Tidbits on November 29, 2018
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

Set 5 of My Sunrise and Sunset Favorites from the White Mountains of New Hampshire ---
http://cs.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/SunriseSunset/05/SunriseSunsetFavoritesSet05.htm  

 

Tidbits on November 29, 2018
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Bob Jensen's Tidbits ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm

For earlier editions of Fraud Updates go to http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 
Bookmarks for the World's Library --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm 

Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations   

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

Bob Jensen's Home Page is at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/

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

Updates from WebMD --- Click Here

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

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

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

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

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




Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio

The Fallen (forwarded by Bob Blystone) ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omd9_FJnerY

Video:  Why It's So Difficult to Land on Mars ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-mars-landing-super-hard-insight-curiosity-mars2020-2018-11

Hear the Sounds of World War I: A Gas Attack Recorded on the Front Line, and the Moment the Armistice Ended the War ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/11/hear-the-sounds-of-world-war-i.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Video:  Tesla Production Line ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2VHyC2vws0
Jensen Comment
This video has multiple segments. Check where you're at by viewing the red progress line at the bottom of the screen.
Cost accounting students should think about how robotics costs are allocated to inventory.

Let's Learn About Waveforms ---
https://pudding.cool/2018/02/waveforms/

TED Talk by Teresa Bejan: Is civility a sham?
https://www.ted.com/talks/teresa_bejan_is_civility_a_sham?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2018-11-17&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_content=talk_of_the_week_image

Italian Shoe Advertisement ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG-BEegpyEQ

Alan Watts Dispenses Wit & Wisdom on the Meaning of Life in Three Animated Videos ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/11/alan-watts-dispenses-wit-wisdom-meaning-life-three-animated-videos.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Watch 99 Movies Free Online Courtesy of YouTube & MGM: Rocky, The Terminator, Four Weddings and a Funeral & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/11/watch-99-movies-free-online-courtesy-of-youtube-mgm.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

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 

At Folsom Prison: A Mini-Doc on Johnny Cash’s Historic & Career-Changing Concert ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/11/folsom-prison-mini-doc-johnny-cashs-historic-career-changing-concert.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Let's Learn About Waveforms ---
https://pudding.cool/2018/02/waveforms/

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

National Geographic:  Best Photographs of 2018 ---
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/best-of-2018/best-pictures-2018/

50 Wonders of the World ---
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/article/the-50-wonders-of-the-world-–-and-how-to-explore-them/ss-BBPpQtr?ocid=spartandhp

Nine Ancient Wonders ---
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/tripideas/9-ancient-wonders-that-continue-to-astound/ss-BBQ8jHU?ocid=spartandhp

The Magic of Moss and What It Teaches Us About the Art of Attentiveness to Life at All Scales ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/05/13/gathering-moss-robin-wall-kimmerer/?mc_cid=1c8b2dc2dd&mc_eid=4d2bd13843

Download 569 Free Art Books from The Metropolitan Museum of Art ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/11/download-569-free-art-books-metropolitan-museum-art.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Google Arts & Culture: Life MagazineTags (photograph history) ---
https://artsexperiments.withgoogle.com/lifetags/

Wellbeing and the Countryside ---
https://merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/online-exhibitions/wellbeing-countryside/

A bold F-35 pilot carried out a 'bizarre' backward landing on Britain's largest warship ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/f-35-pilot-conducts-bizarre-backwards-landing-on-british-carrier-2018-11

75 years ago, US Marines waded into 'the toughest battle in Marine Corps history' — here are 25 photos of the brutal fight for Tarawa ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/battle-of-tarawa-in-wwii-the-toughest-battle-in-marine-corps-history-2017-11

A Japanese Illustrated History of America (1861): Features George Washington Punching Tigers, John Adams Slaying Snakes & Other Fantastic Scenes ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/11/a-japanese-illustrated-history-of-america.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

An Archive of 800+ Propaganda Maps Designed to Shape Opinions & Beliefs: Enter Cornell’s Persuasive Maps Collection ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/11/cornells-persuasive-maps-collection.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Japanese Artist Creates Bookshelf Dioramas That Magically Transport You Into Tokyo’s Back Alleys ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/11/japanese-artist-creates-bookshelf-dioramas-magically-transport-tokyos-back-alleys.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

Leonard Cohen’s Last Work, The Flame Gets Published: Discover His Final Poems, Drawings, Lyrics & More ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/11/leonard-cohens-last-work-flame-gets-published-discover-final-poems-drawings-lyrics.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Illustrated Letters to Children about Why We Read by 121 Inspiring Humans in Our World ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/11/20/a-velocity-of-being-letters-to-a-young-reader/?mc_cid=1dd0cb539c&mc_eid=4d2bd13843

Free: Download 15,000+ Free Golden Age Comics from the Digital Comic Museum ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/11/free-download-15000-free-golden-age-comics-digital-comic-museum.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

If you remember your grade-school reading log, the Nancy Drew mysteries are by Carolyn Keene. Only she never existed. ---
https://daily.jstor.org/the-secret-syndicate-behind-nancy-drew/

Japanese Artist Creates Bookshelf Dioramas That Magically Transport You Into Tokyo’s Back Alleys ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/11/japanese-artist-creates-bookshelf-dioramas-magically-transport-tokyos-back-alleys.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

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 November 29, 2018
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2018/TidbitsQuotations112918.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




The Dartmouth (Student) E-Guide to Academic Success (free book) ---
https://sites.dartmouth.edu/learning/free-study-skills-e-book/


A Film About Higher Ed That Should Bother You a Little ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/A-Film-About-Higher-Ed-That/245135?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=8554a0a880dc460c957c863aa74395e1&elq=8f4e19db4e3340ab80d07bcf4ba82652&elqaid=21453&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=10268

I’m Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education covering innovation in and around academe. Here’s what I’m thinking about this week:

‘We hope we bother people a little.’

A film critic, I’m not. But after sneaking a preview of the new documentary Unlikely last week — and then spending time with one of the directors and a student featured in the film, I confess I’m rooting for it to succeed.

That’s got little to do with money — documentaries, especially those about higher education, aren’t exactly a path to riches. It’s got everything to do with what Jaye and Adam Fenderson say are their reasons for making the film.

They want it to inspire some of the 36 million adults who have started college but never got a degree to consider re-enrolling in higher education. They’d also love for Unlikely to be seen by policy makers and higher-education leaders, because, as Jaye put it to me, “We hope we bother people a little.”

The film should bother people, even though it’s not a scathing critique of the academy. In fact, one of the things I admire about it is the nuanced way it uses the stories of five students to describe the contours of the changing higher-education landscape. While it certainly doesn’t flinch at problems like student debt and poor completion rates, the film shows that there are institutions exploring new approaches to teaching (a competency-based program at Southern New Hampshire University), new models of advising (the data-driven model at Georgia State University); and new approaches to college access (among them Year Up’s mixing of apprenticeship with the first year of college and Arizona State University’s partnership with Starbucks).

Yes, even casual followers of higher-education news might consider those examples the usual suspects. The same could be said for the roster of experts interviewed in the film who talk about ways to improve educational opportunity, among them Tim Renick, Sara Goldrick-Rab, Freeman Hrabowski, Eloy Oakley, and Michael Crow. Still for people who live outside the bubble of higher-ed policy making, these are examples and messengers of change that are not necessarily well known.

The hour-and-40-minute film also includes lesser-heard higher-education leaders like Nancy Cantor, who, after facing opposition to her student-opportunity agenda at Syracuse University, is now president of Rutgers University at Newark, which draws heavily from its nearby lower-income community. At Syracuse, the film says, Cantor faced criticism from within the university because her focus on expanding access cost it a few notches in its U.S. News ranking. The Fendersons portray Cantor as the hero of that struggle, as made clear by a scene that shows a montage of TV anchors falling over themselves with giddy chatter as they talk about which college made it to No. 1 that year. For those of us who still wonder why these selectivity rankings merit all that media infatuation, it’s funny — but also a little sad.

This isn’t the Fendersons’ first foray into education documentaries. The couple, who live in Los Angeles with their three young children (a fourth is due in January), also directed the 2011 film First Generation, which tells the stories of four high-school students trying to make their way to college. It was in the course of promoting that film that they came to realize that for many students, getting into college was just the start of the challenge. And they knew they had another chapter to tell: Why weren’t students finishing?

“We just couldn’t turn away from the story,” Jaye told me when we met in Cleveland, where she screened clips of the film at the annual meeting of the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning.

For her it’s personal, too. She was raised by a single mother who didn’t go to college until Jaye was in high school. The filmmaker, who narrates the documentary, would later attend Columbia University on scholarship. She worked in the admissions office during and after college, eventually reviewing application files and marking them with “L,” for likely to be admitted, “P,” for possible, and “U,” for unlikely. As the film depicts, it was all those U’s that ultimately drove her out of admissions work and into filmmaking.

One student’s story.

As with their earlier film, Unlikely’s mission of “getting the general public to think about college differently” relies on the experiences of the students it profiles.

Continued in article


Addressing the Crisis in Academic Publishing ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/world-view/addressing-crisis-academic-publishing


From a Chronicle of Higher Education Newsletter on November 27, 2018

I’m Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education covering innovation in and around academe. Here’s what I’m thinking about this week:

Thoughts on the rise of the mega-university

A few weeks ago, when I wrote about Southern New Hampshire University, I called it a forerunner of a new breed of institution, the nonprofit mega-university. Now I have a confession to make: I’m still not exactly sure what that means, or what it could lead to.

But it’s obvious to me, and to others I spoke with in the course of reporting that article, that the emergence of mega-universities — institutions like Southern New Hampshire and Western Governors University, with big online footprints, a heavy reliance on adjuncts, and standardized curricular models — will change how higher education is provided.

Other colleges, with smaller online programs, are already feeling the pricing pressure and competitive impact, and those that have yet to enter that arena could find it harder and harder to get any traction. In the words of Russell Poulin, director of policy and analysis for the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies, “The University of Whatever doing one more M.B.A., that’s going to be hard.”

“Hard,” Poulin argues, shouldn’t mean that every University of Whatever has to throw in the online towel. But it probably means they’ll need to plan with intentionality. As Poulin puts it, a Walmart coming into a small community will often crush local retailers, but “local restaurants can thrive next to chains” by being more attuned to local demands and tastes. Colleges will have to find the educational equivalents.

In the future, Poulin contends, colleges won’t be able to just opt out of online education. “It will be an expected option of a modern college or university,” he says, even if it takes on a different form than the model the behemoths offer.

Mega-universities could do more than change the market for students or alter the nature of faculty roles. That’s where things could get even more interesting.

As the author and higher-education consultant Michael B. Horn suggests, institutions like Southern New Hampshire and Western Governors “could help change the definition of quality” for online education, but only if they can show that their students are getting consistently great outcomes. “That,” Horn says, “would be a good game changer for the field.”

I think Horn is onto something. One of the biggest missed opportunities from the era when big for-profit universities dominated the online-education scene was their failure to capitalize on all the learning data they were collecting from their students. By dint of their size and sophistication, they had rich sets of data and, even several years ago, at least some rudimentary tools to analyze it.

Yet for the most part, those colleges used the information for their own proprietary purposes rather than to demonstrate, in any transparent or consistent manner, that their education models were effective. (I can imagine many readers thinking, “They never showed that because they couldn’t.” I’ll stop short of saying that. But if they had the data to prove otherwise, few shared it.)

It remains to be seen how the big nonprofit online players will approach matters. But as you might have sensed from the Southern New Hampshire story, I see a heartening early sign in the reporting on student outcomes that Western Governors has adopted. In its
annual report, the university, which now enrolls more than 100,000 students, published a chart showing trends in its six-year graduation rate and a comparison to a national-average graduation rate for nonselective, nonprofit institutions.

That may not be a perfect measure. But as WGU’s president, Scott Pulsipher, told me, “even an imperfect measure, consistently tracked,” is valuable because it will show improvements or failings.

Pulsipher told me that he believes it’s important to report data on student outcomes. “You can buy awareness,” he said, “but you earn reputation.”

The things WGU measures — graduation rates, students’ debt loads upon graduation, salary boosts — are valuable but not enough. And online or not, “good” measures of academic quality are still all too elusive. (For his part, Paul LeBlanc, Southern New Hampshire’s president, says one goal he sets for his institution is that “people leave us in better financial condition than when they came in.”)

I wish I had better answers. Maybe you do. With the higher-ed landscape becoming increasingly dominated by big online operators, what are the (realistic!) measures of quality that they could be assessing and highlighting? Any other great examples of institutions that have found a way to demonstrate quality? Please send me your thoughts, and I’ll share what I hear.

As Horn puts it, we’re still “in the early innings” of the mega-university era. Certainly, institutions like SNHU and WGU could stumble, or, as with the British Open University (perhaps the first nonprofit mega-university, which was
once a source of inspiration for American colleges exploring distance education), fall victim to internal and outside forces and suffer enrollment and reputational declines. But I doubt this trend will reverse itself, unless of course the institutions fail to step up to the challenge. In other words, and with apologies to Voltaire (and Spiderman), with great size comes great responsibility. The question is: How well will they take it on?

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on competency testing for academic credit ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#ConceptKnowledge


How to Mislead With Statistics
Tesla sales in China sank 70% in October because of the US-China trade war ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-sales-in-china-numbers-sank-us-china-trade-war-2018-11
Jensen Comment
You have to do a bit of simple algebra to figure out how many vehicles sold in September before the 70% decline in October. If Tesla sold 211 vehicles after the 70% decline in October then the September sales can be derived as 211/.3 = 703 vehicles.  Put another way there was a decline of 492 Tesla vehicle sales in October that could've arisen for various reasons.

My point is that it's very easy to mislead with percentages when dealing with relatively small numbers. There were 770,000 electric vehicle sales in China for the year 2017 ---
https://www.inkstonenews.com/business/can-china-become-no-1-electric-cars/article/2169999
It appears that Tesla only has a miniscule market share of the electric vehicle market in China such that a decline of 492 Teslas sold in October is not such a serious matter even if it were all caused by Trump's trade dispute with China. Tesla has always been an insignificant player in China's electric car market. And there can be many other reasons for October's sales decline of 492 Tesla vehicles.

Once again I caution that correlation is not the "cause" that's implied in the article.


The FBI Created a Fake FedEx Website to Unmask a Cybercriminal ---
Click Here

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


Chronicle:  Why Grades Still Matter (or should matter) ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Grades-Still-Matter/245100?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=8835b601919448cb88f73b3fef369bbf&elq=8a2e2aaf0e0740879a49a5d906fe9f60&elqaid=21461&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=10276
Jensen Comment
I'm having an ongoing private debate with a former dean from an Ivy League university who argues that we should stop assigning grades to students. His argument that professors should get to know their students so well that grades are superfluous and counterproductive. However, even in his own university some business professors (think the required course in business policy) have over 100 students each semester. How can you get to know each student so closely? Professors usually do not live with their students as closely and marine drill sergeants live with their trainees. There are exceptions of course such as when a professor is supervising three doctoral students. But colleges do not have enough faculty resources to educate undergraduate and masters students like we educate doctoral students.

Also he ignores the motivational aspects of grades. There's a huge difference between the motivations of students in my courses who were being graded versus those that were merely auditing the courses.

In four different universities most (not all) of my masters degree students received A and B grades in programs that required a 3.0 gpa to graduate. What I found is that nearly all my students were intensely motivated to get an A grade and were hugely disappointed when they got a B grade. Grades where still hugely motivating!


Harvard:  Why You Should Stop Setting Easy Goals ---
https://hbr.org/2018/11/why-you-should-stop-setting-easy-goals?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=dailyalert_not_activesubs&referral=00563&deliveryName=DM19951


As Erika and I grow older in retirement we're finding it increasingly hard to shop for clothing. Stores don't carry enough variety in sizes and styles to suit our needs, and online vendors, especially Amazon, make it really easy (free returns)  to window shop online for vast varieties of styles and sizes.
The following TED video made us cringe about our somewhat careless online window shopping.
TED Talk Video:  Where do your online returns go?
https://www.ted.com/talks/aparna_mehta_where_do_your_online_returns_go?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2018-11-25&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_content=top_right_button
In our case this video inspired us to reduce our online window shopping.


EDUCAUSE: 2018 Students and Technology Research Study ---
https://library.educause.edu/resources/2018/10/2018-students-and-technology-research-study

This hub provides findings from the 2018 student study in the EDUCAUSE Technology Research in the Academic Community research series. ECAR collaborated with 130 institutions in 9 countries and 36 US states to collect responses from 64,536 students.

This research explores technology ownership, use patterns, and expectations as they relate to the student experience. Colleges and universities use these findings to better engage students in the learning process, improve IT services, plan for technology shifts that impact students, and become more technologically competitive among peer institutions.

Continued in article


The New Canon: What's the most influential book of the past 20 years? --- www.chronicle.com/interactives/influential-books


Journalism:  Nieman Storyboard --- https://niemanstoryboard.org/


Nuclear Fusion --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion

BBC:  We're just five years away from harnessing almost unlimited power from nuclear fusion reactors that could provide abundant, cheap and clean energy ---
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46219656?utm_source=MIT+Technology+Review&utm_campaign=b7a23605fa-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_11_16_01_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_997ed6f472-b7a23605fa-153727301

In a world of global warming caused by our addiction to fossil fuels, there is an urgent need to find sustainable alternative sources of energy.

If we don't, the future looks decidedly bleak for millions of people on this planet: water and food shortages leading to famine and war.

Nuclear fusion has long been heralded as a potential answer to our prayers. But it's always been "thirty years away", according to the industry joke.

Now several start-ups are saying they can make fusion a commercial reality much sooner.

What is nuclear fusion exactly?

Nuclear fusion is the merging of atomic nuclei to release masses of energy and it has the potential to address our energy crisis.

It's the same process that powers the sun, and it's clean and - relatively - safe. There are no emissions.

But forcing these nuclei - deuterium and tritium, both forms of hydrogen - to fuse together under immense pressure takes huge amounts of energy - more than we've managed to get out so far.

Continued in article


Duke University to settle case alleging researchers used fraudulent data to win millions in grants ---
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/duke-university-settle-case-alleging-researchers-used-fraudulent-data-win-millions

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


Why Politicians Love Deals like the Amazon Scams ---
https://mises.org/wire/why-politicians-love-deals-amazon-deals?utm_source=Mises Institute Subscriptions&utm_campaign=3c81a36dd4-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-3c81a36dd4-228708937
Jensen Comment
Wall Street banks and brokerages should once again send out signals of possible moves to avoid being entrenched firms paying the high taxes.
New York State attained new high with its Startup NY incentives. It's a new high because top employees as well as companies avoid state taxation for ten years.

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-39-more-companies-join-start-ny-and-commit-817-new-jobs
Here's a list of other New York give aways ---
http://www.nyc.gov/html/sbs/nycbiz/downloads/pdf/summary/incentives/Guide_to_Incentives.pdf


Logical Fallacies ---
https://www.logicalfallacies.org/


NYT:  Meet Zora, the Robot Caregiver for the Elderly ---
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/23/technology/robot-nurse-zora.html

Jensen Comment
We live in an empty nest and seldom see our five children and 12 grandchildren who are scattered from California to Wisconsin to Maine. But we do have a house full of dolls in every room. But these dolls never move nor speak nor fetch our coffee. We're not yet to a point where we want a Zora in the house, but never say never. What I need is a bigger robot Hoss that can shovel the 14 inches of new snow all day long and tomorrow as well.

Samsung Electronics has applied its artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to its imaging devices that will assist diagnosis of radiologists. ---
https://www.zdnet.com/article/samsung-applies-ai-to-medical-imaging/


The Problem With Scientific Credit ---
http://nautil.us/issue/66/clockwork/the-problem-with-scientific-credit


The government aims to boost (damaging fuel) ethanol without evidence that it saves money or helps the environment ---
https://theconversation.com/the-government-aims-to-boost-ethanol-without-evidence-that-it-saves-money-or-helps-the-environment-96701


No Joke:  How seaweed might help save the planet like Beano might help save a courtship ---
Click Here


The biggest thing that's holding back Microsoft's Surface Pro 6: no USB-C
Also the bundled keyboard price is really higher than $900 --
-
https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-surface-pro-6-review-2018-10#the-biggest-thing-thats-holding-back-the-surface-pro-6-no-usb-c-6

Two USB Type-C and Thunderbolt 3 ports on the new (more expensive)  Macbook Air, but Apple ditched its traditional USB ports and the HDMI port ---
https://www.pcworld.com/article/2895152/six-things-to-know-about-the-usb-31-port-in-the-new-macbook.html 

Jensen Comment
For both choices you may have to load your briefcase with hubs and dongles after getting help from techies. Bummer!


An investigation into a Texas community college found that administrators improperly changed nursing students' grades from failing to passing.---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/11/15/investigation-finds-texas-college-allegedly-changed-nursing-students-grades?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=4281161535-DNU_WO20181112_NEW_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-4281161535-197565045&mc_cid=4281161535&mc_eid=1e78f7c952


From The Guardian Why is San Francisco ... covered in human feces?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/18/san-francisco-poop-problem-inequality-homelessness

Jensen Comment
Hotel carpets are more in danger in San Francisco than other USA cities for reasons you well know.
Need I also explain the sanitary efficiency, or lack thereof, of vacuum cleaners.
And the germs that remain on the sidewalk after poop and manure is swept up.
This is why we wash dishes in hot water rather than brush them off with a broom.


Copyrights, patents and trademarks are all important, but the term ‘intellectual property’ is nonsensical and pernicious ---
https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-of-intellectual-property-is-nonsensical-and-pernicious


Engineering Journal Retracts 29 Articles, Explaining Little ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/11/21/journal-retracts-29-articles-offers-few-details-why?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=2fd1d0fbd2-DNU_WO20181119_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-2fd1d0fbd2-197565045&mc_cid=2fd1d0fbd2&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

The Retraction Watch Database ---
http://retractiondatabase.org/RetractionSearch.aspx?
For example, put Accounting into the subject box and view the hit list (not all are accounting research retractions)
Bob Jensen's threads on professor cheating are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#ProfessorsWhoPlagiarize


July 2018 California Bar Exam Pass Rate Falls To 67-Year Low ---
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/11/july-2018-california-bar-exam-pass-rate-falls-to-67-year-low.html
Other states are also witnessing a decline in BAR exam passage rates.
As the CPA exam gets easier to pass, the BAR exam may be getting harder (or the graduates are of lower quality)


From Gallaudet University: 
People who are deaf or hard of hearing rely heavily on visual cues, regardless of the specific means of communication. If you suspect a user cannot hear you, try some of the strategies suggested below
---
http://libguides.gallaudet.edu/c.php?g=773982

Bob Jensen's threads on technology aids for disabled persons (including the hearing impaired) ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Handicapped


TIME’s 50 best inventions of 2018 ---
Click Here


From David Giles on November 22, 2018

A New Canadian Macroeconomic Database

Anyone who's undertaken empirical macroeconomic research relating to Canada will know that there are some serious data challenges that have to be surmounted.

In particular, getting access to long-term, continuous, time series isn't as easy as you might expect.

Statistics Canada
has been criticized frequently over the years by researchers who find that crucial economic series are suddenly "discontinued", or are re-defined in ways that make it extremely difficult to splice the pieces together into one meaningful time-series.

In recognition of these issues, a number of efforts have been made to provide Canadian economic data in forms that researchers need. These include, for instance, Boivin et al. (2010), Bedock and Stevanovic (2107), and Stephen Gordon's on-going "
Project Link".

Thanks to Olivier Fortin-Gagnon, Maxime Leroux, Dalibor Stevanovic, &and Stéphane Suprenant we now have an impressive addition to the available long-term Canadian time-series data. Their 2018 working paper, "A Large Canadian Database for Macroeconomic Analysis", discusses their new database and illustrates its usefulness in a variety of ways.

Here's the abstract:

"This paper describes a large-scale Canadian macroeconomic database in monthly frequency. The dataset contains hundreds of Canadian and provincial economic indicators observed from 1981. It is designed to be updated regularly through (the) StatCan database and is publicly available. It relieves users to deal with data changes and methodological revisions. We show five useful features of the dataset for macroeconomic research. First, the factor structure explains a sizeable part of variation in Canadian and provincial aggregate series. Second, the dataset is useful to capture turning points of the Cana-dian business cycle. Third, the dataset has substantial predictive power when forecasting key macroeconomic indicators. Fourth, the panel can be used to construct measures of macroeconomic uncertainty. Fifth, the dataset can serve for structural analysis through the factor-augmented VAR model."

Note - these are monthly data! And they're freely available. Although the paper doesn't appear to provide the source for accessing the data, Dalibor kindly pointed out to me that there's a download link here, on his webpage. This link will give you the data in spreadsheet form, together with all of the necessary background information.

The only slight concern that I have about this resource - and I don't want to sound ungrateful - is the issue of the updating of the data over time. You'll note from the abstract that the database "...... is designed to be updated regularly through (the) StatCan database....". Given my comments (above) about some of the issues that we've all faced for a very long time when it comes to StatCan data, I  know that updating this new database on a regular basis is going to be a bit of a challenge.

 

However, let's not let this concern detract from the considerable benefits that we'll all derive from having access to this rich set of Canadian macroeconomic time-series.

Thanks, again, to the authors for constructing this database, and for making it freely available!

References

Bedock, N. & D. Stevanovic, 2017. An empirical study of credit shock transmission in a small open economy. Canadian Journal of Economics, 50, 541–570.

Boivin, J., M. Giannoni, & D. Stevanovic, 2010. Monetary transmission in a small open economy: more data, fewer puzzles. Technical report, Columbia Business School, Columbia University.

Fortin-Gagnon, O., M. Leroux, D. Stevanovic, & S. Suprenant, 2018. A large Canadian database for macroeconomic analysis. CIRANO Working Paper 2018s-25.

Gordon, S., 2018. Project Link - Piecing together Canadian economic history. Département d'économique, Université Laval.

 

From David Giles on November 14, 2018
https://davegiles.blogspot.com/2018/11/more-sandwiches-anyone.html#more

A re-tweet from a colleague whom I follow on Twitter brought an important paper to my attention. I thought I'd share it more widely.

The paper is titled, "Small-sample methods for cluster-robust variance estimation and hypothesis testing in fixed effect models", bJames Pustejovski (@jepusto) and Beth Tipton (@stats-tipton). It appears in The Journal of Business and Economic Statistics.  

You can tell right away, from its title, that this paper is going to be a must-read for empirical economists. And note the words, "Small-sample" in the title - that sounds interesting.

 Here's a compilation of Beth's six tweets:

Read more »

From David Giles on November 5, 2018

Econometrics Reading for November
https://davegiles.blogspot.com/2018/11/econometrics-reading-for-november.html

In between raking leaves and dealing with some early snow, I've put together this list of suggested reading for you:

·                     Beckert, W., 2018. A note on specification testing in some structural regression models. Mimeo., Department of Economics, Mathematics and Statistics, Birkbeck College, University of London.

·                     Clarke, D., 2018. A convenient omitted bias formula for treatment effect models. Economics Letters, in press.

·                     Liu, Y. & Y. Rho, 2018. On the choice of instruments in mixed frequency specification tests. Mimeo., School of Business and Economics, Michigan Technological University.

·                     Lütkepohl, H., A. Staszewska-Bystrova, & P. Winker, 2018. Constructing joint confidence bands for impulse functions of VAR models - A review. Lodz Economic Working Paper 4/2018, Faculty of Economics and Sociology, University of Lodz.

·                     Richardson, A., T. van Florenstein Mulder, & T. Vehbi, 2018. Nowcasting New Zealand GDP using machine learning algorithms.

·                     Słoczyński, T., 2018. A general weighted average representation of the ordinary and two-stage least squares estimands. Mimeo., Department of Economics, Brandeis University.

 


USA Household Debt Rose to $13.5+ Trillion 2018 (apart from mortgages) ---
https://www.newsweek.com/american-household-debt-nearly-trillion-dollars-higher-it-was-2008-recession-1220615
Student Debt is over $1.5 trillion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_debt
The problem is that the USA government is just not printing enough money to pay off all debts (including government debt), provide universal free health care, fix the infrastructure, and provide free college education for everybody.


Printing money has done such wonders for Zimbabwe and Venezuela.


We should look to the long history of wonders that socialism brought to nations of the world and eliminate capitalism as quickly as possible. Households don't have to borrow under socialism. Money is plentiful and even makes good wall coverings under socialism. There's no more poverty since everybody gets more money than they can possibly spend under socialism.

I wonder what proportion of the USA's college graduates understand how money is created out of household, business, and government debt rather than printing presses ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation

Personally I doubt that most of our college graduates really understand the magnitude of $1 trillion.

What happens when fantasy-obsessed voters cannot make adult decisions?
 


NYT:  Eliminating $1.4 million in student debt is not progressive; It's a handout to the middle class
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/18/opinion/student-debt-forgiveness-college-democrats.html?elqTrackId=6a55d7c0560d4cdb96052e07f89a7b71&elq=b8c3164649884ff8b2313778389b6c96&elqaid=21440&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=10257
Jensen Comment
Anecdotally I know one graduate (with a PhD in pharmacy) who owes nearly considerably more than $100,000 in student debt. Her starting salary after graduation was over $125,000 such that she's making great progress, albeit long-term, toward repayment of her loans. Her parents would've fully paid for her college education at a flagship state university where her father is a professor. Her mother was a tenured high school teacher. But their daughter wanted an expensive private college that entailed taking out student loans every year. It would seem that forgiveness of her student debt is exactly what the above opinion article is suggesting.


Wait, Is Bloomberg’s $1.8-Billion Donation to Johns Hopkins a Good Thing?
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Wait-Is-Bloomberg-s/245136?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=6028e7bfc5b444e4b9ca0ee53acba5a2&elq=66c5c7e32f1c4a5ea8a8c9af057b8b53&elqaid=21439&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=10256

Michael Bloomberg’s $1.8-billion gift to the Johns Hopkins University will cover the costs of thousands of scholarships at the private institution. Many have heralded the donation as a path-breaking piece of philanthropy on an unflashy aspect of higher education. In his New York Times op-ed announcing the donation, Bloomberg said his goal was to “eliminate money problems from the admissions equation for qualified students.”

But after the confetti cleared, some financial-aid experts posed a lingering question: Was this huge influx of financial aid really going to benefit anyone beyond the private Baltimore university?"

Hardly, if at all, according to some experts, who added that Bloomberg’s gift may in fact deepen the divide between the nation’s elite institutions and the rest of higher education. Surely, the gift will benefit the low- and middle-income students who carve their way into the selective institution, but the majority of students won’t get into Johns Hopkins or similar universities.

Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor who studies higher education at Temple University, said a family member sent her a text with news of the gift on Sunday. She said she had read only the headline of Bloomberg’s op-ed, “Why I’m Giving $1.8 Billion for College Financial Aid” and her hopes rose that he might be creating a program that focused on living expenses for college students, or donating to an under-resourced community-college system — historically, such institutions accept students from diverse racial or low socioeconomic backgrounds. But when she realized the money was for the elite and selective Johns Hopkins, she felt, “sick to my stomach.” She added that she was “deeply disappointed yet totally unsurprised.”

“This is somebody everyone says finally gets the inequality in higher ed,” Goldrick-Rab said of Bloomberg, who went to Johns Hopkins on a student loan, and by working while studying. “But I think in many ways he just doubled down on it.”

Johns Hopkins, she said, is a selective institution based on merit, which makes it more difficult for disadvantaged students to attend. And it feels like he only strengthened his commitment to traditional models of the university that she said have long underserved poor students. She argued that an institution can’t do the work of raising the fortunes if it’s gated off to students who lack the advantages, like good high school and SAT tutors, of the privileged.

If accessibility was really Bloomberg’s goal, Goldberg-Rab said, there are many other ways of reaching that end. Why not donate to the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, she wondered, or a public system like the City University of New York?

Robert Kelchen, an assistant professor of higher education at Seton Hall University, said that what the Bloomberg gift really does is increase access for some to John Hopkins. It also boosts the university’s profile among selective colleges trying to recruit the highest performing students from poorer backgrounds.

“We’re talking about Hopkins right now,” Kelchen said. “They’re getting all kinds of national attention.”

Jensen Comment

Jensen Comment
I think Bloomberg should be able to choose as he likes when he makes donations. Having said this I wish the recipient of such an enormous grant to fund student education was more diverse in terms of career tracks for students. For example, the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business was founded in 2007 and is small and  not yet established in terms of career choice options relative to other noteworthy universities.  ---
https://www.jhu.edu/academics/?divisions=carey-business-school
For example students seeking careers in the accountancy profession will not find good career tracks at Johns Hopkins.
Johns Hopkins is a great university for STEM careers, but I think that students choosing Johns Hopkins are limiting their career choices relative to many other great and more expansive universities. For some students getting a free education at Johns Hopkins its a little like being forced major in something that's not your first choice because it's free.


Ohio-based Kroger and UK-based Ocado announced they will be spending $55 million to open up the first of 20 robotics warehouses in Cincinnati ---
http://ir.kroger.com/file/Index?KeyFile=393539091
They will also be creating 400 jobs


Mistakes Grow Your Brain ---
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/2018/that-isnt-a-mistake/




From the Scout Report on November

Friendica --- https://friendi.ca/
Friendica is a decentralized, peer-to-peer social network. Users may select one of the 16 recommended public servers or opt to self-host a server on hardware they control. Much like email, it's possible to "friend" users with accounts on different servers. Within Friendica itself, users will find familiar social network features such as public posts, direct messages, hashtags, photo albums, likes, dislikes, and comments. A number of connectors are also available, which can integrate services on other platforms into the Friendica interface. For example, users may incorporate contacts from Twitter, Diaspora, Pump.io, and StatusNet in their feed. Friendica can also be used as a publishing platform to post content on WordPress and Tumblr. Each item posted on Friendica has its own customizable access list that determines who can see it. Content may be posted with an expiration date, after which it will be automatically deleted. Friendica users may also download a complete set of their account data, even moving from one server to another if they so choose. Friendica can be used from any modern browser. Users interested in self-hosting may download the AGPL-licensed server software from the Friendica website.


LastPass --- www.lastpass.com 
LastPass is a password safe that simplifies password management and storage. A 2017 Consumer Reports article on password managers listed LastPass as one of four recommended by a panel of security experts. In addition to passwords, users may also store secure notes, all of which are encrypted using industry standard AES-256 encryption. Encryption is performed on the user's device before any data is sent to LastPass's servers. LastPass includes a web interface, plugins for all the popular browsers, smartphone apps, and even bookmarklets. Two-factor authentication can be configured using a LastPass Authenticator phone app, UbiKeys, or other methods. Somewhat unique among password managers, LastPass allows users to set a password hint, which allows access to their passwords even if their master password is forgotten. In addition to the free service tier, premium and enterprise tiers are available that provide additional features like priority tech support or sharing of passwords among groups of users. When your premium trial ends, you'll still have access to LastPass free features. Users can upgrade to premium at any time for $2 per month.


Trove ---  https://trove.nla.gov.au/
We originally featuredTrove in The Scout Report on 2/5/2016, and its already enormous holdings have only continued to grow since then; it currently includes a total of more than 596 million items. Trove has also made improvements to its digitized newspaper interface and its archived websites search. Trove, a service created and maintained by the National Library of Australia, aggregates pictures, journal articles, newspaper articles, music, maps, diaries, and many other resources that illuminate the history and culture of Australia over the past 200 years. Readers may choose to begin by selecting from any of the various categories (books, maps, archived websites, etc.). For instance, selecting people and organizations will navigate to a page with a pre-filtered search engine, where they may enter their interests, such as "theater," which returns 51 results including Delacorte Theater, GRIPS Theater, and others. Visitors may also enjoy "A guide to Trove," where they will find user guides, information about content partners, and a discussion about how to use Trove as a platform for building tools and resources. It is worth noting that Trove's holdings are immense; filtering by photo turns up 8,222,014 results, including an early photograph of the Hawthorn Presbyterian Church, taken in 1868, and a 1976 photograph of Sydney Cove.


From the Scout Report on November 23, 2018

Mattermost --- https://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/
Mattermost is an open source, real-time, self-hosted chat, and collaboration system. It is frequently described as an alternative to Slack that can be run on one's own infrastructure. Similar to Slack, users access a Mattermost server either from a browser, a dedicated desktop chat client, or one of several mobile applications. Mattermost channels support embedded images and files. Channels are grouped into teams and are managed by team admins. Membership within a channel can be public, restricted to users from specific email providers, or by invitation only. A number of bots and integrations are available for Mattermost and more can be created with the Mattermost REST API. Detailed information on how to do so is available in their developer documentation. In the administrator's guide, users can find instructions for installing the Mattermost server on Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and CentOS, among others. Mattermost can also be deployed to a number of cloud providers using Bitnami. In addition to the free, open-source release of Mattermost, an enterprise version that includes additional features for large organizations (single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, etc.) is also available for purchase.


HTML_CodeSniffer --- https://squizlabs.github.io/HTML_CodeSniffer/
CodeSniffer is a coding standards checker for websites. Users can run HTML_CodeSniffer inside their browser by adding a bookmarklet to their bookmarks bar. The sample public version will check a site for conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.0. Users simply visit a site and click their CodeSniffer bookmark to generate an interactive report of any issues found. As users select individual issues within the report, CodeSniffer indicates the relevant visual element on the page, displays the problematic markup and offers a link to suggested techniques for resolving the issue. Developers can clone the BSD-licensed HTML_CodeSniffer source from GitHub and create their own customized versions that include any additional checks they want. The HTML_CodeSniffer bookmarklet works in Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer. Additional ways of running HTML_CodeSniffer, including command-line use with a headless browser, are described on the GitHub page.


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


Education Tutorials

Hoax or No Hoax? Strategies for Online Comprehension and Evaluation ---
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/hoax-hoax-strategies-online-1135

American Nuclear Society: For Educators ---
http://nuclearconnect.org/in-the-classroom/for-teachers

NCES: Distance Learning Dataset Training ---
https://nces.ed.gov/training/datauser/
Bob Jensen's threads on Tools and Tricks of the Trade ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm

Google Arts & Culture: Life MagazineTags (photograph history) ---
https://artsexperiments.withgoogle.com/lifetags/

The Dartmouth (Student) E-Guide to Academic Success (free book) ---
https://sites.dartmouth.edu/learning/free-study-skills-e-book/

TeachRock: What the Kids Are Listening To ---
http://teachrock.org/collection/what-the-kids-are-listening-to

Video:  Why It's So Difficult to Land on Mars ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-mars-landing-super-hard-insight-curiosity-mars2020-2018-11

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

BBC:  We're just five years away from harnessing almost unlimited power from nuclear fusion reactors that could provide abundant, cheap and clean energy ---
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46219656?utm_source=MIT+Technology+Review&utm_campaign=b7a23605fa-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_11_16_01_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_997ed6f472-b7a23605fa-153727301

American Nuclear Society: For Educators ---
http://nuclearconnect.org/in-the-classroom/for-teachers

Let's Learn About Waveforms ---
https://pudding.cool/2018/02/waveforms/

Kepler & K2 Science Center --- https://keplerscience.arc.nasa.gov/

The Language of Birds --- www.bl.uk/the-language-of-bir

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

An Archive of 800+ Propaganda Maps Designed to Shape Opinions & Beliefs: Enter Cornell’s Persuasive Maps Collection ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/11/cornells-persuasive-maps-collection.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Global State of Democracy: Exploring Democracy's Resilience --- www.idea.int/gsod

A Brief History of French Socialists ---
https://mises.org/wire/brief-history-french-socialists?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=915f4473a7-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-915f4473a7-228708937

Journalism:  Nieman Storyboard --- https://niemanstoryboard.org/

Electing the House of Representatives, 1840-2016 ---
https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/congress/

Ohio Is Still a Piano (political cartography) --- http://andywoodruff.com/blog/ohio-is-still-a-piano/

The D.C. Underground Atlas --- www.washingtontunnels.com

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

The Retraction Watch Database ---
http://retractiondatabase.org/RetractionSearch.aspx?
For example, put Accounting into the subject box and view the hit list (not all are accounting research retractions)
Bob Jensen's threads on professor cheating are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#ProfessorsWhoPlagiarize

Hoax or No Hoax? Strategies for Online Comprehension and Evaluation ---
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/hoax-hoax-strategies-online-1135

Copyright Law
New Exemptions to DMCA Section 1201 Are Welcome, But Don’t Go Far Enough ---
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/10/new-exemptions-dmca-section-1201-are-welcome-dont-go-far-enough
Bob Jensen's threads on the DMCA ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm#Copyright

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


Math Tutorials

Let's Learn About Waveforms ---
https://pudding.cool/2018/02/waveforms/

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

How the Inca Used Intricately-Knotted Cords, Called Khipu, to Write Their Histories, Send Messages & Keep Records ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/11/inca-used-intricately-knotted-cords-called-khipu-write-histories-keep-records.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Google Arts & Culture: Life MagazineTags (photograph history) ---
https://artsexperiments.withgoogle.com/lifetags/

Wellbeing and the Countryside ---
https://merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/online-exhibitions/wellbeing-countryside/

A Brief History of French Socialists ---
https://mises.org/wire/brief-history-french-socialists?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=915f4473a7-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-915f4473a7-228708937

The New Canon: What's the most influential book of the past 20 years? --- www.chronicle.com/interactives/influential-books

Native Land --- https://native-land.ca/

IPUMS: National Historical Geographic Information System --- www.nhgis.org

Reviews in History --- www.history.ac.uk/reviews

The D.C. Underground Atlas --- www.washingtontunnels.com

The Tangled History of Weaving Spider Silk ---
https://daily.jstor.org/the-tangled-history-of-weaving-with-spider-silk/

Journalism:  Nieman Storyboard --- https://niemanstoryboard.org/

Electing the House of Representatives, 1840-2016 ---
https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/congress/

Hear the Sounds of World War I: A Gas Attack Recorded on the Front Line, and the Moment the Armistice Ended the War ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/11/hear-the-sounds-of-world-war-i.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

How did Sartre come to embrace Marxism? ---
https://bostonreview.net/philosophy-religion/ronald-aronson-philosophy-our-time

The Swedish Academy’s decision to take a year off from awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature brings to a close more than a century of foolishness ---
https://www.weeklystandard.com/robert-messenger/there-was-no-nobel-prize-in-literature-did-anyone-even-notice

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

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


Language Tutorials

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


Music Tutorials

Let's Learn About Waveforms ---
https://pudding.cool/2018/02/waveforms/

TeachRock: What the Kids Are Listening To ---
http://teachrock.org/collection/what-the-kids-are-listening-to

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

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


Writing Tutorials

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



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

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

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

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

November 16, 2018

November 17, 2018

November 19, 2018

November 20, 2018

November 21, 2018

November 23, 2018

 November 27, 2018

November 28, 2018

View All Health News

 


A new genetic test that enables people having IVF to screen out embryos likely to have a low IQ or high disease risk could soon become available in the US ---
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24032041-900-exclusive-a-new-test-can-predict-ivf-embryos-risk-of-having-a-low-iq?utm_source=MIT+Technology+Review&utm_campaign=403ce86738-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_11_15_11_44&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_997ed6f472-403ce86738-153727301




Humor for November 2018

What two things do Alexantra Ocasio-Cortez and Yogi Berra have in common?
One is the Bronx!

https://townhall.com/columnists/scottmorefield/2018/11/26/the-seven-craziest-things-alexandria-ocasiocortez-has-said-so-far-n2536456?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

Jim Borden:  Add One More of Life's Embarrassing Moments ---
https://www.jborden.com/add-one-more-to-lifes-embarrassing-moments/

Free: Download 15,000+ Free Golden Age Comics from the Digital Comic Museum ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/11/free-download-15000-free-golden-age-comics-digital-comic-museum.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Alan Watts Dispenses Wit & Wisdom on the Meaning of Life in Three Animated Videos ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/11/alan-watts-dispenses-wit-wisdom-meaning-life-three-animated-videos.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Italian Shoe Advertisement ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG-BEegpyEQ




Humor October 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q4.htm#Humor1018.htm   

Humor September 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q3.htm#Humor0918.htm 

Humor August 2018 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q3.htm#Humor0818.htm  

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

 




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