Tidbits on August 16, 2018
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

Set 10-2018 Bears, Blue Birds, and Other Summertime Pictures
http://cs.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/SummertimeFavorites/Set10/Set10-2018.htm  

 

Tidbits on August 16, 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

TED Talk:  Without realizing it, we're fluent in the language of pictures, says illustrator Christoph Niemann in a highly entertaining talk ---
https://www.ted.com/talks/christoph_niemann_you_are_fluent_in_this_language_and_don_t_even_know_it?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2018-07-28&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_content=talk_of_the_week_button
Bob Jensen's threads on data visualization ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/352wpvisual/000datavisualization.htm 

Video: A Scenario of Higher Education in 2020 (or thereabouts)---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gU3FjxY2uQ

Soar around the Moon, carried by the music of Debussy, in this breathtaking space flight ---
https://aeon.co/videos/soar-around-the-moon-carried-by-the-music-of-debussy-in-this-breathtaking-space-flight?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=2551858a08-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_08_08_04_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-2551858a08-68951505

NOVA: Rise of the Superstorms --- www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/rise-of-the-superstorms.html

Video:  Crash Course: History of Science --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvtCLceNf30&feature=youtu.be

Visualization of global warning from the Scientific American (followed by a great video of human population growth since AD1)---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4Ra2HR27pQ&feature=youtu.be 
Thank you Jagdish for the heads up

This video forwarded by Paula is not only funny it shows how most of really don't have the video-making skills of the true, and very patient, pros in making videos ---
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/164d430b30f86dbd?projector=1&messagePartId=0.1 

MIT Global Shakespeares: Video & Performance Archive (performances from around the world) --- http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/

PodcastRE (searchable database of podcasts) --- https://scout.wisc.edu/archives/index.php

Hear Singers from the Metropolitan Opera Record Their Voices on Traditional Wax Cylinders ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/08/obsolete-technology-thats-likely-remain-listen-modern-met-opera-stars-recording-wax-cylinders.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Open Science Radio: English Episodes --- www.openscienceradio.org/category/english-episodes

 

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

 


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 

Soar around the Moon, carried by the music of Debussy, in this breathtaking space flight ---
https://aeon.co/videos/soar-around-the-moon-carried-by-the-music-of-debussy-in-this-breathtaking-space-flight?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=2551858a08-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_08_08_04_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-2551858a08-68951505

Pianist Plays Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, Ravel & Debussy for Blind Elephants in Thailand ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/07/soothing-effect-live-classical-music-played-elephants-wild.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Aretha Franklin’s Most Powerful Early Performances: “Respect,” “Chain of Fools,” “Say a Little Prayer” & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/08/aretha-franklins-powerful-early-performances-respect-chain-fools-say-little-prayer.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Leonard Bernstein Presents “The Greatest 5 Minutes in Music Education” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/08/leonard-bernstein-presents-greatest-5-minutes-music-education.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Hear Singers from the Metropolitan Opera Record Their Voices on Traditional Wax Cylinders ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/08/obsolete-technology-thats-likely-remain-listen-modern-met-opera-stars-recording-wax-cylinders.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Web outfits like Pandora, Foneshow, Stitcher, and Slacker broadcast portable and mobile content that makes Sirius look overpriced and stodgy ---
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090327_877363.htm?link_position=link2

Pandora (my favorite online music station) --- www.pandora.com
TheRadio
(online music site) --- http://www.theradio.com/
Slacker (my second-favorite commercial-free online music site) --- http://www.slacker.com/

Gerald Trites likes this international radio site --- http://www.e-radio.gr/
Songza:  Search for a song or band and play the selection --- http://songza.com/
Also try Jango --- http://www.jango.com/?r=342376581
Sometimes this old guy prefers the jukebox era (just let it play through) --- http://www.tropicalglen.com/
And I listen quite often to Soldiers Radio Live --- http://www.army.mil/fieldband/pages/listening/bandstand.html
Also note
U.S. Army Band recordings --- http://bands.army.mil/music/default.asp

Bob Jensen's threads on nearly all types of free music selections online ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Music.htm


Photographs and Art

A 58-story skyscraper in San Francisco is tilting and sinking — and residents say their multimillion-dollar condos are 'nearly worthless' ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/is-millennium-tower-safe-still-leaning-sinking-2017-9
The good news is that engineers proposed a fix that might work --- for an enormous fee that must be paid by somebody (taxpayers?)
The miraculous fete will be pumping it back to level.

Drought in Australia Turns Farmland to Barren Dustbowl: Heartbreaking Photos ---
https://www.newsweek.com/drought-australia-turns-farmland-barren-dustbowl-heartbreaking-photos-1052170

9 photos of the USS Wolverine, a strange WWII aircraft carrier that was originally a luxury paddlewheel steamer ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/9-photos-of-uss-wolverine-a-weird-wwii-carrier-originally-cruise-ship-2018-7

These are all the (current) fighter jets in the US Air Force ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/fighter-jets-us-air-force-2018-4
Jensen Comment
A problem is the current and expected shortages of pilots in both the air force and the private sector.

Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art ---
http://journalpanorama.org/issues/spring-2018-4-1/

Art Gallery of Ontario: The Indigenous Collection Arts ago.ca/collection/indigenous ----
http://ago.ca/collection/indigenous

Photos show the Battle of Savo Island, a brutal US Navy defeat that stranded thousands of Marines on Guadalcanal ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/battle-of-savo-island-naval-defeat-stranded-us-marines-guadalcanal-2018-8

Every Cover of MAD Magazine, from 1952 to the Present: Behold 553 Covers from the Satirical Publication ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/07/every-cover-of-mad-magazine-from-1952-to-the-present.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Here's what Hiroshima looks like today — and how the effects of the bombing still linger ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/what-hiroshima-looks-like-today-2018-7

See stunning photos of the longest 'blood moon' lunar eclipse of the century that swept across the Eastern Hemisphere ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/blood-moon-photos-longest-lunar-eclipse-of-the-century-2018-7

Trees That Refuse to Die ---
http://www.trueactivist.com/10-resilient-trees-that-refuse-to-die-no-matter-what/

Summertime Poems and Paintings ---
https://daily.jstor.org/summertime-poems-and-paintings/

700 Olden Days Photographs ---
https://www.pinterest.com/ssmith731/in-olden-days/

Quills & Feathers (Birds of the Great Plains) --- https://cdrhsites.unl.edu/quills/

Stylish 2,000-Year-Old Roman Shoe Found in a Well ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/08/stylish-2000-year-old-roman-shoe-found-well.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art & Architecture --- https://digital.kenyon.edu/perejournal/

Below the Surface (artifacts from beneath Amsterdam) --- https://belowthesurface.amsterdam/en

The “Weird Objects” in the New York Public Library’s Collections: Virginia Woolf’s Cane, Jack Kerouac’s Harmonicas, Walt Whitman’s Hair & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/08/weird-objects-new-york-public-librarys-collections-virginia-woolfs-cane-jack-kerouacs-harmonicas-walt-whitmans-hair.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

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

Harper's Weekly Archive from 1857 --- https://archive.org/details/harpersweekl00bonn

The Browning Letters (Poetry) --- http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/ab-letters

The (Controversial) Draconian Dictionary Is Back ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/the-draconian-dictionary-is-back/566660/

Stories from the Jewish Museum ---
https://thejewishmuseum.org/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7NOk4JfE3AIVSbjACh16OQy0EAAYASAAEgL8z_D_BwE

Summertime Poems and Paintings ---
https://daily.jstor.org/summertime-poems-and-paintings/

Book Traces (historic books with marginal notations on pages) --- www.booktraces.org

Stanford University:  Secret Service: Old and Young King Brady, Detectives ---
https://exhibits.stanford.edu/secret-service

A Tiny Village in Vermont Was the Perfect Spot to Hide Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ---
https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/summer/statement/tiny-village-in-vermont-was-the-perfect-spot-hide-aleksandr-solzhenitsyn

The Crack Squad of Librarians Who Track Down Half-Forgotten Books ---
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/librarian-detectives-forgotten-books

Time Magazine:  The 16 Best True Crime Books of All Time ---
Click Here

V.S. Naipaul Leaves Behind a Formidable Body of Work—and a Troubling Legacy (of female abuses) ---
Click Here 

 

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 August 16, 2018
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2018/TidbitsQuotations081618.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




1,900+ MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) Getting Started in August: Enroll Today ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/08/1900-moocs-massive-open-online-courses-getting-started-august-enroll-today.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

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


The blue (liberal) world of law schools ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/08/byu-and-pepperdine-are-the-most-ideologically-balanced-faculties-among-the-top-50-law-schools-2013.html

Bob Jensen's threads on bias in academe and the media ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#LiberalBias


Video: A Scenario of Higher Education in 2020 (or thereabouts)---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gU3FjxY2uQ

Can a Huge Online College Solve California’s Work-Force Problems?
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Can-a-Huge-Online-College/244054?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=f80ba3e869f84decb4965e602626b579&elq=fe9f9bb29c1f407097558d58d6c15b2f&elqaid=19912&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=9243

Jerry Brown was taking a victory lap.

The call went out to reporters early on a recent Monday morning: The governor would attend that day’s meeting of the California Community Colleges Board of Governors. A few minutes after 11, tieless and relaxed, Brown slid into a seat on the dais. He was just in time — and not coincidentally — for a discussion of the state’s newest, and wholly online, community college.

The virtual college, the 115th institution in California’s two-year system, is Brown’s baby, its approval in June the capstone to his sunset year in office. The college is meant to serve a population too often left behind by higher education: under- or unemployed adults who need new skills to land a job, secure a raise, nab a promotion, just to maintain a toehold in a swiftly changing workplace. An online institution, its advocates say, will allow so-called stranded workers — there are 2.5 million Californians without a postsecondary degree or credential between the ages of 25 and 34 alone — to take short-term courses whenever, wherever.

Reaching those workers will be necessary for the world’s fifth-largest economy to continue to grow and thrive. And if the online college enrolls even a fraction of its target audience, it would become the largest provider of distance education, public or private, in the nation. The scale — and the potential for innovation — has people across the country looking West.

Given the floor at the Board of Governors meeting, Brown, a Democrat, couldn’t help crowing. "This is a no-brainer, it is obvious, it is inevitable, it is a juggernaut that cannot be stopped," he said. "California is a leader, it will lead in this. And I say, hallelujah."

For all the governor’s certitude, it may be premature to declare the online college a sure fix to the state’s yawning gaps in educational and economic opportunity. The unknowns are many: Will job seekers or employers find value in an institution that offers only certificates and credentials, as is the plan for new college, not the degrees so frequently required for middle-class work?

Digital learning promises convenience, but will harried parents and overburdened breadwinners be any more likely to log onto a computer than set foot in a classroom? If they do register for an online course, will they flourish? After all, studies consistently show that students — low-income and first-generation students most especially — do better in face-to-face or hybrid courses.

Backers of the new college, like Eloy Ortiz Oakley, chancellor of the community-college system, pledge to consult with employers and unions to make sure the competency-based credentials offered are prized in the workplace. Research has identified interventions that can help online course takers perform well; starting from scratch, such strategies can be baked in. "We will do as much as possible," Oakley says, "to give them the best opportunity for success."

Continued in article

"A Future Full of Badges," by Kevin Carey, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 8, 2012 ---
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Future-Full-of-Badges/131455/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

This Is What Georgia Tech Thinks College Will Look Like in 2040:  Continuous Learning, Subscription Fees, and Worldwide Networks of Advisers  ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/This-Is-What-Georgia-Tech/243400?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=952a8d2642d341c39d19f526d7cc2716&elq=297064fea7b148129bd00f0e351fb0c1&elqaid=19028&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=8611

Students will have the opportunity to obtain an online master’s degree in cybersecurity from the Georgia Institute of Technology for less than $10,000 starting next January. The online master’s degree is the third of its kind to be offered by Georgia Tech, following the successful launch of large-scale and relatively affordable online degrees in computer science and analytics ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/08/09/georgia-techs-latest-low-cost-online-degree?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=435d742dbf-DNU_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-435d742dbf-197565045&mc_cid=435d742dbf&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

Bob Jensen's Threads on Competency-Based Learning ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#ConceptKnowledge


EDUCAUSE:  2018 Key Issues in Teaching and Learning ---
https://www.educause.edu/eli/initiatives/key-issues-in-teaching-and-learning


The (Controversial) Draconian Dictionary Is Back ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/08/the-draconian-dictionary-is-back/566660/


A Chronology of Computer History ---
https://blog.vodien.com/chronology-computer-history/

Jensen Comment
This is a very concise chronology from 3,000 BC thru 1994, although there may be some dispute about the definition of "computer" and about some happenings not included in this timeline ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#---ComputerNetworking-IncludingInternet
For example, if you are going to include the abacus as an early computer what about the sliderule?

History of the Slide Rule --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_rule#History

Here's the impossibly complicated way calculators used to look ---
http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-12-18/heres-impossibly-complicated-way-calculators-used-look

The History of Teaching Machines --- http://teachingmachin.es/timeline.html

YouTube: Computer Chronicles Science (videos on the early days of computing) ---
www.youtube.com/user/ComputerChroniclesYT

How the World’s Oldest Computer Worked: Reconstructing the 2,200-Year-Old Antikythera Mechanism ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/how-the-worlds-oldest-computer-worked-reconstructing-the-2200-year-old-antikythera-mechanism.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

History of the Webby Awards (select a year) --- https://www.webbyawards.com/winners/2018/

3-D Printing --- https://www.thingiverse.com/education

Museum of Obsolete Media --- http://www.obsoletemedia.org

Sideways Dictionary (technology terms) --- https://sidewaysdictionary.com

"How Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage Invented the World’s First Computer: An Illustrated Adventure in Footnotes and Friendship,"  by Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, June 15, 2015 ---
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/06/15/the-thrilling-adventures-of-lovelace-and-babbage-sydney-padua/?mc_cid=661f567940&mc_eid=4d2bd13843

Ada Lovelace arguably is the first computer programmer

John Vincent Atanasoff and the Birth of Electronic Digital Computing --- http://jva.cs.iastate.edu/

512 Pixels: Apple History --- https://512pixels.net/apple-history

"The World’s First Computer Is Much Older Than Previously Thought," by Kukil Bora, International Business Times via Business Insider,  Novenmber 29, 2014 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-worlds-first-computer-is-much-older-than-previously-thought-2014-11

Silicon Valley --- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/silicon/

History of Computing
Internet Archive: Computers & Technology --- http://archive.org/details/computersandtechvideos

Great Moments in Computer History: Douglas Engelbart Presents “The Mother of All Demos” (1968) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2013/07/douglas-engelbart-presents-the-mother-of-all-demos.html

"Forgotten PC history: The true origins of the personal computer --- The PC's back story involves a little-known Texas connection," by Lamont Wood, Computer World, August 8, 2008 --- Click Here

Steve Jobs at the Smithsonian --- http://www.si.edu/Exhibitions/stevejobsputational Science Education Reference Desk --- http://www.shodor.org/refdesk/

A Computer Gets Delivered in 1957: Great Moments in Schlepping History ---
http://www.openculture.com/2014/12/a-computer-gets-delivered-in-1957.html

Watch the World’s Oldest Working Digital Computer — the 1951 Harwell Dekatron — Get Fired Up Again

A Short History of Romanian Computing: From 1961 to 1989

“They Were There” — Errol Morris Finally Directs a Film for IBM

The Internet Arcade Lets You Play 900 Vintage Video Games in Your Web Browser (Free)

Free Online Computer Science Courses

Harvard’s Free Computer Science Course Teaches You to Code in 12 Weeks

The Atlantic: Technology --- http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/

Nature Nanotechnology --- http://www.nature.com/nnano/index.html

From the Scout Report on November 1, 2013

The home of a computer pioneer gets the historic designation nod in
California Steve Jobs' California Homes Gets Historic Designation
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/steve-jobs-calif-home-historic-designation-20713336

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' childhood home in California gets historic
designation
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/229696091.html

Computer History Museum
http://www.computerhistory.org/

Places Wire (urban parks and planning) --- http://placeswire.designobserver.com/zine/100pctbuilt

100 Resilient Cities --- http://100resilientcities.rockefellerfoundation.org/

California State Parks: Office of Historic Preservation
http://ohp.parks.ca.gov/

Calisphere: Disasters (in California) --- http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/mapped/disasters/

Hearst Castle
http://www.hearstcastle.org/

Steve Jobs 1995 Interview
Harvard’s Free Computer Science Course Teaches You to Code in 12 Weeks

From the Scout Report on November 1, 2013

The home of a computer pioneer gets the historic designation nod in
California Steve Jobs' California Homes Gets Historic Designation
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/steve-jobs-calif-home-historic-designation-20713336

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' childhood home in California gets historic
designation
http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/229696091.html

Computer History Museum
http://www.computerhistory.org/

The Edublogger --- http://www.theedublogger.com

P
Team rebuilding world's first website
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/30/tech/web/first-website-cern/

Hands up if you prefer the world's first website to what's come since
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/iv-drip/hands-up-if-you-prefer-the-worlds-first-website-to-whats-come-since-8597877.html

History of the Web: World Wide Web Foundation
http://www.webfoundation.org/vision/history-of-the-web/

Hypertext: Behind the Hype
http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9212/hype.htm

Five Best Early Internet Ads
http://www.geek.com/news/youtube-five-best-early-internet-ads-1360967/

Internet History
NSF and the Birth of the Internet (video) --- http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/nsf-net/
How Internet Stuff Works --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob4.htm#Web

Continued at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#---ComputerNetworking-IncludingInternet 


My Samsung Smart TV is smarter than me, so I'm very careful about what buttons to push among the confusing array of buttons on the remote control.

My Smart TV Stopped Streaming NetFlix Movies

To make a long story short, my smart TV for well over a year (after being set up by a Sears technician) has worked very well with my wireless system when downloading streaming movies on NetFlix. Out of the blue, the smart TV started asking me to log into NetFlix every time I wanted to start watching a film. Then it stopped even asking me to log in. Netflix no longer worked on my smart TV. I figured that this was not a NetFlix problem since my living room dumb TV that streams NetFlix movies from a cheap Chrome computer had no such problems.

I then read that the best thing to do was to reload my Samsung Smart TV software. This is scary, because my wife wants QVC that requires running my smart TV from a cable box. I could imagine really screwing up the entire smart TV by downloading software from Samsung.

So I commenced experimenting. On my three operating computers I had a habit of clicking out of NetFlix without logging off. That way if I wanted to browse for my NetFlix mailing-disk queue I simply had to bring up my NetFlix queue in a browser without logging into NetFlix. My experiment was to log out of NetFlix on each computer before departing NetFlix in a browser and later turning on my smart TV.

Eureka --- my Samsung smart TV started streaming NetFlix properly once again.

I can't be certain that this anecdotal evidence will work for anybody else, but it seems to have worked for me. I have no idea why the smart TV gave me any troubles like this after a year or why my experiment with logging off NetFlix on my computers seems to be working.

I thought I might share my experiment in case some of you have troubles like this with your smart TVs. I was within a hair's breath of buying another Chrome computer to plug into my smart TV.

My long-time romance with NetFlix, however, seems to be waning. NetFlix no longer is carrying all my favorite BBC movies and the newer NetFlix-produced movies, along with newer Hollywood films, seem to be a lot of garbage. Jagdish Gangolly subbested that I subscribe to Acorn. I may try that next ---
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/offers/signup/?ie=UTF8&benefitID=acorn&ref=DVM_PDS_GOO_US_AC_C_A_HTb_1_ACORN|c_261575205308_m_MtnkxPBS-dc_s__


I'm highly confused by Money's 2018 ranking of the "Top 25 Colleges" ---
Click Here

Comparisons of US News top rankings with Money top rankings?
http://time.com/money/4488678/compare-college-rankings-us-news/

Jensen Questions

For me Washington and Lee was the biggest surprise in Money's Top 25. It's a relatively expensive, broad-based private university that I doubt has truly exceptional in job placements, at least not its business program that ranks 129 in the nation according to US News. The WSJ ranking of universities is based heavily upon perceptions of recruiters where Washington and Lee comes in at Rank 73  in 2018.  I've never seen Washington and Lee in the Top 50 on NASBA's comparisons of CPA exam passage rates. Exceptional CPA Exam passage rates like those of UT Austin are usually correlated with hiring rates in top accounting firms. I'm sure that Washington and Lee is a much better than average university, but I just don't see it as being better than UT Austin that failed to make Money's Top 25 under the criteria "affordability" and "value added."

Some schools like UC San Diego, Cal Tech, and Massachusetts Maritime don't have business schools. Perhaps we should not be mixing up niche schools like UC San Diego (health sciences), Cal 'Tech (science and engineering)  and Massachusetts Maritime with broad-based universities like UT Austin and many other flagship state universities.

If we're going to mix in niche schools with broad-based universities what happened to Juilliard in Money's Top 25 rankings ---
https://www.juilliard.edu/admissions?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyLCK1_Hu3AIVQ7XACh1mBwllEAAYASAAEgJWyvD_BwE 

In the music world a degree from Julliard as a whole lot of "value added."


The Science of Antiscience  ---
From MAAW's Blog on August 10, 2018
http://maaw.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-science-of-antiscience.html 


The Financial Crisis Cost Every American $70,000, Fed Study Says ---
Click Here

Jensen Comment
The root causes were as follows:

1. A nationwide super bubble of real estate prices that inspired buyers speculate in real estate (land and buildings) financed with subprime mortgages. Buyers intended to turn the properties over before subprime rates on mortgages gave way to higher rates --- Z
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_lending 

2. Fraud entered into real estate and mortgage lending every step of the way. The major catalyst was government policy of buying mortgages (think Fanny Mae and Freddie Mack) with zero percent of the default risk borne by issuers of mortgages. Many fraudsters started issuing mortgages way above property values. For example, a criminal lender in Phoenix issued a mortgage for over $100,000 to a woman on welfare who purchased a shack for $3,500. Greedy real estate appraisers went wild in overvaluing properties for fraudulent lenders and buyers. The government and Wall Street investment bank bought up hundreds of billions of dollars in  poisoned mortgages  (where buyers had no hope of paying off the debt).

3. The Wall Street investment banks (like Lehman Bros. and Merrill Lynch) who realized they were holding huge amounts of poisoned mortgages tried to diversify the risk by including them in portfolios of solid mortgages. These portfolios were then sold as collateralized debt obligation (CDO) bonds to buyers such as Saudi Arabia. But the CDO bonds were sold with recourse such that when the USA real estate bubble burst those investment banks did not have enough liquidity to buy the CDO bonds back. Then came the government bailout in which some banks (think Goldman) were bailed out by the government and some were forced into bankruptcy (think Lehman Bros.) While all of this was going ton deeply troubled banks were getting fraudulent AAA credit ratings from greedy credit raters (think Moodys).

What happened before, during, and after the 2008 government bailout is explained in much detail at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm

The Financial Crisis Cost Every American $70,000, Fed Study Says ---
Click Here


Prospect Theory in Cognitive Psychology --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospect_theory

Why the Most Important Idea in Behavioral Decision-Making Is a Fallacy ---
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/why-the-most-important-idea-in-behavioral-decision-making-is-a-fallacy/


Why the Democrats’ new ‘debt-free’ college plan won’t really make college debt-free ---
https://theconversation.com/why-the-democrats-new-debt-free-college-plan-wont-really-make-college-debt-free-100496

Jensen Comment
What this article fails to also mention is what accountants and economists call opportunity costs ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost

This is especially a factor to consider for students who have relatively high paying jobs before going to college. For example, one of our sons took time off to study full time online and get a business degree. He did well in the program, but in the small town where he lives the business degree did not help him find a better job to support his family with four children. So he's back in his former job as a diesel mechanic earning high wages from a Caterpillar dealer. The difference now is that he's saddled with tens of thousands in student loans that he did not have while working in this job before he borrowed to get a college degree.

One thing to consider is that proponents of "free college" generally want this option to be an option for virtually every high school graduate in the USA. These proponents often use European countries as examples of nations providing "free college and job training" funded by taxpayers. What they inevitably fail to mention is that in nations like Finland, Norway, and Germany about 60% or more of the students aren't allowed into college or free job training programs supported by taxpayers. The free options are limited to the intellectually elite 40% or fewer. Others have to fund their own job training themselves or find employers who will provide the job training ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm#Tertiary
What European nations want is for the minority of students who get free college or job training to get the highest quality college or job training that these nations deem they can afford --- at a level of quality that cannot be afforded for the majority of other Tier 2 graduates.


Lunch Lady Sisters Accused of Stealing Nearly $500,000 From School Cafeterias
Click Here 


Meet the 15-year-old who's the Microsoft Excel world champion (which is a real thing) ---
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/08/us/microsoft-excel-champion-trnd/index.html


Karl Popper --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper

The impossibility—and the necessity—of distinguishing science from nonscience. ---
https://www.weeklystandard.com/daniel-sarewitz/all-ye-need-to-know

Academic Accountancy Can Hardly be Called a Science Since There's Zero Pressure to Replicate One-Time Findings ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm


Using Visualization Software to Compile and Analyze Data ---
https://www.cpajournal.com/2018/06/27/using-visualization-software-to-compile-and-analyze-data/

TED Talk:  Without realizing it, we're fluent in the language of pictures, says illustrator Christoph Niemann in a highly entertaining talk ---
https://www.ted.com/talks/christoph_niemann_you_are_fluent_in_this_language_and_don_t_even_know_it?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2018-07-28&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_content=talk_of_the_week_button
 

Bob Jensen's threads on data visualization ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/352wpvisual/000datavisualization.htm 


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

Hey, Paul Krugman: Here’s What Bitcoin Is Good for ---
http://reason.com/archives/2018/08/14/hey-paul-krugman-heres-what-bitcoin-is-g

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

2018:  The US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) receives more than 1,500 cryptocurrency-related suspicious activity reports every month ---
Click Here


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

Inside Higher Ed:  Blockchain Gains Currency in Higher Ed ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/08/13/rising-profile-blockchain-academe?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=aaef3c1c7d-DNU_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-aaef3c1c7d-197565045&mc_cid=aaef3c1c7d&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

Despite lingering skepticism about the future of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, the technology behind them is becoming a focus of university teaching and research.

When he was in graduate school and working toward a doctorate in computer science, Arthur Carvalho made a life-changing decision.

 

“It was 2012, and my friend suggested that we invest some money in Bitcoin,” he recalled. At the time, one Bitcoin was valued at around $13. At its peak valuation in late 2017, the price had jumped to almost $18,000.

“I would be a millionaire now,” Carvalho said. “But I told my friend, ‘I don’t trust this thing.’ I thought it was a scam.”

 

He didn’t get rich from Bitcoin, but he did become interested in cryptocurrencies and how they work.

“I followed the development of cryptocurrencies really closely,” he said. “I took a personal interest in learning more about the technology.”

 

Carvalho is now an assistant professor of information systems and analytics at the Farmer School of Business at Miami University in Ohio, where there's a growing consensus among faculty that blockchain -- the technology behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin -- is worth watching.

 

Carvalho's colleagues are not unique; interest in blockchain technology is growing fast in the business world -- and universities and colleges are responding. Many professors are incorporating blockchain into their teaching, and several universities have developed full courses devoted to the technology. In the process, they are providing the emerging discipline, once seen as unserious, with intellectual legitimacy. This summer Columbia University and Stanford University both launched blockchain research centers, following in the footsteps of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Digital Currency Initiative, which launched as part of the MIT Media Lab in 2015; MIT was among the first institutions to create such a program.

 

At Miami University, business school faculty members had started mentioning blockchain and cryptocurrencies in lectures, but it wasn’t until students from the Miami University Blockchain Club, one of the largest student-led clubs on campus, started asking for more detail about how the technology works that faculty members started to seriously consider creating a blockchain curriculum.

“We agreed that blockchain is a technology that is here to stay,” said Carvalho, “so we decided to develop a three-credit-hour course.”

The course is scheduled to start in spring 2019 and will teach the theory of how blockchain works, as well as potential real-world applications. The course will be cross-disciplinary and cover topics related to business, computer science and mathematics.

 

Though several universities have introduced courses on cryptocurrencies, there are few that focus on blockchain technology for undergraduates, said Carvalho.

“I don’t even have a textbook -- everything has been developed from zero.”

 

Changing Attitudes in Academe

There is a lot of hype, and hyperbole, about blockchain -- It has been described as bigger than the internet” in terms of its potential impact on society -- but it is no exaggeration to say that the potential applications of blockchain technology are numerous.

 

By storing information about financial and other transactions as "blocks" across a network, rather than at one central location, blockchain technology creates a digital record that is transparent, easily verifiable and extremely difficult to tamper with.

The technology is already being used to securely process financial transactions without the need for banks. Major supermarkets such as Walmart are using blockchain to track items in their food supply chain, and health-care providers are exploring how blockchain might give patients greater ownership of their medical records. Even universities are getting in on the action and using blockchain to issue digital degrees that can be easily verified by employers.

Chris Wilmer, assistant professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, is co-founder and managing editor of a peer-reviewed journal for blockchain-related research called Ledger (University Library System, University of Pittsburgh). When the journal was launched in 2014, there were just “a few brave academics” conducting research on blockchain, and even fewer peer-reviewed journals in which to publish, says Wilmer.

Just a few years ago, there was a lot of stigma attached to researching cryptocurrencies, said Wilmer. "People thought it was a scam, or illegal," he said.

“Academics were worried about their reputation,” he said. “Now it’s everywhere.”

Wilmer said acceptance of this research has occurred in part because of some “semantic jujitsu.” While research on Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and blockchain is related, the term "Bitcoin" can still “make people’s hair stand on end,” said Wilmer. “Calling it blockchain has helped a lot.”

 

Submissions to Ledger have grown substantially, he said. In its first year, the journal received about a submission a month; now it gets one or two a week. Popular research questions include whether cryptocurrencies could cope with billions of users and the pros and cons of various consensus algorithms -- the process by which the integrity of data in the blockchain is ensured.

Some of the first scholars to publish in Ledger were lawyers, said Wilmer. Academics addressing blockchain research questions now come from a broad range of disciplines, including computer science, mathematics, economics, business and, to a lesser extent, the social sciences.

 

“I think interest will grow,” said Wilmer. “Many people are still just dipping their toes.”

 

Meeting Employer Demand

Growing interest in blockchain by employers has presented them an opportunity to provide workers professional and continuing education. Peter McAliney, executive director for online and extended learning at Montclair State University’s center for continuing and professional education, recently spearheaded the launch of three professional blockchain certificates -- one covering the basics, one for developers and one focusing on applications of blockchain in the financial sector.

The three certificate courses cost between $1,995 and $4,250 and are delivered in partnership with The Blockchain Academy -- a company that offers corporate training and education in blockchain.

McAliney said Montclair State plans to eventually incorporate blockchain into various courses. In the short term, the continuing education certificates fill an immediate need for people who “can go out and apply” blockchain technology to real-world problems in the public and private sector, he said.

Continued in article

Internet of Things --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_things

THE BLOCKCHAIN IN THE IoT REPORT: How distributed ledgers enhance the IoT through better visibility and create trust ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-blockchain-in-the-iot-report-2017-6

Focus on blockchain's risks before the rewards ---
https://www.fm-magazine.com/issues/2018/aug/blockchain-risks-and-rewards.html?utm_source=mnl:cpald&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10Aug2018

The World Bank is facilitating the creation of what it says will be the first bond to be fabricated and managed with blockchain ---
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/10/world-bank-picks-commonwealth-bank-for-worlds-first-blockchain-bond.html

US News and World Report: Blockchain is creating a surge of job opportunities ---
https://money.usnews.com/careers/applying-for-a-job/articles/2018-07-25/how-to-benefit-from-the-blockchain-job-boom

THE BLOCKCHAIN IN BANKING REPORT: The future of blockchain solutions and technologies ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/blockchain-in-banking-2017-3

MIT:  It’s too dangerous to conduct elections over the internet, they say, and West Virginia’s new plan to put votes on a blockchain doesn’t fix that ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611850/why-security-experts-hate-that-blockchain-voting-will-be-used-in-the-midterm-elections/

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

US News and World Report: Blockchain is creating a surge of job opportunities ---
https://money.usnews.com/careers/applying-for-a-job/articles/2018-07-25/how-to-benefit-from-the-blockchain-job-boom


The Re-Origin of Species by Torill Kornfeldt review – bringing extinct animals back to life ---
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/28/re-origin-species-torill-kornfeldt-review


Learning the Wrong Lessons from Video Games ---
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/2018/learning-the-wrong-lessons-from-video-games/

Bob Jensen's threads on Tools and Tricks of the Trade (including gamification) ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm


Big Blue promised its AI platform (think Watson) would be a big step forward in treating cancer. But after pouring billions into the project, the diagnosis is gloomy ---
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-bet-billions-that-watson-could-improve-cancer-treatment-it-hasnt-worked-1533961147

That’s what International Business Machines Corp. IBM -0.20% asked soon after its artificial-intelligence system beat humans at the quiz show “Jeopardy!” in 2011. Watson could read documents quickly and find patterns in data. Could it match patient information with the latest in medical studies to deliver personalized treatment recommendations?

“Watson represents a technology breakthrough that can help physicians improve patient outcomes,” said Herbert Chase, a professor of biomedical informatics at Columbia University, in a 2012 IBM press release.

Six years and billions of dollars later, the diagnosis for Watson is gloomy.

More than a dozen IBM partners and clients have halted or shrunk Watson’s oncology-related projects. Watson cancer applications have had limited impact on patients, according to dozens of interviews with medical centers, companies and doctors who have used it, as well as documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

In many cases, the tools didn’t add much value. In some cases, Watson wasn’t accurate. Watson can be tripped up by a lack of data in rare or recurring cancers, and treatments are evolving faster than Watson’s human trainers can update the system. Dr. Chase of Columbia said he withdrew as an adviser after he grew disappointed in IBM’s direction for marketing the technology.

No published research shows Watson improving patient outcomes.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to reinvent the world, from how businesses operate to the types of jobs people hold to the way wars are fought. In health care, AI promises to help doctors diagnose and treat diseases as well as help people track their own wellness and monitor chronic conditions. Watson’s struggles suggest that revolution remains some way off.

IBM said Watson has important cancer-care benefits, like helping doctors keep up with medical knowledge. “This is making a difference,” said John Kelly, IBM senior vice president. “The data says and is validating that we’re on the right track.”

Continued in article

How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Teaching (2018) ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Artificial-Intelligence-Is/244231?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=59eac4ea5a5843a080d27a5fd26ba3d8&elq=c67b6e161cb24bc78d6117a32e6b255c&elqaid=20090&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=9366

Two years ago, Craig Coates, an entomologist at Texas A&M University, was asked to take over a science course plagued by cheating. The previous instructor of the large lecture course, "Insects in Human Society," had tried to stay one step ahead, but in the class, oriented around online quizzes and tests, students would quickly share new material as soon as it went up. "It became an arms race between pushing out more questions faster and cheating," recalls Coates, an instructional associate professor who has taught on the campus for nearly 20 years. "It moved everything toward rote learning."

He wanted to reorient the course toward writing and discussion, convinced that the method would not only reduce cheating but also be a more engaging way to learn. But with 500 students — 200 in person and 300 online — grading would be a challenge. He experimented with one assignment, and it took days for him and three teaching assistants to complete the grading. "It was obviously going to be impossible," he said, to do it by hand.

Peer review was an option, but he and his TAs needed help sorting, assigning, and evaluating submissions. That led him to try a tool that uses algorithms and analytics. The switch was a success: Students enjoyed writing about current research, including keeping an insect blog and debating topics in entomology. The response, Coates says, has been "overwhelmingly positive."

Artificial intelligence is showing up more frequently in college classrooms, particularly at big institutions that are seeking to make large courses more intimate and interactive. A professor at Georgia Tech developed virtual teaching assistants and tutors. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are creating conversational agents to promote online discussion. And on a growing number of campuses, professors are using adaptive courseware that adjusts lessons according to students’ understanding and deploying AI-driven tools, like the one Coates used, to promote writing and peer review.

As artificial intelligence enters our daily lives through smart speakers and chatbots, it’s no wonder that academics are exploring its potential in teaching.

The technologies in these tools vary, of course. Some focus on sorting information to a help a professor organize and evaluate assignments. Others use automated text analysis to mine students’ writing and fashion relevant prompts. Adaptive courseware is built around the sequencing of lesson plans, selecting content based on regular assessments of what students know. Advanced tools are based on machine learning, a form of AI that learns from user behavior. And many forms of AI draw on research in learning science, cognitive psychology, data science, and computer science.

This trend prompts serious questions. When you’ve got artificial intelligence handling work that is normally done by a human, how does that change the role of the professor? And what is the right balance of technology and teacher?

Some, like Coates, feel that algorithm-driven technologies can be useful aids in large classes. They automate some of teaching’s routine tasks, so that professors can do what no machine can — challenge and inspire students to gain a deeper understanding of what they’re learning. These technologies, advocates argue, are simply tools in service of creative forms of teaching.

But skeptics worry that if education is increasingly reliant on artificial intelligence and automated responses, it will put technology in the driver’s seat and prompt formulaic approaches to learning. Some of the algorithms used in AI-driven tools are built on large data sets of student work, raising privacy and ethical questions. Turning to technology for solutions, critics say, may also short-circuit conversations about some of the structural challenges to effective teaching and learning.

That avoidance of structural issues troubles people like Kevin Gannon, a history professor at Grand View University, in Des Moines, and head of the campus Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. "We see a particular problem, whether it’s retention rates for minoritized students or large class sizes and heavy grading loads," he says, "and our first instinct is to find something new and hot to address the problem rather than focus on the classroom and faculty and students."

Perhaps nowhere are those tensions more apparent than with adaptive courseware, sometimes called intelligent tutoring systems. The programs have grown increasingly popular as an alternative to large classes that emphasize lecture and memorization. They have also given rise to the specter of the robot teacher.

With adaptive courseware, students first encounter material outside of class, often through short video lessons and readings. They take quizzes that assess their understanding of the material and, depending on the results, the courseware either advances them to the next lesson or provides supplemental instruction on concepts they don’t yet grasp. Advocates say this lets students study at their own pace and frees up the instructor’s time in class to shore up students’ knowledge or help them apply what they have learned.

Adaptive courseware has made the most inroads in introductory STEM courses, particularly math, in which it is easier to sequence content and test understanding of concepts than in, say, a literature class. Administrators at several large public universities, including the University of Central Florida and Georgia State University, have seen positive results with the use of adaptive courseware, which are often accompanied by a rethinking of classroom time, to emphasize active-learning techniques.

Continued in article

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


Hacking The Electric Grid Is Damned Hard ---
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/hacking-the-electric-grid-is-damned-hard/


US News:  For many filers, the cost of college can be offset by federal income tax credits.---
https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/my-money/articles/2018-08-15/how-good-tax-planning-can-reduce-the-cost-of-higher-education


So Your Wife Embezzled $500,000 and the IRS Wants to Tax You (yes, embezzled funds are taxable) ---
https://www.wsj.com/articles/so-your-wife-embezzled-500-000-and-the-irs-wants-to-tax-you-1533288602
Jensen Comment
What's not clear is why is wife subsequently wanted the IRS to get her husband's "blood" (you have to read the article).
Thank you Elliot Kamlet for the heads up.


Colleges of education continue to prepare too many elementary teachers and not enough special education and foreign language teachers ---
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/08/09/enrollment-is-down-at-teacher-colleges-so.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news1&M=58574385&U=2290378


CUNY’s Intensive Remedial Ed Semester Showing Success ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/08/10/cuny-initiative-sees-early-success-remedial-education?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=2e9820f81c-DNU_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-2e9820f81c-197565045&mc_cid=2e9820f81c&mc_eid=1e78f7c952


Google Glass --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass

WebMD:  Google Glass Aid Kids With Autism Relate to Others ---
https://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20180802/google-glass-aids-kids-with-autism-relate-to-others#1

Donji Cullenbine's young son, Alex, has autism, but when he put on a pair of Google Glass smartglasses they helped him recognize the emotions of others through their facial expressions.

"Within two, maybe three weeks, I caught him flicking a glance at me," said Cullenbine. "It was stunning because it was spontaneous. I had nothing to do with it. And then there were more. I thought this is a change. This is different. And he kept doing it, and it became more common," she said.

"They were usually very short glances, but they were real. He was looking for information. He wanted to know what was on my face," Cullenbine added.

"The study had helped him overcome his anxiety, and taught him he could recognize what was there. At one point he said, 'Mommy, I can read minds.' And I thought, he's getting it! He's getting why you look at faces," said Cullenbine, of San Jose, Calif.


Gadgets You’ve Probably Never Heard Of (Under $60) ---
http://www.ceeny.com/sponsored/trending-gadgets-2018/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_ozu7KvO3AIVQcjACh0KEQaCEAEYASAAEgK-w_D_BwE

Bob Jensen's threads on gadgets ---
|
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob4.htm#Technology


Why I'm Easy:  On Giving Lots of A Grades ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Im-Easy-On-Giving-Lots/244144?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=0e36b23d7d7241e2b77d0a537eebfd70&elq=2f318c6c7bce439bbd4a372e1aa9ffaa&elqaid=20045&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=9334

I love giving A’s to students, maybe even more than they love receiving them. In my religion courses over the years, I’ve acquired a reputation as an "easy" teacher, and I love that, too. In this age of grade inflation, student entitlements, skyrocketing tuitions, and rampant anti-intellectualism, my wallowing in the pleasures of giving out A’s as if they were $100 bills might seem like ammunition for the enemies of higher education and the professorial life. In the face of that charge, I have only one response: I’m tenured. But seriously, I do have a master plan, and there is a method to my mad generosity. Most of the students in my courses are in the wonderful age group of older children becoming young adults, 18 to 22 or so. They are mostly privileged and well off, though increasingly diverse on all fronts: class, race, ethnicity, gender, international, and so on. Something else most all share: They are on drugs, either prescribed or not — and I’m including the legal drugs (alcohol, cigarettes, vapes, and so on). They are also in the midst of serious existential struggles — around identity, family, self-worth, purpose, direction, and so on. You remember that age, don’t you? I certainly remember my own troubled path at their stage. Some say it’s much worse these days, as rising suicide rates would suggest.

So part of my plan is to try to show love and empathy rather than contempt and derision, as some of my colleagues do. Hell, students already have enough stress and uncertainty in their lives as they adjust to living on their own, making new friends, feeding themselves, and taking crazy-making courses on "orgo" (that’s organic chemistry, I think), microeconomics, American politics, brain and behavior, marketing, and other preprofessional touchstones in the intellectual and practical training of young people who really have no idea what they are getting themselves into when they choose their majors.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
This ignores the negatives of giving virtually all A grades. Firstly, students do not as a rule learn as deeply as when they have to sweat to earn a grade. Secondly, this encourages cheating. Over 60 students were expelled from Harvard University for cheating in a political science course where they were assured of an A grade if they simply did all the assignments. Afterwards most who cheated said they cheated because, when assured of an A grade, putting effort into the course was a waste of their time.

Secondly, much of what we as professors gets paid for is grading, and it's the least liked part of our job. Not grading means accepting a lot of your pay (possibly)  fraudulently.


Harvard:  How to Stop Saying “Um,” “Ah,” and “You Know” ---
https://hbr.org/2018/08/how-to-stop-saying-um-ah-and-you-know?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=dailyalert_not_activesubs&referral=00563&deliveryName=DM11194

Jensen Comment
My wife keeps trying and trying to break me of my habit of scratching my head in public during conversations. I keep telling her its beats habits of nose picking and butt rubbing.


John Brockman: Pioneer of Scientific Literature ---
http://www.thesaint-online.com/2018/04/john-brockman-pioneer-of-scientific-literature/

The Selfish Gene; The Illusion of Self; The Glass Cage. If you have ever read a book by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, or Nicholas Carr — among a host of others — you have been in contact, most likely unknowingly, with John Brockman.

For Hollywood, there is the parlour game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”: just about every actor or actress is within six connections, normally fewer, of Bacon himself. Emma Watson, for instance, has a Bacon Number of two: she has acted alongside John Cleese, who has in turn acted alongside Bacon. If you were to transpose that game to the world of scientific publishing, you might choose to search out “Brockman Numbers”. The only difficulty would be that Brockman is connected to everybody. I mentioned Brockman to an acquaintance at Oxford University Press, asking their opinion of him. In response I got pursed lips and the comment, “Brockman? He’s a big fish.”

Big fish, of course, don’t begin their lives big, and Brockman’s ascent to the height of popular science has been a gradual one. He had a modest start to life: he was a Jew living in an anti-Semitic Boston suburb, raised by a father whose working life as a carnation dealer was defined by constant hard work. This is not a conventional beginning for a high-flying literato; continuing the trend, Brockman was initially rejected by no fewer than seventeen universities.  After a BA from Babson College, a small liberal arts college specialising in entrepreneurship, he gained an MBA from Columbia University before going on to work as a self-declared “consultant” and organiser of renowned mixed-media (he called them ‘inter-media’) events in the burgeoning New York arts scene of the 1960s. Quickly, Brockman earned for himself a reputation as somebody who knew people and knew the zeitgeist, and who not only knew but understood both: this reputation has remained with him, and one of the attributes cited by those attracted to his agency is his genuine enthusiasm for, and ability to understand, ideas.

The role of ideas, both abstract and applied, is crucial to a profile of Brockman, but they are far from his only attraction for the would-be bestseller. Like few other agents, Brockman has an impressive ability to command enormous advances for his authors. Tom Standage, the current Deputy Editor at The Economist (and, like many in high positions at leading ideas publications, on Brockman’s lists), observes that Brockman “feels he’s failed if a book earns out its advance and pays royalties”: if that is the case, “that means he hasn’t got as much from the publishers [in the contract stage] as he could have done.” Brockman’s authors typically have to sell huge numbers of copies if they are to earn royalties; the advances are typically well over a hundred thousand dollars, and go up to multiple millions. For science authors not implausibly named Barack Obama or JK Rowling, there is nobody better for the bank account than Brockman.

Continued in article


France just banned smartphones in schools during all hours of the day ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/france-bans-smartphones-in-schools-2018-8


This math is well beyond anything I can comprehend
The Peculiar Math That Could Underlie the Laws of Nature ---
https://www.wired.com/story/the-peculiar-math-that-could-underlie-the-laws-of-nature/?mbid=nl_hps_5b6493fb70103240c5896784&CNDID=31837029


Hadoop --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Hadoop

What is Hadoop? How is Hadoop connected with the Cloud? ---
https://readwrite.com/2018/07/26/what-is-hadoop-how-is-hadoop-connected-with-the-cloud/


USB-C --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C

How To Add USB-C Ports To Your Windows PC ---
https://www.howtogeek.com/360766/how-to-add-usb-c-ports-to-your-windows-pc/


What really happened to make Flint's water go bad?
https://therealnews.com/stories/the-flint-water-crisis-detroit-is-where-it-all-began


The world's biggest colony of king penguins has shrunk by 90% — and mice may be to blame ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/mice-may-be-why-the-worlds-largest-king-penguin-colony-is-shrinking-2018-8


The Insane Saga of the Fake Saudi Prince Who Scammed Miami's Rich and Famous ---
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbnd8/the-insane-saga-of-the-fake-saudi-prince-who-scammed-miamis-rich-and-famous

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


Academics seeking to advance their careers have had hundreds of thousands of their articles published for a fee in journals that either deserve suspicion or are outright phony.---
https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/b-c-economist-locked-in-grim-battle-against-deceptive-scholarship

Jensen Comment
Then there's the questionable very high-fee "conference" in an exotic tourist locale sponsored by a phony outfit that publishes the delivered papers in a proceedings book. This begs the question of why every proposal is accepted for the conference. And when a session at the conference  has four speakers those four speakers comprise the entire audience for that session. Sometimes the last speaker ends up with no audience, but he or she does not mind because it's a publication on a resume and a great family vacation paid for by each speaker's university.


A parasite found in cat poop has been linked to a higher likelihood of entrepreneurial behavior in people who get infected ---
https://unlimitedearnmoney.com/2018/07/26/how-a-parasite-from-cat-poop-can-reduce-your-fear-and-maybe-make-you-an-entrepreneur/

Jensen Comment
Is this cat poop conclusion for real or is it yet another example of Yates' finding that in Denmark storks deliver babies?
The analysis in the case of the parasite's influence on behavior goes much further than most spurious correlation investigations.
But when it comes to making entrepreneurial choices there are many confounding variables to be accounted for in real life, especially those variables affecting entrepreneurial opportunities.

This is possibly another example of confounding variables in spurious correlation similar to Yates' finding that storks might really deliver babies in Denmark. But the analysis goes deeper into possible causal links.
The analysis in the case of the parasite's influence on entrepreneurial behavior goes much further than mere correlations.
The complexity of this study is enormous since "entrepreneurial behavior" is confounded by so many variables and opportunities.

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

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

We know how newborns are delivered, and this does not entail delivery by storks. However, there can be confounding variables that lead to Yates' classic example of spurious correlation. For example, Danish birth rates may be more closely related to the prosperity that comes with increased weekly rainfall. Likewise, the number of stork nests in Denmark may also be related to increased food supply resulting from increased weekly rainfall.

Causal inference can become quite complicated.

Causal Inference --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_inference

Causal Inference With Observational Data:  Econometrics Blog Post by David Giles ---
http://davegiles.blogspot.com/2018/06/shout-out-for-marc-bellemare.html 

Shout-Out for Marc Bellemare

If you don't follow Marc Bellemare's blog (shame on you - you should!), then you may not have caught up with his recent posts relating to his series of lectures on "Advanced Econometrics - Causal Inference With Observational Data" at the University of Copenhagen in May of this year.

Marc is keeping us all on tenterhooks by "releasing" the slides for these lectures progressively - smart move!

So far, the first four of the eight lectures in the series are available for downloading:

·                     Lecture 1: Introduction

·                     Lecture 2: Causality

·                     Lecture 3: Instrumental Variables

·                     Lecture 4: Panel Data & Differences-in-Differences

I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of these terrific lectures.


Replication and transparency in political science – did we make any progress? 
https://politicalsciencereplication.wordpress.com/2018/07/14/replication-and-transparency-in-political-science-did-we-make-any-progress/
Note the references to "qualitative researchers" --- those researchers who do not write papers with equations. These types don't get into top accounting research journals like TAR, JAR, and JAE since these journals require equations, although recently Alan Sangster published two history papers without equations in TAR (almost unheard of since Zeff was Editor of TAR). .

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


Why ‘Nigerian Prince’ scams continue to dupe us ---
https://theconversation.com/why-nigerian-prince-scams-continue-to-dupe-us-98232


US News:  10 Tips to Control Expenses in Retirement ---
https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/on-retirement/articles/2018-08-14/10-tips-to-control-expenses-in-retirement
Jensen Comment
When it comes to reading, avoid expensive new crap (even on a Kindle) and look for enduring free reading material ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

Save on NetFlix by downloading less expensive great movies on Acorn ($5 per month after a free trial and no Internet requirement) ---
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/offers/signup/?ie=UTF8&benefitID=acorn&ref=DVM_PDS_GOO_US_AC_C_A_HTb_1_ACORN|c_261575205308_m_MtnkxPBS-dc_s__
Thank you Jagdish Gangolly for the tip


Time Magazine:  A Majority of People Are Making This Costly Medicare Part B Mistake --- Click Here
Jensen Comment
They may also be making a mistake regarding how much to pay for a Medicare supplemental plan that can get quite expensive. My wife has had numerous surgeries, hospital stays, therapy hospital stays, medication prescriptions, and therapist home visits. We have saved tens of thousands of dollars by having her on the best Medicare supplemental plan available from Blue Cross Anthem. For me having such a premium plan costs me far more than the benefits claimed to date. There are various other supplemental plans to choose from and it's difficult to recommend a given level of plan without factoring in health and income. Carefully read about coverage and costs.

A growing number of Americans over age 65 are filing for bankruptcy just to get by, and it could signal a larger problem in the US ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/older-americans-are-filing-for-bankruptcy-during-retirement-2018-8

Jensen Comment
One of the main problems is that workers factored in Social Security benefits as part of their monthly income after retirement. What they failed to account for is that Medicare, Medicare D, and Medicare supplemental insurance leaves almost nothing out of SS benefits for other living expenses. Although SS benefits are taxable, most poorer recipients probably pay little or no income taxes since nearly half of the people who file tax returns do not owe any income taxes. The killer is the cost of the Medicare and supplemental Medicare benefits. One option is to declare bankruptcy and go on Medicaid, But declaring bankruptcy has its own drawbacks including the possible loss of a home. Some folks intend to be helped by their children, but all too often their children aren't reliable in this regard. Their needs for financial help may be part of the problem.

The cost of long-term care insurance recently doubled (almost), because the cost of long-term care almost doubled over the past decade. Costs vary greatly with quality of care --- there are a lot of expensive, albeit crappy, nursing homes. I never thought long-term care insurance was a good deal before it doubled since I planned ahead with tax-free savings for possible long-term health care. It's not possible to advise anybody about long-term care insurance without knowing more details about the person being insured, and then it's usually an expensive crap shoot. Be sure to read the fine print before signing any long-term care insurance policy.


At some point, all of us in the literary community must DEMAND that white editors resign
Randa Jarrar, a professor of English at California State University at Fresno
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/07/30/controversial-professor-wants-white-editors-quit?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=374665bf85-DNU_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-374665bf85-197565045&mc_cid=374665bf85&mc_eid=1e78f7c952
Professor Jarrar called for a nationwide cheer when Barbara Bush died.


We are exceeding Earth’s carrying capacity. Denying it is suicidal ---
https://qz.com/1347735/how-many-people-can-earth-support-its-carrying-capacity-isnt-infinite/


It’s been no secret that the music industry has been struggling over the past couple decades. After years of spiraling album sales, the industry hit a new low in 2016, with just over 100 million units sold — a nearly 14 percent decrease from the previous year, reflecting declines in both physical and digital album
https://readwrite.com/2018/07/30/how-technology-can-help-artists-make-a-living-through-their-online-audiences/


Top 10 Best Website Trends of 2018 ---
https://readwrite.com/2018/07/20/top-10-best-website-trends-of-2018/

Jensen Comment
This begs the question of how professors can improve their Websites. Firstly, content is king. Vast content is more apt to get many more hits by Web crawlers like Google and Bing. Secondly, maintaining a popular blog can greatly increase the interest in a professor's Website as well, although maintaining a popular blog can be an enormous amount of daily work. My Website is at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/

The number of hits to my Website is most often, in my opinion, the result of Google searches. However, my three blogs also help:

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

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

To be honest, my Website design is lousy. However, to stay within my Website host's capacity limit I greatly limit the picture and video content of my Website files. I do have another Website for picture and video content.


The maximum monthly Social Security benefit for a person retiring in 2018, at their full retirement age, is $2,788 per month , or $33,456 per year. To achieve this benefit, you must have had the maximum taxable earning for a whopping 35 years. It is for this reason, that most people’s benefits will be far less (the average is $1,404) ---
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrae/2018/04/18/maximize-social-security/#77a623055918
Jensen Comment
Medicare deductions from your SS monthly check can vary. In 2017 my deduction was $1,244 and Erika's deduction was $1,296. My point here is that if you are both expecting to have Medicare benefits and rely on your Social Security check in retirement income, forget it!


From stamping out trolls to removing fake bot accounts, here's how social networks are waging war using AI weapons. ---
https://www.cnet.com/news/inside-facebook-twitter-and-googles-ai-battle-over-your-social-lives/


The technologies disrupting the insurance industry and what incumbents can do to stay ahead ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/insurtech-insurance-technology-report


Paying for books today may mean choosing between Intro to Microbiology and a flight home for Thanksgiving ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/07/26/students-sacrifice-meals-and-trips-home-pay-textbooks

Jensen Comment
For me there would be no choice --- forget Thanksgiving and even XMAS if necessary.
In some of the courses I took in college the textbooks were far more important than the teacher.


Pew Report: Declining Majority of Online Adults Say the Internet Has Been Good for Society ---
www.pewinternet.org/2018/04/30/declining-majority-of-online-adults-say-the-internet-has-been-good-for-society
Jensen Comment
I'm not certain about hidden biases when responding to such a survey. Young adults never experienced a world without an Internet versus those of us who grew up in the fabulous 1950s. I think us older folks tend to remember the good and block out the bad. For example, think of some of the bad things in life before cell phones. In the 1950s car breakdowns, especially flat tires, were much more common. When stranded it was not so great to have to walk for help in the dark of night on Iowa's country gravel roads. We grew up a lot more ignorant before there was Wikipedia even if we had a set of encyclopedia books at home. Options for learning exploded with the Internet. Sure we were a lot more social locally sitting on my grandmother's big front porch with friends and neighbors who passed by on hot summer nights for a lemonade. But we were a lot less social globally before email communications. I think in balance of the good things and the bad things, the Internet is good for Society. The bad things about the Internet are confounded with a lot of other worrisome variables like urban crowding, traffic congestion, increased crime (Swea City in those days did not even have a cop or locked doors), spamming, etc. For me, it's hard to measure the good/bad of the Internet apart from the many other good/bad variables of living in the 21st Century.


The Pension Hole for U.S. Cities and States Is the Size of Japan’s Economy ---
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pension-hole-for-u-s-cities-and-states-is-the-size-of-japans-economy-1532972501?mod=djemCFO_h

For the past century, a public pension was an ironclad promise. Whatever else happened, retired policemen and firefighters and teachers would be paid.

That is no longer the case.

Many cities and states can no longer afford the unsustainable retirement promises made to millions of public workers over many years. By one estimate they are short $5 trillion, an amount that is roughly equal to the output of the world’s third-largest economy.

 

Certain pension funds face the prospect of insolvency unless governments increase taxes, divert funds or persuade workers to relinquish money they are owed. It is increasingly likely that retirees, as well as new workers, will be forced to take deeper benefit cuts.

In Kentucky, a major pension plan covering state employees had about 16% of what it needs to fulfill earlier promises, according to the Public Plans Database, which tracks state and local pension funds, based on 2017 fiscal year figures. A fund covering Chicago municipal employees had less than 30% of what it needed in that fiscal year, according to the same database. New Jersey’s pension system for state workers is so underfunded it could run out of money in 12 years, according to a Pew Charitable Trusts study.

When the math no longer works the result is Central Falls, R.I., a city of 19,359. Today, retired police and firefighters are wrestling with the consequences of agreeing to cut their monthly pension checks by as much as 55% when the town was working to escape insolvency. The fiscal situation of the city, which filed for bankruptcy in 2011, has improved, but the retirees aren’t getting their full pensions back.

“It’s not only a financial thing,” said 73-year-old former Central Falls firefighter Paul Grenon, who retired from the department after a falling wall punctured his lung, broke his back and five ribs, and left him unable to climb ladders. “It really gets you sick mentally and physically to go through something like this. It’s a betrayal, as far as I’m concerned.”

Uncertainty over public pensions is one reason some Americans are reaching retirement age on shaky financial ground. For this group, median incomes, including Social Security and retirement fund receipts, haven’t risen in years. They have high average debt, and are often using savings for their children’s educations and to care for their elderly parents.

The public pension arose from the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War. New York was the first city in the U.S. with a pension fund for injured police officers in 1857 and then for firefighters in 1866. The concept of a public pension plan for government workers became widespread in the early decades of the 20th century. The understanding was employees would accept relatively lower pay in exchange for richer, guaranteed benefits once they retired.

Continued in article


Meet two data sleuths who paid a steep price for raising concerns about a problematic paper ---
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8xb89b/two-researchers-challenged-a-scientific-study-about-violent-video-gamesand-took-a-hit-for-being-right

The Fact-Checkers Who Want to Save the World ---
https://www.theringer.com/2018/7/23/17601346/independent-fact-checkers-facebook-google

. . .

There is now a wide range of independent fact-checking operations, both in the United States and internationally. Most of these outlets are digital, although print newsrooms and magazines have long employed specialists to safeguard their accuracy. In 1913, to cite an early example, Ralph Pulitzer established the Bureau of Accuracy and Fair Play for the New York World. Today, the presence of an in-house fact-checking department is a marker of quality and prestige. (The New Yorker’s in-house fact-checking department, launched in 1927, is legendary.) These internal departments, which proofread, clarify, and double-check writers’ work, are often part of a magazine, website, or newspaper’s copy department, and in recent years, budget cuts have made these jobs scarce. “The decline of magazine checking departments began in the mid-to-late 1990s,” media analyst Craig Silverman explained for Poynter in 2012. But as in-house fact-checking came to be seen as a media luxury, independent and dedicated fact-checking operations—with their eyes fixed on the work of others—started to emerge in the early 2000s.

 

Unlike internal fact-checking departments, which attempt to perfect the accuracy of writing before it is published, these externally focused operations scrutinize statements that have already been made by public figures, attempting to offer a corrective to the record. Some are armed with full newsrooms and ample cash, like PolitiFact. Some, like Schenk’s Lead Stories, resemble hobbyist operations. Others have professionalized along the way. Snopes, for instance, began as a one-man urban-legend reality check on Usenet, and founder David Mikkelson launched its dedicated website in 1994. Gradually, it evolved into an incredibly popular general-interest fact-checking operation, which also assesses political statements and media.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Political fact checkers like Snopes and Politico are disappointing in cherry picking what they check --- what they do not check often reflects political bias on their part.


From a Chronicle of Higher Education Newsletter on July 26,  2018

Welcome to Thursday, July 26. Here are the three things you need to know in higher ed today:

  1. Proposed regulations for student-loan forgiveness would require borrowers to prove that a college knowingly misled them — a tough feat for most defrauded students.
    https://www.chronicle.com/article/Proposed-Changes-in/244017?cid=db&elqTrackId=4ba165b09eac430eaba30dc35dea5033&elq=62169ff442374aaf8993d6e9c936eac9&elqaid=19877&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=9220
     
  2. Temple University says more of its programs submitted false data to the U.S. News & World Report rankings.
    https://www.chronicle.com/article/temple-u-says-several/244025?cid=db&elq=62169ff442374aaf8993d6e9c936eac9&elqCampaignId=9220&elqTrackId=722d6a37380a4bb69dc2692bb2e22437&elqaid=19877&elqat=1
     
  3. Congress passed a bill to provide money to job-training programs for high-school and college students, and sent it to President Trump.

. . .

Footnote.

Faculty members have complained about students for so long it’s a cliché. But that hasn’t stopped the laments. In an essay last week in Times Higher Education, an assistant professor says she can’t teach students because they live in “the age of entitlement.” Criticism of the essay was immediate and prolific. The cleverest response came from Jenny Bann, who calls herself a “recovering academic.” In several tweets she highlighted 18th-century student-disciplinary records, including drunken brawling, dueling with swords, drunken destruction of property, and fighting with instructors.

Her tweets prompted others. Karl Appuhn of New York University noted that college students in Padua in the 1700s were punished for “sneaking out to a brothel, refusing to go to Mass, and of course dueling.” Two people tweeted that 14th-century Oxford students used bows, arrows, and swords to fight “pitched battles” with locals that left 90 dead. Others took note of the “Rebellion of 1768” at Harvard and  regular riots at the University of Virginia. What was that you said, professor, about today’s students?


Freakonomics:  You wouldn’t think you could win a Nobel Prize for showing that humans tend to make irrational decisions. But that’s what Richard Thaler has done ---
http://freakonomics.com/podcast/richard-thaler/


The Atlantic:  Facebook Is Probably Fine ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/07/facebook-is-fine-even-if-it-is-also-terrible/566162/

Jensen Comment
This illustrates one of my main complaints about the "garbled" accounting standards today. Suppose that Company A owned 2x shares of Facebook. When Facebook stock crashed Company A sold x shares for a $1 billion realized loss. But under accounting standards Company A reports a $2 billion loss by "garbling" the realized $1 billion loss on shares it sold with the unrealized $1 billion loss on paper that was not yet realized. Then if Facebook shares recover in value Company A will (maybe next year) report a $1 billion gain on the value of Facebook x shares it did not sell. When companies report earnings per share (eps) I think accounting standards should require that two values not be garbled into one eps. Companies should report the realized eps separately from the unrealized eps components. However, under present accounting standards the two types of values are garbled for value changes in some assets like marketable securities and precious metal inventories. They are not garbled for value changes in other assets such as inventories, real estate, and operating assets such as machines and vehicles.

Marking transitory values of marketable securities and precious commodities to market results in what I call fictional gains and losses that can make eps values highly volatile such as the current volatility of current values of Facebook shares.


Dan Meyer:  My Month Teaching Summer School & The Curse of Content Knowledge ---
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/2018/my-month-teaching-summer-school-the-curse-of-content-knowledge/

Jensen Comment
The professor who took my place for a few years at Trinity University, Mike Wilkens, is a top accounting researcher. He's since moved on to the University of Kansas (where his finance professor wife became Dean of the business school). However, while at Trinity he taught both the very beginning Accounting Principles 1 course alongside the final Accounting Theory course in the masters program. I did not have to teach such extremes during my tenure at Trinity. I taught the theory course and an AIS systems course. 

It struck me that Mike might have suffered from the "curse of content knowledge" when simultaneously teaching the beginning (basic) and ending (theory) courses. For example, one of the most complicated accounting standards ever written (500+ pages) is FAS 133 on accounting for derivative financial instruments and hedge accounting.

It struck me that knowing FAS 133 enough to teach it at the theory level might be a curse when teaching the beginning basic course. The problem is that teaching the many complicated exceptions to basics is fine for the theory course but might entirely confuse beginning students. Hence, Mike probably had to put FAS 133 totally out of his mind when teaching the basics course. It's a bit like playing make pretend in that, when teaching elementary basics, you often have to tune out complicated contracts that take place in the real world.

Of course one of the joys of being a mathematician like Dan Meyers is that you can tune out the complicated real world at all levels of teaching --- just kidding (sort of).


From David Giles on August 1, 2018

Recommended Reading (in Econometrics for August 2018) ---
https://davegiles.blogspot.com/2018/08/recommended-reading.html

Here's my reading list for August:

·                     Ardia, D., K. Bluteau, & L. F. Hoogerheide, 2018. Methods for computing numerical standard errors: Review and application to value-at-risk estimation. Journal of Time Series Econometrics. Available online.

·                     Bauer, D. & A. Maynard, 2012. Persistence-robust surplus-lag Granger causality testing. Journal of Econometrics, 169. 293-300.

·                     David, H. A., 2009. A historical note on zero correlation and independence. American Statistician, 63, 185-186.

·                     Fisher, T. J. & M. W. Robbins, 2018. A cheap trick to improve the power of a conservative hypothesis tests. American Statistician. Available online.

·                     Granger, C. W. J., 2012. Useful conclusions from surprising results. Journal of Econometrics, 169, 142-146.

·                     Harville, D. A., 2014. The need for more emphasis on prediction: A 'nondenominational' model-based approach (with discussion). American Statistician, 68, 71-92.

 


 

MIT:  Fluctuating solar and wind power require lots of energy storage, and lithium-ion batteries seem like the obvious choice—but they are far too expensive to play a major role.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611683/the-25-trillion-reason-we-cant-rely-on-batteries-to-clean-up-the-grid/

The Myth of Clean Solar/Battery Energy
Energy storage has a dirty secret. The way it’s typically used in the US today, it enables more fossil-fueled energy and higher carbon emissions. Emissions are higher today than they would have been if no storage had ever been deployed in the US ---

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/27/17283830/batteries-energy-storage-carbon-emissions


Jensen Comment
Unlike Medicaid, Medicare does not provide long-term care benefits. |

However some benefits may change for the good for some Medicare patients.

Medicare Allows More Benefits for Chronically Ill, Aiming to Improve Care for Millions ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/24/us/politics/medicare-chronic-illness-benefits.html

WASHINGTON — Congress and the Trump administration are revamping Medicare to provide extra benefits to people with multiple chronic illnesses, a significant departure from the program’s traditional focus that aims to create a new model of care for millions of older Americans.

The changes — reflected in a new law and in official guidance from the Department of Health and Human Services — tackle a vexing and costly problem in American health care: how to deal with long-term illnesses that can build on one another, and the social factors outside the reach of traditional medicine that can contribute to them, like nutrition, transportation and housing.

To that end, the additional benefits can include social and medical services, home improvements like wheelchair ramps, transportation to doctor’s offices and home delivery of hot meals.

The new law is a rare instance of bipartisan cooperation on a major policy initiative, embraced by members of Congress from both parties. The changes are also supported by Medicare officials and insurance companies that operate the fast-growing Medicare Advantage plans serving one-third of the 60 million Medicare beneficiaries.

 

“This is a way to update and strengthen Medicare,” said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and an architect of the law, the Chronic Care Act, which was included in budget legislation signed recently by President Trump. “It begins a transformational change in the way Medicare works for seniors who suffer from chronic conditions. More of them will be able to receive care at home, so they can stay independent and out of the hospital.”

Half of Medicare patients are treated for five or more chronic conditions each year, and they account for three-fourths of Medicare spending, according to Kenneth E. Thorpe, the chairman of the health policy department at Emory University.

Under the new law and Trump administration policy, most of the new benefits will be reserved for Medicare Advantage plans, which will be able to offer additional benefits tailored to the needs of people with conditions like diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, heart failure, rheumatoid arthritis and some types of cancer.

“This is a big win for patients,” said Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Officials hope that combining social and medical services will produce better outcomes for patients and save money for Medicare.

Continued in article


Colleges Can’t — or Won’t — Track Where Ph.D.s Land Jobs. Should Disciplinary Associations?
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Colleges-Can-t-or/243951

Colleges are bad at collecting data on where Ph.D. recipients end up working. In addition to the logistical challenges of tracking their alums, graduate programs often want to forget about those who didn’t become professors. Attitudes have started to change in recent years, but not landing a tenure-track job is still viewed in some circles as a failure for both student and program.

An ambitious new effort aims to erode that narrative. The American Historical Association last week released a comprehensive snapshot of the entire discipline’s Ph.D. recipients. The project, Where Historians Work, tries to track where all of the 8,500 people who earned a doctorate from 2004 to 2013 landed jobs. About 7 percent of the recipients could not be found.

The data set comes at at time when Ph.D. programs, especially in the humanities, are under withering criticism for strapping doctoral students with record student-loan debt and poor prospects for landing a secure academic job. The programs lack accountability, critics say, operating like fiefdoms not subject to the centralized data-collection requirements common in undergraduate education.

Critics of the value of a history Ph.D. may find fodder in the history association’s project. Hover over some of the tiniest bubbles on an interactive slide, those representing just a single person, and you’ll see examples of people who may not have needed their Ph.D. for their current jobs: a rental-car clerk. A maintenance worker. An actor. A postal worker.

But the biggest bubbles tell a more hopeful story about the utility of a history Ph.D. The data show that those who earned history Ph.D.s in that time include 174 chief executives, 363 higher-education administrators, 320 nonprofessors doing history, 57 curators, and 82 editors. The point: History Ph.D.s don’t just stay in academe. They are everywhere.

. . .

About three in five of the 8,500 history Ph.D. recipients in the association’s study are faculty members, the data show. About three-quarters of them are on the tenure track, and only about half are at research universities. The rest are on the tenure track at bachelor’s, master’s, and associate institutions, or off the tenure track. “Many of their students are working in teaching-intensive institutions,” Swafford says of Ph.D. programs. “They may want to think about how they’re training their students to teach.”


A Tax on Free Campus Parking?
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/07/23/college-business-officers-question-tax-laws-impact-seven-months-later

Jensen Comment
I must admit I don't understand the wording of this article. The suggestion is that colleges might owe a tax for employee parking. But non-profit colleges do not pay income taxes. It would seem to me that if Trump wants to tax parking benefits he would treat parking as a taxable fringe benefits such as a free apartment/house on campus.

Am I missing something here?

Of course many campuses charge employees for parking. But the charge may be nominal relative to what might have to be paid for parking just outside the campus.


Amazon facial recognition 'wrongly' matches 28 members of Congress with criminal mugshots ---
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/technology/amazon-facial-recognition-wrongly-matches-28-members-of-congress-with-criminal-mugshots
Mark Twain said members of Congress are the most criminal class in America.


Michigan State University halts payments from Nassar victims' fund to investigate possible fraud ---
https://www.wxyz.com/news/michigan-state-university-halts-payments-from-nassar-victims-fund-to-investigate-possible-fraud?elqTrackId=901a73d45fcf4b18a4988132c5e5ce9e&elq=cb7c61cd198d4e31b158f6b46b90a6df&elqaid=19913&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=9244

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


A small-town couple left behind a stolen painting worth over $100 million — and a big mystery ---
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/08/03/a-small-town-couple-left-behind-a-stolen-painting-worth-over-100-million-and-a-big-mystery/?utm_term=.28278ad0d1f6
Jensen Comment
One has to wonder what they treasured most --- looking at the painting daily or remembering each day how they beat the system? In any case they apparently did not enjoy wealth because of their alleged crime. Of course there's the possibility that they brazenly stole the painting and then turned chicken due to risks in selling it later on.

Some shoplifters take items they don't really want or need simply for the thrill of not getting caught. That fills some need in their lives --- maybe by relieving boredom. My basketball coach (who later became a big-time college coach) had a secret arrangement with our small town merchants that he would return and pay a return fee for items shoplifted on occasion by his wife. With her it seemed to be an impulse thing. She died before he became famous.

Purportedly some random murderers who get nothing sexual or monetary or satisfaction of revenge commit murders for the thrill of beating the police. Tom Selleck directed, and stared in one of my all-time favorite NetFlix series featuring a detective named Jesse Stone. I leave it up to you to discover what was my favorite episode in this series. The stories themselves were written by Robert B. Parker ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Stone_(character)
The book in question is described at (but it may ruin the movie for you) ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Cold_(Parker_novel) 


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

A Remembrance of a Marlon Brando Movie With a Changed Ending:  An Early Example of Crowdsourcing ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlon_Brando

Those of us in academe for a many years have remembrances of things we would like to take back --- classes, books, journal articles, referee comments on journal submissions, and (later) tidbits in blogs and listservs (think Tweets). Usually when that happens history cannot be changed --- only corrected. That's not always been the case with movies.

It's comforting to know that most great actors and actresses had some notorious losers (think Dustin Hoffman and Marlon Brando) that I'm sure they would like to do over. Most of you probably did not see the early round of theater viewings of the movie One-Eyed Jacks starring Marlon Brando where he was both a star and the director ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Eyed_Jacks

I recall a first-time viewing of this movie in a fabulous theatre in downtown Denver (where I was living at the time). The movie is memorable as one of Brando's few losers. But not many people recall that the ending was changed. I saw an early version where patrons filled out a questionnaire when leaving the theatre. Apparently as a result of our dislike for the original ending, the lasting version of One-Eyed Jacks had a changed ending.

This seems to be an early example of crowdsourcing. Changing the ending, however, was not enough to change the critical and patron opinions of the film.

August 7, 2018 message from Paul Golliher

Bob: 

 How weird! I was in the Navy when that movie came out and I saw that first version.  I remember it so well because I recall seeing it later and winning a $5 bet with a fellow sailor that the ending we had just seen  was not the original.  We actually  called someone down in Hollywood to convince him that I was right before he would pay off. They backed me and he paid!

Paul


Not a High Tech Fraud
A former cop masterminded a scheme to win nearly $24 million in the McDonald's Monopoly game. Here's how he pulled it off ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-mcdonalds-monopoly-game-was-rigged-2018-7

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


Why Do Experienced Female Lawyers Leave The Profession? ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/08/why-do-experienced-female-lawyers-leave-the-profession.html
Jensen Comment
I suspect that many of the same findings affect other professions in varying degrees, especially accountancy. I might also speculate that there's less of a tendency for tenured female professors to leave their academic jobs. This to a large degree is due to the time and workplace independence given to professors relative to most other professions. Much of what professors do can be done at home such as research, writing, class preparation, grading, etc. Also major universities are generous with sabbatical leaves and weeks off for student break times during the academic year. And most of all, work contracts for academic professors are usually for 8-10 months leaving 2-4 months of totally unrestricted time away from work every year.

Also successful partners in law and accounting are often rewarded more for their ability to attract clients vis-a-vis service clients. This entails an enormous time commitment that some professionals are just not comfortable with such as community involvement, fund raising for charities (think United Fund), golf tournaments, public speaking, club memberships, etc. The typical top partners of law firms generate the clients that, in the back rooms of law firms, are serviced by non-partners who are more adept at legal research and writing. Being a top partner in a law firm or accounting firm is just not what was envisioned by students still in college. This is also why most technical professors want no part of being in the top administrations of their universities where fund raising and politics of one sort or another is the name of the game rather than teaching and research.

Academic writes 270 Wikipedia pages (about scientific discoveries)  in a year to get female scientists noticed ---
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jul/24/academic-writes-270-wikipedia-pages-year-female-scientists-noticed?elqTrackId=d8c68fe6b90a458e9476d81bb82456fb&elq=cb7c61cd198d4e31b158f6b46b90a6df&elqaid=19913&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=9244

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


Bitcoin --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin
Buying Your Starbucks Fix With Bitcoin Is Now Closer to Reality
---

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-03/nyse-owner-announces-bitcoin-venture-with-starbucks-microsoft?cmpid=BBD080318_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=180803&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily


How to Mislead With Statistics
Analysis: Bernie Sanders' $32 trillion Medicare-for-all plan is actually kind of a bargain ---

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/healthcare/analysis-bernie-sanders-dollar32-trillion-medicare-for-all-plan-is-actually-kind-of-a-bargain/ar-BBLhnEu?ocid=spartandhp

Jensen Comment
There are so many confounding variables that it's misleading to call Bernie's proposed national health care plan a "bargain." First there's an enormous problem are defining what health services are under the national plan and how these have been factored into the claim that its a "bargain." For example, will all citizens and people who cheat (illegal immigrants and legal immigrants on work permits) be entitled very costly organ transplants (including heart transplants), very costly medications, timely joint transplants (think knees and hips), and long-term nursing care. At the moment only Medicaid recipients are eligible for free long-term nursing care. When there is no Medicaid will everybody be to free long-term nursing care.

Does Bernie's plan include euthanasia programs in the same way some other nations greatly save on the cost of dying patients on their national health care plans?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia

On November 22, 2009 CBS Sixty Minutes aired a video featuring experts (including physicians) explaining how the single largest drain on the Medicare insurance fund is keeping dying people hopelessly alive who could otherwise be allowed to die quicker and painlessly without artificially prolonging life on ICU machines.
"The Cost of Dying," CBS Sixty Minutes Video, November 22, 2009 ---

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-cost-of-dying-end-of-life-care/

Given that it's impossible to raise all the $32 trillion by added taxes to the upper income people how much will the lower income people be required to contribute to their medical services? For example, at present nearly half the people who file income tax returns pay zero income taxes. Do the half paying zero income taxes continue to pay zero income taxes when they have a national health care plan?

Some liberals argue that we can pay for much more by nearly eliminating the military budget. Are they aware that most of the military budget goes toward paying pensions of retired military and the cost of VA military services that will presumably added to the national health care plans in a big way? If you eliminate the entire fighting force, the military budget will remain a huge component of the long-term federal budget.

How much of a "bargain" will the national health care plan be after we build a giant bureaucracy to administer the national health care program from coast to coast.

Bernie argues that medical costs of physicians and medications will be greatly reduced by government controls on prices. What about the almost certain cost of shortages that will ensue such as the shortage of physicians (think surgeons) in nations like Canada and the U.K.? What's the incentive to spend many years becoming a highly specialized physician when you could become a multi-millionaire in a short time by specializing in tech skills.

Many nations that have national health care plans only cover basics, and private insurance is necessary for higher quality medical services. Exhibit A is the German national health care plan. In part this is due to the need to pay the best physicians higher fees in order to have them endure the long and difficult road to becoming the best physicians.

Bernie never mentions that most nations with health care plans are having great troubles financing those plans without greatly reducing the quality of health care plans. Bernie fails to mention that most of the nations with national health care plans have relatively low military budgets. The U.K for years was an exception, but now the U.K. is spending less and less on the military to where calling it a formidable military is a joke. The once mighty French navy is down to one aircraft carrier. The U.K. has two ---
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/g2412/a-global-roundup-of-aircraft-carriers/

One key difference is that the U.K. has shrunk its military down to about 5% of the budget whereas the USA is hanging in at around 16% of a much larger federal budget ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
Also see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2017_United_Kingdom_budget




From the Scout Report on August 3, 2018

Litsy --- http://litsy.com/
Book lovers interested in discovering new titles or connecting with other readers may enjoy Litsy, a mobile application that aims to "bring as many people into the book conversation as possible." The application was launched in 2015 and is currently operated by LibraryThing.com Inc. On this application, readers can create to-read lists and lists of books that they have already read. In addition, users are invited to provide short book reviews or share favorite quotes from books; other uses can add comments to these reviews (which are tagged by book title), allowing different users to converse with another. Litsy users can also follow other users, which may especially appeal to those hunting for new book recommendations. To use Litsy, users need to create a free account. Litsy is available for iOS and Android devices.


KanbanFlow (education technology) --- https://kanbanflow.com/
 Those in search of a lean project management solution may find the web-based tool KanbanFlow helpful. As its name suggests, the methodology of KanbanFlow is drawn from the Japanese "kanban" system. It uses customizable columns and "cards" to visually represent both the tasks and the workflow of a project and to provide an overview of the situation at hand, and each card can be fleshed out with checklists and other details. KanbanFlow gives users the option to limit the number of cards allowed in any particular column (e.g. "in progress") to reduce multitasking and improve productivity. KanbanFlow also incorporates a Pomodoro timer to track the time spent working on a particular task and to encourage focused work in sprints followed by short breaks. Users can also view statistics of their Pomodoro performance to analyze their workflow. KanbanFlow can be used for free by both individuals and teams. It is available on any internet browser. For mobile access, KanbanFlow also provides a mobile-friendly web app that can be used on both iOS and Android devices.


Particle Accelerator Used to See Tarnished Daguerreotypes (photography History)

 

How a particle accelerator helped recover tarnished 19th century images
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/how-particle-accelerator-helped-recover-tarnished-19th-century-images

X-ray beam illuminates long-forgotten faces on damaged daguerreotypes
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/technology/science/article-x-ray-beam-illuminates-long-forgotten-faces-on-damaged-daguerreotypes

Particle Accelerator Reveals Hidden Faces in Damaged 19th-Century Daguerreotype Portraits
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-used-particle-accelerator-unearth-tarnished-19th-century-daguerreotype-portraits-180969585/

Recovery of Degraded-Beyond-Recognition 19th Century Daguerreotypes with Rapid High Dynamic Range Elemental X-ray Fluorescence Imaging of Mercury L Emission
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-27714-5

An inside look at daguerreotype conservation
https://youtu.be/2YIQvwI-ug8

Daguerreotypes at Harvard
http://preserve.harvard.edu/daguerreotypes/


From the Scoui Report on August 10, 2018

Rambox Science --- https://rambox.pro/#home
Rambox is a free and open source communications program that integrates common web-based communications systems into a single application. The Rambox community edition supports 98 of the most popular communications services including Facebook Messenger, Skype, Slack, Hangouts, Gmail, inbox.com, Yahoo mail, and others. Rambox provides a configurable notification system that includes a "do not disturb" mode and per-service audio settings. More technical users can customize how individual apps are displayed using Rambox's JS and CSS injection features. Rambox is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Source code for the community edition is available from GitHub under the GNU General Public License version 3.


Iridium Browser --- https://iridiumbrowser.de/
Iridium Browser is a free and open source web browser with a focus on privacy and security. The Iridium project takes the Chromium code base (the open source component of Google Chrome) but modifies it to enhance security and require user consent before storing or transmitting any user data. For example, by default, Iridium always sends a Do-Not-Track header, blocks third-party cookies, clears site data on exit, disables form autofill, does not save passwords, and disables Network/DNS prediction. The full list of changes can be found under the Manifest section on the Iridium website. Users can opt-in to features that store or transmit their data on a case by case basis, deciding for themselves how they wish their data to be treated. Iridium Browser is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Source code is available on GitHub, with most components available under the BSD license.




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


Education Tutorials

BrainU (K-12 Neuroscience) --- http://brainu.org/

Open Science Radio: English Episodes --- www.openscienceradio.org/category/english-episodes

YouTube: Tate Talks (art) --- www.youtube.com/channel/UCxtgEIN3xuAGy730NFwEOUA

Teaching with Historic Places --- www.nps.gov/subjects/teachingwithhistoricplaces

Which One Doesn't Belong? (Math Puzzles) --- http://wodb.ca/

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

The Re-Origin of Species by Torill Kornfeldt review – bringing extinct animals back to life ---
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/28/re-origin-species-torill-kornfeldt-review

PodcastRE (searchable database of podcasts) --- https://scout.wisc.edu/archives/index.php

Crash Course: History of Science --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvtCLceNf30&feature=youtu.be

BrainU (K-12 Neuroscience) --- http://brainu.org/

STEM to STEAM: Resources Toolkit --- www.edutopia.org/stem-to-steam-resources

Open Science Radio: English Episodes --- www.openscienceradio.org/category/english-episodes

NOVA: Rise of the Superstorms --- www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/rise-of-the-superstorms.html

Teaching Great Lakes Science --- www.miseagrant.umich.edu/lessons

Sharing Science (Geology) --- https://sharingscience.agu.org/

The Lake Superior Legacy Collection (geology)  --- http://data.wgnhs.uwex.edu/lake-superior-legacy/

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Digital Library --- https://usace.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/

Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art & Architecture --- https://digital.kenyon.edu/perejournal/

Quills & Feathers (Birds of the Great Plains) --- https://cdrhsites.unl.edu/quills/

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

Pew Report: Declining Majority of Online Adults Say the Internet Has Been Good for Society ---
www.pewinternet.org/2018/04/30/declining-majority-of-online-adults-say-the-internet-has-been-good-for-society
Jensen Comment
I'm not certain about hidden biases. Young adults never experienced a world without an Internet versus those of us who grew up in the fabulous 1950s. I think us older folks tend to remember the good and block out the bad. For example, think of some of the bad things in life before cell phones. In the 1950s car breakdowns, especially flat tires, were much more common. When stranded it was not so great to have to walk for help in the dark of night on Iowa's country gravel roads. We grew up a lot more ignorant before there was Wikipedia even if we had a set of encyclopedia books at home. Options for learning exploded with the Internet. Sure we were a lot more social locally sitting on my grandmother's big front porch with friends and neighbors who passed by on hot summer nights for a lemonade. But we were a lot less social globally before email communications. I think in balance of the good things and the bad things, the Internet is good for Society. The bad things about the Internet are confounded with a lot of other worrisome variables like urban crowding, traffic congestion, increased crime (Swea City in those days did not even have a cop or locked doors), spamming, etc. For me, it's hard to measure the good/bad of the Internet apart from the many other good/bad variables of living in the 21st Century.

PodcastRE (searchable database of podcasts) --- https://scout.wisc.edu/archives/index.php

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Digital Library --- https://usace.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/

Visualizing Cultural Collections --- https://uclab.fh-potsdam.de/vikus/

Open Science Radio: English Episodes --- www.openscienceradio.org/category/english-episodes

How to Teach Quantitative Reasoning with the News --- https://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/teaching_news/how.html

University of Victoria: Transgender Archives --- www.uvic.ca/transgenderarchives

Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art & Architecture --- https://digital.kenyon.edu/perejournal/

Texas Disability History Collection (Law) --- https://library.uta.edu/txdisabilityhistory/

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

Texas Disability History Collection (Law) --- https://library.uta.edu/txdisabilityhistory/

The blue (liberal) world of law schools ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/08/byu-and-pepperdine-are-the-most-ideologically-balanced-faculties-among-the-top-50-law-schools-2013.html

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


Math Tutorials

The Econometric Society:  An Archival History ---
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4dih4fwd67j2fim/The Econometrics Society.pdf

How to Teach Quantitative Reasoning with the News --- https://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/teaching_news/how.html

Which One Doesn't Belong? (Math Puzzles) --- http://wodb.ca/

This math is well beyond anything I can comprehend
The Peculiar Math That Could Underlie the Laws of Nature ---
https://www.wired.com/story/the-peculiar-math-that-could-underlie-the-laws-of-nature/?mbid=nl_hps_5b6493fb70103240c5896784&CNDID=31837029

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

MIT Global Shakespeares: Video & Performance Archive (performances from around the world) --- http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/

Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art & Architecture --- https://digital.kenyon.edu/perejournal/

Book Traces (historic books with marginal notations on pages) --- www.booktraces.org

Crash Course: History of Science --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvtCLceNf30&feature=youtu.be

Bentham Project (Philosophy of Utilitarianism) --- www.ucl.ac.uk/bentham-project

Quills & Feathers (Birds of the Great Plains) --- https://cdrhsites.unl.edu/quills/

Teaching with Historic Places --- www.nps.gov/subjects/teachingwithhistoricplaces

YouTube: Tate Talks (art) --- www.youtube.com/channel/UCxtgEIN3xuAGy730NFwEOUA

The Getty: Art + Ideas --- http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/series/art-ideas/

Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art ---
http://journalpanorama.org/issues/spring-2018-4-1/

The Browning Letters (Poetry) --- http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/ab-letters

The “Weird Objects” in the New York Public Library’s Collections: Virginia Woolf’s Cane, Jack Kerouac’s Harmonicas, Walt Whitman’s Hair & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/08/weird-objects-new-york-public-librarys-collections-virginia-woolfs-cane-jack-kerouacs-harmonicas-walt-whitmans-hair.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Harper's Weekly Archive from 1857 --- https://archive.org/details/harpersweekl00bonn

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Digital Library --- https://usace.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/

The Lake Superior Legacy Collection (geology)  --- http://data.wgnhs.uwex.edu/lake-superior-legacy/

Texas Disability History Collection (Law) --- https://library.uta.edu/txdisabilityhistory/

Musical Geography: Mapping Place and Movement Throughout Music History ---
https://musicalgeography.org/

Stylish 2,000-Year-Old Roman Shoe Found in a Well ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/08/stylish-2000-year-old-roman-shoe-found-well.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Stories from the Jewish Museum ---
https://thejewishmuseum.org/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7NOk4JfE3AIVSbjACh16OQy0EAAYASAAEgL8z_D_BwE

University of Victoria: Transgender Archives --- www.uvic.ca/transgenderarchives

PodcastRE (searchable database of podcasts) --- https://scout.wisc.edu/archives/index.php

Visualizing Cultural Collections --- https://uclab.fh-potsdam.de/vikus/

The Crack Squad of Librarians Who Track Down Half-Forgotten Books ---
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/librarian-detectives-forgotten-books

Yoruba People --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoruba_people
The Good Person: Excerpts from the Yoruba ---
http://yoruba.unl.edu/

Below the Surface (artifacts from beneath Amsterdam) --- https://belowthesurface.amsterdam/en

Historic Liverpool --- https://historic-liverpool.co.uk/

City Desk 400 (Shakespeare's Kitchen) --- https://citydeskshakespeare400chicago.wordpress.com/

Culinary Institute of America Menu Collection ---
http://ciadigitalcollections.culinary.edu/digital/collection/p16940coll1

From the Scout Report on August 3, 2018

Particle Accelerator Used to See Tarnished Daguerreotypes (photography History)

 

How a particle accelerator helped recover tarnished 19th century images
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/how-particle-accelerator-helped-recover-tarnished-19th-century-images

X-ray beam illuminates long-forgotten faces on damaged daguerreotypes
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/technology/science/article-x-ray-beam-illuminates-long-forgotten-faces-on-damaged-daguerreotypes

Particle Accelerator Reveals Hidden Faces in Damaged 19th-Century Daguerreotype Portraits
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-used-particle-accelerator-unearth-tarnished-19th-century-daguerreotype-portraits-180969585/

Recovery of Degraded-Beyond-Recognition 19th Century Daguerreotypes with Rapid High Dynamic Range Elemental X-ray Fluorescence Imaging of Mercury L Emission
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-27714-5

An inside look at daguerreotype conservation
https://youtu.be/2YIQvwI-ug8

Daguerreotypes at Harvard
http://preserve.harvard.edu/daguerreotypes/

 

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

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


Language Tutorials

Language Documentation & Conservation --- http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc/

How to Teach Quantitative Reasoning with the News --- https://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/teaching_news/how.html

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


Music Tutorials

Musical Geography: Mapping Place and Movement Throughout Music History ---
https://musicalgeography.org/

Leonard Bernstein Presents “The Greatest 5 Minutes in Music Education” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/08/leonard-bernstein-presents-greatest-5-minutes-music-education.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Hear Singers from the Metropolitan Opera Record Their Voices on Traditional Wax Cylinders ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/08/obsolete-technology-thats-likely-remain-listen-modern-met-opera-stars-recording-wax-cylinders.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

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

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


Writing Tutorials

Yoruba People --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoruba_people
The Good Person: Excerpts from the Yoruba ---
http://yoruba.unl.edu/

 

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



Bob Jensen's threads on medicine ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2-Part2.htm#Medicine

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

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

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

July 27, 2018

July 28, 2018

July 30, 2018

July 31, 2018

August 1, 2018

August 2, 2018

August 3, 2018

August 4, 2018

August 6, 2018

August 7, 2018

August 8, 2018

August 10, 2018

August 13, 2018

August 14, 2018

May 15, 2018

August 16, 2018

 

 


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

Women with endometriosis have terrible pain. There’s finally a new treatment ---
https://www.vox.com/2018/7/24/17608984/endometriosis-pain-symptoms-treatments-elagolix-orilissa


'It's Like a Puzzle To Be Solved.' Alan Alda Says He Was Diagnosed With Parkinson's Disease ---
Click Here
He's 82 years old at a stage in life when bad things are much more likely to transpire. Symptoms of Parkinson's Disease are quite variable in seriousness.
 


Pizza Doesn't Give You Acne—But What About Sugar? ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/08/acne-diet-pimples/566975/

 




Humor for August 16 2018

Attorney Michael Avenatti claims his relations with porn star Stormy Danniels was strictly "professional." What he failed to clarify is whether that was his profession or her profession.
Bob Jensen

This video forwarded by Paula is not only funny it shows how most of really don't have the video-making skills of the true, and very patient, pros in making videos ---
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/164d430b30f86dbd?projector=1&messagePartId=0.1 

CBS News:  Zoo accused of painting donkeys to look like zebras
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/zoo-accused-of-painting-donkeys-to-look-like-zebras/

Amazon facial recognition 'wrongly' matches 28 members of Congress with criminal mugshots ---
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/technology/amazon-facial-recognition-wrongly-matches-28-members-of-congress-with-criminal-mugshots
Mark Twain said members of Congress are the most criminal class in America

21 jokes Obama made in office that had his daughters cringing ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/dad-jokes-obama-2018-8

Man busted on moped with $100+ worth of Walmart steaks in pants, Nash deputies say ---
https://www.cbs17.com/news/local-news/man-busted-on-moped-with-100-worth-of-walmart-steaks-in-pants-nash-deputies-say/1335279363
Jensen Comment
Gives a whole new meaning to rump roasts.

The case for puns as the most elevated display of wit ---
https://qz.com/1344927/the-case-for-puns-as-the-most-elevated-display-of-wit/

Here are a few things that are effectively legal in San Francisco: drugs, public defecation and shoplifting. And here are some of the things that are banned or will be banned in the City by the Bay. Straws. Fur coats. Bottled water. Eating at work. Vaping liquids. Upholstered furniture. Plastic bags. Pet stores. Electric scooters. Coffee cups and packing peanuts. Tropical fish. The McDonald’s Happy Meal ---
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270883/san-francisco-bans-everything-daniel-greenfield
Jensen Comment
I think banned "eating at work" means eating free meals provided by the employer (a move to support restaurants). You can still bring your lunch box and a thermos. I don't understand banning bottled water, but it's probably the plastic bottles that are banned. You can bring your own water and coffee in a thermos and drink out of the lid. It's best to place store merchandise behind unbreakable glass walls. It would also be best to wear plastic baggies over your shoes when walking on the streets, but plastic baggies are banned. Jumping is the new craze on SF streets --- that and sliding. Scooters became a popular means of pushing through the poop until the scooters were banned. Changing a bike tire can be hazardous to your health

From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on July 30, 2018

Walmart Inc. is exploring a subscription video-streaming service that would seek to challenge Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. by offering programming that targets Middle America, according to people familiar with the plans.

Jensen Comment
Aside from using the F-word less than 1,000 times per movie, I'm not sure what Middle America programming entails. If Walmart decides to produce movies it has an advantage in producing both comedies and erotica. All it has to do is use it's own security camera footage of how people are dressed in Walmart stores ---
https://www.providr.com/now/worst-walmart-customers/

 



 




Humor July 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q3.htm#Humor0718.htm 

Humor June 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q2.htm#Humor0618.htm

Humor May 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q2.htm#Humor0518.htm

Humor April 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q2.htm#Humor0418.htm

Humor March 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q1.htm#Humor0318.htm 

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