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://faculty.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 March 29, 2016
Bob Jensen
at
Trinity University
Set 03 of My
Sunrise and Sunset Favorites in the White Mountains of New Hampshire
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/SunriseSunset/03/SunriseSunsetFavoritesSet03.htm
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
Free M.I.T. Course Teaches You How to Become Bill Nye & Make Great Science
Videos for YouTube ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/free-m-i-t-course-teaches-you-how-to-become-bill-nye-make-great-science-videos-for-youtube.html
Two Women Risked Their Lives to Capture This Chilling Footage Inside the Al-Raqqah,
the Capital of ISIS --- , the Capital of ISIS ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/new-footage-released-of-life-inside-isis-2016-3
POV: For Educators (hundreds of PBS documentaries on various topics) ---
http://www.pbs.org/pov/educators
Sumanas, Inc. General Biotechnology Animations ---
http://sumanasinc.com/webcontent/animations/generalscience.html
New York Observatory ---
https://www.youtube.com/embed/aDIN26yxbnw
he Daily Show skewered all of Hillary Clinton’s
recent gaffes. It’s hard to watch ---
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/16/11244294/daily-show-hillary-clinton-gaffes
This mesmerizing trick shows what a talented magician Paul Daniels was ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/this-mesmerising-trick-shows-what-a-talented-magician-paul-daniels-was-2016-3
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
Quentin Tarantino Picks the 12 Best Films of All Time; Watch Two
of His Favorites Free Online ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/quentin-tarantino-picks-the-12-best-films-of-all-time-watch-two-of-his-favorites-free-online.html
Hear John Malkovich Read Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” Set to
Music Mixed by Ric Ocasek, Yoko Ono & Sean Lennon, OMD & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/hear-john-malkovich-read-platos-allegory-of-the-cave.html
Watch Édith Piaf Sing Her Most Famous Songs: “La Vie en Rose,”
“Non, Je Regrette Rien” & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/watch-edith-piaf-sing-her-most-famous-songs-la-vie-en-rose-non-je-regrette-rien-more.html
Hear the Musical Evolution of Frank Zappa in 401 Songs ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/hear-the-musical-evolution-of-frank-zappa-in-401-songs.html
Web outfits like
Pandora, Foneshow, Stitcher, and Slacker broadcast portable and mobile content
that makes Sirius look overpriced and stodgy ---
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090327_877363.htm?link_position=link2
Pandora (my favorite online music station) ---
www.pandora.com
TheRadio (online music site) ---
http://www.theradio.com/
Slacker (my second-favorite commercial-free online music site) ---
http://www.slacker.com/
Gerald Trites likes this
international radio site ---
http://www.e-radio.gr/
Songza:
Search for a song or band and play the selection ---
http://songza.com/
Also try Jango ---
http://www.jango.com/?r=342376581
Sometimes this old guy prefers the jukebox era (just let it play through) ---
http://www.tropicalglen.com/
And I listen quite often to Soldiers Radio Live ---
http://www.army.mil/fieldband/pages/listening/bandstand.html
Also note U.S. Army Band recordings
---
http://bands.army.mil/music/default.asp
Bob Jensen's threads on nearly all types of free
music selections online ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Music.htm
Photographs and Art
The Frick Collection: Virtual Tour ---
http://www.frick.org/visit/virtual_tour
The Frick Collection: Photoarchive ---
http://www.frick.org/research/photoarchive
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Puts Online 65,000 Works of
Modern Art ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/the-museum-of-modern-art-moma-puts-online-65000-works-of-modern-art.html
Beauty, Virtue, & Vice: Images of Women in Nineteenth-Century
American Prints ---
http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Exhibitions/Beauty/index.htm
USGS Historical Topographical Map Explorer ---
http://historicalmaps.arcgis.com/usgs/
A Curated Collection of Vintage Japanese Magazine Covers
(1913-46) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/a-curated-collection-of-vintage-japanese-magazine-covers-1913-46.html
Bob Jensen's threads on art history ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#ArtHistory
Sand Dunes in Iran ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/travel-through-dangerous-deserts-in-iran-2016-3
5,000 Irish Dancers from 20 different countries descend on Glasgow to battle
it out at the world championship ---
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3506455/Glasgow-hosts-World-Irish-Dancing-Championships-5-000-competitors-battle-prestigious-crown.html#ixzz43lPvh2xI
These are the 19 most photographed landmarks and attractions in
the UK ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-photographed-places-in-the-uk-2016-3
Adam Smith in Glasgow ---
http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/archives/exhibitions/smith/
19 Photos Showing that USA Aircraft Carriers Are the Ultimate
Weapon ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/aircraft-carriers-are-ultimate-weapon-2016-3
But Russian Might Deliver the Knockout Blow ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-testing-hypersonic-missiles-for-worlds-largest-surface-combatant-ship-2016-3
17 gorgeous photos of India's Holi festival, the most colorful
party in the world ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/17-colorful-photos-of-the-holi-festival-2016-3
9 beautiful, award-winning images from Smithsonian Magazine's
photo contest ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/winning-photos-from-smithsonian-photo-contest-2016-3
Penguin Swims 5,000 miles every year for Reunion with Man Who
Saved His Life! ---
http://www.breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art.html?ID=17774
Hike the 2,000-mile trail that most people never finish ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/appalachian-trail-facts
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
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
nothing.” ― Edmund Burke ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/edmund-burkeon-in-action.html
Hear John Malkovich Read Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” Set to Music Mixed
by Ric Ocasek, Yoko Ono & Sean Lennon, OMD & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/hear-john-malkovich-read-platos-allegory-of-the-cave.html
Scientists Discover That James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake Has an Amazingly
Mathematical “Multifractal” Structure ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/scientists-discover-that-james-joyces-finnegans-wake-has-an-amazingly-mathematical-multifractal-structure.html
Electronic Poetry Center [iTunes] ---
http://epc.buffalo.edu/
The Poetry Review ---
http://poetrysociety.org.uk/publications-section/the-poetry-review
Stream Classic Poetry Readings from Harvard’s Rich
Audio Archive: From W.H. Auden to Dylan Thomas ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/01/harvards-poetry-room-recordings.html
Materials for Teachers: Academy of
American Poets ---
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/materials-teachers
Poetic Likeness: Modern
American Poets (Portraits of Great Artists) ---
http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/poets/
Poetry Resources (writing and reading)
---
http://www.freebooknotes.com/ultimate-poetry-resource-guide/
Audio and Podcasts: The Poetry
Foundation ---
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/audiolanding
Off the Page [iTunes poetry] ---
http://poetry.eprints.org/
The Poetry Foundation: Learning Lab:
Teacher Specific Resources ---
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/resources#teacher
The Internet Poetry Archive
---
http://ibiblio.org/ipa/
Library of Congress Launches New Online Poetry
Archive, Featuring 75 Years of Classic Poetry Readings ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/04/library-of-congress-launches-new-online-poetry-archive.html
National Poetry Month ---
http://www.poets.org/national-poetry-month/home
Beat Poetry, Broadsides, and
Little Magazines ---
http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/Beat
Links to Poets
and Their Online Poems ---
http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/
\
British Women Romantic Poets
(1789-1832) ---
http://digital.lib.ucdavis.edu/projects/bwrp/
Bob Dylan Reads From
T.S. Eliot’s Great Modernist Poem The Waste Land ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/bob-dylan-reads-from-t-s-eliots-the-waste-land.html
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 March 29, 2016
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2016/TidbitsQuotations032916.htm
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
Biggest Heists of All Time ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-the-biggest-heists-of-all-time-2016-3
Jensen Comment
The biggest heist of all time was overlooked. It was U.S. Treasury Secretary
Hank Paulson's $1+ trillion bailout of his selected friends on Wall Street ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm#Bailout
For example, as the Former CEO of Goldman Sachs he bailed out all of Goldman's
failed CDOs at 100% without even negotiating a settlement price while at the
same time letting Lehman Bros. fail. Paulson should be in prison.
The Dreaded Ransomware ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransomware
Increasingly Chinese hackers are suspected of this clever computer infection
Beware of Advertisements at What You Think Are the Most Trusted Sites You
Visit Daily like The New York Times
"Several major news sites are hosting ads infected with devastating computer
viruses," by James Walker, Business Insider, March 16, 2016 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/major-news-sites-are-hosting-ads-infected-with-viruses-2016-3
A number of major news sites have
inadvertently hosted ransomware that could infect visitors' computers and
permanently encrypt files. Publishers including the
BBC, MSN and The New York Times are amongst
those affected in the widespread campaign.
The ransomware was discovered
by security
researchers at Trustwave. It discovered the network of "malvertising"
after noticing that several of its products were detecting a
suspicious-looking file being downloaded by major news sites.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
Generally you must click on an advertisement to commence an infection. However, there are some dangerous sites like porn and gambling sites that commence infecting the instant you visit the site.
With Ransomware you may not get hurt badly as long as you shut down your computer very quickly and pull the cables to your external drives. Even the smartest of Ransomware hackers cannot encrypt large files in microseconds.
|
|
|
Jensen Comment
Generally you must click on an advertisement to commence an infection. However,
there are some dangerous sites like porn and gambling sites that commence
infecting the instant you visit the site.
With Ransomware you
may not get hurt badly as long as you shut down your computer very quickly and
pull the cables to your external drives. Even the smartest of Ransomware hackers
cannot encrypt large files in microseconds.
Google Makes Its $149 Photo Editing Software Now
Completely Free to Download ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/google-makes-its-149-photo-editing-software-now-completely-free-to-download.html
Bob Jensen's threads on Tools and Tricks of the Trade ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
Pew Research Center: Americans and Lifelong Learning
---
http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/03/22/lifelong-learning-and-technology/
Bob Jensen's threads on fee-based distance education
alternatives ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/CrossBorder.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on free distance education
alternatives, including MOOCs ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Scholars Take a Serious Look at Some of the Main
Advantages and Disadvantages of Crowd-Sourced Knowledge in Wikipedia
Several hundred million revisions
or contributions don’t fall together as a high-quality encyclopedia just by
accident
"Wikipedia and the Momentum of Tiny Edits," by Adrienne Lafrance, The
Atlantic, March 17, 2016 ---
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/03/wikipedia-cumulative-growth-effect/473994/
Among the top-50 longest articles on the English
language version Wikipedia, you’ll find lists of
comets,
Amtrak stations,
shipwrecks,
fictional astronauts, and
cult films. There is a
timeline of Baltimore and a look at
electric car use by country, along with articles
about
firearms,
Dutch inventions, and
rare birds.
If there’s
a unifying theory here, a rule about why some topics have sprawling
Wikipedia pages and others are relative blips, it’s not immediately evident.
A lot of the heftiest articles are in list format, but the topics are all
over the map.
There is at least one explanation. Wikipedia editing
seems to beget more editing, according to
a study published in the journal
Management Science.
Researchers found that even though Wikipedia editors don’t tend to change
much—they typically add delete, or alter about half-a-sentence at a
time—even small edits to an article prompt other people to jump in and make
edits of their own. And those edits encourage even more edits. And so on.
The
researchers started with a basic question: What motivates people to
contribute to Wikipedia?
“There are
a lot of studies that have found what might be called extrinsic motivations.
You get a reputation, and you get to publish on topics that are important to
you,” said Aleksi Aaltonen, an assistant professor of information systems at
Warwick Business School and one of the study’s authors. “But what we found
was this cumulative growth effect; how people draw inspiration from the work
itself, which is fascinating.”
To conduct
their analysis, Aaltonen and his co-author Stephan Seiler, an economist at
Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, looked at nearly 61,000 edits across
more than 1,300 Wikipedia pages over a period of eight years. They focused
on sections of Wikipedia having to do with the Roman Empire, a category they
chose because it was less likely to undergo unexpected spurts of heavy
editing activity tied to current events.
Over an eight year period, Aaltonen and Seiler found
that Wikipedia articles benefitted from length. The “cumulative growth
effect” made articles up to 45 percent longer than articles that weren’t
subject to the phenomenon, and the articles that were edited more frequently
were generally better quality than those with fewer edits. Quality, of
course, is difficult to quantify. Other researchers
have found a disconnect between quality and
popularity on Wikipedia, findings that suggest articles with fewer readers
are often higher quality than articles with many readers. There are other
concerns about quality, too, tied to the well-documented
gender gap among Wikipedia editors. But having
more editors attend to any given article—even if each contribution is
minuscule—is generally a good thing, Aaltonen says.
“Intuitively, if you imagine you have just one extremely knowledgeable
editor, it may lead to personal bias. We all are in some ways biased,”
Aaltonen said. “And then if you think about that one editor, and something
suddenly happens to this editor ... that’s a major problem to the
development of the article, if it rests on the shoulders of just one or two
editors. In that sense, more editors can be better.”
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
In some ways Wikipedia is becoming a victim of its success. As it becomes the
go-to encyclopedia for the world it's getting harder and harder to find an
ever-increasing need for volunteer editors. Financial sustainability depends
upon millions of small contributors in a way that's analogous to the funding of
Bernie Sanders campaign. Wikipedia is for the people funded by the people. I
urge you to make a contribution to keep Wikipedia free of advertising ---
https://donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:FundraiserLandingPage&country=US&uselang=en&utm_medium=sidebar&utm_source=donate&utm_campaign=C13_en.wikipedia.org
The success of Wikipedia depends a great deal on volunteer
labor as well as money from our Academy. This leads to varying quality of
effort. For example, medical schools take crowd sourcing of medical modules very
seriously so as to both help both students and the general public and to prevent
deceptions. Instructors in medical schools frequently assign medical students to
review and modify medial modules. It would be great if other disciplines did the
same thing, but alas other disciplines are more lax in their vigilance over
Wikipedia.It's extremely rare for an accounting instructor to assign accounting
students to enter and modify accounting modules in Wikipedia. The same can be
said for many, many other disciplines.
It would be great if law firms, accounting firms, and other
private sector firms joined in the fun of correcting and improving Wikipedia
modules other than the modules about their own firms. These firms typically have
a heavy commitment to local charities and civic duties, but when it comes to a
commitment to Wikipedia it's not common to find such commitments of pro bono
effort.
What is truly amazing to me is how productive crowd
sourcing has been for Wikipedia. Sure it's not perfect, and if you want to be
selectively critical of some modules it does not take a whole lot of effort. But
if you want to be selectively amazed at some modules it also does not take hole
lot of effort. For example, accounting and finance scholars should take looks at
such modules as CAPM, hedging, Modigiani, Block Chain Database, Bitcoin, etc.
Take few moments right now and look up a few modules on
topics that you teach if you are a teacher. You be the judge of quality, and
where improvements can be made it's pretty simple to make those improvements
yourself in Wikipedia. Look on the left column for "Tools" at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Bob Jensen's threads on Wikipedia ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm#---Wikipedia
15 Most Popular Search Engines
---
http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/search-engines
This 25-year-old data engineer is helping disrupt the
world of finance ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/avant-robert-krzyzanowski-on-disrupting-finance-2016-3
The Economist Magazine: Multimedia ---
http://www.economist.com/multimedia
Can driverless cars become driverless car bombs?
http://www.businessinsider.com/security-analyst-isis-is-making-progress-on-driverless-car-bombs-2016-3
Jensen Comment
Ever since the Oklahoma City tragedy we're aware that enormous and relatively
unsophisticated bombs may be planted in cars and trucks.
More than half of the
black and Latino students who take the state teacher licensing exam in
Massachusetts fail, at rates that are high enough that
many minority college students are starting to avoid
teacher training programs,
The Boston Globe reported. The failure rates
are 54 percent (black), 52 percent (Latino) and 23 percent (white).
Inside Higher Ed, August 20, 2007 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/08/20/qt
"This new education law could lower the standards for teachers'
qualifications," by Gail L. Boldt and Bernard J. Badiali, Business Insider,
March 26, 2016 ---
http://article.wn.com/view/2016/03/26/This_new_education_law_could_lower_the_standards_for_teacher/
. . .
Teacher academies
The support for the ESSA has largely come from its
reducing much of the heavy-handed federal oversight of education. States and
local school districts can now make more decisions about how best to support
student learning.
We are happy that the ESSA supports
less testing. In addition, it emphasizes a
“well-rounded education.” Students
will study arts alongside the academic subjects
that were favored under No Child Left Behind.
However, our concern is the inclusion in Title II
of the ESSA of language which authorizes routes to teacher certification
that attempt to fast-track the preparation of teachers for pre-kindergarten
through 12th grade positions.
Nationwide, in order for graduates of teacher
education programs based in colleges and universities to gain state
certification as a teacher, the programs
must follow state requirements such as required
entrance and exit exams and the number of credit hours in specific subjects
such as reading, math and special education.
In the new ESSA legislation, the envisioned
fast-track academies will be exempt from states' teacher certification
requirements.
In other words, they do not have to
meet the standards for accountability and
accreditation required of university-based teacher education programs.
Continued in article
"Do Education Programs Dole Out Too Many Easy A’s?" by Rebecca Koenig,
Chronicle of Higher Education, November 12, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Do-Education-Programs-Dole-Out/149947/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Are teacher-training programs rigorous enough? A
new study, completed by a group that has long been critical of the quality
of teacher preparation, makes the case that they’re not.
Education students face easier coursework than
their peers in other departments, according to the study, and they’re more
likely to graduate with honors.
The report—"Easy A’s and What’s Behind Them,"
which is to be released Wednesday by the National Council on Teacher
Quality—argues that a more-objective curriculum for teaching candidates
would better prepare them for careers in the classroom.
"We’re out to improve training," said Julie
Greenberg, the report’s co-author, who is a senior policy analyst for
teacher-preparation studies for the advocacy group. "We want teacher
candidates to be more confident and competent when they get in the classroom
so their students can benefit from that."
Continued in article
"‘Easy A’s’ Gets an F," by Donald E. Heller, Chronicle of Higher
Education, November 14, 2014 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Easy-A-s-Gets-an-F/150025/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Wow: 97% of Elementary NYC Public Students
Get A or B Grades ---
"City Schools May Get Fewer A’s," by Jennifer Medina, The New York Times,
January 28, 2010 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/education/30grades.html?hpw
I did not know that having a massive number of Frequent Flier miles could
be so complicated in terms of benefits ---
http://qz.com/631113/after-earning-a-fortune-in-airline-miles-ive-figured-out-the-economics-of-how-exactly-to-spend-them/
Jensen Comment
My wife has really dear relatives in Germany. I cashed in on ten round trips to
Europe years ago using Frequent Flyer miles. But doing so was often tricky. The
biggest problem was that there was always at least one leg of a FF trip that was
fully booked (in terms of FF quotas) so that I would have to buy a ticket for
that leg --- thereby defeating much of the purpose of the Frequent Flier
benefit. The troublesome leg was usually one of the legs crossing the Atlantic.
So my strategy became to ask the airline agent what dates were open for FF-point
travel where all legs were available for Frequent Flier benefits. There were
surprisingly few such open dates. But we usually managed to work our own
schedules around those dates. Sometimes this resulted in more hotel days in
Europe such that I'm not sure the FF finagling turned out to be such a great
deal. In reality it became a losing deal except when I persuaded some European
university to pay for our hotel if I would sing for my supper.
I think that one of the credit card companies works it a little easier where
it simply buys tickets for all legs of a "free" trip for you and is therefore
not restricted to the surprisingly low airline quota on the maximum number of
it's own FF seats allowed on each flight. However, the economics of that credit
card company's cash back deals is such that savvy
customers will usually opt for cash back awards rather than FF award miles.
The above article shows how complicated life can be if you really want to
play the airline FF game bigtime including those secret bourgeois clubs.
PS
I still have some American Airlines non-expiring FF miles. Not many of you are
old enough to remember when airline FF awards were non-expiring. I also still
have a Texaco oil company non-expiring credit card that outlasted Texaco oil
company.
Pi ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi
Pi History ---
http://qz.com/637633/the-history-of-why-pi-equals-3-1415926/
Anti-Pi Day on March 14 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/anti-pi-day-2015-3
The Difference Between a Brain Versus a Computer
"Within You and Without You." by David Eagleman, The Wall Street Journal,
March 21, 2016 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/within-you-and-without-you-1458601477?mod=djemMER
The feeling of being conscious varies from moment
to moment and from person to person. Everyone has a distinctive ‘cognitive
gait.’
One of the great mysteries of modern science is
that of consciousness. What is the difference between a computer and a
brain? The former moves around zeros and ones, but only the latter enjoys
the beauty of a sunset, the pain of a stubbed toe, the smell of cinnamon.
Consciousness is what allows us to stroll through corridors of memory and to
live a rich internal life while sitting, motionless, on a chair. Presumably,
computers don’t experience any of this.
The problem of consciousness sits at the heart of
neuroscience, and it is into this question that Yale computer-science
professor David Gelernter steps with his fascinating “The Tides of Mind.”
At the heart of Mr. Gelernter’s book is a critical
observation often overlooked by artificial-intelligence researchers and
neuroscientists alike: Your conscious experience is not just one thing.
Instead, it falls on a spectrum. At one end, you’re attuned to the outside
world; as you move further down the spectrum, you’re increasingly inside
your own head, recalling memories and daydreaming. Each day you journey back
and forth along the spectrum; your conscious experience changes hour by
hour.
Consciousness, Mr. Gelernter suggests, is like a
tidal process, in which the direction of mental focus alternates, going out
and coming in. He offers an analogy: You’re trapped inside a house. At some
point during the day, you look out the windows and paint the outside world
to remember it. A bit later on, you focus on the paintings that you have
made, reorganizing them and considering possible recombinations. Your skull
is the house. Sometimes you’re looking out the window of the eyes, taking in
the outside world; at other points in the day you’re lost inside your own
head, daydreaming, your internal life running more of the show. At night,
when you descend into the bizarre world of dream sleep, you’re trapped
completely inside.
Mr. Gelernter points out that many
researchers—especially artificial-intelligence junkies—concentrate on one
extreme of the spectrum, the end at which we find pure rational thought, at
the expense of attending to the “world of pure being.” Each of the different
“qualities of experience,” he suggests, is equally important; each allows us
to understand the world in a different way.
He further points out that whatever part of the
spectrum we’re in, we generally fall for it entirely, as if it’s the only
reality. It’s analogous to the way a person in a depression can’t well
remember what it’s like to be happy, or a person deeply in love has a
difficult time re-creating loneliness. We are constantly trapped inside the
character of our current conscious experience. As a result, it sometimes
feels as if another person has made the decisions that demarcate your past.
It’s all you, of course—but you in different versions of your conscious
experience.
Continued in article
Crime in Finland ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Finland
Finnish Prisons: No Gates or Armed Guards ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/02/international/europe/02FINL.html#h[]
In All of Europe, Finland has the Most Prison Breaks ---
https://atlas.qz.com/charts/EkyegHT2x
Jensen Comment
Either Finland has no psychopath or sociopath serial killers and rapists or
there are some extremely dangerous prisoners that are kept in locked cells.
There's also a question of whether Finland rehabilitates serial killers,
serial rapists, and child molesters better than other nations. Or whether it
just lets them loose more easily?
Finland does not have the ethnic gang warfare like we find in the USA in part
because of how Finland discourages immigration both by law and low employment
opportunities.
In Venezuela the prisoners run the prisons. But in comparison with Finland
Venezuela is a very, very dangerous place to live.
"For-profit education is a $35 billion cesspool of fraud—and the US
government has let it fester," by Amy X. Wang, Quartz, March 17, 2016 ---
http://qz.com/640872/for-profit-education-is-a-35-billion-cesspool-of-fraud-and-the-us-government-has-let-it-fester/
It may have taken a while, but things are finally
starting to unravel.
The US government is intensely scrutinizing
for-profit colleges, many of which stand accused of stealing federal
dollars, preying on low-income students, and falsely reporting job
placements, among other deceptive practices. Big names like ITT Tech, DeVry
University, and the University of Phoenix are all being called to account.
The 107-campus Corinthian Colleges
stumbled to its end last year.
Corruption in for-profit education is hardly new,
and the recently retired US education secretary Arne Duncan says the biggest
regret of his tenure is not cracking down on its “bad actors” sooner.
The question is: Why didn’t he—or anyone?
“There’s been a serious gap in our understanding
about where these institutions came from and how they’ve developed over
time,” says Winthrop University history professor A.J. Angulo, who
calculates the size of the industry, based on
government documents, to be over $35 billion.
Angulo traces the surprisingly long legacy of
for-profits in his new book, Diploma Mills:
How For-Profit Colleges Stifled Students,
Taxpayers, and the American Dream. Schools
that operate around profit have indulged in
unscrupulous practices since as far back as the
18th century, Angulo argues. Diploma Mills
calls out all those practices, as well as the
institutions that’ve let them slide for so long.
Quartz spoke with the author for a look at the
myriad of tensions involved.
QZ: Why’s it important to look back at the
history of for-profits?
Angulo: Right now, we have a great deal of
literature from economists and political scientists and sociologists who
offer case studies from the 1990s onward. But there’s been very little on
the historical evolution of how these institutions came about. When I was
looking through the 2012 Senate investigations, I saw these startling
documents—four-volume, multi-thousand-page studies on for-profits in recent
history—and I got to thinking I’d like to put it in historical context.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
When teaching critical thinking the examples below may be
helpful in recognizing typical statistical fallacies.
How to Mislead With Statistics
"The macabre truth of gun control in the US is that
toddlers kill more people than terrorists do," by Cindy West, The
Guardian, March 13, 2016 ---
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/13/the-macabre-truth-of-gun-control-in-the-us-is-that-toddlers-kill-more-people-than-terrorists-do
Jensen Comment
Apart from inevitable quibbles about how to define a "toddler" and how to define
a "terrorist," scholars should be able to recognize a fallacy in the above
article without even reading the article.
Get it?
Let's try another one using hypothetical statistics because I'm lazy when
writing this tidbit.
"You're 100 times more likely to be injured from an
accident on your own home property than elsewhere."
Let's try another one using hypothetical statistics because I'm lazy when
writing this tidbit.
"You're 100 times more likely to have a car accident
within 50 miles of your home."
Let's try another one using hypothetical statistics because I'm lazy when
writing this tidbit.
"College students are 100 more likely to die of alcohol
poisoning than a heroin overdose"
Like I say the probabilities above are hypothetical by they serve to make my
point.
My point has to do with the proportionate law of
large numbers.
I don't know how many toddlers there are relative to terrorists in the USA
but let's assume there are 80 million toddlers relative to 10,000 terrorists.
Every terrorist could kill somebody (intentionally or accidentally) with a gun
and probably kill fewer people than children simply because 10,000 is such a
small number compared to 80,000,000.. Parents often tend to hide their guns
without locking up their loaded guns securely. Children are naturally curious
and tend to find most anything hidden in a house, including guns, pill bottles, condoms, and
vibrators.
And people are much more likely to be injured in or near their homes because
they spend such a large proportion of time in or near their homes 24/7. Think of
all those senior citizens who are more prone to falling and get out less and
less because getting out is more of a struggle once you have all the ailments on
old age. There are more accidents in homes because so much more time is spent at
home combined with the reasons you spend so much more time at home (think
arthritis).
And out of close to 200 million drivers in the USA, the overwhelming majority
of the miles driven by those millions of drivers from miles covered less than 50
miles from home. Is it surprising that accidents are more common 50 miles from
home? And the many accidents caused by alcohol abuse is more apt to be rooted in
partying less than 50 miles from home.
College students are more apt to die of alcohol poisoning because the
incidents of binge drinking vastly, I mean VASTLY, outnumber the incidents of
binging on heroin. Heroine use is on the rise on college campuses but heroine
abuse is miniscule compared to alcohol abuse among college students.
How to Mislead With Statistics
"The macabre truth of gun control in the US is that
toddlers kill more people than terrorists do," by Cindy West, The
Guardian, March 13, 2016 ---
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/13/the-macabre-truth-of-gun-control-in-the-us-is-that-toddlers-kill-more-people-than-terrorists-do
So what Cindy?
Suppose that the probability of being shot dead by a toddler in 0.000000044.
Further that other things being equal a $1 trillion initiative to buy back guns
from USA households reduces that probability to 0.000000022 but does drive it to
zero since not everyone will sell their guns to the government. This probably
does not meet any reasonable cost-benefit test even though it's impossible to
put a monetary value on any single human life.
Furthermore if $1 trillion is spent buying back guns other things are not
equal in the real world. The probability of then being shot dead by a home
invader greatly increases if most home owners no longer have guns that home
invaders fear.
PS
Here's another example of the proportionate law of large numbers
Not a single day now goes by without an Islamist
suicide bombing, rocket attack, shooting spree, kidnapping or stabbing somewhere
in the world.
Sohrab Ahmari ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/global-jihads-deadly-calendar-1458688588?mod=djemMER
Islam has an estimated 1.7 billion adherents ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country
There are over 2 billion Christians earth ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth
Each day on average there are kidnappings and murders by people claiming to
be Christians. The probabilities of being harmed by people claiming to be
Islamists may even be smaller than the probabilities of being harmed by people
claiming to be Christians.
A Cambridge professor on how to stop being so easily manipulated by
misleading statistics ---
http://qz.com/643234/cambridge-professor-on-how-to-stop-being-so-easily-manipulated-by-misleading-statistics/
The Science Crusades Against
Regression Analysis and Statistical Inference Testing
"Leading Economist Stuns Field by Deciding to Become a
Woman," by Robin Wilson, Chronicle of Higher Education,
February 16, 1996 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Leading-Economist-Stuns-Field/96442?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=afc108a635e9461f99054666208e6fba&elq=643abf6e991646b0add1ae54b2ff6c9a&elqaid=8325&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=2707
"The Lives of Deirdre McCloskey: Her gender change
may be the least iconoclastic thing about her," by Alexander C. Kafka,
Chronicle of Higher Education, March 20, 2016
---
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Lives-of-Deirdre-McCloskey/235721?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=52356824c4854953b33d7bf0754f7113&elq=643abf6e991646b0add1ae54b2ff6c9a&elqaid=8325&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=2707
"Scholars Talk Writing: Deirdre McCloskey," by
Rachel Toor, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 20, 2016 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Scholars-Talk-Writing-Deirdre/235767?cid=trend_right_a
The Cult of Statistical Significance: 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)
My
threads on Deidre McCloskey and my own talk are at
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on "The Crusade Against Regression Analysis" and
Misleading Statistical Inference in General ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
Accountics scientists will probably be the last bastion of defense of misleading
science and research. It comes as no surprise that they do not encourage
validation and replication of their "research" findings ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTar.htm
"'Statistically Significant' Doesn't Mean 'Right'," by Faye Flam,
Bloomberg View, March 18, 2016 ---
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-03-18/-statistically-significant-doesn-t-mean-right
In response to charges that their field is churning
out unreliable science, psychologists this month issued a defense that may
be tough to dispute. At issue was a claim, published
in the journal Science, that only 39 of 100
experiments published in psychology papers could be replicated. The
counterpoint, also
published in Science,
questioned the assumption that the other 61 of the results must have been
wrong.
If two experimental results are in conflict, who’s
to say the original one was wrong and not the second one? Or maybe both are
wrong if, as some argue, there’s a flaw in the way social scientists analyze
data.
This is an important puzzle, given the current
interest in drawing conclusions from huge sets of data. And it's not just a
problem for psychologists. Researchers have also had trouble replicating
experimental results in
medicine and
economics, creating what's been dubbed "the
replication crisis."
Some insights come from a
new paper in the Journal of the American Medical
Association. While previous discussions of the replication crisis have
focused on the way scientists misuse statistical techniques, this latest
paper points to a human fallibility component – a marketing problem, which
boils down to a universal human tendency, shared by scientists, to try to
put their best foot forward.
At the center of both the math and the marketing
problem is the notion of statistical significance – roughly, a measure of
the odds of getting a given result due to chance. Computing statistical
significance is a way to protect scientists from being fooled by randomness.
People’s behavior, performance on tests, cholesterol measures, weight and
the like vary in a random way. Statistical significance tests can prevent
scientists from mistaking such fluctuation for the workings of a drug or the
miracle properties of artichokes.
Statistical significance in medicine and social
science is expressed as a p value, which represents the odds that a result
would occur by chance if there’s no effect from the diet pills or artichokes
being tested. Popular press accounts make much of their potential for
trouble in the hands of scientists. A headline at the website "Retraction
Watch" claimed, "We’re
Using a Common Statistical Test All Wrong," and
Vox ran with "An
Unhealthy Obsession with P-values is Ruining Science."
It'll take more than that to ruin science, though,
since
many fields don’t use p values the way clinical
researchers or social scientists do. The problem, as JAMA author John
Ioannidis sees it, is partly in the way medical researchers use p values as
a marketing tool.
Statistical significance is a continuum – a measure
of probability -- but in medical research it’s been turned into something
black or white. Journals have informally decided that results should be
considered statistically significant only if the p value is 5 percent or
lower. (Since most scientists hope their results are not due to chance,
lower is better.)
Ioannidis worries that researchers are making too
much of this arbitrary cutoff. He sifted through millions of papers and
found that most advertised their statistical significance up high, in the
abstract, while burying important but perhaps less flattering aspects of the
study. A statistically "successful" drug may only reduce the risk of a
disease from 1 percent to 0.9 percent, for example, or raise life expectancy
by 10 seconds.
Just as food manufacturers have advertised all
manner of products as low-cholesterol, all natural, fat- or sugar-free,
hoping to give the impression of health benefits, so scientific papers have
advertised themselves as statistically significant to give the impression of
truth.
The same 5-percent cutoff is used in a lot of
social science and has been a source of trouble there too.
In 2011, the psychologist Uri Simonsohn showed that
it's all too easy to produce bogus results even in experiments that clear
the 5-percent p-value bar.
He set up
an experiment to show that he could use accepted
techniques to obtain a result that was not just ridiculous but impossible.
He divided students into two groups, one hearing the song “Kalimba” and the
other “When I’m 64.” Then he collected data on both groups, looking for
differences between them.
He found something that varied by chance – the ages
of people in the groups -- then, using math tricks that had been common in
his field (but are considered cheating by statisticians), he showed that it
was possible to come up with a statistically significant claim that
listening to “When I’m 64” will make people get 1.5 years younger.
Statistician Ron Wasserstein agrees that there is a
right way and a wrong way to use statistical tools. And that means those
trying to replicate studies can also get it wrong, which was the concern of
those psychologists defending their field.
Getting a different p value in a replication effort
is not enough to discredit an existing study. Imagine, he said, you are
trying to replicate a study that showed that cats gained weight eating Brand
X cat food. The original result shows the cats got fatter, with only a 2
percent chance that this happened by chance. A new study also shows they got
fatter, but with 6 percent odds that it’s by chance.
Is it fair to call the original experiment a
failure because the second result missed the 5-percent p-value cutoff?
Should we assume that Brand X is not fattening? There’s not enough
information to draw a conclusion either way, Wasserstein said. To get an an
answer you’d also want to know the size of the effect. Did the cats gain
pounds or ounces? Did the cats eat more of the food because it tasted good,
or was it more fattening per bowl? Statistical significance has to be
weighed alongside other factors.
Bob Jensen's threads on "The Crusade Against Regression Analysis" and
Misleading Statistical Inference in General ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
Accountics scientists will probably be the last bastion of defense of misleading
science and research. It comes as no surprise that they do not encourage
validation and replication of their "research" findings ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTar.htm
P-Value ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-value
ASA = American Statistical Association
The ASA's statement on p-values: context, process, and purpose ---
http://amstat.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00031305.2016.1154108
The ground is shaking beneath the accountics science
foundations upon which all accounting doctoral programs and the prestigious
accounting research journals are built. My guess is, however, that the
accountics scientists are sleeping through the tremors or feigning sleep
because, if they admit to waking up, their nightmares will become real!
"A Scrapbook on What's Wrong with the Past, Present and Future of Accountics
Science"
by Bob Jensen
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/AccounticsWorkingPaper450.pdf
Bob Jensen
*************************************************************************
David Johnstone from Australia gave me permission to
broadcast his reply to the AECM
Dear Sudipta and Bob, thanks for
sending this Sudipta, it was actually written up in the local newspaper
(Sydney Morning Herald) the other day. There has also been a series of
articles on economic modelling that starts with the conclusion and works
back to the argument. People are waking up to rorts slowly but inevitably,
it seems.
There are multi-million dollar
industries (e.g. “accounting research”) that depend on p-levels and would
need a big clean out and recanting/retraining if the tide were to turn. I
think that the funding bodies (e.g. taxpayers) are starting to smell rats,
so life is going to be different for younger researchers in 10 years I
suspect. Much more scepticism about supposed “research”.
I have been toying with writing a book
on the P-level problem. I used to be excited about this stuff, I thought it
was deeply interesting and other people would also find it interesting. I
didn’t realize that most researchers are not intrinsically interested in the
techniques they use, and I also didn’t realize that most will resist
bitterly anything that makes their lives less glamorous and their self-image
less wonderful. This is what I see as the “positive theory of accounting
researchers”.
Great to have a couple of old
fashioned academics to talk to on this.
By the way, all the young
statisticians schooled in Bayesian theory know about the issues with
P-levels, and they are breeding up in computer science and elsewhere.
Tom Dyckman’s paper on P-levels is
coming out in Abacus 2nd issue 2016. In that same issue is an excellent
survey paper by Jeremy Bertomeu on cost of capital etc, which will give that
issue further credibility and hopefully prompt some extra readers to see
Tom’s paper.
David Johnstone
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)
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
"Using Rubrics to Assess Accounting Learning Goal Achievement," by
Thomas F. Schaefer and Jennifer Sustersic Stevens, Issues in Accounting
Education, Volume 31, Issue 1 (February 2016) ---
http://aaajournals.org/doi/full/10.2308/iace-51261
Free only to subscribers (including users of campus libraries)
This paper illustrates the development and use of
rubrics to improve the learning assessment process and enhance the
teaching-learning relationship. We highlight the multidimensional benefits
of rubrics as valuable tools for student assessment (grading), course
assessment (at the instructor level), and program assessment (at the
administrator/curriculum committee/accreditation level). Moreover, rubrics
may improve qualitative feedback on learning to students and instructors.
Development of effective rubrics is framed in terms of learning goals,
measurable learning outcomes, choice of assessment vehicle/assignment, and
use of data collected from rubrics for feedback and/or improvement. The
paper then offers an example set of rubrics designed to assess student
achievement of three learning goals common to many undergraduate accounting
programs: accounting measurement, research, and critical thinking. This
paper may prove useful for instructors looking to use rubrics to improve the
teaching-learning process and concurrently evaluate learning goal
achievement for course or program assessment. As an auxiliary benefit, the
use of scoring rubrics may simplify grading, as well as data collection in
documenting assurance of learning for accreditation purposes.
In higher-education institutions, faculty members
often are tasked with measuring individual student performance, assuring
their students meet established course learning goals, as well as evaluating
overall student progress toward a particular program's learning goals.
However, instructors often struggle with assessing student learning in an
effective and efficient manner. Scoring rubrics represent a valuable tool to
enhance the teaching-learning process by providing a systematic approach to
measuring learning outcomes, yet very few studies in the accounting
literature highlight the benefits of using rubrics or provide guidance in
their application.1
Rubrics—detailed lists of competencies for
designated learning outcomes accompanied by levels of performance
criteria—can guide assessments at both the student and course level, as well
as contribute to a program-level assessment. Moreover, rubrics enhance
feedback to students and promote learning (Brookhart 2013; Stevens and Levi
2013). The purpose of this paper is to offer guidance on the development and
use of scoring rubrics for classroom and assessment purposes. The paper also
provides an example set of scoring rubrics designed to assess student
achievement for accounting measurement, research, and critical thinking
learning goals.
Rubrics enrich the teaching-learning process at the
student level by enabling a discussion of quality for complex work products.
Unlike a traditional assessment system in which the instructor judges
quality and assigns a grade, a rubric conveys descriptions of quality and
connects how a student's performance falls within those guidelines (Brookhart
2013). This facilitates a more objective, productive conversation regarding
a student's progress compared to learning expectations and allows the
student to identify his or her own strengths and weaknesses (Suskie 2010).
If shared with students when distributing the assignment, then scoring
rubrics may also help communicate performance expectations and lead to
improved student submissions (McTighe and O'Connor 2005). Moreover, scoring
rubrics can help standardize the grading process and provide more reliable,
fair, and valid feedback to instructors and students (McTighe and Ferrara
1994).
At the course level, instructors should consider
their educational program's learning goals when developing student
assignments. A carefully designed scoring rubric may complement this process
by helping the instructor to clarify the purpose of the assignment, as well
as to focus on its most important learning objectives (Ammons and Mills
2005). Feedback from the process may persuade instructors to modify
instruction, course content, or assignments to improve teaching and enrich
learning within the course. In addition, rubrics may facilitate coordination
with other course instructors or teaching assistants by creating a more
objective, consistent guide for scoring student submissions (Stevens and
Levi 2013).
At the program level, accounting undergraduate and
graduate programs routinely assess and document progress toward the
achievement of established educational learning goals. In addition,
accrediting agencies typically require evidence of student achievement for
institution-specific learning goals (Kimmell, Marquette, and Olsen 1998;
Stivers, Campbell, and Hermanson 2000; J. Shaftel and T. Shaftel 2007). The
development of scoring rubrics may prove useful in constructing assignments
to assess specific program learning goals, evaluating progress in meeting
learning goals, and facilitating ease of data collection for accreditation
or other program evaluations. Scoring rubrics may also help decrease
subjectivity in determining when assessments fail to provide evidence of
sufficient student learning, so that curricular efforts can be targeted to
remedy the deficiency.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on assessment ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Assess.htm
Free Trade ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade
It’s enough to take the word of an eminent Nobel
laureate (Paul Krugman)
"Three Cheers for Free Trade," by Ross Kaminsky, The American
Spectator, March 16, 2016 ---
http://spectator.org/articles/65797/three-cheers-free-trade
. . .
Allow me to offer a few quotes (emphasis added)
from one prominent economist, at the time a professor at an elite
university, who was lamenting the poor understanding of international trade
in the United States:
- “Most of what a student is likely to hear or
read about international economics is nonsense.”
- “International trade is not about
competition, it is about mutually beneficial exchange.”
- “Imports, not exports, are the purpose
of trade. That is, what a country gains from trade is the
ability to import things it wants. Exports are not an objective in and
of themselves: the need to export is a burden that a country must bear
because its import suppliers are crass enough to demand payment.”
- “The level of employment is a macroeconomic
issue, depending in the short run on aggregate demand and depending in
the long run on the natural rate of unemployment, with microeconomic
policies like tariffs having little net effect.”
- “Trade should be debated in terms of
its impact on efficiency, not in terms of phony numbers about jobs
created or lost.”
So who is this paragon of capitalist dogma, this
right-wing hater of the Rust Belt, this heartless fiend in the pocket of the
Koch Brothers? Is it Steve Moore? Larry Kudlow? Ben Stein? Is it a
deep-thinking conservative from the American Enterprise Institute or a Cato
Institute libertarian?
No, these words are from a
1993 paper published by one Paul Krugman
(H/T
Don Boudreaux), at the time a professor in the
economics department at MIT, who later won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in
Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (the official name of the
world’s most famous non-athletic prize) for
innovative explanations of free trade
including that similar countries may trade with each
other, including importing and exporting similar products, to satisfy
consumer demand for a wider variety of products.
Again, although there is debate at the margins, the
very large net benefit of free trade to a nation that engages in it is
largely uncontroversial among economists, at least among honest ones — a
group that sadly no longer includes Dr. Krugman. This includes the fact that
free trade benefits the importing country even if the exporting country does
not equally reciprocate with reduced tariffs. As the aforementioned Don
Boudreaux puts it, just because the other guys are filling their ports with
boulders doesn’t mean we should.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
The fact of the matter is that candidates for public office like Bernie Sanders
are appealing for votes from workers who are either unemployed or, like Michael
Moore of Roger and Me fame, believe in their hearts that selected high
tariffs will lead to high wages for them personally. At a personal level they
may even be correct for particular trades. But what these voters don't take into
account or don't care about is the adverse effect on millions of other workers
and consumers who benefit greatly by free trade.
And the hourly worker advocating a high tariff for strictly personal reasons
may find that the higher tariffs backfire on him or her personally. The guy on a
GM assembly line may think this wage will quadruple with a tariff only to
discover that the tariff puts him out of a job or lowers his wage. The current
unemployed person may discover that tariffs further reduce the chances of
finding work.
And the guy on the GM assembly line anticipating a quadruple increase in
wages in Detroit may discover that, if a USA tariff puts 10 million skilled
assembly line workers in Mexico out of work, most of those 10 million workers
will find their way to Detroit in a matter of weeks and compete for the high
wage jobs.
The bottom line is that protectionism is great for getting votes but lousy
for the economy except in very rare instances where national defense and
economic well being becomes a serious concern. I say "well being" because when
the USA entirely stops producing a very strategic ingredient the nation is at
risk of being extorted by foreign producers. Our current dependency on China for
lithium, for example, is a serious concern. But there are ways other than
tariffs when strategic supplies are of concern.
"A Scholar’s Sting of Education Conferences Stirs a Hornet’s Nest," by
Peter Schmidt, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 14, 2016 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Scholar-s-Sting-of/235650?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=4d62785f6d864222af3d9b69c4eb981d&elq=4b43e89bf5f342359880190332147922&elqaid=8231&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=2650
Jim Vander Putten suspected that some education
conferences accepted any study pitched by someone willing to pay a
registration fee. He worried that the gatherings enabled scholars to pad
their publishing records while tainting research in the field.
To test his hypothesis, he sent fake research-paper
summaries larded with unforgivable methodological errors to the organizers
of 15 conferences he believed to have lax standards. All responded by
offering to let him present his findings and to publish his papers as part
of their proceedings.
But instead of exposing the dissemination of bad
research, Mr. Vander Putten now stands accused of research misconduct
himself.
Administrators at the University of Arkansas at
Little Rock, where he is an associate professor of higher education, have
told him he violated policy by undertaking a study of human subjects without
the approval of the campus’s institutional review board. They have rejected
his defense that an outside, commercial review board signed off on his plans
— after Little Rock’s board failed to do so. A research-integrity officer on
his campus has called on him to relinquish the data that he gathered.
University officials took such actions after conference organizers he had
duped threatened to sue.
Mr. Vander Putten’s unusual case highlights
inconsistencies in the judgments that review boards make. It also raises
questions of how much commercial boards, which account for a growing share
of such reviews, can be trusted to safeguard colleges’ interests.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
I innocently ended up in one of these phony conferences in a historic
village in Germany before I realized it was an expensive, albeit phony,
conference for accounting, finance, and business presenters. The first clue
that it was phony was that there were no plenary sessions or any sessions
with attendees met as a group. There were no dinners, receptions, or vendors
selling books.
Here are some other features of phony academic conferences.
- These conferences represent no associations. Declarations that the
papers accepted for the conference are first refereed are false.
Virtually all papers submitted are accepted. Some are even published
afterwards if the authors pay publishing fees.
- The location is in a popular tourist location on a beach, in the
mountains, or situated near casinos. Sometimes they are even on a ship.
I'm told that they're modeled after some phony medical conferences
attended by physicians on vacations paid for by pharmaceutical and
medical equipment vendors.
- Faculty submit expense reimbursement requests to their universities
for what turns out often to be family vacations. At the German
conference mentioned above I met a friend of mine who said his main
purpose of attending was to buy a new Mercedes, drive his family around
Europe, and then ship the Mercedes back to the USA.
- Nothing new or exciting is presented at these conferences. Mostly
they old papers rejected by journals are dusted off and presented
without enthusiasm.
- Only the persons assigned to present a paper in a program time slot
attend the session. If there are four presenters there will be one
rotating speaker and three in the audience. Sometimes the presenter will
leave the session before it's over, thus making it possible that the
last speaker has no audience.
- Speakers show up only for part of one day fore their assigned
presentations. Most arrive late to the conference and leave before the
conference ends.
- Sometimes the conference is organized by an academic who learns that
organizing such fees for such conferences and fees for published
proceedings are are better ways of making money than earning a salary at
college.
The Shrinking Humanities Major: Number of bachelor's degrees awarded
fell 8.7 percent between 2012 and 2014, study finds ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/03/14/study-shows-87-percent-decline-humanities-bachelors-degrees-2-years?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=1d2ac6a14c-DNU20160314&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-1d2ac6a14c-197565045
No mention of what discipline gains those diverting from law school, but MBA
programs are likely in on the action since so many other careers have
undergraduate prerequisites
Law School Applicants From Top Colleges Plunge 42% ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2016/03/law-school-applicants-from-graduates-of-ivy-league-chicago-duke-stanford-plunge-42.html
Here's one of the comments following the above article:
They have received the message that law school and
the legal profession is no longer a viable, sustainable road to a middle
class income. Some do succeed. But many, many lawyers like me struggle. My
Schedule C last year was 37K. It has been that way for several years. I
consider myself lower middle class and did not foresee this 25 years ago
when I got out of law school. Many of us have considerable student loan debt
and will take it to our graves. The young guys know that.
Posted by: Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance
King | Mar 12, 2016 9:12:53 AM
Jensen Comment
Some of the losers upstream are humanities programs since law schools are so
popular with top humanities students in top colleges. Many students are now
focusing on undergraduate professional programs like pre-med, engineering,
accounting, and business in general.
STEM opportunities are also drawing more students into science.
STEM Career ---
http://stemcareer.com/
The Atlantic: Technology ---
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/
MIT: Seven Must-Read Stories (Week Ending March 12, 2016) ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600968/seven-must-read-stories-week-ending-march-12-2016/
Socratic Method ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method
How should teaching change when assuming some students in class, but not
all students, have access to prior semester course notes and class discussion
solutions?
One way teachers should adjust their teaching is to be aware that student
notes from prior terms are selectively available to current students in a class.
To some extent this has always been true for students in fraternities and
sororities that kept files on course notes and examinations. But now this is
increasingly a problem for teachers trying to keep courses fair for all enrolled
students whether or not they have access to notes and examinations from prior
terms of a course.
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#Testbanks
This is now an increasing problem since students may be able to buy course
notes, textbook solutions manuals, and publisher test banks online. For exampel,
course notes may now be purchased from
https://studysoup.com/
Thank you David Perkins for the heads up.
I find zero results thus far for smaller colleges and universities, but
the mega universities are covered such as the University of Texas, but to date
UT only has 30 courses with notes for sale. Hence, this site is not yet such a
big deal, but it could grow quickly.
At the moment free files for selected students on a particular campus are more
of a problem such as fraternity files. Think of how this can affect student
performance grading. Many instructors use the Socratic Method in a way where
classroom performances of students can affect grades. If the instructor pretty
much teaches the Socratic Method course the same way each semester students
having access to course notes from prior semesters can take competitive
advantage over students in the class who did not see course notes of prior
semester.
This is especially problematic when teaching cases like Harvard Business School
cases. Harvard's instructors pretty much limit the use of a case to one semester
or take great pains to disguise cases used in prior semesters.
In addition, instructors should probably assume that some students in a class
have purchased and possibly shared textbook end-of-chapter solutions manuals and
test banks that are now frequently available from eBay and other online vendors.
Teaching a course each semester on automatic pilot with the same course content
can be a disaster in terms of fairness to all students in a class.
"From Law School to Business School — evolution of the case method,"
Harvard Gazette, April 3, 2008
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/04/from-law-school-to-business-school-%E2%80%94-evolution-of-the-case-method/
On a recent Wednesday morning, 90 high achievers
from around the world prepared to get down to cases.
Their professor buzzed through the classroom like a
worker bee. Armed with large, multicolored pieces of chalk, he organized his
notes, copied pastel-coded facts and figures on the blackboard, and set up a
film screen. Soon his students would be equally hard at work, but in a
strictly cerebral way.
This day the instructor was inclined to be kind,
giving the young man who would open the class discussion an early heads-up,
allowing some time to prepare. Often in this setting, classes start with the
heart-pounding “cold call,” where a student is put to the test without
warning. The deceptively simple “start us off” translates into “as quickly
and coherently and convincingly as possible, tell us everything known about
this situation and give us your best insight.”
As well as being busy and congenial, Jan Rivkin, a
professor in the strategy unit at Harvard Business School (HBS), was clearly
engaging, his enthusiasm infectious, his sense of humor unmistakable.
He started with a brief refresher video, one he’d
secured from a colleague on holiday in the Bahamas. The class watched their
vacationing instructor drop to his knees on the beach as the tape rolled.
With a straight face, he reviewed the finer points of his recent
technology-operations-management discussion with the class, drawing a series
of overlapping diagrams in the sand. When done, he promptly jumped into the
ocean.
The crowd loved it, but it was the last light
moment. For the next hour-and-a-half the class examined whether the Spanish
clothing company Zara should update its retailers’ IT infrastructure.
During the ensuing discussion and debate, Jan
Rivkin, deftly prodded, questioned, and encouraged his deeply engaged class.
It was just another day at HBS — and one of its
standard case-classes. The case method is the primary mode of teaching and
learning at the institution, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this
year. In honor of its centennial, the School will host a series of events on
Tuesday (April 8) that will include a number of panels, a birthday
celebration, and a case discussion on the future of HBS.
While it didn’t begin with the School’s inception,
the revolutionary instructional approach followed shortly thereafter. But it
wasn’t an entirely novel concept. The model was actually borrowed from the
Harvard Law School and Christopher Columbus Langdell HLS Class of 1853 and
dean of the Law School in 1870, who pioneered the technique for the
examination of Harvard Law School cases.
Later, at HBS, it was Dean Wallace P. Donham, a Law
School grad familiar with the technique, who pushed for the full inclusion
of the case method at the Business School, where it was altered and adapted
to a business perspective. Since 1921, it has been a core part of the
curriculum.
The method of teaching differs greatly from the
traditional lecture format, in which students take notes as the professor
speaks. Instead, students are engaged in a dynamic back-and-forth with one
another and their professor, discussing a topic typically pulled from a
relevant, real-life business scenario and featuring a dilemma or challenge.
Sometimes, once the class has examined and discussed the case, the actual
CEO or president of the company in question will appear in person to explain
how the situation ultimately unfolded.
The case topics are wide-ranging and include
everything from the world of finance to semiconductors to sweeteners to
satellite television.
Some cases offer historic reflections, employing
the lessons tragedy imparts. Cases have been written, for example, about the
space shuttle Columbia’s final mission in 2003 and the management decisions
made prior to its fatal re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, Abraham
Lincoln’s leadership during the Civil War, and the management of national
intelligence prior to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Students are given an overview of the case’s
material to read ahead of time. The packets, roughly 20 to 25 pages long,
include a list of facts, an outline of the challenge at hand, and a history
of the company or situation in text, charts, and graphs, all compiled into a
neat brief.
More than 80 percent of HBS classes are built on
the case method. Each week students prepare approximately 14 cases both
alone and with the help of study groups. But in the end they are on their
own. In class, it is up to the individual to articulate his or her argument
and persuade others of its merits. A hefty 50 percent of a student’s grade
is determined by class participation, so taking part in the conversation is
crucial. Students raise their hands energetically, trying to get quality
“air time,” as they call it. Two important unwritten rules, self-enforced by
the students themselves: Never speak unless you have something valuable to
contribute, and keep it brief.
The teaching technique most effectively prepares
the CEOs of tomorrow for what they will inevitably face in the real world,
say the professors who employ it.
“Getting a piece of material, having to sift
through it, figure out what’s important, … come to a point of view, [then]
come to class both prepared to argue that point of view … [and] prepared to
listen and be open to others’ viewpoints — those are the skills that the
business world demands, and via the case method they get to practice those
in the classroom,” said Michael J. Roberts, senior lecturer of business
administration and executive director of the Arthur Rock Center for
Entrepreneurship.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on case method teaching ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Cases
Bob Jensen's threads on cheating ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm
Personality, Presence, Preparation, Passion
"The 4 Properties of Powerful Teachers," by Rob Jenkins, Chronicle of
Higher Education, March 16, 2016 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/The-4-Properties-of-Powerful/228483?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=f7a573e655c64862a148087230fab166&elq=9c0601c2effb449cb3594293542b4633&elqaid=8350&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=2716
Jensen Comment
Viewing my own past over 22 years of college and 40 years of interacting with
faculty colleagues it seems impossible to put a fence arround the best
personality traits of great teachers. Nearly all of them in my estimation were
self confident but many were also humble about it. Many were extroverted, but
this is not a necessary condition. What is a mystery to me is how a few great
teachers were lousy faculty colleagues but were highly respected by their
students. I recall one who never took an interest in any of his colleagues and
remained aloof and distant even to members in his department. To us he almost
seemed autistic. But with students he was caring, confident, and highly
respected as an advisor and a teacher.
Most great teachers I knew were passionate about their discipline, but not
all were what I would describe as passionate teachers. I mean think of New
England Patriots coach
Bill
Belichick. Based upon his record and his player's testimonials he's one
of the greatest and most powerful football coaches of all time. But if you
listen to him talk his presentations are better than prescription sleeping pills
if you need help falling asleep. He's the perfect example of an introverted
mumbling accountant low on testosterone rather than a NFL football coach.
But Belichick is arguably the most prepared coach in the history of the NFL.
In my viewpoint powerful teacher does not necessarily equate to great
teacher. The first ingredient of a great teacher is expertise at the level of
course being taught. I grant you that teaching at the introductory level
certainly requires less expertise and more power, although expertise helps when
introductory students ask tough questions. Certainly introductory teachers
should have sufficient expertise to admit they are not experts on some issues.
At advanced levels expertise trumps almost every other ingredient of a great
teacher. However masterful experts who are unprepared for class or learning
tutorials often blow it and lose the respect of ttheir students.
"Teaching Mistakes -- Do Any Of These Apply to YOU?" by Joe Hoyle,
Teaching Blog, August 26, 2013 ---
http://joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/2013/08/teaching-mistakes-do-any-of-these-apply.html
From David Gilles on the Econometrics Beat ---
http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2016/03/march-reading-list.html
Now is a good time to catch up on some Econometrics reading. Here are my
suggestions for March 2016:
-
Carrasco, M. and R.
Kotchoni, 2016. Efficient estimation using the characteristic
function. Econometric Theory, in press.
-
Chambers, M. J.,
2016. The estimation of continuous time models with mixed frequency
data. Discussion Paper No. 777, Department of Economics, University of
Essex.
-
Cuaresma, J. C., M.
Feldkircher, and F. Huber, 2016. Forecasting with global
vector autoregressive models: A Bayesian approach. Journal of Applied
Econometrics, in press.
-
Hendry, D.,
2016. Deciding between alternative approaches in macroeconomics.
Discussion Paper No. 778, Department of Economics, University of Oxford.
-
Reed, W. R.,
2016. Univariate unit root tests perform poorly when data are
cointegrated. Working Paper No. 1/2016, Department of Economics and
Finance, University of Canterbury.
Jensen Comment
Especially note the Hendry download.
2016 States in the USA With the Highest and Lowest Tax Rates ---
https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-states-to-be-a-taxpayer/2416/
Overall, Illinois has the highest tax rates,
followed by Nebraska, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York,
according to an analysis by WalletHub. Notably, tax rates are about 10.56%
higher in blue states than in red states.
New York has the highest cigarette excise tax at
$4.35 per pack, while Missouri has the lowest at $0.17. Pennsylvania has the
highest gas tax at $0.5040 per gallon, while Alaska has the lowest at
$0.1225.
Jensen Comment
Some of those most taxing states were also subject to state-worker pension
frauds and enormous pension underfunding, notably Illinois, Connecticut, and
Rhode Island.
Note the far right column that provides an adjusted cost of living index.
California, Oregon, and Washington DC, for example, do fairly well on tax rates
but come out horribly on the adjusted cost of living index. There are not many
surprises on the high cost of living where the worst states are New York,
Connecticut, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and New Jersey.
Palo Alto ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto,_California
"Palo Alto residents who earn up to $250,000 a year to qualify for
SUBSIDIZED housing in new affordable housing plan as teachers, cops and janitors
are forced out of the city," by Mia Di Graaf, Daily News, March 24,
2016 ---
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3507025/Palo-Alto-residents-earn-250-000-year-qualify-SUBSIDIZED-housing-new-affordable-housing-plan-teachers-cops-janitors-forced-city.html#ixzz43oHFQaJt
. . .
The city's biggest problem is that low-income
workers cannot afford to live nearby, 'indicating in a large unmet need for
worker housing in the City,' the plan explains.
There are far more jobs in the city than there are
employed residents.
And the impact is crippling.
'Since many of Palo Alto’s workers cannot afford to
live in the City, the imbalance creates negative impacts such as long
commutes for workers both inside and outside the region, increased traffic
congestion during peak commute periods, and increased air pollution end
energy consumption,' the proposal warns.
Continued in the article
Jensen Comment
This might even include Stanford University employees who cannot get into
Stanford's own overcrowded subsidized housing. Newer Stanford faculty are often
temporary renters with plans to eventually move to places like Austin, Texas for
affordable housing. Stanford does have a limited number of employee-owned houses
on Stanford land beside the campus, but houses built in the 1970s for less than
$50,000 now sell for millions of dollars even when the buyers are required to be
Stanford employees.
This article begs the question of how many full-time Stanford faculty earn
less than $250,000? Of course, Palo Alto might discourage Stanford employees
from getting into Pala Alto's subsidized housing since the main intent is to
subsidize Palo Alto municipal workers.
San Francisco has similar housing price issues, but lower-income workers in
San Francisco can conveniently commute via
BART from the much more populated
Oakland metro area where a lot of lower-income people find affordable
housing. Palo Alto is uniquely situated where there is no convenient commuting
alternative. Palo Alto is surrounded by the Silicon Valley where housing prices
have soared between San Jose and San Francisco. Bridges crossing the SF Bay are
badly congested. Workers can commute via rail but the trains only lead to other
high-priced real estate.
Hence municipal workers and other lower income workers are forced to seek
housing between a rock and a hard place. I suspect a significant number are
living in cars and motor homes in parking lots. Recently it was reported how a
Google employee worth more than a million dollars was living in a van in
Google's parking lot.
Palo Alto's proposed subsidized housing units may not be all that great. They
will be exceptionally small, and there are some proposals for families to share
kitchens and bathrooms.
Plato's Allegory of the Cave ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave
Hear John Malkovich Read Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” Set to Music
Mixed by Ric Ocasek, Yoko Ono & Sean Lennon, OMD & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/hear-john-malkovich-read-platos-allegory-of-the-cave.html
Two Animations of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave: One
Narrated by Orson Welles, Another Made with Clay
---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/02/two-animations-of-platos-allegory-of-the-cave.html
Math Works Great—Until You Try to Map It Onto the World ---
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/math-works-great-try-map-onto-world/
In 1900, the great mathematician David Hilbert
presented a list of 23 unsolved problems worth investigating in the new
century. The list became a road map for the field, guiding mathematicians
through unexplored regions of the mathematical universe as they ticked off
problems one by one. But one of the problems was not like the others. It
required connecting the mathematical universe to the real one. Quanta
Magazine
Continued in article
Mathematics has been called the language of the
universe. Scientists and engineers often speak of the elegance of
mathematics when describing physical reality, citing examples such as π,
E=mc2, and even something as simple as using abstract integers to count
real-world objects. Yet while these examples demonstrate how useful math can
be for us, does it mean that the physical world naturally follows the rules
of mathematics as its "mother tongue," and that this mathematics has its own
existence that is out there waiting to be discovered? This point of view on
the nature of the relationship between mathematics and the physical world is
called Platonism, but not everyone agrees with it.
Derek Abbott, Professor of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering at The University of Adelaide in Australia, has
written a perspective piece to be published in the Proceedings of the IEEE
in which he argues that mathematical Platonism is an inaccurate view of
reality. Instead, he argues for the opposing viewpoint, the non-Platonist
notion that mathematics is a product of the human imagination that we tailor
to describe reality.
This argument is not new. In fact, Abbott estimates
(through his own experiences, in an admittedly non-scientific survey) that
while 80% of mathematicians lean toward a Platonist view, engineers by and
large are non-Platonist. Physicists tend to be "closeted non-Platonists," he
says, meaning they often appear Platonist in public. But when pressed in
private, he says he can "often extract a non-Platonist confession."
So if mathematicians, engineers, and physicists can
all manage to perform their work despite differences in opinion on this
philosophical subject, why does the true nature of mathematics in its
relation to the physical world really matter?
The reason, Abbott says, is that because when you
recognize that math is just a mental construct—just an approximation of
reality that has its frailties and limitations and that will break down at
some point because perfect mathematical forms do not exist in the physical
universe—then you can see how ineffective math is.
And that is Abbott's main point (and most
controversial one): that mathematics is not exceptionally good at describing
reality, and definitely not the "miracle" that some scientists have marveled
at. Einstein, a mathematical non-Platonist, was one scientist who marveled
at the power of mathematics. He asked, "How can it be that mathematics,
being after all a product of human thought which is independent of
experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality?"
In 1959, the physicist and mathematician Eugene
Wigner described this problem as "the unreasonable effectiveness of
mathematics." In response, Abbott's paper is called "The Reasonable
Ineffectiveness of Mathematics." Both viewpoints are based on the
non-Platonist idea that math is a human invention. But whereas Wigner and
Einstein might be considered mathematical optimists who noticed all the ways
that mathematics closely describes reality, Abbott pessimistically points
out that these mathematical models almost always fall short.
What exactly does "effective mathematics" look
like? Abbott explains that effective mathematics provides compact, idealized
representations of the inherently noisy physical world.
"Analytical mathematical expressions are a way
making compact descriptions of our observations," he told Phys.org. "As
humans, we search for this 'compression' that math gives us because we have
limited brain power. Maths is effective when it delivers simple, compact
expressions that we can apply with regularity to many situations. It is
ineffective when it fails to deliver that elegant compactness. It is that
compactness that makes it useful/practical ... if we can get that
compression without sacrificing too much precision.
"I argue that there are many more cases where math
is ineffective (non-compact) than when it is effective (compact). Math only
has the illusion of being effective when we focus on the successful
examples. But our successful examples perhaps only apply to a tiny portion
of all the possible questions we could ask about the universe."
Some of the arguments in Abbott's paper are based
on the ideas of the mathematician Richard W. Hamming, who in 1980 identified
four reasons why mathematics should not be as effective as it seems.
Although Hamming resigned himself to the idea that mathematics is
unreasonably effective, Abbott shows that Hamming's reasons actually support
non-Platonism given a reduced level of mathematical effectiveness.
Here are a few of Abbott's reasons for why
mathematics is reasonably ineffective, which are largely based on the
non-Platonist viewpoint that math is a human invention:
• Mathematics appears to be successful because we
cherry-pick the problems for which we have found a way to apply mathematics.
There have likely been millions of failed mathematical models, but nobody
pays attention to them. ("A genius," Abbott writes, "is merely one who has a
great idea, but has the common sense to keep quiet about his other thousand
insane thoughts.")
• Our application of mathematics changes at
different scales. For example, in the 1970s when transistor lengths were on
the order of micrometers, engineers could describe transistor behavior using
elegant equations. Today's submicrometer transistors involve complicated
effects that the earlier models neglected, so engineers have turned to
computer simulation software to model smaller transistors. A more effective
formula would describe transistors at all scales, but such a compact formula
does not exist.
• Although our models appear to apply to all
timescales, we perhaps create descriptions biased by the length of our human
lifespans. For example, we see the Sun as an energy source for our planet,
but if the human lifespan were as long as the universe, perhaps the Sun
would appear to be a short-lived fluctuation that rapidly brings our planet
into thermal equilibrium with itself as it "blasts" into a red giant. From
this perspective, the Earth is not extracting useful net energy from the
Sun.
• Even counting has its limits. When counting
bananas, for example, at some point the number of bananas will be so large
that the gravitational pull of all the bananas draws them into a black hole.
At some point, we can no longer rely on numbers to count.
• And what about the concept of integers in the
first place? That is, where does one banana end and the next begin? While we
think we know visually, we do not have a formal mathematical definition. To
take this to its logical extreme, if humans were not solid but gaseous and
lived in the clouds, counting discrete objects would not be so obvious. Thus
axioms based on the notion of simple counting are not innate to our
universe, but are a human construct. There is then no guarantee that the
mathematical descriptions we create will be universally applicable.
For Abbott, these points and many others that he
makes in his paper show that mathematics is not a miraculous discovery that
fits reality with incomprehensible regularity. In the end, mathematics is a
human invention that is useful, limited, and works about as well as
expected.
Continued in article
Real Science versus Pseudo Science ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm#Pseudo-Science
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
Bob Jensen's threads on Mathematical Analytics in Plato's Cave
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm#Analytics
From the Scout Report on March 11, 2016
Viivo ---
https://viivo.com/
Whether it is Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, or
one of the other multifarious iterations of cloud-based storage now
available, most Internet users store at least some of their data far away
from their home computers. That's no problem when the data is something
innocuous like a grocery list or a batch of cat photos, but what about when
the files are medical records, social security information, or other
sensitive materials? Then, most experts agree, it's time to look at
encryption services. Enter Viivo, a free encryption service that has been on
the market for more than half a decade. Viivo is available for both Mac and
Windows machines, as well iOS and Android mobile devices. It supports
Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, and Google Drive. Downloading the service usually
takes less than a minute. From there, users can begin to upload encrypted
files to the cloud based service of their choice.
TunnelBear ---
https://www.tunnelbear.com/
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a secured
network that allows users to share data remotely through public networks,
all the while hiding sensitive information, such as your IP address and
location, from websites, hackers, and advertisers. Tunnel Bear is one of the
most attractive and user friendly VPNs on the market. Download takes less
than a minute. From there, a honey pot appears on your computer's toolbar.
Clicking the toggle switch turns the service on and off. As long as the
switch is turned "on," the service is working to keep your connection
private. For added benefit, you can also choose to access the Internet from
servers in countries around the world. Most users will be satisfied with the
free plan, but those who need more data may pay for the more advanced plans.
Blue Origin and the Corporate Race for Space
Jeff Bezos Lifts Veil on His Rocket Company, Blue Origin
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/science/space/jeff-bezos-lifts-veil-on-his-rocket-company-blue-origin.html
Blue Origin Going to Space by 2017
http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2016-03-08/blue-origin-planning-human-test-flights-to-space-by-2017
Blue Origin's Landing Is Even Cooler From the Rocket's View
http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a19345/blue-origins-landing-is-even-cooler-from-the-rockets-view/
Blue Origin: Quiet Plans for Spaceships
http://www.space.com/19584-blue-origin-quiet-plans-for-spaceships.html
NASA: Kennedy Space Center: History of Human Space Flight
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/history/spacehistory_toc.html
NASA Space Shuttle - Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOETScsJWpY
From the Scout Report on March 25, 2016
Wunderlist ---
https://www.wunderlist.com
Created in 2010, Wunderlist remains an excellent
option for managing to-do lists. Attractive and intuitive, the minimalist
functionality of the app is often what wins users over. However, the fact
that it's available on every major platform, allowing users to review a
variety of lists (groceries, movies to watch, homework, etc.) from anywhere,
is perhaps most noteworthy. Navigating the app is easy. Simply create lists,
assign yourself tasks, create due dates, and search and sort through
whatever you have added. Wunderlist synchronizes across devices, works well
on handhelds and tablets, and is completely free.
After the Deadline ---
http://www.afterthedeadline.com/
After the Deadline is a simple, easy-to-use editing
program that checks grammar, style, spelling, and punctuation. To start
using the add-on, simply select "download" from the homepage. Then select
the platform for which you would like to use After the Deadline, from a list
that includes Chrome, Firefox, WordPress, and a number of other options.
Once activated, the program underlines suspect words and phrases in red (for
spelling errors), green (for grammatical errors), and blue (for style
suggestions), offering suggestions along the way.
Artificial Intelligence Beats a World Class Go Master
In Two Moves, AlphaGo and Lee Sedol Redefined the Future
http://www.wired.com/2016/03/two-moves-alphago-lee-sedol-redefined-future/
Mastering the game of Go with deep neural networks and tree search
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7587/full/nature16961.html
In the Age of Google DeepMind, Do the Young Go Prodigies of Asia Have a
Future?
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/in-the-age-of-google-deepmind-do-the-young-go-prodigies-of-asia-have-a-future
YouTube: DeepMind
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP7jMXSY2xbc3KCAE0MHQ-A
Rage Against The Machines
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/rage-against-the-machines/
IBM100: Deep Blue
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/deepblue/
Free Online Tutorials, Videos, Course Materials, and
Learning Centers
Education Tutorials
Pew Research Center: Americans and Lifelong Learning ---
http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/03/22/lifelong-learning-and-technology/
Free M.I.T. Course Teaches You How to Become Bill Nye & Make Great Science
Videos for YouTube ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/free-m-i-t-course-teaches-you-how-to-become-bill-nye-make-great-science-videos-for-youtube.html
STEM Career ---
http://stemcareer.com/
Penguin Teacher's Guide: You Can Do a Graphic Novel (PDF) ---
http://www.penguin.com/static/pdf/teachersguides/you_can_do_a_graphic_novel_TG.pdf
Utah Education Network: Multimedia Resources for Educators and Students ---
http://www.uen.org/general_learner/multimedia_resources.shtml
POV: For Educators (hundreds of PBS documentaries on various topics) ---
http://www.pbs.org/pov/educators
Common Core Curriculum Unit Plans: Sociology ---
http://www.vcsd.k12.ny.us/Page/8135
American Chemistry Society: High School Chemistry Education Resources ---
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/resources/highschool.html
Sumanas, Inc. General Biotechnology Animations ---
http://sumanasinc.com/webcontent/animations/generalscience.html
Teaching Copyright ---
https://www.teachingcopyright.org/
Bob Jensen's threads on general education tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch
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
Free M.I.T. Course Teaches You How to Become
Bill Nye & Make Great Science Videos for YouTube ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/free-m-i-t-course-teaches-you-how-to-become-bill-nye-make-great-science-videos-for-youtube.html
Compound Interest: This Week In Chemistry ---
http://www.compoundchem.com/category/this-week-in-chemistry/
Birds-of-Paradise Project ---
http://www.birdsofparadiseproject.org
Jet Propulsion Laboratory: Asteroid Watch ---
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch/
STEM ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STEM
Pathways to Science: STEM
http://www.pathwaystoscience.org
STEM Career ---
http://stemcareer.com/
National Science Foundation: Resources for STEM
Education
http://www.nsfresources.org/home.cfm
STEMblog ---
http://blog.stemconnector.org
STEM-Works ---
http://stem-works.com/
National STEM Centre: Technology Resources ---
http://www.nationalstemcentre.org.uk/elibrary/technology/
Springboard to STEM ---
http://stem.firstbook.org/
Change the Equation (STEM Education)
http://changetheequation.org/
National Science Foundation: Resources for STEM Education
---
http://www.nsfresources.org/topic.cfm?topic=IM
Center on Education and The Workforce ( STEM) ---
http://cew.georgetown.edu/stem
Journal of Young Investigators (mostly STEM topics in
science, engineering, and technology) ---
http://www.jyi.org/
STEM Planet ---
http://www.stemplanet.org/
The Space Place ---
http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/
NASA Women of STEM ---
http://www.nasa.gov/education/womenstem/ Science,
Technology, Engineering and Math: Education for Global
Leadership ---
http://www.ed.gov/stem
National Science Foundation: Resources for STEM Education
---
http://www.nsfresources.org/topic.cfm?topic=IM
The Smart Grid For Institutions of Higher Education And The
Students They Serve (career in science inspirations and preparation) ---
http://php.aaas.org/programs/centers/capacity/documents/SmartGrid.pdf
Salvadori Center [STEM Education Resources] ---
http://www.salvadori.o
New York State STEM Education Collaborative
http://www.nysstemeducation.org/index.html
Afterschool Alliance: Afterschool and STEM ---
http://www.afterschoolalliance.org/STEM.cfm
I-STEM ---
http://www.istem.illinois.edu/index.html
ISTEM: Lesson Plans ---
https://www.istemnetwork.org/resource/educational/lesson.cfm
Office of Science Education - LifeWorks ---
http://science.education.nih.gov/LifeWorks.nsf/feature/index.htm
EuroStemCell ---
http://www.eurostemcell.org/
POV: For Educators (hundreds of documentarys on various
topics) ---
http://www.pbs.org/pov/educators
American Chemistry Society: High School Chemistry Education Resources ---
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/resources/highschool.html
Sumanas, Inc. General Biotechnology Animations ---
http://sumanasinc.com/webcontent/animations/generalscience.html
Journal of Probiotics & Health ---
http://www.omicsonline.org/probiotics-health.php
From the Scout Report on March 11, 2016
Blue Origin and the Corporate Race for Space
Jeff Bezos Lifts Veil on His Rocket Company, Blue Origin
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/science/space/jeff-bezos-lifts-veil-on-his-rocket-company-blue-origin.html
Blue Origin Going to Space by 2017
http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2016-03-08/blue-origin-planning-human-test-flights-to-space-by-2017
Blue Origin's Landing Is Even Cooler From the Rocket's View
http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a19345/blue-origins-landing-is-even-cooler-from-the-rockets-view/
Blue Origin: Quiet Plans for Spaceships
http://www.space.com/19584-blue-origin-quiet-plans-for-spaceships.html
NASA: Kennedy Space Center: History of Human Space Flight
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/history/spacehistory_toc.html
NASA Space Shuttle - Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOETScsJWpY
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
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Phenomenology ---
http://www.iep.utm.edu/phenom/
CareersInPsychology.org ---
http://careersinpsychology.org/
POV: For Educators (hundreds of PBS documentaries on various topics) ---
http://www.pbs.org/pov/educators
Common Core Curriculum Unit Plans: Sociology ---
http://www.vcsd.k12.ny.us/Page/8135
Vela Magazine (female journalism) ---
http://velamag.com/
Adam Smith in Glasgow ---
http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/archives/exhibitions/smith/
National Resources Defense Council: Environmental Justice ---
http://www.nrdc.org/ej/
United Nations Environment Programme: Resources and Data ---
http://www.unep-wcmc.org/resources-and-data
1963: The Struggle for Civil Rights ---
http://civilrights.jfklibrary.org
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
National Resources Defense Council: Environmental Justice ---
http://www.nrdc.org/ej/
Sea of Liberty (Thomas Jefferson's Ideas on Liberty) ---
https://seaofliberty.org/
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act
Fair Use ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
Picking The Locks: Redefining Copyright Law In The Digital Age ---
http://lisnews.org/picking_the_locks_redefining_copyright_law_in_the_digital_age
Ultimate Guide to Copyright for Students ---
http://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/student-copyright/
"Google
Gets Another Win in Book-Scanning Court Challenge," Andy Thomason,
Chronicle of Higher Education, October 16, 2015 ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/google-gets-another-win-in-book-scanning-court-challenge/105884?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en&elq=ec9e14ee5eff44fa87240c66a2380dd4&elqCampaignId=1636&elqaid=6609&elqat=1&elqTrackId=ac65689c97d147cdacf63acf9caf390a
Jensen Comment
It's a bit confusing regarding how scanned Google books can be used in the many
nations that do not have a Fair Use Safe Harbor used to justify Google book
scanning in the USA.
From the Scout Report on March 18, 2016
Teaching Copyright
https://www.teachingcopyright.org/
When California passed a law in 2006 requiring schools
that accept
technology funding to educate their students about copyright, plagiarism,
and Internet safety, many states considered following suit. However, to
date there are few online curricula that help educators to present
copyright law in a way that is both balanced and thought provoking. Enter
Teaching Copyright, which boasts five lessons that seek to teach students
the basics of copyright while encouraging their creativity and curiosity.
Lessons cover such topics as copyright and the rewards of innovation, the
intricacies of fair use, free speech, public domain, and a review of what
students already know. The last lesson takes students through an
entertaining and educational mock trial that helps them master the
principles of fair use. [CNH]
2. Library of Congress: Timeline of Copyright
Milestones
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/copyrightmystery/text/files/
Prior to the Statute of Anne, which was passed in
England on April 10,
1710, the rights of authors and publishers to control the copying and
distribution of their work went largely unacknowledged. However, after that
landmark law, a number of nations instituted copyright laws similar to the
ones we know today, including laws passed in the post-Revolutionary War
United States. On this page from the Library of Congress, readers will find
an excellent timeline of copyright milestones, from the age of scribes
prior to the invention of the printing press in the 15th century to the age
of the Internet. Along the way they may enjoy perusing entries about the
Universal Copyright Convention, held in Geneva, Switzerland in 1952, the
amending copyright laws in 1980 to include computer programs, and the 1998
law that extended copyright protection to the life of an author plus 70
years after the author's death. Indeed, this excellent compilation helps
take "the mystery out of copyright," and offers a comprehensive look at
copyright law through the ages. [CNH]
3. Common Sense Media: Copyright and Fair Use
Animation
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/videos/copyright-and-fair-use-animation
This three-minute video about copyright and fair use,
which was produced by
Common Sense Media and intended for use by secondary teachers, provides an
excellent overview of basic concepts related to copyright law. For example,
the video offers five tips for using copyrighted Internet content,
including: check who owns it, get permission to use it, give credit to the
creator, buy it (if necessary), and use it responsibly. The video also
explains that content can be used fairly when the intention is related to
schoolwork and education, news reporting, criticizing or commenting, and
comedy or parody, but that the work must not be for profit and only small
bits of it can be presented. In addition to the short animation, the site
provides a helpful lesson plan called "Copyrights and Wrongs," as well as a
Video Discussion Guide to help students engage with the material. [CNH]
4. Copyright in Education Flowchart
https://exbibliolibris.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/copyright-flowchart.jpg
"Can I use material I found online for teaching or
school work?" This
illuminating infographic answers the question in a step-by-step guide,
identifying what material can - and cannot - be used for teaching or school
purposes. For example, the flowchart suggests that readers who need media
to present their research or to assist with teaching might first consider
creating their own media. If they can't do that, they might search for
Public Domain materials. If they can't find what they're looking for in the
public domain, they might search for Creative Commons. If that doesn't
work, they can then think about whether they might claim Fair Use. The
infographic also includes a section on licensing one's own media, a section
on how to think about whether it might be feasible to claim fair use, and
instructions for how to ethically and legally claim fair use in certain
circumstances. [CNH]
5. Fair Use Evaluator
http://librarycopyright.net/resources/fairuse/
In the United States, use of copyrighted material is
considered fair when
it is done for a limited and transformative purpose. Knowing what is
determined fair use and what isn't, however, is not always as easy as it
sounds. The Fair Use Evaluator, which was created by the American Library
Association's Office for Information Technology Policy, helps readers
through the process of deciding what is and isn't fair use under the U.S.
Copyright Code. To use the evaluator, select "Make a Fair Use Evaluation."
The program will then take readers through five steps, including Getting
Started, The Fair Use Evaluator, Provide Additional Information, Get a Hard
or Electronic Copy, and How to Use Your Analysis. In addition, on the
homepage readers may also select Learn More About Fair Use, for basic
information about fair use guidelines. As an interactive tool, the
Evaluator is a helpful resource for anyone unsure about fairness of use.
[CNH]
6. The United States Copyright Office
http://copyright.gov
The United States Copyright Office website virtually teems with information
about the multifarious intricacies and real world practicalities of
copyright law. Here readers may Register a Copyright, Record a Document,
Search Records, and Learn About Statutory Licensing. They may also engage
in various Tutorials that are designed to help users navigate the site,
such as an excellent Copyright Search Tutorial, which may be viewed in
PowerPoint, Webpage, PDF, and OpenDocument formats. Beginners to the wide
world of Copyright may benefit from the answers found in the Frequently
Asked Questions section, where they can find explanations of such
quandaries as "What is Copyright?" and "When is my work protected?" Finally
the Law and Policy page includes a range of services, including sections
dedicate to Copyright Law, Regulations, and Policy Reports, among many
others. Interested readers may also find the Fair Use Index especially
useful as it allows users to search jurisdictions and categories for
particular cases and judicial decisions. [CNH]
7. NYPL: Public Domain Collections
http://www.nypl.org/research/collections/digital-collections/public-domain
According to Copyright.gov, "A work of authorship is
in the 'public domain'
if it is no longer under copyright protection or if it failed to meet the
requirements for copyright protection." Works in the public domain may be
used free of charge for any purpose. Amazingly, the New York Public Library
has recently placed more than 180,000 of the items in their Digital
Collections in the public domain. Readers may like to explore several tools
and projects designed to inspire use of the public domain resources. These
include Visualize the Public Domain, where readers may scout the public
domain resources by century, genre, collection, or color; Discover the
Collections, where experts post blog entries inviting users to use the
collections in interesting ways; and a series of Public Domain Remixes, in
which NYPL staff have used public domain materials to create groundbreaking
games and projects. In addition, readers may use the excellent search
function to explore the digital collections and discover for themselves
what might be useful. [CNH]
===== Intellectual Property and Licensing ===
8. WIPO: What is Intellectual Property?
http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/
As this excellent site from the World Intellectual
Property Organization
(WIPO) so succinctly explains, intellectual property (IP) refers to
creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works;
designs; and symbols, names, and images used in commerce. Types of IP
include Copyright, Patents, Trademarks, Industrial Designs, and
Geographical Indications. As a whole, the WIPO website is broadly
informative and readers will find a number of excellent Publications. For
example, the freely downloadable PDF "What is IP?" contains an introduction
and pithy chapters on the subjects of patents, trademarks, industrial
design, and geographical indications, as well as a chapter dedicated to
copyright and related rights. For a more comprehensive treatment, readers
will also find the freely downloadable "WIPO Intellectual Property
Handbook." [CNH]
9. Intellectual Property Law: Why Should I Care?
https://unitproj.library.ucla.edu/col/bruinsuccess/01/01.cfm
This entertaining site from the UCLA Library helps
readers understand the
elaborate case law of intellectual property through illustrations, quizzes,
and colorful text boxes. After perusing the homepage, readers may like to
explore the various sections of the site. The first, Intellectual Property,
includes 15 subsections that explain the basics of copyright, fair use,
patents, trademarks, and other related topics before offering a quiz to
help readers maximize their learning. Need a File, Share a File delves into
copyright as related to the ever more common practice of file sharing,
while Citing and Documenting Sources provides an excellent primer on how to
avoid plagiarism and how to properly cite various types of media. For
readers working in a college context, this sterling resource from UCLA
libraries can provide students and professors with everything they need to
know about intellectual property in academia. [CNH]
10. Ten Simple Rules to Protect Your Intellectual
Property
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3493459/
Scientists of all kinds will benefit from reading this
excellent article
from the open access journal, PLoS: Computational Biology. The authors,
each of whom is well established in his field, offer ten simple rules that
might help researchers protect their intellectual property. These include
tips such as: Get Professional Help, Know Your (Intellectual Property)
Rights, Think about Why You Want IP, Be Realistic about What You Can, and
Cannot, Protect, Keep Your Idea Secret until You Have Filed a Patent
Application, and others. Each rule is accompanied by several explanatory
paragraphs that elucidate and clarify the points, making for an
exceptionally useful list of advice for scientists that would like to
protect their innovative work and develop it for the next phase of inquiry
and results.[CNH]
11. Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy:
Industries in Focus (PDF)
http://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/news/publications/IP_Report_March_2012.pdf
This 76-page report prepared by the Economics and
Statistics Administration
and the United States Patent and Trademark Office makes the case that, far
from being secondary to the task, trademarks and other intellectual
property (IP) rights provide the very bedrock by which the United States
expands its economy and makes its place in the world. Key findings of the
report include the fact that the U.S. economy as a whole relies on some
form of IP, because nearly every industry either produces or uses
intellectual property. The report also identifies 75 industries that are
particularly IP-intensive, and these industries accounted for approximately
27 million jobs and almost 19 percent of employment in the year 2010. The
report also includes distinct sections dedicated to patents, trademarks,
copyrights, and employment, each of which are fact filled and educational
in their own right. [CNH]
12. Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org
Creative Commons is a nonprofit that offers free legal
tools to creative
people who would like to share their work under specified conditions. On
the site, readers may like to start by searching the commons, which they
can do using the convenient search feature. A search turns up results from
the OpenClipArt library, Google, Wikimedia Commons, SoundCloud, and other
sources - all of it pre-approved for legal use. The site also features a
number of compelling features for users who would like to license their own
content. For example, under Licenses, users will find categories such as
About the Licenses, Choose a License, and Things to know before licensing
to understand available licensing options for particular products. On the
other hand, readers who would like to use the work of others may also read
about Best practices for attribution and Getting permission. Finally, the
Creative Commons blog is a regularly updated source of information about
licensing, public domain work, and the various artists and others that use
Creative Commons to license their work. [CNH]
13. Foter Blog: How To Attribute Creative Commons
Photos
http://foter.com/blog/how-to-attribute-creative-commons-photos/
With more than 227 million images available for legal use on its site,
Creative Commons is a phenomenal resource for bloggers, educators, web
designers, and many others working in digital images. However, according to
the researchers at Foter Blog, more than 90 percent of Creative Commons
photos are not attributed at all. Of those that are attributed, less than
10 percent are attributed properly. This surprisingly clear infographic
provides concise directions for how, exactly, to attribute Creative Commons
content. First, the infographic explains what a Creative Commons license is
and what it allows users to do. Then it explains the different conditions
(Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivative Works, and Share Alike) and
what they mean. Finally, the graphic offers some statistics on the most
popular licenses and categories before reviewing how users should attribute
photos, using a simple four-step process that includes citing the author,
the title of the work, the license type, and the copyright notices. For
readers who would like to understand how to properly attribute Creative
Commons content, this infographic is a must see. [CNH]
14. YouTube: A Shared Culture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQqZU8G7bAo
This snappy and succinct 3-minute video offers readers
a concise
explanation of what Creative Commons is, what it does, and how artists,
corporations, musicians, bloggers, and anyone else might make use of it.
Put simply, according the video, Creative Commons is like a public park:
anyone can use a public park, as long as they follow certain guidelines.
Likewise, anyone can use the materials on the Creative Commons website, as
long as they correctly attribute the work, based on the Creative Commons
licensing system. In addition, artists and others who would like to share
their work may choose exactly how they would like it to be used. For
example, can it be used for commercial purposes, or not? Or, can people use
it to make derivative work? Or, do the users need to share alike? Creative
Commons seeks to build a global community of shared ideas, and this video
explains the process. [CNH]
15. Finding Public Domain & Creative Commons Media
http://guides.library.harvard.edu/Finding_Images
Subject matter experts at the Harvard Law School
Library have compiled over
130 Research Guides to assist students and other library patrons with
their research initiatives. Ranging in topic from Animal Law to Mergers &
Acquisitions to Visualization Tools, there are numerous resources to be
explored. One particular guide of note is the Public Domain and Creative
Commons Media Finder. This handy reference was crafted by Research
Librarian Meg Kribble and will help interested readers locate and correctly
attribute public domain and Creative Commons media for personal and
academic use. To start, the guide breaks down the difference between the
public domain and Creative Commons. Then, the guide links to a helpful
three-minute video that explains the Creative Commons process and offers an
infographic detailing the various types of Creative Commons licenses.
Perhaps most helpful, are the annotated listings of public domain and
Creative Commons Web resources. This thorough compilation is sure to make
it easy to find Images, Audio Content, and Video Content for a variety of
projects and presentations. [CBD]
Bob Jensen's threads on the dreaded DMCA and Fair Use ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm#Copyright
Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Scroll down to "Law"
Math Tutorials
Scientists Discover That James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake Has an Amazingly
Mathematical “Multifractal” Structure ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/scientists-discover-that-james-joyces-finnegans-wake-has-an-amazingly-mathematical-multifractal-structure.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
POV: For Educators (hundreds of documentarys on various topics) ---
http://www.pbs.org/pov/educators
edwired (American History Blog, Education History) ---
http://edwired.org/
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Phenomenology ---
http://www.iep.utm.edu/phenom/
The Frick Collection: Virtual Tour ---
http://www.frick.org/visit/virtual_tour
The Frick Collection: Photoarchive ---
http://www.frick.org/research/photoarchive
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Puts Online 65,000 Works of Modern Art ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/the-museum-of-modern-art-moma-puts-online-65000-works-of-modern-art.html
Beauty, Virtue, & Vice: Images of Women in Nineteenth-Century American Prints
---
http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Exhibitions/Beauty/index.htm
The People Who Built the Atomic Bomb ---
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/03/atomic-bomb/475332/
Atomic Energy & Nuclear History Learning Curriculum ---
http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/specialcollections/omeka/exhibits/show/atomic
C-Span: American Writers ---
http://www.c-span.org/series/?americanWriters
Sea of Liberty (Thomas Jefferson's Ideas on Liberty) ---
https://seaofliberty.org/
Wilson Center Digital Archive: Vietnam War ---
http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/87/vietnam-war
USGS Historical Topographical Map Explorer ---
http://historicalmaps.arcgis.com/usgs/
Adam Smith in Glasgow ---
http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/archives/exhibitions/smith/
Digital Archives of Norway ---
http://www.arkivverket.no/eng/Digitalarkivet
A Curated Collection of Vintage Japanese Magazine Covers
(1913-46) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/a-curated-collection-of-vintage-japanese-magazine-covers-1913-46.html
Spirited Republic: Alcohol in American History ---
http://www.archives.gov/publications/ebooks/spirited-republic.html
Alcohol, Temperance & Prohibition
http://library.brown.edu/cds/temperance/
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration ---
http://www.samhsa.gov
Library of Congress: Themed Resources: Baseball ---
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/themes/baseball/
Baseball and Jackie Robinson ---
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/robinson/
1963: The Struggle for Civil Rights ---
http://civilrights.jfklibrary.org
William James on Attention, Multitasking, and the Habit ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/03/25/william-james-attention/?mc_cid=0379a5846e&mc_eid=4d2bd13843
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
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
C-Span: American Writers ---
http://www.c-span.org/series/?americanWriters
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
Updates from WebMD ---
http://www.webmd.com/
March 15, 2016
March 16, 2016
March 17, 2016
March 18, 2016
March 20, 2016
March 21, 2016
March 22, 2016
March 23, 2016
March 24, 2016
March 25, 2016
March 26, 2016
March 28, 2016
"Controlling Diabetes with a Skin Patch," by David Talbut, MIT's
Technology Review, March 22, 2016 ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601064/controlling-diabetes-with-a-skin-patch/#/set/id/601089/
Attempting to free people with diabetes from
frequent finger-pricks and drug injections, researchers have created an
electronic skin patch that senses excess glucose in sweat and automatically
administers drugs by heating up microneedles that penetrate the skin.
Continued in article
Journal of Probiotics & Health ---
http://www.omicsonline.org/probiotics-health.php
We're Not Talking Politics Here
The FDA Looks to Crack Down on Manure (Again) ---
http://reason.com/archives/2016/03/12/the-fda-looks-to-crack-down-on-manure-ag
What you gonna do with this stuff Leroy?
An Ode To The Rice Cooker, The Smartest Kitchen Appliance I’ve Ever Owned
---
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/an-ode-to-the-rice-cooker-the-smartest-kitchen-appliance-ive-ever-owned/
Humor March 19-29, 2016
How to Sound Smart in a TED Talk: A Funny Primer by Saturday Night Live‘s
Will Stephen ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/how-to-sound-smart-in-a-ted-talk-a-funny-primer-by-saturday-night-lives-will-stephen.html
Larry David returned to 'Saturday Night Live' to reprise his role as Bernie
Sanders ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-david-bernie-sanders-impersonation-saturday-night-live-snl-supporters-2016-3
he Daily Show skewered all of Hillary Clinton’s
recent gaffes. It’s hard to watch ---
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/16/11244294/daily-show-hillary-clinton-gaffes
15 jokes that only smart people will truly appreciate ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/best-jokes-for-smart-people
Humor February 2016
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book16q1.htm#Humor022916.htm
Humor January 2016
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book16q1.htm#Humor013116.htm
Humor December 1-31, 2015
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q4.htm#Humor123115.htm.htm
Humor November 1-30, 2015
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book15q4.htm#Humor113015.htm
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