.
Bob Jensen's threads on for-profit colleges ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud
The best way for individual investors to avoid
getting fleeced by the mutual-fund industry is to buy index funds—ones that
track whole financial markets—rather than managed funds, in which managers
select the holdings.
Quote from the article below
Jensen Comment
If all passive investors all bought into index funds, the markets on which they
depend would run shallow or even dry up. The ideal is for individual investors
and their diversified mutual and pension funds to trade in securities themselves
to make equity and debt markets deep and hopefully efficient and fair. Taking
the individual investors from the markets seems to me to create all sorts of
moral hazards for the funds and corporate insiders to manipulate the markets and
hence ultimately the index funds.
Having said that, I think fund managers often do charge way to much for the
value of the services provided. But I do not think that investors should all
shift like brainless lemmings to index funds. That would be dysfunctional to the
markets themselves. Efficient markets depend upon more and more informed
investors rather than brainless lemmings investing in index funds.
Here's a humanities professor take on investment advice:
"Epigrammatic Tutu Fantasies," By Professor Pennywise, Chronicle of Higher
Education, June 22, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Epigrammatic-Tutu-Fantasies/65995/
In early 2009, when global stock markets were at
their most abysmal point of the past five years, Pennywise received a flood
of e-mail messages. One was from a professor in Minnesota. "I still don't
trust mutual-fund advisers," she wrote. "Can you educate me about ETF's?"
"Ah, the ETF," Pennywise thought, his mind,
naturally, spiraling immediately off into surrealist fantasy. Momentarily
putting aside his expertise, what might he imagine ETF to mean?
Egg Toast Frappé. Exotic Tarantula Farms.
Eritrean Theological Funerals. Entertaining Thoughts Forbidden.
As you can see, it was at best an idle pursuit.
In any event, there were simply no column inches to fritter away on the ETF
back in early 2009's days of Extraordinary Terror Financial. With the world
on a precipice, the times were surreal enough as it was. Exceptionally
Thoughtful Feuilletons, not absurdities, were needed.
The ETF did not much appeal to Pennywise in any
event, since he thought most individual investors should stay away from it.
But things have changed recently in the world of the ETF, and what I once
had reason to oppose, I now have reason to favor. That made me remember my
good reader from Minnesota and decide that the time has come to Examine This
Fully.
Let me begin by answering the query. If you
loathe the mutual-fund industry, I am afraid to report that the ETF poses no
alternative for you, since ETF, all games aside, actually stands for
Exchange-Traded Fund.
To understand ETF's, in other words, you must
understand funds, and that requires a slight digression into technicalities
of the least daunting sort.
A mutual fund is a mechanism for large numbers
of people to invest together. Shares in the fund are offered to the public,
people purchase them, and the pooled money is invested in underlying assets,
such as stocks or bonds. The price of a fund share is its net asset value,
or NAV. It fluctuates based on the market value of assets owned by the fund,
minus its liabilities, divided by the total number of shares issued. The NAV
of traditional mutual funds is set at the end of each business day. Now you
know funds.
There are many reasons to be suspicious, as the
Minnesota professor is, of the mutual-fund industry, which, despite its
evocation of mutuality, is as replete with greedy and self-serving motives
as any other endeavor tied to Wall Street. The industry makes its money by
charging shareholders fees and expenses, and all too many funds overcharge.
But not all funds or fund companies are alike. Vanguard, Fidelity, and
Schwab offer excellent low-priced offerings. Shrewd consumers can navigate
those waters.
In principle, mutual funds are advantageous for
the small investor. Unlike the alternative—purchasing stocks and bonds on
your own through a broker—funds have two big advantages. First, they lower
trading costs because they don't require paying commissions when buying and
selling (apart from "load" funds, which charge an upfront fee to buy and are
to be avoided for that reason). Second, mutual funds offer vast
diversification because they typically own hundreds, if not thousands, of
stocks or bonds, reducing risk considerably through broad market exposure.
The best way for individual investors to avoid
getting fleeced by the mutual-fund industry is to buy index funds—ones that
track whole financial markets—rather than managed funds, in which managers
select the holdings. The latter funds tend to charge big expense ratios
without beating the indexes consistently. Consider keeping most, if not all,
of your holdings in no-load index funds with low expenses.
Now, to return to our Excellent Topical Feature.
The ETF is a special type of mutual fund, distinguished by being traded on
an exchange. It works like an individual stock or bond in the way it is
bought and sold. Its price moves up or down by the millisecond. The ETF has
this advantage, then, over a traditional mutual fund: flexibility. With an
ETF, sales transactions may take place at any time the market is open, not
just at the close of the trading day.
For a long while, Pennywise was not interested
in ETF's. They entailed a brokerage commission every time shares were bought
and sold, and those trading costs, he thought, made the ETF suitable only
for big institutional investors or speculative day traders, not
cost-conscious small investors.
But that has changed completely. Firms like
Schwab and Vanguard are now offering commission-free trading on their ETF's
so long as they are bought directly from the companies' own brokerage
service. That means you pay not one iota extra when purchasing the ETF,
merely its share price. Furthermore—and this is paramount—sometimes the ETF
version of a given fund has lower expense ratios than conventional funds of
equivalent character offered by the very same company.
Consider the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index
Fund. There are two share classes of that mutual fund—Investor and Admiral.
Investor shares, open to anyone, have an expense ratio of 0.18 percent.
That's already a bargain, less than a fifth of the typical mutual-fund
expense ratio for domestic U.S. stocks. Admiral shares, open to those
investing more than $100,000, have an even lower expense ratio, of 0.07
percent. Now add to those two classes the ETF version of the fund. Its
expense ratio is 0.07 percent, equivalent to the Admiral shares of the
conventional fund, but it requires no $100,000 investment; it can be bought
in any quantity, large or small. That is an astonishingly good deal in an
industry in which the average expense ratio is 14 times as great, at about 1
percent, and in which some avaricious funds shamelessly charge as high as 3
percent. This ETF enables little investors to buy into the whole U.S.
equities market for a song.
Pennywise, in his household's IRA's, recently
made a simple conversion from mutual funds to ETF equivalents, which he
estimates will save him more than $1,000 a year in expenses. If you
extrapolate that, with compound interest, over decades, you will see the
benefit: Costs matter.
Choose an ETF, of course, as you would choose a
normal fund. Examine its composition (bonds, domestic equities,
international equities, whatever). Consider how it fits within your whole
portfolio, which should be well diversified. Think about risk level. Think
about cost. Think about the long term.
That said, the ETF increasingly appears to be a
compelling mechanism for ordinary investors to lower their costs. Eureka,
That's Fantastic.
Professor Pennywise is the pseudonym of a professor in the humanities
who has taught from the Pac-10 to the Big Ten. He is merely a frugal
academic, not a financial professional. Send questions and suggestions to
professorpennywise@yahoo.com.
Bob Jensen's investment helpers are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#InvestmentHelpers
Help
for Scholars on 'Fair Use'
Amid reports that
many scholars are holding back on their use of materials that they aren't sure
are covered by "fair use" provisions to copyright law, a new guide attempts to
provide help.
"The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Scholarly Research in Communication"
was produced by
the International Communication Association, American University's Center for
Social Media, and the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property
at American's law school.
Inside Higher Ed, June 24, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/24/qt#230888
Bob Jensen's threads on Fair Use are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm#Copyright
"GMAT will replace an essay with sets of problems requiring different
forms of analysis. Will this fend off competition from the GRE?" by
Scott Jaschick, Inside Higher Ed, June 25, 2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/25/gmat
Jensen Comment
GMAT testing officials were among the first to adopt computer grading rather
than human grading of essay questions. I guess that will no longer be the case
since the essay will disappear on the GMAT. However, perhaps the GMAT will still
have some shorter essay questions.
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#ComputerBasedAssessment
Question
What types of students benefit most versus least from video lectures?
"Video Lectures May Slightly Hurt Student Performance," by Sophia Li,
Inside Higher Ed, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 21, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Video-Lectures-May-Slightly/24963/
No clear winner emerges in the contest between
video and live instruction, according to the
findings of a recent study led by David N.
Figlio, a professor of education and social policy at Northwestern
University. The study found that students who watched lectures online
instead of attending in-person classes performed slightly worse in the
course over all.
A previous
analysis by the U.S. Department of Education that
examined existing research comparing online and live instruction favored
online learning over purely in-person instruction, according to
the working paper
by Mr. Figlio and his colleagues, which was released
this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
But Mr. Figlio's study contradicted those results,
showing that live instruction benefits Hispanic students, male students, and
lower-achieving students in particular.
Colleges and universities that are turning to video
lectures because of their institutions' tight budgets may be doing those
students a disservice, said Mark Rush, a professor of economics at the
University of Florida and one of the working paper's authors.
More research will be necessary, however, before
any definite conclusions can be drawn about the effectiveness of video
lectures, said Lu Yin, a graduate student at the University of Florida who
worked on the project. Future research could study the effectiveness of
watching lectures online for topics other than microeconomics, which was the
subject of the course evaluated in the study, Ms. Yin said.
Jensen Comment
Studies like this just do not extrapolate well into the real world, because so
very, very much depends upon both how instructors use videos and how students
use videos. My students had to take my live classes, but my Camtasia video
allowed them to keep going over and over, at their own learning pace, technical
modules (PQQ Possible Quiz Questions) until they got technical things down pat
---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/acct5342/
Students who did not use the videos as intended usually paid a price.
However, some outcomes in the above study conform to my priors. For example,
Brigham Young University (BYU) has very successfully replaced live lectures with
variable-speed video lectures in the first two basic accounting courses ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#BYUvideo
However, BYU students most likely have mostly high achieving students to
begin with, especially in accounting. It would be interesting to formally study
the use such variable-speed video in colleges having a higher proportion of
lower-achieving students. My guess is that the variable-speed video lectures
would be less effective with lower-achieving students who are not motivated to
keep replaying videos until they get the technical material down pat. The may be
lower achieving in great measure because they are less motivated learnings or
learners who have too many distractions (like supportingchildren) to have as
much quality study time.
And live lecturing/mentoring is hard to put in a single category because
there are so many types of live lecturing/mentoring ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#Teaching
In conclusion, I think much depends upon the quality of the video versus
lecture, class size, and student motivation. Videos offer the tremendous
advantage of instant replay and being able to adjust to the best learning pace
of the student. Live lectures can, and often do, lead to more human interactive
factors that can be good (if they motivate) and bad (if they distract or instill
dysfunctional fear).
The best video lectures are probably those that are accompanied with instant
messaging with an instructor or tutor that can provide answers or clues to
answers not on the video.
June 25, 2010 message from
pauline@phoenixsocial.com
Hi Bob,
I hate to bother you but I have been using your
page with information on nursing:
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2006/tidbits060814.htm
I wanted to take the time so say thanks for making
it, there is some great information on it.
I thought I would pass along another page I found
useful that wasn't listed on your site:
http://onlinenursing.fhchs.edu/news/nursing-career-guide/
The page has tons of information and resources
about nursing careers. I found it while doing some research and thought it
might make a good addition to your page.
Have a Great Day,
April Jennings
Jensen Comment
I added the above link to my careers document at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#careers
"Gorilla warfare: chimps mean too, bonobos our only hope," by Stephen
Hsu, MIT's Technology Review, June 22, 2010 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/post.aspx?bid=354&bpid=25360&nlid=3153
Jensen Comment
Until I read the above article I was not aware how chimp behavior is so close to
human behavior.
"European Business Schools Set Sights on U.S.: Seeking U.S. students
and a bigger global footprint, schools from Spain, France, and the U.K. are
rushing to set up outposts on American soil," by Alison Damast, Business
Week, June 17, 2010 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/jun2010/bs20100617_473655.htm?link_position=link1
Over the past decade or so, European business
schools have been aggressive about reaching out to the American market,
doing everything from forming alliances with U.S. schools to launching
student- and faculty-exchange programs. Now a handful of elite European
schools are taking this a step further, trying to create a more substantial
presence in the U.S. by opening up traditional brick-and-mortar campuses.
In the past few months, schools from France to the
U.K. have announced plans to build campuses in the coming year in the U.S.,
including one planned outpost announced just last week. It's a strategic
move by these institutions to increase their stature and influence in the
American market, says Robert Bruner, dean of the University of Virginia's
Darden School of Business (Darden
Full-Time MBA Profile).
"The U.S. is where the MBA was invented and, to
some extent to establish a footprint in this market, is an additional means
of legitimizing a school's brand and stature globally," says Bruner, who
also chairs the Globalization of Management Education Task Force of the
Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, one of the leading
business school accreditation agencies.
Eye on the Hot Spots
That's a viewpoint that these European B-schools
are taking as they cautiously attempt to entrench themselves in the U.S. A
number of the schools that have announced plans to build campuses are
well-regarded universities in Europe, but not as well-known by students
outside their home countries. By starting degree programs in such hot spots
as Miami and New York, they say they will be able to enhance their global
reputation in both the academic and business community in the U.S. as well
as expand and enhance the degree programs they offer students. Another
underlying motivation is the opportunity for them to recruit more American
students to their campuses. At most European business schools, Americans
make up just a handful of the students in the degree programs, making it
hard for them to build up a strong alumni base in the U.S., deans at these
schools say.
Many European business schools will be watching
closely to see whether these business schools will be successful at branding
themselves in the U.S., says Dave Wilson, president and chief executive of
the Graduate Management Admission Council, which administers the Graduate
Management Admission Test (GMAT). Of U.S. GMAT test takers, the vast
majority, or about 98 percent, send their test scores to U.S. schools,
leaving just a handful of American students who consider non-U.S schools.
The European schools will have to work hard to attract these students to
their U.S. outposts, Wilson says.
"These are sort of pioneers who are breaking new
ground, and it will be a challenge to get U.S. students," Wilson says. "I
think most European schools are going to sit back and watch, because this is
really a brand new bet for them."
Manhattan Opening
Just this May, Spain's
IESE Business School (IESE
Full-Time MBA Profile) opened the doors of its New
York campus on West 57th Street, a six-story building with two classrooms,
breakout rooms, and office space. The school had been planning its U.S.
campus for three years and has spent close to $20 million refurbishing the
building, says Eric Weber, an associate dean of IESE and director of the
school's New York office. Says Weber: "We're pretty bullish about the U.S."
The school will not be offering an MBA program at
the New York office, but it has ambitious plans for the site, which include
promotion of its custom programs for executives, establishing a research
center on global business, and setting up activities for alumni and
corporate sponsors. Professors from the school's Barcelona campus will take
students to New York for several weeks, where they will study business in
the context of New York City, Weber says.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
One competitive advantage that foreign schools will bring to the table is to
play on the wanderlust of the typical four-year college graduate. Before
becoming tied down with a spouse and children, the lure of Europe is especially
appealing to some graduates. Graduates recall hearing in class about all the
world adventures of many of their professors, especially professors in
humanities who often focus their own research on romantic European history,
language, and literature. Students may see a European business school degree as
having greater opportunity for job offers in Europe --- which may be a myth in
many instances. Of course other students may lean toward Asian-school
degrees for the same reasons. For a while Russia was popular until living in
Russia became so dangerous and Russian universities became more corrupt.
Teaching Case
From The Wall Street Journal Weekly Accounting Review on June 25, 2010
Legal Fights Loom over Ratings-Firm Liability Rule
by:
Jeannette Neumann
Jun 18, 2010
Click here to view the full article on WSJ.com
TOPICS: Corporate
Governance, Disclosure, Disclosure Requirements, Financial Reporting, Legal
Liability, Securitization
SUMMARY: "A
panel of Senate and House lawmakers negotiating final details of a
financial-overhaul bill agreed this week to allow investors to bring legal
action against credit-rating firms that 'knowingly or recklessly' fail to
'conduct a reasonable investigation of the rated security.'" At least one
legal analyst comments that the questions of "recklessly" and "reasonable"
are likely to be the subjects of a string of lawsuits before their
definitions are settled.
CLASSROOM APPLICATION: The
three articles in this week's review all cover issues in disclosure and
other corporate governance matters. All three articles are useful in any
financial accounting or ethics course covering corporate social
responsibility and governance issues. This article in particular continues
coverage of the financial reform legislation stemming from the U.S.
financial crisis.
QUESTIONS:
1. (Introductory)
What is the purpose of credit-rating firms such as McGraw-Hill Cos. Standard
& Poor's Corp. and Moody Corp.'s Moody's Investors Service?
2. (Introductory)
What is the role that these entities are considered to have played in the
financial crisis? (Hint: see the related article to answer this question.)
3. (Advanced)
What will be the implication of allowing "investors to bring legal action
against credit-rating firms..."?
4. (Advanced)
Why would "ratings firms 'fear litigation more than they fear regulation'"?
Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
RELATED ARTICLES:
Buffett to Testify to Crisis Panel on Moody's
by Aaron Lucchetti
May 27, 2010
Online Exclusive
"Legal Fights Loom over Ratings-Firm Liability Rule," by: Jeannette Neumann,
The Wall Street Journal, Jun 18, 2010 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703650604575313153186936336.html?mod=djem_jiewr_AC_domainid
Credit-rating firms are a big step closer to facing
a harsher liability standard on their work. But it could take years for
courts to decide what the planned rules mean.
A panel of Senate and House lawmakers negotiating
final details of a financial-overhaul bill agreed this week to allow
investors to bring legal action against credit-rating firms that "knowingly
or recklessly" fail to "conduct a reasonable investigation of the rated
security."
The new standard, if passed into law, likely would
make it easier for investors to sue the ratings companies, such as
McGraw-Hill Cos.' Standard & Poor's and Moody's Corp.'s Moody's Investors
Service, which for long have enjoyed near immunity from liability for
ratings gone awry.
But "what an 'investigation' is in this context is
not an easy question," said Jonathan Macey, a professor of corporate
governance and securities regulation at Yale Law School. "You're going to
spend tons of time litigating that question."
Ratings firms and others studying the industry have
maintained a tougher legal standard will come at a price. For one, companies
may increase the cost of rating debt to balance the risk of litigation, said
Joseph Mason, a professor of finance at Louisiana State University.
Ratings firms "fear litigation more than they fear
regulation" because past regulation efforts haven't "been that draconian,"
said Scott McCleskey, a former Moody's compliance officer who has testified
before Congress about the industry. He is now working at Complinet Inc. as
managing editor, North America.
The new liability standard "strikes the right
balance," Mr. McCleskey said, because it makes it easier for investors to
sue credit-rating agencies, but it doesn't open the floodgates for a slew of
lawsuits.
Representatives of the three major credit-rating
firms, including Fitch Ratings, a unit of Fimalac SA, didn't immediately
comment.
The news comes as the industry had a win in the
Capitol Hill negotiations—a proposed delay in implementation of a
quasigovernment board that would assign initial ratings for
structured-finance bonds.
Rating firms had resisted the idea, and members of
a conference committee on Wednesday agreed that the Securities and Exchange
Commission should study whether to establish the entity, which would be
designed to address potential conflicts of interest in the credit-ratings
business.
Under the new plan, the SEC would be required to
implement the proposed new board unless it determines that an alternate
mechanism is more appropriate.
As for the higher liability standard, industry
critics say it is high time the credit rating firms faced one. Raters were
blamed for catalyzing the housing bubble by assigning their highest ratings
to billions of dollars of financial products that later turned out to be
worthless.
The credit rating agencies have invoked the First
Amendment, largely with success, when faced with claims that their ratings
were too high or too low. The First Amendment cannot protect the ratings
companies from claims of fraud, lawyers say. But plaintiffs have a high
legal hurdle to establish that a firm issued a fraudulent rating.
The credit rating agencies are "essentially
liability proof and it's not because they're infallible," said Columbia Law
School professor John Coffee, who helped craft the liability standard for
the Senate bill, the version that was eventually chosen this week by the
conference committee.
The goal of the new standard is to "make litigation
a credible deterrent" by creating an incentive for the firms to step up due
diligence measures, said Mr. Coffee. While some maintain that the phrase a
"reasonable investigation" is unclear, Mr. Coffee says that if a rating
company hires a due diligence firm to vet the data they are using for their
rating, that should stand up in court as a "reasonable investigation."
Would the new standard have helped prevent the
credit crisis? Not necessarily, said Mr. Macey, the Yale professor. "I don't
think it would have significantly altered the probability of having this
debacle" because the firms are still so tightly-knit into the financial
system, he said. "It fails that litmus test."
The agreement on the liability standard is set to
be included in a conference report to be sent to the House and the Senate
for final approval. The provision could still be altered before a final
compromise.
Bob Jensen's threads on credit rating agency scandals are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#CreditRatingAgencies
How to Learn Accounting On Your Own
June 19, 2010 message from Tom Hood
[tom@MACPA.ORG]
Greetings Colleagues,
I have two sons home for the summer asking if I
know of any great resources to help them get ahead of Intermediate
Accounting as they approach the fall semester. I figured I would go to the
best source I know of to help them out – these two listservs.
So can you direct me to any on-line and other
resources that may get them studying for Intermediate Accounting I and
Intermediate Accounting II?
Also, what advice would you give them on how to
approach these courses (one is in I and the older in II)?
I will also be sharing this on our student site…
On another note – we are working in an
International Pavilion on CPA Island in Second Life and our Accounting
Eductaion Pavilion (see details at
www.cpaisland.com
and
www.slacpa.org ).
We continue to offer free kiosks with links to your
colleges and universities and free areas to meet as classes. We have an
interne working this summer who can give you a demo and show you around –
just send an e-mail to my attention ad mention the CPA Island.
Thanks,
Warmest regards,
Tom
Tom Hood, CPA.CITP CEO & Executive Director
Maryland Association of CPAs Business Learning Institute
www.macpa.org
www.bizlearning.net
June 20, 2010 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Tom,
First of all consider video alternatives. More than 100 universities have
set up channels on YouTube ---
http://www.youtube.com/education?b=400
Next take a topic list from a typical intermediate accounting textbook,
some of which are free (not necessarily completely up to date for rapidly
changing standards) at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Then search for the term "accounting" at
http://www.youtube.com/education?b=400
Scroll down to find videos that might be relevant to intermediate accounting
topics. Some of these videos are more up to date than even the latest
textbooks.
Some of these videos are from the top teachers or top CPA firm leaders (like
Jim Turley's videos) in the world.
Also note that if you search out the instructor (usually found at her/his
university) you will often find more course materials available for
downloading. Also email messages to these instructors may result in more
shared learning materials.
But more importantly, Tom, consider the goals of your two sons in
studying for intermediate accounting. The overriding goal of an intermediate
accounting student is to eventually pass the CPA examination. For studying
intermediate accounting I would have your sons dig directly into a CPA
examination review course and focus on the answers to CPA examination
questions in the topical areas identified above in intermediate accounting
textbooks. They have to pick and chose topics found in an intermediate
accounting textbook, because many CPA examination questions come from other
courses such as advanced accounting and governmental accounting and tax
accounting and managerial accounting.
A free CPA examination review package, complete with practice questions,
answers, and examinations, is available at
http://cpareviewforfree.com/
If you want more video review modules for the CPA examination, then a
commercial package is probably better ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#010303CPAExam
There are some topics that are probably not totally up to date in even
the latest available intermediate accounting textbooks. One is IFRS
although, unless your sons will be taking intermediate accounting from an
IFRS nut, I would probably not worry too much about technical IFRS problems
on the CPA examination in the near future. However, great free materials for
learning IFRS are available at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#IFRSlearning
In a typical intermediate accounting two semester sequence, much of the
first semester is spent reviewing basic accounting (especially in
universities that receive a large number of community college transfer
students). If your sons need video reviews of basic accounting, I highly
recommend Susan Crosson's video lectures. The links are at the bottom of the
page at
http://www.youtube.com/SusanCrosson
Look for "Financial Videos Organized by Topic."
Members of the American Accounting Association, including student
members, can find some instructional helper materials at the AAA Commons ---
http://commons.aaahq.org/pages/home
Click on the menu choice "Teaching" and then "Browse resources."
Implied in all the above recommendations is a learning pedagogy that
pretty much entails memory aiding and abetting in a traditional manner
(study the problems and then study the textbook answers). At the other
extreme there is better and longer-lasting metacognitive learning such as
the award-winning BAM pedagogy (for an intermediate accounting two-course
sequence) invented by Catanach, Croll, and Grinacker ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/265wp.htm
This pedagogy is more like the real world where your supervisor gives you a
problem to solve and you go out and solve it any way you can. You can study
BAM's problems, but there are no answers provided to study. Students have to
teach themselves by seeking out the answers from anywhere in the world.
Although the BAM pedagogy would be much more time consuming for your
sons, you can probably get the Hydromate Case and some of the instructional
support materials from Tony Catanach ---
anthony.catanach@villanova.edu
If Tony is not available, Noah Barsky can help ---
noah.barsky@villanova.edu
By the way, at the University of Virginia, where the BAM pedagogy was
born, the passage rate on the CPA examination rose dramatically after
switching to the BAM pedagogy in intermediate accounting, This is not
surprising since you remember best those things you had to learn on your
own. Of course many students looking for an easy way out hate the BAM
pedagogy.
Bob Jensen
Bob Jensen's threads on online training and education alternatives are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
Is the Internet Changing Our Brains?
"In a Shallow Grave," by Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed, June 16,
2010 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee294
Last week I read Nicholas
Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brain, just
published by
W.W.
Norton, in one sitting. That meant indulging no
distractions from my desktop computer, and staying out of sight of the
Blackberry, with its pulsing red light announcing the arrival, through
various channels, of incoming messages.
Concentrating on the book
was not always easy. But this was not -- pace Carr -- a result of
cumulative damage to my brain circuitry from the seductively instant
gratifications of new media. Well that, too, probably; but there was also a
distracting sense overfamiliarity with Carr’s argument. He documents things
plenty of us have figured out for ourselves. It often felt like a book that
appeared five years too late to do me much good
Its description of the
Internet’s capacity for hyper-Pavlovian conditioning does seem right on
target:
“It’s not just that we
tend to use the Net regularly, even obsessively,” Carr writes. “It’s that
the Net delivers precisely the kind of sensory and cognitive stimuli –
repetitive, intensive, interactive, addictive – that have been shown to
result in strong and rapid alterations in brain circuits and functions.…
During the course of a day, most of us with access to the Web spend at least
a couple of hours online – sometimes much more – and during that time, we
tend to repeat the same or similar actions over and over again, usually at a
high rate of speed and often in response to cues delivered through a screen
or a speaker….The Net’s interactivity gives us powerful new tools for
finding information, expressing ourselves, and conversing with others. It
also turns us into lab rats constantly pressing levers to get tiny pellets
of social or intellectual nourishment.”
Or rather, perhaps,
monkeys who keep pressing the button that delivers a hit of cocaine -- while
ignoring the button that gives them food.
That was the image
that kept coming to mind when, a few years ago, I found myself cycling
through the same few sites between rounds of e-mail correspondence --
sometimes for hours at a stretch.
This realization, as such,
did not change anything. Insight never trumps habit. My paw kept reaching
out to hit “refresh.”
Nor did it help that, by
2007 -- after two decades of writing for magazines and newspapers -- well
over 90 percent of my work was appearing exclusively in digital venues. It
was disconcerting to notice this. It still is. My initial impulse was to try
to sort out the implications by writing about it in notebooks, which is to
say with pen in hand. But that, besides being anachronistic, was an evasion.
The depth of the transformation in how we read, write, and think is deeper
than we know; maybe deeper, by now, than we can know. As Carr puts it
(and here I must paraphrase, calling on what is left of my memory): We
program our computers, and after a while, they return the favor.
A feeling of helplessness
tends to follow from such thoughts. In spite of Carr's dim hope that “we
won’t go gently into the future our computer engineers and software
programmers are scripting for us,” The Shallows is a pessimistic
book, or at least one colored by deep resignation. The effects of the
new-media environment on our cognitive powers and our intellectual ethos are
profound, absolute, and irreversible, at least on Carr’s assessment. Our
brains will henceforth be itchy, twitchy, and other-directed. We will lose
forever the capacity for dream-like concentration while reading described by
Isaac of Syria, a medieval bishop quoted by Carr.
“With prolonging of this
silence,” wrote Isaac, “the turmoil of memories is stilled in my heart,
ceaseless waves of joy are sent me by inner thoughts, beyond expectation
suddenly arising to delight my heart.”
Not much evidence
of such rapture in the comments section of most websites.
But resignation is not a
suitable response to the feeling that you are losing parts of your brain to
entropy. Anger seems more appropriate.Over the past year or so, my own
frustration with the psychic effects of being online too much finally
reached a point where something had to give. This change of perspective came
in part from recalling (with even more frustration, actually) what William
James said more than a century ago: that it makes less sense to speak of
having habits than of being habits. We are what we do repeatedly.
Carr borrows from James
the term “plasticity” to describe the receptivity of the brain to the
patterns of thought and feeling imposed by a new medium of communication or
interaction. Yet he doesn’t pay attention to
James’s
advice. It is impossible to deny the convenience
of going online. The trick is to cultivate a willingness to spurn that
convenience, to ignore the benefits, to develop habits that deliberately
negate the ethos of new media. This doesn't mean rejecting the 21st century,
as such. But it does require swimming against the stream, sometimes, rather
than floating on it.
“Keep the faculty of
effort alive in you,” wrote James, “by a little gratuitous exercise every
day. That is, be systematically heroic in little unnecessary points, do
every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty, so that,
when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and
untrained to stand the test. Asceticism of this sort is like the insurance
which a man pays on his house and goods. The tax does him no good at the
time, and possibly may never bring him a return. But, if the fire does come,
his having paid it will be his salvation from ruin.”
The “gratuitous exercise”
required to preserve mental energy from new-media entropy takes several
forms: staying offline and otherwise unavailable for hours (and sometimes
days) at a stretch….tracking down a remembered passage from the hard copy of
a book rather than by searching its Google simulacrum….drafting something on
paper rather than in Word….ignoring the churn of chatter in comments
sections -- or at least paying attention to it only under very controlled
conditions….
These efforts amount to an
individual policy -- not an effort to change the whole culture, which
doesn’t ask my advice in any case. But they’ve kept my brain from turning
into a jumping bean.
“We forget,” said William
James, “that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes
of daily effort. We postpone and postpone, until those smiling possibilities
are dead….. By neglecting the necessary concrete labor, by sparing ourselves
the little daily tax, we are positively digging the graves of our higher
possibilities.” And a shallow one, at that.
Bob Jensen's threads on how the Internet is changing our brains ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm#BrainAlteration
Supply of New Assistant Professors of Accounting
Trends in accounting doctoral programs are rather
interesting (discouraging is a better word).
The best site for data is a
http://www.jrhasselback.com/AtgDoctInfo.html
In particular note the chart at
http://www.jrhasselback.com/AtgDoct/XDocChrt.pdf
This lists the history of accountancy doctoral graduates by university
The annual peak in since 1980 was 207
graduates in Year 1988.
This dropped to 106 graduates in Year
2006.
It has since edged up to about 140 annually.
The large historic producers like Michigan, Illinois, and
Texas have cut way, way back At one time each of these universities were each
graduating over 20 per year and now often graduate less than five per year.
Several noted universities like Rice dropped their accounting doctoral programs
altogether.
I provide some of the key reasons for the decline in the
supply of accounting doctoral graduates at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
One of the main reasons, as Hasselback points out, is that after earning a
masters degree and having one or more years of public accounting experience,
most accounting doctoral students cannot graduate in less than five or
six "full-time" years in a doctoral program. It just takes too long and requires
too many courses in mathematics, statistics, econometrics, and psychometrics.
There is only one doctoral program that I'm aware of that does require all the
quantitative courses. That is the University of Central Florida, and in most
years it does not have any graduates.
I might add that "full-time" generally entails annual
teaching or research assistantship until the latter stages of the doctoral
program when fellowships sometimes kick in to allow more freedom to complete a
dissertation.
At the same time demand for accounting doctoral graduates
rose steadily until the present economic crisis, and even then demand has not
dropped back nearly as much as in other academic disciplines, partly because the
job market for undergraduate and masters students in accounting has held
relatively steady in spite of the economic crisis.
Demand for New Assistant Professors of Accounting
By happenstance I noticed the following advertisement on Page A53 of the June
18, 2010 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education:
OSU
College of Business, Oregon State University invites applicants
for three anticipated full-time (1.0 FTE), nine-month
tenure-tract positions in Accounting at the rank of Assistant
Professor to begin September 2011.
Advertisement continued on Page A53
|
I might add that Corvallis, Oregon is one of the nicest places to live in the
United States ---
http://www.visitcorvallis.com/
So I checked on the current tenure-track faulty at OSU as listed at
http://www.bus.oregonstate.edu/faculty/bio.htm?UserName=BrownC
I mention the above OSU advertisement as anecdotal evidence that there is
still high demand for accountancy doctoral graduates in many exceptionally nice
places to live in spite of university budget woes and the slow economic recovery
taking place in the United States. Of course budget problems could've been the
reason several assistant professors left OSU, although it's not clear how OSU
could replace them in the current market without having what the above
advertisement claims: "Salary is competitive and commensurate with
education and experience." Read that as meaning that OSU intends to offer a
competitive salary to each new hard-to-find graduate of a an accounting doctoral
program.
The sad state of our accounting doctoral programs in North America ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
The sad state of our accounting doctoral programs in North America ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
"When your credit card is lost or stolen, first
notify your credit card company. You should always carry the 800 phone number
that appears on the back of you card in some location other than relying only on
the card for the phone number.
"Internet sleuths get new
way to report stolen data," MIT's
Technology Review, June 17, 2010 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/wire/25638/?nlid=3139&a=f
A new program being spearheaded by Microsoft Corp.
is designed to provide a trusted way for researchers to report stolen credit
card numbers and other data they've found in the dark corners of the
Internet.
Establishing that link is important because when a
researcher finds stolen data, it can be hard to convince a bank or another
affected institution that the data is legitimate. The lost time can mean the
difference between someone's identity being used for fraud, and stopping a
fraud before it occurs.
The program Microsoft is spearheading could greatly
help researchers deal with data they've found online and submitted to
affected companies, said Dan Clements, former president of CardCops, which
specializes in tracking down stolen payment card numbers online.
When researchers find card numbers being sold or
hawked online, "We send it to everybody immediately. We send it to
companies, the government, the consumer -- it's a blitzkrieg. That way they
have all the intel and can act accordingly," he said. "You could call it
scattershot. It's the only way you can assure that we've done our job. But
we have no way of knowing it's effective."
Clements said the speed of the new program -- how
quickly it leads to notifications for affected institutions and consumers --
will be key to whether it is successful.
Some merchants and gambling websites have tried
similar programs in the past. They created databases of stolen cards against
which they'd check transactions, Clements said. But the programs fell apart,
partly because the companies didn't work well together without a middleman,
he said.
The new program is being managed by the National
Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance, a nonprofit organization focused on
cybercrime. Other participating organizations include the American Bankers
Association and eBay Inc.
More banks, retailers and Internet security firms
will be added as they sign up and are vetted by a third party.
Nancy Anderson, Microsoft's deputy general counsel,
said in an interview that the idea for the program came from problems
Microsoft security researchers encountered in their attempts to alert banks
and online retailers to fraud they've discovered.
"When these kinds of credentials are stolen, they
may not get used immediately, so the goal here is to get the information to
the institutions quickly, quickly, quickly, so the appropriate action can be
taken before the damage is done," she said.
Clements said that one weakness of Microsoft's
program is that it won't allow people to anonymously submit what they've
found, which could discourage whistleblowers from coming forward.
He cited an example from CardCops that involved an
insider at an e-commerce company who discovered his company was hacked and
lost 50,000 credit card numbers. The employee said management threatened to
fire him if he disclosed the breach. Clements said CardCops allowed the
employee to disclose the breach anonymously and sent the information to the
banks and the government.
Bob Jensen's threads on fraud reporting are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on computer and network security are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#SpecialSection
Citing a Study at the University of Washingon
"E-Book Readers Bomb on College Campuses," by Allison Damast,
Business Week, June 10, 2010 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/jun2010/bs20100610_200335.htm?link_position=link1
June 17, 2010 reply from Les Livingstone
[jlivingstone@UMUC.EDU]
Bob Jensen correctly points out that E-Book readers
so far are a flop. But this does not mean that E-Books are a flop.
In our MBA accounting/economics/finance course all
3 of our required textbooks are E-Books - which do not use E-Book readers.
These 3 E-Books can be purchased in these formats:
1. Online versions with ads to read online: Free. 2. Online versions without
ads to read online: Under $7 each. 3. Downloadable and printable pdf files:
Under $10 each. 4. Hard copy paperbacks: Under $20 each for two and under
$30 for the largest book. So their combined cost varies between a low of
zero to a high of $70, and no E-Book readers are needed. Any computer will
do. The range of $0 to $70 for 3 textbooks is great in these days of
hardcover textbooks at prices of $100-$200 each.
Lest anyone thinks that these E-Books are of
inferior quality, let me note that one is in its 5th edition, one is in its
2nd edition, and the third is presently being readied for its 2nd edition.
Since most textbooks do not ever reach a 2nd edition, this is an indicator
of good quality.
Student evaluations frequently express joy and
happiness at the quality and low cost of these 3 textbooks.
Best wishes, Les Livingstone
http://leslivingstone.com/
June 17, 2010 reply from Bob Jensen
Thank you Les,
I hope you
won’t mind if I post your reply in various documents on my Website.
Keep in mind
that, because I drive a Subaru, does not mean that I prefer it to a
Mercedes. Hard copy, in some ways, is priced like luxury cars relative to
Subaru models. However, unlike automobiles, inexpensive e-Books have some
advantages over the luxury (higher priced hard copy) versions, including
such things as text search, free book replacement for lost readers,
portability (think of trying to get 100 printed books into a backpack), etc.
Many of us
luddites still board airplanes with paperback books in our carry-on luggage.
And I was one of the early adopters with my Rocket eBook that I now cannot
even find ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ebooks.htm
I did find this technology useful on a couple of trips to China and long
flights to other parts of the world. But it just did not stick with me.
Perhaps when iPad eventually sells a version with a USB/firewire port I will
change my mind.
Bob Jensen
Bob Jensen's threads on electronic book readers ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ebooks.htm
INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT ACCOUNT PROGRAM (IDA)?
This message from my good friend Cindy is off topic, but I think it may be
useful for you to check if the region around your home town has something
similar. This could be great advice to pass along to poor people. San Antonio is
one of the larger cities in the United States and certainly has its share of
residents (counted plus uncounted) below the poverty line.
Cindy works in the Business Office on the Trinity University campus.
Incidentally, San Antonio is ranked as the seventh largest city in the United
States ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio
However, that ranking is misleading, because San Antonio has insignificant
suburbs. San Antonio drops way down in rankings of metropolitan area population.
For example, San Antonio is larger than San Francisco unless you consider
Oakland and the Bay Area suburbs as part of San Francisco. Or is San Francisco
really a relatively small suburb of Oakland?
From: Mundy-Cobb,
Cynthia [mailto:Cynthia.Mundy@trinity.edu]
Sent: Friday, June 25, 2010 4:01 PM
To: TIGERTALK Subject: City of San Antonio has a special program savings for
people with limited income.
Please pass this on to any individual that you
might know who may be able to make use of this program. The City’s
Individual Development Account – IDA program is a special match savings
program for people with limited income. For every dollar you save -up to
$1000 - the City of San Antonio (COSA) will match it with four dollars. ($4
to $1). See below for more information and link for this program.
There are also programs that assist people with
foreclosure counseling.
________________________________________
WHAT IS THE INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT ACCOUNT PROGRAM
(IDA)?
The IDA Program is a special match savings program
for people with limited income. IDA members will receive extra dollars and
the tools needed to get a head start on building for their future by
attaining long term assets. These assets include gaining secondary education
and purchasing a home. For every dollar you save -up to $1000 - the City of
San Antonio (COSA) will match it with four dollars. ($4 to $1)
http://www.sanantonio.gov/comminit/ida/idamain.asp
Cindy Mundy-Cobb
Trinity University Office Manager Business Office
June 26 reply from Wayne Tanna
[wtanna@netserver05.chaminade.edu]
Hi Bob,
Thanks for the
message. We corresponded a while back about the stimulus payments in 2008.
We have an IDA program here in Hawaii that supports first time home buyers,
start up small businesses and post secondary education.
We have been trying to get the
program expanded to buying new cars, especially for people who live in rural
areas where there is no public transportation option which in Hawaii is
pretty much every island other than Oahu where Honolulu the 12th largest
city is located. The reason for the car purchase is so that people can get
to work and thus not fall deeper into poverty.
One of my past students was
the founding executive director of the initial IDA collaborative in Hawaii
and was a past volunteer with our school’s VITA program. We even had a
state law that granted a 50% tax credit, beyond the normal charitable
deduction, for amounts contributed to a Hawaii IDA program’s matching fund
from any for-profit corporation. Unfortunately that law sunsetted a couple
years ago and the financial mess we are all in pretty much guaranteed that
it was not reenacted.
As with most IDA programs
participants here need to accomplish certain things, in addition to making
their savings goals, like classes on financial aid applications (FASFA),
basics of running a business, financial literacy and asset building which
many of our school’s service learning students get to teach. Another great
thing about IDAs is that the matching contribution and the interest on the
match are not subject to income tax so the power of compounding is given
maximum effect.
A group of us are trying to
change our state’s public benefits laws so that IDAs will not count against
asset limitations ($2000 single and $3000 for married couples) for such
things as TANF (welfare) and SNAP (Supplementary Nutrition Assistance
Program or food stamps) so that the climb out of and off of public
assistance is not abruptly interrupted due to having engaged in such a
prudent and forward thinking actions as saving money.
Organizations like the Annie
E. Cassy Foundation as well as various state and federal grant programs
provide the matching funds so if you work with a non profit that serves the
poor and supports programs like VITA and financial literacy this is a great
addition that can draw additional friends and funders.
Aloha,
Wayne
Artificial Intelligence ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence
Future of Artificial Intelligence ---
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Future/Artificial_Intelligence
Why Artificial Intelligence May be Near (slow loading) ---
http://www.robotbooks.com/artificial-intelligence-future.htm
Predicting AI's Future ---
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2001/artificial_intelligence/1555742.stm
"A.I. Gone Awry The Futile Quest for Artificial Intelligence," by
Peter Kassan, Skeptic, June 2010 ---
http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v12n02_AI_gone_awry.html
Thanks to Roger Collins for the Heads Up
On March 24, 2005,
an announcement was made in newspapers across the country, from the New
York Times1
to the San Francisco Chronicle,2
that a company3
had been founded to apply neuroscience research to achieve human-level
artificial intelligence. The reason the press release was so widely picked
up is that the man behind it was Jeff Hawkins, the brilliant inventor of the
PalmPilot, an invention that made him both wealthy and respected.4
You’d think from the news reports that the idea of
approaching the pursuit of artificial human-level intelligence by modeling
the brain was a novel one. Actually, a Web search for “computational
neuroscience” finds over a hundred thousand webpages and several
major research centers.5
At least two journals are devoted to the subject.6
Over 6,000 papers are available online. Amazon lists more than 50 books
about it. A Web search for “human brain project” finds more than
eighteen thousand matches.7
Many researchers think of modeling the human brain or
creating a “virtual” brain a feasible project, even if a “grand challenge.”8
In other words, the idea isn’t a new one.
Hawkins’ approach sounds simple. Create a machine
with artificial “senses” and then allow it to learn, build a model of its
world, see analogies, make predictions, solve problems, and give us their
solutions.9
This sounds eerily similar to what Alan Turing10
suggested in 1948. He, too, proposed to create an
artificial “man” equipped with senses and an artificial brain that could
“roam the countryside,” like Frankenstein’s monster, and learn whatever it
needed to survive.11
The fact is, we have no unifying theory of
neuroscience. We don’t know what to build, much less how to build it.12
As one observer put it, neuroscience appears to be
making “antiprogress” — the more information we acquire, the less we seem to
know.13 Thirty
years ago, the estimated number of neurons was between three and ten
billion. Nowadays, the estimate is 100 billion. Thirty years ago it was
assumed that the brain’s glial cells, which outnumber neurons by nine times,
were purely structural and had no other function. In 2004, it was reported
that this wasn’t true.14
Even the most ardent artificial intelligence (A.I.)
advocates admit that, so far at least, the quest for human-level
intelligence has been a total failure.15
Despite its checkered history, however, Hawkins
concludes A.I. will happen: “Yes, we can build intelligent machines.”16
A Brief History of A.I.
Duplicating or mimicking human-level intelligence
is an old notion — perhaps as old as humanity itself. In the 19th century,
as Charles Babbage conceived of ways to mechanize calculation, people
started thinking it was possible — or arguing that it wasn’t. Toward the
middle of the 20th century, as mathematical geniuses Claude Shannon,17
Norbert Wiener,18
John von Neumann,19
Alan Turing, and others laid the foundations of the
theory of computing, the necessary tool seemed available.
In 1955, a research project on artificial
intelligence was proposed; a conference the following summer is considered
the official inauguration of the field. The proposal20
is fascinating for its assertions, assumptions,
hubris, and naïveté, all of which have characterized the field of A.I. ever
since. The authors proposed that ten people could make significant
progress in the field in two months. That ten-person, two-month
project is still going strong — 50 years later. And it’s involved the
efforts of more like tens of thousands of people.
A.I. has splintered into three largely independent
and mutually contradictory areas (connectionism, computationalism, and
robotics), each of which has its own subdivisions and contradictions. Much
of the activity in each of the areas has little to do with the original
goals of mechanizing (or computerizing) human-level intelligence. However,
in pursuit of that original goal, each of the three has its own set of
problems, in addition to the many that they share.
1. Connectionism
Connectionism is the modern version of a philosophy
of mind known as associationism.21
Connectionism has applications to psychology and
cognitive science, as well as underlying the schools of A.I.22
that include both artificial neural networks23
(ubiquitously said to be “inspired by” the nervous
system) and the attempt to model the brain.
The latest estimates are that the human brain
contains about 30 billion neurons in the cerebral cortex — the part of the
brain associated with consciousness and intelligence. The 30 billion neurons
of the cerebral cortex contain about a thousand trillion synapses
(connections between neurons).24
Without a detailed model of how synapses work on a
neurochemical level, there’s no hope of modeling how the brain works.25
Unlike the idealized and simplified connections in
so-called artificial neural networks, those synapses are extremely variable
in nature — they can have different cycle times, they can use different
neurotransmitters, and so on. How much data must be gathered about each
synapse? Somewhere between kilobytes (tens of thousands of numbers) and
megabytes (millions of numbers).26
And since the cycle time of synapses can be more than
a thousand cycles per second, we may have to process those numbers a
thousand times each second.
Have we succeeded in modeling the brain of any
animal, no matter how simple? The nervous system of a nematode (worm) known
as C. (Caenorhabditis) elegans has been studied extensively for
about 40 years. Several websites27
and probably thousands of scientists are devoted
exclusively or primarily to it. Although C. elegans is a very
simple organism, it may be the most complicated creature to have its nervous
system fully mapped. C. elegans has just over three hundred
neurons, and they’ve been studied exhaustively. But mapping is not the same
as modeling. No one has created a computer model of this nervous system
— and the number of neurons in the human cortex alone is 100 million
times larger. C. elegans has about seven thousand synapses.28
The number of synapses in the human cortex alone is
over 100 billion times larger.
The proposals to achieve human-level artificial
intelligence by modeling the human brain fail to acknowledge the lack of any
realistic computer model of a synapse, the lack of any realistic model of a
neuron, the lack of any model of how glial cells interact with neurons, and
the literally astronomical scale of what is to be simulated.
The typical artificial neural network
consists of no more than 64 input “neurons,” approximately the same number
of “hidden neurons,” and a number of output “neurons” between one and 256.29
This, despite a 1988 prediction by one computer guru
that by now the world should be filled with “neuroprocessors” containing
about 100 million artificial neurons.30
Even if every neuron in each layer of a three-
layer artificial neural net with 64 neurons in each layer is connected to
every neuron in the succeeding layer, and if all the neurons in the output
layer are connected to each other (to allow creation of a “winner-takes-all”
arrangement permitting only a single output neuron to fire), the total
number of “synapses” can be no more than about 17 million, although most
artificial neural networks typically contain much, much less — usually no
more than a hundred or so.
Furthermore, artificial neurons resemble
generalized Boolean logic gates more than actual neurons. Each neuron can be
described by a single number — its “threshold.” Each synapse can be
described by a single number — the strength of the connection — rather than
the estimated minimum of ten thousand numbers required for a real synapse.
Thus, the human cortex is at least 600 billion times more
complicated than any artificial neural network yet devised.
It is impossible to say how many lines of code the
model of the brain would require; conceivably, the program itself might be
relatively simple, with all the complexity in the data for each neuron and
each synapse. But the distinction between the program and the data is
unimportant. If each synapse were handled by the equivalent of only a single
line of code, the program to simulate the cerebral cortex would be roughly
25 million times larger than what’s probably the largest software
product ever written, Microsoft Windows, said to be about 40 million lines
of code.31 As
a software project grows in size, the probability of failure increases.32
The probability of successfully completing a project
25 million times more complex than Windows is effectively zero.
Moore’s “Law” is often invoked at this stage in the
A.I. argument.33
But Moore’s Law is more of an observation than a law,
and it is often misconstrued to mean that about every 18 months computers
and everything associated with them double in capacity, speed, and so on.
But Moore’s Law won’t solve the complexity problem at all. There’s another
“law,” this one attributed to Nicklaus Wirth: Software gets slower faster
than hardware gets faster.34
Even though, according to Moore’s Law, your
personal computer should be about a hundred thousand times more
powerful than it was 25 years ago, your word processor isn’t.
Moore’s Law doesn’t apply to software.
And perhaps last, there is the problem of
testing. The minimum number of software errors observed has been about
2.5 errors per function point.35
A software program large enough to simulate the human
brain would contain about 20 trillion errors.
Testing conventional software (such as a word
processor or Windows) involves, among many other things, confirming that its
behavior matches detailed specifications of what it is intended to do in the
case of every possible input. If it doesn’t, the software is
examined and fixed. Connectionistic software comes with no such
specifications — only the vague description that it is to “learn” a
“pattern” or act “like” a natural system, such as the brain. Even if one
discovers that a connectionistic software program isn’t acting the way you
want it do, there’s no way to “fix” it, because the behavior of the program
is the result of an untraceable and unpredictable network of
interconnections.
Testing connectionistic software is also impossible
due to what’s known as the combinatorial explosion. The retina (of a single
eye) contains about 120 million rods and 7 million cones.36
Even if each of those 127 million neurons were merely
binary, like the beloved 8x8 input grid of the typical artificial neural
network (that is, either responded or didn’t respond to light), the number
of different possible combinations of input is a number greater than 1
followed by 38,230,809 zeroes. (The number of particles in the universe has
been estimated to be about 1 followed by only 80 zeroes.37)
Testing an artificial neural network with input
consisting of an 8x8 binary grid is, by comparison, a small job: such a grid
can assume any of 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 configurations — orders of
magnitude smaller, but still impossible.
2. Computationalism
Computationalism was originally defined as the
“physical symbol system hypothesis,” meaning that “A physical symbol system
has the necessary and sufficient means for general intelligent action.”38
(This is actually a “formal symbol system
hypothesis,” because the actual physical implementation of such a
system is irrelevant.) Although that definition wasn’t published until 1976,
it co-existed with connectionism from the very beginning. It has also been
referred to as “G.O.F.A.I.” (good old-fashioned artificial intelligence).
Computationalism is also referred to as the computational theory of mind.39
Continued in article
"What Is I.B.M.’s Watson?" by Clive Thompson, The New York Times Magazine,
June 14, 2010 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/magazine/20Computer-t.html?th&emc=th
Thanks Steve Hornik
“Toured the Burj in this U.A.E. city. They say it’s
the tallest tower in the world; looked over the ledge and lost my lunch.”
This is the quintessential sort of clue you hear on
the TV game show “Jeopardy!” It’s witty (the clue’s category is “Postcards
From the Edge”), demands a large store of trivia and requires contestants to
make confident, split-second decisions. This particular clue appeared in a
mock version of the game in December, held in Hawthorne, N.Y. at one of
I.B.M.’s research labs. Two contestants — Dorothy Gilmartin, a health
teacher with her hair tied back in a ponytail, and Alison Kolani, a copy
editor — furrowed their brows in concentration. Who would be the first to
answer?
Neither, as it turned out. Both were beaten to the
buzzer by the third combatant: Watson, a supercomputer.
For the last three years, I.B.M. scientists have
been developing what they expect will be the world’s most advanced “question
answering” machine, able to understand a question posed in everyday human
elocution — “natural language,” as computer scientists call it — and respond
with a precise, factual answer. In other words, it must do more than what
search engines like Google and Bing do, which is merely point to a document
where you might find the answer. It has to pluck out the correct answer
itself. Technologists have long regarded this sort of artificial
intelligence as a holy grail,
artificial intelligence as a holy grail, because it
would allow machines to converse more naturally with people, letting us ask
questions instead of typing keywords. Software firms and university
scientists have produced question-answering systems for years, but these
have mostly been limited to simply phrased questions. Nobody ever tackled
“Jeopardy!” because experts assumed that even for the latest artificial
intelligence, the game was simply too hard: the clues are too puzzling and
allusive, and the breadth of trivia is too wide.
With Watson, I.B.M. claims it has cracked the
problem — and aims to prove as much on national TV. The producers of
“Jeopardy!” have agreed to pit Watson against some of the game’s best former
players as early as this fall. To test Watson’s capabilities against actual
humans, I.B.M.’s scientists began holding live matches last winter. They
mocked up a conference room to resemble the actual “Jeopardy!” set,
including buzzers and stations for the human contestants, brought in former
contestants from the show and even hired a host for the occasion: Todd Alan
Crain, who plays a newscaster on the satirical Onion News Network.
Technically speaking, Watson wasn’t in the room. It
was one floor up and consisted of a roomful of servers working at speeds
thousands of times faster than most ordinary desktops. Over its three-year
life, Watson stored the content of tens of millions of documents, which it
now accessed to answer questions about almost anything. (Watson is not
connected to the Internet; like all “Jeopardy!” competitors, it knows only
what is already in its “brain.”) During the sparring matches, Watson
received the questions as electronic texts at the same moment they were made
visible to the human players; to answer a question, Watson spoke in a
machine-synthesized voice through a small black speaker on the game-show
set. When it answered the Burj clue — “What is Dubai?” (“Jeopardy!” answers
must be phrased as questions) — it sounded like a perkier cousin of the
computer in the movie “WarGames” that nearly destroyed the world by trying
to start a nuclear war.
This time, though, the computer was doing the right
thing. Watson won $1,000 (in pretend money, anyway), pulled ahead and
eventually defeated Gilmartin and Kolani soundly, winning $18,400 to their
$12,000 each.
“Watson,” Crain shouted, “is our new champion!”
It was just the beginning. Over the rest of the
day, Watson went on a tear, winning four of six games. It displayed
remarkable facility with cultural trivia (“This action flick starring Roy
Scheider in a high-tech police helicopter was also briefly a TV series” —
“What is ‘Blue Thunder’?”), science (“The greyhound originated more than
5,000 years ago in this African country, where it was used to hunt gazelles”
— “What is Egypt?”) and sophisticated wordplay (“Classic candy bar that’s a
female Supreme Court justice” — “What is Baby Ruth Ginsburg?”).
By the end of the day, the seven human contestants
were impressed, and even slightly unnerved, by Watson. Several made
references to Skynet, the computer system in the “Terminator” movies that
achieves consciousness and decides humanity should be destroyed. “My husband
and I talked about what my role in this was,” Samantha Boardman, a graduate
student, told me jokingly. “Was I the thing that was going to help the A.I.
become aware of itself?” She had distinguished herself with her swift
responses to the “Rhyme Time” puzzles in one of her games, winning nearly
all of them before Watson could figure out the clues, but it didn’t help.
The computer still beat her three times. In one game, she finished with no
money.
“He plays to win,” Boardman said, shaking her head.
“He’s really not messing around!” Like most of the contestants, she had
started calling Watson “he.”
Continued in article
June 16, 2010 reply from J. S. Gangolly
[gangolly@CSC.ALBANY.EDU]
Thanks to Roger for the cite.
While I agree with most stuff in the article, I
think the author has misunderstood the aims of AI as opposed to the hype
that makes some of its practitioners promise more than they can deliver and
so appear to be compulsive liars.
It is interesting that Amy talked about "brain"
that will continue to be needed. I personally think the day is not far off
when "brain" can be substituted. However, "mind", that ugly word that has
been expunged from our vocabulary, thanks to muddle-headed positivist
thinking, is an entirely different matter. I am reminde of a lecture George
Miller (of the Magical number 7 fame) where he he said most psychologists
believed he studied the "mind" while he actually studied the "brain".
It is silly to say that no progress has been made,
unless you anchor progress to wild statements of a few
scientists-turned-business-men. However, it is true that the statements were
wild, and used to drum up financing for their businesses. It was snake oil
and not science.
I am sure there are many contributions of AI to
life in general, but one that I am a bit familiar with is the semantic web
that owes its existence entirely to AI (in particular description logics).
It was devised precisely for the reason given by the author why AI must fail
(complexity). First order logic, as we all know, is not decidable (ie., no
guarantee that a question can be answered in finite time), and therefore AI
research devised description logic, a fragment of FOL that is decidable.
Because of its bad reputation,thanks to the few
too-confident scientists-turned-businessmen, much of the direct AI funding
dried (the so-called AI winter) and much AI research went underground or was
disguised as something else (description logics, for example). The results
are well-buried in present-day software.
As for the future, I think the most promising work
lies at the intersection of physiology, physics, chemistry,... with
computing and mathematics essentially providing the infrastructure. Some
call it computational systems biology. Those interested might like to see
Computational Systems Biology, by Andres Kriete and
Roland Eils Academic Press (November 8, 2005)
A fascinating talk on a tangential topic (debunking
some Freudian myths) is by one of my daughters' teachers at UC San Diego:
http://www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind.html
Jagdish
Bob Jensen's threads on cognitive processes and artificial intelligence
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#CognitiveProcesses
Bob Jensen's threads on tools and tricks of the trade are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
Money as a Motivator
June 18, 2010 message from Bill Ellis
[bill.ellis@furman.edu]
Daniel Pink - Drive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
Bob,
Here’s Daniel Pink’s latest book. This time he presents theories on
motivation. This clever YouTube clip is a great animation explaining a point
made in the book.
Bill Ellis, CPA, MPAcc
Furman University
Accounting UES
864-908-4743
June 19, 2010
reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Bill,
What a great animation video that makes such good points about
compensation.
By the way, this animated video reminds me of why BYU’s variable-speed
videos are so successful for teaching basic accounting ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#BYUvideo
Bob Jensen
Bob Jensen's threads on outrageous compensation are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#OutrageousCompensation
HBR-style Reading Picks
"Summer Reading Picks," by William C. Taylor, Harvard Business Review Blog,
June 22, 2010 ---
Click Here
http://blogs.hbr.org/taylor/2010/06/summer_reading_picks_by_dan_pi.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-DAILY_ALERT-_-AWEBER-_-DATE
Question
Do big bonuses lead to worse performance?
"Does Bigger Bonus Equal Worse Performance?Around the turn of every year,
bankers can think of only one thing: the size of their bonuses," by Dan Ariely,
Wall Street Technology, June 18, 2010 ---
http://wallstreetandtech.com/career-management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=225700612&cid=nl_wallstreettech_daily
Thanks Jagdish!
Around the turn of every year, bankers can think of
only one thing: the size of their bonuses.
Even beyond bonus season, they run different
scenarios and assumptions, trying to calculate their number.
This distracts them so much that the bigger the
bonus at stake, the worse the performance, according to behavioral economist
Dan Ariely, who lays out his theory in his new book "The Upside of
Irrationality" (HarperCollins, $27.99).
"For a long time we trained bankers to think they
are the masters of the universe, have unique skills and deserve to be paid
these amounts," said Ariely, who also wrote the New York Times bestseller
"Predictably Irrational."
"It is going to be hard to convince them that they
don't really have unique skills and that the amount they've been paid for
the past years is too much."
Ariely's findings come as regulators try to rein in
Wall Street's bonus culture after the 2008 financial collapse. The financial
industry argues it needs to pay large bonuses to attract and motivate its
top employees.
In an experiment in India, Ariely measured the
impact of different bonuses on how participants did in a number of tasks
that required creativity, concentration and problem-solving.
One of the tasks was Labyrinth, where the
participants had to move a small steel ball through a maze avoiding holes.
Ariely describes a man he identified as Anoopum, who stood to win the
biggest bonus, staring at the steel ball as if it were prey.
"This is very, very important," Anoopum mumbled to
himself. "I must succeed." But under the gun, Anoopum's hands trembled
uncontrollably, and he failed time after time.
A large bonus was equal to five months of their
regular pay, a medium-sized bonus was equivalent to about two weeks pay and
a small bonus was a day's pay.
There was little difference in the performance of
those receiving the small and medium-sized bonuses, while recipients of
large bonuses performed worst.
SHOCK TREATMENT
More than a century ago, an experiment with rats in
a maze rigged with electric shocks came to a similar conclusion. Every day,
the rats had to learn how to navigate a new maze safely.
When the electric shocks were low, the rats had
little incentive to avoid them. At medium intensity they learned their
environment more quickly.
But when the shock intensity was very high, it
seemed the rats could not focus on anything other than the fear of the
shock.
This may provide lessons for regulators who want to
change Wall Street's bonus culture, Ariely said. Paying no bonus or smaller
bonuses could help fix skewed incentives without loss of talent.
"The reality is, a lot of places are able to
attract great quality people without paying them what bankers are paid,"
Ariely said. "Do you think bankers are inherently smarter than other people?
I don't." (Reporting by Kristina Cooke; Editing by Daniel Trotta)
"Dan Ariely: The Mind's Grey Areas: By controlling situations that
create conflicts of interest, we can combat frauds and scandals better,"
Forbes, June 2010 ---
Click Here
http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/15/forbes-india-dan-ariely-the-minds-grey-areas-opinions-ideas-10-ariely.html?boxes=Homepagelighttop
My interest in the irrationality of human behavior
started many years ago in hospital after I had been badly burned. If you
spend three years in a hospital with 70% of your body covered in burns, you
are bound to notice several irrationalities. The one that bothered me in
particular was the way my nurses would remove the bandage that wrapped my
body. Now, there are two ways to remove a bandage. You can rip it off
quickly, causing intense but short-term pain. Or you can remove it slowly,
causing less intense pain but for a longer time.
My nurses believed in the quick method. It was
incredibly painful, and I dreaded the moment of ripping with remarkable
intensity. I begged them to find a better way to do this, but they told me
that this was the best approach and that they knew the best way for removing
bandages. It was their intuition against mine, and they chose theirs.
Moreover, they thought it unnecessary to test what appeared (to them) to be
intuitively right.
After leaving the hospital, I started doing
experiments that simulated these two ripping methods. And I found that the
nurses were wrong: Quick ripping turned out to be more painful than slow
ripping. In my experiments, I discovered a collection of tricks that could
have been used to lessen the pain or manage it more effectively. For
instance, they could have started from the most painful part of the
treatment and moved to less painful areas to give me a sense of improvement;
they could have given me breaks in between to recover. There are great
lessons to be learned from such experiments, lessons that apply to
economics, markets, policymaking and even our personal lives.
Is there an idea you believe can change the world?
Describe it in the comments section at the bottom of this story, and Forbes
could publish your idea.
As it turns out, it is not that useful, and
sometime even costly, to base our decisions on our intuitions. Instead, we
need to inject some science in the way we go about everyday life because if
one merely keeps following his instincts, he will continue making the same
(preventable) mistakes.
Over the years, I have examined many topics related
to the mistakes we all make when we make decisions, and one topic that I
have explored in some depth is that of cheating behavior, and I would like
to describe this in a bit more depth.
Bob Jensen's threads on rationality and behavioral economics are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#EMH
Bob Jensen's threads on outrageous compensation are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#OutrageousCompensation
"Soluto: Anti-Frustration Software" by
Rick Lillie, Thinking Outside the Box Blog, June 20, 2010 ---
http://iaed.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/soluto-anti-frustration-software/
Now, here’s software
that solves a problem.
Soluto
describes itself as anti-frustration software.
Soluto’s goal is to end frustrations PC users encounter by (1) helping users
to determine which application is causing a problem on your computer, and
(2) harnessing the power of the crowd (that’s all of us) to learn which
actions really eliminate frustrations and improve user experience.
Did I mention that Soluto is free! Click the picture below to
access the Soluto web page. Play the embedded video to see how Soluto
works. Enjoy!
Rick Lillie (CalState, San
Bernardino)
Bob Jensen's technology bookmarks ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob4.htm
"Women to CPA Firms: I Quit!" by Joanne Cleaver, BNET, June 14,
2010 ---
http://blogs.bnet.com/management/?p=1594&tag=content;col1
Thank you Roger Collins for the Heads Up!
I’m no number cruncher, but even I can see that
something’s out of line here:
- Women earn 51 percent of accounting undergrad
degrees
- Women are 51 percent of employees at public
accounting firms
- Women are 17.4 percent of accounting firm
partners
Organizations like
Catalyst and the
American Institute
of Certified Public Accountants have long lamented
that women aren’t making partner. They’ve trotted out the predictable
bromides: flexible work schedules, more mentoring, and more female role
models. But none of that actually targets the crux of the problem: At what
point, exactly, do women quit? Why do they leave? And what can firms and
women do about it?
Recently, the two associations for women in
accounting — the
American Society of Women Accountants and the
American Women’s Society of CPA’s — teamed up with
my research firm to find out. We released the first
Accounting MOVE Report on April 15 (for a little
tax-accountant humor). Our top-line recommendation: With one program, firms
can retain women to partnership and immediately gain clients and revenue.
Really? More money now and more women in the long
run?
Yes. Here’s how: concentrate business development
training at the level where women are most likely to quit. For most firms,
that’s at the senior-manager level — the step right before partner. Our
study of 20 firms found that women are 50 percent of all managers but 40
percent of senior managers. At firms with directors, women accounted for 33
percent. And from there, it was a dizzying drop to 17.4 percent of partners.
(By the way, that 17.4 percent is in line with previous research.)
Here’s what we found at that crucial senior level:
Women promoted to senior manager suddenly realize that to make that final
big step to partner, they must bring in clients. But guess what? They didn’t
get into accounting to be salespeople — at least, that’s what dozens of
women told us. But partners must make rain. And senior managers must learn
to seed the clouds. This is such an unsettling prospect to many female
senior managers that they’d rather defect to the corporate world where, they
believe, they won’t be under the gun to bring in business.
Three years ago New Jersey CPA firm
Rothstein Kass realized that this was a
killer dynamic. Now RK has a constellation of training tools for senior
women poised for partnership. “Rainmakers Roundtable” first coaches each
woman to articulate her own approach to drawing in new clients. When you
hear yourself say it, you own it. Then, the program alternates between three
sales-skills workshops and three networking events. Each networking event
puts into play the newly learned skills. By the last event, the RK women are
networking with senior women at law firms and investment firms.
RK principal Rosalie Mandel has
been the poster girl for many of the firm’s initiatives to advance women. A
decade ago, when she had her first child she forged a part-time,
principal-track schedule. It worked out so well that the managing partners
asked her to lead the firm’s innovations in work-life and advancing women.
She was named principal partly on her successes in those arenas.
Mandel says that because intense career advancement
typically overlaps with intense family responsibilities, it’s incumbent on
firms to clear the internal path so that rising women can tackle
career-derailing issues. “Men have that natural camaraderie,” she says. “You
see that the men who golf with the big guys get pulled forward a little
faster. Women don’t have that. Who has time? You come in to work, and you
work hard so you can get home.”
The Rainmakers Roundtable helps make up for time
spent at school plays rather than after-dinner drinks. Women learn exactly
how to ask for a high-level referral. They forge alliances with similarly
situated women in law and investment banking firms, with the shared goal of
recruiting new clients together, for all. They polish their personal
elevator pitches.
Partly due to the Roundtable, fully half of
Rothstein Kass directors are women. That should translate to a healthy lift
in women partners — now an unimpressive 10 percent — with the next round of
promotions.
New clients = more revenue. Rainmaking women =
qualified potential partners. And that’s how to move the numbers at
accounting firms.
What parallel dilemmas challenge women in your
industry? Could the Rainmakers Roundtable be adapted to the particular
challenges facing upper-middle management women in your company?
Women Partners in the Big 4 Accounting Firms
For the tenth consecutive year, Deloitte & Touche USA
LLP tops the Big Four accounting firms in percentage of women partners,
principals and directors, according to Public Accounting Report's 2006 Survey of
Women in Public Accounting. The survey revealed that Deloitte's percentage of
women partners, principals and directors is currently 19.3 percent, surpassing
that of KPMG (16.8 percent), Pricewaterhouse Coopers (15.8 percent) and Ernst &
Young (13.5 percent). Deloitte has held this lead every year since the inception
of the survey in 1997, according to Jonathan Hamilton, editor, Public Accounting
Report.
SmartPros, December 26, 2006 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x55948.xml
Women now make up more than 60 percent of
all accountants and auditors in the United States, according to the
Clarion-Ledger. That is an estimated 843,000 women in the accounting and
auditing work force.
AccountingWeb, "Number of Female Accountants Increasing," June 2,
2006 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=102218
Jensen Comment
Nearly 20 years ago, Deloitte embarked on a "Women's Initiative" to
help female employees break the glass ceiling ---
http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/section_node/0,1042,sid=2261,00.htm
The AAA Commons has a hive on Diversity ---
http://commons.aaahq.org/pages/home
Bob Jensen's threads on accounting careers are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#careers
"Of geeks and goalies," The Economist Magazine's Babbage
Blog, June 26, 2010 ---
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage?fsrc=nlw|pub|03_30_2010|publishers_newsletter
. . .
Subsequent analysis revealed 15 previously unknown
indicators of where the ball might go (he also tested 12 indicators which
had already been studied in sports literature). Three patterns of
coordinated "distributed movements" turned out to be telltales. As Mr Diaz
explains in a
press release:
"When a goalkeeper is in a penalty situation,
they can't wait until the ball is in the air before choosing whether to
jump left or right--a well-placed penalty kick will get past them. As a
consequence, you see goalkeepers jumping before the foot hits the ball.
My question is: Are they making a choice better than chance (50/50), and
if so, what kind of information might they be using to make their
choice?"
"When, for example, you shift the angle of your
planted foot, perhaps in an attempt to hide the direction of the kick,
you're changing your base of support. In order to maintain stability,
maybe you have to do something else like move your arm. And it just
happens naturally. If this happens over and over again, over time your
motor system may learn to move the arm at the same time as the foot. In
this way the movement becomes one single distributed movement, rather
than several sequential movements. A synergy is developed."
The next step was to see how good 31 novices were
at predicting the trajectory when shown an animation of the motion capture
data which blacked out at the point of contact between the foot and the
ball. Although fifteen were no better than chance, the remaining 16 were.
One observed difference between the two groups was the response time, longer
for the successful predictors. (Responses which took more than half a second
following the blackout went unrecorded.) Whether this would ultimately
translate into better performance remains moot. England's keeper may well
hope so. Its strikers probably don't.
PS To be fair, this time England are approaching
possible penalties very methodically, even enlisting
the help of statisticians.
PPS The following anecdote is entirely extraneous
to the topic at hand but it cries out for a mention. In the 2006 shoot-out
against Argentina Germany's then goalkeeper, Jens Lehmann, notoriously
carried a list of where the rival strikers put their penalties tucked in his
sock. He actually went in the right direction--clearly a prerequisite for
success--every time, saving two Argentine attempts. As Esteban Cambiasso
steadied himself for the decisive shot, the German goalie conspicuously
consulted a crumpled piece of paper pulled out from under his shin pad.
Discomfited, the striker sent the orb to the right, directly into the hands
of the lunging Lehmann. Adding insult to injury, it later transpired that he
wasn't even on the list.
This is only the ending part of the article
Related items from Jensen's archives:
Goal Tenders versus Movers and Shakers
Skate to where the puck is going, not to where it is.
Wayne Gretsky (as quoted for many years by Jerry Trites
at
http://www.zorba.ca/ )
Jensen Comment
This may be true for most hockey players and other movers and shakers,
but for goal tenders the eyes should be focused on where the puck is at
every moment --- not where it's going. The question is whether an
accountant is a goal tender (stewardship responsibilities) or a mover
and shaker (part of the managerial decision making team). This is also
the essence of the debate of historical accounting versus pro forma
accounting.
Graduate student Derek Panchuk and professor
Joan Vickers, who discovered the Quiet Eye phenomenon, have just
completed the most comprehensive, on-ice hockey study to determine where
elite goalies focus their eyes in order to make a save. Simply put, they
found that goalies should keep their eyes on the puck. In an article to
be published in the journal Human Movement Science, Panchuk and Vickers
discovered that the best goaltenders rest their gaze directly on the
puck and shooter's stick almost a full second before the shot is
released. When they do that they make the save over 75 per cent of the
time.
"Keep your eyes on the puck," PhysOrg, October 26, 2006 ---
http://physorg.com/news81068530.html
Government Aid Will Still Flow to For-Profit College Programs of Dubious
Quality
"Education Dept. Will Release Stricter Rules for For-Profits but Delays One on
'Gainful Employment'," by Kelly Fields and Jennifer Gonzalez, Chronicle of
Higher Education, June 15, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Education-Dept-Will-Release/65958/
After an intense lobbying effort by for-profit
colleges, the Education Department announced Tuesday that it will postpone
the release of a rule that proprietary institutions said would shutter
thousands of their programs.
The rule, which would cut off federal student aid
to programs whose graduates carry high student-loan debt relative to their
incomes, is one of 14 that the department and college stakeholders have been
negotiating over the past eight months. The other regulations, including one
that would tighten a ban on incentive compensation for college recruiters,
will be made public Friday.
In a call with reporters Tuesday, an Education
Department official said the agency still plans to hold for-profits
accountable for preparing their graduates for "gainful employment," but
needs more time to develop an appropriate measure of that outcome. The
official said the proposal will be released later this summer, and will most
likely be included in a package of final rules due out in November.
"We have many areas of agreement where we can move
forward," Arne Duncan, the U.S. secretary of education, said in a statement.
"But some key issues around gainful employment are complicated, and we want
to get it right, so we will be coming back with that shortly."
The delay gives for-profit
colleges more time to fight the department's proposal to bar aid for
programs in which a majority of students' loan payments would exceed 8
percent of the lowest quarter of graduates' expected earnings, based on a
10-year repayment plan. The colleges have already spent hundreds of
thousands of dollars
pushing an alternative that would require programs
to provide prospective students with more information about their graduates'
debt levels and salaries.
Their lobbying and public-relations blitz has met
with mixed success. While the department has not yet abandoned plans to
measure graduates' debt-to-income ratios, the rules that will be released
Friday would require programs to disclose their graduation and job-placement
rates and median debt levels—the approach favored by for-profits.
A Welcome Delay Trace A. Urdan, an analyst with
Signal Hill Capital Group, said the delay in releasing the rest of the rule
suggested that "the department has heard the message from industry and
Congress, and that there was some overreaching."
"Clearly, trying to gather more data before
proceeding is being responsible," he added.
For-profit colleges have complained that the
department has refused to release the data it used to justify drafting the
rule, and have questioned whether they even exist.
The fight over gainful employment comes amid
increased federal scrutiny of the for-profit sector, which educates a
growing share of students and is highly dependent on federal student aid. On
Thursday, the education committee of the U.S. House of Representatives will
hold a hearing to examine whether accrediting agencies are doing enough to
ensure that students studying online are getting an adequate amount of
instruction for the degrees they earn. The hearing will focus on a recent
report by the Education Department's Office of Inspector General that
questioned the decision of the Higher Learning Commission of the North
Central Association of Colleges and Schools, one of the nation's major
regional accrediting organizations, to approve accreditation of American
InterContinental University, a for-profit college owned by the Career
Education Corporation. The Senate education committee follows with a hearing
next week focused on the growth of the for-profit sector and the risks that
may pose to taxpayers.
In a statement issued Tuesday, the chairman of the
Senate committee praised the proposed rules. "The federal government must
ensure that the more than $20-billion in student aid that these schools
receive is being well spent and students are being well informed and well
served," said Sen. Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa. "For-profit colleges must
work for students and taxpayers, not just shareholders."
Meanwhile, a top Republican on the panel, Sen.
Lamar Alexander, of Tennessee, called the disclosures that would be required
by the rules that will be released on Friday "much better than the first
approach on gainful employment." Mr. Alexander, a former secretary of
education, had threatened to offer an amendment to withhold the funds needed
to put the rule into effect if the department followed through with its
original proposal.
"Secretary Duncan is focusing on a real problem,"
he said. "Some students are borrowing too much and not getting enough value
for what they are paying."
Tougher Stance on Recruitment But if the department
is showing signs that it may soften its stance on gainful employment, it has
dug in its heels on another controversial issue: recruiter compensation.
During negotiations over the rules, the department proposed striking a dozen
"safe harbors" from a ban on compensating recruiters based on student
enrollment. It followed through with that proposal in the rules due out
Friday, while promising to provide guidance on what is—and isn't—allowed
under the ban.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on for-profit colleges operating in the gray zone of
fraud ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud
One of my heroes in life is Frank Partnoy
I quote him scores of times at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds
"Living Like It's 1931: Law professor Frank Partnoy questions
whether the regulatory reform bill under debate in Congress will be enough to
move the economy toward prosperity," by Sarah Johnson, CFO.com, June
17, 2010 ---
http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/14505447/c_14505581?f=home_todayinfinance
The calendar says 2010, but Frank Partnoy believes
that in certain respects, we're living like it's 1931. That was a
transitional year between the 1929 stock market crash and the passing of two
transformative securities laws, in 1933 and 1934, that established a
regulatory body for public companies, mandated widespread financial
reporting, and created antifraud remedies.
Seven decades later, optimists would like to
believe that the regulatory reform bill in Congress will mark the beginning
of better days for the U.S. economy. But Partnoy, a University of San Diego
law and finance professor and longtime follower of regulatory reforms,
thinks 2010 will likewise be considered a transitional time. "We're still in
the middle of the ball game in terms of regulatory response," he told CFO in
a recent interview.
In Partnoy's view, the regulatory response to the
financial crisis thus far has been "muddled." Congress is plodding through
more than 1,500 pages of reforms that will affect various areas of the U.S.
financial system. The reforms include a new government authority to prevent
financial institutions from becoming too big to fail, a consumer protection
agency, regulations for the derivatives market, and even some measures that
could be deemed antiregulation (such as a provision that would exempt the
smallest U.S. publicly traded companies from getting an audit opinion on
their internal controls).
The bill is expected to be finalized at the end of
this month. Around the same time, Partnoy will speak about the new
regulatory reforms and their resemblance to past reforms at the upcoming CFO
Core Concerns Conference, to be held June 27-29 in Baltimore. An edited
version of CFO's recent interview with Partnoy follows.
How can we assess whether the new legislation will
be successful? The only way we'll know is to wait and hope. If we could go
back in time a few years with these proposed rules, would the crisis have
been prevented? The answer is no. Congress is considering more than 1,500
pages of reform, but most of that is not directed at problems that would
have prevented the crisis.
What piece of the legislation do you most hope will
survive the process? The most crucial part is the removal of regulatory
references to credit ratings. I have my fingers crossed that it will pass.
Participants in the financial markets need to stop relying on Moody's and
S&P.
Why isn't a similar proposal by the Securities and
Exchange Commission to end the practice good enough? The SEC doesn't have
the power to change a statute; Congress does. And many of these references
extend beyond the securities area, outside the purview of the SEC. In
addition, it's important for Congress to fire a shot across the bow of all
regulators to let them know that it's not appropriate to rely on ratings.
It's the kind of reform that needs to come from the top, and that means
Congress.
In a joint paper with former SEC chief accountant
Lynn Turner, you called on Congress to "clarify that financial statements
have primacy over footnotes, not the other way around." Why do you think our
financial-reporting system has evolved to become, in your view, not as
transparent as it should be? It's been a slow evolution that has been driven
by lobbying, in particular by major financial institutions. This started in
the 1980s, when accounting standard-setters were trying to figure out
whether swaps should be accounted for on the balance sheet. Once that
argument was lost — once we went down the road of saying that swaps were
different — it was a very slippery slope. There's a focused group of market
participants who benefit from off-balance-sheet treatment but only a few who
represent investor interests. Analysts are in an interesting position
because on the one hand, they would be able to do a better job if they had
more information about exposures and liabilities. But if everything is
off-balance-sheet, they have a comparative advantage in finding out what's
buried on page 246 of Form 10-K.
Do you see any signs that this issue will be
addressed in the legislation? Congress, Wall Street, and large institutional
investors all seem to have united against putting these financial
instruments on the balance sheet. It seems unlikely that there will be any
kind of substantive change.
What's your view on proposed reforms for
derivatives? What I regard as the most important reform has met with mixed
reactions. That would be simply for banks to more accurately report their
exposure to derivatives and give better information about worst-case
scenarios. Those initiatives have taken a back seat to the push for
requiring that derivatives be traded on exchanges, and then for trying to
move derivatives outside of the banking sector. Keep in mind, the
transactions that generated the crisis were not transactions that would ever
find a home on an exchange. They're private, custom-tailored deals that fall
outside of the legislation. Paradoxically, we might end up with a law that
will hurt useful markets in plain-vanilla derivatives, yet will not resolve
problems.
Another one of my heroes is former Coopers partner and SEC Chief Accountant
Lynn Turner. My two heroes, Turner and Partnoy, write about how bank financial
statements should be classified under "Fiction."
Frank
Partnoy and Lynn Turner contend that bank accounting is an exercise in writing
fiction:
Watch the video! (a bit slow loading)
Lynn Turner is Partnoy's co-author of the white paper "Make Markets Be Markets"
"Bring Transparency to Off-Balance Sheet Accounting," by Frank Partnoy,
Roosevelt Institute, March 2010 ---
http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/policy-and-ideas/ideas-database/bring-transparency-balance-sheet-accounting
Watch the great video!
Great Speeches About the State of Accountancy
"20th Century Myths," by Lynn Turner when he was still Chief Accountant at the
SEC in 1999 ---
http://www.sec.gov/news/speech/speecharchive/1999/spch323.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm
Bob Jensen's timeline of derivative financial instruments frauds can be
found at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds
Instead of returning his iPad, Peter Bregman needs to consult a shrink
"Why I Returned My iPad," by Peter Bregman, Harvard Business Review
Blog, June 15, 2010 ---
Click Here
http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2010/06/why-i-returned-my-ipad.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-DAILY_ALERT-_-AWEBER-_-DATE
Jensen Comment
Firstly, nearly everything that that Peter's doing on an iPad can be done on a
laptop (possibly with a little less fun turning pages) with only slightly less
portability and more functionality. Does he really want to give up his laptop as
well? Personally I doubt it.
Secondly, even with an iPad at hand, there are some chores that must be
performed in boredom where the mind can think great thoughts or have
silly/erotic daydreams. Examples include the following:
- Taking a walk on a mountain trail
- Living deep in the mountains where the only networks are bird calls
- Sailing a boat
- Driving a car
- Mowing the yard
- Watching television commercials
- Watching television shows
- Weeding or planting a garden
- Listening to a speaker reading a speech aloud
- Watching a speaker click to his/her 131st PowerPoint slide
- Grading verbose and uninspiring term papers
- Conversing with a spouse and injecting "yes dear" like
Walter
Mitty at random times ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Mitty
- Giving a lecture for the 41st time (oops)
- Trying to focus on a particularly dull sermon (oops)
- Reading emails from Bob Jensen (oops)
My guess is that in a very short time Peter Bregman will want purchase
another iPad or upgrade to a more powerful laptop. Of course this will mean less
reading time for 20th Century National Geographic magazines strewn about
a dentist's waiting room.
"CEO Interviews on CNBC," by Felix Meschke and Andy (Young Han) Kim
Nanyang, SSRN, June 20, 2010 ---
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1627683
Thanks to Jim Mahar for this link.
Abstract:
This paper investigates whether media attention systematically affects stock
prices by analyzing price and volume reactions to 6,937 CEO interviews that
were broadcast on CNBC between 1997 and 2006. We document a significant
positive abnormal return of 162 basis points accompanied by abnormally high
trading volume over the [-2, 0] trading day window. After the interviews,
prices exhibit strong mean reversion; over the following ten trading days,
the cumulative abnormal return is negative 108 basis points. The pattern is
robust even after controlling for the announcements of major corporate
events and surrounding news articles. We also find that one standard
deviation larger abnormal viewership is associated with a 0.5% higher event
day abnormal return and 0.5% larger post-event reversals. Furthermore, we
find evidence that enthusiastic individual investors are more likely to
trade purely based on CNBC interviews not confounded by any events or news
articles. These price and volume dynamics suggest that the financial news
media is able to generate transitory buying pressure by catching the
attention of enthusiastic individual investors.
Jensen Comment
I suspect it is safe to extrapolate (somewhat at least) these results to CEO
comments in other similar and widely watched media services on stock picking in
such places as the WSJ, NYT, Yahoo Finance, Motley Fools, etc.
Bob Jensen's threads on the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#EMH
Question
Can you detect when Jeff Skilling lied just by studying his face?
"Guest Post: Fraud Girl – Can We Detect Lying From Nonverbal Cues?"
Simoleon Sense, June 20, 2010 ---
http://www.simoleonsense.com/guest-post-fraud-girl-can-we-detect-lying-from-nonverbal-cues/
This includes a video of Jeff Skilling's testimony
“The greatest past users of deception…are
highly individualistic and competitive; they would not easily fit into a
large organization…and tend to work by themselves. They are often
convinced of the superiority of their own opinions. They do in some ways
fit the supposed character of the lonely, eccentric bohemian artist,
only the art they practice is different. This is apparently the only
common denominator for great practitioners of deception such as
Churchill, Hitler, Dayan, and T.E. Lawrence”
-Michael I. Handel (58)
Welcome Back.
Last week we wrapped up Part II of the Fraud by
Hindsight case. We noted that hindsight bias is a major concern in
securities litigation & fraud cases. We explained how fraud by hindsight
leads judges to misinterpret relevant facts and such let financial criminals
off the hook.
This week we will analyze the work of Paul Ekman, a
professor at the University of California who has spent approximately 50
years analyzing human emotions and nonverbal communication. Ekman’s work is
featured in the television show “Lie to Me”. One of his most popular books,
Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage,
describes “how lies vary in form and how they can differ from other types of
misinformation that can reveal untruths”. He claims that although
‘professional lie hunters’ can learn how to recognize a lie, the so-called
‘natural liars’ can still fool them.
So the question is:
Can most financial felons be classified as ‘natural
liars’? If so, is it at all possible to catch them via their body language,
voice, and facial expressions?
To test this, I examined (a clip from) the February
2002 testimony of former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling to see if I could spot any
deception clues. In his testimony, Skilling pleads that his resignation from
Enron was solely for personal reasons and that he had no knowledge that
Enron was on the brink of collapse. In order to not be misled by Skilling’s
words, I watched the testimony without sound and focused solely on his
facial expressions and body movements. Ekman noted, “most people pay most
attention to the least trustworthy sources – words and facial expressions –
and so are easily misled” (81). In trying to be coherent with Ekman’s
beliefs, this is what I found on Jeff Skilling:
Video of Jeff Skilling's testimony
Continued in article
http://www.simoleonsense.com/guest-post-fraud-girl-can-we-detect-lying-from-nonverbal-cues/
Related References from Bob Jensen's Archives
Question
What new technology reads emotions in faces?
A demonstration version of the face detection and analysis software package
is available for download at:
http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/EN/bf/bv/kognitiv/biom/dd.jsp
"Happy, sad, angry or astonished?" PhysOrg, July 3, 2007 ---
An advertisement for a new perfume is hanging in
the departure lounge of an airport. Thousands of people walk past it every
day. Some stop and stare in astonishment, others walk by, clearly amused.
And then there are those who seem puzzled when they look at the poster.
With the help of a small video camera, the system
automatically localizes the faces of everyone who walks past the
advertisement. And nothing escapes its watchful eye: Does the passerby look
happy, surprised, sad or even angry?
The system for rapid facial analysis is being
developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits
IIS in Erlangen. Highly complex algorithms immediately localize human faces
in the image, differentiate between men and women and analyze their
expressions.
“The special feature of our facial analysis
software is that it operates in real time,” says Dr. Christian Küblbeck,
project manager at the IIS. “What’s more, it is able to localize and analyze
a large number of faces simultaneously.” The most important facial
characteristics used by the system are the contours of the face, the eyes,
the eyebrows and the nose. First of all, the system has to go through a
training phase in which it is presented with huge quantities of data
containing images of faces. In normal operation, the computer compares
30,000 facial characteristics with the information that it has previously
learned.
“On a standard PC, the calculations are carried out
so quickly that mood changes can be tracked live,” explains Küblbeck.
However, we do not need to worry about an invasion of our privacy, as the
software analyzes the data on a purely statistical basis.
The software package is not only of interest to
advertising psychologists; there are numerous potential applications for the
system. It can be used, for example, to test the user-friendliness of
computer software programs. The system monitors the facial expressions of
the user in order to determine which aspects of the program arouse a
particularly strong reaction. Alternatively, it can assess the reactions of
the users of learning software, in order to establish the extent to which
they are put under stress or challenged by the task they are performing. The
system could also be used to check the levels of concentration of car
drivers.
A demonstration version of the face detection and analysis software
package is available for download at:
http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/EN/bf/bv/kognitiv/biom/dd.jsp
Question
What new technology reads emotions in faces?
A demonstration version of the face detection and analysis software package
is available for download at:
http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/EN/bf/bv/kognitiv/biom/dd.jsp
"Happy, sad, angry or astonished?" PhysOrg, July 3, 2007 ---
An advertisement for a new perfume is hanging in
the departure lounge of an airport. Thousands of people walk past it every
day. Some stop and stare in astonishment, others walk by, clearly amused.
And then there are those who seem puzzled when they look at the poster.
With the help of a small video camera, the system
automatically localizes the faces of everyone who walks past the
advertisement. And nothing escapes its watchful eye: Does the passerby look
happy, surprised, sad or even angry?
The system for rapid facial analysis is being
developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits
IIS in Erlangen. Highly complex algorithms immediately localize human faces
in the image, differentiate between men and women and analyze their
expressions.
“The special feature of our facial analysis
software is that it operates in real time,” says Dr. Christian Küblbeck,
project manager at the IIS. “What’s more, it is able to localize and analyze
a large number of faces simultaneously.” The most important facial
characteristics used by the system are the contours of the face, the eyes,
the eyebrows and the nose. First of all, the system has to go through a
training phase in which it is presented with huge quantities of data
containing images of faces. In normal operation, the computer compares
30,000 facial characteristics with the information that it has previously
learned.
“On a standard PC, the calculations are carried out
so quickly that mood changes can be tracked live,” explains Küblbeck.
However, we do not need to worry about an invasion of our privacy, as the
software analyzes the data on a purely statistical basis.
The software package is not only of interest to
advertising psychologists; there are numerous potential applications for the
system. It can be used, for example, to test the user-friendliness of
computer software programs. The system monitors the facial expressions of
the user in order to determine which aspects of the program arouse a
particularly strong reaction. Alternatively, it can assess the reactions of
the users of learning software, in order to establish the extent to which
they are put under stress or challenged by the task they are performing. The
system could also be used to check the levels of concentration of car
drivers.
A demonstration version of the face detection and analysis software
package is available for download at:
http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/EN/bf/bv/kognitiv/biom/dd.jsp
Questions
Has the art and science of reading faces ever been part of an auditing
curriculum?
Have there been any accountics studies of Ekman's theories as applied to
auditing behavioral experiments?
(I can imagine that some accounting doctoral students have not experimented
along these lines?)
Paul Ekman video on how to read faces and detect lying ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA8nYZg4VnI
This video runs for nearly one hour
Paul Ekman ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ekman
Ekman's work on facial expressions had its starting
point in the work of psychologist
Silvan Tomkins.[Ekman
showed that contrary to the belief of some
anthropologists including
Margaret Mead, facial expressions of emotion are
not culturally determined, but universal across human cultures and
thus
biological in origin. Expressions he found to be
universal included those indicating
anger,
disgust,
fear,
joy,
sadness, and
surprise. Findings on
contempt are less
clear, though there is at least some preliminary evidence that this emotion
and its expression are universally recognized.]
In a research project along with Dr. Maureen
O'Sullivan, called the
Wizards Project (previously named the
Diogenes Project), Ekman reported on facial "microexpressions"
which could be used to assist in lie detection. After testing a total of
15,000 [EDIT: This value conflicts with the 20,000 figure given in the
article on Microexpressions] people from all walks of life, he found only 50
people that had the ability to spot deception without any formal training.
These naturals are also known as "Truth Wizards", or wizards of
deception detection from demeanor.
He developed the
Facial Action Coding System (FACS) to taxonomize
every conceivable human facial expression. Ekman conducted and published
research on a wide variety of topics in the general area of non-verbal
behavior. His work on lying, for example, was not limited to the face, but
also to observation of the rest of the body.
In his profession he also uses verbal signs of
lying. When interviewed about the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he mentioned that
he could detect that former President
Bill Clinton was lying because he used
distancing language.
Ekman has contributed much to the study of social
aspects of lying, why we lie,
and why we are often unconcerned with detecting lies.
He is currently on the Editorial Board of Greater Good magazine,
published by the
Greater Good Science Center of the
University of California, Berkeley. His
contributions include the interpretation of scientific research into the
roots of compassion, altruism, and peaceful human relationships. Ekman is
also working with Computer Vision researcher
Dimitris Metaxas on designing a visual
lie-detector.
Research Papers Worth
Reading On Deceit, Body Language, Influence etc.. (with
links to pdfs)
Sixteen Enjoyable Emotions. – (2003)
Emotion Researcher, 18, 6-7. by Ekman, P
“Become Versed in Reading Faces”.
Entrepreneur, 26 March 2009. Ekman, P. (2009)
Intoduction: Expression Of Emotion - In RJ
Davidson, KR Scherer, & H.H. Goldsmith (Eds.) Handbook
of Afective Sciences. Pp. 411-414.Keltner, D. & Ekman, P
(2003)
Facial Expression Of Emotion. – In M.Lewis
and J Haviland-Jones (eds) Handbook of emotions, 2nd
edition. Pp. 236-249. New York: Guilford Publications,
Inc. Keltner, D. & Ekman, P. (2000)
Emotional And Conversational Nonverbal Signals.
– In L.Messing & R. Campbell (eds.) Gesture, Speech and
Sign. Pp. 45-55. London: Oxford University Press.
A Few Can Catch A Liar. - Psychological
Science, 10, 263-266. Ekman, P., O’Sullivan, M., Frank,
M. (1999)
Deception, Lying And Demeanor.- In States
of Mind: American and Post-Soviet Perspectives on
Contemporary Issues in Psychology . D.F. Halpern and
A.E.Voiskounsky (Eds.) Pp. 93-105. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Lying And Deception. – In N.L. Stein, P.A.
Ornstein, B. Tversky & C. Brainerd (Eds.) Memory for
everyday and emotional events. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, 333-347.
Lies That Fail.- In M. Lewis & C. Saarni
(Eds.) Lying and deception in everyday life. Pp.
184-200. New York: Guilford Press.
Who Can Catch A Liar. -American
Psychologist, 1991, 46, 913-120.
Hazards In Detecting Deceit. In D. Raskin,
(Ed.) Psychological Methods for Investigation and
Evidence. New York: Springer. 1989. (pp 297-332)
Self-Deception And Detection Of Misinformation.
In J.S. Lockhard & D. L. Paulhus (Eds.) Self-Deception:
An Adaptive Mechanism?. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1988. Pp. 229- 257.
Smiles When Lying. – Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 1988, 54, 414-420.
Felt- False- And Miserable Smiles.Ekman, P.
& Friesen, W.V.
Mistakes When Deceiving. Annals of the New
York Academy of Sciences. 1981, 364, 269-278.
Nonverbal Leakage And Clues To Deception
Psychiatry, 1969, 32, 88-105.
"You Can't Hide Your Lying Brain (or Can You?), by Tom Bartlett,
Chronicle of Higher Education, May 6, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/You-Cant-Hide-Your-Lying/23780/
Earlier this week Wired reported that a Brooklyn
lawyer wanted to use fMRI brain scans to prove that his client was telling
the truth. The case itself is an average employer-employee dispute, but
using brains scans to tell whether someone is lying—which a few, small
studies have suggested might be useful—would set a precedent for
neuroscience in the courtroom. Plus, I'm pretty sure they did something like
this on Star Trek once.
But why go to all the trouble of scanning someone's
brain when you can just count how many times the person blinks? A study
published this month in Psychology, Crime & Law found that when people were
lying they blinked significantly less than when they were telling the truth.
The authors suggest that lying requires more thinking and that this
increased cognitive load could account for the reduction in blinking.
For the study, 13 participants "stole" an exam
paper while 13 others did not. All 26 were questioned and the ones who had
committed the mock theft blinked less when questioned about it than when
questioned about other, unrelated issues. The innocent 13 didn't blink any
more or less. Incidentally, the blinking was measured by electrodes, not
observation.
But the authors aren't arguing that the blink
method should be used in the courtroom. In fact, they think it might not
work. Because the stakes in the study were low--no one was going to get into
any trouble--it's unclear whether the results would translate to, say, a
murder investigation. Maybe you blink less when being questioned about a
murder even if you're innocent, just because you would naturally be nervous.
Or maybe you're guilty but your contacts are bothering you. Who knows?
By the way, the lawyer's request to introduce the
brain scanning evidence in court was rejected, but lawyers in another case
plan to give it a shot later this month.
(The abstract of the study, conducted by Sharon
Leal and Aldert Vrij, can be found here. The company that administers the
lie-detection brain scans is called Cephos and their confident slogan is
"The Science Behind the Truth.")
"What new technology reads emotions in faces?," by Duncan Graham-Rowe, MIT's
Technology Review, March 27, 2007 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18438/
Computer scientists at the University of Pittsburgh
have developed a way to make e-mails, instant messaging, and texts just a
bit more personalized. Their software will allow people to use images of
their own faces instead of the more traditional emoticons to communicate
their mood. By automatically warping their facial features, people can use a
photo to depict any one of a range of different animated emotional
expressions, such as happy, sad, angry, or surprised.
All that is needed is a single photo of the person,
preferably with a neutral expression, says Xin Li, who developed the system,
called Face Alive Icons. "The user can upload the image from their camera
phone," he says. Then, by keying in familiar text symbols, such as ":)" for
a smile, the user automatically contorts the face to reflect his or her
desired expression.
"Already, people use avatars on message boards and
in other settings," says Sheryl Brahnam, an assistant professor of computer
information systems at MissouriStateUniversity, in Springfield. In many
respects, she says, this system bridges the gap between emoticons and
avatars.
This is not the first time that someone has tried
to use photos in this way, says Li, who now works for Google in New York
City. "But the traditional approach is to just send the image itself," he
says. "The problem is, the size will be too big, particularly for
low-bandwidth applications like PDAs and cell phones." Other approaches
involve having to capture a different photo of the person for each unique
emoticon, which only further increases the demand for bandwidth.
Li's solution is not to send the picture each time
it is used, but to store a profile of the face on the recipient device. This
profile consists of a decomposition of the original photo. Every time the
user sends an emoticon, the face is reassembled on the recipient's device in
such a way as to show the appropriate expression.
To make this possible, Li first created generic
computational models for each type of expression. Working with Shi-Kuo
Chang, a professor of computer science at the University of Pittsburgh, and
Chieh-Chih Chang, at the Industrial Technology Research Institute, in
Taiwan, Li created the models using a learning program to analyze the
expressions in a database of facial expressions and extract features unique
to each expression. Each of the resulting models acts like a set of
instructions telling the program how to warp, or animate, a neutral face
into each particular expression.
Once the photo has been captured, the user has to
click on key areas to help the program identify key features of the face.
The program can then decompose the image into sets of features that change
and those that will remain unaffected by the warping process.
Finally, these "pieces" make up a profile that,
although it has to be sent to each of a user's contacts, must only be sent
once. This approach means that an unlimited number of expressions can be
added to the system without increasing the file size or requiring any
additional pictures to be taken.
Li says that preliminary evaluations carried out on
eight subjects viewing hundreds of faces showed that the warped expressions
are easily identifiable. The results of the evaluations are published in the
current edition of the Journal of Visual Languages and Computing.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on visualization ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/352wpvisual/000datavisualization.htm
"Volcker and Derivatives: The end game for financial reform,"
The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2010 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704853404575323032606552688.html
Financial reform in the hands of a Democratic
Congress is looking eerily similar to health-care reform: Public skepticism
is proving to be no brake on the liberal ambitions, and substance is
increasingly divorced from the problems Washington claims to be solving.
The bill emerging from House-Senate conference
seems less concerned with preventing future bank bailouts than with
preventing future bank profits. And if some Main Street companies suffer
collateral damage in the drive to reduce Wall Street's over-the-counter
derivatives trading, Democrats appear to view them as acceptable casualties.
As early as today, House and Senate negotiators may
agree on a Volcker Rule, limiting the risks big banks can take in trading
for their own account, as well as a separate set of rules regulating the
derivatives trades banks can do on behalf of clients. America doesn't need
both.
A Volcker Rule won't be easy to implement but it
makes policy sense: limit the opportunities for banks to speculate with
federally insured deposits. Combined with high capital standards, this won't
lead to perfect outcomes—we're talking about regulation, after all—but it
would once again draw a risk-taking line that was crossed too often in 2008.
The other new rules, however, could harm taxpayers
and commercial customers more than banks. For taxpayers, the danger comes
from Senate plans to force much of the derivatives market through
too-big-to-fail clearinghouses. Lead Senate negotiator Chris Dodd has backed
a plan to explicitly give these clearinghouses taxpayer assistance in the
event they face a liquidity crisis.
The other dangerous idea is to force commercial
companies to post additional margin even if they do not speculate but are
simply using derivatives to hedge legitimate risks. A recent Business
Roundtable survey finds that 90% of large corporations use derivatives and
that the average firm would have to tie up 15% of the cash on its balance
sheet if subjected to the new margin requirements.
To take one example, Caterpillar might pay a bank
to assume the risk of currency fluctuations in foreign markets so that it
can focus on making bulldozers. It's possible that, depending on the
movements of the dollar against foreign currencies, such a contract will
ultimately require Caterpillar to pay more to the bank. Forcing banks to
demand more cash up front from such companies is like saying regulators
should approve every loan a bank makes, and review every single decision to
extend credit.
The theory that derivatives caused the financial
crisis also continues to take a beating, most recently from regulation
cheerleader Elizabeth Warren. The Troubled Asset Relief Program's
Congressional overseer recently put out a report on the government's 2008
seizure of AIG. While the report has its flaws, Ms. Warren explodes the myth
that the entire problem at AIG was caused by its credit-default-swap
contracts. She explains that it was the housing bets, many of which were
made without using CDS, that brought AIG to the brink of collapse.
The message to Congress is to take Volcker but pass
on punishing derivatives. Which means we'll probably get the opposite.
Jensen Comment
I personally don't agree with the above editorial position of regulation of
derivatives. I think derivatives markets should be regulated along the lines
recommended by my hero Frank Partnoy ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds
GLOBAL DERIVATIVE DEBACLES: From Theory to Malpractice ---
http://www.worldscibooks.com/economics/7141.html
by Laurent L Jacque (Tufts University, USA & HEC School of Management, France)
World Scientific Books, ISBN: 978-981-283-770-7, 628pp
978-981-281-853-9: US$54 / £36 US$40.50 / £27
Table of Contents (44k) --- http://www.worldscibooks.com/etextbook/7141/7141_toc.pdf
Preface (27k)--- http://www.worldscibooks.com/etextbook/7141/7141_preface.pdf
Chapter 1: Derivatives and the Wealth of Nations (133k) ---
http://www.worldscibooks.com/etextbook/7141/7141_preface.pdf
Jensen Comment
This book is weak on derivatives accounting but stronger on economics, finance,
and law.
Chapter 1 has a short summary of ancient history.
Bob Jensen's threads and timeline on the history of derivatives
instruments scandals and frauds ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds
From the Internet Scout on June 18, 2010
Apple Safari 5 ---
http://www.apple.com/safari/whats-new.html
The latest iteration of the Safari browser takes
several bold steps by offering a streamlined approach to RSS feeds, along
with offering new ways to look at paginated stories and galleries. Also,
Safari now comes with local searches enabled from the location bar, so
queries will be linked to users' history and bookmarks. This version is
compatible with computers running Windows XP and newer or Mac OS X 10.5 and
newer.
Diagram Designer 1.23
http://meesoft.logicnet.dk/
Turning out flowcharts and diagrams for
presentations can be quite a hassle, so it's nice to lean about the Diagram
Designer application. With the program's interface, visitors can take
advantage of the customizable object palette, slide show viewer, and the
ability to plot mathematical expressions. This version also allows users to
import various image file formats, such as jpeg and gif files. This version
is compatible with computers running Windows 98 and newer.
Human Trafficking Report Released to Praise and Criticism This Week US
Report Cites 13 Countries for Human Trafficking
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/human-rights/US-Report-Cites-13-Countries-for-Human-Trafficking-96326094.html
U.S. human trafficking report includes U.S. cases for first time
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/14/human.trafficking/?hpt=Sbin
US: Step Up Pressures on Allies Using Child Soldiers
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/06/14/us-step-pressure-allies-using-child-soldiers
US human trafficking report dismissed
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/US-human-trafficking-report-dismissed
Trafficking in Persons Report 2010
http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2010/
HumanTrafficking
http://www.humantrafficking.org/
Free online textbooks, cases, and tutorials in accounting, finance,
economics, and statistics ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Education Tutorials
Video: Wolfram Alpha has gotten much better ---
http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html
It is best described as a search engine that will perform complicated
computations
Structures 2 [pdf, Flash Player]
https://open.umich.edu/education/tcaup/arch324-winter2009
"Ed Tech Trends to Watch in 2010," by Converge Staff, Converge
Magazine, June 14, 2010 ---
http://www.convergemag.com/classtech/2010-Ed-Tech-Trends.html
Bob Jensen's education technology threads
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
"Special Education Students Beat the Odds With Technology," by
Converge Staff, Converge Magazine, June 16, 2010 ---
http://www.convergemag.com/classtech/Special-Education-Students-Beat-the-Odds-With-Technology.html
Bob Jensen's threads on technology aids for handicapped learners are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Handicapped
Video Ted Talk: Let’s raise kids to be entrepreneurs," Simoleon Sense,
June 17, 2010 ---
http://www.simoleonsense.com/video-ted-talk-lets-raise-kids-to-be-entrepreneurs/
Find a College
College Atlas ---
http://www.collegeatlas.org/
Among other things the above site provides acceptance rate percentages
Online Distance Education Training and Education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
For-Profit Universities Operating in the Gray
Zone of Fraud (College, Inc.) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud
Bob Jensen's threads on general education tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch
Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials
Video: Wolfram Alpha has gotten much better ---
http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html
It is best described as a search engine that will perform complicated
computations
Video: Population Growth in Viet Nam and
Seafood Contamination ---
http://www.vimeo.com/11817894
The Secret Life of Scientists (PBS Nova) ---
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/secretlife/
Sense About Science ---
http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/
Structures 2 [pdf, Flash Player]
https://open.umich.edu/education/tcaup/arch324-winter2009
Amazing Cells [includes videos]
http://teach.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/
Teach. Genetics: Epigenetics
[RealPlayer] ---
http://teach.genetics.utah.edu/content/epigenetics/
Stem Cells at the National Academies ---
http://dels.nas.edu/bls/stemcells/
Biodiversity Action Reporting System ---
http://www.ukbap-reporting.org.uk/
International Year of Biodiversity [Flash Player]
http://www.cbd.int/2010/welcome/
Nuffield Council on Bioethics ---
http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org
Georgetown Bioethics Library: Syllabus Exchange Database ---
http://bioethics.georgetown.edu/nirehg/gensylb.html
Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics ---
http://bioethics.stanford.edu/
Pr?montr? Architectural Sites ---
http://www.library.nd.edu/rarebooks/digital_projects/premontre/
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
Video: Wolfram Alpha has gotten much better ---
http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html
It is best described as a search engine that will perform complicated
computations
Glimpse of the Past: A Neighborhood Evolves [Flash Player]
http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/glimpse/index.html
Interactive State of Metropolitan America Indicator Map ---
Click Here
http://www.brookings.edu/metro/StateOfMetroAmerica/Map.aspx#/?subject=7&ind=70&dist=0&data=Number&year=2008&geo=metro&zoom=0&x=0&y=0
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: Publications
---
http://www.huduser.org/portal/publications/pdrpubli.htm
Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre [Immigration, Illegal Immigrants]
http://www.internal-displacement.org/
Race, Immigration and America's Changing
Electorate ---
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2008/0227_demographics_frey/0227_demographics_paper_frey.pdf
Pueblo, USA: How Latino Immigration is Changing America ---
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/immigration/
The Victorian Web (from Japan) ---
http://www.victorianweb.org
Victorian
Britain: Early photographically illustrated books ---
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/earlyphotos/index.html
History of York ---
http://www.historyofyork.org.uk/home
Nuffield Council on Bioethics ---
http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org
Georgetown Bioethics Library: Syllabus Exchange Database ---
http://bioethics.georgetown.edu/nirehg/gensylb.html
Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics ---
http://bioethics.stanford.edu/
"A Tonic to the Imagination": Costume Designs for Stage and Screen," by B.J.
Simmons & Co., 1889-1959
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/web/bjsimmons/
History of
Costume
Fashion in Color ---
http://ndm.si.edu/EXHIBITIONS/fashion_in_colors/
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
Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Law
Math Tutorials
Video: Wolfram Alpha has gotten much better ---
http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html
It is best described as a search engine that will perform complicated
computations
Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics
History Tutorials
Van Gogh’s Starry Night Updated ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/post.aspx?bid=358&bpid=25338&nlid=3126
The Victorian Web (from Japan) ---
http://www.victorianweb.org
British History Online ---
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/
History of York ---
http://www.historyofyork.org.uk/home
Glimpse of the Past: A Neighborhood Evolves [Flash Player]
http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/glimpse/index.html
Just Passin' Through: The Lincoln & Victory Highways in Nevada ---
http://www.knowledgecenter.unr.edu/specoll/photoweb/lincolnhwy/
Buckaroos in Paradise: Ranching Culture
in Northern Nevada, 1945-1982 ---
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/buckaroos/
Online Nevada Encyclopedia ---
http://www.onlinenevada.org/
MIT Visualizing Cultures ---
http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/home/
Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library ---
http://www.reaganlibrary.com/
"A Tonic to the Imagination": Costume Designs for Stage and Screen,"
by B.J. Simmons & Co., 1889-1959
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/web/bjsimmons/
Textiles and Costumes: Henry Art Gallery [Flash Player]
http://dig.henryart.org/textiles/
Stage Costumes ---
http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/theatre_performance/features/Costume/index.html
Daphne Dare Collection (theatre costumes) ---
http://drc.ohiolink.edu/handle/2374.OX/30999
Courting History: The Landmark International Criminal Court's First
Years ---
http://hrw.org/reports/2008/icc0708/
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
Video: Wolfram Alpha has gotten much better ---
http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html
It is best described as a search engine that will perform complicated
computations
Bob Jensen's threads on free music tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Music
Writing Tutorials
Bob Jensen's helpers for writers are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries
Updates from WebMD ---
http://www.webmd.com/
June 16, 2010
June 17, 2010
June 18, 2010
June 19, 2010
June 20, 2010
June 22, 2010
June 23, 2010
June 24, 2010
June 25, 2010
June 26, 2010
June 28, 2010
June 29, 2010
Memorable Quotes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail ---
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/quotes
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
Senior personal ads from Florida newspaper
Who says seniors don't have a sense of humour?
FOXY LADY: Sexy, fashion-conscious blue-haired beauty, 80's, slim, 5'4" (used
to be 5'6"), Searching for sharp-looking, Sharp-dressing companion. Matching
white shoes and belt a plus.
LONG-TERM COMMITMENT: Recent widow who has just buried fourth husband, And am
looking for someone to Round out a six-unit plot. Dizziness, fainting, shortness
of breath Not a problem.
SERENITY NOW: I am into solitude, long walks, Sunrises, the ocean, yoga and
meditation. If you are the silent type, let's get together, Take our hearing
aids out and enjoy quiet times.. BEATLES OR STONES? I still like to rock, Still
like to cruise in my Camaro on Saturday nights And still like to play the
guitar. If you were a groovy chick, Or are now a groovy hen, let's get together
And listen to my eight-track tapes.
WINNING SMILE: Active grandmother with original teeth Seeking a dedicated
flosser to share rare steaks, Corn on the cob and caramel candy
MEMORIES: I can usually remember Monday through Thursday. If you can remember
Friday, Saturday and Sunday, let's put our two heads together.
MINT CONDITION: Male, 1932, high mileage, Good condition, some hair, Many new
parts including hip, knee, cornea, valves. Isn't in running condition, but walks
well.
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
More Reasons to have a bottle or two in the house! ! ! !
Who Knew???
1. To remove a bandage painlessly, Saturate the bandage with vodka. The stuff
dissolves adhesive.
________________________________________
2. To clean the caulking around bathtubs and showers, Fill a trigger-spray
bottle with vodka, spray the caulking, Let set five minutes and wash clean.
The alcohol in the vodka kills mold and mildew.
________________________________________
3. To clean your eyeglasses, Simply wipe the lenses with a soft, Clean cloth
dampened with vodka. The alcohol in the vodka cleans the glass and kills germs.
________________________________________
4. Prolong the life of razors by filling a cup with vodka And letting your
safety razor blade Soak in the alcohol after shaving. The vodka disinfects the
blade and prevents rusting.
________________________________________
5. Spray vodka on wine stains, Scrub with a brush, and then blot dry.
________________________________________
6. Using a cotton ball, apply vodka to your face As an astringent to
cleanse the skin and tighten pores.
________________________________________
7. Add a jigger of vodka to a 12-ounce bottle of shampoo. The alcohol
cleanses the scalp,removes toxins from hair, And stimulates the growth of
healthy hair.
________________________________________
8. Fill a sixteen-ounce trigger-spray bottle with vodka And spray bees
or wasps to kill them.
________________________________________
9 Pour one-half cup vodka And one-half cup water into a Ziploc freezer bag
And freeze for a slushy, refreshing ice pack for aches, Pain or black eyes.
________________________________________
10. Fill a clean, used mayonnaise jar With freshly packed lavender flowers,
Fill the jar with vodka, seal the lid tightly And set in the sun for three days.
Strain liquid through a coffee filter, Then apply the tincture to aches and
pains.
________________________________________
11. To relieve a fever, use a washcloth To rub vodka on your chest and
back as a liniment.
________________________________________
12. To cure foot odor, Wash your feet with vodka.
________________________________________
13 Vodka will disinfect And alleviate a jellyfish sting.
________________________________________
14. Pour vodka over an area affected with poison ivy To remove the
POISON IVY oil from your skin.
________________________________________
15. Swish a shot of vodka over an aching tooth. Allow your gums to absorb
some of the alcohol to numb the pain.
________________________________________
And silly me! I used to just drink it !
"BP spoof video is runaway hit for UCB website," MIT's Technology
Review, June 25, 2010 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/wire/25663/?nlid=3166&a=f
The most memorable comedic take on the oil spill
disaster in the Gulf of Mexico hasn't come from "Saturday Night Live," ''The
Daily Show" or a late-night monologue.
Instead, a cheaply made video by an unlikely New
York improv troupe has created the only commentary that has truly resonated
online: a three-minute spoof that shows BP executives pathetically trying to
clean up a coffee spill.
In the video, BP execs are in the middle of a
meeting when someone overturns a coffee cup. The liquid oozes across the
conference table. One exec says it will "destroy all the fish" (his sushi
lunch); another says it's encroaching on his map of Louisiana. They try to
contain the coffee spill by wrapping their arms around the perimeter,
dumping garbage on top to absorb the liquid, clipping hair over it and other
stupid human tricks.
Three hours later, the spill remains with all the
mess left from attempts to contain it: paper, hair, soil, plants, etc.
Finally, they get Kevin Costner on the phone.
"He'll know what to do for sure," an exec says with
great hope.
"Do you have a golf ball?" Costner asks. No. A
pingpong ball? Yes. Costner tells them to throw it at the spill. They do.
Nothing happens. Then: 47 days later. The spill and the mess are still there
with BP execs no closer to a solution.
In the last two weeks, the video has been watched
by nearly 7 million people on YouTube. By the count of Viral Video Chart,
it's been shared some 300,000 times on blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter
feeds.
The video was dreamed up by the writers for the
sketch show "Beneath Gristedes," a monthly stage show at the Upright
Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York. While meeting to work on the show, a
germ of the concept came to Erik Tanouye, who worked out the script with
fellow writers John Frusciante, Gavin Spieller and Eric Scott.
They shot it two days later and within a week, it
was up on UCBComedy.com. The site has had some viral hits -- a parody of a
Google ad, a spoof of the "David After the Dentist" video -- but nothing on
this level. UCBComedy.com's servers immediately crashed under the traffic.
"I couldn't do my day job," said Tanouye, 32, who
is the director of student affairs for the UCB training center.
It's been the biggest hit yet for UCBComedy.com,
which was founded in 2007 to give its performers an online outlet. The
Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, which has popular theaters in New York and
Los Angeles, was co-founded by Amy Poehler.
For more than a decade, it has regularly churned
out exciting young comic talent, including "SNL" players Bobby Moynihan and
Jenny Slate, and "Office" regular Zach Woods. Young audiences line up on a
nightly basis to pack the 300-seat New York theater, which has a youthful,
collegiate vibe.
"What we're trying to do with videos is get out
there to the general public the talent that we have," says Todd Bieber, 30,
the website's director of content and production. "We can reach New York and
L.A. audiences pretty easily, but there's a whole world out there that we
can't reach through the theaters."
The boost in visitors to the site has been
considerable. From May 21-June 21 last year, the site drew just under
43,000; the same period this year has attracted more than 450,000.
But Bieber, who formerly worked at the Onion News
Network, is the only one being paid to work full time on the site. Videos
don't have anything like the budgets of the Onion News Network, which shoots
in the style of real news broadcasts.
UCBComedy.com includes a lot of footage of improv
performances, which typically have much more energy in person, where the
thrill of instant creation is immediate. But the dozens of UCB performers --
who are graduates of the theater's improv training classes -- have learned
to fashion their comedy to the Web.
"Beta teams" -- performers dedicated to producing
content for the site -- were formed in January. Original series have been
created, including one called "Blackouts," which are short 30-second bites,
one punch line at a time.
Bieber says that a viral sensation such as "BP
Spills Coffee" can "energize the UCB community" in creating video for the
website. Having so much talent at the ready makes UCBComedy.com a little
like an amateur version of FunnyOrDie.com, the comedy site co-founded by
Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, which pulls contributions from famous
comedians.
"That's the hope," says Bieber. "There are so many
terribly ridiculous things going on in the world that there's plenty of room
for commentary. If we can be looked in the same way as FunnyOrDie, that
would be terrific. We'd love to get the hits that they do."
There's plenty of competition when it comes to
topical humor, though, and the oil spill has been a common topic. The
slow-motion horror of the spill is utterly serious, but people have long
turned to comics to give voice to rage. BP, which is said to have mismanaged
the spill, has been an easy target.
David Letterman, Jay Leno and other late-night
hosts have made BP jokes practically a nightly feature. Conan O'Brien,
perhaps feeling like he was missing out, recently tweeted: "The past 2
months I've been on tour and haven't followed the news. What's with all the
photos of chocolate pelicans?"
"The Colbert Report" and "The Daily Show" have
battered the subject relentlessly. Mixing comedy with activism, Colbert
Nation has launched a "Gulf of America Fund" to raise donations for the
recovery efforts. "SNL" is off for the summer and so has missed the
opportunity to lampoon BP.
One of the more interesting Internet-based parodies
has been a mock Twitter feed, purporting to be from BP's public relations
department: http://twitter.com/BPGlobalPR. It has more than 175,000
followers. One example: "Investing a lot of time & money into cleaning up
our image, but the beaches are next on the to-do list for sure."
But the success of the UCB's video could well be a
firm foothold in the world of online comedy, and boost the troupe's national
presence.
"People can see these amazing talents come up,"
says Bieber. "As awesome as the theater is, at the end of the day, that
sketch would have killed for 200 or 300 people, not 6 or 7 million."
Jensen Links to Some Other BP Videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AAa0gd7ClM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPbZe43pTC8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40kYQd7ybRA
Forwarded by Mac Wright in Australia
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201006/r578178_3617033.asx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLdAJn7YxeE
After the June 23 loss of the containment cap, 60,000 barrels per day
are gushing out
This is no joking matter
David Albrecht has some YouTube recommendations at
http://profalbrecht.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/bp-in-social-commentary/
Bob Jensen's threads on Enron humor ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm#Humor
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/
Find a College
College Atlas ---
http://www.collegeatlas.org/
Among other things the above site provides acceptance rate percentages
Online Distance Education Training and Education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
For-Profit Universities Operating in the Gray
Zone of Fraud (College, Inc.) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud
Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
-
With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The Accounting Review
(TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier
- With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by Professors
Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams
- With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the Profession of
Accountancy Ignores TAR
- With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating Accounting Research
into Undergraduate Accounting Courses
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