Tidbits on October 29, 2014
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

This week I feature Wes Lavin's 2014 Foliage Photographs ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/Foliage/Set17/FoliageSet08.htm  

 

Stapelia (Star Flower) ---
http://inthewinecountry.blogspot.com/2010/09/something-stinky.html


Tidbits on October 15,, 2014
Bob Jensen

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

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


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


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

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

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

Favorite Poem Project (videos of 50 USA poets) --- http://www.favoritepoem.org

Different From the Others (1919): The First Gay Rights Movie Ever … Later Destroyed by the Nazis --- Click Here
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/FwwuWd-NRuw/different-from-the-others-1919-the-first-gay-rights-movie-in-history.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

New Animated Web Series Makes the Theory of Evolution Easy to Understand ---
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/DqtfW6iSYmQ/new-animated-web-series-makes-the-theory-of-evolution-easy-to-understand.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

Hear Michel Foucault’s Final UC Berkeley Lectures, “Discourse and Truth” (1983) ---
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/4Ntvxk910iY/michel-foucaults-final-uc-berkeley-lectures-discourse-and-truth-1983.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

Here's An Amazing Video Of Osprey And Harrier Jets Refueling Over The Mediterranean ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/osprey-and-harrier-jets-refueling-2014-10

explore (videos on exploration) --- http://explore.org

Double Rainbow --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX0D4oZwCsA

The Squirrel versus the Hawk (amazing footage) --- https://www.youtube.com/v/XBEyCr5AoIs
Jensen Comment
Where we live in the White Mountains we have chipmunks and ground squirrels, but we really don't have squirrels that nest in trees. I blame that on the many crows and hawks in these mountains.

Toby Dammit: Fellini’s Masterful Short Film, Based on a Tale by Edgar Allan Poe (1968) ---
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/FDhi0bOcHSs/toby-dammit-fellinis-masterful-short-film.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email


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

The US Marine And Korean Army Bands Had An Awesome Drum Battle ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-marine-korea-army-band-drum-battle-2014-10

Animated Sheet Music of 3 Charlie Parker Jazz Classics: “Confirmation,” “Au Privave” & “Bloomdido” ---
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/apgfKIzGo8A/animated-sheet-music-of-3-charlie-parker-jazz-classics.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

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

These Incredible Photos Show Why Tasmania Is One Of The Best Regions To Explore In 2015 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-incredible-photos-show-why-tasmania-is-one-of-the-best-regions-to-explore-in-2015-2014-10

Photos of Hiroshima by Hiroshima Mon Amour Star Emmanuelle Riva (1958) ---
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/1YZsdN7dkw4/photos-of-hiroshima-by-hiroshima-mon-amour-star-emmanuelle-riva.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

Here's Why You Shouldn't Trust The Pictures On Hotel Websites ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/photoshopped-hotel-photos-2014-10

26 Stunning Images You Won't Believe Were Found On Google Street View
http://www.businessinsider.com/26-stunning-images-you-wont-believe-were-found-on-google-street-view-2014-10

Jarring Time-Lapse Maps Show How Much The World Has Changed In The Last 30 Years ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/time-lapse-maps-google-earth-engine-2014-10

Go Aboard A Fleet Of Military Ghost Ships Decaying Off The Coast Of San Francisco ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/mothball-fleet-of-decaying-ships-off-coast-of-san-francisco-2014-10

14 Awesome Snapshots From Some Of Instagram's Coolest Travel Photographers ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/instagrams-coolest-travel-photographers-2014-10

The Arts at MIT --- http://arts.mit.edu

Striking Photo Sums Up The Immigration Crisis On The Spain-Morocco Border ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/photo-of-moroccan-immigrants-in-melilla-spain-2014-10

The Life of a City: Early Films of New York, 1898-1906 --- http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/papr/nychome.html

New-York Historical Society, Photographs of New York City and Beyond ---
http://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16124coll2

Long Island Collection --- http://guides.library.stonybrook.edu/long_islan

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

Favorite Poem Project (videos of 50 USA poets) --- http://www.favoritepoem.org

39 Classic Books Every Modern Gentleman Needs To Read ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/classic-books-modern-gentleman-2014-10

Children’s Books --- http://childrensbooks.about.com

Other Children's Books (mostly Free) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Children

The First 500 Books From The Vatican Library's Massive Digitization Project Are Now Online ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-first-500-books-from-the-vatican-librarys-massive-digitisation-project-are-now-online-2014-10

Download The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe: Macabre Stories as Free eBooks & Audio Books --- Click Here
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/3_2ZvPhZOCg/download-the-complete-works-of-edgar-allan-poe-macabre-stories-as-free-ebooks-audio-books.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

Hear Beowulf Read In the Original Old English: How Many Words Do You Recognize? ---
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/y68DYshCUa8/hear-beowulf-read-in-the-original-old-english.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

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 October 29, 2014
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2014/TidbitsQuotations102914.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/

GAO: Fiscal Outlook & The Debt --- http://www.gao.gov/fiscal_outlook/overview 

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

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




"The Science Behind Social Security Benefits Calculations," by Theodore J. Sarenski, AICPA, October 20, 2014 ---
http://blog.aicpa.org/2014/10/the-science-behind-social-security-benefits-calculations.html#sthash.t77ImEv5.i4UykguJ.dpuf

While the Social Security Administration calculates Social Security benefits, it is your due diligence to know the basics so that you can understand how an additional year of earning will affect your clients’ projected benefit.

Continued in article-

Jensen Comment
This is more about understanding the regulations than science. The regulations are a bit complicated.

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


Wolfram Alpha: Computational Knowledge Engine --- http://www.wolframalpha.com

Bob Jensen's Illustrations on the Use of Wolfram Alpha in Cost Accounting ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theorylearningcurves.htm

"23 Ways To Make Money Using The Nerdiest Site (Wolfram Alpha) On The Internet," by Walter Hickey, Business Insider, July 9, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-wolfram-alpha-for-finance-2013-7

Developed by the "Smartest Guy on the Planet"
"32 Tricks You Can Do With Wolfram Alpha, The Most Useful Site In The History Of The Internet," by Walter Hickey, Business Insider, July 9, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/awesome-things-you-can-do-with-wolfram-alpha-2013-7


"The 25 Best College Professors In America," by Peter Jacobs, Business Insider, October 21, 2014 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/best-college-professors-2014-10

I think it's mostly baloney except for possibly motivating weak and disinterested students!
Firstly, the ratings come from only students who self selected to post to RateMyProfessor.com. The majority of a professor's students do not report to that site. It's more like an election where less than 1% of the voters bothered to vote.

Secondly, nearly all the "top professors" selected by RateMyProfessors are also rated as "easy" by the respondents. Easy professors are often great at inspiring unmotivated students, but they are not rated so high by top students who tend not to report to RateMyProfessors.com.

Thirdly, evidence shows that some professors encourage their students to send in reports to RateMyProfessor.com. Perhaps the best professors in higher education do not even mention this site to their students and even more importantly do not even know about the site themselves or care.

 

Get the details directly from RateMyProfessor.com at
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/blog/toplist?posturl=/top-professors-of-2013-2014/

Jensen Comment
Having said this, I frequently go to RateMyProfessors.com. I don't care two hoots about the numerical scores except maybe the "easiness" scores. What interests me are the verbal comments by individual students. These can be revealing about such things as the political bias that a teacher brings into the class. These can be revealing about extraneous content that a professor brings into the classroom, content that is not particularly relevant to the curriculum design. These can be revealing of the pedagogy of a teacher. These can be revealing about the use of education technology.


A roundup of the most interesting stories from other sites, collected by the staff at MIT Technology Review.  --- Click Here
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/531986/recommended-from-around-the-web-week-ending-october-24-2014/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20141024

Jensen Question
Does an obsession with playing chess really shrink your brain?
Does an obsession for the AECM really shrink your brain?
(I think it's more of an aging thing.)


The Graduate Wife --- http://thegraduatewife.com
 
(Maybe should be re-titled as "The Graduate Spouse")
 
A classic case was for accounting professor Doug Snowball at the University of Florida. For years he worked full time as an accounting professor, raised several children, and supported his wife who commuted through 7+ years of medical school and residency at Stanford University on the opposite coast.

Programs to Help You Avoid a Foreclosure Crisis --- Click Here
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/money-finance/real-estate/programs-to-help-you-avoid-a-foreclosure-crisis?utm_source=MG20141023&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=moneygirl

Question
Is it time to once again refinance your home?

"US Mortgage Rates Sink To A 16-Month Low,"  by Andy Kiersz, Business Insider, October 23, 2014 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/freddie-mac-mortgage-rates-392-2014-10

. . .

The standard 30-year fixed rate mortgage fell to 3.92% for the week ending October 23, down 0.05% from the previous week. Also falling were 15-year fixed rate mortgages, from 3.18% last week to 3.08% this week, and 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable rate mortgages, down to 2.91% this week from 2.92% last week.

Meanwhile, 1-year Treasury-indexed adjustable rate mortgages ticked slightly up, from 2.38% last week to 2.41% this week.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/freddie-mac-mortgage-rates-392-2014-10#ixzz3GzstgsIH

Jensen Comment
Remember that that there are usually up-front costs to financing and refinancing you home such that home buyers and homeowners should get estimates on mortgage deals. Begin with a reputable local bank before looking elsewhere for a lender. The local alternative may run higher, but the local alternative may also be more honest about all the fees involved. I've refinanced our cottage three times locally since buying it in 2003. I don't think I will refinance again until rates drop a bit lower.

I recommend avoiding adjustable-rate mortgages unless you you are willing to take on more financial risk of having to refinance at higher rates down the road. The risk is that the government will come to its senses about interest rates. But it sometimes does not make sense to expect the government to come to its senses about much of anything. If you intend to sell the home in a year or two, remember to factor in those costs of refinancing into an adjustable-rate mortgage. Always look at the future in terms of various scenarios before investing and borrowing.


Large-Sample Asymptotics in Three Blog Postings by David Giles

Illustrating Asymptotic Behaviour - Part III

This is the third in a sequence of posts about some basic concepts relating to large-sample asymptotics and the linear regression model. The first two posts (here and here) dealt with items 1 and 2 in the following list, and you'll find it helpful to read them before proceeding with this post:
 
  1. The consistency of the OLS estimator in a situation where it's known to be biased in small samples.
  2. The correct way to think about the asymptotic distribution of the OLS estimator.
  3. A comparison of the OLS estimator and another estimator, in terms of asymptotic efficiency.
Here, we're going to deal with item 3, again via a small Monte Carlo experiment, using EViews.

Jensen Comment
These three blog posts by David Giles are especially important to accountics scientists who typically have very large samples from purchased databases.

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


Jensen Comment
Since over 62% of college teachers do not have tenure, it's much easier to fire bad college teachers than bad K-12 teachers,
virtually all of whom are protected by highly militant unions

Rotten Apples:  It's Nearly Impossible to Fire a Bad Teacher (even ones that only show up for work half the time)
"Taking on Teacher Tenure," by Haley Sweetland and Edwards, Time Magazine, November 3, 2014, pp. 34-39 ---
http://time.com/3533556/the-war-on-teacher-tenure/

It’s really difficult to fire a bad teacher. A group of Silicon Valley investors wants to change that Popular Among Subscribers Teacher Tenure Time Magazine Cover The War on Teacher Tenure Subscribe 12 Answers To Ebola’s Hard Questions Why Kobani Matters

On a warm day in early June, a Los Angeles County trial-court judge, Rolf M. Treu, pink-cheeked beneath a trim white beard, dropped a bombshell on the American public-school system. Ruling in Vergara v. California, Treu struck down five decades-old California laws governing teacher tenure and other job protections on the grounds that they violate the state’s constitution.

In his 4,000-word decision, he bounded through an unusually short explanation of what was an unprecedented interpretation of the law. Step 1: Tenure and other job protections make it harder to fire teachers and therefore effectively work to keep bad ones in the classroom. Step 2: Bad teachers “substantially undermine” a child’s education. That, Treu wrote, not only “shocks the conscience” but also violates the students’ right to a “basic equality of educational opportunity” as enshrined in California’s constitution. Popular Among Subscribers Teacher Tenure Time Magazine Cover The War on Teacher Tenure 12 Answers To Ebola’s Hard Questions Why Kobani Matters

It was the first time, in California or anywhere else, that a court had linked the quality of a teacher, as measured by student test scores, to a pupil’s right to an education. What happened next was predictable: the educational establishment hit DEFCON 1. State and national teachers’ unions decried the ruling as part of a subversive effort to destroy labor unions and pointed, truthfully, to the fact that the lawsuit was launched and underwritten by a Silicon Valley muckety-muck who lives in one of the fanciest ZIP codes in America. Others painted Treu, who was appointed by Republican Governor Pete Wilson, as a brazen partisan. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and former D.C. chancellor of schools Michelle Rhee praised the decision for challenging the “broken status quo.” Other education reformers, including former CNN anchor turned education activist Campbell Brown, pronounced it the most important civil rights suit in decades and filed two copycat cases in New York.

On some level, these reactions were premature. Treu’s decision holds no precedent-setting power and won’t affect any California law unless an appeals court upholds the ruling sometime next year. Both the state and the teachers’ unions have appealed and are awaiting a trial date. But on another level, the Vergara case is a powerful proxy for a broader war over the future of education in this country. The reform movement today is led not by grassroots activists or union leaders but by Silicon Valley business types and billionaires. It is fought not through ballot boxes or on the floors of hamstrung state legislatures but in closed-door meetings and at courthouses. And it will not be won incrementally, through painstaking compromise with multiple stakeholders, but through sweeping decisions–judicial and otherwise–made possible by the tactical application of vast personal fortunes.

It is a reflection of our politics that no one elected these men to take on the knotty problem of fixing our public schools, but here they are anyway, fighting for what they firmly believe is in the public interest. David Welch, the 53-year-old engineer and businessman behind Vergara, is the least well known of a half-dozen tech titans who are making the repair of public education something of a second career. In the past 15 years, Microsoft’s Bill Gates has poured billions into everything from helping states write and implement the Common Core State Standards to building a new history curriculum. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has dropped $220 million on public schools in Newark, N.J., and the San Francisco Bay Area, while Netflix’s Reed Hastings has spent millions more on buttressing the charter-school movement in California and beyond. For the past four years, PayPal’s Peter Thiel has been divvying out dozens of $100,000 “scholarships” to kids who are willing to ditch university in favor of “self-education.”

This latest batch of tech tycoons turned education reformers follows in the footsteps of a long line of older magnates, from the Carnegies and Rockefellers to Walmart’s Waltons, who have also funneled their fortunes into education-reform projects built on private-sector management strategies. While this newer class of tech philanthropists are in some ways similar to the older generation, they also come to school reform having been steeped in the uniquely modern, libertarian, free-market Wild West of tech entrepreneurship–a world where data and innovation are king, disruption is a way of life, and the gridlock and rules of modern politics are regarded as a kind of kryptonite to how society ought to be.

“Life in a Silicon Valley operation is, O.K., we need to change something. How do I create an agent of change?” Welch explains, sitting in a windowless boardroom at the Cupertino, Calif., headquarters of his company, Infinera, which makes fiber-optic communications technology. “But here you have the most important aspect of society, in my mind at least–the ability to educate our children–and it’s incapable of change. It’s failing, and it doesn’t want to acknowledge that it’s failing, much less do anything about it.”

“Why Isn’t Anyone Fixing This?”

Of all the Silicon Valley tycoons you might expect to make headlines, Welch is near the bottom of the list. Even in the geeky back alleys of Palo Alto, his name doesn’t always ring a bell. He doesn’t give TED talks, he doesn’t headline coding conferences, and his company is hardly a well-known brand. The unassuming father of three, who has bushy eyebrows and the well-ironed, air-conditioned look of the well-to-do, earned a Ph.D. from Cornell in electrical engineering and made his many millions working at two startups in Silicon Valley. Neither a Democrat nor a Republican, he clearly prefers a world of concrete facts to taking sides. “I don’t believe in putting on a jacket that says I’m red or blue,” he says. “I believe in identifying the topics that are important to me and then figuring out the right way to talk about them.”

As the youngest of seven children growing up outside Annapolis, Md., Welch went to public school and then to the University of Delaware. He didn’t think much about how the system actually functioned, or malfunctioned, until his own children were born in the ’90s and went on to have “some public experiences and some private-school experiences.” (Welch, as a rule, doesn’t talk about his children’s lives.) He then became involved in the NewSchools Venture Fund, which invests in charter schools and other entrepreneur-led education ventures targeting under-served students, and StudentsFirst, the controversial nonprofit founded by Michelle Rhee. But even by the early 2000s he’d homed in on what he saw as the root of the systemic failure of California’s public schools: the state’s laws on teacher tenure and other job protections, which are among the strictest in the country.

It seemed crazy to Welch that teachers in California receive tenure–permanent employment status designed to protect them from unfair dismissal–after less than two years on the job and that principals are often required to lay off the least experienced teachers first, no matter which ones are the best. It seemed even crazier to him that in some districts it takes years and tens of thousands of dollars to fire a teacher who isn’t doing a good job. Welch remembers asking a big-city California superintendent to tell him the one thing he needed to improve the public-school system. The answer blew Welch away. The educator didn’t ask for more money or more iPads. “He said, ‘Give me control over my workforce,'” Welch said. “It just made so much sense. I thought, Why isn’t anyone doing something about that? Why isn’t anyone fixing this?”

In early 2010, Welch decided, as he puts it, to “jump off the cliff” and do something about it. His first move was to meet with Kathleen Sullivan, a constitutional lawyer whose name is sometimes whispered to be on the Democrats’ short list of nominees for the U.S. Supreme Court. He pitched her what was at the time a rather unformed idea. “I said, ‘Here’s my premise–if children are being harmed by these laws, then something, somewhere, is being done that’s illegal,'” Welch says. After about six months, Sullivan and a small team of lawyers in San Francisco delivered a draft of the legal theory that would become the foundation for Vergara.

Welch’s next move, in April 2011, was to hire a jack-of-all-trades public relations firm, which is now called Rally. It launched a nonprofit, Students Matter–branded in the bright yellow and black of a No. 2 pencil–that was tasked with two missions. The first was to build a coalition of supporters and funders and create a public campaign surrounding the case. The second was to find a team of lawyers who were willing to reverse engineer a lawsuit on the basis of an untested legal theory on behalf of plaintiffs who didn’t yet exist.

Building on Brown

Before states began passing tenure laws in the early 20th century, a teacher could be fired for holding unorthodox political views or attending the wrong church, or for no reason at all if the local party boss wanted to pass on the job to someone else. But what began as a popular idea has become increasingly controversial as countless stories of schools and districts being unable to fire bad teachers have populated the news. In a story that hit headlines in 2009, the L.A. Unified School District was legally barred from firing a teacher who told an eighth-grade student who had recently tried to slit his own wrists to “carve deeper next time.” Episodes like that help explain why even in California, where the electorate votes overwhelmingly Democratic and is often sympathetic to unions, recent polls show that voters are skeptical of tenure.

Part of Students Matter’s job was to take this commonly held but abstract idea–that tenure and other job protections do not serve the public-school system–and essentially personify it in the form of students on whose behalf the case would be filed. Among the nine plaintiffs, who ranged from elementary-school to high-school age, were Beatriz and Elizabeth Vergara, sisters from Pacoima, Calif., who were 15 and 16 years old when they took the witness stand this year. Beatriz, the lead plaintiff, testified about three of her middle-school teachers, describing them as apathetic, verbally abusive or simply ineffective. “It was always loud in there, and [he] would even sleep during class,” Beatriz said of her sixth-grade math teacher. “He didn’t even teach, and he couldn’t control his class. I couldn’t hear anything because of how loud it was.”

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, a white-shoe firm based in Los Angeles, then built the case on a foundation of Brown v. Board of Education–the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled that separate is not equal–and California Supreme Court cases from the 1970s and 1990s. Each of the California cases interpreted the equal-protection clause in the state constitution to mean that one group of students should not receive an education inferior to that offered to another group. For example, in a 1992 case, Butt v. State of California, the California Supreme Court found that when a school district with a budget shortfall decided to save money by dismissing students for summer vacation six weeks early, it violated the state constitution, since students at the schools with the shorter school year received an education that was inferior to that of students at schools with full school years.

The argument in Vergara v. California took that same idea but added a controversial twist. Instead of examining the equality of students’ educational opportunities by comparing discrete facts–like the amount of time spent in class or the amount of funding a school receives per student–Welch’s lawyers made the case that the court should compare the quality of students’ in-class learning experiences. They argued that students who are stuck in classrooms with bad teachers receive an education that is substantially inferior to that of students who are in classrooms with good teachers. Laws that keep bad teachers in the classroom, they concluded, therefore violate the equal-protection clause of the state constitution. They also argued that poor and minority students, who are more likely to be in classrooms with bad teachers, endure a disproportionate burden, making the issue a matter of civil rights as well.

Happily for Welch’s lawyers, their innovative argument happened to coincide with a flood of new academic research on teacher quality that could serve as evidence in court. A three-year study led by Harvard education expert Thomas Kane, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, found that a bad teacher, as measured by his or her students’ test scores, could set a student’s educational progress back by 9.54 months. In December 2011, another study, by Harvard University’s Raj Chetty and John Friedman with Columbia University’s Jonah Rockoff, looked at school records, test scores and tax returns for 2.5 million children and young adults from the past two decades. Using a controversial tool called value-added measures (VAM) to control for factors like race and poverty rates, they found that replacing a poorly performing teacher with an excellent one could increase students’ lifetime earnings by $250,000 per classroom. “The fact that we could show how students were actually harmed by bad teachers–that changed the argument,” says Marcellus McRae, an attorney on the case.

The Vergara trial began in January of this year and stretched over two months in court. More than a few times, teachers and administrators called by the defense to represent the position of the teachers’ unions found themselves in cross-examination inadvertently buttressing Students Matter’s case instead. As Judge Treu later noted, nearly every witness agreed under oath that competent teachers are among the most important components of a child’s in-school educational experience and that “grossly ineffective teachers substantially undermine the ability of that child to succeed in school.” The trial ended March 27, and on June 10, Treu handed down his tentative decision.

In his 19 years on the bench, Treu’s opinions rarely made news, but this one would be an exception. If roughly 1% to 3% of California teachers are in the bottom 5% of competence, Treu wrote, citing witness testimony, that means there are between 2,750 and 8,250 such teachers currently in California classrooms. That population, Treu wrote, “has a direct, real, appreciable and negative impact on a significant number of California students, now and well into the future for as long as said teachers hold their positions.” In the law office near the courthouse, Welch and dozens of supporters erupted in celebration, hugging and kissing and crying.

What Comes Next?

The Vergara decision has been the source of outsize drama in California’s election cycle this year, playing out on stages both small and large. The battle for state superintendent of public instruction–not the kind of race that usually garners the big bucks–has already attracted as much as $10 million from state and national teachers’ unions on one side and wealthy donors on the other. Union-backed incumbent Tom Torlakson, who has decried the Vergara decision as a soulless attack on teachers and vowed to see it overturned on appeal, is now within a hairbreadth of losing to Marshall Tuck, a Silicon Valley–backed reformer, who has celebrated Vergara as a major win for California kids. Tuck’s deep-pocketed supporters spent $4.5 million in just the first two weeks of October. Meanwhile, Governor Jerry Brown, who is up for re-election in November and counts the teachers’ unions among his biggest political backers, has negotiated a careful middle road. While he has dutifully appealed Treu’s decision in the case, he was careful to avoid earning the ire of the Silicon Valley set. “Changes of this magnitude, as a matter of law and policy, require appellate review,” Brown’s office wrote in the notice of appeal, an exercise in blandness.

Continued in article

Rethinking Tenure, Dissertations, and Scholarship
Academic Publishing in the Digital Age

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies2.htm#MLA

Obsolete and Dysfunctional System of Tenure
Over 62% of Full-Time Faculty Are Off the Tenure Track
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies2.htm#Tenure

Gaming for Tenure as an Accounting Professor ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTenure.htm
(with a reply about tenure publication point systems from Linda Kidwell)


From the CPA Newsletter on October 24, 2014

IRS needs to take more steps to ensure health insurance exchanges are safe, report finds
 http://r.smartbrief.com/resp/ghptBYbWhBCKoUvDCidKtxCicNxDHD?format=standard
The Internal Revenue Service needs more assurance that the taxpayer information it provides to state-based insurance exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act is secure, according to a report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The IRS does not require state exchanges to carry out an initial security check before receiving tax information, the report notes, or take other measures such as on-site reviews or promises in writing from state exchange officials about security.
The Hill (10/23)

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

Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.
Henry David Thoreau


Bill Gates Is Obsessed With A New Way Of Teaching History — Here's How It Works ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-big-history-2014-10

Take Big History: A Free Short Course on 13.8 Billion Years of History, Funded by Bill Gates ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/10/big-history-free-short-course.html 


bioRxiv.org (in the era of technology research publishing is still in a horse and buggy age --- http://biorxiv.org
Example:  A forthcoming paper in The Accounting Review took 11 months to be accepted after first being submitted. It will take more months to be published after acceptance. Like many papers published initially in SSRN the eventual publishing in research journals proceeds at a horse and buggy pace.
SSRN --- http://www.ssrn.com/en/
bioRxiv.org --- http://biorxiv.org

bioRxiv (pronounced "bio-archive") is a free online archive and distribution service for unpublished preprints in the life sciences. It is operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a not-for-profit research and educational institution. By posting preprints on bioRxiv, authors are able to make their findings immediately available to the scientific community and receive feedback on draft manuscripts before they are submitted to journals.


Steve Ballmer --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer

"Steve Ballmer Paid $2 Billion For The Clippers, But He Might Get Half That Back In Tax Breaks," by Myles Udland, Business Insider, October 27, 2014 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-ballmer-la-clippers-tax-break-report-2014-10

Former Microsoft CEO is now Professor Ballmer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business
"Steve Ballmer Goes to College: On Campus With Stanford's New Professor," by Ashley Vance, Bloomberg Businessweek, October 21, 2014 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-10-21/steve-ballmer-at-stanford-a-conversation-with-a-new-mba-professor?campaign_id=DN102114

Jensen Comment
After buying the LA Clippers for a couple of billion dollars he probably has to moonlight for the salary. I wonder if he's up to the publish or perish world of the Academy.


Online Statistics Education (including resources for teachers)  --- http://onlinestatbook.com/2/

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


Use Plickers for quick checks for understanding to know whether your students are understanding big concepts and mastering key skills ---
https://www.plickers.com/
Thank you Sharon Garvin for the heads up.

Bob Jensen's threads on response pads and clickers ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#ResponsePads

Bob Jensen's threads on tricks and tools of the trade ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm


Flipped Teaching --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_classroom

Jensen Comment
By now you are probably weary of articles about flipped classrooms. This one is a bit more interesting, however, since it entails flipping the large lecture courses in a famous Ivy League university (Columbia University) ---
http://campustechnology.com/articles/2014/10/22/flipping-the-lecture-hall.aspx

There's no question that the flipped classroom model has become all the rage at colleges and universities across the country. In fact, in the most recent Horizon Report, the New Media Consortium (NMC) called the flipped classroom one of the most important emerging trends in educational technology for higher education, noting, "The model is becoming increasingly popular in higher education institutions because of how it rearranges face-to-face instruction for professors and students, creating a more efficient and enriching use of class time."

Yet with all the flipped classroom's potential for active, collaborative learning and increased interaction between professors and students, there's still one bastion of higher education that has resisted the trend: the large lecture course.

With the large lecture format, said NMC Senior Communications Director Samantha Becker, "it's really hard to personalize the material so that a student can feel like they have ownership over their own learning process." And, she added, "It's hard to speak up. There's always the fear of being ostracized by other students or feeling like asking stupid questions."

Maurice Matiz, executive director of Columbia University's (NY) Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, agreed: "Sitting in one of these 180-student classrooms is a very passive situation," he said. "We've found that students aren't really learning very much."

Matiz and his colleagues are out to change that — by finding ways to adopt the flipped classroom model to traditional large lecture courses.

The Big Flip

They started last year with Associate Professsor Brent Stockwell's biochemistry class of 180 students. Stockwell was discouraged by the number of students who were not completing the required reading assignments before coming to class and, thus, were unprepared to get the most out of his lectures.

So, in the fall 2013 semester, he began creating weekly slide presentations using PowerPoint and the screen-recording application ScreenFlow. He would upload the videos to YouTube, then embed them into the syllabus section of the online learning management system and invite students to watch. Stockwell also placed a link to a short quiz underneath the video player on the syllabus page. Since the quiz results counted toward students' grades, he was assured that most students would watch the video and come to the following day's class prepared.

"[The quiz] is something we learned to do with our MOOCs, and then applied to what we do on campus," said Matiz, who helped Stockwell organize the flipped class.

The flipped format allowed Stockwell to delve deeper and in new directions with the live content he presented in class. He also incorporated a polling service called Socrative that students could access on their mobile devices. Students could respond to questions anonymously in real time, giving him a sense of whether they understood the concepts presented to them, allowing him to revisit a difficult topic or move on to other material.

Then he divided the class of 180 into groups of five and, for part of each class, he would give them problems to work on together, such as how a specific fatty acid should be labeled or how to predict the mechanism of an action of a drug based on the results of an experiment.

The group work led to livelier discussions and forced students to synthesize and apply information from the textbook, videos and classroom discussion.

"What I particularly appreciated about Professor Stockwell is the way he wove all the different components together," NMC's Becker said. "He countered the size of the class by grouping people together and allowing for anonymous polling through the response feature."

Deciding to try an even larger class, Matiz moved on to Professor Rachel Gordon's Body, Health and Disease class of 250 in Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons. Gordon also used short video lectures students could view before class, reserving class time for discussions of case studies with an audience response system. She would poll students after covering a concept and, if less than 50 percent of students chose correct answers, she would ask them to break into small groups to discuss their choices.

Typically, she said, the peer discussions would lead to increases in accuracy when students were polled a second time.

"On many levels it was more satisfying than lecturing, where you don't really know if the students are 'getting it,'" Gordon said. "I hope that more teachers will take the plunge. It's worth it."

Challenges

One challenge that Matiz and Stockwell encountered with applying the flipped classroom model to large courses: the physical limitations of spaces that are not inherently designed for small group work.

"This is an old university," Matiz said, "over 250 years old. A lot of the classrooms are traditional classrooms. Many of them even still have desks that are bolted to the floor."

Nevertheless, Stockwell made it work. "If you're willing to deal with those issues, you can still do it," Matiz said.

Fortunately for Gordon, the Columbia medical school has a relatively new campus and entire sets of classrooms that were built with collaboration in mind.

Stockwell also noted that the biggest challenge he had in the first year was running out of difficult, thought-provoking problems and case studies to give his students when they broke up into small groups. To resolve that challenge in this, his second year of using the flipped classroom model with the biochemistry course, he has called on other biochemistry professors in the New York area to build a repository of problem sets that can be shared.

Despite the difficulties, Matiz said, the command of material by students during and at the end of the course was so obvious to Stockwell and Gordon that he is convinced of the benefits of the flipped classroom in college and university courses.

"There are so many advantages," Matiz said. "The course really becomes just for the student."

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
I was flipping my classes in an electronic classroom at Trinity University before somebody coined the phrase "flipping the classroom." I forced students to study technical content in my Camtasia videos before coming to class. In class I made them show what they had learned from those videos. This is a great way to help students learn technical content and to not put off learning until examinations. The chronic complaint was that my courses demanded more time than their other courses.

Bob Jensen's threads on flipping classrooms ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Ideas


Economic News and Writings of Famous Economists

Economist’s View (Economic News and Writings of Famous Economists) --- http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/


Plagiarism in Legal Documents

Google Search Examples

Example 1 from the University of Michigan ---
http://www.mgoblue.com/compliance/about.html

... the University will look at such factors as whether the violation is intentional, whether any advantage is gained (e.g., recruiting, competitive or for the student-athlete involved), whether a student-athlete's eligibility is affected and whether violations are recurring.

Example 2 from Syracuse University ---
http://supolicies.syr.edu/ethics/athletic_comply.htm

... the University will look at such factors as whether the violation is intentional, whether any advantage is gained (e.g., recruiting, competitive, or for the student-athlete involved), whether a student-athlete's eligibility is affected, and whether violations are recurring.

It does not take long to find similar instances in the wordings at different universities for codes of ethics, faculty handbooks, student handbooks, medical policies, athletics policies, etc. If I were assigned the task of writing my university's documents in this regard of course I would examine the related documents of other universities. Since this would be a legal document not written in my name I might even be tempted to "cookie cut" phrases because of the commonplace nature of "cookie cutter" phrases in legal documents.

My point is that it's commonplace to plagiarize in legal documents.
I think such "plagiarism" is extremely common in the law profession in general. An illustration can be found in the "cookie cutter" lawsuits where only the names and places are changed. Law firms extensively plagiarize to a point where it is probably no longer considered unethical.


"The Most Generous Book in the World: An Illustrated Celebration of the Little-Known Sidekicks Behind Creative Geniuses," by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, October 22, 2014 ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/22/who-what-when-rothman-book/


Kristian asked me to link to his weather maps at
http://www.honoluluhi5.com/whow/weather/

This is my reply

Hi Kristian,

The 2013 link you refer to is a newsletter that I do not revise ex post., However, I will add your link to the October 29 version of this news letter at the end of the month --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbitsDirectory.htm 

One thing you avoided is the uncomfortableness of high humidity. On most of my visits to Hawaii I really did not enjoy the high humidity, nor did I enjoy it when I lived in Tallahassee, Florida and San Antonio Texas.

However, where humidity is lowest is often where temperatures become uncomfortably hot like in Arizona and Nevada. Thus you need map that factors in humidity and temperatures.

There is no heaven on earth except in certain seasons like our autumn season in northern New England. For me life would be boring without marked changes in the seasons --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm 


"The Best Teaching Resources on the Web," by David Goobler, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 22, 2014 ---
https://chroniclevitae.com/news/770-the-best-teaching-resources-on-the-web?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

. . .

Often my first stop when I'm looking for a new idea for the classroom is Faculty Focus. It regularly publishes short articles with practical ideas for the college instructor. It’s a great resource -- well-designed, organized by topic, and searchable. It also boasts Maryellen Weimer and her Teaching Professor blog, an outgrowth of Weimer's much-loved newsletter of the same name. Weimer's articles are little jewels of concision, distilling practical advice from recent pedagogical research findings.

Another useful site is that of the IDEA Center, a nonprofit that you may know from its student feedback services. Over the years, IDEA has amassed a trove of pedagogy research, from short "Notes on Instruction" to longer, peer-reviewed "IDEA papers." Take a look; there's plenty there.

Speaking of peer-reviewed papers, it's now easier than ever to plug in to current pedagogy research. Alongside traditional, research-heavy articles, many pedagogy journals also feature shorter, more practical papers that offer easily usable ideas. Here's a good list of top pedagogy journals.

I often find new classroom ideas by visiting the web pages of campus teaching and learning centers. Many of those websites have evolved into excellent collections of teaching tips, as their sponsoring universities have become more attuned to faculty development. Some of my favorites are the ones at UT Austin, Berkeley, and BYU.

Closer to home, The Chronicle hosts a wide variety of good resources for instructors looking for ideas. James M. Lang has been writing a monthly column on teaching for years now, and if you're reading this, I probably don't need to tell you how useful his columns are. Although there doesn't seem to be a dedicated archive page for Lang's columns, you can find links to his most recent columns by clicking here and scrolling down to "On Course". In addition, The Chronicle’s ProfHacker blog, while it features posts about far more than just teaching, has a roster of experienced and personable academics frequently write about classroom strategies. The blog is a particularly good place to go to learn more about using new technologies in the classroom.

Finally, a promising new resource has just been launched right here at Vitae: a straightforward and easy-to-use syllabi database. It’s an obviously useful idea. Teachers have probably shared syllabi for as long as there has been syllabi; this just facilitates that sharing across great distances. I’m excited at the prospect of this database growing and providing a library of well-made syllabi, ready to consult the next time I’m putting together a new course. It will only be as good as its contributions, however. The folks at Vitae have made it very, very easy to upload a syllabus; I just put one up in about 60 seconds. Why not head over there now and share one of yours?

What web resources do you make use of for your teaching? I’m always eager to learn of more—add your favorite sites to the comments below.

- See more at: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/770-the-best-teaching-resources-on-the-web?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en#sthash.04UAyWZs.dpuf

Often my first stop when I'm looking for a new idea for the classroom is Faculty Focus. It regularly publishes short articles with practical ideas for the college instructor. It’s a great resource -- well-designed, organized by topic, and searchable. It also boasts Maryellen Weimer and her Teaching Professor blog, an outgrowth of Weimer's much-loved newsletter of the same name. Weimer's articles are little jewels of concision, distilling practical advice from recent pedagogical research findings.

Another useful site is that of the IDEA Center, a nonprofit that you may know from its student feedback services. Over the years, IDEA has amassed a trove of pedagogy research, from short "Notes on Instruction" to longer, peer-reviewed "IDEA papers." Take a look; there's plenty there.

Speaking of peer-reviewed papers, it's now easier than ever to plug in to current pedagogy research. Alongside traditional, research-heavy articles, many pedagogy journals also feature shorter, more practical papers that offer easily usable ideas. Here's a good list of top pedagogy journals.

I often find new classroom ideas by visiting the web pages of campus teaching and learning centers. Many of those websites have evolved into excellent collections of teaching tips, as their sponsoring universities have become more attuned to faculty development. Some of my favorites are the ones at UT Austin, Berkeley, and BYU.

Closer to home, The Chronicle hosts a wide variety of good resources for instructors looking for ideas. James M. Lang has been writing a monthly column on teaching for years now, and if you're reading this, I probably don't need to tell you how useful his columns are. Although there doesn't seem to be a dedicated archive page for Lang's columns, you can find links to his most recent columns by clicking here and scrolling down to "On Course". In addition, The Chronicle’s ProfHacker blog, while it features posts about far more than just teaching, has a roster of experienced and personable academics frequently write about classroom strategies. The blog is a particularly good place to go to learn more about using new technologies in the classroom.

Finally, a promising new resource has just been launched right here at Vitae: a straightforward and easy-to-use syllabi database. It’s an obviously useful idea. Teachers have probably shared syllabi for as long as there has been syllabi; this just facilitates that sharing across great distances. I’m excited at the prospect of this database growing and providing a library of well-made syllabi, ready to consult the next time I’m putting together a new course. It will only be as good as its contributions, however. The folks at Vitae have made it very, very easy to upload a syllabus; I just put one up in about 60 seconds. Why not head over there now and share one of yours?

What web resources do you make use of for your teaching? I’m always eager to learn of more—add your favorite sites to the comments below.

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


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

"Using Evernote in the Classroom," by Amy Cavender, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 20, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/using-evernote-in-the-classroom/58347?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

"A Brief Word from an Evernote Convert," by Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 6, 2010 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/A-Brief-Word-from-an-Evernote/25291/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

I take notes. A lot of notes. I take notes when I read, when I'm in meetings, when I'm listening to lectures, when I'm figuring out what I need to do any given day. In fact, if I ever tell you that I'm going to do something, but you don't see me make myself a note about it, don't believe me.

Notes are the key to remembering, for me. Or, more precisely: the act of taking notes is the key to remembering. Something about the act of taking notes helps make an idea, or an issue, or a plan more real to me.

I used to take these notes longhand, in various notebooks, some devoted to particular projects, some to more general notetaking. Several years back, though, I began shifting my notetaking to the computer, so that those notes would be more easily searchable and repurposeable.

Originally, I used Word for this purpose, but after one MS Office upgrade too many, requiring that all of my documents be converted (and thus become unreadable to the older version of the software), I decided that I wanted something more lightweight. The purpose of these notes, after all, was the text that went into them, and not their formatting; plain vanilla ".txt" files were likely to remain highly flexible into the future.

But those .txt files started proliferating on my machine, and so did the folders I used to organize them. And while Mac OS X's search capabilities via Spotlight aren't all that bad now, that wasn't always the case. So when I stumbled across Steven Johnson's post about how he used DEVONthink, I was sold.

DEVONthink is an extraordinarily powerful information management system -- a bit too powerful, quite honestly, for what I needed it to do. So back in May, when Shawn Miller guest-posted here on ProfHacker about how he uses Evernote, I was persuaded to give it a try.

One might begin to think I'm too easily swayed, but honestly, I test out a lot of software that doesn't stick with me long. I've been using Evernote for just shy of two months now, though, and I'm fairly sure I'll be using it for a while. A few reasons why:

1. Automatic. I have Evernote installed on my office desktop, my home desktop, my laptop, my iPad, and my iPhone. And each of those instances automatically connects to the Evernote server to keep my notes synchronized across all my devices. I've had one incident in which I accidentally overwrote a more recent version of a note by editing an old version before my iPhone had finished downloading the most recent updates to my notebooks, but now I'm more cautious to be sure everything has synchronized before I start typing in an existing note.

2. Web accessible. My notes are also of course directly accessible from the Evernote server, should I not have one of those five devices with me.

3. Lightweight. The Evernote application itself has a very small footprint, using the teeniest amount of memory and disk space. It's also quite nice in terms of response time. And as most of my notes are just plain text, the database doesn't take up much in the way of space.

4. Flexible. Of course, I don't have to confine my notes to text with Evernote: I can easily capture entire web pages with the Chrome (or other browser) extension, I can import images and PDFs, and any number of other things I haven't even tried yet. And, as Shawn pointed out, images are OCRable, so that the text within them becomes searchable just like the rest of my notes.

5. Free. As I was just experimenting with Evernote over the last two months, I haven't committed to the paid version as yet. But the free version is thus far everything I need. I've never come anywhere near using all of the monthly data allowance of the free version, and the little ad in the corner of the application is inoffensive. At some point, I'll probably upgrade to the paid version, partially for a bit more flexibility in the kinds of files I can attach to notes, and partially to support the team developing a really great project.

I do perhaps wish that my text files were really stored as text files (Evernote saves them in its own proprietary XML-based format, as well as in HTML format), but for what I'm doing, just being able to find and copy the notes is enough. And overall I've had a great experience with Evernote so far, which is allowing my notetaking habit to become more productive and more organized than before.

"Skitch Finds New Life At Evernote With iPhone Version," by Jon Mitchell, ReadWriteWeb, September 19, 2012 ---
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/skitch-finds-new-life-at-evernote-with-iphone-version.php

"6 Awesome Evernote Apps That We Guarantee You've Never Seen," by Jon Mitchell, ReadWriteWeb, July 27, 2012 ---
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/evernote-announces-6-awesome-apps-as-2012-devcup-finalists.php

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


"Ending the Traditional MBA," by Kaitlin Mulhere, Inside Higher Ed, October 23, 2014 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/10/23/wake-forest-drop-traditional-mba-program

. . .

Starting next year, Wake Forest will no longer accept applications for a traditional, daytime M.B.A. program at its Winston-Salem campus. Instead, the university will expand its offerings for working professionals.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
When I was at Trinity University the MBA program was increasingly becoming a program for part time students, particularly military officers at the various military bases in San Antonio.

Trinity, however, did not want any programs for part-time students such that we scrapped the MBA program entirely.  About the same time, Trinity dropped over 20 other masters degree programs and required all undergraduate students in the Education Department to enroll in a five-year program.

After the 150-hour rule to take the CPA exam commenced, we started a masters of science program in accounting for full-time students. It continues to operate for a small class of 15-25 students on average. This would not be cost effective in most universities, but Trinity has such a huge endowment it maintains many smaller programs for undergraduate and a few remaining graduate programs.


Virtual Reality --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality

Second Life --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life
Second Life Challenges and Criticisms --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Second_Life

Update on Second Life:  Facial Expressions
"The Quest to Put More Reality in Virtual Reality," MIT's Technology Review, October 22, 2014 --- Click Here
http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/531751/the-quest-to-put-more-reality-in-virtual-reality/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20141022

The inventor of Second Life has spent 15 years chasing the dream of living in virtual space. Can his new company finally give virtual worlds mass-market appeal?

Philip Rosedale is telling me about his new company, but I can’t stop myself from looking down at my hands. With palms up, I watch with fascination as I slowly wiggle my fingers and form the “OK” sign. I curl my hands into fists as I reach my arms out in front. They look pinker than normal but work as usual. When I look back up at Rosedale, he’s wearing a smile, and his eyebrows rise slightly. “Isn’t it cool?” he says. In my right ear, I hear a quiet chuckle from one of his colleagues, Ryan Karpf, standing just outside my vision.

It is cool, because nothing that I’m seeing is real. Though our conversation appears to be happening in a tastefully lit club, I am actually sitting in front of a laptop in a San Francisco office wearing a virtual-reality headset and headphones. I’m trying out a new platform for virtual worlds in development by Rosedale’s startup, High Fidelity.

When I put on the virtual-reality goggles, I saw the view from my avatar’s eyes; as I moved my head, motion sensors in the goggles controlled the movements of the avatar’s head. Moving my hands in the real world controlled the avatar’s hands, thanks to an infrared motion sensor mounted on the front of the headset.

I could gesture for emphasis, and look from person to person as the conversation flowed or my attention drifted. More important, I could get a read on what Rosedale and Karpf were thinking as they spoke or listened—because their head movements and facial expressions mirrored what their real bodies were doing. Each had logged in from a laptop with a small 3-D camera perched on its screen; the camera captured their expressions, down to eye blinks and lip movements. Their virtual mouths synched with their real words. After the initial unfamiliarity wore off, chatting with Rosedale and Karpf in virtual space was much the same as it would have been in real space.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on Second Life with special emphasis on applications in accounting courses ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#SecondLife


Book Reviews
Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything ---
http://lisnews.org/intertwingled_information_changes_everything

From LISnews on October 21, 2014

Searching for the ripple effects of history-making tech ---
http://lisnews.org/searching_for_the_ripple_effects_of_historymaking_tech

In the new book and PBS series “How We Got to Now,” Steven Johnson presents six game-changing innovations and how they shaped the modern world. Hari Sreenivasan talks to Johnson about surprising connections between invention and American society.


UNC's 20-Year Academic Scandals Were Not Confined to Athletics and African and Afro-American Studies Departments
Where were the internal controls on grade change forms?

"Widespread Nature of Chapel Hill's Academic Fraud Is Laid Bare," by Jack Stripling, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 23, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Widespread-Nature-of-Chapel/149603/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Jensen Comment
My accounting background makes me think first about internal control. UNC apparently had no internal control over grade changes. For example, when I taught at Trinity University a grade change form had four carbon copies that I submitted to the registrars office. When the student's grade was changed one of those copies I signed was returned to me.

At UNC the Afro-American Studies Department left grade change forms where students could get blank copies and forge instructor signatures for virtually any courses on campus. Apparently a copy of a grade change form was not sent back to an instructor who would then realize that somebody had forged his or her signature. UNC gets an F on internal control, and nobody should change that grade!

Yeah Right! Wink! Wink!
What is unbelievable is that UNC said this went on for 20 years without coaches, higher administrative officials, and 99.9% of the faculty being aware that thousands of students were cheating, only about half of them being athletes.

"UNC investigation: Bogus classes were pushed by academic counselors," by Dan Kane and Jane Stancill, newsobserver.com, October 22, 2014,
http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/10/22/4255098_unc-investigation-bogus-classes.html?rh=

"New Report Implicates UNC's Athletics Department In Fake Classes Scandal," by Peter Jacobs, Business Insider, October 22, 2014 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/new-report-implicates-uncs-athletics-department-in-fake-classes-scandal-2014-10 

The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill athletics department knew about and encouraged fake classes and grade manipulation for the school's athletes, according to a new report released Wednesday.

A previous report released in 2012 revealed a long history at UNC of classes in the Department of Afro and African-American Studies that never met, as well as a culture of changing and improving grades. These classes were heavily populated by student athletes.

The 2012 report cleared the UNC athletics department of any involvement in the athletes' grade inflation.

This no longer seems to be the case. According to The News & Observer, Wednesday's report "found a new culprit: the Academic Support Program for Student-Athletes ... The report describes a fairly broad group of academic and athletic officials who knew about athletes getting better grades in classes that only required papers, yet taking little or no action."

Additionally, student newspaper The Daily Tar Heel reports, the new report "found clear evidence that academic counselors from the football, men's basketball and women's basketball teams asked for players to be enrolled in bogus independent study classes in order for them to be eligible."

The more recent investigation was led by Kenneth Wainstein, a former U.S. Justice Department official. Wainstein reportedly had an unprecedented level of access to material related to the UNC scandal, as well as the cooperation of former African studies chairman Julius Nyang'oro and department administrator Deborah Crowder.


Read more:
http://www.businessinsider.com/new-report-implicates-uncs-athletics-department-in-fake-classes-scandal-2014-10#ixzz3GtgoUiow
 

"UNC's Fake 'Paper Classes' Were Not Just For Athletes — They Were Also Very Popular With Frat Boys," by Peter Jacobs, Business Insider, October 23, 2014 --- http://www.businessinsider.com/uncs-fake-paper-classes-were-also-popular-with-frat-boys-2014-10  

Jensen Comment
It's possible to estimate the number of students who took fake classes (the media is reporting 3,100 students over 20 years) at the University of North Carolina. But we will probably never know the number of students who forged grade change slips for legitimate courses.

"University of North Carolina learning specialist receives death threats after her research finds one in 10 college athletes have reading age of a THIRD GRADER," by Sara Malm, Daily Mail, January 10, 2014 ---
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2537041/University-North-Carolina-learning-specialist-receives-death-threats-research-finds-one-10-college-athletes-reading-age-fifth-grader.html

Mary Willingham exposed college athletes' lack of academic abilities

  • She found that 10 per cent read at elementary school level
  • A majority of players' reading level was between 4th and 8th grade
  • Men's basketball makes $16.9m-a-year for University of North Carolina

Continued in article

 

Jensen Comment
More often than not employers make it uncomfortable for whistleblowers who don't resign. UNC does not deny that for ten years varsity athletes took fake courses and were "allowed" to change their grades. They just contend that these athletes did not suffer academically because they were in the wonderful learning environment of the University of North Carolina. Yeah Right!

UNC Fudging the Grades of Athletes
"Scandal Bowl: Why Tar Heel Fraud Might Be Just the Start," by Paul M. Barrett, Bloomberg Businessweek, January 6, 2014 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-06/unc-athletic-scandal-charges-of-fraud-could-be-tip-of-wider-revelations?campaign_id=DN010614

The corruption of academics at the University of North Carolina’s Chapel Hill campus could turn into the most revelatory of all of the undergraduate sports scandals in recent memory. Beginning three years ago with what sounded like garden-variety reports of under-the-table payments from agents and improper classroom help for athletes, the affair has spread and deepened to include evidence of hundreds of sham courses offered since the early 1990s. Untold numbers of grades have been changed without authorization and faculty signatures forged—all in the service of an elaborate campaign to keep elite basketball and football players academically eligible to play.

After belatedly catching up with the UNC debacle in this recent dispatch, I’ve decided the still-developing story deserves wider attention. Or, to put it more precisely, the excellent reporting already done by the News & Observer of Raleigh merits amplification outside of North Carolina.

The rot in Chapel Hill undermines UNC’s reputation as one of the nation’s finest public institutions of higher learning. Officials created classes that did not meet. That’s not the only reason more scrutiny is needed. There’s also the particularly pernicious way that the school’s African and Afro-American Studies Department has been used to inflate the GPAs of basketball and football players. The corruption of a scholarly discipline devoted to black history and culture underscores a racial subtext to the exploitation of college athletes that typically goes unidentified in polite discussion. (UNC’s former longtime Afro-Am chairman, Julius Nyang’oro, has been criminally indicted for fraud.)

Another reason Chapel Hill requires sustained investigation is the manner in which the athletic and academic hierarchies at UNC, along with the National Collegiate Athletic Association, have so far whitewashed the scandal. Officials have repeatedly denied that the fiasco’s roots trace to an illicit agenda that, in the name of coddling a disproportionately black undergraduate athlete population, has left many students intellectually crippled.

Dan Kane, the News & Observer‘s lead investigative reporter, does old-school, just-the-facts-m’am work—and more power to him. Digging up the basic data has been a lonely and arduous task for which Kane has been rewarded with craven accusations of home state disloyalty. As he wrote last month, the six official “reviews” and “investigations” of the wayward Afro-Am Department have all failed to connect the dots in any meaningful way. In coming weeks and months, I hope I can supplement Kane’s dogged efforts with some long-distance perspective. Valuable tips from concerned local people, some of them UNC alumni, are already pouring in, and that’s part of the reason I’m going to pursue the story. Keep those e-mails coming.

One source of insight is Jay Smith, a professor of early modern French history at UNC. A serious scholar who understands the university’s sports-happy culture, Smith has developed a powerful distaste for the way his employer has obfuscated the scandal. “What’s going on here is so important,” he told me by telephone, “because it’s emblematic of what I think goes on at major universities all across the country,” where the business of sports undermines the mission of education. That sounds right to me.

Smith has the best sort of self-interested motivation for making sense of what has happened on his campus: He’s writing a book about the whole mess, based in part on statistics and personal experiences proffered by UNC instructors assigned over the years to assist varsity athletes. To me that sounds like a page-turner—and even the basis of an HBO movie.

I asked Smith what he thinks is going to happen next. He pointed to comments that the local district attorney made when the disgraced former Afro-Am chairman, Nyang’oro, was indicted in December. Orange County DA Jim Woodall told the News & Observer that a second person is also under investigation and could be indicted soon. Woodall did not identify the second target, except to say the person is not someone who currently works for UNC. ”Other probes have identified Nyang’oro’s longtime department manager, Deborah Crowder, as being involved in the bogus classes,” the News & Observer noted. “She retired in 2009.” Both Crowder and Nyang’oro have refused to comment publicly, and Nyang’oro’s criminal defense lawyer didn’t return my e-mail inquiry.

The indictment of Crowder, a relatively low-level administrative figure, could crack open the case. It defies logic that Nyang’oro and his assistant would have operated a rogue department without the knowledge of more senior faculty members, if not top university administrators. It further defies reason that this pair would have created phony classes for athletes without the urging and participation of people in the UNC athletic bureaucracy. Nyang’oro and Crowder are going to have ample reason to sing as part of potential plea deals.

Even before that happens, according to Smith, one or more well-positioned whistle-blowers are likely to go public and start naming names if they think the powers that be are planning to isolate Crowder and Nyang’oro as the sole villains. This thing goes much higher, and there’s much more to come from Chapel Hill.

"Alleged Academic Fraud at U. of North Carolina Tests NCAA's Reach:  Myths surrounding the group's investigation cloud the controversy at Chapel Hill," by Brad Wolverton, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 7, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Alleged-Academic-Fraud-at-U/134270/

"North Carolina Admits to Academic Fraud in Sports Program," Inside Higher Ed, September 20, 2011 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/09/20/qt#270772

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

The best thing UNC can do at this point is to move from NCAA Division 1 to Division 3. Then they can compete with the University of Chicago on everything.


"3 Questions Left Unanswered by Chapel Hill’s Academic-Fraud Report," Chronicle of Higher Education, October 23, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/3-questions-left-unanswered-by-chapel-hills-academic-fraud-report/88381?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Jensen Comment
Except for the wink-wink question about higher administrators and faculty, there are more important questions to be answered in this 20-year UNC mess.

For me the biggest question concerns what is ethical and what is not ethical when you're dealing with unmotivated students who you want to help in literally every way? When do you as a faculty member and/or administrator cross the line? Did the UNC head of the Parr Center for Ethics ant UNC cross the line if faking it for some unmotivated students put them back on track?

The Cozy Relationships of Academic Counselors to Athletes:  I'm Surprised More of Them Don't Get Married
"On the Line," by Jack Stripling, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 24, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/On-the-Line/149613/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Some of Them Do Get Married
Linebacker's Wife Says She Wrote His Papers (and took two online courses for him)
The wife of a star University of South Florida linebacker says she wrote his academic papers and took two online classes for him. The accusations against Ben Moffitt, who had been promoted by the university to the news media as a family man, were made in e-mail messages to The Tampa Tribune, and followed Mr. Moffitt’s filing for divorce. Mr. Moffitt called the accusations “hearsay,” and a university spokesman said the matter was a “domestic issue.” If it is found that Mr. Moffitt committed academic fraud, the newspaper reported, the university could be subject to an NCAA investigation.
"Linebacker's Wife Says She Wrote His Papers," Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog, January 5, 2008 --- http://chronicle.com/news/article/3707/linebackers-wife-says-she-wrote-his-papers?at

She directed the university’s Parr Center for Ethics (at the University of North Carolina)
"The Ethicist (philosophy professor and academic counselor) Who Crossed the Line," by Brad Wolverton, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 24, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Ethicist-Who-Crossed-the/149619/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

. . .

But the person everyone’s talking about is Ms. Boxill, a senior philosophy lecturer and former academic counselor for athletes. According to an independent report released on Wednesday, she played a key role in steering athletes into fake classes to help them maintain their eligibility with the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

While many people were implicated in the breakdown, which involved more than 3,000 students over 18 years, Ms. Boxill was unique because of her background: Although she did not have tenure, she was a faculty leader, administrator, and athletics insider, lending her a credibility that few people on campus enjoyed. That status made her precipitous fall all the more puzzling. (A university spokesperson would not comment on her employment, but on Wednesday the university said that nine employees were being terminated or were under disciplinary review.)

Her reputation as an honest broker—she directed the university’s Parr Center for Ethics—made her an unlikely villain. Several colleagues describe her as someone who often set aside her own needs for people who had little to give in return. She took orders from chancellors, but she still talked to the groundskeepers.

Continued in article

Another question is how far do you go to save a fraternity partying student who is not an athlete?
"UNC's Fake 'Paper Classes' Were Not Just For Athletes — They Were Also Very Popular With Frat Boys," by Peter Jacobs, Business Insider, October 23, 2014 --- http://www.businessinsider.com/uncs-fake-paper-classes-were-also-popular-with-frat-boys-2014-10  

Jensen Comment
It's possible to estimate the number of students who took fake classes (the media is reporting 3,100 students over 20 years) at the University of North Carolina. But we will probably never know the number of students who forged grade change slips for legitimate courses.

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


Don’t let anybody tell you that raising the minimum wage will kill jobs, they always say that.
Hillary Clinton
Even Paul Krugman admits that robots are replacing lower-skilled as well as higher-skilled workers. McDonalds is now experimenting with automated order taking that will eventually replace many of its lowest-paid workers. In fairness to Ms. Clinton, it may not be so much the wages that are driving the robotics as the expensive worker benefits and sometimes the human training and turnover costs. Versatile robots are now being invented that are more easily trained for different types of work.

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

Manufacturers Adding Robots to Factory Floors in Record Numbers ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/graphiti/529971/robots-rising/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20140818

"All Around The World, Labor Is Losing Out To Capital," The Economist, November 3, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/all-around-the-world-labor-is-losing-out-to-capital-2013-11

Graphic from the New York Times via Barry Ritholtz:  Change in private manufacturing jobs, by county in the USA
This graphic shows why there is such a lousy future in manufacturing jobs. There are many causes, especially the slow economic recovery and reduced government spending for such  things as military equipment, but the increasing displacements are causes by robotics and automation that increasingly replace manufacturing workers in ways that were not imagined 20 ago. Will the last person leaving an automated factory turn out the lithts ---
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2014/06/change-in-private-manufacturing-jobs-by-county/

"Everywhere I Look I See Jobs That Will Be Replaced By Robots," by Richard White, Business Insider, September 12, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/everywhere-i-go-i-see-jobs-that-will-be-replaced-by-robots-2013-9

No More Jobs on the Farms or Most Anywhere Else
"Get Ready for Robot Farmers,"  by Jodi Helmer, CNNMoney via Yahoo Tech, October 24, 2014 ---
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/get-ready-for-robot-farmers-100613764059.html

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

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

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

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

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

Jensen Comment
There's hope until robots are reading, comprehending, and writing reviews of books written by robots. 

Jensen Question
How many years will it take for cost accountants to stop teaching how to allocate overhead on the basis of direct labor hours or costs?


Question
What's the difference between farmers and lawyers?

Answer
Farmers are being replaced by robots
"Get Ready for Robot Farmers,"  by Jodi Helmer, CNNMoney via Yahoo Tech, October 24, 2014 ---
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/get-ready-for-robot-farmers-100613764059.html
Lawyers don't need to be replaced

"Law School Carnage Enters Its Fifth Year," by Paul Caron, TaxProf Blog, October 24, 2014 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2014/10/law-school-carnage-.html


Lynda Barry, Cartoonist Turned Professor, Gives Her Old Fashioned Take on the Future of Education --- Click Here
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/-G8UbZDAj1U/lynda-barry-on-the-future-of-education.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

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

Tertiary education --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertiary_education

Tertiary education, also referred to as third stage, third level, and post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of a school providing a secondary education. The World Bank, for example, defines tertiary education as including universities as well as institutions that teach specific capacities of higher learning such as colleges, technical training institutes, community colleges, nursing schools, research laboratories, centers of excellence, and distance learning centers.[1] Higher education is taken to include undergraduate and postgraduate education, while vocational education and training beyond secondary education is known as further education in the United Kingdom, or continuing education in the United States.

Tertiary education generally culminates in the receipt of certificates, diplomas, or academic degrees.

Education by Country --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_education_articles_by_country

Education in Germany --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Germany

The Most Educated Countries in the World (in terms of "tertiary education") ---
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-most-educated-countries-in-the-world.html?page=all

  1. Canada
  2. Israel
  3. Japan
  4. United States
  5. New Zealand
  6. South Korea
  7. United Kingdom
  8. Finland
  9. Australia
  10. Ireland

Countries with the highest proportions of  college graduates ---
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/22/countries-with-the-most-c_n_655393.html#s117378&title=Russian_Federation_54

  1. Russian Federation 54.0% (quality varies due to rampant cheating and corruption where students can buy course grades and admission)
  2. Canada 48.3%
  3. Israel 43.6%
  4. Japan 41.0%
  5. New Zealand 41.0%
  6. United States 40.3% (colleges vary greatly in terms of admissions standards and rigor for graduation)
  7. Finland 36.4%
  8. South Korea 34.3%
  9. Norway 34.2%
  10. Australia 33.7%

Germany is still under the OECD average in terms of proportions of college graduates at 23.9% ---
http://andrewhammel.typepad.com/german_joys/2010/09/education-governments-should-expand-tertiary-studies-to-boost-jobs-and-tax-revenues.html .

Jensen Comment
This tidbit was inspired by reference to the fact that tertiary education in Germany was free and is now returning to virtually free. Note, however, that getting into college in Germany is extremely competitive based mostly upon examinations along the way in what we call K-12 schools ---
http://www.german-way.com/history-and-culture/education/

Note there's a huge difference between free tuition and free college education covering tuition, room, board, transportation, computers, books, etc. It's much more likely in the USA that students can both live at home and get college degrees due to higher numbers of nearby college campuses all across the USA and the increasing prevalence online college degree opportunities relative to all of Europe, especially in Germany. Germans may get free tuition, but they may have to leave home and pay for their own relatively expensive room and board in large cities.

Germany has a smaller proportion of college graduates in large measure due somewhat to both the status and the wages of people that elect to go into the skilled trades rather than college where salaries may often be lower.

But the primary reason is the limited space in German universities and the competitiveness of the qualifying examinations to get in. Unlike the USA, first year German college students are good in reading, writing, and college-level mathematics. In the USA colleges increasingly are faced with students needing to have remedial courses in reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Germany is still under the OECD average in terms of proportions of college graduates at 23.9% ---
http://andrewhammel.typepad.com/german_joys/2010/09/education-governments-should-expand-tertiary-studies-to-boost-jobs-and-tax-revenues.html .

The study's setting off the usual alarm bells (g) in Germany. I speculated on the cause of Germany's low college-graduation rates a while ago, but I think one factor I forgot to mention is cost. It's not that some German universities have introduced tuition fees -- in international comparison, these tuition fees are negligible. The problem is rather that Germany has a woefully inadequate system for financing higher education. Germany does have a loan/grant scheme for students (called Bafoeg), but it's extremely complex and miserly (g). Not that I'm a big fan of student loans, but a well-regulated system of affordable student loans is much better than Germany's current system of measly scholarships, half-time university posts, and help from relatives.

Even if simple, affordable loans were available, the problem would remained that lots of young Germans are reluctant to face what students in most other countries have long accepted: college costs money, and that means debt. I'm consistently surprised to meet Germans who could have gone to college but didn't, and instead decided to become hairdressers, chimney sweeps, butchers, or machinists. There are ads all over my university right now which advise university students who "don't like studying" to drop out of college and train to become air-traffic controllers.
 

The rationale behind people who choose these professions is that "we'll always need" people to do these jobs, so they offer steadier employment. I'm not so sure. In fact, something tells me that 15 years from now or so, we're going to need a whole lot fewer human air-traffic controllers than we do now...

In comparison say in the USA and Australia, the skilled trades may pay better in many instances but the social status of college graduates is generally higher relative to the status of skilled trades workers in Germany. Also in the USA college graduates are less bounded due to the American Dream of reaching almost unheard of salaries as physicians, veterinarians, corporate executives, etc. relative to counterparts in Germany where white collar salaries are more bounded by taxes and culture relative to living expenses (that are generally higher, especially for big houses luxury condos, and acreages).

There is an increasing and long-delayed initiative to open up the German education system to be more like the North American dreams.

Berlin's Gymnasium Lottery
In 2009 the Berlin Senate decided that Berlin's gymnasium schools should no longer be allowed to pick all of their students. It was ruled that while they would be able to pick 70% to 65% of their students, the other places were to be allocated by lottery. Every child is able to enter the lottery, no matter how he or she performed in primary school. It is hoped that this policy will increase the number of working class students attending a gymnasium. The Left proposed that Berlin gymnasiums should no longer be allowed to expel students who perform poorly, so that students who won a gymnasium place in the lottery have a higher chance of graduating from that school. It is not clear yet whether Berlin's senate will decide in favor of The Left's proposal.

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


Recall that Bill Sharpe of CAPM fame and controversy is a Nobel Laureate ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Forsyth_Sharpe

Sharpe Ratio --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe_ratio

"Don’t Over-Rely on Historical Data to Forecast Future Returns," by Charles Rotblut and William Sharpe, AAII Journal, October 2014 ---
http://www.aaii.com/journal/article/dont-over-rely-on-historical-data-to-forecast-future-returns?adv=yes

Jensen Comment
The same applies to not over-relying on historical data in valuation. My favorite case study that I used for this in teaching is the following:
Questrom vs. Federated Department Stores, Inc.:  A Question of Equity Value," by University of Alabama faculty members by Gary Taylor, William Sampson, and Benton Gup, May 2001 edition of Issues in Accounting Education ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/roi.htm

Jensen Comment
I want to especially thank David Stout, Editor of the May 2001 edition of Issues in Accounting Education.  There has been something special in all the editions edited by David, but the May edition is very special to me.  All the articles in that edition are helpful, but I want to call attention to three articles that I will use intently in my graduate Accounting Theory course.

  • "Questrom vs. Federated Department Stores, Inc.:  A Question of Equity Value," by University of Alabama faculty members Gary Taylor, William Sampson, and Benton Gup, pp. 223-256.
    This is perhaps the best short case that I've ever read.  It will undoubtedly help my students better understand weighted average cost of capital, free cash flow valuation, and the residual income model.  The three student handouts are outstanding.  Bravo to Taylor, Sampson, and Gup.

     
  • "Using the Residual-Income Stock Price Valuation Model to Teach and Learn Ratio Analysis," by Robert Halsey, pp. 257-276.
    What a follow-up case to the Questrom case mentioned above!  I have long used the Dupont Formula in courses and nearly always use the excellent paper entitled "Disaggregating the ROE:  A New Approach," by T.I. Selling and C.P.  Stickney, Accounting Horizons, December 1990, pp. 9-17.  Halsey's paper guides students through the swamp of stock price valuation using the residual income model (which by the way is one of the few academic accounting models that has had a major impact on accounting practice, especially consulting practice in equity valuation by CPA firms).

     
  • "Developing Risk Skills:  An Investigation of Business Risks and Controls at Prudential Insurance Company of America," by Paul Walker, Bill Shenkir, and Stephen Hunn, pp. 291
    I will use this case to vividly illustrate the "tone-at-the-top" importance of business ethics and risk analysis.  This is case is easy to read and highly informative.

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm


From LISnews on October 21, 2014

Voyage, a High-End Amazon Kindle That Beats Hardcovers ---
http://lisnews.org/voyage_a_highend_amazon_kindle_that_beats_hardcovers

NYT Bits Blog

Excerpt: Compared with previous Kindles, text on the Kindle Voyage appears both sharper and in starker relief against the background. Graphics, like charts and graphs, look just as clear as they do in any black-and-white book.

The effect is beguiling. If you look at the new Kindle for any stretch of time, you don’t just forget that you’re reading an e-book; you forget that you’re using any kind of electronic device at all.

Amazon says the Voyage offers a better approximation of print than has ever been available on an e-reader, but for me, it’s far better than that. It offers the visual clarity of printed text with the flexibility of an electronic device.


Following in the Footsteps of the University of Wisconsin
"U. of Michigan Gets Accreditor Approval for Competency-Based Degree,"  Chronicle of Higher Education, October 21, 2014 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/10/21/u-michigan-gets-accreditor-approval-competency-based-degree

Jensen Comment
To date there are only selected degrees and courses available in competency-based programs.  For example, the start up Michigan program will only apply to a masters degree using medical school-administered competency examinations. The broadest-based program to date is available at the University of Southern New Hampshire. In the 1800s students could take final examinations at the University of Chicago without attending classes.

Bob Jensen's threads on degrees and course credits without courses ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm#ConceptKnowledge 


Web Publishing Pleasures Versus Journal Publishing Agonies

Jensen Comment
I recall being at a conference where Baruch Lev made a comment that he was not looking forward to a summer of doing battle with journal referees. Personally, I no longer want to do battles with referees and post my essays at my Website and a listserv called AECM --- letting the chips fall as they may. I almost always publish replies from readers at my Website, with their permission. That is about the only type of refereeing that my writings encounter these days. My debates on the listserv are more rewarding to me that all my years of trying to accommodate journal referees.

Since journals like the American Accounting Association journals are not available to Web crawlers like Google and Yahoo, I get far more feedback from my Web publishing than I ever did from my journal publishing, feedback from global strangers who do not subscribe to AAA journals. In most respects I feel that I have far more people around the world reading my Web articles than people who read my formal journal articles.

There is a natural science journal called eLIFE that tries to strike a balance between the perfectionism demands of referees and the publishing of non-refereed working papers.
eLIFE (a natural sciences research journal that avoids endless cycles of revisions) ---  http://elifesciences.org

Initial decisions are made in a few days, post-review decisions in about a month, and most articles go through only one round of revision. Every author also has the option to make their accepted manuscript openly available shortly after receiving a final decision

However, I don't think eLIFE articles, like most journal articles, can be found by Web crawlers. That is sad. This suggests that authors should do pre-publication of working papers on their Web servers or in pre-publication outlets like SSRN and bioRxiv.org that are crawled over daily by the Web search engines.

Of course authors who need journal articles for reputation building, promotion, and tenure in the Academy I do not recommend avoiding the agonies of battles with referees in journal article publishing. However, once they hit a certain point in their careers where they want more pleasure than pain from their writing endeavors, I highly recommend Web and listserv publishing, including blog publishing. I have three blogs that give me pleasure.

For lack of a better term, final acceptance by journal referees put a "finality" seal to submissions in a journal like TAR that does not publish comments and rejoinders. Any updates and revisions must essentially be new submissions that must once again run the gauntlet of the refereeing process --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm 

I love Web, blog, and listserv publishing because there is no such "finality." These articles are living documents that can be updated and revised in real time to a point where readers really should hit the refresh button of their browsers when they go to a Web site.

Bob Jensen's 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

Bob Jensen's Threads (more like scrapbooks) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm


"The Best Infographics of the Year: Nate Silver on the 3 Keys to Great Information Design and the Line Between Editing and Censorship," by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, October 14, 2014 ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/14/best-american-infographics-2014-nate-silver/ 

Bob Jensen's threads on
Visualization of Multivariate Data (including faces) ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/352wpvisual/000datavisualization.htm 


AICPA Launches New Tools to Assist CPA Firms in Expanding and Enhancing Diversity and Inclusion Efforts ---
http://www.aicpa.org/press/pressreleases/2014/pages/new-tools-cpa-firms-accounting-diversity.aspx

AICPA Foundation Awards $277,500 to 92 Minority Accounting Scholars (in undergraduate and graduate programs)---
http://www.aicpa.org/press/pressreleases/2014/pages/aicpa-foundation-awards-minority-accounting-scholarships.aspx

. . .

As Minority Scholarship recipients, the 92 students enter the AICPA Legacy Scholars program, established in 2011. The Program awards recipients a one-year AICPA Legacy Scholarship and helps them develop the soft skills needed to maintain a successful career through service. Scholarship recipients plan, promote and execute an eight-hour community service project each semester. The service activity must relate to accounting, serve the community and be meaningful to the student.

AICPA Legacy Scholars are Student Affiliate Members of the AICPA, which is a free membership option available to all currently enrolled students. Each AICPA Legacy Scholar is assigned a coach to provide guidance on the student’s service project and to advise on questions related to the profession and the work environment.

Scholarship funding is provided by the AICPA Foundation, with contributions from the Accounting Education Foundation of the Texas Society of CPAs ($10,000), the New Jersey Society of CPAs ($5,000) and Robert Half International ($5,500). The majority of students receive individual awards of $3,000 to fund expenses related to their pursuit of an accounting degree.

Continued in article (including a listing of the students receiving awards this year and their universities)

Jensen Comment
Minority students interested in doctoral studies in accountancy are encouraged to apply to the KPMG Foundation that (with funding support from various accounting and business firms) to provide full-ride financial support to various accountancy Ph.D. programs. Other support is also available.
http://www.kpmg.com/ca/en/topics/the-kpmg-foundation/education-grants/pages/home.aspx

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


"SELLING THE NEED FOR WORK," by Joe Hoyle, Teaching Blog, October 13, 2014 ---
http://joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/2014/10/selling-need-for-work.html

In my previous blog posting, I talked about motivation – are you a football coach or a scout leader? I received several emails asking how I motivate students under either of those approaches. Well, no motivational style works perfectly on every occasion but I think you need to (a) really communicate clearly to your students at all times and (b) sell the course to them. Every course and every friend and every club is demanding every minute of a student’s time. Why should they pick your course to focus their attentions? I think that is where communication becomes vital and I think that communication has to have some element of marketing in it. If you believe in the importance of your course, then you need to help them understand what needs to be done.

Consequently, here is an email that I sent to my students today.

To: Accounting Students

From: JH

At the beginning of the semester, I made the comment that a successful class is like a dance that is well done. If I do half of the work and you do half of the work, then we can accomplish great things. But if either of us does less than half of the work, then the dance is never going to go very well no matter how much the other party is working.

You have every right to assess whether I (or any other teacher) is doing half of the work. If not, you should complain.

And, in the same manner, I periodically assess how you are doing. We are on fall break. It is a good time for an assessment. Our second test is in just a few days. I know how you did on the first test. I’m really interested now in where you are heading on our second test.

My guess is that you view this class as a class—maybe a little more important or a little less important than others, but really nothing different than a class.

I view this class as an opportunity. It is one where you can add some knowledge to your brain that might prove helpful one day. It is an opportunity that might make you a bit sharper at some time in the future, more astute, a better decision-maker, a wiser and more successful person.

So, over the last couple of days, I have gone over the seating chart, person by person assessing whether you are making good use of this opportunity. Are you doing your half of the dance? Truthfully, as a whole, I am pretty well pleased. No group is perfect but a number of you are clearly doing your half. In general, I have few complaints. Unfortunately, we live in a specific world and not in a general world.

Here’s how I kind of assess students when I am thinking about each one of you.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Joe is relatively stingy with top grades. This is one of the main motivators for hard work by students in class.


"Australian Premier Calls University’s Fossil-Fuel Divestment ‘Stupid’," by Andy Thomason, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 16, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/jp/prime-minister-australian-colleges-divestment-from-fossil-fuels-is-stupid?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Jensen Comment
Universities who divest from fossil fuel investments in their portfolios and/or shift from fossil fuel use for heating and cooling on campus generally do so as a symbolic publicity gesture rather than good economics. For example, coal companies in many instances are seeking capital to make abundant coal more environmentally friendly. Depriving them of capital may may make them play dirtier in production and politics.

Also there are supply chain considerations. If coal is the cheapest form of energy then electric companies have more operating cash to invest in carbon removal.

One of the most worrisome happenings in the world is the global destruction of our great oxygen sources --- the rain forests. We should make it a priority to build machines that can act like trees that feed carbon in and push oxygen out. Those machines are not yet replacing rain forests, but I long for the day when they will supply earth with abundant oxygen.

"In a First, Commercial Coal Plant Buries Its CO2:  A coal plant in Saskatchewan will capture most of its carbon pollution—and use it to extract oil from the ground," by David Talbot, MIT's Technology Review, October 3, 2014 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/531321/in-a-first-commercial-coal-plant-buries-its-co2/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20141003

A coal plant that opened today in Saskatchewan captures and buries the carbon dioxide it emits—with two significant caveats: it still emits as much carbon dioxide as a natural gas power plant, and the carbon dioxide it buries is being used to force more oil out of the ground.

The 110-megawatt Boundary Dam project, operated by provincial power utility SaskPower, is a refurbished coal-fired generator. It includes new post-combustion technology designed to absorb and capture 90 percent of the carbon dioxide in the plant’s exhaust, one approach to so-called carbon capture and storage, or CCS.

Continued in article


"Wikipedia, a Professor's Best Friend," by Dariusz Jemielniak, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 13, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Wikipedia-a-Professors-Best/149337/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Jensen Comment
I am a cheerleader for Wikipedia. However, one of my criticisms is that coverage across academic disciplines is highly variable. For example, coverage of economics and finance is fantastic. Coverage of accountancy can best be described as lousy. It's a Pogo thing. When I look for the enemy I discover that "He is us."

Disciplines covered extensively are generally strong in both theory and academic debate, particularly philosophy and science. Accountancy is weak in theory and the top academic research journals in accounting will not publish replications or even commentaries. This greatly limits anything interesting that can be posted to Wikipedia ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm

Academic leaders in philosophy and science are nearly all covered extensively in Wikipedia. Academic leaders in accountancy are rarely mentioned, and when they are mentioned their Wikipedia modules are puny and boring.

What academic accounting leader has an extensive Wikipedia module? I've never found a single one.

When I look up academic economists I not only find frequent Wikipedia modules, virtually all of those modules contain summaries of their research and summaries of controversies surrounding their research. I've never found a Wikipedia article about an academic accounting researcher that contains summaries of the controversies surrounding that professor's research.

Accounting research won't have much respect in the world until its leading researchers are in Wikipedia, including summaries of controversies of their research findings. The enemy is us.

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


"Grade Inflation—Why Princeton Threw in the Towel," by Russell K. Nieli, Minding the Campus, October 15, 2014 ---
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/2014/10/grade-inflation-why-princeton-threw-in-the-towel/
Thank you Barry Rice for the heads up!

Bob Jensen's threads on grade inflation are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm#RateMyProfessor


"Beyond Emmy and Sophie: Resources for Learning about Women in Math," by Evelyn Lamb, News 360,  October 14, 2014 ---
http://news360.com/article/261723431#
Thank you Linda Specht for the heads up.

Bob Jensen's threads on the history of women at work ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#Women

Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm


From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on October 15, 2014

For Southwest Airlines, steep learning curve
http://online.wsj.com/articles/steep-learning-curve-for-southwest-airlines-as-it-flies-overseas-1413326936?mod=djemCFO_h
Southwest Airlines Co
.’s addition of overseas flights has required big changes at the Dallas-based airline, including revamping its reservation system and retraining its staff. The airline grew into the nation’s fourth biggest over the past four decades by flying exclusively within the U.S. But with dwindling growth opportunities at home, it has started launching flights to the Caribbean and two tourist destinations in Mexico, with other international routes coming soon.


Fusion Power --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power

Bringing Star Power to Earth --- https://lasers.llnl.gov/

"Lockheed says makes breakthrough on fusion energy project," by Andrea Shalal, Reuters via Yahoo News, October 16, 2014 ---
http://news.yahoo.com/lockheed-says-makes-breakthrough-fusion-energy-project-123840986--finance.html?bcmt=comments-postbox

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp said on Wednesday it had made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion, and the first reactors, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready for use in a decade.

Continued in article

"Scientists Are Bashing Lockheed Martin's Nuclear Fusion 'Breakthrough'," by Jessica Orwig, Business Insider, October 15, 2014 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-bash-lockheed-on-nuclear-fusion-2014-10

Researchers at Lockheed Martin Corporation's Skunk Works, announced on Oct. 15 their ongoing work on a new nuclear fusion technology that could bring about functional, operational nuclear reactors in the next 10 years.

But most scientists and science communicators we talked to are skeptical of the claim.

"The nuclear engineering clearly fails to be cost effective," Tom Jarboe told Business Insider in an email. Jarboe is a professor of aeronautics and astronautics, an adjunct professor in physics, and a researcher with the University of Washington's nuclear fusion experiment.

The premise behind Lockheed's 10-year-plan is the smaller size of their device. The scientists are designing an improved version of a compact fusion reactor (CFR). The CFR generates power from nuclear fusion by extracting energy through the extremely hot plasma contained inside it.

The plasma consists of hydrogen atoms that, when heated to billions of degrees, fuse together. When this happens they release energy, which the CFR then extracts and can eventually transfer into electricity.

Traditional containment vessels for these plasmas are called tokamaks that look like hollowed-out doughnuts and are the size of an average apartment. Lockheed claims that their new CFR can generate 10 times more power than a tokamak in a space that could fit on the back of a large truck, according to Aviation Week. But Jarboe disagrees.

"This design has two doughnuts and a shell so it will be more than four times as bad as a tokamak," Jarboe stated, adding that, "Our concept [at the University of Washington] has no coils surrounded by plasma and solves the problem."

Although Lockheed Martin issued a press release stating that they have several pending patents for their approach, they have yet to publish any scientific papers on this latest work.

"It's really great that Lockheed has taken an interest in this important challenge of providing carbon-free energy to the world," Michael Zarnstorff, deputy director for research at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, told Business Insider in an email. "We haven't seen any results from the Lockheed experiments but the design is an interesting concept and it looks like they are at a very early stage of exploring this configuration."

While Zarnstorff remains optimistic, others are not ready to believe the hype.

Swadesh M. Mahajan, a thermonuclear plasma physicist at the University of Texas, told Mother Jones reporter James West that there were many reasons to be skeptical of the announcement. Specifically, "we know of no materials that would be able to handle anywhere near that amount of heat," for a device as small as Lockheed is proposing.

As of now, Lockheed's results are purely theoretical so it's hard to know whether they will work in reality, Rose Reed, an assistant professor of physics at Wayne State University and researcher at the Large Hadron Collider, told Mother Jones.

When asked if the concept of Lockheed's new design is in any way unique or novel, Zarnstorff told Business Insider that it was too early to tell.

Continued in article


"Shakespeare’s Genius Is Nonsense:  What the Bard can teach science about language and the limits of the human mind," by Jillian Hinchliffe & Seth Frey Illustration by Katherine Guillen & Eleanor Davis,  Nautilus, October 9, 2014
http://nautil.us/issue/18/genius/shakespeares-genius-is-nonsense


In the digital age, we read strategically. We target, we search, we skim. We don’t dig; we sift. The result: information, not knowledge
"The Dagger of Faith in the Digital Age: A vitriolic medieval manuscript illuminates how Google is destroying the act of reading," by Ryan Szpiech, Tablet Magazine, October 7, 2014 ---
http://tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/183443/dagger-digital-age?all=1


Web Publishing Pleasures Versus Journal Publishing Agonies

Jensen Comment
I once recall being at a conference where Baruch Lev made a comment that he was not looking forward to a summer of doing battle with journal referees. Personally, I no longer want to do battles with referees and post my essays at my Website and a listserv called AECM --- letting the chips fall as they may. I almost always publish replies from readers at my Website, with their permission. That is about the only type of refereeing that my writings encounter these days. My debates on the listserv are more rewarding to me that all my years of trying to accommodate journal referees.

Since journals like the American Accounting Association journals are not available to Web crawlers like Google and Yahoo, I get far more feedback from my Web publishing than I ever did from my journal publishing, feedback from global strangers who do not subscribe to AAA journals. In most respects I feel that I have far more people around the world reading my Web articles than people who read my formal journal articles.

There is a natural science journal called eLIFE that tries to strike a balance between the perfectionism demands of referees and the publishing of non-refereed working papers.
eLIFE (a natural sciences research journal that avoids endless cycles of revisions) ---  http://elifesciences.org

Initial decisions are made in a few days, post-review decisions in about a month, and most articles go through only one round of revision. Every author also has the option to make their accepted manuscript openly available shortly after receiving a final decision

However, I don't think eLIFE articles, like most journal articles, can be found by Web crawlers. That is sad. This suggests that authors should do pre-publication of working papers on their Web servers or in pre-publication outlets like SSRN and bioRxiv.org that are crawled over daily by the Web search engines.

Of course authors who need journal articles for reputation building, promotion, and tenure in the Academy I do not recommend avoiding the agonies of battles with referees in journal article publishing. However, once they hit a certain point in their careers where they want more pleasure than pain from their writing endeavors, I highly recommend Web and listserv publishing, including blog publishing. I have three blogs that give me pleasure.

Bob Jensen's 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


"4 Keys to Designing the Classroom of the Future," by Greg Thomson, T.H.E. Journal, October 15, 2014 ---
http://thejournal.com/articles/2014/10/15/4-keys-to-designing-the-classroom-of-the-future.aspx

Forget about rows of desks pointed at a whiteboard. Here's how mobile technology is reshaping teaching and learning.

Designing the classroom of the future is no easy task, mostly because it's difficult to know what the future will look like. As little as five years ago, few could have predicted the ubiquity of tablets and their accompanying need for more and more WiFi capabilities. Even the maker movement's reliance on "creative spaces" is a relatively new phenomenon.

As quickly as new technologies arise, other devices previously deemed indispensable fall out of favor. Take the interactive whiteboard (IWB), for example. According to J.D. Ferries-Rowe, chief information officer at Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis, the school made a sizable investment in IWBs about a decade ago. These days, Ferries-Rowe can't resist criticizing the boards as inherently "teacher-driven."

Ferries-Rowe works closely with Brebeuf Assistant Principal Jen LaMaster, and both are keenly tuned in to 21st century learning. "With interactive boards, teachers are standing there tapping, essentially using it like a chalk board," said LaMaster, with a trace of wistfulness. "It pretends to be interactive, but the most interactive you can be is two kids standing at the board and 18 watching. It's the opposite of an experiential activity."

"Interactive boards are on their way out," agreed Sam Farsaii, chief technology officer for the Coppell Independent School District in Dallas. "With inexpensive devices such as tablets, and a projector system, you can simulate whiteboard activities in an even more interactive way." Farsaii pointed out that even the physical height of interactive boards can be problematic, particularly for elementary students. In the interest of cost-effectiveness, Farsaii reported that IWBs will stay in the Coppell district "as long as the products function, to maximize their use," but he and Ferries-Rowe agree that interactive whiteboards are a prime example of how tricky it can be to plan a classroom around any one technology. "I refuse to write a technology plan that goes beyond five years," said Ferries-Rowe. "Anything beyond five years is

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's neglected threads on classroom design are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Design


Jensen Comment
Occasionally in my Web surfing I encounter a working paper or even a published article that contains an order:  
"Do not cite without permission." I assume this also means do not link to the paper even though it is linked on Google.

This clause strikes me as unethical in an academic world. At worst it enables the authors to avoid being criticized for data, research methods, and/or findings. At best it encourages replies suggesting improvements to the authors but not the rest of the world, which to me strikes me as being selfish and self-serving for the authors.

We obviously cannot ban such papers from the Web, but we can certainly ignore such papers.

But what if we don't ignore them? We can refer to the findings as "anonymous" without quoting from the papers or giving the authors their due credit.

For example, one paper in question that I stumbled on this morning concludes that married women at all levels in the USA full-time female workforce are paid more on average than unmarried women. To me this is a misleading finding. There is a skewness in marriage where there are higher proportions of unmarried women at younger ages. Workers in general tend to be paid less at younger ages. Hence, the lower pay of single women probably has more to do with age than marital status.


The USA's Poorest and Richest Cities Are Not the Biggest Cities (except for the San Jose metropolis) --- Click Here
http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/10/15/americas-poorest-cities-2/?utm_source=247WallStDailyNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=OCT152014A&utm_campaign=DailyNewsletter

The USA's Largest Cities --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population


"IBM Is in Even Worse Shape Than It Seemed," by Nick Summers, Bloomberg Businessweek, October 20, 2014 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-10-20/ibm-is-in-even-worse-shape-than-it-seemed?campaign_id=DN102014

Like a driver obeying the commands of a GPS system even as passengers shout that the car is clearly headed toward a ditch, IBM’s chief executive officer, Ginni Rometty, has followed the profit “roadmap” laid out by her predecessor. The company was going to reach $20 in adjusted earnings per share by 2015, damn it, even as nine straight quarters of sinking revenue made that an increasingly untenable feat of financial engineering. IBM (IBM) laid off workers, fiddled with its tax rate, took on debt, and bought back a staggering number of its own shares to make the math work, even as all that left the company less able to compete with the likes of Amazon.com (AMZN) and Google (GOOG) in cloud computing.

Today Rometty finally abandoned “Roadmap 2015,” announcing that IBM cannot hit the target after all. IBM also said it will pay a chipmaker called GlobalFoundries $1.5 billion to take its chip division off its hands, while also taking a $4.7 billion charge. And IBM reported its third-quarter results—a 10th consecutive period of falling sales, marked by weaker performance in growth markets. “We are disappointed in our performance,” Rometty said in a statement. “We saw a marked slowdown in September in client buying behavior, and our results also point to the unprecedented pace of change in our industry.” In response, shares of IBM were down more than 7 percent on Monday morning, Oct. 20.

I wrote, for a May 22 Bloomberg Businessweek cover story, about Rometty’s nearly impossible task of reinventing IBM for the era of cloud computing while handcuffed by the “Roadmap.” IBM is 103 years old and has survived upheavals in the technology industry before—selling mainframes, then personal computers, then getting into the consulting game. Rometty will tell anyone who listens that the changes demanded of IBM today are as great as they’ve ever been. One question is whether IBM has the technical chops to compete with Amazon and others: After losing a lucrative CIA cloud project to the upstart, IBM had to acquire a small competitor, SoftLayer, to competently provide the services its customers are now demanding. The arrival of cheap cloud computing means that corporations don’t need IBM’s big, expensive mainframes. And even if IBM does catch up, the cloud might be such a thin-margined industry that it can’t sustain the profit margins IBM had been telling investors to expect. Until today.

This morning’s selloff is the worst in four years for IBM, Bloomberg News reported. “IBM needs to find success and growth in the cloud through organic and acquisitive means,” Daniel Ives, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets, told BN. “Otherwise there could be some darker days ahead for the tech giant and its investors.” In other words: Focus not on financials but on making stuff people will pay money for, or else.

Continued in article

 


Learning Management System (LMS)--- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_management_system

"Dueling LMS Lawsuits," by Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed, October 16, 2014 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/10/16/university-and-lms-provider-sue-each-other-breach-contract




From the Scout Report on October 17, 2014

Mailbox --- http://www.mailboxapp.com 

According to the McKinsley Global Institute, the average worker spends about a quarter of her time at the office managing email. Mailbox wants to make all that easier. They’ve redesigned the inbox to make your mobile device a swifter, more efficient template for emailing. The app uses quick swipe and a chat-like view of entire conversations to make this possible. Available for iOS 7.0+ and Android 4.0.3+.

BigOven --- http://www.bigoven.com/mobile

BigOven is a big deal. It was chosen as a “Best App for Foodies” by Time Magazine and a “Best App for Eating” by the New York Times. It’s free, it’s easy to use, and it lets you keep track of up to 350,000 recipes on your handheld device. You can search the app by keyword, course, ingredient, or just browse popular recipes. This app is compatible with a variety of devices running iOS 7.0+ and Android 2.3+.


500 Pound Kangaroos Didn’t Hop, Skip, or Jump
Stop the hop: for huge ancient kangaroos, hopping was dicey
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/10/15/us-science-kangaroos-idINKCN0I42AG20141015

Extinct giant kangaroos did not hop… they walked
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/11165469/Extinct-giant-kangaroos-did-not-hop...they-walked.html

Meet the Lumbering, Quarter-Ton, Extinct Kangaroo
http://time.com/3503553/kangaroo-giant-extinct/

Monster Kangaroo Was a Walker, Not a Hopper
http://news.discovery.com/animals/monster-kangaroo-was-a-walker-not-a-hopper-141015.htm

Procoptodon goliah - Australian Museum
http://australianmuseum.net.au/Procoptodon-goliah/

Locomotion in Extinct Giant Kangaroos: Were Sthenurines Hop-Less Monsters?
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0109888


From the Scout Report on October 24, 2014

Quip --- https://quip.com 

If you’re looking for a way to collaborate on office projects (documents, spreadsheets, lists, and chat), look no further than Quip. This app allows you to work in real time with your collaborators in a handy framework that keeps everything fluid yet structured. Recently updated for Android (4.0.3+), the app was originally designed for iOS (7.0+). Newer versions take care of old bugs that you’ll read about in last year’s reviews.

Jensen Comment
Accounting professors too often forget that American Accounting Association members can use the AAA Commons free for worldwide collaboration projects in the "hives" of the Commons ---

http://aaacommons.org/


Microsoft OneDrive --- https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-us/ 

You can think of Microsoft OneDrive as a a Google Drive equivalent, if Google Drive would actually let you use the Office Suite (Word, Excel, etc.). The app gets bomber reviews all over the web for its clear interface and adaptability. Cleared for takeoff with iOS (7.0+), Android (4.0+), Windows, and Windows Phone.


The Latest on Climate Change
Another global warming contrarian paper found to be unrealistic and
inaccurate
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/oct/21/global-warming-contrarian-paper-unrealistic-inaccurate

After record warm September, 2014 is on track to warmest year, NOAA says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/10/20/after-record-warm-september-2014-is-on-track-to-warmest-year-noaa-says/

Hot News: 2014 On Track to Become Warmest Year
http://www.livescience.com/48365-hot-news-2014-on-track-to-become-warmest-year.html

Global Warming News
http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/earth_climate/global_warming/

Mini multiples display decades of sea ice in a trice
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2168/

What EPA is Doing: Climate Change
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/EPAactivities.html




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


Education Tutorials

explore (videos on exploration) --- http://explore.org

Fun English Games for Kids - Free Teaching Resources Online --- http://www.funenglishgames.com/

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

Alaska Resources Library and Information Services --- http://www.arlis.org

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


Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials

Bringing Star Power to Earth --- https://lasers.llnl.gov/

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory --- http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu

American Institute of Physics --- http://www.aip.org/history-programs/physics-history

10 Mind-Blowing Facts About Black Holes ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-black-holes-really-are-2014-10

NASA Probe Just Beamed Back The First Pictures Of Icy Craters On The Closest Planet To The Sun, Mercury ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-first-pictures-of-ice-on-mercury-2014-10

New Animated Web Series Makes the Theory of Evolution Easy to Understand ---
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/DqtfW6iSYmQ/new-animated-web-series-makes-the-theory-of-evolution-easy-to-understand.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

Measurement Science for Complex Information Systems --- http://nist.gov/itl/antd/emergent_behavior.cfm

American Council on Science and Health --- http://acsh.org

eLIFE (a natural sciences research journal that avoids endless cycles of revisions) ---  http://elifesciences.org

Initial decisions are made in a few days, post-review decisions in about a month, and most articles go through only one round of revision. Every author also has the option to make their accepted manuscript openly available shortly after receiving a final decision

bioRxiv.org (in the era of technology research publishing is still in a horse and buggy age --- http://biorxiv.org
Example:  A forthcoming paper in The Accounting Review took 11 months to be accepted after first being submitted. It will take more months to be published after acceptance. Like many papers published initially in SSRN the eventual publishing in research journals proceeds at a horse and buggy pace.
SSRN --- http://www.ssrn.com/en/
bioRxiv.org --- http://biorxiv.org

bioRxiv (pronounced "bio-archive") is a free online archive and distribution service for unpublished preprints in the life sciences. It is operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a not-for-profit research and educational institution. By posting preprints on bioRxiv, authors are able to make their findings immediately available to the scientific community and receive feedback on draft manuscripts before they are submitted to journals.

explore (videos on exploration) --- http://explore.org

The Panda’s Thumb (intellectual support of the theory of evolution) ---  http://www.pandasthumb.org

Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions --- http://csas.ei.columbia.edu

The Encyclopedia of Earth: Biodiversity --- http://www.eoearth.org/topics/view/51cbfc78f702fc2ba8129e70/

Green Revolution: Curse or Blessing? --- http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/pubs/pubs/ib/ib11.pdf

Alaska Resources Library and Information Services --- http://www.arlis.org

The Philosophy of Skepticism
The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry --- http://www.csicop.org

Center for Science in the Public Interest --- http://www.cspinet.org

From the Scout Report on October 24, 2014

The Latest on Climate Change
Another global warming contrarian paper found to be unrealistic and
inaccurate
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/oct/21/global-warming-contrarian-paper-unrealistic-inaccurate

After record warm September, 2014 is on track to warmest year, NOAA says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/10/20/after-record-warm-september-2014-is-on-track-to-warmest-year-noaa-says/

Hot News: 2014 On Track to Become Warmest Year
http://www.livescience.com/48365-hot-news-2014-on-track-to-become-warmest-year.html

Global Warming News
http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/earth_climate/global_warming/

Mini multiples display decades of sea ice in a trice
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2168/

What EPA is Doing: Climate Change
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/EPAactivities.html

Bob Jensen's threads on free online science, engineering, and medicine tutorials are at ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm


Social Science and Economics Tutorials

Economist’s View (Economic News and Writings of Famous Economists) --- http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/

The Graduate Wife --- http://thegraduatewife.com

American Council on Science and Health --- http://acsh.org

Association for Psychological Science --- http://www.psychologicalscience.org

Stanley Milgram’s experiments were not so much about proving a hypothesis as about performing a play. Poor science, but great art ---
The psychology of torture The Milgram experiments showed that anybody could be capable of torture when obeying an authority. Are they still valid?
http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/why-do-we-keep-repeating-the-milgram-experiments/

Human Development Reports --- http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries

bioRxiv.org (in the era of technology research publishing is still in a horse and buggy age) --- http://biorxiv.org
Example:  A forthcoming paper in The Accounting Review took 11 months to be accepted after first being submitted. It will take more months to be published after acceptance. Like many papers published initially in SSRN the eventual publishing in research journals proceeds at a horse and buggy pace.
SSRN --- http://www.ssrn.com/en/
bioRxiv.org --- http://biorxiv.org

bioRxiv (pronounced "bio-archive") is a free online archive and distribution service for unpublished preprints in the life sciences. It is operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a not-for-profit research and educational institution. By posting preprints on bioRxiv, authors are able to make their findings immediately available to the scientific community and receive feedback on draft manuscripts before they are submitted to journals.

The Philosophy of Skepticism
The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry --- http://www.csicop.org

Different From the Others (1919): The First Gay Rights Movie Ever … Later Destroyed by the Nazis --- Click Here
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/FwwuWd-NRuw/different-from-the-others-1919-the-first-gay-rights-movie-in-history.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

Intelligence and the Camp David Accords ---
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/historical-collection-publications/president-carter-and-the-camp-david-accords/index.html

Alaska Resources Library and Information Services --- http://www.arlis.org

Center for Science in the Public Interest --- http://www.cspinet.org

Bob Jensen's threads on Economics, Anthropology, Social Sciences, and Philosophy tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm


Law and Legal Studies

Wall Street Accountability through Sustainable Funding Act --- https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/5490

Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm


Math and Statistics Tutorials

Online Statistics Education --- http://onlinestatbook.com/2/

Wolfram Alpha: Computational Knowledge Engine --- http://www.wolframalpha.com

Bob Jensen's Illustrations on the Use of Wolfram Alpha in Cost Accounting ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theorylearningcurves.htm

"23 Ways To Make Money Using The Nerdiest Site (Wolfram Alpha) On The Internet," by Walter Hickey, Business Insider, July 9, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-wolfram-alpha-for-finance-2013-7

Developed by the "Smartest Guy on the Planet"
"32 Tricks You Can Do With Wolfram Alpha, The Most Useful Site In The History Of The Internet," by Walter Hickey, Business Insider, July 9, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/awesome-things-you-can-do-with-wolfram-alpha-2013-7

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

"Beyond Emmy and Sophie: Resources for Learning about Women in Math," by Evelyn Lamb, News 360,  October 14, 2014 ---
http://news360.com/article/261723431#

Alaska Resources Library and Information Services --- http://www.arlis.org

Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm


History Tutorials

Favorite Poem Project (videos of 50 USA poets) --- http://www.favoritepoem.org

The Philosophy of Skepticism
The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry --- http://www.csicop.org

The First 500 Books From The Vatican Library's Massive Digitization Project Are Now Online ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-first-500-books-from-the-vatican-librarys-massive-digitisation-project-are-now-online-2014-10

Hear Michel Foucault’s Final UC Berkeley Lectures, “Discourse and Truth” (1983) ---
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/4Ntvxk910iY/michel-foucaults-final-uc-berkeley-lectures-discourse-and-truth-1983.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

American Historical Association --- http://www.historians.org

Take Big History: A Free Short Course on 13.8 Billion Years of History, Funded by Bill Gates ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/10/big-history-free-short-course.html

The Arts at MIT --- http://arts.mit.edu

Children’s Books --- http://childrensbooks.about.com

Fun English Games for Kids - Free Teaching Resources Online --- http://www.funenglishgames.com/

The Life of a City: Early Films of New York, 1898-1906 --- http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/papr/nychome.html

New-York Historical Society, Photographs of New York City and Beyond ---
http://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16124coll2

Long Island Collection --- http://guides.library.stonybrook.edu/long_islan

Bob Jensen's threads on history tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm  


Language Tutorials

Bob Jensen's links to language tutorials are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm


Music Tutorials

Bob Jensen's threads on free music tutorials are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm

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


Writing Tutorials

Fun English Games for Kids - Free Teaching Resources Online --- http://www.funenglishgames.com/

Steven Pinker Identifies 10 Breakable Grammatical Rules: “Who” Vs. “Whom,” Dangling Modifiers & More ---
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/ElphvkULX1M/steven-pinker-identifies-10-breakable-grammatical-rules.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

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



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

October 15, 2014

October 16, 2014

October 18, 2014

October 20, 2014

October 21, 2014

October 22, 2014

October 23, 2014

October 24, 2014

October 27, 2014

 

 

From PhysOrg on October 15, 2014










 

 


Jeff Bezos --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos

Question
Do you suppose Jeff Bezos planted the Ebola virus?
(Just Kidding, but what a windfall for Amazon)

"Experts Offer Steps for Avoiding Public Hysteria, a Different Contagious Threat," by Benedict Care, The New York Times, October 15, 2014 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/health/ebolas-other-contagious-threat-hysteria.html?_r=0 


New York City Rats Are More Dangerous Than Anyone Realized ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/columbia-study-nyc-rat-viruses-bacteria-2014-10


Stanley Milgram --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Milgram

Stanley Milgram’s experiments were not so much about proving a hypothesis as about performing a play. Poor science, but great art ---
The psychology of torture The Milgram experiments showed that anybody could be capable of torture when obeying an authority. Are they still valid?
http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/why-do-we-keep-repeating-the-milgram-experiments/

Also see Phil Zimbardo's infamous Stanford Experiment and his book on The Lucifer Effect ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Zimbardo


New front in war on Alzheimer's and other protein-linked brain diseases ---
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-10-front-war-alzheimer-protein-linked-brain.html


Get the New 7-Minute Workout on Your Mobile Device: A Free App from The New York Times ---
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenCulture/~3/lFg4WGRv4vY/get-the-new-7-minute-workout-on-your-mobile-device.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email

 


A Bit of Humor

Paula forwarded the tentative title of her forthcoming autobiography:
Well That Didn't Work by Paula

The 10 Most Ridiculous Excuses People Have Used To Call In Sick
http://www.businessinsider.com/ridiculous-excuses-for-calling-in-sick-2014-10

Forwarded by Scott

A malapropism is the misuse of a word that sounds similar to the intended word, resulting in a nonsensical, but amusing sentence. Named after Mrs Malaprop — a character in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s play The Rivals, who was particularly prone to them.

‘It’s great to be back on terra cotta’ — John Prescott, meaning ‘terra firma’, after a stormy flight.

‘I am a person who recognises the fallacy of humans’ — George W. Bush, meaning ‘fallibility’, to Oprah Winfrey.

‘He eludes confidence’ — William Bratton, Los Angeles police chief, of Barack Obama’s second inauguration speech. He meant ‘exudes’.

Deferring payments on Government debt would ‘only be playing smokes and daggers’ — Bertie Ahern, former Irish prime minister, meaning possibly ‘snakes and ladders’ or ‘cloak and dagger’.

‘It’s not the sanity of picket lines that bothers me, it’s the sanity of human life’ — John Prescott (again!) meaning ‘sanctity’.

More at -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2804203/It-s-great-terracotta-Prezza-s-malapropisms-toe-curling-puns-new-book-revels-quirks-English-language.html 

Prof. Jensen will like the anagrams I think.

‘I don’t like it. When you open that Pandora’s box, you will find it full of Trojan horses’

Scott Bonacker CPA – McCullough and Associates LLC – Springfield, MO

 




Humor Between October 1-31, 2014 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book14q4.htm#Humor103114

Humor Between September 1-30, 2014 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book14q3.htm#Humor093014

Humor Between August 1-31, 2014 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book14q3.htm#Humor083114

Humor Between July 1-31, 2014--- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book14q3.htm#Humor073114

Humor Between June 1-31, 2014 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book14q2.htm#Humor063014

Humor Between May 1-31, 2014, 2014 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book14q2.htm#Humor053114

Humor Between April 1-30, 2014 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book14q2.htm#Humor043014

Humor Between March 1-31, 2014 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book14q1.htm#Humor033114

Humor Between February 1-28, 2014 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book14q1.htm#Humor022814

Humor Between January 1-31, 2014 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book14q1.htm#Humor013114

Humor Between December 1-31, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q4.htm#Humor123113

Humor Between November 1-30, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q4.htm#Humor113013,

Humor Between October 1-31, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q4.htm#Humor103113

Humor Between September 1 and September 30, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q3.htm#Humor093013

Humor Between July 1 and August 31, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q3.htm#Humor083113

Humor Between June 1-30, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q2.htm#Humor063013

Humor Between May 1-31, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q2.htm#Humor053113

Humor Between April 1-30, 2013 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book13q2.htm#Humor043013

 

 




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

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

Some of Bob Jensen's Tutorials

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

Accounting  and Taxation News Sites ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm

 

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

Over the years the AECM has become the worldwide forum for accounting educators on all issues of accountancy and accounting education, including debates on accounting standards, managerial accounting, careers, fraud, forensic accounting, auditing, doctoral programs, and critical debates on academic (accountics) research, publication, replication, and validity testing.

 

CPAS-L (Practitioners) http://pacioli.loyola.edu/cpas-l/  (Closed Down)
CPAS-L provides a forum for discussions of all aspects of the practice of accounting. It provides an unmoderated environment where issues, questions, comments, ideas, etc. related to accounting can be freely discussed. Members are welcome to take an active role by posting to CPAS-L or an inactive role by just monitoring the list. You qualify for a free subscription if you are either a CPA or a professional accountant in public accounting, private industry, government or education. Others will be denied access.
Yahoo (Practitioners)  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xyztalk
This forum is for CPAs to discuss the activities of the AICPA. This can be anything  from the CPA2BIZ portal to the XYZ initiative or anything else that relates to the AICPA.
AccountantsWorld  http://accountantsworld.com/forums/default.asp?scope=1 
This site hosts various discussion groups on such topics as accounting software, consulting, financial planning, fixed assets, payroll, human resources, profit on the Internet, and taxation.
Business Valuation Group BusValGroup-subscribe@topica.com 
This discussion group is headed by Randy Schostag [RSchostag@BUSVALGROUP.COM
FEI's Financial Reporting Blog
Smart Stops on the Web, Journal of Accountancy, March 2008 --- http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/mar2008/smart_stops.htm
FINANCIAL REPORTING PORTAL
www.financialexecutives.org/blog

Find news highlights from the SEC, FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board on this financial reporting blog from Financial Executives International. The site, updated daily, compiles regulatory news, rulings and statements, comment letters on standards, and hot topics from the Web’s largest business and accounting publications and organizations. Look for continuing coverage of SOX requirements, fair value reporting and the Alternative Minimum Tax, plus emerging issues such as the subprime mortgage crisis, international convergence, and rules for tax return preparers.
The CAlCPA Tax Listserv

September 4, 2008 message from Scott Bonacker [lister@bonackers.com]
Scott has been a long-time contributor to the AECM listserv (he's a techie as well as a practicing CPA)

I found another listserve that is exceptional -

CalCPA maintains http://groups.yahoo.com/taxtalk/  and they let almost anyone join it.
Jim Counts, CPA is moderator.

There are several highly capable people that make frequent answers to tax questions posted there, and the answers are often in depth.

Scott

Scott forwarded the following message from Jim Counts

Yes you may mention info on your listserve about TaxTalk. As part of what you say please say [... any CPA or attorney or a member of the Calif Society of CPAs may join. It is possible to join without having a free Yahoo account but then they will not have access to the files and other items posted.

Once signed in on their Yahoo account go to http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TaxTalk/ and I believe in top right corner is Join Group. Click on it and answer the few questions and in the comment box say you are a CPA or attorney, whichever you are and I will get the request to join.

Be aware that we run on the average 30 or move emails per day. I encourage people to set up a folder for just the emails from this listserve and then via a rule or filter send them to that folder instead of having them be in your inbox. Thus you can read them when you want and it will not fill up the inbox when you are looking for client emails etc.

We currently have about 830 CPAs and attorneys nationwide but mainly in California.... ]

Please encourage your members to join our listserve.

If any questions let me know.

Jim Counts CPA.CITP CTFA
Hemet, CA
Moderator TaxTalk

 

 

 

 

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