Tidbits on April 16 2019
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

Maple Sugar Season is in Deep 2019 Snow
Here are my friend Wes Lavin's 2019 Maple Sugar Season Photographs

http://www.cs.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/Lavin/2019April/2019April01.htm  

 

 

 

Tidbits on April 16, 2019
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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 

My Latest Web Document
Over 400 Examples of Critical Thinking and Illustrations of How to Mislead With Statistics --
-
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/MisleadWithStatistics.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

Animated  Visualization of the United States’ Exploding Population Growth Over 200 Years (1790 – 2010) ---
A Visualization of the United States’ Exploding Population Growth Over 200 Years (1790 – 2010)

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

In September 2017 the USA National Debt exceeded $20 trillion for the first time ---
http://www.statedatalab.org/news/detail/national-debt-surpasses-20-trillion-for-the-first-time-in-us-history

Human Population Over Time on Earth ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUwmA3Q0_OE 




Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio

Hidden Figures Curriculum & Discussion Guides (educational video) --- https://journeysinfilm.org/download/hidden-figures-curriculum-guide/

Economics 101: Hedge Fund Investor Ray Dalio Explains How the Economy Works in a 30-Minute Animated Video ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/04/economics-101-by-ray-dalio.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Five Animations Introduce the Media Theory of Noam Chomsky, Roland Barthes, Marshall McLuhan, Edward Said & Stuart Hall ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/04/animated-short-videos-introduce-5-heavyweights-of-media-criticism.html

An Animated History of Dogs, Inspired by Keith Haring ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/04/an-animated-history-of-dogs-inspired-by-keith-haring.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

What Does “Machiavellian” Really Mean?: An Animated Lesson ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/04/what-does-machiavellian-really-mean-an-animated-lesson.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 

A Journey Through Dance Photography From the New York Times Archives ---
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/12/arts/dance/dance-photography-archives.html

Alan Lomax’s Massive Music Archive (Blues and Folk Music) Is Online: Features 17,000 Historic Blues & Folk Recordings ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/04/alan-lomaxs-massive-music-archive-is-online.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The Amazing Isolated Drums of Dennis Davis, David Bowie’s Master Drummer, Revisited by Producer Tony Visconti ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/03/the-amazing-isolated-drums-of-dennis-davis-david-bowies-master-drummer-revisited-by-producer-tony-visconti-and.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The Silken Soprano Voice of the Late Eva Cassidy ---
https://www.jborden.com/music-monday-the-silken-soprano-voice-of-the-late-eva-cassidy/

Video:  This is What Music Does to Us
https://www.jborden.com/music-monday-this-is-what-music-can-do-to-us/

See Classic Performances of Joni Mitchell from the Very Early Years–Before She Was Even Named Joni Mitchell (1965/66) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/04/see-classic-performances-of-joni-mitchell-from-the-very-early-years.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Nick Cave Creates a List of His 10 Favorite Songs–His Favorite “Hiding Songs” ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/04/nick-cave-creates-a-list-of-his-10-favorite-songs-his-favorite-hiding-songs.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Deconstructing Steely Dan: The Band That Was More Than Just a Band ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/04/deconstructing-steely-dan-the-band-that-was-more-than-just-a-band.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

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


Photographs and Art

The first-ever black hole image, explained in 500 words ---
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/4/10/18304682/first-black-hole-photo-event-horizon-telescope
What's on the other side of a black hole?
https://daily.jstor.org/whats-side-black-hole/

A Journey Through Dance Photography From the New York Times Archives ---
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/12/arts/dance/dance-photography-archives.html

Wind and solar-powered Ecocapsule is your off-grid home of the future ---
https://mashable.com/2015/05/26/ecocapsule-pods/?hootPostID=ae422e17f00456e822854efcfe215930#UKrWEXCs2iqo

A new wave of Cubans are seeking asylum in the US after being inspired by migrant caravans. These 15 photos show what their journey is like ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/migrant-caravans-inspired-wave-of-cubans-seek-asylum-in-us-2019-4

NASA released a stunning photo showing two galaxies colliding ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-releases-stunning-photo-showing-two-galaxies-colliding-2019-3

Weird Houses ---
https://dengarden.com/misc/Unusual-Homes-and-Unique-Real-Estate

More Weird Houses ---
https://www.pinterest.com/karenstrycharz/weird-houses/

Unusual Houses --
https://www.boredpanda.com/unusual-homes/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

These photos show Cyclone Idai's devastating toll in Malawi ---
Click Here

Photographs of the last days of the ISIS fighting in Syria (that is not the end of ISIS terror) ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-of-last-weeks-of-isis-fighting-in-baghouz-eastern-syria-2019-3

Fascinating images of SS Normandie, the world’s largest and fastest cruise liner (until destroyed by fire) ---
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6876263/From-floating-palace-scrapyard-Fascinating-images-SS-Normandie.html

Arthur Rackham’s Stunning 1926 Illustrations for “The Tempest” ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/?mc_cid=9decf0bd5c&mc_eid=4d2bd13843

The Fantastical Sketchbook of a Medieval Inventor: See Designs for Flamethrowers, Mechanical Camels & More (Circa 1415) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/04/the-fantastical-sketchbook-of-a-medieval-inventor.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Neurons as Art: See Beautiful Anatomy Drawings by the Father of Neuroscience, Santiago Ramón y Cajal ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/04/beautiful-anatomy-drawings-by-the-father-of-neuroscience.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Barcelona wants to build 500 superblocks (without non-resident vehicles). Here’s what it learned from the first ones ---
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/9/18273894/barcelona-urban-planning-superblocks-poblenou
Jensen Comment
Interesting concept, but how how are furniture and appliances moved? What about taxis for non-drivers? How do disabled people cross from bus stops to residences? Then there are emergency vehicles that are delayed by having to take detours. The idea of a superblock is great. The Devil is in the details.

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

Bob Jensen's threads on history, literature and art ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History


Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm


Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Papers  ---
https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/collections/highlights/gertrude-stein-and-alice-b-toklas-papers

Horace Traubel transcribed 5,000 pages of conversations with the poet (Walt Whitman) , but he left out “the one big factor” that explained everything ---
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/04/18/walt-whitman-alone/

Which are the best autobiographies by women?
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/03/which-are-the-best-autobiographies-by-women.html
Jensen Comment
What's even more interesting is what leads to a great autobiography in general. Michelle Obama probably has the best selling autobiography in history now that sales are over 10 million copies. Which leads to another question about books in general. Decades ago my mother and most other readers regularly checked out library books to bring home --- largely because we were too poor to buy books in those days. Today fewer and fewer people use the libraries while more and more families buy books, especially given the convenience of Amazon for both new and used copies that can arrive in less than two days. Hard cover used copies of Michelle's book Becoming are only around $12 and are growing less and less expensive.

Jewish Women's Archive: Encyclopedia --- https://jwa.org/Encyclopedia

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 April 16, 2019
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2019/TidbitsQuotations041619.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




This week I have to brag a bit.
My grandson CJ Moody from Old Town, Maine was both an outstanding athlete (especially soccer and track) and a scholar (class valedictorian) in high school. He entered the nursing program on scholarship from the University of Southern Maine where he continues to do well in sports and academics, including a six-month study abroad program in New Zealand where he climbed a lot of mountains. This spring he became a NCAA Division 3 All-American ---
https://www.southernmainehuskies.com/sports/mtrack-ind/2018-19/releases/20190309sd62zy
Most importantly he's such a fine young man in every respect and hopes to soon assist Doctors Without Borders. I think his proud parents are hoping more for a paying job.


MOOCs:  140 Online Courses From Stanford University--
http://www.openculture.com/2019/03/140-courses-starting-at-stanford-continuing-studies-next-week.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

2,400+ MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) Getting Started in April ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/04/2400-moocs-massive-open-online-courses-getting-started-in-april-enroll-today.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29


Marketing Program at Trinity University Is a Top Best for the Money in 2019 Rankings ---
https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/trinity-university/news/trinity-university-2019-college-major-best-value-ranking-business-management-marketing-sales_marketing/


Explore and Compare Higher Ed Salaries ---
https://data.chronicle.com/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&cid=at
If you do not have access to this database the reference librarian on campus will show you how to access it via the library's subscription to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Once again beware of how statistics can be misleading. For example, colleges vary a great deal in terms of how much they contribute themselves to your retirement funding (think TIAA/CREF) and other fringe benefits like medical insurance and parking. There's also an enormous variation in opportunity for supplemental salaries in the summer via summer teaching and research awards.  For example, very large universities tend provide much more opportunity for online summer teaching than small colleges.

Averages for on faculty salary data is usually skewed downward such as not having to pay as much for Education Department salaries relative to Computer Science salaries where the Education Department has many more tenured faculty. Faculty unions that demand equal pay can wipe out tenured faculty in computer science, business, accounting, pharmacy, criminology, and hopes of a medical school. There's not much future for a college that's eating up its endowment to stay competitive on salaries.


Western Governors University (competency-based courses for 100,000+ students) ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Governors_University

Western Governors U Launches College Readiness Pathway ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/04/10/western-governors-u-launches-college-readiness-pathway?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=bcd8ee8677-DNU_2019_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-bcd8ee8677-197565045&mc_cid=bcd8ee8677&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

Bob Jensen's threads on distance education training and education alternatives ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm


Nature vs. Nurture:  Genetic Associations with Mathematics Tracking and Persistence in Secondary School ---
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2019/04/05/598532.full.pdf


Book entitled Kidnap:  Inside the Ransom Business
https://www.amazon.com/Kidnap-Inside-Business-Anja-Shortland/dp/0198815476/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=anja+shortland&qid=1554660439&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull/marginalrevol-20

Jensen Comment
I expect there will be more of this as kidnappers become more savvy on realistic ransoms.
The best advice may be:  Don't go there!


The full text of the Algorithmic Accountability Act at Tier 1 (bias and discrimination) ---
https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Algorithmic Accountability Act of 2019 Bill Text.pdf?utm_campaign=the_algorithm.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=71709273&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-99rh4-06SEttevQ9yueP-C2akIdzUDPPfW0laDxMKu6MYwaiOlt7l3GaWF1JFSKDNF0QqnzlcjvEBkR_mukoT813PcUw&_hsmi=71709273

Jensen Comment on Tiers 2 to Infinity
The most controversial aspect of products and services is, and will continue to be, the degree to which the provider is responsible for intentional or unintended misuse. Exhibit A is a making a gun or vehicle manufacturer responsible for the products use in every murder or suicide or accidental killing.

There are obvious limits of accountability. For example, if you made road builders responsible for every accident on their roads nobody would build roads.

In nearly all instances there's a gray zone regarding fraud and negligence such as when opiate drug manufacturers exploited the addictive nature of their products. Such gray zones leave legal and civil court discretions regarding intent.

What naive legislators want is riskless products and services to a point where banning risk leads to great societal harm. Exhibit A is where banning all chemical fertilizers and insecticides that have potential health risks (however small) leads to enormous food shortages and costs of food purchase. Exhibit B would be where the banning of all opiate drugs creates extreme suffering of patients recovering from heavy surgeries or long-term suffering from cancer or other diseases where all less risky alternatives are either ineffective or are enormously expensive.

When it comes to AI and other algorithmic technology really ignorant lawmakers who want riskless living and do not consider that there may be risks of better living and a better economy for all. Sometimes risks are necessary for improved living.

My best example that I use over and over is my wife's spine surgeon of last resort in Boston. He's willing, amongst constantly circling lawyers, to do spine surgeries that 95% or more of the spine surgeons in the USA are unwilling to perform because risks to the patient (paralysis) and risks to the surgeon (lawsuits) are so high. My wife is ever-thankful that there are a very few surgeons like this Boston surgeon who are willing to take risks to alleviate extreme pain and suffering of patients.

If you really want to academically debate technology consider the recent genetic experiments in China where human genes are added to brains of monkeys. If success is confirmed the excitement becomes the ability to genetically improve human intelligence and overcome disabilities in learning. Dark shadows of Hitler's quest for a master race come to mind on the negative side of this debate. Bright lights of curing mental illness, depression, and retardation come to mind on the positive side of this debate.

Life is truly complicated. The Algorithmic Accountability Act, especially at Tiers 2 and beyond, could do lots of good things for society in the short term and lots of bad things for the long term.

Will nations like Russia and China and North Korea exploit opportunities created in the passing of Algorithmic Accountability Acts in North America and the European Union?

There's no sustainability for laws seeking to eliminate all risks of living.

Riskless living is for lemmings that are happily all alike and marching toward an unforeseen cliff!

Riskless Living:  The U.K.'s Proposed Conception of Big Brother for Real (Tier 2 and beyond)

The UK proposed sweeping new regulations that would hold tech companies accountable for the spread of extremist content, misinformation, hate crimes, and dangerous material aimed at children ---
Click Here

Jensen Comment
Given the risks of lawsuits from agencies in 200+ nations of the world and billions of Internet users in the world, there is only one solution remaining --- it's time to create Big Brother as a censor all information (including photographs and artwork) passes through it being placed on the Internet. Big Brother will be protected from lawsuits. No other medium of communication can withstand the risk of trillions of dollars in lawsuits.

The question remains about censorship of information not on the Internet such as newspapers, media broadcasters, and speakers everywhere including college campuses and town halls. They too probably cannot stand up against the lawyers of the world no matter what constitutional protections are put into place.

George Orwell had it right even though the "sweeping new regulations" arrived in 2019 instead on 1984 ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
It's ironic that Orwell was a British writer when the imagined 1984 world was introduced for real in the United Kingdom in 2019.

The most controversial link in all of this is the link between a "producers" and extremist "customers" who actually commit the hate crimes. It's analogous to making the manufacturer of a gun, a car, a knife, an oil painting, a poem, porn, a telephone, a Website, or whatever that can be held accountable for the hate crime that it did actually commit itself. To be safe Big Brother will ban virtually any risk. The only good news is that lawyers will starve on the vine in Big Brother's world.

I'm glad I'm not young enough anymore witness a Big Brother society actually becomes so paranoid that it builds an fearsome Big Brother Political Correctness Wall shielding us from all risks.

 


Terrorism at GMU and the Very Long Arm of the Law ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/04/terrorism-at-gmu-and-the-very-long-arm-of-the-law.html


Harvard Quietly Amasses California Vineyards—and the Water Underneath ---
https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvard-quietly-amasses-california-vineyardsand-the-water-underneath-1544456396?mod=djcm_impactstories_email
Making a bet on climate change, the university’s $39 billion endowment has been snapping up farmland and the related water rights


Managing the Hard Choices of Education Technology ---
http://results.chronicle.com/LP=1896?elqTrackId=352D7595FAFBA063627D3F6E75D446E8&elq=95faeeb128314701a054fe03ca0e59e8&elqaid=22608&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=11092


WSJ:  The robots are coming to Walmart Floor scrubbers, shelf scanners and more.
But what about the humans?

Click Here


A beginner's guide to the Roku Streaming Stick: How to install and use the device ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-a-roku-stick-how-to-use

Jensen Comment
For one of our seldom-used TV sets I use a Roku streaming stick to avoid paying a monthly fee for a cable box from Spectrum. I did find that stick confusing to use at first.


Will half of our colleges and universities go bankrupt or otherwise fail within a decade?
Harvard:  Christensen Scorecard: Data visualization of US postsecondary institution closures and mergers ---
https://mfeldstein.com/christensen-scorecard-data-visualization-of-us-postsecondary-institution-closures-and-mergers/
Jensen Comment
This, of course, is highly uncertain with respect to numbers and timing?
An interesting question for small private colleges will be the impact of free college that some 2020 Democratic presidential candidates are promising.
Perhaps you can start a debate on this among your students who understand college financing.
An interesting subtopic is adult education and training in mega universities such as Arizona State University that just spun off a for-profit online universities seeking funding from employers like Starbucks and others.
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm#EmployerSubsidized


How to Mislead With Statistics and Visualization
The Economist is one of the moat respected magazines in economics:  Here it owns up to some of its mistakes in data visualization ---
https://medium.economist.com/mistakes-weve-drawn-a-few-8cdd8a42d368
Jensen Comment
Owning up to mistakes is what sometimes make scholars legendary and journals ever more respected

Mistake: Truncating the scale

Mistake: Choosing the wrong visualisation method

Mistake: Taking the “mind-stretch” a little too far

Mistake: Confusing use of colour

Mistake: Including too much detail

Mistake: Lots of data, not enough space

 

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

You can read about many more mistakes (over 400 illustrations), particularly bias, missing variables, misleading definitions, incomplete analyses, etc. at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/MisleadWithStatistics.htm 


How to Mislead With Statistics
These are the 29 countries with the highest taxes on profits for corporations (supposedly from PwC) ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-the-29-countries-with-the-highest-taxes-for-corporations-2019-3

Firstly, the outcomes reported in this study do not jive with other studies looking only at profits taxes. Take Sweden for example. The above article says the corporate rate for Sweden is 49.1%. Other studies put that rate at 22% and headed for 21.4% ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-the-29-countries-with-the-highest-taxes-for-corporations-2019-3#13-sweden-491-17
Even PwC puts the tax rate at 21.4% ---
http://taxsummaries.pwc.com/ID/Sweden-Corporate-Taxes-on-corporate-income

The reason for the difference between 49.1% and 21.4% is that the Business Insider (World Bank) ranking adds "social contribution" to the corporate income tax rates. But it is not clear just what constitutes social contribution and how consistent the "social contribution" add on for each nation. I think that the definition of "social contribution" is dubious. Obviously the VAT tax plays a huge role in all of this. But nations vary greatly in terms of VAT tax relief to companies.

Comparing tax rates between nations is a lot like comparing poverty between nations. The definitions of "tax" and "poverty" are different for each nation. I suspect the definition of "social contribution" also suffers from the same ambiguities.

Also there's a huge problem for multinational companies since they pay multiple income tax rates, VAT rates, and multiple social contributions over the nations in which they do business.

You can learn more about the PwC study by going to the PwC site at
https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/tax/publications/paying-taxes-2019/overall-ranking-and-data-tables.html
Also see
https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/tax/publications/paying-taxes-2019.html
You can download the report at the above site.

Obviously the VAT tax plays a huge role in all of this. But nations vary greatly in terms of VAT tax relief and income tax relief to companies.

In fairness, the full PwC report delves much more into the difficulties of making tax comparisons between nations. This is not a garbage study. But some of the summaries like the Business Insider rankings are garbage aggregations that gloss over difficulties in making rankings and comparisons.

For example, consider Argentina that according the Business Insider ranking claims Argentina corporations pay profit and social contribution rates totaling 106%. Obviously, it would be foolhardy to invest in corporate equity in Argentina unless there was some way to get a return on investment.

The same problem arises when trying to compare personal tax rates between nations such as comparing what people pay in taxes in Sweden versus the USA. One of the big added problems here is failing to compare the differences in what taxpayers get in return for their taxes. For example, do those taxes cover basic health care, long-term health care, housing subsidies, energy subsidies, education for some, education for all, etc.

My point is that sometimes comparing nations by statistics and charts is worse than having no information --- it's terribly misleading information.


How to Mislead With Cherry Picking
Debunking the Capitalist Cowboy ---
http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/nan-enstad-debunking-capitalist-cowboy

Jensen Comment
This article is an example of politically-motivated cherry picking.
The article focuses on the long-ago past of robber barons. It totally ignores such "cowboys" as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Howard Shultz, Mike Bloomberge,Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and the other billionaires who rose to great wealth more ethically.

The article totally ignores the rags to riches stories of the many billionaire capitalists in modern China.

While a move is underway to destroy the American Dream of rags to riches (by taxing away the riches) the Chinese dream is on the rise.
The Chinese Dream
How a Chinese billionaire went from making $16 a month in a factory to being one of the world's richest self-made women with an $8.3 billion real-estate empire
---

https://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-richest-self-made-woman-wu-yajun-net-worth-2019-2

Top 50 Billionaires in China ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_by_net_worth

Jensen Comment
The question for students to critically debate is why a supposed communist country allows so many billionaires to rise up from poverty.
That's supposed to happen in the USA where a child growing up in deep poverty (think Oprah Winfrey or Howard Shultz) became a multi-billionaires.
But is it also supposed to happen under communism? If so, why?

Hint:  Billionaires can afford risky investments and are the source of much venture capital as long as they are not restrained by taxes and endless regulations such as in the European Union. Also billionaires make choices that may not be domestically popular. For example, Kamala Harris wants to tax the billionaires to pay for a $25,000 raise for each and every teacher in the USA. This is a worthy cause, but it could destroy billionaire efforts (think Bill Gates and Warren Buffett) to eradicate polio and other diseases throughout the entire world. It also could greatly eliminate venture capital (think worm toilets) that has become part and parcel to the economic engine of the USA.

 


Conspiracies of Conspiracies: How Delusions Have Overrun America ---
https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracies-Delusions-Have-Overrun-America/dp/022658576X/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=thomas+konda&qid=1553708257&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull/marginalrevol-20


Without an academic collective voice demanding open access to their research, the movement will never completely take off ---
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/mar/28/paywalls-block-scientific-progress-research-should-be-open-to-everyone

Jensen Comment
Much of the focus is on Elsevier and other for-profit publishers that have been ripping off libraries with outrageous subscription prices ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#ScholarlyJournals
But there are other barriers, albeit less expensive barriers, to open access. Exhibit A contains the academic association journals that are not free to libraries and non-members of the association. In some instances the journals are not even free with membership in the association. In some cases, those journals are even cash cows for the administrative costs of the association, including the hard copy printing and mailing of those journals. We've reached a critical juncture where decisions must be reached on elimination of hard copy publishing and funding of administrative costs with something other than association journals.

And there are expenses to cover even for electronic publishing in terms of hardware, software, and administrative costs for technicians, editors, and referees.

For the long run there are also concerns about open access costs of searching. We've come to expect that search engines like Google and Bing are free goods as long as we endure some minimally invasive advertising. There's no guarantee that this "free" key to open acess material will continue in the future, especially since the the EU is giving tech firms a hard time with new taxes and regulations while politicians like Elizabeth Warren want to break up the tech firms and impose huge taxes on their profits.

My point here is that open access to academic research is not a a done deal, and may never be a done deal. At the same time support efforts to shut down Elsevier and the for-profit publishing oligopoly that now stands as our biggest obstacle to open access. Open access may one day follow The Washington Post model that now charges $1 for access to an article in most instances.


How Search Algorithms Are Changing the Course of Mathematics ---
http://nautil.us/issue/70/variables/how-search-algorithms-are-changing-the-course-of-mathematics


Italy's abandoned villages plan to save themselves from ruin by selling homes for $1 or less ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/italian-villages-selling-dollar-homes-2019-2


NYT:  History of Rupert Murdoch and His Empire
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/magazine/rupert-murdoch-fox-news-trump.html
Billionaires own or financially control the major USA newspapers WSJ, NYT, and WaPo. It's interesting that the NYT did this story on Rupert Murdoch who own's the NYT's arch rival The Wall Street Journal. Has the NYT ever done a story on the billionaire, Carlos Slim, who saved The New York Times? Or a similar piece on billionaire Jeff Bezos who saved The Washington Post. Actually nearly all the major print newspapers in the USA would be in deep trouble if billionaires did not save some of them in terms of supporting their huge worldwide networks of reporters --- which are the most important "assets" of the news media.
Rupert Murdoch --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch
Carlos Slim --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Slim
Jeff Bezos --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos


Question
The tax reform bill cut taxes for most individuals, so why are some (most?) refunds shrinking?

Answer
The reason is that Treasury changed the withholding tables last year. For many, this meant less withholding and slightly bigger paychecks ---
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/432673-misplaced-outrage-over-tax-refunds-was-preventable#.XH8oLi0hfUw.twitter

Jensen Comment
Most taxpayers grew accustomed to paycheck withholding to be a form of short-term savings and looked forward to having winter's tax refunds becoming available for recovering from holiday season spending. They formed a mentality of spending all their paychecks and even more with credit card borrowing while looking forward to spending down credit card borrowing with tax refunds. As paychecks grew somewhat larger they did not discipline themselves with savings in anticipation of smaller refunds.

They have their own ignorance of withholding and taxes to blame. But how can we blame their ignorance when tax laws and withholding rules have become so complex that the last person to understand them would be Albert Einstein. We can also blame the tax accountants who did not prepare their clients for such rude awakenings when smaller refund checks or no refund checks became reality. I don't think tax accountants properly anticipated the effects of the new withholding amounts.

As Pogo the Tax Accountant Said: "I looked for the enemy; He is us!"

Trump would be more popular if he'd have increased withholding amounts while cutting taxes for most taxpayers. Go figure!
He'd be less popular with credit card companies since more people would be paying down credit card debt with bigger tax refunds.


Tutorial on How to Make Instructional Story Maps --- https://collections.storymaps.esri.com/how-to-stories/

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


Add One More to My Growing List of Unintended Consequences ---
https://www.jborden.com/add-one-more-to-my-growing-list-of-unintended-consequences/

Jensen Comment
History of Unintended Consequences Dating Back to John Locke --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences#History

Examples of Unintended Consequences --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences#Examples

Jensen Examples

All those lottery winners and professional athletes who go broke

Tragedy of the Commons (think free medical care) --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Unintended Externalities (called non-convexities in mathematical programming) --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

Price Controls in Venezuela (suddenly shelves were bare)

Imposing 70% income taxes on physicians and then wondering why there's growing shortage of them

Capitalism in communist China results in all those venture capitalist billionaires --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_by_net_worth

Income Equality in Cuba
Why did Cuba abandon its socialist/communist dream of equality for everybody?
The Guardian:  This was the egalitarian dream of Cuba in the 1960s: For years in Cuba, jobs as varied as farm workers and doctors only had a difference in their wages of the equivalent of a few US dollars a month.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/12/cuba 

 


Data Fabrication:  Leading UK scientists retract a paper in Nature, and one in Science, on the same day ---
https://retractionwatch.com/2019/04/11/authors-have-papers-in-nature-and-science-retracted-on-the-same-day/

Edward J. Fox, a former faculty member at the University of Washington, faked data in a manuscript submitted to Nature and in an NIH grant application ---
https://retractionwatch.com/2019/04/02/former-university-of-washington-researcher-faked-data-say-feds/

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


Putin did not write his own Ph.D. thesis, and there's some question as to whether he even read it.
Putin’s plagiarism, fake Ukrainian degrees and other tales of world leaders accused of academic fraud ---
https://theconversation.com/putins-plagiarism-fake-ukrainian-degrees-and-other-tales-of-world-leaders-accused-of-academic-fraud-112826
Also see
"Putin Accused of Plagiarizing Thesis," Moscow Times, March 27, 2006 --- http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/03/27/011.html

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


NYT:  College Student Scheme to Swap Fake iPhones Adds Up to $900,000 Loss for Apple, Prosecutors Say ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/business/counterfeit-apple-iphone-scam.html


The Federal Trade Commission accused Omics International, a publisher in India, of operating hundreds of questionable scientific journals ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/science/predatory-journals-ftc-omics.html


Why Do Some People Commit Fraud? Psychologists Say It's Complicated ---
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahwatts/2019/03/21/the-psychology-behind-scamming/#2bbdae5c3447

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


Ring Alarm --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_(company) 

An Uber driver dropped a passenger at an airport before attempting to rob their home, police say. He was caught by a Ring alarm ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-driver-robbed-passenger-home-after-airport-drop-police-say-2019-4


When Grading Less Is More
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/02/professors-reflections-their-experiences-ungrading-spark-renewed-interest-student?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=aed948ff1a-DNU_2019_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-aed948ff1a-197565045&mc_cid=aed948ff1a&mc_eid=1e78f7c952

When it comes to grading, less is more. So say a number of scholars who have shared their recent experiments with “ungrading” in blog posts and on other social media, sparking renewed discussions about the practice.

“My core hypothesis was that student learning would actually be improved by eliminating instructor grading from the course,” Marcus Schultz-Bergin, assistant lecturer of philosophy at Cleveland State University, wrote of going gradeless this semester in a personal blog post that has since been shared on the popular philosophy site Daily Nous.

“My hope” for students, Schultz-Bergin continued, “is that the reflection they engaged in, and the discussions we had, will lead to a significant commitment in the second half of the course to really achieve what they set out for themselves so that when they tell me they earned an A they can really mean it.”

Thus far, he added, the experiment in his undergraduate philosophy of law course "has had its ups and downs. There are definitely some things I will change going forward, but I do think the gradeless approach can work well in a course like this.”

Experts in ungrading say it’s still relatively rare in higher education, due in part to inertia with respect to pedagogical innovation, the culture of assessment and professors’ anxieties about going gradeless. How will students respond? What will colleagues say? What will administrators think?

 Continued in article

 

Jensen Comment
I would've loved my 40 years of teaching more if I never had to assign grades (other than maybe Pass/Fail).

But I would've felt that in assigning only a P or an F  I was less professional. Grading is important at most any level of education. Personally, I worked harder to learn from the fifth grade onward in courses where teachers were harder graders. Part of it was probably my competitive nature. But mostly I wanted to bring home report cards to make my parents proud of me when they signed each report card.

I don't think I would've liked having to write a letter of performance for each student who never took an exam. Sure I could write about innovative ideas students had in essays, but it's very hard to compare innovative ideas for each and every student since innovative ideas are often impractical with unachievable goals.

My own experience in as a teacher in college is that competitive grades were the main motivating factor for my better students and often even my struggling students who dug in harder to improve their grades as each semester progressed.

How many students really take a pass/fail course so they won't have to work as hard in that course?

Grades are a way that students can demonstrate ability when they tend to do poorly on standardized tests. You may not be doing minority students any favors when you take away course grades that show deeper work ethics and abilities.

Some colleges force high schools to choose the top 10% of each graduating class such as the 10% rule for admissions for automatic admission in to state-supported Texas universities ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_House_Bill_588
How do you select the top 10% of a high school's graduating class if there are no course grades?

Many graduate schools (including medical schools and law schools) claim they are looking more heavily into grades to counter poor standardized test scores like the GRE, GMAT, MCAT, LSAT, etc. Without grades it would seem to me that they become more reliant on standardized tests. Letters of recommendation from former professors are either hard to get in this age of lurking lawyers and in this age where class sizes are so huge that professors really don't get to know all their students very well. Letters of recommendations rarely say anything negative such that if their are 3,000 applicants to fill 400 slots in a medical school, those letters of recommendation from Lake Wobegon are of little help in the screening process ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon

I'm not saying that students should not be allowed to take an occasional Pass/Fail course, especially if it's outside their major field of study. What I am saying is that pass/fail should not go mainstream.

Bob Jensen's treads on assessment are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm


When a Costco Membership is Not Worth It ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/costco-membership-not-worth-it-these-situations-2019-4
Jensen Comment
We're out of range for Costco but still keep a Sams Club membership when the store is about 80 miles distant. We justify this by having lots of storage space in the basement, three refrigerators, and a freezer.


How The Big Five Tech Companies Make Their Money, Visualized ---
http://digg.com/2019/tech-companies-main-revenue-stream-data-visualization

Jensen Comment
If they set foot in Europe the EU wants to siphon of this money. Some USA Democratic 2020 presidential candidates (think Elizabeth Warren) also want to siphon tech money.
China almost certainly will gain an edge over the USA and the EU in technology products and services .


More information is available online than ever. Libraries are stepping in to make sure everyone can access it. ---
https://www.cnet.com/news/in-a-world-of-google-amazon-libraries-rethink-their-role/

Unexpected things that libraries offer besides books ---
https://theconversation.com/7-unexpected-things-that-libraries-offer-besides-books-111895


Electric trucks like the Tesla Semi are 'pointless both economically and ecologically', according to a (German) vehicle tech expert ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/this-expert-says-tesla-semi-is-economically-and-ecologically-pointless-2019-2
Jensen Comment
Electric trucks will have their day, but don't hold your breath.
640 kilometers = 398 miles
Most buyers of electric trucks to date (think soda and beer local delivery trucks) will experiment mostly on local deliveries rather than long hauls.
A factor to consider today is that big trucks, whether gasoline or diesel, contribute a lions share of the revenue for road and bridge maintenance. Electric vehicles contribute nothing. In other words their cost effective in part because they're free riders.


40 Big Tech Predictions for 2019 ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/40-big-tech-predictions-2019


MIT:  It’s getting harder to do research involving primates in Europe and the US, but China is rushing to apply the latest high-tech DNA tools to the animals (think human genes in monkeys) ---
Click Here


Picking strawberries is hard, but robots are getting better and better at it ---
Click Here


The Dow Index:  The Twenty Craziest Investing Facts Ever ---
https://theirrelevantinvestor.com/2019/03/13/the-twenty-craziest-investing-facts-ever/


This basketball-shooting robot is more accurate than Steph Curry from 3-point range ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/basketball-robot-toyota-cue-3-2019-4
Jensen Comment
But it does not move up and down the court swiftly, does not fake worth a damn, and is absolutely useless on defense. It also needs to be built taller to overcomet seven-foot defenders.

I suspect that the robot can beat Steph Curry only after it is repeatedly "trained"  from one spot on the floor. What machines are good at is making exactly the same movements over and over. Humans have more variability in this regard.


How International Education’s Golden Age Lost Its Sheen ---
https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/2019-03-28-golden-age?cid=db&cid=db

On a Sunday in May 2014, 140 students from 49 countries, some in hijabs, some with hair tinted purple to match their graduation robes, walked across the stage to collect the first diplomas awarded at New York University Abu Dhabi.

Former President Bill Clinton was the keynote speaker. But the day really belonged to John E. Sexton, NYU’s president. He greeted every student – many of whom he knew from the 14,000-mile round trip he made from New York every other week to teach – with a fist bump or a hug.

In a way, Sexton was celebrating his achievement as much as theirs. He had shepherded NYU’s Emirati outpost from pie-in-the-sky vision to anchor in a network of global campuses. Another branch campus, in Shanghai, had opened in the fall of 2013. Speaking to an audience of graduates, parents, and assorted sheikhs, he argued for the importance of internationalizing education. “The world you have entered has become miniaturized,” Sexton said. “Events around the globe affect us all, no matter how isolated we seek to be.”

In hindsight, that commencement, held on NYU’s campus, not far from the Abu Dhabi branch of the Louvre, came at the height of what was a golden moment for international education – and one that would soon dim.

It was an era in which higher education found ways to export its prestige, assert itself as a vehicle for American soft power, and facilitate the exchange of people and ideas across borders. American universities joined NYU in opening campuses abroad, including Yale in Singapore and Duke in China. Colleges hired senior administrators to manage their burgeoning overseas portfolios, including student exchanges, faculty research, and joint degrees.

First Lady Michelle Obama declared study abroad a “key component of this administration’s foreign policy” as the White House rolled out a plan to send 100,000 young Americans to China. And Chinese students led a surge of international students onto American campuses. Their numbers would increase nearly 90 percent, to 1.1 million, an influx welcomed not least because of the tuition dollars they paid.

That golden era was born out of the grimmest of events: the September 11 terrorist attacks and the conviction that the violence – whose perpetrators were erroneously said to have been in the United States on student visas – called for greater engagement with the world, not less. Its end date came a decade and a half later, signaled by the election of Donald J. Trump, on a platform of America First.

While it might be tempting to pin internationalization’s current challenges on President Trump and the nativist environment he has fomented, that explanation also seems insufficient. The president, after all, wasn’t the one that decimated college foreign language programs, shutting down 650 in just three years. His policies have little bearing on the drop-off in the share of institutions reporting that internationalization is a high priority in their strategic plans, from 60 percent, in 2011, to 47 percent in 2017.

Some colleges are retrenching, while others try to sustain a global footprint. If the past era was one of empire building, internationalization’s adherents today are playing defense.

“The landscape is changing,” says Philip G. Altbach, founding director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College. “The era of internationalization might be over, or on life support.”

That American higher education is at this juncture raises difficult questions: Was the work of giving students a global education stymied because it failed to get buy-in beyond the true believers? Was internationalization championed out of convenience – international students contributed $39 billion to the American economy and shored up the budgets of many recession-pressed colleges – more than conviction? Was the rhetoric impassioned but the embrace only lukewarm?

A Fractured Consensus

Trump’s election revealed an uncomfortable truth: What many people – especially the well-educated within and beyond academe – took to be consensus views are not shared by all Americans.

That everyone should go to college, that national borders were being erased thanks to technology and trade, these developments were seen as “an unmitigated good, like Mom and apple pie,” says Kevin Kinser, head of education-policy studies at Pennsylvania State University. One of internationalization’s core principles, along with post-9/11 openness, is that if graduates are going to live and work in a globalized economy, it is higher education’s responsibility to prepare them.

Continued in article


Maoism: A Global History ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/03/maoism-a-global-history.html

What Do We Really Know About Joseph Stalin ---
https://daily.jstor.org/what-do-we-really-know-about-joseph-stalin/


How dependent world economies are becoming on China
The recession in German manufacturing is worse than we thought ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/pmi-data-recession-german-manufacturing-worse-than-thought-2019-4
Chinese buyers tot he rescue

China–Latin America relations ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Latin_America_relations

China-Africa Relations ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa%E2%80%93China_relations

China-European Union Relations ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93European_Union_relations

Jensen Comment
As far as I can tell none of the 2020 presidential candidates (including Trump) are recommending anything to counteract the Chinese takeover of the world.
The Democrats are probably worse than Trump in that they want to add more taxes and regulations to USA firms trying to compete in the world with China


Commuter Faculty Spouses ---
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2019/03/commuter-faculty-spouses.html

Many academics have partners who are academics, and "two-body issues" complicate many a job search. A new book looks at the impact of these situations on the couples and on society. While many of the couples examined in Commuter Spouses: New Families in a Changing World (Cornell University Press Mar. 15, 2019) are academics, the book explores the issues that arise for others as well.

Danielle Lindemann, assistant professor of sociology at Lehigh University, wrote the book based not only on her research but on her personal experience. She responded via email to questions about the book.

Q: Your author ID says of you, your husband and your "feisty preschooler" that "Currently they all live together." As you note in the acknowledgments, this is a subject you know from personal experience. What has your experience as a "commuter spouse" been like?

A: I lived apart from my husband (part of the time) from 2011 to 2013 while I was doing a postdoc at Vanderbilt in Nashville and he remained in New York. We’re actually not a great case study of commuter marriage, because in many ways we had an ideal setup. We knew we were doing it for a finite period, we were childless at the time, it was a research-oriented postdoc, so there was a lot I could do remotely, and we’re also incredibly privileged in a lot of ways. If you changed just one of those variables, it probably would have been a lot less tolerable. As it was, by the end of the two years, I was more than ready to be done with the commuting. In that last respect, I was similar to the people I interviewed for the book. Most people could find at least one thing they liked about the arrangement, but almost nobody was saying, “This my ideal setup and I want to do it forever.” Everyone I interviewed, except for one person, was either back living with their partners at the time I spoke with them, or planned on resuming cohabitation in the future.

Q: Many academic jobs are in small college towns. How does this influence the academic couple in a commuter relationship?

 Continued in article

Jensen Comment
My Exhibit A example of commuter faculty (because of the distance in miles of separation) is a very popular accounting professor and father of young children at the University of Florida whose wife was a full time student in the medical school at Stanford University. After graduation this commuting marriage continued after she commenced her pediatrics medical practice in Palo Alto while he continued his faculty duties at the University of Florida. I've no idea how all of this ended up, but he's at long last no longer listed as a faculty member at the University of Florida. I'm not close with Doug or his wife, but I think they both commenced their professional careers as immigrants to the USA from Australia.

Does anybody know where Doug and his wife are these days.


Office Depot Agrees to Pay $25 Million to FTC Over Scam Involving Computer Repair Service ---
https://gizmodo.com/office-depot-agrees-to-pay-25-million-to-ftc-over-scam-1833655854

March 30, 2019 reply from Tom Selling

My beef is still that government regulators should not be so willing to allow a corporation to settle with just a fine – without punishing responsible individuals, and without admitting guilt. In the end, this boils down to just a slap on the wrist. Best, Tom

March 30, 2019 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Tom,

It gets worse. Many of us think we can store some privacy information on the hard drive like credit card numbers. passwords, pin numbers, and even tax returns. The thought is that we will remove those files before taking the computer in for repair, when sometimes the computer is dead to a point where we cannot remove those files.

Unscrupulous technicians will then download those files and sell them to the worse crooks. And it's very difficult to later trace how those files were stolen in the first place unless law enforcement sets up a sting.

Bob Jensen

Current and past editions of Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm


Students at Rice University are petitioning to prevent Vice President Mike Pence from speaking at a campus event, citing his "violent intolerance of LGBTQ+ identities."
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdGK2ZypQmJsVhvrN9D4JzdBNUN-xJoHmfRqy34cNBMA-ZlYA/viewform?fbzx=-7748057991678917981&fbclid=IwAR3_HuIcbJ8blHXLvE22M-ZAezpJX1caf_75crDbQ6tWAAxEO6SU9S0UkXY&cid=db

Jensen Comment
Mike Pence is a heart beat away from becoming the President of the USA. Rice students would rather remain ignorant about his domestic and foreign policies than to let one issue draw a curtain around their learning more about this leader.
Don't they realize that they could more rigorously campaign against the re-election of Mike Pence if they learned a few things more about him and his policies.

Would Rice University students  have done the same thing years ago if Albert Einstein was intolerant of LGBTQ identities?


Political Correctness in Universities Never Quits

Harvard President Lawrence Bacow to Activist Students Who Shut Down His Talk: 'The Heckler's Veto Has No Place' Here ---
https://reason.com/2019/04/12/harvard-president-lawrence-bacow-disrupt/

I think political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don't address reality.
Juan William before he was fired after a distinguished career on NPR.
http://townhall.com/columnists/GuyBenson/2010/10/21/npr_finally_finds_an_excuse_to_fire_juan_williams

The Washington Post:  Conservatives say campus speech is under threat. That’s been true for most of history ---
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/conservatives-say-campus-speech-is-under-threat-thats-been-true-for-most-of-history/2017/08/11/6aa959fa-7c4b-11e7-9d08-b79f191668ed_story.html?utm_term=.a02b7a26615d

Conservative Law Prof Heckled by CUNY Protestors ---
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/04/conservative-law-prof-heckled-by-cuny-protestors.html

Beloit College:  The incident (a pro-capitalism speaker)  was the latest in a string of free expression occurrences on college campuses where students have intentionally drowned out speakers whose views they find distasteful ---
Click Here
Capitalism is such a dangerous topic that mention of it should be banned in all colleges and universities


Black Pro-Life Speaker Disinvited From Cornell ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/briannaheldt/2019/03/27/black-prolife-speaker-disinvited-from-cornell-n2543853?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=03/28/2019&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

Jensen Comment
I've repeatedly proclaimed that I'm an economics conservative who favors progressiveness in abortion rights (including late-term abortions) and gay rights. And I'm utterly against political correctness in the media and on campus.
My threads on political correctness ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies2.htm#PoliticalCorrectness


Advantages for Legacies and the Wealthy at Brown ---
Click Here 


Where should Americans live if they live abroad?
https://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2019/03/where-should-americans-live-if-they.html?m=1

Jensen Comment
I could not believe any of these recommendations. When we retired the country that stood out the most for us was New Zealand.


What’s the Best Way to Back Up My Computer? ---
https://www.howtogeek.com/242428/whats-the-best-way-to-back-up-my-computer/

Jensen Comment
There are two ways I use to back up files.

Firstly, I have two Websites at Trinity University that I keep relatively up to date. Any files at my Website can be reversed back down to my computer whenever those files become corrupted on my computer. Trinity keeps my Website files back up on campus.

Secondly, I have two enormous Western Digital hard external hard drives that keep a lot of my other files (such as older files that are not at my Websites). I keep two such WD hard drives active in case one of those gives out as back up to my computer hard drives.

I personally had more trouble with Seagate drive reliability and prefer WD drives, but that is anecdotal and may just be me.

I always avoid risky Websites and used an old junky computer when downloading attachments even from my friends.


Conspiracies of Conspiracies: How Delusions Have Overrun America ---
https://www.amazon.com/Conspiracies-Delusions-Have-Overrun-America/dp/022658576X/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=thomas+konda&qid=1553708257&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull/marginalrevol-20


NYT:  Behold the Beefless ‘Impossible Whopper’ (from Burger King) ---
Click Here
But don't expect this to be available anytime soon in your area. However, unlike McDonald's, Burger King does have a pretty decent veggie burger in your area. I don't know why McDonald's does not compete with Burger King on this menu item.


How to Mislead With Statistics
Kamala Harris’s plan to dramatically increase teacher salaries, explained
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/26/18280734/kamala-harris-2020-election-policies-teachers-salaries

Jensen Comment
The article is not misleading in terms of a case for raising teacher salaries. However, it's misleading on the funding side. Firstly it requires that states buy into the raising the money. The clinker is that many states themselves are on the edge of bankruptcy, especially those states that are already losing businesses and people due to high taxation. Exhibit A is Illinois, but there are many others ---
https://www.statedatalab.org/
Raising teacher salaries has been a priority in virtually all states every year for as long as I can remember. It's gotten much more difficult, however, since Medicaid and pension obligations are higher priorities raising teacher pay.

She also proposes raising taxes on wealthy estates. The article is misleading because it does not discuss the negatives in trying to raise billions in this manner. Firstly, some of the mega wealthy estates are usually moved into tax-free foundations that do great things such as the Bill Gates Foundation that contributes billions to world health and technology efforts for bringing electric power and sanitation to the poorest people on earth. My point here is that efforts to ban tax-free foundations ends up pitting good causes (think teacher pay, world health, world sanitation, university endowments, etc.) against one another. Personally, I don't think relatively large USA teacher pay increases takes priority over some of the neediest causes in the world.

There's a bit of robbing school districts to pay teachers in the Kamala Harris proposal. The wealthy in the USA invest over a trillion dollars in tax-exempt bonds that, in turn, fund municipalities and school districts al low interest rates on bonds that are financially risky. One reason progressives have not eliminated the so-called muni bond market is that towns and schools have become so dependent upon this massive source of funding for land and buildings in towns and school districts. The Kamala Harris proposal will sap much of the funding for schools grounds and buildings to pay teachers. Schools are already suffering from a lot of deferred maintenance and not enough classrooms to meed rising demainds.

Paying teachers more to teach in falling down buildings is not the answer.

France scrapped a wealth tax plan for millionaires because it was making so little money ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/france-scrapped-extreme-version-alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-tax-plan-millionares-2019-3

Kamala Harris ignores the fact that raising the wealth tax has already been prioritized by her opponents --- mostly to pay for Medicare-for-All and Guranteed Annual Income for the Poor.

Wealth Tax --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax

Even if wildly successful (which is impossible) Senator Warren's wealth tax would only pay $2.75 trillion of the $30+ trillion cost ten-year cost of Medicare-for-All
Elizabeth Warren's proposed wealth tax would raise $2.75 trillion over a ten-year period from about 75,000 families, or less than 0.1 percent of U.S. households ---
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/24/elizabeth-warren-to-propose-new-wealth-tax-economic-advisor.html
Jensen Comment
This could have all sorts of economic consequences. One is that most of those 75,000 wealthy USA families have their wealth tied up in long-term investments like real estate (think of Trump hotels, Ted Turner's ranches in Australia, Amazon's many shares owned by Jeff Bezos), etc.  Warren's Wealth tax could force liquidation of these long-term investments to pay the $2.75 trillion wealth tax. If you want your top millionaires and billionaires to move out of the USA this is a sure-fire way to wave bye bye to them and the $2.75 trillion that becomes uncollectable.
Wealthy taxpayers are probably not worried with a conservative Supreme Court.  Arguably her proposal requires an amendment to the USA Constitution because her wealth tax proposal is extremely disproportional.---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax#United_States
You can read more about wealth taxes at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Piketty
 

PS
Those 75,000 wealthy taxpayers now invest in hundreds of billions in tax-exempt bonds (called municipal bonds) that underlie the building of most schools and municipal buildings in the USA. The muni bond market would nosedive if most of those 75,000 people sold their tax-exempt bonds and moved these hundreds of billions in investments off shore on their way out of the USA. That's not a cost that the naive Elizabeth Warren factored into her proposed wealth. What's the incentive for a billionaire who moved to Switzerland to continue to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the USA muni market?

I suspect that Kamala Harris already knows her proposals for wealth taxes and teacher pay raises would be disasters for states on the edge of bankruptcy trying to meet pension and Medicaid obligations. It's more of a ploy to raise votes in a Democratic primary race that's more and more competitive as to will spend the most taxpayer dollars.


Regressive Tax --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_tax

Elizabeth Warren Proposes Regressive Tax on America's Largest Companies (hoping to raise $1 trillion in ten years)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/elizabeth-warren-proposes-new-corporate-tax-11554987601
T
o the extent those 1,200 largest companies do business with the government (think military fuel purchased from Exxon to fill tankers manufactured by Boeing) this is a wash item where the government taxes itself hundreds of billions of dollars

Presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren has proposed a new 7 percent tax on “the largest, most profitable U.S. companies.” The Real Corporate Profits Tax would affect some 1,200 companies and is projected to raise $1 trillion over a decade. Warren specifically mentioned Amazon in her proposal — the company would have paid $698 million more in U.S. taxes for 2018 under Warren’s plan.

Jensen Comment
What Warren fails to mention is that this is probably the most regressive tax imaginable next to a sales tax and VAT tax.

What she fails to mention is that big corporations don't pay taxes. Business firms collect taxes from customers by charging higher prices. The estimated $698 million to be paid by Amazon will be collected from you and me and Amazon's other customers. The added tax on large airlines will be tacked onto air fares. The added tax on Home Depot, Kroger, GM, Exxon, and Ford will be paid by its customers by way of higher prices. For example, one of the waitresses in our nearby Polly's Pancakes is a single mom with three children living in a mobile home heated with kerosene (commonly used for homes without basements in this very cold mountain climate). Elizabeth Warren's tax will increase the price of her kerosene (local suppliers buy from big outfits like Exxon) along with the fuel she purchases for her rusty old sedan and her electric bill from our grid powered mostly by natural gas.

Why do poor people and the lower middle class end up paying the lion's share of Elizabeth Warren's proposed tax? Mainly because there are so many more people that are poor or lower middle class relative to higher income people. In the USA the poor and lower middle class pay virtually no income tax, but they pay regressive taxes like sales taxes, fuel taxes, property taxes (even when renting), and the corporate taxes factored into prices of purchased goods and services.

This is not a tax on the super rich who invest more than they spend. It's a tax on the poor and middle classes who spend most of every penny they receive.

Don't get me wrong. Some big corporations will be hurt badly to the extent that imported goods are relatively cheaper when marketed by smaller companies exempted from the tax. LL Bean's prices on shoes and clothing will be more price competitive relative to Amazon, although customers who buy more from LL Bean will still be paying a premium above Amazon's prices. LL Bean customers just won't have as much selection as they did when they bought more from Amazon. Volvos will be cheaper relative to Fords made in Michigan, and if Warren's tax was greater (say 20%) Ford would really hurt because Volvo's US operations are tax exempt under her proposal.

The good news is that even her fellow democrats are usually opposed to regressive taxes. They prefer a 70% tax on earnings of physicians and other high income taxpayers.

Senator Warren has a history of proposing taxes that are unconstitutional. This is just one of those political gimmicks in her political campaign that will never come to reality. In truth she has no idea how to fund her $100+ trillion dollar spending programs for free medical care, free college, free guaranteed annual income for everybody, and African/Native American repartitions on top of all the existing safety nets like subsidized housing, food stamps, and welfare.

 


St. Louis is selling $1 homes to save parts of the city from decay, and there are more than 500 to choose from ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/st-louis-cheap-dollar-homes-2019-3
Jensen Comment
This is not a miracle cure for the homeless since buyers are obligated to perform repairs and pay property taxes as values increase


Turing Award --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Award

The three men who kickstarted an AI revolution have won the most prestigious accolade in computer science: the $1 million Turing Award ---
Click Here


Bloomberg:  Half of Older Americans Approaching Retirement Have Nothing Saved ---
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-26/almost-half-of-older-americans-have-zero-in-retirement-savings

Jensen Comment
Bob Jensen's Personal Finance Helpers ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#InvestmentHelpers


If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
Lincoln on How to Handle Criticism ---

https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/03/27/abraham-lincoln-criticism/?mc_cid=855d203b71&mc_eid=4d2bd13843


Hedy Lamarr --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr: An Inventive Mind --- www.womenshistory.org/resources/lesson-plan/hedy-lamarr


The Guardian:  Great Barrier Reef suffers 89% collapse in new coral after bleaching events ---
Click Here


Amazon is planning a new expansion in Austin, but says it isn't connected to HQ2 ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-expand-austin-hq2-2019-3

Jensen Comment
Makes me wonder why Austin was chosen instead of NYC or Seattle


A DNA Company Wants You to Help Catch Criminals ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/a-dna-company-wants-your-dna-to-catch-criminals/586120/


Roundup --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup_(herbicide)

Questions
Who pays for multimillion settlements regarding the cancer scare of Roundup weed killer?
https://www.consumersafetywatch.com/non-hodgkin-lymphoma-roundup/?adwords&gclid=EAIaIQobChMInpnk3vap4QIVgV6GCh3_XgRsEAAYAiAAEgKnF_D_BwE

Jensen Comment
It's a bit like cigarette manufacturer settlements when customers in the future pay for past settlements. And since farmers and homeowners around the world will continue to use this product or its equivalent Roundup's legal settlements will be paid by future customers.

However, there's a huge difference relative to cigarette consumers. Farmers around the world say they will still spray Roundup or its equivalent on growing crops ---
https://www.wsj.com/articles/despite-rulings-farmers-remain-loyal-to-roundup-11553175429

This means that virtually all consumers (from meat eaters to bread lovers to vegetarians)  will pay for the legal settlements regarding Roundup. Big companies donot pay for legal settlements as long as they continue in business. Their customers pay for those settlements. Exhibit A is how asbestos settlement dollars are factored into the prices paid by customers for insulation today.

How long will the Roundup lawsuits keep piling up?
The lawsuits will be slowed down when appeals courts greatly scale back the damage awards. And lawsuits "might" eventually cease as publicity and product labels make users of Roundup more responsible for knowingly taking on risks. The link between Roundup and food consumers, to my knowledge, has never been scientifically proven. Much awaits more scientific study on this matter of food risks from Roundup use.

Suppose a link between Roundup and bread or hamburger eventually is proven. This alone does will not necessarily put an end to Roundup or its equivalent. I've pointed out previously that use of Roundup will then become a bit like the Trolley Problem in philosophy ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
The fact of the matter is that until safer herbicides become as effective as Roundup people around the world will surely pay much more for food and many people will starve due to lower crop yields providing food without Roundup use.


Phillies fans booed Bryce Harper after he struck out during rough first game of his 13-year $330 million contract ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/bryce-harper-booed-phillies-striking-out-2019-3

Jensen Comment
The bigger question is the number of those fans who came to the game to watch Bryce Harper whether he struck out of not. Also how much are the owners getting back (think sales of shirts and other gear) because of the Harper deal. Of course much depends upon Harper making a better showing during the entire season. The Laker fans are not at all happy with their first Lebron James entire season. Cynically I might add that a small proportion of the Laker fans come to games mainly to watch Lebron lose. This is not necessarily racism. Many fans hate multimillion player contracts irrespective of race or gender.

Ernest Thayer's Poem:  "Casey at the Bat" ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_at_the_Bat


David Giles:  A Permutation Test Regression Example ---
https://davegiles.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-permutation-test-regression-example.html

From David Giles on April 1, 2019
https://davegiles.blogspot.com/2019/04/some-april-reading-for-econometricians.html

Some April Reading for Econometricians

Here are my suggestions for this month:

Nate Silver --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nate_Silver
Nate Silver's Popular Blog --- https://fivethirtyeight.com/

Nassim Taleb --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb

Nassim Taleb’s Case (with name calling) Against Nate Silver Is Bad Math ---
http://nautil.us/blog/nassim-talebs-case-against-nate-silver-is-bad-math

 


Positive Sanctions versus Imprisonment

George Mason Law & Economics Research Paper No. 19-03

24 Pages Posted: 18 Jan 2019

, Murat C. Mungan

George Mason University - Antonin Scalia Law School, Faculty

Date Written: January 17, 2019

Abstract

This article considers the possibility of simultaneously reducing crime, prison sentences, and the tax burden of ?financing the criminal justice system by introducing positive sanctions, which are benefits conferred to individuals who refrain from committing crime. Specifically, it proposes a procedure wherein a part of the imprisonment budget is re-directed towards financing positive sanctions. The feasibility of reducing crime, sentences, and taxes through such reallocations depends on how effectively the marginal imprisonment sentence reduces crime, the crime rate, the effectiveness of positive sanctions, and how accurately the government can direct positive sanctions towards individuals who are most responsive to such policies. The article then highlights an advantage of positive sanctions over imprisonment in deterring criminal behavior: positive sanctions operate by transferring or creating wealth, whereas imprisonment operates by destroying wealth. Thus, the conditions under which positive sanctions are optimal are broader than those under which they can be used to jointly reduce crime, sentences, and taxes. The analysis reveals that when the budget for the criminal justice system is exogenously given, it is optimal to use positive sanctions when the imprisonment elasticity of deterrence is small, which is a condition that is consistent with the empirical literature. When the budget for the criminal justice system is endogenously determined, it is optimal to use positive sanctions as long as the marginal cost of public funds is not high.

 

 

Keywords: Positive sanctions, carrots, sticks, crime, deterrence, imprisonment, mass incarceration, over-incarceration

JEL Classification: K00, K14, K42

Jensen Comment
With crime so much depends upon circumstances. Some people are not rational when drunk or when enflamed in domestic disputes (often leading to physical violence). For some people, especially some males, sexual obsessions override restraints like financial incentives to behave normally. Pedophiles are particularly known to not be able to control urges. Some people seem to have abnormal tempers that go out of control.

There are also complications with anticipated rewards of crime. Enormous anticipated payoffs such as those of the Ponzi schemes of Bernie Madoff and Elizabeth Homes were in the billions of dollars where a pay-not-to-play incentive cannot compete. Some criminals, such as serial killers and rapists, cannot resist the challenge of beating the police. To them victory in playing the game is more important than financial payoffs.

Beyond that there's the problem of who should receive financial incentives not to commit crimes.

I did not do research on this matter, but where I would start would go be crime. For example, how successful are sizeable rewards for academics such as promising a new sports car for graduating from college with gpa higher than 3.0 in computer science. Of course there are all sorts of problems with spurious correlation. A student may really want that new sports car, but chances are there are many other incentives driving that student for success in computer science. There's also a problem in spurious correlation when a person is offered a new car if she or he loses 100 lbs. There are many factors other than a new car that drive people to lose weight.

I would like to see an experiment where hardcore heroine addicts are given free fixes if they remain crime free. I suspect this has already been tried. The trouble is that each addict at each age in each nation has so many other variables affecting addiction and crime. For example, crime is also dependent upon opportunity and punishment.




From the Scout Report on March 29, 2019

Inkscape --- https://inkscape.org/
Inkscape is a professional quality vector graphics editor. Graphics files can be encoded in two main ways. Most common formats are raster formats (e.g., jpg, gif, tiff, png), which encode images as a grid of colored pixels. These are the kinds of images produced by scanners and digital cameras. Images in these formats can become distorted when resized and will become blocky when zoomed. In a vector format, images are encoded as a series of mathematical formulas. They can be resized and zoomed with no loss of crispness and will never become blocky. This is why graphic designers and professional print shops prefer vector formats for logos and line artwork. Inkscape's main format is SVG, but it can also import PDFs and files from Illustrator, CorelDRAW, and Visio. Extensions are available to import additional formats as well. In the "learn" section of the Inkscape site, users can find a series of tutorials, including a basic introduction to vector graphics editing, calligraphy, tracing pixel art, and more. Inkscape is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Windows installers can be located in the "Download" section of the site. macOS users can install Inkscape with MacPorts or Homebrew. Users of most Linux distributions (and BSD operating systems) can find Inkscape packages in their package manager. Inkscape is free software, distributed under the GNU General Public License, with source code available on GitLab


VAGRANT ---  www.vagrantup.com
Vagrant is a tool to simplify and automate the care and feeding of virtual machines with an emphasis on reliably and reproducibly managing development environments. Many dozens of pre-configured, ready to run Vagrant "boxes" are available that users can download and spin up with a couple of commands. This can be an easy way to try new operating systems without needing to learn the minutiae of their installers. It can also provide a way to quickly test locally-developed software on a variety of operating systems. Vagrant has integration with configuration management software (e.g., Chef, Ansible) so that after a base box is installed it can be automatically configured and customized. Organizations that are already using such software to manage their production environments can often use lightly modified versions of the same recipes/playbooks in a Vagrant box to generate a development environment. Virtual machines managed by vagrant can also be packaged to provide a re-usable snapshot that can be sent to others. In addition to its utility for quickly providing new developers with a working copy of a project, this can also be helpful when reporting bugs. Users can find a getting started guide for Vagrant in the "Docs" section of the website along with a detailed operational reference. Vagrant can be downloaded for Windows, macOS, and several distributions of Linux.

 


 

 

 

 




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


Education Tutorials

Poroi: Project on Rhetoric of Inquiry --- https://ir.uiowa.edu/poroi/

Tutorial on How to Make Instructional Story Maps --- https://collections.storymaps.esri.com/how-to-stories/

Hidden Figures Curriculum & Discussion Guides (educational video) --- https://journeysinfilm.org/download/hidden-figures-curriculum-guide/

Brain Science Backs Up Role of 'Mindset' in Motivating Students for Math ---
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2019/04/brain_study_mindset_math_motivation.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news2&M=58794809&U=2290378&UUID=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f

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

Nature vs. Nurture:  Genetic Associations with Mathematics Tracking and Persistence in Secondary School ---
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2019/04/05/598532.full.pdf

The Physics Classroom: Teacher Toolkits --- www.physicsclassroom.com/Teacher-Toolkits

Our mysterious cousins—the Denisovans—may have mated with modern humans as recently as 15,000 years ago ---
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/03/our-mysterious-cousins-denisovans-may-have-mated-modern-humans-recently-15000-years-ago

The Guardian:  Great Barrier Reef suffers 89% collapse in new coral after bleaching events ---
Click Here

Paleontologists have discovered an ancient whale that had four legs and could walk on land ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-whale-had-four-legs-2019-4

During a period of global warming and food shortage Neanderthal ancestors ate each ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-made-neanderthals-cannibals-2019-4

Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the HMS Beagle ---
http://esripm.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/index.html?appid=dee8797954fe4526953075225c26646c&webmap=76376de01e52424f873862c8226c75b0#

550 Million Years of Human Evolution in an Illustrated Flipbook ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/04/550-million-years-of-human-evolution-in-an-illustrated-flipbook.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Bob Jensen's threads on free online science, engineering, and medicine tutorials are at --http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm

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


Social Science and Economics Tutorials

Pew: What Americans Know About Science --- www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/03/28/what-americans-know-about-science

A California bill replaces cash bail with risk-assessment algorithms, which critics argue will perpetuate the pre-trial detention of minority and low-income defendants.---
https://psmag.com/social-justice/what-should-replace-cash-bail?omhide
And if nearly all defendants are released prior to trial guess who will be among the nost none-shows for trial

Maoism: A Global History ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/03/maoism-a-global-history.html

Five Animations Introduce the Media Theory of Noam Chomsky, Roland Barthes, Marshall McLuhan, Edward Said & Stuart Hall ---
http://www.openculture.com/2017/04/animated-short-videos-introduce-5-heavyweights-of-media-criticism.html

The Manitoba Food History Project --- www.manitobafoodhistory.ca ---

This American Life: Old Versus Modern Libraries --- www.thisamericanlife.org/664/the-room-of-requirement

Programming Librarian ---  www.programminglibrarian.org

Connecticut Digital Archive --- https://ctdigitalarchive.org/

How the Invisible Hand of William Shakespeare Influenced Adam Smith
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-invisible-hand-william-shakespeare-influenced-adam-smith-180971905/

Which are the best autobiographies by women?
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/03/which-are-the-best-autobiographies-by-women.html
Jensen Comment
What's even more interesting is what leads to a great autobiography in general. Michelle Obama probably has the best selling autobiography in history now that sales are over 10 million copies. Which leads to another question about books in general. Decades ago my mother and most other readers regularly checked out library books to bring home --- largely because we were too poor to buy books in those days. Today fewer and fewer people use the libraries while more and more families buy books, especially given the convenience of Amazon for both new and used copies that can arrive in less than two days. Hard cover used copies of Michelle's book Becoming are only around $12 and are growing less and less expensive.

NYT:  History of Rupert Murdoch and His Empire
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/magazine/rupert-murdoch-fox-news-trump.html
Billionaires own or financially control the major USA newspapers WSJ, NYT, and WaPo. It's interesting that the NYT did this story on Rupert Murdoch who own's the NYT's arch rival The Wall Street Journal. Has the NYT ever done a story on the billionaire, Carlos Slim, who saved The New York Times? Or a similar piece on billionaire Jeff Bezos who saved The Washington Post. Actually nearly all the major print newspapers in the USA would be in deep trouble if billionaires did not save some of them in terms of supporting their huge worldwide networks of reporters --- which are the most important "assets" of the news media.
Rupert Murdoch --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch
Carlos Slim --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Slim
Jeff Bezos --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos

Bob Jensen's threads on Economics, Anthropology, Social Sciences, and Philosophy tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm

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


Law and Legal Studies

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


Math Tutorials

Nate Silver --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nate_Silver
Nate Silver's Popular Blog --- https://fivethirtyeight.com/
Nassim Taleb --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb
Nassim Taleb’s Case (with name calling) Against Nate Silver Is Bad Math ---
http://nautil.us/blog/nassim-talebs-case-against-nate-silver-is-bad-math

Simpson's Rule --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_rule
Read more about Thomas Simpson at
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Simpson.html

Association for Women in Mathematics --- https://awm-math.org/

Who Invented Differential and Integral calculus?
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Newton.html

How Search Algorithms Are Changing the Course of Mathematics ---
http://nautil.us/issue/70/variables/how-search-algorithms-are-changing-the-course-of-mathematics

Brain Science Backs Up Role of 'Mindset' in Motivating Students for Math ---
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2019/04/brain_study_mindset_math_motivation.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news2&M=58794809&U=2290378&UUID=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f

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

Newly Discovered Shipwreck Proves Herodotus, the “Father of History,” Correct 2500 Years Later ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/03/newly-discovered-shipwreck-proves-herodotus-the-father-of-history-correct-2500-years-later.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Maoism: A Global History ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/03/maoism-a-global-history.html

What Do We Really Know About Joseph Stalin ---
https://daily.jstor.org/what-do-we-really-know-about-joseph-stalin/

Download Original Bauhaus Books & Journals for Free: A Digital Celebration of the Founding of the Bauhaus School 100 Years Ago ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/03/download-original-bauhaus-books-journals.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

The Theory of Interest Rates ---
https://mises.org/library/theory-interest-rates

Things you may not know about Leonardo da Vinci, on the 500th anniversary of his death ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-leonardo-da-vinci-2019-4

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Papers  ---
https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/collections/highlights/gertrude-stein-and-alice-b-toklas-papers

Jewish Women's Archive: Encyclopedia --- https://jwa.org/Encyclopedia

This American Life: Old Versus Modern Libraries --- www.thisamericanlife.org/664/the-room-of-requirement

A Brief History of Porn on the Internet ---
https://www.wired.com/story/brief-history-porn-internet/

N.C. Wyeth Catalogue Raisonne ---
http://collections.brandywine.org/ncwcr

How Eleanor Roosevelt Revolutionized Politics ---
https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/04/12/jill-lepore-eleanor-roosevelt-these-truths/?mc_cid=8ce7e60b93&mc_eid=4d2bd13843

How the Invisible Hand of William Shakespeare Influenced Adam Smith
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-invisible-hand-william-shakespeare-influenced-adam-smith-180971905/

Horace Traubel transcribed 5,000 pages of conversations with the poet (Walt Whitman) , but he left out “the one big factor” that explained everything ---
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/04/18/walt-whitman-alone/

Digital Library of the Caribbean --- www.dloc.com

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

Hedy Lamarr --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr: An Inventive Mind --- www.womenshistory.org/resources/lesson-plan/hedy-lamarr

An Animated History of Dogs, Inspired by Keith Haring ---
http://www.openculture.com/2019/04/an-animated-history-of-dogs-inspired-by-keith-haring.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the HMS Beagle ---
http://esripm.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/index.html?appid=dee8797954fe4526953075225c26646c&webmap=76376de01e52424f873862c8226c75b0#

The incredible history of insulin, a lifesaving diabetes drug that was discovered almost a century ago that's at the center of drug pricing outrage after its price has gone up 300% over the last decade ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/diabetes-insulin-banting-history-2016-11

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

The Rhetoric of Translation --- https://ir.uiowa.edu/poroi/vol13/iss1/

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


Music Tutorials

Video:  This is What Music Does to Us
https://www.jborden.com/music-monday-this-is-what-music-can-do-to-us/

A Journey Through Dance Photography From the New York Times Archives ---
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/12/arts/dance/dance-photography-archives.html

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/

March 28, 2019

March 29, 2019

March 30, 2019

April 1, 2019

April 2, 2019

April 3, 2019

April 4, 2019

April 5, 2019

April 8, 2019

April 9

April 10, 2019

April 11, 2019

 April 13, 2019

April 15, 2019

View All Health News

 


The incredible history of insulin, a lifesaving diabetes drug that was discovered almost a century ago that's at the center of drug pricing outrage after its price has gone up 300% over the last decade ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/diabetes-insulin-banting-history-2016-11


MIT: Zapping the brain with electricity seems to improve memory in older people ---
Click Here
I split a power cord, but then I was afraid to touch each ear with a bared wire.


 

The Atlantic:  The Worst Disease Ever Recorded ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/bd-frogs-apocalypse-disease/585862/


Vox:  The Bernie Sanders national medical plan has lots of details about what single-payer would cover. It has less information on how to pay for it (well over $3 trillion per year and growing for more generous coverage than all other national health plans) ---
https://www.vox.com/2019/4/10/18304448/bernie-sanders-medicare-for-all

. . .

Medicare, employer coverage, and these other countries show that nearly every insurance scheme we’re familiar with covers a smaller set of benefits with more out-of-pocket spending on the part of citizens. Private insurance plans often spring up to fill these gaps (in Canada, for example, vision and dental insurance is often sponsored by employers, much like in the United States).

The reason they went this way is clear: It’s cheaper to run a health plan with fewer benefits. The plan Sanders proposes has no analog among the single-payer systems that currently exist. By covering a more comprehensive set of benefits and asking no cost sharing of enrollees, it is likely to cost the government significantly more than programs other countries have adopted

. . .

But who pays how much more is a key question this Sanders bill doesn’t answer yet. Until there is a version that does, we can’t know whether the health system the Vermont senator envisions could actually become reality.

Jensen Comment
The Sanders plan eliminates all private-sector medical insurance companies and eliminates Medicare and Medicaid.

The good news for us retired folks is that long-term care insurance that is not covered presently under Medicare will cover us retired folks. Hooray for Bernie! I can eat, drink, and be merry on my long-term care savings.

Two things Bernie does not like to discuss is the impact on doctors and hospitals. At present many (most?) of the top physicians and hospitals refuse Medicaid patients because of caps placed on fees. Many also reject Medicare patients, but more of them are covered because of supplemental private insurance benefits that can be added to Medicare insurance. Presently Erica and I pay over $1,200 for supplemental benefits that will not be allowed under the Sanders' plan.

I think Sanders does not like to discuss caps that will be placed on physician billings and hospital rates because the medical profession would otherwise crank up an huge lobbying effort against his plan. The medical profession has only begun to fight.

Also Sanders does not like to discuss the shortage of physicians and hospital services that will arise when bringing tens of millions of people into his plan (think nearly 20 million undocumented residents that will be covered in rural areas already underserved with doctors and hospitals).

Also Sanders does not like to discuss the transition costs in creating the vast government bureaucracy that does not exist for processing medical insurance claims. At present Medicare and Medicaid outsource claims processing to the private sector. Bernie plans to kill that outsourcing sector.

Bernie Sanders: "You’re Damn Right We’re Going to Destroy Private Health Insurance" ---
Click Here
And he will limit the number of doctors by regulating what they're allowed to earn.

And Bernie plans on taxing high income earners in the USA by taking away 70% or more of what they now earn. What will be the incentive for spending years of misery to become a physician good at a craft that will be taxed to death rather than rewarded after all those years of misery?

The problem with becoming a physician is not just the cost of medical school. The problem is the ordeal --- those years of education and training needed to become masters of their crafts. The time needed varies with specialties, but you don't become a neurosurgeon without years of ordeal in training before you can bill your first paying patient. And there's a lot of blood, sweat, and tears in those training years. Even worse is that there's a lot of weekly tension and risk of burn out in the years of practice that follow. Tell that to the advocates of Medicare-for-All combined with soaring taxes!

Why did Cuba abandon its socialist/communist dream of equality for everybody?
The Guardian:  This was the egalitarian dream of Cuba in the 1960s: For years in Cuba, jobs as varied as farm workers and doctors only had a difference in their wages of the equivalent of a few US dollars a month.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/12/cuba 
Jensen Comment
Only now is Cuba backtracking from its egalitarian dream by uncapping wages and legalizing profits while liberals in the USA want to return again to the 1960s Cuban dream.

But is Denmark socialist? …Denmark doesn’t at all fit the classic definition of socialism, which involves government ownership of the means of production. It is, instead, social-democratic: a market economy where the downsides of capitalism are mitigated by government action, including a very strong social safety net. …The simple fact is that there is far more misery in America than there needs to be. Every other advanced country has universal health care and a much stronger social safety net than we do.
Paul Krugman
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/19/opinion/something-not-rotten-in-denmark.html
Jensen Comment
What Krugman does not mention is that Denmark is mostly a homogeneous (white) nation of less than 6 million people. It's much more difficult and expensive to afford and maintain a similar safety net with over 300 million highly diverse people located on top of a very porous border with thousands trying to sneak in daily to enjoy the safety nets.

Welfare Leads to Slower Growth in the Nordic Nations ---
https://mises.org/wire/paul-krugman-learns-wrong-lesson-denmark

The Swedish Welfare State Leads to Poor Immigrant Assimilation ---
https://mises.org/wire/swedish-welfare-state-leads-poor-immigrant-assimilation

Ending Jensen Comment
But don't get me wrong! Erika and I will vote for Bernie Sanders since our possible expensive long-term health care not funded by Medicare will soon be free. To hell with the future economic engine of the USA. Bring on the Bernie Sanders' socialism since I'm too old to witness the chaos and economic destruction that follows in its path. Since Democrats are promising free everything why shouldn't Erika and I get in on the free everything?

Listen to Big Rock Candy Mountain' performed by Burl Ives ---
Big Rock Candy Mountain' Burl Ives

PS from Bob Jensen
I'm not really going to vote for socialist Bernie Sanders (who was and still is a hard core socialist at heart). I don't want my country to crash and burn like Venezuela

 




Humor for April 2019

Humor:  Vanity Plate Applications ---
https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/rejected-vanity-plates/
Also see
https://www.tampabay.com/florida/2019/04/08/here-are-the-most-outrageous-license-plates-rejected-by-the-florida-dmv/?cid=db

Teen Librarian (British) --- http://teenlibrarian.co.uk/




Humor March 2019--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book19q1.htm#Humor0319.htm

Humor February 2019--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book19q1.htm#Humor0219.htm 

Humor January 2019--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book19q1.htm#Humor0119.htm   

Humor December 2018--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book18q4.htm#Humor1218.htm  

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

Humor October 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