Bob Jensen's Year 2002 New Bookmarks Editions for April1 thru June 30 Archives

New Bookmarks
Year 2002 Quarter 2: April 1-June 30 Additions to Bob Jensen's Bookmarks
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

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For earlier editions of New Bookmarks, go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm

Click here to search Bob Jensen's web site if you have key words to enter --- Search Site.
This search engine may get you some hits from other professors at Trinity University included with Bob Jensen's documents, but this may be to your benefit.

For date and time, try The Aggie Digital Clock --- http://yugop.com/ver3/stuff/03/fla.html

You can read about our August 13 all-day workshop (accounting education technologies and online learning) from Dennis Beresford, Amy Dunbar, Nancy Keeshan, Susan Spencer, and Bob Jensen at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/cepSanAntonio.htm . To this list of speakers, Susan Spencer has been added. She will talk about her experiences designing learning alternatives for hearing and sight impaired students in her online economics courses.

You can read about our August 14 half-day workshop (Accounting for Intangibles and Internet Reporting: Teaching Modules That Can Be Plugged Into Accounting Courses, Auditing Courses, and Electronic Commerce Courses) from Gerald Trites and Bob Jensen at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/cepSanAntonio.htm

Bob Jensen's Dance Card
Some of My Planned Workshops and Presentations --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations

The August 13 and 14 CPE courses of the American Accounting Association have been posted at http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aaa/2002annual/cpe2002.htm

If you are coming to San Antonio, you may be interested in my welcome links at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/sanantonio.htm

Choose a Date Below for Additions to the Bookmarks File

June 30, 2002 June 04, 2002

May 15, 2002 May 10, 2002

April 30, 2002 April 22, 2002 April 10, 2002

June 30, 2002

Bob Jensen's New Bookmarks on June 30, 2002
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

If you are coming to San Antonio, you may be interested in my welcome links at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/sanantonio.htm

Quotes of the Week

Is there an analogy between atomic bomb scientist Werner Heisenberg (Germany in 1940) and CPA Joe Berardino (Arthur Andersen CEO in 2001)?
(See the John Lienhard quoted passage below.)

One nation, under greed, with stock options and tax shelters for all.
Proposed revision of the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance

An IRS study released this week shows a growing gap between figures reported to investors and figures reported for tax income. With all the scrutiny on accounting practices these days, the question is being asked - are corporations telling the truth to the IRS? To investors? To anyone?
http://www.accountingweb.com/item/83690

There are corporate executives so poor that they only have money.
Anonymous

The accounting profession's self-regulatory system was caught in the cross-hairs of a GAO report issued this week at the request of Representative John Dingell. Limitations were highlighted in the report of "a system that is fragmented, is not well-coordinated, and has a disciplinary function that is widely perceived to be ineffective." http://www.accountingweb.com/item/83936

It's not always egg-heads that do well on IQ tests. Allegedly Marilyn Monroe had a higher IQ than Einstein! But what is it that makes us intelligent? Are we 'dumbing down' or getting 'brainier'? Find out in ‘the science of intelligence’.
The Science of Intelligence from the BBC (See Below)

CAMPUS E-MAIL EXPOSED TO PUBLIC SCRUTINY
Many states identify administrators and professors at public colleges as state employees, potentially exposing their letters, documents, and e-mail to public scrutiny under freedom-of-information laws. Some institutions have begun to update policies to safeguard personal e-mail or warn professors to be careful what they write. Open-records laws don't specify clearly whether professors' research notes, lecture notes, or regular mail would qualify as public records, but most states assume that state employees' e-mail messages are public records, even when the law is ambiguous. Employees at private colleges can be exposed as well, although not through open-records laws; a person would need to obtain a court order or a subpoena, requiring involvement in litigation against the college.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 17 June 2002 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i41/41a03101.htm (The quotation was forwarded by Jagdish Gangolly)

There is no road to freedom, freedom is the road.
Mahatma Gandhi

A Quote from FAS 123 History (1993)
Dennis R. Beresford and James J. Leisenring came to the Red Lion Inn on a hot August morning with a simple goal: to explain a change in an accounting rule. Before it was over they were lucky to have escaped the first lynching in San Jose in a half-century. Measuring out the rope were 300 seriously pissed off Silicon Valley CEOs and other senior execs who could see the ruin of their lives' work because some glorified bean counters in Washington had decided to count sacrifice flies as home runs.
Michael S. Malone, Upside Today, November 1, 1993 --- http://www.upside.com/texis/mvm/story?id=34712c0a45
You can attend a live performance by Dennis Beresford in San Antonio on August 13, 2002 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/cepSanAntonio.htm

A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.
Fred Allen

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of.
Burt Bacharach

Bidding! Bargains! Feedback! Why 50 million people are hooked on the Internet's Hottest Marketplace (EBAY)
Newsweek Cover Story, June 17, 2002. The EBAY homepage is at http://www.ebay.com/

Making Enron's $600 million restated financial statements look like a mistake in a child's allowance, the U.S. Treasury has admitted an accounting error and a resulting loss of $17.3 billion.
http://www.accountingweb.com/item/82161
A billion here, a billion there! Yawn!

IN THE AFTERMATH of Enron, the tarnished auditing profession has mounted what might be called the "complexity defense." This involves frowning seriously, intoning a few befuddling sentences, then sighing that audits involve close-call judgments that reasonable experts could debate. According to this defense, it isn't fair to beat up on auditors as they wrestle with the finer points of derivatives or lease receivables -- if they make calls that are questionable, that's because the material is so difficult. Heck, it's not as though auditors stand by dumbly while something obviously bad happens, such as money being siphoned off for the boss's condo or golf course.
Washington Post Editorial, June 1, 2002 --- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49512-2002Jun2.html

The big [firms] in the audit world and the Wall Street firms have obviously been lobbying intensively for months to prevent effective action in these areas. We know that some of those people have met with Chairman Pitt. I believe that he has strongly held views about a number of these issues that predate his arrival as chairman at the SEC.
Damon Silvers (See below)

What are the three main problems facing the accountancy profession at the present time? See my WorldCom, Enron, and Andersen scandal updates at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud063002.htm

One of the best sites that I have encountered regarding news and issues in corporate governance is maintained by Robert Monks at http://www.ragm.com/index.asp
The site should also be of great interest to those interested in ethics, environmental, and social responsibility. Robert Monks is a veteran director of over a dozen large corporations. At best he is only cautiously optimistic about reforms that might emerge from the current scandals like Enron, WorldCom, and Andersen. He most certainly thinks that members of the audit committees and boards of directors are ineffective in controlling corporate graft, because they do not have access to company resources needed for such a task Robert Monks is featured on Page 35 of the June 2002 issue of Financial Executive --- http://www.fei.org/magazine/May2002.cfm

I organized an all-day distance education and learning technologies workshop for August 13, 2002 in the Marriott Rivercenter Hotel in San Antonio. The original slate of speakers included the following:

Dennis Beresford who teaches accounting in an online MBA program at the University of Georgia for Preicewaterhouse Coopers consultants
Amy Dunbar who teaches online tax courses (out of her home) for the University of Connecticut
Nancy Keeshan (an executive in the Global Online MBA Program at Duke University)
Bob Jensen (Trinity University)

To this list, I have added the following speaker:

Susan Spencer is designing online economics courses for San Antonio College (SAC). All online courses at SAC must be accessible by hearing and sight impaired students. Susan will discuss her innovative ideas in designing economics courses that can be delivered online to blind students.

The workshop is explained in greater detail at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/cepSanAntonio.htm

Workshop Title
What Critical Factors Determine Pedagogical Success vs. Failure? The Highly Successful Online M.B.A. Courses at Duke University and the University of Connecticut and How Material Provided to Students in Classrooms Should Be Revised for Online Students

TIPS FOR COLLEGE-BOUND COMPUTER BUYERS
Here's a quick tour of features you'll want your campus machine to have and some you can overlook http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2002/tc20020611_5912.htm?c=bwtechjun14&n=link9&t=email

Some of you may have missed the following entry in the June 21 edition of Double Entries

William R. Kinney, Jr. was recently named by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) as the 2002 recipient of its Distinguished Achievement in Accounting Education Award. The annual award recognizes full-time college accounting educators for excellence in teaching and national prominence in the accounting profession. Kinney received his award at the spring meeting of the Institute's Governing Council held in Savannah, Georgia. See our full article at http://accountingeducation.com/news/news3004.html for more details.

For me this is good news and bad news.

Good News
Bill was one of my doctoral students years ago. Everything he learned he learned from me!

Bad News
Bill was one of my doctoral students years ago. I must have only been 10 years old at the time. Either that or he was 50 years old when he earned his Ph.D.

In any case, Bill has been a dedicated researcher --- as dedicated to our craft as any student and professor that I have ever met.

Congratulations Bill!

Measuring the Business Value of Stakeholder Relationships – all about social capital and how high-trust relationships affect the bottom line. Plus a new measurement tool for benchmarking the quality of stakeholder relationships --- www.cim.sfu.ca/newsletter

Trust, shared values and strong relationships aren't typical financial indicators but perhaps they should be. A joint study by CIM and the Schulich School of Business is examining the link between high trust stakeholder relationships and business value creation. The study is sponsored by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA).

The research team is looking at how social capital can be applied to business. The aim of this project is to better understand corporate social capital, measure the quality of relationships, and provide the business community with ways to improve those relationships and in turn improve their bottom line.

Because stakeholder relationships all have common features, direct comparisons of the quality of relationships can be made across diverse stakeholder groups, companies and industries.

Social capital is “the stock of active connections among people; the trust, mutual understanding, and shared values and behaviors that bind the members of human networks and communities and make cooperative action possible” (Cohen and Prusak, 2000).

So far the research suggests that trust, a cooperative spirit and shared understanding between a company and its stakeholders creates greater coherence of action, better knowledge sharing, lower transaction costs, lower turnover rates and organizational stability. In the bigger picture, social capital appears to minimize shareholder risk, promote innovation, enhance reputation and deepen brand loyalty.

Preliminary results show that high levels of social capital in a relationship can build upon themselves. For example, as a company builds reputation among its peers for fair dealing and reliability in keeping promises, that reputation itself becomes a prized asset useful for sustaining its current alliances and forming future ones.

The first phase of the research is now complete and the study moves into its second phase involving detailed case studies with six companies that have earned a competitive business advantage through their stakeholder relationships. Click here for a full report

Bob Jensen's discussion of valuation and aggregation issues can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm
Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#FairValue

Teaching Ethics -- Bill Christie once helped bust Nasdaq price fixers. Now, he's Vanderbilt's B-school dean -- and bringing those lessons to MBAs http://www.businessweek.com/mediacenter/list/bs01.htm

Read it and Weep

From Business Week Online as Reproduced by SmartPros (May 30, 2002) ---- http://www.smartpros.com/x34230.xml

Still Hoping for More From Harvey Pitt

May 30, 2002 (Business Week Online) — Earlier this month, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt convened the first "Investor Summit" to listen and respond to investor complaints. (You can hear a replay of the May 10 discussion on the SEC Web site.) It was, at times, spirited.

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

Pitt and fellow Commissioners Isaac Hunt and Cynthia Glassman got earfuls -- both from investors at large and from a group of six panelists. Some of the sharpest criticism of the SEC's performance in the current crisis of confidence in Wall Street came from panelist Damon Silvers. He's an associate general counsel with the AFL-CIO, which is the umbrella organization for some 13 million members of different unions, who are beneficiaries of an estimated $5 trillion in pension assets.

After Silvers spoke at the conference, I reached him by phone at his Washington (D.C.) office and asked him to elaborate on the remarks he made and the questions he asked. Edited excerpts of our discussion follow:

Q: At the Investor Summit, you said that the ball is being dropped on reforming "issue after issue." What are those issues?

A: Well, I'll just do a short list for you.

Q: Shoot.

A: The first is the issues surrounding auditors, and in particular the issue of auditor independence and the creation of a public oversight board. The AFL-CIO put a rule-making petition into the [SEC] in December on auditor independence. As far as we can tell, the commission hasn't really done anything in that area. Everyone knows about the mess that auditor-oversight process turned into at the commission, and clearly it hasn't taken any steps to do the minimum in this area that was outlined by [former SEC Chairman] Arthur Levitt in his testimony in the Senate.

Q: Which was?

A: Creating a body that has a majority of nonaccounting industry people, with full enforcement powers and independent financing.

Q: What else?

A: The commission has missed an opportunity to deal with the problem of analysts' conflicts on Wall Street by failing to really do anything meaningful to regulate the power that investment bankers have developed over the analysts in the major Wall Street firms. The SEC also hasn't acted on the problems related to the independence of boards of directors at public companies.

Q: Such as?

A: Both in requiring meaningful independence of audit committee and compensation committee members and in disclosure. Those are the key issues where the commission has failed to act or has acted in a manner that is inadequate.

Q: Pitt wouldn't agree with that, and it's only fair to note that the reforms are a work in progress. In your view, why has the commission dropped the ball?

A: I wish I knew. The big [firms] in the audit world and the Wall Street firms have obviously been lobbying intensively for months to prevent effective action in these areas. We know that some of those people have met with Chairman Pitt. I believe that he has strongly held views about a number of these issues that predate his arrival as chairman at the SEC.

Q: How much of this is a result of there not being a full commission -- two of the five seats remain vacant.

A: I think that is underappreciated in the coverage of these issues. The Commission is, after all, designed to be a deliberative body. And there are currently only three commissioners, one of whom is clearly planning to depart.

Q: Commissioner Isaac Hunt?

A: Right.... There's a need for more diverse perspectives on the commission. I continue to believe that Chairman Pitt has the potential to do the right thing here. And the addition of commissioners with a more diverse set of views would help steer the SEC in that direction.

Q: So you're not in the group of people who think that Pitt no longer has the credibility to remain at the SEC?

A: There are people who have called for him to resign. Common Cause did so on the day of the Investor Summit.... We are critical of Chairman Pitt's performance here, on many levels, severely critical in fact. However, we're not ready to say that there's no hope here and that he's incapable of doing the right thing. If I believed that, I'm not sure that I would have participated in the summit.

Q: Some suspected the summit was 100% public relations -- nothing substantive. What's your view?

A: It might have been designed to be that way. I don't think that's what it was. I think we had substantial exchanges about a number of important issues -- ones in which, prior to the summit, no one really knew what Chairman Pitt's views were.

Q: Such as?

A: Mutual-fund disclosure and "aiding and abetting" liability. That being said, I think the question now is, "What's the follow-up?"

Q: You mentioned the "aiding and abetting" issue, which is a fairly technical set of legal precedents, but a very interesting one and one that's potentially important to investors. Also, I think that you got from Pitt a commitment to work with you on that.

A: Yes, that's right.

Q: Can you explain please what this "aiding and abetting" issue is?

A: This is really an outrageous situation in our securities law. The Supreme Court said in the early '90s, in a case called Central Bank of Denver, that despite the fact that everybody for decades had proceeded on the basis that the securities laws gave investors the right to sue and recover damages from people and institutions that aided and abetted securities fraud.... The Supreme Court found that there was actually no basis for that kind of claim in the statute.

Therefore, investors -- the people who were actually wronged by securities fraud -- could not sue those who aided and abetted.

Q: So?

A: This is important because the typical securities fraud is a product not just of a company that is the actual institution doing the disclosure but of the people who work with that company.

Q: Such as?

A: Investment banks, lawyers, and accountants. In most situations, the investment banks, the lawyers, and the accountants don't interact directly with the shareholder. They do so through the company. Making aiding and abetting no longer recognizable in the courts as something an investor can recover on, they basically made it impossible for investors to go after those folks.

Q: I see.

A: By the way, if you look at the defenses that have been raised by Arthur Andersen and others in the Enron cases, they all rest on this. They all say, basically, even if we did all of these things, even if we did everything you accuse us of doing, it's just aiding and abetting, and you have no right to sue for it.

Q: So what's the upshot for the individual wronged in the Enron case?

A: You're out of luck. If the aiding and abetting case defense holds in the context of Enron, where Enron is bankrupt, unsecured creditors like the investors who got defrauded are unlikely to get hardly anything.

Q: Given that, do the investors need to look to Congress for a fix?

A: Yes, you have to have a congressional fix here. The SEC can't fix it by itself. But what the SEC can do, which is what I was challenging Chairman Pitt to work with us on, the SEC can send a clear message to Congress that this needs to be fixed, and that would be very important.

-- Robert Barker, Business Week Online

And the bottom line is that reform efforts are stalled in Congress and will most likely die in hands of committees that held all of these “spectator” hearings! There will, however, be some really neat new TV commercials for re-election, commercials paid for by the lobbyists.

"Bad Boys Club" by Allan Sloan, Newsweek, July 1, 2002, pp. 44-46 --- http://www.msnbc.com/news/771098.asp?0bl=-0
After a wave of scandals, corporate America is under pressure to clean up its act. But will anything really change?

July 1 issue — The stock market is tanking and the business world is soured by scandal, but there is some good news. We’ve got a new growth industry: reforming corporate America. More than a dozen proposals from big-name sponsors—ranging from Goldman Sachs and the New York Stock Exchange to President Bush and the Senate Finance Committee—have appeared since Enron became widely recognized as a poster child for dysfunctional capitalism. A Reform of the Month Club, as it were. With so much attention from such influential quarters, something significant is bound to change, right?

THE ANSWER, I’M afraid, is no. At least not yet. And I’m not being some cynical newsie. It’s just that you usually don’t get reform until the people who need to be reformed recognize that there’s a problem. Despite all the pronouncements and blue-ribbon commissions—many of which have worthy suggestions—they don’t remotely represent the views of the people who are truly in a position to make change: America’s chief executive officers.

Our M.B.A. president doesn’t seem to think much is wrong. Bush said Friday that “95 percent or some... huge percentage of the business community are honest and reveal all their assets, got compensation programs that are balanced, but there are some bad apples.” He even opposes a key reform that resident sages like Warren Buffett and Alan Greenspan consider vital to producing honest corporate numbers: treating stock options as an expense on earnings statements. The fact that options value isn’t subtracted from profits has led corporations to give loads of them to CEOs, who make huge profits when the stock rises, but lose nothing when it falls. Standard & Poor’s, not exactly a hotbed of radical activity, is now counting options as an expense when computing profit figures for the influential S&P 500 Index. Vice President Cheney, a former CEO himself, has been noticeably silent on issues of reforming the way corporate America keeps its books. One possible reason is that the company he once ran, Halliburton, is now being investigated for accounting changes adopted during his tenure.

For all the talk from business organizations, we haven’t heard much from working CEOs themselves. But there are exceptions, like Henry Paulson Jr. of Goldman Sachs and Dick Grasso of the New York Stock Exchange. Paulson was especially outspoken. “American business has never been under such scrutiny. To be blunt, much of it is deserved,” he said at the National Press Club in Washington recently. These guys deserve big credit for guts, because they’re risking the wrath of their peers, alienating customers and inviting scrutiny of their institutions, which, they readily admit, are far from perfect. In separate NEWSWEEK interviews, Grasso and Paulson said they have plenty of support among corporate chieftains. But when pressed for specifics, Paulson provided none, and Grasso produced just one: a laudatory letter from John Dillon, CEO of International Paper. But Dillon is head of the Business Roundtable, which already has proposed reforms. Here’s why the CEO silence matters. When the market was going great guns during the ’90s, corporate America proclaimed that the market’s performance was proof that companies were doing the right thing, and that critics of huge executive pay packages and boards cozying up to CEOs were just cranks. Now that the market’s down, CEOs are hiding under their boardroom tables. What will it take to get business to change? Even more bad stock-market news. And we’ve already got plenty. At Friday’s close the S&P 500, a proxy for the broad stock market, was down 35 percent from its high in March of 2000. If you make the very generous assumption that the market will rise 10 percent a year compounded, it would take until the end of 2006 for the S&P to regain the ground it’s lost. So the market would have gone nowhere for almost seven years. If the market’s a report card, that’s a pretty lousy grade. A failing one, in fact.

"System Failure: Corporate America: We Have a Crisis," Fortune Magazine Cover Story, June 24, 2002 --- http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=208314

Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson is not a touchy-feely guy. Even by Wall Street standards, he's fairly buttoned down. But the daily drumbeat of news about horrifying corporate behavior would get to anyone--and it's clearly getting to Paulson. "In my lifetime, American business has never been under such scrutiny, and to be blunt, much of it deserved,'' he said in a recent speech. To FORTUNE he added, "You pick up the paper, and you want to cry.''

You sure do. Every day, it seems, a new scandal bursts into public view. Bankrupt Kmart is under SEC investigation for allegedly cooking the books. Adelphia's founding family is forced to resign in disgrace after it's revealed that members used the company as their own personal piggy bank, dipping into corporate funds to subsidize the Buffalo Sabres hockey team, among other things. Former telecom behemoths WorldCom, Qwest, and Global Crossing are all being investigated. Edison Schools gets spanked by the SEC for booking revenues that the company never actually saw. Dynegy CEO Chuck Watson denies that his company used special-purpose entities to disguise debt a la Enron--until the Wall Street Journal reports that, lo and behold, the company does have one, called Project Alpha. (Watson has just stepped down.) Most recently, of course, Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski resigns after informing his board that he is under investigation for evading sales tax on expensive artwork he purchased. Kozlowski has since been indicted--but even before the most recent disclosures, Tyco's stock was pummeled by the widespread suspicion that it used accounting tricks to boost revenues (a claim the company has consistently denied).

Phony earnings, inflated revenues, conflicted Wall Street analysts, directors asleep at the switch--this isn't just a few bad apples we're talking about here. This, my friends, is a systemic breakdown. Nearly every known check on corporate behavior--moral, regulatory, you name it--fell by the wayside, replaced by the stupendous greed that marked the end of the bubble. And that has created a crisis of investor confidence the likes of which hasn't been seen since--well, since the Great Depression.

Even Harvey Pitt and Bill Lerach, who are poles apart on most issues, agree on this point. "I'm really afraid that investor psychology in this country has suffered a very serious blow," says the controversial Lerach, the plaintiffs attorney best known as the lead counsel representing Enron's beleaguered shareholders. SEC Chairman Pitt, who made his name defending big corporations, concurs: "It would be hard to overstate the need to remedy the loss of confidence,'' he said at a recent conference at Stanford Law School. "Restoring public confidence is the No. 1 goal on our agenda."

Declining investor confidence is not the only reason the stock market is hurting, of course. (The S&P 500 is down 10% so far this year, while the Nasdaq has fallen 20%.) For one thing, the world is an unsettling place right now, with Pakistan and India busy saber rattling, the Mideast in turmoil--and the threat of more terrorist attacks on U.S. soil very much in the air. For another, stocks remain high by historical standards: Even with a 20% drop since its peak in March 2000, the price/earnings ratio for the S&P 500 is still 29, compared with the norm of 16.

Despite the constant reports of misconduct, investors can't cast all the blame for the market's troubles on the actions of CEOs and Wall Street analysts--much as they might like to. There was a time not too long ago when everyone, it seemed, was day trading during lunch breaks. As Gail Dudack, chief strategist for SunGard Institutional Brokerage, puts it, "A stock market bubble requires the cooperation of everyone."

Still, the unending revelations--and the high likelihood that there are more to come--have underscored the extent to which the system has gone awry. That has taken a toll on investors' psyches. According to a Pew Forum survey conducted in late March, Americans now think more highly of Washington politicians than they do of business executives. (Yes, it's that bad.) A monthly survey of "investor optimism" conducted by UBS and Gallup shows that the mood among investors today is almost as grim as it was after Sept. 11--and has sunk by nearly half since the giddy days of late 1999 and early 2000. Similarly, the average daily trading volume at Charles Schwab & Co.--another good barometer of investor confidence--is down 54% from the height of the bull market. "People deeply believed, as an article of faith, in the integrity of the system and the markets," Morgan Stanley strategist Barton Biggs wrote recently. "Sure, it may at times have seemed like a casino, but at least it was an honest casino. Now many people are questioning that basic assumption. Are they players in a loser's game?" Investing, notes Vanguard founder John C. Bogle, "is an act of faith." Without that faith--that reported numbers reflect reality, that companies are being run honestly, that Wall Street is playing it straight, and that investors aren't being hoodwinked--our capital markets simply can't function.

Throughout history, bubbles have been followed by crashes--which in turn have been followed by new laws and new rules designed to curb the excesses of the era just ended. After the South Sea bubble in 1720, points out Columbia University law professor John Coffee, the formation of new corporations was banned for more than 100 years. In the wake of the 1929 Crash--and the subsequent discovery that insiders had used their positions to skim millions from the market--dramatic reforms were enacted, including the creation of the SEC, the passage of the Glass-Steagall Act separating banks from investment houses, and the outlawing of short-selling by corporate officers.

Is the situation today as dire as it was in 1929? Of course not. But it is serious--serious enough that real reform is once again needed to restore confidence in the system. Already there has been a flood of proposals, which range from the good to the not-so-good. For instance, the New York Stock Exchange's recently announced plan to strengthen boards of directors has been widely lauded--praise, we believe, that is quite deserved (see item 5). If enacted, the NYSE reforms will help prod boards to finally act in the interest of shareholders--which, after all, is supposed to be their job. Similarly, the SEC's decision to crack down on Edison Schools sends an enormously important signal. Money that was going to pay, say, teachers' salaries was being booked by the company as revenue--even though the money never actually flowed through Edison. Believe it or not, Edison's accounting abided by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP. In going after Edison, the SEC was saying that simply staying within GAAP is no longer good enough--not if the spirit of the rules is being violated, as was clearly the case with Edison.

Continued at http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=208314

The above article discusses accounting tricks played by corporations. I have commenced a summary document on accounting tricks at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/AccountingTricks.htm

The past six months have featured a parade of corporate leaders who were irresponsible stewards of other people's money and trust. They were apparently so consumed by greed that they never dreamed of getting caught, ruining companies, and shaming themselves. In so doing, they have created what Al Vicere, a professor of strategic leadership at Pennsylvania State University's Smeal College of Business, calls a CEO "credibility crisis." All of which raises the question: Why? What is it about the character of today's corporate chieftains that has led them into CEO-gate -- which at times prompts them to indulge in behavior more reminiscent of fallen TV ministers than of upstanding community leaders?

FULL VERSION http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jun2002/nf20020613_9296.htm?c=bwcareersjun26&n=link1&t=email

Microsoft Gets Slapped for Having Bill Gate's Hands in the Cookie Jar

From iwon.com on June 3, 2002

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) agreed to stop using an accounting practice that allegedly understated revenues and misled investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission said on Monday.

However, the world's largest software maker will not have to change any previous earnings reports.

Microsoft consented to a cease-and-desist order but did not admit or deny charges that from 1995 through 1998 it maintained seven reserve accounts containing a total of $200 million to$900 million in unsupported and undisclosed reserves.

A significant amount of the reserves did not comply with generally accepted accounting principles, which resulted in inaccuracies in filings that Microsoft made with the commission, it was alleged.

Microsoft shares were down 79 cents to $50.12 in pre-afternoon trading on Nasdaq. The company was not fined. In addition, Microsoft said the settlement will not require restatement of any reported financial results.

"The company is pleased to resolve these matters with the SEC and looks forward to an open and constructive relationship with the SEC on important accounting issues affecting the software industry," a company spokesman said.

The SEC has been aggressive in probing accounting irregularities involving overstatement of revenues. The Microsoft probe was unusual because it involved allegations of deliberately understating revenues.

For more than two years, the SEC had been looking at Microsoft's alleged practice of taking reserves that can be used to pad revenues during lean times, commonly known as "cookie jar accounting."

"Companies must properly document the bases for their reserves and other accounting entries so that they and their auditors can verify that the accounting is proper," enforcement chief Stephen Cutler in a statement announcing the settlement.

"This case emphasizes that the commission will act against a public company that issues financial statements with material inaccuracies, even in the absence of fraud charges," he added.

The Controversy Over Revenue Reporting

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Educators' Review on May 23, 2002

TITLE: SEC Broadens Investigation Into Revenue-Boosting Tricks; Fearing Bogus Numbers Are Widespread, Agency Probes Lucent and Others
REPORTER: Susan Pulliam and Rebecca Blumenstein
DATE: May 16, 2002
PAGE: A1
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1021510491566948760.djm,00.html
TOPICS: Financial Accounting, Financial Statement Analysis

SUMMARY: "Securities and Exchange Commission officials, concerned about an explosion of transactions that falsely created the impression of booming business across many industries, are conducting a sweeping investigation into a host of practices that pump up revenue."

QUESTIONS:
1.) "Probing revenue promises to be a much broader inquiry than the earlier investigations of Enron and other companies accused of using accounting tricks to boost their profits." What is the difference between inflating profits vs. revenues?

2.) What are the ways in which accounting information is used (both in general and in ways specifically cited in this article)? What are the concerns about using accounting information that has been manipulated to increase revenues? To increase profits?

3.) Describe the specific techniques that may be used to inflate revenues that are enumerated in this article and the related one. Why would a practice of inflating revenues be of particular concern during the ".com boom"?

4.) "[L90 Inc.] L90 lopped $8.3 million, or just over 10%, off revenue previously reported for 2000 and 2001, while booking the $250,000 [net difference in the amount of wire transfers that had been used in one of these transactions] as 'other income' rather than revenue." What is the difference between revenues and other income? Where might these items be found in a multi-step income statement? In a single-step income statement?

5.) What are "vendor allowances"? How might these allowances be used to inflate revenues? Consider the case of Lucent Technologies described in the article. Might their techniques also have been used to boost profits?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
Reviewed By: Benson Wier, Virginia Commonwealth University
Reviewed By: Kimberly Dunn, Florida Atlantic University

--- RELATED ARTICLES ---
TITLE: CMS Energy Admits Questionable Trades Inflated Its Volume
REPORTER: Chip Cummins and Jonathan Friedland
PAGE: A1
ISSUE: May 16, 2002
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1021494984503313400.djm,00.html

Bob Jensen's threads on revenue reporting are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/eitf01.htm

June 19 message from Roselyn E. Morris [rm13@business.swt.edu]

The AAA Teaching and Curriculum Section is pleased to announce that the Spring 2002 edition of The Accounting Educator, the Section Newsletter, is available on the T&C web site at:

http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aaa/tccomm/newsletters/index.htm

Please share this information with your colleagues.

Wow Free Site of the Week --- Public Library of Science (includes common-language commentaries so that non-scientists can follow the articles) ---
http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org/
Featured in Newsweek, July 1, 2002, Page 9)
Wouldn't this be great if accounting standard setters worldwide could see their way clear to do the same for accountancy and auditing standards? What do you say to the idea that we work toward a Public Library of Accountancy?

The Public Library of Science is a non-profit organization of scientists committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature freely accessible to scientists and to the public around the world, for the benefit of scientific progress, education and the public good.

We are working for the establishment of international online public libraries of science that will archive and distribute the complete contents of published scientific articles, and foster the development of new ways to search, interlink and integrate the information that is currently partitioned into millions of separate reports and segregated into thousands of different journals, each with its own restrictions on access.

As a step toward these goals, scientists around the world have been circulating an open letter urging publishers to allow the research reports that have appeared in their journals to be distributed freely by independent, online public libraries of science. The response from the international scientific community to this initiative has been remarkable, and overwhelmingly positive. The open letter has now been signed by 30203 of your colleagues from 177 countries.

Our initiative has prompted some significant and welcome steps by many scientific publishers towards freer access to published research, but in general these steps have fallen short of the reasonable policies we have advocated. We must make every effort to publish our work in, and give our full support to, those journals that have adopted the policy proposed in the open letter (see our journal policies page for a list of journals that have answered your call).

It is now clear, however, that if we really want to change the publication of scientific research, we must do the publishing ourselves. It is time for us to work together to create the journals we have called for. We have established a non-profit scientific publisher under the banner of Public Library of Science, operated by scientists, for the benefit of science and the public, and will begin publishing journals in early 2003 that fully realize the principles of this movement. With your participation, vision and energy we can establish a new model for scientific publishing. Please join us in this effort.

The following is a list of journals that satisfy, in whole or in part, the criteria outlined in the PLoS Open Letter. The earlier on the list, the more compliant the journal. The information provided below is correct, to the best of our knowledge, as of June 1, 2002.

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The following journals have adopted the policy that all the original research reports that they publish can be freely distributed online by PubMed Central or any other public distributor, and have provided all current and archival content for distribution by PubMed Central:

Journal of Biology Genome Biology A diverse collection of over 70 online journals published by BioMed Central

These are the only biomedical journals that currently provide immediate free and open access to all of the primary research articles they publish, and we urge you to publish in these journals whenever possible and to support them with your readership.

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The following journals have committed to allowing all the material that they publish to be distributed freely by any legitimate non-commercial institutions, including PubMed Central, within 6 months after publication:

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (6 month delay)

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The following journals have committed to allowing the research reports that they publish to be distributed freely by PubMed Central within the indicated interval after publication:

Arthritis Research (no delay) Breast Cancer Research (no delay) British Medical Journal (no delay) Bulletin of the Medical Library Association (no delay) Canadian Medical Association Journal (6 month delay) Cell Stress and Chaperones (6 month delay) Critical Care (no delay) Current Controlled Trials in Cardiovascular Medicine (no delay) Journal of the Americal Medical Informatics Association (6 month delay) Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology (1 year delay) Journal of the Medical Library Association (no delay) Journal of Medical Entomology (1 year delay) Plant Cell (1 year delay) Plant Physiology (1 year delay) Molecular Biology of the Cell (2 month delay) Respiratory Research (no delay)

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The following journals have agreed to provide their contents to PubMed Central while restricting the display of the full text of its articles to the journal's own site. The full text of the articles provided in this manner will be archived and searchable at the PubMed Central site, and freely viewable at (and only at) the publisher's own website. More details are available at PubMed Central.

American Journal of Human Genetics (delay interval unknown) Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (6 months delay) Applied and Environmental Microbiology (6 months delay) Biochemical Journal (delay interval unknown) Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology (6 months delay) Clinical Microbiology Reviews (1 year delay) Cold Spring Harbor Press Journals (delay interval unknown) EMBO Journal (1 year delay) Genetics (delay interval unknown) Infection and Immunity (6 months delay) Journal of Bacteriology (6 months delay) Journal of Clinical Microbiology (6 months delay) Journal of Virology (6 months delay) Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews (1 year delay) Molecular and Cellular Biology (6 months delay) Nucleic Acids Research (6 month delay)

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Many journals currently provide recent contents for free following a delay after publication, but only through their own Web sites. (Please read our statement as to why we think this is not sufficient).

List of free full-text articles available through HighWire Press.

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Additional sources of information:

PubMed Central maintains an up-to-date list of journals that are, or will be, providing full-text copies of published research reports for online distribution by PMC.

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The publishers of scientific journals are part of our scientific community and we welcome and encourage constructive dialog with them. If you wish to contact the editors or publishers of any of these journals to inquire about their policies, or to encourage them to adopt the policy advocated in the open letter, we encourage you to do so.

If you are a publisher or can update us on the editorial policy of any journal, or correct any erroneous information in this listing, please contact us at feedback@publiclibraryofscience.org

Do depressed people cry more than those who are not depressed? Not necessarily, according to a new study led by Jonathan Rottenberg, a fifth-year graduate student in psychology. In showing how the emotions of depressed people become blunted, the findings could lead to more effective ways to treat an illness that afflicts one in five people during the course of a lifetime. http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/may22/crystudy-a.html

A fee-based window to 75,000 providers of over 700,000 scholarships --- http://www.scholarshipexperts.com/

Revised Student Loan Site from the U.S. Department of Education Gets a Lot of Hits (50% increase in the first month of operation) --- http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/

Bob Jensen's threads on other funding alternatives and college locators can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm

Bob Jensen's education bookmarks are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2.htm

Army University Access Online --- http://www.adec.edu/earmyu/index.html
This five-year $453 million initiative was completed by the consulting division of PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Twenty-four colleges are delivering training and education courses online through the U.S. Army's e-learning portal. There are programs for varying levels of accomplishment, including specialty certificates, associates degrees, bachelor's degrees, and masters degrees. All courses are free to soldiers. By 2003, there is planned capacity is for 80,000 online students. The PwC Program Director is Jill Kidwell --- http://www.adec.edu/earmyu/kidwell.html

Army Online University attracted 12,000 students during its first year of operation. It plans to double its capacity and add 10,000 more students in 2002. It is funded by the U.S. Army for all full time soldiers to take non-credit and credit courses from selected major universities. The consulting arm of the accounting firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers manages the entire system.

See earmyU at http://www.adec.edu

Bob Jensen's threads on this and other governmental training and education alternatives are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm#GovernmentandMilitary

From Syllabus News on June 7, 2002

Army Signs Up for Online Skills-Testing Program

The U.S. Army has enlisted the Princeton Review, which provides test preparation and admissions services, to develop an online testing skills prep program for Army personnel pursuing post-secondary educational plans. The contract, worth over $1.5 million in the first year, calls for delivery of a customized online training program to be provided via a partnership with Resource Consultants Inc., Vienna, Va., a professional services company. The Army program will contain over 30 hours of interactive online lessons, practice tests and drills to help students refine their skills. It uses the same technology and instructional design as Princeton Review's SAT, GRE, GMAT, and LSAT Online courses, which are accessed by over 100,000 students a year either through stand-alone online courses or as a integrated supplements to classroom instruction.

In light of new online learning technologies, Harvard University is evaluating its residency requirement with the intent of adapting to lifestyle changes of "mid-career professionals" according to Harvard University President Laurence H. Summers, EDUCAUSE Review, May/June 2002, Page 4.

National Technological University fell on hard times with poor timing to create a for-profit company for engineering training courses. It has phased out its own for-profit company and has been acquired by Sylvan Learning Systems. It will continue to offer engineering courses for SLS --- http://www.kmutt.ac.th/organization/Research/national.htm

Sylvan is one of the leading providers of training programs and also offers over 300 testing sites that can be utilized for its own and other training and education programs. Its homepage is at http://syl.hrdpt.com/

Bob Jensen's threads on global training and education alternatives are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/crossborder.htm

WHY INNOVATIONS SCORE -- OR STUMBLE
For every triumph, other wonders of tomorrow never take off, and Harvard's Clayton Christensen say it's not just luck that separates them http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2002/tc20020618_1175.htm?c=bwtechjun21&n=link1&t=email

Ah, the miracle of high-definition television. Starting nearly a decade ago, TV makers, broadcast networks, even the U.S. Congress vowed that HDTV would provide crystal-clear, 3-D-like pictures that would change the way Americans view the tube. The new technology was expected to spark billions of dollars in sales of new TVs and a raft of enhanced services, including interactive shopping.

Today, it seems as though it'll be a stretch to get a standard digital TV in every U.S. household before 2010, much less one that's high definition. Meantime, HDTV sets still cost more than $3,000 -- and one bought today could be obsolete as early as next year.

The failed promise of HDTV has as much to do with bureaucratic bungling as with the technology itself. But it's far from an isolated example of a can't-miss innovation that has yet to emerge. Remember cold fusion? It was supposed to deliver a limitless supply of energy from water -- and no, not hydropower. And what about the myriad promises of the e-biz revolution? Have you used any e-cash lately?

LEARNING THE RULES. The lesson is obvious: Hot emerging technologies often feature more hype than heft. Which raises the questions: What determines whether a technology will come to market eventually? And will the technologies now on many experts' list of future winners really make the grade?

Traditionally, technologists and entrepreneurs have contended that realizing the promise of an emerging technology -- one that may be in products within a couple of years -- is more art than science. But Harvard Business School professor and author Clayton Christensen argues that commercially successful innovation isn't the crap shoot that it's sometimes made out to be. Innovation has rules, he argues, just as guidelines exist for producing quality products or for being a good manager.

"Innovation isn't random," Christensen told a packed conference of young innovators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on May 23. "We're at the same place the quality movement was 20 years ago. We need to learn to understand and manage innovation so that we can maximize the chances that a new technology will succeed."

FINDING FERTILE GROUND. One of the most important rules of successful innovation is to develop technologies for new markets where industry stalwarts have no status quo to protect -- and no need to steal someone else's customer to succeed. In management-speak, this is called "taking root in disruption."

One example Christensen points to is the rise of the personal computer. The original Apple II computer was targeted at kids -- the only customers willing to play around with such a dorky machine. But as PCs improved, parents started paying attention. By listening to these new customers, Apple and rival PC makers were able ultimately to unseat the computing incumbents, who were still focused on mainframes and other large, professional computers.

According to Christensen, a company with a new technology has only a 6% chance of success if it tries to make a similar but better product than an incumbent and sell it to the same customers. By contrast, he says, the chances of success for a "disruptive strategy" are 33%.

MAJOR MISTAKES. Equally important is the principle that new technologies should disrupt competitors, not customers. Too often, new technologies try to make customers change the way they do things. Instead, Christensen says, innovation should help customers do things they already do more easily, conveniently, and for less money.

Take the music business. Before the Internet, when customers bought a Bob Dylan CD, they could do pretty much what they wanted with it. They could listen to it in the car or at home, or make a copy (a tape, back then) for a friend. The rise of Web-based peer-to-peer file-sharing technology à la Napster has made it easier, faster, and cheaper for customers to do what they always did -- and ultimately, that probably will disrupt CD retailers and distributors.

The problem is, it has also threatened the status quo that music labels and artists have an interest in protecting -- and have sued to preserve. So in this case, innovation has disrupted the wrong people -- the mortal enemies of trying something new.

However, the incumbents are making a similar mistake as they try to make the latest innovations work for them. The Web subscription services created by the music industry -- called PressPlay and MusicNet -- try to dictate more stringently than ever before just where and how the industry's paying customers can listen to music. But their rules are so restrictive as to annoy customers. And the music-buying public in turn largely shuns the Establishment sites in favor of whatever file-sharing service has found a chink in the industry's armor.

Continued at http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2002/tc20020618_1175.htm?c=bwtechjun21&n=link1&t=email

Note that the SEC has some new ways to search for filings of companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All filings can now be downloaded free according to a May 30, 2002 press release by Harvey Pitt, current Chairman of the SEC.

General-Purpose EDGAR Searches --- http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/webusers.htm
(Note that the first two options below are new to EDGAR.)

Search Companies and Filings --- http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html

Find companies and associated filings

Show Latest Filings --- http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcurrent

List filings as they are processed by SEC

Quick Forms Lookup --- http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/formpick.htm

Find specific forms for a particular company

Search the Historical EDGAR Archives --- http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/srch-edgar

The Sad State of Accounting for Stock Options

"Show Me the Money (All of It)," by Allan Sloan, Newsweek, May 20, 2002, Page 49

The accounting first. As things stand now, options are a free lunch for companies--employees place a high value on them, but companies can issue as many as they want without hurting corporate profits. That's because companies don't have to count options' value as an expense. With reform in the air because of Enron, old-math types like Warren Buffett and Alan Greenspan are pushing to change accounting rules to force companies to count the value of stock options as an expense in their profit-and-loss statements. Accounting rulemakers proposed this a decade ago, but back down under political pressure generated by corporations, especially in options-happy Silicon Valley.

Then there's a second, little-known aspect of the options-accounting debate. If companies have to count the value of options as an expense, they would come under huge pressure to report their value as compensation to the CEO, and to members of the board. Under current rules, a company has to show shareholders a table that includes how much it gave the CEO in salary, bonus, long-term compensation and other benefits. But the table has to show only the number of options granted to the CEO, not their economic value. To find that, you have to hunt on other pages--and you may not find it all if the company opts to report a different way. "The original idea was to have the value of options in the table, not the number of options," says Graef Crystal, a compensation expert who worked on the disclosure rules. But, he says, the SEC backed down after companies objected.

It's easy to see why companies would have been upset at having to count options as compensation. In most pay filings I see these days, the economic value of CEO and directors' options exceeds their cash payments. So counting options would more than double the typical package.

To see how this works, let's look at Dell Computer and Knight Ridder, two companies I just happen to have looked at recently. Dell's most recent statement shows that Michael Dell, its billionaire owner and founder, earned $2.6 million in salary and bonus. Not starvation wages, but not much for a big-time CEO. On a different page, you see that he got options the company valued at $26 million. That's major moolah. Dell directors were paid a $40,000 annual retainer fee, but also got options on $850,000 worth of stock. The options' economic value: around $300,000. Note that I'm not accusing Dell of hiding anything--it's following the rules.

Discount retailer Kmart is under investigation for irregular accounting practices. In January an anonymous letter initiated an internal probe of the company's accounting practices. Now, the Detroit News has obtained a copy of the letter that contains allegations pointing to senior Kmart officials as purposely violating accounting principles with the knowledge of the company's auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/82286

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting fraud are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm

June 11 message from Lisa Young at Ernst & Young

Maintaining our valued campus relationships is something that we refuse to lose sight of at Ernst & Young-despite the many distractions in the industry. In order to communication with you on topics that may be of interest to accounting educators, we have created the Ernst & Young Faculty Connection-an electronic newsletter.

We believe that a fresh influx of talent-and free and open dialog between you and the big firms-is crucially important to the professional accounting business-probably more so now than at any time in our history. Maintaining a supply of bright, prepared people is a year-round job for you and for us.

We invite you to launch your first issue by simply clicking the link below, or copying and pasting the link in your browser:

http://www.ey.com/GLOBAL/content.nsf/US/Careers_-_Faculty_Connection_Newsletter

Accentuate the Positive
One of the early contributors to the new E&Y Newsletter was Dennis Beresford from the University of Georgia (and former Chairman of the FASB)

In this section each issue we will invite one of your colleagues to write an editorial. For the first issue, we thank Denny Beresford, Executive Professor from the University of Georgia, for his insightful words on the profession during this very unique time.

"Twenty-six years at E&Y, ten years at the FASB, and five years at the University of Georgia should have prepared me for the extraordinary events of the past six months. Yet the meltdowns of both Enron and Andersen have made this period quite different than any other in my professional lifetime. Hardly a day has passed without my receiving at least a couple of calls from reporters, versus only a few calls a month while at the FASB. And the opportunities to testify to Congress, appear on national television, and make numerous other presentations have made this a truly exciting period. But, rather than focusing on these personal activities, I try to keep the professional big picture in mind.

At least some changes in accounting standards, regulation of auditing, and corporate governance are needed and will occur. These changes no doubt will influence the content of many accounting courses. I know that some accounting professors already are including some of the Enron/Andersen lessons into their classes, and other will have to do so soon.

Beyond those subject matter challenges, however, is the overall impression of accounting as a vocation. It is here, I believe, where educators have the greatest opportunity to make a positive contribution.

I've already seen evidence of some professors making a very pessimistic assessment. They note that Enron/Andersen "proves" that the accounting profession is fundamentally flawed with too many unethical practitioners. This kind of cynical attitude will almost certainly reinforce concerns about accounting as a career choice in the minds of current and potential accounting majors.

I prefer to take a more optimistic view. I believe the current situation demonstrates that high-quality financial reporting and high-quality auditing are critical to our capital markets and overall economy. The market can extract huge penalties for inadequate performance, and it also can reward those who do the right thing. With the recent supply of accounting graduates declining, and the tremendous opportunities for well-educated individuals in the profession, this is a great time to be entering the profession.

A very old song made a lasting impression on my life. It said we should "accentuate the positive, and eliminate the negative." Current events show that we'll never be 100% successful with the latter. However, if we remember to "accentuate the positive" in all of our communications with students, we'll help ensure an even better profession in the future."

Continued at http://www.ey.com/GLOBAL/content.nsf/US/Careers_-_Faculty_Connection_Newsletter

Eliminate the Negative

Among the many things I admire about Denny Beresford is that he was willing to stand up to the powerful industrial/government complex on many issues while he was Chairman of the FASB, most notably the FAS 123 fight. When he stresses "accentuate the positive," he does not mean "eliminate the negative" by always agreeing with the corporate lobbyists. He does, however, want to eliminate the negatives in bad accounting and financial reporting. I repeat an earlier quotation concern Denny:

A Quote from FAS 123 History (1993):

Dennis R. Beresford and James J. Leisenring came to the Red Lion Inn on a hot August morning with a simple goal: to explain a change in an accounting rule. Before it was over they were lucky to have escaped the first lynching in San Jose in a half-century. Measuring out the rope were 300 seriously pissed off Silicon Valley CEOs and other senior execs who could see the ruin of their lives' work because some glorified bean counters in Washington had decided to count sacrifice flies as home runs. Michael S. Malone, Upside Today, November 1, 1993 --- http://www.upside.com/texis/mvm/story?id=34712c0a45

You can attend a live performance by Dennis Beresford in San Antonio on August 13, 2002 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/cepSanAntonio.htm

CensusScope --- http://www.censusscope.org/

Bob Jensen's links to statistical data can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#EconStatistics

In a decision dated May 14, a court of appeals denied KPMG's request for a reconsideration of an independence action brought against the firm by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The court's decision to back the SEC was especially significant because the American Institute of CPAs supported KPMG's position. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/81719

"Will the Blogs Kill Old Media?" by Steven Levy, Newsweek, May 20, 2002, Page 52

A year ago, Glenn Reynolds hardly qualified as plankton on the punditry food chain. The 41-year-old law professor at the University of Tennessee would pen the occasional op-ed for the L.A. Times, but his name was unfamiliar to even the most fanatical news junkie. All that began to change on Aug. 5 of last year, when Reynolds acquired the software to create a "Weblog," or "blog." A blog is an easily updated Web site that works as an online daybook, consisting of links to interesting items on the Web, spur-of-the-moment observations and real-time reports on whatever captures the blogger's attention. Reynold's original goal was to post witty observations on news events, but after September 11, he began providing links to fascinating articles and accounts of the crisis, and soon his site, called InstaPundit, drew thousands of readers--and kept growing. He now gets more than 70,000 page views a day (he figures this means 23,000 real people). Working at his two-year-old $400 computer, he posts dozens of items and links a day, and answers hundreds of e-mails. PR flacks call him to cadge coverage. And he's living a pundit's dream by being frequently cited--not just by fellow bloggers, but by media bigfeet. He's blogged his way into the game.

Some say the game itself has changed. InstaPundit is a pivotal site in what is known as the Blogosphere, a burgeoning samizdat of self-starters who attempt to provide in the aggregate an alternate media universe. The putative advantage is that this one is run not by editors paid by corporate giants, but unbespoken outsiders--impassioned lefties and righties, fine-print-reading wonks, indignant cranks and salt-'o-the-earth eyewitnesses to the "real" life that the self-absorbed media often miss. Hard-core bloggers, with a giddy fever not heard of since the Internet bubble popped, are even predicting that the Blogosphere is on a trajectory to eclipse the death-star-like dome of Big Media. One blog avatar, Dave Winer (who probably would be saying this even if he didn't run a company that sold blogging software), has formally wagered that by 2007, more readers will get news from blogs than from The New York Times. Taking him up on the bet is Martin Nisenholtz, head of the Time's digital operations.

My guess is that Nisenholtz wins. Blogs are a terrific addition to the media universe. But they pose no threat to the established order.

Bob Jensen's threads on Weblogs are at http://www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245glosf.htm#Weblog

PDN Photo Annual 2002 (Various Business Categories Including Advertising)--- http://journale.com/photoannualsite/intro.html

A New Paradox: The IRS Versus the SEC

The IRS is about to make history if it is successful with its plan to make incentive stock options (ISOs) and employee stock purchase plans (ESPPs) vulnerable to Social Security, Medicare, and other payroll taxes. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/81096

And just how are firms to record payroll tax expenses on payroll "expenses" that are never booked (i.e., only two of the 500 Fortune 500 companies book stock options as expenses under the permissive FAS 123 standard)? Bob Jensen's threads on stock option accounting are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory/sfas123/jensen01.htm

"E Is for E-Book Murder Mystery," by M.J. Rose, Wired News, June 4, 2002 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,52929,00.html

Is the book dead? That's the mystery that the trAce Online Writing Centre's interactive collaborative Web drama, "M is for Nottingham?," hopes to solve.
Created by Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink, M is for Nottingham? unfolds in real time.

The project hopes to trace the lines of continuity between the book, electronic hypertext and live drama. And it hopes to explore how writers can work together on the Web, how interactive drama can be structured, and what elements of collaborative Web stories can be carried over into live drama.

Writers are invited to create a persona, to find clues on the Web and in the virtual haunts of Nottingham, as well as to write segments of the mystery story. Anyone can participate.
At the Incubation 2 Conference in July, attendees will be invited to help perform the denouement of the drama as it has developed online -- costumes optional.

Luesebrink said the mystery was inspired by Robert Coover's now-legendary article, "The End of Books," (New York Times Book Review, 1992), in which he asked if hypertext would mean the end of books.

M is for Nottingham? shows an ongoing debt to the written word in all its forms: stone, paper and digital. In addition, the mystery itself draws upon the literary heritage of England, and Nottingham in particular, to suggest story outlines.

One clue site is Newstead Abbey, once home to Lord Byron and his library; another is the garden where D.H. Lawrence set his love scene in Sons and Lovers. The whole idea of the "tea cozy" mystery (one in which the body is not evident) is a British mystery novel genre.

TrAce believes that books are here to stay, but that the electronic medium will encourage more readership. "The notion that the printed word has to be confined to print on paper is to disregard all of the other important forms of storytelling -- from oral tales told around a fire to Egyptian tomb paintings to manuscripts on vellum to radio broadcasts," Luesebrink said.

Horror for sale: Shocklines.com, an online-only bookstore focusing on small-press horror books, magazines and artwork, launched May 22 and took in $10,000 in its first week.

Unlike most other genre stores that concentrate primarily on out-of-print or rare items -- which generally list their inventory on sources such as abebooks.com --Shocklines.com is one of the few to focus almost all of its energy on in-print and new books.

Owner Matt Schwartz said he is keeping overhead practically nonexistent by using the inexpensive Yahoo Store backend and focusing on viral marketing within newsgroups, message boards and e-mail groups.

"The store was essentially created out of what I felt the horror industry was missing," said Schwartz, who previously created and maintained the original HorrorNet.com, a hub of websites designed to promote horror fiction.
Better book browsing: Trying to replicate the in-store browsing experience, barnesandnoble.com has introduced a new search option. Bookbrowser lists titles by subject, author, format, price range, prize winners, recommended books and bestsellers. Search results can be listed by price, publication date, alphabetical listing or sales rank.

Continued at http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,52929,00.html

Measuring America: The Decennial Censuses from 1790 to 2000 --- http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/pol02-ma.pdf

Museum of Musical Instruments http://www.themomi.org/museum/index2.html

I happened upon an interesting research paper on corporate governance. This paper also has a nice glossary.

"Corporate Governance and Equity Prices," by Paul A. Gompers, et al. July 2002 --- http://icf.som.yale.edu/Conference-Papers/Fall2001/gov.pdf

The power-sharing relationship between investors and managers is defined by the rules of corporate governance. In the United States, these rules are given in corporate legal documents and in state and federal laws. There is significant variation in these rules across different firms, resulting in large differences in the balance of power between investors and managers. Using a sample of about 1,500 firms per year and 24 corporate-governance provisions during the 1990s, we build a Governance Index, denoted as "G", to proxy for the balance of power between managers and shareholders in each firm. We then analyze the empirical relationship of this index to stock returns, firm value, operating measures, capital expenditure, and acquisition activity.

We find that corporate governance is strongly correlated with stock returns during the 1990s: an investment strategy that purchased shares in the firms with the lowest G (strongest shareholder rights), and sold short firms with the highest G (weakest shareholder rights), earned abnormal returns of 8.5 percent per year. At the beginning of the sample, there is already a significant relationship between valuation and governance: each one-point increase in G is associated with a 2.4 percentage point lower value for Tobin's Q. By the end of the decade, this difference has increased significantly, with a one-point increase in G associated with an 8.9 percentage point lower value for Tobin's Q.

Continued at http://icf.som.yale.edu/Conference-Papers/Fall2001/gov.pdf

Bob Jensen's threads on business and accounting glossaries are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbus.htm

Bob Jensen's Technology Glossary is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245gloss.htm

From Infobits on May 31, 2002

THE TRUE VALUE/COST OF WEB-BASED INFORMATION

The idea that "everything is on the Web and it's free" is a student belief that faculty and librarians have long had to contend with when trying to steer students to traditional information sources. Now a study of over 6,000 knowledge workers confirms that this impression is also prevalent in business with 62% believing "any information is on the Web." The study showed that, just as in the scholarly arena, there is no factual basis for this belief: "more than two-thirds of publications used most often by knowledge workers either do not have Web sites or do not offer their material on the Web for free." And, in cases where there is no fee for the Web-based information, it still isn't free. The study estimated that it costs $30 per hour of worker time spent in searching for and evaluating information, translating into an annual cost to business of $107 billion.

The study's white paper, "Free, Fee-Based and Value-Added Information Services," was conducted by Outsell, Inc. and commissioned by Factiva, Dialog, and KPMG. You can read the complete report on the Web at

http://www.factiva.com/collateral/files/whitepaper_feevsfree_032002.pdf

Outsell, Inc. is a research and advisory service dedicated to the information content industry. For more information, see http://www.outsellinc.com/

Factiva is a Dow Jones & Reuters Company that provides global news and business information. For more information, see http://factiva.com/

Dialog is the world's first online information retrieval system, providing online-based information services in such fields as business, science, engineering, finance, and law. For more information, see http://www.dialog.com/

RECOMMENDED READING

"Recommended Reading" lists items that have been recommended to me or that Infobits readers have found particularly interesting and/or useful, including books, articles, and websites published by Infobits subscribers. Send your recommendations to carolyn_kotlas@unc.edu for possible inclusion in this column.

Co-author (and Infobits subscriber) Craig A. Cunningham recommends this new book:

CURRICULUM WEBS: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO WEAVING THE WEB INTO TEACHING AND LEARNING By Craig A. Cunningham, Center for School Improvement (CSI) at the University of Chicago, and Marty Billingsley, The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools

Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2002

ISBN: 0-205-33659-0

More information: http://www.ablongman.com/catalog/academic/product/1,4096,0205336590,00.html

"A 'curriculum web' is a website designed to support a sustained process of teaching and learning. The book describes the process of building a curriculum web as a holistic, iterative process in which curriculum planning and web design inform one another. It takes the reader through the complete process of planning a curriculum unit and building a web site to support that unit, from setting learning objectives, to selecting learning activities, to finding and evaluation web-based materials. A set of Hands-On Lessons on the companion web site (http://curriculumwebs.com/) give the specific step-by-step instructions for using Dreamweaver, GoLive, FrontPage, or Composer to create the curriculum web. The companion website also includes hundreds of links to existing resources on the web."

Is there an analogy between atomic bomb scientist Werner Heisenberg (Germany, 1940) and CPA Joe Berardino (Arthur Andersen CEO in 2001)?

When should research be banned? Related to it is the question of when researchers should be denied the privilege of free and open publication.

Years ago I spent a year in a think-tank (The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences) at a time when some of the "fellows" (so-called because they received "fellowships" rather than because of their gender) considered the topic of what kinds of research should be banned and/or suppressed from publication. For example, one of the fellows was a Nobel Prize winner who, over 30 years ago, was looking directly into this philosophical and moral debate in terms of the dangers of allowing more research on cloning.

A documentary on the History Channel renewed my interest in this debate several weeks ago. The documentary focused upon a 1939 discovery at the University of Birmingham that is briefly described by John Lienhard at http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1127.htm . Also see http://tms.physics.lsa.umich.edu/214/other/handouts/all_lecs.html

Physicist Jonothan Logan tells a strange tale that begins in 1946, soon after Germany surrendered. Fifteen of Germany's greatest physicists have been taken to an English country house and asked to write an account of German science during the war.

Suddenly, a radio announcement: The BBC says an atomic bomb has fallen on Hiroshima with a blast equal to 2000 ten-ton bombs.

Werner Heisenberg, of Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle fame, is there. He doesn't know the English have hidden microphones in the room. He blurts out that such a bomb would be impossible. No one had enough uranium to do the job. Some dilettante in America, who knows very little about it, has bluffed them, he grumbles.

The transcripts of those conversations were only declassified in 1992. As we listen in, a half-century later, we learn the real reason why Germany never produced an atom bomb.

The idea of an atomic bomb had been born seven years before -- in February, 1939. That's when Lisa Meitner published a paper with her nephew Otto Frisch explaining the release of energy by the fission of uranium. Seven months later Germany invaded Poland and full war began. Meanwhile, both Meitner and Frisch got out of Germany.

Meitner wanted nothing to do with bombs. She wanted to create peaceful nuclear power. But in 1940, Frisch wrote the English military to tell them it'd take only one kilogram of uranium 235 to make a bomb. U-235 is a hard-to-separate isotope that makes up less than one percent of natural uranium. Frisch underestimated how much of it we'd need, but only by a factor of ten. Heisenberg also made the calculation and got 13,000 kilograms. The huge difference in estimates has to do with the way chain reactions work:

A neutron is so tiny and fast moving that it travels a long distance in uranium before it chances to hit an atom and knock more neutrons loose. If it has to travel, say, a full meter, you need a huge chunk of U-235 to get a chain reaction. If it only has to travel, say, one centimeter, then a small block of U-235 will do the trick.

Heisenberg, brilliant theoretician, overestimated the path of travel. Experimentalists Meitner and Frisch did far better; and Frisch's note sent America on the way to building a bomb. Heisenberg's estimate so discouraged the German High Command that they never did undertake serious bomb-building.

Back in that English country house, Heisenberg heard about the second bomb over Nagasaki. So he quickly figured out how his calculation should've gone in the first place. Then he told the English he could've built a bomb all along, but he and his colleagues had been anti-Nazi. They'd kept Germany from bomb building and steered her into a slow program of nuclear power development.

That was the story for the next forty-six years. Then we finally opened those hidden microphone records -- and history changed.

I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston, where we're interested in the way inventive minds work.

The History Channel show questioned what Werner Heisenberg would really have done had he truly known about about the "one kilogram" discovery of Otto Frisch. In other words, what if Heisenberg had discovered in 1940 that, armed with the research findings of Frisch or his own similar discovery, German engineers could have been the first to build an atomic bomb and, in so doing, could have prevented Germany's loss of World War II? The general conclusion of the History Channel documentary was that Heisenberg would probably have used this research finding to aid Germany in building an atomic bomb. What Heisenberg did or would have done remains a mystery in history that will most likely never will be solved.

What is interesting is the fact that a single research discovery or derivation can, on rare occasion, play such a vital role in the course of evolution of life and death on earth.

On a much smaller scale, auditors may on rare occasion be faced with the dilemma of deciding how to deal with a discovery that can have the same impact on a corporation as if it were hit with an enormous atomic bomb. Suppose that the whistle blowing letter from Enron executive Sherron Watkins to Andersen auditors revealed for the first time (to Andersen auditors) that something in Enron's financial statements that was so bad it would destroy Enron overnight if revealed immediately to the public. Should the auditors glorify truth and honesty to such a degree that they immediately yell "fire" and make public revision of financial statement revisions? Or should auditors work behind the scenes with the Board of Directors to make amends more slowly in a way that prevents immediate implosion? Perhaps the SEC and the Justice Department should have special procedures for such dangerous discoveries such that executives of the company, auditors, and law enforcement can seek a more orderly and controlled solution to the problem that will not cause devastating panic but will allow for restoration for damages over the long run.

In the case of Watkin's letter, it appears that Andersen executives did nothing except run to their lawyers who, in turn, advised not to disclose any of Watkin's revelations to the public or to Enron's Audit Committee or Board of Directors. It is also not clear that Andersen did not already know about each item revealed in Watkin's whistle blowing letter.

In any case, researchers and auditors have some major problems in common. Some of these entail debate over classification of knowledge and suppression of discoveries from the media! There appear to be no easy answers when life and livelihoods of innocent people are at stake.

The New York Stock Exchange has drafted proposed rules and recommendations designed to guide the markets past a crisis of confidence that NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso calls "moments of madness" in the days following the Enron collapse. Some of the NYSE's points have already proven controversial within the business community, but Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt hails them as "a significant step in addressing major concerns raised by the investing public." http://www.accountingweb.com/item/82995

"Sizing Up the Browsers," by Steve Mulder, Webmonkey, May 7, 2002 --- http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/99/41/index3a.html

When you're creating a Web page, size matters. There's limited space to work with, and page elements take up certain amounts of space. It's a land of constraints, and you've got to know the rules before you get started.
Unfortunately, the browser makers have been naughty, so the rules aren't simple. Each Web browser has its own playing field with its own quirks. If we don't get to know every one of these playing fields, then our pages might very well look crappy in some browser.
The purpose of this quick reference is to collect everything you need to know about the spatial aspects of the major browsers.
Here's what we'll be looking at:

Canvas size — How wide can a page be and still work at 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768 resolutions? How much height is available before the user will have to scroll?
Text size — How big is text when using common text sizing methods? How hard is it to make text the same size across browsers and platforms?
Form elements — How much room do pulldown menus, text input fields, and other form elements take up?

After reviewing some recent (and free!) browser stats at TheCounter.com and elsewhere, I decided to focus on the following browsers:

Internet Explorer 4 and higher (Windows and Macintosh)
Netscape 4 and higher (Windows and Macintosh)
AOL 7 for Windows

Continued at http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/99/41/index3a.html

Global Forest Watch http://www.globalforestwatch.org/english/index.htm

Slates, Sliderules, and Software: Teaching Math in America (History, Mathematics) http://americanhistory.si.edu/teachingmath/index.htm

Hi Clay,

I'm afraid I can't help you much on impairment issues. I do have a few documents that are available at my site that touch on impairment, but these are not what you are seeking.

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/speakers/pacter.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/iasced62.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/firms/kpmg/chicago/pacter39.ppt

You will have better results if you go to Paul Pacter's great site at http://www.iasplus.com/index.htm
Then enter key terms like "Impairment" in his search box. Be patient, searching takes a bit of time, but you will get a lot of hits.

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message-----
From: Clay [mailto:pagedav@comcen.com.au]
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 7:42 PM
To: rjensen@trinity.edu
Subject: intangilble flangibles...(sorry 'bout that, could think of anything)

g'day bob, not a bad site you have here, with fantastic links... anyhow, just wondering if you hade any links to, or info already on impairment of assets. Most of your articles seem to be on valuation of intangibles, etc.

I'm also interested in the inconsistencies b/n acc'g Standards (within individual countries), for the application/treatment of measurements, valuation, impairment, etc. For example, (keeping it simple here) if they're all assets, should thy all be treated the same? Why should some assets be amortised and others not, why put finite useful lives on intangibles, etc

It'd be great to here back from THE MAN,

thanks again, /
clay.
VU Melbourne, Australia

Accounting Theory Controversies

Hi Clay,

I read about the new Australian SGARA standard at http://www.esl.com.au/SGARAs.htm

Probably the most important change in accounting standards, as far as Earth Sanctuaries is concerned is Accounting Standard AASB1037- Self-Generating and Regenerating Assets.

For some time, we complained very bitterly about our main assets, wildlife, not having a real value as far as our balance sheet and profitability were concerned. This has been rectified by this new Australian accounting standard.

The complete standard can be obtained from the Australian Accounting Standards Board. We give below those parts of it which specifically concern ESL. All the quotes below are directly from Accounting Standard AASB 1037 unless stated. Parts left out do not seem to effect us in any way.

The Standard (a) applies to all self-generating and regenerating assets (SGARAs) (including wheat crops or apple trees) other than those held for "non-commercial" purposes (b) requires SGARAs to be measured at net market value (c) requires increments (decrements) in the net market values of SGARAs to be recognised as revenues (expenses) in the profit and loss statement in the financial year in which the increments (decrements) occur… (d) … (e) requires SGARAs to be presented separately in the balance sheet (f) requires specific disclosures in relation to SGARAs.

The issue of a SGARA standard (fair market value accounting for growing assets such as timber and wild animals) actually ties into the age old debate of exit value accounting versus historical cost accounting. Suppose the asset in question is growing timber. Exit value accounting would report this asset (possibly under as timber or possibly as land) at net realizable value each accounting period. Historical cost accounting would treat this like like "inventory" where the only thing that can be capitalized is investment in the inventory. Historical cost accounting would report no profit until the date of sale, whereas exit value accounting allows companies to report unrealized earnings due to exit value changes.

I actually am not a strong believer in exit value reporting for going concerns. My arguments are summarized in the following two sites:

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm

http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory/sfas123/jensen01.htm

SGARA accounting is even more complicated than say accounting for derivative instruments, because the time lag between the valuation date and the ultimate sale of the SGARA assets may be several decades, over which the incremental value increases in a short period of time such as a month or a year are very difficult to measure.

With respect to your other question regarding socio-economic accounting, you will find my writings many years ago on this topic tended to be negative due to enormous measurement errors and subjectivity. However, in the U.S., a firm's potential liabilities for fines and lawsuits have become so severe that we must face up to those enormous challenges. My current attention has been elsewhere, but I think that there is a tremendous need for a new type of measurement and risk analysis in these areas. Two of my older monographs that you might dust off in your library are as follows:

PHANTASMAGORIC ACCOUNTING: Research and Analysis of Economic, Social and Environmental Impact of Corporate Business (Sarasota, FL: The American Accounting Association, 1977).

Review of Forecasts: Scaling and Analysis of Expert Judgments Regarding Cross-Impacts of Assumptions of Business Forecasts and Accounting Measures, (Sarasota, FL: American Accounting Association, 1983).

Please let me know what you think along these lines.

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message-----
From: Clay [mailto:pagedav@comcen.com.au]
Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2002 10:44 PM
To: Jensen, Robert Subject: i'll leave u alone after this i promise...

hey there bob,
thanx for the info, it'l come in handy.

Just wondering if you had any thoughts/ threads on contempary issues such as SGARAs, or social/enviro accounting. My professors at VU are up there as leaders in this field in australia, and it's taken me 2 1/2 years to expand my thoughts beyond historical cost.

i was wondering if you subscibed to those theories?

thanks for getting back last time, /

clay.

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"Making PDFs with PHP, PDQ," by Paul Adams, Webmonkey, May 16, 2002 --- http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/02/20/index3a.html

PDF is the Portable Document Format developed by Adobe. It's an open standard (watch out, that's a 9MB link to the spec), implemented by Adobe in their Acrobat series of software, but implementable and extensible by anybody who's got the time, inclination, and knack. One trick that's got a lot of potential is using PHP to dynamically generate PDF files and serve them via the Web.
PHP can do a lot for your Web operation. You can generate nice-looking printable receipts, invoices, and brochures. Disc-Cover has a test site that looks up info about a CD automatically and then generates a PDF label for the CD box that you can print, cut out, and use. And there are literally one billion other possible uses for dynamically generated PDFs.
So what are you waiting for?
You have a variety of PDF-generation options. The standard, classic way of doing it is with PDFlib. Because it's so widely used and well-integrated into PHP, that's the library I'll go over today. But it's by no means the only way of doing things. PDFlib is source-available, but not free. The license specifies that PDFlib can be used and redistributed without charge for non-commercial projects, but commercial use starts at $500.

Continued at http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/02/20/index3a.html

Bob Jensen's threads on PDF files can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acrobat.htm

Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry (History, Music) http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/berlhtml/

Nature Picture Library (Photography, Science) http://www.naturepl.com/frmsns.html

Unlike other online versions of Macbeth, in which hyperlinks might annotate Shakespeare's work, dlsan's hyperlinks might change the shape, size and color of a phrase.
(I personally think HyperMacbeth is a loser.)

"Sound and Fury of HyperMacbeth," by Chloe Veltman, Wired News, May 29, 2002 --- http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,52761,00.html

A new treatment of Macbeth on the Internet probably won't impress Shakespeare purists. In fact, codpieces, ghosts and daggers are unmistakably absent from HyperMacbeth, the latest Net artwork by Italian new media artist dlsan.

In an attempt to "render Macbeth into a new medium," in the spirit of experimentation and by way of tribute to the Bard, dlsan's HyperMacbeth combines looping electronic music and garish graphic strips with dislocated mouthfuls of text from Shakespeare's play. Adding insult to injury for those who like their Shakespeare as close to the original as possible, dlsan not only hacks Shakespeare's hallowed speeches into pieces, but presents them simultaneously on the screen in Italian and English.

Unlike the original play, which follows a relentless path from Macbeth's encounter with the witches to his blatant disregard for their prophesies, HyperMacbeth is somewhat less predictable. As the user navigates through a selection of the play's speeches by clicking on hyperlinks, random combinations of graphics, text and music invade the screen. Clicking on the line, "The queen, my lord, is dead," carries the audience in any number of directions, from a capitalized "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow," stark against a flashing purple background, to the Italian equivalent, "Domani, e domani, e domani," enveloped in a throbbing sound-scape and flickering crimson graphics.

Although the use of hypertext and graphics is quite basic, the effect is very busy -- a screen cluttered with undulating shards of text, colors and music. "It is full of 'sound and fury,'" said Laurie Osborne, an associate professor of English at Colby College, Maine, who specializes in Hypertext Shakespeare. "But I suspect that 'signifying nothing' is not quite what is going on."

The "sound and fury" is the artist's way of capturing something of the experience of going to the theater. "In theater, every performance is different. People may know the text and the story, and maybe the actors and director, but they don't know how the performers will act," said dlsan, who goes by the automatically generated nickname ascribed to him by his first Internet provider in 1998. "I've tried to recreate this experience with the combination of colors, images, text and music."

There are vast numbers of websites devoted to Shakespeare's work -- typing his name into Google's search engine retrieves more than three million entries -- but dlsan's HyperMacbeth doesn't fit the typical format of such annotated hypertextual editions as Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet, and Shakespeare Online.

In fact, HyperMacbeth works as a kind of pastiche on the conventions of annotating Shakespeare on the Web. Whereas in scholarly Internet editions of The Complete Works, following a link will lead the reader to an explanation of an obscure Elizabethan word, dlsan's hyperlinks might change the shape, size and color of a phrase, lead your eye to a new line in another part of the screen or morph into a completely new speech.

Continued at http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,52761,00.html

Men and Heart Disease: An Atlas of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Mortality
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/cvd/mensatlas/index.htm

VeriSign Faces Second Aggressive Marketing Lawsuit A class action suit comes on the heels of a controversial direct marketing campaign. http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article/0,,10789_1146641,00.html

On May 28, 2002, the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) issued GASB Statement No. 39. A major change introduced by the new standard is that many state and local governments will soon be required to include the financial activities of their fundraising foundations through a "discrete presentation." http://www.accountingweb.com/item/82278

Globastat: Country Rankings and World Statistics http://Globastat.com/

Bob Jensen's threads on macro statistics are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#EconStatistics

vi Har'El's Jules Verne Collection (Literature, Art) http://jv.gilead.org.il/

Status of Technology and Digitization in the Nation's Museums and Libraries 2002 Report http://www.imls.gov/Reports/TechReports/intro02.htm

CRM = Customer Relations Management
Trading Places, Part 2 If the CRM software craze is over, what's next? The second of a three-part series on the future of CRM applications. http://www.clickz.com/crm/crm_strat/article.php/1198531

Listen to the Audience Which online ads turn consumers off, and which turn them on? Ask some and find out for yourself. http://www.clickz.com/media/media_buy/article.php/1184801

Study: Catalogers Excel in E-mail UPDATE: Catalogers' click-through and pass-along rates are almost twice those of the online direct marketing from B2B and other industries. http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article/0,,10789_1299271,00.html

Bob Jensen's advertising and marketing threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#022119Advertising%20and%20Marketing

May 29, 2002 message from the FEI Research Foundation

RESEARCH TIP

Repricing "Underwater" Stock Options

QUESTION: What are some recent articles on companies that have repriced outstanding stock options that are well underwater?

FEI RESEARCHER: Technology stock prices have spiraled downward significantly in the past two years, and employee stock options provide little incentive when they are "underwater" (when the option's exercise price exceeds the current market price).

Our search led us to the following helpful and informative articles on this subject:

* "Dealing with Underwater Stock Options," overview by Barbara Baksa of E*Trade, published by the Foundation for Economic Development: http://www.fed.org/onlinemag/jun01/ask.htm.

* A related article from CFO.com, dated May 15, 2001, describes "6&1" - an alternative to repricing http://www.cfo.com/Article?article=3136. The "6&1" method offers employees the chance to exchange underwater options with new grants six months and one day later. The company benefits in that it does not have to use variable-plan accounting to recognize compensation expense, under FASB Interpretation No. 44.

* CFO.com also provided a table of companies that had announced "6&1" programs as of April 1, 2001 http://www.cfo.com/Article?article=3073

* "Underwater Stock Options" is an article from the December 2001 issue of "Strategic Finance" http://www.strategicfinancemag.com/2001/12f.htm.

Note: The FEI Research Foundation cannot issue an authoritative opinion on tax, legal, or financial matters. Suggested websites are believed to be authoritative. However, the FEI Research Foundation cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of information within those Web sites.

NEWSLETTERS ONLINE

Newsletters are now available in HTML format or regular e-mail. To check or change your newsletter preferences, go to http://www.fei.org/guba/subscriptions/manager.cfm. To read the latest online newsletters, including the newest TechKnowledge, go to: http://www.fei.org/newsletters

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The American Experience: Fly Girls http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/flygirls/
WASPs --- Women Air Force Service Pilots (History, Military)

California in the 20's (History, Photographs) http://www.lapl.org/photo/ca_in20s/

BRIGHTER STARS IN THE EAST. Who are all those Asian companies at the top of this year's list? Here's who. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_25/b3788710.htm?c=bwit100jun18&n=link2&t=email

When nurse Sherri Stoddard finishes her shift at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center in San Luis Obispo, Calif., she's routinely wracked with anxiety. Stoddard has so many patients in the maternity ward to look after that she often doesn't immediately notice when a fetal heart rate has slowed or an expectant mother has requested more pain medication. "It's a horrible feeling," she says. Registered nurses such as Stoddard are finding their jobs so difficult that they're bailing out in droves. The current 26% turnover rate among nurses is the highest in decades. Some hospitals have resorted to offering sign-on bonuses up to $15,000 and finders' fees of $5,000. The dissatisfaction among nurses could spiral into a crisis.

FULL VERSION http://www.businessweek.com/careers/content/may2002/ca20020528_7551.htm?c=bwcareersjun12&n=link1&t=email

CPAnet Updates on May 29, 2002

C P A n e t F i n d s ==========================================================

Every so often you come across a site or article that makes you stop and take notice...

Capital Markets

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

Capitalism and Its Troubles - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0524

Crisis? What Crisis? - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0525

New Dangers - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0526

Unexploded Bombs - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0527

The Regulator Who Isn't There - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0528

Bubble Trouble - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0529

Think of a Number - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0530

Is Greed Good? - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0531

Better Than the Alternatives - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0532

Digital Forensics

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

Digital Forensic Articles - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0533

Digital Media Forensics - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0534

Digital Forensics Explained - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0535

Digital Signature Legislation - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0536

The Information Warfare Site - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0537

Primer on Computer Forensics - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0538

CCIPS - Federal Guidelines - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0539

Forensic Preparation (pdf) - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0540

U Texas' Cybercrime Institute - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0541

Reporting Security Breaches - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0542

Retirement Planning

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

Monte Carlo Retirement Planning - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0543

Financial Planning Fantasyland - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0544

Retirement Calculator from Hell - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0545

Reinventing Retirement Income - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0546

Understanding the Roth IRA - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0547

The 401(k) Defined-Chaos Plan - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0548

The Roth IRA Web Site - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0549

Knowledge Management Research

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

Knowledge Research Institute - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0550

Case Against KM - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0551

Managing Information - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0552

USC's Organizational Knowledge - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0553

WWW Virtual Library on KM - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0554

KM Advantage Repository - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0555

KM Certification - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0556

Denham Grey Collaborative KM - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0557

Knowledge Innovation Resources - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0558

Stock Valuation Basics

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

Earnings-Based Valuation - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0559

Modern Portfolio Theory - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0560

How Much are Stocks Worth? - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0561

William F. Sharpe's Site - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0562

Indexed Investing - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0563

MoneyChimp Financial Glossary - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0564

How Finance Works - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0565

Map of the Market - http://www.cpanet.com/up/s0205.asp?ID=0566

Software firm Peregrine has fired its Big Five auditor. Again. The San Diego-based firm fired Andersen less than two months ago - one of more than 500 firms that has done so this spring. KPMG was hired to replace Andersen, but now that firm too has been fired. PricewaterhouseCoopers is now the auditor of choice, but PwC's future with Peregrine is not at all certain. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/82163

PaPa iNk: The International Gallery of Children's Art http://www.papaink.org/gallery/home/index.html

From InformationWeek Daily on May 24, 2002

The FBI says an honest mistake led to its capturing of E-mail that the bureau wasn't authorized to intercept. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a civil-liberties research organization, obtained FBI documents that it says show how in March 2000 the Carnivore Internet-surveillance system collected the E-mail of people without a judge's approval, a violation of federal wiretap law.

The action happened while agents were eavesdropping legally on another suspect, according to Epic, which used to the Freedom of Information Act to get access to the documents. An April 5, 2000, E-mail message sent to Spike Bowman, associate general counsel for National Security Affairs, recounts how the Carnivore "did not work correctly," according to Epic.

An FBI spokesman says miscommunication between an ISP and the FBI about how to configure an Internet link led to the problem. The mistake was discovered and resolved in days, the spokesman says. He adds, "It was an honest mistake." - Eric Chabrow

For more on Carnivore, read: Hungry For Your E-Mail http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eHWV0BcUEY0V20BdTe0AR

The Presidents of the United States (American History) http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/

Rulers (History, Leaders of Nations) --- http://www.rulers.org/

National Association of Counties (American Government) http://www.naco.org/index.cfm

Designers are turning out video games with darker themes than ever before. Some lawmakers are not amused --- http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,52661,00.html

Hi Richard,

I agree to a point. However, from the beginning Toolbook has also billed itself as a course management system as well as a content system. On the course management side of things, WebCT and Blackboard far surpassed ToolBook's early lead in this area, especially in the area of interfacing with the Registrar's databases. For example, Blackboard users no longer have to type in each student's name, student number, and email address into our Blackboard course rosters. The Registrar automatically fills our Blackboard course rosters and allows us to input these into Excel spreadsheets if we prefer Excel.

I lost interest in ToolBook when Click2Learn stopped developing OpenScript that allowed wonderful customized content authoring. I lost interest in ToolBook given the years of struggle that I had with bugs in the ToolBook software. I also lost interest in sinking more time and money into a product that has never made a profit. How long can ToolBook keep going now that billionaire Paul Allen is not propping it up? I do, however, find the recent surge in ToolBook's revenues somewhat encouraging even if there still are no profits.

I appreciate the news that Camtasia can be integrated in ToolBook.

From your message, I gather that your ToolBook users must install uncommon software on their machines (e.g., Camtasia Codecs). On most college campuses, neither students nor faculty can install anything on lab computers. At Trinity University we are out of luck unless we can convince the Computer Center in August that something is important enough to install of every lab machine on campus and on every student's personal computer. Your process of "silently" installing software just would not work on our lab computers. On our campus, the Czar of Software Installation decides once each year about what gets installed on lab and classroom computers in addition to Microsoft Office software, RealMedia players, and other commonly used software across campus.

Can your multimedia ToolBooks now be run without installing readers (like Camtasia Codecs) that are not typically installed on most lab computers? Or will a Czar have to install special readers on each machine? Will off-campus students have to install readers on their machines or can you "silently" install all readers like you "silently" install the Camtasia Codec. Buy the way, no software should be "silently" installed unless it is "silently uninstalled" when you leave the program. (Of course, it is OK if you tell users that you are installing something that will remain on their systems as long as you tell them how big it is, what it might do to the system, and how to get rid of it. But that means installation is no longer "silent.")

Also, can ToolBooks now have active links to the Web?

Also can ToolBooks be run out of WebCT and Blackboard systems? It would seem that if ToolBook is to really be a useful piece of the puzzle, then ToolBooks should run within the course management systems now used by most college campuses. I am now speaking for faculty who do not rely upon multimedia. Blackboard and WebCT are troublesome for multimedia for reasons I mention below.

Can ToolBook tests be automatically placed in WebCT or Blackboard grade books or will instructors still have to hand code each student's score on each test into their WebCT or Blackboard systems?

If instructors elected to manage their courses with ToolBook rather than WebCT or Blackboard, can students access their grades and test outcomes from the Web while they are off campus?

Can students now communicate with instructors, other students, and forums within the ToolBook system, or will Blackboard or WebCT still be needed to communicate with and automatically thread student communications.

If you are supplying heavy duty Camtasia and other multimedia, you must have enormous hard drives other than relying on CDs like we used to rely upon for our ToolBooks in the "good" old CD days. There is just not enough capacity for heavy-duty multimedia on CDs. For example, I can deliver gigabytes of Camtasia video via Internet Explorer from massive space on a hard drive accessed at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/

If I transferred my course modules into ToolBooks, could people worldwide access my videos and other data files on a remote hard drive, or would users have to exit the ToolBooks and shift into their IE or other browser software? Shifting back and forth between lesson software becomes very confusing to students.

I guess my main point is that the software you mention, including ToolBooks, can be run via Internet Explorer (although special readers still need to be installed for such software as Camtasia videos and RealMedia videos).

With respect to your question about interactive Excel files, running them has nothing to do with Blackboard. You can shift into Excel from Blackboard, but Excel must be on the system and users take risks that there are unknown macro viruses in the Excel files. However, Internet Explorer allows you to safely run your interactive Excel files without having Excel on the system (although IE will not run any of Excel's macros). Authors can save interactive Excel files as htm files that allow for such things as viewing changes in answers and graphs with user-chosen changes in inputs. Students may also fill in answers in Excel files saved as htm files. I demo this process in a tutorial at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/dhtml/excel01.htm (By the way, when saved as an htm file rather than an xls file, an Excel spreadsheet can be run from within Blackboard itself in the same way that all htm files can be stored and run from the Blackboard server.)

I also have video showing how to save an Excel file as an htm file in the ExcelDHTML.rm file at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/acct5342/ T
his video requires a RealMedia player, and the first few minutes of the video will have black screen.

Lastly, it saves huge amounts of space to transform your Camtasia avi files into RealMedia rm files using the software provided in the Camtasia authoring system. Doing so would relieve you of having to "silently install" a Camtasia Codec on each user's computer since most computers have RealMedia players but not a Camtasia Codec. My question for you becomes whether rm Camtasia files work from within ToolBooks since you apparently have not tried to save space by transforming Camtasia avi files into Camtasia rm files?

Thanks,

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Campbell [mailto:campbell@RIO.EDU]
Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 10:35 PM
To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU
Subject: In defense of Toolbook

Bob Jensen:

Although I share your concern with click2learn's profitability, it really isn't fair to compare Toolbook (a content authoring system) with WebCt or Blackboard (a learning management system).

IMHO, Toolbook is the finest authoring system for the Windows platform on the market. And quite frankly, it is only one of the many pieces of the multimedia development puzzle. Toolbook can integrate Flash, Camtasia, ActiveX controls and Office apps. In my forthcoming "Financial Accounting 2003", I silently install the Techsmith codec and the Camtasia Player, and show accounting movies in the Camtasia Player. I scripted a button in Toolbook which searches the student's hard drive for Excel. If Excel is found, a problem set is opened up and students solve a multi-step problem. The answer is placed in a fill-in-the-blank field and students can get feedback on the answer. Can Blackboard do that? Probably not.

The major competition for Toolbook may come from Microsoft, with learning object extensions to Visual Basic.

For those professors using Blackboard, you should be careful about maintaining intellectual property rights to all your work that are resident on university servers.

Richard J. Campbell www.VirtualPublishing.NET

Hi Amy,

Can students actually access your video files in WebCT or do they merely trigger video playback software (outside the WebCT server) that accesses the REAL server? In other words, can you safely hide the video files from the public using your WebCT or Blackboard password? We cannot do this at Trinity University.

This is similar to the question of whether any htm files are stored on the Blackboard server versus being stored on a Web server. You can always have your students access the Web server using a browser such as IE. However, if you want your files to remain hidden behind a Blackboard password, the htm files (along with all accompanying graphics and multimedia files) have to be transferred to the Blackboard server. This is what I meant by not having enough space allocated on the Blackboard server to serve up huge multimedia files directly from the Blackboard server.

Perhaps you can hide your REAL video files from the world using separate passwords for the REAL server. Or perhaps your REAL server lurks behind your WebCT server. I am not familiar with a REAL server since Trinity University does not yet have such a server.

Most of us cannot safely hide files from the world on a Web server (apart from our WebCT or Blackboard servers). Once files are on a Web server, it does not take a clever intruder long to find them.

One of the main advantages of Blackboard, WebCT, and ToolBook is the ability to block intruders from copyrighted material, homework answers, and other "secret" or limited access files. Anyone who tries to do the same thing on a Web server does so at great risk.

If I had gigabytes of space on the Blackboard server, I could make restricted video files available to my students, along with other files that I do not make available to the world. However, since the only gigabytes that I am given at Trinity University are on a Web server, I must be willing to share them with the world. I could try to control access with Javascript, but anyone who trusts Javascript for such purposes is naïve.

It might be possible to use more sophisticated access controls on a Web server, but Trinity University will not allow us to use sophisticated access controls on Web servers apart from our Blackboard server or a LAN drive (I do have my own LAN drive, but it is too small for much multimedia).

I am certain that the persons who attend your parts of our August 13 workshop will be very interested in how you combine your WebCT and REAL servers in your distance education courses at the University of Connecticut --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/cepSanAntonio.htm

Thanks,

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message-----
From: Amy Dunbar [mailto:ADunbar@SBA.UCONN.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 12:31 PM
To: AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU
Subject: Re: In defense of Toolbook

Hi Bob,

You wrote: "Although I use Blackboard to management my courses, I don't put multimedia learning materials into Blackboard, because Trinity University will just not give me gigabytes of space on our Blackboard Server. I do have gigabytes of space on a Computer Science Department server, but students cannot access that space from Blackboard."

Why can't students access that space? My links in WebCT to material on our school of business server and our Real server work just fine. I store material on three servers with no problem. Am I misunderstanding what you wrote?

Amy Dunbar
UConn

Reply from Amy Dunbar

Bob Jensen wrote: "Can students actually access your video files in WebCT or do they merely trigger video playback software (outside the WebCT server) that accesses the REAL server? In other words, can you safely hide the video files from the public using your WebCT or Blackboard password? We cannot do this at Trinity University."

Ah, I see the issue. I hadn't thought about a search engine finding files on another server because they aren't password protected. You are right that my students merely trigger video playback software that accesses the files on another server. Hmm, I will have to check with our techies to see what they say about the protection of the files.

Thanks for your clarification, Bob.

Amy Dunbar
UConn

Reply from Richard Campbell

Bob: See replies below:

Click3learn has a new version of its Learning Management System (LMS) called Aspen 2.0. I will learn more about it at the annual Toolbook conference at the end of this month. The standards that need to be followed so that LMSs can "talk" to authoring products are AICC and SCORM. If both a content authoring system (like Toolbook) and an LMS (like Aspen and Blackboard) are standards compliant, there is no reason why they can not interoperate.

Toolbook just released Version 8.5, and version 9.0 is under development (release date early next year), which will be a 32 bit program. NO program is ever clear of bugs. Why does Microsoft have an update site for patches. Jagdish will say it is because they write lousy programs. I doubt things would be better if Steve Jobs won the computer wars. Toolbook continues to support Openscript.

On our campus, the Czar is called "the computer god" - and that is self-titled. I'll be gentle here, he's probably reading this email as I type. I understand the reluctance to protect the university from malicious computer mischief, but not allowing faculty to install software on lab machines is a misguided policy.

My installation program tests for the operating system, and if that system requires administrative rights, checks for authorization to install. If installation is unauthorized, the setup aborts.

Can ToolBook tests be automatically placed in WebCT or Blackboard grade books or will instructors still have to hand code each student's score on each test into their WebCT or Blackboard systems?

If the Toolbook app is properly set up to allow score tracking, and the LMS is AICC and SCORM compliant, it should not be a problem.

If instructors elected to manage their courses with ToolBook rather than WebCT or Blackboard, can students access their grades and test outcomes from the Web while they are off campus?

Just about all web based LMSs allow this.

Not within Toolbook; you need an LMS for this.

CDs are not designed with heavy duty multimedia in mind; DVDs are. In respect to movies, there are a number of factors that have an impact on file size: 1. Screen size (Sometimes a movie at 320x 240 pixels will deliver the same impact as a 640x480 movie at half the file size.) 2. Screen depth at capture. If you capture at High-Color as opposed to 256 colors, you dramatically increase the file size. 3. The more movement in the movie, the bigger the file size. The higher the frame rate the higher the movie. 4. The higher the audio sampling rate, the bigger the movie.

Although I use Blackboard to management my courses, I don't put multimedia learning materials into Blackboard, because Trinity University will just not give me gigabytes of space on our Blackboard Server. I do have gigabytes of space on a Computer Science Department server, but students cannot access that space from Blackboard. Would I have the same problem using ToolBook lessons? If I transferred my course modules into ToolBooks, could people worldwide access my videos and other data files on a remote hard drive, or would users have to exit the ToolBooks and shift into their IE or other browser software? Shifting back and forth between lesson software becomes very confusing to students.

Students don't really care what authoring software is used. You need to remember that Toolbook has three primary delivery modes: 1. Native Toolbook 2. DHTML - Viewable preferably is MSIE Version 5 or higher. 3. Hybrid. Deliverable on CD with web links.

Well part of the business model of a RealNetworks or Microsoft or Adobe is to provide free reader software and to charge the content creators for the authoring software. The network administrator can choose to not install the software, but that is a shortsighted policy.

In my case, I use Excel to solve a multi-step problem and have the answer (in a specific cell location), tested for accuracy in a Toolbook fill-in-the-blank field.

I also have video showing how to save an Excel file as an htm file in the ExcelDHTML.rm file at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/acct5342/
This video requires a RealMedia player, and the first few minutes of the video will have black screen.

The black screen sounds like a Windows hardware acceleration problem. This problem can be remedied by looking at the techsmith support site.

I prefer the Windows Media Player route instead of Realmedia. Essentially, Microsoft is giving away the Server software for the Windows Media Player. So any web host does not need to send bucks to Microsoft, contrary to RealNetworks, which charges significant money for its RealServer. HOWEVER, Windows Media Player Version 7.0 is a significant step BACKWARD from Version 6.4. On the following page, you can see why. The new (7.0) media player degrades the screen resolution of Camtasia-created .wmv files. I have instructions on the page on how to switch back to v6.4 from 7.0. www.VirtualPublishing.NET/fa2003.htm

A little known issue for BOTH the Media Player and RealPlayer, is that by installing them you are carrying advertising for their "Channel Partners", those web sites who try to lure your traffic and your Internet spending dollars. Just notice the SIZE of Media Player 7.0. Microsoft has degraded the product so that its marketing affiliates can benefit.

Bye for now.
Richard J. Campbell mailto:campbell@VirtualPublishing.NET

Thanks again Richard.

On Learning Material Storage and Distribution:
We probably disagree on the distribution of learning materials via optical disks. Distributions of courses via CDs or DVDs are too cumbersome in the age of the Internet. Every time the instructor wants to customize, update, or otherwise change the course material, new optical disks must be generated for all users. In electronic books and courses, we need much more flexible and cheap means of distribution from network servers. Optical disks still have various important uses, but they are on the decline for distribution of electronic books and entire courses.

And there is the problem of capacity. I distribute hours and hours of video from a Web server at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/ To do the same thing via optical disks would entail burning of many disks and than mailing these disks to users around the world. It is so much easier to serve them up from a Web server. Users can then download and store them on their own hard drive, CD-R, or CD-RW disks, but it is up to them if and how they store my videos. I don't have to become involved in that, and I can easily add or revise tutorial videos available on my Web server.

On ToolBook's Links to the Web:
It is doubtful that ToolBook really solved the Internet linking problem. I ran into troubles with my older (Version 7) authoring package of ToolBook. The manual said you could have Web links that activated the user's Web browser, but this is a very difficult problem given that user's have a wide choice of browsers on hard drives having different drive letters. Also, it is difficult to deal with the many file extensions on the Web (htm, asp, xml, and some that are really weird). I found that ToolBook could not always find the user's browser, thereby creating dead links in the ToolBooks. It would be far better if ToolBook itself had Web browser capabilities.

Please keep us informed about Toolbook and Aspen. I think WebCT and Blackboard are too entrenched in colleges, and Aspen will probably cut into this market only if it is truly innovative in terms of features not available in WebCT or Blackboard. To the contrary, I think Click2Learn has too many financial troubles to even build in the many features into Aspen that are already available in WebCT and Blackboard. But I'm all for competition, so I hope Click2Learn can get its act together.

Thanks,

Robert (Bob) Jensen Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Trinity University San Antonio, TX 78212-7200 Email: rjensen@trinity.edu Homepage: http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Campbell [mailto:campbell@rio.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 7:01 PM
To: Jensen, Robert Subject: RE: In defense of Toolbook

Bob: See replies below:

Does this mean that your intended course distributions are on DVDs or are you intending to serve them up from some network server (perhaps a REAL server)? In the latter case, is ToolBook a good course authoring system for video modules? As I recall from earlier versions of ToolBook, ToolBook did not deal well with media files that were located in remote servers.

As far as delivery mode, my CD will install the main Toolbook executables to the user's hard drive, with all the avis residing on the CD. My installation program mandates that the CD remain in the hard drive. So, I can fill up the CD with about 45 minutes of accounting movies. With a DVD version (2003) I can have a couple of hours of movies at least. As far as quality and performance of media, I have found nothing superior to creating movies in Camtasia, and playing them in the Camtasia Player with the techsmith codec. Playing media files either locally or remotely should not be an issue with Toolbook. However, if you try to stream media from a vanilla http server, you have significant performance degradation issues. Streaming media should only be attempted if you have either a Realserver or Windows Media Server.

Also, I was wondering if ToolBook now has active (live) links to the Web? Earlier versions did not allow such links since ToolBook was not really a Web browser.

Most certainly. Links are possible and easy to implement in both native Toolbook as well as the DHTML version.

I worry a bit about Aspen as being a viable alternative to WebCT and Blackboard in colleges and universities. Firstly, Aspen is another evolution in the series of failures of Click2Learn's course management software (remember Librarian and its demise?). Secondly, to really compete with WebCT and Blackboard, Aspen will have to interface with our Registrar databases (ours is in Datatel), and I doubt that Aspen will get that far unless it demonstrates enormous advantages over WebCT and Blackboard in terms of other features. What could the features possibly be for 10,000 colleges to shift from WebCT or Blackboard into Aspen?

Well, for one, Aspen has a synchronous webcasting feature integrated into its platform. I'm not sure what technology they use (Placeware, Webex, Interwise) or some other. Database integration should not be an issue either. I'll know more at the end of the month. I'm getting a demonstration of Aspen in Colorado Springs.

Richard J. Campbell mailto:campbell@VirtualPublishing.NET >

Having a bad hair day or are you having a no hair day?

Combovers --- http://www.combovers.co.uk/

What five words are uttered by most Texas Aggies before they die?

"Bet you can't do this!"

Forwarded by Dick Haar

POWER LIFTING

For those of us getting on in years, I thought I would let you, my friends, in on a little secret I've found for building my arm and shoulder muscles. You might wish to adopt this regimen - 3 days a week works well.

I start by standing outside the house and, with a 5 pound potato sack in each hand, extend my arms straight out to my sides and hold them there a long as I can. After a few weeks I moved up to 10 pound potato sacks, then 50 pound potato sacks and finally I got to where I could lift a 100 pound potato sack in each hand and hold my arms straight out for more than a full minute.

Next, I started putting a few potatoes in the sacks, but I would caution you not to overdo it at this level.

Forwarded by Bob Overn

In the cafeteria of a Catholic school, the children were lined up for lunch.

At the head of the line was a large pile of apples.

The nun made a note and had placed it in front of the apples.

The note read: "Take only one, God is watching."

Further down the cafeteria line was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies... One of the boys had written a note of his own.

The note he placed in front of the cookies read:

"Take all you want, God is watching the apples."

Forwarded by a friend on the opposite side of the globe.

IDIOTS IN SERVICE
This week, our phones went dead and I had to contact the telephone repair people. They promised to be out between 8:00 a.m. and 7:00p.m. When I asked if they could give me a smaller time frame the pleasant gentleman asked, "Would you like us to call you before we come?"

I replied that I didn't see how he would be able to do that since our phones weren't working. He also requested that we report future outages by email (Does YOUR email work without a telephone line?).

IDIOTS AT WORK
I was signing the receipt for my credit card purchase when the clerk noticed I had never signed my name on the back of the credit card. She informed me that she could not complete the transaction unless the card was signed. When I asked why, she explained that it was necessary to compare the signature I had just signed on the receipt. So I signed the credit card in front of her. She carefully compared the signature to the one I had just signed on the receipt. As luck would have it, they matched.

IDIOTS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
I live in a semi-rural area. We recently had a new neighbour call the local township administrative office to request the removal of the Deer Crossing sign on our road. The reason: too many deer were being hit by cars and she didn't want them to cross there anymore.

IDIOTS IN FOOD SERVICE
My daughter went to a local Taco Bell and ordered a taco. She asked the person behind the counter for "minimal lettuce." He said he was sorry, but they only had iceberg .

IDIOT SIGHTING #1
I was at the airport, checking in at the gate when an airport employee asked, "Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?" To which I replied, If it was without my knowledge, how would I know?" She smiled knowingly and nodded, "That's why we ask."

IDIOT SIGHTING #2
The stoplight on the corner buzzes when it's safe to cross the street. I was crossing with a coworker of mine when she asked if I knew what the buzzer was for. I explained that it signals blind people when the light is red. Appalled, she responded, "What on earth are blind people doing driving?"

IDIOT SIGHTING #3
At a good-bye luncheon for an old and dear coworker ! ! who is leaving the company due to "downsizing," our manager commented cheerfully, "This is fun. We should do this more often." Not a word was spoken. We all just looked at each other with that deer-in-the-headlights stare.

IDIOT SIGHTING #4
I work with an individual who plugged her power strip back into itself and for the life of her couldn't understand why her system would not turn on.

IDIOT SIGHTING #5
When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it. We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver's side door. As I watched from the passenger side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked.< BR "I announced to the technician, "it's open!" To which he replied, "I know - I already got that side."

Now don't you feel better.

Forwarded by Professor Venkateswar

A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. This new element has been tentatively named "Administratium".

Administratium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 111 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by a force called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since Administratium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact.

A minute amount of Administratium causes one reaction to take over 4 days to complete when it would normally take less than a second.

Administratium has a normal half-life of 3 years; it does not decay but instead undergoes a reorganization, in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons and assistant deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Administratium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization causes some morons to become neutrons forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Administratium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration.

This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass."

You will know it when you see it...

Forwarded by Dick Haar

A good test to for creativity.

You are driving along in your car on a wild, stormy night. You pass by a bus stop, and you see three people waiting for the bus:

1. An old lady who looks as if she is about to die.
2. An old friend who once saved your life.
3. The perfect man (or) woman you have been dreaming about.

Which one would you choose to offer a ride to, knowing that there could only be one passenger in your car. Think before you continue reading.

This is a moral/ethical dilemma that was once actually used as part of a job application.

You could pick up the old lady, because she is going to die, and thus you should save her first; or you could take the old friend because he once saved your life, and this would be the perfect chance to pay him back.

However, you may never be able to find your perfect dream lover again.

The candidate who was hired (out of 200 applicants) had no trouble coming up with his answer.

WHAT DID HE SAY?

He simply answered: "I would give the car keys to my old friend, and let him take the lady to the hospital. I would stay behind and wait for the bus with the woman of my dreams."

Don't forget to "Think Outside of the Box."

Forwarded by Auntie Bev

THREE MEN IN A BATHROOM
In the bathroom, an accountant, a lawyer and a farmer were standing using the urinal.

The accountant finished, zipped up and started washing and literally scrubbing up to his elbows....he used about 20 paper towels before he finished. He turned to the other two men and commented, "I graduated from Ohio State and they taught us to be sanitary."

The lawyer finished, zipped up and quickly wet the tips of his fingers, grabbed one paper towel and commented, "I graduated from the Wayne State University with a Law degree and they taught us to be environmentally conscious."

The farmer zipped up and as he was walking out the door said, "I graduated from the University of Tennessee... and they taught us not to pee on our hands.

Forwarded by Auntie Bev

GOLF: WHAT A GAME

Golf can best be defined as an endless series of tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle.

"I wish I could play my normal game...just once."

"Golf is harder than baseball. In golf, you have to play your foul balls."

If you find you do not mind playing golf in the rain, the snow, even during a hurricane, here's a valuable tip: your life is in trouble.

Golfers who try to make everything perfect before taking the shot rarely make a perfect shot.

The term "mulligan" is really a contraction of the phrase "maul it again."

"gimme" can best be defined as an agreement between two golfers...neither of whom can putt very well.

An interesting thing about golf is that no matter how badly you play; it is always possible to get worse.

Golf's a hard game to figure. One day you'll go out and slice it and shank it, hit into all the traps and miss every green. The next day you go out and for no reason at all you really stink. I play in the low 80s. If it's any hotter than that, I won't play.

If your best shots are the practice swing and the "gimme Putt", you might wish to reconsider this game.

Achieving a certain level of success in golf is only important if you can finally enjoy the level you've reached after you've reached it.

Golf is the only sport where the most feared opponent is you.

Golf is like marriage: If you take yourself too seriously it won't work... and both are expensive.

The best wood in most amateurs' bags is the pencil.

To some golfers, the greatest handicap is the ability to add correctly.

In golf, some people tend to get confused with all the numbers... they shoot a "six," yell "fore" and write "five."

Swing easy. Hit hard.

If you find yourself pleased that you locate more balls in the rough than you actually have lost, your focus is totally wrong and your personality might not be right for golf...it is also just a matter of time before the IRS investigates your business.

Why is it twice as difficult to hit a ball over water than sand?

Golf! You hit down to make the ball go up. You swing left and the ball goes right. The lowest score wins. And on top of that, the winner buys the drinks

And that's the way it was on June 30, 2002 with a little help from my friends.

In March 2000, Forbes named AccountantsWorld.com as the Best Website on the Web --- http://accountantsworld.com/.
Some top accountancy links --- http://accountantsworld.com/category.asp?id=Accounting

For accounting news, I prefer AccountingWeb at http://www.accountingweb.com/

Another leading accounting site is AccountingEducation.com at http://www.accountingeducation.com/

Paul Pacter maintains the best international accounting standards and news Website at http://www.iasplus.com/

How stuff works --- http://www.howstuffworks.com/

Bob Jensen's video helpers for MS Excel, MS Access, and other helper videos are at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/
Accompanying documentation can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/default1.htm and http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm

Professor Robert E. Jensen (Bob) http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Voice: 210-999-7347 Fax: 210-999-8134 Email: rjensen@trinity.edu

June 4, 2002

Bob Jensen's New Bookmarks on June 4, 2002
Bob Jensen at Trinity University

I will be lecturing at the University of Augsburg and a research conference in Rothenburg, Germany. My wife and I will be out of the country June 7-24. Please try to delay your email messages and phone messages to me during that time. My other planned trips to date are listed at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations

Quotes of the Week

Derivatives cannot hedge derivatives for accounting purposes -- now or under FASB 133," Bass said. "Does Dave [Duncan] think his accounting works even under FASB 133? No way."
Carl Bass, Andersen Auditor in 1999 who asked to be removed from Enron's audit review responsibilities ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/speOverview.htm#Bass
The main reasons are given in FAS Paragraph 405. FAS 133 Paragraph 21(2)(c) disallows hedged items to be derivative financial instruments for accounting purposes, because derivative instruments are carried at fair value and cannot therefore be hedged items in fair value hedges. Also see Paragraphs 405-407. Paragraph 472 prohibits derivatives from being designated hedged items any type of hedge, including cash flow, fair value, and foreign exchange hedges. The reason is that derivatives under FAS 133 must be adjusted to fair value with the offset going to current earnings. This is tantamount to the "equity method" referred to in Paragraph 472. More importantly from the standpoint of Enron transactions, Paragraphs 230 and 432 prohibit a firm's own equity shares from being hedged items for accounting purposes. Whenever a firm hedges the value of its own shares, FAS 133 does not allow hedge accounting treatment. What good is an expert like Carl Bass if the system is designed to ignore his expertise?

What Does 1% Mean To Your Business? "What's the difference between water and steam? At 99 degrees water is merely hot, at 100 degrees it turns to steam and can move locomotives. Just one degree-a one percent change-makes the difference." This is a great metaphor for business. It is always the little things, the small improvements that get the big results. In this article and the accompanying software we look at the impact that small improvements in the key drivers of profitability have on the bottom line.
Ric Payne --- http://www.consultingaccountant.com/issues/article15.php

"In Search Of the Last Honest Analyst," by David Rynecki, Fortune, June 10, 2002 --- http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=208085

During the boom the analyst's job was to cozy up to the company brass, not to question them. Or so the evidence would suggest. Recent disclosures of Merrill Lynch e-mails, in which allegedly independent researchers hyped stocks to the public while privately trashing them, are only the latest exhibits. The pumped-up stocks--no surprise--were those of companies with which Merrill had a lucrative investment-banking relationship. In a settlement with New York State's attorney general, the securities firm has agreed to pay a $100 million civil penalty, reform its analyst-compensation system, and apologize for failing to address the obvious conflicts of interest. But as FORTUNE and others have pointed out, the numbers have long illustrated the failure of Wall Street research. Last June, during the height of the recession--when even the most optimistic CEOs were unable to hide the bad news--investment analysts couldn't find a stock they couldn't tout. Of 26,451 buy, hold, and sell recommendations, only 213 were sells

Concerning the Self-Regulation Record of State Boards of Accountancy: Don't Kick Them Really Hard Until They Are Already Dying
Andersen's failure to comply with professional standards was not the result of the actions on one 'rogue' partner or 'out-of-control' office, but resulted from Andersen's organizational structure and corporate climate that created a lack of independence, integrity and objectivity.
Texas State Board of Public Accountancy, May 24, 2002
"Texas Acts to Punish Arthur Andersen," San Antonio Express News, May 24, 2002, Page 1.
At the time of this news article, the Texas State Board announced that it was recommending revoking Arthur Andersen LLP's accounting license in Texas and seeking $1,000,000 in fines and penalties.
Bob Jensen's threads on the Enron/Andersen scandals are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm

Concerning the Self-Regulation Record of the National Association of Securities Dealers: Build the Profession's Shield Around the Bad Guys
"We tell all our clients now, as a matter of policy, 'Do not complain to NASD enforcement,' " says Pat Sadler, a lawyer in Georgia who serves on the NASD's national arbitration and mediation committee. He adds, "Our cooperation with the NASD cannot help our customer. It can only hurt them."
USA Today, May 24, 2002, Editorial Page
Bob Jensen's "Rotten to the Core" threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm#Cleland

Fed chairman Alan Greenspan believes risk managers are now overtaking loan officers in the decision-making hierarchy at financial institutions. Greenspan said new quantitative risk management techniques were a key factor behind this transition. Meanwhile, energy risk officers in the US plan to set up a CRO Committee to promote best practice in the industry.
Christopher Jeffery, Risk Waters Group [RiskWaters@lb.bcentral.com] --- http://db.riskwaters.com/public/showPage.html?page=rn_userlogin2&url=%2Fpublic%2FshowPage.html%3Fpage%3D3405
Related Item http://db.riskwaters.com/public/showPage.html?page=rn_userlogin2&url=%2Fpublic%2FshowPage.html%3Fpage%3D3596

You go round and round and when you stop, you fall to the ground.
Bene Carmelo

It is easier to fight for your beliefs than live up to them.
Alfred Adler

The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you can fool all the people all the time.
Franklin Pierce Adams

The worldwide economy is today a gigantic casino.
Fidel Castro
I disagree! A casino always knows who wins big in the long run --- the casino. In the worldwide economy, ultimate winners and losers are unknowns! Look at the current stock prices of huge multinational corporations who once seemed like sure winners. Look at the economies of leading global nations that are now perched on precarious cliffs --- Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, etc.

Think Globally, Skip Tax Locally
Getting accounting firms to change their ways is like trying to get teenagers to clean up their act in return for the keys to the family car
Allan Sloan, Newsweek, June 3, 2002 (See Below)

May 30, 2001 message from Phil Livingston, President of Financial Executives International (FEI)

There is a lot going on in the financial reporting arena, not much of it good, frankly. The Senate Banking Committee postponed its action on their Enron accounting and governance reforms. The passage of an actual bill is very much in doubt at this point. The accounting firms continue to get pounded with audit failures, with Adelphia apparently the latest problem. The leaders of the Final Four accounting firms have been too quiet and need to speak up. Serious reform of their audit quality processes is demanded by the marketplace. I keep hearing from CFOs on this score. Industry uses audited financial statements more than anyone - for operating our companies, dealing with vendors and in M&A.

The marketplace is demanding higher-quality audits and the Final Four need to focus on revising their procedures to produce the needed assurance. I've said over and over again, it starts with us, financial management on the front line, but the auditors play a huge role, too. They have to catch most of the bad apples, and they need to address the situation fast. The silence is further damaging the system.

I am on the way to the USC financial reporting conference to give the lunch address. I'll try to issue an update of the action there soon. Am also speaking to the state boards of accountancy next week and looking forward to that opportunity at this challenging time.

May 30, 2001 message from Phil Livingston, President of Financial Executives International (FEI)

Sad State of Accounting Standards
If you ever wonder why the accounting standard-setting process is in so much trouble, read the following quote and story about the Chairman of the IASB. Sir David Tweedie says flat out that he isn't open and isn't going to listen. It demonstrates the continuing need for Congressional oversight and increased SEC participation in the standard setting process.

"In recent weeks, Sir David, a naval-history buff, has been reading about the World War I Battle of Jutland, in which the British lost more ships and men than the German fleet -- but their blockade remained unbroken. He says he views the U.S.-led attack on the new share-options rule the same way. "The fleet didn't disappear in the first dive-bomber attacks," says Sir David, in his office across from St. Paul's Cathedral in central London. "We are still afloat." He likens his fight for global accounting standards to another British naval hero. "Our battle is more Nelsonian," Sir David says. "More like Copenhagen, where Nelson was told he can't do this and he can't do that. And he put his telescope to his blind eye and he kept going. He didn't see the signals."

What's than you say?

In general, men's hearing heads downhill faster than women's," says Arthur Winfiedl, Professor of cognitive science at the Bolen National Center for Complex Systems at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.: "But that decline goes beyond the auditory system or cognitive function. Men just don't last as long as women."
"The New Gender Gap," by Dorothy Foltz-Gray, Readers Digest, June 2002, Page 91

Bob Jensen's June 4, 2002 updates on the Enron/Andersen scandals are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud060402.htm

Ultimate Insult: a 'Nay' from Andersen --- http://www.smartpros.com/x34073.xml

May 15, 2002 (FT World Media Abstracts via Comtex) — Arthur Andersen LLP recently raised doubts about some of its clients' chances of continuing as going concerns. These clients include PSC Inc., Metawave Communications Corp., Navidec Inc., Marex Inc., Razorfish Inc. and Learn2Corp

The next big (law) thing: class-action suits against investment banks. http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=208138
Bob Jensen's threads on investment banking and security analysis scandals are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm#Cleland

Hi K,

I apologize for the delay in responding. I just returned from a trip to Iowa and Wisconsin and will be leaving for Germany on June 7.

I will be glad to help you in any way that I can be of help. However, I think you should make direct contact with more veteran online instructors. The two people that I recommend most highly are actually participating with me in a live all-day CEP workshop on August 13 at the Marriott Rivercenter in San Antonio (two days prior to the start of the American Accounting Association Annual meetings) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/cepSanAntonio.htm

The two educators that I am referring to are Dennis Beresford (University of Georgia) and Amy Dunbar (University of Connecticut).

Both are successful online accounting instructors. Denny will probably suggest that you partition your difficulties into two parts. The first part contains problems with teaching MBA accounting onsite or online, (i.e., problems of teaching the subject matter itself to MBA students in modern times where finance and marketing seem to be more of interest to the students). The second part has to do with problems particular with online delivery. These include such problems as dealing with very busy students with outside job commitments that cut into their study time. All of Denny's students are concurrently working in various PwC Consulting offices. These students have engineering and computer degrees, and PwC is paying for them to get an MBA degree on a part-time basis.

Amy Dunbar will probably tell you that one key to success, albeit painful, is direct messaging or something else close to immediate feedback while students are studying alone or in teams. With part time students, this means being available online during evening hours and on weekends (not exactly popular times for instructors). I suggest that you read more about Amy's great success story at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book01q4.htm#Dunbar

The major problem with online teaching is that to do it well often entails instructor burn out. Avoiding burn out may mean doing it less well, although there are tricks of the trade that are being discovered in these early years on online education. My trick of the trade is Camtasia. I will discuss how to use Camtasia in our August 13 workshop. I have demos available at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/video/

You might also consider posing questions on the AECM. There are many successful and failed online courses that AECM subscribers are willing to discuss in public and/or in private. The AECM (free) subscriber page is at http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aaa/2002annual/cpe2002.htm

I think you might get a lot out of the Beresford, Dunbar, Jensen, and Keeshan workshop on August 13 --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/cepSanAntonio.htm

You can sign up for the August 13 workshop at http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aaa/2002annual/cpe2002.htm

Robert (Bob) Jensen
Jesse H. Jones Distinguished Professor of Business
Trinity University San Antonio, TX 78212-7200
Email: rjensen@trinity.edu
Homepage: http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen

-----Original Message-----
From: K. XXXXX
Sent: Monday, May 20, 2002 10:49 AM
To: rjensen@trinity.edu
Subject: teaching on-line

Dear Dr. Jensen:

I had the privilege of speaking with you at a meeting in Ft. Lauderdale for department chairs, held last year.

I have been trying to teach our basic accounting for MBA's on-line and it has not been successful. Can you possibly meet with me and help me with this class? I can come to San Antonio on a Thursday or Friday or early any morning. I am at a loss as to how to make this class successful on-line.

Thank you for any help you can give me.

Sincerely,

K.

Hi Sally,

Yes, I used Camtasia.

My free Camtasia tutorials are linked at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HelpersVideos.htm

One of the tutorials is on how to use Camtasia.

I love Camtasia.

Bob Jensen
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen

-----Original Message-----
From: Adams, Sally [mailto:sladams@csuchico.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 3:36 PM
To: 'rjensen@trinity.edu'
Subject: Camtasia software discussion

Bob

Last July there was a series of comments on the AECM@LISTSERV.LOYOLA.EDU that my husband (Steve Adams) shared with me re: Camtasia, Lotus Screen Cam etc.

As a result of those discussions, you allowed people to access one of your files (I think) from a website. I downloaded the file at that time. The file was a presentation by you of PSExercise03-07r and is about 14 megs.

My question is this: What software did you use to create this? Was it Camtasia? I noted that it is played using real player- How do students access your file- is it on a CD or do they have to download it from a website?

Thanks,

Sally Adams
Dept. of Accounting and MIS
California State University,
Chico sladams@csuchico.edu
530 891-1980

A New Paradox: The IRS Versus the SEC

Question:
What is "laddering?"

Answer:
See "Breaking the Banks," by Shawn Tully, Fortune, June 10, 2002, Page 26 --- http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=207949

But the Spitzer investigation will do far more than, say, separate analysts' pay from investment banking deals; it could also vastly increase the financial damages Wall Street faces. That has investors worried: Since Spitzer released the damning e-mails on April 8, Merrill Lynch stock has tumbled 23%. The six leading U.S. banks have since shed $48 billion, one-tenth of their market capitalization.

The threats against Wall Street lurk in two corners. First, the settlements with New York and other states over corrupt research will be costly, especially for Merrill. Spitzer is demanding around $100 million in fines. But dozens of other states and their chagrined Merrill clients will likely win lesser amounts. David Trone of Prudential Securities reckons that Merrill will have to pay between $500 million and $1 billion. Spitzer is now examining Salomon Smith Barney, Goldman Sachs, and other firms. If e-mails show that their analysts purposely misled investors, they may face Merrill-sized payments too.

Perhaps more damaging, however, is that Spitzer's investigation could add momentum to civil suits over Wall Street's handling of IPOs. A Who's Who of class-action attorneys, from Fred Isquith to Mel Weiss, have filed 310 lawsuits against 45 underwriters and the flimsy startups they brought public, demanding $50 billion to $60 billion in damages. Investors are mostly ignoring these suits, given the precedent (Credit Suisse First Boston settled a similar case last year with the SEC for a modest $100 million). "The market underestimated the financial threat to the other firms when the SEC and the Justice Department failed to file more serious charges against CSFB for market manipulation," says John Coffee, a securities-law professor at Columbia University. An aggressive SEC investigation could immensely strengthen the civil lawsuits.

And the SEC, clearly embarrassed by Spitzer's crusade, is anxious to show renewed zeal in punishing wrongdoing on Wall Street. The agency is now pursuing a charge far more serious than inflated commissions, a practice known as "laddering." Under laddering, an underwriter agrees to give fund managers IPO shares only if they agree to buy even more shares at higher prices after the stock goes public. Laddering inflates the prices that small investors then pay and is "blatantly illegal market manipulation," says Coffee.

FORTUNE has learned that the SEC may have found a smoking gun. On April 29, the SEC's New York office summoned Nicholas Maier, the former syndicate manager for hedge fund Cramer & Co. and author of the recent Trading With the Enemy, to testify. Maier confirmed that firms he dealt with regularly engaged in the practice. The SEC lawyers then showed Maier a document, known in the trade as an IPO "book," from a leading Wall Street firm for a 2000 offering. The lawyers made it clear that they believe the sheet demonstrates laddering by showing the amounts and share prices at which the funds promised to buy a stock before it opened for trading. Typically, the banks dumped the shares shortly thereafter.

If the SEC can prove laddering, it could collect several hundred million from each of the guilty firms, according to legal experts. Then the chance that investors will win their civil suits improves dramatically, as plaintiffs could use the same evidence the SEC did. Those settlements might reach well over $1 billion, says litigation consultant James Newman. That's 10% of what U.S. banks earned last year. Should that happen, Poseidon's initial blast may look like a small tremor.

Question
What is the difference between "Pump and Dump" versus ""Short and Distort" stock market scams?

Answer:
See "New Market Trend: Short, Distort," by Joanna Glasner, Wired News, June 3, 2002 --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,52785,00.html

In the bull market of the late 1990s, that buzzword was "pump and dump." Predicated on the relentless optimism of the times, the scam involved promoting the hell out of some worthless company, boosting its stock to unsustainable heights, and then selling quickly before it fell apart.

So long as investors were willing to believe good things about obscure companies with businesses they didn't understand, the strategy worked.

Now that investors are loath to believe anything good about a public company, con artists are finding that a new tactic -- the "short and distort" scam –- is working better. With this strategy, scammers profit by selling short –- or placing a bet that a stock will decline -– and subsequently forcing shares down by spreading nasty rumors about the company.

Investment advisers say the technique is particularly effective for tech stocks and other so-called new economy companies that have borne the brunt of the market downturn.

"In a bear market, no one's going to believe that Amazon's going to go to $100. It's easier to say they've got some accounting problems, and the stock goes down in a heartbeat," said Rick Wayman, a financial advisor and co-founder of ResearchStock.com.

A recent case in point was the arrest in late May of Anthony Elgindy, a well known short-seller and publisher of now-defunct InsideTruth.com, a website with a history of warning of regulatory troubles at small- and mid-sized firms.

The federal government charged that Elgindy conspired with FBI agents to illegally obtain information about publicly traded companies under investigation. Elgindy would profit from the knowledge by short selling shares of the company -– a transaction that involves borrowing stock and selling it on the open market. He would later profit by unloading borrowed shares after the investigation became public knowledge and the stock declined.

Elgindy's case wasn't a classic short-and-distort scam, because much of the information he published, although illegally obtained, was in fact accurate. However, the high-profile arrest did draw attention to a trend that Wayman believes has been largely overlooked by regulators: the booming trade in spreading bad news.

While most traders have learned to cast suspicion on overly positive corporate press releases or puffy analyst reports, market psychologists say investors are less aware of the threat of negative rumormongering. Post-Enron skittishness exacerbates the situation.

"The psychological biases that are strong right now would help these scams," said John Nofsinger, a finance professor at Washington State University and author of Investment Madness: How Psychology Affects Your Investing.

Nofsinger says a consistent bias among investors is to expect whatever happened in the recent past to repeat itself. Because they've lost money recently on tech stocks and firms caught in accounting scandals, investors naturally believe there's more bad news ahead.

Wayman says short-and-distort tactics work best with smaller companies, since their stocks prices tend to be more volatile. Companies hit by short-sellers say it's generally difficult to fight back, given the speed at which rumors can be disseminated online.

Continued at http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,52785,00.html

Top 10 e-mail scams exposed, BBC News, May 22, 2002 --- http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_2003000/2003264.stm

The top 10 internet frauds reported to the NCL last year were:

Bogus online auctions, where the items purchased are never delivered.
Deliberate misrepresentation or non-delivery of general merchandise purchased online.
Nigerian money offers.
Deliberate misrepresentation or non-delivery of computer equipment or software purchased online.
Internet access scams, where bogus internet service providers fraudulently charge for services that were never ordered or received.
Credit card or telephone charges for services that were never ordered or misrepresented as free. These often include charges for accessing 'adult' material.
Work-at-home schemes promising wildly exaggerated sales and profits.
Advance fee loans, where consumers are duped into paying upfront charges for loans which never materialise.
Phoney offers of cheap-rate credit card deals, once again on payment of upfront fees.
Business opportunities or franchises sold on the basis of exaggerated profit estimates.

See also:

17 May 02 | Business
Software pirate gets jail sentence

05 Feb 02 | UK Politics
Online voting fraud warning

23 Nov 01 | Europe
New net crime accord

29 Nov 01 | UK
Online shopping 'safer than high street'

20 Mar 01 | Business
Dish washer 'cleaned up in internet fraud'

20 Feb 01 | Business
Credit card fraud rises by 50%

You can get more information about a car mechanic online than a doctor with malpractice history, says a patient who backs a bill to force physicians to make full disclosures --- http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,52605,00.html

Bob Jensen's advice about protecting against fraud can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm#ThingsToKnow

Hypertext Study of the Week

"Using Hypertext in Instructional Material: Helping Students Link Accounting Concept Knowledge to Case Applications," by Dickie Crandall and Fred Phillips, Issues in Accounting Education, May 2002, pp. 163-184 --- http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/aaa/pubs.htm

We studied whether instructional material that connects accounting concept discussions with sample case applications through hypertext links would enable students to better understand how concepts are to be applied to practical case situations. Results from a laboratory experiment indicated that students who learned from such hypertext-enriched instructional material were better able to apply concepts to new accounting cases than those who learned from instructional material that contained identical content but lacked the concept-case application hyperlinks. Results also indicated that the learning benefits of concept-case application hyperlinks in instructional material were greater when the hyperlinks were self-generated by the students rather than inherited from instructors, but only when students had generated appropriate links. When students generated inappropriate concept-case application hyperlinks in the instructional material, the application of concepts to new cases was similar to that of other students who learned from the instructional material that lacked hyperlinks.

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

Multimedia Site of the Week

Voices of the Colorado Plateau (History, Literature) --- http://archive.li.suu.edu/voices/

Voices of the Colorado Plateau is an online multimedia museum collection featuring oral history recordings and historic photographs that document life on the Colorado Plateau. The collection is divided into three sections: People, Places, and Topics. The site is designed to increase viewer's understanding and appreciation of oral history, the Colorado Plateau and the American west. These first person accounts make history come alive in an immediate way that is powerful and compelling.

Question
What is Bob Jensen's long-time favorite multimedia site?

Answer
My long-time favorite multimedia site is the Oyez Multimedia Database. Years ago I made the Wow Site of the Week the Oyez site at Northwestern University. Under funding from the U.S. Government, the Oyez site enabled anyone in the world to download the audio of actual oral arguments of lawyers standing before the U.S. Supreme Court --- http://oyez.nwu.edu/

Innovation of the Week

"Stringless violin to bring feeling to computer music," New Scientist, May 16, 2002 --- http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992282

A stringless violin is set to bring emotion and pathos to that most soulless of art forms: computerised music.

Electronic musicians like to play their instruments into a computer using a Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) system, which lets them record the notes and how loud they are played. Once that data has been recorded on a hard drive, it can be played back through any MIDI compatible electronic instrument.

Sounds good. Except it doesn't. Composers agree that music created in this way often sounds dead and unemotional, because the system cannot pick up all the complex qualities that give the sampled instrument its characteristic timbre. Another reason is that the composer is denied useful tactile feedback from the instrument while editing and manipulating the music on screen.

Enter Charles Nichols of Stanford University in California. A violinist who developed an interest in computer music, he became frustrated by current technology. Taking data directly from the strings of a normal violin didn't work, he says. Microphones or pickups couldn't translate the subtleties of the instrument's tone.

That's because key aspects of a violin's sound comes from the way it is bowed. So Nichols has developed a device that tells a computer everything about a bow's motion, allowing it to generate a more realistic, emotional sound.

Continued at http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992282

Interesting Article of the Week (with history going back to ancient times)
There are various implications for management and consulting.

"10 Technology Disasters," by Eric Scigliano, MIT's Technology Review June 2002 --- http://www.techreview.com/articles/scigliano0602.asp

	Science Goes Medieval
	The Rules of Innovation
	They Make the Future Happen
	How the Technology Works

Five universities put their collective computing heads together in a project that represents the next step in the advancing field of distributed computing --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,52909,00.html

Sharing News of the Week from Jed Deppmann at Trinity University

Grants in Economics and Business Administration

Business and International Education Program (Department of Education)
Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society. (Hagley Museum and Library)
Center for Ethics and the Professions (Harvard.)
Century Foundation
Department of Labor (Grants for Research on private employment based pension, health and other benefits.)
Employment Benefit Research Institute
Fulbright Scholar
KPMG Foundation
Macarthur Foundation   (Economic Access Research)
Market Mechanisms and Incentives for Environmental Management (Environmental Protection Agency.)
Marketing Science Institute (Research)
National Endowment for Financial Education
National Science Foundation - Social and Economic Sciences or Decision, Risk, and Management Sciences
Packard Foundation (Research on Organizational Effectiveness)
Poverty and Race Research Action Council
RGK Foundation
Russell Sage Grants in Behavioral Economics
Sloan Foundation (Standard of Living and Economic Performance Program)
Smith Richardson Foundation (Including Major Grants for Junior Faculty.)
Social Science Research Council (Corporation as Society Program)
Society for Human Resource Management
Steven H. Sandell Grant Program (Center for Retirement Research.)
Upjohn Institute (Research on Employment issues.)

To this list I might add the Guggenheim Foundation. Business Administration grants are not common at the Guggenheim, but I got one 18 years ago.

Teaching Tips From Some Veteran Accounting Educators

We continue to have great experiences with the approach designed by two of our faculty members and described at http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/jan97/factory.htm

Ed Scribner
New Mexico State University
E. Scribner [escribne@NMSU.EDU]

The other day, an MBA student (one of the brighter ones), who took a Managerial Accounting course from me last Summer, dropped by my office and we got talking about the course.

He told me that an episode which the class really appreciated was when I made some paper boats in class. There was an illustration of a boat producer in the class text to illustrate manufacturing and job order costing and I thought I could provide a visual illustration by folding papers into boats as I used to in early grade school.

The plane white sheets represented direct material and I provided the direct labour. Some papers were partially folded (work in process) and others completely folded in boats (finished goods). I had a small bottle of glue, scotch tape and some paper clips as illustrations of possible overhead costs. I "sold" some of the finished products to the students and removed the boats "sold" as cost of goods sold, from my inventory of finished goods. The whole exercise took 5 mins or less. According to the student, he and the other students got a good understanding of the various manufacturing costs from that exercise.

I was debating whether I should try little "projects" like the above in class. This was an MBA class and I was afraid that some of the students may perceive such exercises as too "simplistic" or "antics" of the professor they have to bear.

We had a discussion on the list-serve a year or so ago about "low-tech" teaching aids in accounting and was wondering whether anyone has any recent experience (good, bad or neutral) using some of these teaching aids.

George Lan
University of Windsor

I use golf balls to illustrate the LIFO, FIFO, and average cost methods. I bring a sleeve (3 balls) of balls with the number 1, one with 2, and one with 3 on them. Then I show how they are interchangeable but if there acquisition cost was different, you have to make some assumptions about which ones were sold and which ones are still in the ending inventory. This works much better than examples on the while board, etc. and I wish I could think of more of them.

Denny Beresford
University of Georgia

I have used different color blocks and tinkertoys. Again it helps the students to visualize the components of a product, and I can create different works cells etc. While not wanting to admit it the students love being able to use (play with) with blocks. They remember the relationships later. I have also used putting the blocks together to help develop standards, and what a time standard can mean.

Exercises like these take a couple of minutes to make a lasting impression.

Len
Stokes, Len [stokes@SIENA.EDU]

Ed Scribner provided a link to this tremendous set of accounting teacher helpers --- http://www.swcollege.com/vircomm/gita/gita_main.html#contents

Bob Jensen's helpers for educators are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm

An Excellent Teaching Case on Accounting for Software Development

"ShoppingWithoutDropping.com, Inc., by Michael F. Peters, KennethW. Shaw, and Robert B. Thompson, Issues in Accounting Education, May 2002, pp. 197-210 ---

This case, based on the activities of a fictional online grocery shopping and delivery service startup, introduces beginning M.B.A. students to financial accounting. The case write-up provides cash inflows and outflows and other detailed information about the firm's first three years of operations, which include sizable expenditures to develop customer order-entry software. Using this information, you are required to prepare comparative accrual-basis financial statements and to explore the impact of alternative accounting treatments on these financial statements for software development expenditures. The purpose of this case is to provide you with an appreciation for financial statements as a device for communicating the firm's financial position and performance, to illustrate some of the problems and ambiguities that arise in implementing accrual accounting, to expose you to the interpretation of actual accounting standards, and to introduce you to the use of historical financial statements in predicting future earnings.

Bob Jensen's treads on accounting for eCommerce and eBusiness are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce.htm

Important Site of the Week

"The Future of Mind Control, The Economist, May 23, 2002 --- http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1143583

People already worry about genetics. They should worry about brain science too

In an attempt to treat depression, neuroscientists once carried out a simple experiment. Using electrodes, they stimulated the brains of women in ways that caused pleasurable feelings. The subjects came to no harm—indeed their symptoms appeared to evaporate, at least temporarily—but they quickly fell in love with their experimenters.

Such a procedure (and there have been worse in the history of neuroscience) poses far more of a threat to human dignity and autonomy than does cloning. Cloning is the subject of fierce debate, with proposals for wholesale bans. Yet when it comes to neuroscience, no government or treaty stops anything. For decades, admittedly, no neuroscientist has been known to repeat the love experiment. A scientist who used a similar technique to create remote-controlled rats seemed not even to have entertained the possibility. “Humans? Who said anything about humans?” he said, in genuine shock, when questioned. “We work on rats.”

Ignoring a possibility does not, however, make it go away. If asked to guess which group of scientists is most likely to be responsible, one day, for overturning the essential nature of humanity, most people might suggest geneticists. In fact neurotechnology poses a greater threat—and also a more immediate one. Moreover, it is a challenge that is largely ignored by regulators and the public, who seem unduly obsessed by gruesome fantasies of genetic dystopias.

A person's genetic make-up certainly has something important to do with his subsequent behaviour. But genes exert their effects through the brain. If you want to predict and control a person's behaviour, the brain is the place to start. Over the course of the next decade, scientists may be able to predict, by examining a scan of a person's brain, not only whether he will tend to mental sickness or health, but also whether he will tend to depression or violence. Neural implants may within a few years be able to increase intelligence or to speed up reflexes. Drug companies are hunting for molecules to assuage brain-related ills, from paralysis to shyness (see article).

A public debate over the ethical limits to such neuroscience is long overdue. It may be hard to shift public attention away from genetics, which has so clearly shown its sinister side in the past. The spectre of eugenics, which reached its culmination in Nazi Germany, haunts both politicians and public. The fear that the ability to monitor and select for desirable characteristics will lead to the subjugation of the undesirable—or the merely unfashionable—is well-founded.

Not so long ago neuroscientists, too, were guilty of victimising the mentally ill and the imprisoned in the name of science. Their sins are now largely forgotten, thanks in part to the intractable controversy over the moral status of embryos. Anti-abortion lobbyists, who find stem-cell research and cloning repugnant, keep the ethics of genetic technology high on the political agenda. But for all its importance, the quarrel over abortion and embryos distorts public discussion of bioethics; it is a wonder that people in the field can discuss anything else.

Continued at http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1143583

From Syllabus News on May 22, 2002

E-Learning: After all the hype, is it over?

Jack Wilson, CEO and Founder of UMass Online, brings perspective to what he calls the "present turmoil in the e-learning space," addressing its successes as well as its challenges, at the ninth annual Syllabus Conference on Education Technology, July 27-31 in Santa Clara, CA. Wilson, the featured keynote speaker on July 31, is a national distance learning innovator with more than 30 years experience as an educator. He believes distance learning is undergoing a natural process in the evolution of a new paradigm for education. Find out what Wilson thinks is next for e-learning by signing up today for Syllabus2002. Take advantage of the many specialized tracks, workshops and seminars offered each day. For complete details on all the speakers and sessions, go to http://www.syllabus.com/summer2002/index8.asp.

Register by May 31 and receive a 15% early bird discount!

$125 Million Business School for University of Chicago

The University of Chicago recently broke ground for a $125 million Graduate School of Business building on its main campus in Hyde Park. When the structure is complete in 2004, it will house classes now held in four other buildings. The current buildings are so crowded, students sit on the floor and in stairwells. Edward Snyder, dean of the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business, says, "Business schools are among the first to employ technological advances in classrooms, but it's difficult to bring new technology into a 100-year-old building. The new building will feature the latest tools of the wired classroom."

For more information, visit: http://www.uchicago.edu

Carnegie Mellon Forms Consortium for "Sustainable Computing"

For the first time, a consortium has been created that aims to protect the nation's computing infrastructure and improve the reliability of its information technology systems. Carnegie Mellon University and a coalition of leading global businesses, world-class software developers, and federal agencies have formed the Sustainable Computing Consortium (SCC), a new collaborative initiative. This is the first time such a broad-based group will address issues relating to software dependability, quality, and security. In 2001, software defects cost global business an estimated $175 billion. The mission of the SCC will be to drive new developments in information technology.

For more information, visit: http://www.cmu.edu

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Educators' Review on May 23, 2002

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
Reviewed By: Benson Wier, Virginia Commonwealth University
Reviewed By: Kimberly Dunn, Florida Atlantic University

Bob Jensen's threads on revenue reporting issues are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/eitf01.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting fraud are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm

It's a Big World

When you open it, it starts with a look at our galaxy from the edges of the known universe, and then the image progresses in by powers of ten until you get to innermost atoms of a plant on earth. You are then able to navigate backwards or forwards on your own.

It was designed by the scientists Florida State University. They're called 'Noles Scientists.

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/index.html

Do you suppose we could do the same thing with business valuation and risk sites?

Reply from George Lan, glan@UWINDSOR.CA

Hi Bob,

The " Big World" reminds me of a story about St Augustine ( if my memory is correct), I had heard many years ago in high school. He was trying to figure out the mystery of the universe and one day as he was walking by the beach, he saw a small boy repeatedly filling his bucket with water and pouring it in a hole in the sand. Puzzled, St Augustine, asked him what he was trying to do. " I am trying to put the ocean water in the hole ", said the boy. St Augustine finally realised what he was trying to do-- his brain is too small to comprehend the universe. Science have made tremendous progress since the times of St Augustine but despite all their achievements, there are still a lot they have not figured out.

As fascinating and mind-boggling as what the Florida State Univ. "Noles" scientists have designed, I believe that it will be even harder for accountants to do the same thing with business valuation and risk sites. At least the scientists can agree what a tree and its branches and leaves are and can measure them with a high degree of accuracy. Because of the many esrimates and subjectivity involved in business valuation, it is daunting just to figure business valuation to the zero power of 10, let alone to the various powers of 10. But perhaps, I am missing the big picture.

My infinitely small contribution,

George Lan
University of Windsor

Business and Economic History
The Magpie Sings the Great Depression --- http://newdeal.feri.org/magpie/

With a student body numbering over ten thousand boys, the Bronx's DeWitt Clinton High School produced more than its share of writers and artists, many of whom were published in The Magpie, the school's literary magazine. This website presents 195 poems, articles, and short stories and 295 graphics and photographs from The Magpie, encompassing the years 1929 to 1942. Taken together, they comprise a portrait of student life in New York City during the years of the Great Depression.

Charles Schwab is waging war against Wall Street. He's launching a major campaign to capture midmarket customers--with nearly $11 trillion in investments--from white-shoe rivals rocked by scandal. The lure? Squeaky-clean financial advice from a firm with no investment banking arm. Pummeled by a big drop in revenues since the tech bust, Schwab badly needs to win this bet. For BW subscribers : http://www.businessweek.com/premium/content/02_22/b3785001.htm?c=bwinsidermay24&n=link1&t=email

For all as of (May 28, 2002) : http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_22/b3785001.htm?c=bwinsidermay24&n=link1&t=email

Today, nearly 80% of the women in a recent study indicate they have a greater knowledge of investing than they did just five years ago. More than 50% know how mutual funds work, and 63% are involved in the family finances. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/81243

From Syllabus News on May 24, 2002

Texas Christian Selects eCollege Texas Christian University recently announced its choice of eCollege, a provider of technology and services for online higher education programs, as the enterprise-wide eLearning solution for its distance and on-campus programs. eCollege currently powers two online master's programs for TCU. Through this extended partnership, eCollege will support additional online degree programs for TCU's distance students, as well as provide online course supplements to all of TCU's on-campus students. TCU's online Master's of Liberal Arts and Master's of Science in Nursing/Clinical Nurse Specialist degree programs currently secure approximately 250 student enrollments per year. TCU plans to offer additional online degree and professional development programs through the eCollege platform in the future; and will also make online course supplements available to all of its 400 faculty who serve 8,000 full-time on-campus students.
For more information on the online programs, visit http://tcuglobal.edu/ .

SUNY Selects SCT for Multi-Million-Dollar Agreement State University of New York (SUNY), comprised of 64 institutions serving 388,000 students, has entered into an agreement with SCT that will encourage further migration by those campuses currently not using SCT Banner or SCT Plus software platforms to SCT products, it was announced recently by SCT. Thirty SUNY institutions currently use SCT Banner software, and increased standardization is a System priority.
For more information, visit http://www.suny.edu/.

Getting big accounting firms to change their willful ways is like trying to get teenagers to clean up their act in return for the keys to the family car. They’ll promise anything but will revert to form at every opportunity. Just look at the much-ballyhooed proposals to “reform” accounting by separating auditing business from consulting. That’s designed to remove temptation for firms to go easy on auditing clients in hope of attracting lucrative consulting work.

PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS, ONE OF the Final Four accounting firms, is doing just such a split. But don’t cheer yet. Because PwC is splitting up in an antisocial way. It’s pulling a maneuver reminiscent of companies like Stanley Works, which want to be considered American but also want to move offshore to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.

The new PwC Consulting will minimize—maybe even totally avoid—U.S. income taxes by swapping national identities at will. And get this. Even as the firm is adopting foreign nationalities of convenience, it has registered with the American government as a lobbyist on its own behalf to hustle consulting contracts with the Office of Homeland Security. You’ve got to love it. PwC Consulting doesn’t want to pay taxes to Uncle Sam, but it’s sure eager to take our tax money to help protect us from evildoers. To be fair, PwC Consulting isn’t any more tacky than its rival Accenture, the former Andersen Consulting, which is also based in Bermuda. Among its contracts: running the Internal Revenue Service Web site. We should probably be grateful the IRS site doesn’t have a Bermudan tax-avoidance link. PwC’s setup is undoubtedly legal. But is it right? When the United States is at war and President Bush is invoking patriotism, is it right to set up in Bermuda for tax purposes while keeping your headquarters in the United States and benefiting from a society you’ve decided you don’t want to pay taxes for? Accenture says my take on its behavior is wrong, because the firm, created only recently, has never been a U.S.-based corporation. A spokeswoman says Accenture considers itself a worldwide company that’s based in Bermuda for convenience. PwC Consulting says it can’t talk to me about any of this because it’s in the process of registering a stock offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission. So my analysis of PwC Consulting’s strategy is based on its SEC filings, supplemented with background information.

Here’s the deal. PwC Consulting will be based in the United States, where it does more than half its business, and its stock will trade on the New York Stock Exchange. It will look like a U.S. corporation, but will actually be a Luxembourg corporation owned by a Bermuda corporation. Now, watch. Part of this game involves using tax treaties that the United States has negotiated with various countries. Under these deals, the countries provide favorable treatment to each other’s taxpayers. So, to give you an example, PwC Consulting will be American when it comes to paying Luxembourgian taxes, but will be Luxembourgian (or whatever nationality works best) when it comes to paying U.S. taxes. Most American companies that have been moving their nominal headquarters offshore—or that, like Accenture or PwC Consulting, set up offshore when they separated from their corporate parent—say they want to avoid paying U.S. income tax on profits earned elsewhere. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Call me suspicious, but PwC’s structure seems designed not only to solve that supposed problem, but also to let the firm suck taxable profits out of the United States into no-tax or low-tax places like Bermuda. As a bonus, this structure seems capable of foiling proposals by enraged senators and representatives to close the going-offshore loophole. If you believe in efficiency, you have to admire how the consulting industry gets three bites at the going-offshore apple. First, it gets fees for helping American companies move offshore. Second, it gets paid for lobbying against congressional efforts to close this loophole. And third, it moves offshore itself. The way PwC sticks its finger in our eye in the name of “reform” is an example of why we should be skeptical about any lasting good coming from New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s attempts to reform Wall Street. He’s done a great job at shaming Merrill Lynch, which richly deserves it. Merrill has offered to pay states $100 million to buy its way out of all this embarrassment. Salomon Smith Barney will probably make a similar deal with Spitzer soon. And, like Merrill, it will likely begin reverting to form about one nanosecond after the pressure ceases. So when you hear companies promise “reform,” hold onto your wallet. And your car keys.

Bob Jensen's threads on tax frauds can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm#TaxFraud

From Business Week Online on May 17, 2002

BOOKS

In her book Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children, economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett gives a nuanced picture of what life is like in the U.S. for career women, based on extensive research. The headline-grabbing finding? That 49% of women over 40 who earn more than $100,000 a year are childless. That compares with 19% of men in the same category. And lest you assume that these women chose the life they're living, only 14% said they had not wanted children. Hewlett reveals an uncomfortable reality, one that is not getting much attention from the commentators who see this as strictly a woman's problem, or fault. A primary reason so many career women don't have children is that they don't have spouses. Only 57% of the high-achieving women over 40 in corporate jobs are married, compared with 83% of male achievers. Overall, high-achieving women either marry early or not at all. Just 10% of the women surveyed got married for the first time after age 30, and 1% after age 35.

FULL VERSION

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_17/b3780031.htm?c=bwcareersmay17&n=link2&t=email

LEADER'S EDGE

First it was the Old Economy, then the New Economy, then the Internet Economy. And whatever you do, don't forget the Information Economy. What's next? The Customer Economy. Yes, after steadily gaining influence for the better part of a decade, the customer is now firmly in control. The question corporate leaders are starting to ask themselves is: How do we win under the new rules? The answer, which has nothing to do with cash flow, is ETDBW, meaning companies must be "easy to do business with."

FULL VERSION

http://www.businessweek.com/careers/content/may2002/ca2002051_1327.htm?c=bwcareersmay17&n=link4&t=email

From Syllabus News on May 16, 2002

Online College Features Choice, Online Mentoring

The College of the Humanities and Sciences, a Tempe, Ariz.-based distance learning college, has re-branded its image in order to promote a shift in focus toward curriculum flexibility and online instructional mentoring. The school has launched a new web site to reflect its change in educational approach. "Although distance learning is not a new concept, we believe our mentorship philosophy, coupled with the student's freedom to design his or her own learning program sets our college apart from other distance learning institutions," said Kathleen Mirabile, Associate Director of Education. "Ultimately, this allows students and their mentors to individually set high standards to maximize their learning experience." The college offers associate's, bachelor's and master's degrees, as well as a diploma program in the humanities.

For more information, visit: http://www.chumsci.edu

Red Hat Offers Free Access to Open Source

Open source and Linux provider Red Hat, Inc. launched Red Hat Network Education Channels to give students and educators access to the Red Hat Linux 7.3 operating system via the Red Hat Network. Red Hat Linux 7.3 is a configurable operating system designed to deliver Internet-based computing. The channels are designed to accelerate the adoption of open source software within the education community nationwide. The company will offer two channels: an Educational Channel for teachers and IS administrators, as well as high school and university students; and a K-12 Linux Terminal Server Project Channel to enable K-12 teachers and IS administrators to set up computer science labs with an open lab architecture. Both channels provide free Red Hat Network access for one machine.

From The Wall Street Journal Accounting Educators' Review on May 23, 2002

TITLE: Pitt Faces New Questions on CEO Meetings
REPORTER: Michael Schroeder and James Bandler
DATE: May 20, 2002
PAGE: C1
LINK: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1021754792877672440.djm,00.html
TOPICS: Accounting, Auditing, Regulation, Securities and Exchange Commission

SUMMARY: Harvey Pitt, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), is being scrutinized for meeting with executives of companies being investigated by the SEC. Questions focus on the role of the SEC and the implications of the meetings held by Mr. Pitt.

QUESTIONS:
1.) What is the role of the SEC in accounting standard setting and accounting regulation? Why does the SEC have this power?

2.) Why is Mr. Pitt being criticized? Do you think Mr. Pitt's behavior was inappropriate? Support your answer.

3.) Describe Mr. Pitt's professional activities before becoming Chairman of the SEC. According to government ethics rules, for how long should Mr. Pitt not participate in matters related to companies that he represented prior to his appointment at the SEC? What do you perceive as the purpose of this rule? Do you think that this rule is necessary? Do you think that this rule accomplishes its intended purpose(s)? Support your answers.

4.) Given the credibility issues facing the accounting profession, is it important the public have confidence in the SEC? Support your answer. If the public loses confidence in the SEC, what are potential implications for accounting?

Reviewed By: Judy Beckman, University of Rhode Island
Reviewed By: Benson Wier, Virginia Commonwealth University
Reviewed By: Kimberly Dunn, Florida Atlantic University

A comprehensive survey concluded in May 2002 by AccountingWEB, Inc. shows that accounting students are still very optimistic about the accounting profession, and shows that traditional values, integrity and honesty are paramount in their decisions of which firms to work for. Most significantly, "reputation" and "culture" have overtaken salary and benefits as the main factors influencing their career decisions. Find out more today. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/81458

SmartPros 2002 (Accounting) Career Guide --- http://www.smartpros.com/x33919.xml

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting careers are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob1.htm#careers

GIANT STEPS FOR A SOFTWARE UPSTART
Linux is gaining momentum in nearly all corners of computing, and more and better programs now run on it. But will a real business model ever evolve? http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2002/tc20020515_3723.htm?c=bwtechmay17&n=link1&t=email

"FAIR USE" IS GETTING UNFAIR TREATMENT
Two recent federal court rulings in Hollywood's favor could undermine consumers' historical rights to use the content they buy http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2002/tc20020514_1528.htm?c=bwtechmay17&n=link13&t=email

To hear the entertainment industry tell it, a wave of digital piracy threatens to destroy the future of movies, records, and other media. While the danger of piracy is real, the other side of the story is that Hollywood has been on a remarkable legislative and legal winning streak in its campaign to win increased protections (see BW Online, 4/18/02, "High Tech vs. Hollywood on Capitol Hill"). Along the way, some long-established consumer rights may disappear. And the message from the courts so far seems to be "Get used to it."

The invention of digital media has made it possible for people without any special skills or equipment to make copies that are essentially indistinguishable from the originals. It has also given the creators of media the technical means not only to prevent copies from being made but to limit the ways consumers use products they have purchased, for example, by blocking the playing of U.S. DVD movies in Europe or preventing certain music CDs from being played in computers.

Copyright law has always tried to strike a delicate balance between the rights of content creators to be compensated for their work and the rights of consumers to use what they have paid for. But the development of digital media and Big Media's attempt to completely control it have destroyed the delicate equilibrium that is copyright law.

UNDER ASSAULT. Two legal doctrines, called "first sale" and "fair use" are threatened by these technical changes. Under first sale, the buyers of copyrighted works in the U.S. may dispose of their purchases as they see fit (this isn't true in all countries). If you own a book, record, or DVD, you can sell it, lend it, or give it away. Fair use is a broader and vaguer concept, but it covers such things as quoting from a book in a review, copying part of a work for classroom use, or, most relevantly, making a copy of a music recording for personal use.

Both doctrines are now under assault. The most recent blow came in a May 8 ruling by U.S. District Judge Ronald M. Whyte in San Jose, Calif., in which he upheld the constitutionality of key provisions of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

This criminal case, U.S. v. Elcom Ltd., is a curious one. It began last July when FBI agents, acting on a complaint from software maker Adobe Systems, arrested Elcom employee Dmitry Skylarov at a hackers conference in Las Vegas. He was charged with "trafficking" in software designed to circumvent copy protections in Adobe's eBook Reader software, a criminal violation of the DMCA. The case against Skylarov were eventually dropped, and he returned to Russia, but the charges against Elcom are moving forward.

Continued at http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2002/tc20020514_1528.htm?c=bwtechmay17&n=link13&t=email

Bob Jensen's fair use threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm#Copyright

May 23, 2002 message from John Dallair (Mathematics)

Greetings Dr. J.

Found a neat site that might be useful to new students and others. It goes over much of the basics of alpha-numeric mathematics and also provides diversions to keep the old brain cells in motion. http://www.algebrahelp.com/

God Bless. j

d

Welcome to AlgebraHelp.com, the fastest growing online source for help with algebra. We use some of the latest technology to help you learn and understand algebra. Our website features lessons to learn or refresh old skills, calculators that show you how to solve problems step-by-step, and interactive worksheets to test your skills.

May 23 message from Michael Platt, AccountingWEB [MTPlatt@AOL.COM]

I'd like to make everyone aware of a survey recently concluded by AccountingWEB on student perspectives on the Accounting profession. 550 Beta Alpha Psi students participated in the survey which measured their employment perspectives, what influences and motivates them in their career decisions, and what benefits packages are important to them and which aren't. You may find the results of interest .

http://www.accountingweb.com/item/81458

Mike Platt
AccountingWEB

May 22 message from Richard Campbell

You can see a web application (a conference self-scheduler) written in VB.NET by going to:

www.tbcon.com and clicking on the "Schedule" button. This is a brilliant piece of programming by two of the best multimedia programmers in the world - Jeff Rhodes and Chris Bell of www.plattecanyon.com

It is probably advisable to set your display at 1024x768 to see the navigation buttons at the bottom right hand side of the screen.

So if you have ever asked yourself why is Bill Gates hyping the .NET initiative, you will see why after looking at what VB.NET can do in the hands of a skilled programmer. I am glad I am scheduled to attend this conference.

Richard J. Campbell
www.VirtualPublishing.NET
mailto:campbell@VirtualPublishing.NET

Messages from Phil Livingston on May 14, 2002

Look for an opinion piece I submitted to The Financial Times in Wednesday's U.S. edition (May 15), challenging the views of some, like Warren Buffet, on stock option accounting. The issue is really about corporate governance, and if changes need to be made, that's where the focus ought to be, not on reopening the debate on how they are accounted for.
Bob Jensen's counter arguments can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory/sfas123/jensen01.htm

NASDAQ held Governance Summits on both coasts in the last week. Excellent dialogue among the participants (CFOs and General Counsels) after a morning of presentations, including mine on the FEI Recommendations for post-Enron reform. Shareholder approval of stock option plans was discussed at length and is inevitable in some form. The establishment of a "lead independent director," where the CEO is also chairman was a concept that got favorable discussion. Tougher independence rules for directors are coming, and CPE for directors seems like an idea that will emerge, too. Company and financial officer codes of conduct, which FEI has much pressed for, are being considered. The NASDAQ and NYSE will be reporting out their reports/results in the next month.

Replace EPS With EVA To Drive Share Value And Create A Culture Of Ownership
Check out "Enron Signals the End of the Earnings Management Game" and the companion white paper "How to Structure Incentive Plans That Work" for an understanding of pitfalls in managing for earnings-per-share goals and how to use EVA® (economic value added) in bonus plans that encourage managers and employees to think and act like owners. Download the articles from Stern Stewart --- http://www.sternstewart.com/evaluation/overview.shtml

Phil Livingston
President of the Financial Executives International (FEI)

Bob Jensen's counter arguments can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory/sfas123/jensen01.htm

Last year, 257 public companies with $258 billion in assets declared bankruptcy--hurting employees and families, and making shareholders furious. CEOs offer every excuse but the right one: their own errors. Here are ten mistakes to avoid and three quick fixes to make. http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=207919

You thought Eliot Spitzer was tough on Merrill Lynch? Wall Street's about to get a real run for its money. The New York attorney general's investigation could add momentum to civil suits over Wall Street's handling of IPOs. http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=207949

Critics have accused Fannie Mae of being too big and having outsized ambition. Alan Greenspan has criticized the company's derivatives portfolio. But the nation's largest mortgage outfit has a solid foundation. http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=207945

The IASB has published an exposure draft of proposed improvements to International Accounting Standards, which is now available generally.
Press Release
Exposure Draft

I was once a ToolBook enthusiast and developed all my courses around CDs that I created in ToolBook. ToolBook was a long-time main product of Asymetrix Corporation that later became part of Click-to-Learn --- http://home.click2learn.com/

ToolBook and Authorware were leading products for interactive CD learning technologies and course management systems. Both had huge learning curves for course authors, but the capabilities for interactive learning were leading edge until networked learning became common place. Authors had to learn how to code using either OpenScript for ToolBook or Lingo for Authorware. Although both products had free readers that could be installed on computers, these never worked really well and learning modules were just too large and complicated for Internet Delivery. ToolBook abandoned further development of OpenScript and resorted to DHTML templates that are more efficient for delivery of courses on the Internet, but eliminate creative authoring that was possible in OpenScript.

Both Click-to-Learn (for ToolBook) and Macromedia (for Authorware and Dreamweaver) missed the boat in terms of capturing the academic market. WebCT and Blackboard upstarts from Cornell University (Blackboard) and the University of British Columbia (WebCT) went commercial and virtually captured the market on college campuses around the world.

Belatedly, Click-to-Learn is making a desperation pricing move to get a wedge in the college market. On May 24, 2002, Click-to-Learn sent the following message to potential customers:

Advances in e-learning are transforming the way we think about education. Learning is now a lifelong process and necessity, requiring that courses are available to people "anytime, anyplace, at any pace."
ToolBook Instructor enables educators to easily create engaging, highly interactive courses to accelerate the learning process. It walks you step-by-step through both content creation and the most effective method to deliver finished courses using the Internet or CD-ROM.
ToolBook enables you to: Quickly design Web-ready curriculum, quizzes, and exams using built-in templates, catalogs, and wizards. Enable your students to see and hear what you are teaching them using streaming media. Create "show-me" and "try-me" simulations and custom functions using the Actions Editor, a visual programming tool.
Special Offer!
Place your order by August 30, 2002, we'll give you a renewable campus-wide site license for only $2,599 a year. ToolBook Instructor normally retails for $2,599 per individual copy, but if you act now you will enjoy this same low price but receive this site license for your entire campus to use!

You will receive:

Unlimited seats on one campus for use by faculty, employees, and students.
Unlimited technical support via email for one designated contact.

Order today by calling 1.800.471.5184 ext 1541 or send email to sales@click2learn.com
Best Regards,
Click2learn, Inc.

This move is probably too little too late. WebCT and Blackboard are too entrenched and have features not available in TookBook. Most notably, WebCT and Blackboard have database interface features that allow student information from the Registrar's Office (course enrollments, email addresses, etc.) to be automatically posted for every course on campus. For example, at Trinity University our student and financial database from Datatel interfaces with our Blackboard system.

Another risk from investing financial and intellectual capital in ToolBook is that ToolBook has never been profitable to Click-to-Learn. Even on a pro-forma basis that puts the company in the best possible light, net earnings are increasingly negative. The company lost $0.86 per share in 2000 and $0.60 per share in 2001. The trend is upward, but desperation pricings such as the deal offered above do not send out promising signals for the long-term future of ToolBook.

To me this is very sad since I invested so much of my time and money learning to use ToolBook. This is yet another example of an educational software company that did not understand what is known as cost-profit-volume (CPV) analysis in managerial accounting. Companies that price very high for a niche market (in ToolBook's case training software for large and wealthy companies) and price themselves out of the mass market (in this case colleges, universities and K-12 schools) find themselves left high and dry when their niche market falters. Companies like Microsoft, WebCT, BlackBoard, and JASC understood that when it comes to software it is better to either give products away for free or price them extremely cheap until individuals and organizations get hooked on using them. Then price the upgrades low enough to keep them hooked and continue to hold millions (or in the case of Microsoft billions) of customers. Than is what CPV analysis is all about.

WebCT and Blackboard now hold virtually all the college and university market plus the majority portion of the enormous primary and secondary K-12 school market. ToolBook and Authorware adopted failed marketing and product development strategies for the education market. Along a similar vein, Lotus, Netscape, and Apple had failed marketing and product development strategies that allowed Bill Gates to become the wealthiest man in the world instead of being a used car salesman. Bill Gates, more than any other CEO in the world, understands CPV analysis. Click-to-Learn is catching on too late with a product that can no longer compete.

Bob Jensen's threads on the history of course authoring and management systems can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm

Hi Vanessa,

I am not sure there is a concise definition of behavioral accounting, although I'm certain you can find several tries in the glossaries at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbus.htm

The term appeared when academic researchers commenced to link research in the behavioral sciences with managerial/cost accounting issues. In particular, research commenced to focus upon how accounting impacts upon managerial behavior, particularly decision making behaviors. For example, some of the early "protocol" studies asked decision makers to think out loud while making actual decisions or in simulation experiments. Attempts were then made to determine how accounting information was used in conjunction with other information in actual and/or simulated decision settings.

The term eventually evolved into external reporting areas such as the study of how investors make portfolio decisions and the way in which accounting information is detected and processed in human cognition and or metacognition.

Top named researchers to search for in this process are Robert Libby (Cornell), Jacob Birnberg (Pittsburgh), Robert Ashton (Duke), and many others.

Much of the research has shifted from individual behavior to organizational behavior. See http://hsb.baylor.edu/html/davisc/abo/home.htm

One criticism raised about behavioral research is that it has been too academic and too artificial to have had much impact upon the real world. Indeed it is difficult to find where such research has led to changes in practice. Problems include artificial experimental settings and the study of persons and organizations out of context in terms of real-world complexities. The counter argument is that this area is so important that researchers had to start somewhere and are doing their best to make small steps toward more relevant studies. At the moment, however, I'm afraid that the real world (e.g., standard setters and corporate management) remain pretty ignorant about behavioral accounting research and its implications for practice. When confronted with research findings, the response is often that these results are intuitive without so much rigor.

Another criticism is that the behavioral research findings have a short life. For example, once persons discover that a model predicts their behavior, it is often tempting for them to change behavior just to prove the model is wrong or too simplistic. It is sometimes said that physical scientists stole all the easy problems (where discovery does not change behavior), leaving the hard problems to behavioral and social scientists (where the subjects under investigation can change as a result of the discoveries by researchers). Of course, both of these assertions oversimplify the real world. Research findings in quantum physics can change behavior, and some people cannot or will not change behavior just because you understand why they are behaving in a certain way.

A real criticism of behavioral accounting research is that it has often been more concerned with research methodology than with the findings themselves. But this criticism applies to nearly all academic accounting research. Unlike research in science, the world is not eagerly awaiting the latest findings of academic accounting researchers.

As far as links go, the world is your oyster at http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en

Hope this helps!

Bob Jensen

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanessa Smyth [mailto:smythvanessa@hotmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 8:28 PM
To: rjensen@trinity.edu Subject: Behavioral Accounting Theory Question

G'day mate,

Sorry to bother you, my name is Vanessa and I go to university in Sydney Australia. I found your email address over the internet and was wondering if you might please be able to help me if you have any expertise in this area or forward this email on to someone who does? If you don't have time to do either that's fine because I understand how busy you must be in your job position.

I'm doing a school assignment and was wondering if you could tell me anything you know about what behavioral accounting is and how is the behavioral approach used in accounting theory formulation?

I would appreciate it if you would please let me know if you have any ideas on how to answer my questions or if you could point me to any links on the internet where I may seek the answers I desire.

Thank you

Vanessa

The three-day shutdown of domestic air travel in the United States following the terrorist attacks allowed meteorologists to study what they've long suspected: Airplane condensation trails may affect the weather --- http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,52512,00.html

American Museum of Photography http://www.photographymuseum.com/

May 15, 2002 message from Fathom

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News Release from the Financial Accounting Standards Board on May 13, 2002

FASB Publishes Exposure Draft, Acquisitions of Certain Financial Institutions, That Amends Statements 72, 144 and Interpretation 9
Norwalk, CT, May 13, 2002—The FASB has issued an Exposure Draft, Acquisitions of Certain Financial Institutions, that amends two existing accounting standards and an Interpretation to increase consistency of financial reporting. The proposed change would require that all financial institution acquisitions, except for those between two or more mutual enterprises, be accounted for under Statements No. 141, Business Combinations and 142, Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets. A copy of the Exposure Draft is available on the FASB’s website at www.fasb.org . The comment period concludes on June 24, 2002.
The Exposure Draft would amend Statement No. 72, Accounting for Certain Acquisitions of Banking or Thrift Institutions, and Interpretation No. 9, Applying APB Opinions No. 16 and 17 When a Savings and Loan Association or a Similar Institution Is Acquired in a Business Combination, to remove from their scope all financial institution acquisitions, except for transactions between two or more mutual enterprises. Those transactions would be accounted for under FASB Statements 141 and 142, prospectively. In addition, the proposed Statement would amend Statement No. 144, Accounting for the Impairment or Disposal of Long-Lived Assets, to include certain long-term customer relationship intangible assets, such as depositor- and borrower-relationship assets, and credit-cardholder intangible assets.
The amendments to Statement 72 and Interpretation 9 would be effective for transactions completed after a final Statement is issued. The amendment to Statement 144 would be effective upon issuance of a final Statement.

Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday released a cumulative patch that fixes six new vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer --- http://www.eweek.com/article/0,3658,s=712&a=27020,00.asp

Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday released a cumulative patch that fixes six new vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. Two of the flaws could enable an attacker to read files on a user's machine, although there are several mitigating factors that make such an attack quite difficult.

Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., has rated the new vulnerabilities as critical. The new patch also contains fixes for all previously discovered flaws in IE 5.01, 5.5 and 6.0.

The first of the two so-called information disclosure vulnerabilities lies in the way that an HTML object supports Cascading Style Sheets. An attacker could create a Web page or HTML mail message to exploit the vulnerability, but he would need to know the exact name and location of the file he wanted to read on the user's machine. Further, the file must contain one particular ASCII character and the attacker could not add or delete any information in the file, according to Microsoft's advisory.

The second such flaw allows an attacker to build a cookie that would enable him to read the information contained in other sites' cookies stored on a user's machine. But, again, the attacker would need to know the exact name of the cookie he wanted to read.

There is also a cross-site scripting flaw in one of the local HTML files that ship with IE. A successful exploit of the vulnerability would give an attacker the ability to execute scripts on the user's machine in the Local Computer zone, which has fewer restrictions than scripts executed in other IE zones.

A similar flaw could allow attackers to run pages on users' machines in the Intranet zone.

The final two vulnerabilities are variants of the content disposition problem in IE for which Microsoft issued a patch last year. They enable an attacker to construct special headers in executable files that trick IE into believing that the file is safe to download and run automatically.

The two new flaws require that the user's machine be running an application that passes the malformed content back to the operating system instead of generating an error message.

Microsoft was urged to figure out ways to undermine competitors who pushed the alternative operating system, according to a memo --- http://www.wired.com/news/antitrust/0,1551,52520,00.html

Napster, the company that changed the way people use their computers, is no more. But what it accomplished in its short, brilliant life will likely influence how people use the Web for years to come. That is Shawn Fanning's legacy --- http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,52540,00.html

Bob Jensen's threads on Napster are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/napster.htm

From The Scout Report on May 17, 2002

Towards a Sexually Healthy America: Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs that Try to Keep Our Youth "Scared Chaste" [.pdf] http://www.siecus.org/pubs/tsha_scaredchaste.pdf

In response to last week's review of the Heritage Foundation's report on abstinence programs, the following study was turned in for our consideration by way of counterpoint. Offered by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, a nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank, both the message and the messenger stress knowledge over ignorance and better living through education. Not knocking abstinence as a tenable choice, the authors of the report simply argue that, if exercised, abstinence should be one among a young person's considered options, rather than the only sure path to survival. Backed by many studies and a lot of hard science supported by the Center for Diseases Control (CDC) and other governmental agencies, the report is interesting and carefully crafted. [WH]

Creating a Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_5/cole/

In the fall of 2001, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) published the "Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections" on their Web site. The report, which was done in collaboration with participants from the National Science Foundation's Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education Digital Library program, highlights "digitization collection practices that facilitate integration and aggregation of digital information resources developed by museums, libraries, and similar institutions." Comments and responses to the Framework were solicited from the digital library community through May 1, 2002. In response to this solicitation, Timothy W. Cole presented "Creating a Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections" at the Web- Wise 2002 conference held in March. Cole's paper illustrates the context and development of IMLS's Framework, briefly depicts the essential ideas articulated in the Framework, and concludes with remarks regarding the immediate impacts of the work accomplished by the IMLS Digital Library Forum and a call for the continued development and maintenance of the Framework. The paper consists of 8 sections -- Introduction, Starting Premise, Framework Scope and Organization, Principles for Good Digital Collections, Principles for Good Digital Objects, Principles for Good Metadata, Principles for Good Digitization Projects, and Concluding Remarks -- and is valuable to those particularly interested in the digitization of primary source materials. [MG]

Silicon Valley Cultures Project Website: What We Are Finding [.pdf] http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/anthropology/svcp/SVCPfind.html

The Silicon Valley Cultures Project from the Anthropology Department at San Jose State University (last mentioned in the June 1, 2000 issue of the _Scout Report for Business & Economics_) has recently published a book excerpt, along with three newly released reports and articles, on their Web site. The book excerpt is from _Cultures@SiliconValley_ by J.A. English- Lueck, and it provides a 16-page abstract of the book. The first new report "Creating Culture in Dual Career Families" by C. N. Darrah, J. A. English- Lueck, and J. M. Freeman (all from the Department of Anthropology at San Jose State University) is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with fourteen different families between 1998-2000. The second report, "Success and Survival in Silicon Valley: An Ethnography of Learning Networks" by J.A. English-Lueck, Sabrina Valade, Sheri Swiger, and Guillermo Narvaez, was presented to the Center for Educational Planning's Santa Clara County Office of Education on March 21, 2002. This report takes an ethnographic look at the lives of students, teachers, and workers as they find their way through the maze of de facto education. The last newly released report, "Students, Technology and Everyday Life" by Dr. Chuck Darrah, was prepared for the Junior Achievement of Santa Clara County and the Institute for the Future, and explores how the incorporation of information technology in the lives of middle and high school students can best prepare them for careers in the Silicon Valley region. This paper elicits potential questions for further investigation and, therefore, does not provide definitive answers to complex and emerging issues. All of the reports can be easily viewed and printed in Adobe Acrobat

Virtual Sky http://virtualsky.org/index.html (Photography, Astronomy, Science)

The Virtual Sky Viewer is sponsored by The Center for Advanced Computing Research at the California Institute of Technology and the Microsoft Corporation. The Web site allows users to view "stunning, seamless images of the night sky; not just an album of popular places, but the entire northern sky at high resolution". Although reading the help link before attempting to use the viewer is recommend, the powerful application gives fascinating and unique views of the sky that most people have never seen. This site is also reviewed in the May 17, 2002 _NSDL Physical Sciences Report_. [JAB]

The Future of the E-Wireless Revolution Watch out, Asia and North America! Europe is defining message-delivery models for the years to come and quite possibly could become the e-wireless leader. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3580

Many web marketers are looking at the wireless web frenzy, wondering how they can jump aboard the hype train. http://www.newmedia.com/default.asp?articleID=3586

Bob Jensen's threads on wireless communications are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245glosf.htm#Wireless1

Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive (History) --- http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/salem/

internet.com's network of more than 160 Web sites is organized into 16 channels:

Internet Technology http://internet.com/it

E-Commerce/Marketing http://internet.com/marketing

Web Developer http://internet.com/webdev

Windows Internet Technology http://internet.com/win

Linux/Open Source http://internet.com/linux

Internet Resources http://internet.com/resources

ISP Resources http://internet.com/isp

Internet Lists http://internet.com/lists

Download http://internet.com/downloads

International http://internet.com/international

Internet News http://internet.com/news

Internet Investing http://internet.com/stocks

ASP Resources http://internet.com/asp

Wireless Internet http://internet.com/wireless

Career Resources http://internet.com/careers

EarthWeb http://www.earthweb.com

May 23, 2002 message from Ric Payne [richard.payne@principa.net]

Please take a moment to review the attached PowerPoint presentation to learn more about the value you'll receive from participating in the world's first GamePlan seminar. You'll see in detail what you'll learn at the program and also preview your take-home resources (yours to use at no extra cost). We have just 35 places left for GamePlan; Caesars Palace, Las Vegas - so please return your registration form this week to secure your place.

You can learn more about all of these materials by visiting the 'what's new' page on The Consulting Accountant:

http://www.consultingaccountant.com/whatsnew/

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created the first realistic videos of people saying things they never said - a scientific leap that raises unsettling questions about falsifying the moving image
The Boston Globe, May `5, 2002 --- http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/135/metro/At_MIT_they_can_put_words_in_our_mouths+.shtml

After years of failing to capitalize on its globally recognizable name, Christie Hefner's company may have finally found a formula
"Playboy's Synergizer Bunny?" Business Week Online, May 24, 2002 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/may2002/nf20020524_7212.htm?c=bwinsidermay24&n=link7&t=email

Media synergy may be out of fashion, as investors punish AOL Time Warner (AOL ) and Vivendi Universal (V ) for too much promising and too little delivering by management. But try telling that to Christie Hefner, the indefatigable CEO of Playboy Enterprises (PLA ). "Media synergy can be achieved if there's a strong relationship between your brand and consumers, and you can use the brand to sell new products to new customers in print, on TV, or on the Internet," she says. "I think that's what we've done."

Those are bold words -- especially coming from a chief exec whose company continues to lose money. In 2001, Playboy reported an operating loss of $12.2 million, or $1.20 a share, on revenues of just $291 million, due to losses in its Internet business. Try as she might, Hefner has so far been unable to make good on vows to turn the $390 million market-cap Playboy Enterprises into a billion-dollar company.

But as the Playboy name revs up to turn 50 years old in 2003, Hefner, who took operational control in 1988 from her legendary father, Hugh, insists she has figured out how to make synergy work.

"ABILITY TO STRETCH." "Playboy is a true brand. And that makes us very different from a company with a group of disparate assets. Time Warner can't say because somebody reads Sports Illustrated, [that reader] automatically would be interested in being an AOL subscriber," she says. "So while we have a sense of modesty about what we do in scale compared to an AOL Time Warner or Disney (DIS ), we also have a lot of pride in the strength of the brand and its ability to stretch into consumer products, television, and online."

Sound familiar? It has actually been Playboy's strategy ever since Hef first donned his pajamas and smoking jacket. In the last half-century, Playboy has tried repeatedly to capitalize on its brand. (Remember Playboy Bunny air fresheners?)

Still, some analysts finally see a shift in strategy that could bolster the bottom line. After years of steering clear of sexually explicit material in favor of the frisky but softer content favored by patriarch Hugh Hefner, Playboy has embraced hard-core pay-per-view programming on TV.

INTO THE BLACK? Shares are trading at around $15, down from a 52-week high of $19.75. But some analysts still think this could finally be a breakthrough year. "The numbers tell the story. Playboy is going to further increase market share in men's lifestyle and entertainment, resulting in tremendous profit gains," says Jeffrey Hoskins of Gerard Klauer Mattison. Hoskins expects Playboy to swing into the black, earning profits of $14.5 million in 2002 and $36 million to 2003. His 12-month target share price: $21, which would be a smart 40% gain.

The main driver of Playboy's growth is cable TV. It now owns six cable networks: Playboy TV, Spice, Spice 2, Hot, Hotzone, and Vivid. The additional networks were purchased last July, make Playboy's entertainment division its largest and fastest growing. And the division has fat margins of 26%. Compare that to Playboy's flagship publishing business, which had puny margins of 2% in 2001.

Continued at
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/may2002/nf20020524_7212.htm?c=bwinsidermay24&n=link7&t=email

The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Toronto releases a CD-ROM compilation of intolerance on the Web.

"Hate Hate Hate Hate Hate," by Charles Mandel, Wired News, May 22, 2002 --- http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,52697,00.html

The Simon Wiesenthal Center released a CD-ROM in Toronto today titled Digital Hate 2002. The disc collects more than 200 websites containing animated hate games, online enrollment for suicide bombers, and "other examples of transnational hate and promotion of terror after the 9/11 terrorist attacks."

Now in its fourth year, the disc is an outgrowth of the Los Angeles center that uses Internet experts there and in Toronto, New York, Buenos Aires, Paris and Jerusalem to examine about 25,000 websites monthly.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center's associate director, says the disc contains some disturbing new trends. Animated hate games are upping the stakes in violence -- with the most "notorious" being a new one called Kaboom.

Kaboom has shown up on an Internet game-creation site and features a suicide bomber. Dressed in a jacket, the bomber walks down the street until the player double-clicks on him. Then he opens the jacket and explodes. The score is tallied depending on how many men, women and children are around him and whom he maims or kills.

The other, more serious trend is transnational hate, according to Cooper. He says that interest in William Pierce, the head of the extremist right group the National Alliance in West Virginia, is showing up in Iran, while the essays of white supremacist David Duke are being invoked on Pakistani websites.

"In effect, now you've got people who before the Internet wouldn't have known of each other's existence," Cooper says. "Now you can go to any search engine, put in your terms and find out who your enemy's enemy is."

The disc is sent out to law enforcement and public officials, educators, parents and the news media to help them better understand the scope of digital hate. But could it unwittingly also become a "greatest hits" compilation among those it deplores?

Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, calls the CD-ROM a service. "Those of us who monitor this type of activity have a duty to alert the public as to what's out there, because the only way to really eliminate this kind of material is through the disinfectant of sunlight."

Michael Geist, an expert on Internet law at the University of Ottawa in Ontario, Canada, agrees. He says it is a concern that some people who might get the wrong message could get the CD-ROM. "But to try and turn a blind eye to this out of fear is far riskier than not trying to get out this material in an aggressive educational fashion."

The Wiesenthal Center actually made some changes this year to the disc to prevent people from misusing it. It has dropped live Web links and site addresses, something the disc previously contained.

Continued at http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,52697,00.html

THE BEST PERFORMERS

The one-two punch of the recession and the Enron implosion wrought dramatic changes in the composition of the BW 50. Drugmakers, home builders, and utilities are in, high tech is out. One thing the Class of '02 has proven: It can shine in good times and bad.

http://www.businessweek.com/bw50/content/mar2002/a3776001.htm?c=bw50may21&n=link3&t=email

The Ranking

(Drum Roll...) And the winners are... Profiles of the BW50.

http://www.businessweek.com/bw50/content/mar2002/a3776010.htm?c=bw50may21&n=link4&t=email

BW50/S&P 500 Interactive Scoreboard

An online exclusive! Rank and rerank 'em according to a variety of criteria.

http://research.businessweek.com/scoreboard.asp?c=bw50may21&n=link5&t=email

Barker.Online

The Strong, Silent Type of Stocks

The best time to buy probably isn't when a company is making news -- good or bad. It's better to get in before the buzz

http://www.businessweek.com/bw50/content/mar2002/bf20020328_7888.htm?c=bw50may21&n=link6&t=email

Street Wise

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Fear Not

The recent hysteria about worst-case scenarios ignores the solid business principles that support both institutions

http://www.businessweek.com/bw50/content/mar2002/a3776032.htm?c=bw50may21&n=link7&t=email

Plus, plenty more on the Best Performers!

http://www.businessweek.com/bw50/toc/2002/3776Aperformers02.htm?c=bw50may21&n=link8&t=email

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"Ready to lead instead of follow? Consider it Solved."

GoTo http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a16586a58500a112361417a0

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From Business Week Magazine

INVESTING FOR GROWTH
Try these suggestions for identifying growth stocks
http://www.businessweek.com/bw50/content/mar2002/a3776046.htm?c=bw50may21&n=link9&t=email

Gurus of Growth
We've chosen six experts who have stood the test of bull and bear markets
http://www.businessweek.com/bw50/content/mar2002/b3776050.htm?c=bw50may21&n=link10&t=email

Mid-Cap Stars
Video games, car auctions, biotech, and housing are some stalwarts in this group
http://www.businessweek.com/bw50/content/mar2002/a3776051.htm?c=bw50may21&n=link11&t=email

Small-Cap Stars
Small caps have been whupping the big guys for two years now--and they'll probably keep it up
http://www.businessweek.com/bw50/content/mar2002/a3776053.htm?c=bw50may21&n=link12&t=email

Stained Glass Photography (Art, Religion) --- http://www.stainedglassphotography.com/

Photoshop Contest (Have critics evaluate your skills at using Adobe Photoshop) --- http://www.photoshopcontest.com/

Welcome to PhotoshopContest.com!!! Here you can take a pre-chosen image, alter it how ever you like and post it for others to view, vote, comment and submit their own versions. The images that we select for editing can come from anywhere, such as news, sports, a random keyword search, anything! Check out the Featured Pic to the right or choose from the list of recent contests below:
Bob Claus
Blue Angel
Joe
Chili Cookoff
Presidential Wave

The art of creating small pictures
Two Fifty --- http://www.twofifty.net/

A distant relative started up a unique medical supply company with his own patented products (he's a medic with the Grand Island, Nebraska Fire Department) (Ray)
Cath-Wrap, Inc, Toll Free at 877-362-4916 --- http://www.emsnewproducts.com/

Gord Goble from CNET gave After Shot Premium Edition 8 out of 10 stars. Goble called After Shot, ". . . a multipurpose, straightforward photo-management system that's best for amateur digital shutterbugs who need to import, store, organize, and share digital pics." --- http://www.jasc.com/products/aftershot/

While looking at the following diet guides, it dawned on me that perhaps accounting reports should be more like food labeling and comparison tables/charts rather than the traditional bottom line reporting. The problem with accounting is bottom-line reporting of selective and ill-conceived aggregates such as earnings-per-share or debt/equity. Suppose spinach has an e.p.s. of 4.67 in comparison to 5.62 for Kale. The aggregations all depend upon how components are measured, how they are weighted (e.g., Vitamin A versus Folate weighting coefficients), and what components are included/excluded (e.g., Vitamin A is included below, but Vitamin B components are ignored). The same is true of e.p.s. in financial reporting. The "bottom line" depends in a complex way upon how components are measured and weighted as well as upon what components are included/excluded.

Scientists just seem to know that bottom-line aggregations for foods are too arbitrary to report to the public. Why can't we admit this in accounting and financial reporting?

Online Diet Guides (Food, Medicine, Health, Nutrition)

eDiets (Take a free diet analysis) --- http://www.ediets.com/

WeightWatchers.com ($59.95 for onsite and online) --- http://www.weightwatchers.com/r_vg_index.asp

Nutricise ($99 for three months, including a personal nutritionist via email) --- http://www.nutricise.com/

Take a look at how your favorite greens stack up in the chart below:

Green (Raw - per 100 g serving) Vitamin A Vitamin C Fiber Folate Calories

Arugula 2,373 IU 15 mg 1 g 97 mcg 25

Chicory 4,000 IU 24 mg 4 g 109.5 mg 23

Collards 3,824 IU 35.3 mg 3 g 166 mcg 30

Endive 2,050 IU 6.5 mg 3 g 142 mcg 17

Kale 8,900 IU 120 mg 2 g 29.3 mcg 50

Butterhead (includes Boston and Bibb) 970 IU 8 mg 1 g 73.3 mcg 13

Romaine 2,600 IU 24 mg 1 g 135.7 mcg 14

Iceberg 330 IU 3.9 mg 1 g 56 mcg 12

Loose leaf (red, green) 1,900 IU 18 mg 1 g 49.8 mcg 18

Radicchio 27 IU 8 mg 0 g 60 mcg 23
Spinach 6,715 IU 28.1 mg 2 g 194.4 mcg 22
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1999

While nutritional content is important, quality and freshness are of equal significance. So what should you look for when you buy salad greens? The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) suggests the following guidelines: For iceberg and romaine, select crisp leaves. Other lettuce types such as bib and Boston will have a softer feel. And look for bright color: in most varieties, medium to light green. Of course, some have naturally red leaves, too. For spinach, chicory and other greens, the USDA recommends looking for leaves that are fresh, tender, devoid of spots and sporting a distinct, strong color.

What happens if you can't give up that iceberg? Helm suggests mixing it with darker greens or adding nutrient-rich veggies, such as grated carrots. "If you're at a salad bar and use iceberg, tomatoes and cucumbers then add some creamy dressing, it's not the best choice you can make," she says. "Instead, toss in some spinach leaves or at least add romaine. You get that same kind of crunchy texture from romaine as you do with iceberg, but with better nutritional value."

Bring on the burgers, fajitas, and pizzas! These may add to your "bottom" line, but it's so much more fun to lounge in the bar than the pool. I control myself by never taking a swimming suit on a trip.

Really stupid bottom-line aggregations
whatsbetter?com --- http://www.whatsbetter.com/

An example of common bottom line rankings that suffer from the same rankings as Spinach and Kale.

Forbes Magazine and Milken Institute have joined forces to offer their third annual Best Places Ranking, highlighting the top 200 U.S. cities in which to do business or advance a career. http://www.accountingweb.com/item/81352

Now you can have a virtual pet without a pooper scooper (watch your baby grow over time)
Metapet --- http://www.metapet.net/

Projections: A Futurist at the Movies (A analysis of the predictions) http://www.futuristmovies.com/

Book Recommendation from the Accounting Web on May 27, 2002

Leading At The Edge, Leadership Lessons From The Extraordinary Saga of Shackleton's Expedition

Perkins' book provides a unique and fascinating angle on a subject of pivotal concern. Ernest Shackleton's remarkable Antarctic survival saga can, ultimately, only be understood as evidence of outstanding leadership abilities. The book examines Shackleton's actions and decisions and extracts 10 key leadership lessons that can be applied by anyone faced with the challenge of leading and influencing others in these turbulent times. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0814405436/accountingweb

May 27, 2002 message from David Albrecht [albrecht@PROFALBRECHT.COM]

I'm taking a few weeks off, and am thinking of reading some novels. A Google search on "accountant & movies" reveals the following. Can anyone recommend any of these books? I am purposefully bypassing the accountant books written by a professor for students. -- Dave Albrecht (Bowling Green State University)

David Dodge wrote four novels starring a San Francisco tax accountant James “Whit” Whitney, who becomes a reluctant detective. They are:

Death and Taxes (1941)

Shear the Black Sheep (1943)

Bullets for the Bridegroom (1944)

It Ain’t Hay (1946)

Paul Anthony wrote Old Accountants Never Die

John Grisham wrote Skipping Christmas

Paul Bennett (crime thriller author) - Nick Shannon is an accountant who investigates fraud Due Diligence Collateral Damage False Profits The Money Race

Mike Resnick wrote: Eros Ascending: Book 1 of Tales of the Velvet Comet

Bob Jensen's threads about authors who try to educate by using novels can be found at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/acct5341/speakers/muppets.htm

Green (Raw - per 100 g serving)	Vitamin A	Vitamin C	Fiber	Folate	Calories
Arugula	2,373 IU	15 mg	1 g	97 mcg	25
Chicory	4,000 IU	24 mg	4 g	109.5 mg	23
Collards	3,824 IU	35.3 mg	3 g	166 mcg	30
Endive	2,050 IU	6.5 mg	3 g	142 mcg	17
Kale	8,900 IU	120 mg	2 g	29.3 mcg	50
Butterhead (includes Boston and Bibb)	970 IU	8 mg	1 g	73.3 mcg	13
Romaine	2,600 IU	24 mg	1 g	135.7 mcg	14
Iceberg	330 IU	3.9 mg	1 g	56 mcg	12
Loose leaf (red, green)	1,900 IU	18 mg	1 g	49.8 mcg	18
Radicchio	27 IU	8 mg	0 g	60 mcg	23
Spinach	6,715 IU	28.1 mg	2 g	194.4 mcg	22
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1999

Note that the SEC has some new ways to search for filings of companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All filings can now be downloaded free according to a May 30, 2002 press release by Harvey Pitt, current Chairman of the SEC.

General-Purpose EDGAR Searches --- http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/webusers.htm (Note that the first two options below are new to EDGAR.)

FASB Publishes Exposure Draft, Acquisitions of Certain Financial Institutions, That Amends Statements 72, 144 and Interpretation 9

General-Purpose EDGAR Searches --- http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/webusers.htm
(Note that the first two options below are new to EDGAR.)