Tidbits on May 15 2014
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

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/

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

You Can Now Watch Thousands of Fascinating Old Newsreels on YouTube for Free ---
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/you-can-now-watch-thousands-of-fascinating-old-84131366914.html

Peter Sellers Presents The Complete Guide To Accents of The British Isles ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/04/peter-sellers-presents-the-complete-guide-to-accents-of-the-british-isles.html

PennSound Cinema (on writing and literature) --- http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/video.php

Sigmund Freud Appears in Rare, Surviving Video & Audio Recorded During the 1930s ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/sigmund-freud-appears-in-rare-surviving-video-audio.html

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

Marine Stuns Crowd at a Party --- 
http://www.youtube.com/v/I0fQd858cRc&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3

German String Quartet Performs Vivaldi & Mozart in Delightfully Comical & Acrobatic Routine ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/04/competitive-string-quartet.html

Johnny Cash Impersonates Elvis Presley: A Slapstick Version of “Heartbreak Hotel” (1959) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/johnny-cash-impersonates-elvis-presley.html

The Land That Made Me, Me (life in the 1950s) --- https://www.youtube.com/v/J55S38xwxnQ

Lost in the Fifties- Another Time, Another Place - YouTube --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjj9VKKSV2g

GI Joe And Lillie --- http://silverandgoldandthee.net/V/Lil.html

Watch the Talking Heads Play a Vintage Concert in Syracuse (1978) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/watch-the-talking-heads-play-a-vintage-concert-in-syracuse-1978.html

Neil deGrasse Tyson Moonwalking ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/neil-degrasse-tyson-moonwalking.html

Unreal Photos From Shackleton's 1914 Antarctic Expedition ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/1915-antarctic-endurance-expedition-photos-2014-5?op=1#ixzz30r9EPWBP

Such Sweet Thunder: Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn’s Musical Tribute to Shakespeare (1957) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/duke-ellington-billy-strayhorns-musical-tribute-to-shakespeare.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

Discover 100 Great Works of Art with Videos Created by Khan Academy & Google Art Project ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/100-great-works-of-art-with-videos-created-by-khan-academy.html

Stunning And Eerie Photos Show 'Ground Zero' Of Chernobyl Years After The Nuclear Disaster ---
http://www.businessinsider.com#ixzz307NNy17V

The Clark: Digital Collections (art, photography, literature, history) ---  http://maca.cdmhost.com/

A Woman Quit Her Job To Travel For Two Years And Took These Incredible Photos In Africa ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/tania-paynes-travel-photos-of-africa-2014-4

Image Gallery: Egypt's Valley of the Kings ---
http://www.livescience.com/28044-valley-of-the-kings-gallery.html

India Illustrated --- http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/p15195coll29

Mary Binney Wheeler Image Collection (India and Sri Lanka) ---  http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/wheeler/index.html

Golden Retriever Forms Incredible Bond With Abandoned Kitten ---
http://www.pet360.com/dog/lifestyle/golden-retriever-forms-incredible-bond-with-abandoned-kitten/4E5pa4Y820C8FRSAH0v2gg?utm_source=freekibble&utm_medium=freekibble&extcid=fkib

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

Download 55 Free Online Literature Courses: From Dante and Milton to Kerouac and Tolkien ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/55-free-online-literature-courses.html

Mark Twain Writes a Rapturous Letter to Walt Whitman on the Poet’s 70th Birthday (1889) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/mark-twain-writes-a-rapturous-letter-to-walt-whitman.html

Martin Heidegger Talks Philosophy with a Buddhist Monk on German Television (1963) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/martin-heidegger-talks-philosophy-with-a-buddhist-monk.html

Leo Tolstoy --- http://www.ltolstoy.com/

Vintage Footage of Leo Tolstoy: Video Captures the Great Novelist During His Final Days ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/vintage-footage-of-leo-tolstoy.html

PennSound Cinema (on writing and literature) --- http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/video.php

Jean-Luc Godard Gives a Dramatic Reading of Hannah Arendt’s “On the Nature of Totalitarianism” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/jean-luc-godard-gives-a-dramatic-reading-of-hannah-arendts-on-the-nature-of-totalitarianism.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 May 15, 2014
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2014/TidbitsQuotations051514.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

"Why We Teach--Four Short Stories," by Joe Hoyle, Teaching Blog, May 7, 2014 ---
http://joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/2014/05/why-we-teach-four-short-stories.html

Jensen Reply

Is this a love of teaching?

Thanks Joe,

I will forward your message to AECM.

Before asking why a professor teaches it might be more interesting to ask a professor why she or he got a PhD where, in accounting, teaching goes hand in hand with becoming a PhD since almost no accounting PhDs get paid for full time research.

Interestingly, most accounting professors seek to minimize their teaching loads in terms of class size, number of preps, and number of courses per year. There are some tradeoffs. A professor who takes on a large course may only have to teach one course per term. These days research professors tend to teach four courses per year with two or three preps per year. One of my former students (Igor Vaysman) negotiated one course per year at UC Berkeley as an assistant professor of accounting. The course was a doctoral seminar in accountics.

My point is that love of teaching does not go hand-hand with a lot of teaching and a lot of preparation time, especially for those of us who were evaluated more in terms of the counts of hits in research journals than our teaching performance which did have to meet a minimum threshold. Spending a whole lot of time becoming a world class teacher in most cases entails research performance sacrifice. Those teachers that spend 35+ hours per week outside of class in one-on-one tutoring become beloved, albeit low-paid, career associate professors.

Now in answer to your original question, I entered a doctoral program intent of teaching and research because I was originally obsessed with being a ski bum but not a low income ski bum. I was working for Ernst & Ernst in Denver while still working on my MBA and really did not like the way tax season cut into ski season.

I looked at some of my tenured MBA professors at Denver University who literally did not teach more than two five hour courses per quarter and seemingly did not work more than 12 hours per week (including teaching) for DU. Most of them had businesses on the side, mostly tax consulting businesses. Grant Schaffer, my hero, had a lucrative tax consulting business and a 4,000 acre Colorado mountain ranch. He was a fabulous tax teacher because he was such an expert on the tax code.

That's the kind of job for me I concluded. My plan was was to get a free PhD from Stanford (plus room and board), work 12 hours per week as a tenured accounting professor and ski, raise horses, and chase wild women the rest of every week (I was single my first nine years of college).

After I got a PHD and took my first full-time faculty job at Michigan State University I was the married father of a new baby girl and lost all interest in skiing. Teaching became a necessary condition to my employment but most of my time went into research which I liked and knew that it was the most important thing for performance evaluations. I was successful at publishing and obtained my first endowed chair (at the University of Maine) after three years at MSU.

I ended up averaging 60 hours per week in teaching and research, loved every minute of it, and never looked back for the next 40 years. I might add that I much preferred being in academe rather than public accounting professional because I had almost total time control of my life in academia.

Each move during my 40 years as an accounting professor was for more pay and less teaching. I was evaluated on my output in teaching and research, but almost every day I could pick and choose what I wanted to do that particular day. There were no time clocks, time reports, and assignments to work on client problems. I could have skied, sailed, jogged, chased wild women, or whatever for 40 years, but for me leisure became boring and I loved my work and my colleagues.

I always wanted first and foremost to be a better scholar. I did enjoy my students, but in all honesty they were not my life. My life was in the library (where I spent more time than you would believe) and later on the computer (where I spent even more time as you can probably well believe).

Respectfully,
Bob Jensen

Educating the Net Generation
Diana G. Oblinger and James L. Oblinger, Editors
Educause,
ISBN 0-9672853-2-1 (free online)
2005
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/pub7101f.pdf

Educating the Net Generation Diana G. Oblinger and James L. Oblinger, Editors

Chapter 1: Introduction by Diana Oblinger, EDUCAUSE, and James Oblinger, North Carolina State University

Chapter 2: Is It Age or IT: First Steps Toward Understanding the Net Generation by Diana Oblinger, EDUCAUSE, and James Oblinger, North Carolina State University

Chapter 3: Technology and Learning Expectations of the Net Generation by Greg Roberts, University of Pittsburgh–Johnstown

Chapter 4: Using Technology as a Learning Tool, Not Just the Cool New Thing by Ben McNeely, North Carolina State University

Chapter 5: The Student’s Perspective by Carie Windham, North Carolina State University

Chapter 6: Preparing the Academy of Today for the Learner of Tomorrow by Joel Hartman, Patsy Moskal, and Chuck Dziuban, University of Central Florida

• Introduction • Generations and Technology
• Emerging Pattern s
• Assessing the Generations in Online Learning
• Learning Engagement, Interaction Value, and Enhanced Learning in the Generation s
• Responding to Result s
• Excellent Teaching
• Conclusion • Endnote s
• Further Reading
• About the Authors

Chapter 7: Convenience, Communications, and Control: How Students Use Technology by Robert Kvavik, ECAR and University of Minnesota

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

Hi Joe,

Education is a lot like a pair of dress shoes. One size won't fit all.

Studies show that pedagogy does not matter in terms of learning achievement of top students driven for A grades. They adapt to whatever it takes to earn those A grades. Pedagogy may matter in terms of their choice of majors and social relationships (such as team assignments) even for the top students. In other words pedagogy may matter in areas other than the minimum it takes to earn A grades.

The free and non-credit MOOCs work for the small subset of students driven to learn such as an aspiring engineer seeking a job that requires knowledge of Bessel functions --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessel_function 

MOOCs also serve a purpose for a student who only wants to learn a few things in a MOOC course. Examples abound here such as when a professor takes an advanced-level MOOC for ideas on what to build into her own courses and life.

In this context MOOCd are a bit like a campus library where we go for selected bits and pieces of knowledge.

Pedagogy may draw out talent and motivation such as when a really bright street kid who has been misguided by lowlife parents and/or street gangs. Bill Gates and other billionaires are pouring a lot of money into to developing the talented kids in the ghettos so that they do not become a lost generation.

The hardest kids to deal with are those between the special education level and the top half of a class when the problem is low talent rather than just low motivation. In nations like Germany these lower scholastic kids are redirected into careers they can handle and are never given a choice to go to college.

Germany only admits the top 25% into college.

In the USA we have a somewhat ineffective and certainly inefficient idea that everybody above the special education level should earn a college degree. So we put a community college, sometimes a really lousy community college, in every county in the USA.

Pressures to get college degrees are dysfunctional for low-talent students who mostly get saddled with debt and maybe diplomas that are little more than decorations on the wall.

Respectfully,
Bob Jensen

Predicting the Outcome of the Kentucky Derby

One of my favorite economists in Steven D. Levitt at the University of Chicago. He came into fame for his books and blog on Freakonomics. Every year Steven is asked to predict the winner of the Kentucky Derby ---
http://freakonomics.com/2014/05/02/my-annual-kentucky-derby-picks/

I make public predictions about anything exactly three times a year: who will win each of the three Triple Crown thoroughbred horse races.  Other than that, I predict nothing.

The nice thing about making so few predictions is that by the time next year’s predictions roll around, no one can remember how last year’s predictions turned out.  My very worst year, I named with confidence the horse that I believed would finish dead last, when in fact that horse won the race!  Nonetheless, people still asked me for my picks the next year.

This year, I even got invited to do a live Q&A on the Kentucky Derby, which you can check out at Deadspin.

So who do I like this year in the Kentucky Derby?  My top choice is a horse called Chitu.   His morning line odds are 20-1, and my model predicts he will be at about those same odds at race time.

There are another 6 horses in the 20 horse field I will also play in my exotic bets: Wildcat Red, Vicar’s In Trouble, General A Rod, Wicked Strong, Candy Boy, and Vinceremos.

My model says that the overwhelming favorite California Chrome is not such a bad bet either. But in races like the Kentucky Derby, where there is so much attention and so many horses, I have a general rule to steer clear of prohibitive favorites.  I think it is very easy for a herd mentality to take over (not among the horses, but among the bettors), which makes me feel like the favorites are bad bets.  People want to be able to say they had a winner in the Derby, so they bet the favorite.  And when they play exotics, they use rules of thumb which (I think) lead them to bet favorites too much.  So it is not that I think California Chrome doesn’t have a good chance of being among the top finishers, it is just that from a betting perspective I think he is a sucker bet.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
After the above article was published California Chrome won the race and is now eligible to win the Triple Crown for 2014.

Espinoza made his move into the clear rounding out of the far turn, and it became a race for second as the bronze-colored California Chrome finished 1 1/4 miles in 2:03.66 — the slowest time over a fast track since 1974.

Question
Are Kentucky Derby winners being bred to run faster making records fall in recent years?

Hint
Hint:  California Chrome finished the 1 1/4 miles (2,000 meters) in 2:03.66 minutes in the 2014 Kentucky Derby
Who won this Derby in with a record time of 1:59.40 minutes? When?

Answer
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/thoroughbreds-are-running-as-fast-as-they-can/

Personally I think Espinoza was the best horse on the track in the 2014 Derby. His jockey should have made Espinoza'a move earlier, but that's all hindsight at this point.

I owned horses in Florida that could beat California Chrome and Esp;inoza when they saw me going toward the feed barrel in the barn.

"How Data Visualization Answered One of Retail’s Most Vexing Questions," by Gretchen Gavett, Harvard Business Review Blog, May 9, 2014 ---
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/05/how-data-visualization-answered-one-of-retails-most-vexing-questions/

Sometimes it’s relatively easy to know what your customers are doing. In e-commerce, advances in tracking and analytics have made it possible for retailers to understand what individual customers are doing before they make a purchase, and to gather and analyze hundreds and thousands of data points to identify trends.

Brick-and-mortar stores haven’t had the same advantage.

“Retailers are all using scanner data to track what happened at the point of sale,” says Sam Hui, an associate professor of marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business. “But they have no idea what’s really happening at a point-of-purchase decision.”

This is changing with the emergence of location analytics. Take Alex and Ani, which designs and retails jewelry, and Belk, a department store chain. Both have signed on with Prism Skylabs, a software company, to map in-store customer behavior.

By using a store’s existing security cameras, or installing new ones, Prism (no relation to the NSA program) is able to track the movement of a store’s customers and identify patterns. “We’re not really looking at any individual; we’re looking at what a group of people over a period of time do,” says senior vice president of managed services Cliff Crosbie. “That’s the really big thing: Identifying what a volume of people do over a period of time, and how you read that information.”

In many ways, Prism is capturing the simplest aspects of shopping, aspects ecommerce websites now take for granted. “Retailers want to know what parts of their store are busy, and where customers particularly shop. So, if there’s a promotion on, when do people stop there and what do they do?” Prism can also track what happens on individual days, or over time, using a dashboard like this (rather than reams of Excel spreadsheets):

Continued in article

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

Jimmy Page --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Page_%28singer%29

A different kind of non-political commencement speech, almost a non-speech, in 2014 at the Berklee College of Music in Boston ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/jimmy-page-gives-commencement-address-at-berklee-students-perform-led-zep-classics-for-him.html
Berklee musicians performed a concert the night before in honor of Page's performance history

One point to note is how some types of musicians, like Jimmy Page, and artists and athletes can be self taught  Some like Bode Miller are self taught early on, but Bode and most others receive training and education helpers in the advanced stages of their craft.

Being self-taught is probably almost impossible in professions such as brain surgery and combat flying. There are of course barriers to entry (possibly somewhat artificial) to some professions such those that require college diplomas for licensure and those that require expensive equipment such as a combat jet aircraft capable of supersonic speeds where owners of a $100 million aircraft will not allow use the equipment for self learning. A self-learning brain surgeon is not likely to have access to operating rooms and patients and staff until progressing through medical school.

 

What happens when a university on the brink of unexpected financial disaster attempts to cut faculty in most departments, but sees the need to hire new faculty in "growth areas?"

"Jobless in Two Days," by Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, May 14, 2014 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/05/14/quinnipiac-faculty-reeling-rapid-cuts#sthash.2XzE9Itz.dpbs

Jensen Comment
There are no easy answers. Much depends upon the realities of "financial disaster." I recall that, when employees of Eastern Airlines refused to accept pay cuts to save their job, they lined up to cheer when Eastern Airlines failed for good so that no former Eastern Airlines employees kept their jobs. 

What makes the current Quinnipiac University case so controversial is that the employees being laid off apparently got or will soon get such short notice. Will Quinnipiac University employees all line up to cheer if Quinnipiac fails completely rather than endure the pains of such possibilities as layoffs of some employees and pay cuts of those that keep their jobs?

Question
Can an anonymous tip from a disgruntled student get a teacher arrested for drunk driving?

"Can an Anonymous Tip Get You Arrested for Drunk Driving? In a recent Supreme Court case, both sides took liberties with the facts," by Garret Epps, The Atlantic, May 14, 2014 ---
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/05/navarette-v-california/370803/

Jensen Comment
In recent years we've become accustomed to Supreme Court decisions in which the four conservative justices vote one way and the four liberal judges vote the opposite way with Justice Kennedy holding the swing vote. In this particular case, the voting blocks did not hold up in the 5-4 vote ---
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-9490_3fb4.pdf

Affirmed
THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS , KENNEDY, BREYER , and ALITO joined.

SCALIA filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG , SOTOMAYOR , and KAGAN  joined.

Reports are that there are growing tensions between Justice Scalia versus Justice Sotomayor --- but not in this case!

Question
Is Arizona State University soft on plagiarism, or is this the trend for most universities in the USA?

"New Book, New Allegations," by Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, May 13, 2014 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/05/13/arizona-state-professor-accused-plagiarism-second-time#sthash.OmcGllGb.dpbs 

An investigation into plagiarism allegations against an Arizona State University professor of history in 2011 found him not guilty of deliberate academic misconduct, but the case remained controversial. The chair of his department’s tenure committee resigned in protest and other faculty members spoke out against the findings, saying their colleague – who recently had been promoted to full professor – was cleared even though what he did likely would have gotten an undergraduate in trouble.

Now, Matthew C. Whitaker has written a new book, and allegations of plagiarism are being levied against him once again. Several blogs – one anonymously, and in great detail – have documented alleged examples of plagiarism in the work. Several of his colleagues have seen them, and say they raise serious questions about Whitaker’s academic integrity.

Meanwhile, Whitaker says he won’t comment on allegations brought forth anonymously, and his publisher, the University of Nebraska Press, says it’s standing by him.

Three years ago, several senior faculty members in Whitaker’s department accused him of uncited borrowing of texts and ideas from books, Wikipedia and a newspaper article in his written work and a speech. In response, the university appointed a three-member committee to investigate. The group found that Whitaker’s work contained no “substantial or systematic plagiarism,” but that he had been careless in some instances, as reported by Inside Higher Ed at the time. As a result, the university did not impose serious sanctions on the scholar, who is the founding director of Arizona State’s Center for the Study of Race and Democracy.

In response, Monica Green, professor of history, resigned as department tenure committee chair. Several other professors called the investigation flawed and incomplete in a formal complaint to the university and in public statements.

Whitaker at the time told the university that his colleagues were pursuing a personal vendetta, possibly due to his race and the fact that they disagreed with his promotion, The Arizona Republic reported.

The university backed Whitaker, saying that the investigation had been thorough and carried out by distinguished scholars.

In January, the University of Nebraska Press published Whitaker’s newest book, Peace Be Still: Modern Black America from World War II to Barack Obama. Several prominent professors of history have written blurbs for the book, which won the Bayard Rustin Book Award from the Tufts University Center for the Study of Race and Democracy.

But not everyone is impressed.

Since the book’s publication, a blog called the Cabinet of Plagiarism has detailed numerous alleged instances of plagiarism in the book, including text and ideas taken from information websites and published scholarship. The blog is moderated by someone using the name Ann Ribidoux, who did not return a posted request for comment. There is no one on the Arizona State faculty by that name.

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/05/13/arizona-state-professor-accused-plagiarism-second-time#ixzz31ajydqT2
Inside Higher Ed
 

Bob Jensen's threads on faculty who plagiarize or otherwise cheat ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#ProfessorsWhoPlagiarize

"The Most Misleading Product Claims" ---
http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/05/14/the-most-misleading-product-claims/2/

Jensen Comment
The phrase "most misleading product claims" is misleading. The courts decided these were misleading claims, but nobody went to prison. More misleading are those claims that were so egregious folks went to prison.

There are dubious infomercial claims that landed promoters in jail. For example Kevin Turdeau finally got his just rewards
Fraudster Author and Infomercial King Kevin Trudeau Gets 10 Years In Prison For Massive Deception ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/best-selling-author-kevin-trudeau-gets-10-years-in-prison-for-massive-deception-2014-3

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

Correlation versus Causation Nonsense ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/spurious-correlations-by-tyler-vigen-2014-5

Jensen Comment
Academics spend much of their time searching for underlying factors that may provide some justification for causation assumptions in correlations. Probably the most famous illustration is the relatively high correlation of birth rates with stork nests in Denmark.  Over the years statisticians have not presented credible explanations for common causal factors, although if I were looking I would look at food data that relates to prosperity in which both human parents and stork parents have changes in food abundance over long periods of time. Sadly human diets are much more complicated than the diets of storks.

The Average American Can't Answer These Three Simple Finance Questions ---
http://pragcap.com/the-worlds-shocking-financial-ignorance#ixzz31FaNinGB

Here’s a frightening fact via The Atlantic’s Moises Naim.  Roughly half of the world can’t answer these three questions correctly:

1.  Suppose you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2 percent per year. After five years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you left the money to grow? A) more than $102; B) exactly $102; C) less than $102; D) do not know; refuse to answer.

2.  Imagine that the interest rate on your savings account is 1 percent per year and inflation is 2 percent per year. After one year, would you be able to buy A) more than, B) exactly the same as, or C) less than today with the money in this account?; D) do not know; refuse to answer.

3.  Do you think that the following statement is true or false? “Buying a single company stock usually provides a safer return than a stock mutual fund.” A) true; B) false; C) do not know; refuse to answer.

Even worse – 70% of Americans can’t answer all three questions correctly.  And we wonder why the world seems to have so many persistent financial problems.  We don’t even come close to understanding the construct of money or how it should be used.  The world desperately needs to become better educated on the topic of money, finance and economics.  It certainly won’t solve all of our financial problems, but information really is power when it comes to money.   Unfortunately, we don’t even teach basic finance in most schools and economists can’t even agree on what “money” is in the first place.  We have a long road ahead of us but it’s not too late to get started….

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
People who cannot answer the above questions cannot answer the question of why the Feds low interest strategy (Quantitative Easing) has wiped out savings of tens of millions of people young and old. This is especially troublesome for the elderly. My parents, for example, used to draw off upwards of 6% interest on certificates of deposit (CDs while leaving the investment amount intact. Today they would have to cut into the savings with CDs earning less than 1%. That's what is happening to senior citizens today. They are eating their seed corn and when the savings are gone they have little left to live on except for their meager Social Security checks.

My question would be how long it would have taken my parents to double the value of a 6% investment compounded annually if all interest payments are plowed back into savings at the same 6% (ignore inflation and taxes)? This is a question raised years ago in the popular economics textbook by Paul Samuelson. My parents had sufficient income from their pensions and farm to enable them to leave some CDs untouched for 12 or more years. Of course they faced the realities of inflation (higher than today's inflation rate) and taxes (higher than today's taxation of the middle class).

My guess is that 90% of the adults in the USA could not answer the above question, especially if complications of taxes and inflation were thrown into the problem.

Financial troubles are a bigger cause of divorce and sexual troubles. It's especially dangerous for couples to pile on debt for such things as student loan repayments, mortgage loans. car loans, and ever deepening credit card debt reflecting spending sell beyond income. This creates tension in individuals and families. Fights ensue over money and debt. Many couples declare bankruptcy but there are some debts that carry on after bankruptcy declarations.

What person wants to marry a spouse carrying $65,000 student that cannot be eliminated by declaring bankruptcy?

My opinion is that financial literacy should be a part of college core skills requirements for the sake of financial sanity in the USA ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#FinancialLiteracy

Khan Academy provides some great financial literacy free learning videos ---
https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-finance

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

Toyota's hottest car is Subaru (almost a secret), which is a bit surprising since Subaru does not produce fuel efficient (all wheel drive) cars ---
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-08/toyotas-silent-subaru-stake-pays-off?campaign_id=DN050914
Subaru sells well in snow and ice country. I own a 2009 Subaru Forrester that I purchased in 2010 in the Cash for Clunker government program.  We don't drive much and it only 32,000 miles.

Some of my nearby friends prefer higher mileage cars. They seem to go for higher mileage GM choices. Subaru is generally rated highest in safety in its class, although luxury cars have higher safety ratings. I think Subaru overcharges for the regular 15,000 mile service required for warranty coverage. But car dealers generally stick it to buyers in one way or another.

I also have a Jeep that I seldom drive since if I drive it much something is bound to fall apart. I will never buy a Chrysler vehicle again.

"Why Aren't Teens Reading Like They Used To?" by Jennifer Ludden, NPR, May 12, 2014 ---
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/12/311111701/why-arent-teens-reading-like-they-used-to?ft=1&f=1019&utm_source=howtogeek&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

Jensen Comment
In part a teen's reading interest might be affected by parents who read less than their parents and so on for generations.

In part this is definitional. Teens and parents are reading more "things" online. Reading varies in terms of study and retention. If I'm going to comment on an article I read from a hard copy magazine my attention will be about the same as if I read the article online. I do subscribe to hard copy things like The Economist that I can also access online. However, I'm more apt to speed read almost every page cover-to-cover in hard copy, whereas I do not even download most of the online articles except those few each week that I'm especially interested in for purposes of making a blog posting.

Maybe teens are like me. When I'm traveling and not on a computer I'm more apt to have my nose in a hard copy book. More often than not this is a book I read for fun --- often to pass time in a hotel or medical office.

"A Second Rice Revolution Could Save Millions Of Lives," The Economist, May 9, 2014 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-better-rice-could-save-millions-of-lives-2014-5#ixzz31JeCVUmr

Jensen Comment
The "Second Rice Revolution" may save millions of fewer lives where (as in California) rice farms are turning into parched dust farms ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-better-rice-could-save-millions-of-lives-2014-5

"We Could Be At The Start Of A Sea Change In American Migration Patterns ," by Conor Sen, Business Insider, May 9, 2014 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/global-vs-local-neighborhoods-and-cities-2014-5

As my road trip winds down, I’ve seen with my own eyes that every city has “global neighborhoods” — thriving areas that appeal to some combination of young singles, immigrants, “global/college-educated talent,” and the like. Market Square in Knoxville. Short North and the German Village in Columbus. Downtown and Fountain Square in Indianapolis. And with the construction going on, you can tell that both the private sector and local governments know what’s working and where to direct resources.

It’s interesting because as the economy continues to shake off the past 5 years, municipal budgets improve, the oldest Millennials start to form households and have kids in greater numbers, mega-city housing costs becoming increasingly prohibitive, and high-powered services companies look to “outsource” their jobs the way manufacturing companies did towards the middle of the 20th century, we could be at the start of a sea change in migration patterns.

We are not going to live in some dystopia in 2030 where a handful of elites have great jobs, schools, and short commutes in mega-cities while the rest of us deal with 2-hour long commutes and/or bad schools in order to get by.

The vision I have is there are four basic city/neighborhood archetypes taking shape:

Global neighborhoods in global mega-cities: Pac Heights. The Mission. Wicker Park. Georgetown. The West Village. Williamsburg. The only people living here are the super-rich and/or global talent without dependents. This is the new aspiration that people will overpay for.

Local neighborhoods in global mega-cities: These are places in global mega-cities that still provide access to the jobs and amenities those regions provide, but there’s something undesirable about them. Maybe it’s a long commute (families). Maybe it’s an unsafe neighborhood and/or bad schools (immigrants, singles). It’s where people who are uneconomic buyers of global-megacities but can’t afford the housing costs of global neighborhoods end up settling, and where the gentrification/displacement tension is felt most strongly.

Global neighborhoods in regional cities: There’s a spectrum of cities from global to regional/local — Seattle, Dallas/Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia are closer to global while Columbus and Indianapolis are closer to regional/local. This is the community category I’m most bullish on. It’s where the Whole Foods and the Apple store and the Lululemon is. It’s where Google will think about building an outpost, and where plucky underdog startup accelerators live. Where you can get real Mexican food, and solid Vietnamese. Where college grads who can’t fathom moving to SF or NY end up, at least for awhile. These are the suburbs/Sun Belt of the 21st century.

Local neighborhoods in regional cities: The new Rust Belt. Bad demographics. Not much immigration. Below average educational attainment. Car-centric, generic, old buildings/dilapidated infrastructure. Grim.

The choice facing global talent as rents rise in mega-cities and/or they approach family-rearing years is are the benefits of mega-cities worth the tradeoffs of high prices and/or long commutes/bad neighborhoods, or have global neighborhoods in regional cities created enough social and physical infrastructure to make the move?

More from csen:

• Global vs Local Neighborhoods, Global vs Regional Cities
• The Possibility of a GOP Rebound With 18-20 Year Olds
• Thoughts From the Road: Chattanooga, Knoxville, Lexington, Cincinnati, Columbus
• The Shift From Process to Values-Based Decision Making
• The Transition From a Risk Premium Reduction Market to a Growth Market

Jensen Comment
I think of more along the lines of climate change. The other night I read where Wichita Falls in Texas now is recycling sewage for drinking and is expected to run out of water completely in the next few years ---
http://www.texomashomepage.com/story/d/story/today-examines-wichita-falls-water-reuse-project/94121/yoyqBbNXj0u23WqEmndeHA

As climate change expectations in the south and west become realities I expect businesses, jobs, and people to follow the rainfall which favors the north and east according to predictions.

Maybe snow birds living in the north who seek a couple of months in the south will trade their motor homes in for water tanker trucks to get them through their winter visits to Texas, Arizona, and California. Rental rates will plunge as cities empty out of drought-ridden states.

One AECMer from New Mexico reports that wells are drying up where he lives.

The Bad Guys are Winning
"Symantec declares antivirus 'dead' as it focuses on damage control," by Jon Fingas, Engadget, May 6, 2014 ---
http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/06/symantec-declares-antivirus-dead/ 

Given how hard antivirus software makers push you to sign up, you'd think that business was booming. Far from it, according to Symantec's Brian Dye. He tells the Wall Street Journal that antivirus tools like his company's Norton suite are effectively "dead." The utilities now catch less than half of all attacks, according to the executive -- to him, the focus is on minimizing the damage whenever there's a successful hack or infection.

To that end, Symantec plans to sell both recovery services and threat briefings to corporate customers. In the long run, it should also have technology that finds malware trying to imitate other apps. However, the developer can't give up its original cash cow just yet. Antivirus packages like Norton still make up more than 40 percent of the company's revenue, and the new services won't safeguard your PC at home. You can still count on security software hanging around, then -- just be aware that you may need extra software (and a healthy dose of caution) to stay safe.

Jensen Comment
Most computer users have their favorites. My favorite is F-Secure. To my knowledge there is no optimal choice for home users.

Comparisons of Antivirus and AntiMalware Software --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_antivirus_software#Microsoft_Windows

The 50 Best Engineering Schools ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-best-engineering-schools-2014-4?op=1#!J9kOW

Jensen Comment
Not many surprises here although I was surprised to see Princeton ranked so much higher than the other Ivy League universities (except for Cornell). Notre Dame's business school stands out much higher among its peers than the Notre Dame engineering school (that barely made the Top 50).

May 7, 2014 message from Mohammad A. Raza

Here is an interesting BBC documentary on Dangerous Knowledge on mathematics, and other branches of science. Thought some of you might find it interesting, if you haven't already watched it.
http://watchdocumentary.org/watch/dangerous-knowledge-video_417b79d43.html 

Past, Present, and Future of Statistical Science ---
http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781482204964
The Editors:  Xihong Lin, Christian Genest, David L. Banks, Geert Molenberghs, David W. Scott, Jane-Ling Wang , 
Chapman and Hall/CRC Press
 2014.
643 Pages (free online, $80 hard copy)
http://nisla05.niss.org/copss/past-present-future-copss.pdf?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

The COPSS Presidents' Award is given annually by the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies^[1] to a person under the age of 40, in recognition of outstanding contributions to the profession of statistics. It is awarded by the five sponsoring statistical societies:

• The American Statistical Association (ASA)
• The Statistical Society of Canada (SSC)
• The Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS)
• The Eastern North American Region of the International Biometric Society (ENAR)
• The Western North American Region of the International Biometric Society (WNAR)

The presentation of the award takes place at the annual Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COPSS_Presidents%27_Award

Contributors = COPSS awardees

Theodore W. Anderson Stanford University Stanford, CA

James O. Berger Duke University Durham, NC

Peter J. Bickel University of California Berkeley, CA

Lynne Billard University of Georgia Athens, GA

Norman E. Breslow University of Washington Seattle, WA

David R. Brillinger University of California Berkeley, CA

Donna J. Brogan Emory University Atlanta, GA

Raymond J. Carroll Texas A&M University College Station, TX

Nilanjan Chatterjee National Cancer Institute Bethesda, MD

Herman Chernoff Harvard University Cambridge, MA

R. Dennis Cook University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN

Noel Cressie University of Wollongong Wollongong, NSW, Australia

Marie Davidian North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC

Arthur P. Dempster Harvard University Cambridge, MA

David B. Dunson Duke University Durham, NC

Bradley Efron Stanford University Stanford, CA

Jianquing Fan Princeton University Princeton, NJ

Stephen E. Fienberg Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA

Free Download --- http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781482204964

Table of Contents

The History of COPSS
A brief history of the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS) Ingram Olkin

 

Reminiscences and Personal Reflections on Career Paths
Reminiscences of the Columbia University Department of Mathematical Statistics in the late 1940s Ingram Olkin
A career in statistics Herman Chernoff
". . . how wonderful the field of statistics is . . ." David R. Brillinger
An unorthodox journey to statistics: Equity issues, remarks on multiplicity Juliet Popper Shaffer
Statistics before and after my COPSS Prize Peter J. Bickel
The accidental biostatistics professor Donna Brogan
Developing a passion for statistics Bruce G. Lindsay
Reflections on a statistical career and their implications R. Dennis Cook
Science mixes it up with statistics Kathryn Roeder
Lessons from a twisted career path Jeffrey S. Rosenthal
Promoting equity Mary Gray

 

Perspectives on the Field and Profession
Statistics in service to the nation Stephen E. Fienberg
Where are the majors? Iain M. Johnstone
We live in exciting times Peter Hall
The bright future of applied statistics Rafael A. Irizarry
The road travelled: From a statistician to a statistical scientist Nilanjan Chatterjee
Reflections on a journey into statistical genetics and genomics Xihong Lin
Reflections on women in statistics in Canada Mary E. Thompson
"The whole women thing" Nancy Reid
Reflections on diversity Louise Ryan

 

Reflections on the Discipline
Why does statistics have two theories? Donald A.S. Fraser
Conditioning is the issue James O. Berger
Statistical inference from a Dempster–Shafer perspective Arthur P. Dempster
Nonparametric Bayes David B. Dunson
How do we choose our default methods? Andrew Gelman
Serial correlation and Durbin–Watson bounds T.W. Anderson
A non-asymptotic walk in probability and statistics Pascal Massart
The past’s future is now: What will the present’s future bring? Lynne Billard
Lessons in biostatistics Norman E. Breslow
A vignette of discovery Nancy Flournoy
Statistics and public health research Ross L. Prentice
Statistics in a new era for finance and health care Tze Leung Lai
Meta-analyses: Heterogeneity can be a good thing Nan M. Laird
Good health: Statistical challenges in personalizing disease prevention Alice S. Whittemore
Buried treasures Michael A. Newton
Survey sampling: Past controversies, current orthodoxy, future paradigms Roderick J.A. Little
Environmental informatics: Uncertainty quantification in the environmental sciences Noel A. Cressie
A journey with statistical genetics Elizabeth Thompson
Targeted learning: From MLE to TMLE Mark van der Laan
Statistical model building, machine learning, and the ah-ha moment Grace Wahba
In praise of sparsity and convexity Robert J. Tibshirani
Features of Big Data and sparsest solution in high confidence set Jianqing Fan
Rise of the machines Larry A. Wasserman
A trio of inference problems that could win you a Nobel Prize in statistics (if you help fund it) Xiao-Li Meng

 

Advice for the Next Generation
Inspiration, aspiration, ambition C.F. Jeff Wu
Personal reflections on the COPSS Presidents’ Award Raymond J. Carroll
Publishing without perishing and other career advice Marie Davidian
Converting rejections into positive stimuli Donald B. Rubin
The importance of mentors Donald B. Rubin
Never ask for or give advice, make mistakes, accept mediocrity, enthuse Terry Speed
Thirteen rules Bradley Efron

Jensen Special Note
Chapter 33
"Statistics in a new era for finance and health care"
by Tze Leung Lai ,Department of Statistics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA

Special Subnote
33.4 Credit portfolios and dynamic empirical Bayes in finance

May 5, 2014 reply from David Johnstone

Dear Bob, the Bayesian approach to portfolio management in finance got a big plus out of the financial crisis, where it was made very evident that predicting future asset returns from no more than samples of historical returns, with no subjective allowance for where the future might differ from the past, was a recipe for losses. This comes down to the age old dispute between objectivist (classical) statistics and subjectivist (Bayesian) statistics, and as each year goes by the Bayesians win the argument (maybe mostly by the retirement of objectivists and the entry of young free thinkers).

Fama is an avowed Bayesian who credited LJ Savage (one of the great subjectivist Bayesians) with his commitment that way, but the industry took the objectivist strictly-data path. (Some real pros might have been more flexible, but there has long been a belief in the truth that comes of data). Bayesians would say that basing big decisions only on what we “know” objectively is dumb. The machinery of portfolio management is very advanced, but it’s a case of garbage in, garbage out. If you go the races with a great betting strategy but you put probabilities on the horses that don’t accurately represent their chances, then you won’t do well (apart from maybe beginner’s luck). No professional punter would rely on strictly historical results to judge these probabilities. The data would be of great interest, but so would a myriad of other things, many of which are extremely subjective and have no past occurrence.

Nonetheless, just because we might go all subjective and use Bayesian beliefs based on subjective priors and subjective likelihoods, we can still lose everything if we make poor subjective judgements. One of the very interesting parts of Bayesian theory to me is the part on probability scoring rules, which is designed to assess ex post which expert is actually any good at judging probabilities of future events. That’s a really interesting thing to know and test.

Thank you,
David

 

"It Sounds Like Microsoft Is Going To Announce A Mini Version Of The Surface Tablet,"  by Steve Kovach, Business Insider, May 5, 2014 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-sufrace-event-2014-5#ixzz30wZvyGFE

Jensen Comment
The mini Surface is a product I would never buy. For me, the current Surface would be too small if it were not for the ports that let you turn it into a full PC complete with a full keyboard, large monitor, Windows mouse, Windows 8.1, MS Office, and external hard drives. I just purchased a refurbished MS Surface RT for my wife for $250.

My expectation was that I would have to activate the "free" Windows 8.1, MS Office, and the many apps. But to my pleasant surprise all of this software was fully active when I turned on the tablet. I did have to connect to my wireless system, but that is a piece of cake as long as you remember the password to your wireless router. Window Internet Explorer was also installed. I had to install other browsers.

There are advantages of tablet computers along with huge drawbacks. One drawback of making them smaller and smaller is that the external ports become increasingly fragile and unstable. I've carelessly bent the wires out of several micro HDMI male adapters on my Kendall Fire. I've come to hate the word "micro."

Bob Jensen's New MS Surface RT compared with his Dell Laptop (Studio) and Kendall Fire

What I think you should purchase along with an MS Surface RT

• $10 USB Hub (mine connects the USB port to eight additional USB ports for a full-size keyboard, large monitor/TV, DVD player, and whatever.
• $25 full-size keyboard (I'm addicted to the $25 MS Ergonomic keyboard except when traveling)
• $12 standard PC Mouse with a UBS male connector. I bought the MS Surface mouse but that was a waste of money.
• $39 HDMI adapter plug for viewing the screen on a full-sized monitor
• $?? full-sized monitor
• All my "computers" including my big laptop, Kendall Fire, and MS Surface machines entail paying the price of an Internet connection that will simultaneously connect these devises and multiple television sets to cable. A technician installed my wireless system for $500 including parts and labor. Then I pay $159 per month for a high speed Time Warner cable service for my computers and television.
• $39 HDMI adapter plug for viewing the screen on a television set (mostly for videos)
• $?? television set with an HDMI port that connects to my MS Surface tablet, my Kendall Fire, or my Dell laptop.
• $40 external DVD player (optional) t
• $?? External hard drives (optional)
• $?? Portable screen projector (optional) for audience presentations such as PowerPoint or Camtasia Video presentations
• $?? External microphone (optional) to supplement the built-in microphone
• $?? External camera to supplement the built-in camera

What I'm saying is that the MS Surface RT (refurbished) that cost me $250 on Amazon is easily transformed into an inexpensive PC complete with built-in Windows (2.1 in my case) plus MS Office at no extra charge or installation hassle.  It's good-to-go for online email, browsing, and streaming video. Of course it's best if you have a home wireless router.

The MS Surface tablet has quite a lot of built in free apps that I've not bothered (yet) to use other than a great weather app.

I like the instant on and instant off feature --- at last!

For streaming video such as from NetFlix or Amazon Prime I prefer my Kendall Fire --- mostly because I don't have to unplug everything to connect to a television set.

As a book reader I prefer my Kendall Fire because it was designed to be a book reader and is easy to return to exactly where you left off in a downloaded book.  The Kendall screen is easier on my old eyes.

If I were traveling to make a presentation such as a PowerPoint presentation I would probably carry the MS Surface tablet and a portable screen projector where both items easily fit into my travel vest. I could also read email but would hate to write email if all I had was the built-in keyboard or the small keyboard that also serves as the cover to the MS Surface tablet. Hence, I would probably throw an old keyboard and mouse into my suitcase for use in a hotel room or in a meeting room. I would have to live with the small screen because I can't throw a monitor into the suitcase.

If I were traveling and wanted to do heavy production work on a book or paper I would probably carry my main Dell laptop, although it is so expensive I hate leaving it alone in a hotel room. I could use the MS Surface for production using a keyboard and mouse that I threw into a suitcase.

For heavy production work at home I prefer to use the Dell laptop that I also turn into a PC with a full ergonomic keyboard and large monitor. It has a built-in DVD player. I also use a $10 USB hub to plug in devices like multiple external hard drives.

The built-in Surface keyboard that is not much use except to type in movie titles or search words. he MS Tablet does have a physical keyboard on the inside of a screen cover that must be purchased extra. I did not bother purchasing this cover and keyboard. I prefer a full keyboard and the screen cover is not necessary.

Drawbacks of the MS Surface RT tablet

• There was no manual that came with the MS Surface machine. I had to go online with my laptop for help in setting up, although the setup is much easier than for a laptop computer. My Kendall Fire was the easiest to set up and came with a manual. A manual would be nice for a new Surface user who is totally unfamiliar with the network and computing in general --- like my wife.
• I hate the small screen, although this is problematic on any tablet or smartphone. I hate small screens. Fortunately the Surface has a port for exporting to a big monitor or even a television set (where text resolution is not very good relative to a monitor).
• The Surface has a very fragile port for electric power (from an adapter) and very fragile HDMI micro port. I hate such micro ports because the the male plug ins are so easily ruined. The power port is a magnetic thing that is easy to accidentally disconnect. The bottom line is that I hate all the fragile ports on the the MS Surface tablet --- except for the single USB port that is of standard size and connects solidly.
• An inexpensive $2 HDMI micro-male adapter worked wonderfully for my Kendall Fire. However, I had to buy two adapters from Microsoft at $39 each for the MS Surface --- one for a monitor female and one for a my HDMI television cable.
• The iPad has more apps than the MS Surface, but I'm not really into most apps. If I were buying a tablet for an autistic child, however, I would opt for the iPad. However, I was more interested in having a PC where my wife could learn how to type, write her poems and stories, and learn some MS Office software like MS Word and MS Excel. She also wanted Internet access for email, shopping, search, etc.
• I purchased a $200 MS Surface docking station when I purchased my $250 reconditioned MS Surface RT from Amazon. Belatedly I discovered that the newer and much thinner MS Surface that I bought does not plug into the MS Surface docking station designed for older Surface models. So I got my $200 refund --- refunds are always a piece of cake at Amazon. This was just as well, because everything I wanted in a $200 docking station can be had in a $10 port replicator that has even more USB ports.
• I have two laptops both on F-Secure anti-virus and anti-malware. F-Secure tells me that there is no F-Secure protection available for Windows RT tablet computers.

Conclusion 1
The bottom line is that the MS Surface RT functions both as a tablet and a cheap PC that will connect to all the traditional devices like a full keyboard, mouse, monitor, television, and microphone. It has a camera, but I'm not sure what I would use it for except to take pictures during a meeting or a presentation. I don't know that I will ever use the Surface's camera.

On second thought, the built-camera might function as a built-in document scanner. Maybe that would be useful in a library or while traveling. However, a digital camera is probably more convenient as a cameral scanner.

Conclusion 2
If it were just for me, I would buy a very expensive laptop for all my computing needs and a Kendall Fire for book reading and streaming video from NetFlix and Amazon Prime. I have no interest for myself in any tablet computer.

However, for Erika who does not yet even know how to type, the MS Surface is a very inexpensive table that also serves as a PC training machine with a full sized keyboard, mouse, and monitor. If and when she gets good enough at computing, I will move her up to a more expensive laptop. Given her many hobbies her heart is only slightly interested in computing. She usually overestimates how much time she will have for her planned projects.

Link to the Surface Users Guide ---
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1/#inbox/145dea6cc4d599a6

There are also a lot of MS Surface demos on YouTube.

Condoleezza Rice Pulls Out Of Rutgers Commencement Ceremony After (faculty) Protests ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/condoleezza-rice-rutgers-commencement-ceremony-2014-5#ixzz30k89vmRd
You have to squelch such things in the bud before she becomes a black female candidate for the Presidency of the USA

Commencement speakers must be politically correct in our biased institutions of higher education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#LiberalBias

"Gerontologists in Demand, but Degree Programs Languish," by Michael Anft, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 5, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Gerontologists-in-Demand-but/146387/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

"Two Carbon-Trapping Plants Offer Hope of Cleaner Coal: Coal power plants in Saskatchewan and Mississippi will produce fewer emissions, but rely on special circumstances," by Peter Fairley, MIT's Technology Review, May 5, 2014 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/527036/two-carbon-trapping-plants-offer-hope-of-cleaner-coal/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140505

Two of the world’s first coal-fired power plants with integrated carbon capture are nearing completion in Saskatchewan and Mississippi, providing a rare lift for a technology that has languished in recent years.

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) remains expensive, but the cost of stabilizing the climate could be much higher without it, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (see “The Cost of Limiting Climate Change Could Double without Carbon Capture Technology”). In a report last month, the IPCC noted that CCS is the only way to cut the carbon emissions of existing power plants, and that CCS-equipped power plants burning biomass could help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The IPCC says both strategies may be essential to limit global warming.

A 110-megawatt plant in Saskatchewan, a refurbished coal-fired generator, is set to restart in a matter of weeks with carbon capture added, according to Robert Watson, CEO for provincial power utility SaskPower.

Under Canadian regulations, the Boundary Dam power station can release no more than 420 tons of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour of power generation—the same as a state-of-the-art plant fired with natural gas. This is a tall order since the power station will burn lignite—the dirtiest form of coal. Yet SaskPower expects to release just 150 tons of carbon dioxide per day thanks to its new carbon dioxide scrubber, which will absorb and capture 90 percent of the carbon in the plant’s exhaust.

SaskPower could afford to build the $1.2 billion plant partly because lignite is so cheap, but also because Boundary Dam is adjacent to a lignite strip mine. Extra revenue will come from piping most of the 3,000 tons of carbon dioxide that the plant captures per day to Cenovus, a Calgary-based oil and gas firm. Leftover carbon dioxide will be stored in an aquifer 3.5 kilometers below the plant.

“If they couldn’t sell the CO2 for enhanced oil recovery, the project wouldn’t have been economic,” says Howard Herzog, an expert on carbon sequestration, and a senior research engineer with the MIT Energy Initiative.

SaskPower CEO Watson says that the cost of the power from Boundary Dam will be “comparable” to natural gas-fired generation providing the recent price increase in natural gas holds. He expects that natural gas prices will tend to rise over the next 30 years-plus that the Boundary Dam plant will operate.

The other coal plant with carbon capture, in Kemper, Mississippi, should start up later this year. Its owner, Mississippi Power, is counting on similar strategies to minimize operating costs. The plant is also adjacent to a lignite strip mine, and will boost revenues by selling its carbon dioxide to oilfield operators. The project also received $270 million from the U.S. Department of Energy.

However, at 565 megawatts, the Mississippi plant is five times bigger than the Saskatchewan plant, and it uses less conventional technology. It has also been far more controversial than the Boundary Dam project because it gasifies its coal, and because its price tag is now expected to be more than double Mississippi Power’s original projection of $2.4 billion.

The Mississippi plant uses a proprietary gasifier designed by Southern Company and Houston-based engineering firm KBR to turn lignite into a mix of carbon dioxide and hydrogen. The firms have also licensed the design for use in China (see “Cleaning Up on Dirty Coal”). Another novel component is the plant’s carbon dioxide capture system, which will remove 65 percent of the carbon dioxide from its gas mix prior to firing the turbines. The carbon dioxide will be captured at the same time that the plant captures its sulfur dioxide, using the same solvent scrubber that conventional coal plants use to remove sulfur dioxide.

Despite the controversy, experts are not greatly concerned by the cost overruns. “The costs of a first-of-a-kind plant are always going to be higher than the cost of your nth plant,” says Sarah Forbes, a senior associate at the World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C.

Herzog agrees: “Kemper was a real first of a kind. You’ve got a lot of first-mover costs in there, and people tend to underestimate first mover costs drastically. By the time you do it half a dozen times, you’re knocking out a lot of cost.”

Continued in article

"16-Year-Old Student Receives College Degree Before Graduating High School," by Peter Jacobs, Business Insider, May 2, 2014 --- 
http://www.businessinsider.com/student-receives-college-degree-before-graduating-high-school-2014-5#ixzz30kC1J2Cy

Grace Bush, a 16-year-old student, is set to graduate from both high school and college this week — but not in the order you may think.

The high school senior received her college diploma today during Florida Atlantic University's graduation ceremony and will graduate from FAU High next Friday, a week later, the Sun-Sentinel reports.

"I know that sounds weird, but just by nature of it, college graduations are sooner than high school graduations," FAU High Principal Tammy Ferguson told the Sun-Sentinel.

Bush earned college credit from Florida Atlantic University while a student at FAU High, which allows students to take college courses for free as part of the state's dual enrollment programs.

Continued in article

"UCLA Professor Blows Whistle on Illegal Admissions Practices at University," by Larry Elder, Townhall, May 8, 2014 ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2014/05/08/ucla-professor-blows-whistle-on-illegal-admissions-practices-at-university-n1835037?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Jensen Comment
The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision does not ban affirmative action. It simply affirmed the right of the individual states to ban affirmative action should they choose to do so. California is one such state that bans affirmative action. UCLA has a very low percentage of African Americans relative to the other state-supported universities in the USA. Asians dominate some California universities.

Question
Are the nation's twelfth-graders making progress in mathematics and reading?

Hint
Have a box of tissues at your side when reading the report below.

2013 Grade 12 Reading and Mathematics Results, The Nation's Report Card ---
http://nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_g12_2013/#/

Jensen Comment
The slight progress made early in the 21st Century seems to have stalled and in some cases slipped back. The outcomes vary a lot by state and race, but no state in the USA is doing extremely well relative to most developed nations around the globe. Results will probably get worse since teachers unions have succeeded in not requiring standardized achievement tests in some cities and states. For example, NYC is no longer requiring achievement tests for grade promotion. The roughly 9,000 students who are typically held back in NYC schools will be reduced significantly suggesting that more NYC students will be sent on to the next grade ready or not.

There are some positive signs among eight graders, but there's very little positive about twelfth grader reading and arithmetic across the entire USA. On the positive side there were fewer K-12 dropouts last year across the USA. Perhaps that's one of the reasons the reasons achievement test performance declined --- more students stayed in school and graduated, thereby drawing the reading and math performance scores downward for twelfth graders.

Top athletes who can't read get preferential treatment in being admitted to some NCAA Division 1 universities that don't think reading and arithmetic are such big deals --- at least not for varsity athletes.

In the world of genetics there's a lot to be said in favor of diversity

Question
Are Kentucky Derby winners being bred to run faster making records fall in recent years?

Hint
Hint:  California Chrome finished the 1 1/4 miles (2,000 meters) in 2:03.66 minutes in the 2014 Kentucky Derby
Who won this Derby in with a record time of 1:59.40 minutes? When?

Answer
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/thoroughbreds-are-running-as-fast-as-they-can/

60 Massive Open Online Courses Getting Started in May 2014: Enroll in a MOOC Today ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/60-moocs-getting-started-in-may.html

Introduction to Statistical Thinking (With R, Without Calculus) --- http://pluto.huji.ac.il/~msby/StatThink/IntroStat.pdf
StatsTeachR --- http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kE1jZcJhBgM/U1vQwFH-ZVI/AAAAAAAACX8/ca6nLTAtP8U/s1600/Capture.GIF
Econometrician David Giles claims this is a great resource --- http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2014/04/great-resource-for-teaching-statistics.html

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

"Harvard Faculty Members Approve College’s First Honor Code," by Nick DeSantis, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 7, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/jp/harvard-faculty-members-approve-colleges-first-honor-code?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Jensen Comment
Honor codes in the USA are not what they used to be --- when students were honor-bound to report other students whom they detected cheating. The tort lawyers pretty well ended that clause in university honor codes.

Harvard recently expelled over 60 students for cheating in a political science course. The odd thing is that if students did the work they were all promised A grades for the course (not uncommon at Harvard). But this raises a question of why to bother sweating over assignments if you're promised a top grade. Over 120 plagiarized, although some of the plagiarists were not expelled. It remains a question whether such plagiarism would have taken place with an Honor Code at Harvard.

My guess is that the Honor Code is less important to students than the demonstrated willingness of Harvard University to expel students for cheating, including two members of the varsity basketball team.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On campus Friday afternoon, students reacted to the news.

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

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

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

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

Continued in article

Huge Cheating Scandals at the University of Virginia, Harvard, Ohio, Duke, Cambridge, and Other Universities  ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#UVA

Discover 100 Great Works of Art with Videos Created by Khan Academy & Google Art Project ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/100-great-works-of-art-with-videos-created-by-khan-academy.html

"Desperate for work, college grads become nannies Parents have more options as overeducated young people turn to baby-sitting," by Samantha Melamed, Of The Philadelphia Inquire,The Morning Call, May 4, 2014 --- 
http://www.mcall.com/news/mc-phila-nannies-20140503,0,4716071.story#ixzz30kRMFHMm

Ashley Newhall of Philadelphia has a law degree and a master's in agricultural law, and she passed the bar in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. These days, she's working with some extremely demanding and exacting clients.

Most of them are less than 3 years old. Newhall's primary income source for the past few years has been baby-sitting.

Parents, said Newhall, are "blown away. They're like, 'Oh my gosh! You're the most overeducated nanny I've ever had.' "

Topics Philadelphia (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) Central Bank Montgomery County (Pennsylvania) See more topics »

But jobs are scarce, and all that education came with six-figure debt for Newhall, 28. Along with two other jobs, she said, "the nannying is keeping me afloat."

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/news/mc-phila-nannies-20140503,0,4716071.story#ixzz30kRjJFHu Follow us: @mcall on Twitter | mcall.lv on Facebook

Newhall may consider her stint in the nursery a detour. But for busy parents, it's a boon. Parents are enjoying a pool of highly qualified and educated 20-something sitters — some with safety certifications and degrees in early-childhood education — often at the same price as the high-schooler down the street.

"You'd think, if they have more education, they'll bring more to the table and honestly they do," said Rachel Kerner, a physician and mother of two toddlers who lives in Melrose Park, Montgomery County. "We have a person who finished her degree in education, so she's able to do projects with the kids. We have an occupational-therapy student and a social worker — and they're all bringing added benefits, so it's not just a teenager sitting there waiting for her boyfriend to come over with the pizza."

According a recent report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, underemployment among college graduates has risen significantly since 2001. Last year, 18.3 percent of young college grads were underemployed.

"The labor market's growing very slowly, and there's been a number of graduating classes since the recession began, so the competition is pretty fierce," said Mark Price, labor economist at the Keystone Research Center.

College graduates fare better than those with less education, Price said, "but their circumstances as a group are worse today than where their counterparts were a decade ago."

As of 2012, half the employed college grads younger than 25 held jobs that didn't require four-year degrees, according to an analysis by a Northeastern University economist.

The flooded market benefits parents like Kerner and her husband, Jeff Cawthorne because teenage baby sitters they might depend on otherwise are often overscheduled and inaccessible.

"The one kid who lives down the street, he's in a play, he's got karate. He doesn't have a lot of free time. But the people who are underemployed and living with their parents, they're readily available," Cawthorne said.

A number of those reluctant nannies are aspiring (or laid-off) teachers. In Pennsylvania, for example, steep education budget cuts and layoffs beginning in 2011 "made for a very bleak labor market for instructors," Price said.

Asia IrgangLaden, 24, of Elkins Park, Montgomery County, can attest to that.

"From what I've seen, it takes everybody about a year to get a full-time teaching job," she said. She got her degree in special and elementary education from Temple University in 2012 and last fall landed a job as a support teacher. She hopes that will lead to her own classroom.

In the imeanttime, she fell back on a job she'd first held at age 14.

"A lot of my friends are babysitting," she said. "It feels like a natural thing to do if you're going into a teaching position."

So parents are getting trained educators for the price of a baby sitter. Some are willing to be nannies until a better job comes along; others are doing it until they enter graduate school.

"Late 2009 to 2010, I started getting overly qualified young women applying for the job and I was thrown for a loop," said Suzette Trimmer, who has run a Philadelphia nanny agency called Your Other Hands for 18 years.

The supply is actually fueling a demand for more educated nannies, said Wendy Sachs, who runs the Philadelphia Nanny Network.

"Being a nanny has gained a tremendous amount in terms of professional prestige and respect," Sachs said. "The compensation packages reflect that ... with paid holidays, paid sick [leave], and personal time and health care."

Miles Butler, 23, a friend from IrgangLaden's Elkins Park neighborhood, said he was drawn to the flexibility baby-sitting offers and is considering a full-time nannying job.

"Financially, it makes sense," he said, adding that he likes reconnecting with what it's like to be a kid. With first aid and CPR certifications, he makes double the minimum wage.

Continued in article

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

"Students Prefer Smartphones and Laptops to Tablets, Study Finds," by Danya Perez-Hernandez , Chronicle of Higher Education, April 25, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/students-prefer-smartphones-and-laptops-to-tablets-study-finds/51999?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Jensen Comment
I just ordered a MS Surface tablet as a birthday present for Erika. In computing she's not yet embarked on a learning curve. I ordered a $250 refurbished model from Amazon that has MS Office. The docking station that turns it into a PC also cost $250. The computer should arrive today. I will let you know later on how we like this Surface "tablet."

I figure this is enough for her as a starter computer that she will use mostly for online shopping and writing her life story beginning with when she was smuggled, at age five, into Germany after the Communists took their Czech farm with guns loaded and pointed  --- first she has to learn how to type. The docking station lets her have a traditional keyboard and monitor.

My guess is that she will still prefer shopping via 1-800. She's a charter member of the QVC Hall of Fame --- in part because we have 12 grandchildren spread out from Maine to California. The head of the Franconia Post Office, Annie, claims that Erika is the only reason her Post Office was not closed in the latest round of closings.

MS Surface "Tablet" --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Surface

"South Carolina State U. Is Said to Be a Month Away From ‘Financial Disaster’," by Vincent DeFrancesco, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 25, 2014 --- http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/jp/south-carolina-state-u-is-said-to-be-a-month-away-from-financial-disaster?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Jensen Comment
My good friend John Bacon, owner of the Bacon Printing Company, in Bangor, Maine used to tell me that you don't know what stress is when you have to meet a payroll and don't know where the money is going to come from.

I noticed in my version of the Hasselback Directory that South Carolina State only lists three accounting faculty in the Department of Accounting and MIS, two of which are assistant professors with a JD and an MBA respectively.

"Race Gap Narrows in College Enrollment, But Not in Graduation," by Ben Casselman, Nate Silver's 5:38," April 30, 2014 ---
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/race-gap-narrows-in-college-enrollment-but-not-in-graduation/

"Georgia Tech Professor Resigns After Allegedly Bilking Students," by Charles Huckabee, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 6, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/jp/georgia-tech-professor-resigns-after-allegedly-bilking-students?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Jensen Comment
This is an egregious extension of what is some times a problem when teachers maintain their own commercial Websites related to their courses or require their own textbooks in courses. One of my textbook author friends donated the profits of his courses as a contribution (of course a tax-deductible contribution to offset his incremental income taxation) to our department. Some might argue that that he was still bilking students. His argument was that they would have to pay for the textbooks even if he required a competitor's textbook.

Returning the profits to students can get messy like any other cash dealings with students.

Then there's the related problem of student labor. A professor might assign case writing to teams of students. Some of these cases might then be used, possibly with proper attribution, in his commercial casebook or commercial Website where he keeps all the profits or royalties. All good accountants know that attributing the profit of an entire case book with 40 cases to three of the cases written by students is possibly very complicated and controversial.

Life is often not as simple as we would like.

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

Question
What do electricity power plants and data centers have in common?

"Why Data Centers Are Popping Up In Iowa," by Jodi Mardesich, ReadWriteWeb, April 29, 2014 ---
http://readwrite.com/2014/04/29/facebook-data-center-iowa#awesm=~oCVkLhQ9sHeJNg

So why not in the green forests of New Hampshire?
Probably the reason is that Iowa also has tech workers whereas New Hampshire mostly has dumb trees.

Sometimes There is a Correction for Injustice
Montana Supreme Court Overturns Ex-Teacher's 30-Day Rape Sentence ---
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/04/30/308346883/montana-supreme-court-overturns-ex-teachers-30-day-rape-sentence

"The Soul of the Research University," by Nicholas Lemann, Chronicle of Higher Education's Chronicle Review, April 28, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Soul-of-the-Research/146155/

Jensen Comment
This is a pretty good summary of the history of research universities, although it should have given more attention to what, arguably, was the first university in history --- Humboldt-Universität in Berlin ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_University_of_Berlin
One year the European Accounting Association held its annual meeting at Humboldt University not too long after the Iron Curtain was torn down. It was easier to travel into East Berlin. Humboldt lays claim to being the world's first true university. For me it was like a step back in time with facilities largely unchanged from the 1800s.

One of the things I remember most about that trip was the construction noise all night long outside our hotel and the loud Russian voices. We laughed when thinking how the Russians destroyed Berlin at the end of WWII and later rebuilt it --- I think the reason for all the Russian construction workers is that they worked much cheaper than the Germans.

Older European "universities" like Oxford historically were really only collections of colleges that lacked the interactions, science,  and integrative curricula of universities as defined today ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University#Medieval_universities

"Jobs for Humanities Majors?" Accuracy in Academia, April 25, 2014 ---
http://www.academia.org/jobs-for-humanities-majors/

. . .

“Upon graduating from college, those who majored in the humanities and social science made, on average, $26,271 in 2010 and 2011, slightly more than those in science and mathematics but less than those in engineering and in professional and pre-professional fields,” Vartan Gregorian writes in the Carnegie Reporter. “However, by their peak earning age of 56 to 60, these individuals earned $66,185, putting them about $2,000 ahead of professional and pre-professional majors in the same age bracket.“

Jensen Questions
Top undergraduate humanities majors typically go into professions later on such as those that go to law schools and become attorneys and those that obtain MBA degrees from prestigious universities and become business executives. Is it surprising that graduates of prestigious law schools and MBA programs become highly paid professionals? In such instances undergraduate and graduate degrees are confounded making it impossible to attribute cause to one of the two diplomas. In other words, correlation is not causation.

Humanities majors that get into prestigious law schools and MBA programs are cream of the crop humanities majors. Among professional majors such as undergraduate business majors the entire spectrum may from high to low grade averages may be in the business professions. My point is that the comparisons may be between top humanities majors with low-to-high business majors.

The $66,185 average at age 55-60 is below the starting salaries of most engineers and close to the starting salaries of new hires in public accounting firms. It is not as impressive to claim success if humanities majors after 30 years on the job are doing not much better than the starting employees in some of the higher paying professions such as engineering, accounting, and computer science graduates.

My point is not to put down the total value of being a humanities major. However, I think there are some quirks in the data that need to be investigated by professionals before putting too much faith in questionable conclusions.

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

"Coursera Seeks to Create a ‘Global Translator Community’," Chronicle of Higher Education, April 29, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/coursera-seeks-to-create-a-global-translator-community/52129?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Last year Coursera announced partnerships with international organizations to expand the number of its massive open online courses available in foreign languages. Now the for-profit MOOC provider is going a step further by establishing a Global Translator Community in which individuals will volunteer to help translate lectures.

Coursera says it hopes not only to “make more content more available in more languages” but also to create a close-knit community of translators who will be recognized for their work, according to a news release. Volunteers will help with subtitle translations for the lectures.

The company now offers courses with subtitle translations in 13 foreign languages, with Chinese, French, and Spanish among the most popular. The company says only 40 percent of the people who take its courses live in English-speaking countries.

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

What's the difference between a tweet and the sheeet?

Twitter Shares Tank To All-Time Lows --- http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-falls-toward-all-time-lows-2014-4

"Whistle-Blower Suit Against Education Management Corp. to Proceed," by Charles Huckabee, Chronicle of Higher Education, May 7, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/whistle-blower-suit-against-education-management-corp-can-proceed-judge-says/77179?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

"2 Houston Professors Charged With Lying to Get Grants," Inside Higher Ed, April 29, 2014 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/04/29/2-houston-professors-charged-lying-get-grants#sthash.GRY8YqLl.dpbs

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

States with the Most Drunk Driving ---
http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/04/25/states-with-the-most-drunk-driving/?utm_source=247WallStDailyNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=APR282014A&utm_campaign=DailyNewsletter

Jensen Comment
It's hard to make much sense of this data. I think that perhaps the analysts left out the most important variable --- the length of jail time convictions for repeat offenders who did not cause death or injury.  When I went to Finland several times I learned that nobody drinks and drives because even the first conviction carries an automatic one year in the jail.

When I lived in Texas 24 years DUI convictions were a sick joke. Judges are elected and judges need lots of campaign money to get elected. Hence, there's a serious body of lawyers that "own" their judges. A DUI defense lawyer can usually get a DUI arrest transferred to the court of one of "his judges." There were some judges who openly defied bad publicity. I recall one judge that had thousands of DUI cases tried and none that resulted in convictions according to the leading San Antonio newspapers. The DUI cases that result in convictions are due to not hiring the "politically correct" lawyer who owned some judges.

One of my colleagues at Trinity University did not drink but he loved to speed on the open road and had a terrible record of speeding tickets to a point that he kept his lawyer on retainer just for the speeding tickets.

In Dimmit County the one elected judge was not even a lawyer. It became known, as reported in the San Antonio Express News, that he never had jury trials because he did not understand jury trials. It became a scandal how any person having a DUI arrest could request a jury trial so his case would never go to trial.

When I lived in Maine, DUI arrests were more serious. I think you are less likely to encounter a drunk driver in Maine than in Texas, because Maine is more serious about DUI convictions. I've not heard much about DUI convictions in New Hampshire, but I don't think NH is as tough as Maine.

"College Degrees Aren't Becoming More Valuable -- Their Glut Confines People Without Them To A Shrinking, Low-Pay Sector Of The Market," by George Leef, Forbes, April 22, 2014 ---
http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeleef/2014/04/21/college-degrees-arent-becoming-more-valuable-their-glut-confines-people-without-them-to-a-shrinking-low-pay-sector-of-the-market/

Every time a new study comes out regarding the “payoff” from college, I wonder: Will this finally be the one that takes note of widespread underemployment among recent grads and comprehends the impact of credential inflation?

In February, Pew Research released a study on the effects of college but the instant I saw the title, I was sure that this would not be one that broke out of the usual “college is a great investment” model. That study, “The Rising Cost of Not Going to College,” actually moves further in the wrong direction by telling people that those who don’t go to college are penalizing themselves.

The many “college is a great investment” papers present statistics showing that, on average, individuals who have college educations earn more than do people without them. They left the conclusion, “If you aren’t planning on college, you really should,” implicit.

Pew, however, makes that explicit. “If you don’t go to college, you’ll lose out big time” is the message it sends.

What makes that message particularly distressing is the fact that more and more young Americans who have their college degrees are unable to find jobs they couldn’t have gotten straight out of high school—or maybe even while still in high school. They’re often struggling with large college debts. And yet this study tells them that going to college is more important than ever.

Pew proclaims that its research is “non-partisan and non-advocacy” but they don’t say that it’s “non-misleading.” This study is very misleading and if young Americans take it seriously, many will go to college just because they think that not going would be a self-inflicted penalty.

The paper declares, “As college costs have increased in recent decades, so, too, have many of the economic rewards for getting a four-year degree as well as the penalties for not doing so….”

But is it true that the rewards for college have increased? And is it true that Americans who don’t attend college suffer a financial penalty?

Because Pew is highly respected, it is worth some time to closely examine its data and conclusions.

The most important data in the paper are in a chart showing a widening gap over time between full-time workers who have a 4-year degree or higher, those who have a two-year degree or “some college,” and those who are high school graduates. Looking back to 1965, the difference was comparatively small: college graduates earned on average $38,833, the middle group earned on average $33,655, and high school graduates earned on average $31, 384.

By 2013, the inflation-adjusted figures were: $45,500, $30,000, and $28,000. Average earnings for college grads are way up, but they’re down for people who did not earn 4-year degrees or go to college at all. At a glance, those figures certainly appear to justify the conclusions that getting that bachelors degree is an excellent investment and that young Americans who don’t do so are seriously penalizing themselves.

Paraphrasing Hamlet, “Get thee to a college!”

But before everyone who doesn’t have a college degree hurries to apply (or if still in high school, take the SAT or ACT as the prelude to applying), let’s inject a cautionary note. Going to college guarantees you a lot of expense, both in money spent and time that could have been used differently), but it does not guarantee you a job that pays well enough to cover your costs. In truth, it doesn’t guarantee you any sort of job.

Reading through the report, you find no evidence of the fact that large numbers of college graduates can only find employment in jobs paying the minimum wage. Currently, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, 260,000 people with college or even professional degrees are so employed. Moreover, the percentage of college graduates who work in jobs that don’t require any advanced academic preparation (the “mal-employed”) has been rising for years, and now stands at 36 percent. If college degrees are becoming more valuable, why are so many graduates either unemployed or employed at low-paying jobs?

Those facts clash with the report’s encouragement for anyone who does not have a college degree to enroll and try to earn one. They comprise the elephant in the room that Pew can’t see.

The report’s only hint that college isn’t proving to be as beneficial now as it previously was is its finding that only 62 percent of the “Millennials” agree that their college experience “has paid off” compared with 84 percent of the “Generation Xers” and 89 percent of the “Boomers.” Conversely, the percentage who say that college was not beneficial is growing. Among “Boomers” it was only 8 percent, but among   “Millennials” is has reached 12 percent.

Unfortunately, the authors never ponder this paradox: How can it be that college education is getting more and more valuable in financial rewards when there is abundant evidence that many students learn little while in college?

In their book Academically Adrift, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa quantified what numerous professors have said for years—students can pass many college courses with minimal effort owing to falling academic standards and the erosion of the curriculum. Falling academic standards and declining learning by students seems clearly inconsistent with the notion that degrees are becoming increasingly beneficial.

The solution to the paradox is that the gap is widening because credential inflation is steadily wiping out good careers for people who don’t have college degrees.

Look back at the oldest of the data. In the mid-60s, prior to the great push to increase the number of people going to college with federal student aid, the average earnings gap was quite small. Up until that time, very few good careers were foreclosed to Americans who didn’t have college credentials. For reasons of professional licensure, some fields required college degrees—law and medicine for example—but otherwise young people who had good high school educations could get into entry level jobs in finance, insurance, manufacturing, hospitality, and most other businesses.

After the government started vigorously promoting “access” to college, however, something changed in the labor market: credential inflation. Employers, facing a market in which more and more job applicants had college credentials, began to screen out those who didn’t. (One reason for that was the Supreme Court’s 1971 ruling in Griggs v. Duke Power, the subject of this Pope Center paper. That decision made aptitude testing legally dangerous for employers, so they increasingly turned to using college credentials as a proxy.)

Professors James Engell and Anthony Dangerfield noted this trend in their 2005 book Saving Higher Education in the Age of Money, writing, “(T)he United States has become the most rigidly credentialized society in the world. A B.A. is required for jobs that by no stretch of imagination need two years of full-time training, let alone four.”

Therefore, the explanation for the gap between the average earnings of college graduates and people with lower educational levels, as well as the paradox regarding the decline in learning, is that the latter group is increasingly confined to the lowest-paying jobs sectors by our mania for college credentials.

Evidence that this trend is still going strong is found in this report, which notes that “27 percent of employers say their educational requirements for employment have increased over the last five years and 30 percent are hiring more college-educated workers for positions that were previously held by high school graduates.”

Continued in article

Many colleges are making the SAT optional for the admissions file. This author wants to ban SAT scores from the file completely.
"Why Your College Should Dump the SAT," Chronicle of Higher Education, April 28, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Your-College-Should-Dump/146209/?cid=wb&utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en

. . .

For Washington State University and our admissions process, the revamp of the SAT means little. The "Defining Promise" study, though, does mean something. We hope to eliminate the use of standardized tests in the admissions process, but that will take legislative action; the state still requires that we collect the scores of all applicants whether we use them or not. And this summer, we will take a hard look at our scholarship programs and very likely will eliminate the SAT requirement for many of our general freshman scholarships.

After all, as a land-grant institution with a rapidly growing proportion of diverse and first-generation students, we are committed to access and to defining ourselves on how inclusive we can be, not how exclusive we are. It is time we say a prayer, throw dirt on the grave, and bury the SAT

Jensen Comment
Below is the comment that I sent to the Chronicle that was posted beneath this article.

What is overlooked in this article is how predictive the SAT is on the tails of the distribution. Those Phi Beta Kappa graduates most likely had high SAT scores or would have had high SAT scores if they had taken the SAT. It seems quite unlikely that the lowest SAT admissions had great academic performance, especially in the more difficult majors like math, engineering, and science. The predictive ability of the SAT outlier scores is lost by the the range between the first or second standard deviations.

Another thing that's overlooked in this article is how the SAT helps some students get a chance. Males in particular are late bloomers who often did poorly in nearly all of high school, especially those that matured some in military service. If you bury the SAT completely in making admission decisions you are overlooking those really good prospects with low grade averages. We can all point to low high school gpa students with high SAT scores that really turned things around in college because they had superior intellectual ability that needed to be melded with maturation.

I see no advantage in burying the SAT completely. It is just a statistic, along with other statistics, that should not be banned from a student applicant's profile.

I was at a university that was having some enrollment declines that were corrected by lowering the bar on the SAT scores. Many professors complained that they could tell the bar had been lowered. When the bar was raised once more things got better. This was, however, and expensive university that did not get many minority applicants except for those high SAT performers who got generous scholarships.

Bob Jensen aka rjensen65

Which Law Schools Are Shedding Their Full-Time Faculty? ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2014/04/which-law-schools.html

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

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

Søren Kierkegaard --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kierkegaard

"Kierkegaard on Our Greatest Source of Unhappiness," by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, May 5, 2014 ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/05/05/kierkegaard-on-presence-unhappiness/

. . .

In a latter chapter, titled “The Unhappiest Man,” he returns to the subject and its deeper dimension:

The unhappy person is one who has his ideal, the content of his life, the fullness of his consciousness, the essence of his being, in some manner outside of himself. The unhappy man is always absent from himself, never present to himself. But one can be absent, obviously, either in the past or in the future. This adequately circumscribes the entire territory of the unhappy consciousness.

He considers how the very architecture of our language perpetuates our proclivity for absence:

The unhappy one is absent. But one is absent when living in the past or living in the future. The form of expression is important, for it is evident, as philology also teaches us, that there is a tense that expresses present in the past, and a tense that expresses presence in the future; but the same science also teaches us that there is a pluperfect tense in which there is no present, as well as a future perfect tense with the same characteristics. These are the hoping and remembering individuals. Inasmuch as they are only hoping or only remembering, these are indeed in a sense unhappy individuals, if otherwise it is only the person who is present to himself that is happy. However, one cannot strictly call an individual unhappy who is present in hope or in memory. For what one must note here is that he is still present to himself in one of these. From which we also see that a single blow, be it ever so heavy, cannot make a person the unhappiest. For one blow can either deprive him of hope, still leaving him present in memory, or of memory, leaving him present in hope.

. . .

Kierkegaard goes on to explore these two key forms of escapism from presence, via hope and via memory:

Consider first the hoping individual. When, as a hoping individual (and of course to that extent unhappy), he is not present to himself, he becomes unhappy in a stricter sense. An individual who hopes for an eternal life is, indeed, in a certain sense an unhappy individual to the extent that he renounces the present, but nevertheless is strictly not unhappy, because he is present to himself in the hope and does not come in conflict with the particular moments of finitude. But if he cannot become present to himself in hope, but loses his hope, hopes again, and so on, then he is absent from himself not just in the present but also in the future, and we have a type of the unhappy. Though the hoping individual does not hope for something that has no reality for him, he hopes for something he himself knows cannot be realized. For when an individual loses hope, and instead of becoming a remembering individual, wants to remain a hoping one, then we get this form.

Similarly if we consider the remembering individual. If he finds himself present in the past, strictly he is not unhappy; but if he cannot do that but remains constantly absent from himself in a past, then we have a form of the unhappy.

Memory is pre-eminently the real element of the unhappy, as is natural seeing the past has the remarkable characteristic that it is gone, the future that it is yet to come; and one can therefore say in a sense that the future is nearer the present than is the past. That future, for the hoping individual to be present in it must be real, or rather must acquire reality for him. The past, for the remembering individual to be present in it, must have had reality for him. But when the hoping individual would have a future which can have no reality for him, or the remembering individual remember a past which had had no reality for him, then we have the genuinely unhappy individuals. Unhappy individuals who hope never have the same pain as those who remember. Hoping individuals always have a more gratifying disappointment. The unhappiest one will always, therefore, be found among the unhappy rememberers.

For a potent antidote, pair this with Alan Watts on how to live with presence and Anna Quindlen on how to live rather than exist, then see Albert Camus on happiness, unhappiness, and our self-imposed prisons.

Either/Or is a consciousness-expanding read in its entirety. Complement it with Kierkegaard on the relationship between creativity and anxiety.

From the Scout Report on April 27, 2014

Unseen --- https://unseen.is 

What is Unseen, you ask? This free service "provides privacy and security for messaging, email and calling." The free version allows visitors to perform group audio calls, share files, and create encrypted emails. First-time users should check out the FAQ section for additional details on how Unseen functions and the reason for its recent move to Iceland. This version is compatible with all operating systems.

---

Cite This For Me --- http://www.citethisforme.com/ 

Interested in crafting your own bibliography? It's quite easy with this fantastic website, Cite This For Me. Visitors can take advantage of a user-friendly interference to insert their own citations from books, journal articles, websites, and more. Also, visitors can login to create their own account so past bibliographies can be saved. Visitors can even toggle between citation styles and view sample bibliographies. This version is compatible with all operating systems

---

Celebrating Shakespeare's 450th birthday
Is Today Shakespeare's 450th Birthday? Maybe
http://time.com/73579/shakespeare-450-birthday-april-23/

Shakespeare's Birthday
http://www.shakespearesbirthday.org.uk/

William Shakespeare's 450th birthday: 50 everyday phrases that came from
the Bard
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/william-shakespeares-450th-birthday-50-everyday-phrases-that-came-from-the-bard-9275254.html

How to talk like Shakespeare on his 450th birthday
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/parenting/chi-celebrate-shakespeare-birthday,0,2679515.story

45 Hamlets for Shakespeare's 450th birthday - in pictures
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/gallery/2014/apr/23/45-hamlets-shakespeares-450th-birthday-in-pictures

Folger Shakespeare Library
http://www.folger.edu/index.cfm

From the Scout Report on May 2, 2014

Tackk --- https://tackk.com/ 

Interested in creating a basic site to share content online? Tackk can make this dream come true. Using a graphic user interface that allows for click and drag style additions and deletions, visitors can pick a color palette, move around borders, pick fonts, and much more. The site contains a helpful FAQ section and tutorial making it fairly easy to get started. Users can create a site that will last a week without registering, however registering will garner privileges to create a site that will last a year. This version is compatible with all operating systems.

---

Torpedo --- https://usetorpedo.com/ 

Torpedo is a short-term file sharing program that allows visitors to share files, passwords and more. Visitors just need to download the app to get started. After this, files can be dragged to the menu bar and Torpedo will create a link that can be shared with others. The free version allows visitors to send files up to 35MB. Users should note that this version requires Mac OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 and newer.

---

A renaissance in public space flourishes around the world
The World's Best Public Spaces
http://www.dwell.com/map/worlds-best-public-spaces

New public spaces for Bristol
http://www.bristol-culture.com/2014/04/25/public-spaces/

The Visibility of a City: The Rebirth of Public Space in a Private Time
http://www.bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/BRS.cgi?section=article&issue=issue0BLOG&article=2014-03-30-031958381163402130&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BigRedShiny+(Big+Red+%26+Shiny)

Landscape architecture: An indelible effect on public spaces
http://www.sddt.com/News/article.cfm?SourceCode=20140428crf&_t=Landscape+architecture+An+indelible+effect+on+public+spaces

Living Innovation Zones
http://liz.innovatesf.com/

Project for Public Spaces
http://www.pps.org

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

Education Tutorials

MakeUseOf (technology tips_ --- http://www.makeuseof.com/

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

Folger Digital Texts (all things Shakespeare for the K-12 crowd) ---  http://www.folgerdigitaltexts.org/

Humanities: The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities --- http://www.neh.gov/humanities

EdCommunity ESRI (geography and maps) --- http://edcommunity.esri.com/

British Library Labs --- http://labs.bl.uk/

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

Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials

Carl Sagan Writes a Letter to 17-Year-Old Neil deGrasse Tyson (1975) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/04/carl-sagan-writes-a-letter-to-17-year-old-neil-degrasse-tyson-1975.html

JCE Chemical Education Xchange --- http://www.jce.divched.org/video

Researchers Have Solved The Mystery Of How The Egyptians Made The Pyramids ---
http://www.businessinsider.com#ixzz30elnutDS

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

Japan's Youngsters Aren't Having Enough Sex --- http://www.businessinsider.com/japans-youth-suffer-from-celibacy-syndrome-2014-5#!HDXcP
Crowding also affects animal sexual behavior --- http://ec.europa.eu/food/animal/welfare/international/out67_en.pdf
Crowding also affects behavior in microbiology --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowding_effect

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

Research & Publications: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (health and drugs research) --- 
http://www.rwjf.org/en/research-publications.html

WHO: Public Health and Environment --- http://www.who.int/phe/en/

COLORS Magazine (social issues) --- http://www.colorsmagazine.com/

Global Edge: Online Course Modules (Michigan State University Executive Education Modules) --- 
http://globaledge.msu.edu/reference-desk/online-course-modules

EdCommunity ESRI (geography and maps) --- http://edcommunity.esri.com/

National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership --- http://www.neighborhoodindicators.org/

Berkeley Program on Housing and Urban Policy --- http://urbanpolicy.berkeley.edu/workingpapers.htm

From the Scout Report on May 2, 2014

A renaissance in public space flourishes around the world
The World's Best Public Spaces
http://www.dwell.com/map/worlds-best-public-spaces

New public spaces for Bristol
http://www.bristol-culture.com/2014/04/25/public-spaces/

The Visibility of a City: The Rebirth of Public Space in a Private Time
http://www.bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/BRS.cgi?section=article&issue=issue0BLOG&article=2014-03-30-031958381163402130&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BigRedShiny+(Big+Red+%26+Shiny)

Landscape architecture: An indelible effect on public spaces
http://www.sddt.com/News/article.cfm?SourceCode=20140428crf&_t=Landscape+architecture+An+indelible+effect+on+public+spaces

Living Innovation Zones
http://liz.innovatesf.com/

Project for Public Spaces
http://www.pps.org

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 and Statistics Tutorials

John Vincent Atanasoff and the Birth of Electronic Digital Computing --- http://jva.cs.iastate.edu/

MAA Math Alert --- http://www.maa.org/news/maa-math-alert

Mathematics: MIT OpenCourseWare ---  http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/

Mathematics:  Khan Academy --- http://ww2.kahnacademy.org/

Wolfram Alpha (absolutely unbelievable) --- https://www.wolframalpha.com/

Wolfram Alpha Computational Database --- http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Introduction to Statistical Thinking (With R, Without Calculus) --- http://pluto.huji.ac.il/~msby/StatThink/IntroStat.pdf
StatsTeachR --- http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kE1jZcJhBgM/U1vQwFH-ZVI/AAAAAAAACX8/ca6nLTAtP8U/s1600/Capture.GIF
Econometrician David Giles claims this is a great resource --- http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2014/04/great-resource-for-teaching-statistics.html

Jensen Comment
You can learn a lot about statistical, finance, and other formulas (with illustrations) simply by going to the explanations of these functions in Excel. I always told my accounting theory that this was the first stop in learning about the functions that are built into Excel.

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

History Tutorials

"White-Collar World:  What the office has done to American life," by Nikil Saval, Chronicle of Higher Education's Chronicle Review, April 14, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Paper-Pushers/145839/

Leo Tolstoy --- http://www.ltolstoy.com/

Vintage Footage of Leo Tolstoy: Video Captures the Great Novelist During His Final Days ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/vintage-footage-of-leo-tolstoy.html

Researchers Have Solved The Mystery Of How The Egyptians Made The Pyramids ---
http://www.businessinsider.com#ixzz30elnutDS

Folger Digital Texts (all things Shakespeare for the K-12 crowd) ---  http://www.folgerdigitaltexts.org/

The Clark: Digital Collections (art, photography, literature, history) ---  http://maca.cdmhost.com/

UK National Portrait Gallery: Digital Resources (United Kingdom) --- http://www.npg.org.uk/learning/digital.php

Columbus Letters (discovery of America) --- http://pudl.princeton.edu/collections/pudl0110

Humanities: The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities --- http://www.neh.gov/humanities

India Illustrated --- http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/p15195coll29

Sigmund Freud Appears in Rare, Surviving Video & Audio Recorded During the 1930s ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/sigmund-freud-appears-in-rare-surviving-video-audio.html

Unreal Photos From Shackleton's 1914 Antarctic Expedition ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/1915-antarctic-endurance-expedition-photos-2014-5?op=1#ixzz30r9EPWBP

Unreal Photos From Shackleton's 1914 Antarctic Expedition ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/1915-antarctic-endurance-expedition-photos-2014-5?op=1#ixzz30r9EPWBP

Mary Binney Wheeler Image Collection (India and Sri Lanka) ---  http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/wheeler/index.html

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

Britain and the American Civil War --- http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/uscivilwar/index.html

Pike Place Market Centennial (Seattle) --- http://www.seattle.gov/CityArchives/Exhibits/PPM/default.htm

University of Oregon Archives Photographs --- http://oregondigital.org/digcol/univ/

City of Chicago: Cultural Affairs & Special Events --- http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/dca.html

British Library Labs --- http://labs.bl.uk/

Afghanistan: The Australian Story --- https://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/afghanistan-australian-story/

OldSF --- http://www.oldsf.org/#

Annual Reports for Former Towns of Swift River Valley ---
http://www.mass.gov/anf/research-and-tech/oversight-agencies/lib/annual-reports-for-former-towns-of-swift-river-valley.html

Language Tutorials

"Coursera Seeks to Create a ‘Global Translator Community’," Chronicle of Higher Education, April 29, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/coursera-seeks-to-create-a-global-translator-community/52129?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

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

Music Tutorials

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

Yale College Writing Center --- http://writing.yalecollege.yale.edu/

PennSound Cinema (on writing and literature) --- http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/video.php

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

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

April 28, 2014

• Higher Doses of Antidepressants & Suicidal Behavior
• Gastro Woes More Common in Kids With Autism: Review
• Joblessness a Side Effect of Breast Cancer Chemo
• Oregon Raises White Flag Over Its Health Exchange
• Laughter May Work Like Meditation in the Brain
• Legal Medical Marijuana May Not Raise Teen Pot Use
• FDA Warns Against Bogus Autism Treatments
• Kids' Happiness Doesn't Depend on 2 Natural Parents
• Health Plans Scramble To Calculate 2015 Rates
• Consumers In Federal High-Risk Pools Get Special Enrollment Option For Marketplace

April 29*, 2014

• Type 2 Diabetes May Shrink the Brain
• Complications Common, Costly With Some Kidney Stone Treatments
• 'Breast Milk Banks' Gain in Popularity
• Autism Affects Motor Skills, Too
• Gastro Woes More Common in Kids With Autism: Review
• Oregon Raises White Flag Over Its Health Exchange
• Joblessness a Side Effect of Breast Cancer Chemo
• Higher Doses of Antidepressants & Suicidal Behavior
• Laughter May Work Like Meditation in the Brain
• Kids' Happiness Doesn't Depend on 2 Natural Parents

April 30, 2014

• Routine Housework May Help Stave Off Disability
• Nail Salons' Drying Lamps Carry Small Cancer Risk
• Is Healthy Obesity a Myth?
• Poor Fitness in Middle Age, Early Death Risk?
• When Medical Marijuana Doesn’t Work
• Complications Common, Costly With Some Kidney Stone Treatments
• 'Breast Milk Banks' Gain in Popularity
• Spanking May Be More Common Than Parents Admit
• HPV-Linked Oral Cancers May Not Be 'Contagious'
• GenStrip Blood Glucose Test Strips Recalled

May 2, 2014

• 1st MERS Case Reported in U.S.
• Alzheimer's Variation May Often Go Unrecognized
• Students Admit Using ADHD Drugs for Better Grades
• Health Highlights: May 2, 2014
• Helmets Not Helpful for Babies With 'Flat Head'
• Possible Clues to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
• Healthcare.gov Finished Strong Despite Rocky Start, Enrollment Data Show
• Too Much or Too Little Sleep Tied to Memory Problems in Older Women
• Low Vitamin D Linked to Advanced Prostate Cancers: Study
• Drug-Resistant Bacteria Found Worldwide: WHO

May 5, 2014

• Young Adults Think E-Cigs Safer Than Tobacco Ones
• Doctors Often Suggest Pricier Meds for Reflux?
• Many Parents Not Following Safe Sleep Practices for Babies
• 1st MERS Case Reported in U.S.
• Alzheimer's Variation May Often Go Unrecognized
• Students Admit Using ADHD Drugs for Better Grades
• New Sleep Apnea Device Approved by FDA
• Helmets Not Helpful for Babies With 'Flat Head'
• Possible Clues to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
• Healthcare.gov Finished Strong Despite Rocky Start, Enrollment Data Show

May 6, 2014

• MERS FAQ: What You Need to Know
• Hard Work Propels Asian-American Students to Head of Class: Study
• Deaths Rates Fell in MA After Health-Care Reform
• Young Adults Think E-Cigs Safer Than Tobacco Ones
• Doctors Often Suggest Pricier Meds for Reflux?
• Kids' Diabetes Rates Up Dramatically in 8 Years
• Many Parents Not Following Safe Sleep Practices for Babies
• Possible Clues to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
• Alzheimer's Variation May Often Go Unrecognized
• Students Admit Using ADHD Drugs for Better Grades

May 7, 2014

• Docs Should Give Toddlers Fluoride Treatments: Panel
• Brain Stimulation Shows Promise Against Alzheimer's
• Skills Like Walking, Talking Don't Come Easily for Minority Kids With Autism
• Older Infertile Couples and In Vitro Fertilization
• Mom-to-Be's TV Habits May Affect Child's Weight
• Could Energy Drinks Be Wrong Choice for Some Teens?
• Kids With ADHD May Also Have Family Troubles
• Sustained Workouts May Help Aging Hearts
• Young Blood Boosts Brains of Old Mice
• MERS FAQ: What You Need to Know

May 9, 2014

• 40 Isn't Too Old To Start Intensive Exercise
• More Women Delaying First Pregnancy: CDC
• Is Your Brain Overheating? Try Yawning
• Frequent Arguments Might Be the Death of You
• Weight Loss Surgery May Help Prevent AFib
• Fruits and Veggies May Lower Stroke Risk
• 1 Woman's Cancer Battle & Promise of New Treatment
• E-Cigarette Vapor's Potentially Harmful Particles
• Castellani: Health Law’s Cost-Sharing Could Limit Patient Access To Prescription Drugs
• Asthma Linked to Bone Loss in Study

May 10, 2014

• Most People Have Unwanted Thoughts, Study Finds
• More Women Delaying First Pregnancy: CDC
• Premature Menopause May Affect Women's Brains
• Americans More Self-Interested Than Ever, Study Finds
• Syphilis Cases Climbing Among Gay Men: CDC
• 40 Isn't Too Old To Start Intensive Exercise
• Fruits and Veggies May Lower Stroke Risk
• Is Your Brain Overheating? Try Yawning
• 1 Woman's Cancer Battle & Promise of New Treatment
• Frequent Arguments Might Be the Death of You

May 12, 2014

• Resveratrol in Red Wine Not Such a Health-Booster?
• CDC: Second U.S. MERS Case Confirmed
• U.S. Cervical Cancer Rates Higher Than Thought
• Kids' Concussion Symptoms Can Linger After Injury
• MERS FAQ: What You Need to Know
• Can Doing the Dishes Save a Young Marriage?
• FDA OKs Artificial Arm That Does Complex Tasks
• Healthy Terms to Be Taken Off Some Kashi Products
• States’ Medicaid Decisions Leave Health Centers, Patients In Lurch
• Medicare Struggling With Hepatitis-C Cure Costs

May 13, 2014

• Stepped-Up Screening Would Uncover More Lung Cancers, Study Says
• Early Repetitive Behaviors May Signal Autism Risk
• Could Certain Antidepressants Slow Alzheimer's?
• Prescription Drug Use Continues to Climb in U.S.
• Early Menopause Linked to Heart Failure Risk
• Ohio Measles Outbreak Largest Since Mid-1990s
• Several Medications Can Help People Quit Drinking: Study
• Hospital Workers Who Treated MERS Patient Fall Ill
• Drug May Help Lower Bad Cholesterol Beyond Statins
• Lung Cancer Not on Many Women's Radar: Survey

WHO: Public Health and Environment --- http://www.who.int/phe/en/

Research & Publications: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (health and drugs research) --- 
http://www.rwjf.org/en/research-publications.html

Here's The Real Difference Between All Those Allergy Medications --- http://www.businessinsider.com#ixzz30kB9IVsl

A Mysterious Killer Virus Has Wiped Out More Than 10% Of America's Pig Population In Less Than A Year ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-killer-virus-spreads-unchecked-through-us-hog-belt-pushing-pork-to-record-2014-27#ixzz307EfAy4Q

"Stem Cells from a Diabetes Patient:  Researchers hope stem cells could one day treat chronic conditions like diabetes and Parkinson’s disease," by Susan Young Rojahn, MIT's Technology Review, April 28, 2014 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/526911/stem-cells-from-a-diabetes-patient/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140429

A Bit of Humor

Johnny Cash Impersonates Elvis Presley: A Slapstick Version of “Heartbreak Hotel” (1959) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/05/johnny-cash-impersonates-elvis-presley.html

Advertising More: Madison Avenue Features Advertising Mad Men 'MAD MEN' vs. REALITY: Compare Don Draper's Ads With Those That Actually Ran In The 1960s ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/don-drapers-mad-men-ads-vs-the-real-thing-2014-4?op=1#ixzz307LT1Dtv

Peter Sellers Presents The Complete Guide To Accents of The British Isles ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/04/peter-sellers-presents-the-complete-guide-to-accents-of-the-british-isles.html

Yakov Smirnoff Remembers “The Soviet Department of Jokes” & Other Staples of Communist Comedy ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/yakov-smirnoff-remembers-the-soviet-department-of-jokes.html

KFC Corsage --- http://mashable.com/2014/04/14/kfc-corsage/

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

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

Update in 2014
20-Year Sugar Hill Master Plan --- http://www.nccouncil.org/images/NCC/file/wrkgdraftfeb142014.pdf

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