In 2017 my Website was migrated to
the clouds and reduced in size.
Hence some links below are broken.
One thing to try if a “www” link is broken is to substitute “faculty” for “www”
For example a broken link
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
can be changed to corrected link
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
However in some cases files had to be removed to
reduce the size of my Website
Contact me at rjensen@trinity.edu if you really need to file that is missing
Tidbits on February 29, 2016
Bob Jensen
at Trinity University
Set 1 of Rocks in New
Hampshire
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/Rocks/Set01/01.htm
Tidbits on February 29, 2016
Bob Jensen
Bob Jensen's Tidbits ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
For
earlier editions of Fraud Updates go to
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Bookmarks for the World's Library ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations
Bob Jensen's Threads ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Bob Jensen's Home Page is at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/
More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and
Stories
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
Updates from WebMD
--- Click Here
Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio
I was on the Trinity University faculty for 24 years. Here's a new well-done
video on the history of Trinity University ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpeNoOe1nVA
Skiers Stumble Upon One of the Rarest Animals on Earth ---
https://weather.com/science/nature/video/rare-snow-leopard-shocks-skiers-on-mountain
Chimp Versus Chump on a Computer ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPiDHXtM0VA
13 Van Gogh’s Paintings Painstakingly Brought to Life with 3D Animation &
Visual Mapping ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/13-van-goghs-paintings-painstakingly-brought-to-life-with-3d-animation-visual-mapping.html
Experience the Blue Angels in 360-degree video ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6SsB3JYqQg
Click off the "Concealed Carry Mistakes" rectangle
The Remarkable Physics of Ants: Watch Them Turn into Fluids and Solids at
Will ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/the-remarkable-physics-of-ants.html
Watch Classic Performances from Maria Callas’ Wondrous and Tragically-Short
Opera Career ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/watch-classic-performances-from-maria-callas-wondrous-and-tragically-short-opera-career.html
Chess Grandmaster Maurice Ashley Plays Unsuspecting Trash Talker in
Washington Square Park ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/chess-grandmaster-maurice-ashley-plays-unsuspecting-trash-talker-in-washington-square-park.html
Watch one of the first volcanic eruptions ever filme ---
http://www.wired.com/2016/02/watch-one-of-the-first-volcanic-eruptions-ever-filmed/
Watch a US-led coalition airstrike decimate an ISIS weapons facility ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/airstrike-decimate-an-isis-weapons-facility-2016-2
Rare 1903 Video Captures Busy Boston Streets ---
http://blogs.voanews.com/all-about-america/2016/02/17/rare-1903-video-captures-busy-boston-streets/?from=youmaylike
Free music downloads ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
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://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Free Music Archive ---
http://freemusicarchive.org/
Schumann: Symphony No.2 in C major - P. Järvi / Staatskapelle
Dresden ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O58OkBRLek
Legendary Classical Guitarist Andrés Segovia Plays Timeless
Pieces by J.S. Bach ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/legendary-classical-guitarist-andres-segovia-plays-timeless-pieces-by-j-s-bach.html
Gershwin Plays Gershwin: Hear the Original Recording of Rhapsody
in Blue, with the Composer Himself at the Piano (1924) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/the-original-recording-of-rhapsody-in-blue-1924.html
Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin Is Now Streaming Free for a Limited
Time ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/summertime-willie-nelson-sings-gershwin-is-now-streaming-free-for-a-limited-time.html
Pink Floyd - The Dark Side Of The Moon (Full Album) HD ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5auf9rkrac
Mister Rogers Turns Kids On to Jazz with Help of a Young Wynton
Marsalis and Other Jazz Legends (1986) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/mister-rogers-turns-kids-on-to-jazz-with-help-of-a-young-wynton-marsalis.html
Watch Classic Performances from Maria Callas’ Wondrous and
Tragically-Short Opera Career ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/watch-classic-performances-from-maria-callas-wondrous-and-tragically-short-opera-career.html
See an Eye Popping Selfie From Mars ---
http://time.com/4230402/mars-selfie-curiosity-rover/?xid=newsletter-brief
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://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Music.htm
Photographs and Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Lesson Plans ---
http://www.metmuseum.org/learn/for-educators/lesson-plans
The Getty Research Institute: Notable Works and Collections ---
http://www.getty.edu/research/special_collections/notable/index.html
Watch the Trailer for a “Fully Painted” Van Gogh Film: Features 12 Oil
Paintings Per Second by 100+ Painters ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/loving-vincent.html
Edgar Degas ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Degas
Misty Copeland expertly re-creates a handful of Edgar Degas’s most famous ballet
works ---
http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2016/02/11/misty-copeland-recreates-iconic-degas-paintings.html
NASA Images ---
http://nasaimages.lunaimaging.com/
100 Incredible Space Photos ---
http://www.greatdigitalmags.com/view/allaboutspace/4168/100-incredible-space-photos
The Sketchbook Project ---
https://www.sketchbookproject.com/
13 Van Gogh’s Paintings Painstakingly Brought to Life with 3D Animation &
Visual Mapping ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/13-van-goghs-paintings-painstakingly-brought-to-life-with-3d-animation-visual-mapping.html
15 Photos of Animals in Love ---
http://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/pets/15-photos-of-animals-in-love/ss-BBpmV24?ocid=spartanntp
17 of the most jaw-dropping images in the running for the world's largest
photography contest ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/images-from-sony-world-photography-awards-2016-2
Guggenheim ZERO, Countdown to Tomorrow (German artists in the 1950s and
1960s) ---
http://exhibitions.guggenheim.org/zero/
German Expressionism Collection at The University of Maryland ---
http://lib.guides.umd.edu/germanexpressionism
We Make Money Not Art (engineering art) ---
http://we-make-money-not-art.com/
Download Hundreds of 19th-Century Japanese Woodblock Prints by Masters of the
Tradition ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/download-hundreds-of-19th-century-japanese-woodblock-prints-by-masters-of-the-tradition.html
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Launches Free Course on Looking at Photographs as
Art ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/museum-of-modern-art-moma-launches-free-course-on-looking-at-photographs-as-art.html
11 of the Stragest Beaches in the World ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-strangest-beaches-around-the-world-2016-2
Smithsonian Magazine: Travel ---
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/
This Land Is Your Land: Parks and Public Spaces ---
http://dp.la/exhibitions/exhibits/show/this-land
Bob Jensen's threads on art history ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#ArtHistory
Bob Jensen's threads on history, literature and art ---
http://faculty.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://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on libraries ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#---Libraries
John Grisham Is Letting You Download His New Novel as a Free eBook ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/john-grisham-is-letting-you-download-his-new-novel-as-a-free-ebook.html
NCTE: Poetry Lesson Plans ---
http://www.ncte.org/lessons/poetry
Neil Gaiman Presents “How Stories Last,” an Insightful Lecture on How Stories
Change, Evolve & Endure Through the Centuries ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/neil-gaiman-presents-how-stories-last.html
David Foster Wallace Reads Franz Kafka’s Short Story “A Little Fable” (and
Explains Why Comedy Is Key to Kafka) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/david-foster-wallace-reads-franz-kafkas-short-story-a-little-fable.html
An Animated Introduction to Leo Tolstoy, and How His Great Novels Can
Increase Your Emotional Intelligence ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/an-animated-introduction-to-leo-tolstoy.html
Thousands of Links to Shakespeare ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#---Shakespeare
Shakespeare Documented ---
http://www.shakespearedocumented.org
Free Shakespeare Tutorials ---
https://www.playshakespeare.com/
Read All of Shakespeare’s Plays Free Online,
Courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare Library ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/03/read-all-of-shakespeares-plays-free-online-courtesy-of-the-folger-shakespeare-library.html
Listen to Orson Welles’ Classic Radio
Performance of 10 Shakespeare Plays ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/03/listen-to-orson-welles-classic-radio-performance-of-10-shakespeare-plays.html
The Connections Between Poetry and Rap
Poetry Magazine
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/guide/23
In hop-hop and rap, while some musicians are more
talented than others, and while rap lyrics do possess musicality (repetition,
assonance, alliteration), that musicality is incomplete without the beat and
notes of the sampled music. Caplan provides a number of examples of rap lyrics,
and some are rather good, but even the best don’t stand on their own as pieces
of great artistry for the simple reason that they were not written to do so.
They were crafted to go with external rhythm and notes. So, it seems to me, the
only sense in which rap is poetry is as incomplete poetry, which doesn’t do
either rap or poetry any favors.
Micah Mattix ---
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/prufrock/is-rap-poetry/
Free Electronic Literature ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Now in
Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on February 29, 2016
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2016/TidbitsQuotations022916.htm
Interest on debt, that minimum credit
card payment, is projected to eclipse military spending by 2021, putting the
squeeze on other fiscal priorities ---
Jacob Davidon,
http://time.com/4214269/us-national-debt/?xid=newsletter-brief
U.S. National Debt Clock ---
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Also see
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
National debt
just reached a record $19 trillion (plus over #100 trillion in unbooked
entitlements burdening future generations in the USA)
Martin Matishak and Eric
Pianin, The Fiscal Times
http://www.businessinsider.com/national-debt-reaches-record-19-trillion-2016-2
Bob Jensen's threads on entitlements
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Entitlements.htm
Entitlements are two-thirds of the federal budget.
Entitlement spending has grown 100-fold over the past 50 years. Half of all
American households now rely on government handouts. When we hear statistics
like that, most of us shake our heads and mutter some sort of expletive. That’s
because nobody thinks they’re the problem. Nobody ever wants to think they’re
the problem. But that’s not the truth. The truth is, as long as we continue to
think of the rising entitlement culture in America as someone else’s problem,
someone else’s fault, we’ll never truly understand it and we’ll have absolutely
zero chance...
Steve Tobak ---
http://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/2013/02/07/truth-behind-our-entitlement-culture/?intcmp=sem_outloud
Peter G. Peterson Website on Deficit/Debt Solutions ---
http://www.pgpf.org/
Bob Jensen's threads on entitlements
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Entitlements.htm
Bob
Jensen's health care messaging updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
AICPA: Money matters cause tension for 88% of Millennial couples
---
http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2016/feb/money-troubles-mean-relationship-troubles-for-millennials-201613866.html#sthash.XlDwCTx6.dpuf
Bob Jensen's personal finance helpers ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#InvestmentHelpers
"TurboTax vs H&R Block: How 2 of the most popular tax-filing programs
stack up," by Kathleen Elkins and Samantha Lee, Insider Picks via
Business Insider, February 18, 2016 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/turbotax-vs-hr-block-2016-2
Jensen Comment
The most important competitive advantage of H&R Block tax preparation software
is that if you get hung up and want face-to-face help with the software, H&R
Block also has over 12,000 onsite locations. However, proprietary software help
is one thing and a complicated tax question is quite another. Most H&R Block
employees are only trained for relatively simple tax questions.
Bob Jensen's tax helpers are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#010304Taxation
Trying to Bring Median Course Grades Down from A or A- Levels
"Grading on a Curve," by Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed,
February 18, 2016 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/02/18/community-college-links-increased-student-success-shorter-terms-faculty-members-say?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=9d24ca3bd4-DNU20160218&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-9d24ca3bd4-197565045
Jensen Comment
The biggest disgrace in the Academy is the trend that brought higher education
course grades from C or C+ in the 1940s to A or A- in the 21st Century. It's
called the disgrace of grade inflation and the top universities are giving out
mostly A grades with Harvard and Stanford leading the way.
There are many causes, but a leading cause is the rise in student power
(through course evaluations) in determining the tenure and performance
evaluations (read that pay raises) of their teachers ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm#RateMyProfessor
Some schools like Princeton (by trying to limit the percentages of top trades
in courses) and Cornell (by publicizing over 800,000 grades over recent years)
that put up a fight against grade inflation abandoned their efforts and gave up
trying to fight grade inflation.
How to Try Not to Mislead With Statistics
And The Award For Worst Career After An Oscar Win Goes To ---
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/and-the-award-for-worst-career-after-an-oscar-win-goes-to/
Jensen Comment
This is an interesting article from the standpoint of going to considerable
lengths to avoid misleading statistics.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoyevsky
Jensen Comment
It's is indeed true that truth is often stranger than fiction.
The following article is interesting to read just as a supposedly true
romantic story. It has a great deal to discuss with students in many disciplines
that involve ethics, deception, romance, morality, and intrigue.
One challenge for students is to find where parts of this story have been
repeated over and over both in fiction and in real life. Things in life do
repeat themselves in the strangest ways.
It is especially interesting that Dostoyevsky wrote the famous Crime and
Punishment fiction dealing with a struggle of moral conscience. crime, and
crime detection ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_and_Punishment
In real life Dostoyevsky had to struggle with his own moral conscience regarding
a possible act of plagiarism in a crowd sourcing scheme of deception. One
conclusion of the story is that success is often trouble turned inside out.
"Anna Dostoyevsky on the Secret to a Happy Marriage: Wisdom from One of
History’s Truest and Most Beautiful Loves," by Maria Popova, Brain
Pickings, February 15, 2016 ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/02/15/anna-dostoyevsky-reminiscences-marriage/?mc_cid=2985ffb498&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
Reasons Are Not Clear
Canadians No longer Allowed to be Contestants on Jeopardy ---
http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/canadians-jeopardy-frozen-out-1.3457510
Sears Chairman Says Every Retailer is Screwed (and the causes are many and
complex) ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/sears-chairman-says-retail-is-hurting-2016-2
Jensen Comment
Note that one difference between Amazon and LL Bean versus other online
retailers is that the other online retailers with stores in most of the 50
states must collect sales tax.
Walmart really wants you to shop online - and it's spending $900 million
to make it happen ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-online-focus-after-earnings-2016-2
. . .
To aid growth, Walmart is pushing forward with its
plan to further expand its online grocery business and to increase the
number of products it sells online, all in an effort to grow the company's
overall online business.
In October, the retail giant announced it would
invest $900 million in its web development in the next two years. The
company also debuted its own mobile wallet called Walmart Pay in December.
It's clear Walmart is focusing much of its energy
on competing against the e-commerce powerhouses, specifically Amazon. In
fact, Walmart's website traffic is actually growing more quickly than
Amazon's, so the opportunity is there.
Total global revenue hit $129.7 billion in the
fourth quarter 2015, down 1.4% from $131.6 billion in the year-ago period.
The revenue decline is due in large part to poor performance at Walmart
International and Sam's Club. The former saw a 9.7% year-over-year decrease
in revenue, while the latter saw a 2.2% drop.
The news wasn't much better domestically, as U.S.
sales increased just 2.4% year-over-year.
Walmart's focus on e-commerce is just one piece of
the rapidly changing payments landscape, which already looks much different
than you might think. For example, conventional wisdom is that women do most
of the shopping (both online and off). But would it surprise you to know
that men are actually just as powerful in this area?
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
Even with expansion into some lines, it will be a long, long time until Walmart
competes well online with Amazon. The biggest reason is the vast selection on
Amazon such as used items like used books. The second reason is the great Amazon
Prime for reducing shipping costs for frequent customers.
Walmart is playing catch up. There aren't many (any?) weaknesses that Walmart
can exploit to beat Amazon. One possibility that Home Depot, Sears, and Lowes
exploit is the delivery of very heavy items to a local store for home delivery
and possible setup. For example, I ordered a rather complicated ceiling fan
online from Lowes that was delivered to a store that, in turn, delivered,
assembled, and installed the fan. I did the same thing with a lawn sweeper from
Sears. This is not a typical service from Amazon.
From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on February
24, 2016
Anchors away: Malls lose more big department-store tenants
The rise of online shopping is battering the big
department stores known as anchors that once lured shoppers to malls—leaving
landlords with empty space and forcing them to undertake expensive overhauls
to stay relevant.
"The Future of Wearables is Implanted and More Real Today Than You Think
(including brain implants)," by Cate Lawrence, ReadWriteWeb, February
19, 2016 ---
http://readwrite.com/2016/02/19/future-of-wearables
MIT: The Power of Ubiquitous Computing
"Humans and Computers Are Getting Even More Connected." by Brian
Bergstein, MIT's Technology Review, November 2, 2015 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/543106/humans-and-computers-are-getting-even-more-connected/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20151103
The implications of pervasive or
ubiquitous computing are still only beginning to be apparent.
What do we
want from the smart machines pervading our world—and what do they want from
us?
That question framed this morning’s opening of the
EmTech conference at MIT, and it’s a useful way to
think about where computing is heading.
As
MIT Technology Review’s
editor-in-chief, Jason Pontin, said in beginning the show, breakthroughs in
computer science have made it possible for machines to understand more of
the data that our devices and sensors collect “in ways that elude human
perception.” As we become ever more reliant on these devices and their
software, the companies that capture our data develop a competitive
advantage over those that don’t. And in turn, the companies’ need for data
collection and the ability of machines to influence our behavior “creates a
kind of intimacy between the human and the digital” that makes automated
systems even more powerful.
“We know
that there is enormous utility in embracing machines that are smart and
powerful enough to become part of who we are,” Pontin said. “They have
extended our capabilities and enlarged our sense of what it means to be
human. But we need to be conscious of what we want from these smart
machines, our new intimates. Because sometimes, they are not solely loyal to
our interests.”
We’ll explore these issues through Wednesday at EmTech.
For more on these ideas and the technologies driving them forward, see
“Teaching Machines to Understand Us,”
“How Technology Is Destroying Jobs,” and
“The Real Privacy Problem.”
Bob Jensen's sadly neglected threads on ubiquitous
computing ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ubiquit.htm
Law Schools 2011-2015
Enrollment, Faculty Down 60%, Tuition Up 40%
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2016/02/cooley-craters-60-drop-in-enrollment-faculty.html
Jensen Comment
The downslide of law schools is a disaster in many respects, most notably the
crash in opportunities for top humanities graduates to move into professional
careers.
"NY Times: A Majority Of Law
Schools Are Scamming Students And Taxpayers," by Paul Caron, TaxProf Blog,
October 25, 2015 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/10/ny-times-a-majority-of-law-schools-admit-unqualified-students-charge-outrageously-high-tuition-and-s.html
American law schools are increasingly charging outrageously high tuition
and sticking taxpayers with the tab for loan defaults when students fail to
become lawyers.
In 2013, the median LSAT score of students admitted to
Florida Coastal School of Law was in the
bottom quarter of all test-takers nationwide.
According to the test’s administrators, students with scores this low are
unlikely to ever pass the bar exam.
Despite this bleak outlook, Florida Coastal charges
nearly $45,000 a year in tuition, which, with living expenses, can lead to
crushing amounts of debt for its students. Ninety-three percent of the
school’s 2014 graduating class of 484 had debts and the average was
almost $163,000 — a higher average than all but
three law schools in the country. In short, most of Florida Coastal’s
students are leaving law school with a degree they can’t use, bought with a
debt they can’t repay.
If this sounds like a scam, that’s because it is. Florida Coastal, in
Jacksonville, is one of six for-profit law schools in the country that have
been vacuuming up hordes of young people, charging them outrageously high
tuition and, after many of the students fail to become lawyers, sticking
taxpayers with the tab for their loan defaults.
Yet for-profit schools are not the only offenders. A majority of American
law schools, which have nonprofit status, are increasingly engaging in such
behavior, and in the process threatening the future of legal education.
Why? The most significant explanation is also the simplest — free money.
In 2006, Congress extended the federal Direct PLUS Loan program to allow a
graduate or professional student to borrow the full amount of tuition, no
matter how high, and living expenses. The idea was to give more people
access to higher education and thus, in theory, higher lifetime earnings.
But broader access doesn’t mean much if degrees lead not to well-paying jobs
but to heavy debt burdens. That is all too often the result with PLUS loans.
The consequences of this free flow of federal loans have been entirely
predictable: Law schools jacked up tuition and accepted more students, even
after the legal job market stalled and shrank in the wake of the recession.
For years, law schools were able to obscure the poor market by refusing to
publish meaningful employment information about their graduates. But in
response to pressure from skeptical lawmakers and unhappy graduates, the
schools began sharing the data — and it wasn’t a pretty picture. Forty-three
percent of all 2013 law school graduates did not have long-term full-time
legal jobs nine months after graduation, and the numbers are only getting
worse. In 2012, the average law graduate’s debt was $140,000, 59 percent
higher than eight years earlier.
This reality has contributed to the
drastic drop in law school applications since
2011, which has in turn
exacerbated the problem — to maintain enrollment
numbers, law schools have had to lower their admissions standards and take
even more unqualified students. These students then fail to pass the bar in
alarmingly high numbers — in 2014, the average score on the common portion
of the test
was the lowest in more than 25 years.
How can this death spiral be stopped? For starters,
the government must require accountability from the law schools that live
off student loans. This year, the Obama administration extended the
so-called
gainful employment rule, which ties a school’s
eligibility to receive federal student loans to its success in preparing
graduates for jobs that will enable them to repay their debt. The rule
currently applies only to for-profit law schools, all of which, given their
track records, would fail to qualify for federal loans
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's
Fraud Updates
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
"Where Are All the Law School Applicants?" by Paul Caron, TaxProf
Blog, September 13, 2014 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2014/09/where-are-all.html
Bob Jensen's threads on the slide in law school jobs, enrollments,
admission standards, faculty numbers, etc. ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/higHerEdControversies.htm#OverstuffedLawSchools
"How Armbands Can Translate Sign Language," by Rachel Metz, MIT's
Technology Review, February 17, 2016 ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600818/how-armbands-can-translate-sign-language/#/set/id/600825/
Jensen Comment
This is a promising way for someone good at sign language to communicate with
others who cannot read sign language. Next would be a vice versa technology.
PEPNet Northeast at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf - RIT ---
http://www.netac.rit.edu/index.html
As many as two million people in the United States
use American Sign Language, but not every user knows what every one of the
thousands of signs mean. And there is no dictionary in which to look them
up—sign dictionaries are organized by the written definition of the sign,
not by the physical movement.
Now a team of researchers at Boston University is
working on an interactive video project that would allow someone to trace an
unfamiliar sign in front of a Web camera and have a computer program
interpret and explain its meaning,
according to the Associated Press.
The researchers, working with a three-year,
$900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, are trying to capture
3,000 ASL signs on video. Their goal is to develop
a “backwards” dictionary that will allow people to look up any unfamiliar
gesture.
If a deaf person signs to a someone who doesn’t
understand the sign, that person could sit down in front of a computer,
repeat the sign into a Web cam, and the program would identify possible
translations by recognizing the sign’s visual properties.
May 28, 2008 reply from William Sloboda
[william.sloboda@GALLAUDET.EDU]
Dear Bob
Thanks for bringing this to our attention! I hope that it will work since
every deaf person signs any signfrom a tiny bit to a lot more differently
than the next deaf person does. This promises to be a longer term project.
Bill
William Sloboda, MBA, CPA Associate Professor of
Accounting and Accounting, Program Coordinator Department of Business
Gallaudet University 800 Florida Ave. NE Washington, D C 20002-3695
202-651-5312
Bob Jensen's threads on technology aids for handicapped and otherwise
disabled learners ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
MIT's Update on MOOCs
Technology Review Newsletter, February 13, 2016
|
|
The Crisis in Higher Education
At the dawn of the MOOC era, in 2012,
author Nicholas Carr questioned whether
online classes were essentially the
correspondence courses of our time.
|
|
|
|
Q&A with Salman Khan
In this 2012 interview, the Khan Academy
founder explained his ambition to offer
“education for anyone.”
|
|
|
|
What MOOCs Teach Us
Coursera cofounder Daphne Koller wrote
in 2014 that it was a mistake to presume
that MOOCs would undermine or replace
traditional college education.
|
|
|
|
What Are MOOCs Good For?
With data finally in on what MOOCs
offered, it was possible in 2014 to take
stock of what online education had
really changed—and why it matters. |
|
|
|
|
Bob Jensen's threads on Thousands of Free MOOCs From Prestigious
Universities---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Coursera ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coursera
Illustration of a Free MOOC
Free Vanderbilt University online course on arts and culture innovation
started Feb. 22, 2016 ---
http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2016/02/free-vanderbilt-online-course-on-arts-and-culture-innovation-starts-feb-22/
Note that getting a grade and transcript credit for taking the course is not
free from Cousera.
Leading innovation in the arts and
cultural sector is the topic of a Vanderbilt University massive
open online course, or MOOC, launching Feb. 22.
David Owens,
professor of the practice
of management and innovation at the
Owen
Graduate School of Management and
professor of the practice of engineering management, will teach
the eight-week course, which is designed to help arts and
culture leaders create an environment where new ideas are
constantly created, shared and evaluated, and the best ones are
successfully put to work.This
will mark the second time Owens has taught a MOOC on leading
strategic innovation in organizations. For this iteration, Owens
partnered with National
Arts Strategies to customize the
course content for arts and cultural leaders. National Arts
Strategies partners with funders, agencies, membership
organizations and cultural institutions to create custom
educational experiences that support and strengthen leaders.
“In my work with NAS over the past
decade, I have found that arts and culture organizations have
the same problems as other kinds of businesses, especially in
the areas of strategy and innovation,” Owens said.
“Unfortunately, they have far fewer resources to spend on the
business education that might address those issues.
“Compounding this, conventional
business education pushes a focus on the ‘bottom line’ at the
expense of mission, which makes it easy for mission-driven
organizations to dismiss the needed education as inappropriate
or worse,” he said. “This course offers an alternative to both
problems. The course is based in sound business thinking, it
recognizes and celebrates the special context within which
administrators of arts and culture organizations work, and it is
free.”
The course, Leading Innovation in Arts
and Culture, will teach the learner how to make an “innovation
strategy” a fundamental component of their organization’s
overall strategy and will engage students in a series of class
discussions and exercises. It is free and available to the
public.
Vanderbilt’s participation in Coursera
is supported by the Vanderbilt
Institute for Digital Learning.
Enroll in Leading Innovation in Arts and Culture >
View all
Vanderbilt Coursera courses >
Media Inquiries:
Melanie Moran, (615) 322-NEWS
melanie.moran@vanderbilt.edu
Crash Course Philosophy: Hank Green’s Fast-Paced
Introduction to Philosophy Gets Underway on YouTube ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/crash-course-philosophy-hank-greens-fast-paced-introduction-to-philosophy-gets-underway-on-youtube.html
See YouTube Education ---
https://www.youtube.com/edu
Especially note the featured channels
Guidelines for the Professional Evaluation of Digital Scholarship By
Historians (PDF) ---
http://historians.org/Documents/Teaching and Learning/Current
Projects/Digital Scholarship Evaluation/Guidelines Dig. Scholarship
9.30.2015(0).pdf
How to Block Conservatism Speakers from Campus
"The New Ann Coulter," by Josh Logue, Inside Higher Ed, February 19, 2016
---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/02/19/student-protests-and-university-cancellations-follow-milo-yiannopoulos-speaking-tour?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=e1ece37d00-DNU20160219&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-e1ece37d00-197565045
Liberal Bias in Higher Education ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/higHerEdControversies.htm#LiberalBias
Law Profs Continue To Publish After Tenure, But In Less Competitive
Outlets ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2016/02/yoonlaw-profs-continue-to-publish-after-tenure-but-in-less-competitive-outlets.html
Jensen Comment
Years ago Cooley, Heck and Jensen found this was also true among accounting
professors after they received tenure.
"An Analysis of Contributors to Accounting Journals
Part II: The
Individual Academic Journals," (Philip Cooley, Louis Heck, and Bob
Jensen),
The International Journal of Accounting, Vol.26, 1991,
pp. 1-17.
"An Analysis of Contributors to Accounting Journals. Part
I: The Aggregate Performances," (Philip
Cooley, Louis Heck, and Bob Jensen), The International Journal of
Accounting, Vol.25, 1990, pp. 202-217. Released in 1991.
UNC's Technology Commons and Resources
"UNC Gives Professors a Way to Rate Classroom Technologies Across Campuses,"
by Corinne Ruff, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 19, 2016 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/UNC-Gives-Professors-a-Way-to/235367?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=b0cfb869eb844215a7f879a683640f31&elq=1a51e43df2934d40b7a99b53117d85a6&elqaid=7957&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=2473
The University of North Carolina system has built a
Yelp-like review site for teaching tools, where it is asking professors to
review and comment on how useful various digital services were in their
classrooms.
Though the process will not be quite as simple as
awarding five stars, Matthew Z. Rascoff, the system vice president for
technology-based learning and innovation who is leading the project, said
professors would use a research-based rubric to describe which tools had
helped increase student learning and which aren’t worth the time or money.
Technology vendors will also be able to use the site to view feedback on
products.
The online platform, known as the
UNC Learning Technology Commons,
opened to vendor applications last week and will end
its first round of applications in mid-March. After a rolling review of the
first cycle of applications within the next few weeks, faculty members on
the university’s 17 campuses will have access to the commons. There they
will be able to virtually discuss, review, and share ideas on which
instructional technologies work and how educators in diverse disciplines can
use tools to engage students in the classroom.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on Tools and Tricks of the Trade ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on education technologies ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
THE BILL GATES INTERVIEW: An energy miracle is coming, and it's going to
change the world ---
http://www.techinsider.io/bill-gates-interview-energy-miracle-coming-2016-2
This $14-billion (French) machine is
set to usher in a new era of nuclear fusion power ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/whats-the-iter-nuclear-fusion-plant-and-why-is-it-important-2016-2
Scientists in
Germany today
switched on a new kind of nuclear reactor, the
latest experiment in the quest to produce clean, sustainable power from
controlled nuclear fusion ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600712/experimental-fusion-reactor-switched-on-in-germany/#/set/id/600713/
Jensen Comment
Ir will give me great joy the day fusion power renders bird-killing wind power
turbinesobsolete.
MIT: Ten Breakthrough Technologies 2016 ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/lists/technologies/2016/#/set/id/600869/
MIT: Current Recommended Reads on
Robotics and AI ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/545501/recommended-reads-on-the-robot-and-ai-beat-this-week/
MIT:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600728/the-best-of-the-web-this-week/
MIT: Seven Must-Read Stories (Week Ending February 13, 2016) ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600787/seven-must-read-stories-week-ending-february-13-2016/
MIT: Seven Must-Read Stories (Week Ending February 20, 2016) ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600850/the-best-of-the-web-this-week/
"Online Scams: How Can You Protect Yourself and Your
Family?" by Carrie Schwab Pomerantz, Townhall, February 24, 2016 ---
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/carrieschwabpomerantz/2016/02/24/online-scams-how-can-you-protect-yourself-and-your-family-n2123850?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
. . .
Most scams are designed
to defraud you of your money or get your
personal information to access that money. Here
are a few common frauds we should all be aware
of:
--Emails purportedly
from government agencies or financial
institutions requesting personal and financial
information or money
--Calls from familiar
sounding charities pressuring you for quick
donations by credit card or wire transfer
--Offers of discounted
health insurance or low-cost medications
--Goods for sale, such
as a car, at below market value, and insistence
on a rush sale with payment by wire or to a
third party
--Email purportedly
from a legitimate collection agency stating that
a loan is delinquent and must be paid in full to
avoid legal consequences
--Offers for free
gifts, vacations or "found money" dependent on
some sort of upfront payment, such as a finder's
fee, taxes or delivery charges
--Various investment
frauds, including offers of high-yield
investments, letters of credit or prime bank
notes
--Hot stock tips,
especially for "penny stocks," from unknown
callers or e-mails even if they claim to work
for well-known brokerage or investment firms
Bob Jensen's somewhat neglected threads on fraud
reporting ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm
Jensen Comment
Some of the worst scams are not online; They're on television wanting you to pay
about $20 per month for for a cute/abused pet, a veteran without limbs, a
starving child, etc. All are for good causes but most of these charities spend
more on salaries, parties, and promotions than they do on the victims.
CNBC and The New York Times: Wounded
War Project Spends Lavishly on Itself, Insiders Say ---
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/27/wounded-warrior-project-spends-lavishly-on-itself-insiders-say.html
Huffington Post: Please Don't Give to the
Humane Society if You Care About Pets ---
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/douglas-anthony-cooper/humane-society_b_1943902.html
First of all, the Humane Society of the United
States -- the HSUS -- has no connection whatsoever to your local Humane
Society: the one that runs your local shelter.
Paul Caron's Ten Most Popular Blog Posts in the Third Week of February
2016 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2016/02/this-weeks-.html
-
Justice Scalia's Advice To Law Profs: Your Legacy Is Not Scholarship;
What Endures Is What Happens In The Classroom
-
Justice Scalia's Death Exposes Deep Divisions On Georgetown Law School
Faculty
-
Harvard Law Students Occupy Wasserstein Hall To Protest Lack Of
Inclusiveness
-
The Regrettable Underenforcement Of Incompetence As Cause To Dismiss
Tenured Faculty
-
Cooley Craters: Enrollment, Faculty Down 60%, Tuition Up 40%
-
Section 162(m): The Executive Pay Cap That Backfired
-
UC-Berkeley Law, Business Schools Jack Up Tuition For California
Residents
-
IRS Fails To Follow Basic Web Security Procedures, Increases Risk Of
Taxpayer Identity Theft
-
Why Lawyers (And Law Professors) Eat Last: A Workshop On Selfless
Service
-
NY Times: Death, The Prosperity Gospel And Me
A manifesto for small teams doing important work ---
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2016/02/a-manifesto-for-small-teams-doing-important-work.html
Rubrics in Academia --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubric_(academic)
"Assessing, Without Tests," by Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed,
February 17, 2016 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/02/17/survey-finds-increased-use-learning-outcomes-measures-decline-standardized-tests?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=60a80c3a41-DNU20160217&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-60a80c3a41-197565045
Jensen Comment
Testing becomes more effective for grading and licensing purposes as class sizes
increase. It's less effective when hands on experience is a larger part of
competency evaluation. For example, in the final stages of competency evaluation
in neurosurgery testing becomes less important than expert evaluation of
surgeries being performed in operating rooms. I want my brain surgeon to be much
more than a good test taker. Testing is more cost effective when assigning
academic credit for a MOOC mathematics course taken by over 5,000 students.
One thing to keep in mind is that testing serves a much larger purpose than
grading the amount of learning. Testing is a huge motivator as evidenced
by how students work so much harder to learn just prior to being tested.
Some types of testing are also great integrators of multiple facets of
a course. This is one justification of having comprehensive final examinations.
Testing also can overcome racial, ethnic, and cultural biases. This is the
justification, for example, for having licensing examinations like CPA exam
examinations, BAR examinations, nursing examinations, etc. be color blind in
terms of race, ethnic, and cultural bias. This is also one of the
justifications (good or bad) of taking grading out of the jurisdiction of
teachers. Competency examinations also serve a purpose of giving credit for
learning no matter of how or where the subject matter is learned. Years ago
people could take final examinations at the University of Chicago without ever
having attended classes in a course ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#ConceptKnowledge
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm
Jensen Comment
Note that the following article has enormous implications for what is taught in
most Ph.D. programs in the social sciences, business, accounting, finance, and
other academic disciplines. Regression analysis has become the key to the
kingdom of academic research, a Ph.D. diploma, journal article publication,
tenure, and performance rewards in the Academy. Now the sky is falling, and soon
researchers skilled mostly at performing regression analysis are faced with the
problem of having to learn how to do real research.
Regression Analysis ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_analysis
Richard Nisbett ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_E._Nisbett
"The Crusade Against Multiple Regression Analysis A Conversation With Richard
Nisbett," Edge, January 21, 2016 ---
http://edge.org/conversation/richard_nisbett-the-crusade-against-multiple-regression-analysis
A huge range of science projects are done
with multiple regression analysis. The results are often somewhere between
meaningless and quite damaging. ...
I hope that in the future, if I’m successful in
communicating with people about this, that there’ll be a kind of upfront
warning in New York Times articles: These data are based on multiple
regression analysis. This would be a sign that you probably shouldn’t read
the article because you’re quite likely to get non-information or
misinformation. RICHARD NISBETT is a professor of psychology and co-director
of the Culture and Cognition Program at the University of Michigan. He is
the author of Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking; and The Geography of
Thought.
Richard Nisbett's Edge Bio Page.
THE CRUSADE AGAINST MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS
The thing I’m most interested in right now has become a kind of crusade
against correlational statistical analysis—in particular, what’s called
multiple regression analysis. Say you want to find out whether taking
Vitamin E is associated with lower prostate cancer risk. You look at the
correlational evidence and indeed it turns out that men who take Vitamin E
have lower risk for prostate cancer. Then someone says, "Well, let’s see if
we do the actual experiment, what happens." And what happens when you do the
experiment is that Vitamin E contributes to the likelihood of prostate
cancer. How could there be differences? These happen a lot. The
correlational—the observational—evidence tells you one thing, the
experimental evidence tells you something completely different.
The thing I’m most interested in right now has
become a kind of crusade against correlational statistical analysis—in
particular, what’s called multiple regression analysis. Say you want to find
out whether taking Vitamin E is associated with lower prostate cancer risk.
You look at the correlational evidence and indeed it turns out that men who
take Vitamin E have lower risk for prostate cancer. Then someone says,
"Well, let’s see if we do the actual experiment, what happens." And what
happens when you do the experiment is that Vitamin E contributes to the
likelihood of prostate cancer. How could there be differences? These happen
a lot. The correlational—the observational—evidence tells you one thing, the
experimental evidence tells you something completely different.
In the case of health data, the big problem is
something that’s come to be called the healthy user bias, because the guy
who’s taking Vitamin E is also doing everything else right. A doctor or an
article has told him to take Vitamin E, so he does that, but he’s also the
guy who’s watching his weight and his cholesterol, gets plenty of exercise,
drinks alcohol in moderation, doesn’t smoke, has a high level of education,
and a high income. All of these things are likely to make you live longer,
to make you less subject to morbidity and mortality risks of all kinds. You
pull one thing out of that correlate and it’s going to look like Vitamin E
is terrific because it’s dragging all these other good things along with it.
This is not, by any means, limited to health
issues. A while back, I read a government report in The New York Times on
the safety of automobiles. The measure that they used was the deaths per
million drivers of each of these autos. It turns out that, for example,
there are enormously more deaths per million drivers who drive Ford F150
pickups than for people who drive Volvo station wagons. Most people’s
reaction, and certainly my initial reaction to it was, "Well, it sort of
figures—everybody knows that Volvos are safe."
Continued in article
Drawing Inferences From Very Large Data-Sets
David Johnstone wrote the following:
Indeed if you hold H0 the same and keep
changing the model, you will eventually (generally soon) get a significant
result, allowing "rejection of H0 at 5%", not because H0 is
necessarily false but because you have built upon a false model (of which
there are zillions, obviously).
"Drawing Inferences From Very Large Data-Sets," by David Giles, Econometrics
Beat: Dave Giles� Blog, University of Victoria, April 26, 2013 ---
http://davegiles.blogspot.ca/2011/04/drawing-inferences-from-very-large-data.html
. . .
Granger (1998;
2003) has
reminded us that if the sample size is sufficiently large, then it's
virtually impossible not to reject almost any hypothesis.
So, if the sample is very large and the p-values associated with
the estimated coefficients in a regression model are of the order of, say,
0.10 or even 0.05, then this really bad news. Much,
much, smaller p-values are needed before we get all excited about
'statistically significant' results when the sample size is in the
thousands, or even bigger. So, the p-values reported above are
mostly pretty marginal, as far as significance is concerned. When you work
out the p-values for the other 6 models I mentioned, they range
from to 0.005 to 0.460. I've been generous in the models I selected.
Here's another set of results taken from a second, really nice, paper by
Ciecieriski et al. (2011) in the same issue of
Health Economics:
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
My research suggest that over 90% of the recent papers published in The
Accounting Review use purchased databases that provide enormous sample sizes
in those papers. Their accountics science authors keep reporting those
meaningless levels of statistical significance.
What is even worse is when meaningless statistical significance tests are
used to support decisions.
"Statistical Significance - Again " by David Giles, Econometrics
Beat: Dave Giles� Blog, University of Victoria, December 28, 2013 ---
http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2013/12/statistical-significance-again.html
Statistical Significance - Again
With all of this emphasis
on "Big Data", I was pleased to see
this post on the Big Data
Econometrics blog, today.
When you have a sample that runs
to the thousands (billions?), the conventional significance
levels of 10%, 5%, 1% are completely inappropriate. You need to
be thinking in terms of tiny significance levels.
I discussed this in some
detail back in April of 2011, in a post titled, "Drawing
Inferences From Very Large Data-Sets".
If you're of those (many) applied
researchers who uses large cross-sections of data, and then
sprinkles the results tables with asterisks to signal
"significance" at the 5%, 10% levels, etc., then I urge
you read that earlier post.
It's sad to encounter so many
papers and seminar presentations in which the results, in
reality, are totally insignificant!
How Standard Error Costs Us Jobs,
Justice, and Lives, by Stephen T. Ziliak and Deirdre N. McCloskey (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, ISBN-13: 978-472-05007-9, 2007)
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm
Page 206
Like scientists today in medical and economic and
other sizeless sciences, Pearson mistook a large sample size for the definite,
substantive significance---evidence s Hayek put it, of "wholes." But it was as
Hayek said "just an illusion." Pearson's columns of sparkling asterisks, though
quantitative in appearance and as appealing a is the simple truth of the sky,
signified nothing.
pp. 250-251
The textbooks are wrong. The teaching is wrong. The
seminar you just attended is wrong. The most prestigious journal in your
scientific field is wrong.
You are searching, we know,
for ways to avoid being wrong. Science, as Jeffreys said, is mainly a series of
approximations to discovering the sources of error. Science is a systematic way
of reducing wrongs or can be. Perhaps you feel frustrated by the random
epistemology of the mainstream and don't know what to do. Perhaps you've been
sedated by significance and lulled into silence. Perhaps you sense that the
power of a Roghamsted test against a plausible Dublin alternative is
statistically speaking low but you feel oppressed by the instrumental variable
one should dare not to wield. Perhaps you feel frazzled by what Morris Altman
(2004) called the "social psychology rhetoric of fear," the deeply embedded path
dependency that keeps the abuse of significance in circulation. You want to come
out of it. But perhaps you are cowed by the prestige of Fisherian dogma. Or,
worse thought, perhaps you are cynically willing to be corrupted if it will keep
a nice job
Bob Jensen's threads on the often way analysts, particularly accountics
scientists, often cheer for statistical significance of large sample outcomes
that praise statistical significance of insignificant results such as R2
values of .0001 ---
The Cult of Statistical Significance: How Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice,
and Lives ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm
Those of you interested in tracking The
Accounting Review's trends in submissions, refereeing, and
acceptances'rejections should be interested in current senior editor
Mark L. DeFond's
annual report at
http://aaajournals.org/doi/full/10.2308/accr-10477
This has become a huge process involving 18 editors and hundreds of referees.
TAR is still the leading accountics science journal of the American Accounting
Association. However, there are so many new specialty journals readers are apt
to find quality research in other AAA journals. TAR seemingly still does not
publish commentaries and articles without equations and has not yet caught on
the the intitiatives of the Pathways Commission for more diversification in
research in the leading AAA research journal. Virtually all TAR editors still
worship p-values in empirical submissions.
"Not Even Scientists Can Easily Explain
P-values," by Christie Aschwanden, Nate Silver's 5:38 Blog, November
30, 2015 ---
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/not-even-scientists-can-easily-explain-p-values/
P-values have
taken quite a beating lately. These widely used and commonly misapplied
statistics have been blamed for giving a
veneer of legitimacy to dodgy study results,
encouraging
bad research practices
and promoting
false-positive study results.
But after
writing about p-values again and again, and recently issuing a correction on
a
nearly year-old story over some erroneous
information regarding a study’s p-value (which I’d taken from the scientists
themselves and
their report), I’ve
come to think that the most fundamental problem with p-values is that no one
can really say what they are.
Last week, I
attended the inaugural
METRICS conference at Stanford, which brought
together some of the world’s leading experts on meta-science, or the study
of studies. I figured that if anyone could explain p-values in plain
English, these folks could. I was wrong.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
Why all the fuss? Accountics scientists have a perfectly logical explanation.
P-values are numbers that are pumped out of statistical analysis software
(mostly multiple regression software) that accounting research journal editors
think indicate the degree of causality or at least suggest the degree of
causality to readers. But the joke is on the editors, because there aren't any
readers.
November 30, 2015 reply from David
Johnstone
Dear
Bob, thankyou for this interesting stuff.
A big
part of the acceptance of P-values is that they easily give the look of
something having been found. So it’s an agency problem, where the
researchers do what makes their research outcomes easier and better looking.
There
is a lot more to it of course. I note with young staff that they face enough
hurdles in the need to get papers written and published without thinking
that the very techniques that they are trying to emulate might be flawed.
Rightfully, they say, “it’s not my job to question everything that I have
been shown and to get nowhere as a result”, nor can most believe that
something so established and revered can be wrong, that is just too
unthinkable and depressing. So the bandwagon goes on, and, as Bob says, no
one cares outside as no one much reads it.
I do
however get annoyed every time I hear decision makers carry on about
“evidence based” policy, as if no one can have a clue or form a vision or
strategy without first having the backing of some junk science by a
sociologist or educationist or accounting researcher who was just twisting
the world whichever way to get significant p-values and a good “story”. This
kind of cargo-culting, which is everywhere, does great harm to good or
sincere science, as it makes it hard for an outsider to tell the difference.
One
thing that does not get much of a hearing is that the statisticians
themselves must take a lot of blame. They had the chance to vote off P
values decades ago when they had to choose between frequentist and Bayesian
logic. They split into two camps with the frequentists in the great majority
but holding the weakest ground intellectually. The numbers are moving now,
as people that were not born when de Finetti, Savage, Lindley, Kadane and
others first said that p-values were ill-conceived logically. Accounting, of
course, being largely ignorant of there being any issue, and ultimately just
political, will not be leading the battle of ideas.
January 28, 2016 reply from Paul Williams
Bob,
Thank you for this. In accounting the problem is
even worse because at least in other fields it is plausible that one can
have "scientific" concepts and categories. Archival research in accounting
can only deal with interpretive concepts and the "scientific" categories are
often constructed for the one study in question. We make a lot of s... up so
that the results are consistent with the narrative (always a neoclassical
economic one) that informs the study. Measurement? Doesn't exist. How can
one seriously believe they are engaged in scientific research when their
"measurements" are the result of GAAP? Abe Briloff described our most
prestigious research (which Greg Waymire claimed in his AAA presidential
white paper "...threatens the discipline with extinction."). as simply "low
level financial statement analysis." Any research activity that is reduced
to a template (in JAE the table numbers are nearly the same from paper to
paper) you know you are in trouble. What is the scientific value of 50
control variables, two focus independent variables (correlated with the
controls), and one dependent variable that is always different from study to
study? This one variable at a time approach can go on into infinity with the
only result being a huge pile of anecdotes that no one can organize into any
coherent explanation of what is going on. As you have so eloquently and
relentlessly pointed out accountants never replicate anything. In archival
research it is not even possible to replicate since the researcher is unable
to provide (like any good scientist in physics, chemistry, biology, etc.) a
log book providing the detailed recipe it would take to actually replicate
what the researcher has done. Without the ability to independently replicate
the exact study, the status of that study is merely an anecdote. Given the
Hunton affair, perhaps we should not be so sanguine about trusting our
colleagues. This is particularly so since the leading U.S. journals have a
clear ideological bias -- if your results aren't consistent with the
received wisdom they won't be published.
Paul
Bob Jensen's threads on statistical mistakes ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/rjensen/temp/AccounticsScienceStatisticalMistakes.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
"A Scrapbook on What’s Wrong with the Past, Present a nd Future of
Accountics Science," by Bob Jensen, Working Paper 450.06, Date Fluid ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsWorkingPaper450.06.pdf
The purpose of this paper is to make a case that
the accountics science monopoly of our doctoral programs and publish ed
research is seriously flawed, especially its lack of concern about
replication and focus on simplified arti ficial worlds that differ too much
from reality to creatively discover findings of greater relevance to
teachers of accounting and practitioners of accounting. Accountics
scientists themselves became a Cargo Cult.
Gaming for Tenure as an Accounting Professor ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTenure.htm
(with a reply about tenure publication point systems from Linda Kidwell)
Replication and Validity Testing ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTar.htm#Replication
One of Academy's biggest disgraces in the social sciences, business,
accountancy, etc. is the frequency with which published research is not
replicated in validation studies. The social sciences have made advances in
encouraging replication research. Business and accounting discourage
replications by being unwilling to publish replications. Accountics (accounting
science) journals like The Accounting Review further discourage
replication research by showing zero willingness to publish commentaries that
question the validity of accountics science research. How would anyone dare?
When TAR publishes something it's tantamount to truth ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTar.htm
"The Replication Network," by David E. Giles, Econometrics Beat,
February 8, 2016 ---
http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-replication-network.html
The full name is, The Replication Network:
Furthering the Practice of Replication in Economics. I was alerted
to TRN some time ago by co-organiser, Bob
Reed, and I'm pleased to be a member.
What's TRN about:
"This website serves as a channel of communication
to (i) update scholars about the state of replications in economics, and
(ii) establish a network for the sharing of information and ideas.
The goal is to encourage economists and their
journals to publish replications."
Hats off to TRN. We need more of this!
Scientific Replication Woes of Psychology
Accountics scientists in accountancy avoid such woes by rarely even trying to
replicate behavioral experiements
"The Results of the Reproducibility Project Are In. They’re Not Good,"
by Tom Bartlett, Chronicle of Higher Education, August 28, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Results-of-the/232695/?cid=at
A decade ago, John P.A. Ioannidis published a
provocative and much-discussed paper arguing that
most published research findings are false. It’s
starting to look like he was right.
The
results of the
Reproducibility Project are in, and the news is
not good. The goal of the project was to attempt to replicate findings in
100 studies from three leading psychology journals published in the year
2008. The very ambitious endeavor,
led by Brian Nosek, a
professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and executive director
of the
Center for Open Science, brought together more
than 270 researchers who tried to follow the same methods as the original
researchers — in essence, double-checking their work by painstakingly
re-creating it.
Turns out, only 39 percent of the studies withstood
that scrutiny.
Even Mr. Nosek, a self-described congenital
optimist, doesn’t try to put a happy spin on that number. He’s pleased that
the replicators were able to pull off the project, which began in 2011 and
involved innumerable software issues, language differences, logistical
challenges, and other assorted headaches. Now it’s done! That’s the upside.
Continued in article
574 Shields Against Validity Testing in Accounting
Research---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
"How Social Media Is Disrupting the Lives of
American Girls," by Nancy Jo Sales, Time Magazine, February 13, 2016 ---
http://time.com/americangirls/?xid=newsletter-brief
Bitcoin ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin
"Here’s why you have to start taking bitcoin seriously,"
by Brent Arens, MarketWatch, February 19, 2016 ---
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-why-you-have-to-start-taking-bitcoin-seriously-2016-02-19
For years the conventional wisdom in finance has
been that bitcoins are a silly technological game, a bubble, and a fad.
Today: Not so much.
Bitcoins have just gotten serious, and people are
going to have to start paying attention to this digital currency. That means
investors, governments, and those trying to fight crime as well.
This was already true even before the news out of
California that criminals just used bitcoins to extort $17,000 in blackmail
from a hospital and make, so far, a clean getaway.
Bitcoins are booming. They have doubled in price in
the last six months. Indeed bitcoins were actually the best performing
currency in the world last year. I ran an exhaustive screen on FactSet,
making sure to include everything from the Afghanistan afghani (down 16%
against the U.S. dollar DXY, -0.17% ) to the Zambian kwacha (down 42%).
Bitcoin trounced them all. The dollar value of each bitcoin jumped 40%
during 2015, from $310 to $434. (The currency in second place, the Gambian
dalasi of all things, was nowhere near: It rose just 9% against the U.S.
dollar.).
At current prices, the total value of bitcoins in
the world now tops $6 billion. That’s quite some “fad.”
Continued in articl
"Technical Roadblock Might Shatter Bitcoin Dreams,"
by Tom Simonite, MIT's Technolology Review, February 16. 2016 ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600781/technical-roadblock-might-shatter-bitcoin-dreams/#/set/id/600813/
The total value of the digital currency Bitcoin is
over $5 billion, reflecting how some people think it will one day become
widely useful. But a new analysis of the software that powers the currency
concludes that Bitcoin needs a complete redesign if it is to support more
than the paltry number of transactions that take place today.
That suggests that the people, companies, and
investors who are banking on the currency becoming widely used must overcome
fundamental technical challenges that currently have no known solutions, not
just the economic and cultural issues associated with a currency independent
of any government.
The findings, from a large group of researchers
mostly affiliated with Cornell University, also offer new perspective on an
acrimonious debate that has recently riven the world of Bitcoin (see
“The
Looming Problem That Could Kill Bitcoin”).
Continued in article
FASB: No GAAP for Bitcoins ---
http://www.bna.com/no-gaap-bit-b17179880752/
December 17, 2013 reply from Tom Selling
From the BNA Bloomberg
piece:
"There is no generally
accepted accounting principles (GAAP) that specifically addresses
financial reporting for bit coins, which means this would fall under
other comprehensive basis of accounting (OCBOA), FASB members who
weighed in said."
I don't know if I agree with
that assessment — assuming that it is accurately reported. Bit coins are
clearly not a currency (yet), since they are not universally (or near
universally) accepted as a medium of exchange. Thus, it seems to me that the
portion of the ASC dealing with barter credits (starting at ASC
845-10-30-17) covers bit coins. Basically, a sale in exchange for a barter
credit can be counted as revenue if the entity has a practice of converting
the barter credit into cash in the "near term."
Am I missing something? I
realize that the sponsors (if that's the right word) aspire that bit coins
should become a new currency, but right now, they seem to be the functional
equivalent of some forms of barter credits.
Best,
Tom
Jensen Reply
Hi Tom,
You made a very good point since both
bitcoins (and other virtual currencies) and barter credits are sometimes
traded on exchanges that set values apart from the fair values of the items
traded initially. In the exchange markets values can be complicated by
speculators in the virtual currencies and the varying willingness of
businesses to accept them.
The question is whether barter credits meet
the definitions of virtual currencies. I'm not familiar enough with barter
credits to know that they have the "block chain central bodies" doing the
mathematical calculations that, among other things, prevent double spending
---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin
Virtual currencies differ from private
currencies, and I tend to view barer credits private currencies rather
than virtual currencies ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_currency
One key difference is that private currencies tend to trade in terms of
specified commodities (such as gold) or regions (such as BerkShares in the
Berkshire region of Massachusetts) whereas virtual currencies tend to take
on a life of their own. apart from commodities or spending regions.
It seems like accounting for bitcoins may
become less complicated than accounting for private currencies in that
bitcoins and other virtual currencies are more like international legal
tender than private currencies subject to possible thinner markets such as
the market for BerkShares. Of course bitcoins are not yet legal tender per
se.
Barter credit accounting is also complicated
by other revenue recognition rules. For example, if barter credits apply to
discount coupons then all the complications of revenue accounting for
discount coupons enter the picture.
I don't think the IRS, the FASB, and the
IASB have yet dealt with all the complications of private currencies or
virtual currencies traded on exchanges and the liquidity risks and
speculation risks inherent in such transaction valuations. One complication
is that the markets may be very thin such as the BerkShares trading market
restricted to vendors in the Berkshires region.
A Bit of History
"Accounting For Transactions Involving Barter Credits," by Joel
Steinberg, The CPA Journal, July 1999 ---
http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/1999/0799/departments/D56799.HTM
Commercial barter
transactions have been increasing in recent years, and there are currently a
number of commercial barter websites. A barter transaction can involve an
exchange of goods or services for other goods or services, or barter
credits. In a transaction involving barter credits, a company exchanges an
asset such as inventory for barter credits. The transaction might be done
directly with another entity that will provide goods or services, or it
might be done through a barter broker or network. In a barter network, goods
or services are exchanged for barter credits or "trade dollars" that can be
used to purchase goods or services from either the barter broker or members
of the network. The goods and services to be purchased may be specified in a
barter contract or may be limited to items made available by members of the
network. Credits for advertising are the most common items received in
barter transactions. This is because advertisers can often run additional
spots with little additional overhead and are therefore willing to exchange
such services for nonmonetary consideration.
When a company enters into a
barter transaction, two things need to be addressed from an accounting
standpoint. First, the exchange transaction needs to be accounted for
properly. Second, the recorded amount of unused barter credits has to be
evaluated at each financial statement reporting date.
Recording the Exchange
Transaction
Guidance on accounting for
the exchange transaction is provided in FASB Emerging Issues Task Force (EITF)
Issue No. 93-11, Accounting for Barter Transactions Involving Barter
Credits. The task force reached a consensus that APB No. 29, Accounting for
Nonmonetary Transactions, should be applied to an exchange of a nonmonetary
asset for barter credits. The basic principle of APB No. 29 is that
accounting for nonmonetary transactions should be based on the fair values
of the assets or services involved. (This excludes situations where the
exchange is not the culmination of an earning process, in which case the
recorded amount of the asset surrendered should be used.) The transaction is
generally measured based on the fair value of the asset surrendered. The
fair value of the asset surrendered becomes the cost basis of the asset
acquired. A gain or loss should be recognized based on the difference
between the fair value of the asset surrendered and its carrying amount.
The fair value of the asset
received in an exchange should be used to record the transaction only if it
is more clearly evident than the fair value of the asset surrendered. In the
case of barter credits, it should be presumed that the fair value of the
asset exchanged is more clearly evident than the fair value of the barter
credits received. Accordingly, the barter credits received should be
recorded at the fair value of the asset exchanged. That presumption might be
overcome if the barter credits can be converted into cash in the near term,
or if independent quoted market prices exist for items to be received in
exchange for the barter credits.
When determining the fair
value of the asset surrendered, it should be presumed that the fair value of
the asset does not exceed its carrying amount, unless there is persuasive
evidence supporting a higher value. When determining the value of inventory
or other assets exchanged in a barter transaction, skepticism should be
used. The reality is that the company would prefer to sell the inventory for
cash rather than barter credits. The fact that the company is bartering with
inventory could indicate that the company's normal selling price may not be
an accurate measure of fair value. This could also raise
lower-of-cost-or-market valuation questions about any items remaining in
inventory.
The EITF also concluded that
if the fair value of the asset exchanged is less than its carrying amount,
an impairment should be recognized prior to recording the exchange. For
example, inventory exchanged in a barter transaction should be adjusted to
the lower of cost or market prior to recording the barter transaction. In
the case of long-lived assets, impairment should be measured and recognized
in accordance with SFAS No. 121, Accounting for the Impairment of Long-lived
Assets and for Long-lived Assets to Be Disposed Of.
Evaluating the Recorded
Amount of Barter Credits
At each balance sheet date,
the recorded amount of barter credits should be evaluated for impairment. An
impairment loss should be recognized if the fair value of any remaining
barter credits is less than the carrying amount, or if it is probable that
the company will not use all of the remaining barter credits.
The first step in evaluating
the realizability of barter credits is to evaluate the likelihood that the
counterparty will perform. If the credits are directly with another entity
that will provide the goods or services, that entity should be evaluated.
This can be done by investigating the credit rating of that entity and
obtaining references from other companies that have been involved in similar
transactions with the entity. If the credits are with a barter broker or
network, the credibility and history of the broker or network should be
evaluated. This can be done by contacting the International Reciprocal Trade
Association (www.irta.net) or similar organizations.
The next step is to
evaluate, based on current and future operations, whether the company is
expected to fully utilize the recorded amount of the credits. For example,
if a company has available $100,000 of advertising credits, but typically
spends only $5,000 on advertising each year, it might take 20 years to fully
utilize the credits. Similarly, credits may allow the company to purchase
whatever goods or services happen to be available from members of the
network, and it may be uncertain whether the company will ever need any of
them. Barter credits may also have a contractual expiration date, at which
time they become worthless. Finally, some arrangements may require the
payment of cash in addition to barter credits, in which case the ability of
the company to use the credits may be limited. *
Jensen Comment
Abuses by companies could change this in a New York minute such as the EITF
changed revenue recognition ploys by tech companies in the roaring 1990s ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/eitf01.htm
"A Plague of Plagiarism," by Alan Metcalf,
Chronicle of Higher Education, February 16, 2016 --- |
http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2016/02/16/the-plague-of-plagiarism/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=f365192f0fc64070984808a6d4c951ac&elq=4b0c6e3f35fe42d4b5e75ca3781e9043&elqaid=7908&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=2452
. . .
In academe, as well as in the republic of letters,
plagiarism remains the unforgivable sin. The Oxford English Dictionary tells
us that this dreadful word (and the activity for which it stands) has been
in our language for four centuries, and further that it derives ultimately
from “classical Latin plagiarius, person who abducts the child or slave of
another, kidnapper, seducer, also a literary thief.”
Kidnapper of someone’s beloved words! No wonder we
react so strongly.
The handbooks warn against plagiarism categorically
enough. Look in the Writer’s Reference by Hacker and Sommers (eighth
edition), for example, and you’ll see this typical declaration: “You must
cite anything you borrow from a source, including direct quotations;
statistics and other specific facts; visuals such as tables, graphs, and
diagrams; and any ideas you present in a summary or paraphrase.
“Borrowing without proper acknowledgment,” the book
adds, ”is a form of dishonesty known as plagiarism.”
Which suggests that outside the literary and
academic worlds, plagiarism is not a household word.
Nor is it so easily pinned down. There is, first of
all, an exception for “common knowledge — information that your readers may
know or could easily locate in any number of reference sources,” the
Writer’s Reference explains. This exception has existed since time
immemorial, but it takes on new significance in these days of the Internet,
where a quick googling or binging will reveal any number of reference
sources, far more than could be imagined in the days of paper and ink.
Maybe that’s one reason why the Writer’s Reference
cautions, “Definitions of plagiarism may vary; it’s a good idea to find out
how your school defines academic dishonesty.”
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
It's important to make sure every student, especially each foreign student,
understands campus definitions and rules regarding plagiarism. Plagiarism is an
even bigger problem in Asia and Russia than in North America if we judge this
plagiarism by Western standards. In North America students should not be able to
put up a defense of cultural differences regarding the definitions and rules.
The big problem with plagiarism is that it's become so
easy to do in this era of the Internet and computer word processing. The most
difficult to detect is the copying with clever text revisions that disguise
plagiarism that is not literal in terms of wording.
It's also important to distinguish plagiarism from
copyright violation. A writer can attribute a literal reproduction (text,
picture, etc.) to the original source and still be in violation of copyright
law. Plagiarism enters in when there's no attribution to the source.
One difference between Canada and the USA is safe harbor
of "Fair Use" in the USA. However, students and faculty in the USA often do not
really understand "Fair Use" rules and regulations in regarding "Fair Use:" in
the DMCA ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm#Copyright
Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism among faculty and
students ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm
Maker kit program turns libraries into places for content creation, not
just consumption ---
http://lisnews.org/maker_kit_program_turns_libraries_into_places_for_content_creation_not_just_consumption
Librarianship is a funny profession–the day is
often a mixture of hokey jokes from people who haven’t been in a library in
years, and strategizing ways to implement robotics and computer coding into
programs for everybody from preschoolers to seniors. When people see what
libraries actually get up to these days, they’re almost always surprised. So
many people in America depend on their libraries to help them forward when
it comes to technology, and lots of libraries have answered that call with
aplomb, learning as they go.
Continued in articel
Bob Jensen's threads on libraries ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#---Libraries
Anti-Israel sentiment mixed with age-old
anti-Semitism has reached a fever pitch at Vassar College. It is time that
faculty and administrators take a stand against this toxic brew on behalf of
academic values
Mark G. Yudof and Ken Waltzer ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/majoring-in-anti-semitism-at-vassar-1455751940?mod=djemMER
Anti-Israel sentiment mixed with age-old
anti-Semitism has reached a fever pitch at Vassar College. It is time that
faculty and administrators take a stand against this toxic brew on behalf of
academic values.
The campus of this private liberal-arts college in
Poughkeepsie, N.Y., has experienced more than its share of anti-Israel
activity. In the spring of 2014, the boycott of a course in the
International Studies Program—because it involved a trip to Israel—included
heckling students and picketing the class. During the fall of 2015, attempts
were made to boycott Sabra hummus because the maker of this popular food is
partly owned by an Israeli food company.
The most recent incident was a talk on Feb. 3 by Jasbir Puar, a Rutgers associate professor of women’s and gender studies. The
address, “Inhumanist Biopolitics: How Palestine Matters,” was sponsored by
eight Vassar departments and programs, including Jewish Studies and American
Studies.
Ms. Puar began by exhorting the students to support
a boycott of Israel as part of “armed” resistance. As reported by several in
attendance at the speech—the professor introducing her requested that it not
be recorded—Ms. Puar
passed on vicious lies that Israel had “mined for
organs for scientific research” from dead Palestinians—updating the medieval
blood libel against Jews—and accused Israelis of attempting to give
Palestinians the “bare minimum for survival” as part of a medical
“experiment.”
When asked, she agreed with a questioner that
Israeli treatment of Palestinians amounted to genocide but objected to the
term itself, which she
said was too
“tethered to the Holocaust.”
Ms. Puar’s speech was co-sponsored by the Jewish
Studies Program, yet faculty members of the program remained silent in the
audience during the event. This is a testament to the spell that anti-Israel
dogma, no matter its veracity, has spread over the campus.
Wild charges against Israel have often been aired
on U.S. campuses over the past several years, and their moral perversity
pointed out. But Ms. Puar’s calumnies reached a new low. She spoke of Jews
deliberately starving Palestinians, “stunting” and “maiming” a population.
The false accusation that a people, some of whose members were experimented
on at Auschwitz, are today experimenting on others is a disgrace.
Yet characterizing Israel and Zionism in ways that
anti-Semites formerly characterized Jews has become a stock in trade among
anti-Israeli activists on college campuses. And it exposes the real
motivation of those who profess to criticize only the Israeli government’s
policies with regard to the West Bank, not Jews themselves.
Now there is a
resolution before the Vassar student union, in
part seeking a boycott of Ben & Jerry’s, on the grounds that the
company—founded by two Jews—sells ice-cream “transported on Jewish-only
roads to be sold in Jewish-only settlements.” This is part of a broader
divest-from-Israel resolution to be voted on this spring, which also
includes other U.S. companies.
These events are transforming a prestigious
institution into a parody ripe for ridicule—a place embarrassing to
prominent alumni and worrisome for prospective Jewish students.
In January 2014, Vassar President Catharine Bond Hill forthrightly
rejected the boycotts of Israel that were being
proposed by a variety of academic associations. This time her
response—posting a letter in the alumni magazine defending the college’s
reputation and stating that some may have found Ms. Puar’s talk
“objectionable”—is too tepid.
She did add that Vassar will organize a series of
lectures with different viewpoints on Israel. But we think her letter should
be addressed to students and faculty—and that hatred of Israel and Jews
should not implicitly be characterized as merely another perspective to be
debated.
"2016’s dirty dozen tax scams," by Sally P. Schreiber, Journal of
Accountancy, February 17, 2016 ---
http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2016/feb/2016-tax-scams-201613916.html?utm_source=mnl:cpald&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=18Feb2016#sthash.6xUtgCWL.dpuf
Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
"Washington State Prof Charged With $8M Research Fraud,"
Inside Higher Ed, February 26, 2016 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2016/02/26/washington-state-prof-charged-8m-research-fraud?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=8ef91c166e-DNU20160226&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-8ef91c166e-197565045
The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday
charged a professor at Washington State University
and two family members with defrauding federal
agencies of $8 million in research funds for their personal use.
Haifang Wen, the Colf
Distinguished Professor in Civil Engineering at Washington State, was
arrested Wednesday on charges that he and his brother and sister-in-law had
set up false businesses and conspired to defraud the government of grants
designed to help small firms develop asphalt composition technologies. Wen
and the others face up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine
Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
"Moody’s Downgrades 3 Illinois Universities to Junk or Just
Above Junk," by Mike Shedlock. Townhall, February 26, 2016 ---
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/mikeshedlock/2016/02/26/moodys-downgrades-3-illinois-universities-to-junk-or-just-above-junk-n2124858?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
The Illinois budget impasse has now spread to three
universities struggling to pay bills. Moody’s cut
Eastern Illinois University’s
credit rating to junk territory while
Northeastern Illinois University and
Northern Illinois University
sit one notch just above junk. All three universities are in danger of
losing accreditation. More downgrades will come.
The Washington Post reports
Illinois Budget Battle Leads Moody’s to Downgrade
Several State Universities.
An epic budget battle in Illinois led Moody’s
Investors Service to downgrade the credit rating of three of the state’s
public universities late Wednesday, the latest setback for schools that
have been starved of funding for eight months and now face possible
accreditation challenges.
Northeastern Illinois University and Northern
Illinois University had their credit ratings lowered to just above junk
status, while Eastern Illinois University’s rating is now below
investment grade. That means analysts consider revenue bonds issued on
behalf of the school to be a credit risk for investors.
“The downgrade is driven by EIU’s increasing
vulnerability to the ongoing state budget impasse given its thin
liquidity, declining enrollment and high reliance on state funding,”
Moody’s said in a statement. “Liquid reserves are expected to be
exhausted by the end of the fiscal year.”
Moody’s has held a negative outlook on all
eight Illinois universities it rates since the fall because of their
diminishing cash flow. Analysts said there was no indication that
Illinois would allow its public universities to borrow money during the
budget impasse, despite the strain the ordeal has placed on their
operations.
Universities in Illinois have not seen a dime
from the state in eight months as the Democratic-controlled general
assembly and Republican Governor Bruce Rauner have failed to agree on a
budget. The governor has tied passage of the $36 billion budget to
changes in collective bargaining rights for public employees and worker
compensation, business-friendly moves he says will help turn around the
state’s flagging economy. If the legislature refuses to sign on to his
changes, Rauner wants lawmakers to let him make $3.5 billion in spending
cuts in any way he chooses
,
Williams College President Calls Off Speech by
Controversial Conservative Writer ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/williams-college-president-calls-off-speech-by-controversial-conservative-writer/108744?elqTrackId=d1987dd61bcb4cfd9c8403a038b2d2c2&elq=84332ea407314cc69f2c1e618e760186&elqaid=7981&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=2487
"The End of History, Part II: The new Advanced Placement
U.S. history exam focuses on oppression, group identity and Reagan the warmonger,"
by Lynn V. Cheney, The Wall Street Journal, April 1, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/lynne-cheney-the-end-of-history-part-ii-1427929675?tesla=y
If you seek peace, if you seek
prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek
liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr.
Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
—President Ronald Reagan, speech at the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin,
1987
President Reagan’s challenge to Soviet
Premier Mikhail Gorbachev remains one of the most dramatic calls for freedom
in our time. Thus I was heartened to find a passage from Reagan’s speech on
the sample of the new Advanced Placement U.S. history exam that students
will take for the first time in May. It seemed for a moment that students
would be encouraged to learn about positive aspects of our past rather than
be directed to focus on the negative, as happens all too often.
But when I looked closer to see the
purpose for which the quotation was used, I found that it is held up as an
example of “increased assertiveness and bellicosity” on the part of the U.S.
in the 1980s. That’s the answer to a multiple-choice question about what
Reagan’s speech reflects.
No notice is taken of the connection the
president made between freedom and human flourishing, no attention to the
fact that within 2½ years of the speech, people were chipping off pieces of
the Berlin Wall as souvenirs. Instead of acknowledging important ideas and
historical context, test makers have reduced President Reagan’s most
eloquent moment to warmongering.
The AP U.S. history exam matters. Half a
million of the nation’s best and brightest high-school students will take it
this year, hoping to use it to earn college credit and to polish their
applications to competitive colleges. To score well on the exam, students
have to learn what the College Board, a private organization that creates
the exam, wants them to know.
No one worried much about the College
Board having this de facto power over curriculum until that organization
released a detailed framework—for courses beginning last year—on which the
Advanced Placement tests on U.S. history will be based from 2015 onward.
When educators, academics and other concerned citizens realized how many
notable figures were missing and how negative was the view of American
history presented, they spoke out forcefully. The response of the College
Board was to release the sample exam that features Ronald Reagan as a
warmonger.
It doesn’t stop there. On the
multiple-choice part of the sample exam, there are 18 sections, and eight of
them take up the oppression of women, blacks and immigrants. Knowing about
the experiences of these groups is important—but truth requires that
accomplishment be recognized as well as oppression, and the exam doesn’t
have questions on subjects such as the transforming leadership of Martin
Luther King Jr.
The framework requires that all questions
take up sweeping issues, such as “group identity,” which leaves little place
for transcendent individuals. Men and women who were once studied as
inspirational figures have become examples of trends, and usually not
uplifting ones. The immigrant story that the exam tells is of oppressed
people escaping to America only to find more oppression. That many came
seeking the Promised Land—and found it here—is no longer part of the
narrative.
Critics have noted that Benjamin Franklin
is absent from the new AP U.S. history framework, and perhaps in response,
the College Board put a quotation from Franklin atop the sample exam. Yet
not one of the questions that were asked about the quotation has to do with
Franklin. They are about George Whitefield, an evangelist whom Franklin
described in the quote. This odd deflection makes sense in the new test,
considering that Franklin was a self-made man, whose rise from rags to
riches would have been possible only in America—an example of the
exceptionalism that doesn’t fit the worldview that pervades the AP framework
and sample exam.
Evangelist Whitefield, an Irishman who
preached in the colonies, was a key figure in the Great Awakening, an
evangelical revival that began in the 1730s. Here, however, he is held up as
an example of “trans-Atlantic exchanges,” which seems completely out of left
field until one realizes that the underlying notion is that we need to stop
thinking nationally and think globally. Our history is simply part of a
larger story.
Aside from a section about mobilizing
women to serve in the workforce, the sample exam has nothing to say about
World War II, the conflict in which the U.S. liberated millions of people
and ended one of the most evil regimes in the history of the world. The
heroic acts of the men who landed on Omaha Beach and lifted the flag on Iwo
Jima are ignored. The wartime experiences that the new framework prefers are
those raising “questions about American values,” such as “the internment of
Japanese Americans, challenges to civil liberties, debates over race and
segregation, and the decision to drop the atomic bomb.”
Why would the College Board respond to
criticism by putting out a sample exam that proves the critics’ point?
Perhaps it is a case of those on the left being so confirmed in their biases
that they no longer notice them. Or maybe the College Board doesn’t care
what others think.
Some states are trying to get its
attention. The Texas State Board of Education, noting that the AP U.S.
history framework is incompatible with that state’s standards, has formally
requested that the College Board do a rewrite. The Georgia Senate has passed
a resolution to encourage competition for the College Board’s AP program. If
anything brings a change, it is likely to be such pressure from the states,
which provide the College Board with substantial revenue.
Some 20 years ago, as chairman of the
National Endowment for the Humanities, I made a grant to a group to create
voluntary standards for U.S. history. When the project was finished, I had
standards on my hands that were overwhelmingly negative about the American
story, so biased that I felt obliged to condemn them in an
op-ed
for The Wall Street Journal called “The End of History.”
I learned an important lesson, one worth
repeating today. The curriculum shouldn’t be farmed out, not to the federal
government and not to private groups. It should stay in the hands of the
people who are constitutionally responsible for it: the citizens of each
state.
Mrs. Cheney, a senior fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute, writes about history. Her most recent book is “James
Madison: A Life Reconsidered” (Viking, 2014).
Jensen Comment
I recall when I was living in Texas that the history textbook required in all
public schools in Texas claimed the USA dropped an atomic bomb on North Koreans
during the Korean War. So much for truth in academe. Even North Korea does not
make this absurd claim.
Liberal Bias in the Media and Academe ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#LiberalBias
Big Data ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data
Libraries: The Dark Side of Big Data ---
http://lisnews.org/node/44160/
Big Data to Knowledge ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Data_to_Knowledge
From the Scout Report on February 12, 2016
ReminderFox ---
http://www.reminderfox.org/
The premise of ReminderFox is simple: most calendar
applications are too complicated. ReminderFox strives to be simple,
intuitive, and powerful. This Firefox browser add-on has several advantages
over traditional calendar apps. First, once installed, Firefox users are
guaranteed to see what's on their calendar and have access to reminders.
Second, adding and subtracting reminders, events, and other calendar content
is extremely easy. Third, rather than being an additional app that readers
might need to check, ReminderFox is integrated into the web browser that
they are already using. To install ReminderFox Firefox users may simply
select Add to Firefox from the landing page and follow the effortless steps
to installation.
Virtu ---
https://www.virtru.com/
Privacy concerns have become a major issue for
Internet users, and the privacy of email is no exception. Every email you
send is potentially being profiled by advertisers, screened by government
agencies, and perhaps even intercepted by hackers who would like to use your
personal information for their own ends. Virtu takes care of all that. The
extension, which is tremendously easy to install, works with Gmail, Yahoo
Mail, and Outlook to encrypt the emails you want kept private. Using the
basic service, which is free, readers may click a single button to turn
encryption on. The receiver then gets a message explaining what you have
done and how to access the key to decrypt and open the email. While this may
sound complicated, the process is actually quite intuitive. Virtu also
offers more advanced features for five dollars per month, such as HIPPA
compliance and the ability to revoke access to emails that have already been
sent
After 100 Years of Searching, Scientists Detect Gravitational Waves
Einstein's gravitational waves found at last
http://www.nature.com/news/einstein-s-gravitational-waves-found-at-last-1.19361
Gravitational waves, Einstein's ripples in spacetime, spotted for first
time
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/gravitational-waves-einstein-s-ripples-spacetime-spotted-first-time
Gravitational Waves Exist: The Inside Story of How Scientists Finally Found
Them
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/gravitational-waves-exist-heres-how-scientists-finally-found-them
Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102
LIGO Caltech: What are Gravitational Waves?
https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/what-are-gw
Futurism: How Gravitational Waves Work (infographic)
http://futurism.com/the-physics-of-gravitational-waves-heres-how-they-work-infographic/
From the Scout Report on February 19, 2016
Yandex Browser ---
https://browser.yandex.com/
For readers who are continually searching for the
perfect web browser, Yandex could be a welcome find. The transparent
interface will likely appeal to minimalists who like less visual
stimulation, while built-in security functions are a boon to most users,
providing automatic warnings about dangerous sites. In addition, the dual
facts that Yandex does not collect statistics on its users' browsing habits
(which means more browsing privacy) and a special Stealth mode that does not
allow websites to collect your usage statistics, will likely put users'
minds at ease.]
Cold Turkey ---
http://getcoldturkey.com/
There are many useful distraction blocking apps
available on the market. Cold Turkey is unique for two features. First, the
app allows users to block websites and apps at prescheduled times (for
instance, from 9 to 5 on Mondays a user could block Facebook). Second, once
that time comes, Cold Turkey freezes the settings. In other words, once the
time comes to block that Facebook account, Cold Turkey doesn't allow users
to circumvent the embargo through the task manager or uninstall while it's
running. Users are then left to do the work they set out to do, without the
possibility of distraction. The basic version of Cold Turkey, which will
satisfy most users, is free. While the app is only available for PC users at
the moment, a Mac version is just around the corner.
Human Genes Found in Neanderthal Remains
Humans mated with Neandertals much earlier and more frequently than thought
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/humans-mated-neandertals-much-earlier-and-more-frequently-thought
Human DNA found in a Neandertal woman
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/human-dna-found-neandertal-woman
Neanderthals and humans interbred '100,000 years ago'
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35595661
Human Evolution by the Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program
http://humanorigins.si.edu/
National Geographic: The Genographic Project: Neanderthals
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/neanderthals-article/
Humanity's Best Friend: How Dogs May Have Helped Humans Beat the
Neanderthals
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/humanitys-best-friend-how-dogs-may-have-helped-humans-beat-the-neanderthals/257145/
From the Scout Report February 26, 2016
Scoop.it! ---
http://www.scoop.it
Scoopt.it is an excellent service for readers who
would like to curate their own content about a particular topic on the web.
Conducting a web search for existing Scoop.it pages (The psychology Scoop.it,
for instance, has been viewed over one million times and is updated multiple
times per day.) provides a sense for what Scoop.it can do. Signing up for a
free Scoop.it account (there are also premium accounts, at cost) requires an
email, Twitter, or Facebook account. Once an account is created, the site
will ask users for topics or keywords of interest, searching the Internet
for scoopable content. Readers may also scoop content they come across
themselves, gradually building a site of curated information on a favorite
topic.
Image Optimizer
---
http://www.imageoptimizer.net/
The world of contemporary communication is a world
of images. No blog post is complete without a snappy pic to exemplify a
point. Business reports need graphics, Christmas letters need photos of
smiling children, and of course we all know that a Facebook post without an
image will have little chance of getting noticed. But how do we adapt our
images to the perfect size, shape, and quality for the particular purpose we
have in mind? Image Optimizer is built for just that. Using the service is
simple. Just upload a an image file, and then optimize by Quality (minimum
file size, very small file size, small file size, normal, high quality, and
best quality), by Max width, and by Max height. Then optimize in seconds and
download the file back to your computer.
Twenty Years After It's Publication, "Infinite Jest" Still Strikes a
Chord
Infinite Jest at 20: still a challenge, still brilliant
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/feb/15/infinite-jest-at-20-still-a-challenge-still-brilliant-emma-lee-moss
Everything About Everything: David Foster Wallace's 'Infinite Jest' at 20
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/books/review/everything-about-everything-david-foster-wallaces-infinite-jest-at-20.html
Beyond "Infinite Jest"
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/beyond-infinite-jest?intcid=mod-latest
The David Foster Wallace Audio Project
http://www.dfwaudioproject.org/
The Alchemist's Retort: A multi-layered postmodern saga of damnation and
salvation
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/02/the-alchemists-retort/376533/
Divine Drudgery
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/05/12/divine-drudgery/
Jensen Comment
I'm not a David Foster Wallace fan. In spite of praises from many reviewers
find his books too long, poorly constructed, and extremely boring from
beginning to middle (I never could reach the end of any of his books).
Free Online Tutorials, Videos, Course Materials, and
Learning Centers
Education Tutorials
Teachers & Writers Collaborative Digital Resource Center ---
http://twcresources.org/
NEA: Black History Month Lessons & Resources ---
http://www.nea.org/tools/lessons/black-history-month.htm
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Lesson Plans ---
http://www.metmuseum.org/learn/for-educators/lesson-plans
Cartoons for the Classroom (politics and government) ---
http://nieonline.com/aaec/cftc.cfm
Astronomy & Space: An Overview of NSF Research ---
http://www.nsf.gov/news/overviews/astronomy/index.jsp
YouTube: Sick Science! (attention grabbing experiments for kids
learning science) ---
https://www.youtube.com/user/SteveSpanglerScience
World Social Science Report, United Nations, 2010 ---
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/resources/reports/world-social-science-report/
The New York Times: The Learning Network Blog: Lesson Plans ---
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/category/lesson-plans/
The Official Newspaper of the Democratic Party
UNESCO World Heritage Education Programme ---
http://whc.unesco.org/en/wheducation/
UNESCO Working Paper Series on Mobile Learning
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/themes/icts/m4ed/mobile-learning-resources/unescomobilelearningseries/
UNESCO: Rio+20 ---
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/rioplus20/
Annenberg Learner uses media and telecommunications to advance excellent
teaching in American schools. This mandate is carried out chiefly by the funding
and broad distribution of educational video programs with coordinated Web and
print materials for the professional development of K-12 teachers. ---
http://www.learner.org/
Bob Jensen's threads on general education tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch
50 Core Documents: Ashbrook (American History) ---
http://ashbrook.org/50docs/
NCTE: Poetry Lesson Plans ---
http://www.ncte.org/lessons/poetry
The Sketchbook Project ---
https://www.sketchbookproject.com/
We Make Money Not Art (engineering art) ---
http://we-make-money-not-art.com/
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Launches Free Course on Looking at Photographs as
Art ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/museum-of-modern-art-moma-launches-free-course-on-looking-at-photographs-as-art.html
Bob Jensen's bookmarks for multiple disciplines ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm
Bob Jensen's links to free courses and tutorials ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials
Physics Education Research Central ---
http://www.compadre.org/per/
CERN Education (nuclear physics) ---
http://education.web.cern.ch/education/Chapter2/Intro.html
European Physical Society ---
http://www.eps.org
American Institute of Physics ---
http://www.aip.org/history-programs/physics-history
Open Source Physics ---
http://www.compadre.org/osp/
Physics News ---
http://phys.org/physics-news/
This $14-billion (French) machine is set to usher in a new
era of nuclear fusion power ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/whats-the-iter-nuclear-fusion-plant-and-why-is-it-important-2016-2
Scientists in Germany switched on a new kind of nuclear reactor, the latest
experiment in the quest to produce clean, sustainable power from controlled
nuclear fusion ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600712/experimental-fusion-reactor-switched-on-in-germany/#/set/id/600713/
Jensen Comment
It will give me great joy the day fusion power renders bird-killing wind
power turbines obsolete.
Even Einstein Didn't Think Gravitational Waves Existed ---
http://www.wired.com/2016/02/even-einstein-didnt-think-gravitational-waves-existed/
Also see
http://www.wired.com/2016/02/6-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-gravitational-waves/
NASA Images ---
http://nasaimages.lunaimaging.com/
TED-Ed and Periodic Videos (chemistry ---
http://ed.ted.com/periodic-videos
We Make Money Not Art (engineering art) ---
http://we-make-money-not-art.com/
The Remarkable Physics of Ants: Watch Them Turn into Fluids and Solids at
Will ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/the-remarkable-physics-of-ants.html
Watch one of the first volcanic eruptions ever filme ---
http://www.wired.com/2016/02/watch-one-of-the-first-volcanic-eruptions-ever-filmed/
Deep Sea Vents ---
http://www.amnh.org/explore/curriculum-collections/deep-sea-vents
Bridge Ocean Education Teacher Resource Center ---
http://web.vims.edu/bridge/?svr=www
Where do dogs come from?
http://daily.jstor.org/where-do-dogs-come-from/
The Fundamentals of Neuroscience ---
https://www.mcb80x.org
Neuroscience Research Portal ---
http://neuroportal.gmu.edu
JNeurosci: The Journal of Neuroscience ---
http://www.jneurosci.org/
Brain Facts: Explore the Brain and Mind ---
http://www.brainfacts.org/
Sleep Research Society: Historical Papers ---
http://www.sleepresearchsociety.org/historicalpapers.aspx
Healthy Sleep ---
http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/
From the Scout Report on February 12, 2016
After 100 Years of Searching, Scientists Detect Gravitational Waves
Einstein's gravitational waves found at last
http://www.nature.com/news/einstein-s-gravitational-waves-found-at-last-1.19361
Gravitational waves, Einstein's ripples in spacetime, spotted for first
time
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/gravitational-waves-einstein-s-ripples-spacetime-spotted-first-time
Gravitational Waves Exist: The Inside Story of How Scientists Finally Found
Them
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/gravitational-waves-exist-heres-how-scientists-finally-found-them
Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102
LIGO Caltech: What are Gravitational Waves?
https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/what-are-gw
Futurism: How Gravitational Waves Work (infographic)
http://futurism.com/the-physics-of-gravitational-waves-heres-how-they-work-infographic/
Bob Jensen's threads on free online science,
engineering, and medicine tutorials are at --http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Bob Jensen's links to free courses and tutorials ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Social Science and Economics Tutorials
World Health Organization: World Health Statistics 2015 ---
http://www.who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/2015/en/
Religious restrictions among the world's most populous countries ---
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/03/03/religious-restrictions-among-the-worlds-most-populous-countries/
Slate: The Vault
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault.html
African Activist Archive (struggles against colonialism in Africa) ---
http://africanactivist.msu.edu/
Cartoons for the Classroom ---
http://nieonline.com/aaec/cftc.cfm
Theorizing the Contemporary (anthropology) ---
http://www.culanth.org/conversations/17-theorizing-the-contemporary
Calisphere: The Free Speech Movement ---
http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/themed_collections/subtopic6b.html
CDC Injury Prevention & Control: Division of Violence Prevention: Suicide
Prevention ---
http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/index.html
National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention ---
http://actionallianceforsuicideprevention.org/
Human Rights Documentation Initiative
---
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/hrdi
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project ---
https://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/
What Ken Burns' New Film Gets Right—and Wrong—About the Roosevelts ---
http://reason.com/archives/2014/09/12/what-ken-burns-new-film-gets-right-and-w
Nuclear Threat Initiative Education Tutorials
---
http://tutorials.nti.org/
Human Rights Watch: Defending Human Rights Worldwide ---
http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014
Island Studies ---
http://www.islandstudies.ca/
Kids in the House: Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives ---
http://kids.clerk.house.gov/
B.F. Skinner Foundation: Operants (psychology) ---
http://www.bfskinner.org/behavioral-science/operants/
Sleep Research Society: Historical Papers ---
http://www.sleepresearchsociety.org/historicalpapers.aspx
WHO: A World Free of Tuberculosis ---
http://www.who.int/tb/en/
Healthy Sleep ---
http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/
The New York Times: The Learning Network Blog: Lesson Plans ---
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/category/lesson-plans/
The Official Newspaper of the Democratic Party
From the Scout Report on February 19, 2016
Human Genes Found in Neanderthal Remains
Humans mated with Neandertals much earlier and more frequently than thought
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/humans-mated-neandertals-much-earlier-and-more-frequently-thought
Human DNA found in a Neandertal woman
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/human-dna-found-neandertal-woman
Neanderthals and humans interbred '100,000 years ago'
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35595661
Human Evolution by the Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program
http://humanorigins.si.edu/
National Geographic: The Genographic Project: Neanderthals
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/neanderthals-article/
Humanity's Best Friend: How Dogs May Have Helped Humans Beat the
Neanderthals
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/humanitys-best-friend-how-dogs-may-have-helped-humans-beat-the-neanderthals/257145/
Bob Jensen's threads on Economics, Anthropology, Social Sciences, and
Philosophy tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Bob Jensen's links to free courses and tutorials ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Law and Legal Studies
Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Math Tutorials
Annenberg Learner: Mathematics ---
http://www.learner.org/resources/discipline-math.html
Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Bob Jensen's links to free courses and tutorials ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
History Tutorials
50 Core Documents: Ashbrook (American History) ---
http://ashbrook.org/50docs/
Shakespeare Documented ---
http://www.shakespearedocumented.org
Edgar Degas ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Degas
Misty Copeland expertly re-creates a handful of Edgar Degas’s most famous ballet
works ---
http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2016/02/11/misty-copeland-recreates-iconic-degas-paintings.html
NEA: Black History Month Lessons & Resources ---
http://www.nea.org/tools/lessons/black-history-month.htm
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project ---
https://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/
What Ken Burns' New Film Gets Right—and Wrong—About the Roosevelts ---
http://reason.com/archives/2014/09/12/what-ken-burns-new-film-gets-right-and-w
Guidelines for the Professional Evaluation of Digital Scholarship By
Historians (PDF) ---
http://historians.org/Documents/Teaching and Learning/Current
Projects/Digital Scholarship Evaluation/Guidelines Dig. Scholarship
9.30.2015(0).pdf
The Getty Research Institute: Notable Works and Collections (art history) ---
http://www.getty.edu/research/special_collections/notable/index.html
Guggenheim ZERO, Countdown to Tomorrow (German artists in the 1950s and
1960s) ---
http://exhibitions.guggenheim.org/zero/
German Expressionism Collection at The University of Maryland ---
http://lib.guides.umd.edu/germanexpressionism
Download Hundreds of 19th-Century Japanese Woodblock Prints by Masters of the
Tradition ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/download-hundreds-of-19th-century-japanese-woodblock-prints-by-masters-of-the-tradition.html
Rare 1903 Video Captures Busy Boston Streets ---
http://blogs.voanews.com/all-about-america/2016/02/17/rare-1903-video-captures-busy-boston-streets/?from=youmaylike
Where do dogs come from? ---
http://daily.jstor.org/where-do-dogs-come-from/
Northwestern University Library: The World War II Poster Collection ---
http://www.library.northwestern.edu/libraries-collections/evanston-campus/government-information/world-war-ii-poster-collection#modal-show
World War (I &II) Propaganda Posters ---
http://bir.brandeis.edu/handle/10192/23520
MacNealWorld War (I & II) Propaganda Posters ---
http://bir.brandeis.edu/handle/10192/23520
Smithsonian Magazine: Travel ---
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/
Bob Jensen's threads on history tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Also see
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Bob Jensen's links to free courses and tutorials ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Language Tutorials
Bob Jensen's links to language tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2-Part2.htm#Languages
Music Tutorials
Watch Classic Performances from Maria Callas’ Wondrous and Tragically-Short
Opera Career ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/watch-classic-performances-from-maria-callas-wondrous-and-tragically-short-opera-career.html
Free Music Archive ---
http://freemusicarchive.org/
Bob Jensen's threads on free music tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on music performances ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Writing Tutorials
Teachers & Writers Collaborative Digital Resource Center ---
http://twcresources.org/
Video: Umberto Eco Dies at 84; Leaves Behind Advice to Aspiring Writers
---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/umberto-eco-dies-at-84-leaves-behind-advice-to-aspiring-writers.html
An Animated Introduction to Leo Tolstoy, and How His Great Novels Can
Increase Your Emotional Intelligence ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/an-animated-introduction-to-leo-tolstoy.html
James Baldwin's Advice on Writing ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/02/08/james-baldwin-advice-on-writing/?mc_cid=4c618627a2&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No.
78, James Baldwin
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2994/the-art-of-fiction-no-78-james-baldwin
Born in Harlem in 1924, James Baldwin moved to France in the late
1950s because he didn't want to be read as "merely a Negro; or,
even, merely a Negro writer." He lived the rest of his life in Paris
and the French Riviera, publishing fiction and essays that deeply
influenced American literature from afar. This interview with
Baldwin, published in the Paris Review a few years before the
author's death, touches on such topics as his choice to permanently
leave the United States for Europe, his writing process, and his
thoughts on race and racial justice. It's a rare gift to find a
freely available window into this revered writer's thoughts and
feelings in his later years.
Harvard College Writing Center: Strategies for Essay Writing ---
http://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/strategies-essay-writing
The Writing Center at Harvard University ---
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~wricntr/resources.html
Harvard Writing Project: Writing Guides ---
http://writingproject.fas.harvard.edu/pages/writing-guides
The future belongs to automated, error-free prose,
no stylistic vampirism, clichéd characters, or shopworn narrative devices
...
"Proposals Toward the End of Writing," by Tony Tulathimutte, Believer
Magazine, February 9, 2016 ---
http://logger.believermag.com/post/138988654268/proposals-toward-the-end-of-writing
The recent
Hemingway app goes even further, offering
dogmatic editorial guidance to make your prose “bold and clear”:
The recent Hemingway app goes even further,
offering dogmatic editorial guidance to make your prose “bold and
clear”:
Hemingway highlights long, complex sentences
and common errors; if you see a yellow sentence, shorten or split it. If
you see a red highlight, your sentence is so dense and complicated that
your readers will get lost trying to follow its meandering, splitting
logic — try editing this sentence to remove the red.
It also recommends the indiscriminate excision
of adverbs and passive constructions. Tallying up all the infelicities,
it assigns the passage a numerical grade, representing “the lowest
education level needed to understand your text,” which oddly equates
boldness and clarity with legibility to young children (presumably, the
best score would be “Illiterate”). Ernest Hemingway’s own prose often
fails the test, though, as Ian Crouch observes, Hemingway is usually
making a stylistic point wherever he trespasses against his own putative
rules. Meanwhile, Nabokov’s “Spring in Fialta” gets the worst possible
score of 25 (a second-year post-doc?).
It also recommends the indiscriminate excision of
adverbs and passive constructions. Tallying up all the infelicities, it
assigns the passage a numerical grade, representing “the lowest education
level needed to understand your text,” which oddly equates boldness and
clarity with legibility to young children (presumably, the best score would
be “Illiterate”). Ernest Hemingway’s own prose often fails the test, though,
as Ian Crouch observes, Hemingway is usually making a stylistic point
wherever he trespasses against his own putative rules. Meanwhile, Nabokov’s
“Spring in Fialta” gets the worst possible score of 25 (a second-year
post-doc?).
With inventions like these, many of which are
intended to improve prose’s suitability to a particular purpose, it seems
inevitable that we’ll soon have programs aimed at broader literary purposes.
Imagine, for instance, a computer program that detects clichés at the
sentence level.
Existing attempts are based on small databases
of fixed idioms. Suppose our cliché detector is a simple extension of the
language-checking features already baked into most word processing software,
underlining each trite phrase with a baby-blue squiggle. It analyzes the
text for any sequences of words that statistically tend to accompany each
other—and the statistical database of clichés, in turn, is based on a
Zipfian distribution of word groupings obtained from the quantitative
analysis of a large prose corpus. Every phrase ranked above a certain score
is flagged as a cliché. No more “in any case” or “at this rate,” no more
“battling cancer” or “wry grin” or “boisterous laughter”—though the program
might forgive idioms that lack basic synonyms, like “walking the dog.”
Continued in article
A New Dating App Using Artificial Intelligence Helps You Write a Perfect
Message/Response Every Time ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/ibms-watson-to-give-dating-tips-on-connectidy-app-2016-2
Jensen Comment
Her robot may fall in love with his robot when the two people behind the scenes
discover cannot stand each other.
Bob Jensen's helpers for writers are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries
Bob Jensen's threads on medicine ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2-Part2.htm#Medicine
World Health Organization: World Health Statistics 2015
---
http://www.who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/2015/en/
Updates from WebMD ---
http://www.webmd.com/
February 12, 2016
February 13, 2016
February 16, 2016
February 18, 2016
February 18, 2016
February 19, 2016
February 20, 2016
February 22, 2016
February 23, 2016
February 24, 2016
February 25, 2016
February 26, 2016
February 27, 2016
"You Asked: Am I Addicted to my Cell Phone?" by Markham Held,
Time Magazine, February 24, 2016 ---
http://time.com/4234366/phone-smartphone-addiction/?xid=newsletter-brief
If you feel your smartphone is hurting your health
or relationships, the answer may be yes.
You check it in the bathroom. You check it at the
movies. You check it when you’re having dinner with your friends. But you
wouldn’t say you’re addicted—and most experts would agree with you.
“Only a small percentage of people qualify as
addicted,” says Dr. David Greenfield, assistant clinical professor of
psychiatry at the University of Connecticut and founder of the Center for
Internet and Technology Addiction. “But many people overuse their
smartphones.”
The line between overuse and addiction is gray. But
Greenfield says you’re moving into addiction territory when you can’t stop
using your phone even when it’s harming your life. Whether you’re in a work
meeting or behind the wheel, “if you can’t help being on it even when you
know you shouldn’t be, that loss of control is the hallmark of an
addiction,” he says.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
Each day Erika and I watch a Netflix movies that is usually part of a BBC
mystery series. One thing I've noticed is that inevitably when a rinking phone
interupts a conversation it is considered commonplace to making the answering of
the phone commonplace and not rude. If this happens to me in real life I
consider the interruption rude. Actually I mostly use my cell phone for calling
other people such that I'm never interrupted by incoming calls Being retired has
its privileges. Nobody has my cell phone number except my wife and vice versa.
Hence, I'm not addicted to my phone. But I am addicted to my laptop and
average 8+ hours a day online (more in the winter and less in the summer when I
have outdoor chores). Some people that are more on the go are substituting smart
phones for laptops for such tasks as tending to email and surfing the Web. Hence
addictions wear many faces.
"In First Human Test of Optogenetics, Doctors Aim to Restore Sight to the
Blind," by Katherine Bourzac, MIT's Technology Review, February 19,
2016 ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600696/in-first-human-test-of-optogenetics-doctors-aim-to-restore-sight-to-the-blind/#/set/id/600843/
Bob Jensen's threads on technology aids for blind learners ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Handicapped
The Future of Wearables is Implanted and More Real Today Than You Think
(including brain implants)," by Cate Lawrence, ReadWriteWeb, February
19, 2016 ---
http://readwrite.com/2016/02/19/future-of-wearables
What depression is really like ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/02/09/depression-william-styron-darkness-visible/?mc_cid=4c618627a2&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
Sleep Research Society: Historical Papers ---
http://www.sleepresearchsociety.org/historicalpapers.aspx
Healthy Sleep ---
http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/
CDC Injury Prevention & Control: Division of Violence Prevention: Suicide
Prevention ---
http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/index.html
National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention ---
http://actionallianceforsuicideprevention.org/
Humor February 16-29, 2016
Chess Grandmaster Maurice Ashley Plays Unsuspecting Trash Talker in
Washington Square Park ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/chess-grandmaster-maurice-ashley-plays-unsuspecting-trash-talker-in-washington-square-park.html
Humor
"My First and Last Day at Harvard Law School," by William Ames Bascom,
The Wall Street Journal, February 19, 2016 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/my-first-and-last-day-at-harvard-law-school-1455925209?mod=djemMER
. . .
Prof. Mansfield (who died in 2014), told a story
about two guys driving a hearse from Maine down to Boston late one winter’s
night to deliver a corpse for a funeral the next morning. The guy who was
riding shotgun dozed off about 11. A little while later the driver, who was
also beginning to nod, pulled over at a Howard Johnson’s to get some coffee
for both of them. When he came out, snow had started to fall, and there was
a guy with a duffel bag standing beside the hearse. He asked the driver if
he could catch a lift to Boston. “Sure,” the driver told him, “if you don’t
mind riding in the back with the deceased.” The stranger didn’t mind, and he
climbed into the coffin compartment through the wide back door, glad to be
out of the cold. The driver, deciding it was his partner’s turn behind the
wheel, woke him up and gave him the extra cup of coffee.
About 2 a.m., the threesome (foursome if you
include the deceased) was nearing Newburyport north of the city. That was
when the passenger in the back woke up and reached through the velvet
curtain separating the coffin compartment from the front seat. He tapped the
driver softly on the shoulder and whispered, “How much farther to Boston?”
It was at this point the guy who had taken over the
driving at the Howard Johnson’s screamed in terror and swerved the car off
U.S. Highway 1, plunging into a snow bank.
I couldn’t contain myself. I laughed hard—prompting
the roomful of future attorneys, who hadn’t made a sound during the entire
lecture, to turn and stare at me in mass rebuke. I quickly settled down, but
too late. Prof. Mansfield removed his glasses from his tweedy jacket pocket
and scanned the audience for the source of the interruption. His eyes
settled on me. He looked down at a seating chart and ran his finger across
it, then looked at me again.
“Mr. Dorffmond,” he said. “As a result of the
accident, the passenger in the back of the hearse sustained a compound
fracture of his left arm and numerous facial lacerations. He subsequently
obtained counsel and brought suit. My questions to you, Mr. Dorffmond, are
these: First, against whom should his attorney have advised him to bring
suit? Second, on what basis? And finally, in your considered legal opinion
should the plaintiff have been awarded damages?”
I felt sick. I tugged at my maroon scarf, which
felt like a noose. A few seats away, my brother buried his face in his fat
book of case studies.
I had unwisely made eye contact with Prof.
Mansfield, and now I was locked in his glare, unable to speak. “Sir,” a
helpful-sounding voice behind me said, “I believe a visitor is sitting in
Mr. Dorffmond’s seat this morning. He may not understand English.” There
were muffled snickers, but it worked: Prof. Mansfield moved on with the
lecture, and I spent the rest of the time trying to look Armenian. I
resolved on the spot never to go to law school—but I sensed that my rescuer
had a great future as a legal advocate.
Later, as my brother and I walked home, he made
only one comment: “See, I told you to wear a tie.”
Mr. Bascom, a former high-school English teacher in St. Louis,
provided the photographs for John William Houghton’s “Falconry and Other
Poems” (Unlimited Publishing, 1996).
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
If God wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.
~Jay Leno~
The problem with political jokes is they get elected.
~Henry Cate, VII~
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office
~Aesop~
If we got one-tenth of what was promised to us in these State of the Union
speeches, there wouldn't be any inducement to go to heaven.
~Will Rogers~
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where
there is no river.
~Nikita Khrushchev~
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm
beginning to believe it.
~Clarence Darrow~
Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go
out and buy some more tunnel.
~John Quinton~
Why pay money to have your family tree traced; go into politics and your
opponents will do it for you.
~Author unknown~
Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds
from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.
~Oscar Ameringer~
I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I
will stop telling the truth about them.
~Adlai Stevenson, 1952~
A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country.
~ Tex Guinan~
I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be
left to the politicians.
~Charles de Gaulle~
Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to
change the locks.
~Doug Larson~
There ought to be one day -- just one -- when there is open season on
Congressmen.
~Will Rogers
A man walks into a lawyer’s
office and says, “Excuse me,
what’s your rate?” The
lawyer says, “Fifty dollars
for three questions.” The
man was shocked, “Isn’t that
a little steep?” “Yes,” says
the lawyer. What’s your
third question?” For twenty
jokes related to lawyers see
http://maaw.info/GadgetsandGames/LawyerJokes.htm
Forwarded by Auntie Bev
|
~Your kids are
becoming you......but your grandchildren are perfect!
|
~Going out is good..
Coming home is better!
|
~You forget
names.... But it's OK because some people forgot they even knew
you!!!
|
~You realize you're
never going to be really good at anything like golf.
|
~The things you used
to care to do, you aren't as interested in anymore, but you
really do care that you aren't as interested.
|
~You sleep better on
a lounge chair with the TV 'ON' than in bed. It's called
"pre-sleep".
|
~You miss the days
when everything worked with just an "ON" and "OFF" switch..
|
< div
align="center" style="text-align: center;">~You
tend to use more 4 letter words ...
"what?"..."when?"... ???
|
~You notice
everything they sell in stores is "sleeveless"?!!!
|
~What used to be
freckles are now liver spots.
|
|
~You have 3 sizes of
clothes in your closet.... 2 of which you will never wear.
|
|
~~~But Old is good
in some things: Old Songs, Old movies, and best of all,
OLD FRIENDS!!
|
|
|
Stay well, "OLD
FRIEND!" Send this on to other "Old Friends!" and let them laugh
in AGREEMENT!!! It's Not What You Gather, But What You Scatter
That Tells What Kind Of Life You Have Lived.
|
|
|
TODAY IS THE OLDEST
YOU'VE EVER BEEN; YET THE YOUNGEST YOU'LL EVER BE, SO ENJOY THIS
DAY WHILE IT LASTS
|
Forwarded by Paula
In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame,
two is a law firmand three or more is a congress. John Adams
2. If you don't
read the newspape you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you
are misinformed. -- Mark Twain
3. Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But
then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
4. I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a
man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. -- Winston
Churchill
5. A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support
of Paul. -- George Bernard Shaw
6. A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt
he proposes to pay off with your money. -- G. Gordon Liddy
7. Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on
what to have for dinner. -- James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)
8. Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in
rich countries to rich people in poor countries. Douglas Case, Classmate of Bill
Clinton at Georgetown University .
9. Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys
to teenage boys. P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian
10. Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to
live at the expense of everybody else. -- Frederic Bastiat, French
economist(1801-1850)
11. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short
phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops
moving, subsidize it. Ronald Reagan (1986)
12. I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. Will
Rogers 13. If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it
costs when it's free! P. J. O'Rourke
14. In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as
possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. -- Voltaire (1764)
15. Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean
politics won't take an interest in you! -- Pericles (430 B.C.)
16. No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in
session. Mark Twain (1866)
17. Talk is cheap, except when Congress does it. -- Anonymous
18. The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite
at one end and no responsibility at the other. Ronald Reagan
19. The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings.
The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. -Winston
Churchill
20. The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the
taxidermist leaves the skin. Mark Twain
21. The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill
the world with fools. Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)
22. There is no distinctly Native American criminal class, save Congress. --
Mark Twain
23. What this country needs are more unemployed politicians Edward Langley,
Artist (1928-1995)
24. A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough
to take everything you have. -- Thomas Jefferson
25. We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. --
Aesop
FIVE BEST SENTENCES
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealthy
out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for
without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does
not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work,
because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half
gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to
get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation!
Humor January 2016
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book16q1.htm#Humor013116
Humor December 1-31, 2015
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q4.htm#Humor123115
Humor November 1-30, 2015
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q4.htm#Humor113015
Humor October 1-31, 2015
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q4.htm#Humor103115
Humor September 1-30, 2015
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q3.htm#Humor093015
Humor August 1-31, 2015
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q3.htm#Humor081115
Humor July 1-31, 2015
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q3.htm#Humor073115
Humor June 1-30, 2015
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q2.htm#Humor043015
Humor May 1-31, 2015
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q2.htm#Humor043015
Humor April 1-30, 2015
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q2.htm#Humor043015
Humor March 1-31, 2015
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q1.htm#Humor033115
Humor February 1-28, 2015
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q1.htm#Humor022815
Humor January 1-31, 2015
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q1.htm#Humor013115
Tidbits Archives ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and
Stories
http://faculty.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://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Crossborder.htm
For-Profit Universities Operating in the Gray
Zone of Fraud (College, Inc.) ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#ForProfitFraud
Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
-
With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The Accounting Review
(TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier
- With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by Professors
Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams
- With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the Profession of
Accountancy Ignores TAR
- With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating Accounting Research
into Undergraduate Accounting Courses
The Cult of Statistical Significance:
How Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm
How Accountics Scientists Should Change:
"Frankly, Scarlett, after I get a hit for my resume in The Accounting Review
I just don't give a damn"
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
One more mission in what's left of my life will be to try to change this
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
What went wrong in accounting/accountics research?
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral
Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most Accountants ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH
CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW: 1926-2005 ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1
Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory
---
http://faculty.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://faculty.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://faculty.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://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm
Bob Jensen's Threads ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New
Bookmarks ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called
Tidbits ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud
Updates ---
http://faculty.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://faculty.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://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccountingNews.htm
For an elaboration on the reasons you should join a ListServ (usually for
free) go to http://faculty.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://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/JensenBlogs.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New
Bookmarks ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called
Tidbits ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud
Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Some
Accounting History Sites
Bob Jensen's
Accounting History in a Nutshell and Links ---
http://faculty.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://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds
History of
Fraud in America ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm
Also see
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm
Bob Jensen's
Threads ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and
Stories
http://faculty.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