Tidbits on January 17, 2018
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

Historic Photographs (Set 03) of the Sunset Hill House Resort Shared by Gunsmith Ron Resden from Vermont
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/Resden/03ResdenSSH.htm  

 

 

Tidbits on January 17, 2018
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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

USA Debt Clock --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/ ubl




***Year-End Closing Out of Bob Jensen's Three Long-Time Blogs


Current and past editions of my blog called Tidbits --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm


Current and past editions of my accounting education, research, and teaching cases blog called New Bookmarks --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm


Current and past editions of my blog called Fraud Updates --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

 

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

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

 


Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio

C-Span October 29, 2017
Q&A with Allison Stanger
https://www.c-span.org/video/?435406-2/qa-allison-stanger

Allison Stanger, professor of international politics and economics at Middlebury College in Vermont, talks about students' reaction to the appearance of author Charles Murray on Campus last March. Both were attacked by students following the event.
Jensen Comment
Until I watched this interview I was not aware of the severity of Professor Stranger's concussion in the Middlebury physical attack on her by activists.
I recently watched a rerun of this module and very impressed by Professor Stranger. It's a module that must be watched until the very end.
What's ironic is that Charles Murry was going to speak on his new book, a book that is in line with the views of activists that attacked him. He was attacked on the Middlebury campus for the wrong reasons by activists blinded by hate.
After months of recovery this was the first interview by Professor Stranger. I'm immensely impressed by how articulate she is in answered questions off the cuff
.

The Towering Robot That Roams Walmart ---
https://www.wired.com/story/please-do-not-assault-the-towering-robot-that-roams-walmart/

The Crime Fighting Robot That's Stirring Up Controversy ---
https://www.wired.com/story/please-do-not-assault-the-towering-robot-that-roams-walmart/

YouTube: SciCafe --- www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrfcruGtplwG0Dj6cSfmH7RVnIP7CDirG

I'm photographing my life and what surrounds me.
The Atlantic:  The Quiet Exuberance of Winter ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/549518/winters-watch/

Watch the History of the World Unfold on an Animated Map: From 200,000 BCE to Today Posted: 11 Jan 2018 01:00 AM PST ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/01/watch-the-history-of-the-world-unfold-on-an-animated-map-from-200000-bce-to-today.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29


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 Russian Dancers Appear to Float Magically Across the Stage: A Mesmerizing Introduction to The Berezka Ensemble ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/12/watch-russian-dancers-appear-to-float-magically-across-the-stage.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Crying - Glen Campbell (Roy Orbison)
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHmScxQopRI

BEAUTIFUL RENDITION OF AULD LANG SYNE:
 https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Rtajxo8d7js?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0

Watch Prince Play Jazz Piano & Coach His Band Through George Gershwin’s “Summertime” in a Candid, Behind-the-Scenes Moment (1990) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/01/watch-prince-play-jazz-piano-coach-his-band-through-george-gershwins-summertime.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

A Majestic 44-Hour Chronological Playlist of Rolling Stones Songs: Stream 613 Tracks ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/01/a-majestic-44-hour-chronological-playlist-of-rolling-stones-songs-stream-613-tracks.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

St. Olaf College: Archived Concerts and Recitals --- www.stolaf.edu/multimedia/streams/archive.cfm?category=concerts

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

30 Terrifying Photos Before and After Climate Change ---
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/nasa-before-and-after-images-of-climate-change-12303761.php?ipid=hpctp#photo-12163127

Drone Photography of 2017 ---
https://qz.com/1168549/drone-photography-diehards-picked-their-favorite-shots-of-2017/
Also see
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/19-award-winning-photos-taken-by-drones/

MIT's Best Photographs of 2017 ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609638/our-best-photographs-of-2017/

The Atlantic:  2017 Seen Through the Lens of Mario Tama---
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/12/2017-seen-through-the-lens-of-mario-tama/549266/

The Devil's Tale: Dispatches from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library (includes historic photographs) ---
https://blogs.library.duke.edu/rubenstein/

19-Year-Old Student Uses Early Spy Camera to Take Candid Street Photos (Circa 1895) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/01/19-year-old-student-uses-early-spy-camera-to-take-candid-street-photos-circa-1895.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The Film Posters of the Russian Avant-Garde ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/01/the-film-posters-of-the-russian-avant-garde.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

These photos show how Southern California has been devastated by mudslides that killed at least 13 people ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-montecito-california-mudslides-aftermath-2018-1

The Oldest Hotel in Every State ---
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/tripideas/the-oldest-hotel-in-every-state/ss-AAsuE93?ocid=spartandhp

Seattle Art Museum: Collection Highlights --- http://art.seattleartmuseum.org/collections

NASA's $1 billion Jupiter probe has taken mind-bending new photos of the gas giant ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/new-jupiter-pictures-nasa-juno-perijove-orbit-ten-2017-11

Best Sports Photos of 2017 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/best-sports-photos-2017-2017-12

Photos show the East Coast frozen over as temperatures drop in the wake of the 'bomb cyclone' ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/amazing-photos-show-east-coast-bomb-cyclone-dangerous-wind-2018-1

The 50 most incredible photos of 2017 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/most-incredible-photos-of-2017-2017-12

1,600 Rare Color Photographs Depict Life in the U.S During the Great Depression & World War II ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/01/1600-rare-color-photographs-depict-life-in-the-u-s-during-the-great-depression-world-war-ii.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

B-24 Liberator That Helped Bring Down the Nazis --
http://www.businessinsider.com/anniversary-of-b-24-liberator-bomber-first-flight-during-world-war-ii-2017-12/#by-the-beginning-of-1941-other-manufacturers-had-joined-the-effort-to-build-b-24s-the-ford-motor-company-made-the-audacious-promise-to-build-one-bomber-every-hour-a-claim-that-drew-derision-from-the-aircraft-industry-which-doubted-an-automobile-company-was-capable-of-such-a-feat-1

Niagara Falls in Ice ---
http://time.com/5084294/niagara-falls-frozen-2018/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=2018010312pm&xid=newsletter-brief

Russia gained a 'treasure trove' of intelligence on the US's best fighter jets in Syria ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-treasure-trove-intelligence-us-fighter-jets-f-22-2018-1

Photos show the East Coast frozen over as temperatures drop in the wake of the 'bomb cyclone' ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/amazing-photos-show-east-coast-bomb-cyclone-dangerous-wind-2018-1

Haunting photographs of farm animals reveal more than initially meets the eye ---
https://aeon.co/videos/haunting-photographs-of-farm-animals-reveal-more-than-initially-meets-the-eye?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=d1dd4e3a47-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-d1dd4e3a47-68951505

The Cinderella Bibliography (fairy tale images and history) --- http://d.lib.rochester.edu/cinderella

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

A Winter Walk with Thoreau: The Transcendentalist Way of Finding Inner Warmth in the Cold Season ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/01/05/thoreau-excusrsions-a-winter-walk/?utm_source=Brain+Pickings&utm_campaign=f0379ebb83-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_179ffa2629-f0379ebb83-234390133&mc_cid=f0379ebb83&mc_eid=4d2bd13843

The String of Pearls (historical mystery featuring Sweeny Todd)  --- www.salisburysquare.com/TSOP

500 Free Audiobooks for Teachers and Students ---
https://www.edarabia.com/free-audiobooks-teachers-students/

Overdue Podcast (literature reviews) --- http://overduepodcast.com/

What Pigeons Teach Us About Love ---
http://nautil.us/issue/56/perspective/what-pigeons-teach-us-about-love-rp
Jensen Comment
When I was a lad about five years old I had an old BB gun that was so low powered the BBs just bounced off the feathers of a pigeon.
One large old bird would sit on the eve of my grandparents' house to divert my shots away from its mate on a nest.
Without knowing it at the time I was witnessing what love is about.

The Favorite Literary Work of Every Country Visualized on a World Map ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/12/the-favorite-literary-work-of-every-country-visualized-on-a-world-map.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The Atlantic: Yrsa Daley-Ward’s Powerful, Poetic Distillations ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/12/yrsa-daley-wards-powerful-poetic-distillations/549353/

Today is the first day Of the rest of it.
Of course there will be other
First days
But none exactly like this.

Jensen's added line
Most will be be warmer

Bashing Thoreau Has Become Commonplace ---
https://newrepublic.com/article/123162/everybody-hates-henry-david-thoreau?elqTrackId=851fdbbc1d204037af3129e135eaf50f&elq=44486fc7b89742bdb32ac0cfffd323be&elqaid=17441&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=7632

Garrison Keillor about Thoreau
A sorehead and loner whose clunky line about marching to your own drummer has found its way into a million graduation speeches. Thoreau tried to make a virtue out of lack of rhythm. He said that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Okay, but how did he know? He didn’t talk to that many people. He wrote elegantly about independence and forgot to thank his mom for doing his laundry.

 https://newrepublic.com/article/123162/everybody-hates-henry-david-thoreau?elqTrackId=851fdbbc1d204037af3129e135eaf50f&elq=44486fc7b89742bdb32ac0cfffd323be&elqaid=17441&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=7632

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 17, 2018
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2018/TidbitsQuotations011718.htm            

USA Debt Clock --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/ ubl

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




Kiplinger's Names Trinity a 2018 Best Value ---
https://new.trinity.edu/news/kiplingers-names-trinity-2018-best-value?utm_source=Our+Mailing+List&utm_campaign=e9d8e76f52-Tower_News_January_2018&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_00cfaca66d-e9d8e76f52-160446777

For 25 consequetive years US News ranked Trinity as Number 1 in the "Best in the West" category ---
https://new.trinity.edu/news/kiplingers-names-trinity-2018-best-value?utm_source=Our+Mailing+List&utm_campaign=e9d8e76f52-Tower_News_January_2018&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_00cfaca66d-e9d8e76f52-160446777

Other good news rankings of Trinity University ---
https://new.trinity.edu/about-trinity/rankings-and-value


Time Magazine:  The Best Laptops at CES 2018 ---
http://time.com/5102127/best-laptops-ces-2018-dell-lenovo/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=2018011511am&xid=newsletter-brief


Time Magazine Seven Things You Might be Buying From Amazon in 2028 ---
http://time.com/money/5085981/7-things-amazon-will-be-selling-you-by-2028/

VR Vacations

A New World of Prescription Drugs

A much "Smarter" Smart TV

Next Generation of Bitcoin

Wearable Technology You Actually Want to Wear

Synthethetic Humans To Do (almost) Everything For You

What is left out of this list?

Amazon's Possible New Rental Services

Amazon's New Home Services (e.g., lawyers, CPAs, doctors, computer technicians, home schooling tutors, physical therapists, home nurse visits, pedicures, haircuts, etc.)

Marijuana

Purchased and Leased Electric Cars and Trucks

What can you think of for Amazon?


Why Are African American Students Still Not Majoring in Accounting? ----
https://www.cpajournal.com/2018/01/08/african-american-students-still-not-majoring-accounting/ 


Udemy --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udemy

Udemy.com is an online learning platform. It is aimed at professional adults.[2] Unlike academic MOOC programs driven by traditional collegiate coursework, Udemy provides a platform for experts of any kind to create courses which can be offered to the public, either at no charge or for a tuition fee.[3] Udemy provides tools which enable users to create a course, promote it and earn money from student tuition charges.

No Udemy courses are currently credentialed for college credit; students take courses largely as a means of improving job-related skills.[3] Some courses generate credit toward technical certification. Udemy has made a special effort to attract corporate trainers seeking to create coursework for employees of their company.[4] For example, PayPal has used the service to train its employees to write Node.js code.[5]

You can enroll in over 55,000 online classes for $10.99 each during Udemy's New Year's sale (sale ends on January 11, 2018) ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/udemy-new-years-sale-2018

Udemy --- https://www.udemy.com/

For example, in the "What do you want to learn" box type in accounting.

Don't confuse Udemy with Coursera that serves on a higher plane in MOOC-for-credit education
Coursera --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coursera

170+ Courses Starting at Stanford Continuing Studies This Week: Explore the Catalogue of Campus and Online Courses ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/01/170-courses-starting-at-stanford-continuing-studies-next-week.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Bob Jensen's threads on MOOCs ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI

Form a Chronicle of Higher Education Newsletter on January 16, 2018

From The Chronicle's Mitch Gerber:

Among the unsolicited brochures that cascade through the mail slot at home, the one offering “80% OFF” any of dozens of “Great Courses” from the Teaching Company, of Chantilly, Va., caught my eye. This month you can order a video download of lectures on “Understanding the Universe,” by the astronomer Alex Filippenko, of the University of California at Berkeley, for $94.95 rather than $679.95. Or “The Secrets of Mental Math,” by Arthur T. Benjamin, of Harvey Mudd College, for $17.95.

“We have identified the top 1% of professors,” the company boasts. “Only the top 1 in 5,000 college professors is chosen to be on The Great Courses faculty.” (Actually, that's the top .02 percent, but this is why there are math courses.) The chosen few then become “The World’s Greatest Professors at Your Fingertips.” Potential students can only hope that those top scholars are not miffed at being discounted by 80 percent.

 


Retraction Watch's Weekend reads: Why following up on fraud matters; how many retractions in 2017?; misleading abstracts ---
http://retractionwatch.com/2018/01/06/weekend-reads-following-fraud-matters-many-retractions-2017-misleading-abstracts/


26 Books That Are Being Made Into Movies and TV Shows in 2018 ---
http://time.com/5069010/books-being-made-into-movies-tv-2018/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=2018011314pm&xid=newsletter-brief


Bloomberg:  The Economic Arctic ---
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-arctic/the-economic-arctic/


Ford Goes "All In" on Electric Cars With an $11 Billion Investment ---
http://www.industryweek.com/leadership/ford-goes-all-electric-cars-11-billion-investment?NL=IW-07&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1_b&utm_rid=CPG03000001867917&utm_campaign=24346&utm_medium=email&elq2=8ca115fead264f71802d2033bce237bc

Jensen Comment
I recommend the name Model E Ford --- he, he


CFOs Share Their Favorite Books of 2017 ---
https://blogs.wsj.com/cfo/2017/12/27/cfos-share-their-favorite-books-of-2017/

The Killing Zone by Paul A. Craig

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

Principles by Ray Dalio

Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella

Originals by Adam Grant

The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly

The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante

The Self-Made Billionaire Effect by John Sviokla and Mitch Cohen

Unequaled by James A. Runde

The Captain Class by Sam Walker

CFOs share some of their favorite gadgets and apps ---
https://blogs.wsj.com/cfo/2017/12/28/cfos-share-their-favorite-tech-of-2017/

Waze App

Audible

ESPN App

Garmin Watch

Apple Watch

Dashlane App

Apple Ipod

Camera App


MIT:  Tech Blunders of 2017 ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609626/the-biggest-technology-failures-of-2017/?utm_source=newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_content=2018-01-03&utm_campaign=the_download


Ukraine:  Chernobyl's Transformation Into a Massive Solar Plant Is Almost Complete ---
https://sciencealert.com/chernobyl-massive-solar-plant-almost-complete


Cape Town Is 90 Days Away From Running Out of Water ---
http://time.com/5103259/cape-town-water-crisis/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=2018011612pm&xid=newsletter-brief

Jensen Question
As an auditor finalizing a Cape Town company's annual report how would you disclose this contingency that possibly will affect nearly all ledger accounts?


10 Great Health and Science Books from 2017 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/10-great-health-and-science-books-from-2017-2017-12

The Most Read Wired Science Books in 2017 ---
https://www.wired.com/story/most-read-wired-science-stories-2017/

Reason's Most Engaging Stories for 2017 ---
http://reason.com/blog/2017/12/29/reasons-most-engaging-stories-of-2017-no

American Library Association:  Ten Stories That Shaped 2017 ---
http://lisnews.org/ten_stories_that_shaped_2017

The Atlantic:  The Best 50 Podcasts of 2017 ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/12/the-50-best-podcasts-of-2017/548165/

The Atlantic:  74 Things That Blew Our Minds in 2017 ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/12/the-science-facts-that-blew-our-minds-in-2017/549122/

Amazon:  The Handmaid's Tale was the most read novel in 2017 ---
http://time.com/5059023/most-read-books-2017-amazon/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=2017123014pm&xid=newsletter-brief

Library Science:  10 Stories That Shaped 2017 News ---
http://lisnews.org/ten_stories_that_shaped_2017


10 awesome and weird iPhone accessories you probably need ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/awesome-weird-iphone-accessories-2016-6


Liberal News Outlet Vox: 
Saturday Night Live was the emptiest show of 2017
The venerable sketch comedy series has nothing of consequence to say about the Trump era

https://www.vox.com/2017-in-review/2017/12/26/16807776/saturday-night-live-trump-empty-alec-baldwin


Some Surprises in the 2017 Equity Markets
http://www.businessinsider.com/2017-performance-of-stocks-currencies-commodities-cryptocurrencies-2017-12/#dont-miss-8

Jensen Comment

  1. Turkey, Greece, and Indonesia were huge positive surprises.  Australia became a disappointment. Among the BRICs India and Brazil were positive surprises, whereas China did poorly. Russia came out negative, but this is probably due to heavily reliance on oil exports in a time of low pump prices.
     
  2. The USA did much better than Switzerland and most EU countries (except for Greece). The rise in Greece is largely a denominator effect in the ratio due to so many years of poor performance.
     
  3. Boeing and Caterpillar led the Dow 30. Merck, Exxon, IBM, and GE had negative returns after so many earlier decades of leading Dow returns.
     
  4. Technology led the S&P 500 sectors while Real Estate sucked along with Energy and Telecoms.
     
  5. It was a good year to go long in battery commodities but terrible for orange juice, sugar, natural gas, cocoa, coffee, and tin. The staples of the Midwest farmers, corn, soybeans, oats, and cattle, did not please commodities speculators hoping for ups or downs. Gold, silver, and platinum were not so hot compared to palladium, lumber, and aluminum. It seems a little odd that lumber did so well while real estate as a whole did poorly. Tax reform in the USA will not help real estate due to the relatively low ($10,000) property and income tax deduction cap and rising interest rates. Higher-end housing prices may even crash.

Tech's Biggest Winners and Losers in 2017 ---
https://qz.com/1163738/the-biggest-winners-and-losers-of-tech-in-2017/

Andrew Cuomo is waging an all-out assault on the GOP tax law to save New York's higher income and very wealthy residents ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/prepaying-property-tax-in-new-york-andrew-cuomo-fights-trump-tax-law-2017-12
 

Is this a wonderful or terrible idea caused by the $10,000 income and property tax deduction limit in the Federal tax reform legislation?
Liberal economist Dean Baker advocates repeal state income taxes, replacing them with payroll taxes --
-

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/28/16818680/state-local-tax-deduction-income-payroll-trump-tax-reform-republican

Jensen Comment
It seems to me that states would still have to tax some types of income or let wealthier people with lots of passive income off the hook for taxes.
Some states without income taxes (think New Hampshire) tax interest and dividends partly but exclude interest and dividends factored into pension incomes. Also the NH interest and dividends tax is relatively low rate with up to a $5,000 exclusion. Also capital gains are not taxed for business income accruals not declared as dividends. All told the NH interest and dividends tax is more of a nuisance than a serious tax like a state income tax.

Dean Baker does propose a new state taxes on dividends and interest, but these will still be victims of the $10,000 deductibility cap on Federal 1040 returns.

One thing is likely. States, especially our liberal blue states, will probably come up with new and very complicated state taxation codes that will keep tax accountants up nights.

We can expect demand for accounting degrees to soar because of all the new jobs created in the public and private sectors within our states.

Add to this the possibility (quite likely actually) that the Democratic Party will soon take control of both the USA House of Representatives and the USA Senate along with the White House such that most or all Trump tax Reforms of 2018 will be repealed. Think of all the cost and confusion of rewriting tax codes in some of our 50 states that will have become wasted efforts in a very short period of time!


Japanese astronaut apologizes for spreading 'fake news' after claiming to have grown 3.5 inches while in space ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-astronaut-apologizes-fake-news-of-height-growth-in-space-2018-1


Stunning bright light turned night to day over vast swathe of Russia ---
http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/stunning-bright-light-turned-night-to-day-over-vast-swathe-of-russia/


I don't know whether this is humor or not, but in Hollywood it would probably be considered humor as long as it was not sabotage
Someone Left a Hatch Open and Crippled (for 10+ months) India’s $2.9 Billion Submarine ---
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a14783891/someone-left-a-hatch-open-and-crippled-indias-dollar29-billion-submarine/
It might be funnier if it was an Italian sub.
Remember the joke of why the Second Italian Navy uses glass bottom boats --- to search for the First Italian Navy


Poll: 33% of NFL fans 'purposely stopped watching' this season (but many for reasons other than Anthem protests)---
Yahoo
https://www.yahoo.com/amphtml/finance/news/poll-33-nfl-fans-purposely-stopped-watching-season-split-trump-kaepernick-110215783.html
Jensen Comment
I don't know how to define "stopped watching." There are so many games on television each week and so few viewers who watch entire games weekly before 2017. This study purportedly defined "stop watching" in terms of intentional boycotting for one reason or another.

Sports Illustrated:  All Four NFL Playoff Games See Double-Digit Ratings Decrease ---
https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2018/01/08/nfl-playoff-ratings-see-big-declines


An AI-powered app to teach Chinese students English (with personalized courses) boasts a whopping 50 million users ---
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/08/liulishuos-english-teacher-is-powered-by-artificial-intelligence.html?utm_source=newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_content=2018_01_09&utm_campaign=the_algorithm

Jensen Comment
This is almost twice as many students as the number enrolled in all secondary schools in the USA. This means about twice as many students are studying English from this AI-powered app in China as are studying English by any means in USA secondary schools.


Distance Education:  University of Maryland University College reports record 2017 U.S. enrollments, despite a challenging climate for online providers ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/01/08/has-umuc-turned-enrollment-woes-around?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=3bcc4f9c28-DNU20180108&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-3bcc4f9c28-197565045&mc_cid=3bcc4f9c28&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

Bob Jensen's threads on fee-based distance education ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on free MOOC distance education (certificates and transcript credits cost extra) ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


'Dancing Backwards In High Heels': Study Finds Students Set Higher Standards For Female Profs ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/01/dancing-backwards-in-high-heels-study-finds-students-set-higher-standards-for-female-profs.html

Bob Jensen's threads on women in the professions ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Women


New study of economics professors' research effort and impact says they're not exactly "swinging for the fences" after getting tenure ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/12/20/new-study-economics-professors-says-their-research-declines-quality-quantity-years

Jensen Comment
Possible arguments for and against "swinging for the fences" complicates the analysis of this data. In some ways it's easier to do research as a tenured professor in a R1 research university because working with doctoral students increases the odds for tenured professors to become co-authors of publications following completion of dissertations that those professors helped inspire. Reasons against "swinging for the fences" include possible burn out in the Hell years leading up to tenure followed by life-changing events such as divorce, family turmoil such as having troubled teenagers, and changed responsibilities on the job, e.g., taking on more administrative duties relative to teaching and research. One has to wonder whether many tenured professors track into administrative responsibilities to ease the stress of doing research and doing battle with journal referees.

In science tenured professors may just grow weary of constantly writing grant proposals.

Changing jobs such as moving to another university can also take its toll on a researcher and her/his family. I know I should've written "their" family.

And for some just getting older can bring on health issues that detract from productivity.

And for some getting tenure timed with temptations of outside money (consulting, textbook writing, starting an organic farm, or whatever) interfered with subsequent research efforts.

Sadly, every college and university has some lifetime associate professors who got tenure but never accomplished enough subsequent research to get promoted to a full professor ranking.


Meltdown --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltdown_(security_vulnerability)

Spectre --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(security_vulnerability)

Newly discovered microprocessor security flaws affect most computers
Two major security flaws, Meltdown and Spectre, have been found in microprocessors that run most computers. Meltdown affects Intel processors and can be patched, but processors might have to be redesigned to address Spectre.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/business/computer-flaws.html?WT.mc_id=SmartBriefs-Newsletter&WT.mc_ev=click&ad-keywords=smartbriefsnl

How Will Meltdown and Spectre Security Flaws Affect My PC ---
https://www.howtogeek.com/338269/a-huge-intel-security-hole-could-slow-down-your-pc-soon/

Microsoft: Patches might significantly slow some PCs ---
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/09/microsoft-says-meltdown-and-spectre-fixes-will-slow-some-pcs-down-significantly.html

Jensen Comment
Is it time to finally say goodbye to your online Windows 7 operating system?

Mac and Linux users are not immune from Meltdown and Spectre.


Homeschooling --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling

Homeschooling:  Requirements, Research, and Who Does It ---
https://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/home-schooling/index.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news1-rm&M=58339958&U=2290378


How to mislead with statistics
A new NBER paper finds an increase in male mortality immediately after retiring at age 62 ---
http://www.thinkadvisor.com/2018/01/02/early-retirement-aligns-with-early-death-study-fin?&slreturn=1515496097
Thanks to Glen Gray for the heads up.

Jensen Comment
Although the report is pretty good about noting the limitations of its findings it's important to note that electing to start Social Security at age 62 is not a random event. People in their early 60s do not flip coins to decide whether or not to take early SS payments at age 62.  Many have medical issues, some life threatening, that increase the odds of choosing early payments. Also most individuals have some knowledge of their own life expectancy. Firstly, they know their prior medical history such as already having had cancer or two heart attacks. Secondly, they know something about their genetic history such as having ancestors that live to ripe old ages.

For many taking early retirement does not mean quitting work. Some change jobs, but others stay of the same job. Note that benefits may be reduced by starting SS payments at age 62.

My main point here is that this is an illustration of where statistical findings should probably not have a major impact on individual choices because the statistical findings are misleading for particular instances --- like the particular instance of your SS timing decision.

At what age should you start your Social Security benefits?
https://www.schwab.com/resource-center/insights/content/when-should-you-take-social-security?cmp=em-QYC

 

Jensen Comment
For those contemplating starting up Social Security benefits before age 65, keep in mind that Medicare is not available until age 65 except for people who qualify for Medicare under approved disability benefits. Note that it's possible to start SS benefits under disability at most any age. Those benefits may or may not carry Medicare benefits. My wife got SS disability benefits and Medicare benefits well before she was 60 years of age (she's had 17 spine surgeries). One of our daughters got SS disability benefits without Medicare benefits when she was much younger. Her husband, however, had family medical insurance through his university faculty employer.

 

If you are legitimately disabled you should probably apply for SS disability payments whenever you are unable to work and your other disability coverage is about to expire. It's best, in my opinion, to talk to specialized lawyers who will carry the ball on your SS disability. application. Getting approval may take years.

 

How to Manage Your Finances When One Spouse Retires – and the Other Doesn’t ---
http://money.usnews.com/money/retirement/articles/2017-04-28/how-to-manage-your-finances-when-one-spouse-retires-and-the-other-doesnt

 


A Yale Psychiatrist Evaluates the Mental Health of Trump — and the Nation
by Paul Baskin
Chronicle of Higher Education
January 4, 2018
https://www.chronicle.com/article/A-Yale-Psychiatrist-Evaluates/242157?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=1eee1d9770344f5099647003ee9c9ca5&elq=87dcdc3a299a4a73a7fdbc0c152548d8&elqaid=17313&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=7543

. . .

Q. Given that you see policies such as the recently enacted tax bill, and the accompanying undermining of the nation’s health-insurance protections, as directly linked to income inequality and greater societal violence, why aren’t more of your professional colleagues (psychiatirsts) getting more involved in helping to shape public policy?

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Is everyone favoring the "recently enacted tax bill" or not favoring Obamacare mentally ill?

This is the worst articles I've ever read in the Chronicle of Higher Education


The Chronicle is now so paranoid that it will only allow readers to comment on articles about motherhood and apple pie.

 

Spurious Correlation --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spurious_relationship

Confounding Variables --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confounding

How to Mislead With Statistics:  Spurious Correlations Have Varying Degrees of Implications
Booze May Help or Harm the Heart, but Money Counts (at least in Norway)
https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/news/20180102/booze-may-help-or-harm-the-heart-but-money_counts

How to Mislead With Testamonials
104-Year-Old Woman Says Lots of Diet Coke Is the Key to a Long Life
---
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/healthtrending/104-year-old-woman-says-lots-of-diet-coke-is-the-key-to-a-long-life/ar-BBHTE0f?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

Jensen Comment
Confounding variables in spurious correlations have varying degrees of ambiguity. For example, Yates' discovery of correlation of Danish birthrates with the number of stork nests in Denmark probably has some confounding factors, but the confounding relationships are quite ambiguous. On the other hand, correlations of ice cream sales and swimming pool drowning deaths are more directly related to increased number of people (especially young children) swimming on hotter days.

The relationships in Norway between alcohol consumption and heart attacks and wealth, according to the article, are less ambiguous since wealthy Norwegians probably have more heart-healthy diets and life styles. However, there could be other intervening factors such as gender (wealthy women living longer due to chromosomes) or stress (being poor with two or more jobs might be more stressful). And even in nations with national health insurance, wealthy people generally are more apt to have the best physicians.  A close physicist friend of ours says this is most certainly the case in Germany.

The problem attributing life's longevity to one can or more of diet coke per day is enormously problematic. How many people will commence to follow suit on this very dangerous and misleading claim?  Diet sodas in general are widely known to have health risks. What is needed for a more complete statistical analysis is more data about people who drank about the same amount of Diet Coke per day and died young. My guess is that we can find millions. But those findings will probably not have nearly as much influence as this claim by a very old woman deceived by spurious correlation. The real problem is that there are so many confounding factors affecting life and death that spurious correlations for and against Diet Coke are irresponsible without scientific clinical trials on this issue.

In data analysis the main problem with correlations is that the number of confounding variables and their higher order interactions may be almost endless. Add to this the contingency factors. For example, the odds of a swimming pool death may change dramatically with the presence of a life guard or the number of swimmers per life guard or pool regulations (such requiring a young child to be swimming with an adult).

In the case of Diet Coke, the odds of living longer may change dramatically with genetic history, diet in general, life style, physical attributes, and on and on and on.


The Best of Maria's Brain Pickings in 2017 ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/12/28/best-of-brain-pickings-2017/?utm_source=Brain+Pickings&utm_campaign=393ab42e6f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_12_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_179ffa2629-393ab42e6f-234390133&mc_cid=393ab42e6f&mc_eid=4d2bd13843


Monopoly’s real inventor was Lizzie Magie, a progressive Georgist, who believed that land should be collectively owned by all ---
https://daily.jstor.org/the-different-meanings-of-monopoly/

Jensen Comment
Which is a little surprising since players are capitalists owning property and investing in property improvements for higher rents. Also monopoly behavior (think railroads) increases rents. But there property taxes and rent controls that capitalists normally don't like. The game must be expanded for better accounting education such as the introduction of accruals like depreciation.


In Praise of Hierarchy Established, traditional order is under assault from freewheeling, networked disrupters as never before. But society craves centralized leadership, too.
by Nial Ferguson
The Wall Street Journal
January 5, 2018
https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-praise-of-hierarchy-1515175338

It is a truth universally acknowledged that we now live in a networked world, where everyone and everything are connected. The corollary is that traditional hierarchical structures—not only states, but also churches, parties, and corporations—are in various states of crisis and decline. Disruption, disintermediation, and decentralization are the orders of the day. Hierarchy is at a discount, if not despised.

Networks rule not only in the realm of business. In politics, too, party establishments and their machines have been displaced by crowdfunded campaigns and viral messaging. Money, once a monopoly of the state, is being challenged by Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which require no central banks to manage them, only consensus algorithms.

But is all this wise? In all the excitement of the age of hyper-connection, have we perhaps forgotten why hierarchies came into existence in the first place? Do we perhaps overestimate what can be achieved by ungoverned networks—and underestimate the perils of a world without any legitimate hierarchical structure?

True, few dare shed tears for yesterday’s hierarchies. Some Anglophile viewers of “The Crown” may thrill at the quaint stratification of Elizabeth II’s England, but the nearest approximations to royalty in America have lately been shorn of their gilt and glamour. Political dynasties of the recent past have been effaced, if not humiliated, by the upstart Donald Trump, while Hollywood’s elite of exploitative men is in disarray. The spirit of the age is revolutionary; the networked crowd yearns to “smack down” or “shame” each and every authority figure.

Nevertheless, recent events have called into question the notion that all will be for the best in the most networked of all possible worlds. “I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place,” Evan Williams, a co-founder of Twitter , told the New York Times last May. “I was wrong about that.”

Far from being a utopia in which we all become equally empowered “netizens,” free to tweet truth to power, cyberspace has mutated into a nightmare realm of ideological polarization, extreme views and fake news. The year 2016 was the annus horribilis of the liberal internet, the year when the network platforms built in Silicon Valley were used not only by Donald Trump’s election campaign but also by the proponents of “Brexit” in the United Kingdom to ends that appalled their creators. In 2017, research (including some by Facebook itself) revealed the psychological harm inflicted by social media on young people, who become addicted to the network platforms’ incessant, targeted stimuli.

Most alarming was the morphing of cyberspace into Cyberia, not to mention the Cyber-caliphate: a dark and lawless realm where malevolent actors ranging from Russian trolls to pro-ISIS Twitter users could work with impunity to subvert the institutional foundations of democracy. As Henry Kissinger has rightly observed, the internet has re-created the human state of nature depicted by 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, where there rages a war “of every man against every man” and life (like so many political tweets) is “nasty, brutish, and short.”

We should not be surprised. Neither history nor science predicted that everything would be awesome in a world of giant, online networks—quite the contrary. And now that it becomes clear that a networked world may be an anarchic world, we begin to see—as previous generations saw—the benefits of hierarchy.

The word hierarchy derives from ancient Greek (hierarchia, literally the “rule of a high priest”) and was first used to describe the heavenly orders of angels and, more generally, to characterize a stratified order of spiritual or temporal governance. Up until the 16th century, by contrast, the word “network” signified nothing more than a woven mesh made of interlaced thread.

Continued in article


Six TED Talks to Help You be Better With Money ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/ted-talks-to-help-you-become-better-with-money-2018-1
Jensen Comment
Especially not the importance of financial literacy by Curtis Carroll who learned to read and invest in prison.

Bob Jensen's financial literacy helpers ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#InvestmentHelpers

Some Surprises in the 2017 Equity Markets
http://www.businessinsider.com/2017-performance-of-stocks-currencies-commodities-cryptocurrencies-2017-12/#dont-miss-8

Jensen Comment

  1. Turkey, Greece, and Indonesia were huge positive surprises.  Australia became a disappointment. Among the BRICs India and Brazil were positive surprises, whereas China did poorly. Russia came out negative, but this is probably due to heavily reliance on oil exports in a time of low pump prices.
     
  2. The USA did much better than Switzerland and most EU countries (except for Greece). The rise in Greece is largely a denominator effect in the ratio due to so many years of poor performance.
     
  3. Boeing and Caterpillar led the Dow 30. Merck, Exxon, IBM, and GE had negative returns after so many earlier decades of leading Dow returns.
     
  4. Technology led the S&P 500 sectors while Real Estate sucked along with Energy and Telecoms.
     
  5. It was a good year to go long in battery commodities but terrible for orange juice, sugar, natural gas, cocoa, coffee, and tin. The staples of the Midwest farmers, corn, soybeans, oats, and cattle, did not please commodities speculators hoping for ups or downs. Gold, silver, and platinum were not so hot compared to palladium, lumber, and aluminum. It seems a little odd that lumber did so well while real estate as a whole did poorly. Tax reform in the USA will not help real estate due to the relatively low ($10,000) property and income tax deduction cap and rising interest rates. Higher-end housing prices may even crash.

Today's College Students Aren't Who You Think (and aren't as scholastic as you think)---
https://www.wsj.com/articles/todays-college-students-arent-who-you-think-1515240000?elqTrackId=74dba41fcf564d95bc196397a8f2bd15&elq=b1369b0df9e64594b4f192561fadd432&elqaid=17326&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=7555&mg=prod/accounts-wsj

From a Chronicle of Higher Education Newsletter on January 8, 2018

They "aren't who you think," reads a headline in The Wall Street Journal. Those in higher ed are well aware that much of the public has a warped perspective on the student population at large, but the Journal piece offers some useful reminders, including:

"The vast majority of college students attend institutions that admit nearly anyone who applies."

"A larger share of students than ever before are nonwhite, with the most dramatic gains over the past 20 years coming among Hispanic students."

"Forty percent of the roughly 17.5 million undergraduate students are enrolled in two-year institutions."

 Jensen Comment on Grade Inflation
Since most graduate students must have 3.0 grade averages to graduate, most grades in graduate schools are either A or B. A rare C grade is tantamount to an F.

At the undergraduate level, the average grade across the USA is an outrageous A- ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#RateMyProfessor


Just-In-Time Inventory --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-in-time_manufacturing

Walmart is closing 63 Sam's Club stores:  Here's where they're going down (slide show) ---
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/walmart-is-closing-63-sams-club-stores-—-heres-where-they-will-shut-down/ss-AAuBXcL?ocid=spartandhp&ffid=gz#image=1
Jensen Comment
I suspect one of the main causes is free shipping for online shopping at Walmart and Amazon. Free shipping means no longer having to buy by the case and trying to find storage space for home inventory. In accounting we would say it's becoming more like "Just-In-Time" incoming and outgoing inventory when storage space is limited and less money is tied up in unused inventory. In business incurring lower inventory carrying costs can make a big difference on the bottom line.


From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on January 9, 2018

 Two suits catch Google in middle of gender debate
Former Google female employees last week sued the company, a unit of
Alphabet Inc., for allegedly discriminating against women, while former male employees on Monday filed a suit for allegedly discriminating against conservative white men.


Elon Musk needs to make a bold call on Tesla's Model 3 before it's too late
The math is simple: Tesla is spending as much as General Motors every quarter — about $1 billion — to produce and sell a fraction of the vehicles that GM does. GM is also turning that invested capital into steady profits, while Tesla in the third-quarter of 2017 posted the biggest loss in its history. GM has a $25-billion war chest. Tesla only has enough cash to operate through 2018. --
-
http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-model-3-problems-threaten-company-future-musks-job-2018-1
Jensen Comment
In my opinion the time is right for Tesla to begin to outsource production to other automobile manufacturers in other places like Detroit and maybe even Mexico and Brazil.

A highly classified US spy satellite is missing due to a SpaceX mission failure ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-spy-satellite-lost-due-to-spacex-failure-2018-1


How the New Tax Law Affects Paying for K-16 Schools ---
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2018-01-08/5-ways-the-new-tax-law-affects-families-paying-for-college


A Grad Student Defended a Controversial Instructor. Now He Says He’s Being Silenced ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/A-Grad-Student-Defended-a/242175?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=dc6ee2cf468a454bb61377eccdf46b70&elq=fb59b2c5573240808d5317dec1e56e5e&elqaid=17325&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=7554

Last June, a Ph.D. student at the University of California at Los Angeles wrote a letter supporting a lecturer whose job was in jeopardy. The lecturer was Keith A. Fink, an outspoken lawyer who had taught communication courses part time at UCLA for a decade, including a popular one on campus free speech.

The graduate student, Justin Gelzhiser, had read in the campus newspaper about Mr. Fink and his battles with administrators. Mr. Fink argues that he lost his faculty job because of his conservative views and because he often criticized the administration in his teaching.

When Mr. Gelzhiser learned that Mr. Fink was on the verge of losing his job, he felt compelled to call attention to what he saw as threats to Mr. Fink’s academic freedom. Mr. Gelzhiser was a teaching assistant in the communication department and served as a graduate-student representative on the Academic Senate’s academic-freedom committee.

But the letter, to the interim dean of social sciences, ended up putting Mr. Gelzhiser’s own job in jeopardy, he says. He has accused university administrators of threatening him with a sexual-misconduct complaint to try to force him to leave the department.

The scuffle is another twist in Mr. Fink’s case, which captured national attention last year, especially in conservative circles, and prompted the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education to demand answers from the university. It also has sparked a discussion at UCLA about how, as Mr. Gelzhiser alleges, a Title IX investigation could be used as a threat — and how to prevent that from happening.

Last month Mr. Gelzhiser filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights alleging that UCLA officials had used the gender-equity law Title IX as a bargaining chip to try to silence him.

Meanwhile, Mr. Fink has undertaken a public campaign to call out what he sees as the university’s disregard for academic freedom and due process, and he’s created a nonprofit organization to provide legal help to UCLA students and faculty members. Both men are also fighting to get their jobs back.

In Mr. Gelzhiser’s view, one thing is clear: He was targeted because of his advocacy on Mr. Fink’s behalf. "Keith’s case was essentially done on campus until I brought it back into the light," he said. But as a consequence, he said, his teaching-assistant contract wasn’t renewed, and "my life has been turned upside down."

Kerri L. Johnson, chair of the communication department, said she couldn’t comment on Mr. Gelzhiser’s specific claims. She did say, though, that she had never seen the letter he wrote in support of Mr. Fink, and that the department’s staff members immediately report any sexual-misconduct issues to the Title IX office.

A university spokesman wrote in an email that "due to individual privacy rights that protect both students and university employees, we are unable to comment on this specific matter." He added that "the Title IX Office does not condone any manipulation of its investigatory processes."

A Letter of Support

Last year Mr. Fink went through an "excellence review," as all UCLA lecturers do after teaching at the university for 18 quarters.

The department’s nine tenured professors deadlocked on whether to promote him; three voted yes, three voted no, and three abstained. That left the final decision to Laura E. Gomez, who was then interim dean of social sciences.

Mr. Gelzhiser sent a letter to Ms. Gomez on June 5 discussing Mr. Fink’s popularity among students and praising his teaching. Mr. Gelzhiser also suggested that UCLA is a predominantly liberal campus and pointed to the instructor’s conservative views as an asset.

Continued in article

"The Academy’s Assault on Intellectual Diversity," by Robert Boyers, Chronicle of Higher Education's Chronicle Review, March 19, 2017 ---
http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Academy-s-Assault-on/239496?key=JQfw5xpCetCwuacmaap92Bzb0ARlrgGe6ByF4T0gSt3g5KNYYPD5R-hD829-mBenc3pNcUxfZWRXQUdPOHlUcXoyLVhzSDlxanpGdEV1Ym1XWVpZZTlSa1lpTQ

The Closing of the American Mind:  What Allan Bloom Got Right ---
 By Todd Gitlin
Chronicle of Higher Education
October 8, 2017
http://www.chronicle.com/article/What-Allan-Bloom-Got-Right/241375?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=5f4ce19f63264c9ca99a1bcc8e8dcff7&elq=3cc5401748ab40a085486b07961176fc&elqaid=15963&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=6887

"You can slam its young people into universities with their classrooms and laboratories, and when they come out all they can talk about is Babe Ruth. America is a hopeless country for intellectuals and thinking people." Babe Ruth is the giveaway. These words were spoken in 1923, and the speaker was Theodore Dreiser, who had dropped out of Indiana University after one year.

So it is not a new thought that American universities are nests of self-betrayal and triviality where inquiring minds trade the nobility of their tradition for cheap trinkets and the promise of pieces of silver to come. Indeed, five years before Dreiser popped off, Thorstein Veblen was denouncing "the higher learning in America" for having surrendered to business domination, ditched the pure pursuit of knowledge, cultivated "conspicuous conformity to the popular taste," and pandered to undergraduates by teaching them "ways and means of dissipation." "The conduct of universities by business men," to borrow from Veblen’s subtitle, had rendered university life "mechanistic." Veblen anticipated that the academy would wallow in futility when it was not prostrating itself at the feet of the captains of finance. His original subtitle was A Study in Total Depravity. Veblen having dropped it, Allan Bloom should have picked it up.

Veblen thought the university had been seized by "pecuniary values." To Bloom, whose bestselling book, The Closing of the American Mind, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, something much worse had happened: The university had been seized by the absence of values. "The university now offers no distinctive visage to the young person. He finds a democracy of the disciplines. … This democracy is really an anarchy, because there are no recognized rules for citizenship and no legitimate titles to rule. In short there is no vision, nor is there a set of competing visions, of what an educated human being is."

A horde of bêtes noires had stampeded through the gates, and the resulting noise had drowned out the proper study of both nature and humanity. Nihilism had conquered. Its chief forms were cultural relativism, historicism, and shopping-mall indifference, the humanities’ lame attempts at a holding action that "flatters popular democratic tastes." Openness was the new closure; elitism had become the worst of all isms.

Just how this happened, however, Bloom was uncertain. He was not a stickler for historical causation. When in doubt, he pounded the table and ranted about his next talking point, dotted with references to Great Books. Closing read more dyspeptic than lamentational. But the lamentational note was there. Once the university had been a crucible of truth; then it had been seized by, or sold to, the utilitarians; finally, it had collapsed in the face of nihilism. (Never mind that universities were training schools before they were Platonic academies.)

Bloom, who died in 1992, pulled no punches, even those that pummeled his own argument, and the nonstop crescendo of his rant made it easy for campus leftists to dismiss the book rather casually — too casually.

For some five years after publication, Closing helpedinspire an assault on "political correctness" and the putative left-wing takeover by "tenured radicals" that roiled the campuses and flowed into the political arena via William Bennett and Lynne Cheney, among others. Most of the assault came from the right, of course, though I, among others, contributed my own variant from the left. But coiled inside Bloom’s polemic, drowned out by his own thunder, was an inconvenient truth all the more worth taking seriously30  years later.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on political correctness in colleges and universities ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies2.htm#PoliticalCorrectness


The Question of Little Free Libraries ---
https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2018/01/02/question-little-free-libraries/

Jensen Comment
Our local hospital maintains a free library opposite the dining hall. It's not required to leave a book before taking a book, but many patrons leave handfuls of their own books. I would say that most of the books are not ones that I take home, but occasionally there's a gem. I always return that book plus some others.


The Favorite Literary Work of Every Country Visualized on a World Map ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/12/the-favorite-literary-work-of-every-country-visualized-on-a-world-map.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29


Ten Fascinating Things from a January 4, 2018 MIT Newsletter

 

 

 

1

Don't buy an electric car
Almost 80 percent of America’s all-electric cars are leased, compared to 30 percent for the nation’s entire fleet. Here's why it's a good idea. (Bloomberg)

2

All signal, no reciever
AT&T plans to launch 5G connections in America by the end of 2018. Then you'll just need a phone that can make use of them. (Reuters)

3

Houses that float
Rising tides a worry? What you need is a home that's bouyant. (New Yorker)

4

Stats in your eyes
Your retina reveals blood pressure or age—to a computer, at least. Here’s how AI is making unexpected predictions from medical images. (Nature)

5

Get your brain in gear
Nissan is testing a brain-to-vehicle interface that allows a car to respond to a driver’s intentions before they can turn the wheel or hit the gas. (TR)

6

Underestimating e-tail
Online sales could be twice as high as the figures published by the Fed, massively underestimating the scale of e-tail in America. (Axios)

7

Shine a light
UV light kills microbes but damages human tissue. Now, a shorter wavelength may be safe enough to slow virus spread in public spaces. (Science)

8

Climate crunch time
We're calling it: 2017 was the year that the climate span out of control. (TR)

9

Cyber chaos for the feds
The DHS admits a hack lost details belonging to 240,000 staff. (Cyberscoop)
+ The NSA is hemorrhaging hackers, engineers, and data scientists. (WaPo)

10

AI Mario
Watch AI learn to play Mario in this oddly compelling livestream. (YouTube)

 


Angus Deaton --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Deaton

A Nobel Prize-winning economist (Princeton's Angus Deaton) thinks we’re asking all the wrong questions about inequality ---
https://qz.com/1166356/nobel-prize-winning-economist-angus-deaton-thinks-were-asking-all-the-wrong-questions-about-inequality/


Autistic Prodigies Since “Rain Man”:  Our evolving understanding of “the engineer’s disease.” ---
http://nautil.us/issue/56/perspective/autistic-prodigies-since-rain-man


Final GOP Deal Would Tax Universities With Large Endowments ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/12/18/large-endowments-would-be-taxed-under-final-gop-tax-plan?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=39cce06ca0-DNU20171218&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-39cce06ca0-197565045&mc_cid=39cce06ca0&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

Princeton University
Princeton Theological Seminary
Yale University
Harvard University
Stanford University
Pomona College
The Juilliard School
Weill Cornell Medical College
Amherst College
Swarthmore College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Grinnell College
Williams College
California Institute of Technology
Rice University
Wellesley College
Cooper Union
Medical College of Wisconsin
Dartmouth College
Washington and Lee University
Bowdoin College
University of Notre Dame
University of Richmond
Smith College
Baylor College of Medicine
Icahn School at Mt. Sinai
Emory University
Washington University in St. Louis
Bryn Mawr College
Claremont McKenna College
Trinity University (Texas)
University of Chicago

 

Eluding the Endowment Tax ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/01/02/wealthy-colleges-face-uncertainty-they-seek-ways-avoid-new-endowment-tax?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=8366a1e799-DNU20180102&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-8366a1e799-197565045&mc_cid=8366a1e799&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

 Picture a mad scramble at wealthy private colleges and universities in the days after the Republican tax reform plan passed Congress, as officials scurried to find ways to dodge or minimize the new excise tax on their endowments.

 

With the legislation kicking in for taxable years starting after Dec. 31, there would have been little time to lose. The tax reform package places an annual 1.4 percent excise tax on net investment income at an estimated several dozen colleges and universities. Specifically, the tax will apply to institutions with at least 500 students and net assets of $500,000 per student. That includes some of the nation's wealthiest colleges, such as Harvard, Stanford and Princeton Universities, but also some that fall under the tax in large part because they have relatively small student bodies, such as Claremont McKenna College.

It also includes colleges with unique missions and circumstances that don't fit the generic picture of a college and its endowment. Kentucky's Berea College uses its substantial per-student endowment to enable it to not charge tuition and was the center of legislative maneuvering as the bill passed. Cooper Union has a per-student endowment of more than $500,000 only because it owns the $675.6 million Chrysler Building in New York City -- which represented more than 80 percent of Cooper Union's endowment value in 2016.

 

Picture the chaos as money managers and business officers frantically ran simulations to determine which changes would limit their tax bills. Can portfolios be sold so that the gains on top-performing assets are realized before they are taxed? Can donations be redirected so that they will not go into funds exposed to taxation? Should colleges on the edge of the bill’s $500,000-per-student cutoff enroll a few more students to drive down the average value of their assets? Should those with slightly more than 500 students try to cut enrollment next year so as to drop below that limit?

 

Then ignore that scene, because it’s pure fiction.

 

To be sure, college and university leaders are asking their business offices what the excise tax will mean for them. Tax policy tends to distort behavior, after all. But the immediate reaction to the college investment income excise tax looks less like a movie scene depicting stock market panic and more like experts reading, squinting and scratching their heads.

Most are unsure exactly how the endowment tax will affect colleges’ and universities’ behavior, especially in the short term. There are, they say, simply too many lingering unknowns about how the letter of the law will be translated into practice.

 

“We are expecting the Treasury Department to have to take some steps to help with some of the definitions,” said Liz Clark, director of federal affairs at the National Association of College and University Business Officers. “A lot is going to rest on the definition of assets used directly in carrying out the educational institutions’ exempt purpose, as well as the definition of net investment income.”

Clark was referring to specific language in the bill. It says net investment income will be taxed, but it remains unclear how, specifically net investment income is to be calculated. The bill also carves out some assets from being used to calculate the $500,000-per-student limit asset trigger -- those "assets which are used directly in carrying out the institution’s exempt purpose" -- but experts don’t know exactly which assets will end up being exempt.

 

They’re accounting questions that seem simple at first glance. But few things are simple when it comes to accounting -- or university endowments, which are often made up of a dizzying assortment of individual funds, restricted for different uses and invested in a variety of asset classes spanning bonds, public stocks, venture capital, real estate and commodities.

The excise tax isn’t even necessarily limited to endowments. While it’s been referred to publicly as an endowment tax, the bill does not use that term. It refers to an “excise tax based on net investment income,” experts pointed out.

 

Definitions were fluid enough in the run-up to the bill’s passage that few were able to agree on estimates of how many institutions will be subject to the tax. A National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities list included the Weill Cornell Medical College as being subject to the tax, only for Cornell University to say that its medical college’s endowed funds have long been counted toward a unified university endowment and would not be affected by the tax.

 

Elsewhere, consulting firm Ithaka S&R posted a long discussion about why particular methods of tabulating enrollment can change which institutions are exempt under the bill’s 500-student limit. The bill says that the number of students "shall be based on the daily average number of full-time students attending such institution (with part-time students taken into account on a full-time student equivalent basis)." But Ithaka S&R pointed out that the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System "collects both fall FTE and 12-month FTE, but it’s unclear which method the provision recommends." It also notes that several of the institutions that appear to be subject to the tax enroll only graduate students and may consider themselves part of another campus instead of stand-alone institutions -- like Weill Cornell Medical College

Continued in article


Lawyer who once advised Martin Shkreli has been convicted of helping him defraud a pharmaceutical company ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/martin-shkrelis-former-attorney-was-convicted-of-aiding-fraud-scheme-2017-12

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


Former Houston Community College trustee sentenced to 70 months in prison for taking bribes ---
http://abc13.com/education/former-hcc-trustee-sentenced-to-70-months-in-prison-for-taking-bribes/2912968/?elqTrackId=ad151e2f3d3f43c1a8d2f24a41cde0b1&elq=dd6538e2c28844309da3b3cc88d6f1fc&elqaid=17362&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=7569

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


New York Times:  Diane Butrus, a business executive from St. Louis, wandered the streets of Zurich, looking for a bank that would help her keep $1.5 million hidden from America tax collectors ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/01/ny-times-a-swiss-banker-helped-americans-dodge-taxes-was-it-a-crime.html

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


Former Columbia U. Financial-Aid Director Is Accused of Taking Hundreds of Thousands in Kickbacks ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Former-Columbia-U/242220?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=c241d9c56ae84c27a3753b3ace51b1c9&elq=f808e08456b74c22b79abf9e9b849875&elqaid=17422&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=7620

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


From a Chronicle of Higher Education Newsletter on January 9, 2018

There's an old saying in journalism: Everybody needs an editor. But the adage also holds true in higher ed. Case in point: As part of its marketing campaign to celebrate its 150th anniversary, the University of California at Berkeley hung banners featuring a chemical element — berkelium — that was named for the city of Berkeley, where it was discovered. Big problem: The banners featured the wrong chemical symbol — Br, which The Chronicle's chemistry-inclined readers will quickly recognize as bromine, not berkelium.

Jensen Comment
Reminds me of the year Trinity University misspelled its own name on the cover (along the spine) of its college catalog.


When Does an Artist’s Appropriation Become Copyright Infringement?
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-artists-appropriation-theft


An open access deal between German authors in journals published by Elsevier could be problematic, say Alex Holcombe and Bjoern Brembs ---
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/open-access-germany-best-deal-no-deal

Germany vs Elsevier: universities win temporary journal access after refusing to pay fees ---
http://lisnews.org/germany_vs_elsevier_universities_win_temporary_journal_access_after_refusing_to_pay_fees


Crytocurrency --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

Ethereum --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum

What Actually Is Bitcoin? Princeton’s Free Course “Bitcoin and Currency Technologies” Provides Much-Needed Answers ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/01/what-actually-is-bitcoin-princetons-free-course-bitcoin-and-currency-technologies-provides-much-needed-answers.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Sweden could be the first economy to introduce its own cryptocurrency, called the e-krona ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-cryptocurrency-e-krona-riksbank-2018-1

Warren Buffett Just Ripped Cripto Currency to Shreds ---
http://time.com/money/5096862/warren-buffett-bitcoin-ripple-invest-cryptocurrency/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=2018011018pm&xid=newsletter-brief

Scams & stupidities around 'blockchain stocks' ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-blockchain-stocks-price-moves-2017-12

The Bitcoin Paradox ---
http://nautil.us/issue/55/trust/the-bitcoin-paradox

Tax avoidance is causing a surge in bitcoin loans ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/tax-avoidance-is-causing-a-surge-in-bitcoin-loans-2017-12

You can now rent a Kodak-branded bitcoin-mining rig — but you'll have to hand over half of the profits you make ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/kashminer-kodak-bitcoin-mining-2018-1
Why wasn't it called Kodak's Bitcoin Brownie?

A guide to paying taxes on cryptocurrency (e.g. bitcoin) profit ---
https://qz.com/1156706/a-guide-to-paying-taxes-on-bitcoin-investments/

A crypto expert explains the difference between the two largest cryptocurrencies in the world: bitcoin and Ethereum ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/ethereum-price-versus-bitcoin-price-crypto-expert-lex-sokolin-2018-1


Blockchain --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain

Kodak's the Latest Company Jumping on the Blockchain Bandwagon ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/kodak-launches-new-blockchain-project-for-photographers-2018-1

BankThink: Don't believe the hype: There are no good uses for blockchain ---
https://www.information-management.com/opinion/dont-believe-the-hype-there-are-no-good-uses-for-blockchain?utm_campaign=daily-jan 3 2018&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&eid=bd43d720a6c9c7750e7b8fb89f29a522
Thank you Glen Gray for the heads up

Blockchain Is Pumping New Life Into Old-School Companies Like IBM ---
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-26/blockchain-pumping-new-life-into-old-school-companies-like-ibm?cmpid=BBD122617_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=171226&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily

Demand for the technology, best known for supporting bitcoin, is growing so much that it will be one of the largest users of capacity next year at about 60 data centers worldwide that IBM rents out to other companies.

December 26, 2017 reply from Bill McCarthy

Another view of blockchain accounting from a recent talk to ABC (Accounting blockchain Coalition).

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nux15-RxufY


Blockchain --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain

Blockchain considerations for management and auditors ---
https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2017/dec/blockchain-for-management-and-auditors-201717994.html?utm_source=mnl:cpald&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=05Dec2017


The South Sea Company Bubble was a famous accounting scandal in the early 1700s ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Company

Isaac Newton --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton

How Isaac Newton Lost $3 Million Dollars in the “South Sea Bubble” of 1720: Even Geniuses Can’t Prevail Against the Machinations of the Markets ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/01/how-isaac-newton-lost-3-million-dollars-in-the-south-sea-bubble-of-1720-even-geniuses-cant-prevail-against-the-machinations-of-the-markets.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29


Consultant allegedly plagiarized US Air Force officer ---
http://retractionwatch.com/2018/01/02/consultant-allegedly-plagiarized-us-air-force-officer/


Chronicle of Higher Education
A Dying Town:   Here in a corner of Missouri and across America, the lack of a college education has become a public-health crisis ---
https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/public-health?cid=db&elqTrackId=8e0605106c784d40abeef68721ce03f7&elq=3f78a602f46f4ce38b89816e51756272&elqaid=17292&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=7523

Drive 90 miles north on Interstate 55 from Memphis, then 20 miles west on Route 412, cutting through seemingly endless fields of cotton, rice, and soybeans. You’ll know you’ve arrived when you see the sign: Welcome to Kennett. Hometown of Sheryl Crow.

This small town in southeastern Missouri used to greet visitors with a different motto: "Service. Industry. Agriculture." But the machine-parts-maker closed and the trailer manufacturer left and the aluminum smelter went under. There’s not nearly as much industry around here as there used to be. Sheryl Crow’s Grammys aren’t going anywhere.

Route 412 becomes First Street, and downtown opens up with a McDonald’s to your left and a Burger King to your right. There are just two grocery stores in town, but fast-food restaurants are everywhere. It’s easier to find a pharmacy than a salad bar.

Outside the row of medical offices that border the hospital, people pause for one last smoke. Mr. Chan’s still sells doughnuts and kolaches, and Riggs Supply is, somehow, holding on, but there are many boarded-up storefronts along First Street these days. Down the road, a branch of the local college offers programs in education, criminal justice, and agribusiness. College-going isn’t so common, though. In this area, just one adult in 10 has a four-year degree.

Recently the town tried to revitalize the area around the old county courthouse. It added new streetlights and redid the sidewalks. But few people use them.

This is the Missouri Bootheel. The counties around here are called that because if you squint at a map, it kind of looks like the heel of a boot, jutting south from the rest of the state into Arkansas and Tennessee. The name comes from its shape, but it’s something of a metaphor, too. It can sometimes seem like life is trying to grind people down.

It’s a place, one of many in America, where disadvantages pile up. Researchers are uncovering links between education — or lack of it — and health, and they don’t like what they see. It’s not clear whether a college degree leads directly to better health, or, if so, how. But the findings are alarming: Educational disparities and economic malaise and lack of opportunity are making people like those in the Bootheel sick. And maybe even killing them.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
We seem to be reverting to small towns without medical services. In Swea City, Iowa in the early 1900s there were no doctors, dentists, or even local law enforcement in my Grandmother Dourte's home town. She had all her teeth pulled at one time by a traveling dentist and watched her oldest son die upstairs from pneumonia and her young daughter die on from a burst appendix. Most babies were born inside homes with local midwives in attendance. Going off to college was infrequent in these small towns. Today in this town most residents are retired farmers --- there are not many high school graduates to go college, and those that do go to college usually don't return to their small home towns.

he New Yorker Writes About a "Small" Iowa Town:  Leave or Stay
In a small town in Iowa where the American dream lives on, residents wonder whether to resolve conflicts or fulfill their longings by moving away or staying put ---
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/13/where-the-small-town-american-dream-lives-on?elqTrackId=cd9222bf37db46a7802121a2eec65d16&elq=3ce84d7ba2e64ee4b0c0144246469972&elqaid=16817&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=7280


Note that Orange City featured in this is a relatively large Iowa town in a state filled with towns having less than 1,000 residents. There were many "thriving" Iowa towns back in the days when they were surrounded by small family farms of 80-160 acres. When I grew up in the 1950s on both a farm and later in town farmers did not have to invest heavily in equipment, and most farmers were still supplementing a small tractor with horses and mules. At harvest time threshing machines moved from farm to farm, thereby making it unnecessary for every farmer to own a threshing machine. Now making a living on 240 acres is a marginal operation given the nearly $2 million needed for enormous tractors, combines, sprayers. planters, tanks, etc. There's no profit in raising a few cows, sheep, chickens, and turkeys that are now raised in enormous containment feeding operations holding thousands or tens of thousands of animals.

When the families sold off their small farms to bigger farms there were fewer and fewer customers shopping in small Iowa farm towns. Many downtown stores were boarded up or torn down and town schools closed to become part of every larger school districts covering multiple towns. Jobs dried up in the small towns such that residents that wanted to stay either could not find and work or could only find part-time work at minimum wage --- not a living wage for a family.

One of the things that shocked me is that there was almost no market for the big two-story house my grandfather built in Swea City around 1900. The oak-paneled house had four bedrooms plus a den along with a living room, dining room, big kitchen, and den. When I returned for a visit to Swea City in the 1960s this well-maintained house with a big porch could be purchased for less than $10,000. In Des Moines such a house would be priced at well over $100,000. The thing is that Des Moines has a viable economy with over 200,000 residents and many career opportunities to work in town. Swea City has around 500 residents, most of whom are retired farmers who choose living in Swea City because of the cheap housing. But they have to drive over 30 miles to larger towns for shopping since the grocery stores, the clothing stores, the hardware stores, the drug stores, etc. are now boarded over in Swea City. There are very few jobs available today in Swea City, Iowa.

What caused the demise of small Iowa towns like Swea City?
 Firstly, it was the demise of the small family farms that used to surround the towns with a customer base. Second, it was the change in professional services where professionals like physicians and lawyers now prefer to no longer be sole-practitioners serving a small community. Now professionals prefer to be in medical clinics and multiple-partner law firms located in larger towns and serving smaller communities from a distance. What medical school graduate or law school graduate wants to set up a one-person practice in Swea City, Iowa? Thirdly, it was changing roads and vehicles. In the 1960s Iowa knocked the curbs off its narrow highways and straitened out the sharp curves such that the trip from Swea to the larger Algona now takes about 30 minutes for shopping rather than upwards of an hour that it used to take in the 1930s. Plus in the 1930s drivers sometimes had to stop once or twice to put patches on inner tubes of flat tires. In the 21st Century it's relatively rare to have a flat tire driving from Swea City to Algona.

The economic sacrifice made to raise a family in a small Iowa town is negatively correlated with the size of the town coupled with other factors such as having an area college and hospital in the town and commuting distance to a larger town for jobs. Orange City featured in the above article has over 6,000 residents making it a relatively large Iowa town. But it's also remotely located such that not many residents want to commute elsewhere for jobs. That makes the above article somewhat interesting since there are some economic opportunities in Orange City for those who want to remain and raise their families in Orange City.

 

Bob Jensen's threads about small and dying Iowa farm towns.

Stories About Growing Up

·         Short story entitled My Glimpse of Heaven:  What I learned from Max and Gwen
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/max01.htm

A short story about my grandfather Christian Granville Dourte
http://cs.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/FamilyHistory/SweaCity/Dourte.htm

Sequel:  About My Grandfather Dourte with a link to  Hierogliphe's ancestry
A short story about my grandfather Christian Granville Dourte
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/FamilyHistory/SweaCity/Dourte.htm


Library of Congress Will No Longer Archive All Public Tweets ---
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-12-27/library-of-congress-will-no-longer-archive-all-public-tweets

Jensen Comment
This will be a loss to future historians wanting to write a history of President Trump's entire term of office.


Chatbot --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatbot

THE CHATBOT MONETIZATION REPORT: Sizing the market, key strategies, and how to navigate the chatbot opportunity ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/chatbot-monetization-market-business-strategies-opportunites-2016-11

QuickBooks jumps on the chatbot bandwagon ---
https://www.accountingtoday.com/news/quickbooks-jumps-on-the-chatbot-bandwagon

Jensen Comment
There's an enormous opportunity for chatbots in education and training


The Extinction of Libraries: Why the Predictions aren’t Coming True ---
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-extinction-of-libraries-why-the-predictions-arent_us_5a3d3acde4b06cd2bd03da4a


Dos & Don'ts on Designing for Accessibility---
https://accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2016/09/02/dos-and-donts-on-designing-for-accessibility/

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

Bob Jensen's links to Tools and Tricks of the Trade for students with diasbilities ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Handicapped


More than 3,600 stores will close in 2018 — here's the full list ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/stores-closing-in-2018-2017-12
Walgreens tops the list with 600 closures


Extrovert Accountants In Conversation --- Those accountants who look at your shoes rather than their own shoes while having a standing conversation

K-12:  Teaching Introverted Students: How a 'Quiet Revolution' Is Changing Classroom Practice (stop talking)---
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/12/27/teaching-introverted-students-how-a-quiet-revolution.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news1&M=58328559&U=2290378

. . .

Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, became a bestseller, and whose talk on making the workplace more inclusive of different personality styles became a TED Talk phenomenon. Since then, Cain has set her sights on changing the classroom, where she says teachers unconsciously reward the extroverts who dive headfirst into discussions, sometimes without much forethought.

Continued in article


Chemistry Absent From 3 in 5 Secondary Schools, Analysis Finds ---
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2017/12/chemistry_absent_in_many_secondary_schools.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news2&M=58328559&U=2290378

Many schools don't offer a standalone chemistry class, and even in those that do, black and Hispanic students are less likely to take it

Jensen Comment
Guess what course is most likely to separate first-year college students from their pre-med initial choice of majors?


The definitive, scientific answers to 20 health questions everyone has ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/health-myths-questions-2016-12/#does-sugar-make-you-hyper-1

Nine Facts You Learned in School That Are No Longer True ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/facts-no-longer-true-2017-3


Kaplan University --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaplan_University

After being essentially "given away" by Jeff Bezo's Washington Post, the former Kaplan University is now named Purdue Global University ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Offspring-of-Purdue-s/242213?cid=wcontentlist_hp_latest&elqTrackId=770cf49d644648389c4d60f584981a5b&elq=ec436abaed344d3f9ca010248f72e80e&elqaid=17423&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=7621

The offspring of Purdue University’s purchase of Kaplan University has been christened Purdue University Global. In a news release, Purdue said the name would become official if the regional accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission, approves the deal.

That review is scheduled for February 22, according to the news release. The Indiana Commission for Higher Education and the U.S. Department of Education have already signed off on the deal.

“Our campuses are typically named after the physical locations where they hold classes. Purdue University Global can be accessed from anywhere in the world, at any time,” said Purdue's president, Mitch Daniels. “The name proved appealing and meaningful to our various stakeholders – most importantly prospective students.”

The new name omits mention of Kaplan University, which currently serves 29,000 students online and in person in Iowa, Indiana, Nebraska, Maryland, Maine, Missouri, and Wisconsin.

Betty Vandenbosch, president of Kaplan University, would become chancellor of Purdue University Global.

“The name is respectful of Purdue’s exceptional reputation, but also distinct from Purdue’s other campuses,” she said.

Purdue’s decision to buy the for-profit university has stirred debate since news of it broke in April. Faculty members and students questioned the public university’s motives, with one equating the deal to selling the university’s brand to Wall Street. Others have raised concerns that Kaplan would retain control over the institutions it currently has while receiving a facelift from the Purdue brand.

Jensen Comment
Roughly speaking, Purdue University had 30,000 undergraduate and 10,000 graduate students before taking on Kaplan's 29,000 students. This makes the acquisition of Kaplan University a pretty big deal for Purdue and greatly changes its outreach mission. Online universities typically have much lower admission standards than flagship state universities. It will be interesting to see how Purdue maintains traditionally high admission standards and graduation standards. in its new Purdue Global University. My guess is that the 29,000 figure will shrink for degree-seeking graduates, but nobody knows by how much at this juncture.

Many of the PGU students may become non-traditional students seeking technical badges/certificates rather than transcript credits. That may become typical in many of our flagship universities as employers seek greater specialization skills of new employees, often technical skills not being taught in flagship universities at the moment. For example, until now employers would not recruit on flagship university campuses for accountants specialized in cross-currency swap accounting or accountants trained in derivative financial instrument valuations using Bloomberg terminal yield curves. That could change as badges and certificates become increasingly popular.

Bob Jensen's threads on learning seekers apart from degree seekers ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


The Surprising Frequency of Interspecies Mating ---
https://daily.jstor.org/the-surprising-frequency-of-interspecies-mating/

Jensen Comment
Even though mules are sterile, the mating of a donkeys with horses captured some of the best qualities of both species for farm work. Mules are intelligent (like a donkey) and strong (like a horse). Also mules can take the heat better than most horses.


Most Personality Quizzes Are Junk Science. One that Allegedly is Not Junk Science (although debatable) ---
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/most-personality-quizzes-are-junk-science-i-found-one-that-isnt/

Jensen Comment
I still think I could deceive on this and all other personality quizzes.


Econometrics Readings for the New Year by David Giles --
http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2018/01/econometrics-readng-for-new-year.html

Another year, and lots of exciting reading!

·                     Davidson, R. & V. Zinde-Walsh, 2017. Advances in specification testing. Canadian Journal of Economics, online.

·                     Dias, G. F. & G. Kapetanios, 2018. Estimation and forecasting in vector autoregressive moving average models for rich datasets. Journal of Econometrics, 202, 75-91.  

·                     González-Estrada, E. & J. A. Villaseñor, 2017. An R package for testing goodness of fit: goft. Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation, online.

·                     Hajria, R. B., S. Khardani, & H. Raïssi, 2017. Testing the lag length of vector autoregressive models:  A power comparison between portmanteau and Lagrange multiplier tests. Working Paper 2017-03, Escuela de Negocios y EconomÍa. Pontificia Universidad Católica de ValaparaÍso.

·                     McNown, R., C. Y. Sam, & S. K. Goh, 2018. Bootstrapping the autoregressive distributed lag test for cointegration. Applied Economics, 50, 1509-1521.

·                     Pesaran, M. H. & R. P. Smith, 2017. Posterior means and precisions of the coefficients in linear models with highly collinear regressors. Working Paper BCAM 1707, Birkbeck, University of London.

·                     Yavuz, F. V. & M. D. Ward, 2017. Fostering undergraduate data science. American Statistician, online. 


Why a paperless world still hasn't happened
Despite some of the mightiest headwinds on the planet, the paper business actually saw consumption grow 50 percent between 1980 and 2011 ---

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/29/american-reams-why-the-paperless-world-hasnt-happened


Accountants are not generally known to be the life of a party.
Times have Changed
One of the things at parties, especially among strangers, is engaging in meaningful conversations. !

WSJ: The Most Popular People At New Year's Eve Parties? Tax Accountants ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2017/12/wsj-who-will-be-the-most-popular-people-at-your-new-year-eves-party-tax-accountants.html

Jensen Comment
Three common questions accountants should bone up on before going to parties.

Are high income folks really getting the best breaks?
If so why is the liberal NY governor seeking to get them even better breaks?
This leading question is one of those "well it all depends" questions.

There aren't many tax breaks for the poor in the latest tax reform legislation since the poor in the USA did not previously pay much in the way of income taxes (although they pay payroll taxes, sales taxes, and property taxes factored into rent). However, much of the media leads and some professors (like like the lying Alan Blinder of Princeton) rant that there's nothing in the way of tax breaks for the middle class.  Is this really true people will ask at cocktail parties and wine receptions?
The New York Times answer for this one ---
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/17/upshot/tax-calculator.html
Accountants who put the above link on their iPhone for parties can also answer the personal question: "Can I expect to pay more in 2018 than in 2017?"

Will the lowering of the corporate tax rate bring home trillions of corporate cash earned in overseas transactions back into the USA?
This one is probably the most difficult to answer since its more of an economics debate question than an accounting question.

The truth of the matter is that the timing of the passage of this tax reform legislation means that accountants helping people and companies make financial plans for 2018 literally do not have time to go to parties.
They're being called out by their employer firms to work nights and days ---
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-tax-law-makes-cpas-interesting-for-now-1514457000


Why Blue States are Blue: 
Gov. Jerry Brown:Courts Must Let California Slash its Public-Sector Pensions ---
http://reason.com/blog/2018/01/11/gov-jerry-brown-courts-must-let-californ

Jensen Comment
Many of those bloated pensions resulted from various kinds of frauds frauds that are costly to prosecute due to both cleverness of the frauds and frequency of the frauds


Authors retract paper on psychopathic traits in bosses ---
http://retractionwatch.com/2018/01/12/authors-withdraw-paper-psychopathic-traits-bosses/

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


Fire and Fury mix-up lands U of T professor back on bestseller list ---
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/fire-and-fury-mix-up-lands-u-of-t-professor-back-on-bestseller-list/article37533392/

Jensen Comment

The good news for buyers is that the older book is much more carefully researched. Even CNN's Jake Tapper says the new Fire and Fury is sloppily written with a lot of errors.

Somewhat analogously companies have increased their stock prices merely by announcing their looking into Blockchain applications even if they're not really serious about Blockchain.


These are the 10 richest women in America ---
http://time.com/money/5096770/richest-women-in-america/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=2018011211am&xid=newsletter-brief

Jensen Comment
Rich is somewhat of a tenuous calculation since in so many instances wealth is defined in terms of stock values that are somewhat difficult to compare in terms of financial risk. For example a tech billionaire could be more or less secure than a billionaire with wealth tied up in real estate (such as Wal-Mart properties). Seldom is a billionaire's wealth highly liquid in terms of ease to convert into cash without huge transactions losses. Decades ago some of the most secure wealth was in oil reserves. That is not so much the case these days with renewable energy soaring around the world. In foreign nations wealth may also be subject to political instability such as being the very wealthy President of Venezuela these days.


Econometrics Reading for the New Year from David Giles ---
http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2018/01/econometrics-readng-for-new-year.html

Econometrics Reading for the New Year

Another year, and lots of exciting reading!

Davidson, R. & V. Zinde-Walsh, 2017. Advances in specification testing. Canadian Journal of Economics, online.

Dias, G. F. & G. Kapetanios, 2018. Estimation and forecasting in vector autoregressive moving average models for rich datasets. Journal of Econometrics, 202, 75-91.  

González-Estrada, E. & J. A. Villaseñor, 2017. An R package for testing goodness of fit: goft. Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation, 88, 726-751.

Hajria, R. B., S. Khardani, & H. Raïssi, 2017. Testing the lag length of vector autoregressive models:  A power comparison between portmanteau and Lagrange multiplier tests. Working Paper 2017-03, Escuela de Negocios y EconomÍa. Pontificia Universidad Católica de ValaparaÍso.

McNown, R., C. Y. Sam, & S. K. Goh, 2018. Bootstrapping the autoregressive distributed lag test for cointegration. Applied Economics, 50, 1509-1521.

Pesaran, M. H. & R. P. Smith, 2017. Posterior means and precisions of the coefficients in linear models with highly collinear regressors. Working Paper BCAM 1707, Birkbeck, University of London.

Yavuz, F. V. & M. D. Ward, 2017. Fostering undergraduate data science. American Statistician, online.

 




From the Scout Report on January 5, 2018

Anywhere.link --- https://anywhere.link/
Anywhere.link is a one-click video conference solution. After signing up for an Anywhere.link account, users can create a video conference. The system provides a url to join the conference that can be sent to up to six participants. Recipients of this link need only click it to join the video conference - they will not need to create an account, nor will they need to download or install any additional software. Anywhere.link also supports screen sharing for presentations, software demos, remote technical support, and so on. It provides a 'website widget' that site owners can use to enable one-click video calls from their home page. Anywhere.link's free tier allows five team members, each of whom can receive ten 'website widget' calls per month and can create an unlimited number of video conferences. Anywhere.link currently supports Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera, with work ongoing to add support for other browsers. Companion mobile phone apps for iOS and Android are currently in beta.


11,500 Year-Old DNA from an Alaskan Child Offers New Clues about Native American Ancestry

 

In the Bones of a Buried Child, Signs of a Massive Human Migration to the Americas
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/science/native-americans-beringia-siberia.html

Ancient Infant's DNA Reveals New Clues to How the Americas Were Peopled
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/01/upward-sun-river-infants-genome-peopling-americas/549572/

What the ancient DNA discovery tells us about Native American ancestry
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jan/03/what-the-ancient-dna-discovery-tells-us-about-native-american-ancestry

Terminal Pleistocene Alaskan genome reveals first founding population of Native Americans
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25173

First Americans lived on land bridge for several thousands of years, genetics study suggests
https://theconversation.com/first-americans-lived-on-land-bridge-for-thousands-of-years-genetics-study-suggests-23747

Curriculum Materials: Bering Land Bridge
https://www.nps.gov/bela/learn/education/classrooms/curriculummaterials.htm


From the Scout Report on January 12, 2018

Tampermonkey --- http://tampermonkey.net/
Userscripts are small JavaScript programs that can be run in a browser to customize a website. They are a type of augmented browsing technology, allowing users to add their own personal improvements to the sites they visit. For example, a user could add movie review information (from Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, etc) to the information displayed by their streaming services. Sites like greasyfork.org and openuserjs.org contain large catalogs of customizations that users have built. Tampermonkey is a userscript manager that can find and install userscripts, execute them, and keep them up to date. On Tampermonkey's dashboard, users can see which userscripts they've installed, which sites they apply to, and what permissions each script requires. Libraries of scripts can be exported to Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive and shared with other users. Tampermonkey is available for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Safari, and Opera as well as a number of other browsers.


Standard Notes --- https://standardnotes.org/
Standard Notes is a simple, secure, open-source note-taking application. Notes can be synchronized across devices using end-to-end industry standard AES-256 encryption. In addition to the public sync servers, more technical users may also opt to run their own. Instructions are provided for setting up such a server on Amazon EC2, Docker, or Heroku. Standard Notes provides a backup feature that allows users to download the entire content of their account. Tools are available to convert these backup files into folders of plain-text documents so that users can easily migrate to another system. Standard Notes is available on the desktop for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Mobile versions are available for iOS and Android. A web interface is also available that works in any modern browser. Source code for all the versions of Standard Notes is available on GitHub.


Amphibious Architecture Makes Buildings Flood Resilient

 

A Floating House to Resist the Floods of Climate Change
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/a-floating-house-to-resist-the-floods-of-climate-change

Climate change may lead to a rise in floating architecture
http://www.cnn.com/style/article/floating-architecture-dezeen/index.html

Water world: floating architecture is a booming business, thanks to Dutch designers
https://www.wallpaper.com/architecture/latest-floating-architecture-projects

Amphibious Houses - Elizabeth English
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgT9Gxjztl0

Top 10 trends towards floating cities: Koen Olthuis at TEDxVilnius
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqmmuIbchvU

Inside Makoko: danger and ingenuity in the world's biggest floating slum
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/feb/23/makoko-lagos-danger-ingenuity-floating-slum




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


Education Tutorials

bloggERS: The Blog of the SAA's Electronic Records Section (all about blogs) --- https://saaers.wordpress.com/
Bob Jensen's threads on listservs, blogs, and the social media --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ListServRoles.htm

Thinking Mathematics!: A Resource for Teachers and Students Mathematics (puzzles and videos) --- www.jamestanton.co

Smithsonian Science Education Center: Game Center --- https://ssec.si.edu/game-center

Desmos Classroom Activities (Mathematics)  --- https://teacher.desmos.com/
includes a Free online graphic calculator

Probably the best online computation and graphing utility is Wolfram Alpha ---
http://www.wolframalpha.com/
Wolfram Alpha forever changed the assigning of math homework at virtually all levels
Other math calculators and links ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics

In the Past Lane: The Podcast About History and Why It Matters ---
http://inthepastlane.com/

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

Smithsonian Science Education Center: Game Center --- https://ssec.si.edu/game-center

YouTube: SciCafe --- www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrfcruGtplwG0Dj6cSfmH7RVnIP7CDirG

Binge-Watch Carl Sagan’s Original Cosmos Series Free Online (Available for a Limited Time) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/01/binge-watch-carl-sagans-original-cosmos-series-free-online-available-for-a-limited-time.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Super-black feathers can absorb virtually every photon of light that hits them ---
https://theconversation.com/super-black-feathers-can-absorb-virtually-every-photon-of-light-that-hits-them-89689
This gives new meaning to the song "Strangers in the Night"

Haunting photographs of farm animals reveal more than initially meets the eye ---
https://aeon.co/videos/haunting-photographs-of-farm-animals-reveal-more-than-initially-meets-the-eye?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=d1dd4e3a47-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-d1dd4e3a47-68951505

Ukraine:  Chernobyl's Transformation Into a Massive Solar Plant Is Almost Complete ---
https://sciencealert.com/chernobyl-massive-solar-plant-almost-complete

YouTube: CEN Online (Chemestry videos) --- www.youtube.com/channel/UCB_zuUSmh_PVkqwkaDT-thA?sub_confirmation=1

Interdisciplinary Earth Data Alliance (Geology) --- www.iedadata.org

Learn.Genetics: Model Earth --- http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/earth/

Biodiversity Heritage Library: A History of Cats from 1858 to 1922 Social studies --- www.biodiversitylibrary.org/collection/HistoryOfCats

The Surprising Frequency of Interspecies Mating ---
https://daily.jstor.org/the-surprising-frequency-of-interspecies-mating/

The Journey of a Semipalmated Sandpiper ---
https://manometinc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=e91643ee51ee4ae2bf6cd93eb09ee30e

The Towering Robot That Roams Walmart ---
https://www.wired.com/story/please-do-not-assault-the-towering-robot-that-roams-walmart/

The Crime Fighting Robot That's Stirring Up Controversy ---
https://www.wired.com/story/please-do-not-assault-the-towering-robot-that-roams-walmart/

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

In the Past Lane: The Podcast About History and Why It Matters ---
http://inthepastlane.com/

Emerson College: The American Comedy Archives --- www.emerson.edu/library/archives/american-comedy-archives

World Wealth & Income Database --- http://wid.world/

Bloomberg:  The Economic Arctic ---
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-arctic/the-economic-arctic/

Bob Jensen's links to data and statistics ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#EconStatistics

 

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

Relativity says we live in four dimensions. String theory says it’s 10. What are ‘dimensions’ and how do they affect reality? ---
https://aeon.co/essays/how-many-dimensions-are-there-and-what-do-they-do-to-reality?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=d1dd4e3a47-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-d1dd4e3a47-68951505

Thinking Mathematics!: A Resource for Teachers and Students Mathematics (puzzles and videos) --- www.jamestanton.co

Interactivate (Mathematics) --- www.shodor.org/interactivate

Desmos Classroom Activities (Mathematics)  --- https://teacher.desmos.com/
includes a Free online graphic calculator

Probably the best online computation and graphing utility is Wolfram Alpha ---
http://www.wolframalpha.com/
Wolfram Alpha forever changed the assigning of math homework at virtually all levels
Other math calculators and links ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#050421Mathematics

 

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

Watch the History of the World Unfold on an Animated Map: From 200,000 BCE to Today Posted: 11 Jan 2018 01:00 AM PST ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/01/watch-the-history-of-the-world-unfold-on-an-animated-map-from-200000-bce-to-today.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

In the Past Lane: The Podcast About History and Why It Matters ---
http://inthepastlane.com/

English Heritage: Story of England --- www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/story-of-england

The American Revolution:  Free Course from Yale University ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/12/the-american-revolution-a-free-course-from-yale-university.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Smarthistory: ARCHES (resources for teaching history) --- https://smarthistory.org/arches-intro/

CUNY Dominican Studies Institute: First Blacks in the Americas ---
http://firstblacks.org/en/

Ancient Egypt: Glowing Ink Reveals Hidden Writings on Papyrus Covering 2,000-Year-Old Mummies ---
http://www.newsweek.com/ancient-egypt-glowing-ink-reveals-hidden-writings-papyrus-mummies-768066

Remembering the 1911 Triangle Factory Fire in NYC (most of the 146 victims were young women) ---
http://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/

The String of Pearls (historical mystery featuring Sweeny Todd)  --- www.salisburysquare.com/TSOP

Association of Tribal Libraries, Archives, and Museums: Resources Social studies www.atalm.org/node/52

Seattle Art Museum: Collection Highlights --- http://art.seattleartmuseum.org/collections

Biodiversity Heritage Library: A History of Cats from 1858 to 1922 --- www.biodiversitylibrary.org/collection/HistoryOfCats
Natural History and Evolution
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2-Part2.htm#---NaturalHistory

Emerson College: The American Comedy Archives --- www.emerson.edu/library/archives/american-comedy-archives

News from Anywhere: Blog of the William Morris Society (arts and crafts) ---
http://morrissociety.blogspot.co.uk/

The Devil's Tale: Dispatches from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library (includes historic photographs) ---
https://blogs.library.duke.edu/rubenstein/

19-Year-Old Student Uses Early Spy Camera to Take Candid Street Photos (Circa 1895) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/01/19-year-old-student-uses-early-spy-camera-to-take-candid-street-photos-circa-1895.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The Film Posters of the Russian Avant-Garde ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/01/the-film-posters-of-the-russian-avant-garde.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The Cinderella Bibliography (fairy tale images and history) --- http://d.lib.rochester.edu/cinderella

World Wealth & Income Database --- http://wid.world/

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

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


Music Tutorials

Jim Flora Arts (jazz of the 1950s and 1960s) --- www.jimflora.com

St. Olaf College: Archived Concerts and Recitals --- www.stolaf.edu/multimedia/streams/archive.cfm?category=concerts

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

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

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

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

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

December 30, 2017

·         CDC to Docs: As Flu Spikes, Ready The Antivirals

·         Asthma Worse for Overweight Preschoolers: Study

·         Legends Aside, Moon’s Health Impact More of A Myth

·         Whites More Likely Than Others to Seek Help for Psoriasis

·         Air Pollution May Kill Hundreds Of Seniors A Year

·         8 Small Changes for a Slimmer You in 2018

·         Experts: Getting Active Could Help Boost Memory

·         Epidemic of Opioid Abuse Is Top Health News of 2017

·         MRIs Safe With Older Pacemakers, Study Finds

January 2, 2018

January 3, 2018

January 4, 2018

January 5, 2018

January 8, 2018

January 8, 2018

January 9, 2018

January 10, 2018

January 12, 2018

January 13, 2018

January 15, 2018

January 16, 2018

View All Health News

 


World Wealth & Income Database --- http://wid.world/

OECD Health Statistics 2016 --- http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm

Facts and statistics (Fast Facts) --- http://gwu.edu/~gprice/handbook.htm 

Bob Jensen's links to data and statistics ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#EconStatistics

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


With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit ---
https://theconversation.com/with-teen-mental-health-deteriorating-over-five-years-theres-a-likely-culprit-86996

Jensen Comment
The conclusions of this study are still largely in the realm of speculation.


CRISPR may not actually work in humans (in theory there may be fixes)---
There are big hopes for CRISPR-based gene-therapies curing all kinds of diseases. Immunity could mean that those treatments won’t work.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/01/05/243345


Autism Rates Have Stabilized in the USA ---
http://time.com/5084331/autism-rates-us-stable/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=2018010312pm&xid=newsletter-brief
Rates are still lowest for females and Hispanics

January 7, 2018 Reply from Rob Pinsker

Bob,

Thank you for sharing. A lot of what appeared in the article resonated with my own situation. Raising children on the spectrum is exhausting as it necessitates hyper-vigilance in order to find “successes” wherever they are. On the one hand, I was heartened by the article to highlight what people on the spectrum are capable of. I believe that there are certainly aspects of high-functioning autism that would be beneficial to the accounting/auditing profession: especially with the proliferation of IT and analytics we now have. On the other hand, articles like this and shows like “The Good Doctor” over-emphasize the savants, which are in reality a very small part of the autism population (1 in 10 stated in the article is a bit high). The overwhelming majority of folks on the spectrum are not savants, but still go through a similar regimen of dietary supplements and therapies as what was discussed in the article. As a society, my personal belief is to focus on the other 90+% of ASD individuals and what we can do to help them help society.

Happy New Year AECMers,

Rob Pinsker


The definitive, scientific answers to 20 health questions everyone has ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/health-myths-questions-2016-12/#does-sugar-make-you-hyper-1


Time Magazine:  Top 5 Diets to Try in 2018 ---
http://time.com/5085711/best-diets-for-2018/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=2018010714pm&xid=newsletter-brief


Surgery won't solve the obesity epidemic, but it's the best tool we have ---
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/12/7/16587316/bariatric-surgery-weight-loss-lap-band


Time Magazine:  Why Saunas Are Ridiculously Good For You ---
http://time.com/5096264/sauna-health-benefits/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=2018011112pm&xid=newsletter-brief




Humor for January 2018

Dave Barry --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Barry

I don't know whether this is humor or not, but in Hollywood it would probably be considered humor as long as it was not sabotage
Someone Left a Hatch Open and Crippled India’s $2.9 Billion Submarine ---
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a14783891/someone-left-a-hatch-open-and-crippled-indias-dollar29-billion-submarine/
It might be funnier if it was an Italian sub.
Remember the joke of why the Second Italian Navy uses glass bottom boats --- to search for the First Italian Navy

This is not funny until you imagine the patient trying to get through airport security
Veteran Sues VA Hospital for Leaving a Scalpel Inside Him After Surgery ---
http://time.com/5103408/veteran-glenford-turner-scalpel-lawsuit/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=2018011612pm&xid=newsletter-brief

Dave Barry’s 2017 Year in Review: Did that really happen? ---
http://www.miamiherald.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/dave-barry/article192007484.html

Looking back on 2017 is like waking up after a party where you made some poor decisions, such as drinking tequila squeezed from the underpants of a person you do not really know. (At least you hope it was tequila.)

The next day finds you lying naked in a Dumpster in a different state, smeared from head to toe with a mixture of Sriracha sauce and glitter. At first you remember nothing. But then, as your throbbing brain slowly reboots, memories of the night before, disturbing memories, begin creeping into your consciousness. As the full, hideous picture comes into focus, you curl into a ball, whimpering, asking yourself over and over: Did that really happen?

That’s how we feel about 2017. It was a year so surreal, so densely populated with strange and alarming events, that you have to seriously consider the possibility that somebody — and when we say “somebody,” we mean “Russia” — was putting LSD in our water supply. A bizarre event would occur, and it would be all over the news, but before we could wrap our minds around it, another bizarre event would occur, then another and another, coming at us faster and faster, battering the nation with a Category 5 weirdness hurricane that left us hunkering down, clinging to our sanity, no longer certain what was real.

Take “covfefe.” Remember? For a little while, it was huge. Everybody was talking about it! Covfefe! But then, just like that, it was gone. What the hell WAS it? Did it even really happen?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_on_social_media#"Covfefe"

Emerson College: The American Comedy Archives --- www.emerson.edu/library/archives/american-comedy-archives

It is now physically impossible for any crime to be committed in our great city, because we declared it a zone of peace and harmony and criminals have no choice but to abide by our new rule.
Quote from Rob Emanuel, Chicago Mayor
http://babylonbee.com/news/mayor-declares-chicago-crime-free-zone-criminals-disperse/
Trembling in fear all criminals fled the city or commenced looking for jobs when they discovered crime is suddenly illegal in Chicago
Why didn't anybody think of this before?
But alas, the city officials are still in place --- bribes are still welcome but these are now gifts toward good government
 


THREE LITTLE BOYS were concerned because they couldn't get anyone to play with them. They decided it was because they had not been baptized and didn't go to Sunday school.

So they went to the nearest church. But only the janitor was there.

One little boy said, "We need to be baptized because no one will come out and play with us. Will you baptize us?"

Sure," said the janitor.

He took them into the bathroom and dunked their little heads in the toilet bowl, one at a time. Then he said, "You are now baptized!"

When they got outside, one of them asked, "What religion do you think we are?"

The oldest one said, "We're not Kathlick , because they pour the water on you." "We're not Babtis, because they dunk all of you in the water." "We're not Methdiss , because they just sprinkle water on you.." The littlest one said, "Didn't you smell that water?"

They all joined in asking, "Yeah! What do you think that means?"

"I think it means we're Pisskopailians!"


 

 

 




Humor December 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q4.htm#Humor1217.htm

Humor November 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q4.htm#Humor1117.htm

Humor October 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q4.htm#Humor1017.htm

Humor September 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q3.htm#Humor0917.htm 

Humor August 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q3.htm#Humor0817.htm

Humor July 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q3.htm#Humor0717.htm

Humor June 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q2.htm#Humor0617.htm

Humor May 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q2.htm#Humor0517.htm

Humor April 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q2.htm#Humor0417.htm

Humor March 2017--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q1.htm#Humor0317.htm

Humor February 2017 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q1.htm#Humor0217.htm

Humor January 2017 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book17q1.htm#Humor0117.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

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