Tidbits on February 12, 2013
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

This week I feature Set 1 of my favorite Vermont photographs
www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/States/Vermont/Set01/Vermont01.htm    

More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm

Tidbits on February 12, 2012
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/

The Cult of Statistical Significance: How Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm

How Accountics Scientists Should Change: 
"Frankly, Scarlett, after I get a hit for my resume in The Accounting Review I just don't give a damn"
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
One more mission in what's left of my life will be to try to change this
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm 

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy --- http://plato.stanford.edu/

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

Ted Talk Video:  Conception to Birth (Incredible) --- http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=fKyljukBE70

Stunning BBC Commercial (What a Wonderful World) --- http://www.youtube.com/embed/auSo1MyWf8g?rel=0

Instructional Science and Engineering Videos --- http://vega.org.uk/video/subseries/27

AdViews (vintage television commercials) --- http://archive.org/details/adviews

UCLA Film & Television Archive --- http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/

Beauty in Stone: The Industrial Films of the Georgia Marble Company --- http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/georgiamarble/

Late Night Catechism Part 2 --- http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=7Jrh_uuPmd0

Double Fantasy --- http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=sKns1uatyNg&vq=medium

Mathemusician Vi Hart Explains the Space-Time Continuum With a Music Box, Bach, and a Möbius Strip --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2013/02/mathemusician_vi_hart_explains_the_space-time_continuum_with_a_music_box_bach_and_a_mobius_strip.html

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

Gershwin Plays Gershwin: The Piano Version of ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ 1925 ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/gershwin_plays_gershwin_the_piano_version_of_rhapsody_in_blue_1925.html

Daniel Barenboim And Members Of The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra In Concert ---
http://www.npr.org/event/music/169074246/daniel-barenboim-and-members-of-the-west-eastern-divan-orchestra-live-in-concert

Stunning BBC Commercial (What a Wonderful World) --- http://www.youtube.com/embed/auSo1MyWf8g?rel=0

Watch John Coltrane and His Great Quintet Play ‘My Favorite Things’ (1961) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/john_coltrane_and_his_great_quintet_play_my_favorite_things_1961.html

Tom Waits and Keith Richards Sing Sea Song “Shenandoah” for New Pirate-Themed CD: Listen Online ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/tom_waits_and_keith_richards_sing_sea_song_shenandoah.html

Little Red Wagon --- http://www.snotr.com/video/9682/Little_Red_Wagon

Watch the Dave Brubeck Quartet on the Classic Jazz 625 Show, 1964 --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/watch_the_dave_brubeck_quartet_perform_and_talk_composing_on_the_classic_ijazz_625i_show_1964.html

50s Nostalgia Video --- http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=sDc0ID6PJeg&feature=youtu.be

Anolther 50s Nostalgia Video --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8nJhG1xE5o

The Jukebox You Always Wanted

 

> >> 1940	> > > 1950	> > > 1960	> > > 1970	> > > 1980	> > > 1990
> > > 1941	> > > 1951	> > > 1961	> > > 1971	> > > 1981	> > > 1991
> > > 1942	> > > 1952	> > > 1962	> > > 1972	> > > 1982	> > > 1992
> > > 1943	> > > 1953	> > > 1963	> > > 1973	> > > 1983	> > > 1993
> > > 1944	> > > 1954	> > > 1964	> > > 1974	> > > 1984	> > > 1994
> > > 1945	> > > 1955	> > > 1965	> > > 1975	> > > 1985	> > > 1995
> > > 1946	> > > 1956	> > > 1966	> > > 1976	> > > 1986	> > > 1996
> > > 1947	> > > 1957	> > > 1967	> > > 1977	> > > 1987	> > > 1997
> > > 1948	> > > 1958	> > > 1968	> > > 1978	> > > 1988	> > > 1998
> > > 1949	> > > 1959	> > > 1969	> > > 1979	> > > 1989	> > > 1999

 

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 (with commercials) --- http://www.slacker.com/ 

Bob Jensen's threads on nearly all types of free music selections online ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Music.htm

Photographs and Art

A Bird Ballet in Southern France ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/a_bird_ballet_captured_in_southern_france_.html

Nature News Special: 2012 Review
http://www.nature.com/news/specials/2012/index.html

Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance --- http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/florence/index.html

A Roma Journey (Rome, Italy) --- http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/exhibition/roma_journey/eng/
Roma Slide Show --- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/Rome.pp

Seattle Parks & Recreation Sherwood History Files --- http://www.seattle.gov/parks/history/sherwood.htm

Benham Gallery Artists --- http://www.benhamgallery.com/artists/

Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective (Modern Art in the 20th Century) --- http://www.sfmoma.org/exhib_events/exhibitions/450

Tod Gangler Photographs --- http://www.benhamgallery.com/artists/gangler.html

Porter C. Thayer Photographs (Vermont) --- http://cdi.uvm.edu/collections/getCollection.xql?pid=thayer&title=Porter C. Thayer Photographs

Photographs of Vergennes (Oldest Village in Vermont) --- http://cdi.uvm.edu/collections/getCollection.xql?pid=bixby

Vermont Historical Society --- http://www.vermonthistory.org/

Without Bounds or Limits: An Online Exhibition of the Plan of Chicago ---
http://www.artic.edu/aic/libraries/research/specialcollections/planofchicago/

Picture Chicago --- http://images.library.uiuc.edu/projects/chicago/index.asp

Free Library of Philadelphia: Historical Images of Philadelphia --- http://libwww.freelibrary.org/hip/

National Science Foundation: The Secret Lives of Wild Animals ---
http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/animals

Kentucky Critter Files (animals) ---
http://www.uky.edu/Ag/CritterFiles/casefile/casefile.htm

Chilean Protest Murals --- http://hcl.harvard.edu/collections/digital_collections/chile_murals.cfm

National Museum of American Jewish History --- http://www.nmajh.org/

Smithsonian Magazine: Anthropology & Behavior --- http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/anthropology-behavior/

From the Scout Report on February 1, 2013

The migratory patterns of birds continue to fascinate and delight
scientists, birders, and casual observers

Starlings Flying in Flocks
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324039504578265962656166002.html#slide/1

Starlings are in Tennessee because of New York idea
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/jan/14/starlings-are-in-tenn-because-of-ny-idea/

Finding lessons in owl's long flight
http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/27/airport-officials-strack-snowy-owl-unlikely-path-effort-avoid-bird-strikes/M4sSOTNUTYMTAF01crBPuK/story.html

Beautiful berries and birds a boon of winter
http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/807976_Beautiful-berries-and-birds-a-boon-of-winter.html

BirdCast
http://birdcast.info/

Migration of Birds
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/migratio/routes.htm
 

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

Abraham Lincoln Association Serials --- http://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/alajournals/

Lincolniana at Brown (Brown University Lincoln History Library) --- http://dl.lib.brown.edu/lincoln/index.html

As Pride and Prejudice Turns 200, Read Jane Austen’s Manuscripts Online --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/as_ipride_and_prejudicei_turns_200_read_jane_austens_manuscripts_online.html

W.H. Auden Recites His 1937 Poem, “As I Walked Out One Evening” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/wh_auden_recites_his_1937_poem_as_i_walked_out_one_evening.html

Alistair Cooke’s Historic Letters to America (1946 – 2004) Now Online, Thanks to the BBC --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/alistair_cookes_historic_iletters_to_americai_1946_2004_now_online_thanks_to_the_bbc.html

Indiana Authors and Their Books ---
http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/inauthors/welcome.do;jsessionid=86E10F919216C2CC1BBE238BE6168EA8

Iowa Byington Reed Diaries (Iowa in the 1800s) ---  http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/cdm/search/collection/byington

Free Electronic Literature --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.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

Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on February 12, 2013
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2013/TidbitsQuotations021213.htm      

U.S. National Debt Clock --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Also see http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Peter G. Peterson Website on Deficit/Debt Solutions ---
http://www.pgpf.org/

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

"Colleges Should Require Business 101 for Every Student," by Matt Ragas, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 4, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Require-Business-101-for-Every/136967/

Jensen Comment
I think I agree with this article, but more important should be a required financial literacy course (including basic taxation). Financial illiteracy has tremendous negative externalities in society, including higher divorce rates, lifetime credit card burdens, lifetime student loan burdens, suicides, vulnerability to loan sharks and slimy salespersons, and failure to save enough for retirement.
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#FinancialLiteracy \

Bob Jensen's personal finance helpers ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#InvestmentHelpers

Horrors!
Scandinavian nations are downsizing government, upsizing the public sector, reducing taxes, balancing their budgets, and encouraging competition in services such as education (including charter schools)  and medical care (including premium services that can be purchased)
Is this in absolute defiance of Paul Krugman?

Special Report in The Economist magazine that the liberal television stations and newspapers are keeping secret
"Northern lights:  The Nordic countries are reinventing their model of capitalism," by Adrian Wooldridge, The Economist, February 2, 2013, pp. 1-6 ---
http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21570840-nordic-countries-are-reinventing-their-model-capitalism-says-adrian

THIRTY YEARS AGO Margaret Thatcher turned Britain into the world’s leading centre of “thinking the unthinkable”. Today that distinction has passed to Sweden. The streets of Stockholm are awash with the blood of sacred cows. The think-tanks are brimful of new ideas. The erstwhile champion of the “third way” is now pursuing a far more interesting brand of politics.

Sweden has reduced public spending as a proportion of GDP from 67% in 1993 to 49% today. It could soon have a smaller state than Britain. It has also cut the top marginal tax rate by 27 percentage points since 1983, to 57%, and scrapped a mare’s nest of taxes on property, gifts, wealth and inheritance. This year it is cutting the corporate-tax rate from 26.3% to 22%.

Sweden has also donned the golden straitjacket of fiscal orthodoxy with its pledge to produce a fiscal surplus over the economic cycle. Its public debt fell from 70% of GDP in 1993 to 37% in 2010, and its budget moved from an 11% deficit to a surplus of 0.3% over the same period. This allowed a country with a small, open economy to recover quickly from the financial storm of 2007-08. Sweden has also put its pension system on a sound foundation, replacing a defined-benefit system with a defined-contribution one and making automatic adjustments for longer life expectancy.

Most daringly, it has introduced a universal system of school vouchers and invited private schools to compete with public ones. Private companies also vie with each other to provide state-funded health services and care for the elderly. Anders Aslund, a Swedish economist who lives in America, hopes that Sweden is pioneering “a new conservative model”; Brian Palmer, an American anthropologist who lives in Sweden, worries that it is turning into “the United States of Swedeamerica”.

There can be no doubt that Sweden’s quiet revolution has brought about a dramatic change in its economic performance. The two decades from 1970 were a period of decline: the country was demoted from being the world’s fourth-richest in 1970 to 14th-richest in 1993, when the average Swede was poorer than the average Briton or Italian. The two decades from 1990 were a period of recovery: GDP growth between 1993 and 2010 averaged 2.7% a year and productivity 2.1% a year, compared with 1.9% and 1% respectively for the main 15 EU countries.

For most of the 20th century Sweden prided itself on offering what Marquis Childs called, in his 1936 book of that title, a “Middle Way” between capitalism and socialism. Global companies such as Volvo and Ericsson generated wealth while enlightened bureaucrats built the Folkhemmet or “People’s Home”. As the decades rolled by, the middle way veered left. The government kept growing: public spending as a share of GDP nearly doubled from 1960 to 1980 and peaked at 67% in 1993. Taxes kept rising. The Social Democrats (who ruled Sweden for 44 uninterrupted years from 1932 to 1976 and for 21 out of the 24 years from 1982 to 2006) kept squeezing business. “The era of neo-capitalism is drawing to an end,” said Olof Palme, the party’s leader, in 1974. “It is some kind of socialism that is the key to the future.”

The other Nordic countries have been moving in the same direction, if more slowly. Denmark has one of the most liberal labour markets in Europe. It also allows parents to send children to private schools at public expense and make up the difference in cost with their own money. Finland is harnessing the skills of venture capitalists and angel investors to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. Oil-rich Norway is a partial exception to this pattern, but even there the government is preparing for its post-oil future.

This is not to say that the Nordics are shredding their old model. They continue to pride themselves on the generosity of their welfare states. About 30% of their labour force works in the public sector, twice the average in the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation, a rich-country think-tank. They continue to believe in combining open economies with public investment in human capital. But the new Nordic model begins with the individual rather than the state. It begins with fiscal responsibility rather than pump-priming: all four Nordic countries have AAA ratings and debt loads significantly below the euro-zone average. It begins with choice and competition rather than paternalism and planning. The economic-freedom index of the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think-tank, shows Sweden and Finland catching up with the United States (see chart). The leftward lurch has been reversed: rather than extending the state into the market, the Nordics are extending the market into the state.

Why are the Nordic countries doing this? The obvious answer is that they have reached the limits of big government. “The welfare state we have is excellent in most ways,” says Gunnar Viby Mogensen, a Danish historian. “We only have this little problem. We can’t afford it.” The economic storms that shook all the Nordic countries in the early 1990s provided a foretaste of what would happen if they failed to get their affairs in order.

There are two less obvious reasons. The old Nordic model depended on the ability of a cadre of big companies to generate enough money to support the state, but these companies are being slimmed by global competition. The old model also depended on people’s willingness to accept direction from above, but Nordic populations are becoming more demanding.

Small is powerful

The Nordic countries have a collective population of only 26m. Finland is the only one of them that is a member of both the European Union and the euro area. Sweden is in the EU but outside the euro and has a freely floating currency. Denmark, too, is in the EU and outside the euro area but pegs its currency to the euro. Norway has remained outside the EU.

But there are compelling reasons for paying attention to these small countries on the edge of Europe. The first is that they have reached the future first. They are grappling with problems that other countries too will have to deal with in due course, such as what to do when you reach the limits of big government and how to organise society when almost all women work. And the Nordics are coming up with highly innovative solutions that reject the tired orthodoxies of left and right.

The second reason to pay attention is that the new Nordic model is proving strikingly successful. The Nordics dominate indices of competitiveness as well as of well-being. Their high scores in both types of league table mark a big change since the 1980s when welfare took precedence over competitiveness.

The Nordics do particularly well in two areas where competitiveness and welfare can reinforce each other most powerfully: innovation and social inclusion. BCG, as the Boston Consulting Group calls itself, gives all of them high scores on its e-intensity index, which measures the internet’s impact on business and society. Booz & Company, another consultancy, points out that big companies often test-market new products on Nordic consumers because of their willingness to try new things. The Nordic countries led the world in introducing the mobile network in the 1980s and the GSM standard in the 1990s. Today they are ahead in the transition to both e-government and the cashless economy. Locals boast that they pay their taxes by SMS. This correspondent gave up changing sterling into local currencies because everything from taxi rides to cups of coffee can be paid for by card.

The Nordics also have a strong record of drawing on the talents of their entire populations, with the possible exception of their immigrants. They have the world’s highest rates of social mobility: in a comparison of social mobility in eight advanced countries by Jo Blanden, Paul Gregg and Stephen Machin, of the London School of Economics, they occupied the first four places. America and Britain came last. The Nordics also have exceptionally high rates of female labour-force participation: in Denmark not far off as many women go out to work (72%) as men (79%).

Flies in the ointment

This special report will examine the way the Nordic governments are updating their version of capitalism to deal with a more difficult world. It will note that in doing so they have unleashed a huge amount of creativity and become world leaders in reform. Nordic entrepreneurs are feeling their oats in a way not seen since the early 20th century. Nordic writers and artists—and indeed Nordic chefs and game designers—are enjoying a creative renaissance.

The report will also add caveats. The growing diversity of Nordic societies is generating social tensions, most horrifically in Norway, where Anders Breivik killed 77 people in a racially motivated attack in 2011, but also on a more mundane level every day. Sweden is finding it particularly hard to integrate its large population of refugees.

The Nordic model is still a work in progress. The three forces that have obliged the Nordic countries to revamp it—limited resources, rampant globalisation and growing diversity—are gathering momentum

Continued in article

Note that on Page 5 there's also a section entitled "More for Less" devoted to Welfare Capitalism.

Jensen Comment
It appears that among the Nordics only Norway will continue to afford socialism, but this is because oil-rich Norway is a leading OPEC nation less concerned with the need for private sector growth.

There are of course serious obstacles to applying the new Nordic capitalism to the USA. Firstly, the USA is not bound by the Arctic Ocean on the north and the North Sea on the south that greatly discourages illegal immigration and narcotics. Secondly, the Nordic countries have difficult languages that are not studied to a significant degree in other nations. For example, I'm told that if you weren't raised in Finland you can never understand the language. Thirdly, there's no existing infrastructure to absorb and aid illegal immigrants in Scandinavia. Scandinavians like my grandparents, Ole, Sven, and Lena emigrated from these hard and cold countries rather than immigrating to these lands.

Scandinavians have avoided the crippling costs of building up powerful military forces and have not tried to become the police force of the world.

Scandinavians also avoided the horrors in importing millions of slaves and the centuries of social costs and degradations that followed. Nor did they have to go to war, to a serious degree, with indigenous peoples to take over the land by trickery and force.

"The Nordic model for unemployment insurance," Sober Look, January 11, 2013 ---
http://soberlook.com/2013/01/the-nordic-model-for-unemployment.html 

Bob Jensen's comparisons of the American versus Denmark dreams ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/SunsetHillHouse/SunsetHillHouse.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on why Vermont is trying to increase its unemployment rate ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/Political/PoliticalQuotationsCommentaries.htm#VermontWelfare

R Programming Language --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_%28programming_language%29
"Learn R with Two Tutorials," by Lincoln Mullen, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 8, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/learn-r-with-twotorials/45843?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Librarian Sued for Being Critical of the Quality Standards of an Academic Publisher
"Price of a Bad Review," by Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, February 8, 2013 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/08/academic-press-sues-librarian-raising-issues-academic-freedom

Jensen Comment
The other day on the AECM, Patricia Walters reminded us that over the years Abe Briloff was occasionally sued for reporting departures from GAAP and suspected lack of audit firm independence in his Barron's articles ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#Briloff

It has been disclosed to me that I've become very close to being sued but never sued. It is interesting when I learned that insiders fended off the the lawsuits against me by disclosing that the situations were really worse than I'd reported.

I like this article
"3 Higher Ed Lessons from Netflix's "House of Cards," by Joshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed, February 6, 2013 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/3-higher-ed-lessons-netflixs-house-cards

Jensen Comment
Without intending to puff out my chest, I think things that add value to my Jensen blog and AECM posts are the "Jensen Comments." These add value because of my memory of things posted in the past that I relate to current postings. These add value on occasion I question the assumptions, analysis, and conclusions of a tidbit written by someone else. I can never go so far as to create my own "episodes" in the Netflix sense, but I do try to be more than a forwarder of tidbits.

Of course Netflix is taking the concept of creative episodes to an entirely new level.

Examples of some of my modest "episodes" are as follows:

Holiday Inn Case Seeds and Questions About Tobin's Q
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/HolidayInnCaseSeeds.htm 

Debate Assignment:  Should We Never Pay Down the National Deficit or Debt (even partly)?
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/NationalDeficit-Debt.htm

"Choose Your Own Classroom Adventure with Inklewriter," by Anastasia Salter, The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 7, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/classroom-adventure-with-inklewriter/45873?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Most eBooks are still pretty boring as objects: text, pictures, maybe a video or interactive visualization in a more experimental work. But that landscape may be changing, thanks in part to the number of cool free tools for building interactive books. One of these platforms, inklewriter, has some great potential for use with students in the classroom or for creating interactive stories or texts.

Last week, Inkle Studios released “Future Voices,” a curated collection of stories produced with its interactive story development tool. This slick iPad app features the tech behind Frankenstein, an interactive adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel by Dave Morris. Play through any of these stories for a while and you’ll see everything from straightforward choices of action to complex moral dilemmas and experiments. You can also check out many experiments on the web, including Emily Short’s Holography–she’s also written some thoughts on inklewriter as a platform.

While Inform 7 (as discussed last week) uses a parser interface based on interpreting a broad range of user actions (get lamp, open door, look at book, etc.), Inklewriter uses an interaction model similar to ’80s Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks, which recently came back into print and made the transition to eBooks. However, it goes beyond any of the simple page-shuffling models of those past books in part because it can keep track of decisions and variables from the user’s actions.

Inklewriter has a great tutorial “story” to introduce writers to the platform. The interface, shown below, is mostly free of distractions and built around creating story nodes and choices:

Continued in article

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

Bob Jensen's threads on electronic books ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Ebooks.htm

Demand for Accounting Graduates Among the Highest of All Disciplines

"CPAs are sexy: Accountants in demand as regulatory climate tightens," Boston Business Journal, January 14, 2013 ---
http://www.masslive.com/business-news/index.ssf/2013/01/cpas_are_sexy_accountants_in_demand_as_r.html

The numbers are in, and accountants should be smiling.

The unemployment rate for accountants stands at just 4.1 percent. And Forbes.com recently listed accountants and auditors at No. 2 on its list of Top Jobs for 2013, just behind software developers.

Meanwhile, the Class of 2012 Student Survey Report, released last year by the National Association of Colleges & Employers, found that 68 percent of the most recent accounting majors received job offers, the highest percentage of any major.

“The job demand is there, and it’s steady,” said Barbara Iannoni, academic/career development specialist at the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants Inc.

In fact, demand for accounting professionals has picked up and continues to strengthen, said Bill Driscoll, the New England District president for staffing firm Robert Half International. And Driscoll says the demand for new talent is coming from all areas.

“It’s private industry, it’s public, it’s really across the board. You don’t have to be in a CPA to be in demand,” he said. “It’s accounting that’s in demand right now. You can be a comptroller, financial analyst, or auditor without being a CPA.”

Driscoll said that for applicants with a mix of public and private company experience — something most CPAs have — the job opportunities are even more plentiful.

“In the economic environment we still find ourselves in, anyone in the accounting department who can analyze where the dollars go, who can help companies stretch every dollar, are in high demand,” he said.

Nonetheless, companies today still have high expectations for those they hire; they want accountants who know more than numbers, Driscoll said.

“Everybody needs number crunchers, but particularly with the events of the last four or five years, if you can blend communication skills and leadership skills with accounting skills or a CPA, that will open up all sorts of opportunities and career progressions for you,” he said.

Industry leaders said most college students on the accounting track still aim to get a CPA designation, which requires meeting state-set academic and experience requirements as well as passing a one-time state-administered CPA test. Once certified, a CPA also must meet regular licensing requirements.

It’s no easy process. According to Scott Moore, senior manager of the College and University Initiatives at the American Institute of CPAs, only 40 percent of test takers nationwide actually pass.

“It shows a lot of dedication and self-discipline to pass the exam. That really tells you something about the person,” Moore said.

That’s one of the reasons the CPA remains such a hot commodity in the job market, he said.

Another reason: the ever-expanding list of regulations that companies face. It’s a state of affairs that took a big leap forward in 2002 with the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The Dodd-Frank financial reform act of 2010, which is still being phased in through dozens of yet-to-be-written regulations, has only made CPAs all the more valuable, Moore said.

“The work that a CPA does has evolved. There’s not so much a need to do hard core number crunching because (computers) can do that, so it’s more interpretation versus creation of information, and that interpretation is more important to the business. CPAs have really taken on that role,” said Moore, noting that CPAs are increasingly filling a number of C-level positions at major companies.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
There are some caveats. Undergraduate accounting majors must now take a fifth year or more (most enter masters degree programs) in order to sit for the Uniform National CPA Examination. And starting salaries are lower than salaries of engineers.

And most graduates going to work for CPA firms have a low probability of surviving in those firms after 5-10 years. But this is not usually too bothersome since the main reason many accounting graduates first enter public accounting is for the great training and client exposures. Most of them did not want to stay in public accounting because of the requisite travel, long hours, and performance pressures. Those that leave public accounting after a few years go with clients who offer 9-5 hours, less travel, and much less pressure. And many leave to become full-time parents between the early parts and late parts of their accounting careers.

The bummer is that corporations fail offer nearly as many entry-level jobs as public accounting firms. Corporations and agencies like the FBI prefer to hire job applicants with some years of accounting experience. Aside from public accounting, the IRS is one of the best sources of entry-level job applications. And both the training and experience in the IRS are excellent for changing jobs later on.

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting careers ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#careers

"Colleges in Northeast Face Grimmer Future, Analysis Predicts," by Allie Bidwell, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 6, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/bottomline/colleges-in-northeast-face-grimmer-future-analysis-predicts/

Declining state appropriations, unstable endowment returns, a projected drop in the number of high-school graduates—there’s no shortage of grim news for higher education of late. But a new analysis from the State University of New York at Albany’s Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government says institutions in the Northeast may be hit harder than the rest.

In a report released on Wednesday, Jason E. Lane, the institute’s director of education studies, argues that data show this gloomy scenario could lead to more closures and consolidations of higher-education institutions in the region.

Mr. Lane based his analysis on data in a recent report from Moody’s Investors Service, which suggested that the negative outlook for higher education is worse than previously thought, and a recent report from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. The commission’s report says the number of high-school graduates, particularly in the Northeast, will sharply decline over the next two decades. (The report defines the Northeast as Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.)

From 2009 to 2028, the number of graduates in the region is expected to decline by 10 percent, meaning 65,000 fewer students will be heading to higher education, according to the report. By the end of the current decade, institutions that do not adapt to such changes could face closure or consolidation, Mr. Lane says.

“Many higher-education institutions are bound to lose enrollments unless more significant attention is paid to nontraditional students or recruiting students from outside of the region,” Mr. Lane says in the analysis.

Mr. Lane also looked at endowment-return data from the Commonfund Institute and the National Association of College and University Business Officers, and the annual Grapevine report on state support for higher education.

Because of the volatile nature of endowment returns and cuts in state spending on higher education, Mr. Lane writes, institutions should look elsewhere for more-creative solutions by reaching further into the out-of-state student market and seeking partnerships in the community.

The governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut, for example, are attempting to issue state bonds to invest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics facilities and instruction.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
And I thought all this global warming I'm experiencing was supposed to help New England.

I think the governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut are on the wrong track. The billions they are requesting for STEM investments probably have much less returns than other alternatives for such huge amounts of money. Attracting more students to science and mathematics is not necessarily going to benefit those students if science and mathematics graduates have some of the worst job prospects among all graduates.

Where could the money be put to better use. Firstly, Maine and New Hampshire might benefit more from starting up their own state-supported medical schools (they have none at the moment). The medical schools, in turn, could start up related medical service education programs like nursing, pharmacy, and hospital administration.

The money could be better spent on programs to break down economic barriers to growth in New England. Climate is not a major barrier relative to those man-made walls to economic growth in New England.

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

This Could Be a Really Big Deal for Bringing Education to Africa
"Hillary Clinton Helps Silicon Valley on Her Way Out the Door," y Elizabeth Dwoskin, Bloomberg Business Week, February 04, 2013 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-04/hillary-clinton-helps-silicon-valley-on-her-way-out-the-door

The phrase "crowd sourcing" is increasingly popular in the 21st Century. However, it a questionable process when many members of the crowd know absolutely nothing about the concept being crowd sourced. The phrase has early roots in "consensus forecasting" by economists, although in this case each crowd member must be an "economist." I'm not certain what value there would be in consensus GDP forecasting or LIBOR forecasting in a sample of all holders of drivers' licenses.

Crowd Sourcing --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_sourcing

Neil Gaiman Launches New Crowdsourced Storytelling Project (Sponsored by the New BlackBerry) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/02/neil_gaiman_launches_new_crowdsourced_storytelling_project.html

Obsolete Words
"Words: a Time Capsule," by Lucy Ferriss, Chronicle of Higher Education's Chronicle Review, February 4, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/02/04/words-a-time-capsule/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en

A Cleaner Way to Use Coal
"A technology for generating electricity from coal without pollution achieves a milestone.," by Kevin Bullis, MIT's Technology Review, February 7, 2013 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/510736/a-cleaner-way-to-use-coal/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20130207

Coal is abundant and cheap, but burning it is a dirty business. This week researchers at Ohio State University announced a milestone in the development of a far cleaner way to use the energy in coal—a process called chemical looping that has the potential to reduce or eliminate a wide range of pollutants, including carbon dioxide and smog-forming nitrogen oxides.

One version of the technology ran continuously for over a week in a 25-kilowatt test facility, the researchers reported, the longest any such process has run. The successful test clears the way to ramp up the technology in a one-megawatt demonstration plant that’s being planned in collaboration with the energy company Babcock and Wilcox.

In ordinary coal plants, coal is pulverized to make a fine powder and then burned in air to produce steam to drive turbines. This process makes very hot flames that can create the pollutant nitrogen oxide, and the carbon dioxide generated is difficult to isolate and capture because it makes up only a small fraction of the exhaust gases.

In chemical looping, coal doesn’t react with air. Instead, it’s exposed to oxygen-bearing materials such as iron oxide. The coal reacts with these materials, and the energy bound up in coal breaks the bond between the oxygen and the iron. The reaction produces nearly pure carbon dioxide gas and iron metal (along with the mineral wüstite). Electricity is generated when the iron is moved out of the reaction chamber and is essentially burned—that is, allowed to react with oxygen in air. This releases heat to produce steam.

This rather convoluted process has at least two advantages. It produces a pure stream of carbon dioxide that’s easy to capture and ready to be stored underground. And the burning of iron in air also takes place at lower temperatures that don’t produce nitrogen oxide.

Continued in article

"Thomas Lindsay says 43 percent of college grades are A's, up 28 percentage points from 1960," by Thomas Lindsay, PolitiFact, January 12, 2013 ---
http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2013/jan/31/thomas-lindsay/thomas-lindsay-says-43-percent-college-grades-are-/

"U. of Iowa Accidentally Shares GPAs of 2,000 Students," Inside Higher Ed, February 8, 2013 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/02/08/u-iowa-accidentally-shares-gpas-2000-students

Jensen Comment
If a recipient of that email would share the data, it would be interesting to see statistics (means, median, standard deviations, and kurtosis) of those grade distributions. Iowa is reported to have a somewhat lower grade inflation problem than the more extreme cases of grade inflation reported at
http://www.gradeinflation.com/
The high grade inflation universities include Duke, Dartmouth, Harvard, Furman, UC Berkeley, and Michigan.

Bob Jensen's threads on grade inflation (the most outrageous scandal in higher education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm#RateMyProfessor

Postal Service plans to end Saturday mail delivery by August ---
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/02/06/u-s-postal-service-to-halt-saturday-mail-starting-august-1/?wpisrc=al_comboNE

Jensen Comment
I don't think this applies to packages and speed delivery high postage items like one-day delivery items. What surprised me is that most post offices will remain open at least on Saturday mornings.

Question
"What Is the Raspberry Pi?" by Eric Escobar, Tech Talker,  February 6, 2013 ---
http://techtalker.quickanddirtytips.com/what-is-raspberry-pi.aspx

 In the past few months, many of you have sent me questions about the Raspberry Pi. So in today’s episode, that’s exactly what I’ll be covering – the amazing Raspberry Pi! No, I’m not referring to a delicious desert, rather a miniature computer that is about the size of a credit card. You’re probably thinking, how the heck can a computer be that tiny, or for that matter what would you even do with a computer that small?

What Is the Raspberry Pi?
The Raspberry Pi was created with the goal of education in mind. This ultra-tiny computer was designed to be small and cheap so that schools could easily afford them in order to teach students about computers in the classroom. This is great for two reasons, the first is that it provides extremely cheap access to a computer, and second it is a great tool for learning more about computers (student or not)!

So how cheap are we talking exactly? Well, there are two versions of the Raspberry Pi, the model A is $25 and the model B is $35. This price point makes it pretty easily available to students, hobbyists, and even yours truly!

Let’s talk about what the Raspberry Pi has on it. In the model B, you get an HDMI out, RCA video out, 2 USB ports, an SD card slot, a head phone jack, and an Ethernet port. The board itself has half a gigabyte of RAM and an onboard ARM processor.

The model A has all of the same features of the model B minus one of the USB plugs, the Ethernet port, and half of the RAM. No matter how you look at it though, it gives you quite a bit of equipment to work with for not being much bigger than a credit card!

How Does the Raspberry Pi Work?
Here’s how it works: An SD card inserted into the slot on the board acts as the hard drive for the Raspberry Pi. It is powered by USB and the video output can be hooked up to a traditional RCA TV set, a more modern monitor, or even a TV using the HDMI port. This gives you all of the basic abilities of a normal computer. It also has an extremely low power consumption of about 3 watts. To put this power consumption in perspective, you could run over 30 Raspberry Pi’s in place of a standard light bulb!

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on Nanotechnology and ubiquitous computing are at  ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm 

"Encyclopaedia Britannica's Transformation," Harvard Business Review Blog, February 7, 2013 --- Click Here
http://blogs.hbr.org/ideacast/2013/02/encyclopaedia-britannicas-tran.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

Jensen Comment
One point to note is that Encyclopaedia Britannica was considering dropping the printed volumes even before the Internet. The CD-Rom was the biggest worry of this company, a worry that became less with the expanding Internet on line market.

The interview does focus bit on the explosion in the popularity of the free Wikipedia. My suspicion is that analysts view these as two different products in some ways. Britannica tries to be narrow and deep relative to Wikipedia that is much wider in terms of topics covered but not as deep in coverage of some terms. Wikipedia repeatedly appeals to improvements of its modules, especially in terms of needs for more references and deeper coverage. Britannica tries to provide more depth of the selected topics it covers. Many scholars are still distrustful of Wikipedia, although repeated users of Wikipedia tend to be more and more amazed with the quality of modules, especially obscure historical concepts and concepts that are newly evolving --- concepts that usually are not available in Britannica. Most of us are still amazed at how willingly how millions of scholars contribute great open sharing modules and edits of modules to Wikipedia.

A scholarly approach is to first look a term up in Wikipedia. Then search for that term in the Britannica or some other more authoritative source. Chances are, however, that you won't find that term or person written up in the Britannica.

Some free specialized search engines are much better than Britannica. My best example here is Wolfram Alpha. Britannica has nothing to compete with the amazing interactive Wolfram Alpha ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Searchh.htm#WolframAlpha

Then you are faced with the choice of either quoting from the Wikipedia module or doing a more scholastic search of the Web.

How Scholars Search the Web ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Searchh.htm#ScholarySearch

NMC Horizon Report
2013 Higher Education Edition (the tenth edition) ---
http://www.nmc.org/publications/2013-horizon-report-higher-ed

The NMC Horizon Report, 2013 Higher Education Edition, is a collaborative effort between the NMC and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI), an EDUCAUSE Program.

The tenth edition describes annual findings from the NMC Horizon Project, a decade-long research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in higher education. Six emerging technologies are identified across three adoption horizons over the next one to five years, as well as key trends and challenges expected to continue over the same period, giving campus leaders and practitioners a valuable guide for strategic technology planning.

The 2013 Horizon Project Higher Education Advisory Board initially voted on the top 12 emerging technologies — the result of which is documented in this a interim report: the NMC Horizon Project Short List > 2013 Higher Education Edition. This Short List then helped the advisory board narrow down the 12 technologies to six for the full publication. Those results are available in the official Preview. View the work that produced these findings at www.horizon.wiki.nmc.org.

> Download the Short List PDF
> Download the Preview PDF

Download the NMC Horizon Report > 2013 Higher Ed Edition PDF

"6 Emerging Technologies in Higher Ed," by Tanya Roscorla, Center for Digital Education, February 4, 2013 ---
http://www.centerdigitaled.com/news/6-Emerging-Technologies-Higher-Ed-2013.html 

Over the next five years, six technologies will continue to gain traction in colleges and universities, according to the 2013 NMC Horizon Project released Monday, Feb. 4.

About 50 experts spent time narrowing down a list of 80 potential technologies to these six: In a year or less, massively open online courses and tablets could become mainstream. In two to three years, games and gamification, and learning analytics could follow suit. And four to five years down the line, 3D printing and wearable technology could see widespread use.

. . .

Time-to-adoption horizon: One year or less

• Massively open online courses
  These large online courses have won increasing attention in the media and among education technology watchers. Major research universities have signed up with online course platform providers to offer these classes at no charge to unlimited numbers of students.
  
  Even though 2012 was dubbed the year of the massively open online course, only 2.6 percent of colleges and universities offer one of them, according to an online education survey of 2,820 chief academic officers by the Babson Survey Research Group and the College Board.
  
  Our coverage: 
  3 Reasons Why People Take Massively Open Online Courses
  Massively Open Online Courses Are 'Here to Stay'
  3 Lessons from a Massively Open Online Course
  Pressure Mounts as MOOCs Force Higher Ed to Rethink
   
• Tablet computing
  In the past two years, advances in tablets have "captured the imagination of educators around the world," according to the report, and they're easily adaptable to most learning environments.
  
  Our coverage:
  Tablet Ownership Skyrockets Among College Students
  Seton Hall University Trying Windows 8

Time-to-adoption horizon: two to three years

• Games and gamification
  Game-based learning has gained considerable traction over the past 10 years, according to the report, which states that "games have proven to be effective learning tools, and beneficial in cognitive development and the fostering of soft skills among learners, such as collaboration, communication, problem-solving, and critical thinking."
   
• Learning analytics
  This process involves collecting and analyzing data from students' academic work. The data helps colleges track student progress, predict how they will do in the future and identify problem areas.
  
  Our coverage:
  The Future of Predictive Analytics in Higher Ed

Time-to-adoption horizon: Four to five years

• 3D printing
  3D printing holds much promise in higher education -- "Typically, geology and anthropology students are not allowed to handle fragile objects like fossils and artifacts," the report states. "3D printing shows promise as a rapid prototyping and production tool, providing users with the ability to touch, hold, and even take home an accurate model."
   
• Wearable technology
  Technology can be embedded in clothes and accessories to provide useful information about a person's surroundings, answer phone calls, and tweet, among other things.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on education technology ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm

"Tax Hikes Backfire, Greece’s Revenues Plummet," by Andy Dabilis, Greek Reporter, February 7, 2013 ---
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/02/07/tax-hikes-backfire-greeces-revenues-plummet/

Jensen Comment
The major economic problem in Greece is its historical propensity not to enforce tax laws. This led to generations of tax cheats, and old habits are hard to break. However, the current crisis seems to additionally be one of reduced VAT tax collections due to lower consumption spending.

"The High Burden of State and Federal Capital Gains Taxes," by Kyle Pomerleau, The Tax Foundation, February 20, 2013 ---
http://taxfoundation.org/article/high-burden-state-and-federal-capital-gains-taxes

Jensen Comment
It saddens me with all the focus on capital gains rates relative to what should be a more important issue --- price level adjusting long-term capital gains. I would prefer capttal gains taxes at ordinary income rates after adjusting for inflation.

Arthur P. Hall, Issues in the Indexation of Capital Gains, Tax Foundation Special Report No. 47 (Apr. 1995), http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/dafa29992e4cfa82276853f47607c84d.pdf.

The "Prairie Home Companion" jokes about English majors are based on faulty assumptions about the job market, and should stop, writes Robert Matz.
Inside Higher Ed
February 5, 2013
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/02/05/essay-critiques-garrison-keillor-his-jokes-about-english-majors

Dear Garrison,

After yet another joke on "A Prairie Home Companion" about an English major who studies Dickens and ends up at a fast-food restaurant frying chickens, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to write.

You and I go way back. I started listening to you during my undergraduate years as an English major in the mid-'80s and continued while in graduate school in English literature, when making a nice dinner and listening to "Prairie Home" was my Saturday night ritual. I get that you’re joking. I get the whole Midwesterner take down of — and fascination with — cultural sophistication that animates your show. I get that you yourself were an English major. And I get affectionate irony.

I’m afraid, however, that jokes about bitter and unemployed English majors that are already unfortunate in an economy humming along at 4.5 percent unemployment are downright damaging when the unemployment rate is near 8 percent — and some governors, in the name of jobs, are calling for liberal arts heads. Likewise, the most recent annual nationwide survey of the attitudes of college freshmen reported an all-time high in the number of students who said that "to be able to get a better job" (87.9 percent) and "to be able to make more money" (74.6 percent) were "very important" reasons to go to college. Not surprisingly, the same survey reported that the most popular majors were the most directly vocational: business, the health professions, and engineering (biology was also among the most popular). 

The truth, however, is that reports of the deadliness of English to a successful career are greatly exaggerated. According to one major study produced by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, the median income for English majors with a bachelor’s but no additional degree is $48,000. This figure is just slightly lower than that for bachelor’s degree holders in biology ($50,000), and slightly higher than for those in molecular biology or physiology (both $45,000). It’s the same for students who received their bachelor’s in public policy or criminology (both $48,000), slightly lower than for those who received their bachelor’s in criminal justice and fire protection ($50,000) and slightly higher than for those who received it in psychology ($45,000). 

Another study by the same center paints a similar picture with respect to unemployment. In this study, the average unemployment rate for recent B.A. holders (ages 22-26) over the years 2009-10 was 8.9 percent; for English it was 9.2 percent. Both rates are higher than we would wish, but their marginal difference is dwarfed by that between the average for holders of the B.A. and that of high school graduates, whose unemployment rate during the same period was 22.9 percent (also too high). 

Of course, majors in engineering and technology, health, and business often have higher salary averages, between $60,000 (for general business) and $120,000 (for petroleum engineering) and marginally lower unemployment rates, especially for newly minted B.A.s. But there’s nothing reckless about majoring in English compared to many other popular majors. Students who love business or engineering, or who are good at them and simply want to earn the highest possible income, make reasonable choices to pursue study in these fields. But students who want to major in English and are good at it should not believe that they are sacrificing a livelihood to pursue their loves. And students who don’t love what they are learning are less likely to be successful.

Because this kind of information is readily available, it makes me wonder why you, Garrison — and you’re not alone — continue to dump on English as a major. I think it must be because in the world of Lake Woebegon the English major has cultural pretensions that need to be punished with loneliness and unemployment. Likewise, the Midwesterner in you can’t believe that anyone who gets to do these things that you yourself love so much — revel in the pleasures of language and stories — could also be rewarded with a decent job.

Garrison, when it comes to English majors, let your inner Midwesterner go. You can study English and not be a snob. And you can study English and not fail in the world. I know you know these things; you’ve lived them. So my plea to you, Garrison, is this. Your "Writer’s Almanac" does a terrific job promoting the love of language and the study of English. But in my media market it plays at 6:35 am. Even where it gets better play, it has nowhere near the prominence of "A Prairie Home Companion." Can you find a way on the latter to tell stories about English majors that don’t involve failure? These stories would make a fresh alternative on your show to a joke way past its sell-by date. And they might make a few parents less likely to discourage their kids from studying English.

Continued in article

 

Jensen Comment
I'm a long time advocate of going to college at the undergraduate level for reasons other than getting a job upon graduation. Education entails much more in life than getting a career. Also the undergraduate major is only critical to getting into some graduate programs such as engineering, nursing, and medicine.

Having said this, the above article is misleading. It mentions salaries without mentioning demand. Unfortunately the job market for undergraduate majors in humanities only wants a few good majors even though it may pay those few fairly well. Secondly, it ignores dual majors. It's common any more for graduates in business, for example, to have dual majors in a foreign language, communications, mathematics, music, and other disciplines on campus. Perhaps an English major gets hired at a good salary because that major also has another major like accounting or marketing.

The New York Times published the following:
"The College Majors That Do Best in the Job Market," by Catherine Rampell, The New York Times, May 19, 2011 ---
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/the-college-majors-that-do-best-in-the-job-market/

In the above article about jobs, humanities graduates are second from the bottom.

The above article is also somewhat misleading. It states that college graduates earn substantially higher salaries than non-college graduates. This is misleading in at least two respects. Presenting averages without standard deviations is misleading. When means or medians are higher there is still the entire left tail of the salary distribution that does worse than the "average." Students in the left tail are not necessarily going to be earning more than high school and technical school graduates on the right tail of their salary distributions. Another problem is that when computing college graduation "average salaries" the engineering graduates are combined with humanities graduates, thereby ignoring the kurtosis of the distributions.

The bottom line is that complaining about English or Philosophy major jokes in A Prairie Home Companion is not to change the fact that most humanities graduates had better plan on graduate school when finally zeroing in on a career track. Sadly, one of the most popular tracks, law school, has fallen on bad times in terms of career opportunities ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#OverstuffedLawSchools 

Bob Jensen's threads on careers are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#careers

"Macmillan settles with DOJ, leaving Apple last defendant standing in ebook pricing case," by Paid Content, February 8, 2013 ---
http://paidcontent.org/2013/02/08/macmillan-settles-with-doj-and-apple-is-last-man-standing-in-ebook-pricing-case/

 Macmillan, the last remaining publisher holdout in the Department of Justice’s ebook pricing antitrust lawsuit against five publishers and Apple, has decided to settle about ten months after the lawsuit was originally filed. Now Apple is the only remaining party fighting the DOJ lawsuit.

Continued in article

"Life as a Captive of the Job Market," by Eunice Williams is the pseudonym of a Ph.D. candidate in history at a Southern university, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 4, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Life-as-a-Job-Market-Captive/136939/

Some Things to Ponder When Choosing Between an Accounting Versus History PhD ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#HistoryVsAccountancy

Nate Silver --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nate_Silver

Nate picked the 49ers ---
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/01/nate-silver-superbowl-pick-49ers/61567/

Nate also predicted a Nate Silver predicts Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl matchup ---
http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/extra_points/2013/01/nate_silver_pre.html

Nate also stated Martha Coakley was the clear favorite over Scott Brown in the January 2010 Massachusetts Special Senate Election ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_special_election_in_Massachusetts,_2010

"Marc Benioff's Succinct But Savage Review Of The Microsoft Surface Pro," by Dan Lyon, ReadWriteWeb, February 6, 2013 ---
http://readwrite.com/2013/02/06/marc-benioffs-succinct-but-savage-review-of-the-microsoft-surface-pro

"Microsoft Surface Pro Tablet Gets Good Reviews - Except For Battery Life," by Mark Hachman, ReadWriteWeb, February 6, 2013 ---
http://readwrite.com/2013/02/06/microsoft-surface-pro-tablet-gets-good-reviews-except-for-battery-life

"200 Million Workers Want Windows 8 Tablets, Not iPads," by Mark Hachman, ReadWriteWeb, February 4, 2013 ---
http://readwrite.com/2013/02/04/200-million-workers-want-windows-8-tablets-not-ipads

Jensen Comment
Note the large sample size.

Khan Academy --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Academy

A Khan Academy Skeptic Responds to His Critics
"Khan Academy Redux," by Robert Talbert, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 5, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/castingoutnines/2013/02/05/khan-academy-redux/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

The last thing I expected to encounter this week was a resurgence in the Khan Academy Debates of this past summer. Those, if you remember, centered around this spoof video created by my GVSU colleagues John Golden and Dave Coffey. My own contribution to those debates remains the single most viewed post I’ve ever published in nearly ten years of blogging. But honestly, I hadn’t thought much about Khan Academy since then — until Monday afternoon.

Dave (Coffey) sent me a tweet alerting me to this whitepaper published by the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank based in San Francisco. “Look at page 14,” Dave said. I did, and found that I was being used as a prime example of a Khan Skeptic. Actually I am the last in a list of skeptics whose skepticism the authors attempt to dispatch. I’m in good company, as Keith Devlin is the first on that list and Veritasium’s Derek Muller is in there as well.

The whitepaper itself seems to advocate a position that schools would be more effective, and students better served, if they were more free from government involvement — more free to innovate and reform themselves, with a flipped classroom approach being the foremost example of reform. I actually do not disagree with this idea. I am on record as being pro-school choice, and I am firmly right-libertarian on basically every political issue — although I loathe the dehumanizing influence of politics and choose not to discuss this here on the blog, or anywhere else — so in terms of the motivations of the authors, I don’t really have any big issues.

What I do have issues with is the single-minded insistence in this paper that Khan Academy is the exact same thing as the flipped classroom. Throughout, the authors can’t seem to decide whether they are advocating “Khan-like” approaches to school or the Khan Academy itself. Competitors to the Khan Academy, of which there are a a growing number, are never mentioned — which is a strange thing to say about a whitepaper from a pro-free-market organization — and any suggestion that Khan Academy itself might be improved upon is dismissed as “ivory tower pontificating”, especially if the criticism comes from actual educators who, of course, are too steeped in the establishment to have any good ideas.

I have little to no interest in rekindling the Khan Debates of last summer and getting “You’re just jealous of Khan’s success”, etc. comments multiple times. But since my name was brought up in this whitepaper, I thought it would be appropriate to respond.

The section on Khan’s critics starts on page 10 with the sentence: “There is an old saying that no good deed goes unpunished, and so it is with Khan Academy.” This should let you know what you are in for. The entire section is worth reading in its entirety, especially if you’ve been thinking you need more straw-man arguments in your life, but I will focus on the part where I show up on page 14.

The authors start by correctly quoting some of the nice things I had to say about KA in my “Trouble with Khan Academy” post. Then they say:

However, Talbert says the Khan Academy can never replace an actual class on mathematics. The program does not offer a live teacher or human interaction. He further argues that the Khan Academy does not have a real curriculum for effectively teaching students.H

The third point is not entirely right. What I actually said was (emphases in the original):

[KA] is not a coherent curriculum of study that engages students at all the cognitive levels at which they need to be engaged. It’s OK that it’s not these things. […] Khan Academy is a great resource for the niche in which it was designed to work. But when you try to extend it out of that niche — as Bill Gates and others would very much like to do — all kinds of things go wrong.

My point in the original post was about KA trying to be a curriculum — a complete one-stop educational resource. The whitepaper authors, instead, think I am talking about having a curriculum. The difference is more than merely semantic. My daughter’s elementary school has a curriculum — a focused course of study that is implemented by the teachers in the school. But the school itself is just an organization. It would be absurd to say that her elementary school is a curriculum.

Khan Academy wants to be a curriculum, and therein lies the problem. The authors of the whitepaper seem to pick up on this and offer, in Khan’s defense, the suggestion that Khan never said he wants to be a complete educational resource:

Khan never says that he wants to replace actual classes on mathematics. He simply wants to restructure them so that students are able to advance at their own pace and receive more individualized assistance. By advocating a switch to a flipped-classroom model, he wants to enhance teacher interaction with students, not minimize it.

But this is either plain wrong or a significant reversal of Khan’s earlier objectives. In the long feature article in Time magazine on Khan Academy from July 9, 2012, it says (emphasis added):

Khan is using the money [from donations from Google, etc.] to transform the academy from his own personal YouTube channel into an educational nonprofit with Silicon Valley start-up DNA. The goal: to create a complete educational approach–with video lectures, online exercises, badges to reward student progress, an analytics dashboard for teachers to track that progress and more–that can be integrated into existing classrooms or serve as a stand-alone virtual school for anyone wanting to learn something new.

I find it hard to square this very public statement of KA’s goals with what the authors of the whitepaper want those goals to be, unless Khan has backpedalled from this ambition since July.

Continued in article

Accountancy Videos and Other Things Accountants Teach at the Khan Academy
Accounting is not listed as a mainline topic at https://www.khanacademy.org/
But there are some videos for accounting education. Go to the above link and search on the terms "accounting," "cost," "Invest," "Valuation," "Personal," "Present," "Inflation," "Tax," and other related terms of interest to you.

Why is Illinois an outlier?
Learn about pension liabilities from the Khan Academy ---
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/american-civics/v/illinois-pension-obligations

Bob Jensen's threads on the Khan Academy are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

"Student Engagement in the Online Classroom," by Errol Craig Sull, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 31, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Student-Engagement-in-the/136897/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

"Genesis of an Online Course," by   Amy Dunbar* June 2003 Revised November 2003 ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/002cpe/Dunbar2002.htm 

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

Do your students miss the chalk board?

The picture below pretty much says what teaching and learning were like before the age of computers and networking ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/Blackboard01.jpg

Baumol's cost disease --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease

"Talk to Me Like I'm Stupid: Baumol's Cost Disease," by John Warner, Inside Higher Ed, February 3, 2013 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/talk-me-im-stupid-baumols-cost-disease

One of the Internet writers I most admire is Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic.

There are a number or reasons for my admiration. He is thoughtful, and often does his thinking on the page – showing his work, if you will – which I appreciate because I tend to do the same thing. He tackles a wide array of subjects; posts on civil war history, head trauma in football, hip-hop, and role-playing games may run one after another.

He also personally moderates his comments section, managing to wrangle anonymous Internet personalities into a frequently productive and enlightening discussion, which is perhaps his most amazing feat.

One of the features he occasionally employs is called “Talk to Me Like I’m Stupid,” where he crowdsources something he doesn’t know, or sufficiently understand in order to better inform himself.

In the process, he manages to better inform his audience as well.

I was hoping we could try something similar with a concept I see invoked frequently in these virtual pages.

I want you to talk to me like I’m stupid about Baumol’s Cost Disease as it pertains (or doesn’t) to higher education.

I have access to Wikipedia, so I understand the basics: that these two economists, Baumol and Bowen did a study on the performing arts showing that because salaries will rise without a corresponding increase in productivity (the number of musicians necessary to perform in a string quartet being the same regardless of century), then over time, string quartets grow progressively more expensive.

The phenomenon is frequently cited as a cause of increasing costs of both health care, and higher ed.

Obviously, unless and until MOOCs upend higher ed delivery for all (note to self, add MOOC as future topic for “talk to me like I’m stupid”), college instruction is going to be labor intensive.

And we all know that tuition is increasing much faster than the cost of inflation.

During the campaign, Vice President Joe Biden cited rising faculty salaries as the, or at least a cause of rising tuition.

But here’s the thing, and why I need help. Has the cost of faculty truly increased? Are we an example of Baumol’s Cost Disease?

My experience says no, but the world says yes. We can't get more productive, but are we getting more expensive?

This is my 12th year as a full-time non-tenure-track college instructor. My salary is almost the same as it was in the year 2001. The proportion of people like me, as well as the less fortunate on per-course adjunct pay as part of total faculty has only increased, which should be driving down salary costs.

In the six years I spent at Clemson, my salary was flat, except for the year everyone had a mandatory five-day furlough when it was obviously lower.

The AAUP reports that full-time faculty salaries across every category declined relative to inflation in the 2011-2012 academic year.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Baumol's Cost Disease is possibly more dramatic in health care salaries. One difference in health care versus education is that revenue increases can be more easily traced to capital expenditures. For example our nearby Littleton Regional Hospital can trace increased revenues to a millions of dollars invested in new investments in CAT and MRI scanners. Increased revenues can also be traced to the addition of a new wing devoted to leases of physician offices.

When the hospital expanded surgery services the increases in revenues from those services flows into ledger accounts.

Hence there may be greater productivity from investing large amounts of capital in equipment and new supporting employees relative to raising salaries of existing staff before the new services were added.

In education it's generally more difficult to trace revenue increases to increases in capital expenditures. Revenue increase from a new dormitory on the campus of Trinity University can be traced back to the capital expenditure. But revenue increases arising from tens of millions spent for new buildings for the administration, life sciences, music, and engineering are much more difficult to trace back to the capital expenditures. For example, in the short term revenues would probably increase more  if the money for those new buildings was instead spent of many more half-tuition scholarships that increase the size of the paying student body.

Trinity has also spent tens of millions on information technology that is almost impossible to evaluate in terms of return on investment. For example, we will never know how many students would not attend Trinity if it was not on the leading edge of education technology.

Trinity University just hired two distinguished professors (a husband and wife team in accounting and finance). This is great for the research reputation of the Business Administration Department. But the same amount of money perhaps would have led to more short term revenue increases if the number of sections of courses was instead greatly increased by hiring ten professionally qualified teachers of accounting and finance who are not assigned research performance responsibilities. Accounting, finance, and other business administration classes typically have more students trying to get into those classes relative to capacity in terms of teaching faculty.

"How to Add and Subtract Roman Numerals," by Jason Marshall, The Math Dude, February 1, 2013 ---
http://mathdude.quickanddirtytips.com/how-to-add-and-subtract-roman-numerals.aspx

Jensen Comment
This may be useful if your teaching about financial derivative instruments history. Options trading dates back to Roman times ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds

"When ‘Good Enough’ Really is Good Enough - Managing perfectionism in an imperfect world," by Daniel A. Smith, AccountingWeb, December 13, 2012 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/blog-post/when-%E2%80%98good-enough%E2%80%99-really-good-enough-managing-perfectionism-imperfect-world?source=practice

Jensen Comment
This takes me back to decades ago, while I was still a Ph.D. student, when Nobel laurete Herb Simon and his Carnegie Mellon colleagues were expounding "satissficing,"

Satisficing --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing

Satisficing, a portmanteau of satisfy and suffice is a decision-making strategy that attempts to meet an acceptability threshold. This is contrasted with optimal decision-making, an approach that specifically attempts to find the best option available. A satisficing strategy may often be (near) optimal if the costs of the decision-making process itself, such as the cost of obtaining complete information, are considered in the outcome calculation.

The word satisfice was given its current meaning by Herbert A. Simon in 1956,[2] although the idea "was first posited in Administrative Behavior, published in 1947. He pointed out that human beings lack the cognitive resources to optimize: we usually do not know the relevant probabilities of outcomes, we can rarely evaluate all outcomes with sufficient precision, and our memories are weak and unreliable. A more realistic approach to rationality takes into account these limitations: This is called bounded rationality.

"Satisficing" can also be regarded as combining "satisfying" and "sacrificing."[citation needed] In this usage the satisficing solution satisfies some criteria and sacrifices others.

Continued in article

I don't see the term satisficing much in the academic literature these days. But it was a popular concept in mathematical programming and operations research years ago, especially where discovery of an optimal solution was deemed impossible or impractical. I'm sure it is still used, but it does not seem to be used as frequently these days.

Challenge: Name the six things before clicking on the link below
"What Auto Insurance Really Covers," by Laura Adams, Money Girl, February 1, 2013 ---
http://moneygirl.quickanddirtytips.com/what-is-auto-insurance.aspx

"The Best Parenting App Is Against The Law," Buzz Feed, February 1, 2013 ---
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/why-the-best-parenting-app-is-against-the-law

The Federal Trade Commission levied a $800,000 fine on the social networking service Path Friday morning for having, among other things, permitted children to use the service, a small social network meant for friends and family.

"Early in Path's history, children under the age of 13 were able to sign up for accounts," the company wrote on its blog. "A very small number of affected accounts have since been closed by Path."

My first reaction was to hurriedly open the app on my iPhone, where I found, to my relief, that my 9-year old son's account remained active. My son's picture of his grandfather holding a McDonald's bag ("Doom has befall us!") and his image of his little brother face down in a laundry bin ("'helping' with the laundry") were still there, as were dozens of messages he's exchanged with his old babysitter, with his typos and double-posts and occasional errors of tone or content that you make when you're a kid learning something new.

The something new in this case is a basic skill in 2012: operating responsibly on the social web. Path is an amazing teaching tool for that skill, because it's built for family and close friends. Children who come to the social web through Path learn an obvious lesson that eludes adults on Facebook every day: This is the real world. The people you interact with are real people, some of whom you know. Your words will have consequences in your real life — delighting and amusing your family, mostly; drawing the occasional scolding. Pretty much like being a 9-year-old IRL.

Path was created by Dave Morin, a former Facebook executive, and it's a reaction against Facebook's busy page and its insistent pressure to share more and more widely. Path's interface is intuitive and lovely, a simple, linear scroll. It has BuzzFeed-style buttons for emotional reactions, an understated new search feature, and little else. It doesn't push you to befriend strangers, and doesn't make you easy for acquaintances to find. It doesn't, unlike Twitter (where my son also has a now-dormant, illicit account), send porn bots your way. I use it only for people who want to see lots of pictures of my kids, and whose kids I want to see — blood relatives only, pretty much. The popularity of the Unbaby.me extension for Facebook alone illustrates the logic of the service.

Also: This perfect primer on the social web is a violation of federal law. Even though it is, to me at least, one of the things that makes Path so vital to my life, the company is terrified of talking about it. The company's spokeswoman, Amy Swanson, was initially reluctant to speak to me at all when I told her I was working on a (celebratory!) story on how great the service is for kids. When she finally agreed to talk, she began by cutting me off:

"Clearly you have a son or a daughter who is under 13 — but please don't tell me any more than that before I can explain a few things," she said. Had I told her the name of my son, or my 7-year-old daughter, who is also on the service, she would have been bound to delete their accounts.

"If you are under 13 you can't be on" Path, she said, citing the immense technical challenge of implementing federal standards for services aimed at kids. "We are too small of a start-up for us to put that in place."

"Facebook doesn't even do that yet," she noted.

Swanson's comments, and her company's reluctance to talk about the issue, were shaped by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), passed in the Neolithic year of 1998. That's also the legislation the Federal Trade Commission's ritual denunciation this morning relied on, blasting Path for, among other things, having "enabled children to create personal journals and upload, store and share photos, written 'thoughts,' their precise location, and the names of songs to which the child was listening."

Continued in article

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

When fairness prevails Harvard research shows how uncertainty affects behavior,

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_and_Accuracy_in_Reporting

Management is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of these consolidated financial statements in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America; this includes the design, implementation, and maintenance of internal control relevant to the preparation and fair presentation of consolidated financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.........
http://cpa-scribo.com/the-new-audit-opinion-clarity-project/

An audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the consolidated financial statements. The procedures selected depend on the auditor’s judgment, including the assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the consolidated financial statements, whether due to fraud or error. In making those risk assessments, the auditor considers internal control relevant to the entity’s preparation and fair presentation of the consolidated financial statements in order to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances, but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the entity’s internal control. Accordingly, we express no such opinion. An audit also includes evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonableness of significant accounting estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the consolidated financial statements.
http://cpa-scribo.com/the-new-audit-opinion-clarity-project/

In our opinion, the consolidated financial statements referred to above present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of ABC Company and its subsidiaries as of December 31, 20X1 and 20X0, and the results of their operations and their cash flows for the years then ended in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.
http://cpa-scribo.com/the-new-audit-opinion-clarity-project/ 

In our opinion the financial statements give a true and fair view, in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Practice in Ireland, of the state of the company’s affairs as at...........
http://www.cpaireland.ie/UserFiles/File/Technical Resources/Auditing/Helpsheets/Sample Audit Reports.pdf

Fairness Doctrine (repeatedly violated in recent years) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine

"When fairness prevails Harvard research shows how uncertainty affects behavior," Harvard Gazette, February 5, 2013 ---
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/01/when-fairness-prevails/

In an uncertain world, "it actually becomes optimal to be fair, and natural selection favored fairness," said David Rand, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology who studied fairness with Martin Nowak and Corina Tarnita.

Philosophers and scientists have long puzzled over the origins of fairness. Work by a group of Harvard researchers offers some clues, with the discovery that uncertainty is critical in the concept’s development.

Using computer simulations of evolution, researchers at Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics (PED) — including Director Martin Nowak, scientist David Rand, and junior fellow Corina Tarnita — found that uncertainty is key to fairness. Hisashi Ohtsuki from the Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Kanagawa, Japan, also contributed to the study. Their work was described in a Jan. 21 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“A number of papers have studied the evolution of fairness over the years,” said Rand, who will begin an assistant professorship at Yale this summer. “Our novel contribution was to take the effects of randomness into account. What we found was that as we turned up the uncertainty in our simulations, it fundamentally changed the nature of the evolutionary dynamic. The result was that in a world that has a lot of uncertainty, it actually became optimal to be fair, and natural selection favored fairness.”

To model fairness, Rand and colleagues used the Ultimatum Game, which involves two players bargaining over a pot of money. The first player proposes how the money should be split. If the second player accepts the offer, the money is split as proposed; if the offer is rejected, the game is over and neither player gets anything.

“The reason this game is interesting is that if you assume everyone is rational and self-interested, the second player should accept any offer, because even if they’re getting only one dollar it’s still better than nothing,” Rand said. “The first player should anticipate that, and should make the minimum possible offer.”

The game almost never works that way, however.

Instead, Rand said, many people will reject offers they believe are unfair. Earlier studies have shown that as many as half of players will reject offers of 30 percent or less — meaning they are effectively paying to retaliate against the other player for making such a low offer, or to stop the other player from getting ahead.

“The proximate psychological explanation for why people behave this way in the Ultimatum Game is that they have a preference for fairness, and they’re willing to pay to create equality,” Rand said. “The question we were trying to answer was: Why? Why did we come to have those preferences?”

Rand and his colleagues built a series of computer players, each of which had a specific strategy describing how much they would offer, and how much they would accept. Each round, all the computer players played the game with one another. Then they updated their strategies in a process similar to genetic evolution.

“You can think of it as though the players that earned higher payoffs attracted more imitators. Players sometimes choose to change their behavior, and when they do, they copy the strategies of players who were more successful,” Rand explained. “It could also represent actual genetic evolution, where players with [a] big payoff leave more offspring. Either way, higher payoff strategies tend to become more common in the population over time.”

Continued in article

Note that truth is not a synonym for fairness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_lie#White_lie

Being "street smart" often entails lying for what is perceived as being fair.

"Does Everyone Lie? Are we a Culture of Liars?" by accounting professor Steven Mintz, Ethics Sage, February 1, 2013 ---
http://www.ethicssage.com/2013/02/does-everyone-lie.html

"The Lying Culture," by J. Edward Ketz & Anthony H. Catanach Jr.,  SmartPros, February 2011 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x71398.xml

From time to time, it is good to stop and assess one's progress in life. Such an evaluation helps people to figure out how they are doing and to make strategic decisions to take advantage of upcoming opportunities and to meet future challenges. When we do this for the accounting profession, we shake our heads because accounting shenanigans remain abundant and the seeds for further scandals are sown, watered, and fertilized.

The kernel of this problem is simple: company managers and their advisers are liars. Ok, not all of them, but so many are liars that the business community is in danger of falling on its own petard. Maybe this is because American society has a problem with the truth, as exemplified by our political, military, bureaucratic, sports, and entertainment leaders. We often hear the mantra, “the truth shall make you free,” but our leaders apparently desire to enslave others through their destructively self-serving, lying behaviors.

One obvious current example is the toxic assets still held by banks in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008. These investments have real values lower than their carrying values, but banks refuse to write them down, citing mush about earnings volatility and the adverse effects of mark-to-market accounting. They reject fair value accounting because it would reveal the precarious position of the banking industry. In short, banks are lying about asset values and really are not well capitalized.

Continued in article

The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead [Paperback]
by David Callahan (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Cheating-Culture-Americans-Doing/dp/0156030055/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Review by Stephen A. Lajoie (Seattle, WA USA)

I was interested in this book because I have observed increased incidents of cheating on college campuses. Cheating has become bold, blatant and unpunished.

The author makes the case that cheating has increased since 1974. The thesis of the author is that the greed of the political conservatives has caused the epidemic of cheating, and the author even cites a sound-bite from President Reagan, where Reagan says that he hopes that people can still get rich in this country, to support this claim.

The book is an interesting read for the data on how cheating has become socially acceptable among the middle class, but the author's thesis that political conservatives, due to their greed, have caused it is not well made. I would accuse him of neglectful induction: he doesn't examine non-capitalist countries like the former Soviet Union for examples of cheating. He claims that there was a golden age of honesty, and as an example of that points to big law firms that use to only hire the all white upper class sons of wealthy members of the law firm, but now, due to diversity laws, hire the top graduates out of law school. The new high pressure work environment and the drive to get to the top is the cause of cheating in billing. The author claims this is due to post 1974 conservative greed. Yet, the author ignored that sweat shop conditions have existed in the past, and that this law firm is nothing more than a yuppie sweat shop. Further, isn't hiring only the white upper class son's of the partners a way of cheating as well? The author does not address that.

The idea that corporate greed has caused cheating in schools is simply backwards, a confusion of cause and effect. One cheats in school and then goes into the business world, where one cheats in business. People do not, generally, go from cheating in business to cheating in high school.

Cheats have done well in big business since forever; this is nothing new since the Reagan administration. The author does not examine the relationship between the decline of religion and the increase in cheating, either; which is very neglectful induction. It simply does not follow that corporate greed is the root cause of the increase in cheating among the middle class.

Jensen Comment
There are many nations where students cheat much more commonly and blatantly than the United States. Plagiarism is extreme in the Soviet Union where even President Vladimir Putin plagiarized his entire Ph.D. thesis ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#Celebrities

It's not clear that Vladimir Putin even read his own thesis
Large parts of an economics thesis written by President Vladimir Putin in the mid-1990s were lifted straight out of a U.S. management textbook published 20 years earlier, The Washington Times reported Saturday, citing researchers at the Brookings Institution. It was unclear, however, whether Putin had even read the thesis, which might have been intended to impress the Western investors who were flooding into St. Petersburg in the mid-1990s, the report said. Putin oversaw the city's foreign economic relations at the time.
"Putin Accused of Plagiarizing Thesis," Moscow Times, March 27, 2006 ---
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/27/011.html

"German Education Minister Stripped of Doctorate," Inside Higher Ed, February 7, 2013 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/02/06/german-education-minister-stripped-doctorate 

A panel at Heinrich Heine University has decided to strip Germany's education minister, Annette Schavan, of her doctorate because the committee found her dissertation to be plagiarized, the Associated Press reported. Schavan denies the charges and plans to appeal. A former defense minister in Germany resigned in 2011 after revelations that he had copied portions of his doctoral thesis.

Jensen Comment
In days of old the writings of students were considered the works of their major professors who sometimes helped themselves to these works without even acknowledging the original authors. This no longer is the case in modern times.

Bob Jensen's threads on professors who plagiarized ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#ProfessorsWhoPlagiarize

The Psychology of Plagiarism in Russia ---
http://psychologyinrussia.com/volumes/pdf/2009/27_2009_voiskunskii.pdf

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

Bob Jensen's threads on professionalism and ethics in auditing ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001c.htm

Anton Checkov --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkov

"Anton Chekhov on the 8 Qualities of Cultured People," by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, January 29, 2013 ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/29/anton-chekhov-8-qualities-of-cultured-people/

Jensen Comment
I suspect there are not many cultured people in the world because of Criterion Number 4.

"Does Everyone Lie? Are we a Culture of Liars?" by accounting professor Steven Mintz, Ethics Sage, February 1, 2013 ---
http://www.ethicssage.com/2013/02/does-everyone-lie.html

"The Lying Culture," by J. Edward Ketz & Anthony H. Catanach Jr.,  SmartPros, February 2011 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x71398.xml

"Anton Chekhov on the 8 Qualities of Cultured People," by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, January 29, 2013 ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/29/anton-chekhov-8-qualities-of-cultured-people/

Jensen Comment
I suspect there are not many cultured people in the world because of Criterion Number 4.

"Does Everyone Lie? Are we a Culture of Liars?" by accounting professor Steven Mintz, Ethics Sage, February 1, 2013 ---
http://www.ethicssage.com/2013/02/does-everyone-lie.html

"The Lying Culture," by J. Edward Ketz & Anthony H. Catanach Jr.,  SmartPros, February 2011 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x71398.xml

"In a Memphis Cheating Ring, the Teachers Are the Accused," by Motoko Rich, The New York Times, February 2, 2013 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/02/education/in-memphis-cheating-ring-teachers-are-the-accused.html?hpw&_r=0

In the end, it was a pink baseball cap that revealed an audacious test-cheating scheme in three Southern states that spanned at least 15 years.

Test proctors at Arkansas State University spotted a woman wearing the cap while taking a national teacher certification exam under one name on a morning in June 2009 and then under another name that afternoon. A supervisor soon discovered that at least two other impersonators had registered for tests that day.

Ensuing investigations ultimately led to Clarence D. Mumford Sr., 59, who pleaded guilty on Friday to charges that accused him of being the cheating ring’s mastermind during a 23-year career in Memphis as a teacher, assistant principal and guidance counselor.

Federal prosecutors had indicted him on 63 counts, including mail and wire fraud and identify theft. They said he doctored driver’s licenses, pressured teachers to lie to the authorities and collected at least $125,000 from teachers and prospective teachers in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee who feared that they could not pass the certification exams on their own.

Mr. Mumford pleaded guilty to two counts of the indictment, just a week after he rejected a settlement offer. At the time, he said that its recommended sentence of 9 to 11 years was “too long a time and too severe”; the new settlement carries a maximum sentence of 7 years.

Mr. Mumford appeared in Federal District Court here on Friday wearing a dark suit and a matching yellow tie and pocket handkerchief. He said little more than “Yes, sir” in answer to questions from Judge John T. Fowlkes.

Another 36 people, most of them teachers from Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee, have been swept up in the federal dragnet, including Clarence Mumford Jr., Mr. Mumford’s son, and Cedrick Wilson, a former wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers. (Mr. Wilson paid $2,500 for someone to take a certification exam for physical education teachers, according to court documents.)

In addition to the senior Mr. Mumford, eight people have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the investigation into the ring, and on Friday, a federal prosecutor, John Fabian, announced that 18 people who confessed to paying Mr. Mumford to arrange test-takers for them had been barred from teaching for five years.

The case has rattled Memphis at a tumultuous time. The city’s schools are merging with the suburban district in surrounding Shelby County, exposing simmering tensions over race and economic disparity. The state has also designated 68 schools in the city as among the lowest-performing campuses in Tennessee, and is gradually handing control of some of them to charter operators and other groups. And with a $90 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the district is overhauling how it recruits, evaluates and pays teachers.

District officials say that the test scandal does not reflect broader problems, and that none of the indicted teachers still work in the Memphis schools. (At least one teacher is working in Mississippi.) “It would be unfair to let what may be 50, 60 or 100 teachers who did some wrong stain the good work of the large number of teachers and administrators who get up every day and go by the book,” said Dorsey Hopson, the general counsel for Memphis City Schools who this week was named the district’s interim superintendent.

“A teacher’s job is very hard. I know it is,” said Threeshea Robinson, a mother who waited last week to pick up her son, a fourth grader at Raleigh-Bartlett Meadows Elementary School, where a teacher who has pleaded guilty taught until last fall. “But I would not want a doctor who did not pass all his tests operating on me.”

The tests involved are known as Praxis exams, and more than 300,000 were administered last year by the nonprofit Educational Testing Service for people pursuing teaching licenses or new credentials in specific subjects like biology or history.

By and large, they are considered easy hurdles to clear. In Tennessee, for example, 97 percent of those who took the exams in the 2010-11 school year passed.

Robert Schaeffer, the public education director of FairTest, the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, said that the testing service had had problems with cheating before.

Ray Nicosia, the executive director of the testing service’s Office of Testing Integrity, said episodes of impersonation were rare.

Continued in article

"What Will They Learn?" by Walter E. Williams, Townhall, August 26, 2009 --- http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/08/26/what_will_they_learn 

"Does Everyone Lie? Are we a Culture of Liars?" by accounting professor Steven Mintz, Ethics Sage, February 1, 2013 ---
http://www.ethicssage.com/2013/02/does-everyone-lie.html

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

2012 Harvard Cheating Scandal --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Harvard_cheating_scandal

"Dozens of students withdraw in Harvard cheating scandal." Reuters, February 1, 2013 ---
http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USBRE9101AF20130201

As many as 60 students have been forced to withdraw from Harvard University after cheating on a final exam last year in what has become the largest academic scandal to hit the Ivy League school in recent memory.

Michael Smith, Harvard's Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, sent an email on Friday saying that more than half of the students who faced the school's Administrative Board have been suspended for a time.

Roughly 125 undergraduates were involved in the scandal, which came to light at the end of the spring semester after a professor noticed similarities on a take-home exam that showed students worked together, even though they were instructed to work alone.

The school's student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, has reported that the government class, Introduction to Congress, had 279 students enrolled.

"Somewhat more than half of the Administrative Board cases this past fall required a student to withdraw from the College for a period of time," Smith wrote. "Of the remaining cases, roughly half the students received disciplinary probation, while the balance ended in no disciplinary action."

The cases were resolved during the fall semester, which ended in December, Smith said. Suspensions depend on the student, but traditionally last two semesters and as much as four semesters.

In the last few months, the university has also worked to be clearer about the academic integrity it expects from students.

"While all the fall cases are complete, our work on academic integrity is far from done," Smith added.

"Half of students in Harvard cheating scandal required to withdraw from the college," by Katherin Landergan, Boston.com, February 1, 2013 ---
http://www.boston.com/yourcampus/news/harvard/2013/02/half_of_students_in_harvard_cheating_scandal_required_to_withdraw_from_the_college.html

In an apparent disclosure about the Harvard cheating scandal, a top university official said Friday that more than half of the Harvard students investigated by a college board have been ordered to withdraw from the school.

In an e-mail to the Harvard community, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith wrote that more than half of the students who were brought before the university's Administration Board this fall were required to withdraw from for a period of time.

Of the remaining cases, approximately half the students received disciplinary probation, while the rest of the cases were dismissed.

Smith's e-mail does not explicitly address the cheating scandal that implicated about 125 Harvard students. But a Harvard official confirmed Friday that the cases in the email solely referred to one course.

In August, Harvard disclosed the cheating scandal in a Spring 2012 class. It was widely reported to be "Government 1310: Introduction to Congress."

“Consistent with the Faculty’s rules and our obligations to our students, we do not report individual outcomes of Administrative Board cases, but only report aggregate statistics,” the e-mail said. "In that tradition, the College reports that somewhat more than half of the Administrative Board cases this past fall required a student to withdraw from the College for a period of time. Of the remaining cases, roughly half the students received disciplinary probation, while the balance ended in no disciplinary action.''

Smith wrote that the first set of cases were decided in late September, and the remainder were resolved in December.

The e-mail said that "The time span of the resolutions in this set had an undesirable interaction with our established schedule for tuition refunds. To create a greater amount of financial equity for all students who ultimately withdrew sometime in this period, we are treating, for the purpose of calculating tuition refunds, all these students as having received a requirement to withdraw on September 30, 2012."

In a statement released when the cheating scandal became public, Harvard president Drew Faust said that the allegations, “if proven, represent totally unacceptable behavior that betrays the trust upon which intellectual inquiry at Harvard depends. . . . There is work to be done to ensure that every student at Harvard understands and embraces the values that are fundamental to its community of scholars.”

As Harvard students returned to classes for the current semester, professsors included explicit instructions about collaboration on the class syllabus.

On campus Friday afternoon, students reacted to the news.

Michael Constant, 19, said he thinks the college wanted to make a statement with its decision. But when over half of the students in a class cheat, not punishing them is the same as condoning the behavior.

“I think it’s fair,” Constant said of the board’s disciplinary action. “They made the choice to cheat.”

Georgina Parfitt, 22, said the punishment for these students was too harsh, and that many students in the class could have been confused about the policy.

Parfitt said she does not know what the college is trying to achieve by forcing students to leave.

Continued in article

Jensen Question
The question is why cheat at Harvard since almost everybody who tries in a Harvard course receives an A. We're left with the feeling that those 125 or so students who cheated just did not want to try?

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

Every year since 1998, intellectual impresario and Edge editor John Brockman has been posing a single grand question to some of our time’s greatest thinkers across a wide spectrum of disciplines, then collecting the answers in an annual anthology. Last year’s answers to the question “What scientific concept will improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit?” were released in This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking, one of the year’s best psychology and philosophy books.

In 2012, the question Brockman posed, proposed by none other than Steven Pinker, was “What is your favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation?” The answers, representing an eclectic mix of 192 (alas, overwhelmingly male) minds spanning psychology, quantum physics, social science, political theory, philosophy, and more, are collected in the edited compendium This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works (UK; public library) and are also available online.

In the introduction preceding the micro-essays, Brockman frames the question and its ultimate objective, adding to history’s most timeless definitions of science:

The ideas presented on Edge are speculative; they represent the frontiers in such areas as evolutionary biology, genetics, computer science, neurophysiology, psychology, cosmology, and physics. Emerging out of these contributions is a new natural philosophy, new ways of understanding physical systems, new ways of thinking that call into question many of our basic assumptions.

[…]

Perhaps the greatest pleasure in science comes from theories that derive the solution to some deep puzzle from a small set of simple principles in a surprising way. These explanations are called ‘beautiful’ or ‘elegant.’

[…]

The contributions presented here embrace scientific thinking in he broadest sense: as the most reliable way of gaining knowledge about anything — including such fields of inquiry as philosophy, mathematics, economics, history, language, and human behavior. The common thread is that a simple and nonobvious idea is proposed as the explanation of a diverse and complicated set of phenomena.

Stanford neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, eloquent as ever, marvels at the wisdom of the crowd and the emergence of swarm intelligence:

Observe a single ant, and it doesn’t make much sense, walking in one direction, suddenly careening in another for no obvious reason, doubling back on itself. Thoroughly unpredictable.

The same happens with two ants, a handful of ants. But a colony of ants makes fantastic sense. Specialized jobs, efficient means of exploiting new food sources, complex underground nests with temperature regulated within a few degrees. And critically, there’s no blueprint or central source of command—each individual ants has algorithms for their behaviors. But this is not wisdom of the crowd, where a bunch of reasonably informed individuals outperform a single expert. The ants aren’t reasonably informed about the big picture. Instead, the behavior algorithms of each ant consist of a few simple rules for interacting with the local environment and local ants. And out of this emerges a highly efficient colony.

Ant colonies excel at generating trails that connect locations in the shortest possible way, accomplished with simple rules about when to lay down a pheromone trail and what to do when encountering someone else’s trail—approximations of optimal solutions to the Traveling Salesman problem. This has useful applications. In “ant-based routing,” simulations using virtual ants with similar rules can generate optimal ways of connecting the nodes in a network, something of great interest to telecommunications companies. It applies to the developing brain, which must wire up vast numbers of neurons with vaster numbers of connections without constructing millions of miles of connecting axons. And migrating fetal neurons generate an efficient solution with a different version of ant-based routine.

A wonderful example is how local rules about attraction and repulsion (i.e., positive and negative charges) allow simple molecules in an organic soup to occasionally form more complex ones. Life may have originated this way without the requirement of bolts of lightning to catalyze the formation of complex molecules.

And why is self-organization so beautiful to my atheistic self? Because if complex, adaptive systems don’t require a blue print, they don’t require a blue print maker. If they don’t require lightning bolts, they don’t require Someone hurtling lightning bolts.

Developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, who famously coined the seminal theory of multiple intelligences, echoes Anaïs Nin in advocating for the role of the individual and Susan Sontag in stressing the impact of individual acts on collective fate. His answer, arguing for the importance of human beings, comes as a welcome antidote to a question that suffers the danger of being inherently reductionist:

In a planet occupied now by seven billion inhabitants, I am amazed by the difference that one human being can make. Think of classical music without Mozart or Stravinsky; of painting without Caravaggio, Picasso or Pollock; of drama without Shakespeare or Beckett. Think of the incredible contributions of Michelangelo or Leonardo, or, in recent times, the outpouring of deep feeling at the death of Steve Jobs (or, for that matter, Michael Jackson or Princess Diana). Think of human values in the absence of Moses or Christ.

[…]

Despite the laudatory efforts of scientists to ferret out patterns in human behavior, I continue to be struck by the impact of single individuals, or of small groups, working against the odds. As scholars, we cannot and should not sweep these instances under the investigative rug. We should bear in mind anthropologist Margaret Mead’s famous injunction: ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. It is the only thing that ever has.’

Uber-curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, who also contributed to last year’s volume, considers the parallel role of patterns and chance in the works of iconic composer John Cage and painter Gerhard Richter, and the role of uncertainty in the creative process:

In art, the title of a work can often be its first explanation. And in this context I am thinking especially of the titles of Gerhard Richter. In 2006, when I visited Richter in his studio in Cologne, he had just finished a group of six corresponding abstract paintings which he gave the title Cage.

There are many relations between Richter’s painting and the compositions of John Cage. In a book about the Cage series, Robert Storr has traced them from Richter‘s attendance of a Cage performance at the Festum Fluxorum Fluxus in Düsseldorf 1963 to analogies in their artistic processes. Cage has often applied chance procedures in his compositions, notably with the use of the I Ching. Richter in his abstract paintings also intentionally allows effects of chance. In these paintings, he applies the oil paint on the canvas by means of a large squeegee. He selects the colors on the squeegee, but the factual trace that the paint leaves on the canvas is to a large extent the outcome of chance.

[…]

Richter‘s concise title, Cage, can be unfolded into an extensive interpretation of these abstract paintings (and of other works)—but, one can say, the short form already contains everything. The title, like an explanation of a phenomenon, unlocks the works, describing their relation to one of the most important cultural figures of the twentieth century, John Cage, who shares with Richter the great themes of chance and uncertainty.

Writer, artist, and designer Douglas Coupland, whose biography of Marshall McLuhan remains indispensable, offers a lyrical meditation on the peculiar odds behind coincidences and déja vus:

I take comfort in the fact that there are two human moments that seem to be doled out equally and democratically within the human condition—and that there is no satisfying ultimate explanation for either. One is coincidence, the other is déja vu. It doesn’t matter if you’re Queen Elizabeth, one of the thirty-three miners rescued in Chile, a South Korean housewife or a migrant herder in Zimbabwe—in the span of 365 days you will pretty much have two déja vus as well as one coincidence that makes you stop and say, “Wow, that was a coincidence.”

The thing about coincidence is that when you imagine the umpteen trillions of coincidences that can happen at any given moment, the fact is, that in practice, coincidences almost never do occur. Coincidences are actually so rare that when they do occur they are, in fact memorable. This suggests to me that the universe is designed to ward off coincidence whenever possible—the universe hates coincidence—I don’t know why—it just seems to be true. So when a coincidence happens, that coincidence had to work awfully hard to escape the system. There’s a message there. What is it? Look. Look harder. Mathematicians perhaps have a theorem for this, and if they do, it might, by default be a theorem for something larger than what they think it is.

What’s both eerie and interesting to me about déja vus is that they occur almost like metronomes throughout our lives, about one every six months, a poetic timekeeping device that, at the very least, reminds us we are alive. I can safely assume that my thirteen year old niece, Stephen Hawking and someone working in a Beijing luggage-making factory each experience two déja vus a year. Not one. Not three. Two.

The underlying biodynamics of déja vus is probably ascribable to some sort of tingling neurons in a certain part of the brain, yet this doesn’t tell us why they exist. They seem to me to be a signal from larger point of view that wants to remind us that our lives are distinct, that they have meaning, and that they occur throughout a span of time. We are important, and what makes us valuable to the universe is our sentience and our curse and blessing of perpetual self-awareness.

MIT social scientist Sherry Turkle, author of the cyber-dystopian Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, considers the role of “transitional objets” in our relationship with technology:

I was a student in psychology in the mid-1970s at Harvard University. The grand experiment that had been “Social Relations” at Harvard had just crumbled. Its ambition had been to bring together the social sciences in one department, indeed, most in one building, William James Hall. Clinical psychology, experimental psychology, physical and cultural anthropology, and sociology, all of these would be in close quarters and intense conversation.

But now, everyone was back in their own department, on their own floor. From my point of view, what was most difficult was that the people who studied thinking were on one floor and the people who studied feeling were on another.

In this Balkanized world, I took a course with George Goethals in which we learned about the passion in thought and the logical structure behind passion. Goethals, a psychologist who specialized in adolescence, was teaching a graduate seminar in psychoanalysis. … Several classes were devoted to the work of David Winnicott and his notion of the transitional object. Winnicott called transitional the objects of childhood—the stuffed animals, the bits of silk from a baby blanket, the favorite pillows—that the child experiences as both part of the self and of external reality. Winnicott writes that such objects mediate between the child’s sense of connection to the body of the mother and a growing recognition that he or she is a separate being. The transitional objects of the nursery—all of these are destined to be abandoned. Yet, says Winnicott, they leave traces that will mark the rest of life. Specifically, they influence how easily an individual develops a capacity for joy, aesthetic experience, and creative playfulness. Transitional objects, with their joint allegiance to self and other, demonstrate to the child that objects in the external world can be loved.

[…]

Winnicott believes that during all stages of life we continue to search for objects we experience as both within and outside the self. We give up the baby blanket, but we continue to search for the feeling of oneness it provided. We find them in moments of feeling “at one” with the world, what Freud called the “oceanic feeling.” We find these moments when we are at one with a piece of art, a vista in nature, a sexual experience.

As a scientific proposition, the theory of the transitional object has its limitations. But as a way of thinking about connection, it provides a powerful tool for thought. Most specifically, it offered me a way to begin to understand the new relationships that people were beginning to form with computers, something I began to study in the late 1970s and early 1980s. From the very beginning, as I began to study the nascent digital culture culture, I could see that computers were not “just tools.” They were intimate machines. People experienced them as part of the self, separate but connected to the self.

[…]

When in the late 1970s, I began to study the computer’s special evocative power, my time with George Goethals and the small circle of Harvard graduate students immersed in Winnicott came back to me. Computers served as transitional objects. They bring us back to the feelings of being “at one” with the world. Musicians often hear the music in their minds before they play it, experiencing the music from within and without. The computer similarly can be experienced as an object on the border between self and not-self. Just as musical instruments can be extensions of the mind’s construction of sound, computers can be extensions of the mind’s construction of thought.

This way of thinking about the computer as an evocative object puts us on the inside of a new inside joke. For when psychoanalysts talked about object relations, they had always been talking about people. From the beginning, people saw computers as “almost-alive” or “sort of alive.” With the computer, object relations psychoanalysis can be applied to, well, objects. People feel at one with video games, with lines of computer code, with the avatars they play in virtual worlds, with their smartphones. Classical transitional objects are meant to be abandoned, their power recovered in moments of heightened experience. When our current digital devices—our smartphones and cellphones—take on the power of transitional objects, a new psychology comes into play. These digital objects are never meant to be abandoned. We are meant to become cyborg.

Anthropologist Scott Aran considers the role of the absurd in religion and cause-worship, and the Becket-like notion of the “ineffable”:

The notion of a transcendent force that moves the universe or history or determines what is right and good—and whose existence is fundamentally beyond reason and immune to logical or empirical disproof—is the simplest, most elegant, and most scientifically baffling phenomenon I know of. Its power and absurdity perturbs mightily, and merits careful scientific scrutiny. In an age where many of the most volatile and seemingly intractable conflicts stem from sacred causes, scientific understanding of how to best deal with the subject has also never been more critical.

"How much do I earn from this blog? Curious?" by Mark P. Holtzman, Accountinator Blog, February 2013 ---
http://accountinator.com/2013/02/07/how-much-do-i-earn-from-this-blog-curious/

Jensen Comment
I'm jealous of Mark. He earned $13.72 in 2012 (one year) more than I made in a lifetime of blogging (I made $0).

Actually, I've no objection when open sharing blogs like Going Concern (free to readers) earn advertising revenues. I could never do so, however, since Trinity University hosts my three blogs along with giving me 100 terabytes of free space for my two Websites. Trinity would justifiably become very upset with any faculty member who tries to make money on advertising on Web documents hosted by the University.

It's interesting to see the clever ways companies are thinking of for advertising. I read where one company is willing to pay for tattoos on the thighs of women with pretty legs. Other companies, however, would sue for such use of their logos. I can't imagine Coca Cola, Budweiser, Microsoft, or Intel allowing their logos to be used in thigh, belly, or buttock advertisements. Senator Menendez might be more open to such advertising when he comes up for reelection.

I wonder if female Hollywood celebrities could get paid millions for advertising on their wedding dresses. They could get paid each time they reuse their wedding dress. Think of residuals Liz Taylor could've made on her seven or so marriages.

"The Science of Love: How Positivity Resonance Shapes the Way We Connect," by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, January 28, 2013 ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/28/love-2-0-barbara-fredrickson/

We kick-started the year with some of history’s most beautiful definitions of love. But timeless as their words might be, the poets and the philosophers have a way of escaping into the comfortable detachment of the abstract and the metaphysical, leaving open the question of what love really is on an unglamorously physical, bodily, neurobiological level — and how that might shape our experience of those lofty abstractions. That’s precisely what psychologist Barbara Fredrickson, who has been studying positive emotions for decades, explores in the unfortunately titled but otherwise excellent Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become (UK; public library). Using both data from her own lab and ample citations of other studies, Fredrickson dissects the mechanisms of love to reveal both its mythologies and its practical mechanics.

Continued in article

Ayasdi: Stanford Math Begets a Data Company," by Ashlee Vance, Bloomberg Business Week, January 24, 2013 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-24/ayasdi-stanford-math-begets-a-data-company

Like most of his peers, Gunnar Carlsson spends his time thinking about hairy, theoretical math problems. It’s ivory tower stuff—he’s been a math professor for 30 years—which is just how the people in his field like it. “Mathematicians want to work on the deepest, hardest problems and get interesting intellectual results,” he says.

In 2008, Carlsson, while continuing his work at Stanford, co-founded Ayasdi, a Palo Alto tech startup. Ayasdi, which means “to seek” in Cherokee, is the first company to come out of Stanford’s math department and just received $10 million in funding from Khosla Ventures and Floodgate.

The company builds software that takes a complex branch of mathematics known as topology, the study of how shapes interact with space, and applies it to large volumes of data. People in fields as diverse as biotech, data security, and social networking believe the software could pull fresh insights out of huge databases in record time. “I view it as one of the real advances in data analysis to have arrived in the last 10 years,” says Eric Schadt, the director of the Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, who has used the software to study bacterial outbreaks and genetic mutations.

With today’s powerful data analysis systems, users gather a ton of information—a breakdown of Wal-Mart Stores’ (WMT) sales in the U.S. or things people “like” on Facebook (FB)—in one place and then run queries. The questioner typically comes in with a preconceived idea of what he’s looking for or at least a set of preconceived biases that determine the questions he asks.

The Ayasdi software, which customers including Merck and Raytheon have been testing for several months, runs dozens of algorithms and then illuminates patterns and relations between the data points. BN ImmunoTherapeutics, for example, has turned to the software for research help on Prostvac, a prostate cancer vaccine that is undergoing clinical trials. The researchers compare genetic markers, people’s ages, medical histories, and other factors to figure out which patients will most likely benefit from the vaccine. “In the past, we would form a hypothesis and say, ‘We think these three biomarkers are important,’ ” says Amanda Enstrom, a research scientist at BN ImmunoTherapeutics. “With Ayasdi, we really allow the data to show us what the important biomarkers are.”

The federal government has funded work in this area of mathematics for the last 10 to 15 years. At Stanford, Carlsson was part of a group of researchers that received money from Darpa, the research and development arm of the U.S. Department of Defense. The agency saw topology as promising for many applications, and no doubt helpful with national security investigations that require finding patterns among vast troves of information.

The startup’s software allows customers to upload their information from a website to Ayasdi’s data center, which applies the algorithms. The relationships between various data points get displayed as colorful, 3D pictures on the screen, and users can pose their queries via a Google-like search box. During one demonstration, Carlsson picks through genetic data on thousands of breast cancer patients and, with a couple of clicks, shows which groups of women will respond best to chemotherapy and what their DNA has in common.

Traditionally, drawing these types of correlations has taken years of painstaking work or been beyond the scope of today’s computing systems, says Mount Sinai’s Schadt. “It’s about taking hundreds of thousands of variables and scoring them across hundreds of thousands of people and trying to extract patterns,” he says. “We’re able to ask some novel questions.”

Ayasdi expects pharmaceutical, energy, and defense organizations will show the most interest in its technology. Enstrom, the research scientist, hopes to see the software used to analyze public health databases as scientists try to form a better understanding of the interplay between genes, environment, and lifestyle. “It may start better informing our growing field,” she says.

Continued in article

February 2, 2013 reply from Jagdish Gangolly

Bob,
 

One of the best talks I have seen on this topic is Carlson's talk at Microsoft research. It is very informative, fairly accessible, VERY comprehensive, and eclectic,

See

 

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=131742
 

Regards,

 

Jagdish

 

"Revolution Hits the Universities," by Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, January 30, 2013 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/opinion/sunday/friedman-revolution-hits-the-universities.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=1&

LORD knows there’s a lot of bad news in the world today to get you down, but there is one big thing happening that leaves me incredibly hopeful about the future, and that is the budding revolution in global online higher education. Nothing has more potential to lift more people out of poverty — by providing them an affordable education to get a job or improve in the job they have. Nothing has more potential to unlock a billion more brains to solve the world’s biggest problems. And nothing has more potential to enable us to reimagine higher education than the massive open online course, or MOOC, platforms that are being developed by the likes of Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and companies like Coursera and Udacity.

¶ Last May I wrote about Coursera — co-founded by the Stanford computer scientists Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng — just after it opened. Two weeks ago, I went back out to Palo Alto to check in on them. When I visited last May, about 300,000 people were taking 38 courses taught by Stanford professors and a few other elite universities. Today, they have 2.4 million students, taking 214 courses from 33 universities, including eight international ones.

¶ Anant Agarwal, the former director of M.I.T.’s artificial intelligence lab, is now president of edX, a nonprofit MOOC that M.I.T. and Harvard are jointly building. Agarwal told me that since May, some 155,000 students from around the world have taken edX’s first course: an M.I.T. intro class on circuits. “That is greater than the total number of M.I.T. alumni in its 150-year history,” he said.

Yes, only a small percentage complete all the work, and even they still tend to be from the middle and upper classes of their societies, but I am convinced that within five years these platforms will reach a much broader demographic. Imagine how this might change U.S. foreign aid. For relatively little money, the U.S. could rent space in an Egyptian village, install two dozen computers and high-speed satellite Internet access, hire a local teacher as a facilitator, and invite in any Egyptian who wanted to take online courses with the best professors in the world, subtitled in Arabic.

¶ YOU just have to hear the stories told by the pioneers in this industry to appreciate its revolutionary potential. One of Koller’s favorites is about “Daniel,” a 17-year-old with autism who communicates mainly by computer. He took an online modern poetry class from Penn. He and his parents wrote that the combination of rigorous academic curriculum, which requires Daniel to stay on task, and the online learning system that does not strain his social skills, attention deficits or force him to look anyone in the eye, enable him to better manage his autism. Koller shared a letter from Daniel, in which he wrote: “Please tell Coursera and Penn my story. I am a 17-year-old boy emerging from autism. I can’t yet sit still in a classroom so [your course] was my first real course ever. During the course, I had to keep pace with the class, which is unheard-of in special ed. Now I know I can benefit from having to work hard and enjoy being in sync with the world.”

¶ One member of the Coursera team who recently took a Coursera course on sustainability told me that it was so much more interesting than a similar course he had taken as an undergrad. The online course included students from all over the world, from different climates, incomes levels and geographies, and, as a result, “the discussions that happened in that course were so much more valuable and interesting than with people of similar geography and income level” in a typical American college.

Continued in article

'American Council on Education Recommends 5 MOOCs for Credit," by Steve Kolowich, Chronicle of Higher Education, Februrary 7, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/American-Council-on-Education/137155/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Bob Jensen's threads on MOOCS, EdX, and MITx ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

Bob Jensen's threads on this revolution in education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

"How to Wipe Personal Info from Electronics," by Eric Escobar, Tech Talker, January 30, 2013 ---
http://techtalker.quickanddirtytips.com/how-to-wipe-personal-info-from-electronics.aspx

Soon Canada will not have a penny to its name
"A penniless Canada: Mint begins years-long process of collecting and melting down 82-million kg in coins," National Post, February 4, 2013 ---
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/02/04/canadian-penny-last-day/

Jensen Comment
In the U.S. the value of pennies and nickels is far less than the cost of minting the coins. Nickels for example cost about a dime to mint.

In addition to doing away with coins as a waste of good metal, we should even phase out of currency in an attempt to discourage crime . But there are worries in doing so ---
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-cashless-society-is-almost-here-and-with-some-very-sinister-implications/5313515

LIBOR --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIBOR

Bigger Than Enron
"Libor Lies Revealed in Rigging of $300 Trillion Benchmark," by Liam Vaughan & Gavin Finch, Bloomberg News, January 28, 2013 ---
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-28/libor-lies-revealed-in-rigging-of-300-trillion-benchmark.html

"The LIBOR Mess: How Did It Happen -- and What Lies Ahead?" Knowledge@Wharton, July 18, 2012 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=3056

"Lies, Damn Lies and Libor:  Call it one more improvisation in 'too big to fail' crisis management," by Holman W. Jenkins Jr., The Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2012 ---
 http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304141204577510490732163260.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_t&mg=reno64-wsj

Jensen Comment
Crime Pays:  The good news for banksters is that they rarely, rarely, rarely get sent to prison ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#CrimePays

Bob Jensen's threads on Rotten to the Core ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm

"Doubt Is Cast on Firms Hired to Help Banks," by Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Ben Protess, The New York Times, January 31, 2013 ---
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/doubt-is-cast-on-firms-hired-to-help-banks/
Thank you Eliot Kamlet for the heads up.

Federal authorities are scrutinizing private consultants hired to clean up financial misdeeds like money laundering and foreclosure abuses, taking aim at an industry that is paid billions of dollars by the same banks it is expected to police.

The consultants operate with scant supervision and produce mixed results, according to government documents and interviews with prosecutors and regulators. In one case, the consulting firms enabled the wrongdoing. The deficiencies, officials say, can leave consumers vulnerable and allow tainted money to flow through the financial system.

“How can you be independent if you’re hired by the entity you’re reviewing?” Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee, said.

The pitfalls were exposed last month when federal regulators halted a broad effort to help millions of homeowners in foreclosure. The regulators reached an $8.5 billion settlement with banks, scuttling a flawed foreclosure review run by eight consulting firms. In the end, borrowers hurt by shoddy practices are likely to receive less money than they deserve, regulators said.

On Thursday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Representative Elijah Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, announced that they would open an investigation into the foreclosure review, seeking “additional information about the scope of the harms found.”

Critics concede that regulators have little choice but to hire outsiders for certain responsibilities after they find problems at the banks. The government does not have the resources to ensure that banks follow the rules. Still, consultants like Deloitte & Touche and the Promontory Financial Group can add to regulators’ headaches, the government documents and interviews indicate. Some banks that work with consultants continue to run afoul of the law. At other times, consultants underestimate the extent of the misdeeds or facilitate them, preventing regulators from holding institutions accountable.

Now, regulators and lawmakers are rethinking their relationship with the consultants. Officials at the Federal Reserve, which oversees many large banks, are questioning the prudence of relying on consultants so heavily, said two people with direct knowledge of the matter.

When the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency penalized JPMorgan Chase last month for breakdowns in money-laundering controls, it imposed stricter requirements, ordering the bank to hire a consultant with “specialized experience” in money laundering and to ensure that the firm “not be subject to any conflict of interest.” In a separate action against the bank related to a $6 billion trading loss last year, the agency opted not to mandate an outside consultant at all.

Continued in article

Crime Pays:  The good news for banksters is that they rarely, rarely, rarely get sent to prison ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#CrimePays

Bob Jensen's threads on Rotten to the Core ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm

"Hedge funds disappoint -- again," CBS News, January 25, 2013 ---
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57564075/hedge-funds-disappoint-again/

(MoneyWatch) Considerable academic research demonstrates that there is little to no persistence of performance for actively managed mutual funds. Hedge fund investors only wished they could say the same thing.

 

The performance of hedge funds has been persistently poor, with 2012 being no exception. The HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index returned just 3.5 percent in 2012. By comparison, the S&P 500 Index returned 16 percent. In fact, there was only one year, 2008, in the past 10 when hedge funds beat the S&P 500. Over the past five years, the S&P 500 returned 1.7 percent per year, producing a cumulative return of 8.6 percent, while the HFRX Index lost 2.9 percent per year, producing a cumulative loss of 13.6 percent.

 

• Hedge funds lag traditional asset classes
• Who's to blame for Facebook losses?
• Understanding "momentum" in stock returns

 

Last year's performance was so poor that the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index not only underperformed stocks, but even the Barclays Government/Credit Bond Index, which returned 4.8 percent. That marked the sixth year out of the past 10 that the HRFX underperformed this bond index.

 

Even worse is that if we compare the return of the HFRX Global Bond Fund Index to the return of a balanced stock/bond portfolio -- 60 percent S&P 500 Index/40 percent Barclays Government/Credit Bond Index -- 2012 marked 10 straight years of underperformance.

 

Even more devastating is the performance of a subset of hedge funds called "absolute return" funds. These funds are supposed to get positive returns regardless of what the market is doing. That is the "promise," or at least the idea behind them. Unfortunately, the evidence shows that the only thing absolute about them is that they have delivered absolutely abysmal performance. In fact, the HFRX Absolute Return Index actually produced negative returns in three of the past five years.
 

The cumulative return for the period 2008-2012 was -18.7 percent, or an annualized loss of 4.1 percent per year. By comparison, the BofA Merrill Lynch One-Year Treasury Index (pretty close to a riskless investment) returned 1.4 percent a year, producing a cumulative gain of 7.3 percent, and never had a year with a negative return. The Barclays Government/Credit Bond Index returned 6.1 percent per year, producing a cumulative return of 34.2 percent, and it too did not experience a single year with a loss. For the 10-year period 2003-2012 the Absolute Return Index returned just 0.7 percent a year, underperforming even riskless one-month Treasury bills, which returned 1.8 percent a year.

 

Given the poor performance of hedge funds, the real puzzle is why investors keep pouring money into them. The only explanations I can think of are that investors have been dazzled by the marketing pitches of Wall Street and are unaware of the evidence.

Continued in article

Anti-Fraud Collaboration Launches Website with Access to Anti-Fraud Tools
Center for Audit Quality
January 24, 2013
News Release --- http://www.thecaq.org/newsroom/release_01242013.htm

Anti-Fraud Collaboration Site --- http://www.antifraudcollaboration.org/

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

"Peregrine Founder Hit With 50 Years ," by Jacob Bunge, The Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2013 --- Click Here
http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324610504578276021147076476.html?mod=ITP_moneyandinvesting_0&mg=reno64-wsj

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa—Russell Wasendorf Sr., was sentenced to the maximum 50 years in jail after admitting to orchestrating a fraud at his futures brokerage and misleading regulators for almost 20 years.

Mr. Wasendorf, 64 years old, pleaded guilty last September to the fraud at Peregrine Financial Group Inc. that federal prosecutors said had cost clients $215.5 million and masked a business that never was profitable. He also was ordered to pay the full amount of missing funds in restitution.

In court Thursday, Mr. Wasendorf sat hunched over a table, wearing a baggy orange hooded sweatshirt. He appeared gaunt, having lost more than 30 pounds during his seven months in jail, according to his pastor, Linda Livingston. [image] The Gazette/Associated Press

Assistant United States Attorney Peter Deegan after the sentencing.

Ms. Livingston told the court earlier that Mr. Wasendorf last week had been diagnosed with a tumor on his pancreas. She noted that his mother had died of pancreatic cancer.

In a brief statement to the court, Mr. Wasendorf said, "My guilt is such that I accept my sentence, no matter what it is." He said the personal fallout from the uncovering of his fraud was worse than any punishment the court could hand down.

"I have lost the love of my son, and I will never see my grandchildren again," Mr. Wasendorf said, his voice breaking. He added that he was "very sorry" for damage to investors, staff and the futures industry.

Russell Wasendorf Jr., who served as Peregrine's president and chief operating officer, said in a statement that the "poor choices" of his father have been "devastating." "It has shattered my family, ruined my reputation, fractured my marriage, separated me from my oldest son and close friends," the younger Mr. Wasendorf said.

Mr. Wasendorf Sr. falsified financial records provided to regulators, allowing him to dip into client funds to sustain his firm and underpin a luxurious lifestyle. Delivering Mr. Wasendorf's sentence, Judge Linda Reade lambasted his use of stolen money to live as a "big shot" in Peregrine's base of Cedar Falls, Iowa, hiring a "four-star chef" to run Peregrine's cafeteria, building an expansive house with a swimming pool and sinking investor money into ventures like an Italian restaurant—the staff of which he once flew to Italy for a vacation.

The scandal broke when Mr. Wasendorf was found unconscious in his car outside the firm's $20 million headquarters after a suicide attempt. He detailed his fraud in a note and signed confession, according to prosecutors.

While Mr. Wasendorf hasn't seen his son since July, he has been visited in jail by Nancy Paladino, with whom Mr. Wasendorf secretly eloped days before his suicide attempt. A lawyer for Ms. Paladino, who is now aiming to have the marriage annulled, said she had no comment.

Continued in article

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

There is a long history of questions about university sponsorship of credit and/or debit cards with alumni and students, sponsorships with kickbacks such as a percentage kickback on purchases

"Questions on Debit Cards," by Libby A. Nelson, Inside Higher Ed, February 1, 2013 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/01/cfpb-opens-wide-ranging-inquiry-campus-debit-cards

WASHINGTON -- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced Thursday that it was beginning an inquiry into the arrangements between colleges, banks and debit card companies. The announcement is the latest indication that federal agencies and Congress are taking an increased interest in how debit cards are used to access federal financial aid.

The bureau is asking for input on a few separate topics: debit cards supplied by companies like Higher One, which give students the money left over from grants and loans after paying tuition; arrangements between colleges and banks that allow student identification cards to be used as debit cards; and college-affiliated bank accounts.

College business officers say those products are quite different from one another. Preloaded debit cards have caught on in recent years as a method of giving college students access to federal grants and loans for living expenses. While they have come under scrutiny for high fees, they are a way to give money to students without using paper checks, and do not require a bank account. Critics say students would be better off opening a bank account than relying on preloaded cards.

Higher One has dominated the debit card market for years, and has come in for much of the criticism for swipe fees, ATM fees and other charges that can chip away at students’ financial aid. As the cards have grown more popular, other banks, including Sallie Mae, have entered the market place.

Agreements between colleges and banks are more common at larger universities, unlike the debit cards, which are more popular at community colleges, said Anne Gross, vice president for regulatory affairs at the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Under the agreements, banks offer benefits to colleges, such as additional scholarship money. In exchange, the colleges offer students the option of using their ID cards as a debit card, encouraging them to use that bank for their checking accounts. 

The consumer protection agency appears concerned that those arrangements can stop students from shopping around for bank accounts that might offer a better deal. Past investigations, including one by New York Attorney General (now Governor) Andrew Cuomo in 2007, found that "preferred lender" arrangements between colleges and student lenders (until the conversion away from bank-based lending in 2010) sometimes led to deals that included benefits for colleges but weren't the best option for students.

Continued in article

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

Bob Jensen's threads on dirty secrets of credit card issuers are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#FICO

"Free Spreadsheet-Based Form 1040 Available for 2012 Tax Year," by David H. Ringstrom, AccountingWeb, February 1, 2013 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/article/free-spreadsheet-based-form-1040-available-2012-tax-year/220959?source=technology

Jensen Comment
This might be a great application (using hypothetical taxpayers) for students learning spreadsheets as well as basics of income tax reporting.

I used a similar approach when teaching students how to use Webledger software ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Webledger.htm

For example, the term project report for a team of my students is available at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5342/projects/Netledger.pdf
This project was conducted when students could get free WebLedger accounts. I don't think that's possible these days.

Office in the Cloud
"Microsoft Office 2013 Officially Released," by David Ringstrom, AccountingWeb, February 1, 2013 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/article/microsoft-office-2013-officially-released/220958?source=technology

"Microsoft's Office 2013 Is Software for the Cloud," by Ashlee Vance and Dina Bass, Bloomberg Business Week, January 29, 2013 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-29/microsofts-old-software-comes-with-a-new-image

When Microsoft (MSFT) said it would buy Yammer for $1.2 billion last June, many in Silicon Valley scoffed that the deal was a costly disaster in the making. Microsoft wanted to join forces with a hip maker of social networking tools for businesses that delivers its product as an evolving Web service. The culture clash was expected to result in Yammer’s employees being overburdened with bureaucracy. The prediction was they would flee in droves. “We were quite concerned about this coming together of two worlds,” says Adam Pisoni, Yammer’s co-founder and chief technology officer.

As the companies worked to close the deal, Pisoni flew to Microsoft’s Redmond (Wash.) headquarters to seek reassurance from Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer and Kurt DelBene, head of the Office business. Pisoni was taken aback by what he found: Microsoft had spent the last couple of years revamping its engineering teams’ processes to be more like Web startups. “We have to remember our roots and go back to building what’s good for the consumer,” Pisoni says Ballmer told him.

On Jan. 29, Microsoft began selling this new image of the company to the public with the release of Office 2013. This version, the first major overhaul of the franchise in three years, is Office for the cloud. The applications—Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and others—have a much cleaner design, work with touch interfaces, and can save files directly to SkyDrive, Microsoft’s online storage service. Users can run Office as an app and share files across PCs, Macs, Windows tablets, and Windows phones, and they can tap into an online-only version of Office on almost any device. In the coming months, Office will be linked with Yammer’s service, which looks similar to Facebook (FB), so users can open documents and presentations and work on projects together.

In an interview, Ballmer stresses that Office 2013 should be viewed as a service. Microsoft will add features to the software as they’re developed, instead of going years between updates. Microsoft will also sell Office to consumers on a subscription basis: $100 per year will get a family five licenses for Office, 20 gigabytes of storage on SkyDrive, and 60 minutes of free calls per month on Skype, which Microsoft acquired in 2011. “It embraces the notion of social,” Ballmer says. “You stay connected and share information with the people you care about.”

While Microsoft was working to get Office right, its nimbler rivals charged forward. Dropbox recently passed the 100 million-user mark, making it one of the leading services for storing and sharing files across devices. Another cloud application, Box, has gained popularity with corporations that want to store and edit internal files and collaborate with other companies on projects. And Google (GOOG) sells low-cost rivals to Office products, including Quickoffice, an application that can run on iPads.

Last year, Microsoft’s business software division generated $24 billion, about one-third of Microsoft’s $73.7 billion revenue. It’s the company’s biggest, most profitable division and accounts for a handful of Microsoft’s fastest-growing products. Ballmer refers to Dropbox as “a fine little startup,” adding, “you have to remember that 100 million users sounds like a pretty small number to me.”

Microsoft plans to update Office every three months with features intended to keep the product’s 1 billion users happy. Its software engineers have moved from upgrading their test version of Office every month to working on a new copy of the software every day. The company has invested in automated systems that can spot errors in code and help engineers keep programming at pace. “It’s turned all our engineering systems on their head,” says Jeff Teper, a Microsoft vice president.

Yammer was mined for some data-analytics techniques, including algorithms to figure out which features were favored by testers of early versions of Office 2013. Yammer has been sending teams to Microsoft to teach engineers how to test new tools and designs and then measure precisely how they change users’ behavior. “It forces you to build software that is good for the user,” says Pisoni. Microsoft and Yammer are building toward a day when most business files are Web-connected and interactive. “Is every Office document a website? It’s possible,” says Ballmer.

Continued in article

"Office 2013: Where Are All The Apps?" by  Mark Hachman, ReadWriteWeb, February 4, 2013 ---
http://readwrite.com/2013/02/04/where-are-all-the-office-2013-apps 

Amidst all the doom and gloom about State of Illinois spending deficits, immense unfunded pensions, high tax rates, and a lowered credit rating (lowest among the 50 states) is a bright tidbit
"$100M for Engineering at U. of Illinois, Inside Higher Ed,  January 29, 2013  ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/01/29/100m-engineering-u-illinois

The Grainger Foundation has pledged $100 million for engineering programs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The funds will be used for endowed chairs, scholarships and facilities.

"Wearable Devices' Next Design Challenge: The Human Brain," by Sarah Rotman Epps, ReadWriteWeb, February 4, 2013 ---
http://readwrite.com/2013/02/04/wearable-devices-next-design-challenge-the-human-brain

Wearable devices like the Nike+ FuelBand, Jawbone UP, larklife, and future products like the Misfit Shine and Google Glass have been the subject of much discussion, for good reason: They give us access to information about our physical bodies and the physical environment we inhabit, a phenomenon we call Smart Body, Smart World. (Other people have referred to it as "the quantified self.")

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on Ubiquitous Computing ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm

Culture matters enormously. Do better analytics lead managers to "improve" or "remove" the measurably underperforming? Are analytics internally marketed and perceived as diagnostics for helping people and processes perform "better"? Or do they identify the productivity pathogens that must quickly and cost-effectively be organizationally excised? What I've observed is that many organizations have invested more thought into acquiring analytic capabilities than confronting the accountability crises they may create.
"The Real Reason Organizations Resist Analytics," by Michael Schrage, Harvard Business Review Blog, January 29, 2013 --- Click Here
http://blogs.hbr.org/schrage/2013/01/the-real-reason-organizations.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

While discussing a Harvard colleague's world-class work on how big data and analytics transform public sector effectiveness, I couldn't help but ask: How many public school systems had reached out to him for advice?

His answer surprised. "I can't think of any," he said. "I guess some organizations are more interested in accountability than others."

Exactly. Enterprise politics and culture suggest analytics' impact is less about measuring existing performance than creating new accountability. Managements may want to dramatically improve productivity but they're decidedly mixed about comparably increasing their accountability. Accountability is often the unhappy byproduct rather than desirable outcome of innovative analytics. Greater accountability makes people nervous.

That's not unreasonable. Look at the vicious politics and debate in New York and other cities over analytics' role in assessing public school teacher performance. The teachers' union argues the metrics are an unfair and pseudo-scientific tool to justify firings. Analytics' champions insist that the transparency and insight these metrics provide are essential for determining classroom quality and outcomes. The arguments over numbers are really fights over accountability and its consequences.

At one global technology services firm, salespeople grew furious with a CRM system whose new analytics effectively held them accountable for pricing and promotion practices they thought undermined their key account relationships. The sophisticated and near-real-time analytics created the worst of both worlds for them: greater accountability with less flexibility and influence.

The evolving marriage of big data to analytics increasingly leads to a phenomenon I'd describe as "accountability creep" — the technocratic counterpart to military "mission creep." The more data organizations gather from more sources and algorithmically analyze, the more individuals, managers and executives become accountable for any unpleasant surprises and/or inefficiencies that emerge.

For example, an Asia-based supply chain manager can discover that the remarkably inexpensive subassembly he's successfully procured typically leads to the most complex, time-consuming and expensive in-field repairs. Of course, engineering design and test should be held accountable, but more sophisticated data-driven analytics makes the cost-driven, compliance-oriented supply chain employee culpable, as well.

This helps explain why, when working with organizations implementing big data initiatives and/or analytics, I've observed the most serious obstacles tend to have less to do with real quantitative or technical competence than perceived professional vulnerability. The more managements learn about what analytics might mean, the more they fear that the business benefits may be overshadowed by the risk of weakness, dysfunction and incompetence exposed.

Culture matters enormously. Do better analytics lead managers to "improve" or "remove" the measurably underperforming? Are analytics internally marketed and perceived as diagnostics for helping people and processes perform "better"? Or do they identify the productivity pathogens that must quickly and cost-effectively be organizationally excised? What I've observed is that many organizations have invested more thought into acquiring analytic capabilities than confronting the accountability crises they may create.

For at least a few organizations, that's led to "accountability for thee but not for me" investment. Executives use analytics to impose greater accountability upon their subordinates. Analytics become a medium and mechanism for centralizing and consolidating power. Accountability flows up from the bottom; authority flows down from the top.

Continued in article

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

Jensen Comment
Another huge problem in big data analytics is that the databases cannot possibly answer some of the most interesting questions. For example, often they reveal only correlations without any data regarding causality.

A recent accountics science study suggests that audit firm scandal with respect to someone else's audit may be a reason for changing auditors.
"Audit Quality and Auditor Reputation: Evidence from Japan," by Douglas J. Skinner and Suraj Srinivasan, The Accounting Review, September 2012, Vol. 87, No. 5, pp. 1737-1765.

Our conclusions are subject to two caveats. First, we find that clients switched away from ChuoAoyama in large numbers in Spring 2006, just after Japanese regulators announced the two-month suspension and PwC formed Aarata. While we interpret these events as being a clear and undeniable signal of audit-quality problems at ChuoAoyama, we cannot know for sure what drove these switches (emphasis added). It is possible that the suspension caused firms to switch auditors for reasons unrelated to audit quality. Second, our analysis presumes that audit quality is important to Japanese companies. While we believe this to be the case, especially over the past two decades as Japanese capital markets have evolved to be more like their Western counterparts, it is possible that audit quality is, in general, less important in Japan (emphasis added) .

Bob Jensen's threads on controversies in education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm

"Artificial-Intelligence Computer System ‘Watson’ Goes to College," by Jake New, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 30, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/artificial-intelligence-computer-system-watson-goes-to-college/42093?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

The IBM supercomputer known as Watson already has an impressive résumé, having beaten two of Jeopardy’s most famous champions. But it is lacking in college experience.

Now the artificial-intelligence computing system is becoming a student of sorts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, IBM announced on Tuesday. The New York institution is the first university to be provided with a Watson system.

Watson, which is named for IBM’s pioneering leader, Thomas J. Watson, is a computer system that uses an understanding of human language and a vast trove of data to provide evidence-based answers to users’ questions. It then ranks its responses based on its level of confidence that each is the correct answer.

At RPI, the Watson system will give professors and students an opportunity to find new uses for the technology, allowing students to gain experience with big data analytics and, in turn, deepen the system’s abilities, said Michael Henesey, vice president for business development at IBM, formally the International Business Machines Corporation. RPI was chosen to receive a Watson system based on the company’s long relationship with the university; several RPI graduates are members of the project’s team.

When Watson appeared on the television game show Jeopardy, in 2011, and beat the champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, a “packed house” of RPI students, faculty members, and alumni cheered on the computer system at a special campus viewing, Mr. Henesey said.

“It’s a well-traveled road, and we’re pleased to have Watson now involved in the relationship,” he said.

The computer system will be smaller than its game-show-winning predecessor, but it will still be able to store roughly the same amount of information with 15 terabytes of memory. The Watson that appeared on Jeopardy could read 200 million pages of text in three seconds.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on education technology ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm

"A World Without Work," by Dana Rousmaniere, Harvard Business Review Blog, January 27, 2013 --- Click Here
http://blogs.hbr.org/morning-advantage/2013/01/morning-advantage-a-world-with.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

"Rethink Robotics invented a $22,000 humanoid (i.e. trainable) robot that competes with low-wage workers," by Antonio Regalado, MIT's Technology Review, January 16, 2013 --- Click Here
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/509296/small-factories-give-baxter-the-robot-a-cautious-once-over/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20130116

"Rise of the Robots," by Paul Krugman, The New York Times, December 8, 2012 ---
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/08/rise-of-the-robots/

¶Catherine Rampell and Nick Wingfield write about the growing evidence for “reshoring” of manufacturing to the United States. They cite several reasons: rising wages in Asia; lower energy costs here; higher transportation costs. In a followup piece, however, Rampell cites another factor: robots.

¶The most valuable part of each computer, a motherboard loaded with microprocessors and memory, is already largely made with robots, according to my colleague Quentin Hardy. People do things like fitting in batteries and snapping on screens.

¶As more robots are built, largely by other robots, “assembly can be done here as well as anywhere else,” said Rob Enderle, an analyst based in San Jose, Calif., who has been following the computer electronics industry for a quarter-century. “That will replace most of the workers, though you will need a few people to manage the robots.”

¶Robots mean that labor costs don’t matter much, so you might as well locate in advanced countries with large markets and good infrastructure (which may soon not include us, but that’s another issue). On the other hand, it’s not good news for workers!

¶This is an old concern in economics; it’s “capital-biased technological change”, which tends to shift the distribution of income away from workers to the owners of capital.

¶Twenty years ago, when I was writing about globalization and inequality, capital bias didn’t look like a big issue; the major changes in income distribution had been among workers (when you include hedge fund managers and CEOs among the workers), rather than between labor and capital. So the academic literature focused almost exclusively on “skill bias”, supposedly explaining the rising college premium.

¶But the college premium hasn’t risen for a while. What has happened, on the other hand, is a notable shift in income away from labor:.

"Harley Goes Lean to Build Hogs," by James R. Hagerty, The Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2012 ---
http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443720204578004164199848452.html?mod=djem_jiewr_AC_domainid&mg=reno64-wsj

If the global economy slips into a deep slump, American manufacturers including motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson Inc. that have embraced flexible production face less risk of veering into a ditch.

Until recently, the company's sprawling factory here had a lack of automation that made it an industrial museum. Now, production that once was scattered among 41 buildings is consolidated into one brightly lighted facility where robots do more heavy lifting. The number of hourly workers, about 1,000, is half the level of three years ago and more than 100 of those workers are "casual" employees who come and go as needed.

All the jobs are not going to Asia, They're going to Hal --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Space_Oddessey
"When Machines Do Your Job: Researcher Andrew McAfee says advances in computing and artificial intelligence could create a more unequal society," by Antonio Regalado, MIT's Technology Review, July 11, 2012 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428429/when-machines-do-your-job/

Are American workers losing their jobs to machines?

That was the question posed by Race Against the Machine, an influential e-book published last October by MIT business school researchers Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. The pair looked at troubling U.S. employment numbers—which have declined since the recession of 2008-2009 even as economic output has risen—and concluded that computer technology was partly to blame.

Advances in hardware and software mean it's possible to automate more white-collar jobs, and to do so more quickly than in the past. Think of the airline staffers whose job checking in passengers has been taken by self-service kiosks. While more productivity is a positive, wealth is becoming more concentrated, and more middle-class workers are getting left behind.

What does it mean to have "technological unemployment" even amidst apparent digital plenty? Technology Review spoke to McAfee at the Center for Digital Business, part of the MIT Sloan School of Management, where as principal research scientist he studies new employment trends and definitions of the workplace.

"Patented Book Writing System Creates, Sells Hundreds Of Thousands Of Books On Amazon," by David J. Hull, Security Hub, December 13, 2012 ---
http://singularityhub.com/2012/12/13/patented-book-writing-system-lets-one-professor-create-hundreds-of-thousands-of-amazon-books-and-counting/

Philip M. Parker, Professor of Marketing at INSEAD Business School, has had a side project for over 10 years. He’s created a computer system that can write books about specific subjects in about 20 minutes. The patented algorithm has so far generated hundreds of thousands of books. In fact, Amazon lists over 100,000 books attributed to Parker, and over 700,000 works listed for his company, ICON Group International, Inc. This doesn’t include the private works, such as internal reports, created for companies or licensing of the system itself through a separate entity called EdgeMaven Media.

Parker is not so much an author as a compiler, but the end result is the same: boatloads of written works.

"Raytheon's Missiles Are Now Made by Robots," by Ashlee Vance, Bloomberg Business Week, December 11, 2012 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-11/raytheons-missiles-now-made-by-robots

A World Without Work," by Dana Rousmaniere, Harvard Business Review Blog, January 27, 2013 --- Click Here
http://blogs.hbr.org/morning-advantage/2013/01/morning-advantage-a-world-with.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date

Jensen Comment
Historically, graduates who could not find jobs enlisted in the military. Wars of the future, however, will be fought largely by drones, robots, orbiting orbiting satellites. This begs the question of where graduates who cannot find work are going to turn to when the military enlistment offices shut down and Amazon's warehouse robotics replace Wal-Mart in-store workers.

If given a choice, I'm not certain I would want to be born again in the 21st Century.

The Sad State of Economic Theory and Research ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm

"Barnes & Noble, the Last Big Bookseller Standing: But for How Long," Knowledge@Wharton, January 16, 2013 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=3167

Bob Jensen's threads on electronic books ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Ebooks.htm

"Up in the Cloud: Hype and High Expectations for Cloud Computing," Knowledge@Wharton, January 16, 2013 ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=3171

The Worst Fraudsters
"Who's the Worst? Expanded to More Categories," Dennis Elam, Elam Blog, October 30, 2013 ---
http://www.professorelam.typepad.com/

Notable Fraudsters --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud#Notable_fraudsters

Bob Jensen's Rotten to the Core threads ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm

Convertible PCs
"Sometimes They're Tablets, Sometimes They're Not," by Walter S. Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, January 22, 2013 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323485704578257853662703968.html

Microsoft's MSFT +0.45%new Windows 8 operating system is a combination of two very different user interfaces, with each best used in a different way. While the whole system is touch-enabled, only the Start Screen, with its own tablet-type apps, is fully optimized for a touch screen. The second interface—the traditional Windows desktop—is still best used with a physical keyboard and a mouse or touch pad.

So, hardware makers are turning out convertible PCs that attempt to function as both tablets and traditional laptops. These aren't merely tablets with thin, optional keyboard covers; or standard laptops with touch screens. They are attempts to create true hybrid devices that can look and work like either a regular laptop or a touch-operated tablet.

The models take different approaches, each of which has its pros and cons. So, this week I decided to test three from well-known PC makers. These machines have three things in common. At $850 to $1,299, they are far costlier than the midrange Windows laptop, which falls into the $400-to-$700 range. All use full Windows 8, not the more limited Windows RT, so they can run popular Windows desktop software. And switching between their dual modes takes some adjustment.

The Detachable The HP Envy x2 takes the simplest approach of the three, and is the only one that allows you to use a normal, thin, tablet, separate from the keyboard and touch pad. It's also the least expensive of the three, at $850; and scored the best battery life in my tests. But it has some drawbacks.

A gray, aluminum machine, the Envy at first looks like a plain touch-screen laptop. But when you slide a button on the hinge, the screen pops off to become a slender, 11.6 inch tablet you manipulate by swiping, tapping and using an on-screen keyboard. When you want to use the physical keyboard and touch pad, you pop the screen back onto the base portion and you have a laptop again.

Other PC makers are making detachables, but unlike some, Hewlett-Packard HPQ +0.24%has chosen to hide the attachment mechanism in a sort of hump below the keyboard. This gives the machine a rear rise, good for typing, but it means it can't sit flat on a desk. In laptop mode, the Envy x2 weighs 3.1 pounds. The tablet alone weighs 1.5 pounds.

Walt Mossberg joins digits with a look at three PCs that attempt to function as both tablets and traditional laptops. Photo: Toshiba. .I applied my tablet battery test to the Envy, since it actually can be used as a free-standing tablet, and my laptop-battery test to the other two, since their screens are fixed to their keyboards. Both tests are harsher than those the industry uses and involve playing media continuously with Wi-Fi on, power-saving features off and the screen at a bright setting.

Because the Envy has two batteries—one in the tablet and one in the base—it did pretty well. The tablet alone lasted five hours and 15 minutes, and when it died, I snapped it back onto the base, which kept it running for another three hours and 22 minutes. That combined total of eight hours and 37 minutes still wasn't as good as the Apple iPad's nine hours and 58 minutes in the same test, but it was better than some other tablets, and in normal use, would likely approach 10 hours. You might do much better running strictly in laptop mode, with both batteries together.

The biggest downside of the Envy x2 is that it uses a relatively wimpy Intel Atom processor, which hasn't powered many popular tablets. I found it adequate but with some latency, and, on one occasion, it produced choppy video briefly. (The other two machines use full-powered Intel laptop chips.) Also, the Envy has the least storage of the three—64 gigabytes—though it can be expanded with memory cards.

Two more things: Even after days of use, I found it hard to re-attach the screen. I also kept accidentally triggering the Envy's power switch, which is flush with the surface at the top right rear of the screen, where you might hold it.

The Dual Screen The twist with the Asus 2357.TW +0.44%Taichi 21 is that it has two 11.6 inch screens: a nontouch display in the usual position inside the lid and a tablet-like touch screen on the outside. Yes, unlike any laptop you've probably owned, the cover of the Taichi 21, which starts at $1,299, is glass.

The way it works is that you press a special button that controls how the two screens work. There's a notebook mode, in which the inner screen is the focus, just like a traditional laptop, but the outer screen comes on when you close the lid. There's a tablet mode, which reverses the priority. There's a mirror mode, in which the same thing is shown on both screens when the lid is open, and dual-screen mode, in which different things can be shown on the two displays. (The latter two modes are meant for presentations and collaboration.)

In my tests, the system worked. But it's all very complicated. And to add complexity, a second button can disable the outer screen altogether, turning the expensive machine into a non-touch, standard notebook.

Also, even though the Taichi is as light and thin as a laptop, it makes for a heavy, thick tablet. The Taichi is 2.76 pounds and has 128 GB of storage. But it costs $1,299 to $1,599, depending on configuration, and battery life was poor. I tested it with both screens on, since the company touts this feature, and got just a bit over three hours. I estimate that with only one screen and more normal usage, you'd get two to three more hours.

The Slider
Toshiba's 6502.TO -1.25%Satellite U925t lacks a name that rolls off the tongue, but it has a screen that slides, which transforms it from a laptop to a tablet. You just push the screen back into a flat position and then slide it toward you over the keyboard, and voilà! You now have a big, bulky, 3.35-pound tablet with a 12.5-inch screen.

Continued in article

"Should You Sign the Back of Credit or Debit Cards?" by Laura Adams, Money Girl, February 8, 2013 ---
http://moneygirl.quickanddirtytips.com/should-you-sign-the-back-of-cards.aspx

Quick Answer
Yes!

"How Much Admission Misreporting?" by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, January 28, 2013 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/28/bucknells-admission-raises-questions-about-how-many-colleges-are-reporting-false

 This month, responding to four instances in which colleges admitted to having provided false information for its rankings, U.S. News & World Report published an FAQ on the issue. One of the questions: "Do you believe that there are other schools that have misreported data to U.S. News but have not come forward?" The magazine's answer: "We have no reason to believe that other schools have misreported data — and we therefore have no reason to believe that the misreporting is widespread."

Less than three weeks later, another college -- Bucknell University -- came forward to admit that it had misreported SAT averages from 2006 through 2012, and ACT averages during some of those years.

The news from Bucknell left many admissions experts wondering whether there are larger lessons to be learned by colleges as report seems to follow report with regard to inaccurate information being submitted by colleges.

David Hawkins, director of public policy and research for the National Association for College Admission Counseling, said via e-mail that "these actions are the result and responsibility of both individuals and the institutions for which they work," but that there was also a broader context behind all of these incidents.

"The emphasis placed on an institution's 'selectivity,' particularly as defined by standardized test scores, has gone beyond the rational and become something of an obsession. NACAC believes it is time for all stakeholders, including institutions, rankings, bond rating companies, merit scholarships, boards of trustees, alumni, and many others, to reassess the emphasis that is placed on 'input' factors like standardized test scores, and focus on the value colleges add to students' postsecondary experiences once they are on campus, regardless of the supposed 'selectivity' of the campus."

Leaving Students Out of the Average

At Bucknell, the inaccurate data resulted from the college leaving some students' scores out of test averages. In a few cases, the omitted students had scores higher than those reported. But most of the excluded students had lower scores, so the result of leaving them out was to inflate Bucknell's averages. "[D]uring each of those seven years, the scores of 13 to 47 students were omitted from the SAT calculation, with the result being that our mean scores were reported to be 7 to 25 points higher than they actually were on the 1600-point scale," said a letter sent to the campus from John C. Bravman, the president. "During those seven years of misreported data, on average 32 students per year were omitted from the reports and our mean SAT scores were on average reported to be 16 points higher than they actually were."

The ACT scores were inaccurate only for some of those years, but for several of the years resulted in real averages one point lower than those reported.

Even though the inaccuracies were "relatively small," Bravman wrote that they were significant. Reporting false information "violated the trust of every student, faculty member, staff member and Bucknellian they reached. What matters is that important information conveyed on behalf of our university was inaccurate. On behalf of the entire university, I offer my sincerest apology to all Bucknellians for these violations of the integrity of Bucknell."

Bravman's letter said he was concerned that due to "national discussions about college admissions," some people "may reach the incorrect conclusion that the scores omitted were from some single cohort that people typically cite – such as student-athletes, students from underrepresented communities, children of substantial donors, legacies and so on. All such speculation would be in error. The students came from multiple cohorts, and of course the university will not disclose their identity."

The false data were discovered after Bill Conley, a new vice president for enrollment management, noted that the mean SAT score for incoming students this year was about 20 points below last year's reported average. He then investigated, and found the pattern of false reporting.

In an interview Saturday, Bravman said that he believed a single person had been responsible for the false data. SAT and ACT scores were reported to the institutional research office in aggregate form, he said. So the institutional research officials relied on those aggregate data and never had the raw data that might have raised questions.

Bravman said that he has had discussions -- which he described as unsatisfactory -- with the person who was responsible for the reporting, and whom Bravman declined to identify. Bravman said that this person denied trying to make the university's admissions process look better either for internal or external audiences, and never offered a real explanation for what had happened.

"I'm very frustrated," Bravman said of these discussions. He said that it appeared to him to be "ignorance at best" or "incompetence at worst" in recognizing the importance of reporting accurate data.

Data on the Bucknell website have been corrected, and U.S. News & World Report, which was given inaccurate data for rankings purposes, has been informed of the problem, and given correct information, Bravman said.

In 2012, Claremont McKenna College, Emory University and George Washington University all submitted false data to U.S. News about undergraduate admissions, as did Tulane University's business school with regard to M.B.A. admissions.

Explaining the Pattern

Many admissions experts say that they are no longer surprised by these reports. (Inside Higher Ed's survey of admissions directors last year found that 91 percent believed that some institutions besides those that had been identified at the time had reported false scores or other data.) But these officials say that they are concerned about the underlying causes of these incidents, and about the impact of these scandals on the public perception of college admissions.

One longtime senior official in admissions who asked not to be identified said that the false reporting flows from the false impression that very few students get into college, and that a college's quality relates to its competitiveness. "The fact is," he said, "that there is just as much competition among colleges for students as among students for colleges." But market share and prestige are "tied to selectivity," which just adds to the pressure to be selective. This admissions official said that he suspected "that the misreporting ... is less due to deliberate deception, and more to self-rationalizing why certain students or groups of students ought not be included in a profile."

He added, however, that "there is no question that internal and external pressures to attract more applicants, accept fewer of them, and enroll more with ever-increasing scores have contributed to the angst felt by college admissions deans."

Lloyd Thacker, executive director of the Education Conservancy and a longtime critic of rankings, said via e-mail that "as long as commercial rankings are considered as part of an institution's identity, there will be pressure on college personnel to falsify ranking data. An effective way to curb such unethical and harmful behavior is for presidents and trustees to stop supporting the ranking enterprise and start promoting more meaningful measurements of educational quality."

Jerome A. Lucido, executive director of the University of Southern California Center for Enrollment Research, Policy and Practice, said that it was important to remember that outright falsifying reports was "only one way to manipulate" the rankings, and that many others are used as well. "They can also be manipulated by recruiting students who will not be admitted, by deferring to future semesters students who were not admitted for fall, and by counting faculty as teaching resources who only teach nominally or tangentially," Lucido said.

While many say that all kinds of manipulation are just "the way the game is played," Lucido said that it was "long past time to provide truly accurate public information and to concentrate on indicators of our results rather than our inputs."

Tulane M.B.A. Program Becomes 'Unranked'

Robert Morse, who leads the rankings process at U.S. News, did not respond to e-mail messages seeking his reaction to the news about Bucknell. In the past, he has said that the magazine relies on colleges to provide accurate information. The magazine has also been responding to the reports of data fabrication on a case-by-case basis.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads about ranking controversies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm

Learn to Build iPhone & iPad Apps with Stanford’s Free Course, Coding Together ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/coding_together.htm

"Feminism Fizzles:  Where is Betty Friedan when we need her?" by Rachel Shteir, Chronicle of Higher Education's Chronicle Review, January 28, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/The-End-of-Feminism-/136797/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en

Kingsley Browne, Wayne State Law Prof, Embarrasses Himself Spectacularly on The Daily Show ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/kingsley_browne_wayne_state_law_prof_appears_on_ithe_daily_showi_embarrasses_himself_spectacularly.html

Jensen Comment
Feminism lives on in the feminist academic journals the movement created.  Among other things these journals keep pressuring for shattering of glass ceilings and for improved wages and benefits of women at work.

The accomplishments of the movement are monumental, especially in terms of politics and employment. And in some instances the price has been severe, especially in terms of restraints on rape not keeping pace with the changing times ---
http://www.newrepublic.com/blog/plank/109083/why-wont-the-military-take-troop-troop-rape-seriously#
I would be more in favor of women in combat if we could restrain gang rape of female prisoners of war. Our enemies have become so vicious that perhaps both men and women in combat should be issued cyanide pills.

"Why Microsoft's Earnings Report Doesn't Reveal How Windows 8 Is Doing," by Mark Hachman, ReadWriteWeb, January 25, 2013 ---
http://readwrite.com/2013/01/25/why-microsofts-earnings-report-doesnt-reveal-how-windows-8-is-doing

Why gloomy pundits may be wrong about America’s education system 

From the CFO Journal on January 25, 2013
A new study breaks down student performance by social class and finds some good news, reports the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson: “First, our most disadvantaged students have improved their math scores faster than most comparable countries. Second, our most advantaged students are world-class readers.” But there are some things to note. Top-scoring math kids in the U.S. are still being out-performed by students elsewhere. And the U.S.’s high reading levels, relative to those of other countries, may at least partially reflect declines in Europe, which faces the challenge of educating an increasingly large pool of immigrant children. And finally, the decision to slice test scores by social class says something deeper about the challenges kids in the U.S. face. “In just about every country, poor students do worse than rich students,” Thompson explains. “America’s yawning income inequality means our international test sample has a higher share of low-income students, and their scores depress our national average.”

"Why Gloomy Pundits and Politicians Are Wrong About America's Education System," by Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, January 20, 2013 ---
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/why-gloomy-pundits-and-politicians-are-wrong-about-americas-education-system/267278/

Jensen Comment
It's not clear how U.S. performance scores can be compared since some schools cheat when grading academic performance.

"Dishonest Educators," by Walter E. Williams, Townhall, January 9, 2013 --- Click Here
http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2013/01/09/dishonest-educators-n1482294?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Nearly two years ago, U.S. News & World Report came out with a story titled "Educators Implicated in Atlanta Cheating Scandal." It reported that "for 10 years, hundreds of Atlanta public school teachers and principals changed answers on state tests in one of the largest cheating scandals in U.S. history." More than three-quarters of the 56 Atlanta schools investigated had cheated on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test, sometimes called the national report card. Cheating orders came from school administrators and included brazen acts such as teachers reading answers aloud during the test and erasing incorrect answers. One teacher told a colleague, "I had to give your kids, or your students, the answers because they're dumb as hell." Atlanta's not alone. There have been investigations, reports and charges of teacher-assisted cheating in other cities, such as Philadelphia, Houston, New York, Detroit, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Washington.

Recently, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's blog carried a story titled "A new cheating scandal: Aspiring teachers hiring ringers." According to the story, for at least 15 years, teachers in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee paid Clarence Mumford, who's now under indictment, between $1,500 and $3,000 to send someone else to take their Praxis exam, which is used for K-12 teacher certification in 40 states. Sandra Stotsky, an education professor at the University of Arkansas, said, "(Praxis I) is an easy test for anyone who has completed high school but has nothing to do with college-level ability or scores." She added, "The test is far too undemanding for a prospective teacher. ... The fact that these people hired somebody to take an easy test of their skills suggests that these prospective teachers were probably so academically weak it is questionable whether they would have been suitable teachers."

Here's a practice Praxis I math question: Which of the following is equal to a quarter-million -- 40,000, 250,000, 2,500,000, 1/4,000,000 or 4/1,000,000? The test taker is asked to click on the correct answer. A practice writing skills question is to identify the error in the following sentence: "The club members agreed that each would contribute ten days of voluntary work annually each year at the local hospital." The test taker is supposed to point out that "annually each year" is redundant.

CNN broke this cheating story last July, but the story hasn't gotten much national press since then. In an article for NewsBusters, titled "Months-Old, Three-State Teacher Certification Test Cheating Scandal Gets Major AP Story -- on a Slow News Weekend" (11/25/12), Tom Blumer quotes speculation by the blog "educationrealist": "I will be extremely surprised if it does not turn out that most if not all of the teachers who bought themselves a test grade are black. (I am also betting that the actual testers are white, but am not as certain. It just seems that if black people were taking the test and guaranteeing passage, the fees would be higher.)"

There's some basis in fact for the speculation that it's mostly black teachers buying grades, and that includes former Steelers wide receiver Cedrick Wilson, who's been indicted for fraud. According to a study titled "Differences in Passing Rates on Praxis I Tests by Race/Ethnicity Group" (March 2011), the percentages of blacks who passed the Praxis I reading, writing and mathematics tests on their first try were 41, 44 and 37, respectively. For white test takers, the respective percentages were 82, 80 and 78.

Continued in article

Jensen Commentary
It should be noted that the author of this article is an African American economics professor at George Mason University.. He's also conservative. This makes him an endangered species in academe.

The biggest scandal in education is nearly universal grade inflation ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm#RateMyProfessor

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

Vermont Law School to Offer Buy-Outs to (ten) Faculty Next Month Due to Declining Enrollment ---
http://www.vnews.com/news/3896880-95/buyouts-laid-law-members
Note that you only get one freebie from Valley News

Bob Jensen's threads on overstuffed law schools ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#OverstuffedLawSchools

You know you're getting old when your monthly planner only has entries for doctor, dentist, and medical lab appointments.
Bob Jensen

"Sandwich Generation: What are our Ethical Obligations to Care for our Aged-Parents and Children?" by accounting professor Steven Mintz, Ethics Sage, January 25, 2013 ---
http://www.ethicssage.com/2013/01/sandwich-generation.html

Question
What is an LLC?

Hint
It is not a type of lawyer. Instead it is a type of company as related to companies with Ltd or Inc after their names.

Answer
http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3747-limited-liability-company.html

Teaching case from The Wall Street Journal Accounting Weekly Review on January 25, 2013

Google Has Prescription for Mobile
by: Rolfe Winkler
Jan 23, 2013
Click here to view the full article on WSJ.com
Click here to view the video on WSJ.com

TOPICS: Earning Announcements, Financial Reporting, Financial Statement Analysis, Income Statement

SUMMARY: While other Internet businesses have faced challenges in the transition from PCs to mobile devices, Google shows signs of stabilizing its business across these different platforms. Problems developing business on mobile platforms have arisen "...because advertisers still learning about the new medium aren't paying as much to use it." Questions ask students to understand the business model behind search engine technology, the challenges facing the industry as it moves to mobile technology, and the related performance metrics disclosed by Google in its Form 8-K filing of the fourth quarter earnings release on which the article is based.

CLASSROOM APPLICATION: The article may be used in any financial reporting or financial statement analysis class to introduce students to the use of financial information and an earnings release.

QUESTIONS:
1. (Advanced) How does Google earn revenues and profits from its search engine on desktop and laptop computers?

2. (Introductory) What challenges face Google and other internet businesses as users move to mobile technology?

3. (Introductory) Access the related online video. How did Google perform in the 4th quarter of 2012 on these challenging aspects of its business?

4. (Advanced) Access the Google filing on Form 8-K at the SEC web site, available at http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000128877613000006/goog20121231exhibit991.htm  What metrics are highlighted on the announcement of its fourth quarter and 2012 results? Which of these metrics are shown on the company's income statement (located further in the release)?

5. (Advanced) Choose one metric highlighted in the release that is based on an income statement item. Explain how the description in the release allows for the item to be compared from time period to time period.

6. (Advanced) Choose another metric highlighted in the release; explain how it helps to support the discussion of Google's performance given in the related video.

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island

"Google Has Prescription for Mobile," by Rolfe Winkler. The Wall Street Journal, January 23, 2013 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323301104578258323326457316.html?mod=djem_jiewr_AC_domainid

Perhaps the best sign of the strength of Google's business is what hasn't happened to it.

Other Internet businesses have come down with a bad case of the mobile flu as computing has transitioned from PCs to mobile devices. That is because advertisers still learning about the new medium aren't paying as much to use it. Facebook seems to be getting over it, while others like online radio provider Pandora Media P +0.87%are still sick.

Analyst Mark Mahaney of RBC Capital Markets points to two items in the results that undercut the idea that mobile threatens Google's business. The company's cost of distributing its search results on other platforms, including Apple Phones and iPads, began to stabilize. Also, the decline in the price per click Google receives on its ads was just 4% adjusted for currency fluctuations, compared with the prior year. In the third quarter, the decline was 8%.

Google shares rose after the search giant reported a higher fourth-quarter profit on strong online advertising sales. WSJ's Amir Efrati reports. Indeed, in the long run, mobile seems more of an opportunity than a challenge. After all, the rapid adoption of smartphones will bring Web access to far more people world-wide than PCs ever could.

Google is as well positioned as anyone to capitalize on this. Its Android mobile operating system dominates, with 63% market share in the year through September, according to Strategy Analytics.

Continued in article

Are Landlords Responsible for Bedbugs?
http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/are-landlords-responsible-for-bedbugs.aspx

"College Degree, No Class Time Required University of Wisconsin to Offer a Bachelor's to Students Who Take Online Competency Tests About What They Know," by Caroline Porter, The Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2013 --- "
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323301104578255992379228564.html
Thank you Ramesh Fernando for the heads up.

David Lando plans to start working toward a diploma from the University of Wisconsin this fall, but he doesn't intend to set foot on campus or even take a single online course offered by the school's well-regarded faculty.

Instead, he will sit through hours of testing at his home computer in Milwaukee under a new program that promises to award a bachelor's degree based on knowledge—not just class time or credits.

"I have all kinds of credits all over God's green earth, but I'm using this to finish it all off," said the 41-year-old computer consultant, who has an associate degree in information technology but never finished his bachelor's in psychology.

Colleges and universities are rushing to offer free online classes known as "massive open online courses," or MOOCs. But so far, no one has figured out a way to stitch these classes together into a bachelor's degree.

Now, educators in Wisconsin are offering a possible solution by decoupling the learning part of education from student assessment and degree-granting.

Wisconsin officials tout the UW Flexible Option as the first to offer multiple, competency-based bachelor's degrees from a public university system. Officials encourage students to complete their education independently through online courses, which have grown in popularity through efforts by companies such as Coursera, edX and Udacity.

No classroom time is required under the Wisconsin program except for clinical or practicum work for certain degrees.

Elsewhere, some schools offer competency-based credits or associate degrees in areas such as nursing and business, while Northern Arizona University plans a similar program that would offer bachelor's degrees for a flat fee, said spokesman Eric Dieterle. But no other state system is offering competency-based bachelor's degrees on a systemwide basis.

Wisconsin's Flexible Option program is "quite visionary," said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education, an education policy and lobbying group that represents some 1,800 accredited colleges and universities.

In Wisconsin, officials say that about 20% of adult residents have some college credits but lack a degree. Given that a growing number of jobs require a degree, the new program appeals to potential students who lack the time or resources to go back to school full time.

"It is a big new idea in a system like ours, and it is part of the way the ground is shifting under us in higher education," said Kevin Reilly, president of the University of Wisconsin System, which runs the state's 26 public-university campuses.

Under the Flexible Option, assessment tests and related online courses are being written by faculty who normally teach the related subject-area classes, Mr. Reilly said.

Officials plan to launch the full program this fall, with bachelor's degrees in subjects including information technology and diagnostic imaging, plus master's and bachelor's degrees for registered nurses. Faculty are working on writing those tests now.

The charges for the tests and related online courses haven't been set. But university officials said the Flexible Option should be "significantly less expensive" than full-time resident tuition, which averages about $6,900 a year at Wisconsin's four-year campuses.

The Wisconsin system isn't focusing on the potential cost savings the program may offer it but instead "the university and the state are doing this to strengthen the state work force," said university spokesman David Giroux.

Siva Vaidhyanathan, a media-studies professor at the University of Virginia who has written about the future of universities, called the program a "worthy experiment" but warned that school officials "need to make sure degree plans are not watered down."

Some faculty at the school echoed the concern, since the degree will be indistinguishable from those issued by the University of Wisconsin the traditional way. "There has got to be very rigorous documentation that it lives up to the quality of that name," said Mark Cook, an animal-sciences professor and chairman of the university committee for the faculty senate at the Madison campus.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has championed the idea, in part because he left college in his senior year for a job opportunity and never finished his degree. He said he hoped to use the Flexible Degree option himself.

"I think it is one more way to get your degree. I don't see it as replacing things," Mr. Walker said

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
If competency based learning is to be offered in this manner, I think the pretense that this is equivalent to a traditional undergraduate degree should be dropped. An undergraduate diploma traditionally maps to a curriculum that includes some courses that just cannot be examined with competency-based testing proposed in this article. This includes speech courses where students must stand in front of audiences to perform and be evaluated. This includes case courses where the student's oral contributions to oral discussions of a case, discussions that take on  serendipitous tracks and student interactions. Science laboratories and many other courses entail use of onsite equipment, chemicals, etc. Some physical education courses entail individual and team performances. Music courses often entail performances on musical instruments or singing before critics. Education courses often entail live teaching and other interactions with K-12 students.

In between we have online universities that still make students take courses and interact with instructors and other students by email, chat rooms, etc. A few like Western Governors University even have course grades based on competency-based testing. But WGU only offers certain majors that do not entail onsite laboratory experiences and other onsite experiences. In the 19th Century the University of Chicago allowed students to take final examinations in some courses without attending any classes.  But this did not apply to all types of courses available on campus.

The day will probably come where there are no undergraduate or graduate degrees. Students will instead have transcript records of their graded performances onsite and online. But that day has not yet arrived. The above University of Wisconsin alternative to obtaining an undergraduate diploma must be severely limited in terms of the total curriculum available onsite at state university campuses in Wisconsin.

The above University of Wisconsin alternative to obtaining an online diploma cuts out important parts of online learning in a course where students frequently interact with instructors and other students enrolled in class.

Bob Jensen's threads on the dark side of education technology ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on assessment are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm

"The Object Formerly Known as the Textbook," by Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 27, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Dont-Call-Them-Textbooks/136835/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Textbook publishers argue that their newest digital products shouldn't even be called "textbooks." They're really software programs built to deliver a mix of text, videos, and homework assignments. But delivering them is just the beginning. No old-school textbook was able to be customized for each student in the classroom. The books never graded the homework. And while they contain sample exam questions, they couldn't administer the test themselves.

One publisher calls its products "personalized learning experiences," another "courseware," and one insists on using its own brand name, "MindTap." For now, this new product could be called "the object formerly known as the textbook."

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on electronic "books" ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ebooks.htm

Credit Rating Firms --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating_firms
Credit Rating Firms were rotten to the core --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#CreditRatingAgencies

In 2008 it became evident that credit rating firms were giving AAA ratings to bonds that they knew were worthless, especially CDO bonds of their big Wall Street clients like Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros., JP Morgan, Goldman, etc. ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm#Sleaze

There are two superpowers in the world today in my opinion. There’s the United States and there’s Moody’s Bond Rating Service. The United States can destroy you by dropping bombs, and Moody’s can destroy you by down grading your bonds. And believe me, it’s not clear sometimes who’s more powerful.  The most that we can safely assert about the evolutionary process underlying market equilibrium is that harmful heuristics, like harmful mutations in nature, will die out.
Martin Miller, Debt and Taxes as quoted by Frank Partnoy, "The Siskel and Ebert of Financial Matters:  Two Thumbs Down for Credit Reporting Agencies," Washington University Law Quarterly, Volume 77, No. 3, 1999 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudCongressPartnoyWULawReview.htm 

Credit rating agencies gave AAA ratings to mortgage-backed securities that didn't deserve them. "These ratings not only gave false comfort to investors, but also skewed the computer risk models and regulatory capital computations," Cox said in written testimony.
SEC Chairman Christopher Cox as quoted on October 23, 2008 at http://www.nytimes.com/external/idg/2008/10/23/23idg-Greenspan-Bad.html

"CREDIT RATING AGENCIES: USELESS TO INVESTORS," by Anthony H. Catanch Jr. and J. Edward Ketz, Grumpy Old Accountants Blog, June 6, 2011 --- http://blogs.smeal.psu.edu/grumpyoldaccountants/archives/113

"DOJ vs. Rating Firms,"  by David Hall, CFO.com Morning Ledger, February 5, 2013

The government is taking its get-tough-on-Wall-Street stance to the next level with the DOJ’s lawsuit against Standard & Poor’s. The suit alleges that S&P from September 2004 through October 2007 “knowingly and with the intent to defraud, devised, participated in, and executed a scheme to defraud investors in” CDOs and securities backed by residential mortgages, the WSJ reports at the top of A1 today. The two sides have been discussing a possible settlement for months, but the penalties the DOJ was targeting – more than $1 billion – made S&P squeamish. The firm was also worried that if it admitted wrongdoing, as the DOJ wanted, that could leave it vulnerable to other lawsuits.

S&P and other rating firms have argued in the past that their opinions are protected by the First Amendment — and judges have thrown out dozens of suits based on that argument, the Journal says. This case will test that argument against the Justice Department’s view that the First Amendment wouldn’t protect a ratings firm if it defrauded investors by ignoring its own standards.

Neil Barofsky, the former inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, said the DOJ move looks like an effort to get “some measure of accountability” for the financial crisis, which was “something that’s been really lacking across the board.” And Jeffrey Manns, a law professor at George Washington University, tells Reuters that the suit sends a message to “the rating industry at large that the government is serious about holding rating agencies responsible, and that they must be much more careful.”

http://online.wsj.com/public/page/cfo-journal.html

Jensen Comment
The DOJ actions do not worry the credit rating firms nearly so much as the hundreds of billions of potential tort lawsuits awaiting in the wings, lawsuits by damaged investors who relied on those phony credit ratings.

The credit rating firms, in turn, will blame CPA audit firms who gave clean audit opinions on junk.

The Advantage of a Shredded Paper Trail
From the CFO Morning Ledger Newsletter on February 11, 2012

S&P left paper trail, but not Moody’s. The reason the DOJ may be going after Standard & Poor’s and not rival Moody’s may be because S&P left a paper trail and Moody’s didn’t. Former Moody’s employees tell the WSJ that Moody’s took careful steps to avoid creating a trove of potentially embarrassing employee messages like those that came back to haunt S&P in the U.S.’s lawsuit. Moody’s analysts had limited access to instant-message programs and were directed by executives to discuss sensitive matters face to face. The crackdown on communications came after a 2005 investigation by then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer into Moody’s ratings on some mortgage-backed deals.

Bob Jensen's threads on the credit rating agency scandals ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm#Sleaze

Where were the auditors?
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm#AuditFirms

From the Scout Report on February 1, 2013

.Taggstar --- http://www.taggstar.com/ 

Making static images come alive with creative and interesting tags is a snap with Taggstar. Visitors can sign up here; all they need to do to get started is to copy and paste some code into their site. After this, visitors can add sophisticated tags to their site, rich with annotations, links to other sites, and so on. The program works with Tumblr, Wordpress, and so on. This version is compatible with all operating systems.  

---

CoolTweak --- http://www.cooltweak.com/ 

Do you work with images on a regular basis? And are you interested in adding watermarks to these images? This process just got much easier with CoolTweak. It's quite simple to add watermarks and to share photographs. The neat thing here is that visitors can add their own distinctive watermark by adding their own custom text or logo. This version of CoolTweak is compatible with all computers running Windows 2000 and newer.

---

The migratory patterns of birds continue to fascinate and delight
scientists, birders, and casual observers

Starlings Flying in Flocks
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324039504578265962656166002.html#slide/1

Starlings are in Tennessee because of New York idea
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/jan/14/starlings-are-in-tenn-because-of-ny-idea/

Finding lessons in owl's long flight
http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/27/airport-officials-strack-snowy-owl-unlikely-path-effort-avoid-bird-strikes/M4sSOTNUTYMTAF01crBPuK/story.html

Beautiful berries and birds a boon of winter
http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/807976_Beautiful-berries-and-birds-a-boon-of-winter.html

BirdCast
http://birdcast.info/

Migration of Birds
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/migratio/routes.htm
 

From the Scout Report on January 25, 2013

Szoter --- http://szoter.com 

Szoter is a great way to annotate screenshots and images so that information can be shared with a wide range of people, organizations, and colleagues. Visitors can also sketch shapes, scale and rotate any image, adjust colors and outlines, or load local and network images. Visitors should look over the Features area before they dive in. This version of Szoter is compatible with all operating systems running Flash Player 10; Java Runtime is recommended.

---

Digital Pigeon --- https://digitalpigeon.com/ 

If you're looking to send large files, why not give Digital Pigeon a try? With this free version of the program, users can send up to four 500MB files a month to three recipients. It's a great way to consolidate the transfer of large pieces of information, and the site includes a demonstration and an FAQ section. This version is compatible with all operating systems.

Bob Jensen's threads on sending large files --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob4.htm#SendingLargeFiles

---

As the San Francisco 49ers construct a new stadium, more question arise
about public financing of sports facilities.

San Francisco 49ers Santa Clara Stadium reaches new height with 'topping
out' ceremony
http://www.mercurynews.com/southbayfootball/ci_22141090/san-francisco-49ers-santa-clara-stadium-reaches-new

New San Francisco 49ers stadium on track as Woodland's Clark Pacific
expands
http://www.dailydemocrat.com/news/ci_22414855/new-san-francisco-49ers-stadium-track-woodlands-clark

In Stadium Building Spree, U.S. Taxpayers Lose $4 Billion
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-05/in-stadium-building-spree-u-s-taxpayers-lose-4-billion.html

Public funding for new sports stadium?
http://blogs.ajc.com/atlanta-forward/2012/11/21/public-funding-for-new-sports-stadium/

If You Build It, They Might Not Come: The Risky Economics of Sports
Stadiums
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/09/if-you-build-it-they-might-not-come-the-risky-economics-of-sports-stadiums/260900/#

In Santa Clara, Tax-Exempt NFL Looks Like a For-Profit Business
http://nonprofitquarterly.org/policysocial-context/21662-in-santa-clara-tax-exempt-nfl-looks-like-a-business.html

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

Education Tutorials

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

Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials

Ted Talk Video:  Conception to Birth --- http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=fKyljukBE70

Mathemusician Vi Hart Explains the Space-Time Continuum With a Music Box, Bach, and a Möbius Strip --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2013/02/mathemusician_vi_hart_explains_the_space-time_continuum_with_a_music_box_bach_and_a_mobius_strip.html

Get Ready for MIT’s “Introduction to Biology: The Secret of Life” on EdX ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/get_ready_for_mits_introduction_to_biology_the_secret_of_life_on_edx.html
Bob Jensen's threads on MOOCs, EdX and MITx --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

A Research-Inspired Biochemistry Laboratory Module ---
http://www.hhmi.org/coolscience/resources/SPT--FullRecord.php?ResourceId=137

Nature News Special: 2012 Review
http://www.nature.com/news/specials/2012/index.html

U.S. Forest Products Lab Centennial Oral History Project --- http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/FPLHist

The Biology Project: The Chemistry of Amino Acids ---
http://www.biology.arizona.edu/biochemistry/problem_sets/aa/aa.html

Software Tools for Academics and Researchers Biochem: Protein 3-D Viewer
http://web.mit.edu/star/biochem/

MicrobeLibrary --- http://www.microbelibrary.org/

Bioethics 101 --- http://nwabr.org/curriculum/bioethics-101

Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics --- http://bioethics.stanford.edu/

National Institute of General Medical Sciences: Inside Life Science ---  http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/insidelifescience/

National Science Foundation: The Secret Lives of Wild Animals ---
http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/animals

Kentucky Critter Files (animals) ---
http://www.uky.edu/Ag/CritterFiles/casefile/casefile.htm

Washington State Department of Natural Resources --- http://www.dnr.wa.gov/Pages/default.aspx

Instructional Science and Engineering Videos --- http://vega.org.uk/video/subseries/27

Agriculture in the Classroom --- http://agclassroom.org/

Thomas MacLaren Collection of Architectural Drawings ---
http://libcudl.colorado.edu:8180/luna/servlet/UCBOULDERCB1~36~36

From the Scout Report on February 1, 2013

The migratory patterns of birds continue to fascinate and delight
scientists, birders, and casual observers

Starlings Flying in Flocks
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324039504578265962656166002.html#slide/1

Starlings are in Tennessee because of New York idea
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/jan/14/starlings-are-in-tenn-because-of-ny-idea/

Finding lessons in owl's long flight
http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/27/airport-officials-strack-snowy-owl-unlikely-path-effort-avoid-bird-strikes/M4sSOTNUTYMTAF01crBPuK/story.html

Beautiful berries and birds a boon of winter
http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/807976_Beautiful-berries-and-birds-a-boon-of-winter.html

BirdCast
http://birdcast.info/

Migration of Birds
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/migratio/routes.htm
 

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

Without Bounds or Limits: An Online Exhibition of the Plan of Chicago ---
http://www.artic.edu/aic/libraries/research/specialcollections/planofchicago/

Smithsonian Magazine: Anthropology & Behavior --- http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/anthropology-behavior/

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

Bioethics 101 --- http://nwabr.org/curriculum/bioethics-101

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

Math Tutorials

R Programming Language --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_%28programming_language%29
"Learn R with Two Tutorials," by Lincoln Mullen, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 8, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/learn-r-with-twotorials/45843?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Mathemusician Vi Hart Explains the Space-Time Continuum With a Music Box, Bach, and a Möbius Strip --- Click Here
http://www.openculture.com/2013/02/mathemusician_vi_hart_explains_the_space-time_continuum_with_a_music_box_bach_and_a_mobius_strip.html

Fibonacci Numbers and the The Golden Rectangle ---
http://quietube2.com/v.php/http:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9MwNm0gXd8&feature=player_embedded%2522
Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci#Fibonacci_sequence

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

History Tutorials

NOVA: Rise of the Drones --- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/rise-of-the-drones.html

Abraham Lincoln Association Serials --- http://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/alajournals/

Lincolniana at Brown (Brown University Lincoln History Library) --- http://dl.lib.brown.edu/lincoln/index.html

W.H. Auden Recites His 1937 Poem, “As I Walked Out One Evening” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/wh_auden_recites_his_1937_poem_as_i_walked_out_one_evening.html

Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilizations --- http://medievalmap.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do

Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance --- http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/florence/index.html

A Roma Journey (Rome, Italy) --- http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/exhibition/roma_journey/eng/
Roma Slide Show --- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/Rome.pp

AdViews (vintage television commercials) --- http://archive.org/details/adviews

UCLA Film & Television Archive --- http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/

Iowa Byington Reed Diaries (Iowa in the 1800s) ---  http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/cdm/search/collection/byington

Iowa Folklife --- http://www.uni.edu/iowaonline/folklife_v2/ 

Seattle Parks & Recreation Sherwood History Files --- http://www.seattle.gov/parks/history/sherwood.htm

Ad*Access --- http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/adaccess/
The Duke University Libraries has an extensive physical and online collection of advertisements that appeared in magazines and newspapers in the U.S. and Canada from 1911-1955. The Ad*Access collection focuses on advertisements in five main subject areas: Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II.

Atlas of Historical County Boundaries --- http://publications.newberry.org/ahcbp

Atlas of Rural and Small-Town America --- http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/ruralatlas/

Without Bounds or Limits: An Online Exhibition of the Plan of Chicago ---
http://www.artic.edu/aic/libraries/research/specialcollections/planofchicago/

Picture Chicago --- http://images.library.uiuc.edu/projects/chicago/index.asp

Porter C. Thayer Photographs (Vermont) ---
http://cdi.uvm.edu/collections/getCollection.xql?pid=thayer&title=Porter C. Thayer Photographs

Photographs of Vergennes (Oldest Village in Vermont)
http://cdi.uvm.edu/collections/getCollection.xql?pid=bixby

Vermont Historical Society --- http://www.vermonthistory.org/

Free Library of Philadelphia: Historical Images of Philadelphia --- http://libwww.freelibrary.org/hip/

Beauty in Stone: The Industrial Films of the Georgia Marble Company --- http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/georgiamarble/

Preservation North Carolina --- http://www.presnc.org/

Shelby, North Carolina --- http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/shelby

U.S. Forest Products Lab Centennial Oral History Project --- http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/FPLHist

Indiana Authors and Their Books ---
http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/inauthors/welcome.do;jsessionid=86E10F919216C2CC1BBE238BE6168EA8

Indiana Magazine of History --- http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/imh/

Chilean Protest Murals --- http://hcl.harvard.edu/collections/digital_collections/chile_murals.cfm

Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective (Modern Art in the 20th Century) --- http://www.sfmoma.org/exhib_events/exhibitions/450

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

Gershwin Plays Gershwin: The Piano Version of ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ 1925 ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/01/gershwin_plays_gershwin_the_piano_version_of_rhapsody_in_blue_1925.html

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

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

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/

January 25, 2013

• Experts: Common Women's Condition Needs a New Name
• New Strain of Norovirus Spreading Quickly in U.S.
• Are Those Who Multitask Most the Worst at It?
• Eat Too Much While Watching TV? Try Taking Smaller Bites
• Smokers Die About a Decade Earlier on Average
• Migraine Triggers May Not Always Trigger Migraines
• People With Egg Allergy Can Safely Get Flu Shot: Experts
• Alcohol and a Good Night's Sleep Don't Mix
• Hearing Loss Linked to Mental Decline in Elderly
• Aspirin Linked to Blinding Eye Disease

January 26, 2013

• Flu Continues to Wane, but Deaths Still Epidemic
• FDA OKs First OTC Remedy for Overactive Bladder
• New Strain of Norovirus Spreading Quickly in U.S.
• Experts: Common Women's Condition Needs a New Name
• Are Those Who Multitask Most the Worst at It?
• People With Egg Allergy Can Safely Get Flu Shot: Experts
• Eat Too Much While Watching TV? Try Taking Smaller Bites
• Smokers Die About a Decade Earlier on Average
• Migraine Triggers May Not Always Trigger Migraines
• Alcohol and a Good Night's Sleep Don't Mix

January 28, 2013

January 29, 2013

• CDC to Pregnant Women: Get Whooping Cough Vaccine
• FDA Panel Wants More Restrictions on Hydrocodone
• First-Ever Guidelines for Children With Diabetes
• For Diabetes: BP, Cholesterol Key v. Heart Disease
• Flu Continues to Wane, but Deaths Still Epidemic
• FDA OKs First OTC Remedy for Overactive Bladder
• Experts: Common Women's Condition Needs a New Name
• New Strain of Norovirus Spreading Quickly in U.S.
• Are Those Who Multitask Most the Worst at It?
• People With Egg Allergy Can Safely Get Flu Shot: Experts

January 30, 2013

Februry 2, 2013

• Obama Administration Revises Contraception Mandate
• Which Cancer Tests Do You Really Need?
• Health Highlights: Feb.1, 2013
• Energy Drinks Pose Risks to Teens, Study Finds
• Flu Still Flexing Its Muscle in Western States
• Weight Loss & Obesity: 7 Myths & 9 Facts
• Get Married, Cut Heart Attack Risk?
• Smaller Snack Portions Just as Satisfying
• Vegetarian Diet May Cut Heart Disease Risk
• Some Parkinson's Patients Discover Artistic Side

February 4, 2013

• Which Cancer Tests Do You Really Need?
• Obama Administration Revises Contraception Mandate
• Energy Drinks Pose Risks to Teens, Study Finds
• Health Highlights: Feb.1, 2013
• Vegetarian Diet May Cut Heart Disease Risk
• Weight Loss & Obesity: 7 Myths & 9 Facts
• Some Parkinson's Patients Discover Artistic Side
• Smaller Snack Portions Just as Satisfying
• Get Married, Cut Heart Attack Risk?
• Flu Still Flexing Its Muscle in Western States

February 5, 2013

• Why Do Millions of Americans Take Multivitamins?
• Calcium Supplements Tied to Heart Risk in Men
• Cancer as a Death Sentence & Other Myths Dispelled
• A Good Mood May Boost Seniors' Brain Power
• Which Cancer Tests Do You Really Need?
• Energy Drinks Pose Risks to Teens, Study Finds
• Health Highlights: Feb.1, 2013
• Obama Administration Revises Contraception Mandate
• Get Married, Cut Heart Attack Risk?
• Some Parkinson's Patients Discover Artistic Side

February 6, 2013

• Diet Drinks as Mixers Make for Stronger Cocktails?
• Mammogram Every 2 Years May Be OK for Older Women
• TV Viewing Linked to Lower Sperm Count
• Midlife Fitness Linked to Lower Dementia Risk
• Study: Shift to Hospice Care Often Comes Too Late
• Baby Boomers' Health Worse Than Their Parents'
• Sunshine Linked to Lower Rheumatoid Arthritis Risk
• Calcium Supplements Tied to Heart Risk in Men
• Cancer as a Death Sentence & Other Myths Dispelled
• A Good Mood May Boost Seniors' Brain Power

February 7, 2013

• Smoking Pot May Raise Stroke Risk in Young Adults
• Diet Guidelines Favoring Vegetable Fats Refuted
• Flu Shot May Not Work as Well for Seniors
• Nerve-Stimulating Device Might Ease Migraines
• Which Fats Really Are Good for Your Heart?
• Baby Boomers' Health Worse Than Their Parents'
• Sunshine Linked to Lower Rheumatoid Arthritis Risk
• Study: Shift to Hospice Care Often Comes Too Late
• Mammogram Every 2 Years May Be OK for Older Women
• TV Viewing Linked to Lower Sperm Count

February 8, 2013

• Parents’ Depression, Violence Tied to ADHD in Kids
• Who Says the Sexes Are Planets Apart?
• Alzheimer's Cases May Triple by 2050
• Blizzard 2013: Preparation & Getting Through It
• Healthier Menus May Boost Restaurants' Business
• Nerve-Stimulating Device Might Ease Migraines
• Flu Shot May Not Work as Well for Seniors
• Which Fats Really Are Good for Your Heart?
• Brain Stimulation Plus Drug May Fight Depression
• Diet Guidelines Favoring Vegetable Fats Refuted

February 9, 2013

• Day Care May Not Raise Behavior Woes in Kids
• Type 1 Diabetes Up 70% in Kids, Study Finds
• Celiac Disease: New Hope for a Pill Treatment?
• Mentally Ill Adults Have Very High Smoking Rates
• Job Stress Doesn't Seem to Raise Risk for Cancer
• Young Adults Are Most Stressed Generation: Survey
• Healthier Menus May Boost Restaurants' Business
• Parents’ Depression, Violence Tied to ADHD in Kids
• Alzheimer's Cases May Triple by 2050
• Blizzard 2013: Preparation & Getting Through It

February 11, 2013

• Hand Sanitizers: Do They Help Stop All Germs?
• Day Care May Not Raise Behavior Woes in Kids
• Type 1 Diabetes Up 70% in Kids, Study Finds
• Celiac Disease: New Hope for a Pill Treatment?
• Mentally Ill Adults Have Very High Smoking Rates
• Job Stress Doesn't Seem to Raise Risk for Cancer
• Young Adults Are Most Stressed Generation: Survey
• Healthier Menus May Boost Restaurants' Business
• Parents’ Depression, Violence Tied to ADHD in Kids
• Alzheimer's Cases May Triple by 2050

"IBM Touts 'Watson' Supercomputer for the Health-Care Industry," by James Rogers, The Street, February 8, 2013 ---
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11837053/1/ibm-touts-watson-supercomputer-for-the-health-care-industry.html

. . .

IBM has been working closely with WellPoint and Memorial Sloan Kettering to "teach" Watson how to process and analyze clinical data, specifically around cancer care. The supercomputer has already ingested more than 600,000 pieces of medical evidence, according to Big Blue, as well as 2 million pages of text from clinical oncology trials.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
The worst news for you is when the screen says nothing but "Checkmate."

"How to Treat Adult Acne," Sanaz Majd, MD, House Call Doctor, February 6, 2013 ---
http://housecalldoctor.quickanddirtytips.com/how-to-treat-adult-acne.aspx

Is Swimming in Chlorine Bad for You? ---
http://getfitguy.quickanddirtytips.com/is-swimming-in-chlorine-bad.aspx

"Coping with a Special Needs Diagnosis (of your child) ---
http://mightymommy.quickanddirtytips.com/coping-with-special-needs-diagnosis.aspx

"Wearable Devices' Next Design Challenge: The Human Brain," by Sarah Rotman Epps, ReadWriteWeb, February 4, 2013 ---
http://readwrite.com/2013/02/04/wearable-devices-next-design-challenge-the-human-brain

Wearable devices like the Nike+ FuelBand, Jawbone UP, larklife, and future products like the Misfit Shine and Google Glass have been the subject of much discussion, for good reason: They give us access to information about our physical bodies and the physical environment we inhabit, a phenomenon we call Smart Body, Smart World. (Other people have referred to it as "the quantified self.")

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on Ubiquitous Computing ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm

After reading this article I can barely lift one hand to the keyboard. The thought of going out to both shovel and blow snow in a wind chill well below zero makes me want "to crawl back in bed, assume a prenatal position, and turn the electric blanket up to nine" [as spoken by one of the Limelighters (the base player) years ago]. In truth I'm in great shape relative to the old folks discussed in the article below. Give me one for my baby and one more for the road.

"Scary Health-Care Statistics on the Broken-Down Boomer Generation," by Peter Coy, Bloomberg Business Week, February 7, 2013 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-07/scary-health-care-statistics-on-the-broken-down-boomer-generation

Aging baby boomers are fatter and sicker than their predecessors were at the same age, says a new study that’s raising alarms about the future costs of health care and disability.

The study, published online on Feb. 4 by JAMA Internal Medicine, says boomers were less likely to report excellent health and to do regular exercise, and more likely to suffer from obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and other maladies. To pick one sorrowful example, they were twice as likely to use a “walking assist device,” such as a cane. (See below for a statistical table.)

Boomers who are in poor health will not only have more expensive health care; they are more likely to retire early, depriving employers of their specialized knowledge. That’s bad news for companies like Chrysler, FedEx (FDX), J.C. Penney (JCP), Raytheon (RTN), and Vanguard Group. All of those companies are members of the San Diego-based Disability Management Employer Coalition.

The JAMA study, if accurate, is “very discouraging,” says Charlie Fox, president of the Disability Management Employer Coalition. “What we’d been hearing all along was that boomers were the most healthy,” agrees Terri Rhodes, the coalition’s manager of education programs. “There’s been some thought that if we can hang on to boomers longer, we can hang on to their intellectual capital. If we’re having a population now that’s going to be disabled, that definitely is going to impact the sheer number of available workers.”

Since the start of the 2007-09 recession, there’s been a rise in the number of people filing for disability insurance and the government’s Supplemental Security Income program. The Council for Disability Awareness in Portland, Me., which represents insurers, said last year that in its survey, “most, but not all, companies continue to believe the economic environment is a factor.” But the JAMA Internal Medicine report makes clear that genuine deterioration in health is also a factor.

The study is by five researchers from West Virginia University School of Medicine and the Medical University of South Carolina, led by Dr. Dana E. King of West Virginia’s Department of Family Medicine. It draws on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a project of the Centers for Disease Control. The boomer group had an average age of 54 during the study period of 2007-10. It was compared to a group of people who were the same age in 1988-94.

The study says that although boomers have a longer life expectancy than their elders, their health is another matter. Better habits would help, the authors say. “The present study demonstrates a clear need for policies that expand efforts at prevention and healthy lifestyle promotion in the baby boom generation,” they write.

Now, some statistics pulled from the two-page report:

Eleven ways that aging boomers are worse off than their predecessors …

                               Pre-
                               Boomer  Boomer
Excellent health status          32%     13%
Use a walking assist device      3.3     6.9
Limited in work                  10.1    13.8
Functional limitation            8.8     13.5
Obese                            29      39
Regular exercise                 50      35
Moderate drinking                37      67
Hypertension                     36      43
Hypercholesterolemia             34      74
Diabetes                         12      16
Cancer                           10      11

… and three in which they’re better off …

                               Pre-
                               Boomer  Boomer
Current smoker                   28      21
Emphysema                        3.5     2.3
Myocardial infarction            5       4

 

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

February 4, 2013 message from Carolyn Becker

This is worth reading given that college students are a prime population for this problem. 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/us/concerns-about-adhd-practices-and-amphetamine-addiction.html?hp&_r=0 

 

Cheers,

Carolyn 

 

You know you're getting old when your monthly planner only has entries for doctor, dentist, and medical lab appointments.
Bob Jensen

"Sandwich Generation: What are our Ethical Obligations to Care for our Aged-Parents and Children?" by accounting professor Steven Mintz, Ethics Sage, January 25, 2013 ---
http://www.ethicssage.com/2013/01/sandwich-generation.html

Forwarded by Paula

Late Night Catechism Part 2 --- http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=7Jrh_uuPmd0

Double Fantasy --- http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=sKns1uatyNg&vq=medium

New Dilbert Character: Stanky Bathturd, IRS Agent ---
http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/you_be_the_editor/
Thank you Paul Caron for the heads up.

Forwarded by Auntie Bev

Puns for Educated Minds

1. The fattest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian .

3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.

4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption.

5. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

6. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

7. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

8. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

9. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

10. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

11. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

12. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other: 'You stay here; I'll go on a head.'

13. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

14. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'

15. The midget fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

16. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

17. A backward poet writes inverse.

18. In a democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes.

19. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.

20. If you jumped off the bridge in Paris , you'd be in Seine .

21. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, 'I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.'

22. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says 'Dam!'

23. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

24. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, 'I've lost my electron.' The other says 'Are you sure?' The first replies, 'Yes, I'm positive.'

25. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.

26. There was the person who sent ten puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.

Save these acronyms in case you receive a text message from a senior citizen

* ATD- At the Doctor's

* BFF - Best Friends Funeral

* BTW- Bring the Wheelchair

* BYOT - Bring Your Own Teeth

* CBM- Covered by Medicare

* CUATSC- See You at the Senior Center

* DWI- Driving While Incontinent

* FWIW - Forgot Where I Was

* GGPBL- Gotta Go, Pacemaker Battery Low

* GHA - Got Heartburn Again

* HGBM - Had Good Bowel Movement

* LMDO- Laughing My Dentures Out

* LOL- Living on Lipitor

* OMSG - Oh My! Sorry, Gas

* TOT- Texting on Toilet

* WAITT - Who Am I Talking To?


Hope these help. GGLKI (Gotta Go, Laxative Kicking in!)

David Albrecht added:

GGLWIO (Gotta Go, Lawrence Welk Is On).

Forwarded by Gene and Joan

Little Red Wagon --- http://www.snotr.com/video/9682/Little_Red_Wagon

Ten Second Videos --- http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/3x6MJcvqcT4%26rel=0%26hl=en_US%26feature=player_embedded

New Dilbert Character: Stanky Bathturd, IRS Agent ---
http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/you_be_the_editor/
Thank you Paul Caron for the heads up.

Forwarded by Paula

In a convent in Ireland , the 98-year-old Mother Superior lay dying. The nuns gathered around her bed trying to make her last journey comfortable.
They tried giving her warm milk to drink but she refused it. One of the nuns took the glass back to the kitchen. Then, remembering a bottle of Irish Whiskey that had been received as a gift the previous Christmas, she opened it and poured a generous amount into the warm milk.
 

Back at Mother Superior's bed, they held the glass to her lips. The frail nun drank a little, then a little more and before they knew it, she had finished the whole glass down to the last drop.

As her eyes brightened, the nuns thought it would be a good opportunity to have one last talk with their spiritual leader...
"Mother," the nuns asked earnestly, "Please give us some of your wisdom before you leave us."
She raised herself up in bed on one elbow, looked at them and said: "
"DON'T SELL THAT COW."

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/

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

The Cult of Statistical Significance: How Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm

How Accountics Scientists Should Change: 
"Frankly, Scarlett, after I get a hit for my resume in The Accounting Review I just don't give a damn"
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
One more mission in what's left of my life will be to try to change this
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm

All my online pictures --- http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/PictureHistory/

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