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 January 30, 2016
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

 

 

Tidbits on January 30, 2016
Scroll Down This Page

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

Google Scholar --- https://scholar.google.com/

Wikipedia --- https://www.wikipedia.org/

Bob Jensen's search helpers --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm

Bob Jensen's World Library --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm

 




Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio

This 20-second NASA video shows how Earth temperatures have changed since 1880 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-world-surface-temperatures-warmed-2017-1

An Animated History of Planned Parenthood, Brought to You by Lena Dunham, JJ Abrams & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/an-animated-history-of-planned-parenthood.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Before Siri & Alexa: Hear the First Attempt to Use a Synthesizer to Recreate the Human Voice (1939) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/before-siri-alexa-hear-the-first-attempt-to-use-a-synthesizer-to-recreate-the-human-voice-1939.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Most Dangerous Countries of the World for Tourists (and visiting faculty and students) ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/dangerous-countries-world-tourists-travel-international-2017-1


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 

Watch Priceless 17-Century Stradivarius and Amati Violins Get Taken for a Test Drive by Professional Violinists ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/stradivarius-and-amati-violins-get-taken-for-a-test-drive-by-professional-violinists.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Musician Lugs a Cello Up a Mountain, Then Plays Bach at 10,000 Feet, at the “Top of the World” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/musician-lugs-a-cello-up-a-mountain-then-plays-bach-at-10000-feet-at-the-top-of-the-world.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

81-Year-Old Man Walks into a Guitar Shop & Starts Playing a Sublime Solo: Ignore the Talents of the Elderly at Your Own Peril ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/81-year-old-man-walks-into-a-guitar-shop-starts-playing-a-sublime-solo.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

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

Education at the Getty: Poetry and Art --- http://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/classroom_resources/curricula/poetry_and_art

NASA Released 100 New Pictures of Pluto ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-color-photos-pluto-flyby-2017-1

Here are 47 national parks you can visit free in Canada in 2017 ---
http://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/tripideas/here-are-the-47-national-parks-in-canada-you-can-visit-for-free-in-2017/ss-AAlRSRc?ocid=spartanntp

26 Places to Visit Before They Disappear ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/endangered-destinations-that-will-be-gone-soon-climate-change-2017-1

Around the World Travel Planner ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-2017-travel-planner-where-to-go-every-month-of-the-year-2017-1/#january-tasmania-australia-1

Audubon's Aviary: The Final Flight --- http://audubon.nyhistory.org

Female Samurai Warriors Immortalized in 19th Century Japanese Photos ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/female-samurai-warriors-immortalized-in-19th-century-japanese-photos.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Botanical Art & Artists: Maria Sibylla Merian --- http://www.botanicalartandartists.com/about-maria-sibylla-merian.html

USA's National Parks ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-national-parks-photos-2017-1

Hotels With Views ---
http://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/tripideas/the-hotels-with-the-most-insane-views-in-the-world/ss-AAm9L3E?ocid=spartanntp

Haunting photos from inside former strongholds of the Islamic State ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-isis-leaves-behind-2017-1

Bob Jensen's threads on art history ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#ArtHistory

Bob Jensen's threads on history, literature and art ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History


Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on libraries --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#---Libraries

Sartre versus Campus:  How did the 20th century’s most glamorous intellectual friendship go wrong? ---
https://aeon.co/videos/how-did-the-20th-centurys-most-glamorous-intellectual-friendship-go-wrong?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=9221ed4be3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_01_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-9221ed4be3-68951505

A poetic tour through Detroit’s abandoned, ghostly Packard Automotive Plant ---
https://aeon.co/videos/a-poetic-tour-through-detroits-abandoned-ghostly-packard-automotive-plant?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=9221ed4be3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_01_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-9221ed4be3-68951505

Romantic Circles (Romanticism and Literary Theory) -- http://www.rc.umd.edu

Horsethief Books (Poetry) --- https://www.horsethiefbooks.com

Scout Poetry --- http://scoutpoetry.com

Letters of 1916: A Year in the Life (Ireland) ---  http://letters1916.maynoothuniversity.ie

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 January 30, 2017
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2017/TidbitsQuotations012617.htm         

To Whom Does the USA Federal Government Owe Money (the booked obligation of $19+ trillion) ---
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculations/2016/05/25/spring-2016-to-whom-does-the-us-government-owe-money-n2168161?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
The US Debt Clock in Real Time --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 
Remember the Jane Fonda Movie called "Rollover" --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollover_(film)

To Whom Does the USA Federal Government Owe Money (the unbooked obligation of $100 trillion and unknown more in contracted entitlements) ---
http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/15/news/economy/entitlement-benefits/
The biggest worry of the entitlements obligations is enormous obligation for the future under the Medicare and Medicaid programs that are now deemed totally unsustainable ---
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

"These Slides Show Why We Have Such A Huge Budget Deficit And Why Taxes Need To Go Up," by Rob Wile, Business Insider, April 27, 2013 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/cbo-presentation-on-the-federal-budget-2013-4
This is a slide show based on a presentation by a Harvard Economics Professor.

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




Number of times Americans wrote out a check in 2015. Compare that number (17.3 billion) to the 69.5 billion debit card purchases in the same year ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/go-ahead-write-a-check-for-your-coffee-ive-got-all-day-1485277398


Video:  A New G-Mail Scam That's Affecting Even Tech Savvy Users
Here's a Two Step Verification Procedure to Protect Yourself ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-yasmin-green-jigsaw-hacked-online-phishing-scams-2017-1


 

The University of Washington Has a Course Devoted to Bullsh*t ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/calling-bullshit.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Jensen Comment
I wonder whether an A or F looks best for a Bullsh*t Course listed on a resume?

It's probably not much of an honor to have your writings featured in this course. In fact, it might even be libelous.

Do visiting speakers know what they're stepping into?

This adds new meaning to a student's claim: "This was a bullsh*t course"

What if a claim that a piece of research is "bullsh*t" is in itself a "bullsh*t" claim?

Does the professor of this course appreciate the value of "bullsh*t" like farmers appreciate the value of "bullsh*t"?

Sometimes the grass is greener on the other side because it's been fertilized with more bullsh*t.
Anonomous


A Free Course on Dante’s Divine Comedy from Yale University ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/a-free-course-on-dantes-divine-comedy-from-yale-university.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29


The Atlantic:  The For-Profit Law School That Crumbled ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/01/the-for-profit-law-school-that-crumbled/514355/

Jensen Comment
Admission standards are keys to the kingdom for prestige and respect. For-profit universities never seem to understand this or their business model just does not tolerate high admission standards.


Economists are the idiot savants of our time.
John Stuart Mill
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/mathematical-economics-training-too-narrow-by-robert-skidelsky-2016-12

Harvard:  Don't Cry for TPP Because the Trade Deal Was Hopelessly Flawed ---
https://hbr.org/2017/01/dont-cry-for-the-tpp?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date&utm_source=newsletter_daily_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=alert_date&spMailingID=16423126&spUserID=MTkyODM0MDg0MAS2&spJobID=942167996&spReportId=OTQyMTY3OTk2S0

President Trump’s formal withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations has precipitated a flood of tears about and warnings of the end of free trade and rising Chinese hegemony from orthodox economists and pundits.

But there is no cause for tears or grounds for fear. The TPP was a mistake. There was never anything there. Although advertised as trans-Pacific, about 500 million of the 750 million people living in countries to be covered by the deal were in the Americas — Canada, the United States, Mexico, Peru, and Chile — and were already party to interlocking free trade agreements.

Of the remaining countries — New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Japan, and Vietnam — the United States already had free trade deals with Australia and Singapore as well as a number of market-opening arrangements with Japan. By leaving China, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and India out of the deal, Washington was ignoring the vast bulk of the countries and people of the Asia-Pacific region. Moreover, even its most ardent advocates concluded that the agreement would have provided virtually no economic gain to the United States.

It was precisely because of this lack of economic benefits that President Obama was forced to try to sell the deal by claiming it would prevent China from writing the rules of trade for the future and also impede China’s rise as a new hegemon in Asia. Not only was this a false claim, it was also a foolish one. China was already negotiating with all the TPP countries, plus all the others in Asia noted above, for an arrangement called the Comprehensive Regional Economic Project.

Nothing the United States did was going to prevent those countries from also making a deal with China. Nor did China’s influence depend on any trade arrangement made by the United States. It arose, and would continue to arise, from China’s strong and growing international economic competitiveness. Indeed, it was strongly powered by its large, continuing trade surplus with the United States and the resulting growing hoard of dollar reserves. By dint of those reserves, China was able to establish an infrastructure bank and to promote its much ballyhooed One Belt One Road project. Offsetting China’s growing power could never have been achieved by a paltry trade deal like the proposed TPP.

For the future, what America needs is not so much more so-called free trade agreements as more balanced trade and more effective responses to mercantilist policies and practices. Four key elements need to be addressed: currency, taxes, investment incentives, and informal governmental intimidation.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment

Many things are strange when you look beyond the media's headlines. Exhibit A is the above TPP withdrawal that is not quite as bad as the media likes to portray. Exhibit B is the Keystone Pipeline that has environmentalists on the warpath. What they often fail to mention is that Trump may have quietly killed the pipeline by making it cost prohibitive. By requiring that both its materials (think steel) and its labor be American the cost may be driven so high that proponents will think twice about digging the ditch and planting the pipe. On both counts Trump may be making political windfalls that are being over-hyped by the media.


Wall Street is witnessing a 'third wave of computerization' ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/money-managers-pair-up-fintechs-to-adapt-in-changing-financial-world-2017-1

Jensen Comment
One future type of research for accountants might be to investigate how sensitive the new robotic financial advisors are to competing accounting rules such as goodwill impairment, lease accounting, tax deferment, and employee stock option rules. An advantage to a robot financial advisor is that the robot is likely to be less variable than 100 or more human advisors.


John Arnold Made a Fortune at Enron. Now He’s Declared War on Bad Science ---
https://www.wired.com/2017/01/john-arnold-waging-war-on-bad-science/

Bob Jensen's war on bad science in accounting (accountics) research ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm

Tom Lehrer on Mathematical Models and Statistics ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfZWyUXn3So
You must watch this to the ending to appreciate it.

Carl Sagan Presents His “Baloney Detection Kit”: 8 Tools for Skeptical Thinking ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/04/carl-sagan-presents-his-baloney-detection-kit-8-tools-for-skeptical-thinking.html

"David Ginsberg, chief data scientist at SAP, said communication skills are critically important in the field, and that a key player on his big-data team is a “guy who can translate Ph.D. to English. Those are the hardest people to find.”
James Willhite

The second is the comment that Joan Robinson made about American Keynsians: that their theories were so flimsy that they had to put math into them. In accounting academia, the shortest path to respectability seems to be to use math (and statistics), whether meaningful or not.
Professor Jagdish Gangolly, SUNY Albany


Texas Aggieland Bookstore --- http://txag.com/home.aspx 
Note that when you click the textbook button you are now taken to
https://www.textbooksolutions.com/rent-buy-textbooks.aspx

Texas Aggieland Bookstore no longer selling books ---
http://www.kbtx.com/content/news/Texas-Aggieland-Bookstore-no-longer-selling-books-411702275.html

. . .

The Texas Aggieland Bookstore is no longer selling books.

Buying textbooks for college classes isn't how it used to be.

"I find it easier just to get on my tablet and have my books on there," said Texas A&M student Zachary Williams.

He wasn't surprised that the Texas Aggieland Bookstore is pulling textbooks from shelves.

"Almost everyone I know just orders online, and they pick it up at the A&M Book Store or Amazon, or those companies that sell books to students," he said.

Wiley Tarver, Site Manager for Texas Aggieland Bookstore, says there were more than a dozen textbook stores in town when he started in the business 18 years ago.

Now it's down to two.

"Well Mr. {John} Raney just decided in the last summer that we would stop carrying books for a year, just kind of compare to how we did with the books. A lot of things have changed in the book market over the last 20 years. The internet sales, of course, being the main thing. Also, a lot of the publishers are bypassing the book stores all together," Tarver said.

 Continued in article

Jensen Comment
In some ways it's the Amazon used book service that kills bookstores. It's so darn efficient, and sometimes used books are only a penny plus a very reasonable shipping and handling charge. I've never really understood why some used books are so cheap while other used books often sell for more than the new copies on Amazon. I think the used book vendors place a high price on the book in anticipation that the book will soon be out of print and hard to get.

Used book vendors ship books directly to customers. However, you do not have to give strangers who ship the books your credit card number. Amazon collects the payment and guarantees satisfaction with the delivered book. What a service! I use this used book service all the time except when the used book price is greater than the new book price.

Students should use care in determining in advance whether a used textbook is the same edition as the edition required by the instructor.


Microsoft says its attack on Apple's Mac business is working ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-windows-gains-ground-on-apple-macs-2017-1


In 1996, David Foster Wallace profiled tennis player Michael Joyce in one of the most celebrated pieces of sports writing ever published. Who has he become since?
https://longreads.com/2017/01/17/michael-joyces-second-act/


A Study of 53,460 Course Grades in an Anonymous University Over Several Years
"Lenient Grades, Unreliable Grades," by Colleen Flaherety, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 24, 2017 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/01/24/study-suggests-grading-leniency-result-rather-cause-low-grading-reliability?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=536bf1c61e-DNU20170124&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-536bf1c61e-197565045&goal=0_1fcbc04421-536bf1c61e-197565045&mc_cid=536bf1c61e&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

Study Download Link
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311732407_The_relationship_between_grading_leniency_and_grading_reliability

Grading reliability for a class can be measured as the correlation between the students’ grade point average (GPA) and the grades they received in that class. Grading leniency can be measured as the difference between the average grade for the class and the students’ average GPA. Data from more than fifty-thousand course sections show that lenient grading is associated with lower grading reliability. This association is particularly strong among course sections with lenient grading. Although grading leniency may be a symptom rather than a cause of low-grading reliability, reducing grading leniency may lead to improved grading reliability

Jensen Comment
Tenure Question:  Did you ever notice that only a C separates the word faculty from faulty?
This study does not get at the root cause of grade inflation. The major cause, in my opinion, is allowing student evaluations to affect tenure and performance evaluations. This gives the power to make or break faculty careers in the hands of students, many of whom are vindictive when it comes to grades. We can hardly blame the students since in the 21st Century grades are keys to the their kingdoms of jobs and graduate school admissions. For a number of years Cornell University published course  and section grade distributions thinking that might embarrass faculty into being less lenient on grading. Even that did not work ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#RateMyProfessor

"Thomas Lindsay says 43 percent of college grades are A's, up 28 percentage points from 1960," by Thomas Lindsay, PolitiFact, January 12, 2013 ---
http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2013/jan/31/thomas-lindsay/thomas-lindsay-says-43-percent-college-grades-are-/

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

Former Harvard University President Laments Grade Inflation ---
http://larrysummers.com/2016/04/01/if-we-really-valued-excellence-we-would-single-it-out/

Bob Jensen's threads on grade inflation --- |
|http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#RateMyProfessor


Kansas State University physicists accidentally discover explosive way to make graphene ---
https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/graphene-ksu-explosion


The Research Essay from an Instructor’s Perspective ---
http://blogs.princeton.edu/librarian/2016/03/the-research-essay-from-an-instructors-perspective/

Jensen Comment
I posted this sometime ago, but it's worth a second look as a new semester begins.
Note the "Categories" column on the right side of the above link

A Helpful Guide to Essay Writing --- http://web.anglia.ac.uk/anet/students/documents/2010/helpful-guide-to-essay-writing.pdf 

9 Tools for the Accidental Writing Teacher ---
https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1460-9-tools-for-the-accidental-writing-teacher?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=c02935b437544e33aec1dd60ec6b609b&elq=120fbf25b20343698b941ab37c7e8aca&elqaid=9702&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=3464

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


Autoregressive Model --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoregressive_model

The Book (aimed somewhat at practitioners) is Free So What's to Lose?

A terrific new book titled, Quantitative Macroeconomic Modeling with Structural Vector Autoregressions – An EViews Implementation, is from the EViews site. The book is written by Sam Ouliaris, Adrian Pagan, and Jorge Restrepo.
David Giles
http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2017/01/quantitative-macroeconomic-modeling.html

The "blurb" about this important new book reads:

"Quantitative macroeconomic research is conducted in a number of ways. An important method has been the use of the technique known as Structural Vector Autoregressions (SVARs), which aims to gather information about dynamic processes in macroeconomic systems. This book sets out the theory underlying the SVAR methodology in a relatively simple way and discusses many of the problems that can arise when using the technique. It also proposes solutions that are relatively easy to implement using EViews 9.5. Its orientation is towards applied work and it does this by working with the data sets from some classic SVAR studies."

In my view, EViews is certainly the natural choice for this venture. As the authors note in their Preface:

"A choice had to be made about the computer package that would be used to perform the quantitative work and EViews was eventually selected because of its popularity amongst IMF staff and central bankers more generally."

I'm sure that his new resource will be very well received!


David Giles:  Vintage Years in Econometrics - The 1970's ---
 http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2017/01/vintage-years-in-econometrics-1970s.html

Jensen Comment
The 1970s commenced the critical years with new tests for the sensitivity to violations of underlying assumptions (e.g. serial correlation, normality, truncated normality, specification error, dummy variables, etc.). Not mentioned here is the rise of non-parametric models and analysis.


David Giles: When a Dummy Variable is Not a Dummy Variable ---
 http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2017/01/when-is-dummy-variable-not-dummy.html


Jagger's Theorem:  "You can't always get what you want."
David Giles the mentions Mick Jagger (a London School of Economics graduate) and the movie entitled "The Big Chill"
http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2017/01/jaggers-theorem.html

Jagger's Theorem:  "You can't always get what you want."
The latest issue of
Amstat News includes a piece written by Arthur Kenickell, a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. It's title is, "Crooked Roads: IRS Statistics of Income at 100". (See p.25.)


Robustness --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robust_statistics

What is Logic? The Rise and Fall and Rise Again of Logic
https://aeon.co/essays/the-rise-and-fall-and-rise-of-logic

Jensen Comment
Logic, like mathematics in general, depends upon underlying assumptions. Practical applications of logical conclusions depend upon realism (truth) of assumptions or robustness of the conclusions (answers) to errors in those assumptions. Perhaps there is no such thing as a perfect right angle in engineering construction on earth but the good thing is that the Pythagorean theorem is relatively robust to non-perfection of right angles. In political/philosophical logic things are usually not so robust.


12 Million Declassified CIA Documents Now Free Online: Secret Tunnels, UFOs, Psychic Experiments & More ---
 http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/12-million-declassified-cia-documents-now-free-online.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29 


Economist Magazine:  A cautionary tale about the promises of modern brain science ---
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21714978-cautionary-tale-about-promises-modern-brain-science-testing-methods?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/20170119n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/NA/8643534/n

But a paper just published in PLOS Computational Biology questions whether more information is the same thing as more understanding. It does so by way of neuroscience’s favourite analogy: comparing the brain to a computer. Like brains, computers process information by shuffling electricity around complicated circuits. Unlike the workings of brains, though, those of computers are understood on every level. 

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Something similar happens in accountancy where it's often assumed that more is better. For example, some academic accountants for years advocated more and more current value reporting of assets and liabilities combined with dubious "measures" of intangibles and contingencies without taking into account either the costs of such reporting nor the misleading outcomes and the dubious reliability of such data. Exhibit A is the ill-fated FAS 33 that required current cost data reporting for large companies. Academics salivated over the anticipated market reactions to this data. Financial analysts and investors meanwhile yawned and paid little attention to the costly requirement imposed by the FASB  Because financial analysts and investors found little value added in FAS 33 reporting the FASB rescinded the requirement not long afterwards.

The bottom line is that accountants are pretty good at bean counting but they're not so great at producing esoteric measures such as the "value" of a firm, the "value" of human resources, or expected losses from lawsuits that have not even been filed.


Open Course Library (supplementary materials for over 80 courses) --- http://opencourselibrary.org

Learnhigher: Free teaching & learning resources for staff in UK higher education --- http://www.learnhigher.ac.uk

Radio Garden (8,000+ Streaming Radio Stations) --- http://radio.garden
One huge education use of this could be in tuning radio stations from around the world to aid in learning foreign languages.


Chronicle of Higher Education:  What's Wrong With Econ 101
http://www.chronicle.com/article/What-s-Wrong-With-Econ-101/238927?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=c1f2b1cc755c4f249f97e669c378314a&elq=0962dcfae8cd4ef9ba2395ba2a7d4165&elqaid=12240&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=4963


Harvard:  One Communication Tool You Should Add to Your Toolkit
Want to provide better feedback, introduce people, or master small talk? Try this technique
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/one-communication-tool-you-should-add-your-toolkit?utm_source=Stanford+Business&utm_campaign=c4c93d1292-Stanford-Business-Issue-104-1-22-2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0b5214e34b-c4c93d1292-70265733&ct=t(Stanford-Business-Issue-104-1-22-2017)

Jensen Comment
Decades ago before there were so many women partners in large CPA firms one of those women let on that even before she was hired as a neophyte auditor she commenced to follow professional sports. It wasn't so much out of interest as it was in becoming able to make small talk "with the guys" she met as clients and as fellow employees. I know this sounds "sexist" these days, but she was right in the sense that making small talk is important in the many informal conversations you encounter both on the job and at other social gatherings. It sure beats the strain of having nothing to talk about except yourself and work. Conversations about weather and family only go so far.

The trick is both being informed about small talk subject matter and being able to judge what types of small talk is appropriate and the right times. Some folks have more talent for small talk (including humor) than other folks, but to a certain extent it can become an acquired skill, especially leading questions and comments. It's a skill that over the years I've noticed in many professionals (e.g., accountants, lawyers, business executives, and college administrators). This does include launching into dirty jokes except in very, very limited circumstances if ever.. That can become very dysfunctional. A lot of great small talkers never tell dirty jokes. Some are good at it at the right times, but these times are few and far between. Much depends on the crowd you hang out with.

One skill is the art of bringing out conversation in others. One of our grandchildren is mildly autistic. He graduated with honors from high school and is taking college courses in the home where he grew up. He will do well as a computer science major in college, but I worry about him in the professional world because he's so totally self-centered. He can make small talk when you ask him about himself or his hobbies or his school work. But he has no interest in others. He has no skill or interest in asking questions that lead others to talk about themselves. He seems destined to becoming a back room computer programmer for life. Maybe that's all his brain chemistry will allow. I'm told that this type of self-centeredness is not always a trait of autism.

There's nothing more boring than having a conversations with people who are only interested in themselves. Over the years I've become pretty good at getting people to talk about themselves. I'm not so good at small talk per se, which may be the reason I never became a partner in a firm or a college administrator. I think people approach me outdoors for shade more than my small talk.

Another thing I've noticed about great small talkers is that many of them are a fountain of cute/entertaining quotations. The obvious quotations of interest to persons of my generation are those of Yogi Berra, Will Rogers, and Bob Hope. Even Shakespeare might do at times, even in crowded pubs. Are there any noted small talkers among the millennials?

One type of small talk that's not recommended is bragging.  Another is chronic complaining small talk. In these of hatrid-filled days politics can be especially dangerous for small talk. Politics conversation is not verboten but be very, very cautious. There are times to pick fights and times not to pick fights such as when you're with your clients or your students.

Talking about things you know nothing about is not verboten unless you pretend to know more that you know. This is when it's really important about knowing who to quote. Gossip's not absolutely verboten if you know your audience. Malicious gossip is usually verboten for virtually any audience. Maliciousness says more about you than the people you malign.

There were times in boring receptions where I sought out small talkers who usually had some entertaining gossip, but not malicious, gossip such as funny little anecdotes about eccentric professors. Sometimes gossips are just better at all types of small talk. Prudes are usually worse at all types of small talk.

Forbes:  Nine Things to Make You Likeable ---
https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2017/01/24/nine-things-that-make-you-unlikeable/#1d7fa4a18f74

If Economists Want to be Trusted Again, They Should Learn to Tell Jokes ---
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/if-economists-want-to-be-trusted-again-they-should-learn-to-tell-jokes/


The pampering of students as customers, the proliferation of faux "universities," grade inflation, and the power reversal between instructor and student are well-documented, much-lamented academic phenomena. These parts, however, make up a far more dangerous whole: a citizenry unprepared for its duties in the public sphere and mired in the confusion that comes from the indifferent and lazy grazing of cable, talk radio, and the web. Worse, citizens are no longer approaching political participation as a civic duty, but instead are engaging in relentless conflict on social media, taking offense at everything while believing anything.
Tom Nichols in the Chronicle of Higher Education
http://www.chronicle.com/article/Our-Graduates-Are-Rubes/238865?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=822844e0e47542d9b155a36cda3385c0&elq=8c5034222d674289ae16111cbab1edc5&elqaid=12161&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=4917

Jensen Comment
The above article fails to acknowledge why students will or will not study diligently under grade inflation where the median grade is an A- across the USA.

Students spend sleepless nights in blood, sweat, and tears when they face competency examinations. For example, a pre-med major at Harvard will work night in day in a biology or chemistry course at Harvard knowing that virtually all students in the class will get an A grade. The reason is that this student is in reality studying for the MCAT competency examination to get into medical student. Nursing students will do the same thing across the USA knowing they face a licensing examination to become a nurse. Those accounting students across the USA drive themselves hard in accounting courses knowing that when they graduate they face a tough CPA examination with a high failure rate. The same is true of finance students facing a CFA examination.

The tell-tale impact of grade inflation without competency examinations came when 60+ students were expelled from Harvard for cheating on a homework assignment in a political science course. What puzzled the professor is why those students cheated when he assured every student who did the assignments that they would be given A grades irrespective of the quality of their work. What he failed to realize is that students not only did not work hard on assignments under those circumstances --- they were willing to cheat since their efforts did not count toward a grade or the passage of a competency examination in political science when they graduated ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#UVA

My point is that some students study really hard in a world of grade inflation when their efforts pay off with post-graduate rewards such as admission into competitive graduate programs based on GRE scores, MCAT scores, LSAT scores, GMAT scores, etc. They will also work very hard when top job offers like those on Wall Street or in top law firms are highly competitive.


The University of Michigan is the first public institution ever to pay three assistant football coaches more than $1 million each in one year.---
http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/18546001/michigan-wolverines-pay-top-assistants-1-million-year?elqTrackId=7cca4fb7ec874dfe827250925aeacded&elq=d85915b553384f84bd4cdabbdc2c1c6e&elqaid=12281&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=4988

Jensen Comment
Maybe in the off season they can truck water to Flint.


Economist Magazine Cover Story:  Lifelong learning is becoming an economic imperative ---
http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21714169-technological-change-demands-stronger-and-more-continuous-connections-between-education

Technological change demands stronger and more continuous connections between education and employment, says Andrew Palmer. The faint outlines of such a system are now emerging

THE RECEPTION AREA contains a segment of a decommissioned Underground train carriage, where visitors wait to be collected. The surfaces are wood and glass. In each room the talk is of code, web development and data science. At first sight the London office of General Assembly looks like that of any other tech startup. But there is one big difference: whereas most firms use technology to sell their products online, General Assembly uses the physical world to teach technology. Its office is also a campus. The rooms are full of students learning and practising code, many of whom have quit their jobs to come here. Full-time participants have paid between £8,000 and £10,000 ($9,900-12,400) to learn the lingua franca of the digital economy in a programme lasting 10-12 weeks.

General Assembly, with campuses in 20 cities from Seattle to Sydney, has an alumni body of around 35,000 graduates. Most of those who enroll for full-time courses expect them to lead to new careers. The company’s curriculum is based on conversations with employers about the skills they are critically short of. It holds “meet and hire” events where firms can see the coding work done by its students. Career advisers help students with their presentation and interview techniques. General Assembly measures its success by how many of its graduates get a paid, permanent, full-time job in their desired field. Of its 2014-15 crop, three-quarters used the firm’s career-advisory services, and 99% of those were hired within 180 days of beginning their job hunt.

The company’s founder, Jake Schwartz, was inspired to start the company by two personal experiences: a spell of drifting after he realised that his degree from Yale conferred no practical skills, and a two-year MBA that he felt had cost too much time and money: “I wanted to change the return-on-investment equation in education by bringing down the costs and providing the skills that employers were desperate for.” In rich countries the link between learning and earning has tended to follow a simple rule: get as much formal education as you can early in life, and reap corresponding rewards for the rest of your career. The literature suggests that each additional year of schooling is associated with an 8-13% rise in hourly earnings. In the period since the financial crisis, the costs of leaving school early have become even clearer. In America, the unemployment rate steadily drops as you go up the educational ladder.

Many believe that technological change only strengthens the case for more formal education. Jobs made up of routine tasks that are easy to automate or offshore have been in decline. The usual flipside of that observation is that the number of jobs requiring greater cognitive skill has been growing. The labour market is forking, and those with college degrees will naturally shift into the lane that leads to higher-paying jobs.

The reality seems to be more complex. The returns to education, even for the high-skilled, have become less clear-cut. Between 1982 and 2001 the average wages earned by American workers with a bachelor’s degree rose by 31%, whereas those of high-school graduates did not budge, according to the New York Federal Reserve. But in the following 12 years the wages of college graduates fell by more than those of their less educated peers. Meanwhile, tuition costs at universities have been rising.

A question of degree, and then some

The decision to go to college still makes sense for most, but the idea of a mechanistic relationship between education and wages has taken a knock. A recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Centre showed that a mere 16% of Americans think that a four-year degree course prepares students very well for a high-paying job in the modern economy. Some of this may be a cyclical effect of the financial crisis and its economic aftermath. Some of it may be simply a matter of supply: as more people hold college degrees, the associated premium goes down. But technology also seems to be complicating the picture.

A paper published in 2013 by a trio of Canadian economists, Paul Beaudry, David Green and Benjamin Sand, questions optimistic assumptions about demand for non-routine work. In the two decades prior to 2000, demand for cognitive skills soared as the basic infrastructure of the IT age (computers, servers, base stations and fibre-optic cables) was being built; now that the technology is largely in place, this demand has waned, say the authors. They show that since 2000 the share of employment accounted for by high-skilled jobs in America has been falling. As a result, college-educated workers are taking on jobs that are cognitively less demanding (see chart), displacing less educated workers.

This analysis buttresses the view that technology is already playing havoc with employment. Skilled and unskilled workers alike are in trouble. Those with a better education are still more likely to find work, but there is now a fair chance that it will be unenjoyable. Those who never made it to college face being squeezed out of the workforce altogether. This is the argument of the techno-pessimists, exemplified by the projections of Carl-Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne, of Oxford University, who in 2013 famously calculated that 47% of existing jobs in America are susceptible to automation.

There is another, less apocalyptic possibility. James Bessen, an economist at Boston University, has worked out the effects of automation on specific professions and finds that since 1980 employment has been growing faster in occupations that use computers than in those that do not. That is because automation tends to affect tasks within an occupation rather than wiping out jobs in their entirety. Partial automation can actually increase demand by reducing costs: despite the introduction of the barcode scanner in supermarkets and the ATM in banks, for example, the number of cashiers and bank tellers has grown.

But even though technology may not destroy jobs in aggregate, it does force change upon many people. Between 1996 and 2015 the share of the American workforce employed in routine office jobs declined from 25.5% to 21%, eliminating 7m jobs. According to research by Pascual Restrepo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the 2007-08 financial crisis made things worse: between 2007 and 2015 job openings for unskilled routine work suffered a 55% decline relative to other jobs.

Continued in article

MIT:  What's the Oldest (major) Computer Program Still in Use?
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/538966/what-is-the-oldest-computer-program-still-in-use/

Hint
It's a Cobol system in the public sector.

Jensen Lament
What is more scary is how out of date computing technology is for nuclear weapons systems (think floppy disks)  ---
http://www.govexec.com/technology/2016/01/nuclear-weapons-technology-out-date/125438/


Memory of Mankind: All of Human Knowledge Buried in a Salt Mine ---
http://lisnews.org/memory_of_mankind_all_of_human_knowledge_buried_in_a_salt_mine

Jensen Comment
Of course "all of human knowledge" is an exaggeration. But a bunch is being stored for the long haul.


Educause:  2016 Students and Technology Research Study ---
https://library.educause.edu/resources/2016/6/2016-students-and-technology-research-study

This hub provides findings from the 2016 student study, part of the EDUCAUSE Technology Research in the Academic Community research series. ECAR collaborated with 183 institutions to collect responses from 71,641 undergraduate students across 25 countries about their technology experiences. This study explores technology ownership, use patterns, and expectations as they relate to the student experience. Colleges and universities can use the results of this study to better engage students in the learning process, as well as improve IT services, increase technology-enabled productivity, prioritize strategic contributions of IT to higher education, plan for technology shifts that impact students, and become more technologically competitive among peer institutions.

Bob Jensen's Education Technology Threads ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm


Law Schools Shed 1,460 Full-Time Faculty (16.1%) 2010-2016 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2017/01/law-schools-have-shed-1460-full-time-faculty-161-since-2010.html

The Future Is ‘Bleak’ For Law Students And Law School Graduates ---
http://abovethelaw.com/2016/05/the-future-is-bleak-for-law-students-and-law-school-graduates/?rf=1

Bob Jensen's Threads on the Troubled Times of Law Schools ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#OverstuffedLawSchools


Ten Leading Books in Economic History ---
https://notesonliberty.com/2017/01/09/ten-best-papers-in-economic-history-of-the-last-decades-part-1/


Finland’s Brain Drain After major budget cuts for universities, Ph.D.s are leaving the country.---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/01/19/finlands-universities-fear-brain-drain-following-budget-cuts?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=efc433a523-DNU20170119&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-efc433a523-197565045&goal=0_1fcbc04421-efc433a523-197565045&mc_cid=efc433a523&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

 . . .

“The future seems very bleak,” he said, saying that the “worst” impact of the cuts is that the “best young scholars” are looking for university jobs abroad and some are choosing to leave academia altogether.

Recent figures from Statistics Finland show that the number of Ph.D.-educated Finns who have moved abroad increased by 37 percent between 2011 and 2015.

In 2015, after a weakening of the country’s economy, the Finnish government announced that basic funding to the country’s 15 universities and 26 polytechnics would be reduced by approximately 500 million euros ($533 million) over a four-year term and €100 million ($107 million) of research funding would be cut.

Last year, the University of Helsinki said that it would cut staff numbers by nearly 1,000 by the end of 2017 in order to reduce its budget by €106 million ($113 million) by 2020.

Jukka Corander, biostatistics director at the University of Oslo, who also recently left Helsinki, said that “some central figures” in the Finnish government have sent a “clear message” that they “don’t really appreciate scientists.”

“It felt pretty hopeless to continue doing high-level basic research in Finland,” he said, adding that the “consensus” among senior academics is that the situation in the country amounts to a “catastrophe.”

Corander said that “one major reason” for the funding problem today was the emphasis placed on innovation-led research -- at the expense of basic research -- during the “heyday” of Finnish tech and telecommunications company Nokia between 1990 and 2008, despite the fact that “Nokia built its success on basic research that was around in the 1970s and 1980s.”

The recent cuts mean that basic funding has declined even more, he said.

Petri Koikkalainen, president of the Finnish Union of University Researchers and Teachers, added that brain drain is particularly impacting fields such as the humanities and natural sciences, in which it can be harder to find jobs outside academe.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Finland is struggling with high unemployment and the costs of being a welfare state with college education and healthcare financed by taxpayers. Worried that high unemployment may be chronic in the robotics age Finland just commenced a limited basic income experiment where selected unemployed people receive a long-term basic income of slightly less than 600 euros per month to reduce labor oversupply. If expanded nationwide this will be somewhat like the Cuban Model without the ration books and caps on maximum daily wages ($27 per day) in Cuba that leads to a lot of daily dominos playing on front porches or participation in a rising underground economy. Since a lot of underground jobs need doing Cuba now tends to turn a blind eye to parts of the underground economy where workers make more than $27 per day.

 

Castro belatedly admitted that the Cuban Model is not sustainable. Finland is studying whether its new basic income version is sustainable with a serious number of people willing not to work productively in exchange for a low basic income. I envision some unemployed academics accepting low income to do full-time, high-risk research on their own --- a little like but not totally like what we call post-docs in the USA. However, most of the Finns in the current basic income experiment will not be academics. Academics in Finland are more apt to leave the homeland rather than try to live on a low basic income. Most academics in Finland speak several languages


From the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2017 ---
Mapping the New Education Landscape
http://results.chronicle.com/LP=1501?elqTrackId=0464D9C255F0B265B8E626C68E7DB479&elq=970d9926a7c64225852bae2d8502ad63&elqaid=12062&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=4912

 Navigating today’s education landscape can be a challenge. Get on the right path with our collection of articles as they discuss the latest higher-ed technologies that are transforming colleges and universities.

Booklet topics include:

As Big Data Comes to College, Officials Wrestle to Set New Ethical Norms

How For-Profit Education is Now Embedded in Traditional Colleges

The Promise and Limits of 'Learning Analytics'

How to Prepare Professors Who Thought They'd Never Teach Online

The TEDification of the Large Lecture

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


Learn Digital Photography With Harvard's Free Online Course ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/learn-digital-photography-with-harvard-universitys-free-online-course.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29




From the Scout Report on January 20, 2017

Word Counter --- https://wor, dcounter.net 

Word Counter is a free tool that allows users to quickly analyze a piece of text. Initially created in 2009 as a simple word count tool, the team behind Word Counter has since added a number of features that will be of interest to writers and instructors alike. Today, Word Counter measures not only the number of words in a text, but also measures sentence length, keyword density, estimated reading level, and estimated reading time. Users can find out this information by simply pasting any amount of text into a text box. Word Counter is a useful tool for writers looking to avoid repetition or for instructors interested in the reading level of a specific text. (Of course, no estimated reading level assessment is perfect. The team behind Word Counter includes an explanation of how reading level and reading time are calculated, so users can use this tool in an informed way.)


Tally --- http://agiletortoise.com/tally 

Tally is a free iOS application with a very straightforward purpose: it allows users to quickly tally numbers by simply tapping on the screen. Users can also create multiple tallies at once by swiping their screens to the right and can save tallies to their iCloud account or email, or text their tallies to anyone. Finally, Tally allows users to "count" in increments of any number (e.g. by twos or sevens.) So why use Tally? Users may find this app helpful in classroom settings or in meetings as an easy way to track participation. Others may want to use this app while playing board or card games.


Scientists Build the Tightest Molecular Knot Ever Made
Manchester scientists tie the tightest knot ever achieved
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/manchester-scientists-tie-the-tightest-knot-ever-achieved

Knotty professors: chemists break world record to create tightest knot ever
made
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jan/12/knotty-professors-chemists-break-world-record-to-create-tightest-knot-ever-made

Eight Crossings and 192 Atoms Long: the Tightest Knot Ever Tied
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/16/science/tightest-knot-ever-tied.html

Twisted Science: Tying The Strongest Molecular Knot
http://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/twisted-science-tying-the-strongest-molecular-knot

Braiding a molecular knot with eight crossings
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6321/159

Molecular Lego of nano-knots
http://www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology-news/newsid=39365.php


From the Scout Report on January 27, 2017

Tab Snooze --- http://www.tabsnooze.com 

Many of us often fall into the habit of having multiple browser tabs open at once, making it difficult to stay organized and on task. This tool "snoozes" open tabs so that they pop-up at later, scheduled times. This allows users to focus on what they are working on, rather than being bogged down by the numerous other projects they may have started, whether that be articles to read for an upcoming research project, recipes to try for an upcoming holiday meal, or travel plans for a much needed vacation. Tab Snooze is currently only available as a web-based Google chrome extension, however, Tab Snooze for iPhone, Android, Safari, and Firefox will be coming out soon.  


Point --- http://www.getpoint.co 

For the reader who loves to share articles, websites, and information with others, Point may be worth a look. This link-sharing tool allows users to quickly and easily share articles and websites with friends, all without leaving the page or application they are browsing. Point (currently available as both an iPhone application and as a Google Chrome browser extension) may also be used to have conversations on the page itself, making it even easier to highlight and refer back to certain elements of interest. One caveat, users can only share with other individuals in their Google or Facebook networks who have added the Point extension or who have downloaded the application.


Exploring Fractals: The Link Between Fractals, Art, and Psychology
Feel-good fractals: from ocean waves to Jackson Pollock's art
https://aeon.co/ideas/feel-good-fractals-from-ocean-waves-to-jackson-pollocks-art

Paintings reveal early signs of cognitive decline, claims study
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/dec/29/paintings-reveal-early-signs-of-cognitive-decline-claims-study

Using Famous Paintings to Detect Early Signs of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's
http://hyperallergic.com/351213/using-famous-paintings-to-detect-early-signs-of-parkinsons-and-alzheimers

Benoit Mandelbrot: Fractals and the art of roughness
https://www.ted.com/talks/benoit_mandelbrot_fractals_the_art_of_roughness

Fractal Art: Beauty and Mathematics
http://www.ams.org/mathimagery/thumbnails.php?album=13

Fractal Foundation: Fractivities
http://fractalfoundation.org/resources/fractivities




Free Online Tutorials, Videos, Course Materials, and Learning Centers


Education Tutorials courses

Open Course Library (supplementary materials for over 80 courses) --- http://opencourselibrary.org

Learnhigher: Free teaching & learning resources for staff in UK higher education --- http://www.learnhigher.ac.uk

Biology Corner: Ecology Lesson Plans --- https://www.biologycorner.com/lesson-plans/ecology

Radio Garden (8,000+ Streaming Radio Stations) --- http://radio.garden

Humanities Indicators --- http://humanitiesindicators.org

Leonard Gelfand Center for Service Learning and Outreach: Educational Materials ---
http://www.cmu.edu/gelfand/k12-teachers/educational-materials.html

Education at the Getty: Poetry and Art --- http://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/classroom_resources/curricula/poetry_and_art

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

This 20-second NASA video shows how Earth temperatures have changed since 1880 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-world-surface-temperatures-warmed-2017-1

BBC Radio 4: The Infinite Monkey Cage (science) ---  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00snr0w

Starts With a Bang! (astronomy) --- https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang

Before Siri & Alexa: Hear the First Attempt to Use a Synthesizer to Recreate the Human Voice (1939) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/before-siri-alexa-hear-the-first-attempt-to-use-a-synthesizer-to-recreate-the-human-voice-1939.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The Fine Art of Sniffing Out Crappy Science ---
http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Fine-Art-of-Sniffing-Out/238907?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=5791b8a6bc8c4e4ba05d75b883d6d80d&elq=b4ef8e96d70e403fbd64194b199143fd&elqaid=12157&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=4913

PeerJ (marine biology journals) --- https://peerj.com

Earth: A Global Map of Wind, Weather, and Ocean Conditions --- https://earth.nullschool.net

Ice and Sky (Antarctica) --- http://education.iceandsky.com

Virginia Department of Health: Data Portal --- http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/data

Audubon's Aviary: The Final Flight --- http://audubon.nyhistory.org

Discover the Forest --- http://www.discovertheforest.org

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

Project Vox (Duke University archive of female philosophers) --- http://projectvox.library.duke.edu

Disability History Museum --- http://www.disabilitymuseum.org

Eastern State Penitentiary (Pennsylvania) --- http://www.easternstate.org

An Animated History of Planned Parenthood, Brought to You by Lena Dunham, JJ Abrams & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/an-animated-history-of-planned-parenthood.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

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

Bob Jensen's links to free courses and tutorials --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


Law and Legal Studies

Bob Jensen's threads on law and legal studies are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Scroll down to Law


Math Tutorials

Free Math Tools and Courses ---
https://thesishelp.net/blog/math-tools-and-soft/

Bob Jensen's threads on free online mathematics tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Scroll down to Mathematics and Statistics

Bob Jensen's links to free courses and tutorials --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


History Tutorials

What is Logic? The Rise and Fall and Rise Again of Logic
https://aeon.co/essays/the-rise-and-fall-and-rise-of-logic

Project Vox (Duke University archive of female philosophers) --- http://projectvox.library.duke.edu

Sartre versus Campus:  How did the 20th century’s most glamorous intellectual friendship go wrong? ---
https://aeon.co/videos/how-did-the-20th-centurys-most-glamorous-intellectual-friendship-go-wrong?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=9221ed4be3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_01_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-9221ed4be3-68951505

Female Samurai Warriors Immortalized in 19th Century Japanese Photos ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/female-samurai-warriors-immortalized-in-19th-century-japanese-photos.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

A Free Course on Dante’s Divine Comedy from Yale University ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/a-free-course-on-dantes-divine-comedy-from-yale-university.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Letters of 1916: A Year in the Life (Ireland) ---  http://letters1916.maynoothuniversity.ie

Hollywood Goes to War (WW II history in film) --- http://marb.kennesaw.edu/hollywoodandwar

Eastern State Penitentiary (Pennsylvania) --- http://www.easternstate.org

An Animated History of Planned Parenthood, Brought to You by Lena Dunham, JJ Abrams & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/an-animated-history-of-planned-parenthood.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Disability History Museum --- http://www.disabilitymuseum.org

Romantic Circles (Romanticism and Literary Theory) -- http://www.rc.umd.edu

Scout Poetry --- http://scoutpoetry.com

Design in Fine. History is Mine (historic craftsmanship) --- . http://www.design-is-fine.org

A poetic tour through Detroit’s abandoned, ghostly Packard Automotive Plant ---
https://aeon.co/videos/a-poetic-tour-through-detroits-abandoned-ghostly-packard-automotive-plant?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=9221ed4be3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_01_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-9221ed4be3-68951505

From Farms to Freeways: Women's Memories of Western Sydney ---
http://omeka.uws.edu.au/farmstofreeways/exhibits/show/viewall

Edmund Burke and the Birthe of Traditional Conservatism ---
https://daily.jstor.org/edmund-burke-and-the-birth-of-traditional-conservatism/

Bob Jensen's threads on history tutorials are at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Scroll down to History
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

The University of Texas at Austin Linguistics Research Center --- http://liberalarts.utexas.edu/lrc

Bob Jensen's links to language tutorials are at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2-Part2.htm#Languages


Music Tutorials

Musician Lugs a Cello Up a Mountain, Then Plays Bach at 10,000 Feet, at the “Top of the World” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/musician-lugs-a-cello-up-a-mountain-then-plays-bach-at-10000-feet-at-the-top-of-the-world.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Isaiah Thomas Broadside Ballads Project --- http://www.americanantiquarian.org/thomasballads

Hoffman Academy: Learn Piano Online (100+ lessons) --- https://www.hoffmanacademy.com

Bob Jensen's threads on free music tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Scroll down to Music

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


Writing Tutorials

The Research Essay from an Instructor’s Perspective ---
http://blogs.princeton.edu/librarian/2016/03/the-research-essay-from-an-instructors-perspective/ Jensen Comment
I posted this sometime ago, but it's worth a second look as a new semester begins.
Note the "Categories" column on the right side of the above link

A Helpful Guide to Essay Writing --- http://web.anglia.ac.uk/anet/students/documents/2010/helpful-guide-to-essay-writing.pdf 

9 Tools for the Accidental Writing Teacher ---
https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1460-9-tools-for-the-accidental-writing-teacher?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=c02935b437544e33aec1dd60ec6b609b&elq=120fbf25b20343698b941ab37c7e8aca&elqaid=9702&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=3464

Horsethief Books (Poetry) --- https://www.horsethiefbooks.com

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

Better Business Bureau Reviews Online---
http://www.searchnow.com/?q=business+reviews+online&dev=c&quid=11564060&caid=su00026&gclid=CM34uPe7x9ECFYm2wAodOLUGBQ

CDC Blogs --- http://blogs.cdc.gov/

NPR Health News --- http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots

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

CDC Blogs --- http://blogs.cdc.gov/

NPR Health News --- http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots

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

January 17, 2017

January 18, 2017

January 19, 2017

January 20, 2017

January 21, 2017

January 23, 2017

January 24, 2017

January 25, 2017

January 26, 2017

January 27, 2017

January 28, 2017

 

 

 


MHealth Lab --- http://labblog.uofmhealth.org


Virginia Department of Health: Data Portal --- http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/data


Time Magazine:  The Case Against ‘Whole Wheat’ and ‘Whole Grain’ Bread ---
http://time.com/4639314/the-case-against-whole-wheat-and-whole-grain-bread/?xid=newsletter-brief


Two Infants Treated with Universal Immune Cells Have Their Cancer Vanish ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603502/two-infants-treated-with-universal-immune-cells-have-their-cancer-vanish/?set=603509


It helps to cuddle babies born with drug addictions ---
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/good-news/want-to-snuggle-infants-baby-cuddlers-help-babies-withdrawing-from-opioids/ar-BBtO0t3?li=AAk6ORB&ocid=spartanntp

Jensen Comment
My closest neighbor, a retired cardiologist, lives on the coast near Boston. He visits up here in the mountains now and then. His time is partly taken up by being a trained baby cuddler for a hospital not far from his home in the Boston area.


Humor for December 2015

If Economists Want to be Trusted Again, They Should Learn to Tell Jokes ---
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/if-economists-want-to-be-trusted-again-they-should-learn-to-tell-jokes/

 


Pre-birth fetus exercise and schooling
First came kindergarten.

Then came preschool.

Then came pre-preschool.

Now comes pre-birth (I saw this link in today's Chronicle of Education newsletter)
Fisher-Price Releases New In Utero Fetal Activity Gym ---
http://www.theonion.com/article/fisher-price-releases-new-utero-fetal-activity-gym-55013

Jensen Comment
Whereas schooling after a baby is born usually makes it easier for a mother to work at a job, the Ultero Fetal Activity Gym makes life on the job more cumbersome.

 


Old Puns Forwarded by Paula

Puns for Educated Minds
 
1. The fattest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.
 
2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.
 
3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.
 
4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption.
 
5. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.
 
6. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.
 
7. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.
 
8. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.
 
9. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.
 
10. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
 
11. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
 
12. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other: 'You stay here; I'll go on a head.'
 
13. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.
 
14. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'
 
15. The midget fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
 
16. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
 
17. A backward poet writes inverse.
 
18. In a democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes.
 
19. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.
 
20. If you jumped off the bridge in Paris, you'd be in Seine.
 
21. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, 'I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.'
 
22. Two fish swim into a concrete wall.  One turns to the other and says 'Dam!'
 
23. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.
 
24. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, 'I've lost my electron.' The other says 'Are you sure?' The first replies, 'Yes, I'm positive.'
 
25. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.
 
26. There was the person who sent ten puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh.  No pun in ten did.

 

 


 

 




Humor December 2016 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book16q4.htm#Humor1216.htm 

Humor November 2016 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book16q4.htm#Humor1116.htm 

Humor October 2016 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book16q4.htm#Humor1016.htm

Humor September 2016 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book16q3.htm#Humor0916.htm

Humor August  2016 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book16q3.htm#Humor083116.htm

Humor July  2016 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book16q3.htm#Humor0716.htm  

Humor June  2016 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book16q2.htm#Humor063016.htm

Humor May  2016 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book16q2.htm#Humor053116.htm

Humor April  2016 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book16q2.htm#Humor043016.htm

Humor March  2016 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book16q1.htm#Humor033116.htm

Humor February  2016 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book16q1.htm#Humor022916.htm

Humor January  2016 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book16q1.htm#Humor013116.htm

 




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

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