Tidbits on March 17, 2020
Bob Jensen
at Trinity University
Wes Lavin Shows Us How to
Have Fun in Mountain Winters (Part 1) ---
http://cs.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/Lavin/2020-2/Part01.htm
Tidbits on March 17, 2020
Scroll Down This Page
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
Excellent, Cross-Disciplinary Overview of Scientific
Reproducibility in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ---
https://replicationnetwork.com/2018/12/15/excellent-cross-disciplinary-overview-of-scientific-reproducibility-in-the-stanford-encyclopedia-of-philosophy/
Tom Lehrer on Mathematical Models and Statistics ---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfZWyUXn3So
You must watch this to the ending to appreciate it.
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
The History of the Plague: Every Major Epidemic in an Animated Map ---
http://www.openculture.com/2020/03/the-history-of-the-plague-every-major-epidemic-in-an-animated-map.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
Ted Talk on How Technology Has Changed What it's Like to Be
Deaf ---
https://www.ted.com/talks/rebecca_knill_how_technology_has_changed_what_it_s_like_to_be_deaf?utm_source=recommendation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=explore&utm_term=newest-talks-2
Bob Jensen's Threads On Newer Technologies for Disabled Persons ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Handicapped
Ted Talk: When local news dies, so does democracy
https://www.ted.com/talks/chuck_plunkett_when_local_news_dies_so_does_democracy?utm_source=recommendation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=explore&utm_term=newest-talks-3
The Story of Physics Animated in 4 Minutes: From Galileo and Newton, to Einstein
---
http://www.openculture.com/2020/02/the-story-of-physics-animated-in-4-minutes.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
UO Today with The BreakBeat Poets Language Arts (Rap Poetry) ---
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt6-RArJTss
The Sunset Hill House Hotel (near our cottage)
----
https://www.thesunsethillhouse.com/
Watch the video
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
The Documentary Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool Is Streaming Free
for a Limited Time ---
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwGDWzdNTLZRBZFGmZjKmXQZwXt
Music Loved by Your Parents ---
https://jborden.com/2020/03/02/music-monday-do-you-know-your-parents-favorite-music/
The Amazing Turkish Ice Cream Men ---
https://jborden.com/2020/03/11/the-amazing-turkish-ice-cream-men/
Bob Jensen's Links to Free Music
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Music.htm
Photographs and Art
The Smithsonian Puts 2.8 Million High-Res Images Online and Into
the Public Domain ---
http://www.openculture.com/2020/02/the-smithsonian-puts-2-8-million-high-res-images-online-and-into-the-public-domain.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
A peek at a critical time for Japan through its art ---
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/painting-edo-offers-window-into-rich-era-of-japanese-art/
The Unintended Beauty of Starlings
---
http://nautil.us/issue/83/intelligence/the-unintended-beauty-of-starlings
The Photos That Ended Child Labor in the US: See the “Social
Photography” of Lewis Hine (1911) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2020/02/the-photos-that-ended-child-labor-in-the-us.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
Once Upon a Gemstone ---
http://earth.nautil.us/article/527/once-upon-a-gemstone
New York homes covered in ice, resemble 'Frozen' after storm
brings strong winds, lake-effect snow ---
https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-york-lake-effect-snow-winds-frozen-naria-lake-erie-hamburg
Chinese Museums, Closed by the Coronavirus, Put Their
Exhibitions Online ---
http://www.openculture.com/2020/03/chinese-museums-closed-by-the-coronavirus-put-their-exhibitions-online.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
Rennovating an Old Farm ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/empty-nesters-buy-abandoned-farm-pennslyvania-renovate-photos-progress-2020-1#they-cleaned-out-a-bedroom-painted-the-floors-with-oil-based-kilz-set-up-a-bed-so-they-could-sleep-and-started-renovating-the-house-18
Photographs: Most Overrated
Tourist Attraction in Each State ---
https://thebrainypenny.com/native/50-most-overrated-tourist-attractions-in-the-united-states/?utm_source=adrizer&utm_campaign=230165&utm_term=foxnews-foxnews&utm_medium=taboola_ar&azc=230165
Jensen Comment
These are probably
overrated when there's essentially only one place of interest at a "tourist
attraction." However, it's a little misleading when there's a lot to see and do
such as in Times Square in New York. Times Square may be over priced in terms of
hotels, but there's a lot to see and do once you're visiting. The same can't be
said for many of the tourist attractions highlighted in the above article.
The article above also ignores some of the disappointments. For example, visitors to San Francisco are now being turned off by the poopy streets, the stench, the crime, addicts on the streets, and other negatives that distract from the beauty of the city. It does not help when California's new laxity in law enforcement encourages drug abuse, pan handling, mugging, and theft. Fisherman's Wharf in my opinion is now the most overrated tourist attraction in California.
Bob Jensen's threads on art history ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#ArtHistory
Bob Jensen's threads on history, literature and art ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#History
Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various
types electronic literature available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on libraries --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm#---Libraries
The Library of Congress Wants You to Help Transcribe Walt Whitman’s Poems &
Letters: Almost 4000 Unpublished Documents Are Waiting ---
http://www.openculture.com/2020/03/the-library-of-congress-wants-you-to-help-transcribe-walt-whitmans-poems-letters.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
The poetry of hip-hop: A playlist for your classroom ---
https://britannicalearn.com/blog/classroom-hip-hop-playlist/
UO Today with The BreakBeat Poets Language Arts (Rap Poetry) ---
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt6-RArJTss
Free Electronic Literature ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm
Free Online Textbooks, Videos, and Tutorials ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Free Tutorials in Various Disciplines ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#Tutorials
Edutainment and Learning Games ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Edutainment
Open Sharing Courses ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Now in
Another Tidbits Document
Political Quotations on March 17, 2020
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2020/TidbitsQuotations021220.htm
Quantitative Easing --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates to Zero, Launches $700 Billion Quantitative
Easing ---
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/15/federal-reserve-cuts-rates-to-zero-and-launches-massive-700-billion-quantitative-easing-program.html
Jensen Comment
In spite of past attempts to glamorize quantitative easing, it is in fact
dangerous printing of money for the government to avoid taxing and borrowing. In
large amounts it leads to hyper inflation as in Zimbabwe and Venezuela. In small
amounts the impacts are not so disastrous. But simply printing money to fund
government spending is like walking on quicksand for a nation's economy.
What's worse is that quantitative easing combined with zero interest rates for banks effectively takes away our last weapons to fight inflation. The even sadder news is that the world's economies are in sadder shape.
Refinance student loans now and you'll likely save money — here's why
---
https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/refinance-student-loans-save-money
Jensen Comment
Millions of people are also refinancing home mortgages, but there are
transactions costs to consider above and beyond what it costs to refinance
student loans.
How Wikipedia’s volunteers became the web’s best weapon against
misinformation ---
https://www.fastcompany.com/90471667/how-wikipedia-volunteers-became-the-webs-best-weapon-against-misinformation
Jensen Comment
My new Dell laptop has an option for memorizing my fingerprint so that it will
not commence to operate unless it recognizes my print. However, since I'm the
only one who uses the computer in my house I decided not to activate the
fingerprint option. If I did activate this option and then die suddenly I would
have been remiss not to tell my wife beforehand to place my finger on the
keyboard before they remove my corpse. Or maybe she should cut off my finger
before I'm carted off. With password protection I can tell her the current
password before I croak.
I suspect somebody has thought of this before it dawned on me --- fingerprints are less secure than passwords. I can change passwords as often as I like. I'm stuck with the same fingerprints I had as I had when I first became an adult and even before when my fingers were smaller.
Unsecured database exposes 76,000 fingerprints ---
https://techxplore.com/news/2020-03-unsecured-database-exposes-fingerprints.html
A security firm handling employee fingerprint identification for companies worldwide has exposed more than 2 million bits of data, including 76,000 fingerprints, according to a cyberthreat research group.
Jensen Comment
If the above firm instead lost passwords those threatened could quickly change
passwords.
Can a 3-D printer create a finger with some person's known print?
MIT: Here’s how long the coronavirus can live in the air and on
packages ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615348/heres-how-long-the-coronavirus-can-stay-in-the-air-and-on-packages/
The virus prefers steel and plastic, materials commonly found in hospitals and
homes.
Three days is a suggested finding, but there's no evidence of the disease
spreading via packaging or other inanimate objects.
Tax preparation checklist: What to know before filing
https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/filing-taxes-what-to-know
The IRS Website can be really helpful ---
https://www.irs.gov/
If you make less than $69,000 you can file for free. Don't go directly to
sites like TurboTax or H&R Block for free filing since those vendors try to
sneak in charges for there supposedly "free software."
Instead commence your free-filing quest at this IRS
site ---
https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free
If
you use a computer filing your own taxes is quite easy, and there are volunteers
in schools and churches who will help you with your taxes.
Check here for the paperwork you should take along when you consult anybody
about taxes ---
https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/filing-taxes-what-to-know
}
It helps to take along the returns you filed last year.
Trinity University is one of hundreds of USA
colleges and universities closing residence halls and completing its Spring
Semester 2020 with "remote synchronous learning" as a precaution against the
coronavirus ---
https://sites.google.com/trinity.edu/trinityuniversitycovid-19
Among some of the colleges
that moved classes quickly from onsite to online, I'm getting all sorts of raves
about "Keep Teaching" temporary remote teaching software ---
https://keepteaching.osu.edu/
Going Online in a Hurry: What to Do and Where to Start ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Going-Online-in-a-Hurry-What/248207?utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en&utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_1081819&cid=wb&source=ams&sourceId=296279
The coronavirus has colleges and universities
swinging into action to move courses
online. In the coming weeks, we’ll find out just how prepared (or not) academe
is to do this on a large scale. Those of us in online teaching and educational
technology have moved quickly to help, too, and it’s astonishing how many
helpful resources have already been pulled together.
Even just a few weeks into the crisis, and really only a few days since class
cancellations started to become a reality, there are top-quality guides free for
the taking, created by people who really know their stuff. I will make no claim
to have read all or even a fraction of them, but there are several that are
clearly share-worthy:
Continued in Article
Bob Jensen's long-time threads on asynchronous learning ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on education technology in general ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on Tools and Tricks of the Trade ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm
Complimentary software offering for organizations transitioning to
remote environments ---
http://links.email.techsmithmail.com/servlet/MailView?ms=NjQyNjc5NjIS1&r=MTQ4MzE0MDYwOTcxS0&j=MTg0MTQ4ODc0NwS2&mt=1&rt=0
How a Guardian Angel Watched Over the Wireless Transfer of Old Software
Into My New Computer
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/0000GuardianAngel.html
NY Times: A Botnet Is Taken Down in an Operation by Microsoft, Not the
Government ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/politics/microsoft-botnets-malware.html
Employees had tracked
the group, believed to be based in Russia, as it hijacked nine million computers
around the world to send spam emails meant to defraud unsuspecting victims.
Microsoft organized 35 nations on Tuesday to take down one of the world’s
largest botnets — malware that secretly seizes control of millions of computers
around the globe. It was an unusual disruption of an internet criminal group,
because it was carried out by a company, not a government.
The
action, eight years in the making, was aimed at a criminal group called Necurs,
believed to be based in Russia. Microsoft employees had long tracked the group
as it infected nine million computers around the world, hijacking them to send
spam emails intended to defraud unsuspecting victims. The group also mounted
stock market scams and spread ransomware, which locks up a computer until the
owner pays a fee.
Over
the past year, Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit has been quietly lining up
support from legal authorities in countries around the world, convincing them
that the group had seized computers in their territories to conduct future
attacks.
“It’s a highway out there that is used only by criminals,” Amy Hogan-Burney, the
general manager of the Digital Crimes Unit and a former F.B.I. lawyer, said on
Tuesday. “And the idea that we would allow those to keep existing makes no
sense. We have to dismantle the infrastructure.”
Continued in
the Article
A fake coronavirus tracking app is actually ransomware that threatens to
leak social media accounts and delete a phone's storage unless a victim pays
$100 in bitcoin ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-fake-app-ransomware-malware-bitcoin-android-demands-ransom-domaintools-2020-3
Jensen Comment
Here's a legitimate coronavirus tracking map from Microsoft ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-map-for-tracking-covid-19-cases-state-country-microsoft-2020-3
Video from the University of Minnesota
Warren Lecture Series:
Plagiarism, Plagiarisma, Plagiarmania ----
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQo7rzmnkA4
Bob Jensen's threads on plagiarism and cheating---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm
NYT: Think Cheating in Baseball Is Bad? Try Chess ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/sports/chess-cheating.html?action=click&module=Top
Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Jensen Comment
Whereas the recent baseball cheating scandal is interesting from the standpoint
of ethics theory, the technique of beating on trash cans does not make teachers
fearful of the baseball cheating techniques being extended to classrooms.
Teachers should be more fearful of the techniques used by cheating chess
players. Think of all the technology that is shrinking into smart watches and
tiny cameras sending pictures over the Internet, pictures that might be images
of test pages.
Bob Jensen's threads on some of the new ways to cheat in education ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#NewWays
A law
student was caught using invisible ink and a UV light to cheat on an exam. The
woman had legitimately taken her law textbook into an exam. However, it had 24
pages of secret notes written throughout it. She used a "black light" attached
to her pen to read them ---
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/student-caught-using-invisible-ink-to-cheat-during-law-exam/ar-BBAMsr3?ocid=spartandhp
Cryptocurrency --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency
MIT: This is how North Korea uses cutting-edge crypto money
laundering to steal millions ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615324/north-korean-hackers-cryptocurrency-money-laundering/
France Fines Apple $1.2 Billion for Antitrust Issues ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/technology/france-apple-antitrust-fine.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage
Ted Talk on How Technology Has Changed What it's Like to
Be Deaf ---
https://www.ted.com/talks/rebecca_knill_how_technology_has_changed_what_it_s_like_to_be_deaf?utm_source=recommendation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=explore&utm_term=newest-talks-2
Bob Jensen's Threads On Newer Technologies for Disabled
Persons ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm#Handicapped
Why You Might Want Your University to Invest in Large Oil Companies? (That $145 Billion with a "B")
Shell just announced plans to build the world's largest
'green hydrogen' plant. Here's everything you need to know about the $145
billion industry, which is set to transform the energy sector.---
https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-hydrogen-fuel-industry-explainer-2020-1?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BIPrime_select&utm_campaign=BI%20Prime%202020-02-28&utm_term=BI%20Prime%20Select
Magnitude Based Statistics (based in traditional methods)
Was Just Banned From A Major Sports Science Journal ---
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-flawed-statistical-method-was-just-banned-from-a-major-sports-science-journal/
Sports performance is a difficult thing to
study. There are only so many trained athletes available for experiments, and
most of the measurements required to investigate human performance are
time-consuming to collect. As a result, most sports science studies are small,
and that means it can be difficult to tease out the signal from the noise. In
2006, Will Hopkins and Alan Batterham published
a commentary proposing a method for
making meaningful inferences in such situations.
Their method,
“magnitude-based inference,” or MBI, was controversial from the start. It was rebutted
in 2008 by two statisticians who concluded
that it was generally unreliable and represented an improper use of existing
statistical methods. In 2009, the flagship journal of the American College of
Sports Medicine, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, published a set of
statistical guidelines for the journal that included a description of MBI, but
the journal published it as an invited
commentary after peer reviewers would not
agree to accept it. Since then, MSSE has published two critiques
of MBI that concluded the method was too
flawed to be used (the most
recent of which arose from reporting
by FiveThirtyEight). Now FiveThirtyEight
has learned that MSSE has decided to stop accepting papers that use MBI.
The journal’s editor-in-chief, L. Bruce Gladden made the
policy change after reviewing the published criticisms of MBI and consulting the
journal’s editorial board, numerous statistical experts and ACSM leaders.
“Science is self-correcting,” he said by way of explanation. The decision will
be formalized in new instructions to authors, “but we’re putting the word out
now, informally,” Gladden said.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's threads on recent controversies surrounding traditional
statistical inference analyses ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
How to Be a Better Teacher Online ---
https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/advice-online-teaching?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_1070631&cid=at&source=ams&sourceId=296279
Jensen Comment
Teachers who meet students during office hours often find
that they are answering the same questions time and time again. The same can be
true for students online. Sometimes these questions can be answered with group
email messages or Website documents. However, often the questions about
technical things are difficult to put into words and are better explained with
videos such as videos of how to use software (think Excel or MatLab or SAS) or
how to do a sequence of technical things like solving mathematics problems.
I answered many of my students' questions with Camtasia videos of computer screens while I solved complicated problems (you can also use cheaper screen and voice capture alternatives like SnagIt). After I started making these videos available on line I felt like the Maytag Repairman during office hours, but not entirely. Students still came in with their own unique questions such as when they were seeking career advice.
Read the Fine
Print of Insurance Contracts: A typical $500 million property insurance
plan of a college could include a $1 million
pandemic damages
sublimit ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/03/09/insurance-coverage-scarce-coronavirus-threatens-college-finances?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=143f931802-DNU_2019_COPY_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-143f931802-197565045&mc_cid=143f931802&mc_eid=1e78f7c952
Jensen
Comment
Since there's a fault line not far from our mountain
home I added earthquake insurance to my home owners policy one year. Then I read
the fine print that excluded basement, foundation, cement, and brick wall
damages that made me doubt that the added earthquake coverage was worth the
cost. My neighbor not far down the road who had a fully brick house got the same
doubts after I told him what I found by reading the fine print. Since our
earthquake risk is quite low I did not pursue the cost of getting coverage that
does not have so many waivers.
“Potential losses are so large
that commercial insurers no longer provide affordable liability insurance to the
Big Four Auditing Firms. They are now self-insured through “captives,” or
insurance firms owned by the global audit networks and funded with premiums paid
by member firms. Yet the captives have limited capital and
cannot cover the full risks faced by
audit firms, according to
a 2006 study by London Economics."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-accounting-lawsuits-idUSBRE92K0QB20130321
Jensen Comment
By "affordable" this means that insurance companies
only offer policies with such miniscule liability sublimits that they are not
worth the cost of buying. The result is that the the huge class action lawsuit
settlements in recent years have been covered by the firms themselves and on
occasion through capital calls from partners --- as in the case of the
settlement fine of over $400 million imposed upon KPMG for fraudulent sales of
tax shelters ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud001.htm#KPMG
Scroll down to the tax shelter settlement of KPMG
US homeowners are taking advantage of low interest rates to refinance
mortgages.
The Mortgage Bankers Association forecasts $1.23 trillion in
refinancing originations this year, double an earlier projection ---
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/10/mortgage-bankers-double-their-2020-refinance-forecast.html
I'm not advocating a Quicken Loan mortgage, but this site will give you a
benchmark on the refinancing rate for your home ---
https://www.quickenloans.com/l/progpi?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI88r-4syS6AIVEK_ICh1iEQjXEAAYAiAAEgLoTvD_BwE&qls=GAW_R2MORTRe.0000711620&ef_id=EAIaIQobChMI88r-4syS6AIVEK_ICh1iEQjXEAAYAiAAEgLoTvD_BwE:G:s&s_kwcid=AL!1083!3!315466509756!e!!g!!mortgage%20rates&gclsrc=aw.ds&ds_rl=1246578&ds_rl=1240468
A 3-inch hook purchased for 56 cents around the end of World War I
could help determine whether PG&E Corp. faces criminal charges for starting the
deadliest wildfire in California history ---
https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-old-metal-hook-could-determine-whether-pg-e-committed-a-crime-11583623059?mod=djemCFO
How to Mislead With Statistics
Research Finds that High
School GPAs Are Stronger Predictors of College Graduation than ACT Scores
---
https://www.aera.net/Newsroom/Research-Finds-that-High-School-GPAs-Are-Stronger-Predictors-of-College-Graduation-than-ACT-Scores
Jensen Comment
This study is all well and good about what it sets out to do. What's misleading
is the implication that ACT scores do not have predictive values. ACT scores
have predictive values above and beyond high school grades when predicting
college grades. High school grades are not very good at predicting high school
grades because of grade inflation in most USA high schools. If most applicants
to a prestigious universities have nearly perfect grade averages, how can those
universities sort out which applicants will perform better in college than other
applicants who will also likely graduate from college?
When the problem is to predict
college gpa, standardized admission tests have value cutting through grade
inflation and fine tuning among a set of applicants all having high grades from
high school.---
http://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/5931-research-report-2016-7-examining-the-validity-of-act-composite-score-and-hs-gpa.pdf
Of course there are other useful college performance predictors other than high school grades and standardized test scores. For example, other predictors might find promise among some students who have both poor grades and low ACT scores such as students who, with remedial education and maturity, become shining stars.
How to Mislead With Statistics
How a Physics Department Became One of the Country’s Largest Producers of
Majors ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-a-Physics-Department/248121
The article does not discuss job availability
Jensen Comment
If true this is popularity among majors is exceptional since physics is not even
included in the US News rankings of the Top 100 Best Jobs ---
https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/rankings/the-100-best-jobs
It seems to me that somewhere "Physics" jobs would be included in the above rankings if physics is now becoming an extremely popular major in the USA. Be aware that there are many limitations in the above rankings of "Best Jobs."
The first clue is that the rankings rate physical therapists above some types of physicians. Say what? What physician would rather be a physical therapist?
The second clue is that all lawyers are lumped together as one occupation. Lawyers in reality vary enormously in terms of compensation and job types (think patent attorney versus personal injury lawyer versus FBI agent) that I doubt that any one ranking of "Lawyers" means much. The same is true of "Accountants" (thank CFOs versus FBI agents versus payroll clerks) and many of the other "Jobs" ranked above.
The adjective "Best" is really a multivariate thing when it comes to careers.
For example, in the following ranking of STEM specialties, "Atomic or Molecular
Physics" comes out at Rank 2. However, among the subcategories of "job
availability" these physicists end up at Rank 65 ---
https://www.worldwidelearn.com/education-rankings/25-best-stem-majors.html
How to Mislead With Quotations
College is "not for learning" and "basically
for fun."
Elon Musk
Elon Musk said a college degree isn't required for a job at Tesla —
and Apple, Google, and Netflix don't require employees to have 4-year degrees
either ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/top-companies-are-hiring-more-candidates-without-a-4-year-degree-2019-4?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BIPrime_select&utm_campaign=BI%20Prime%202020-03-11&utm_term=BI%20Prime%20Select
Jensen Comment
But what proportion of
professional employees (computer scientists, engineers, accountants, lawyers,
nurses, financial analysts, etc.) have college degrees?
My guess is over
99%.
Some professionals must have college degrees (maybe even advanced
degrees just to be licensed). For example CPAs and lawyers cannot be licensed
without advanced degrees.
Prodigies hired without college degrees are few and far between, although there are interesting stories about Harvey Firestone, Bill Gates, and others who became wealthy CEOs without diplomas on the wall. You don't have to have a diploma to lead a company, but that company is not going to hire a notable proportion of professionals without college diplomas.
I hate it when Elon Musk encourages students to party it up in college rather than make the primary goals learning and completion of one or more degree programs.
Sunrun crushed Tesla in
solar installations last year. A top executive reveals a key piece of the $2.2
billion company's strategy to widen its lead ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/sunrun-strategy-rooftop-solar-batteries-to-aid-grid-avoid-blackouts-2020-2?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BIPrime_select&utm_campaign=BI
Prime 2020-02-29&utm_term=BI Prime Select
In the years before it was acquired by Tesla in 2016, SolarCity was the largest residential solar installer in the country, owning a third of the market.
Now, it's in the shadow of a little-known rival that is dominating the business of putting solar panels on your roof.
The rooftop solar company Sunrun deployed more than 400 megawatts (MW) of residential solar panels in 2019, according to numbers released by the company on Thursday, while Tesla's annual installation came in at just 173 MW.
"In a lot of ways, SolarCity ceded leadership when they were acquired by Tesla," Ron Pernick, the founder of the clean energy research firm Clean Edge, said. "Selling a car to a consumer and putting solar on the roof of a consumer's home should have been a good synergy, but I don't think it proved out that way."
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
As the industry leader, Sunrun — which has a market value of about $2.4 billion — is riding the surge of consumer interest in clean and affordable energy.
But Audrey Lee, the VP of energy services at Sunrun, revealed that Sunrun's products aren't just about access to renewable power for individual consumers.
The company is trying to position itself as part of the solution to make the power grid more stable and reliable.
Its batteries and panels can keep homes powered during blackouts. They can also contribute energy to the broader grid when the need for power spikes throughout the day, helping replace carbon-emitting power plants on the grid.
Sunrun is, of course, aware that sweeping blackouts are good for its business. The company sells battery packs that can power a home for days, linked to its solar panels.
Following California's PG&E shutoffs last fall, Sunrun published a report that showed how its customers who lost grid power were able to keep the lights on for up to five or six days straight.
According to a company spokesperson, the proportion of new Sunrun customers in the Bay Area who bought batteries with their residential systems doubled in October, when the shutoffs reached their peak, from 30% to 60%.
"Especially given Public Safety Power Shutoffs in California, customers want resiliency," Lee said.
Continued in article
How can a law student
accumulate a $900,000 student loan and then admit she can never pay it back?
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2020/03/ohio-supreme-court-2019-law-grads-900000-student-loan-debt-does-not-disqualify-her-for-admission-to-.html
The Juiced Scorpion bike is
rated for a top speed of 28 mph (45 km/h) and a range of up to 45 miles (72 km)
from its nearly 700 Wh battery pack.
Debuts at a low price of $1299.
https://electrek.co/2020/02/29/28-mph-juiced-scorpion-moped-electric-deliveries/
Jensen Comment
For commuters, this is not a good alternative for rain, ice, snow, and carrying
luggage. It's higher value also makes it more tempting for thieves relative to
pedal bicycles.
At 100 lbs it's a bit heavy to pedal. The recharge time is 2-3 hours.
Unlike a motorcycle, It's also too slow for freeways. is rated for a top speed
of 28 mph (45 km/h) and a range of up to 45 miles (72 km) from its nearly 700 Wh
battery pack. Debuts at a low price of $1299. https://electrek.co/2020/02/29/28-mph-juiced-scorpion-moped-electric-deliveries/
Jensen Comment For commuters, this is not a good alternative for rain, ice,
snow, and carrying luggage.
It's higher value also makes it more tempting for thieves relative to pedal
bicycles.
At 100 lbs it's a bit heavy to pedal. The recharge time is 2-3 hours. Unlike a
motorcycle, It's too slow for freeways. Up here in the mountains, the narrow
shoulders (think 12 inches or less) make any kind of biking dangerous.
Meet the 11 execs who left
Amazon's 'CEO Factory' and went on to become power players at major enterprise
companies like Twilio, Tableau, and Intel ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/former-amazon-web-services-power-players-ceo-factory-2020-2?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BIPrime_select&utm_campaign=BI
Prime 2020-03-02&utm_term=BI Prime Select
Jensen Comment
I wonder if this CEO Factory has free shipping for Prime members of Amazon
Criteria for Optimal Home Locations: An Illustration of Multivariate Utility Maximization
After 17 spine surgeries and various experiments with pain management (including a failed embedded electronic stimulator), my wife has an embedded pain pump at the base of her spine. Last week, after having the pump's morphine tank refilled with a slight increase in dosage, the next morning Erika had excruciating pain like her right knee was being sawed off without anesthesia. Because of red tape, an ambulance would have taken 5-6 hours (rules call for an ambulance to a local hospital, an examination in the ER, and boarding another ambulance to get to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center that refills her pain pump every month.
In spite of the horrendous winter frost heaves we are now having on our mountain roads I took her on a painful ride to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Center in about 75 minutes. In Dartmouth's ER, it took her two doctors less than two minutes on a wireless laptop to reduce the morphine dosage from the pain pump. Like magic her pain went away (apart from the pain that will never go away).
Afterwards Erika and I wondered why we live so far away from a major medical center when, in San Antonio before I retired, we only lived one block from a major medical center.
This begs the question of where it's best to locate your retirement living. Erika and considered the following choices in 2006:
1. Beside a major medical
center (where we already owned a very nice, albeit very large, home that was
hard to maintain)
2. Beside a nursing home (in case your partner needs 24/7 long-term care and you
want to live nearby)
3. Beside a funeral home
4. Beside a cemetery (so you can easily replace fresh flowers)
4. Within a mile of Polly's Pancake Parlor in very remote and scenic mountains
In spite of Erika's recent episode, I think we would still opt for Polly's Pancake Parlor. We also live on a golf course even though I don't play golf.
Other folks may prefer living alongside a college campus, casino, yacht dock, liquor store, dance hall, super market, shopping mall, grandchild, international airport, sand beach, fishing river, riding stables, freeway exit, library, Broadway theatre, Central Park, bridge/poker players, rental car service, taxi station, prison, organic farm, winery, church, meals-on-wheels center, former spouse, future spouse, sugar daddy, etc.
See how hard it is to maximize multivariate utility functions!
Pictures of where we retired
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
In 1960, 94% of doctors and
lawyers were white men. Today that number has fallen to 60%, and the economy has
benefited dramatically because of it ---
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/workplace-equality-economys-hidden-engine?utm_source=Stanford+Business&utm_campaign=74a19590e3-Stanford-Business-Issue-182-03-1-2020&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0b5214e34b-74a19590e3-70265733&ct=t(Stanford-Business-Issue-182-03-1-2020)
Jensen Comment
In 1960 I was a newly-minted CPA graduating from college and working for the
largest multinational CPA firm in Denver called Ernst & Ernst (now Ernst & Young
EY). We had female secretaries and one woman professional (not a CPA) doing tax
returns in the back room. Only men in the office were allowed to meet with tax
and audit clients. Today my hunch is that there are more women CPAs in that same
office than men. CPA firms in the USA now hire more college graduates of
accounting programs than men, largely because women usually have higher grade
averages. There's still somewhat of a glass ceiling but that's largely due to
voluntary turnover since the firms now have affirmative action programs to
promote women to executive level partnerships. Also CPA firms are among the best
companies in the world to promote full-time work-at-home alternatives for
working mothers. Partly this is due to the nature of client work that often
allows working at home.
There are still issues. I recall a Stanford University study that found women physicians earn less on average than male physicians largely due to not putting in as much overtime work as the men. In law firms there seems to be a problem of with a higher proportion of women leaving law firms. Reasons women leave the larger firms are complicated and studied extensively. I won't go into those findings here. They are somewhat similar to why women leave accounting firms.
Why Are Women Leaving The
Legal Profession In Droves?
https://abovethelaw.com/2017/11/why-are-women-leaving-the-legal-profession-in-droves/
A huge problem in the
medical profession for both men and women is burnout.
Physician burnout in 2019, charted ---
https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2019/01/18/burnout-report
I witnessed the burnout of
our two best general surgeons in our local hospital.
Medicare-For-All will exacerbate the physician burnout crisis.
Consulting firms that have
given MBA grads the biggest salary boosts in the last 5 years ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/consultancies-with-the-highest-salary-increases-for-mba-grads-bain-mckinsey-pwc
Consultants can make high salaries, and their expertise continues to be in high demand.
Consulting firms hand pick young professional out of business school and offer them hefty salaries. While a recent college graduate can earn up to $130,600 right out of college, MBA graduates get drastic salary bumps and can make up to $170,000 in base salary alone — and that's not including bonuses and company covered expenses like relocation.
Management Consulted, a careers resource company that helps graduates land consulting jobs, has released salary reports from leading consultancies for more than six years. They based figures off information from clients, industry insiders, and offer letters. The company declined to give the exact number of salaries used to compile the data.
Business Insider compiled a ranking of firms with the highest salary increases for MBA grads in the past five years. From 2015 to 2020, these firms have an average salary increase of nearly $40,000. Bain & Company, for example, boosted their total potential pay by $57,250, from offering $195,000 in 2015 to $252,250 this year, according to Management Consulted's reports.
The potential total compensation includes the base salary, signing bonus, performance bonus, and compensation for relocation. The ranking is determined based on the calculated compensation from 2015 to 2020. It's also important to note that the numbers below are maximum possible salaries for business school graduates.
. . .
PricewaterhouseCoopers' (PwC) salary increased $23,000 since 2015
Boston Consulting Group's (BCG) salary increased $25,250 since 2015.
Accenture's salary increased $26,000 since 2015.
Deloitte's salary increased $28,000 since 2015.
McKinsey & Company's salary increased $30,000 since 2015.
Kearney's salary increased $48,600 since 2015.
L.E.K. Consulting's salary increased $50,000 since 2015.
Bain & Company's salary increased $57,250 since 2015.
PwC Strategy& salary increased $59,900 since 2015
KPMG's salary increased $65,250 since 2015.Continued in article
Jensen Comment
Why do the Big 4 international CPA firms cling to their less profitable
auditing engagements when consulting is so profitable and growing by leaps and
bounds?
Answer
Auditing is still the bread and butter business for large CPA firms and
contributes more to recovery of fixed costs than consulting and tax work. Also
auditing is more reliable with clients sticking to the same audit firms year
after year. Consulting clients come and go, and to do well in the consulting
business you constantly have to make bids for new clients. The drawback of
auditing is that litigation risks are greater to a point where audit firms
usually have to self-insure for liability risks. Also audit firms are under
close scrutiny by government regulators demanding better audits, especially in
the United Kingdom recently.
University accounting programs depend heavily upon large international accounting firms who hire the cream of the crop of both accounting and tax graduates. Those graduates usually want offers from those large firms because of both the exceptional training and opportunities to work with great clients who frequently hire auditors away from their accounting firm employees. Many graduates go to work for large CPA firms without ever intending to stay with those firms. This turnover in CPA firms is great for universities seeking employment for their forthcoming graduates.
The most prestigious MBA programs do not usually provide graduates for the accounting and tax practices of accounting firms. Usually state requirements for accounting majors to sit for the CPA exam are too comprehensive for MBA curricula. Any MBA graduate seeking an auditing or tax career usually majored in accounting as an undergraduate before entering a MBA program. Nearly all MBA graduates from prestigious universities majored in something other than accountancy as undergraduates. Most CPA candidates these days graduated from masters of accounting degree programs.
USA Cities Having an
Unsually Mild Winter This Year ---
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2020/02/28/places-having-the-most-unusually-mild-winters-this-year/?utm_source=247WallStDailyNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DailyNewsletter&utm_content=MAR022020a
Jensen Comment
Winters seem to be getting milder, wetter, and stormier with dangerous winds,
snow, ice, and flooding.
Rents in urban areas are
skyrocketing, and faculty and staff members at universities increasingly face
long commutes and housing insecurity. San José State hopes a creative solution
can help ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/03/03/amid-severe-cost-living-crunch-san-josé-state-builds-housing-employees?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=bd016d2ef2-DNU_2019_COPY_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-bd016d2ef2-197565045&mc_cid=bd016d2ef2&mc_eid=1e78f7c952
Note that San Jose in the Bay Area of Silicon Valley is the 10th largest city in
the USA according to the above article
. . .
“We pretty regularly hire people, then they last a little while and then they feel they can’t make it, in part because of the housing crisis,” he said. “And they leave.”
This problem is not unique to the university, he said, but one that unfortunately affects many other people in the region.
“Working people in the Bay Area are having to move further and further away and make longer and longer commutes. It’s a pervasive problem,” Rudy said. “The Bay Area hasn’t done enough to address these problems.”
Though not every day, Rudy himself commutes from Sacramento.
Creative Solutions
San Jose State University has acknowledged the housing crisis and to some extent made addressing it a priority.
Faas explains that San José State, despite the higher cost of living in the area, isn’t able to offer faculty members more money than can its peers in the CSU system. Union-negotiated salary scales for both faculty and staff apply to all 23 universities, regardless of geographic location.
“[Faculty recruits] quickly realize they’re not going to live anywhere near the campus,” he said. “They’re going to live an hour, two hours, an hour and a half away from the campus, having to commute in here on that type of salary.”
“What they quickly do is they fall in love with California and they end up going up to [CSU campuses at] Stanislaus or Sonoma or Humboldt or one of these lower cost of living areas,” he said.
So the university is now investing heavily in building subsidized housing for faculty and staff.
“Four years ago we looked at this situation we found ourselves in and said if we don’t look at faculty and staff housing and giving people options, we’re going to, sometime in the near future, be faced with a massive, massive problem,” Faas said. “You have to find ways than are different than we’ve ever tried to do here.”
The university already provides about 50 housing units for faculty and staff, but it is pushing for more placements and more subsidies.
The hallmark of San José State's campaign is the Alquist Building, about one block from the university, which once housed state government offices. Early this year California, after prodding from state lawmakers, transferred the building and land to the university. San José State plans to build 800 to 1,200 apartments on the land for faculty, staff, graduate students and students with families. (The university is also planning on substantial investment elsewhere in student housing and housing grants.)
Through eliminating land costs and any expectation of profit, Faas said the university can easily get units to 80 percent of market value, although they’re looking to go lower.
“This is one of those 'wow' moments, that this could really happen and this could make a difference for our faculty and staff,” he said.
President Mary Papazian said early in her tenure she realized the university needed to have affordable housing options to continue recruiting accomplished and diverse talent.
“When the development of the Alquist Building is completed as planned, it may very well be one of the most important projects ever completed at San José State. It will definitely be a unique model in converting a state-owned building into affordable housing for our campus community,” she said via email. “Long-term, sustainable solutions take some time, of course, but we are happy to be addressing it now and putting real resources behind it.”
Faculty and staff seem hopeful about the potential of the Alquist Building. But they acknowledge it will be more helpful for future staff members.
“It’s positive that the university is thinking about trying to develop solutions to address the difficulty of getting housing for faculty,” Rudy said.
Other universities, especially those in urban areas, have not been immune to the housing crisis.
San Francisco State University only has enough housing for 4,000 of its 30,000 students, and some have become homeless. In 2018, a City University of New York survey found that 55 percent of students who responded to a survey were housing insecure in the past year. It seems likely that faculty and staff at CUNY and San Francisco State may be struggling as well.
Stanford University, just 25 minutes away and also in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country, has for its part developed hundreds of faculty and staff units, some below market rate for those who are eligible.
Stanford, though, has an endowment of over $27 billion. San José State’s endowment is $153 million, 180 times smaller than Stanford’s. San José State also serves twice the students that Stanford does.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
Stanford University has lots of land given to it originally by the Stanford
Family on condition that it cannot be sold. This enables Stanford to lease lots
for faculty and staff to build homes complete with streets, utilities, emergency
services, and campus schools. I think the lease fee is about $1 per year for a
campus lot, Faculty like my friends Bill Beaver and Sue Beaver have lived in
large and convenient homes that they built decades ago and can live in these
homes until they die. However, when they pass on the homes must be sold to
Stanford employees. Thus Professor Beaver cannot make the $100 million profit he
would probably get if his house was in Woodsville, Atherton, or Palo Alto.
However, he's lived very nicely on campus for most of his working life and
retirement years.
When I was in a think tank on the Stanford University campus during two disjointed years I rented two different faculty houses at very reasonable rates for my family. I think faculty who own those homes can only rent to people connected in some way to Stanford. Faculty usually rent their houses when they themselves go on temporary leave off campus.
Stanford also has built faculty, staff, and student short term rental housing that is much more affordable than surrounding rental properties. There are also a lot of dorms on campus.
This faculty and staff housing
plus a lot of dormitory space makes Stanford a unique university in the Silicon
Valley in much the same way NYU and Columbia are unique among universities in
Manhattan although demand greatly exceeds supply at both NYU and Columbia ---
https://facilities.columbia.edu/housing-faculty-and-staff
Manhattan is better than most cities in the USA in terms of transportation
alternatives for long-range commuting by students and staff of universities.
A major problem for for faculty in large cities is that living near campus generally means having unsafe public schools for children. This generally requires some kind of salary supplements to pay for private schools. The good news is that there are usually better jobs available for both spouses in large cities relative to Vermillion, South Dakota. Conversely, it's relatively cheap to own a horse acreage not far from the University of South Dakota --- thus making low real estate prices a huge non-taxable fringe benefit for faculty in South Dakota. And the public schools in South Dakota are great.
No Raw Data No
Editorial Review ---
https://molecularbrain.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13041-020-0552-2
Jensen Comment
Academic
accounting researchers rely heavily upon purchased data available to anybody who
will pay for it. Presumably this satisfies the "raw data" issue in the above
article. However, what it does not alleviate is the tendency for researchers not
to challenge the validity of the purchased data. Hence, any error in the data
generally goes undetected even in the event of a replication efforts by
independent researchers.
Bob
Jensen's threads on the validity and replication problem in accountics science
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
A Partnership with Pearson Online Learning Services is Enabling
Duquesne University's School of Nursing to Grow Nationally Online
https://sponsored.chronicle.com/Evolution-of-Nursing-Education/index.html
Cambridge
College Acquires Online Business School
Harvard Business School offers online classes that
run parallel to its MBA program — for a fraction of the cost
https://www.businessinsider.com/harvard-business-school-online-courses-change-careers-without-mba?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BIPrime_select&utm_campaign=BI
Prime 2020-03-05&utm_term=BI Prime Select
Jensen Comment
This article documents the success of three students who took
the online versions. However, don't be lured into thinking that the online
versions are as valuable as the onsite versions in terms of the job market for
Harvard MBAs. For one thing, most any resume of an onsite graduate
from a very prestigious university carries with it the prestige of having been
admitted to an onsite program. The advantage of having been admitted to a
prestigious university is an enormous plus when it comes to jobs or admission to
a another university for further study.
Also Harvard MBA courses are not highly conducive to online learning. Harvard's graduate business school, like its law school, prides itself on Socratic method in the form of in-class case studies where grades depend heavily on performance in case discussions. In fact, Harvard Business School faculty often pride themselves in not revealing their own preferred solutions and often there are no single optimal solutions to the complex cases studied in the Harvard Business School. It's possible to have online students participate in case discussions (think online chat rooms and instant messaging), but this is more difficult to pull off than live-class case discussions.
In comparison, one-on-one tutorial courses may be more effective online. But this is not so for large case courses such as those at Harvard that often have 90 students or more in the classroom competing with one another for air time.
MOOC courses are a bit different in the sense that they are videos of onsite classrooms. The MOOC student usually does not get a chance to contribute to the case discussions on onsite students, but that MOOC student does get to observe students having case discussions.
Bob Jensen's threads on
fee-based distance education degree programs ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm
Bob Jensen's
threads on free MOOC learning ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/updateee.htm#OKI
Why You Should Stop Using or Cancel Your Citi Mastercard: Systematic
Violation of Cardmember Chargeback Rights ---
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/03/why-you-should-stop-using-or-cancel-your-citi-mastercard-systematic-violation-of-cardmember-chargeback-rights-insistence-on-using-fraud-friendly-voiceprints.html
California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalPERS
CalPERS Legacy Assets: How Much in Overvaluation Has CalPERS Been
Hiding?
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/03/calpers-legacy-assets-how-much-in-overvaluation-has-calpers-been-hiding.html
Over 400 research papers from different authors and affiliations that
all appear to have been generated by the same source ---
https://scienceintegritydigest.com/2020/02/21/the-tadpole-paper-mill/
Current and past editions of my blog called Fraud Updates --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Nobel laureate Robert Shiller identifies a rising 'existential
threat' to the economy's expansion — and tells us why it's similar to what made
the Great Depression so severe
https://www.businessinsider.com/next-recession-robert-shiller-existential-threat-artificial-intelligence-jobs-fear-2020-3?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BIPrime_select&utm_campaign=BI%20Prime%202020-03-07&utm_term=BI%20Prime%20Select
The fear of artificial intelligence and its ability to displace workers pose an "existential threat" to our sense of economic strength, Robert Shiller, the Nobel Memorial Prize-winning Yale University economist, said.
He exclusively showed Business Insider the
similarity between concerns about AI and the so-called
technological-unemployment narrative that sprang up just before the Great
Depression.
Robert
Shiller
popularized a benchmark metric for evaluating whether the stock market is
overvalued: the
S&P 500
Shiller CAPE ratio.
But the winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic
Sciences is as preoccupied with qualitative factors that influence markets as he
is with the raw numbers.
Shiller has long explored how
narratives drive behavior and move the needles of both the financial markets and
the economy. In his book "Irrational Exuberance," for example, he presciently
outlined the psychological factors and herd thinking that sowed the seeds of the
dot-com bust and the 2008 financial crisis.
More recently, Shiller
focused on the market-moving power of oral tradition in a book aptly called
"Narrative Economics." And in a recent
email exchange with Business Insider, he
drew a direct link between one narrative trigger for the Great Depression and a
prospective catalyst of the next recession.
Shortly before the
1930s financial disaster — and within a century of
the industrial revolution — the idea that technology would displace human labor
became widespread.
Shiller said a book by the
economist Stuart Chase called "Men
and Machines" popularized the idea of
"technological unemployment," which refers to job losses caused by automation.
If this idea sounds eerily
familiar, it is because a similar concern is pervasive today — and
artificial intelligence is the culprit
this time around. Different iterations of AI are already changing the world,
from algorithms that determine the severity of
market sell-offs to smart suggestions
about which shows we should binge-watch.
Shiller produced the
chart below to quantify this fear of "the
robots." It shows the share of newspaper articles that have contained the
phrases "technological unemployment" and "artificial intelligence" since 1900.
The source is a
ProQuest news
database of more than 3,000 sources.
March 7, 2020 reply from XXXXX
The thick book, A Monetary History of the United States, 1967-1960 by Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz would be useful in understanding the depth and length of the Great Depression. The Board of Governors of the FRS apparently had no idea of the effects of growth or contraction of the money supply on the economy. Banks failed, the fed allowed the money supply to shrink, and the great depression continued until the beginning of WWII. Benjamin Strong, the chair until his death in 1928, knew of the importance of the money supply. Too bad he died a year before the market crashed. We are very fortunate that Ben Bernanke was fed chair in 2007. In Dec 2007 I was told by a colleague in Economics that the velocity of money had declined but that the fed under Ben Bernanke's leadership was pouring money into the economy by purchasing treasury bonds. As a result the market bottomed out in early March 2008, and we have been in an expansion for over 10 years.
Tesla Sent
Incomplete Injury Reports, California Regulator Says
Tesla has repeatedly denied that working conditions at its main California assembly plant are unsafe. New documents show the company omitted hundreds of injuries from an annual summary it sends to the government.
Jensen Comment
Thus far Tesla has resisted
attempts to unionize its only automobile manufacturing plant in the USA.
Facebook: the Inside
Story (history book) ---
https://www.amazon.com/Facebook-Inside-Story-Steven-Levy-ebook/dp/B07V8CL7RH/ref=sr_1_1?crid=17YXRVUIGIXI6&keywords=steven+levy+facebook&qid=1583707500&sprefix=steven+levy%2Caps%2C138&sr=8-1/marginalrevol-20
“In 1665, Cambridge University closed because
of the plague. Issac Newton decided to work from home. He discovered calculus &
the laws of motion. Just saying.”
— Paddy Cosgrave
Cosgrave,
chief executive of Web Summit, in a
tweet last week reflecting on the ramifications of coronavirus.
As quoted
again in a March 11, 2020 Chronicle of Higher Education newsletter.
Jensen
Comment
For Cambridge students in 1665 there were no photocopy machines for
lecture notes, telephone, Web sites, video/radio technologies, and other online
technologies used today for online teaching.
The Coronavirus Is Upending Higher Ed. Here Are the Latest
Developments---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Coronavirus-Is-Upending/248175?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_1075283&cid=at&source=ams&sourceId=296279
The novel coronavirus and Covid-19, the disease it causes, are becoming a public-health threat across the world, fueling fears of a possible pandemic.
As more cases are reported, colleges are canceling study-abroad programs, moving
courses online, and even asking students to leave campus. Meanwhile, some
academic associations are canceling their conferences.
We’ve compiled what you need to know — to be updated regularly — on the virus’s
spread and its implications for higher ed.
Which American campuses have reported cases?
As of March 10,
at least 808 cases of the virus
had been reported in the United States. Scattered reports have connected some of
those cases to colleges, and a growing number of them have responded by
canceling in-person classes:
After a Vanderbilt University student who had been traveling with other students
to Barcelona, Spain,
tested positive for Covid-19,
the institution announced on March 9 that it was canceling in-person instruction
beginning on March 16 for at least two weeks.
After an employee tested positive for coronavirus, Rice University, in Houston,
announced
on March 8 that in-person classroom instruction and undergraduate teaching labs
for March 9 to March 13 — the last week of classes before spring break begins —
have been canceled. Faculty members “can provide material that can be completed
remotely and does not require group interaction,” the university said. In
addition, on-campus public events involving more than 100 people have been
banned through April 30.
The University of Washington, with three campuses in the Seattle area, reported
that a staff member had tested positive for coronavirus, and on March 6 it
announced
it would move in-person classes online until the end of the quarter, on March
20. The university said it intended to resume in-person instruction on March 30,
with the beginning of a new quarter.
In addition to restricting travel (more on that later),
a number of campuses have canceled in-person classes and moved most or all
course work online. Among the latest to announce such a step are Ohio State
University, Indiana University, and New York University:
Continued in article
Harvard cancels in-person classes for the rest of the semester
---
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/486765-harvard-cancels-in-person-classes-for-the-rest-of-the-semester
It's a little neater to Stanford University because of the quarter
system. Students at Stanford are not caught on campus in the middle of a term.
Instead Stanford is asking them not to return to campus for the Spring Quarter
---
Sanford Newsletter on March 11, 2020
University update regarding Spring Quarter
In response to the virus threat and supporting
efforts to curtail its transmission, this afternoon the University
communicated that undergraduate students should not return to
campus for the start of the Spring Quarter. In situations where this is not a
viable option, students have been directed to appropriate resources to address
their individual needs.
University guidance regarding events
Stanford
recently shared
guidance designed to limit transmission situations.
Stanford Alumni Association is following these guidelines for events on and off
campus and we have shared them with our club and chapter leaders. As a result,
many events in March and April have been cancelled or postponed. We are closely
monitoring the COVID-19 situation and will assess future events as they draw
nearer. In the meantime, we will continue to offer online content and plan
future events for alumni to connect once this situation is behind us.
This is a rapidly evolving situation and
healthalerts.stanford.edu is the best source for tracking updates and
accessing Stanford resources related to the virus.
Jensen Comment
Some
professors may discover they like online teaching.
Coursera (online courses from prestigious universities) ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coursera
Coursera Providing Free Access to Its Course Catalog to Universities
Impacted by COVID-19 ---
http://www.openculture.com/2020/03/coursera-providing-free-access-to-its-course-catalog-to-universities-impacted-by-covid-19.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
If onsite courses are
cancelled there are many accounting video tutorials and complete courses
available both for free and for a modest fee ---
https://www.google.com/search?as_st=y&tbm=isch&as_q=BYU&as_epq=Accounting+Videos&as_oq=&as_eq=&imgsz=&imgar=&imgc=&imgcolor=&imgtype=&cr=&as_sitesearch=&safe=images&as_filetype=&as_rights=
Especially note Khan Academy
These videos may be used to complete courses
that are forced to go online due to the coronavirus.
At Amazon search for the phrase
"Accounting Video" in quotes
https://www.amazon.com/s?i=aps&k=%22Accounting%20Video%22&ref=nb_sb_noss_2&url=search-alias%3Daps
CASE Introduces World's First Fully Electric Backhoe Loader
---
https://insideevs.com/news/403585/case-fully-electric-backhoe-loader/
Jensen Comment
The author discusses purchase costs superficially but
totally ignores operating costs in this article. The way the article is pitched
toward operation by electric utility companies leads me to believe that
operating costs are quite high for users who cannon buy inexpensive power to
recharge the batteries.
This might be a project for cost accounting students to compare purchase and operating costs of an electric backhoe with a comparable diesel backhoe. The comparison should be across different usage scenarios and climate conditions. For example, how well does the tractor do in terms of parking lot snow removal --- which is how such tractors are used in the winters where I live. Battery powered vehicles generally perform less efficiently in cold weather.
Goodyear invented a new tire that never needs to be replaced. Here's
how its self-regenerating tread works ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/goodyear-invented-concept-tires-self-regenerating-self-charging-2020-3
Jensen Comment
Never say never. Kmart got burned with a battery warranty
that provided full replacement of a battery for the life of a car (I got four
free batteries on my enduring Plymouth station wagon). Chrysler got burned with
a lifetime powertrain warranty on the life of a car. I think the government
added some funding for this when Chrysler got a bailout.
SAT and ACT college tests canceled due to coronavirus fears has students
worried ---
https://www.foxnews.com/us/high-schoolers-troubled-as-sat-and-act-college-tests-canceled-because-of-virus-fears
How to remove negative items
from your credit report ---
https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/remove-negative-credit-report-items
Jensen Comment
With pending good deals for buying vehicles and homes now is probably a good
time to do what you can to clean up your credit status. Of course this assumes
your income has not been badly disrupted by current economic conditions.
From the Scout Report on March 6, 2020
Jp Science ---
https://github.com/sgreben/jp
Jp is a
command-line utility for generating quick visualizations of data. It can produce
bar charts, line charts, scatter plots, histograms, and heatmaps from either
JSON or CSV data. Users could employ tools like jq (featured in the 04-27-2018
Scout Report), pup (featured in the 04-11-2019 Scout Report), or csvkit
(featured in the 01-31-2020 Scout Report) to extract data from online sources or
local data sets, then use jp to generate visual summaries of that data. The jp
README file describes the various data formats that the tool understands and
shows plots generated from each type. In the Examples folder, users can locate
the specific data files used to generate the example plots. Jp is free software,
distributed under the MIT license, with source code available on GiHub.
Executable binaries are available for download for Windows, macOS, and Linux
systems.
Free Online Tutorials, Videos, Course Materials, and Learning Centers
Education Tutorials
Bob Jensen's threads on education links ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob2.htm#EducationResearch
Engineering, Science, and Medicine Tutorials
From India: COVID19 Files – Scientific Investigation On Mysterious Origin
Of Coronavirus ---
https://greatgameindia.com/covid19-files-scientific-investigation-on-mysterious-origin-of-coronavirus/#Virological_Evidence_Gene_Variation_in_Wuhan_New_Coronavirus
How to Make Sense of Quantum Physics ---
http://nautil.us/issue/83/intelligence/how-to-make-sense-of-quantum-physics
Why is quantum physics a lot like social science?
The quantum effects
disappear when scientists try to measure them.
Radical hydrogen-boron reactor leapfrogs current nuclear fusion tech ---
https://newatlas.com/energy/hb11-hydrogen-boron-fusion-clean-energy/
The Story of Physics Animated in 4 Minutes: From Galileo and Newton, to
Einstein ---
http://www.openculture.com/2020/02/the-story-of-physics-animated-in-4-minutes.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
Cheese Science Toolkit Science --- www.cheesescience.org
Interesting facts about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster --- https://www.foxnews.com/science/chernobyl-facts-ukraine-nuclear-disaster-fallout
01. Chernobyl may have actually been a boon for wildlife
02. Chernobyl has become a spooky tourist attraction
03. There was no containment building
04. The greatest harm ended within weeks of the blast
05. The Soviet Union attempted a cover-up of the disaster
06. The clean up after the fallout was much deadlier than the initial blasts
07. The death toll is unknown
08. The level of radiation was similar to Hiroshima
09. People still live there illegally
10. Abortions were performed on women after the incident
11. CHERNOBYL SHOCKER AS FUNGI THAT EATS RADIATION FOUND INSIDE NUCLEAR REACTOR
MIT:
10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2020 ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/lists/technologies/2020/
Here is our annual list of technological advances that we believe will make a
real difference in solving important problems. How do we pick? We avoid the
one-off tricks, the overhyped new gadgets. Instead we look for those
breakthroughs that will truly change how we live and work.
01.
Unhackable internet
02.
Hyper-personalized medicine
03.
Digital money
04.
Anti-aging drugs
05.
AI-discovered molecules
06.
Satellite mega-constellations
07.
Quantum supremacy
08.
Tiny AI
09.
Differential privacy
10.
Climate change attribution
This story is part of our March/April 2020 Issue
See the rest of the issue
Subscribe
We’re excited to announce that with this year’s list we’re also launching our
very first editorial podcast, Deep Tech, which will explore the the people,
places, and ideas featured in our most ambitious journalism. Have
a listen here.
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
Watch 85,000 Historic Newsreel Films from British Pathé Free Online
(1910-2008) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2020/03/watch-85000-historic-newsreel-films-from-british-pathe-free-online-1910-2008.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
For a limited time the Quarterly Journal of Economics is allowing free
downloads of articles in its Religion and Economics archives ---
https://academic.oup.com/qje/pages/religion-and-economics-collection
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
Euler's Sum of Powers Conjecture ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler%27s_sum_of_powers_conjecture
The Shortest Known Paper Published in a Serious Math Journal ---
http://www.openculture.com/2020/02/shortest-known-paper-published-in-a-serious-math-journal.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
February 27, 2020 reply from Jagdish Gangolly
Bob,
In one of Jerzy Neyman's PhD classes, George Dantzig misunderstood two problems Neyman had written on the board as a homework problem. Neyman told him what he had achieved. A year later when Dantzig was fishing for a dissertation topic he went to see Neyman who asked him to put his paper in a binder and he would accept it as his dissertation. You can find the two papers at:
On the Fundamental Lemma of Neyman and Pearson
Regards,
Jagdish
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
The History of the Plague: Every Major Epidemic in an Animated Map ---
http://www.openculture.com/2020/03/the-history-of-the-plague-every-major-epidemic-in-an-animated-map.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
Watch 85,000 Historic Newsreel Films from British Pathé Free Online
(1910-2008) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2020/03/watch-85000-historic-newsreel-films-from-british-pathe-free-online-1910-2008.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
A peek at a critical time for Japan through its art ---
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/painting-edo-offers-window-into-rich-era-of-japanese-art/
How Hawaii's Japanese Population Was Spared Internment During World War II
---
https://time.com/5802127/hawaii-internment-order/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief-pm&utm_content=20200316&xid=newsletter-brief
Facebook: the Inside Story (history book) ---
https://www.amazon.com/Facebook-Inside-Story-Steven-Levy-ebook/dp/B07V8CL7RH/ref=sr_1_1?crid=17YXRVUIGIXI6&keywords=steven+levy+facebook&qid=1583707500&sprefix=steven+levy%2Caps%2C138&sr=8-1/marginalrevol-20
Depictions of Emily Dickinson vary by decade. In
the ’80s she was seen as a model feminist; in the ’90s, as queer. Today we see
her as driven ---
https://bostonreview.net/arts-society/lynne-feeley-emily-dickinson-escapes
The Russo-Turkish Wars ---
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwGDWwKWqhlzKhmkxBJCnldfTDs
The Smithsonian Puts 2.8 Million High-Res Images Online and Into the Public
Domain ---
http://www.openculture.com/2020/02/the-smithsonian-puts-2-8-million-high-res-images-online-and-into-the-public-domain.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29
The influenza pandemic of 1918 was the most contagious calamity in
human history ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/03/what-worked-in-1918-1919.html
11 pandemics that changed the course of human history, from the Black Death
to HIV/AIDS — to (maybe) coronavirus ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/pandemics-that-changed-the-course-of-human-history-coronavirus-flu-aids-plague
Mapping the Lives Social studies (holocaust) --- www.mappingthelives.org
Robert Parkin Peters was a con artist. His biggest fraud: infiltrating
Oxford’s academic elite ---
https://www.historytoday.com/reviews/our-friend-fraud
18 Surprising Things Stolen From Libraries
---
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/618612/things-stolen-libraries
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
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings ---
https://folkways.si.edu/
Bob Jensen's links to language tutorials are at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2-Part2.htm#Languages
Music Tutorials
Bob Jensen's threads on free music tutorials are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm
Scroll down to Music
Bob Jensen's threads on music performances ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
Writing Tutorials
Bob Jensen's helpers for writers are at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries
Bob Jensen's threads on medicine ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2-Part2.htm#Medicine
CDC Blogs --- http://blogs.cdc.gov/
Shots: NPR Health News --- http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots
Updates from WebMD --- http://www.webmd.com/
February 29, 2020
· More Than 4 in 10 Americans Are Now Obese: CDC
· FDA Warns Jimmy John's Over 'Adulterated' Produce
· Another Vaping Hazard: Less-Healthy Mouths
March 3, 2020
·
· Drug Shows Promise Vs. Aggressive Breast Cancer
March 4, 2020
· Want to Help Keep Diabetes at Bay? Brush & Floss
· Your Pets Unlikely to Get or Give Coronavirus
· Record Number of Pedestrian Deaths Seen in U.S.
March 7, 2020
·
The Power of Hand-Washing to Prevent Coronavirus
·
Lose Weight, Lower Prostate Cancer Risk
·
Only 20% Have Fast Access to Best Stroke Care
·
Low Stock, High Prices for Coronavirus Supplies
·
Get Ready for Clocks to 'Spring Ahead'
·
Unscrambling the Egg Data: One a Day Looks OK
March 9, 2020
·
Spread of Coronavirus Cancels Travel and Events
·
The Power of Hand-Washing to Prevent Coronavirus
·
CRISPR Used Inside Person's Body For First Time
·
Melanoma Death Risk Rises When a Spouse Dies
·
Lose Weight, Lower Prostate Cancer Risk
·
Get Ready for Clocks to 'Spring Ahead'
March 10, 2020
·
Some
Could Show COVID-19 Symptoms After Quarantine
·
Pricey New HIV PrEP Drug No Better Than Generics
·
Spread of Coronavirus Cancels Travel and Events
·
Second HIV Patient Reportedly 'Cured'
·
The Power of Hand-Washing to Prevent Coronavirus
March 11, 2020
·
AA Still Best to Beat Problem Drinking: Review
·
Spread of Coronavirus Cancels Travel and Events
·
Could Dad-to-Be's Health Affect Baby's Health?
·
Lack of Paid Sick Leave a Coronavirus Threat
·
Some Could Show COVID-19 Symptoms After Quarantine
· Living Healthier Can Help Shield You From A-fib
· AA Still Best to Beat Problem Drinking: Review
· Finding Signs of Health Woes in Facebook Postings
· Could Dad-to-Be's Health Affect Baby's Health?
· Lack of Paid Sick Leave a Coronavirus Threat
From Israel: An Optimistic Mathematics Scenario for the Coronavirus
---
https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Israeli-nobel-laureate-Coronavirus-spread-is-slowing-621145
Coronavirus vaccine test opens with 1st doses ---
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-coronavirus-vaccine-volunteer-1st-shot.html
. . .
This vaccine candidate, code-named mRNA-1273, was developed by the NIH and Massachusetts-based biotechnology company Moderna Inc. There's no chance participants could get infected from the shots because they don't contain the coronavirus itself.
It's not the only potential vaccine in the pipeline. Dozens of research groups around the world are racing to create a vaccine against COVID-19. Another candidate, made by Inovio Pharmaceuticals, is expected to begin its own safety study—in the U.S., China and South Korea—next monthContinued in article
From India: COVID19 Files – Scientific Investigation On Mysterious
Origin Of Coronavirus ---
https://greatgameindia.com/covid19-files-scientific-investigation-on-mysterious-origin-of-coronavirus/#Virological_Evidence_Gene_Variation_in_Wuhan_New_Coronavirus_COVID-19
Anecdotal Evidence --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence
Can You Get Coronavirus Twice? How Long Are You Immune After COVID-19?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/03/15/can-you-get-infected-by-coronavirus-twice-how-does-covid-19-immunity-work/#5a34c3d05c0f
Jensen Comment
The above article raises more questions than it answers. Beware of anecdotal
evidence and evidence based upon very small samples.
For instance, is it possible that you have been declared "over" Covid-19 when in fact you are not truly over it? Most of us have experienced colds or flu that bounced back when we thought the infection had ended.
It may well be that there is not immunity after having Covid-19, but I don't think there's enough scientific evidence to date about this important issue.
Four puzzling coronavirus facts ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/03/four-puzzling-coronavirus-facts.html
Jensen Comment
The comments at the end of this tidbit are interesting, but
responders are no all medical experts.
Amazon Has Been Secretly Working on a Cure for the Common Cold ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-secretly-working-on-cold-cure-2020-3?IR=T&utm_medium=email&utm_term=BII_Daily&utm_source=Triggermail&utm_campaign=BII%20Weekender%202020.3.13
Jensen Comments
Problems are that there's no one kind of cold
and causes quickly mutate.
CBS News: Flu has killed 20,000 Americans so far this season,
including 136 children, CDC ---
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/flu-deaths-20000-americans-this-season-including-136-children-cdc/
Jensen Comment
Flu, like pneumonia, is often termed a friend of the dying
since it often since it often brings about an earlier end to suffering while
slower death approaches. However, this does not mean that such efforts should
not be made to prevent flu and pneumonia across the world.
The Cauliflower Boom ---
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-kale-cauliflower-becomes-a-bestseller-11583317803
BLUECROSS PLANS SHOW ALZHEIMER’S TRIPLED AMONG 30- TO 64-YEAR-OLDS ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/alzheimers-rates-tripled-for-younger-us-adults-2020-2?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BII20200303LastWeekinDHPro&utm_term=BII%20Marketing%20%28Engaged%2C%20Active%2C%20Passive%2C%20Disengaged%2C%20New%29%20Active%20Suppression
The influenza pandemic of 1918 was the most contagious calamity in
human history ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/03/what-worked-in-1918-1919.html
11 pandemics that changed the course of human history, from the Black Death
to HIV/AIDS — to (maybe) coronavirus ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/pandemics-that-changed-the-course-of-human-history-coronavirus-flu-aids-plague
Humor for March 2020
On Super Tuesday the only place where Bloomberg won was American Somoa. Rumor has it that was because he bought it before the election.
Blonde Jokes --- http://www.laughfactory.com/jokes/blonde-jokes
There was a blonde who just got sick and tired of all the blonde jokes. One evening, she went home and memorized all the state capitals. Back in the office the next day, some guy started telling a dumb blonde joke. She interrupted him with a shrill announcement, "I've had it up to here with these blonde jokes. I want you to know that this blonde went home last night and did something probably none of you could do. I memorized all the state capitals." One of the guys, of course, said, "I don't believe you. What is the capital of Nevada?" "N," she answered.
Humor February 2020 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book20q1.htm#Humor0220.htm
Humor January 2020 --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book20q1.htm#Humor0120.htm
Humor December 2019--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book19q4.htm#Humor1219.htm
Humor November 2019--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book19q4.htm#Humor1119.htm
Humor October 2019--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book19q4.htm#Humor1019.htm
Humor September 2019--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book19q3.htm#Humor0919.htm
Humor August 2019--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book19q3.htm#Humor0819.htm
Humor July 2019--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book19q3.htm#Humor0719.htm
Humor June 2019--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book19q2.htm#Humor0619.htm
Humor May 2019--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book19q2.htm#Humor0519.htm
Humor April 2019--- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/book19q2.htm#Humor0419.htm
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
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
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