Tidbits on December 13, 2018
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

Pictures of Our Heavy and Early Winter in 2018
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/Snow/Set12/SnowSet12.htm

 

Tidbits on December 13, 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

Videos:  Ethics Unwrapped --- https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/

Video:  How Singapore solved garbage disposal ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/singapore-waste-energy-garbage-landfill-space-2018-11

Why Should We Read Kurt Vonnegut? An Animated Video Makes the Case ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/12/why-should-we-read-kurt-vonnegut.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 

 

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

See the Complete Works of Vermeer in Augmented Reality: Google Makes Them Available on Your Smartphone ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/12/see-the-complete-works-of-vermeer-in-augmented-reality.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Baby Elephant Orphanage in Kenya ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/baby-elephant-orphanage-in-kenya-photo-tour-2017-12#upon-first-sight-of-the-elephants-a-sea-of-cheers-sprang-from-the-crowd-everyone-lifted-their-phones-and-cameras-in-anticipation-4

These 17 photos show Finland's brutally cold World War II battle with the Soviet Union ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/ussr-russia-finald-wwii-winter-war-photos-2017-3

Here's how the US pulled off a daring mission to take out the mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbor ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/operation-vengeance-us-kills-pearl-harbor-planner-isoroku-yamamoto-2018-12

These are the most incredible photos of the US Marines in 2018 ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-incredible-photos-us-marines-in-2018

The life and legacy of former President George H.W. Bush in photos ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/george-hw-bush-life-and-legacy-pictures-president-2018-12

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

Drone Photography ---
https://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2018/11/framing-nature.html

Celebrities, billionaires, and royalty flock to St. Moritz every winter to hit the slopes and vacation in style ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/st-moritz-secret-gem-ski-resort-luxury-swiss-alps-photos-2018-11#in-1928-it-hosted-the-first-official-winter-olympics-and-again-in-1948-women-dressed-in-silk-sequins-and-fur-men-dressed-in-three-piece-suits-according-to-vogue-the-event-secured-its-status-as-a-luxury-winter-tourism-destination-3

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

George Sand’s Only Children’s Book: A Touching Parable of Choosing Kindness and Generosity Over Cynicism and Greed, with Stunning Illustrations by Russian Artist Gennady Spirin ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/11/27/george-sand-the-mysterious-tale-of-gentle-jack-and-lord-bumblebee/?mc_cid=5ae12f20d0&mc_eid=4d2bd13843

Against Common Sense: Vladimir Nabokov on the Wellspring of Wonder and Why the Belief in Goodness Is a Moral Obligation ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/12/02/vladimir-nabokov-the-art-of-literature-and-commonsense/?mc_cid=c2a4a06bea&mc_eid=4d2bd13843

Why Should We Read Kurt Vonnegut? An Animated Video Makes the Case ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/12/why-should-we-read-kurt-vonnegut.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Fe

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 December 13, 2018
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2018/TidbitsQuotations121318.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




Are numbers of doctorates awarded finally starting to reflect the poor academic job market? New data show decline in nonscience and engineering degrees. Women continue to make gains ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/12/10/are-numbers-doctorates-awarded-finally-starting-reflect-poor-academic-job-market?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=c9b1789c5e-DNU_WO20181203_PREV_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-c9b1789c5e-197565045&mc_cid=c9b1789c5e&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

Jensen Comment
I don't have the latest numbers for accountancy Ph.D. degrees awarded, but the low of 106 graduates in 2003 seems to be that --- a low point. Since them the numbers have been slowly rising toward 200 but are still well below the 1980s when big mills like Texas, Michigan, and Illinois were still pumping out accounting doctorates at much higher numbers than at the beginning of the 21st Century when all established accountancy doctoral programs had dropped output and some new programs commenced that did not come close to making up the difference ---
http://www.jrhasselback.com/AtgDoct/XDocChrt.pdf

Accounting programs are reacting very slowly to what has been and still is an outstanding Ph.D. academic job market. The decline in accounting Ph.D. graduates between the 1980s and the 21st Century is not due to shrinking demand and salaries. Personally I think the decline is mostly due to taking accounting out of accounting doctoral programs and replacing it with mostly mathematics and econometrics at levels that do not appeal to practicing accountants thinking about career changes into academia ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
There's a marked increase in foreign applicants, especially mathematics wizards from Asia.


Medicare for All: Administrative Costs Are Much Higher than You Think ---
https://mises.org/wire/medicare-all-administrative-costs-are-much-higher-you-think?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=8a83a2b8d3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-8a83a2b8d3-228708937

How to Mislead With Statistics
Left-Leaning VOX: The $21 trillion Pentagon accounting error that can’t pay for Medicare-for-all, explained ---
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/3/18122947/pentagon-accounting-error-medicare-for-all

The US military budget is such a bloated monstrosity that it contains accounting errors that could finance two-thirds of the cost of a government-run single-payer health insurance system. All Americans could visit an unlimited array of doctors at no out of pocket cost. At least that’s a notion spreading on left-wing Twitter and endorsed and amplified by newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of Democrats’ biggest 2018 sensations and an undeniable master at the fine art of staying in the public eye.

 

Unfortunately, it’s not true.

 

The idea spread like a game of telephone from a Nation article to the US Congress while losing a crucial point of detail: The Pentagon’s accounting errors are genuinely enormous, but they’re also just accounting errors — they don’t represent actual money that can be spent on something else.

Proponents of this vision have the political wind at their backs and continue to deploy the idea effectively to win intra-party arguments without really making any headway on the core obstacles to writing a Medicare-for-all bill that could become law. That said, to the extent that political power rather than concrete legislation is the goal, that’s probably for the best.

Misunderstandings fly around on Twitter all the time, and AOC’s level of policy knowledge is pretty typical for a member of Congress. But this particular flub is telling about progressive frustration over the double standard on military versus non-military spending, and also the fraught state of play regarding the push for a Medicare-for-all program.

The Pentagon’s mystery $21 trillion, explained

The underlying article by Dave Lindorff in the Nation that kicked this off is an investigative report into the Defense Department’s accounting practices. Lindorff reveals that Pentagon accounting is quite weak, that the department keeps flunking outside audits, that funds are shifted between accounts without proper oversight, and that overall documentation of what’s actually happening with the Pentagon’s vast budget is extremely poor.

Lindorff goes beyond these observations to allege that what’s happening amounts to deliberate fraud, the purpose of which is to persuade Congress to increase appropriations levels beyond what would otherwise be approved.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
We really cannot compare proposed Medicare-for-All plan without more specific definitions of "Medicare-for-All" and the "cared for population." For example, Medicare currently does not pay for the enormous cost of long-term nursing care. Medicare only pays 80% of most of the things it does cover like hospital and doctor care.

Also Medicare has built up trust funds over the 50 years using payroll deductions from individuals and employers. The trust funds are not sustainable at predicted usage rates, but it's not like the existing Medicare program did not accumulate any finds for the elderly and disabled. A Medicare-for-All plan does not have 50 years of payroll deductions to help pay for an abrupt shock to the system.

Advocates of Medicare-for-All never mention that Medicare for all is mostly a private sector program where claims are serviced in the private sector along with private sector doctor, nursing, and medicine delivery of goods and services. Medicare is not like the U.K. system where most services are delivered by government employees.

The Nation's analysis of the Defense Department's expenses ignores the fact that even if we entirely eliminated the current Army, Navy, and Air Force the government's obligations to retired and disabled former military personnel would carry on for hundreds of billions of dollars into the indefinite future. And how long would the USA and its Medicare-for-All program survive without any Army, Navy, and Air Force?

The Nation's analysis is an example of totally irresponsible and misleading statistics.

WaPost fact-checker gives Ocasio-Cortez four Pinocchios for Pentagon claim ---
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/419730-wapost-fact-checker-gives-ocasio-cortez-four-pinocchios-for-pentagon-claim


How to Mislead With Statistics
NYT:  What Straight-A Students Get Wrong ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/08/opinion/college-gpa-career-success.html

Jensen Comment
What this article fails to mention is that the University of Georgia or Ohio State University might well trounce any of the Top 4 college playoff teams if only Georgia or Ohio State had made it to the 2018 college playoffs ---
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/college-football-playoff-alabama-clemson-notre-dame-and-oklahoma-chosen-as-final-four-teams

My point here is that in Google, Apple, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, or Deloitte the fact that 4.0 gpa students don't on average have higher performance ratings that 3.7 gpa employees fails to overlook the fact that most graduates hired by are rarely anything but high gpa students relative to other graduates in their colleges' programs. There may be some adjustment such as when employers may except a slightly lower gpa applicant from a prestigious university that has the highest admission standards in the worlld.

My point is that to be a high performance winner you have to get in the game, and only the highest gpa students are likely to get in the game unless there is some mitigating circumstance such as having a perfect GRE score or being a 2.85 gpa biology major admitted to medical school because of a perfect MCAT score.

The problem for employers and graduate school admissions officers these days is grade inflation across the USA where nearly all applicants have close to a 4.0 gpa. This is why employers and recruiting officers look to other criteria such as excelling in extra-curricular activities and volunteer work such as teaching English or math in Africa for a couple of years.

Having said this I concede that in terms of job performance there are many criteria (and don't rule out luck) that frequently override gpa or test scores. There's anecdotal evidence that CPA Exam gold medal winners sometimes bomb out on the job (especially those with zero personalities). There anecdotal evidence that incoming applicants with perfect GMAT scores do worse that low GMAT performers with high grade averages.

The above NYT article makes some good points, but it fails if some students become less concerned with grades because they took the article to heart.

Luck, courage, and motivation may beat out grades and skill --- but only if you are in the game to have a chance at high performance.

Think of those glum Georgia and Ohio State varsity football players watching the 2018 college playoffs on television.


How to mislead with statistics
Jim Borden:  America’s Biggest Fears – and Mine
---
https://www.jborden.com/americas-biggest-fears-and-mine/

Jensen Comment
This type of survey is misleading because it depends crucially upon what questions are asked plus how all questions are worded.

For example, there's a huge difference between the wording of "illegal immigration" versus "Open borders to all seeking to enter." The phrase "Illegal immigration" to most implies illegal immigration at rates experienced in the last decade or so. The phrase "Open borders to all seeking to enter" is an entirely different fear not mentioned in the survey, but it is a fear that Trump probably wins heaviest on these days. Trump is not building his political base on illegal immigration at present rates. He's building his base on fears of open borders, and Democrats are not helping by avoiding mentioning limits to welcomed immigration hordes.

There's a huge difference between the phrase "High medical bills" versus "Spending $4+ trillion per year on Medicare-for-All." For many spending $4+ trillion annually  on most any single government program is the most scary thing they can imagine. Others cannot even comprehend the difference between $3 billion versus $3 trillion as long as fat cats pay the difference. At $4+ trillion per year all cats will starve.

I also question how the sampling population "Americans" was sampled. It's virtually impossible in research such as this to even reach tens of millions of Americans, and there are tens of millions more who will refuse to give out such information when contacted,

In other words, I contend that this study is more misleading than helpful --- mostly due to  what questions are asked plus how all questions are worded

WaPost fact-checker gives Ocasio-Cortez four Pinocchios for Pentagon claim ---
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/419730-wapost-fact-checker-gives-ocasio-cortez-four-pinocchios-for-pentagon-claim


How to Mislead With Statistics
The Left Is Lying About Why Life Expectancy Is Declining ---
https://therevolutionaryact.com/left-lying-life-expectancy/

. . .

There isn’t a single piece of information produced by the CDC yesterday that would point to a deteriorating health care system or a poorly functioning one as the cause of the decrease in life expectancy.

 

In fact, the opposite may be true. For example, although the overall life expectancy dropped, the death rate amongst members of every age group except 25-44 year-olds and those over 84 years of age actually improved. Indeed, in those groups engaged in greater health care consumption and therefore more impacted by its quality (the 45-74 year olds) the mortality actually dropped.

 

And although one could correctly argue that 85 year-olds and older are also consumers of healthcare, the issues at play in this group are much more complicated and no conclusion could be gleamed from the data available. It was in those age groups that are not large consumers of health care where the mortality rate rose.

So, if it isn’t healthcare, what could be causing the death rates of 25-44 year-olds to rise so precipitously? The CDC, Dr. Raj, and even the Wall Street Journal answered this question: accidents and suicides made for a rising incidence of deaths, with smaller increases from pneumonia and influenza.  

 

Indeed, for the two biggest killers and the two most directly affected by the quality of healthcare delivered — heart disease and cancer — the death rates diminished markedly. (See Tables below.)

Continued in article


How to Mislead With Statistics
Executive Compensation at Private and Public Colleges ---
https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/executive-compensation?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=5bf52aed6e6e43f78f975b824c5d8930&elq=4a87f4bce9a24f229f506e5715ca9eba&elqaid=21627&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=10447#id=table_private_2016

Jensen Comment

All or part of the compensation may be fixed for some college executives versus being commission-based according to some performance metric such as a percentage of endowment funds raised. Those million-dollar salaries seem less outrageous when they are commission-based.

Some effort is made in the above data to adjust for varying perks that are part of compensation (such as free cars and housing) but many perks are just too complicated to value for the data. For example, some college executives benefit more from hitching rides on private jets than others. The typical private jet arrangement is to hitch a ride on a corporate jet where a corporate CEO is a rich alumnus and may even be on the college's Board of Trustees. Occasional and infrequent hitched rides may be entirely personal at no added cost to the company such as when a college executive's family hitches a ride to London for a vacation --- when the jet is going to London anyway on corporate business. Such a perk is seldom made to available to most employees down the line but may be made available to some top college executives.

It's sometimes hard to distinguish personal and professional perks. When I lived in San Antonio I was active in the Financial Executives Institute (FEI) and was even its President one year. One of my close FEI friends was the CFO of a well-known oil company. He occasionally invited me on a free jet ride, but this was an offer from a friend. I'm sure college executives get similar offers more because they are friends rather than because of their employment.

Do those free cars come with drivers at all times? Does that free mansion come complete with staff such as cooks and maids?

My point here is that perks are uniquely crafted such there may not be another college executive that has exactly the same perk package. There may be a driver or a house maid, but the executive may have partly pay those perks.

Some college executives need more expensive security packages at times when armed campus police must be nearby (even inside the house) or alongside on flights. When I was at Trinity University one of my daily coffee mates was a former Secret Service agent who had been assigned to Air Force One duty. Later in life while being Chief of security at  Trinity University he still had a license to carry a side arm on any commercial airline flight. I don't think he ever had to accompany his campus bosses (Trinity is a relatively non-controversial campus)  on any flight, but there are some college executives who at times need such security details on and off campus.

Of course there are a lot of fee receptions and dinners, but there are many times when the executives would rather be at home in the kitchen eating corn flakes.


How to mislead with statistics
Australia's horses and cows are killing more people than its snakes and spiders
https://www.businessinsider.com/australias-horses-and-cows-are-deadlier-than-its-snakes-and-spiders-2018-12

Jensen Comment
Big deal! Between 2008 and 2017, nine years, horses and cows killed 77 people in Australia. Does that make them a serious death threat? In most instances the cause of death is carelessness in handling the big animals.

Australia does have some of the most venomous snakes in the world. Apparently they don't kill many people --- most likely because they seldom come in contact with people ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venomous_snake

Spider bites are more apt to make you sick more than dead. In Australia the poisonous spiders are limited to certain regions ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_bite#Australia

Like everybody else in the world, Australians should worry more about heart disease and cancer.


2,000 MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) Getting Started in December 2018 ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/12/2000-moocs-massive-open-online-courses-getting-started-december-enroll-today.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

How MOOC Collaboration Could Aid On-Campus Teaching and Learning ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/views/2018/12/05/how-mooc-collaboration-could-aid-campus-teaching-and-learning

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


Harvard University's Extension School will offer its first coding boot camp in March 2019 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/12/07/harvard-offers-first-coding-boot-camp?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=8459ebc68b-DNU_WO20181203_PREV_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-8459ebc68b-197565045&mc_cid=8459ebc68b&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

Yale to offer coding boot camp ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/12/10/yale-offer-coding-boot-camp?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=c9b1789c5e-DNU_WO20181203_PREV_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-c9b1789c5e-197565045&mc_cid=c9b1789c5e&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

Bob Jensen's links to other coding boot camps ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#---ComputerNetworking-IncludingInternet


Earlier this year, I went through an academic existential crisis in which I questioned whether the field of research I’m in (personality psychology) is the right one for me.[1] So, I decided to lurk over the proverbial edge of the plate and ended up attending the Summer School on Socio-Economic Inequality in Bonn
Econ Envy
by Julia Roher
http://www.the100.ci/2018/12/04/econ-envy/

Jensen Comment
Perhaps Julia should think beyond economics and into accountancy (recalling that new accounting tenure-track faculty are probably the highest-paid new faculty on campus due to shortages of applicants) ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsWorkingPaper450.06.pdf


Potential Changes to UC’s Relationship with Elsevier in January 2019 ---
https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/news/potential-changes-to-ucs-relationship-with-elsevier-in-january-2019/

Bob Jensen's threads on how for-profit journal oligopoly publishers are ripping off libraries ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#ScholarlyJournals


28 Must Have Gadgets That Are Selling Out This Holiday Season ---
http://weeklypenny.com/perfect-gift/index.php?aff=1561&sub=MFRB_Perfect_Gifts&xcode=c8629fba-de7a-45c3-a462-5b1cd159320b

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


The 17 Most Shocking Airline Stories of 2018 ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/most-shocking-airline-stories-of-year-2018-12

The 40 Most Incredible Sports Plays of 2018 ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/top-sports-plays-2018-2018-12


The award, which aims to “draw attention to poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction”, was presented in Frey’s absence by the singer Kim Wilde at London’s In and Out club ---
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/dec/03/james-frey-wins-bad-sex-in-fiction-award-for-dubious-katerina


NYT:  Choosing the Right Health Savings Account ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/07/your-money/health-savings-account-hsa.html

NYT:  Fixing Medicare
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/opinion/fixing-medicare.html

Medicare for All: Administrative Costs Are Much Higher than You Think ---
https://mises.org/wire/medicare-all-administrative-costs-are-much-higher-you-think?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=8a83a2b8d3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-8a83a2b8d3-228708937


Seven Books Recommended by Stanford University Business Professors ---
Click Here
Jensen Comment
They may surprise you like they surprised me, especially what can supposedly be learned from the Grateful Dead 

NPR's Book Concierge: Our Guide to 2018's Great Reads ---
https://apps.npr.org/best-books-2018/

Jensen Comment
Among the various classifications you might particularly enjoy the "Seriously Great Writing Classification" ---
https://apps.npr.org/best-books-2018/#/tag/seriously-great-writing


The biggest remaining hurdle to mass electric vehicle ownership.---
https://www.businessinsider.com/chevy-bolt-review-best-features-and-charging-challenges-2018-8#but-while-initiating-a-charge-is-simple-charging-an-electric-vehicle-takes-far-longer-than-filling-it-with-gas-does-24

Jensen Comment
It's not the limited range per se. It's the time it takes to recharge the batteries. Hard-to-find professional charging stations for a Chevy Bolt only add 25 miles of range for each hour of charging. To get 200 miles of range you may have to sit four hours twiddling your thumbs unless your work place has professional charging stalls. On a family trip be be prepared to entertain bored kids before trying to get another 200 miles. I don't know the efficiency of older batteries. For example, does a Bolt with 75,000 miles have the same range as a new Bolt with only 1,000 miles on the odometer?

Teslas are a tad better on charging times ---
https://www.quora.com/How-long-does-it-take-to-charge-a-Tesla

Each Tesla model takes a different amount of time to fully charge as they have a different range.

Model - Model S - 75

Range (max) - 265 mi

Wall Connector - 75 kWh - 07:41 hours

Wall Connector - 100 kWh - 5:06 hours

Supercharger Station - 1:03 hours

Model - Model S - 75D

Range (max) - 275 mi

 Jensen Added Comment

In 2017 slightly less than 200,000 electric vehicles of all makes and models were sold in the USA, mostly to owners who also had at least one gasoline vehicle as well.  At the same time 17.5 million road vehicles of all makes and models were sold. The EV market is still in its infancy but, like an infant, growing fast.

Workers who commute daily might consider owning one EV and then renting a gas guzzler for each long road trip.

Electric riding mowers save on gas and pollution, but they're only good for about one hour on mowing on a full charge ---
https://www.cubcadet.com/equipment/cubcadet/zero-turn-riding-mowers/rzt%E2%84%A2-s-zero/features

I don't know of any electric farm tractors on the market that will replace diesel heavy-duty tractors.

Most buyers of electric trucks don't plan on taking them far away from town and are still experimenting (think FedEx).


Video:  Why are college textbooks so expensive?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv-60ZA-PnM

Jensen Comment
If a publisher really wants an excellent textbook more should be spent on the end-of-chapter questions and problems than on the chapter content.  Add to this the cost of providing a really high quality test bank for lazy teachers. Of course those test bank materials must be modified by astute teachers who know full well that students probably have access to and study from the test banks. Thus good test banks become great pedagogy for learning!


Tutorials:  Google Web Fundamentals: Accessibility ---
https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/accessibility/


The 18 biggest tech scandals of 2018 ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-tech-scandals-2018-11

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


Time studying is strongly correlated with grades earned, but the amount of time that students spend studying has declined dramatically ---
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/11/the-disappointing-impact-of-encouraging-students-to-study-more.html

Jensen Comment
Disgraceful grade inflation is the main reason students spend less time studying.
And teaching evaluations used for tenure and performance evaluations are the main cause of grade inflation.
There I said it, and I'm sticking to my assertion.

Bob Jensen's threads on grade inflation and the disgraceful impact of teaching evaluations ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#RateMyProfessor


Video:  How Singapore solved garbage disposal ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/singapore-waste-energy-garbage-landfill-space-2018-11


USC Marshall School of Business Dispute
A dispute in USC’s Marshall School of Business is shaping up to be a key test of a new approach to handling misconduct cases, and it’s pitting top administrators against some of the university’s major donors.
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/12/wealthy-usc-donors-revolt-after-interim-president-pushes-out-top-dean-over-handling-of-misconduct-ca.html


The Best Robotic Vacuum Cleaners For Every Budget ---
https://www.reviewgeek.com/10444/the-best-robotic-vacuum-cleaners-for-every-budget/

Jensen Comment
I'm still happy with my Electrolux Pure i9 that I paid around $950 for before it was price reduced to $720 ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/electrolux-pure-i9-robot-vacuum-review-2018-5
This is the Amazon site ---
https://www.amazon.com/Electrolux-Robotic-Vacuum-Shale-Satin/dp/B07CTJ4F1Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1544224075&sr=1-1&keywords=Electrolux+Pure+i9

Being Electrolux it has a powerful motor, and I really like the electric eye that keeps it from bumping to obstacles, stairs, and ledges where it might otherwise fall. It's relatively low to the ground and can get under some of our chairs and beds.

I do wish it had a larger dust bin. And mine is only good for about 30 minutes between chargings.

I do have trouble around some of our rugs that have very long fringes. It often says the following:
"I'm hung up. Please give me a nudge."

I also wish it was a bit more predictable about its cleaning patterns. It would be nice to be able to set it to do half a room at a time.


Professors Share: The Moment That Changed the Way Others Teach ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Professors-Share-The-Moment/245266?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=6069b573e12c4f8d98ecbc92d399fa07&elq=2e361fd055864a039d8961ea78397180&elqaid=21591&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=10385

Cathy N. Davidson

Distinguished professor and founder and director, The Futures Initiative

The Graduate Center, CUNY

Like many college professors, I find the rhetoric of "outputs" and "outcomes" artificial, a fake metric that feeds the bureaucratic machine. Six or seven years ago, I mentioned this in one of my undergraduate classrooms at Duke University. I said something like: "You will not find any trite and clichéd ‘outcomes’ on my syllabus." One of my students responded, with sincerity, "Will I find serious and meaningful ones?" This was a brilliant student who asked with such earnestness that it made me question my assumptions. We ended up having a superb class discussion during which I realized that most students have no idea what they are supposed to be learning in a classroom beyond the "content" level, nor do they know why the content is valid in and of itself nor what use or application or purpose it will have beyond the final exam. I now frequently ask my students to collaboratively think about what outcomes they would like from a particular class and compose their own learning outcomes. Here are three of the best outcomes I’ve encountered (and they are anything but trivial and bureaucratic).

1. Learn to respect one’s intellectual life and education as a precious gift that no one can steal from you.

2. Become a lifelong advocate for public support of public higher education because you have witnessed the way it has changed your life.

3. Stay alert to surprise. Many times — in class and out — the best learning outcomes are the ones you never expected.

 

Bryan Dewsbury

Assistant professor, department of biology

University of Rhode Island

As a graduate student, green to the art of teaching, I was handed a lab syllabus and basically implored to use my gregariousness to do no harm. The students I taught, at Florida International University, were largely first-generation college and/or immigrant students. I struggled to connect with them about the social reasons that influenced their presence in the classroom, both in terms of career choices and the unique ways in which they navigated being a college student. My struggles made me realize that I didn’t know them as people, and my teaching in that form was the mere delivery of a syllabus full of content. I interviewed every student in the class, asking them the reason for their career pursuit, and in the process learned their personal stories and recognized how little I knew about their cultural backgrounds. I then embarked on a months-long reading journey that helped me better understand their cultural and immigration histories, many of which were formed in nearby communities. From that point, I was able to design a course that spoke to their lived experiences but also provided opportunities for them to exhibit agency and find their voices.

That has always been my first experience truly learning what it means to be inclusive of the student voice. Since then, I am humbled, even in my large classes, to find ways for students to continue to tell me their stories, and to design an educational experience that helps them, and me, become better versions of ourselves.

 

Rajiv Jhangiani

Psychology instructor and special adviser to the provost on open education

Kwantlen Polytechnic University (British Columbia)

It was my very first semester of undergraduate study in Canada. I had moved halfway across the world (from India) as an international student and, although I was doing well academically, I was still struggling to adjust to life in a new country and cultural context. It wasn’t the big things that the tourist brochures and academic advisers had warned me about that tripped me up. It was the little things — having to learn how to operate a photocopying machine and a rotating combination lock, or remembering that the bus numbers remain the same for both directions of a single route.

My instructor for introductory psychology noted that I was quiet in class, read my biography (an early assignment in his class), and asked me to stay after one day. He asked about how I was doing outside of college, extended himself as a resource, emailed me periodically to check in, wrote me a letter of reference as I applied for my first job, and later even bought a painting from my mother (an artist who moved to Canada the following year). In short, he modeled compassion, kindness, and generosity. I will never forget my vivid realization at the end of that first semester that this was the career I wanted to embark on and precisely the kind of difference I wanted to make. So today when I begin my interactions with students from a place of compassion and trust, I trace this approach to him. His name is Michael MacNeill, and I will forever be grateful.

Statements of other teachers continued in article

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

Jensen Comment
The moment that changed the way I taught was discovery of Camtasia. Accounting theory topics I focused upon were particularly technical and difficult, e.g., FAS 133 and FAS 138 on accounting for derivative financial instruments contracts and hedging activities. It was obvious that there were enormous variations in my courses were some of the hardest working students seemed to follow me most of the time while others didn't have a clue. It was then that  I flipped my classroom. Students had to study my (eventual) scores of Camtasia videos on the most technical topics in the course. In an electronic classroom where each student had a computer that I could switch to display in front of the class the students then individually had to show the class what they'd learned from the Camtasia videos. Students no longer had to come after class for help sessions that I repeated over and over for 1-3 students at a time. Instead they played and replayed my Camtasia videos until that mastered each technical topic.

Mine was not a video course to the extent that students no longer met face to face in class. Examples of video courses include the ADEPT Masters of Engineering Program at Stanford and the year-long on campus basic accounting courses at BYU ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#BYUvideo

Video teaching requires highly motivated and disciplined learners. In my case my students were all masters degree students who had previously graduated with accounting majors. Video teaching is particularly effective when teaching technical topics that students learn better by playing the learning material over and over until they master the topics. The major complaint is the extent of content in my courses that students claimed to an unfair proportion of time spent on my courses. Students could watch the videos in small groups where they helped each other. And yes I did give tough final examinations.

After I retired in 2006 Microsoft removed a Windows codec such that all my Camtasia videos can no longer be played back. This would've angered me a great deal if I was still teaching. Such is one of the hazards of relying on technology.


Tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your Mac ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-mac-tips-tricks-keyboard-shortcuts-2018-4

Tale of an Unhappy Mac User ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-im-never-buying-an-apple-computer-again-2018-11


The world’s first fully autonomous passenger ferry has launched in Finland ---
https://venturebeat.com/2018/12/03/rolls-royce-demonstrates-fully-autonomous-passenger-ferry-in-finland/?utm_source=MIT+Technology+Review&utm_campaign=04f291eeb1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_12_04_12_43_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_997ed6f472-04f291eeb1-153727301

Jensen Comment
This is certainly more cost efficient and in some ways safer (e.g., avoiding pilot distractions) than a human-piloted ferry. But it does not overcome fundamental dangers such as the inability of larger ships to turn on a dime. I'm reminded years ago when we were watching Far Harbor fireworks from a tour boat. The boat's captain, my summer-cottage neighbor, was distracted by the fireworks until we looked up at a bright warning light of the huge Blue Nose Ferry coming from Nova Scotia coming straight at us. The ferry could've never turned in time to avoid hitting our tour boat. Fortunately, our engine was on idle and our captain revved it up in time to get us barely out of the patch of the Blue Nose.


China:  A Culture of Cheating
A half marathon in China made international news for all the wrong reasons: Hundreds of participants were caught cheating at the Shenzhen Half Marathon on November 25.Officials punished 258 runners for cheating ---

https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a25361215/runners-caught-cheating-shenzhen-half-marathon-on-camera/
Students riot over China's crackdown on exam cheating ---
https://www.ucanews.com/news/students-riot-over-chinas-crackdown-on-exam-cheating/68583


NYT Investigation:  Louisiana School Made Headlines for Sending Black Kids to Elite Colleges. Here’s the Reality ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/us/tm-landry-college-prep-black-students.html?elqTrackId=39d876d33bb84ff8ba9ff1d9a3b754f3&elq=a9781e478e4e4ab884c26d9213c9d2ff&elqaid=21547&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=10337
Also see
https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2018/12/03/admissions-officials-react-exposé-about-transcript-fraud-and-abuse?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=7ecf161916-DNU_WO20181203_PREV_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-7ecf161916-197565045&mc_cid=7ecf161916&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

Charter Schools:  About that ‘ 100 percent’ college claim ---
http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ODN/SanAntonioExpressNews/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=SAEN%2F2018%2F12%2F03&entity=Ar01100&sk=929D8CBE&mode=text
Thank you Ken Hummel for the heads up

Bob Jensen's threads on academic cheating ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm


In the Victorian era, a different kind of ghostwriting became popular—largely because it allowed men to take all the credit ---
https://daily.jstor.org/wb-yeats-live-in-spirit-medium/


A College President Accused of Plagiarism ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/12/03/president-lemoyne-owen-college-accused-plagiarism?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=7ecf161916-DNU_WO20181203_PREV_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-7ecf161916-197565045&mc_cid=7ecf161916&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

. . .

“A few members of the LeMoyne-Owen College faculty are calling for my resignation because they feel I plagiarized a sermon by Joel Osteen. The fact is I did use material from Joel Osteen within the boundaries of Fair Use, which means I may not photocopy or print text for distribution,” her statement read in part. “In my notes, I have a statement giving credit to Pastor Osteen that I may have overlooked while delivering the speech. In that instance, it would be an oversight and does not constitute a serious breach of academic standards that would rise to level of review for faculty or students. The faculty as a body did not call for my resignation. It is no secret that organizational changes, the pace of change and our new direction at LeMoyne-Owen College has caused consternation among some faculty members. Still, I am committed to ensuring this 156-year-old institution achieves new heights in outcomes for the students and families we serve.”

Jensen Comment
In my opinion, the boundaries of Fair Use do not include absence of citation even in a speech. You still have to cite sources even when you're quoting without permission. The Fair Use safe harbor in the DMCA allows for limited use of copyrighted material without seeking permission or paying, but to my knowledge the sources must still be cited. You can learn more about the boundaries of Section 107 (Fair Use) of the DMCA ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm#Copyright
Inappropriate use of Fair Use is very common in academia, although in most cases I think teachers cite the sources. For example, a professor who plays a 30-minute portion of a NetFlix video in class is probably not protected by Section 107 of the DMCA. However, that teacher most likely cited the source (the film's source) of the video. In most many instances Section 107 is violated by playing more than 30 seconds of the video in class or by making a copy of an entire chapter of a book available on Blackboard or Moodle server without permission to do so.

Fair Use safe harbors in copyright law are not common outside the USA.

One of the main purposes of a Fair Use safe harbor is to make it difficult for copyright owners to remain above criticism by their refusal to allow reasonably long/short quotations. This obviously did does no apply in the above controversial plagiarism at LeMoyne-Owen College. The length of the quotation is not the issue in this case. It's the lack of citation during her speech. I frequently (daily) use quotations. But I always cite sources. One of my readers (not an author) disputes the lengths of some of my quotations. One time an author complained, and after I removed the entire quotation from my Website the author wrote back and requested that I restore the long quotation. Another time a university requested that I remove a quotation that had been removed from it's own Website.

I have had a number of requests from people mentioned in my Website where they want original sources of their names to be forgotten. For example, I once quoted from an San Antonio Express News article about a former student who owned a business that went bankrupt. The student, not the SAEN newspaper, requested that I no longer mention that student's name in my Website. I removed his name. He shortly thereafter was doing quite well as a CFO of a successful company.

Would this be an appropriate use of Section 107 (Fair Use) of the DMCA?
The above LeMoyne-Owen College plagiarism controversy raises a question I sometimes think about, but I've never seen this question answered.
Suppose President Miller at Lemoyne-Owen College announced at the beginning of her speech that she would be using one or more non-cited short quotations during the speech. However, suppose she also announced that the speech would afterwards  be posted at a Website with appropriate citations of those quotations. Would this be an appropriate use of Section 107 (Fair Use) of the DMCA?

Plagiarists plagiarized: A daisy chain of retractions at Anesthesia & Analgesia ---
https://retractionwatch.com/2010/11/24/plagiarists-plagiarized-a-daisy-chain-of-retractions-at-anesthesia-analgesia/

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

Joe Biden --- Beyond Plagiarism
If only Vice President Joe Biden had stuck to plagiarism. But he apparently hasn’t learned. In 1987, he copied and used a large chunk of a speech given by British labor leader Neil Kinnock, even though some of the facts (related to family history) didn’t match his own.
A.W.R. Hawkins, Human Events, April 14, 2009 --- http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=31447

When a ghost writer plagiarizes where does the fault lie for that plagiarism?
This raises a question about use of ghost writers. Celebrities (including leaders of nations) often hire ghost writers to entire speeches or parts thereof. When a ghost writer plagiarizes where does the fault lie for that plagiarism?

I had a student that I gave an F to because of a plagiarized term paper. That student, however, did not write the plagiarized paper. One of his employees he hired to write the term paper plagiarized. In any case he cheated enough to earn his F grade.


Supply-Side Economics --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply-side_economics

Economics Blog Recommendation
Miles Kimball, a Professor at the University of Michigan
Confessions of a Supply-Side Liberal
https://blog.supplysideliberal.com/
Supply side solutions to macroeconomic issues and monetary policy. His arguments are well written and thoroughly researched.


The long, tortured quest to make Google unbiased ---
https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/6/18125879/search-neutrality-google-bias-seo-rigged-sundar-pichai-congress-eu

Jensen Comment
One type of bias arises when you're search for a B&B hotel's home page. In the listing of hits the first 20 or more are usually third-party booking sites and not the hotel's home page.

When I'm seeking home pages I usually avoid Google ant go to
DuckDuckGo --- https://duckduckgo.com/

A worse alleged bias is when Google liberals allegedly suppress respected conservative sites.
This is why I often use Microsoft's Bing
https://www.bing.com/

This graph shows 90% of political donations from big tech workers went to the Democrats, with Googlers leading the charge ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-apple-amazon-netflix-google-political-donations-graph-2018-11

Top U.S. general says it’s ‘inexplicable’ that Google would seek business with China but not work with the military ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/r-top-us-general-urges-google-to-work-with-military-2018-12
Jensen Comment
Why is it so surprising? Google is headquartered in California.


Find a corporate home page quite easily by going to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_of_the_United_States

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


Can your tell the difference between a real face and one rendered by AI? Give it a try.
http://nikola.mit.edu/experiment?utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=68183497&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9xPH4H2FoQ185CkCEkWyW70CKdgMR7V55h5L3ixhxGyZWAGD-bFHeH_VknsudxDddLgygsZrcp-uIqKBcdGfnArxsoCA&_hsmi=68183497

Jensen Comment
I think this must be a great new tool for the police to generate a face consistent with descriptions from a witness.


Different Ways to Understand Blockchain ---
https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/podcast/ways-to-understand-blockchain.html?utm_source=mnl:cpald&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10Dec2018

AICPA's Blockchain Certificate ---
https://www.aicpastore.com/blockchain-fundamentals-for-accounting-and-finance/PRDOVR~PC-188140/PC-188140.jsp?utm_source=mnl:cpald&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10Dec2018


From The Chronicle of Higher Education newsletter on December 4, 2018

Majoring in a Discipline that Interests You Versus Majoring in a Discipline Leading to a Career

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:

Majors, skills, and job-market success.

Fans of the liberal arts (count this history major among them) have been conditioned to cringe when the national discourse about the value of college ends up directing job-conscious students away from programs that actually interest them and toward ones that they think will be more practical.

Now two new reports, based on the labor-market experiences of millions of college graduates, show that the cringing may be legit. The reports — one from the company Burning Glass and the other from the Strada Institute for the Future of Work — highlight the ways that majors like philosophy and communications can imbue students with the very skills that today’s employers are seeking. In many cases, these can also be a better choice of a major than business or some other occupational-seeming discipline.

But the operative word here is “can.” Without some intentional tweaks, the reports argue, such liberal-arts departments won’t necessarily equip students to avoid underemployment (the focus of the Burning Glass report), or help them navigate a work environment increasingly dominated by automation (the theme of the Strada report).

One of the things I like in the “Robot Ready” report, from Strada, is the way it takes an in-demand but vague job skill and then sort of reverse-engineers it to show the ways someone with such a skill might apply it in a variety of fields. The report shows, for example, that a person skilled in communications might eventually work as a grief counselor in behavioral health, as a social-media manager in marketing, or in management training in human resources.

Do colleges get that? Maybe. Should they? According to the report’s authors, yes. Liberal-arts programs “must develop clearer pictures of the common careers of liberal-arts majors while developing a more precise language for the skills that they will need to develop and take with them as they transition within the job market,” the report says. Colleges that leave students unaware of how to translate their skills, the report argues, will “fumble the handoff from college to career.”

I was also intrigued by the stats in the Burning Glass report, “Majors That Matter: Ensuring College Graduates Avoid Underemployment.” One set of data showed that some business majors were more likely to be underemployed than, say, psychology majors who happened to have budgeting or research skills.

Underlying this is a simple theme — that adding a hard skill or two to a liberal-arts major will take a student farther. As I’ve reported, Burning Glass has highlighted this theme before. The company’s chief executive, Matthew Sigelman, is still trying to get that message across.

“Majors matter. Skills matter more,” Sigelman told me. Regardless of the department, he says, “we have to pay a lot more attention to what we teach in departments.” That means ensuring not only that history majors learn at least a little about research methods, but also that students in occupationally focused majors, like leisure studies, don’t miss out on the intellectual exploration typically emphasized in the humanities.

“An unfortunate decision about a major doesn’t have to consign you to a lifetime of underemployment,” says Sigelman.

As much as I appreciate the messages of both reports — and especially Sigelman’s assessment that backers of the liberal arts need to be “spending less time on the back foot” defending the value of such programs — I also sense a disconnect. A lot of what these reports recommend, such as greater use of project-based learning in classroom settings (Strada) and a greater focus on internships (Burning Glass), are already common practice at many colleges. In fact, just last week, in The Chronicle
”s Teaching newsletter, my colleague Dan Berrett described recent surveys of students and professors that show how often students are already exposed to real-world situations as part of their undergraduate experience.

OK, perhaps these practices aren’t yet as widespread as they should be. But worthy efforts deserve their due. And a reminder of the need for greater intentionality around liberal-arts majors probably doesn’t hurt.

Jensen Comment
Some careers are more tolerant of undergraduate specialties than others.

For example law and business careers are usually quite tolerant of undergraduate studies provided graduates later go to law schools or MBA programs.

Careers in accountancy, engineering, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, etc. are far less tolerant. For example, an English major seeking to become an accountant will have to take the many undergraduate accounting courses required to sit for the CPA exam.

Humanities often take a beating when students are focused on post-graduate careers. However, mistakes can also be made in STEM fields. Prospects are pretty bleak for undergraduate physics, geology, and chemistry majors who do not go on for Ph.D. degrees. Prospects are not so bleak for programmers, nurses, dental hygienists, and pharmacists. Accountants and engineers often have to get masters degrees for better job prospects, but having undergraduate degrees in those fields greatly reduces the time needed for those masters degrees.

Sometimes career advisers and advising literatures are misleading. For example, I recently read where one of the top career opportunities is in zoology. Yes there are opportunities that are pretty good due to the relatively small numbers of majors in zoology. However, if tens of thousands of students leap into zoology as a major they will find that the numbers of job openings in zoology are quite small.

One of the things students should consider is the entry-level opportunity for graduates in some disciplines. Accountants and nurses face relatively good opportunities for entry-level openings that do not require experience (most graduates  these days only had a few superficial few weeks of internship).  Criminology and business graduates often encounter "experience required" constraints.

Prestige of the university can make a huge difference. For example, MBA and law graduates of flagship universities generally have many more opportunities than comparable graduates from less-reputable universities. My point is that the value of a specialty degree many depend greatly on where you got that degree, but this can also vary with the specialty. Accountants and nurses have better prospects than MBA graduates from less-reputable universities.


Inside the massive (Nevada) factory where Tesla will soon make 60 percent of the world’s lithium-ion batteries ---
https://www.theverge.com/transportation/2018/11/30/18118451/tesla-gigafactory-nevada-video-elon-musk-jobs-model-3

Jensen Comment
Audit reports must now discuss both sustainability and financial risks. The above article seems to avoid mention of the biggest risk to this company --- the risk of being dependent upon an oligopoly of foreign-based lithium suppliers.

Lithium --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#Production

There's also some political risk, especially from the EU's revenue-salivating monopoly hunters ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_competition_law

Google threatened with break up by EU over monopoly fears ---
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-eu-competiton-commission-threat-margrethe-vestager-search-monopoly-anti-trust-laws-a8273961.html

Amazon’s looming challenge: Europe’s antitrust laws ---
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/21/17887008/amazon-europe-antitrust-laws


What Is the Purpose of Final Exams, Anyway?
https://www.chronicle.com/article/What-Is-the-Purpose-of-Final/245127?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=203ecebbd09149f69bf3bc17ee0396da&elq=ded3c96570ad4183b3bf56485d801aed&elqaid=21513&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=10312

As the calendar flipped to November, the anxiety level for both me and my students ratcheted up a notch as well. For me, the beginning of the semester’s penultimate month is a reminder that there is still SO MUCH LEFT TO DO. For my students, though, November means they’re that much closer to the dreaded Final Exam Week.

If your campus is anything like mine, there are all sorts of student customs that cluster around finals week. At my university, for example, students call the last week of classes before finals "Dead Week." I’ve never been able to ascertain the exact meaning of the label. Some students tell me it means professors are not supposed to assign any work that week, while others claim it’s simply how they feel going into final exams. Either way, it seems to be generally accepted that everyone is not at their best during that pre-finals week.

We can at least partially dismiss the aura that surrounds finals week as gallows humor, but its well-earned reputation as a period of concentrated, brutal stress makes me wonder if we might be going about the work of ending the semester in the wrong way. When I began my teaching career, every course I taught ended with a comprehensive final exam — in-class, with short-answer and essay questions. I didn’t think about why. Indeed, it never occurred to me to not to give a final. That was just how things were done in academe.

As I continued teaching, however — and saw more than a few students do A work all semester only to be derailed by one bad day during finals week — I began to wonder: What is the purpose of final exams, anyway?

Well, duh, you may be tempted to reply: Final exams are to see if our students learned anything in the course. Fair enough, but does one high-stakes assessment really give an accurate picture of that? I can’t help but wonder if this argument is the equivalent of declaring that the winner of the Indianapolis 500 is whoever has the best final lap, as it certainly seems more important than the previous 199 circuits around the track.

Sure, a high-stakes summative assessment — one that students complete in the same compressed time frame as three or four other assessments of the same nature — might measure student learning. More likely, in my experience, it shows: (a:) which students are tired, stressed, sick, or overwhelmed, and (b) which ones are good at taking tests (and good test takers haven’t necessarily mastered the course material).

What does your final exam really show? Put simply, is a traditional final exam the best way to assess if, what, and how much learning has occurred? Or is it a practice that reflects older ways of thinking — which equated student learning with academic performance? Is it sustained more by inertia than pedagogical value?

When I started posing those questions to my colleagues a few years back, I got a wide range of answers:

Clearly there is no one-size-fits-all prescription for final exams. But my conversations with colleagues also made me realize that not thinking about what I was doing at the end of the semester — and, more important, why I was doing it — was a form of pedagogical malpractice.

Continue in article

Jensen Comment
In my opinion, the final exam is less important than the grade distribution of a course. In Lake Wobegon the median grade for each course is A- before and after the final exam ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon 

Personally I think the final exam is a great learning tool provided students experience perspiration, blood, and tears --- because the final exam can raise or lower their cumulative grade before the final exam.

If there's no final exam then there is a Santa Claus.

November 30, 2018 reply from Tom Amlie

It's very rare (in my experience, at least) for a final exam to change a student's final grade, except at the margin. Occasionally someone with a "B" average moves to a "B-" or a"B+", or occasionally someone hanging on by their fingernails to a "C" slips to a "D" (usually the grade slips down; very seldom will it move up). For my part, the cumulative final exam is designed to measure whether a student has actually learned and retained the "high points" of what has been covered over the course of the semester. Lots of students can cram the night before and put a few weeks worth of material into short-term memory for the assignments over the course of the semester. The more important question for me is "what are they taking out of the class at the end of the semester?" If they've done well over all of the short-run assignments, and yet at the end of the semester can't remember some of the more fundamental concepts, then the final exam is doing exactly what it's supposed to do by revealing that.

Tom Amlie


What does economic evidence tell us about the effects of rent control? ---
https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-does-economic-evidence-tell-us-about-the-effects-of-rent-control/

. . .

Rent control appears to help affordability in the short run for current tenants, but in the long-run decreases affordability, fuels gentrification, and creates negative externalities on the surrounding neighborhood. These results highlight that forcing landlords to provide insurance to tenants against rent increases can ultimately be counterproductive. If society desires to provide social insurance against rent increases, it may be less distortionary to offer this subsidy in the form of a government subsidy or tax credit. This would remove landlords’ incentives to decrease the housing supply and could provide households with the insurance they desire. A point of future research would be to design an optimal social insurance program to insure renters against large rent increases.

Continued in article


Education Week:  Students Say Schools Don't Give Them Skills They Need to Succeed After Graduation ---
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rulesforengagement/2018/11/students_say_schools_arent_giving_them_the_skills_they_need_to_succeed_after_graduation_survey_finds.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news2&M=58684691&U=2290378&UUID=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f

Jensen Comment
Much of the focus is on personal and social skills. I think maybe they don't know enough to know what other skills are lacking --- like financial literacy.


Reasons Why Elon Musk should rescue a GM factory in Ohio ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-tesla-should-rescue-a-gm-factory-in-ohio-2018-11

Jensen Comment
As the article mentions, a friction here is Musk's dislike for labor unions.


Shutdown of 70-campus Education Corporation of America is largest closure since collapse of Corinthian Colleges and ITT Tech ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/12/06/closure-education-corporation-america-raises-questions-about-oversight-and-support?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=70dd21541c-DNU_WO20181203_PREV_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-70dd21541c-197565045&mc_cid=70dd21541c&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

Jensen Comment
My feeling is good riddance to bad business. To get and keep market share in business you have to offer something worth paying for.


After publishers sued Sci-Hub, Russian ISPs are now preventing users from accessing the valuable scientific data repository and paywall killer ---
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gy7d7j/sci-hub-and-lib-gen-continue-to-get-attacked-around-the-world

Jensen Comment
In the networking age of electronic publishing, all academic journals should be open-sourced. Knowledge yearns to be free.


Top seven mistakes when claiming Social Security benefits ---
https://www.thetaxadviser.com/issues/2018/dec/seven-mistakes-claiming-social-security-benefits.html?utm_source=mnl:adv&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=03Dec2018

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


Microsoft's surprising comeback over Apple is the outcome of two new CEOs with radically different game plans ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-nadella-is-product-visionary-apple-tim-cook-isnt-2018-11


Different Ways to Understand Blockchain ---
https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/podcast/ways-to-understand-blockchain.html?utm_source=mnl:cpald&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10Dec2018

AICPA's Blockchain Certificate ---
https://www.aicpastore.com/blockchain-fundamentals-for-accounting-and-finance/PRDOVR~PC-188140/PC-188140.jsp?utm_source=mnl:cpald&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10Dec2018


Madoff Victims Recoveries to Date ---
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-recovering-madoff-money/


 

 

 

 





From the Scout Report on November 30, 2018

YaCy --- https://yacy.net/en/index.html
YaCy (sounds like "ya see") is a peer-to-peer distributed search engine. It can be used in one of two modes: proxy mode and crawling mode. In proxy mode, YaCy runs locally on a user's computer and builds an index of sites that the user has visited. In essence, this mode gives users a content-based search of their browsing history. In crawling mode, users provide a list of domains which are then spidered and indexed. This mode can be used to build a search interface for intranet sites that may otherwise lack one. In crawling mode, users may also opt to enable the peer-to-peer features, sharing their indexed pages with the YaCy freeworld network. A set of video tutorials explaining how to configure and use these different modes is presented in the tutorials section of the YaCy site. In the search portal section, users can obtain a list of the current nodes in the freeworld search network and can try out searches on the network. YaCy can be downloaded for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Links to installation tutorials are provided alongside the installer downloads.


Taiga --- https://taiga.io/
Taiga is an award-winning open source project management platform. It was designed specifically to support Agile development workflows in an integrated, intuitive way. It provides issue tracking, a wiki, task management, team management, and other features, all built around Scrum or Kanban views to help manage a project. Importers for others platforms allow users to pull in data from other platforms like Trello, Jira, Asana, or GitHub. Taiga also provides a REST API that developers can use to interact with Taiga and build their own additional integrations or automation. The hosted version of Taiga provides unlimited public projects and a single three-member private project. Higher levels of service are available for a fee. Alternately, users may install and run Taiga instances on their own hardware following the installation guide located in the docs section of Taiga's support pages. Taiga is free software, licensed under the AGPL v3, with source code available on GitHub.


Shakespeare Documented --- https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/
Originally featured on 2/26/2016, Shakespeare Documented continues to be an excellent, incredibly rich resource for enthusiasts of the Bard, as well as for educators in history, literature, and theater. This collaboration between the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford, the British Library, the Shakespeare Birth Trust, and the National Archives, which was convened by the Folger Shakespeare Library, is perhaps the largest collection of primary source materials related to William Shakespeare. The exhibit concentrates its considerable erudition on documents contemporary to Shakespeare's life and times. The documents have been organized into four categories: Playwright, actor & shareholder (205 items); Shakespeare the poet (67 items); Family, legal & property records (186 items); and 17th-century legacies (33 items). In addition, within the exhibition section, readers may filter the documents by useful tags such as repository, people, plays & poetry, decade, medium, and highlights. Readers may also sort the collection by oldest to newest or vice versa. For educators looking for primary resources to enliven their lesson plans - or for anyone with a strong affinity for the English language's greatest wordsmith - this website is unparalleled in its depth.

 

 

 




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


Education Tutorials

Videos:  Ethics Unwrapped --- https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/

NASA: Scientist for a Day --- https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/scientist-for-a-day/home/

Google Web Fundamentals: Accessibility ---
https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/accessibility/

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

Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume II ---
https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/

New Zealand Birds Online --- http://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/

The spread of low-credibility content by social bots --- www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06930-7

The 2018 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change --- www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2818%2932594-7/fulltext

The evolutionary dynamics of microRNAs in domestic mammals --- www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-34243-8

From the Scout Report on November 30, 2018

Successful Landing of NASA's Mars InSight Mission

 

NASA's InSight Mission Has Touched Down on Mars to Study the Red Planet's Deep Secrets
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/26/science/nasa-insight-mars-landing.html

New Mars lander safely touches down. What happens now?
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/11/mars-insight-lander-touches-down-what-happens-now-space

With Mars InSight: NASA Spacecraft Set Up for Exploring 'Red Planet' After Landing
http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/11/29/mars-exploration-insight-nasa-space

NASA: Mars InSight Mission
https://mars.nasa.gov/insight

Martians of Tomorrow
https://www.challenger.org/martians

 

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 ,

 r


Social Science and Economics Tutorials

The spread of low-credibility content by social bots --- www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06930-7

African Education Research Database --- https://essa-africa.org/AERD

Being Black in the EU --- http://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2018/eumidis-ii-being-black

American Indian Digital History Project --- http://aidhp.com/

IIASA PURE (large-scale interdisciplinary social research) --- http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/

Kindred Britain (genealogy) --- http://kindred.stanford.edu/#

Database of Classical Scholars --- https://dbcs.rutgers.edu/

UK in a Changing Europe --- http://ukandeu.ac.uk/

Fashion:  99% Invisible: Articles of Interest --- https://99percentinvisible.org/aoi/

The 2018 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change --- www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2818%2932594-7/fulltext

Celebrating Simms (African American History) --- https://omeka.lib.jmu.edu/simms/

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

Videos:  Ethics Unwrapped --- https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/

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


Math Tutorials,

Science Friday: Explosion Math --- www.sciencefriday.com/educational-resources/explosion-math

Mathematical Association of America: On This Day --- www.maa.org/news/on-this-day

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

American Indian Digital History Project --- http://aidhp.com/

The Lone Woman and Last Indians Digital Archive --- http://calliope.cse.sc.edu/lonewoman

The Thoughtful Note That George H.W. Bush Left on Bill Clinton’s Desk Before Leaving the White House (1993) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/12/thoughtful-note-george-h-w-bush-left-bill-clintons-desk-leaving-white-house-1993.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

IIASA PURE (large-scale interdisciplinary social research) --- http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/

Database of Classical Scholars --- https://dbcs.rutgers.edu/

These 17 photos show Finland's brutally cold World War II battle with the Soviet Union ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/ussr-russia-finald-wwii-winter-war-photos-2017-3

Here's how the US pulled off a daring mission to take out the mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbor ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/operation-vengeance-us-kills-pearl-harbor-planner-isoroku-yamamoto-2018-12

See the Complete Works of Vermeer in Augmented Reality: Google Makes Them Available on Your Smartphone ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/12/see-the-complete-works-of-vermeer-in-augmented-reality.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Clergy of the Church of England Database --- http://theclergydatabase.org.uk/

Mathematical Association of America: On This Day --- www.maa.org/news/on-this-day

Celebrating Simms (African American History) --- https://omeka.lib.jmu.edu/simms/

Jello-O: America's Most Famous Dessert: At Home Everywhere --- www.lib.umich.edu/online-exhibits/exhibits/show/jell-o

Fashion:  99% Invisible: Articles of Interest --- https://99percentinvisible.org/aoi/

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

 

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

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


Writing Tutorials

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



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

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

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

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

December 1, 2018

December 4, 2018

December 6, 2018

December 7, 2018

December 8, 2018

 

 

 

 


A1 versus A2 Cows:  How Important is A1 Milk Protein as a Public Health Issue? ---
https://blog.supplysideliberal.com/post/2018/11/13/how-important-is-a1-milk-protein-as-a-public-health-issue

Evidence that High Insulin Levels Lead to Weight Gain ---
https://blog.supplysideliberal.com/post/2018/11/27/evidence-that-high-insulin-levels-lead-to-weight-gain


A1 versus A2 Cows:  How Important is A1 Milk Protein as a Public Health Issue? ---
https://blog.supplysideliberal.com/post/2018/11/13/how-important-is-a1-milk-protein-as-a-public-health-issue


A Very Mixed Record on Grad Student Mental Health ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/12/06/new-research-graduate-student-mental-well-being-says-departments-have-important
Thank you Ed Scribner for the heads up


How Music Can Awaken Patients with Alzheimer’s and Dementia ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/12/music-can-awaken-patients-alzheimers-dementia.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Batten Disease --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batten_disease
Jensen Comment
My wife has a nephew and niece who both died in early childhood from Batten Disease. This is an insidious affliction where body functions (walking, talking, eating, bowel movements, seeing, etc.) fail in stages. Perhaps the last or nearly the last to go is hearing. Seemingly this may be the case of dementia. Purportedly on occasion people in a coma hear things --- which is why loved ones sometimes read to them.  I'm also told that some autistic children respond to music therapy and a few have inexplicable music talents. Life is a mystery.


 




Humor for December 2018

51 hilarious White Elephant gifts under $50 that are guaranteed to get a good laugh ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/best-funny-white-elephant-gifts-2018-10


Forwarded by Kimberlyn

Ode to the Spell Checker

Eye halve a spelling chequer It came with my pea sea It plainly marques four my revue Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word And weight four it two say Weather eye am wrong oar write It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid It nose bee fore two long And eye can put the error rite Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it I am shore your pleased two no Its letter perfect awl the weigh My chequer tolled me sew.


NPR's 2018 Comedy Book Recommendations ---
https://apps.npr.org/best-books-2018/#/tag/funny-stuff


Forwarded by Paula

A New York woman was so depressed that she decided to end her life by throwing herself into the ocean. Just before she could throw herself from the docks, a handsome young man stopped her.

"You have so much to live for," said the man. "I'm a sailor. We're off to Italy tomorrow. I can stow you away on my ship. I'll take care of you, bring you food every day, & keep you happy."

With nothing to lose, combined with the fact that she had always wanted to go to Italy, the woman accepted.

That night the sailor brought her aboard & hid her in a small but comfortable compartment in the hold. From then on, every night he would bring her sandwiches, red wine, & they would make love til dawn.

Three weeks later she was discovered by the captain during a routine inspection. "What are you doing here?" asked the captain.

"I have an arrangement with one of the sailors," she replied. "He brings me food & I get a free trip to Italy."

"I see," the captain says.

Her conscience got the best of her so she added, "Plus he's screwing me."

"He certainly is," replied the captain. "This is the Staten Island Ferry."


Announcement from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3709164/posts

IRISH AIRLINES....

After being airborne approximately thirty minutes on an outbound evening Air Lingus flight from Dublin, the lead flight attendant nervously made the following painful announcement in her lovely Irish brogue:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm so very sorry, but it appears that there has been a terrible mix-up by our catering service. I don't know how this has happened, but they did not deliver our meals until one minute prior to take-off. We have 103 passengers on board, and, unfortunately, we received only 40 dinner meals. I truly apologize for this mistake and inconvenience."

When passengers' muttering had died down, she continued, "Anyone who is kind enough to give up their meal so that someone else can eat, will receive free, unlimited drinks for the duration of our 4 hour flight."

Her next announcement came about 2 hours later...

"If anyone would like to change their minds, we still have 40 dinners available"

 

Forwarded by Paula

For those who travel, often the best food is a truck stop.  wonder what the waitress would have to say if someone actually ordered their breakfast as this guy did?

A trucker came into a Truck Stop Cafe' and placed his order. He said, "I want three flat tires, a pair of headlights and a pair of running boards."

The brand new blonde waitress, not wanting to appear stupid, went to the kitchen and said to the cook, "This guy out there just ordered three flat tires, a pair of headlights and a pair of running boards. What does he think this place is, an auto parts store?"

'No,' the cook said. 'Three flat tires... mean three pancakes; a pair of headlights... is two eggs sunny side up; and a pair of running boards...are 2 slices of crisp bacon"

 'Oh... OK!' said the blonde. She thought about it for a moment and then spooned up a bowl of beans and gave it to the customer.

 The trucker asked, 'What are the beans for, Blondie?'

 She replied, 'I thought while you were waiting for the flat tires, headlights and running boards, you might as well gas up!

Forwarded by Paula

Did I read that sign right?

"TOILET OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW."

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ -

In a Laundromat:

AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES: PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT.

------------------------------ ------------------------------ -----------------------------

In a London department store:

BARGAIN BASEMENT UPSTAIRS...

------------------------------ ------------------------------ -------------------------

In an office:

WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER YESTERDAY PLEASE BRING IT BACK OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN.

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ---------------

In an office:

AFTER TEA BREAK, STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE TEAPOT AND STAND UPSIDE DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD.

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ --

Outside a second-hand shop:

WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING - BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES, ETC. WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ --

Notice in health food shop window:

CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS...

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------

Spotted in a safari park:  
(I sure hope so.)

ELEPHANTS, PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR.

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ---------

Seen during a conference:

FOR ANYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN AND DOESN'T KNOW IT, THERE IS A DAY CARE ON THE 1ST FLOOR.

------------------------------ ------------------------------ --------------------------

Notice in a farmer's field:

THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE, BUT THE BULL CHARGES.

------------------------------ ------------------------------ --------------------

Message on a leaflet:

IF YOU CANNOT READ, THIS LEAFLET WILL TELL YOU HOW TO GET LESSONS.

------------------------------ ------------------------------ -----------------------

On a repair shop door:

WE CAN REPAIR ANYTHING. (PLEASE KNOCK HARD ON THE DOOR - THE BELL DOESN'T WORK.)

Proofreading is a dying art, wouldn't you say?

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ --

Man Kills Self Before Shooting Wife

And Daughter

This one I caught in the SGV Tribune the other day and called the Editorial Room and asked who wrote this. It took two or three readings before the editor realized that what he was reading was impossible!!! They put in a correction the next day.

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ -----------------

Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

Really? Ya' think?

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ----------------------

Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers

Now that's taking things a bit far!

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ---------------------

Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over

What a guy!  
------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ---------------------

Miners Refuse to Work after Death

No-good-for-nothing' lazy so-and-so's!

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ---------------------

Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant  
See if that works better than a fair trial!

  ----------------------------- ------------------------------ ------------------------------ -----------------------

War Dims Hope for Peace

I can see where it might have that effect!

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ----------------------

If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile

Ya' think?!

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ----------------------

Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures

Who would have thought!

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ ---------------------

Enfield ( London ) Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide

They may be on to something!

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ --------------------

Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges

You mean there's something stronger than duct tape?  
------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ --------------------

Man Struck By Lightning: Faces Battery Charge

He probably IS the battery charge!

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ --------------------

New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group

Weren't they fat enough?!

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ --------------------

Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft

That's what he gets for eating those beans!

------------------------------ ------------------------------ ------------------------------ --------------------

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks

Do they taste like chicken?

****************************** ****************************** ********************

Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half

Chainsaw Massacre all over again!

****************************** ****************************** ****************************** ****

Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors

Boy, are they tall!

****************************** ****************************** ****************************** *****

And the winner is...

Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead

Did I read that right?

 

 




Humor November 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q4.htm#Humor1118.htm 

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