Serious MindQuest

Serious Contemplation

I know I've been negligent about posting for the past week, two actually, but here's the thing; without feedback, it's hard to know what direction to take this web log. It hadn't occurred to me that no one would care, or interact.
I wanted this to spark a few minds, create debate. Instead, I've been merrily pissing in the wind it seems.
I'm not bitter mind you. I'm still plugging along, sopping up information like gravy. I just don't know why anyone would care that part of the Social Science syllabus I'm using wants me to learn Greek philosophy-and that I've rediscovered Socrates, and a new found appreciation of his ideas. I can relate to him as an adult in ways I couldn't imagine when I studied him the first time around.
Who wants to know that I spend every moment that I'm knee deep in Business law cackling madly at the absurdity of the rules we as a species have created to govern how we do business?
Does anyone want or need the resources I could provide?
Is anyone interested in the fact that the more I study, the more convinced I am that "education" is such a subjective term that it should be revamped and rethought-do you care why I think that?
No one wants to know the difficulties I'm having with statistical math, or wants to discuss the fact that I have no trouble at all with statistical theory. I find this interesting as hell, but I don't think anyone else does.
Clearly, I didn't think this log through. I'm bored with posting quick blurbs about a given subject, and I don't feel as though I have anything relevant to add to this log. Without feedback, without discourse, without a challenger or supporter, all I'm doing here is keeping a diary, and I could do that in private.
I have dozens and dozens of links to sites that will happily teach you anything you can imagine-and some things you possibly couldn't. I think the net could radically change how education is not only delivered, but perceived as well, and I leave you with this thought today:
Why should anyone pay for information you really can get for free?
I know it's free-I'm proving it now.
What is the difference between my self taught work, and what is taught in schools-and further, and possibly more importantly-what is the value of my work vs theirs?
It's the same information-isn't it?
We will see.
I just don't think anyone cares lol

Serious Political Science

I've found a pretty good Poly Sci 101 primer here. It has exercises, reading galore and is generally a well rounded venue for Political Science stuff.

I'm not having a lot of luck finding Social Science resources though. Not because there's nothing out there, but because the combination of syllabi I'm using only says "Social Studies"- none of them say exactly what that entails. Despite my having looked up and perused literally dozens of syllabuses it's still a mystery. If I type "Social Science" into a search engine-I get 1524236373 hits in .03 seconds-all of which lead to K-12 sources.
If anyone has an idea what I should be looking for to meet the Bachelor requirements in Social Science, drop me an email, would you?

Score One for the Home Team!

As you know, I've been struggling a bit with Microeconomics.
Today I took 4 different ACE practice tests, some of which contained materials I haven't covered, so I guessed at intuited the answers based on what I did know, and passed them all.
Not with all A's, but I passed. Lowest score was 70%, highest was 96%.
I'm feeling pretty good about this. Thank you to those of you that have helped, I hope you won't leave me to my own devices, 70% means I still need coaching.

Oh and as an aside...
One of the tests had incorrect information on it.
So I wrote the site to tell them. Again and again, I keep going up against flawed data. Not bad wiki data (That we all take with several grains of salt) the links below lead to a Stanford University Professor's text book-and tests based upon it.
Here is the site referenced below. Here is the article to which I refer. What follows is the letter I sent to the site. This whole experience is turning me into an info vigilante lol.

To Whom it May Concern,
I believe I may have found a mistake on one of your ACE practice tests.
The tests are a part of the textbook site for Principles of Economics, John B Taylor, Standford University.
On Chapter 2: Observing and Explaining the Economy
Question 9 reads:
Health-care spending was 10.7 percent of U.S. GDP for 1993.
You list the answer as True
The correct answer is False. According to the Health Care Financing Review, Fall 1994 edition, (quote)
"Although growth in overall health care spending slowed in 1993, it increased 2.4 percentage points faster than the output of the overall economy as measured by the gross domestic product (GDP). As a result the share of GDP devoted to health care rose from 13.6 in 1992 to 13.9 percent in 1993"
I don't mind getting answers wrong, but I do mind dealing with flawed materials. I've suggested this site to others, and I'd like to think I did the right thing in so doing.
Thank you for your time and consideration.

I have no idea how they will respond-I've never corrected an academic site, just shrugged and laughed until now. I'll post their response if I get one. Who knows, perhaps I'M wrong, or the article is wrong; if that is the case-I'll post that too.

Keeping Up

Work interferes yet again with my studies. As always, know that I am doing the work, just not finding enough time in the day to post, for which I apologize to those of you following along.
I've started finding and memorizing vocab lists, and I'm finding myself at near blush-point sometimes.
If you haven't done this since college or high school and feel the need for quiet humiliation, go find a vocab list-they're everywhere on the net- and have a round of "Words I Forgot Meant That". (Yes yes, bad grammar, I know)
I have friends who get The Word of the Day from...wherever, and they attempt to use the word during their discourse in an effort to keep their minds nimble.
I should do this.
We should all do this because the more I go over the list I have the more I see the almost argot nature of my own vocabulary, and the repetitive almost sub-language we all learn to speak as we spend more and more time in a given environment.
We tend to get pretty industry specific in our language if we're not careful, (I'm guilty as charged)and if you need to see this in action, try telling a cab driver that you will tip proportionate to the expeditiousness with which he conveys you to your point of journey's end. Then laugh or duck as seems appropriate.
Ask a professor of science what crunking is-that's funny too.
I can't really defend the downturn my vocabulary has taken except to say the same thing everyone says:
When will I need to use the word adumbrate? (It means to represent beforehand by outline or emblem)
People with small vocabularies will say the ones with large vocabularies are just attempting to convolute a simple answer with unnecessary verboseness, like politicians.
But starting now, I will no longer be one of the masses, too lazy to add the word of the day to their inbox.
Today's word? Argot.

PEP Formula

While drafting my informative speech, I ran across the phrase "use PEP formula". When I looked it up,
I discovered that it was an acronym (Yes, yet another acronym. Before long no one will speak in whole words; merely grunt a string of letters at you; you get to play Workplace Wheel of Fortune with the ultimate prize (of keeping your job) given as long as you can correctly identify what is meant and required) meaning:
Profitability
Efficiency
Productivity
Apparently new grads are taught to market themselves from the employer's need perspective, and the PEP formula is most often cited in reference to cover letters.
Why then, did I find this request to use the PEP formula on a Syllabus for Prep Skills for Lawyers?
I think it's great to use this formula for cover letters, however, I don't see it on the majority of writing courses' materials. Why?
I'm a bit creeped out at the concept of attempting to market myself using the same terminology I currently use for products and processes, but I'll get over it.
If I walked into a business and said I was going to use the PEP Formula to determine environmental cohesiveness, is this a misuse of the phrase? If it is-why?

It's becoming oddly clear that we have run out of words, and are forcing some of them into double and triple duty for which they were never intended.

Effective Informative Speech

The outline I'm using for an Informative Speech has this as its break down:

Topic:

General Purpose:

Specific Purpose:

Thesis Statement:

Organizational Pattern:

Visual Aids:

Followed by its main point(s) breakdown and segue instructions, ect.
My question is: What do they mean by Organizational Pattern in this context?
Anyone?

More Cool Resources

In the course of looking for a resource on Managerial Psychology, I came across this little gem from MIT. Open courseware is the latest and greatest way colleges and universities the world over are letting the average man continue with his education. Generally, you'd expect to get the "dumbed down" version on offer, but this MIT site has everything from course notes, to interactive media, and RSS feeds available for most of the courses, making it user friendly and highly useful. I haven't looked at all they have, but the list is pretty substantial; from Accounting to Mathematics, there's a lot here to use. They ask for donations, but if you can't, that's ok too.
All hail the Creative Commons!
A quick search shows that MIT isn't the only prestigious school giving away knowledge for free:
Tufts and Johns Hopkins also have courseware available free for use, and I hope this trend of "if you can reach the net, you can enrich your life" continues unabated.

Accounting Questions

I've been attempting to memorize the GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) and while most of it is no-brainer stuff, some of it confuses me.
For example:
the Monetary Unit Assumption rule. This states that economic activity is measured in US dollars (obviously if you're in the US), and only transactions that can be expressed in US dollars are recorded. (the other half of this principle assumes that the dollar is not affected by inflation or deflation-how is that a good thing?)
Ok.
Is there some company in the US currently trading in...beads and pebbles, or perhaps in I give you a widget, you give me three cows as compensation? And even if you did give me three cows in compensation-wouldn't I just record the monetary value of the cows, (expressed in US dollars of course)?
Is there some denomination of money that can't be converted to US dollars that I'm unaware of?
Is there a company somewhere that sold widgets to France, for instance, and the accountant promptly recorded the payment in Euros? This rule seems... odd to me, perhaps one of you can give me better insight.

Others, like the Matching Principle, seem easy to understand, but the Full Disclosure Principle made me laugh, as did the idea that the GAAP was designed so that accounting information was reliable, verifiable, and objective.
Is there anyone in the US that isn't vaguely jaded by accountants, and accountancy? (I say vaguely because there can't be more than 1% of the population that understands the stuff, thus making a lot of things to do with finance akin to voodoo, and forcing most of us to rely on the news for our understanding of "economic issues")
When I live in a country that is chalking up a national debt in the trillions-that's with a T- to support an unpopular military action, without explaining where the money is coming from, who is going to pay for it, or when, (or even being accountable for spending it-or its misappropriation) and everything from private pension funds, to social security is pilfered, while the "books are cooked" as it were, it makes all of these "rules" beyond moot, as near as I can tell. The more I understand about accounting, the more angry I get, to be honest. It's certainly nice to train people in the rules; it's another thing entirely to get them to stick to them, and once the damage is done, there is no way to undo it; jail seems a small price to pay for an accountant that is party to robbing millions of people of their security and financial freedom.

Oh, and while I'm slowly accepting it-anyone that can explain to me why asset accounts hold a normal debit balance, I would be grateful. Currently my mind "stumbles" over this bit of information, because the word "asset"= more to my brain, and the word "debit"=less. Whenever I'm reading a piece of material that says "assets carry a normal debit balance" , or, conversely, "liabilities carry a normal credit balance" it hurts my head just a bit. When you have more liabilities, it's listed as credit, and when you have more assets, it's listed as debit..huh? Oh yeah-and why is debit shortened to dr?(I know it's about the Latin-but we don't use the Latin...) I accept that these things are so, I just don't get it.

Serious Demonstration

According to my research, a Demonstrative speech outline contains:
Speech topic
General purpose statement
Specific purpose
Central idea
Suporting materials
Demonstration, containing the main points and sub-points
Conclusion
Summary
Closer

Showing the above, here is my Demonstrative speech (outline):
Topic: How to Make Home-made Bird Food
General purpose: Demonstrate making bird food at home
Specific purpose: To show how cost effective, and nutritionally sound making bird food can be.
Central Idea: Feeding your bird, no matter what type or size, bird seed alone is akin to attempting to live on Twinkies. You may live, but you wouldn't be healthy. The same holds true for birds in captivity; they eat more than seeds in their natural environments, and need more than seeds when captive. Purchasing store bought brands of foods is very expensive, but with a little planning, and minimal work, this expense can be more than halved over the lifetime of your pet bird.
Supporting materials: NOTE: The prices quoted are from my local stores-yours may vary.
16 oz of mixed beans, dry (soup beans work perfectly) ($1.19)
1 16oz bag of mixed vegetables (I'm using, peas, carrots, corn and green bean mix) ($1.00)You can use any safe vegetables, or beans; look for sales and buy in bulk to make it even cheaper!
1 cup elbow macaroni ($.15)
Optional:
6 oz of bird seed, appropriate to your bird (I'm using cockatiel seed) ($ .97)
3-5 egg shells, dried and crushed (for calcium) ($.99/half dozen)
2 oz each of:
dehydrated papaya-finely diced ($1.00)
dehydrated mango- finely diced ($1.00)
3 quart pot
1 box of gallon sized freezer bags ($1.00)
Total spent for materials: $7.30
One 16 oz package of store bought home prep bird food:$11.95
Demonstration:
Discard flavor spice package, rinse and drain beans
Fill 3qt pot with 2.5 qts of water
Add beans, place on high heat to boil
Reduce heat to low, simmer for 2-3 hours. (no more than that, you want the beans to be firm, not mushy)
Add macaroni, veggies, and optional ingredients; the store bought food I have has papaya, mango, veggie pasta, seed, and some sort of sauce I can't determine the origins of by looking at the ingredients.
simmer on low 20 minutes
Let cool, but not for long; the food needs to be warm when stored. If you let it sit for hours, it will resemble a brick of beans and pasta more than anything else, and be impossible to put into the freezer bags. You will have to start over if this happens.
Place in freezer bags, making layers no more than 1" thick. You want the bag to be flat when stored for ease of use; it's hard to break anything thicker than an inch.
To serve, break off appropriate size chunk of food, and microwave, or heat on stove.
You can let the beans soak overnight, or cook as I've described here-both methods work well. Just be sure that all the veggies, fruit, macaroni, and beans are firm, not mushy. It is always better to under cook than overcook; you can correct under cooking by adding a bit of water when re-heating.
Conclusion:This recipe will last for one month feeding two cockatiels one meal a day, and it has virtually the same ingredients as the store bought brand, with the exception of the sauce. There are preservatives in the store bought brand, missing from the home made version; perhaps the "secret sauce" has to do with one of the ingredients I can't pronounce. When you do the math, the benefits are even greater:
1 bag of store bought food costing $11.95 will, if used as directed, last for two weeks.
Cost per meal (for one month): $.79 per meal
Using the above recipe, costing $7.30 to make, and lasting one month the cost per meal is $.24.
Summary: It becomes clear that not only are you making healthy, nutritious food that you can change to suit season, and taste, but the cost savings far outweigh the work involved in making bird food at home. Add in extraneous factors like driving to the store, gas costs, and throwing away products that your bird refuses to eat, and making your own bird food isn't just good for your bird-it's good for you too.
Closer: One afternoon of "work" a month, and your pet can have gourmet food, live a longer, healthier life, and be happy-and isn't he worth it?

Bow to The Mic Ec God

Remember I said I'd found a micro ec tutor? Well they're fantastic!
Now I understand more about the stupidity complexity of microeconomic chart dissection.
I don't mean to be glib; the fact is, it's quite interesting, in a boring sort of way. Like when you actually read the magazines in the dentist's office. Economists certainly do have a unique view of problems, and the answers look a lot like a literal translation of "voo doo". Might as well roll dice ala D&D as make a supply or demand curve chart, as nearly as I can tell. Ah well, onwards and upwards, only now with help!