Tidbits on March 15, 2018
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

Iron Ore From Sugar Hill's Ore Hill and Historic Iron Works Operations in Franconia
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/Resden/IronMine/Set01/01IronMine.htm

 

Tidbits on March 15, 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




Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio

The Inn on Sunset Hill (just down from our cottage) ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5cqUX0LcbU&t=9s

AICPA:  As Seen on CNN and TED Talks ---
https://www.aicpaengage.com/?utm_source=mnl:cpald&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=28Feb2018

YouTube: Origin of Everything --- www.youtube.com/channel/UCiB8h9jD2Mlxx96ZFnGDSJw

YouTube: The Brain Scoop Science www.youtube.com/user/thebrainscoop

A Demonstration of Perfect Samurai Swordsmanship ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/02/a-demonstration-of-perfect-samurai-swordsmanship.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

NASA:  Apollo 17 in Real-Time --- http://apollo17.org/

Turing Machine --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine
A Turing Machine Made out of Wood ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/a-turing-machine-handmade-out-of-wood.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The Soundtrack of Our Lives (Canadian museum of how lives are impacted by audio) --- http://thesoundtrackofourlives.ca/index-eng

Hear 55 Hours of Shakespeare’s Plays: The Tragedies, Comedies & Histories Performed by Vanessa Redgrave, Sir John Gielgud, Ralph Fiennes & Many More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/hear-55-hours-of-shakespeares-plays.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The Navy keeps encountering mysterious UFOs — and no one can figure out what they are ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-navy-ufo-sightings-what-are-they-2018-3


Free music downloads --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm 

David Sedaris Creates a List of His 10 Favorite Jazz Tracks: Stream Them Online ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/david-sedaris-creates-a-list-of-his-10-favorite-jazz-tracks-stream-them-online.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Hip-Hop and Rap Across the Smithsonian --- www.si.edu/spotlight/hip-hop-rap

The Six Songs Billy Graham Picked for His Funeral ---
https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2018/march/billy-graham-funeral-songs-above-all-amazing-grace.html
 Click on them here or even hear better renditions on YouTube ---
https://www.youtube.com/
Since I'm an old country boy I like the renditions by Alabama and Alan Jackson

Because He Lives
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxJuBTHzd3Q

Amazing Grace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogxLNlgKM8c

To God Be the Glory ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsXrRnzyVdc

Until Then ---
https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2018/march/billy-graham-funeral-songs-above-all-amazing-grace.html 

All Hail the Power of Jesus Name ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQFPDnb8PPk

Above All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsXrRnzyVdc

 

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

How cats see the world compared to humans ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-of-how-cats-see-the-world-2013-10

A remarkable penguin 'supercolony' of over 1.5 million birds has been discovered off the coast of Antarctica — take a look ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/adelie-penguin-supercolony-discovered-on-danger-islands-antarctica-2018-3

Supposed Best Photographs of the Winter Olympics ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/winter-olympics-best-photos-2018-2

Chasing a Lit Mag Photo Essay ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/education-oronte-churm/chasing-lit-mag-photo-essay-11?mc_cid=8719b9f780&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

11 Types of Russian Military Jets Stationed in Syria ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-the-10-russian-military-aircraft-stationed-in-syria-2017-10#2-su-24-2

How Illuminated Medieval Manuscripts Were Made: A Step-by-Step Look at this Beautiful, Centuries-Old Craft ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/how-illuminated-medieval-manuscripts-were-made-a-step-by-step-look-at-this-beautiful-centuries-old-craft.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Time Lapse Video Captures Light Illuminating the Stained Glass Windows of Washington National Cathedral ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/time-lapse-video-captures-light-illuminating-the-stained-glass-windows-of-washington-national-cathedral.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Sony Photography Awards of 2018 ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/the-2018-sony-world-photography-awards/554864/

Lyonel Feininger: 500+ Photographs (from Harvard's Houghton Library) ---
www.harvardartmuseums.org/tour/lyonel-feininger-photographs

World War I Postcards from the Bowman Gray Collection ---
http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/graypc

The Morgan Library & Museum: Henry James and American Painting --- www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/online/james

Tallest Building in Every (well not quite every) State
Some of the tall buildings are weird such as in Vermont (0 floors) and West Virginia (four floors)
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/02/27/tallest-building-in-each-state/

San Francisco's downtown area is more contaminated with drug needles, garbage, and feces than some of the world's poorest slums ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-is-san-francisco-so-dirty-2018-2
Jensen Comment
In graduate school and after graduate school I lived in the Bay Area for eight years and used to love to visit downtown San Francisco. That was years ago; Now not so much, because of the filth and encounters with panhandlers on every block while attending a more recent conference in San Francisco. Of course there's filth elsewhere such as the piles of trash you have to walk around and breathe at night in the French Quarter in New Orleans. But San Francisco these days seems to be worse than in most tourist areas of the USA.

Met Publications: Books with Full-Text Online (Art History) --- www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/titles-with-full-text-online?searchtype=F

A Massive Collection of 800,000 Album Covers from the 1950s through 2018 ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/02/enter-the-cover-art-archive.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

World War I Postcards from the Bowman Gray Collection ---
http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/graypc

Europeana Collections: Power to the People Social studies ---
www.europeana.eu/portal/en/exhibitions/power-to-the-people#ve-anchor-intro_14339-js

Storm Cloud Approaching London ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/insane-photo-shows-beast-from-the-east-storm-engulfing-london-2018-2

The Last Families Living in Tunisia's Underground Houses ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/02/the-last-families-living-in-tunisias-underground-houses/554426/

Weird Mars Geology ---
http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/more-weird-mars-geology/

The World's Newest Aircraft Carriers ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-newest-aircraft-carriers-2018-3

Microsoft’s Co-Founder Finds Lost World War II Aircraft Carrier the USS Lexington ---
http://time.com/5187277/uss-lexington-wreck-paul-allen/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=2018030611am&xid=newsletter-brief

11 Photographers Share Their Most Powerful Photographs of North Korea ---
http://time.com/longform/photographers-inside-north-korea/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=2018031411am&xid=newsletter-brief&eminfo=%7b%22EMAIL%22%3a%22MOt2LMJiSIk%2fSjadSWyB4I9Monw61fXF%22%2c%22BRAND%22%3a%22TD%22%2c%22CONTENT%22%3a%22Newsletter%22%2c%22UID%22%3a%22TD_TBR_9341E248-F74B-4FC4-8A5B-F29E5D8E9ECB%22%2c%22SUBID%22%3a%2224083557%22%2c%22JOBID%22%3a%22677151%22%2c%22NEWSLETTER%22%3a%22THE_BRIEF%22%2c%22ZIP%22%3a%22035864237%22%2c%22COUNTRY%22%3a%22%22%7d

21 photos of North Korea that Kim Jong Un wouldn't want you to see ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-secret-photos-2018-3

Painted Lady Homes in San Francisco ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-inside-painted-ladies-home-2016-9#after-the-sale-lague-and-li-picked-a-new-paint-color-slate-blue-for-the-exterior-orange-in-honor-of-the-san-francisco-giants-was-in-the-running-but-they-decided-it-wouldnt-photograph-well-10

March 1, 2018 Message from Wes Lavin

Hi Bob,

In the next day or so I will put together a disk with sugaring pictures that I’ve been taking over the last two weeks.  I will put in in the mail to you on Monday at the latest.

At the end of the month both NH and VT have their “Maple Sugaring” weekends.  I’ve included the links below that will give you information about these two events.  The downside is that they are occurring simultaneously.

NH

https://nhmapleproducers.com/maple-month/

 

https://nhmapleproducers.com/directory/

 

Vermont

 https://vermontmaple.org/

 

https://vermontmaple.org/mohw

 

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

Digital Thoreau --- https://digitalthoreau.org/

Hear 55 Hours of Shakespeare’s Plays: The Tragedies, Comedies & Histories Performed by Vanessa Redgrave, Sir John Gielgud, Ralph Fiennes & Many More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/hear-55-hours-of-shakespeares-plays.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Large Archive of Hannah Arendt’s Papers Digitized by the Library of Congress: Read Her Lectures, Drafts of Articles, Notes & Correspondence ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/02/large-archive-of-hannah-arendts-papers-digitized-by-the-library-of-congress.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The Constitution of the Inner Country: Leonard Cohen on Words and the Poetry of Inhabiting Your Presence in Language ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/03/01/leonard-cohen-death-of-a-ladys-man-words/?utm_source=Brain+Pickings&utm_campaign=26be7f7491-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_03_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_179ffa2629-26be7f7491-234390133&mc_cid=26be7f7491&mc_eid=4d2bd13843

Elizabeth Barrett Browning on Happiness as a Moral Obligation ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/03/05/elizabeth-barrett-browning-happiness/?utm_source=Brain+Pickings&utm_campaign=ffcd5cb277-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_03_09&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_179ffa2629-ffcd5cb277-234390133&mc_cid=ffcd5cb277&mc_eid=4d2bd13843

The Diplomatic Correspondence of Thomas Bodley, 1585-1597 --- www.livesandletters.ac.uk/bodley/bodley.html

Albert Camus --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus
No Longer the Person I Was”: The Dazzling Correspondence of Albert Camus and Maria Casarès ---
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/no-longer-the-person-i-was-the-dazzling-correspondence-of-albert-camus-and-maria-casares/#!

Free Electronic Literature --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI




Now in Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on March 15, 2018
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2018/TidbitsQuotations031518.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




Enterprises will spend $7 trillion on digital transformation by 2021 ---
https://readwrite.com/2018/01/22/enterprises-will-spend-7-trillion-digital-transformation-2021/


Data Science --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_science

Ride the New Data Science Wave
Data Scientists in Demand:  New programs train students to make honest sense of numbers ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Colleges-Rush-to-Ride/242674?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=78c0fa2e90194abfa18e568d430b9e47&elq=8663aee144d04dff8b4dfaf200d21888&elqaid=18160&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=8100

As officials at Ohio State University worked on improving their program offerings, they encountered one need over and over: more people who can manipulate and make sense of data.

They heard it from the Obama administration, and from consultants like McKinsey & Company, which in 2011 projected that the United States could face a shortage of as many as 190,000 people with those skills by 2018. They heard it from business leaders, who described having to retrain new hires to make them versatile data scientists.

But when they looked at Ohio State’s offerings, they found expertise scattered across campus. There was no unified undergraduate pipeline for producing the workers that companies wanted, says Christopher M. Hans, an associate professor in the department of statistics. In response, Hans and a professor of computer science, Srinivasan Parthasarathy, joined with other colleagues to start an interdisciplinary undergraduate major in data analytics. The major, which began in 2014, now enrolls 104 students, with 165 additional "pre-majors" chipping away at the prerequisites they must take before formal admission to the program.

Ohio State is one of numerous universities jostling to plant their flags in the increasingly crowded data-science-education landscape. The growth of new data sources and data-analysis techniques, the abundance of jobs, the "big data" media hype — all propel the trend.

At the graduate level, nearly 200 analytics and data-science programs have sprung up over the past decade, according to figures compiled by Michael Rappa of the Institute for Advanced Analytics at North Carolina State University. It may be "the biggest and fastest-growing new graduate degree in the U.S. in a generation," he wrote in an email.

Among the latest to jump on the bandwagon is Harvard University, which this fall will welcome students into a new master’s program in data science. More than 1,300 people applied for what will probably be 40 to 45 slots, says Daniel S. Weinstock, who oversees the admissions process. Each will pay about $75,000 in tuition for the three-semester program, which does not offer financial aid.

If the past is a guide, those students might anticipate earning more than $100,000 upon graduation. That’s about the average annual salary for new graduates of a related five-year-old master’s program in computational science and engineering, Weinstock says. The decision to start a new program, he says, was "partially a response to sort of wanting to have something that had ‘data science’ in the name, frankly."

What does that name mean, exactly?

Continued in article

Data Science in MIT Open Courseware ---
https://search.mit.edu/search?site=ocw&client=mit&getfields=*&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=https%3A%2F%2Focw.mit.edu%2Fsearch%2Fgoogle-ocw.xsl&requiredfields=WT%252Ecg_s%3ACourse+Home%7CWT%252Ecg_s%3AResource+Home&sectionlimit=WT%252Ecg_s%3ACourse+Home%7CWT%252Ecg_s%3AResource+Home&as_dt=i&oe=utf-8&departmentName=web&filter=0&courseName=&q=Data+science&btnG.x=20&btnG.y=15

Algorithms for Big Data: A Free Course from Harvard ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/12/algorithms-for-big-data-a-free-course-from-harvard.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

2017:  Coursera Partners with Leading Universities to Offer Master’s Degrees at a More Affordable Price
Includes University of Illinois masters degrees in entrepreneurship, MBA, accountancy, and data science programs---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/10/coursera-partners-with-leading-universities-to-offer-masters-degrees-at-a-more-affordable-price.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The Use Of Big Data Analytics By The IRS ---
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3120741

The Use of Big Data Analytics by the IRS: What Tax Practitioners Need to Know

Houser, Kimberly and Sanders, Debra, The Use of Big Data Analytics by the IRS: What Tax Practitioners Need to Know (February, 2018). Journal of Taxation, Vol. 128, No. 2, 2018. Thomas Reuters/Tax & Accounting.

16 Pages Posted: 1 Mar 2018  

Kimberly Houser

Washington State University

Date Written: February 8, 2018

Abstract

With the budget reductions and losses in staff over the past several years, the IRS has been forced to do more with less. In turn, the IRS has turned to big data analytics make up for its loss of personal and the impact of the budget reductions. In 2011, the IRS created the Office of Compliance Analytics in order to create analytics programs that could identify potential refund fraud, detect taxpayer identity theft, and become more efficient in handling noncompliance issues. The IRS uses a wide range of analytic methods to mine public and commercial data including social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The data collected from this mining is combined with IRS’s own proprietary information and analyzed using pattern recognition algorithms, which help to identify potential noncompliant taxpayers. The current ability to continuous monitor financial and personal behavior facilitates the building of exhaustive histories of individuals. Knowing that the IRS is utilizing public internet data from websites such as Facebook, taxpayers should consider that their posts could impact their probability of audit.

Keywords: big data, IRS, privacy, audit, predictive analytics, algorithms,

 


Jensen Comment
This is an interesting site that surprised me regarding some specializations
For example, the University of Pittsburgh is the leading school for philosophy majors
Cambridge University tops the chart in only one discipline --- Anthropology
Harvard tops the list in a number of disciplines such as business and management (but not accountancy)

The world's 21 best universities by subject — from biology to business management
http://www.businessinsider.com/qs-ranking-of-global-universities-by-excellence-in-subjects-2018-3

Bob Jensen's threads on ranking controversies ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies2.htm#BusinessSchoolRankings


New York Post:  These secret Netflix codes unlock hidden show and movie categories ---
https://nypost.com/2018/03/10/these-secret-netflix-codes-unlock-hidden-show-and-movie-categories/
Not so secret anymore


Oxford English Dictionary --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_English_Dictionary

Inside the OED: can the world’s biggest dictionary survive the internet? ---
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/23/oxford-english-dictionary-can-worlds-biggest-dictionary-survive-internet


Google Launches a Free Course on Artificial Intelligence: Sign Up for Its New “Machine Learning Crash Course”  ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/google-presents-a-free-course-on-artificial-intelligence-sign-up-for-its-new-machine-learning-crash-course.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Harvard Launches a Free Online Course to Promote Religious Tolerance & Understanding ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/harvard-launches-a-free-online-course-to-promote-religious-tolerance-understanding.html#respond

Positive Psychology:  The Most Popular Course at Yale University
Now open for enrollment, "The Science of Well-Being" officially starts in March 2018
http://www.openculture.com/2018/02/taken-a-free-online-version-of-yales-most-popular-course-the-science-of-well-being-and-learn-the-keys-to-happiness.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

An Introduction to the History & Theory of Architecture:  Enroll in Harvard’s Free Online Architecture Course ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/02/harvards-free-architecture-course.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

A Free Yale Course on Medieval History: 700 Years in 22 Lectures ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/a-free-yale-course-on-medieval-history-700-years-in-22-lectures.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Open Yale Course: Epidemics in Western Society Since 1600 ---
https://oyc.yale.edu/history/hist-234

Malcolm Gladwell to Teach His First Online Course: A Master Class on How to Turn Big Ideas into Powerful Stories ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/02/malcolm-gladwell-to-teach-his-first-online-course.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

A Great Free Course on the Economics of Cities ---
http://freakonomics.com/2018/02/26/a-great-free-course-on-the-economics-of-cities/

1000+ MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) Getting Started in March ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/1000-moocs-massive-open-online-courses-getting-started-in-march-enroll-today.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Bob Jensen's threads on thousands of free MOOCs from prestigious universities ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI


Everything we think about the political correctness debate is wrong ---  
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/12/17100496/political-correctness-data

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


Dolly Parton Gives The Gift Of Literacy: A Library Of 100 Million Books ---
https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/03/01/589912466/dolly-parton-gives-the-gift-of-literacy-a-library-of-100-million-books


In Front of Conferences and Small Classrooms
Microsoft says it can't make its $22,000 mega-tablet fast enough to meet demand — so it's at work on a new version ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-surface-hub-version-two-is-coming-2018-3

Jensen Question
How is this better than a projector attached to a laptop (other than students can see the "fingerwork" on the tablet?


Meet the youngest billionaires in the world, Norwegian sisters who are worth nearly $1.5 billion each and love horses, high fashion, and exotic travel ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-youngest-billionaires-2018-3
Jensen Comment
Those that think Norway is not a capitalist economy need to think again


Women Hold Nearly 2/3 of the $1+ Trillion Student Loan Debt ---
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-americas-student-debt-is-a-womens-issue-2018-03-08?elqTrackId=602b58abe68a40f5bba9315475d0fcd9&elq=e14fdf614a5f4017af357623a76ee2e1&elqaid=18128&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=8076#false
In part this is because women earn 57% of the bachelors degrees

Women graduates earn less than men on average, but this is partly due to career choices such as education versus engineering and computer science degrees.

In accounting more women than men are hired by the international CPA firms due mostly to having better academic records among top performers.

There are occasionally deals where a signing bonus is given to pay off student debt.


Sexual harassment is a bigger problem than accountants think ---
https://www.accountingtoday.com/news/sexual-harassment-in-accounting-may-be-more-prevalent-than-accountants-think


Nordic 'Glass Ceiling' Shows How Gender Equity Suffers From Government Overreach ---
http://reason.com/blog/2018/03/08/nordic

Ole yust does not yet vant Lena to be da boss (Norway is not in the 28-Member European Union)
From the Harvard Business Review Blog on December 30, 2014

Norwegian Companies Morph to Avoid Gender-Balance Law

One of the consequences of Norway’s law mandating that at least 40% of the directors of public limited companies be female is that numerous firms have switched their organizational form, sometimes at significant cost, so that they are no longer public limited companies, say Øyvind Bøhren and Siv Staubo of Norwegian Business School. Among the companies in that category when the law was passed in 2003, 51% chose to become private limited-liability firms by the time it became binding five years later. However, Norway may further extend the board-representation rule to other corporate forms.

SOURCE:
Does mandatory gender balance work? Changing organizational form to avoid board upheaval
http://links.mkt3142.com/ctt?kn=14&ms=MTAyNjY5MjMS1&r=MTkyODM0MDg0MAS2&b=0&j=NDQyMzY1ODgzS0&mt=1&rt=0

Norway’s Exemplary Gender Quota? Just Don’t Ask About CEOs ---
https://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/05/22/norways-exemplary-gender-quota-just-dont-ask-about-ceos/

An introduction to The Nordic Gender Equality Paradox ---
http://nordicparadox.se/

Female CEOs are at record level in 2016, but it's still only 5% ---
http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/29/investing/female-ceos-record-high/index.html

Where Are the Women CEOs:  Myth Versus Reality ---
https://www.ircsearchpartners.com/thought-leadership/where-are-women-ceos-myths-and-reality/
The date on this study must be a typo


Value-Added Tax (VAT) --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-added_tax

Three-quarters of the world’s population live in a country in which a value-added tax (VAT) is collected on sales of goods and services.---
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3135076

On the Threshold: Smallness and the Value-Added Tax

Columbia Journal of Tax Law, Forthcoming

68 Pages Posted: 9 Mar 2018  

Emily Satterthwaite

University of Toronto Faculty of Law

Date Written: March 5, 2018

Abstract

Three-quarters of the world’s population live in a country in which a value-added tax (VAT) is collected on sales of goods and services. The registration threshold determines which businesses — typically as measured by their annual revenues — remain exempt from the obligation to register for and collect VAT on their sales. Among VAT economists, there is broad consensus that setting thresholds higher rather than lower (such that more rather than fewer businesses are exempt) increases the economic efficiency of a VAT. Despite these high stakes and the longstanding expert consensus in favor of high thresholds, real-world thresholds vary widely and skew low, even within OECD and European countries. This article leverages the insights of the economic model to address an issue that lies outside of it but is central to lawyers and policymakers: distributional equity. Numerous studies show that smaller businesses’ costs of complying with the VAT are disproportionately higher than larger businesses. To the extent that lower-income entrepreneurs internalize those costs or pass them on to lower-income consumers, there is a vertical equity rationale for raising thresholds. Moreover, where there are more small firms than large firms, setting thresholds higher rather than lower while offering exempt firms an election to voluntarily register for VAT can minimize the (horizontal) unfairness of drawing an arbitrary bright line between taxable and non-taxable firms. Under these conditions, higher registration thresholds can improve the equity and the efficiency of a VAT.

Keywords: taxation, value-added tax, entrepreneurship, small business, elections

Misinformation Overload ---
https://medium.com/@hubbard/misinformation-overload-9f420ab7b9f0


A Turing Machine Made out of Wood ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/a-turing-machine-handmade-out-of-wood.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

March 11, 2018 Reply from Jagdish Gangolly

Bob,

Thanks for the link on Turing machines. It is the clearest expolanation of Turing machine that I have come across. However, what it does not tell is that Turing showed that "a general algorithm to solve the halting problem for all possible program-input pairs cannot exist", ie., it is undecidable.. It is called the "halting problem".
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem.
This is also an excellent Wikipedia page.

Regards,

Jagdish


From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on March 14, 2018

Volkswagen aims to overtake Tesla
Germany’s Volkswagen AG has vowed to overtake electric car pioneer
Tesla Inc. with a massive rollout of battery and hybrid models over the next five years and production facilities around the world.


Elon Musk delivered the first electric semi-trucks even though factory line production is not scheduled for a couple of years ---
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsenergylett.7b00432

The current outlook is pretty good (not cheaper over the long-term) for delivery vehicles within a city, but real questions remain about long-haul heavy duty loads over hill and vale
Carnegie Mellon Department of Engineering:  Performance Metrics Required of Next-Generation Batteries to Make a Practical Electric Semi Truck ---
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsenergylett.7b00432

. . .

The cost for the above-estimated pack size is shown in Figure 2(c), and we observe larger bounds around the cost of the battery packs for a longer driving range. The cost estimates use the uncertainties associated with the pack size and the cost per unit of energy ($/kWh). For current Li-ion systems, the cost of the pack is in the range of $160 000–$210 000 for a driving range of 300 miles, and with beyond Li-ion systems, the value could be lower than $100 000. For 600 miles, current Li-ion could cost as much as $400 000, but with a vehicle redesign to a low Cd of 0.45, a Crr of less than 0.0045, the pack would cost $320 000 at $190/kWh, which is the current estimate for the price of a Tesla battery pack. The longest range considered of 900 miles would be commercially impractical, costing over $450 000. With a “beyond Li-ion” battery pack placed in a “well-designed” vehicle with optimal values of design parameters mentioned before, a 600-mile capable battery pack would cost $250 000, which is around 25% higher than the mean value of a current Li-ion battery pack capable of a short 300 mile range. It should be noted that each of these values is the cost of the battery pack alone, and the entire vehicle would include several other costs. For comparison, an equivalent diesel-powered vehicle would cost only $120 000, but a true comparison should include the operating costs of the vehicle and not only the initial costs in order to account for the difference in the price of electricity and fossil fuels as well as the significantly higher efficiency of electric drivetrains.

The payload capacity of these vehicles, as stated before, is an important parameter for the trucking industry, and in a fully electric vehicle, the payload capacity would be reduced significantly because the battery pack weight forms a significant fraction of the GVW. The estimates for the maximum payload capacity can be seen in Figure 2(d). For 600 miles, the vehicle would house about 11 000 kg (12 tons) of payload, which is about three-fourths of the current average payload carried by Class 8 trucks, 14 500 kg (16 tons) as mentioned before. For the same range, we could have a maximum payload of about 13 600 kg (15 tons) if the vehicle is designed with the lowest coefficient of drag, rolling resistance, and vehicle weight and the battery with the highest possible specific energy with current Li-ion systems. Another important observation is that a 600-mile capable battery pack would weigh over 16 000 kg (18 tons), which is much more than the available payload capacity of 12 tons. The weight of the battery pack in comparison to the payload carried provides the point for an interesting discussion, if the battery pack is much heavier than the payload, then it implies that a greater fraction of the energy consumed to move the vehicle is spent on moving the battery pack rather than the payload. Only at a shorter range of under 600 miles would the vehicle be practical considering the average required payload capacity of over 16 tons.

A key conclusion from this analysis is that, with current Li-ion batteries, we would have no meaningful payload capacity if we need a driving range of 900 miles since the battery pack and the vehicle weight together would account for nearly the entire GVW limit of 36 000 kg (40 tons). The payload capacity would increase significantly with a transition to beyond Li-ion systems, which show a mean payload capacity of 23 500, 20 000, and 16 300 kg (26, 22, and 18 tons) for 300, 600, and 900 miles respectively due to the much higher specific energy with a mean value of 500 Wh/kg equivalent to an advanced Li-ion or Li-S battery. The current required driving range close to 600 miles would have feasible payload capacity only with much higher specific energy, and current Li-ion batteries are clearly not suitable for longer driving range.

The results of the optimistic scenario considered are shown in Figure 3. With the high battery-to-wheels efficiency and no road gradient, the energy consumption is reduced to a range of 1.6 and 2.2 kWh/mile with a mean value of 1.9 kWh/mile or 47.5 Wh/ton-mile. The pack required, shown in Figure 3(a) is now reduced to 700, 1400, and 2000 kWh for 300, 600, and 900 miles respectively. The pack weight, in Figure 3(b) is consequently lower but still remains over 12 tons for a driving range of 600 miles or greater with current Li-ion batteries. The pack cost, in Figure 3(c) also remains at very high values, where the pack required for 600 and 900 miles costs over $250 000 and $350 000 respectively. In comparison to the payload capacity of the earlier scenario shown in Figure 2(d), the payload capacity of the optimistic scenario in Figure 3(d) is about 5 to 10 tons higher, depending on the driving range. The zero road grade assumption for the optimistic scenario reduces a significant amount of the energy consumption, but it is important to quantify this assumption which translates to ignoring an energy consumption increase of ∼1.6r kWh for every mile traveled at a road grade of r%, for a GVW of 36 000 kg (40 tons). The ∼1.6r kWh per mile quantity is derived from the road gradient term in eq 1.

With all of the parameters considered, as we attempt to design heavy-duty vehicles with a longer range the limitations of current Li-ion batteries are evidently magnified. Current Li-ion batteries would not be technically feasible solutions because of their lower specific energy values, and the longer driving range and higher payload capacity required by the trucking industry would be met only by beyond Li-ion solutions to the battery pack. Although there exists a large uncertainty in the cost of the battery pack due to the increased Li-ion production by the Tesla Gigafactory, the initial investment cost for the battery pack would be the most significant limiting factor when compared against the cost of existing diesel-powered vehicles. The targets needed for a driving range of 600 miles and to carry a payload of over 10 tons are a specific energy well in excess of 400 Wh/kg at the cell level costing less than $100/kWh along with a vehicle designed with a Cd of 0.45, a Crr of under 0.005, and an empty vehicle weight of under 7000 kg. We end with a word of caution that autonomous driving could potentially play a crucial role in changing the landscape of the trucking industry, because a drastic change from the current known driving patterns could have significant impact on the energy and power requirements of the vehicle; an analysis of these effects is well beyond the scope of the present study.

From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on March 7, 2018

GE to unveil new battery platform
General Electric Co.
plans to unveil a new battery platform Wednesday as it seeks to become a leader in the emerging market of storing electricity.

Jensen Comment
In spite of recent setbacks, GE has enormous access to cash whereas Elon Musk burned most of his away. This does not bode well for spendthrift Elon Musk. On the other hand, Elon might welcome a cheaper source for batteries needed to power his electric cars, trucks, and energy-efficient homes.

I predict that electric vehicles have a brighter future in nations much smaller than Australia, Canada, China, Russia, and the USA (think Norway, Finland, Holland, Germany, Japan etc.) Those nations currently have efficient electric trains (not using batteries) connecting towns and cities. Electric semi-trucks can pick up freight delivered by electric trains and deliver that freight over relatively short distances. In the USA the train service is a mess, and very little of it is electric. Part of the problem is that we've come to depend up long-haul, heavy duty diesel trucks and our efficient airline services (think UPS and FedEx) to deliver over long distances in the USA. It will take much longer in bigger nations for electric trucks to replace diesel except for inner-city deliveries that can often be served with medium electric trucks and vans rather than semi-trucks.

Huge advances in the battery power and cost will upend the diesel industry and possibly even trains that require expensive track maintenance.


You can’t make this stuff up: Plagiarism guideline paper retracted for…plagiarism ---
https://retractionwatch.com/2015/04/01/you-cant-make-this-stuff-up-plagiarism-guideline-paper-retracted-for-plagiarism/


Foreign Language Enrollments Drop Sharply ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/03/07/study-finds-sharp-decline-foreign-language-enrollments?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=f7c2633e08-DNU20180111&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-f7c2633e08-197565045&mc_cid=f7c2633e08&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

. . .

Another data point that the MLA views with alarm is the sharp decline in enrollments per student in American higher education.


Columbia Journalism Review:  When an online news outlet goes out of business, its archives can disappear as well. The new battle over journalism’s digital legacy ---
https://www.cjr.org/special_report/microfilm-newspapers-media-digital.php

Jensen Comment
The same can be said for the many Websites and Blogs that die. For example, I especially liked the Grumpy Old Accountants Blog. The authors (Ketz and Catanach are still alive) but they let the wonderful archives critical of fine points in financial statements die.

I'm ever so grateful that Trinity University did not let Mike Kearl's popular sociology Website die when he passed away ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/mkearl/
It is no longer being updated, but it's archives are still available


Bushwhack --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushwhacker
This includes the wild-west tactic of shooting an unsuspecting person from behind.

New York Times:  Who Should Be Armed in Florida Schools? Not Teachers, Lawmakers Say. But Maybe Librarians ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/05/us/guns-florida-schools-teachers.html

Jensen Comment
The advantage of having teachers armed (even only a small number) is that the invader(s) don't know who's armed, how many are armed, and where the armed protectors are located. The invaders may initially bushwhack the librarians first if they're the only ones with concealed weapons.

Of course if there is an police station on a higher education campus along with armed police on patrols there's not a whole lot of added advantage in arming librarians concentrated in a central library.


Why Women Choose Differently at Work ---
http://nautil.us/issue/58/self/why-women-choose-differently-at-work
Bob Jensen's threads on women in the professions ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Women


How to Mislead With Statistics
What Do Women Want… in a B-School?
https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2018/03/12/new-ranking-ft-raises-question-how-women-can-judge-business-school

.Even as women have become the majority in undergraduate student bodies and at many professional schools, their numbers have been much smaller as a share of the total enrollment in M.B.A. programs.

Many experts say this is a failing of business schools. Last week, FT (formerly Financial Times) -- which is influential in rankings of business schools -- issued its first list of top M.B.A. programs for women. Many experts on business school admissions said that they hoped FT’s attention would encourage business schools to think not just about their overall performance, but how they are seen on issues that tend to matter to women.

But what do women seeking an M.B.A. want? Of those looking at the methodology, some have said that it places too much emphasis on salaries -- and ignores factors that may be important to many women.

FT’s focus in its methodology is alumni salaries, which count for 45 percent of the total formula, with one-third of that total for each of average salary of female alumni three years out of the program, increases from pre-M.B.A. salary, and the smallest gaps in average salaries of male and female alumni.

 

The rest of the formula covers many areas, including percentage of female faculty members, percentage of female students, percentage of women on advisory boards, and women's responses to questions on their career progress, the effectiveness of career centers and other factors. The rankings methodology in many ways mirrors that for FT’s main rankings (except for looking at data about and from women). FT did not respond to a request to discuss its methodology.

Using this system, FT finds that three of the top 10 institutions globally are from China and another is from Singapore. The publication attributes this success to encouragement in China and Asia for women in the business world to advance in their careers, with less wage discrimination against women in their jobs.

 

The top American institution is Stanford University, followed by the University of California, Berkeley; Washington University in St. Louis; Harvard University; Dartmouth College and the University of Pennsylvania.

The website Poets & Quants noted that it was possible to make the list (if not the top 10) while having very few female faculty members -- the top 50 programs included 10 where women do not make up more than 20 percent of the faculty.

M.B.A. programs in the United States, in which male students have long been in the majority, are making progress in enrolling greater numbers of women, according to a report last year by the Forté Foundation, which works with business schools to promote gender equity. The foundation found that its members have reached an average of 37.4 percent female enrollment in M.B.A. programs, up from 33.4 percent five years ago. Five years ago, the foundation had only two members that had reached 40 percent female enrollment. Today 17 business schools have enrollments that are at least 40 percent female.

 

But a review by "Admissions Insider" of the gender breakdowns in the American M.B.A. programs that made the top 10 list found none with gender parity.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
This is a criticism of a recent Financial Times ranking of MBA programs that did not include proportion of women as a criterion (and other matters of possible concern to many women students). This simply reinforces the long-running criticisms of rankings in general that are mainly a function of criteria and weightings of criteria.

What surprised me some is that among the top-rated programs the proportion of women is not all that widely spread.

Dartmouth and Penn have the highest share of women (44 percent), while Washington University has the lowest figure (39 percent). These are all above national averages, but not close to parity.

A difference of 5% between the highest and lowest may be statistically significant but is hardly what I call substantively significant in this particular instance. It may well be a difference based upon career choice stemming back to undergraduate majors where women are known to prefer certain fields (think education and nursing) relative to other fields that often feed top MBA programs such as engineering and computer science.

An MBA from a prestigious university may greatly improve the credentials of an engineer or computer geek relative to the minimal improvement of a high school teacher relative to a masters degree in education.

Even within business disciplines an MBA from a prestigious university may be of questionable value. For high demand for auditors and tax accountants the large international CPA firms do not even recruit MBA graduates from Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Dartmouth, etc. Instead they recruit masters in accounting graduates who chose accounting graduate studies so they could sit for the CPA examination. And the proportions of women in those masters of accounting progrms are much higher since the international CPA firms tend to hire more women than men.


How to Mislead With Statistics:  The Best Chain Restaurants ---
http://time.com/money/5183389/best-casual-dining-restaurant-chains/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief-pm&utm_content=2018030917pm&xid=newsletter-brief&eminfo=%7b%22EMAIL%22%3a%22MOt2LMJiSIk%2fSjadSWyB4I9Monw61fXF%22%2c%22BRAND%22%3a%22TD%22%2c%22CONTENT%22%3a%22Newsletter%22%2c%22UID%22%3a%22TD_TBP_D67FCAE7-F3B7-4357-9082-476F8ACD8245%22%2c%22SUBID%22%3a%2284575328%22%2c%22JOBID%22%3a%22669846%22%2c%22NEWSLETTER%22%3a%22THE_BRIEF_PM%22%2c%22ZIP%22%3a%2235864237%22%2c%22COUNTRY%22%3a%22%22%7d

Jensen Comment
None these is in our mountain region, so I really should not comment about this selection. However, it appears that all specialize in menus of fat and sugar. Some are quite expensive (think Ruby Tuesday and The Cheesecake Factory). I don't know how many have great vegan alternatives, but I doubt that any of these would make the top ranking by vegan customers.

Within a 30 mile radius of our cottage the 99 Restaurant is the most popular medium-priced chain restaurant in terms of daily numbers of luncheon and dinner customers (not open for breakfast), although for more romantic ambiance one would probably pick a more expensive hotel or B&B dining room. For breakfast we take our house guests to the Mt. Washington Hotel where you should arrive before 10:00 am since this really isn't a brunch alternative ---
https://www.omnihotels.com/hotels/bretton-woods-mount-washington?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIrfT6yYPg2QIVGksNCh0RbwyyEAAYASAAEgLVePD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
Lunch and dinner are served with a view of the mountain and a great old-resort ambiance, but prices are way too high for what you get for food. The breakfast buffet is the best deal. In summer breakfast can be followed by an adventure on the nearby Cog Railroad chugging up to the top of Mt. Washington repeatedly until 4:00 pm. There is a restaurant at the top of the mountain, but it's not great and mostly offers weather protection. It can be 90 degrees down below and 30 degrees on top with a 50+ mph wind and fog. In winter it sometimes drops to -100F or lower with 100+ mph winds. But the Cog Railroad does not run in the winter.

Cog Railroad

http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/CogRailroad/History1/CogRailroadHistory.htm

http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/Mountains/HistoryWhiteMountains/01/HistoryWhiteMoutains01.htm

By far the most popular breakfast and luncheon restaurant in the State of New Hampshire is Polly's Pancake Parlor that's only one mile from our cottage. It is not a chain, but people come to Sugar Hill from all over New England and parts of Canada to eat at Polly's. Vegans are not so happy, however, unless they like lots of carbs (think maple sugar condiments). In 2017 the very old farm building that housed the restaurant elbow-to-elbow on long tables was replaced by a more spacious new building. Polly's also added alcohol for the first time, although diners really don't choose Polly's for the bar. In summer season.  foliage season, and on holidays be prepared to wait well over an hour for a table, although you can call ahead to get on a waiting list. Polly's opens and 7:00 am and closes at 3:00 pm. The mountain views are excellent, and there's almost always a breeze on hot days. Come early or late to beat the long lines.

For over 100 years the old restaurant was attached to the original farm house that served breakfast to people in horse carriages passing by ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/2009/Tidbits090105.htm

Erika and I eat most often our Littleton Regional Hospital. More often than that we take home luncheon meals to store for weekends. The hospital's dining room ambiance sucks, but the chef from Austria is a former chef at the Von Trap Family Lodge in Vermont. Before that he was a chef at Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel. It's a long story how this chef ended up cooking in a tiny hospital. I won't into details here. Sometimes chefs just grow weary of cooking for weddings and conventions and other enormous crowds. On rare occasion Jurgen cooks for our dinner parties here in our cottage. However, he does this as a friend and is not in the home cooking business.


Chronicle of Higher Education:  The 2018 Trends Report ---
https://www.chronicle.com/specialreport/The-2018-Trends-Report/188?cid=db&elqTrackId=23e1c8a03dd14bd29f1ce60def1ab2ec&elq=530781155f37476a9bddc9e2bce91c0c&elqaid=18065&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=8040

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By Adam Harris

Strategic recruitment plays a big role in the resurgence.

 

Building Relationships Through Social Media  Premium

By Adam Harris

As prospective students become increasingly digital natives, so too should higher-education leaders. That’s one of the ways black college leaders are expanding their flocks.

Books about money, the mind, and the planet ---
http://timharford.com/2018/02/books-about-money-the-mind-and-the-planet/


Modern Libraries:  Moving from a Transactional Library to a Relational Library ---
https://princh.com/modern-libraries-from-a-transactional-to-a-relational-library/#.WqZtAkxFx9A


Correlation Versus Causation Explained
MIT BLOSSOMS: Do Credit Cards Make You Gain Weight? What is Correlation, and How to Distinguish it from Causation ---
https://blossoms.mit.edu/videos/lessons/do_credit_cards_make_you_gain_weight_what_correlation_and_how_distinguish_it_causatio


Military Might Ranked ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/most-powerful-militaries-in-the-world-ranked-2018-2#1-united-states-25

Jensen Comment
It's not clear that military power is necessarily meaningful among nations that never give up (think the Taliban, ISIS, and Al Qaeda) and nations that hide among masses of civilians. Russia in some ways is the most powerful because it can be the most brutal in bombing civilians and hospitals as well as conducting covert assassinations. Israel is also very good at conducting covert assassinations. Some nations like China have enormous armies but lack the logistical support of an enormous navy and air force. This is an era where war will no longer be constrained by morality and human rights.

Some militaries are more adept at warfare with computer hacking and media manipulation (think Russia and China and even North Korea).


Harvard's $1 billion losing bet. The university’s highly paid money managers thought they could manage risks other schools avoided. Not so. Harvard bet the farm on natural resources around the world, including tomatoes, sugar, and eucalyptus. It didn't go too well. ---
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-01/harvard-blew-1-billion-in-bet-on-tomatoes-sugar-and-eucalyptus?cmpid=BBD030118_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=180301&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily
Jensen Comment
This can happen when you don't hedge high-risk speculations in commodities. Diversification of a portfolio of speculations is not the same as hedging those speculations with derivative financial instruments.


The first woman to head a multinational company in South Africa is an accountant and she counts on her values to grow the business ---
https://www.accountancysa.org.za/cover-story-staying-authentic/

Norway’s Exemplary Gender Quota? Just Don’t Ask About CEOs ---
https://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/05/22/norways-exemplary-gender-quota-just-dont-ask-about-ceos/

An introduction to The Nordic Gender Equality Paradox ---
http://nordicparadox.se/

Female CEOs are at record level in 2016, but it's still only 5% ---
http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/29/investing/female-ceos-record-high/index.html

Where Are the Women CEOs:  Myth Versus Reality ---
https://www.ircsearchpartners.com/thought-leadership/where-are-women-ceos-myths-and-reality/
The date on this study must be a typo

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


Nature:  Robust Research Needs Many Lines of Evidence ---
https://replicationnetwork.com/2018/02/03/in-the-news-nature-january-23-2018/

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


Econometrics From David Guiles

March Reading List
http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2018/02/march-reading-list.html

Annen, K. & S. Kosempel, 2018. Why aid-to-GDP ratios? Discussion Paper 2018-01, Department of Economics and Finance, University of Guelph.

 

Conover, W. J., A. J. Guerrero-Serrano, & V. G. Tercero-Gomez, 2018. An update on 'a comparative study of tests for homogeneity of variance'. Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation, online.

 

Foroni, C., M. Marcellino, & D. Stevanović, 2018. Mixed frequency models with MA components. Discussion Paper  No. 02/2018, Deutsche Bundesbank.

 

Sen, A., 2018. Lagrange multiplier unit root test in the presence of a break in the innovation variance. Communications in Statistics - Theory and Methods, 47, 1580-1596.

 

Stewart, K. G., 2018. Suits' watermelon model: The missing simultaneous equations empirical example. Mimeo., Department of Economics, University of Victoria.

 

Weigt, T. & B. Wilfling, 2018. An approach to increasing forecast-combination accuracy through VAR error modeling. Paper 68/2018, Department of Economics, University of Münster.

 


How to Mislead With Statistics, in This Case Rankings

Computer Science --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_science
Note the wide-ranging sub-disciplines and distinctions between theory and applications.

Controversial Ranking of the Top 50 Computer Science Programs in the World ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/best-computer-science-schools-in-the-world-2018-3#48-shanghai-jiao-tong-university-3

Jensen Comment
It's probably a fluke due to criterion weightings, but I don't quite agree with the relatively low ranking of the University of Texas at Austin (rank 27).
Is the extremely wealthy and reputable UT program really inferior to Georgia Tech (Rank 21), the University of Melbourne (Rank 15), the University of Toronto (rank 11), and UCLA (rank 13)?

The rankings of graduate school programs in general does not imply that those programs are great or even existent for top undergraduate students. For example top ranking programs of business at Harvard and Stanford do not even have undergraduate business programs.

The rankings were taken from
https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2018/computer-science-information-systems
The criteria are academic reputation (however defined?), employer reputation (however defined?), citations per paper (where there's a lot of cheating by publishers), and H-index citations.
H-index --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index
H-index criticisms ---- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index#Criticism

There's also some doubt in my mind how to define "computer science" in the first place. Some programs are very consolidated whereas in others the programs my be dispersed among schools of engineering, science, mathematics, and even business where there's often more money to buy top talent and top students.

In my opinion, the term "computer science" is too broad and ambiguous. There are so many widely divergent sub-disciplines where the reputation rankings within a sub-discipline may vary drastically from the rankings shown in the above Business Insider link. It's a little like ranking of "business" programs. Harvard and Stanford for example have top "business" programs that provide virtually zero graduates for the accounting profession defined in terms of financial accounting and managerial accounting and tax accounting. Accounting employers would probably exclude Harvard and Stanford when ranking financial accounting and managerial accounting programs, although both Stanford and Harvard have top accounting doctoral programs that supply academic employers.

Bob Jensen's threads on ranking controversies ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies2.htm#BusinessSchoolRankings

Added Note
The world's top-ranked computer science program at MIT is amazing in that it shares some of its top courses with anybody in the world willing to take MIT's free MOOCs ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Some of MIT's top students commenced by first taking one or more MOOCs.


This Company Has the Best Pay and Benefits, According to Employees ---
http://time.com/money/5177506/best-company-to-work-indeed/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=2018022812pm&xid=newsletter-brief

Jensen Comment
I tend to rate companies higher if they have great education and training benefits. The multinational CPA firms are high in this regard, but Starbucks offers free degrees from Arizona State University to part-time and full-time employees. I just urged one of our scholarly grandsons from a troubled home to apply for work at Starbucks.


Teaching and Reaching (Juvenile) Students Behind Bars ---
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/03/07/teaching--and-reaching--students-behind-bars.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news2-rm&M=58405588&U=2290378

. . .

But Rand also found that, in the aftermath of the 2008 economic downturn, 20 states cut their corrections education budgets, staff, and course offerings. In California, Florida, and Texas, large states that account for much of the nation's school-age prison population, the cuts averaged 20 percent.

Jensen Comment
Teaching these students is more expensive for many reasons. There are no parents at home daily to kick butt and help with homework. Assuming motivation in regular schools follows a bell curve, the distribution in detention centers is most likely more skewed in a bad way. There are also likely to be greater proportions of learning-challenged students who usually require more one-on-one attention. On the plus side the students perhaps have more study time due to fewer distractions such as having to care for younger siblings daily or worrying about finding a place to sleep at night or being bombed on drugs and booze. For some jail is a wake-up call to turn their lives around; Others only become more motivated to return to a life of crime.

Far too few of our best teachers aspire to teach in detention centers online or onsite. God bless those that have such aspirations.

Teaching Vulnerable Students ---
https://www.edweek.org/ew/collections/vulnerable-at-risk-students/index.html?cmp=eml-eb-sr-teachvuln-03072018&M=58404646&U=2290378


Black-College Renaissance Students are once again flocking to HBCUs (there are slightly over 100 HBCUs in the USA some are upwards of only 50% black) ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Many-Black-Colleges-Are/242671?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=903a2db8ebd343d0816a0a06a496a86c&elq=8fef8338eb0f4edc94f16080e97603b9&elqaid=18084&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=8053

Jensen Comment
On the plus side for HBCU business schools there is strong demand for top graduates due to affirmative action programs in corporations and in graduate schools. On the negative side HBCU programs may not do as well when there are certification examinations such as in engineering certifications, computer programming certifications, and the CPA examination ---
https://nasba.org/blog/2017/02/02/candidate-performance-publications-2016/
One problem is resources. Accounting professors, for example, are among the highest paid faculty in nearly all universities due to a demand/supply ratio as high as 10/1 in most years where less than 200 Ph.Ds in accountancy are awarded in the USA. Even quality adjunct accounting professors can be quite expensive. And most accounting programs, due to the number of courses required to sit for the CPA examination, have more required courses ( in business law, financial accounting, auditing, managerial accounting, tax accounting, ethics, and information systems) than most other business disciplines. And accounting majors have to go five or more years in order to sit for the CPA examination. The bottom line is that students who aspire to be CPAs or other certified specialists maybe should maybe steer away from HBCUs. However, some HBCUs have good education, nursing and other medical programs requiring certifications.

FAMU is a well-known HBCU that says this about the MCAT ---
http://www.famu.edu/index.cfm?cst&MCATANDGPA

Medical schools do have affirmative action programs that help in spite of lower MCAT scores---
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26320899

Advice for choosing a HBCU option ---
https://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice/historically-black-colleges

Among a very small subset of the highest SAT/ACT performing minority students keep in mind that top universities (think Ivy League and flagship state universities) now have full-ride financial programs (including room and board) aimed only at minority students and/or low income and even middle-income students from families earning less than $65,000 per year. There are many advantages for having graduated from a highly prestigious university, especially opportunities for graduate study and fast-tracks to executive suites. The trick is being accepted for admission!


How to Start a WordPress Blog ---
https://www.designbombs.com/how-to-start-a-blog/


Coca-Cola wants to dominate a $7 billion industry with a new type of beverage that's taking over the world ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/coca-cola-bets-on-coconut-water-2018-3


Scam Warning from a Chronicle of Higher Education Newsletter on March 13, 2018

We’ve written frequently about predatory journals how they snare naïve young scholars, how they make money off those eager to be published for tenure, how they provide no peer review or editing, and how they pretend to be prestigious by adopting names very similar to those of genuine top journals, or by naming as their editors and board members real scholars who know nothing about how they are being used. Now there’s apparently a related scam afoot. How would you like to be the commencement speaker this spring at Harvard University? And how much would you be willing to pay for the distinction?

A community-college trustee in Arizona who’s an avid reader of the Briefing received such a solicitation recently, and he thoughtfully passed it on to us. “Harvard University is a huge fan of your work — and the way you are so impressive at that thing you do,” according to the email. After he spoke to Harvard graduates “about any topic,” the email said, he would receive an honorary degree. There was just one snag, it said. “We need to waive your no prior connection” with Harvard, and that would cost a cool $3,000, payable by Western Union to an address in St. Louis. The email was signed “Robinson Crusoe.”

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


U.S. News Strips Ranking From Three Graduate Schools For Submitting False Data ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/03/us-news-strips-ranking-from-three-graduate-schools-for-submitting-fale-data.html

Paul Caron previously have blogged reports of over a dozen schools inflating their rankings by submitting erroneous data to U.S. News (BucknellClaremont McKennaCollege of CharlestonCreightonEmoryGeorge WashingtonIllinoisMissouri-Kansas City, TempleTulaneUniversity of Mary Hardin-BaylorVillanovaYork College of Pennsylvania).   U.S. News recently announced that it was removing the rankings of three graduate schools for submitting false data:

The University of Florida's College of Nursing originally reported its fiscal year 2016 NIH educational and practical initiative grants and expenditures at $1,684,495. The school informed U.S. News the corrected value for its fiscal year 2016 NIH grants was $0. ...

The University of South Florida's College of Nursing originally reported its fiscal year 2016 NIH grants and expenditures at $15,991,202. The school informed U.S. News the corrected value for its fiscal year 2016 NIH grants was $1,591,202. ...

Sam Houston State University's College of Education originally reported its fiscal year 2016 research expenditures conducted at the education school at $5.6 million. The school recently told U.S. News the corrected value for its 2016 research expenditures was $271,913

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


How to Mislead With Statistics:  Less than 1% of Delta Flight Attendant Applicants are Accepted
It's harder to get invited to the Delta Flight Attendant training center than to get into Harvard University ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/delta-airlines-flight-attendant-training-school-inside-look-2018-3

Jensen Comment
Yes Harvard has a higher acceptance rate, but saying it's "harder to be a flight attendant" is misleading due to the lower population of applicants. It's a bit analogous to saying it's harder to be a Delta flight attendant than a Delta pilot.

The clinker here is that neither applicants to Harvard nor applicants to be Delta pilots apply unless they themselves feel that they have sufficient credentials to incur the cost and/or ordeal of applying. The same is true for aspiring flight attendants but many, many more of those applicants think they have sufficient credentials to be accepted.

The credentials themselves are far less rigorous in the case of flight attendants.


Watch: “Shark Tank” judges reject the idea Amazon just spent $1 billion on ---
https://qz.com/1217898/watch-shark-tank-judges-reject-jamie-siminoffs-idea-for-ring-that-amazon-just-spent-1-billion-on/


South Africa is now notorious for white-collar crime ---
https://www.theatlas.com/charts/SJs_xpf_M 


Once It Was Overdue Books. Now Librarians Fight Overdoses ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/nyregion/librarians-opioid-heroin-overdoses.html


Target's quest to catch Amazon is failing miserably — and traders saw it coming ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/target-stock-price-earnings-report-quest-to-catch-amazon-failing-traders-saw-it-coming-2018-3


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

This Interactive Simulation Will Teach You How Blockchain Works ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/sc/ibm-blockchain-think-conference-2018-3

IBM told investors that it has over 400 blockchain clients — including Walmart, Visa, and Nestlé ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-blockchain-enterprise-customers-walmart-visa-nestl-2018-3

"Blockchain" is meaningless ---
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/7/17091766/blockchain-bitcoin-ethereum-cryptocurrency-meaning

How Quantum Computing Threatens Blockchain ---
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/02/quantum-computing-blockchain-technology-threat/

There has been a lot of hype concerning Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies of late. But it is blockchain, the electronic architecture on which cryptocurrencies run, that is the truly revolutionary technology.

Blockchain is a decentralized accounting system that verifies records through a shared ledger of transactions. Each computer in the network hosts a copy of the ledger, and when a transaction is completed, it is verified against the ledger stored on all the other network computers. If all the ledgers match, then that transaction is encrypted with others into what’s known as a block. The new block is then added to existing blocks to form a chain of blocks, or a blockchain.

The potential uses of blockchain extend far beyond cryptocurrencies. They include securing electronic heath records, creating smart contracts, and electronic voting. Blockchain is even being touted as the potential solution to the Department of Defense’s (DoD) logistics challenges—from DoD’s perspective, the consensus structure of blockchain mitigates the security risks of a single point of failure and allows for inventory suppliers both large and small to track their shipments. And in December, President Trump signed a bill calling for exploration into the potential benefits of blockchain for the federal government.

The dirty little secret, though, is that the technology could be rendered useless by a quantum computer hack.

Quantum computers, currently in development, will be more powerful than today’s classical computers because they are driven by quantum physics. Rather than using a binary system of bits, where each bit is 1 or 0, quantum computers use quantum bits or “qubits” composed of physical particles, often single photons. Because a bit is only ever 1 or 0, a classical computer calculates in a linear fashion. In contrast, the quantum physical properties of superposition and entanglement mean a qubit is both 1 and 0 at the same time, which allows for exponentially greater computing power.

At the same time, quantum computers pose a major threat to the asymmetric encryption system used to secure most electronic data, including blockchain. This system relies on math problems that take too long for a classical computer to solve. The only way to crack this encryption is to reverse factor a large semi-prime number to its original primes. Such a calculation takes eons for a classical computer, but will be instantaneous for a large universal quantum computer—even against blockchain. Charles Harvey Jr., senior adviser for American Defense International, has said, “I call the day quantum computers are able to break classic computer encryption methods ‘Q-Day.’ Q-Day is coming.”

But if a quantum computer poses a threat to blockchain as it exists now, quantum cybersecurity promises a solution. In fact, incorporating emerging quantum cybersecurity in three stages can save blockchain from the fate of other systems made obsolete by new technologies.

The first and most immediate solution is to strengthen existing encryption algorithms by adding in truly random numbers, or so-called quantum keys, which are the world’s strongest encryption keys. True randomness can only be found in nature, which is why scientists measure the crackle of energy in the fabric of the universe as it spontaneously creates and self-destructs. Quantum physicists harness this crackling quantum noise and convert it into true random numbers.

Quantum random-number generators are already being implemented today by banks, governments, and private cloud carriers. Adding quantum keys to blockchain software, and all encrypted data, will provide added security against both a classical computer and a quantum computer.

The next step is to develop quantum-resistant algorithms. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is currently reviewing submissions for these next-generation algorithms. Just as asymmetric encryption uses difficult math problems to stump classical computers, quantum-resistant algorithms will use difficult math problems to stump a quantum computer. The challenge lies in creating useful math problems that actually can stump a quantum computer. This is the approach being adopted by U.K.-based Quantum Resistant Ledger, initiated by Dr. Peter Waterland, a medical professional by day and champion of quantum resistant cryptocurrency by night. Another U.K.-based company, Ubiquicoin, has also announced its goal tobecome the first blockchain resistant to quantum computing cyberattacks.”

Continued in article

A good place to start reading
AICPA:  Blockchain was made to solve one problem and here's what it is ---
http://blog.aicpa.org/2018/02/blockchain-was-made-to-solve-1-problem-heres-what-that-is.html#sthash.NHgU1LDZ.dpbs

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

Even Congress is jumping on the blockchain bandwagon --- and IBM is urging it on
http://www.businessinsider.com/congressional-hearing-explored-uses-of-blockchains-in-government-2018-2

All at once, it seems, corporate treasury departments are embracing the distributed-ledger technology to manage Foreign Exchange more efficiently, among other reasons ---
http://ww2.cfo.com/cash-management/2018/02/blockchain-suddenly-hot/

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

Knowledge @ Wharton
Blockchain, The Bard and Building More Inclusion in Blockchain ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/blockchain-the-bard-and-building-more-inclusion-for-banking/

A soybean shipment to China became the first commodity deal to use blockchain tech ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/energy-and-commodity-companies-use-blockchain-tech-for-trading-2018-1

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

Deloitte’s new blockchain lab in New York anticipating make-or-break year ---
http://www.big4.com/big4-thought-leader-interviews/deloittes-new-blockchain-lab-in-new-york-anticipating-make-or-break-year/

Zorba:  Blockchain ledgers are not accounting ledgers ---
https://zorba-research.blogspot.ca/2018/01/blockchain-ledgers-are-not-accounting.html

 


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

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

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

Carl Sagan’s “Baloney Detection Kit”: A Toolkit That Can Help You Scientifically Separate Sense from Nonsense ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/carl-sagans-baloney-detection-kit.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Jensen Comment
On complex issues like cryptocurrency the "Baloney Detection Kit" is of not so helpful as one would hope. Tests like independent confirmation and intellectual debate disappoint.

The SEC just made it clearer that securities laws apply to most cryptocurrencies and exchanges trading them ---
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/07/the-sec-made-it-clearer-that-securities-laws-apply-to-cryptocurrencies.html

In a TIME exclusive, a Missouri man explains how Bitcoin upended his world and nearly landed him in prison ---
http://time.com/5161663/bitcoin-sting-jason-klein-crypto-irs-money-transmitter/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief-special-bitcoin&utm_content=2018030317pm

. . .

Regulators are increasingly focused on the risks that accompany this disruption. Today, cryptocurrencies are being traded on unstable exchanges; many believe that coins’ fast-rising values are part of a bubble that will eventually pop. The tokens could be stolen by hackers and thieves, and consumers have limited recourse when things go wrong. There are fears that terrorists, as well as drug traffickers, will fund their enterprises with digital coins.

All that puts the government in a tricky position, Walch says. On one hand, the government has an imperative to protect consumers and the financial system at large. On the other, regulators “want to let this innovation that could be important flourish,” she says, and have been loathe to stifle crypto with burdensome rules.

Experts say it is not clear how much authority the U.S. government has to regulate these stateless, decentralized financial instruments. Several federal agencies have released guidance, outlining legal views and concerns. But that guidance is “not necessarily an image of clarity,” says Andrew Hinkes, an attorney who is teaching a class about crypto at New York University. The likes of the Securities Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which recently testified about cryptocurrencies before Congress, are still finding their footing.

Authorities are trying to figure out how to wield old laws and powers in this brave new world and identify gaps that might require Congress to pass fresh statutes, in a time when the language used to talk about the technology is still far from settled. “What you’re seeing right now is the attempt to implement the law as it exists,” Hinkes says, “and there will be areas where it doesn’t make sense or it’s impractical.” The nature of crypto makes consensus difficult: a circuit court judge in Florida, for instance, determined that an individual targeted in a sting similar to Klein’s couldn’t be convicted of money laundering, because, in her view, bitcoin wasn’t money. (Judges elsewhere have ruled that it is.)

 

David Yermack, a finance professor who is co-teaching with Hinkes at NYU, says that even if everyone agreed how much authority the government has to regulate cryptocurrencies, the practical challenges of enforcing the law would be enormous, since much of this activity is happening offshore and in the cloud. Yermack says it’s “almost comical” to see the Justice Department going after a relatively small fish like Klein when there are thefts and scams happening that potentially involve millions of dollars worth of crypto. Klein’s St. Louis-based lawyer, Mark Milton, believes prosecutors may have initially thought that pursuing his client was “going to lead to some bigger case.”

Klein starts to sound tearful as he describes the uncertainty that plagued his family as the negotiations wore on into early 2017. He knew he was in a developing legal landscape and wanted to take a stand. He also says he gave the Justice Department “a laundry list” of reasons he didn’t think he was really meeting with drug dealers. Whatever the government might have thought of those arguments, Klein says the prosecutors became more open to negotiation when it appeared that his side was willing to go to trial.

Continued in article

From the Global CPA Report newsletter on March 7, 2018

Switzerland embraces digital currencies and crypto entrepreneurs

Switzerland, once famous for its bank secrecy rules, is counting on crypto businesses and cryptocurrencies to regain financial prowess.

The Economist

The CPA Journal now has a tab for its cryptocurrency/bitcoin artcles ---
https://www.cpajournal.com/category/bitcoin-blockchain/

Antonio Villas-Boas:  I've started to mine cryptocurrency, and it's surprisingly easy — but I'm still 8 months away from breaking even ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/mining-cryptocurrency-making-a-profit-2018-2/#why-not-just-buy-cryptocurrency-instead-of-mining-it-1

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

Pump and Dump --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_and_dump
US finance watchdog warns investors: 'Beware virtual currency pump-and-dump schemes' ---

http://www.businessinsider.com/cftc-on-crypto-beware-virtual-currency-pump-and-dump-schemes-2018-2

Nobel economist Stiglitz sees no legal functions for bitcoin: 'We have a good medium of exchange called the dollar' ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/stiglitz-calls-for-regulating-bitcoin-which-he-says-would-kill-demand-2018-1

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
A reader pointed out that since e-krona will be subject to krona regulations in general it's not a true cryptocurrency

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  

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

50 luxury flats in Dubai have been sold for bitcoin — and one buyer bought 10 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/50-dubai-luxury-flats-sold-for-bitcoin-and-one-buyer-bought-10-2018-2

Fintech --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_technology
Fintech could be bigger than ATMs, PayPal, and Bitcoin combined
---
http://www.businessinsider.com/fintech-ecosystem-financial-technology-research-and-business-opportunities-2016-2

New evidence reportedly puts North Korean hackers behind a list of high-stakes bitcoin heists ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-lazarus-group-behind-cryptocurrency-cyber-attack-wannacry-sony-2018-1


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

Blockchain will track how meat gets from Australian farms to Chinese tables ---
https://qz.com/1223228/jd-is-using-blockchain-to-track-how-meat-gets-from-australian-farms-to-chinese-tables/

A good place to start reading
AICPA:  Blockchain was made to solve one problem and here's what it is ---
http://blog.aicpa.org/2018/02/blockchain-was-made-to-solve-1-problem-heres-what-that-is.html#sthash.NHgU1LDZ.dpbs

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

Even Congress is jumping on the blockchain bandwagon --- and IBM is urging it on
http://www.businessinsider.com/congressional-hearing-explored-uses-of-blockchains-in-government-2018-2

All at once, it seems, corporate treasury departments are embracing the distributed-ledger technology to manage Foreign Exchange more efficiently, among other reasons ---
http://ww2.cfo.com/cash-management/2018/02/blockchain-suddenly-hot/

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

Knowledge @ Wharton
Blockchain, The Bard and Building More Inclusion in Blockchain ---
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/blockchain-the-bard-and-building-more-inclusion-for-banking/

A soybean shipment to China became the first commodity deal to use blockchain tech ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/energy-and-commodity-companies-use-blockchain-tech-for-trading-2018-1

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

Deloitte’s new blockchain lab in New York anticipating make-or-break year ---
http://www.big4.com/big4-thought-leader-interviews/deloittes-new-blockchain-lab-in-new-york-anticipating-make-or-break-year/

Zorba:  Blockchain ledgers are not accounting ledgers ---
https://zorba-research.blogspot.ca/2018/01/blockchain-ledgers-are-not-accounting.html

How Quantum Computing Threatens Blockchain ---
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/02/quantum-computing-blockchain-technology-threat/

There has been a lot of hype concerning Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies of late. But it is blockchain, the electronic architecture on which cryptocurrencies run, that is the truly revolutionary technology.

Blockchain is a decentralized accounting system that verifies records through a shared ledger of transactions. Each computer in the network hosts a copy of the ledger, and when a transaction is completed, it is verified against the ledger stored on all the other network computers. If all the ledgers match, then that transaction is encrypted with others into what’s known as a block. The new block is then added to existing blocks to form a chain of blocks, or a blockchain.

The potential uses of blockchain extend far beyond cryptocurrencies. They include securing electronic heath records, creating smart contracts, and electronic voting. Blockchain is even being touted as the potential solution to the Department of Defense’s (DoD) logistics challenges—from DoD’s perspective, the consensus structure of blockchain mitigates the security risks of a single point of failure and allows for inventory suppliers both large and small to track their shipments. And in December, President Trump signed a bill calling for exploration into the potential benefits of blockchain for the federal government.

The dirty little secret, though, is that the technology could be rendered useless by a quantum computer hack.

Quantum computers, currently in development, will be more powerful than today’s classical computers because they are driven by quantum physics. Rather than using a binary system of bits, where each bit is 1 or 0, quantum computers use quantum bits or “qubits” composed of physical particles, often single photons. Because a bit is only ever 1 or 0, a classical computer calculates in a linear fashion. In contrast, the quantum physical properties of superposition and entanglement mean a qubit is both 1 and 0 at the same time, which allows for exponentially greater computing power.

At the same time, quantum computers pose a major threat to the asymmetric encryption system used to secure most electronic data, including blockchain. This system relies on math problems that take too long for a classical computer to solve. The only way to crack this encryption is to reverse factor a large semi-prime number to its original primes. Such a calculation takes eons for a classical computer, but will be instantaneous for a large universal quantum computer—even against blockchain. Charles Harvey Jr., senior adviser for American Defense International, has said, “I call the day quantum computers are able to break classic computer encryption methods ‘Q-Day.’ Q-Day is coming.”

But if a quantum computer poses a threat to blockchain as it exists now, quantum cybersecurity promises a solution. In fact, incorporating emerging quantum cybersecurity in three stages can save blockchain from the fate of other systems made obsolete by new technologies.

The first and most immediate solution is to strengthen existing encryption algorithms by adding in truly random numbers, or so-called quantum keys, which are the world’s strongest encryption keys. True randomness can only be found in nature, which is why scientists measure the crackle of energy in the fabric of the universe as it spontaneously creates and self-destructs. Quantum physicists harness this crackling quantum noise and convert it into true random numbers.

Quantum random-number generators are already being implemented today by banks, governments, and private cloud carriers. Adding quantum keys to blockchain software, and all encrypted data, will provide added security against both a classical computer and a quantum computer.

The next step is to develop quantum-resistant algorithms. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is currently reviewing submissions for these next-generation algorithms. Just as asymmetric encryption uses difficult math problems to stump classical computers, quantum-resistant algorithms will use difficult math problems to stump a quantum computer. The challenge lies in creating useful math problems that actually can stump a quantum computer. This is the approach being adopted by U.K.-based Quantum Resistant Ledger, initiated by Dr. Peter Waterland, a medical professional by day and champion of quantum resistant cryptocurrency by night. Another U.K.-based company, Ubiquicoin, has also announced its goal tobecome the first blockchain resistant to quantum computing cyberattacks.”

Continued in article

 


Gig Economy --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_work
This is under the category "Temporary Work," but that's misleading since more and more gig workers are going full time.

1 in 3 Workers Employed in Gig Economy, But Not All By Choice ---
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-10-11/1-in-3-workers-employed-in-gig-economy-but-not-all-by-choice
Jensen Comment
The gig workers are fairly evenly divided between men (49%) and women (51%). Only 8% are seniors, and 23% are youths.
What is especially surprising is that only 21% are from low income households.
This suggests that many gig workers are getting gigs for reasons other than financial desperation. Some may just want to get out of the house or to add to their work skills.

The Gig Economy:  What a Stanford University Labor Economist Is Learning by Driving for Uber ---
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/what-economist-learning-driving-uber?utm_source=Stanford+Business&utm_campaign=27713b1378-Stanford-Business-Issue-132-3-4-2018&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0b5214e34b-27713b1378-70265733&ct=t(Stanford-Business-Issue-132-3-4-2018)  
Jensen Comment
Why is the "gig economy" becoming such a big deal in the takeover of traditional employer-employee labor market and what are the consequences?

Not addressed in these articles is how colleges and universities are increasingly tapping into the adjunct teaching market for various reasons including budget constraints, avoiding tenure locks, and need for professional specialties and experience that are not taught in Ph.D. programs.


How to Mislead With Statistics
MIT’s (mostly with Stanford researchers) Uber study couldn’t possibly have been right. It was still important ---
https://qz.com/1222744/mits-uber-study-couldnt-possibly-have-been-right-it-was-still-important/

Jensen Comment
The study appears to have been sloppy and unprofessional rather than intentionally misleading even though it serves the liberal agenda.

The obvious question overlooked is why so many workers volunteer for Uber when there are many opportunities for earning more than $3.37 per hour in this economy where help wanted signs are posted in front of nearly all establishments?
Didn't the researchers think about that? The article points out some other things these researchers overlooked.

The quote at the end of the article is a hoot:

Yes, $3.37 an hour was a crazy number. But when people are primed to believe that driving for Uber is a crappy job, then you better bet they are going to believe a prestigious academic study that comes along telling them exactly that.

If you do a Google search most of the media (which tends to be liberal) thinks the $3.37 is absolute fact. Abe Lincoln said it best:
"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but not . . . "

I'm not sure it takes such powerful cost accounting math as much as it takes common sense. For example, depreciation of a car is a decline in value that combines four important variables:  Make versus Mileage versus Age versus temporal Non-stationary Market prices and Variance in prices. No powerful math can disentangle those confounded variables in spite of what Einstein wished was the case. And the confounding varies with locale. For example, road salt in New Hampshire increases the importance of Mileage relative to Age and Make such that New Hampshire Uber drivers probably get hit harder than Arizona drivers, but nobody can accurately measure the effect of salt in a particular car (that differs from an average car). Other factors intervene such as how often the car is washed and what is paid for the wash. 

And even things like gas prices vary greatly from Texas to Maryland to California.

 

And tips vary a lot with customers and conditions such as any Uber driver tomorrow morning in New Hampshire will likely get a bigger tip during a Nor'easter.

 

Thus its not the power of the math as much as it is the lack of data for millions of variations in non-stationarities of the variables in a given Uber trip.


A rogue employee at OpenTable used a rival booking service, Reserve, to make 300 fake reservations at 45 restaurants, an equivalent of 1,200 to 1,300 diners not showing up to eat.
The fraud was an attempt to make Reserve look bad in the competitive booking market

https://www.buzzfeed.com/tasneemnashrulla/opentable-fake-reservations-scam?utm_term=.saE4065lom#.dyNXme5ZG3

Jensen Comment
This kind of fraud takes place much more frequently in Amazon product reviews from biased writers for a product or for a competitors product or just for or against something else like the author of a book. Such bias is also a problem for Wikipedia, although Wikipedia aggressively tries to reduce such biased reporting.


How to Mislead With Statistics
The Best and Worst States for Business
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/02/28/the-best-and-worst-states-for-business-5/?utm_source=247WallStDailyNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=MARCH012018A&utm_campaign=DailyNewsletter

Jensen Comment
This is misleading because there are so many criteria and ways to weight these criteria in terms of importance. For example, low population states are poor business choices for franchise retail stores and food chains because demand is so low in states that only do not have large cities (think Wyoming, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Alaska). Similarly low population states have limited labor supplies, especially for skilled labor. For firms not dependent upon the local areas for customers these states can have other attractions such as fewer business regulations and low taxes. South Dakota attracts credit card companies because of the regulatory climate. This is not such an attraction for automobile companies seeking to build new factories.

In the above rankings Massachusetts is ranked in top place. Massachusetts is attractive for firms wanting skilled labor and nearness to top universities. Massachusetts is also known in New England as Taxaachusetts because it taxes everything in sight.

New Hampshire ranks pretty high in terms of low taxes, low housing costs, schools, and living environment and yet New Hampshire does not provide much competition for companies seeking skilled workers, low energy costs, and funding deals like those offered in New York. New Hampshire has no sales tax or general income tax, but its business taxes and property taxes are relatively high.

One criterion in the above is working age population change 2010-2020. But this is a percentage index that suffers from denominator effects that make low worker population in 2010 attractive.

The bottom line is that business climate is in the eye of the beholder. Every state has some attractions and some detractions. States with the most detractions (think highly taxed California with its soaring living costs and business regulations) also have some important attractions that include climate, labor market, large cities, and a huge coastline with busy shipping ports.


Five Senators Want To Know Why The FBI Hasn’t Restored Missing Crime Data ---
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/five-senators-want-to-know-why-the-fbi-hasnt-restored-missing-crime-data/

. . .

The annual Crime in the United States report, a collection of crime statistics gathered from over 18,000 law-enforcement agencies around the country, is considered the gold standard for tracking crime statistics in the United States. According to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight, the 2016 Crime in the United States report the first released under President Trump’s administration — contained close to 70 percent fewer data tables than the 2015 version did. The removal could affect analysts’ understanding of crime trends in the country.

 Continued in article

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




From the Scout Report on March 2, 2018

Geany Science --- www.geany.org 
Geany is a lightweight integrated development environment. It was designed to be fast and small with a relatively short list of external dependencies. Geany presents a graphical interface reminiscent of heavier-weight editors for Windows-like Programmer's Notepad or Notepad++. Despite its small size (the Windows executable is only 14 MB), Geany supports editing multiple simultaneous documents, auto-completion of functions and variables, code folding, and syntax highlighting for numerous programming and markup languages. It understands CSS, HTML, Javascript, Markdown, PHP, Python, reStrutcturdText, SQL, and many others. Geany has a plugin system that can extend the base editor with additional features. Several dozen plugins are available on the Geany website, adding support for things like in-editor debugging, Git integration, preview of HTML documents, and more. Geany is a free software available under the GNU General Public License. Source code is available on GitHub. Installers for Windows and macOS are available on the Geany website. Most Linux distributions and BSD descendants include Geany installers in their package management systems.


Hypothesis Educational Technology --- https://web.hypothes.is/ 
Hypothesis is a web annotation tool, allowing users to attach sentence-level notes to any site on the web. No support is necessary for the underlying websites - Hypothesis functions as an overlay that works everywhere. Hypothesis is produced by a non-profit foundation with a list of sponsors including the Sloan Foundation, the Knight Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and numerous others. Through their work with the W3C Web Annotation Working Group, the Hypothesis project seeks to build not just a working web annotation system, but standards for interoperable annotations of digital documents more generally. Their work is guided by a set of community principles and all their software is available under open source licenses on GitHub. The In Action section of the Hypothesis website provides examples of employing Hypothesis for educators, journalists, scientists, publishers, and the general public. To begin creating annotations, users need to register for an account. Google Chrome users can then utilize a Chrome Extension to interact with Hypothesis. For other browsers, Hypothesis provides a bookmarklet for quick access to the Hypothesis website


Dutch Supermarket Chain Ekoplaza Opens Store with Plastic-Free Aisle

 

World's first plastic-free aisle opens in Netherlands supermarket
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/28/worlds-first-plastic-free-aisle-opens-in-netherlands-supermarket

Dutch Supermarket Introduces Plastic-Free Aisle
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/business/netherlands-plastic-supermarket.html

Netherlands opens world's first plastic-free supermarket aisle as UK urged to follow example
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/plastic-planet-packaging-free-supermarket-ekoplaza-amsterdam-netherlands-recycling-pollution-a8232101.html

What Would a World Without Plastics Look Like?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF2EJ1tQUps

How Much Plastic is in the Ocean?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFZS3Vh4lfI

Living plastic-free is harder than you think
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enaPjyMf2JY


From the Scout Report on March 9, 2018

My Simpleshow Educational Technology --- www.mysimpleshow.com 
My Simpleshow is a tool for building short "explainer" videos. It includes a number of template storylines that users can select as a starting point. For example, their educational templates include "explain a mathematical formula," "interpret literature," "introduce a biological process," and others. There are also professional storylines (like "introduce your startup") and personal storylines (like "invite someone to an event"). After selecting a storyline, users flesh out the template script with their specific details, select illustrations, and graphics, and select a soundtrack. A number of sample explainer videos can be found under "examples" in the menu at the top right of the site. My Simpleshow is free for personal or classroom use. A variety of paid plans are also available for business use. My Simpleshow works in any modern browser.


The Chirurgeon's Apprentice Health --- www.drlindseyfitzharris.com 
Since we last featured the Chirurgeon's Apprentice in the 08-12-2016 Scout Report, medical historian Lindsey Fitzharris has published the book, The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine. The book recently garnered the Pen/E.O Wilson Literary Science Writing Prize. Visitors can learn more about her book-- and the sometimes sordid history of medicine-- on Fitzharris's blog. According to Lindsey Fitzharris, a medical historian with a Ph.D. in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology from the University of Oxford, "[a]t the beginning of the 17th century, 'chirurgeons' [surgeons] were closely related to barbers and other craftsmen who learned their trade through apprenticeships." Fitzharris's website, which is not for the faint of heart, chronicles this early history of surgery before the field became an established medical practice. On the site's blog, readers can learn about the history of bloodletting and cadaver dissections. Readers can also read the story of Mary I's "phantom pregnancy," discover the toxic ingredients of seventeenth-century make-up, or hear Fitzharris's reflections on changing views of death throughout history. This website also includes a link to Fitzharris's YouTube series, Under the Knife, a collection of short videos about medical history. Instructors and parents should note that this website contains some mature content, specifically relating to the violent treatment of alleged criminals and the history of sexuality.


ew Family Tree Offers Clues About the Role of Genetics in Longevity and the History of Marriage

 

When did Americans Stop Marrying Their Cousins? Ask the World's Largest Family Tree
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/science/cousins-marriage-family-tree.html

13 million people tracked over 300 years to build massive human family tree
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/giant-human-family-tree-traces-how-people-moved-and-married-over-300-years

Thirteen Million Degrees of Kevin Bacon: World's largest family tree shines light on life span, who marries whom
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/03/thirteen-million-degrees-kevin-bacon-world-s-largest-family-tree-shines-light-life-span

The "Genome Hacker" Who Mapped a 13-Million-Person Family Tree
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/yaniv-erlich-genomes-pedigrees-myheritage/554441

Snippet: Human migration over the centuries based on 86 million public genealogy profiles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dzwoi16rPZ8&feature=youtu.be

National Archives: Start Your Genealogy Research
https://www.archives.gov/research/genealogy/start-research




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


Education Tutorials

Audio Reading Service Podcast (for visually impaired learners) ---
http://audioreadingservicepodcast.com/
Bob Jensen's threads for handicapped learners ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Handicapped

Dolly Parton Gives The Gift Of Literacy: A Library Of 100 Million Books ---
https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/03/01/589912466/dolly-parton-gives-the-gift-of-literacy-a-library-of-100-million-books

Correlation Versus Causation Explained
MIT BLOSSOMS: Do Credit Cards Make You Gain Weight? What is Correlation, and How to Distinguish it from Causation ---
https://blossoms.mit.edu/videos/lessons/do_credit_cards_make_you_gain_weight_what_correlation_and_how_distinguish_it_causatio

PLOS Blogs: CitizenSci (citizen science projects) --- http://blogs.plos.org/citizensci/

PLOS Currents (Public Library of Sciences) --- http://currents.plos.org

RIDE: A Review Journal for Scholarly Digital Editions and Resources --- https://ride.i-d-e.de/

ChemHealthWeb (interaction of medicine with chemistry) --- https://publications.nigms.nih.gov/chemhealth/

Grammar Bytes --- www.chompchomp.com

Engineering is Elementary: Engineering Everywhere --- www.eie.org/engineering-everywhere

Library of Congress: Cities and Towns Social studies --- www.loc.gov/collections/cities-and-towns

NYC Archeology Repository: The Nan A. Rothschild Research Center: Fun with Archeology ---
http://archaeology.cityofnewyork.us/education

The Soundtrack of Our Lives (Canadian museum of how lives are impacted by audio) --- http://thesoundtrackofourlives.ca/index-eng

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

Physicists Found a Trick to Solve an ‘Impossible’ Puzzle of Gravity ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/quantum-gravity/555107/

NASA:  Apollo 17 in Real-Time --- http://apollo17.org/

open.NASA https://open.nasa.gov

Weird Mars Geology ---
http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/more-weird-mars-geology/

Dark Matter and the Earliest Stars ---
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2018/02/28/dark-matter-and-the-earliest-stars/

YouTube: The Brain Scoop Science www.youtube.com/user/thebrainscoop

Lives of Real Scientists --- http://realscientists.org/

Billions of Birds Migrate. Where Do They Go? 
www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/03/bird-migration-interactive-maps

PLOS Blogs: CitizenSci (citizen science projects) --- http://blogs.plos.org/citizensci/

PLOS Currents (Public Library of Sciences) --- http://currents.plos.org

ChemHealthWeb (interaction of medicine with chemistry) --- https://publications.nigms.nih.gov/chemhealth/

How cats see the world compared to humans ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-of-how-cats-see-the-world-2013-10

A Turing Machine Made out of Wood ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/a-turing-machine-handmade-out-of-wood.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

NYC Archeology Repository: The Nan A. Rothschild Research Center: Fun with Archeology ---
http://archaeology.cityofnewyork.us/education

Engineering is Elementary: Engineering Everywhere --- www.eie.org/engineering-everywhere

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

BBC Radio 4: More or Less: Behind the Stats (statistics in the news_ ---
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02nrss1/episodes/downloads

YouTube: Origin of Everything --- www.youtube.com/channel/UCiB8h9jD2Mlxx96ZFnGDSJw

Tuskegee Army Nurses Project (Black WW II nurses) --- www.tuskegeearmynurses.info

Mapping Early American Elections (Colonial era) --- http://earlyamericanelections.org/

County Populations (and how they changed in the USA over time) --- http://creatingdata.us/testing/county_populations/

NYC Archeology Repository: The Nan A. Rothschild Research Center: Fun with Archeology ---
http://archaeology.cityofnewyork.us/education

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

Correlation Versus Causation Explained
MIT BLOSSOMS: Do Credit Cards Make You Gain Weight? What is Correlation, and How to Distinguish it from Causation ---
https://blossoms.mit.edu/videos/lessons/do_credit_cards_make_you_gain_weight_what_correlation_and_how_distinguish_it_causatio

Celebrating Marion Walter – and other unsung female mathematicians ---
https://theconversation.com/celebrating-marion-walter-and-other-unsung-female-mathematicians-92249

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

YouTube: Origin of Everything --- www.youtube.com/channel/UCiB8h9jD2Mlxx96ZFnGDSJw

Hayden White --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayden_White
Hayden White's Perplexing History ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/03/09/essay-death-hayden-white?mc_cid=8719b9f780&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

How Illuminated Medieval Manuscripts Were Made: A Step-by-Step Look at this Beautiful, Centuries-Old Craft ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/how-illuminated-medieval-manuscripts-were-made-a-step-by-step-look-at-this-beautiful-centuries-old-craft.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

RIDE: A Review Journal for Scholarly Digital Editions and Resources --- https://ride.i-d-e.de/

A Free Yale Course on Medieval History: 700 Years in 22 Lectures ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/a-free-yale-course-on-medieval-history-700-years-in-22-lectures.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

African rhythms, ideas of sin and the Hammond organ: A brief history of gospel music’s evolution ---
https://theconversation.com/african-rhythms-ideas-of-sin-and-the-hammond-organ-a-brief-history-of-gospel-musics-evolution-90737

What the History of Food Stamps Reveals --- https://daily.jstor.org/what-the-history-of-food-stamps-reveals/

Explorer by Mountain Legacy (in Canada) --- http://explore.mountainlegacy.ca/

NASA:  Apollo 17 in Real-Time --- http://apollo17.org/

County Populations (and how they changed in the USA over time) --- http://creatingdata.us/testing/county_populations/

Colonial North American Project --- http://colonialnorthamerican.library.harvard.edu

Tuskegee Army Nurses Project (Black WW II nurses) --- www.tuskegeearmynurses.info

The Brown Bookshelf: United in Story (African American Authors) --- https://thebrownbookshelf.com/ 

Turing Machine --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine
A Turing Machine Made out of Wood ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/a-turing-machine-handmade-out-of-wood.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Digital Thoreau --- https://digitalthoreau.org/

Mapping Early American Elections (Colonial era) --- http://earlyamericanelections.org/

Princeton Seminary Digital Library (Religion) --- http://digital.library.ptsem.edu/

Princeton Digitizes 70,000+ Religious Texts, Letting You Immerse Yourself in the Curious Works of Great World Religions  ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/princeton-digitizes-70000-religious-texts.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29 

Wisconsin Sound Archive (Wisconsin History) ---
http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15932coll11

The Morgan Library & Museum: Henry James and American Painting --- www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/online/james

Mozart’s Diary Where He Composed His Final Masterpieces Is Now Digitized and Available Online ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/mozarts-diary-where-he-composed-his-final-masterpieces-is-now-digitized-and-available-online.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Hip-Hop and Rap Across the Smithsonian --- www.si.edu/spotlight/hip-hop-rap

The Constitution of the Inner Country: Leonard Cohen on Words and the Poetry of Inhabiting Your Presence in Language ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/03/01/leonard-cohen-death-of-a-ladys-man-words/?utm_source=Brain+Pickings&utm_campaign=26be7f7491-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_03_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_179ffa2629-26be7f7491-234390133&mc_cid=26be7f7491&mc_eid=4d2bd13843

Met Publications: Books with Full-Text Online (Art History) --- www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/titles-with-full-text-online?searchtype=F

Lyonel Feininger: 500+ Photographs (from Harvard's Houghton Library) --- www.harvardartmuseums.org/tour/lyonel-feininger-photographs

The University of Chicago Press: History of Cartography, Vol 1-3 --- www.press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC

The University of Chicago Press: History of Cartography, Vol 1-3 --- www.press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC

Bob Jensen's threads on cartography --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#MapCollections

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  

The Diplomatic Correspondence of Thomas Bodley, 1585-1597 --- www.livesandletters.ac.uk/bodley/bodley.html

Library of Congress: Cities and Towns Social studies --- www.loc.gov/collections/cities-and-towns

World War I Postcards from the Bowman Gray Collection ---
http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/graypc

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

Mozart’s Diary Where He Composed His Final Masterpieces Is Now Digitized and Available Online ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/03/mozarts-diary-where-he-composed-his-final-masterpieces-is-now-digitized-and-available-online.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

African rhythms, ideas of sin and the Hammond organ: A brief history of gospel music’s evolution ---
https://theconversation.com/african-rhythms-ideas-of-sin-and-the-hammond-organ-a-brief-history-of-gospel-musics-evolution-90737

Hip-Hop and Rap Across the Smithsonian --- www.si.edu/spotlight/hip-hop-rap

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


Equifax breach could be most costly in corporate history ---
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-equifax-cyber/equifax-breach-could-be-most-costly-in-corporate-history-idUSKCN1GE257

Jensen Comment
On occasion some lesser breaches are more troubling than the Equifax breach. The huge Blue Cross Anthem breach allowed criminals to access medical records that are still exploiting such as the many scam phone calls we get trying to sell back braces to my wife --- the callers really only want credit card information and will never actually send a back brace. The 2014 TurboTax leak revealed social security numbers, IRS PIN numbers, and tax return information about employers, portfolios, etc. This allowed criminals to create and collect enormous refunds from the IRS --- in 2015 a bad guy filed my income tax return before I filed my return such that the IRS would not let me file my return electronically. I finally got my refund, but the IRS probably took a big loss by letting a bad guy collect a refund in my name. Many company breaches revealed credit card numbers that allowed millions of scammers to make fraudulent purchases.


Scientific American:  The Role of Luck in Life Success Is Far Greater Than We Realized ---
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-role-of-luck-in-life-success-is-far-greater-than-we-realized/

Jensen Comment
Remember the old joke about two maggots pooped out by a bird flying over Iowa. They were then caught in the wind.
One landed in a steaming manure pile;  the other one fell in a pavement crack in a highway.
Months later they had a chance encounter where the scrawny and sickly maggot asks the fat guy what the secret was behind his prosperity.
The fat guy replies:  "Brains and Personality"


Writing Tutorials

Grammar Bytes --- www.chompchomp.com

In writing, habit seems to be a much stronger force than either willpower or inspiration . . . Just set one day’s work in front of the last day’s work. That’s the way it comes out. And that’s the only way it does.
John Steinbeck, Diary ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/03/02/john-steinbeck-working-days/?mc_cid=ba07e5d069&mc_eid=4d2bd13843

From the Scout Report on June 30, 2017

Terminology -- http://agiletortoise.com/terminology 

Terminology is a comprehensive reference tool for the English language. It combines a dictionary, a thesaurus, and an internet-enabled research tool. Terminology's dictionary/thesaurus feature is usable offline. It contains clear, simple definitions along with root words, synonyms, antonyms, more/less specific words, audio pronunciations, and more. Terminology supports wildcard searching, maintains search history, offers spelling suggestions, and allows users to add notes to any term. When used with a network connection, Terminology's definitions are enriched with cross references to online sources like Wikipedia, IMDb, Google, and others. Terminology is available for macOS and iOS. The iOS version adds a "Look Up" option to text in all others apps.

Khan Academy: Grammar ---  www.khanacademy.org/humanities/grammar

Stop Trying to Sound Smart When You’re Writing
Eliminate fancy-pants words
https://hbr.org/2016/10/stop-trying-to-sound-smart-when-youre-writing?referral=00202&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-weekly_hotlist-_-hotlist_date&utm_source=newsletter_weekly_hotlist&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=hotlist_date

Microsoft just made it way easier to write a research paper with Word ---
http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/26/12283814/microsoft-word-researcher-editor-features

Dictionary of the BooK --- http://lisnews.org/the_dictionary_of_the_book

The Purdue OWL: Subject-Specific Resources (online writing lab) --- https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/4

Bob Jensen's links to free electronic literature are at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide --- http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

Grammar Guides:  http://australianhelp.com/grammar

Oxford Dictionaries --- https://en.oxforddictionaries.com

Daily Writing Tips http://www.dailywritingtips.com 

Atravist:  Make a story and design it your own way (design tools) --- https://atavist.com/

Glossary of Poetic Terms --- http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-terms

Dynamic Dialects (English) --- http://www.dynamicdialects.ac.uk

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy --- http://plato.stanford.edu/

Larry Ferlazzo's English Website (helpers for learning the English Language)  --- http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/larry-ferlazzos-english-website

Teacher's Activity Guide: Myths, Folktales & Fairy Tales --- http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/mff/

Brain Pickings
Hemingway’s Advice on Writing, Ambition, the Art of Revision, and His Reading List of Essential Books for Aspiring Writers ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/01/04/with-hemingway-arnold-samuelson-writing/?mc_cid=a388036da6&mc_eid=4d2bd13843

The Largest Historical Dictionary of English Slang Now Free Online: Covers 500 Years of the “Vulgar Tongue” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/the-largest-historical-dictionary-of-english-slang-now-free-online.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Jennifer Egan on Writing, the Trap of Approval, and the Most Important Discipline for Aspiring Writers ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/09/06/borges-and-i/?mc_cid=1ffb15db80&mc_eid=4d2bd13843

Video:  Umberto Eco Dies at 84; Leaves Behind Advice to Aspiring Writers ---
http://www.openculture.com/2016/02/umberto-eco-dies-at-84-leaves-behind-advice-to-aspiring-writers.html

Khan Academy: Introduction to Storytelling --- https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/pixar/storytelling/we-are-all-storytellers

We celebrate — and mock — Hemingway as a swaggering celebrity, a revolutionary. But his real talents were listening, mimicry, and revision ---
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/12/03/hemingway-surprise/

Purdue Owl: White Papers (standards for white papers on various topics) --- https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/546/1

Learn to Write Through a Video Game Inspired by the Romantic Poets: Shelley, Byron, Keats ---
http://www.openculture.com/2015/05/learn-to-write-through-a-video-game-inspired-by-the-romantic-poets.html

 

Bob Jensen's other 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/

February 28, 20148

March 2, 2018

March 3, 2018

March 5, 2018

March 6, 2018

March 7, 2018

March 8, 2018

March 10, 2018

March 12, 2018

March 13, 2018

March 14, 2018

 


The Hidden Threat of Teacher Stress ---
https://theconversation.com/the-hidden-threat-of-teacher-stress-92676

Jensen Comment
One of our daughters burned out teaching high school biology (with tenure) and did not recover well at all. This made me think twice about all the years I advised young people that teaching is a great career, especially for future parents, because of the frequent holidays and summer breaks that allow for things other than work while most other careers have fewer holidays and only 2-3 weeks of paid vacations. I must say that her school bent over backwards supporting her in a dark time of need with paid leave three semesters away from the school. Certainly we cannot attribute all of her troubles to "teacher stress," but it seems that such stress played a major role. She also stressed herself out somewhat by being a parent and by taking on a second job weekends as a lab technician in a big hospital. Fortunately, she does have a very supportive husband (a microbiology professor). She and her husband are now retired even though she retired long before retirement age.

I taught for 40 years at the college level where stress takes on other forms such as the publish or perish threat that looms over the early years for survival and carries on clear up to retirement for those of us who take pride in our annual performance reports. Teaching also became more stressful in higher education due to the joint interactions of increased reliance on student evaluations combined with the rise of the importance of grades for students seeking careers. For example, low gpa students are not even invited to interview for accounting firm job interviews, and those graduates eventually  seeking to get into Ph.D. programs can kiss their hopes goodbye without stellar grade averages. Students excessively worried about grades can take a lot of fun out of teaching.

But at the college level in my case there was tremendous support that relieved a lot of the stress. My average teaching load over 40 years was five hours per week in the classroom for roughly 30 weeks of teaching per year. That left an average of 22 weeks per year for research plus a lot of time during the teaching weeks for course preparation, student advising, and grading as well as study time and research time. I also had on average had one year of sabbatical leave after every six years of teaching and two years in a think tank on the Stanford University campus while I was on the faculty at the University of Maine. Before that while at Michigan State I also had one term free for research every two years. Plus I was generously supplied with computer, secretarial, and library support on campus. I did not feel stressed over salary mostly because I had endowed professorships at three of the four universities where I was on the faculty.

My point is that most universities are quite generous when providing resources to help faculty deal with job stress. Certainly in my case I worked long hours every week but really never felt stressed out. I worked long hours because it just took me extra time to do my job well. I could've been a better parent, but I'm not sure my kids would've known what to do with me if I'd given them more time.

At the high school level I think teachers probably face more stress attributable to students who don't particularly want to learn and are immature when dealing with their personal troubles. I usually taught graduate students who were more mature and wanted to learn because their careers were just around the corner. There's probably no comparison in terms of "teacher stress" at the K-12 level versus the graduate school collegiate level.

I'm now more sympathetic and empathetic with the stressful careers of our teachers, especially those at the K-12 level. God bless them all!


A Mental Disease by Any Other Name --- http://nautil.us/issue/58/self/a-mental-disease-by-any-other-name-rp


Barbra Streisand had her dog Samantha cloned - twice ---
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-43212343

 




Humor for March 2018

14 of the most hilarious fast food chain knockoffs around the world ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/knockoff-fast-food-chains-around-the-world-2018-2

When I was a kid in school we did not need cops or armed teachers --- we had nuns!
Thank you Paula

I know that my classmates would recognize a Falcon because they are older and mature. I'm not sure I can say that about their offspring. It is a beautiful sight to see one nesting high up in a magistic Eucalyptus tree! I've seen many remarkable nature photographs over the years but this photo of a nesting Falcon in an old tree is perhaps the most remarkable nature shot that I've ever seen ---
https://imgur.com/YW6Fufm

Bob, the Graduate School Dean here some years ago retired and went to truck-driving school to become an over-the-road trucker. I heard that he didn't stick with it for long, but I credit him with bringing new meaning to the term "semi-retirement."
Ed Scribner




Humor February 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q1.htm#Humor0218.htm

Humor January 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q1.htm#Humor0118.htm 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 




Tidbits Archives --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm

More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm

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