Tidbits on January 29, 2014
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

Photographs:  My Favorite Wild Cranberries and Cherries --- Set 02
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/CranberriesCherries/Set01/CranberriesSet01.htm
 

Tidbits on January 29, 2013
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/

Facebook is perhaps the ultimate example of the old, wise saying: If you aren’t paying for a product, then you ARE the product
Comparisons of Antivirus Software ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_antivirus_software#Microsoft_Windows
Based upon this analysis I chose F-Secure

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/

Old Barnes --- http://www.youtube.com/embed/J8Ioa1gVVeA?showinfo=0&rel=0

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

Common Accountics Science and Econometric Science Statistical Mistakes ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsScienceStatisticalMistakes.htm

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

From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians --- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/

The Murder of Seal Team 6 ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bYuUvj7-ME

Videos:  The Public Health Film Goes To War --- 
http://collections.nlm.nih.gov/?f%5Bdrep2.isMemberOfCollection%5D%5B%5D=DREPPHFGTW

Video:  Inside Cornell: Analyzing the words of psychopaths ---
http://www.cornell.edu/video/inside-cornell-analyzing-the-words-of-psychopaths
Thank you Dennis Huber for the heads up.

X-47B UCAS Aviation History Under Way --- http://www.youtube.com/embed/WC8U5_4lo2c?feature=player_embedded

Short Memories (warning:  This is patriotic)  --- http://www.youtube.com/v/AgYLr_LfhLo?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0"></param><param

Tribute to America's fallen heroes  (warning:  This is patriotic) --- http://wwwflixxy.com/trumpet-solo-melissa-venema.htm

USS Midway Museum (warning:  This is patriotic) ---
http://www.youtube.com/v/AgYLr_LfhLo?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param 

Funny Dog --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI4yoXyb1_M

Forwarded by Professor James Don Edwards
Great Quotes From Great Leaders --- Click Here
http://play.simpletruths.com/movie/great-quotes-from-great-leaders/?cm_mmc=ExactTarget_-Welcome_Stream-_-Welcome_Stream_06_GQGLmovie&utm_source=exact-target&utm_medium=mail&utm_content=Welcome_Stream-_-Welcome_Stream_06_GQGLmovie&utm_campaign=ecommerce&j=358365&e=Touchki@aol.com&l=3516_HTML&u=15377602&mid=7001668&jb=1

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

Google’s Music Timeline: A Visualization of 60 Years of Changing Musical Tastes ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/googles-music-timeline.html

See Neil Young Perform Classic Songs in 1971 BBC Concert: “Old Man,” “Heart of Gold” & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/see-neil-young-perform-classic-songs-in-1971-bbc-concert-old-man-heart-of-gold-more.html

This 55-Year-Old Is An Amazing Breakdancer Who Learned How To Do It At Goldman In The 80s ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/break-dancer-steve-graham-2014-1

Not my kind of music --- Probably makes the dead grateful that they are dead
New Jerry Garcia Web Site Features 5,000 Hours of Free Music, Plus Some Fantastic Archival Material ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/new-jerry-garcia-web-site-features-5000-hours-of-free-music.html

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

Pandora (my favorite online music station) --- www.pandora.com
TheRadio (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's threads on nearly all types of free music selections online ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Music.htm

Photographs and Art

Where to Find Free Art Images & Books from Great Museums, and Free Books from University Presses ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/free-art-images-books-from-great-museums.html

Paintings by Caravaggio, Vermeer, & Other Great Masters Come to Life in a New Animated Video ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/paintings-by-caravaggio-vermeer-other-great-masters-come-to-life.html 

Much Loved: Portraits of Beloved Childhood Teddies (Teddy Bears) ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/01/23/much-loved-mark-nixon/

How Our World Would Look If You Were A Bird.---
http://pixtale.net/2013/12/how-our-world-would-look-if-you-were-a-bird/
The sad thing is that the starving bird is focused mostly on finding a worm, mouse, road kill, or a raw fish to eat.

Every Page of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Illustrated by Self-Taught Artist Matt Kish ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/01/15/heart-of-darkness-matt-kish/
Not the kind of art that I appreciate.

William Blake's Sublime Drawings for Dante's Divine Comedy, Over Which He Labored Until His Dying Day ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/01/17/william-blake-dante-divine-comedy/

Michigan Historic Sites Online --- http://www.mcgi.state.mi.us/hso/

Historical Society of Michigan --- http://www.hsmichigan.org/

American Lumberman Photographs of Southern Pine Company ---
http://www.library.unt.edu/news/digital-libraries/american-lumberman-photographs-southern-pine-lumber-company

Bureau of Reclamation Historic Dams and Water Projects ---
http://www.cr.nps.gov/NR/travel/ReclamationDamsAndWaterProjects/Index.html

A Day Like No Other: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the March on
Washington
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/march-on-washington/

Massachusetts Real Estate Atlas Digitization Project ---
http://www.mass.gov/anf/research-and-tech/oversight-agencies/lib/massachusetts-real-estate-atlases.html

The Field Museum: Science Podcasts --- http://fieldmuseum.org/explore/science-podcasts

University of Oklahoma: History of Science Collections --- http://digital.libraries.ou.edu/homescience.php

Indianapolis Postcard Collection --- http://digitallibrary.imcpl.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/postcard

Butler University Irwin Library Images Collection (modernist architecture) ---
http://palni.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15705coll22

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

Lord Byron's Epic Poem "Don Juan," Annotated by Isaac Asimov and Illustrated by Milton Glaser ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/01/22/lord-byron-don-juan-isaac-asimov-milton-glaser/

Every Page of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Illustrated by Self-Taught Artist Matt Kish ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/01/15/heart-of-darkness-matt-kish/
Not the kind of art that I appreciate.

James Joyce Reads From Ulysses and Finnegans Wake In His Only Two Recordings (1924/1929) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/james-joyce-reads-from-ulysses-and-finnegans-wake-in-his-only-two-recordings-19241929.html

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 January 29, 2014
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2014/TidbitsQuotations012914.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

Free Monitor Software for the People With Sight Impairments
I don't know anything about this free monitor or the open-source software for sight-impaired people, but it sounds wonderful
http://www.nvaccess.org/
Thank you Scott Bonacker for the heads up.

"Archive Makes Over a Million Digital Books Available for Those Who Can't Use Print," by Mary Helen Miller, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 7, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Archive-Makes-Over-a-Million/23816/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Bob Jensen's threads on technology aids for disabled persons ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Handicapped

Yahoo Tech --- http://www.yahoo.com/tech/
Columns (new to this site is the great David Pogue who apparently left the NYT) ---
http://www.yahoo.com/tech/tagged/columns

"Sony’s Tiny New Full-Frame SLR Is a Pocket Full of Awesome," by David Pogue, Yahoo Tech, January 23, 2014 ---
http://www.yahoo.com/tech/sonys-tiny-new-full-frame-slr-is-a-pocket-full-of-74225102991.html

U.S. Census: Data Visualization --- http://www.census.gov/dataviz/

50 Great Examples of Data Visualization ---
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/06/50-great-examples-of-data-visualization/

The 2008-2009 Economic Downfall
Great Graphic:  Infographic: Anatomy of the Crash
http://www.simoleonsense.com/infographic-anatomy-of-the-crash/
Bob Jensen's threads on the downfall --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm 

"Swimming in Data? Three Benefits of Visualization," by John Siviokla, Harvard Business School, December 4, 2009 ---
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/sviokla/2009/12/swimming_in_data_three_benefit.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-DAILY_ALERT-_-AWEBER-_-DATE

Visualizing Economics
Comparing Income, Corporate, Capital Gains Tax Rates: 1916-2011 and Other Graphics --- Click Here
http://visualizingeconomics.com/2012/01/24/comparing-tax-rates/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+VisualizingEconomics+%28Visualizing+Economics%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Google Public Data Explorer
Data visualizations for a changing world --- http://www.google.com/publicdata/home

Available Data Sets --- http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory

Mathematical Imagery --- http://www.ams.org/mathimagery/thumbnails.php?album=28#galleries

2010 Found Math Gallery --- http://www.maa.org/FoundMath/FMgallery10.html

IBM's Website for Data Visualization --- http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/app 
IBM's site lets people collaborate to creatively visualize and discuss data on fast food, Jesus' apostles, greenhouse-gas trends, and more.

The Science of Vision and the Emergence of Art --- http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/index.html

Exploratorium: Optical Illusions --- https://www.exploratorium.edu/explore/staff_picks/optical_illusions

Money Chart --- http://xkcd.com/980/huge/#x=-8064&y=-2880&z=4
Thank you George Wright for the heads up.

Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (and visualization) ---
http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/casa
Thank you Ramesh Fernando for the heads up.

Advances in Visualization
Mapping for Results: The World Bank --- http://maps.worldbank.org/

The Higgs Boson explained by PhD Comics, July 4, 2012 ---
http://flowingdata.com/2012/07/04/higgs-boson-explained-by-phd-comics/
Infographics by Nathan Yau

From the Scout Report on September 14, 2012

Color Uncovered: An Interactive Book for the iPad --- http://www.exploratorium.edu/downloads/coloruncovered/ 

If you've ever wondered what color a whisper might be, this delightful interactive book is for you. Created by the folks at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, "Color Uncovered" is a unique volume complete with articles, illusions, and videos that explore the art, physics, and psychology of color. Also, the book has some color activities that just require an iPad and basic items such as a drop of water and a piece of paper. This book is compatible with all iPads running iOS 4.3 and newer.

"Psychologists Release Emotion-On-Demand Plug In For Virtual Characters:  Downloadable facial expressions for virtual characters are guaranteed to convey specific emotions, say psychologists," MIT's Technology Review, November 22, 2012 --- Click Here
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/507786/psychologists-release-emotion-on-demand-plug-in-for-virtual-characters/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20121123 

Also see http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.4500

Downloadable Expressions --- http://www.joostbroekens.com/

NOAA: Images, Visualizing Data, Marine Geology & Geophysics Division --- http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/image/

50 Great Examples of Data Visualization ---
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/06/50-great-examples-of-data-visualization/

Visualization of Multivariate Data (including faces) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/352wpvisual/000datavisualization.htm 
 

Why is every state in the USA so ... (in one word)?"
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-is-nebraska-so-boring-map-2014-1

When I was in college I remember a billboard between Des Moines and Omaha. It read:
"Iowa, Gateway to Nebraska"

How to mislead with rankings?

"The 20 Best Jobs Of The Future," by Andy Kiersz, Business Insider, January 24, 2014 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/best-jobs-of-the-future-2014-1?op=1 

Jensen Comment
Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks come in at Rank 17. Average salaries are very low because they are averaged over low level bookkeepers and clerks who did not go to college. Why are college graduate accountants left out of this ranking?

I don't even know what an "auditing clerk" is after teaching accounting for 40 years.

These rankings are highly misleading.
Why do registered nurses (at rank 1) beat out "specialist physicians and surgeons (at rank 4)?
Why do elementary school teachers (low paid) beat out college professors (highly paid)?
Why are military careers ignored (retiring after 20 years with lifetime pensions and medical care is a good deal)

The best word to describe this ranking is misleading "garbage."

"Are College Professor-Authors being cheated out of Royalties on their Textbooks?" by Steven Mintz, Ethics Sage, January 22, 2014 ---
http://www.ethicssage.com/2014/01/are-college-professor-authors-being-cheated-out-of-royalties-on-their-textbooks-the-brave-new-world-of-college-textbook-dis.html

There is no doubt that the cost of traditional-form college textbooks has gotten out of hand. That is why secondary markets are flourishing. College textbook prices are 812 percent higher than they were a little more than three decades ago, the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank, reports. Textbook costs have well outpaced the 559 percent increase in tuition and fees over roughly the same period. The National Association of College Stores (NACS) says the average college student will spend $655 on textbooks each year.

As an author of a college textbook I am sensitive to the cost issue and believe these costs should be reduced significantly. That is one reason why publishers have gone to e-books as a cheaper alternative. College kids are used to reading materials on line so it seems like a good solution.

In this blog I address another aspect of the issue, which is whether authors such as I are receiving our fair share of royalties on the sale of our books. Having researched this issue, I think intellectual property rights are being abused.

My textbook, Ethical Obligations and Decision Making in Accounting, is used in about 40 colleges and universities. The third edition was just published by McGraw-Hill. I met my classes for the first time last week and discovered there was an ‘international version’ of the book. I looked at a copy one student had purchased and it had a different cover than the McGraw-Hill USA book; a different ISBN; and the paper was of a lower quality.

How could this happen, I thought. I contacted McGraw-Hill and was told there is no international version. I investigated further and not only found the site on which she bought the international version, but other sites selling it as well. In fact, a Google search identified sellers of the international version including eBay that included the statement under the true cover: “This image is for reference. We sell an international edition.”

Upon questioning, McGraw-Hill USA admitted it knew nothing about it. They would get back to me. I found out there is a Tata McGraw-Hill India and figure it is the source of the international sales because the book was composed in India.

How ironic it is that an ethics textbook is sold in ways that are ethically questionable especially since there is no reason to believe the authors get paid the correct amount of royalties. My royalty statement does not show specific vendors. What makes it worse is there are dozens of secondary vendors of both the domestic and international versions.

We all know Amazon and Barnes & Noble sell our textbooks on line. But, what I didn’t know is there are at least a dozen links through the Amazon website to secondary sellers. There are even links to secondary sellers on the websites of secondary sellers. A prime example is bigwords.com that not only sells the book but links to what it calls the “Uber Marketplace” and another dozen or so sellers come up including the Amazon Marketplace. Do I receive any royalties from these sources, I wondered?

For years I’ve known that study guides for my text are sold on line and they weren’t developed by me. Cram101 seems to be one of the big vendors in this area. Is it ethical for a secondary seller to develop its own, unauthorized, study guide for a text and sell it on line in a way that might mislead students into thinking it is somehow instructor-sanctioned? Of course not because information originally developed by the author is being used in a way that the author did not sanction. It’s not as if the author (and publisher) found an academic to do a study guide.

It gets worse. I found both the Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank being sold online through Google Groups. The problem here is, of course, any instructor who chooses to take exams from the author’s test bank that is available on the publisher’s website does so at his or her peril.

Writing a textbook, especially for a small market, offers limited royalties to authors like myself given the amount of time and effort we put into developing the book. We do so because of a desire to make a contribution to our field and enhance student learning. My accounting ethics text was motivated by the desire to encourage future CPAs and other accounting professionals to think and decide from an ethical point of view; to develop the courage to withstand employer and client pressures to act unethically; and for students to examine their own personal behavior and strive to be better human beings.

Continued in article

Question
What can you get a retired professor who has everything?\

Answer
Buy her or him an endowed chair a nearby McDonald's Restaurant --- the community center of the 21st Century

"Old McDonald's The New York Times," as reported by the HBR Blog on January 24, 2014

In case you missed the brouhaha, a McDonald's in Queens, New York, made headlines  when the manager called police to remove a group of elderly Korean-Americans who would spend hours sitting in the restaurant talking and eating minimal amounts of food. In this follow-up op-ed, sociology PhD candidate Stacy Torres argues that businesses should accommodate — rather than shun — this type of social congregation. "For retirees on fixed incomes who may have difficulty walking more than a few blocks, McDonald's restaurants remain among the most democratic, freely accessible spaces," she says. These locations are what sociologist Ray Oldenburg calls "third places," after work and home. Fast-food restaurants, cafés, and bookstores offer "necessary yet endangered meeting points to foster community, especially among diverse people." Torres says we should "praise companies that allow loitering and devise public-private partnerships that benefit both older adults and business owners."

"Opening Speech -- Tell Them What You Want Them to Know," by Joe Hoyle, Teaching Blog, January 18, 2014 ---
http://joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/2014/01/opening-speech-tell-them-what-you-want.html

Jensen Comment
I think a great syllabus should tell them what you want them to know plus a well-crafted Camtasia video overview of what you want them to take home from the course.

In the opening speech I would concentrate more on why you want them to learn selected parts of the course that are most important. For example, I always told my students that software skills applied (but not always taught per se) in my courses were extremely helpful to performance on that first accounting job. New hires that can do advanced things in Excel and AIS often get noticed above other hires that can only do the basics.

New hires in accounting firms that understand the terminology and concepts of derivative financial instruments often get noticed and sometimes re-assigned to more interesting audits. I've had students who made names for themselves because of knowledge of hedge accounting. This may not be of much help on the CPA examination (because FAS 133 is too tough for the CPA examination) but knowledge of FAS 133 sets a new hire apart from most other hires.

Of course there are reasons for learning some things that transcend job skills. We should always stress that students should learn some things for inspiration to carry on learning after they graduate. I also told them the importance of looking at any reading assignment critically --- to spot the limiting assumptions and reasoning flaws.

"Has Your Business Degree Failed You? Answer 5 Basic Questions to Find Out!," by Anthony H. Catanach, Grumpy Old Accountants, January 14, 2014 ---
http://grumpyoldaccountants.com/blog/2014/1/14/has-your-business-degree-failed-you-answer-5-basic-questions-to-find-out

If your goal in getting a college business degree was simply to get a “job” with the least effort expended, stop reading now!  But if you were serious about learning the fundamental skills needed to support a long-term professional career in business, including a life-long learning perspective, your passion and zeal just may not have been enough according to a number of recent articles in the popular business.

Some suggest that college in general should be questioned.  Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor, encourages parents and students to “be skeptical” about the value of college.  With average student debt exceeding $29,000 and 40 percent of college graduates taking jobs that don’t require a college degree, he suggests that:

America's higher education problem calls for both wiser choices by families and better value from schools.

It’s hard to disagree with this statement particularly when so many parents and students conduct more due diligence in a car purchase than selecting the “right” college or university. 

Reynolds also notes that the value proposition for a college degree is frequently obscured by the “bait and switch” tactics increasingly used by administrators, as well their lack of budget transparency.  Many schools now routinely “outsource” class instruction to low-paid adjuncts to cut costs (and let’s not even get into on-line “classroom” initiatives), and it is next to impossible to see where one’s tuition dollars actually are being spent (e.g., administration, athletics, research, or teaching).

And guess what? Surprise…surprise…many employers now are questioning the skills of today’s graduates. Richard Vedder and Christopher Denhart from Ohio University confirm that:

Declining academic standards and grade inflation add to employers' perceptions that college degrees say little about job readiness.

They argue that the numbers just don’t work when college degree benefits are questionable and college costs are increasing. And the narrowing gap between what college and high school graduates earn particularly concerns them.  As an old jarhead, I found one of their statements particularly telling:

We now have more college graduates working in retail than soldiers in the U.S. Army, and more janitors with bachelor's degrees than chemists.

But what about business degrees specifically?  Dan Kadlec, a journalist for TIME, believes that:

Colleges are minting money-focused graduates in a work world that increasingly values critical thinking and softer skills like the ability to communicate.

Melissa Korn of the Wall Street Journal reports that “undergraduate business majors are a dime a dozen” and “may be worth even less,” since more than 20 percent of undergraduates in the United States are business majors. And graduate business education doesn’t get a free pass either. John A. Byrne, a contributor to CNN Money, documents the case of Josh Kaufman who believes that MBA programs “teach many worthless, outdated, even outright damaging concepts and practices.” 

Still not convinced that there just might be a flame or two behind all this “smoke,” then just take a look at look at Lynn O’Shaughnessy’s number one reason why NOT to get a business degree: business majors don't learn much in business school!  Her conclusion was based on Academically Adrift, a bestselling book that finds that business majors are among the students who learn the least in college. 

All of this negativism makes this Grumpy Old Accountant seem absolutely cheery doesn’t it?  Well, I must confess that my recent interactions with experienced business graduates (both at the bachelor and master levels) employed as accountants, analysts, managers, and reporters have raised more than a few doubts in my own mind. So, I decided to create a short, five question test (no accounting included, I promise) that administrators, current students, faculty, and recent graduates may find useful for assessing the effectiveness of their B-school experience.  And it’s no coincidence that the five questions mirror the major themes routinely discussed today by business academics and professionals alike. Being naturally grumpy, this exam is a closed book, closed note, essay test that should be completed with no outside assistance…what did you expect?

Question One: What is a business?

Believe it or not, many B-school graduates cannot answer this query in a clear, concise manner.  Often, the response is a long-winded, rambling summary of discrete topics that parallel course requirements that fails to accurately capture the essence of today’s enterprises. To receive full credit, the answer should be close to the following:

 A business is an economic entity that creates wealth (e.g., value, cash flow, etc.) by using financial, human, and physical capital to deliver products or services that the market demands.

And if you really want to wow this old prof, throw in a bit of the “nexus of contract theory” to motivate the need for information to monitor the various contracts which companies execute with shareholders, employees, suppliers, customers, debtors, and the like.

Question Two: What is business strategy?

So, once you decide on a business, what’s the strategy? The answers commonly received to this question are particular disturbing in that they refer to assorted permutations of action plans and related documents.  Sorry, just not specific or good enough. To receive full credit, the answer should address two key issues:

Business strategy is how an organization creates value for its customers and differentiates itself from competitors in the marketplace.

Value creation and differentiation must be addressed in every good strategy whether it be for a company as a whole, or each individual operating unit.  This short definition specifically focuses managers on their markets and customer needs.  If customers don’t value a company’s product or are indifferent to it vis-a-vis that of the competition, the company is unlikely to succeed in the long-run, regardless of its stated “strategy.”  If you add some verbage about Michael Porter’s Five Forces model in your differentiation discussion in the context of today’s technology dominated world, you will bring a smile to this Grumpy Old Accountant’s face.

Question Three: What is a business model?

This dot-com era buzzword can generate some very interesting definitions which provide great insight into what has been learned (or not) in the B-school.  Frequent responses include a business idea, an overly-complicated financial model, or a business plan.  These answers don’t even warrant partial credit!  So what is it?

 A business model describes how the pieces of a business fit together as a system to execute the firm’s stated strategy.

Every business model whether it be for the whole entity or each individual operating unit must address ALL of the following fundamental “value chain” activities: market analysis, product development and design, sales and marketing; procurement, production, and distribution, and after sale customer service.  How do each of these activities contribute to strategy execution?  Answer that and now you have a business model!  And some references to “How to Design a Winning Business Model” by Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Joan E. Ricart will likely get you some bonus points.

Question Four: How should a business evaluate its performance?

As an accounting professor, I find the answers I often receive to this question to be downright depressing: stock price appreciation, revenue growth, earnings per share, and a host of other financial statement driven metrics.  These might earn some partial credit, but if you even hint at “adjusted EBITDA,” you get a zero.

Answering this question requires getting Question Three correct!  To evaluate performance you must have something concrete to measure.  In the case of a business, it’s how each of the five value chain activities that comprise a firm’s business model are performing.

A business should measure its performance by monitoring the implementation, execution, and effectiveness of its entire business model.

This means that managers need both financial and non-financial metrics to judge their market analysis, research and development, selling and marketing, production and distribution, and customer service activities.  Unfortunately, all too often, companies rely almost exclusively on financial statement numbers to do so.  The best answers to this question will be organized around Kaplan and Norton’s Balanced Scorecard framework.

Question Five: What role does innovation play in business today?

Historically, business innovation has been equated primarily with the development of new products and new technologies.  But as Birkinshaw, Bouquet, and Barsoux suggest, “products and services represent just the tip of the innovation iceberg.” So, a few points might be awarded for this weak “common sense” response.  But to receive full credit, respondents must have scored well on Questions 3 and 4. The following represents a more complete response:

Business innovation refers to any ideas and/or actions that can positively transform any part of the business model or its individual value chain activities, as well as the development of new products or service offerings.

Continued in article

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

Japanese cars are the best (Honda, Toyota) and the worst (Mazda). Some British cars are pretty bad on the used car lot.
"A car dealer’s scientific guide to the 10 worst used vehicles," by Steven Lang, Yahoo News, January 17, 2014 ---
http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/car-dealer-scientific-guide-10-worst-used-vehicles-222709616.html

"10 Things You Need to Know About Windows 8.1," by Chris Hoffman, How-to-Geek, January 2014 ---
http://www.howtogeek.com/180155/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-windows-8.1/

Jensen Comment
Especially note the file associations complexity. Before Windows 7 it used to be easy in Windows Explorer. In Windows 7 you have to go to Start, Programs and find the Default Programs alternative (which does not appear with icons). For Windows 8.1 see the above link.

I hope my computers continue working so I can just skip the Windows 8 generation. Do you think things will get easier with Windows 9?
I certainly hope so.

"British University to Accept Bitcoin as Payment for Some Courses," by Megan O'Neil, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 21. 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/british-university-to-accept-bitcoin-as-payment-for-some-courses/49639?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Interactive Demonstration: This Is How You Mine Some Bitcoin ---
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-13/interactive-simulation-how-to-mine-bitcoin
First you buy a pack mule and digging tools.

Digital Currencies (virtual currency) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_currency

Bitcoin Digital Currency --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

Private Currencies (including Barter Credits) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_currency

Jensen Comment
Both bitcoins (and other virtual currencies) and barter credits are sometimes traded on exchanges that set values apart from the fair values of the items traded initially. In the exchange markets values can be complicated by speculators in the virtual currencies and the varying willingness of businesses to accept them.

Virtual currencies differ from private currencies. One key difference is that private currencies tend to trade in terms of specified commodities (such as gold) or regions (such as BerkShares in the Berkshire region of Massachusetts) whereas virtual currencies tend to take on a life of their own. apart from commodities or spending regions.

It seems like accounting for bitcoins may become less complicated than accounting for private currencies in that bitcoins and other virtual currencies are more like international legal tender than private currencies subject to possible thinner markets such as the market for BerkShares. Of course bitcoins are not yet legal tender per se.

Barter credit accounting is also complicated by other revenue recognition rules. For example, if barter credits apply to discount coupons then all the complications of revenue accounting for discount coupons enter the picture.

I don't think the IRS, the FASB, and the IASB have yet dealt with all the complications of private currencies or virtual currencies traded on exchanges and the liquidity risks and speculation risks inherent in such transaction valuations. One complication is that the markets may be very thin such as the BerkShares trading market restricted to vendors in the Berkshires region.

"SEC Charges Texas Man in Bitcoin-Related Ponzi Fraud:  Agency Warns Investors to Be Wary of Schemes Tied to Virtual Currencies," by Robin Sidel, The Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2013 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324144304578624221093071466.html?mod=djemCFO_

Forbes, Taxing Bitcoin: IRS Review Has Big Implications for Investors in Virtual Currency, by Howard Gleckman

The Dark Web
How To Access The Invisible Internet You're Not Supposed To Find ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/invisible-internet-infographic-2014-1

Question
What do conman jail birds and pedophiles have in common?

Answer
Criminal recidivism. Ex-con conmen are more apt to book public speaking tours where they confess their sins and promise never to do it again. But time and time again they succumb to temptation soon afterwards. Barry Minkow is a classic example.

"Conman Minkow convicted of fraud...again," CNBC, January 23, 2014 ---
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101357919

A man who went from teenage millionaire to convicted con artist to professional fraud fighter and pastor was convicted Wednesday of cheating his San Diego church congregation out of some $3 million.

Barry Minkow pleaded guilty to embezzling funds from the San Diego Community Bible Church, a U.S. attorney's statement said. He was already serving a five-year sentence for a securities fraud conviction in Florida and could get five additional years when he is sentenced for the new conviction April 7.

Under the plea, Minkow admitted that he opened unauthorized church bank accounts, forged signatures on checks and used member donations for personal benefit.

"Barry Minkow is again convicted of fraud, this time for stealing money from the parishioners of San Diego Community Bible Church," U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy said. "We stand vigilant against those who cheat and steal without regard to the consequences wrought on their victims and their communities."

Minkow gained national attention as a teenager in the 1980s by founding the ZZZZ Best carpet cleaning company in Southern California. At age 21, he became the youngest person at the time in U.S. history to take a company public, and he became very wealthy on paper.

But ZZZZ Best turned out to be involved in a fraud scheme in which investors poured $100 million into fake fire and water restoration projects. And in 1988, Minkow was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted of 57 fraud charges.

(Read more: About 100 people accused in NYC disability scam: DA)

He was released in 1995. Minkow became pastor of the San Diego church two years later, after undergoing a religious conversion in prison.

He also founded the Fraud Discovery Institute, which helped the FBI and other law enforcement agencies ferret out white-collar crimes around the country.

But even while working with the institute, he was engaged in manipulating the stock prices of the companies he was investigating, federal prosecutors said.

In 2011 in Miami, a federal judge sentenced Minkow to five years in prison for involvement in a scam that cost homebuilder Lennar Corp. some $580 million in lost stock value.

Continued in article

George Orwell Got a B- at Harvard, When Michael Crichton Submitted an Orwell Essay as His Own ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/george-orwell-got-a-b-at-harvard.html

"Factory Jobs Are Gone. Get Over It," by Charles Kenny, Bloomberg Businessweek, January 23, 2014 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-23/manufacturing-jobs-may-not-be-cure-for-unemployment-inequality

In the runup to this year’s State of the Union address, President Obama has been busy trying to fulfill pledges from last year’s. He went to Raleigh, N.C., to announce it would become a high-tech manufacturing hub to ensure that the U.S. attracts “the good, high-tech manufacturing jobs that a growing middle class requires.”

The president is one of many politicians of both parties as well as pundits who think manufacturing deserves special treatment. But this factory obsession is based on flawed economics. As the Brookings Institute economist Justin Wolfers asked recently, “What’s with the political fetish for manufacturing? Are factories really so awesome?”

Not really—at least not for the U.S. in 2014. Any attempt to draw lessons from the 1950s, when many a high school-educated (white, male) person got a job in a factory and joined the middle class, doesn’t account for the changes in the U.S. and global economy since the middle of the last century. While it’s smart to focus on creating more stable, remunerative jobs, few of them are likely to come from manufacturing.

BLOG: More Companies See Advantage to Manufacturing in the U.S.

In 1953 manufacturing accounted for 28 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. By 1980 that had dropped to 20 percent, and it reached 12 percent in 2012. Over that time, U.S. GDP increased from $2.6 trillion to $15.5 trillion, which means that absolute manufacturing output more than tripled in 60 years. Those goods were produced by fewer people. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of employees in manufacturing was 16 million in 1953 (about a third of total nonfarm employment), 19 million in 1980 (about a fifth of nonfarm employment), and 12 million in 2012 (about a tenth of nonfarm employment).

Service industries—hotels, hospitals, media, and accounting—have taken up the slack. Even much of the value generated by U.S. manufacturing involves service work—about a third of the total. More than half of all people still employed in the U.S. manufacturing sector work in such services as management, technical support, and sales.

Over the past 30 years, manufacturers have spent more on labor-saving machinery and hired fewer but more skilled workers to run it. From 1980 to 2012 across the whole economy, output per hour worked increased 85 percent. In manufacturing output per hour climbed 189 percent. The proportion of manufacturing workers with some college education has increased from one-fifth to one-half since 1969.

STORY: American Made Movie Builds Hope for Manufacturing at Home

Across richer countries, growth has been accompanied by a decline in the number of manufacturing jobs and the rise of service jobs. Some of the richer countries, such as France, that have seen the slowest decline in manufacturing’s share of employment have actually suffered some of the most sluggish growth. In the U.S., Eric Fisher of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland suggests that those states where the shift from manufacturing employment has been the most rapid are those where wages have climbed the fastest.

Developing countries have taken over much of the low-skilled, low-capital production once done in the U.S.: Consider the garment industry or tire manufacturing. Such low-tech work is even more mind-numbing and poorly paid than it was when the work was done in the U.S. through the 1970s. Many of the workers killed in the recent Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in Bangladesh earned just $3 a day. Some politicians have regretted the loss of similar jobs in the U.S. The question is: Do we want such jobs here now?

Shutting the borders to low-cost imports in the hope of reviving low-skilled manufacturing employment at home would likely kill jobs, not save them. When Obama in 2009 slapped tariffs on Chinese tire imports that had flooded the U.S. market, he temporarily preserved 1,200 jobs in the tire industry as supplies tightened and U.S. tiremakers helped make up the difference. But the impact on the U.S. labor force as a whole was negative. Gary Hufbauer of the Peterson Institute estimates that the cost to U.S. consumers was more than $1 billion. As tires got more expensive, tire buyers had less money to spend on other goods. The effect of that drop in demand on retail employment was a loss of 3,731 jobs, three times the number preserved in the tire industry.

Story: Etsy Wants to Be the Rust Belt's New Factory

Champions of reindustrialization often cite the cluster effect as a reason to back manufacturing. If a company builds a factory, then other factories will pop up in the same place to benefit from the industry knowledge and experienced workforce found there. If that theory were strongly supported by the facts, that might be a reason for governments to subsidize early investors in building the first plant somewhere. But work by economists Glenn Ellison of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Ed Glaeser of Harvard suggests that while “slight concentration is widespread” among industries, “extreme concentration” is the exception. High levels of concentration aren’t a particularly common or unique feature of high-tech manufacturers (although high-tech service industries cluster in Silicon Valley). In manufacturing, the two economists suggest clustering is most evident in fur, wines, hosiery, oil and gas, carpets and rugs, sawmills, and costume jewelry.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
In the meantime cost and managerial courses and textbooks should be making the shift to accompany changing labor patters such as accounting for complicated indirect costs and services such as medical services, food services, and online selling.

Bob Jensen's threads on managerial and cost accounting ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory02.htm#ManagementAccounting

Management and Accounting Web (MAAW) --- http://maaw.info/

When we watch our favorite BBC Mystery videos, including Inspector Morse and Inspector Lewis in Oxford settings, British universities are pictured much like they were during the Renaissance period --- now old and decadent. Inspector Lewis has yet to search Oxford's glass-walled Said Business School for villains.

"MBA Bubble Looms Larger Than Ever As Schools Build Huge New Campuses," The Economist via Business Insider, January 17, 2014 ---
 http://www.businessinsider.com/build-it-and-they-may-come-2014-1

Business-school students are a pampered bunch. Scholars sipping a glass of red in the posh rooftop bar of Oxford's Saïd Business School could be forgiven for thinking they had wandered into the nearby Randolph Hotel by mistake. Stanford students can view an impressive modern-art collection housed in its own museum. Harvard Business School MBAs can book a masseuse to relieve the stress of a hard day slaving over case studies.

Life for the next generation of business students is to get even cushier. In the past few years the leading schools have been raising vast amounts to spend on new facilities. On January 9th Yale's School of Management formally opened its swanky new home, designed by Foster + Partners, Norman Foster's architecture practice. The Kellogg School of Management in Illinois will soon start work on a new headquarters (see artist's impression, above) for its MBA programme on the shores of Lake Michigan, at a cost of $200m. Stanford's business school spent $345m on its new campus, largely thanks to the largesse of Phil Knight, the founder of Nike.

The biggest project, at least in terms of cost, is under way in New York. Columbia Business School is within touching distance of raising the $600m it needs to complete a new campus in West Harlem. From Cambridge, MA, to Cambridge, UK, an arms race is under way to provide MBAs with the plushest place to study.

There are several reasons for this. One is that many business schools built campuses in a previous expansionary phase in the 1960s and 70s, and these are now ripe for regeneration. Rising expectations among prospective students also play a part. The posher the school, the more demanding its applicants. Harvard Business School's campus is the envy of all its competitors, and for good reason. Yet in a survey by The Economist in 2013, MBA students ranked its facilities (measured, admittedly, by more than just the quality of its buildings) a lowly 27th in the world, below those of institutions such as Brunel University, a modest college in Uxbridge, in west London. Since Harvard puts the total cost of taking its MBA at around $200,000, students have every right to expect perfection.

Breaking ground on expensive new facilities is not without risk. Demand for MBAs remains soft. Some schools, particularly lower down the pecking-order, may find their new state-of-the-art classrooms sparsely populated. In the 2012-13 testing year there were 238,000 entries for GMATs, the de facto business-school entrance exam. That is 50,000 fewer tests taken than the year before and the lowest number for six years.

For some schools, the risk is lower. The University of Cambridge's Judge Business School is raising £52m ($85m) for a new building that will, among other things, house its lucrative non-degree executive-education programmes. These are currently scattered around Cambridge's other colleges. Judge thinks it will recoup the outlay of bringing them together under one, expensive roof within a few years.

In any case, the money for most big schools' projects comes from wealthy alumni and sponsors, who do not expect it back. Of the $600m Columbia is raising, for example, only $100m is from university coffers. The rest will come from gifts, including donations of $100m each from two private-equity fund managers, Ronald Perelman and Henry Kravis. Kellogg says not a single tuition-fee dollar will be spent on its new building.

Indeed, one reason more schools can afford big capital projects is that they have turned philanthropy into a professional business. Nearly all the top schools now employ full-time fund-raisers. Their preferred targets tend to be former students who have made it big since graduation. Deans are often judged on just two criteria: how a school fares in rankings (including ours, at economist.com/whichmba) and how much money they have screwed out of rich alumni.

But if there is little financial risk to schools, there is a danger of obsolescence. Higher education is, many think, on the brink of being disrupted by distance-learning technology. In the future, many more students are expected to study remotely. Trophy campuses could become relics. "Our industry is about to transform itself," says Sally Blount, Kellogg's dean. "And you have to decide whether you are in or out of face-to-face education."

Continued in article

The top MBA and other graduate business distance education degree programs where students only have virtual campuses ---
http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/mba/rankings
Indiana University is the big winner

Distance Education From US News in 2014
Best Online Degree Programs (ranked) ---
http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education

Best Online Undergraduate Bachelors Degrees --- http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/bachelors/rankings
Central Michigan is the big winner

Best Online Graduate Business MBA Programs ---
http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/mba/rankings
Indiana University is the big winner

Best Online Graduate Education Programs --- http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/education/rankings
Northern Illinois is the big winner

Best Online Graduate Engineering Programs --- http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/engineering/rankings
Columbia University is the big winner

Best Online Graduate Information Technology Programs ---
http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/computer-information-technology/rankings
The University of Southern California is the big winner

Best Online Graduate Nursing Programs --- http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/nursing/rankings
St. Xavier University is the big winner

US News Degree Finder --- http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/features/multistep-oe?s_cid=54089
This beats those self-serving for-profit university biased Degree Finders

US News has tried for years to rank for-profit universities, but they don't seem to want to provide the data.

January 16, 2014 reply from Amy Dunbar

Just a note to say those aren’t just mba programs, despite the mba in the url.  http://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/mba/rankings

U.S. News includes all online graduate business programs.  The ranking method changed this year, including a peer evaluation factor.  There are two online graduate accounting programs ranked ahead of UConn – Texas at Dallas and Auburn. UConn is ranked at 23 in the overall graduate business rankings.

Some of the ranking survey questions are geared to MBA programs and the student populations that want MBA programs.  For example, student experience matters for MBA program consideration, but the typical MSA student is going for the 150 hrs, with little or no experience, and thus we don’t consider experience as a factor for admission.  That’s a ding against us.

If anyone knows anything about the Texas or Auburn programs, I would love to hear from you.  I have been the academic director at UConn for a year and a half.  My biggest concern is how to help faculty learn to teach online.  Working with course designers to create courses is one thing; teaching the course is another.

Amy Dunbar
Academic Director MS in Accounting
School of Business
University of Connecticut
2100 Hillside Road Unit 1041
Storrs, CT 06269-1041

amy.dunbar@business.uconn.edu

http://msaccounting.business.uconn.edu/

Bob Jensen's threads on online training and education programs ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/CrossBorder.htm

Find your online degree with the SUNY Learning Network --- http://sln.suny.edu/

Online SUNY Graduate Programs

Online Master Degree Programs

MBA | MS | MA | MLS | M.Ed. * denotes SLN Affiliated campus

Online Master of Business Degree Programs

• Master of Business Administration in Technology Management: SUNYIT*
• Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Global Leadership: Empire State College*
• Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Management: Empire State College*
• Master of Business Administration (MBA): SUNY Oswego*

Online Master of Science Degree Programs

• Master of Science in Accountancy: SUNYIT*
• Master of Science in Adult Education: Buffalo State*
• Master of Science in Childhood Education (Literacy): University at Albany
• Master of Science Combined Nutrition and Dietetic Internship Program: SUNY Oneonta*
• Master of Science in Curriculum Development and Instructional Technology: University at Albany
• Master of Science in Education (Educational Technology Specialist K-12): SUNY Oneonta*
• Master of Science in Human Resource Management: Stony Brook University*
• Master of Science in Information Design and Technology: SUNYIT*
• Master of Science in Nursing Education : Empire State College*
• Master of Science in Nursing Education : SUNYIT*
• Ed.M. Science and the Public: University at Buffalo
• Master of Science in Rehabilitation Counseling: University at Buffalo

Online Master of Arts Degree Programs

• Master of Arts in Adult Learning: Empire State College*
• Master of Arts in Community and Economic Development: Empire State College*
• Master of Arts in Learning and Emerging Technologies: Empire State College*
• Master of Arts in Higher Education Administration: Stony Brook University*
• Master of Arts in Labor and Policy Studies: Empire State College*
• Master of Arts in Liberal Studies: The College at Brockport*
• Master of Arts in Liberal Studies: Empire State College*
• Master of Arts in Liberal Studies: Stony Brook University*
• Master of Arts in Social Policy: Empire State College*
• Master of Arts in Teaching: Empire State College*

Online Master of Library Science

• Master of Library Science (MLS) (Reference Concentration): University at Buffalo
• Master of Library Science (MLS) with certification as a Library Media Specialist (NYS): University at Buffalo

Online Master of Education

• Master of Education (M.Ed.) in Teaching and Learning: Principles and Pedagogy: Empire State College*
• Master of Education (M.Ed.) in English Education: University at Buffalo
• Master of Education (M.Ed.) in Music Education: University at Buffalo

Online Doctoral Degree Programs

DNP * DENOTES SLN AFFILIATED CAMPUS

Online Doctor of Nursing Practice

• Post Master’s DNP: University at Buffalo

The SUNY Learning Network program is administered by the Office of the Provost.

 

"Open SUNY Unites Online Ed Offerings Across 64 Institutions," by Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology, January 21, 2014 ---
http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/01/21/open-suny-unites-online-ed-offerings-across-64-institutions.aspx?=CT21

The State University of New York (SUNY) has formally introduced a new online program that allows students to access courses, degrees, professors and academic resources from any of SUNY's 64 campuses. Open SUNY, as it's called, is a mix-and-match service that offers access to 400 "online-enabled" degrees, 12,000 course sections and eight full degrees. The system's expectation is that people from inside and outside the state will attend courses, including international students.

Students can use the program to start a degree, finish a degree or just take a single course. The Open SUNY Navigator allows a potential student to specify what type of program he or she wants in categories such as entirely online or hybrid, synchronous or asynchronous, experiential, accelerated and so on — and the navigation tool provides potential online offerings to fit the criteria.

"Open SUNY will provide our students with the nation's leading online learning experience, drawing on the power of SUNY to expand access, improve completion, and prepare more students for success," said Chancellor Nancy Zimpher. "In addition to these new, fully-online degree programs, Open SUNY will take every online course we offer at every SUNY campus...and make them easy to find and accessible for every SUNY student and prospective learners around the globe."

Along with providing a central application through which to locate course offerings, SUNY is offering Open SUNY+, which adds additional layers of support for online students and instructors. Specific additions include a 24/7 help desk for technical support, a "concierge" service to act as a single source for getting all program questions answered, and extended hour tutoring services. Faculty will have access to training programs and online forums where they can broaden their knowledge about developing effective online courses or share best practices.

Eight Open SUNY+ degree programs debuting this month were chosen based on a number of factors, including student interest, accreditation, and their capacity to meet current and future workforce demand throughout New York State.

Among the institutions involved are:

• Stony Brook, which is offering an online bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering in partnership with two other SUNY institutions;
• SUNY Delhi, with an online bachelor of science in nursing specifically for registered nurses; and
• SUNY Oswego, which has an online master of business administration.

"We are proud of our collaboration and success in serving a qualified student population that may not otherwise be able to pursue a degree in electrical engineering," said Stony Brook President Samuel Stanley Jr. "We are joining forces with our colleagues at Binghamton University and the University at Buffalo to make a difference. We look forward to implementation of Open SUNY. This is truly an exciting time to be involved in higher education in New York State."

Bob Jensen's threads on online training and education programs ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/CrossBorder.htm

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

The Harvard Business Review interviews Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy
"Salman Khan on the Online Learning Revolution," Harvard Business Review Blog, January 16, 2014 ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Academy
A written transcript will be available January 24, 2014

Jensen Comment
I listened to the audio file for this interview. A big part of this interview emphasizes that many Khan Academy modules are great for corporate training, such as in leadership training, as well as education in general. "If you are talking for more than three minutes in a meeting it should be a video" to study before the meeting.

Khan Academy plans to probe deeper into interactive models.

"I'm About To Join A Generation Of Jobless PhDs," by Amanda Chung, Business Insider, January 19, 2014 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/im-about-to-join-a-generation-of-jobless-phds-2014-1

Jensen Comment
If accurate, the above graph pretty much explains the supply versus demand of Ph.D.s
It also explains why the AACSB's Bridge Program to become a business professor has so many prospects ---
http://www.aacsb.edu/bridge/

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

"Law Deans May Go to Jail for Submitting False Data to U.S. News," by Paul Caron, TaxProf Blog, January 21, 2014 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2014/01/law-deans.html

A most unlikely collection of suspects - law schools, their deans, U.S. News & World Report and its employees - may have committed felonies by publishing false information as part of U.S. News' ranking of law schools. The possible federal felonies include mail and wire fraud, conspiracy, racketeering, and making false statements. Employees of law schools and U.S. News who committed these crimes can be punished as individuals, and under federal law the schools and U.S. News would likely be criminally liable for their agents' crimes.

Some law schools and their deans submitted false information about the schools' expenditures and their students' undergraduate grades and LSAT scores. Others submitted information that may have been literally true but was misleading. Examples include misleading statistics about recent graduates' employment rates and students' undergraduate grades and LSAT scores.

U.S. News itself may have committed mail and wire fraud. It has republished, and sold for profit, data submitted by law schools without verifying the data's accuracy, despite being aware that at least some schools were submitting false and misleading data. U.S. News refused to correct incorrect data and rankings errors and continued to sell that information even after individual schools confessed that they had submitted false information. In addition, U.S. News marketed its surveys and rankings as valid although they were riddled with fundamental methodological errors.

Jensen Comment
Some business schools also got caught submitting false data. One example is Tulane where a new dean corrected the data.

Bob Jensen's threads on rankings controversies ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#BusinessSchoolRankings

This is 'loonie"
"The Canadian Dollar Is Tanking," by Matthew Boesler, Business Insider, January 21, 2014 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-canadian-dollar-is-tanking-2014-1

"Canadian Government's Library Closings May Hurt Research, Academics Say," by Karen Birchard and Jennifer Lewington, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 20, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Closure-of-Canadian-Government/144115/

After his unsportsmanlike post-game conduct and "I'm the Greatest" trash talk following Seahawk victory over the 49ers it's pretty easy to not want to hear much more about or much more from Richard Sherman. Life is not so simple.

17 Things You Never Knew About Richard Sherman --- http://www.businessinsider.com/richard-sherman-things-you-never-knew-2014-1?op=1

Sort of reminds me of the young trash-talking and Cassius Clay aka Mohammad Ali ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali

"Custom Writing Service Says Students 'No Longer Have to Face the Burden of Academic Coursework'," by Susan Jones, CNS News, January 20, 2014 ---
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/custom-writing-service-says-students-no-longer-have-face-burden-academic#

A Dallas-based company that writes research papers, essays and other classroom assignments -- so students don't have to -- says it is doing so well that it has expanded its staff from just a few writers to more than 100 in the past year.

The company bills itself as the one "students trust to write professional, in-depth and plagiarism-free essays that receive the highest grades for all levels of coursework...so they no longer have to face the burden of academic coursework."

It says the writing is done for an "affordable" fee; and it has foreign writers on staff for non-American students.

In a news release announcing the "custom writing service" for students in the United States, the company includes the following testimonial:

"I enjoyed using the service," one student is quoted as saying. "The paper was written excellent (sic)...My professor was satisfied, and so am I."

Other testimonials on the company's website read:

"I've sent the paper to evaluation first 'cause I wasn't sure if they can find a writer with a relevant academic background...But yes, they did! It seems like she read my thoughts and written the paper (sic) as if I did it myself, lol :-)"

And this: "Cool essay. Couldn’t been done better (sic). Just noticed a few typos, but that’s okay."

The company offers discounts of 5 percent after ten orders; and 15 percent after 20 orders.

In August, President Obama announced his plan to tie federal financial aid to colleges and universities that do well in a yet-to-be-announced college rating system. As CNSNews.com reported at the time, the rating system means the government will define what a good college is. - See more at: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/custom-writing-service-says-students-no-longer-have-face-burden-academic#sthash.dAvEF9OY.dpuf

A Dallas-based company that writes research papers, essays and other classroom assignments -- so students don't have to -- says it is doing so well that it has expanded its staff from just a few writers to more than 100 in the past year.

The company bills itself as the one "students trust to write professional, in-depth and plagiarism-free essays that receive the highest grades for all levels of coursework...so they no longer have to face the burden of academic coursework."

It says the writing is done for an "affordable" fee; and it has foreign writers on staff for non-American students.

In a news release announcing the "custom writing service" for students in the United States, the company includes the following testimonial:

"I enjoyed using the service," one student is quoted as saying. "The paper was written excellent (sic)...My professor was satisfied, and so am I."

Other testimonials on the company's website read:

"I've sent the paper to evaluation first 'cause I wasn't sure if they can find a writer with a relevant academic background...But yes, they did! It seems like she read my thoughts and written the paper (sic) as if I did it myself, lol :-)"

And this: "Cool essay. Couldn’t been done better (sic). Just noticed a few typos, but that’s okay."

The company offers discounts of 5 percent after ten orders; and 15 percent after 20 orders.

Continued in article

"The Shadow Scholar:  The man who writes your students' papers tells his story," by Ed Dante, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 12, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Shadow-Scholar/125329/

Jensen Comment
One such company in Dallas is
http://ownessays.com/
I did not find writers listing knowledge of accounting, but some advertise expertise in finance and global finance.

I don't trust the promise of "no plagiarism" although the plagiarism may be very clever.

Apparently a large part of the business is writing customized college admissions essays.

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

"How Bank of America and Others Schemed to Exploit You," SmartPros, January 14, 2014 ---
http://accounting.smartpros.com/x75726.xml

Jensen Note:  For some reason (probably unintended) this article appears in my browser as one huge paragraph

In the middle of 2011, Bank of America settled an otherwise nondescript lawsuit with the City of San Francisco for the paltry sum of $5 million. The case involved allegations that the bank colluded with competitors to force customers into arbitrating credit card disputes before the National Arbitration Forum, a private mediation company claiming to be a "fair, efficient, and effective system for the resolution of commercial and civil disputes in America and worldwide." What was the city's beef? Virtually every case heard by the NAF was decided in favor of the bank and its brethren, who, not coincidentally, also financed the mediator's highly profitable operations. While few people would deny that appearing to rig an arbitration forum like this violates deep-seated notions of fair play and substantial justice, what makes this case even worse is that it's merely one in a vast series of systematic business practices employed by the nation's largest lenders over the years to unjustly tilt the financial system in their favor. A laundry list of systematic deceit Few practices illustrate the systematic nature of deceit that prevails at the top of the banking industry better than the "credit protection" services thrust upon unwitting customers until federal regulators and private lawsuits led banks to effectively do away with the vacuous services. The structure of the scheme was simple. Banks used aggressive marketing techniques to persuade customers into paying monthly fees akin to insurance, covering the customer's minimum credit card payments in the event of an illness, death, disability, or job loss. Sounds pretty good, right? The problem is that banks including Capital One Financial , Citigroup , and Bank of America, among others, are alleged to have involuntarily enrolled customers in the programs while, at the same time, systematically refusing to honor the commitments based on indecipherable legalese in the service contracts. According to legal filings in a case against Bank of America, one man paid the bank more than $700 for the service even though he never knowingly enrolled in it. When he called to terminate the charges and request his money back, the customer representative wouldn't approve a refund. The estate of a Korean War veteran who passed away from lung cancer was denied coverage because his death wasn't "accidental." And a woman who lost her job as a medical transcriptionist was denied benefits because her unemployment was not caused "exclusively by business bankruptcy, failure or loss of required equipment to conduct business, or damage to the business premises caused by fire, theft, or natural disaster." Just to reiterate, assuming the allegations made by innumerable bank customers in myriad court filings and cases are to be believed, which isn't unreasonable given the hundreds of millions of dollars paid by the industry to resolve the claims, then these were officially sanctioned programs replete with salespeople and customer service representatives. And if the allegations are to be believed, the practices were intentionally designed to mislead customers into enrolling in the programs, whether they ultimately consented to do so or not, and then to deny benefits when ostensibly qualifying calamities occurred. Another example of how the nation's biggest banks have systematically exploited their customers over the years involves the way debit-card overdraft fees were assessed until the industry succumbed yet again to pressure from federal regulators and private legal action. Starting around 2001, the nation's biggest banks implemented automated overdraft programs that allowed customers' charges to go through even if they didn't have sufficient funds in their accounts. The catch was that customers would be assessed a fee ranging from $10 to $38, with a median of $27, each time an overdraft occurred. Fair enough, right? If you're not able to keep track of your account balance, then your bank should have every right to exact a fee in the event that it's required to cover the overage with its own capital. But here's the thing: The automated systems were programmed to reorder daily transactions from largest to smallest, and not, as fairness and common sense seem to dictate, chronologically. For example, say a customer had an account with a $50 balance and made four transactions of $10 in the morning and one later transaction of $100 in the evening of the same day. In this case, the bank's automated program would debit the $100 transaction first, despite the fact that it actually occurred last, and by doing so subject the customer to five overdraft fees instead of one. The net result of this practice was that overdraft charges were commonly assessed at times when, but for the chronological manipulation, there would have been funds in the account, and thus no overdraft would have occurred. I could go on and on with examples.

Continued in one huge paragraph

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

Profiting From Insider Information
"Bank Of America Is Reportedly Being Investigated For One Of The Oldest Trading Tricks In The Book," by Linette Lopez, Business Insider, January  26, 2014 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/bank-of-america-accused-of-front-unning-2014-1

Regulators are investigating Bank of America for front running its clients' large trading orders, according to documents reviewed by Reuters reporters Karen Brettell and Aruna Viswanatha.

Front running is a pretty simple trick. You (the bank) know your client is going to place a big order for a security. Since you know the price of the security will go up after that big buy, you place the bank's order ahead of your client's order.

Sometimes this results in the price of the security going up for your client.

In this case, according to Reuters, that client was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

This was disclosed in a BrokerCheck filing on regulator FINRA's website. BrokerCheck allows anyone to look at a specific trader's professional background, and this report was filed with a former Bank of America trader named Eric Beckwith based in NYC. A bank spokesperson said the trader left the bank in July 2013. The filing dates back to June 2013.

Here's a screenshot of the section of Beckwith's report explaining the investigation:

Continued in article

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

"Education could well see major changes to how it's able to deliver learning content to students with this week's ruling by a federal court on the Open Internet (Net Neutrality) Order.

"Will Net Neutrality Ruling Doom Education to Second-Class Status?" by Dian Schaffhauser. T.H.E. Journal, January 16, 2014 ---
http://thejournal.com/articles/2014/01/16/net-neutrality-ruling-impact-on-education.aspx 

The ruling this week by a federal court on the Open Internet (Net Neutrality) Order may turn out to be, as one commenter called it, "a terrible idea," or, as another observer put it, a source of "a lot of overheated rhetoric." Education, for its part, could well see major changes to how it's able to deliver learning content to students online while at the same time positioning itself to become a major alternative supplier of broadband in this country.

Net neutrality is the idea that all data on the Internet should be treated equally, no matter who's providing it, where it's coming from, what it consists of, what devices it touches, or who it's going to. A YouTube video from Khan Academy, for example, should receive the same treatment by an Internet service provider (ISP) as a movie from Netflix or a commercial from Procter & Gamble.

Verizon, one of the largest ISPs in the United States, took on the Federal Communications Commission to call into question the idea that Internet service is a utility that needs close regulation, akin to electricity or the telephone. The seeds of the case were planted 12 years ago when the FCC declared that Internet service shouldn't be subject to the same rules as those other kinds of services. As Time magazine laid it out in a recent article, "The FCC made the fateful decision to classify broadband as an 'information service' not a 'telecommunications service,' which would have allowed the agency to impose 'common carrier' regulations prohibiting discrimination by the broadband companies."

In 2010, the FCC turned around and established "Open Internet Rules," which, as Time explained, "boils down to three rules": 1) ISPs need to be transparent about how they manage network congestion; 2) they can't block traffic on wired networks, no matter what the source; and 3) they can't put competing services into an "Internet 'slow lane" to benefit their own offerings. It's those last two rules that crumbled this week in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

In a statement Verizon noted that the ruling confirms FCC's jurisdiction over broadband access and maintains the transparency requirements. But now, the company added, "The court's decision will allow more room for innovation, and consumers will have more choices to determine for themselves how they access and experience the Internet."

Read more at http://thejournal.com/articles/2014/01/16/net-neutrality-ruling-impact-on-education.aspx#5I7VlHOgosMA8CB2.99

The ruling this week by a federal court on the Open Internet (Net Neutrality) Order may turn out to be, as one commenter called it, "a terrible idea," or, as another observer put it, a source of "a lot of overheated rhetoric." Education, for its part, could well see major changes to how it's able to deliver learning content to students online while at the same time positioning itself to become a major alternative supplier of broadband in this country.

Net neutrality is the idea that all data on the Internet should be treated equally, no matter who's providing it, where it's coming from, what it consists of, what devices it touches, or who it's going to. A YouTube video from Khan Academy, for example, should receive the same treatment by an Internet service provider (ISP) as a movie from Netflix or a commercial from Procter & Gamble.

Verizon, one of the largest ISPs in the United States, took on the Federal Communications Commission to call into question the idea that Internet service is a utility that needs close regulation, akin to electricity or the telephone. The seeds of the case were planted 12 years ago when the FCC declared that Internet service shouldn't be subject to the same rules as those other kinds of services. As Time magazine laid it out in a recent article, "The FCC made the fateful decision to classify broadband as an 'information service' not a 'telecommunications service,' which would have allowed the agency to impose 'common carrier' regulations prohibiting discrimination by the broadband companies."

In 2010, the FCC turned around and established "Open Internet Rules," which, as Time explained, "boils down to three rules": 1) ISPs need to be transparent about how they manage network congestion; 2) they can't block traffic on wired networks, no matter what the source; and 3) they can't put competing services into an "Internet 'slow lane" to benefit their own offerings. It's those last two rules that crumbled this week in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

In a statement Verizon noted that the ruling confirms FCC's jurisdiction over broadband access and maintains the transparency requirements. But now, the company added, "The court's decision will allow more room for innovation, and consumers will have more choices to determine for themselves how they access and experience the Internet."

Continued in article

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

"Planning at the intersection of income and estate taxes," by Patricia Annino, CPA Insider, January 21, 2014 ---
http://www.cpa2biz.com/Content/media/PRODUCER_CONTENT/Newsletters/Articles_2014/CPA/Jan/EstateTaxes.jsp

Changes to the federal estate tax exemption make it increasingly important for advisers to focus on the income tax consequences of estate planning.

The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA), P.L. 112-240, significantly increased the federal estate tax exemption in 2014 to $5.34 million (adjusted for inflation) and made permanent portability of the first-to-die spouse’s exemption. The change means many families no longer have to worry about estate taxes. But estate planners who have traditionally overlooked the income tax during planning discussions now need to examine how that tax intersects with estate taxes.

A refresher course on the taxes’ relationship

If no federal estate tax will be due, giving the asset away during a person’s lifetime can result in overall higher taxes paid by the family. Under the ATRA federal income tax rules, capital gains on appreciated assets will be taxed at a 20% rate for taxpayers with taxable income over $450,000 (joint filers), $400,000 (single filers), $425,000 (heads of households) and $225,000 (married taxpayers filing separately). The capital gains tax is either 15% or 0% for taxpayers that are below those thresholds. Also under ATRA, a 3.8% net investment income tax may apply, with a significantly lower threshold. The net investment income tax threshold is based on modified adjusted gross income (adjusted gross income plus any excluded foreign income) and is $250,000 for joint filers, $200,000 for single filers, $200,000 for heads of households and $125,000 for married filing separately.

When the asset is given during lifetime, the recipient takes the income tax basis of the donor if that asset has appreciated (Sec. 1015(a)). The result may be a significantly higher overall tax paid than if the asset transferred at death. In other words, if the donor’s gross estate is less than the federal estate tax exemption, and there is significant built-in gain in the asset, then giving it during lifetime will trigger the gain when that asset is disposed of or sold.

When evaluating the tax cost to a lifetime gift, practitioners also need to consider the state inheritance and estate taxes. For states with an estate tax, the exemption is usually lower than the federal estate tax exemption level, so there may be a state estate tax due even if no federal estate tax is due. Retaining the asset until death may result in no federal estate tax, a state estate tax, and a fresh start income tax basis for income tax purposes. It is important to run the numbers and determine the lowest combination of those three taxes to make an informed planning decision.

If property given during lifetime is depreciated at the time of the gift, the donee takes as the income tax basis the property’s fair market value at the time of the gift—but only for the purpose of taking losses (Sec. 1015(a)). The donee’s basis is increased by all or a portion of the gift taxes paid on the gift transfer (Sec. 1015(d)(6)).

When the bequest occurs at death, the income tax basis receives a fresh start and is stepped up to the date of death value, or the alternate valuation date, if that was elected (Sec. 1014). This occurs even if no federal estate taxes are due, meaning that any gain accrued before the date of death disappears. On the other hand, if the asset was depreciated for loss recognition purposes, the basis steps down at the time of death and loss cannot be recognized.

If the taxpayer is domiciled in a community property state, then the surviving spouse’s share of community property is treated as acquired from the decedent and receives the stepped-up or stepped-down basis even if it was not included in the taxpayer’s federal gross estate (Sec. 1014(b)(6)).

There is a glitch if the decedent had acquired the asset within one year of death and if, at the taxpayer’s death, the asset passes back to the donor or the donor’s spouse. In that case, the basis does not step up (Sec. 1014(e)). From a planning point of view, if the taxpayer’s health is declining, it makes sense, if possible, to make the gift more than one year prior to death and to someone other than the donor or the donor’s spouse.

Another exception to the stepped-up basis rules pertains to what is known as “income in respect of a decedent” under Sec. 691. Sec. 1014(c) provides that these items are to be included in full in the decedent’s gross estate and treated as gross income when realized. Essentially, these assets are taxed twice—once for the estate tax and once for the income tax. There is an income tax deduction under Sec. 691(c) for the estate tax attributable to the inclusion of income in respect of decedent on the decedent’s federal estate tax return.

Examples of assets subject to both taxes include certain salary and fringe benefits accrued at death, fees and commissions for services performed during lifetime and paid after death, and retirement plan assets and dividends. If the taxpayer’s intention is philanthropic, however, donating these assets to a qualified charity qualifies for both the estate and income tax deductions.

In light of the significantly increased federal estate tax exemption, take into account these income tax considerations in determining which assets should be transferred during lifetime, at death, to individuals, and to charities.

Carefully consider the tax consequences of installment sales

The older generation may decide to sell the family business or commercial real estate to the next generation on an installment basis, which freezes the asset’s value for estate planning purposes. With the significantly increased federal estate tax exemptions, however, this may no longer be important. For federal income tax purposes, installment sales allow the taxation to be proportionately spread out during the years that principal payments are made. Since this is a lifetime sale, there is no fresh start basis in the underlying asset and the heir who inherits the note continues to pay income taxes on the payments as they are received.

Determine when charitable gifts should be made

Clients who wish to leave a bequest to a charity need to know that there is no deduction if the estate is not subject to federal estate tax. If the estate taxes are deferred until the surviving spouse’s death, and the charitable bequest occurs through the estate of the first spouse upon his or her death, in all likelihood there will be no federal estate tax and therefore no estate tax charitable deduction. Alternatively, the client may decide to make the gift during his lifetime and obtain the charitable income tax deduction, or he may ask his spouse to voluntarily make it during her lifetime if she survives him and take the income tax deduction. His estate planning documents could stipulate that if the aforementioned action is not taken then the charitable bequest is to be paid when they both die.

Continued in article

"NYC Legend, Ed Koch, Pays $3M Due to Estate Planning Blunder With No Irrevocable Trust, Laments UltraTrust.com," PRWeb, March 31, 2013 ---
http://www.prweb.com/releases/Ed-Koch-irrevocable-trust/estate-plannnig/prweb10549965.htm

Jensen Comment
More accurately former Mayor Koch would've saved something less that $3 million after paying his tax attorneys and CPAs.

Suggestion for his epitaph:
"I should've had an irrevocable trust."

Links forwarded by Paul Caron

 

• Forbes, Ed Koch's Will: Taxes Take Big Bite Out Of Hizzoner's Nest Egg, by Deborah L. Jacobs
• Wall Street Journal, The Will Of Koch: Legacy, Family
• Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog, Ed Koch's Will, by Gerry Beyer (Texas Tech)
• Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog, Taxes Take a Large Portion of Koch's Estate, by Gerry Beyer (Texas Tech)

Bob Jensen's tax helpers are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#010304Taxation

Psychopathy and Sociopathy are not clearly defined although there seems to be agreements on diagnosis --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopath

Psychopathy Checklist-Revised: Factors, Facets, and Items
^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopath#Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist}

Factor 1	Factor 2	Other items
Facet 1: Interpersonal Glibness/superficial charm Grandiose sense of self-worth Pathological lying Cunning/manipulative Facet 2: Affective Lack of remorse or guilt Emotionally shallow Callous/lack of empathy Failure to accept responsibility for own actions	Facet 3: Lifestyle Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom Parasitic lifestyle Lack of realistic, long-term goals Impulsivity Irresponsibility Facet 4: Antisocial Poor behavioral controls Early behavioral problems Juvenile delinquency Revocation of conditional release Criminal versatility

The video below stresses how psychpaths tend to micromanage cognitive relations --- "cunning and manipulative."

Video:  Inside Cornell: Analyzing the words of psychopaths ---
http://www.cornell.edu/video/inside-cornell-analyzing-the-words-of-psychopaths
Thank you Dennis Huber for the heads up.

Jensen Comment
I find this interesting and wonder if there are gender differences in psychopaths. Since this study was conducted on murderers I don't think gender differences could be studied. Are their psychopathic female murderers outside Hollywood? There can be some sociopathic female behavior, but it is rare that their psychopathic state leads to murder. 

Late in the video the distinction between psychopath and sociopathy is briefly addressed.

Even among male psychopathic murderers the sample is too small to look at other factors such as age. I would find it interesting to examine whether symptoms change greatly with age, such as the decline in testosterone.

There's an interesting Q/A at the end of this video.

I'm sure that doctors and scientists have a difficult time with the most clever cases where the psychopath knows a great deal about psychopath and is an extremely convincing actor. The video addresses this problem.

The University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill has revoked a reading specialist and adjunct professor’s permission to discuss her research or otherwise use her data on student athlete literacy, just weeks after she was featured in a network news story on the topic. The university also questioned her methodology and the validity of her findings.
"Whistle-Blower Blocked," by Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, January 20, 2014 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/01/20/u-north-carolina-shuts-down-whistle-blower-athletes

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has revoked a reading specialist and adjunct professor’s permission to discuss her research or otherwise use her data on student athlete literacy, just weeks after she was featured in a network news story on the topic. The university also questioned her methodology and the validity of her findings.

Mary Willingham, who works in the Center for Student Success and Academic Counseling and teaches an education course, cannot use data that could be used to identify human subjects until she receives permission from the university's Institutional Review Board, it told her last week. Previously, the board determined that review and approval of her research was not necessary because it involved “de-identified” data – meaning that it did not contain personally identifiable information about human research subjects, either to the researchers or the public.

In other words, the board believed it did not have to oversee Willingham’s work because her data couldn’t be linked back to her student subjects by anyone.

Earlier this month, Willingham told CNN she’d worked with 183 Chapel Hill basketball and football players for her research, from 2004-12, while she was a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Some 10 percent read below a third-grade level, she said. Willingham also shared anecdotes about students she’d worked with during her career, such as one who was illiterate, and one who couldn’t read multisyllabic words.

Another student asked if Willingham could "teach him to read well enough so he could read about himself in the news, because that was something really important to him," she told CNN. Her quotes didn't identify any students by name or unique characteristics.

It’s unclear, however, if those comments were related to her work as a teacher and adviser or researcher.

Willingham hasn’t published a paper on her research, but has spoken publicly before about her experiences with student literacy at Chapel Hill. She is credited with the blowing the whistle on a no-show course scam involving athletes there that made national headlines and prompted several internal investigations in 2010. (One of those investigations found that scam was isolated to one department, and was not motivated by athletics, but dated back to 1997. The university’s chancellor, Holden Thorp, resigned following the scandal.)

In a statement Friday, the university said the review board had noted, through Willingham’s recent, public statements, that she had “collected and retained identified data,” requiring review board oversight. It did not say which of her statements revealed that.

“All human subjects research requires review by the university’s Institutional Review Board,” a university spokesman said in a separate, emailed statement. “Review and approval must be obtained before the research can begin. In addition, any time there is a change to the research protocol, the researcher must submit an updated application for review and approval. Researchers are expected to describe in detail the data being used in their work. That includes the specific data that a researcher and their collaborators have collected and/or assembled, any further work on the data that is planned, and how the data will be analyzed.”

The review board concluded in 2008 and again 2013 that researchers involved in Willingham’s project could not identify individual subjects and that any codes that could allow linkage to identifiers were “securely behind a firewall outside the possession of the research team,” according to the statement. The board directed Willingham to submit a full application for its review, and said that continued use of her data without its approval would violate university and federal policies protecting human research subjects.

The university also disputed Willingham’s claims that it admits athletes who lack academic preparation.

"I take these claims very seriously, but we have been unable to reconcile these claims with either our own facts or with those data currently being cited as the source for the claims,” Chancellor Carol L. Folt said in a statement posted on the Chapel Hill website. “Moreover, the data presented in the media do not match up with those data gathered by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. For example, only 2 of the 321 student-athletes admitted in 2012 and 2013 fell below the SAT and ACT levels that were cited in a recent CNN report as the threshold for reading levels for first-year students. And those two students are in good academic standing.” (The news report cited that threshold as 400 on the SAT critical reading or writing test, or 16 on the ACT.)

In addition to Folt’s statement, the university published the results of its analysis of eight years of admissions data for athletes, which says 97 percent met the cited threshold. In 2013, it says, 100 percent of admitted student athletes achieved those test scores. The student government released a similar statement, slamming Willingham’s data.

Folt said the university was investigating further the discrepancy between its data and those presented in the CNN report. “We also will do our best to correct assertions we believe are not based in fact,” she added.

The chancellor and other administrators also discussed Willingham’s research at a scheduled Faculty Council meeting Friday. But a faculty member present who did not want to be named or quoted directly said a lengthy presentation about the project focused almost entirely on methodological concerns about Willingham’s assessment tool and how accurately it could be used to correlate scores with grade-level reading readiness, not the review board issue.

The university published a news release late Friday about those findings, accusing Willingham of making a “range of serious mistakes” in her research.

“Carolina has a world-renowned reputation for our research, and the work we have just reviewed does not reflect the quality and excellence found throughout the Carolina community,” Folt said in the release.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
I wonder what would happen if reading tests were required for the top ten NCAA football and basketball varsity players?

January 20, 2014 reply from Paul Williams

Bob,
Such tests are usually required. The top programs usually have a specialist within their academic support programs to deal with underprepared athletes. Many of the underprepared student athletes have learning disabilities and most academic support programs require some testing for learning disabilities as part of the athlete's program.

The problem at UNC, which I believe based on my familiarity with Academic Support at NC State (which is uniquely not housed in Athletics but in Academic and Student Affairs), is that the Academic Support program slipped into the mindset that its role was to keep players eligible rather than help players get an education. I have the utmost admiration for the folks in academic support for athletes. They do a thankless job subject to pressures from coaches, ADs, alumni, and university administration. Until there is a radical change in the governance structure represented by the NCAA, these scandals will recur. Until the rules acknowledge that what is important is education and not some outdated Victorian notion of the amateur athlete we will continue to struggle.

Here is an example of NCAA brilliance: The NCAA has numerous guidelines for academic eligibility. Each athlete must pass at least 6 hours each regular semester, 18 hours within an academic year and 24 hours within a calendar year; they have grade point requirements and progress toward degree requirements and must have declared a major before their fifth semester. Football is the sport with the greatest problem with underprepared athletes; for one reason it has the largest rosters (there may be 80+ athletes on scholarship at any time). As we all know, athletes are not recruited for their academic ability, but for their athletic ability. An athletic scholarship is not actually an athletic scholarship but an academic one since it pays tuition, fees to attend college and work toward a degree. A very bright student who receives an academic scholarship does not have to play 12 to 14 football games to be entitled to financial support.

But we admit athletes who would have a difficult time with a full academic load even if they didn't have to play 12 to 14 games and expect them to perform in both arenas. The cruel joke that the NCAA recently played on football players is to change the rule for them, and they alone, to require they pass 9 hours during their fall semester during which the demands on their time are extreme (believe it or not practicing until sunset everyday does not leave one as well prepared to study as for the student who gets to take a nap in the afternoon). If they don't pass 9 hours, they are ineligible to play the next fall. If the NCAA was truly interested in education, it would acknowledge that for many athletes during the season they compete it is difficult for them to pursue a full course load. Why not allow the university to decide just what load such a student can handle during the season.

For most (yes most) student athletes a full load is possible (Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson was a dean's list student at NC State and signed two professional contracts -- baseball and football). But for those athletes who can't handle 4 or 5 classes, let them take as few (including none) as they can handle during the time they are playing. Universities have been cowardly as well. The Wolfpack basketball team has a game tonight against Maryland that tips off at 9:00 PM. Tomorrow is a class day, so why do you schedule a game that guarantees the athlete will be ill-prepared for his 8:30 class? Of course it's money and that is the root of the problem. Money corrupts so why are we surprised it corrupts college sports?

January 20, 2014 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Paul,

Actually the sport that amazes me is baseball (basketball runs a close second), because the warm-climate schools play over 80 games per semester plus some games that must mess up taking summer courses (such as when they go to the playoffs in Omaha). Even though many of those 80+ games are double headers, how can any baseball player take courses in Spring Semester?

Even the Division 3 baseball teams play too many games. I had some great baseball-player accounting majors who repeatedly got passes to miss class --- too often!

I think a good start for baseball and basketball would be tighter NCCAA limits on the number of games allowed per season --- like maybe half as many.

By the way I noted that one of my former baseball players is now on the accounting faculty at Arkansas. To top it off he's a co-author on two papers published in the November 2013 Accounting Review. Somehow Cory Cassell made up for missing classes for too many baseball games. Of course Cory was an exceptional student with great quant and writing skills. II think his Ph.D. adviser was Tom Omer.

Actually Cory never missed classes for baseball in my courses since I only had Cory for two graduate courses. He only played baseball as an undergraduate.

Respectfully,
Bob Jensen

 

"University of North Carolina Apologizes for Fake Classes, Promises Real Change," by Paul M. Barrett, Bloomberg Businessweek, January 27, 2014 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-27/university-of-north-carolina-apologizes-for-fake-classes-promises-real-change?campaign_id=DN012714

. . .

Until the last few days, the university’s leadership seemed intent on hanging all culpability around the necks of Nyang’oro and his aide. That made no sense: Why would a lone scholar have taken it upon himself to prop up athletes’ eligibility, and how could he have operated his scam for nearly two decades undetected? Now Dean and Folt are conceding that the story is more complicated and does have something to do with athletics.

That concession ought to bring NCAA investigators back to Chapel Hill. The sports association took a pass on probing the scandal, based on the notion that it didn’t have anything to do with athletes and therefore was outside the NCAA’s jurisdiction.

We’ve already made progress. Dean outlined a range of nascent reforms: New leadership for and tighter supervision of the athlete-tutoring office; more rigorous oversight of admissions exceptions made for athletes; a fresh “strategic plan” for the Athletic Department, aiming to keep UNC among the top three schools in its conference and the top 10 in all Division 1 schools in both academics and sports. This all sounds promising, assuming the school follows through.

No reforms will completely eliminate the anomalies created by the American decision to situate a multibillion-dollar sports business within institutions of higher learning. Those anomalies are exacerbated by the distortion of academic standards to admit top football and basketball players in the first place; the pretense that top Division 1 athletes—players who see themselves as candidates for the pros—really have the time, energy, or interest to take classes seriously; and the unfairness that so many people and corporations make so much money from college sports, while the performers are compensated not with cash but with an education that all too often lacks substance. UNC and its fellow participants in NCAA Inc. can do a lot to diminish deceit, but they can’t cure the basic conundrum that striving for the NBA or NFL doesn’t necessarily mix well with learning calculus or literature.

Disputing the the whistle-blower on campus. As I’ve noted in earlier posts, Mary Willingham has done more than anyone else to shed light on the problems at UNC. A campus “learning specialist” who tutored athletes for years, she went public in 2012 with the revelation that she and colleagues steered some of their charges toward fake “paper classes” and otherwise grappled with well-muscled undergraduates who couldn’t read or write at a college level. Dean and other officials have responded to Willingham’s whistle-blowing by viciously attacking her in public and condemning some statistical analysis she’s done of athlete reading skills. The debate about Willingham’s research deserves resolution; if she’s made mistakes, then invalid results should be set aside. (I haven’t come to a conclusion on the statistical clash.)

Willingham’s larger contribution, however, eclipses her disputed research—a point UNC’s leadership still doesn’t want to admit. It matters whether her numbers are solid, but it matters far more whether she’s telling the basic truth about the woeful education that’s been offered to athletes with whom she’s worked personally.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
This apology suspiciously comes on the heels of the vigorous and misleading way that UNC denied that about 10% of UNC varsity athletes cannot read beyond a third grade level. Instead of countering with evidence that they can read at a college level UNC focused its attack on the adjunct professor who made this claim and threatened to fire her if she made any more public statements. The media instantly took this UNC action to be a cover up of the poor reading skills of many of its athletes.

This is proof once again that the media can be a killer if you show signs of covering up.

I think Paul Williams put it best when he said at UNC maintaining every athlete's eligibility became more important than providing a respectable education at a collegiate level. Sadly this is probably a rule rather than an exception at many of the NCAA Division 1 universities where winning and money overtook the primary mission of those universities. Perhaps the time has come to for education quality control of all students in the learning chain.

"Chapel Hill Researcher’s Findings on Athletes’ Literacy Bring a Backlash," by Robin Wilson, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 24, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Chapel-Hill-Researcher-s/144169/

. . .

'Chilling Effect'

Scholars at Chapel Hill say the way the university has responded to Ms. Willingham’s research has implications beyond her work. By halting it because of concerns over the anonymity of her subjects, and at the same time criticizing her findings, the university appears to be using the IRB as a tool to thwart her inquiry, say some faculty members.

“This looks vindictive,” says Frank R. Baumgartner, a distinguished professor of political science at Chapel Hill. “It puts the university in a defensive posture, where they could instead be taking the initiative and saying, Let’s have a national conversation to find the right balance between athletics and academics.”

Instead, says Mr. Baumgartner, the university’s attack on Ms. Willingham’s research has a “chilling effect” on any scholarly work that could make the university look bad.

Daniel K. Nelson, director of the university’s office of human-­research ethics, who oversees the institutional review boards, issued a statement saying he had not been pressured by university administrators into requesting that Ms. Willingham seek IRB approval.

He said it had simply become clear with the release of her research results that identifying details were in fact maintained in her data set. (Ms. Willingham has never publicly identified her research subjects.)

But Ms. Willingham says that nothing has changed since she sought approval from the review board before her research began, and that review­board officials told her she didn’t need it. Since she screened her student subjects over time, she says, she has had to keep track of their identities—something she says the IRB knew all along. ‘I'm Stubborn’

The groundwork for Ms. Willingham’s activism on the education of athletes was laid when she was a teenager attending public high school in Chicago. “I have this educational and inequality alertness,” she says. “My parents were active in the community to make sure white flight didn’t happen” when the first black family moved in across the street.

She refined her opinions as a remedial­-reading teacher at Chapel Hill High School in the early 2000s, where she saw students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds whom she believes got fewer opportunities than their wealthier counterparts did. “People who can afford it give their kids tutors, enrichment, and after­-school SAT prep,” she says. “I saw the gap between students.”

The same kinds of disadvantages were evident, she says, for some of the athletes with whom she began working in 2003 as a learning specialist in the university’s athletics department. She worked closely, she says, with most of the 183 students in her study and found that many of them were smart but lacked basic reading and writing skills.

“We could meet them where they are at academically and get them in shape so they could really get a college degree,” she says. Instead, she says, the university simply passes them through by guiding them to the easiest majors and classes. “That’s what’s been happening their whole lives.”

Those athletes, she says, don’t want to go back to their communities after earning a University of North Carolina degree and power­-wash houses, but for some that’s exactly what happens.

With a husband whose income is high enough to support her family, Ms. Willingham says she is perhaps in a good position to challenge the system.

“I’m stubborn,” she says. “I don’t like it when people tell me I can’t do something.”

Gaining approval from the institutional review board to continue her work could be difficult, she acknowledges, because she must know the identity of her subjects to follow them over time.

But she won’t back down, she says, despite the death threats she says she’s received by e­mail since the CNN report, and despite what she calls the “character smear” by the provost at this month’s faculty meeting. Ms. Willingham is writing a book with Jay Smith, a historian at Chapel Hill, on the campus’s academic­-fraud scandal and what it means for the education of athletes.

Mr. Smith praises Ms. Willingham and her research, calling her "committed and compassionate in her dealings with students.” He likens the university’s critique of her work to a “search­-and-­destroy attempt to discredit her.”

Ms. Willingham says her motivations are simple. “Someone,” she says, “has to fix this mess.”

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

MOOCs (free as non-credit courses) --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOOCs

The First MOOC from the University of Iowa
"Massive Open Online Course on Whitman opens Feb. 17," by Ashley Davidson, Iowa Now, January 10, 2014 ---
http://now.uiowa.edu/2014/01/massive-open-online-course-whitman-opens-feb-17

The University of Iowa’s first MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), Every Atom: Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, is open for enrollment. The six-week course, which runs Feb. 17 through March 29 and is organized by the UI International Writing Program (IWP), offers participants everywhere the opportunity to read, consider, and discuss Whitman’s epic poem through video lectures, live breakout sessions, and moderated online discussions.

Every Atom will be co-taught by Whitman scholar Ed Folsom and International Writing Program Director Christopher Merrill. Folsom is the Roy J. Carver Professor of English at the University of Iowa, co-director of the Walt Whitman Archive, and editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review. Merrill is the author of six collections of poetry and a member of the National Council on the Humanities. His work has been translated into 25 languages, and he has undertaken cultural diplomacy missions to more than 40 countries for the U.S. Department of State.

The course is free and open to anyone with an Internet connection. To enroll, visit: courses.writinguniversity.org/info/every-atom.

Continued in article

MOOC News
"Newest edX Member is Dartmouth," by Lawrence Biemiller, Chronicle of Higher Education,  January 23, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/quickwire-newest-edx-member-is-dartmouth/49789?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Dartmouth College said on Thursday that it had joined edX, the massive open online course provider established by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dartmouth will offer its first MOOC this fall, and three more are planned, but the university did not say in what disciplines.

At a meeting in November, members of the nonprofit edX consortium discussed a possible expansion of the group, in part because it is currently too small to offer as many courses as there appears to be demand for. Including Dartmouth, the consortium has 31 members.

 

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology release findings about 17 courses they have offered through edX.
"Completion Rates Aren't the Best Way to Judge MOOCs, Researchers Say," by Jennifer Howard, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 22, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/completion-rates-arent-the-best-way-to-judge-moocs-researchers-say/49721?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

When it comes to measuring the success of an education program, the bottom line is often the completion rate. How many students are finishing their studies and walking away with a credential?

But that is not the right way to judge massive open online courses, according to researchers at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Course certification rates are misleading and counterproductive indicators of the impact and potential of open online courses,” write the researchers in the first of a series of working papers on MOOCs offered by the two universities. (The Harvard papers can be found here, the MIT papers here.)

Released on Tuesday, the papers make good on a pledge by Harvard and MIT in 2012, when the universities teamed up to create edX, a nonprofit provider of massive open online courses. At the time, the presidents of the two universities said their foray into online instruction would include a major research project aimed at learning more about online courses, especially the kind that they and other exclusive universities had started making available free.

The papers released on Tuesday draw on data from 17 MOOCs offered by Harvard and MIT in 2012 and 2013. A number of academics have begun studying aspects of the MOOC phenomenon, but few academic papers have been published so far.

The first of the working papers, which was written jointly by researchers at both universities, provides an overview of the data from those 17 MOOCs. Some findings:

• 841,687 people registered for the 17 MOOCs from Harvard and MIT.
• 5 percent of all registrants earned a certificate of completion.
• 35 percent never viewed any of the course materials.
• 54 percent of those who “explored” at least half of the course content earned a certificate of completion.
• 66 percent of all registrants already held a bachelor’s degree or higher.
• 74 percent of those who earned a certificate of completion held a bachelor’s degree or higher.
• 29 percent of all registrants were female.
• 3 percent of all registrants were from underdeveloped countries.

Some of these findings reinforce what others have already observed about MOOCs: Few of those who sign up for a course end up completing it. Most MOOC students already hold traditional degrees. Students who sign up for MOOCs are overwhelmingly male.

But looking at percentages such as the ones listed above is a bad way to try to understand MOOCs, the researchers told The Chronicle in an interview.

Completion rates make sense as a metric for assessing conventional college courses, said Andrew Dean Ho, an associate professor in Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and director of the university’s MOOC research. In a conventional course, the goals are generally consistent and well understood: Students want to complete the course and, eventually, earn a credential. The instructors want the same thing.

A MOOC is more of a blank canvas, said Mr. Ho. Some students who register for MOOCs have no intention of completing, and some instructors do not emphasize completion as a priority. Success and failure take many forms.

“It’s reaching a completely different set of students, with different intentions, perhaps, and different ways of seeing the instructors and the content of the course,” said Isaac Chuang, a professor of physics, electrical engineering, and computer science at MIT.

In future studies, the researchers hope to classify registrants according to their reasons for taking a MOOC, “so we can judge the impact of these courses in terms of what students expected to get out of them,” Mr. Ho said.

In the meantime, the Harvard and MIT researchers said they hoped the new studies would help people understand that technology and scale are not the only things that distinguish MOOCs from other kinds of higher education.

"Speaking Up for the Creditless MOOC," by Matt McGarrity, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 12, 2013 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2013/12/12/speaking-up-for-the-creditless-mooc/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Jensen Comment
I don't think MOOCs work well for students new to higher education unless they are both talented and highly motivated. Most MOOCs are aimed at mature students who already know the basics underlying a relatively advanced-level MOOC free course. Most MOOCs are advanced specialization courses or narrow-topic courses like the first MOOC from the University of Iowa --- a MOOC on the writings of Walt Whitman.

Bob Jensen's threads on hundreds of MOOCs in the USA and Europe plus other free learning materials from prestigious universities ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

technological unemployment…due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour
.New Disease as defined by J.M. Keynes

"The Future Of Jobs: The Onrushing Wave," The Economist via Business Insider, January 17, 2014 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-future-of-jobs-the-onrushing-wave-2014-1

Previous technological innovation has always delivered more long-run employment, not less. But things can change.

IN 1930, when the world was "suffering…from a bad attack of economic pessimism", John Maynard Keynes wrote a broadly optimistic essay, "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren". It imagined a middle way between revolution and stagnation that would leave the said grandchildren a great deal richer than their grandparents. But the path was not without dangers.

One of the worries Keynes admitted was a "new disease": "technological unemployment…due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour." His readers might not have heard of the problem, he suggested--but they were certain to hear a lot more about it in the years to come.

For the most part, they did not. Nowadays, the majority of economists confidently wave such worries away. By raising productivity, they argue, any automation which economises on the use of labour will increase incomes. That will generate demand for new products and services, which will in turn create new jobs for displaced workers. To think otherwise has meant being tarred a Luddite--the name taken by 19th-century textile workers who smashed the machines taking their jobs.

For much of the 20th century, those arguing that technology brought ever more jobs and prosperity looked to have the better of the debate. Real incomes in Britain scarcely doubled between the beginning of the common era and 1570. They then tripled from 1570 to 1875. And they more than tripled from 1875 to 1975. Industrialisation did not end up eliminating the need for human workers. On the contrary, it created employment opportunities sufficient to soak up the 20th century’s exploding population. Keynes’s vision of everyone in the 2030s being a lot richer is largely achieved. His belief they would work just 15 hours or so a week has not come to pass. When the sleeper wakes

Yet some now fear that a new era of automation enabled by ever more powerful and capable computers could work out differently. They start from the observation that, across the rich world, all is far from well in the world of work. The essence of what they see as a work crisis is that in rich countries the wages of the typical worker, adjusted for cost of living, are stagnant. In America the real wage has hardly budged over the past four decades. Even in places like Britain and Germany, where employment is touching new highs, wages have been flat for a decade. Recent research suggests that this is because substituting capital for labour through automation is increasingly attractive; as a result owners of capital have captured ever more of the world’s income since the 1980s, while the share going to labour has fallen.

At the same time, even in relatively egalitarian places like Sweden, inequality among the employed has risen sharply, with the share going to the highest earners soaring. For those not in the elite, argues David Graeber, an anthropologist at the London School of Economics, much of modern labour consists of stultifying "bullshit jobs"--low- and mid-level screen-sitting that serves simply to occupy workers for whom the economy no longer has much use. Keeping them employed, Mr Graeber argues, is not an economic choice; it is something the ruling class does to keep control over the lives of others.

Be that as it may, drudgery may soon enough give way to frank unemployment. There is already a long-term trend towards lower levels of employment in some rich countries. The proportion of American adults participating in the labour force recently hit its lowest level since 1978, and although some of that is due to the effects of ageing, some is not. In a recent speech that was modelled in part on Keynes’s "Possibilities", Larry Summers, a former American treasury secretary, looked at employment trends among American men between 25 and 54. In the 1960s only one in 20 of those men was not working. According to Mr Summers’s extrapolations, in ten years the number could be one in seven.

This is one indication, Mr Summers says, that technical change is increasingly taking the form of "capital that effectively substitutes for labour". There may be a lot more for such capital to do in the near future. A 2013 paper by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne, of the University of Oxford, argued that jobs are at high risk of being automated in 47% of the occupational categories into which work is customarily sorted. That includes accountancy, legal work, technical writing and a lot of other white-collar occupations.

Answering the question of whether such automation could lead to prolonged pain for workers means taking a close look at past experience, theory and technological trends. The picture suggested by this evidence is a complex one. It is also more worrying than many economists and politicians have been prepared to admit. The lathe of heaven

Economists take the relationship between innovation and higher living standards for granted in part because they believe history justifies such a view. Industrialisation clearly led to enormous rises in incomes and living standards over the long run. Yet the road to riches was rockier than is often appreciated.

In 1500 an estimated 75% of the British labour force toiled in agriculture. By 1800 that figure had fallen to 35%. When the shift to manufacturing got under way during the 18th century it was overwhelmingly done at small scale, either within the home or in a small workshop; employment in a large factory was a rarity. By the end of the 19th century huge plants in massive industrial cities were the norm. The great shift was made possible by automation and steam engines.

Industrial firms combined human labour with big, expensive capital equipment. To maximise the output of that costly machinery, factory owners reorganised the processes of production. Workers were given one or a few repetitive tasks, often making components of finished products rather than whole pieces. Bosses imposed a tight schedule and strict worker discipline to keep up the productive pace. The Industrial Revolution was not simply a matter of replacing muscle with steam; it was a matter of reshaping jobs themselves into the sort of precisely defined components that steam-driven machinery needed--cogs in a factory system.

The way old jobs were done changed; new jobs were created. Joel Mokyr, an economic historian at Northwestern University in Illinois, argues that the more intricate machines, techniques and supply chains of the period all required careful tending. The workers who provided that care were well rewarded. As research by Lawrence Katz, of Harvard University, and Robert Margo, of Boston University, shows, employment in manufacturing "hollowed out". As employment grew for highly skilled workers and unskilled workers, craft workers lost out. This was the loss to which the Luddites, understandably if not effectively, took exception.

With the low-skilled workers far more numerous, at least to begin with, the lot of the average worker during the early part of this great industrial and social upheaval was not a happy one. As Mr Mokyr notes, "life did not improve all that much between 1750 and 1850." For 60 years, from 1770 to 1830, growth in British wages, adjusted for inflation, was imperceptible because productivity growth was restricted to a few industries. Not until the late 19th century, when the gains had spread across the whole economy, did wages at last perform in line with productivity (see chart 1).

Along with social reforms and new political movements that gave voice to the workers, this faster wage growth helped spread the benefits of industrialisation across wider segments of the population. New investments in education provided a supply of workers for the more skilled jobs that were by then being created in ever greater numbers. This shift continued into the 20th century as post-secondary education became increasingly common.

Claudia Goldin, an economist at Harvard University, and Mr Katz have written that workers were in a "race between education and technology" during this period, and for the most part they won. Even so, it was not until the "golden age" after the second world war that workers in the rich world secured real prosperity, and a large, property-owning middle class came to dominate politics. At the same time communism, a legacy of industrialisation’s harsh early era, kept hundreds of millions of people around the world in poverty, and the effects of the imperialism driven by European industrialisation continued to be felt by billions.

The impacts of technological change take their time appearing. They also vary hugely from industry to industry. Although in many simple economic models technology pairs neatly with capital and labour to produce output, in practice technological changes do not affect all workers the same way. Some find that their skills are complementary to new technologies. Others find themselves out of work.

Take computers. In the early 20th century a "computer" was a worker, or a room of workers, doing mathematical calculations by hand, often with the end point of one person’s work the starting point for the next. The development of mechanical and electronic computing rendered these arrangements obsolete. But in time it greatly increased the productivity of those who used the new computers in their work.

Many other technical innovations had similar effects. New machinery displaced handicraft producers across numerous industries, from textiles to metalworking. At the same time it enabled vastly more output per person than craft producers could ever manage. Player piano

For a task to be replaced by a machine, it helps a great deal if, like the work of human computers, it is already highly routine. Hence the demise of production-line jobs and some sorts of book-keeping, lost to the robot and the spreadsheet. Meanwhile work less easily broken down into a series of stereotyped tasks--whether rewarding, as the management of other workers and the teaching of toddlers can be, or more of a grind, like tidying and cleaning messy work places--has grown as a share of total employment.

But the "race" aspect of technological change means that such workers cannot rest on their pay packets. Firms are constantly experimenting with new technologies and production processes. Experimentation with different techniques and business models requires flexibility, which is one critical advantage of a human worker. Yet over time, as best practices are worked out and then codified, it becomes easier to break production down into routine components, then automate those components as technology allows.

If, that is, automation makes sense. As David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), points out in a 2013 paper, the mere fact that a job can be automated does not mean that it will be; relative costs also matter. When Nissan produces cars in Japan, he notes, it relies heavily on robots. At plants in India, by contrast, the firm relies more heavily on cheap local labour.

Even when machine capabilities are rapidly improving, it can make sense instead to seek out ever cheaper supplies of increasingly skilled labour. Thus since the 1980s (a time when, in America, the trend towards post-secondary education levelled off) workers there and elsewhere have found themselves facing increased competition from both machines and cheap emerging-market workers.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-future-of-jobs-the-onrushing-wave-2014-1#ixzz2qkNio9nY

Jensen Comment
The current economic recovery points to the "new disease" in which the recovery is taking place without the customary restoration of old jobs and creation of new jobs at the same pace as the recovery. Minimum wage jobs that used to be filled by teens are now being usurped by their parents and grandparents. It's even worse in Europe where unemployment among people under 25 years of age is hovering at nearly 50%.

What's more depressing is that we cannot seem to find a cure for the "new disease." Instead we are building greater varieties of robots to displace labor that we previously would never be replaced by automation. We've not yet met Hal the robotic teacher who will be an astonishing teacher and Helene the astonishing surgeon, but Hal and Helene are not far off in the horizon.

"Computer Usage and Social Media Linked to Anti-Social Behavior:  Tweeting, Texting, and Smartphone use can lead to Violence, Cyberbullying, and Hedonistic Behavior," by Steven Mintz, Ethics Sage, January 16, 2014 ---
http://www.ethicssage.com/2014/01/computer-usage-and-social-media-linked-to-anti-social-behavior.html

Outstanding student debt topped $1 trillion in the third quarter of 2013, and the share of delinquent loans is rising. This may not end well.
"Student Loans, the Next Big Threat to the U.S. Economy?" by Caroline Salas Gage and Janet Lorin, Bloomberg Businessweek, January 15, 2014 ---
 http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-16/student-loans-the-next-big-threat-to-the-u-dot-s-dot-economy?campaign_id=DN011714

Tiffany Roberson works for the state of Texas as a parole officer, teaches part-time, and is living with her parents after having completed her master’s degree. She’s held off marrying her boyfriend of four years and starting a family because she owes more than $170,000 in federal and private student loans that she took out to pursue her education in criminal justice. “I’ve never gone into default,” the 30-year-old says. “What really hurts is people say I’m a bum for living at home.”

Stories like Roberson’s are sadly common in the U.S. Student loans today are one of the only deteriorating pockets of consumer credit, with balances and delinquency rates rising to record highs even as a strengthening economy allows Americans to reduce total borrowing. Outstanding student debt topped $1 trillion in the third quarter of 2013, and the share of loans delinquent 90 days or more rose to 11.8 percent, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. By contrast, delinquencies for mortgage, credit card, and auto debt all have declined from their peaks.

The New York Federal Reserve’s move to measure the size of the student loan load says a lot about how concerned the central bank is about a possible threat to the economy. “Our job is to really understand what’s happening in the financial system,” and the “very rapid rise in student loan debt over the last few years” can “actually have some pretty significant consequences to the economic outlook,” New York Fed President William Dudley told reporters in November. “People can have trouble with the student loan debt burden—unable to buy cars, unable to buy homes—and so it can really delay the cycle.”

The federal government is the source and backer of most of the loans. “I’m always made very nervous by a credit market that benefits from government guarantees and is expanding very rapidly,” Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, said on Jan. 10 at a Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce event in North Carolina. “That’s what we’re seeing with student loans, and it’s what we saw with housing.” As the New York Fed’s Dudley explained in November, “to the extent that student loan burdens become very, very high, there are presumably going to be losses” to the federal government.

Economists at the New York Fed are analyzing student debt as part of their quarterly reports on national household credit. That project got started six years ago as the financial crisis unfolded, and the researchers and their then-boss, Timothy Geithner, realized there wasn’t a good way to study total consumer borrowing. As they began assembling their own figures, relying on a sample from credit reports from Atlanta-based Equifax (EFX), they discovered that data on student borrowing were particularly sparse because of gaps in the frequency and types of information available.

The U.S. Department of Education releases default rates on federal student loans once a year, and only for borrowers who haven’t made the required payments for at least 270 consecutive days during the two- and three-year periods after they graduate or drop out. The default rates don’t include students who get extensions on their loans, which can be another sign that borrowers are under stress. The Education Department’s calculations also don’t cover private loans, which account for about 15 percent of the market. The department, in an effort to be more informative, began publishing more details about student loan data on its website in July.

There remain a lot of “missing pieces” in the analysis, Van der Klaauw says. These include the link between debt levels and specific universities or courses of study. The subject a student majors in can have a direct effect on his or her ability to service a loan. “If you’re a pre-med student, you’re an engineering student, and you take out $40,000 or $60,000 of loans, I have no problem with that,” John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo (WFC), told the audience at the January Chamber of Commerce event in Raleigh. “But if you’re going to be a French major, you’re going to study social welfare, and you’re going to take out $60,000 of loans, who is making the economic judgment there?”

While undergraduates are limited in how much of their education they can finance through federal programs, parents and graduate students can borrow much more. They can take out federal Plus loans to cover the cost of tuition, room, board, transportation, and personal expenses, minus any aid received.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
We are close with a young woman up here who will be graduating in a few months with over $150,000 in outstanding student loans. It used to be that only physicians carried this kind of debt load, but nobody worried too much because it's generally assumed that physicians can carry such a debt load. But is this also the case for a Wal-Mart pharmacist just starting out? At least she has a job. We also have a relative and his spouse who are each saddled with heavy student loans and both are unemployed.

January 17, 2014 reply from David Albrecht

Bob,

I worry for my two sons who are afflicted with student debt. My older son has reduced his debt 40% in only 2.5 years of work after graduation. My younger son is still building up his numbers, and now has a debt amount that scares me. I keep thinking about teaching in an online adjunct capacity to help him make payments.

Dave Albrecht

January 18, 2014 reply from Pat Doherty

I agree, David, about the debt load students are carrying. My own daughter can't really afford to live in a place of her own and still keep up the debt payments. She has a reasonable income – but she is a public school teacher. Our society thinks there should be "limits" on what they get paid, unlike, say, investment bankers, who "deserve" their astronomical salaries. But on the other hand, should we discourage our children from teaching, because "it doesn't pay" and encourage them to be sharks instead? Perish the thought.

Patricia A. Doherty
Senior Lecturer in Accounting Coordinator
Managerial Accounting Boston University
School of Management 595 Commonwealth Ave. Room 524A Boston, MA 02215

"Exactly How Many Students Take Online Courses?" by Steve Kolowich, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 16, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/exactly-how-many-students-take-online-courses/49455?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Jensen Comment
Aside from the definitional differences in the two surveys that are discussed in this article, I don't think either of these surveys attempts to estimate the number of students completing non-credit courses such as MOOCs. Nor does it cover the millions completing one or more online tutorials such as any of the thousands of free tutorials available from Khan Academy and the fee tutorials for taking admissions tests like the SAT and ACT examinations.

Jensen Comment
There are at least three types of predictions.

1. Predictions that turned out wrong and will forever be wrong.
2. Predictions that turned out wrong in the specified time horizon but are more likely in the near future
3. Predictions that turned out wrong in the specified time horizon and remain just as uncertain now as they did one year ago.
4. Predictions that turned out wrong in the short time horizon but are inevitable for long-term future

What are the "worst" predictions is a matter of how "worst" is defined. For example, when Economist Nouriel Roubini predicted the economy will crash in 2013 his prediction is an uninteresting Type 4 prediction for the long-term because the economy will crash sometime in the future. The economy always crashes at some point.  Similarly, when Clive Cookson: predicted life on Mars would be discovered in 2013 his prediction is wrong for 2013 but is really a Type 3 prediction. There are some embarrassed evangelists who predicted the the second coming of Christ before the end of 2013 that now have egg on their faces while, in front of a smaller congregation, are still looking upward for a ladder to drop from the sky.

John Kerry asserted:  “Scientists project that the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer of 2013. Not in 2050, but four years from now.” Type 3 predictions are difficult because they don't tell us anything new. This is a Type 3 example, where he was clearly wrong for 2013 and the prediction is just as uncertain now as when Kerry anticipated sailing his yacht over the North Pole by the end of 2013.

The prediction that the Immigration Bill would pass in 2013 was clearly wrong but passage in some form is more certain in near future. Hence it is a Type 2 prediction.

"Starbucks App Exposed: 10 Million Customers At Risk," by Dave Smith, ReadWriteWeb, January 16, 2014 ---
http://readwrite.com/2014/01/16/starbucks-app-exposed-10-million-customers-at-risk#awesm=~otfBMqedecmGNA

. . .

To exploit the Starbucks app flaw, Wood says the hacker would need to somehow obtain the customer’s phone, an available computer, and know how to access the file. In other words, the hack is possible, but it's not so simple as sitting in front of a computer monitor.

Starbucks doesn’t believe its customers need to worry about getting hacked, but a successful hack would grant the hacker access to the customer’s money on the account. The hack could have worse implications if the customer uses the same password for Starbucks as they do with other sites and apps.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Although I don't have the Starbucks App installed, this reminds me to change my ways with passwords --- not an easy thing for an aging brain.

From the Scout Report on January 17, 2014

Searchlet --- http://searchlet.io/ 

If you're interested in a way to quickly search for information without opening a new tab, Searchlet is for you. Visitors can just highlight any text on any page to search Google, Wikipedia, or any number of dictionaries. Visitors can simply drag the Searchlet button to have it added to their bookmarks for quick reference. This version is compatible with all operating systems

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Overweight adults who drink diet beverages may eat more
Heavier dieters using diet drinks should look at food too, study says
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sn-diet-beverages-obesity-20140116,0,7402255.story#axzz2qcgFaQLX

Overweight Americans Who Pick Diet Drinks Eat More Food, Study Finds
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/16/diet-drinks-eat-more-food-overweight-obese-americans_n_4612493.html

How are diet sodas marketed to men?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2014/01/14/dieting_and_weight_loss_how_are_diet_sodas_marketed_to_men.html

The Rise of the Silicon Valley Diet Hacks
http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/01/rise-of-the-silicon-valley-diet-hacks.html

USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion
http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/

Mayo Clinic: Nutrition and healthy eating
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/nutrition-basics/HLV-20049477

From the Scout Report on January 24, 2014

YouSnap --- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cyberlink.yousnap 

Looking to turn images into PDF files? It's easy to do with YouSnap and it can be a great tool for capturing notes from meetings, presentations, and other gatherings. The app helps isolate and select the important areas in these images and then instantly corrects the perspective and enhances the image quality. This version is compatible with all devices running Android 2.2 and newer.

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Wheresmytime --- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wheresmytime.wmt 

Where have you been and where are you going? It's easy enough to get an answer to this first question via the Wheresmytime app. This time tracker app runs automatically in the background and records the time you spend in each location. It also creates automatic time sheets for each day and users can also tag their places as well. This version is compatible with devices running Android 2.2 and newer.

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Is it time for a new password?
Your password is easy to crack
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/22/your-password-is-easy-to-crack

Who goes there?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/executive-living/who-goes-there/story-e6frg9zo-1226807742484#

The 25 most common passwords of 2013
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-25-most-common-passwords-of-2013/

The Internet's 25 Worst Passwords, and What They Say About You
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/01/22/_25_worst_passwords_what_your_terrible_common_password_says_about_you.html

The World's Fist Computer Password? It Was Useless Too
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/01/computer-password/

Microsoft Safety & Security Center: Create Strong Passwords
http://www.microsoft.com/security/online-privacy/passwords-create.aspx

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

Nurse as Educator: Principles of Teaching and Learning for Nursing Practice --- http://nursing.jbpub.com/nursingeducation/

National League for Nursing --- http://www.nln.org/facultyprograms/teachingresources.htm

National Institute of Nursing Research: Publications ---
http://www.ninr.nih.gov/newsandinformation/publications#.Uq4U1ChSFFI

University of New Mexico College of Nursing: Teaching and Nursing Strategies ---
http://nursing.unm.edu/resources/teaching-and-learning-strategies.html

National League for Nursing: Faculty Toolkits --- http://www.nln.org/facultyprograms/facultytoolkits.htm

Geriatric Nursing Teaching Resources --- http://www.nursing.umn.edu/Hartford/facultyteachingresources/

National Institute of Nursing Research: Publications ---
http://www.ninr.nih.gov/newsandinformation/publications#.Uq4U1ChSFFI

American Dental Education Association --- http://www.adea.org/Pages/default.aspx

New York State Dental Association: Classroom/Teaching Resources ---
http://www.nysdental.org/for_the_public/subpage.cfm?ID=59&subID=64

Open Educational Resources (Geology and Earth Science) --- http://open.ems.psu.edu/

Earth Science Teaching Plans and Classroom Activities --- http://geology.com/teacher/

Earth Sciences Lesson Plans --- http://www.onlineschools.org/resources/earth-science-lesson-plans/

American Geosciences Institute Education: Earth Sciences --- http://www.agiweb.org/geoeducation.html

Earth Science World Image Bank ---  http://www.earthscienceworld.org/imagebank/index.html

Bob Jensen's bookmarks for multiple disciplines ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm

Free MIT Course on Paradox and Infinity
Form the Scout Report on January 24, 2014

Paradox & Infinity
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/linguistics-and-philosophy/24-118-paradox-infinity-spring-2013/

What is a paradox? More importantly, what is infinity? These concepts can
blow one's mind in the best way possible and they are the subject of this
course at MIT. Offered up as part of that august institution's Open
CourseWare initiative, this semester long course was first offered in
spring 2013 by Professor Agustin Rayo. In short, the course "explores
different kinds of infinity; the paradoxes of set theory; the reduction of
arithmetic to logic…." On the site, visitors can download the syllabus,
the course calendar, the readings, and look over the lecture slides. The
Readings area contains some lovely pieces, including "The Paradoxes of Time
Travel" and "The Eleatic Hangover Cure.

Bob Jensen's threads on free courses and course materials from prestigious universities ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials

The Field Museum: Science Podcasts --- http://fieldmuseum.org/explore/science-podcasts

University of Oklahoma: History of Science Collections --- http://digital.libraries.ou.edu/homescience.ph

DVAction (chemistry lab)  http://www.dvaction.org/

NSF:  Physics Discoveries --- http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/index.jsp?prio_area=11

BioEd Online: Lessons More --- http://www.bioedonline.org/lessons-and-more/

Nurse as Educator: Principles of Teaching and Learning for Nursing Practice --- http://nursing.jbpub.com/nursingeducation/

University of New Mexico College of Nursing: Teaching and Nursing Strategies ---
http://nursing.unm.edu/resources/teaching-and-learning-strategies.html

National League for Nursing: Faculty Toolkits --- http://www.nln.org/facultyprograms/facultytoolkits.htm

Geriatric Nursing Teaching Resources --- http://www.nursing.umn.edu/Hartford/facultyteachingresources/

Videos:  The Public Health Film Goes To War --- 
http://collections.nlm.nih.gov/?f%5Bdrep2.isMemberOfCollection%5D%5B%5D=DREPPHFGTW

Wildfinder --- http://worldwildlife.org/pages/wildfinder

Open Spaces (Wildlife Refuges) ---  http://www.fws.gov/news/blog/index.cfm

Digital Curation Centre library) --- http://www.dcc.ac.uk/

OBlog (architecture and urban life) --- http://oblog.designobserver.com/

NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory --- http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/

NOAA: Great Lakes Eco-Region ---  http://www.education.noaa.gov/Freshwater/Great_Lakes_Eco-Region.html

California Natural Diversity Database (botany, horticulture) --- http://www.dfg.ca.gov/biogeodata/cnddb/

USDA: Plants Database [Botany] --- http://plants.usda.gov/java/

Bureau of Reclamation Historic Dams and Water Projects ---
http://www.cr.nps.gov/NR/travel/ReclamationDamsAndWaterProjects/Index.html

Open Educational Resources (Geology and Earth Science) --- http://open.ems.psu.edu/

Earth Science Teaching Plans and Classroom Activities --- http://geology.com/teacher/

Earth Sciences Lesson Plans --- http://www.onlineschools.org/resources/earth-science-lesson-plans/

Butler University Irwin Library Images Collection (modernist architecture) ---
http://palni.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15705coll22

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

Studs Terkel Interviews Bob Dylan, Shel Silverstein, Maya Angelou & More in New Audio Trove ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/studs-terkel-interviews.html

OBlog (architecture and urban life) --- http://oblog.designobserver.com/

Ryerson & Burnham Archives Archival Image Collection (Chicago buildings history) ---
http://digital-libraries.saic.edu/cdm/search/collection/mqc/searchterm/Chicago Architectural Sketch Club Collection/field/subcol/mode/all/conn/and/cosuppress/1

Council for Canadian Urbanism --- http://www.canadianurbanism.ca/

Bureau of Reclamation Historic Dams and Water Projects ---
http://www.cr.nps.gov/NR/travel/ReclamationDamsAndWaterProjects/Index.html

Tax Policy Center: TaxVox (Brookings Tax Policy Center) ---  http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/

Brookings: Education (Economics and Government) --- http://www.brookings.edu/research/topics/education

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

Law and Legal Studies

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

Math Tutorials

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

History Tutorials

Where to Find Free Art Images & Books from Great Museums, and Free Books from University Presses ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/free-art-images-books-from-great-museums.html

From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians --- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/

Smithsonian Research Online --- http://research.si.edu/

Smithsonian Lesson Plans ---
http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/lesson_plans.html

Smithsonian X 3D --- http://3d.si.edu/

Smithsonian Science --- http://smithsonianscience.org/

Indianapolis Postcard Collection --- http://digitallibrary.imcpl.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/postcard

Encyclopedia of Indianapolis --- http://indiamond6.ulib.iupui.edu/cdm/search/collection/EOI

Lord Byron's Epic Poem "Don Juan," Annotated by Isaac Asimov and Illustrated by Milton Glaser ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/01/22/lord-byron-don-juan-isaac-asimov-milton-glaser/

Google’s Music Timeline: A Visualization of 60 Years of Changing Musical Tastes ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/googles-music-timeline.html

Digital Curation Centre library) --- http://www.dcc.ac.uk/

History Extra (English History) --- http://www.historyextra.com/podcasts

Ruskin at Walkley (English History Museum) --- http://www.ruskinatwalkley.org/

Antislavery Collection --- http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/umarmot/antislavery/

A Day Like No Other: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the March on
Washington
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/march-on-washington/

Moment of Indiana History --- http://indianapublicmedia.org/momentofindianahistory/

Michigan Historic Sites Online --- http://www.mcgi.state.mi.us/hso/

Massachusetts Real Estate Atlas Digitization Project ---
http://www.mass.gov/anf/research-and-tech/oversight-agencies/lib/massachusetts-real-estate-atlases.html

American Lumberman Photographs of Southern Pine Company ---
http://www.library.unt.edu/news/digital-libraries/american-lumberman-photographs-southern-pine-lumber-company

Bureau of Reclamation Historic Dams and Water Projects ---
http://www.cr.nps.gov/NR/travel/ReclamationDamsAndWaterProjects/Index.html

The Field Museum: Science Podcasts --- http://fieldmuseum.org/explore/science-podcasts

University of Oklahoma: History of Science Collections --- http://digital.libraries.ou.edu/homescience.ph

Ryerson & Burnham Archives Archival Image Collection (Chicago buildings history) ---
http://digital-libraries.saic.edu/cdm/search/collection/mqc/searchterm/Chicago Architectural Sketch Club Collection/field/subcol/mode/all/conn/and/cosuppress/1

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

Google’s Music Timeline: A Visualization of 60 Years of Changing Musical Tastes ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/googles-music-timeline.html

The Americana Sheet Music Collection --- http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/MillsSpColl/Americana

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

Butterick's Practical Typography --- http://practicaltypography.com

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

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

January 18, 2014

• Want to Stay Healthy? Try Washing Your Hands
• Google Crafting Contact Lenses for Diabetes
• Stocking Epinephrine in Schools Might Save Lives
• Vitamin D Supplements May Ease Fibromyalgia Pain
• U.S. Health Officials Urge Renewed Fight to Stamp Out Cigarette Use
• State Snapshots Of Obamacare Enrollment
• Celiac Disease: Gluten-Free Diet May Protect Bones
• FDA Warns of Fires From Wart Removers
• Having a Baby? Price Tag for Delivery Varies Widely
• These Exercises May Lower Women's Diabetes Risk

January 21, 2014

• Quinoa May Be Safe for People With Celiac Disease
• Sleep During the Day May Throw Genes Into Disarray
• Concussions in Middle School Girls Playing Soccer
• Zest for Life Can Be a Moving Experience
• No Proof That 'Blood-Type' Diets Work: Study
• Vitamin D May Slow Multiple Sclerosis: Study
• Sunlight Might Be Good for Your Blood Pressure
• U.S. Health Officials Urge Renewed Fight to Stamp Out Cigarette Use
• Charges for "Free" Preventive Care a Big Surprise
• Want to Stay Healthy? Try Washing Your Hands

January 23, 2014

• Hormone Therapy & Joint Replacement Surgery in Women
• Fish Oil Might Guard Against Loss of Brain Cells
• Turn Down the Thermostat, Lose Weight?
• Synthetic Pot Tied to Surge of Emergency Cases
• New Autism Diagnosis Rules
• Texting While Walking a Dangerous Combo: Study
• This Diet May Lower Risk of Clogged Leg Arteries
• Chocolate, Tea, Berries May Cut Diabetes Risk
• Blood Test Might Help Spot Pancreatic Cancer Early
• Too Much Sitting and Heart Failure Risk for Men

January 24, 2014

• Vitamin D Supplements Don't Help Your Health: Review
• First Trimester Appears Crucial for Baby's Heart Health
• Pepsi One and Potential Cancer-Causing Chemical
• States Consider Labels for Genetically Modified Foods
• First-Time Cesarean Rates Dipped in 2012: CDC
• Hormone Therapy & Joint Replacement Surgery in Women
• New Autism Diagnosis Rules
• Synthetic Pot Tied to Surge of Emergency Cases
• Fish Oil Might Guard Against Loss of Brain Cells
• Texting While Walking a Dangerous Combo: Study

January 27, 2014

• 20 U.S. Kids Hospitalized Each Day for Gun Injuries: Study
• Let Your Nose Guide You to Less Fatty Foods
• Adults With Diabetes Need a Flu Shot: Experts
• Vitamin D Supplements Don't Help Your Health: Review
• First Trimester Appears Crucial for Baby's Heart Health
• Pepsi One and Potential Cancer-Causing Chemical
• States Consider Labels for Genetically Modified Foods
• First-Time Cesarean Rates Dipped in 2012: CDC
• Hormone Therapy & Joint Replacement Surgery in Women
• Turn Down the Thermostat, Lose Weight?

January 28, 2014

• Hand Washing, Zinc May Ward Off Colds: Review
• Music Therapy May Help Teens With Cancer Cope
• Yoga May Reduce Fatigue in Breast Cancer Survivors
• 20 U.S. Kids Hospitalized Each Day for Gun Injuries: Study
• DDT Exposure May Raise Alzheimer's Risk: Study
• Pepsi One and Potential Cancer-Causing Chemical
• Let Your Nose Guide You to Less Fatty Foods
• Adults With Diabetes Need a Flu Shot: Experts
• First Trimester Appears Crucial for Baby's Heart Health
• Vitamin D Supplements Don't Help Your Health: Review

Videos:  The Public Health Film Goes To War --- 
http://collections.nlm.nih.gov/?f%5Bdrep2.isMemberOfCollection%5D%5B%5D=DREPPHFGTW

What It Would Look Like If Your Banana Came With An Ingredient List ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/ingredient-list-for-natural-products-2014-1

Forwarded by Auntie Bev

BAD FOOD

This was shown on “60 Minutes” a few weeks ago. Disgusting !

Starkist Tuna is now owned by Korea, and is in big conflict with the U.S. concerning quality, safety,and records, which Korea refuses to provide.

There have been several articles on Google about this, and even one that was defending the eating of tilapia said to avoid the fish that came from China . Albertson's 4-day special of 4 bags of frozen tilapia for the price of one. Sure enough, on the top of the bags, it read "farm raised", and on the bottom in small print it said, " China ".

read all the way down...

Recently a Food inspector on TV said he had lived overseas and he had seen the filthy conditions their foods are raised and processed in.

It is enough to make you throw up. Some foreign workers have to wear masks as they work in these places, because the food is so rotten and filthy, it makes them want to throw up. Many of their Fish on Fish Farms are fed Raw sewage daily. He said he has seen so much filth throughout their food growing and processing that he would "never" eat any of it. They raise this filth , put some food coloring and some flavorings on it, then they ship it to the USA & Canada for YOU to consume and feed to YOUR families. They have no Food & Safety Inspectors. They ship it to you to buy and poison your families and friends.

Imported food we eat and the junk we buy

Green Giant frozen vegetables are from China , and so are most of Europe 's Best.

Arctic Gardens are Okay. So is Birdseye.

Never buy the grocery store garlic unless it is clearly marked from USA or Canada , the other stuff is grown in people poop (even worse than chicken poop).

China is the largest producer of garlic in the world U.S. is next.

Buy only local honey, much honey is shipped in huge containers from China and re-packed here.

Cold-FX is grown and packed in China and is full of fecal bacteria. Doesn't work anyway, big scam.

If the country of origin is not clearly marked beware.

If produce, ask an employee.

Watch out for packages which state "prepared for", "packed by" or "imported by". I don't understand the lack of mandatory labeling, especially the produce.

The country of origin should be clearly shown on the item in the store. I go to the local farmers' markets in season and keep a wary eye open the rest of the year.

Please read this very carefully, and read to the very bottom. It's important for all of us.

How is it possible to ship food from China cheaper than having it produced in the U.S. or Canada ?

FOR EXAMPLE THE "OUR FAMILY" BRAND OF MANDARIN ORANGES SAYS RIGHT ON THE CAN 'FROM CHINA '. SO, FOR A FEW MORE CENTS, BUY THE LIBERTY BRAND.

GOLD BRAND OR THE DOLE IS FROM CALIFORNIA

Beware, Costco sells canned peaches and pears in a plastic jar that come from China .

ALL "HIGH LINER" AND MOST OTHER FROZEN FISH PRODUCTS COME FROM CHINA OR INDONESIA . THE PACKAGE MAY SAY "PACIFIC SALMON" ON THE FRONT, BUT LOOK FOR THE SMALL PRINT. MOST OF THESE PRODUCTS COME FROM FISH FARMS IN THE ORIENT WHERE THERE ARE NO REGULATIONS ON WHAT IS FED TO THESE FISH.

Recently The Montreal Gazette had an article by the Canadian Government on how Chinese feed the fish: They suspend chicken wire crates over the fish ponds, and the fish feed on chicken s--t.

If you search the internet about what the Chinese feed their fish, you'll be alarmed; e.g., growth hormones, expired anti-biotic from humans. Never buy any type of fish or shellfish that comes from these countries: Vietnam , China , Philippines .

Check this out personally. I did. Steinfeld's Pickles are made in India - just as bad!

Another example is in canned mushrooms. No-Name brand came from Indonesia .

Also check those little fruit cups. They used to be made in Canada in the Niagara region until about 2 years ago. They are now packaged in China !

While the Chinese export inferior and even toxic products, dangerous toys, and goods to be sold in North American markets, the media wrings its hands!

Yet, 70% of North Americans believe that the trading privileges afforded to the Chinese should be suspended!

Well, duh! Why do you need the government to suspend trading privileges?

"Hacking the Immune System to Prevent Damage after a Heart Attack," by Mike Orcutt, MIT's Technology Review, January 20, 2014 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/523546/hacking-the-immune-system-to-prevent-damage-after-a-heart-attack/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140120

A Bit of Humor

1964 when Jack Paar handed a simple stick to Jonathan Winters without a script ---
http://biggeekdad.com/2013/04/jonathan-winters-stick/#.UXfWSphGZzg.email

Funny Dog --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI4yoXyb1_M

Father Ted --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmkeAlut7KI

True Story
Woman Busted For Fake $100 Bills Because “Moe Money” Isn’t In Charge Of Signing Currency ---
http://consumerist.com/2014/01/23/woman-busted-for-fake-100-bills-because-moe-money-isnt-in-charge-of-signing-currency/

Forwarded by Auntie Bev

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