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- Hallo sahabat Berita Hari ini, Pada Artikel yang anda baca kali ini dengan judul
, kami telah mempersiapkan artikel ini dengan baik untuk anda baca dan ambil informasi didalamnya. mudah-mudahan isi postingan yang kami tulis ini dapat anda pahami. baiklah, selamat membaca.
Rankings have become a major weapon in the struggle of universities around the world to get their fair share or what they think is their fair share of public money. The Times Higher Education (THE) world and regional rankings are especially useful in this regard. They have a well known brand name, occasionally confused with the "Timesof London", and sponsor prestigious summits at which rankers, political leaders and university heads wallow together in a warm bath of mutual flattery. In addition, the THE rankings are highly volatile with significant methodological changes in 2011, 2015 and 2016. Another source of instability is the growing number of ranked universities. The scores used for calculating the various indicators in these rankings are not raw but standardised scores derived from means and standard deviations. So if there is an influx of new universities then mean scores are likely to change and consequently the processed scores of those above or below the mean. The THE rankings can be interpreted to provide useful arguments whatever happens. If Western universities rise that is a sign of authentic excellence but one that is threatened by reduced funding, restrictions on foreign students and researchers, and reputations sullied by xenophobic electorates. If they fall that means of course that those threats have materialised. The QS rankings are also sometimes unstable, having made significant methodological changes in 2015 and giving a 50% weighting to very subjective reputation indicators. Irish universities seem to be especially fond of using these rankings as a ploy to gain public favour and largess. In 2015 Ireland's top university, Trinity College Dublin (TCD), fell seven places in the QS world rankings and 22 places in THE's. TCD announced of course that government cuts had a lot do with it. The Dean of Research said:
“Notwithstanding these combined achievements the cuts in funding and increased investments made by our global competition, continue to have a direct impact on the rankings. Trinity is battling against intense international competition, particularly from Asian universities and from certain European countries where governments are investing heavily in higher education. The continued reduction in government investment in Irish universities has impacted negatively on the international standing of our universities and our ability to compete in a global arena.”“Trinity’s top 100 position globally and top 30 in Europe is remarkable in the context of its reduced income. Trinity’s annual budget per academic is 45% lower than that of the average university in the world top 200. It is to the credit of Trinity’s dedicated teaching and research staff that the University continues to maintain its global position against such challenges.”
“As a knowledge economy we need an excellent competitive education system. Trinity remains a world leading research-intensive university and the knowledge and innovation created are critical for the economic development of Ireland.”
I pointed out in 2015 that TCD had been steadily rising in the Shanghai ARWU rankingssince 2004, especially in the Publications indicator (papers in the Science Citation Index and the Social Science Citation Index) and PCP (productivity per capita, that is the combined indicator scores divided by the number of faculty). This year, TCD's publication score again went up very slightly from 31 to 31.1 and the PCP quite significantly from 19 to 20.8, compared to top scores of 100 for Harvard and Caltech respectively. University College Dublin has also continued to do well in the Shanghai rankings with the publications score rising this year from 34.1 (27.3 in 2004) to 34.2 and PCP from 18.0 (8.1 in 2014) to 18.1. The Shanghai rankings are famous for not counting the arts and humanities or trying to measure anything related to teaching. The RUR rankings from Russia are based on Thomson Reuters data, also used by THE until two years ago and they do include publications in the humanities and teaching-related metrics. They have 12 out of the 13 indicators in the THE world rankings, plus eight others, but with a sensible weighting, for example 8% instead of 30% for field normalised citations. The RUR rankings show that TCD rose from 174th overall in 2010 to 102nd in 2016. (193rd to 67th for research). University College Dublin (UCD) rose from 213th overall to 195th (157th to 69th for research) although some Irish universities, NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth, University College Cork, and Dublin City University, have fallen. Nonetheless TCD decided in March of this year to develop a rankings strategy aimed at QS and THE with a Rankings Steering Group chaired by the Provost. The competence and knowledge displayed by such groups and committees often have little relationship to the status and salaries of its members and that appears to be the case for TCD. It seems that there was a misplaced decimal point in the financial data submitted to THE for the 2016 rankings and that would have left TCD with a lower rating than it deserved and so it has withdrawn from the rankings until the error is corrected. If TCD cannot find an administrator or a statistician to check things like that it really has no business asking for taxpayers' money. I suspect that decimal points are not misplaced -- or if they are it is to the right rather than the left -- in submissions for grants or subsidies. This raises the question of whether the THE checking procedures are adequate. I was under the impression that if there was a change of 20% then red flags would start waving. For THE to allow a large change in reported income and therefore at least one, maybe two or three, income indicators sounds rather odd. What about that unique game changing audit? Meanwhile UCD, 176th in the THE rankings last year, has dropped out of the top 200 altogether. The QS rankings were also bad news for Ireland. Every university fell except for NUI Galway and there were none in the top 100. But has there in fact been any real decline in the quality of TCD and UCD? The evidence of RUR and the Shanghai rankings is that the two main universities are steadily improving or at least holding their own, especially with regard to research. Possibly less highly regarded places like NUI Galway and NUI Maynooth are struggling but that could be fairly easy to remedy. The Irish Universities Association issued a statement:
'The continued slide of the Irish Universities in the QS World University Rankings should be greeted with alarm. Strenuous efforts on the part of the universities has resulted in strong performance on some measures in the rankings such as those relating to research citations and internationalisation of the staff and student cohort. Unfortunately, this good work is being undermined by the negative impact of underfunding on key indicators such as the student:faculty ratio. The latter is highly influential in scoring in the QS rankings.
It would also appear likely that almost a decade of austerity is spilling over into the reputational component of the rankings, with consequent negative repercussions. IUA Chief Executive, Ned Costello said: “we can no longer hide from the corrosive effect which years of cutbacks are having on our higher education system. At a time when we are more dependent than ever on the talent of our people for our economic future, we simply must invest in our universities. An immediate injection of funding is required in the upcoming Budget and Estimates to fund more lecturers, deliver smaller group teaching and restore quality in our system.” '
The decline of TCD and and UCD in the QS and THE rankings cannot reasonably be attributed to any real deficiencies on the part of those universities. A decline in the number of lecturers would have a negative effect on the faculty student metric but would help indicators scaled for faculty size. The alleged decline is largely a consequence of methodological changes and adjustments, the instability resulting from the influx of new universities and growing ranking sophistication in other places. It is a shame that researchers and scholars should collude with those rankings that show them in a bad light while ignoring more stable and less biased ones that show a continuing and genuine improvement especially in research.
Rankings have become a major weapon in the struggle of universities around the world to get their fair share or what they think is their fair share of public money. The Times Higher Education (THE) world and regional rankings are especially useful in this regard. They have a well known brand name, occasionally confused with the "Timesof London", and sponsor prestigious summits at which rankers, political leaders and university heads wallow together in a warm bath of mutual flattery. In addition, the THE rankings are highly volatile with significant methodological changes in 2011, 2015 and 2016. Another source of instability is the growing number of ranked universities. The scores used for calculating the various indicators in these rankings are not raw but standardised scores derived from means and standard deviations. So if there is an influx of new universities then mean scores are likely to change and consequently the processed scores of those above or below the mean. The THE rankings can be interpreted to provide useful arguments whatever happens. If Western universities rise that is a sign of authentic excellence but one that is threatened by reduced funding, restrictions on foreign students and researchers, and reputations sullied by xenophobic electorates. If they fall that means of course that those threats have materialised. The QS rankings are also sometimes unstable, having made significant methodological changes in 2015 and giving a 50% weighting to very subjective reputation indicators. Irish universities seem to be especially fond of using these rankings as a ploy to gain public favour and largess. In 2015 Ireland's top university, Trinity College Dublin (TCD), fell seven places in the QS world rankings and 22 places in THE's. TCD announced of course that government cuts had a lot do with it. The Dean of Research said:
“Notwithstanding these combined achievements the cuts in funding and increased investments made by our global competition, continue to have a direct impact on the rankings. Trinity is battling against intense international competition, particularly from Asian universities and from certain European countries where governments are investing heavily in higher education. The continued reduction in government investment in Irish universities has impacted negatively on the international standing of our universities and our ability to compete in a global arena.”“Trinity’s top 100 position globally and top 30 in Europe is remarkable in the context of its reduced income. Trinity’s annual budget per academic is 45% lower than that of the average university in the world top 200. It is to the credit of Trinity’s dedicated teaching and research staff that the University continues to maintain its global position against such challenges.”
“As a knowledge economy we need an excellent competitive education system. Trinity remains a world leading research-intensive university and the knowledge and innovation created are critical for the economic development of Ireland.”
I pointed out in 2015 that TCD had been steadily rising in the Shanghai ARWU rankingssince 2004, especially in the Publications indicator (papers in the Science Citation Index and the Social Science Citation Index) and PCP (productivity per capita, that is the combined indicator scores divided by the number of faculty). This year, TCD's publication score again went up very slightly from 31 to 31.1 and the PCP quite significantly from 19 to 20.8, compared to top scores of 100 for Harvard and Caltech respectively. University College Dublin has also continued to do well in the Shanghai rankings with the publications score rising this year from 34.1 (27.3 in 2004) to 34.2 and PCP from 18.0 (8.1 in 2014) to 18.1. The Shanghai rankings are famous for not counting the arts and humanities or trying to measure anything related to teaching. The RUR rankings from Russia are based on Thomson Reuters data, also used by THE until two years ago and they do include publications in the humanities and teaching-related metrics. They have 12 out of the 13 indicators in the THE world rankings, plus eight others, but with a sensible weighting, for example 8% instead of 30% for field normalised citations. The RUR rankings show that TCD rose from 174th overall in 2010 to 102nd in 2016. (193rd to 67th for research). University College Dublin (UCD) rose from 213th overall to 195th (157th to 69th for research) although some Irish universities, NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth, University College Cork, and Dublin City University, have fallen. Nonetheless TCD decided in March of this year to develop a rankings strategy aimed at QS and THE with a Rankings Steering Group chaired by the Provost. The competence and knowledge displayed by such groups and committees often have little relationship to the status and salaries of its members and that appears to be the case for TCD. It seems that there was a misplaced decimal point in the financial data submitted to THE for the 2016 rankings and that would have left TCD with a lower rating than it deserved and so it has withdrawn from the rankings until the error is corrected. If TCD cannot find an administrator or a statistician to check things like that it really has no business asking for taxpayers' money. I suspect that decimal points are not misplaced -- or if they are it is to the right rather than the left -- in submissions for grants or subsidies. This raises the question of whether the THE checking procedures are adequate. I was under the impression that if there was a change of 20% then red flags would start waving. For THE to allow a large change in reported income and therefore at least one, maybe two or three, income indicators sounds rather odd. What about that unique game changing audit? Meanwhile UCD, 176th in the THE rankings last year, has dropped out of the top 200 altogether. The QS rankings were also bad news for Ireland. Every university fell except for NUI Galway and there were none in the top 100. But has there in fact been any real decline in the quality of TCD and UCD? The evidence of RUR and the Shanghai rankings is that the two main universities are steadily improving or at least holding their own, especially with regard to research. Possibly less highly regarded places like NUI Galway and NUI Maynooth are struggling but that could be fairly easy to remedy. The Irish Universities Association issued a statement:
'The continued slide of the Irish Universities in the QS World University Rankings should be greeted with alarm. Strenuous efforts on the part of the universities has resulted in strong performance on some measures in the rankings such as those relating to research citations and internationalisation of the staff and student cohort. Unfortunately, this good work is being undermined by the negative impact of underfunding on key indicators such as the student:faculty ratio. The latter is highly influential in scoring in the QS rankings.
It would also appear likely that almost a decade of austerity is spilling over into the reputational component of the rankings, with consequent negative repercussions. IUA Chief Executive, Ned Costello said: “we can no longer hide from the corrosive effect which years of cutbacks are having on our higher education system. At a time when we are more dependent than ever on the talent of our people for our economic future, we simply must invest in our universities. An immediate injection of funding is required in the upcoming Budget and Estimates to fund more lecturers, deliver smaller group teaching and restore quality in our system.” '
The decline of TCD and and UCD in the QS and THE rankings cannot reasonably be attributed to any real deficiencies on the part of those universities. A decline in the number of lecturers would have a negative effect on the faculty student metric but would help indicators scaled for faculty size. The alleged decline is largely a consequence of methodological changes and adjustments, the instability resulting from the influx of new universities and growing ranking sophistication in other places. It is a shame that researchers and scholars should collude with those rankings that show them in a bad light while ignoring more stable and less biased ones that show a continuing and genuine improvement especially in research.
- Hallo sahabat Berita Hari ini, Pada Artikel yang anda baca kali ini dengan judul
, kami telah mempersiapkan artikel ini dengan baik untuk anda baca dan ambil informasi didalamnya. mudah-mudahan isi postingan yang kami tulis ini dapat anda pahami. baiklah, selamat membaca.
Kim Jong-un has declared that Kim Il-sung University must become a world-class institution. No doubt there will be chuckles at Oxford, Anglia Ruskin University, the University of Iceland and the Free University of Bozen - Bolzano but it could be surprisingly easy if being world class means getting a high place in the rankings. After all, there are now quite a few places appearing in the various global and regional tables that would have been just as surprising just a few years ago. First, I should mention that there already is a ranking in which Kim Il-sung University is listed: a ranking of international influence as measured by Google's ranking of search results where the institution is 254th. Here is my plan for North Korea to become world class in just a few years. 1. Offer adjunct professorships to 150 researchers and ask them to put the university as a secondary affiliation. Maybe they can come and visit Pyongyang sometimes but that is not really necessary. In a little while they will be producing 150 papers or more a year with the university name on, eventually one thousand over a five year period, which will meet the threshold for inclusion in the THE world rankings. 2. Make sure that one or two of those adjunct professors are involved in multi-author, multi-cited projects (but make sure below 1,000 authors) with multiple citations. Medicine is probably a better bet than physics at the moment. This will get a good score in the THE citations indicator. 3. Make sure that research funds to the university go through something with the word industry in it. That way the university will go to the top of the THE Industry Income: Innovation indicator. 4. Don't forget the other rankings. Give the university a boost in the QS world rankings by drafting lots of research assistants who will count in the the student faculty ratio indicator. 5. Start a branch campus somewhere and get a high score in the international indicators that nearly everybody has nowadays. If the branch is in the USA go for Princeton Review's top party school. 6. Send a few hundred closely supervised graduate students abroad and tell them they know what to do for the QS reputation survey. When they come back as faculty with a co-authored article or two tell them they know what to do for the THE survey. 7. When Kim Il-sung University is a rising star of the university world, try hosting a summit to rise even higher. Better make sure that hotel is finished though.
Kim Jong-un has declared that Kim Il-sung University must become a world-class institution. No doubt there will be chuckles at Oxford, Anglia Ruskin University, the University of Iceland and the Free University of Bozen - Bolzano but it could be surprisingly easy if being world class means getting a high place in the rankings. After all, there are now quite a few places appearing in the various global and regional tables that would have been just as surprising just a few years ago. First, I should mention that there already is a ranking in which Kim Il-sung University is listed: a ranking of international influence as measured by Google's ranking of search results where the institution is 254th. Here is my plan for North Korea to become world class in just a few years. 1. Offer adjunct professorships to 150 researchers and ask them to put the university as a secondary affiliation. Maybe they can come and visit Pyongyang sometimes but that is not really necessary. In a little while they will be producing 150 papers or more a year with the university name on, eventually one thousand over a five year period, which will meet the threshold for inclusion in the THE world rankings. 2. Make sure that one or two of those adjunct professors are involved in multi-author, multi-cited projects (but make sure below 1,000 authors) with multiple citations. Medicine is probably a better bet than physics at the moment. This will get a good score in the THE citations indicator. 3. Make sure that research funds to the university go through something with the word industry in it. That way the university will go to the top of the THE Industry Income: Innovation indicator. 4. Don't forget the other rankings. Give the university a boost in the QS world rankings by drafting lots of research assistants who will count in the the student faculty ratio indicator. 5. Start a branch campus somewhere and get a high score in the international indicators that nearly everybody has nowadays. If the branch is in the USA go for Princeton Review's top party school. 6. Send a few hundred closely supervised graduate students abroad and tell them they know what to do for the QS reputation survey. When they come back as faculty with a co-authored article or two tell them they know what to do for the THE survey. 7. When Kim Il-sung University is a rising star of the university world, try hosting a summit to rise even higher. Better make sure that hotel is finished though.
- Hallo sahabat Berita Hari ini, Pada Artikel yang anda baca kali ini dengan judul
, kami telah mempersiapkan artikel ini dengan baik untuk anda baca dan ambil informasi didalamnya. mudah-mudahan isi postingan yang kami tulis ini dapat anda pahami. baiklah, selamat membaca.
On September 16th I made some predictionsabout the latest Times Higher Education (THE) world rankings and summit at Berkeley. My record is not perfect but probably a bit better than the professional pollsters who predicted a hung parliament at the last UK elections, a crushing defeat for Brexit and humiliation for Donald Trump in the Republican primaries.
I predicted that Trump would not be invited to give a keynote speech. I was right but it was a pity. He would certainly have added a bit of diversity to a rather bland affair and he does seem to have a talent for helping unpromising beginners into successful careers, something that the current fad for value added ranking is supposed to measure.
I also said that UC Berkeley as the summit host would get into the top ten again after falling to thirteenth last year. This has now become a tradition at THE summits. I suspect though that even THE will find it hard to get King's College London, the 2017 world summit host, into the top ten. Maybe they will have to settle for top twenty.
The prediction that adding books to the indicator mix would help British universities seems to have been fulfilled. Oxford was number one for the first time. I was also right about the renewed rise of Asia, some of it anyway. The Korean favourites, Seoul National University, POSTECH, KAIST, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea University, have all risen significantly this year.
The decline of US public universities blamed on lack of funding? Yes, although I never thought Robert Reich would say that public higher education is dying.
Danger of Brexit and immigration controls for UK universities? I did not see anything specific but I did not look very hard and probably everybody thinks it's self evident.
I have to confess that I have not counted the number of times that the words prestige and prestigious were used at the summit or in the Christopher Priest novel. In the latter it is a contraction of prestidigitation and refers to the effect or the third segment of a stage illusion following the setup and the performance, the moment when the rabbit is pulled out of the hat or Anglia Ruskin revealed to have a greater world research impact than Cambridge or Imperial.
Phil Baty gave a masterclass and so did did Duncan Ross. I am pretty certain that no feminists complained about this outrageous sexism so I am prepared to admit that I was wrong there.
Incidentally, according to wikipedia a master class is "a class given to students of a particular discipline by an expert of that discipline -- usually music, but also painting, drama, any of the arts, or on any other occasion where skills are being developed."
On September 16th I made some predictionsabout the latest Times Higher Education (THE) world rankings and summit at Berkeley. My record is not perfect but probably a bit better than the professional pollsters who predicted a hung parliament at the last UK elections, a crushing defeat for Brexit and humiliation for Donald Trump in the Republican primaries.
I predicted that Trump would not be invited to give a keynote speech. I was right but it was a pity. He would certainly have added a bit of diversity to a rather bland affair and he does seem to have a talent for helping unpromising beginners into successful careers, something that the current fad for value added ranking is supposed to measure.
I also said that UC Berkeley as the summit host would get into the top ten again after falling to thirteenth last year. This has now become a tradition at THE summits. I suspect though that even THE will find it hard to get King's College London, the 2017 world summit host, into the top ten. Maybe they will have to settle for top twenty.
The prediction that adding books to the indicator mix would help British universities seems to have been fulfilled. Oxford was number one for the first time. I was also right about the renewed rise of Asia, some of it anyway. The Korean favourites, Seoul National University, POSTECH, KAIST, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea University, have all risen significantly this year.
The decline of US public universities blamed on lack of funding? Yes, although I never thought Robert Reich would say that public higher education is dying.
Danger of Brexit and immigration controls for UK universities? I did not see anything specific but I did not look very hard and probably everybody thinks it's self evident.
I have to confess that I have not counted the number of times that the words prestige and prestigious were used at the summit or in the Christopher Priest novel. In the latter it is a contraction of prestidigitation and refers to the effect or the third segment of a stage illusion following the setup and the performance, the moment when the rabbit is pulled out of the hat or Anglia Ruskin revealed to have a greater world research impact than Cambridge or Imperial.
Phil Baty gave a masterclass and so did did Duncan Ross. I am pretty certain that no feminists complained about this outrageous sexism so I am prepared to admit that I was wrong there.
Incidentally, according to wikipedia a master class is "a class given to students of a particular discipline by an expert of that discipline -- usually music, but also painting, drama, any of the arts, or on any other occasion where skills are being developed."
- Hallo sahabat Berita Hari ini, Pada Artikel yang anda baca kali ini dengan judul
, kami telah mempersiapkan artikel ini dengan baik untuk anda baca dan ambil informasi didalamnya. mudah-mudahan isi postingan yang kami tulis ini dapat anda pahami. baiklah, selamat membaca.
During many interviews I've been asked this question: How are people like in real life to you? Are they as mean as they are on the Internet?
My answer has always been that in the 13 years I've been blogging, I've only encountered people who are rude to me in real life... Say less than 5 times.
Even then it's not open confrontation but just snide remarks and some sniggering.
This number is remarkably low, considering how frequently it happens online.
Plus I am as tall as most people's armpits and frequently tittering on 5 inch heels, making me a terrible sparring opponent if it ever comes to blows. I mean, most people don't go insult burly men because they fear getting punched in the face, right?
But I won't punch people just because they are rude to me. I won't do that because I know I won't win in a fight, what with multiple plastic surgery and languid limbs. Plus after that you have to go to the police station and file reports and blah blah maybe get an assault charge. It's simply not worth it - why get into a fight you can't win?
That doesn't mean I just let people trample all over me. No... I bring the fight to my home ground. You have to be rude? Let's fight on the Internet.
You can probably guess... Today marks another of the rare occasions when someone was actually rude to me! IN REAL LIFE!!
As such, I must let everyone know of this man's bravery! Someone pass him a medal!
The story begins... At about 6pm, I brought Dash (and Ellen) to Bishan AMK park, where there is a water playground which Dash loves.
Not that it's very relevant but here are two photos of Dash having fun at the park - Taken with Sony Nex 5T, and clothes from http://babystyleicon.com
It was an impromptu decision to go so I tried to rush out of the house before the sun would set, dressed in shorts, a ratty Tshirt, a cap, sunglasses and absolutely no makeup. Here's a photo:
No photoshop, pimple on nose and all
Ok don't know why I'm trying to justify my dressing wtf. I'm just trying to say that hey it's 2 hours at the neighbourhood park so obviously I'm not looking my most presentable!
Out of my peripheral vision, I noticed someone staring at me.
When I turned to look, it was this middle aged man with his wife, two kids, and his paunch. The couple was looking at me and whispering something but upon seeing that I was looking back at them, the wife averted her eyes.
But the man continued to glare at me and he said loudly, "There is something called photoshop". And then he sniggered.
From this we can speculate that perhaps the wife had started the conversation with something to the likes of "Omg that's Xiaxue, she looks uglier/different in real life" to elicit that response from her husband. But I didn't hear the first sentence, so it's purely conjecture on my part. It seems, however, unlikely to have been anything complimentary.
Let's get something straight yeah. There is absolutely nothing wrong with anyone saying that I look uglier in real life - that's if I can't hear it.
But to look at me in the face and loudly announce that THERE IS SOMETHING CALLED PHOTOSHOP, that's a fucking rude taunt. AND BOY AM I GOING TO RETALIATE.
After saying his piece, he kept looking at me and smiling, like he thinks he is so damn witty. 很好笑hor? I will now proceed to virtually punch you in the face.
Sure, he is entitled to his opinion. Well, so am I, and Mr Playground Bully, I am about to give you mine.
Firstly, wow, you are very astute!!
There is indeed something called Photoshop, and I use it all the time. In fact, I'm really really good at it!!!
Secondly, it must really be your lucky day today! After you insulted me, I tried to test my new iPhone 7plus' camera lens on you. I wanted to slowly look at your visage at my pleasure, which was made kinda difficult and awkward as you, instead of focusing on having fun with your kids, decided to keep looking at me and tauntingly smiling at me the entire time I saw you at the park. Don't like that, I shy.
But yeah... I kinda wanna see... You must be very handsome yourself to taunt me for my looks like that right?
So I took a picture - as you know they say it lasts longer - and I have to say that the iPhone 7plus' dual lens did not disappoint! Even though you were pretty far away, the optical zoom worked perfectly well. And you are lucky because I had just bought my iPhone 7plus a few days ago! If this incident happened earlier, my 6plus would have returned a shitty blurry picture of you.
Here's my Pulitzer winning entry:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I title it "Day At The Park With My Chins"
How? Nice hor? In focus and crisp.
Now, not only have I given you some internet fame FOC, I also decided, that since you are so brave to insult me irl, I shall bestow upon you my photoshop skills, the very thing you have mentioned.
People often offer to pay me money to help them photoshop their pictures! You are very very lucky indeed!
First, before one starts on photoshop, we must first decide WHAT to photoshop, so let's expand 'Day At The Park With My Chins' to have more clarity...
YIKES!!!! Ok I'm sorry I did that to my audience. The mo peng is thrown into sharp relief. Ok, so let's remove those first, they definitely have to go.
YAY!! Now you have baby smooth skin!!!
Next up is a real challenge for me... I have to get rid of that double chin!! But how? I mean, it is so double-ish that it actually looks like boobs hahaha
Congratulations, you just got semi aroused by someone's jowls
Hahahaha sorry I just had to... But don't worry, I will try my best to fix it ok!!!
BEHOLD!!!
Jeng jeng jeng!!!
OMG!!!!!
AM I GOOD OR AM I GOOD????
I mean, I basically had to use the paint tool to draw a new chin, but it looks passably realistic!
I also edited that bulbous nose so yay me!! Now he looks less like the typical uncles you see at coffee shops drinking beer, watching soccer, and hating the government, and more like a Korean boy band member!! Chin implants, I'm just saying.
Next up... I'm not a fan of the slouchy posture and overall... Doughiness.
But that's really hard to fix via liquifying, so I decided I shall simply give him a new arm.
I went to scout around for a man who takes care of his body and probably doesn't insult women for their appearances, and decided on Mr Hemsworth here... Oh boy...
Hey Chris, what do you say we LEND A HAND to Boobchin here? HAHAHA Oh my Thor I'm so punny.
OMG CHECK IT OUT!!!!!!!!!
Boobchin looks so good with Chris' arm + stomach flattened!!!
WOW WOW WOW!!!
Got a bit distracted when I was searching Mr Hemsworth's pictures... Look at him in all his perfection... So damn cute...
Stop looking at me with those eyes.... What a wonderful specimen of the human race...
And then, on the other end of the spectrum we have....
kua kua kua
Not handsome AND not nice. Yikes.
But it's ok, with some photoshop at least your exterior can change!!! Virtually!
Feel free to put your new handsome photo as your Facebook profile picture! Next time I see you at the park, you can high five me and go "PHOTOSHOP FTW!!!!"
You are welcome. :D
PS: Know this guy? Send me an email with deets! xiaxue@gmail.com
PPS: I have revived my Youtube Channel @TheXiaxue! Watch my latest video + subscribe if you haven't!! No photoshop on there lol, only amazing makeup skills. *smirk
During many interviews I've been asked this question: How are people like in real life to you? Are they as mean as they are on the Internet?
My answer has always been that in the 13 years I've been blogging, I've only encountered people who are rude to me in real life... Say less than 5 times.
Even then it's not open confrontation but just snide remarks and some sniggering.
This number is remarkably low, considering how frequently it happens online.
Plus I am as tall as most people's armpits and frequently tittering on 5 inch heels, making me a terrible sparring opponent if it ever comes to blows. I mean, most people don't go insult burly men because they fear getting punched in the face, right?
But I won't punch people just because they are rude to me. I won't do that because I know I won't win in a fight, what with multiple plastic surgery and languid limbs. Plus after that you have to go to the police station and file reports and blah blah maybe get an assault charge. It's simply not worth it - why get into a fight you can't win?
That doesn't mean I just let people trample all over me. No... I bring the fight to my home ground. You have to be rude? Let's fight on the Internet.
You can probably guess... Today marks another of the rare occasions when someone was actually rude to me! IN REAL LIFE!!
As such, I must let everyone know of this man's bravery! Someone pass him a medal!
The story begins... At about 6pm, I brought Dash (and Ellen) to Bishan AMK park, where there is a water playground which Dash loves.
Not that it's very relevant but here are two photos of Dash having fun at the park - Taken with Sony Nex 5T, and clothes from http://babystyleicon.com
It was an impromptu decision to go so I tried to rush out of the house before the sun would set, dressed in shorts, a ratty Tshirt, a cap, sunglasses and absolutely no makeup. Here's a photo:
No photoshop, pimple on nose and all
Ok don't know why I'm trying to justify my dressing wtf. I'm just trying to say that hey it's 2 hours at the neighbourhood park so obviously I'm not looking my most presentable!
Out of my peripheral vision, I noticed someone staring at me.
When I turned to look, it was this middle aged man with his wife, two kids, and his paunch. The couple was looking at me and whispering something but upon seeing that I was looking back at them, the wife averted her eyes.
But the man continued to glare at me and he said loudly, "There is something called photoshop". And then he sniggered.
From this we can speculate that perhaps the wife had started the conversation with something to the likes of "Omg that's Xiaxue, she looks uglier/different in real life" to elicit that response from her husband. But I didn't hear the first sentence, so it's purely conjecture on my part. It seems, however, unlikely to have been anything complimentary.
Let's get something straight yeah. There is absolutely nothing wrong with anyone saying that I look uglier in real life - that's if I can't hear it.
But to look at me in the face and loudly announce that THERE IS SOMETHING CALLED PHOTOSHOP, that's a fucking rude taunt. AND BOY AM I GOING TO RETALIATE.
After saying his piece, he kept looking at me and smiling, like he thinks he is so damn witty. 很好笑hor? I will now proceed to virtually punch you in the face.
Sure, he is entitled to his opinion. Well, so am I, and Mr Playground Bully, I am about to give you mine.
Firstly, wow, you are very astute!!
There is indeed something called Photoshop, and I use it all the time. In fact, I'm really really good at it!!!
Secondly, it must really be your lucky day today! After you insulted me, I tried to test my new iPhone 7plus' camera lens on you. I wanted to slowly look at your visage at my pleasure, which was made kinda difficult and awkward as you, instead of focusing on having fun with your kids, decided to keep looking at me and tauntingly smiling at me the entire time I saw you at the park. Don't like that, I shy.
But yeah... I kinda wanna see... You must be very handsome yourself to taunt me for my looks like that right?
So I took a picture - as you know they say it lasts longer - and I have to say that the iPhone 7plus' dual lens did not disappoint! Even though you were pretty far away, the optical zoom worked perfectly well. And you are lucky because I had just bought my iPhone 7plus a few days ago! If this incident happened earlier, my 6plus would have returned a shitty blurry picture of you.
Here's my Pulitzer winning entry:
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.
.
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.
.
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.
.
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.
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I title it "Day At The Park With My Chins"
How? Nice hor? In focus and crisp.
Now, not only have I given you some internet fame FOC, I also decided, that since you are so brave to insult me irl, I shall bestow upon you my photoshop skills, the very thing you have mentioned.
People often offer to pay me money to help them photoshop their pictures! You are very very lucky indeed!
First, before one starts on photoshop, we must first decide WHAT to photoshop, so let's expand 'Day At The Park With My Chins' to have more clarity...
YIKES!!!! Ok I'm sorry I did that to my audience. The mo peng is thrown into sharp relief. Ok, so let's remove those first, they definitely have to go.
YAY!! Now you have baby smooth skin!!!
Next up is a real challenge for me... I have to get rid of that double chin!! But how? I mean, it is so double-ish that it actually looks like boobs hahaha
Congratulations, you just got semi aroused by someone's jowls
Hahahaha sorry I just had to... But don't worry, I will try my best to fix it ok!!!
BEHOLD!!!
Jeng jeng jeng!!!
OMG!!!!!
AM I GOOD OR AM I GOOD????
I mean, I basically had to use the paint tool to draw a new chin, but it looks passably realistic!
I also edited that bulbous nose so yay me!! Now he looks less like the typical uncles you see at coffee shops drinking beer, watching soccer, and hating the government, and more like a Korean boy band member!! Chin implants, I'm just saying.
Next up... I'm not a fan of the slouchy posture and overall... Doughiness.
But that's really hard to fix via liquifying, so I decided I shall simply give him a new arm.
I went to scout around for a man who takes care of his body and probably doesn't insult women for their appearances, and decided on Mr Hemsworth here... Oh boy...
Hey Chris, what do you say we LEND A HAND to Boobchin here? HAHAHA Oh my Thor I'm so punny.
OMG CHECK IT OUT!!!!!!!!!
Boobchin looks so good with Chris' arm + stomach flattened!!!
WOW WOW WOW!!!
Got a bit distracted when I was searching Mr Hemsworth's pictures... Look at him in all his perfection... So damn cute...
Stop looking at me with those eyes.... What a wonderful specimen of the human race...
And then, on the other end of the spectrum we have....
kua kua kua
Not handsome AND not nice. Yikes.
But it's ok, with some photoshop at least your exterior can change!!! Virtually!
Feel free to put your new handsome photo as your Facebook profile picture! Next time I see you at the park, you can high five me and go "PHOTOSHOP FTW!!!!"
You are welcome. :D
PS: Know this guy? Send me an email with deets! xiaxue@gmail.com
PPS: I have revived my Youtube Channel @TheXiaxue! Watch my latest video + subscribe if you haven't!! No photoshop on there lol, only amazing makeup skills. *smirk
- Hallo sahabat Berita Hari ini, Pada Artikel yang anda baca kali ini dengan judul
, kami telah mempersiapkan artikel ini dengan baik untuk anda baca dan ambil informasi didalamnya. mudah-mudahan isi postingan yang kami tulis ini dapat anda pahami. baiklah, selamat membaca.
- Hallo sahabat Berita Hari ini, Pada Artikel yang anda baca kali ini dengan judul
, kami telah mempersiapkan artikel ini dengan baik untuk anda baca dan ambil informasi didalamnya. mudah-mudahan isi postingan yang kami tulis ini dapat anda pahami. baiklah, selamat membaca.
If ever somebody does get round to doing a ranking of university rankings and if entertainment value is an indicator the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings (WUR) stand a good chance of being at the top. The latest global rankings contain many items that academics would be advised not to read in public places lest they embarrass the family by sniggering to themselves in Starbucks or Nandos. THE would, for example, have us believe that St. George's, University of London is the top university in the world for research impact as measured by citations. This institution specialises in medicine, biomedical science and healthcare sciences. It does not do research in the physical sciences, the social sciences, or the arts and humanities and makes no claim that it does. To suggest that it is the best in the world across the range of scientific and academic research is ridiculous. There are several other universities with scores for citations that are disproportionately higher than their research scores, a sure sign that the THE citations indicator is generating absurdity. They include Brandeis, the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Clark University, King Abdulaziz University, Anglia Ruskin University, the University of Iceland, and Orebro University, Sweden. In some cases, it is obvious what has happened. King Abdulaziz University has been gaming the rankings by recruiting large numbers of adjunct faculty whose main function appears to be listing the university as as a secondary affiliation in order to collect a share of the credit for publications and citations. The Shanghai rankers have stopped counting secondary affiliations for their highly cited researchers indicator but KAU is still racking up the points in other indicators and other rankings. The contention that Anglia Ruskin University is tenth in the world for research impact, equal to Oxford, Princeton, and UC Santa Barbara, and just above the University of Chicago, will no doubt be met with donnish smirks at the high tables of that other place in Cambridge, 31st for citations, although there will probably be less amusement about Oxford being crowned best university in the world. Anglia Ruskin 's output of research is not very high, about a thirtieth of Chicago's according to the Web of Science Core Collection. Its faculty does, however, include one Professor who is a frequent contributor to global medical studies with a large number of authors, although never more than a thousand, and hundreds of citations a year. Single-handedly he has propelled the university into the research stratosphere since the rest of the university has been generating few citations (there's nothing wrong with that: it's not that sort of place) and so the number of papers by which the normalised citations are divided is very low. The THE citations methodology is badly flawed. That university heads give any credence to rankings that include such ludicrous results is sad testimony to the decadence of the modern academy. There are also many universities that have moved up or down by a disproportionate number of places. These include: Peking University rising from 42nd to 29th University of Maryland at College Park rising from 117th to 67th. Purdue University rising from 113th to 70th. Chinese University of Hong Kong rising from 138th to 76th. RWTH Aachen rising from 110th to 78th Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology rising from 148th to 89th Vanderbilt University falling from 87th to108th University of Copenhagen falling from 82nd to 120th Scuola Normale Pisa falling from 112nd to 137th University of Cape Town falling from 120th to 148th Royal Holloway, University of London falling from 129th to173rd Lomonosov Moscow State University falling from 161st to 188th. The point cannot be stressed too clearly that universities are large and complex organisations. They do not in 12 months or less, short of major restructuring, change sufficiently to produce movements such as these. The only way that such instability could occur is through entry into the rankings of universities with attributes different from the established ones thus changing the means from which standardised scores are derived or significant methodological changes. There have in fact been significant changes to the methodology this year although perhaps not as substantial as 2015. First, books and book chapters are included in the count of publications and citations, an innovation pioneered by the US News in their Best Global Universities. Almost certainly this has helped English speaking universities with a comparative advantage in the humanities and social sciences although THE's practice of bundling indicators together makes it impossible to say exactly how much. It would also work to the disadvantage of institutions such as Caltech that are comparatively less strong in the arts and humanities. Second, THE have used a modest version of fractional counting for papers with more than a thousand authors. Last year they were not counted at all. This means that universities that have participated in mega-papers such as those associated with the Large Hadron Collider will get some credit for citations of those papers although not as much as they did in 2014 and before. This has almost certainly helped a number of Asian universities that have participated in such projects but have a generally modest research output. It might have benefitted some universities in California such as UC Berkeley. Third, THE have combined the results of the academic reputation survey conducted earlier this year with that used in the 2015-16 rankings. Averaging reputation surveys is a sensible idea, already adopted by QS and US News in their global rankings, but one that THE has avoided until now. This year's survey saw a very large reduction in the number of responses from researchers in the arts and humanities and a very large increase, for reasons unexplained, in the number of responses from business studies and the social sciences, separated now but combined in 2015. Had the responses for 2016 alone been counted there might have been serious consequences for UK universities, relatively strong in the humanities, and a boost for East Asian universities, relatively strong in business studies. Combining the two surveys would have limited the damage to British universities and slowed down the rise of Asia to media-acceptable proportions. One possible consequence of these changes is that UC Berkeley, eighth in 2014-15 and thirteenth in 2015-16, is now, as predicted here, back in the top ten. Berkeley is host for the forthcoming THE world summit although that is no doubt entirely coincidental. The overall top place has been taken by Oxford to the great joy of the vice-chancellor who is said to be "thrilled" by the news. I do not want to be unfair to Oxford but the idea that it is superior to Harvard, Princeton, Caltech or MIT is nonsense. Its strong performance in the THE WUR is in large measure due to the over- emphasis in these tables on reputation, income and a very flawed citations indicator. Its rise to first place over Caltech is almost certainly a result of this year's methodological changes. Let's look at Oxford's standing in other rankings. The Round University Ranking (RUR) uses Thomson Reuters data just like THE did until two years ago. It has 12 of the indicators employed by THE and eight additional ones. Overall Oxford was 10th, up from 17th in 2010. In the teaching group of five indicators Oxford is in 28th place. For specific indicators in that group the best performance was teaching reputation (6th) and the worst academic staff per bachelor degrees (203rd). In Research it was 20th. Places ranged from 6th for research reputation to 206th for doctoral degrees per admitted PhD. It was 5th for International Diversity and 12th for Financial Sustainability The Shanghai ARWUrankings have Oxford in 7th place and Webometrics in 10th (9th for Google Scholar Citations). THE is said to be trusted by the great and the good of the academic world. The latest example is the Norwegian government including performance in the THE WUR as a criterion for overseas study grants. That trust seems largely misplaced. When the vice-chancellor of Oxford University is thrilled by a ranking that puts the university on a par for research impact with Anglia Ruskin then one really wonders about the quality of university leadership. To conclude my latest exercise in malice and cynicism, (thank you ROARS) here is a game to amuse international academics . Ask your friends which university in their country is the leader for research impact and then tell them who THE thinks it is. Here are THE's research champions, according to the citations indicator: Argentina: National University of the South Australia: Charles Darwin University Brazil: Universidade Federal do ABC (ABC refers to its location, not the courses offered) Canada: University of British Columbia China: University of Science and Technology of China France: Paris Diderot Univerity: Paris 7 Germany: Ulm University Ireland: Royal College of Surgeons Japan: Toyota Technological Institute Italy: Free University of Bozen-Bolzano Russia: ITMO University Turkey: Atilim University United Kingdom: St George's, University of London.
If ever somebody does get round to doing a ranking of university rankings and if entertainment value is an indicator the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings (WUR) stand a good chance of being at the top. The latest global rankings contain many items that academics would be advised not to read in public places lest they embarrass the family by sniggering to themselves in Starbucks or Nandos. THE would, for example, have us believe that St. George's, University of London is the top university in the world for research impact as measured by citations. This institution specialises in medicine, biomedical science and healthcare sciences. It does not do research in the physical sciences, the social sciences, or the arts and humanities and makes no claim that it does. To suggest that it is the best in the world across the range of scientific and academic research is ridiculous. There are several other universities with scores for citations that are disproportionately higher than their research scores, a sure sign that the THE citations indicator is generating absurdity. They include Brandeis, the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Clark University, King Abdulaziz University, Anglia Ruskin University, the University of Iceland, and Orebro University, Sweden. In some cases, it is obvious what has happened. King Abdulaziz University has been gaming the rankings by recruiting large numbers of adjunct faculty whose main function appears to be listing the university as as a secondary affiliation in order to collect a share of the credit for publications and citations. The Shanghai rankers have stopped counting secondary affiliations for their highly cited researchers indicator but KAU is still racking up the points in other indicators and other rankings. The contention that Anglia Ruskin University is tenth in the world for research impact, equal to Oxford, Princeton, and UC Santa Barbara, and just above the University of Chicago, will no doubt be met with donnish smirks at the high tables of that other place in Cambridge, 31st for citations, although there will probably be less amusement about Oxford being crowned best university in the world. Anglia Ruskin 's output of research is not very high, about a thirtieth of Chicago's according to the Web of Science Core Collection. Its faculty does, however, include one Professor who is a frequent contributor to global medical studies with a large number of authors, although never more than a thousand, and hundreds of citations a year. Single-handedly he has propelled the university into the research stratosphere since the rest of the university has been generating few citations (there's nothing wrong with that: it's not that sort of place) and so the number of papers by which the normalised citations are divided is very low. The THE citations methodology is badly flawed. That university heads give any credence to rankings that include such ludicrous results is sad testimony to the decadence of the modern academy. There are also many universities that have moved up or down by a disproportionate number of places. These include: Peking University rising from 42nd to 29th University of Maryland at College Park rising from 117th to 67th. Purdue University rising from 113th to 70th. Chinese University of Hong Kong rising from 138th to 76th. RWTH Aachen rising from 110th to 78th Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology rising from 148th to 89th Vanderbilt University falling from 87th to108th University of Copenhagen falling from 82nd to 120th Scuola Normale Pisa falling from 112nd to 137th University of Cape Town falling from 120th to 148th Royal Holloway, University of London falling from 129th to173rd Lomonosov Moscow State University falling from 161st to 188th. The point cannot be stressed too clearly that universities are large and complex organisations. They do not in 12 months or less, short of major restructuring, change sufficiently to produce movements such as these. The only way that such instability could occur is through entry into the rankings of universities with attributes different from the established ones thus changing the means from which standardised scores are derived or significant methodological changes. There have in fact been significant changes to the methodology this year although perhaps not as substantial as 2015. First, books and book chapters are included in the count of publications and citations, an innovation pioneered by the US News in their Best Global Universities. Almost certainly this has helped English speaking universities with a comparative advantage in the humanities and social sciences although THE's practice of bundling indicators together makes it impossible to say exactly how much. It would also work to the disadvantage of institutions such as Caltech that are comparatively less strong in the arts and humanities. Second, THE have used a modest version of fractional counting for papers with more than a thousand authors. Last year they were not counted at all. This means that universities that have participated in mega-papers such as those associated with the Large Hadron Collider will get some credit for citations of those papers although not as much as they did in 2014 and before. This has almost certainly helped a number of Asian universities that have participated in such projects but have a generally modest research output. It might have benefitted some universities in California such as UC Berkeley. Third, THE have combined the results of the academic reputation survey conducted earlier this year with that used in the 2015-16 rankings. Averaging reputation surveys is a sensible idea, already adopted by QS and US News in their global rankings, but one that THE has avoided until now. This year's survey saw a very large reduction in the number of responses from researchers in the arts and humanities and a very large increase, for reasons unexplained, in the number of responses from business studies and the social sciences, separated now but combined in 2015. Had the responses for 2016 alone been counted there might have been serious consequences for UK universities, relatively strong in the humanities, and a boost for East Asian universities, relatively strong in business studies. Combining the two surveys would have limited the damage to British universities and slowed down the rise of Asia to media-acceptable proportions. One possible consequence of these changes is that UC Berkeley, eighth in 2014-15 and thirteenth in 2015-16, is now, as predicted here, back in the top ten. Berkeley is host for the forthcoming THE world summit although that is no doubt entirely coincidental. The overall top place has been taken by Oxford to the great joy of the vice-chancellor who is said to be "thrilled" by the news. I do not want to be unfair to Oxford but the idea that it is superior to Harvard, Princeton, Caltech or MIT is nonsense. Its strong performance in the THE WUR is in large measure due to the over- emphasis in these tables on reputation, income and a very flawed citations indicator. Its rise to first place over Caltech is almost certainly a result of this year's methodological changes. Let's look at Oxford's standing in other rankings. The Round University Ranking (RUR) uses Thomson Reuters data just like THE did until two years ago. It has 12 of the indicators employed by THE and eight additional ones. Overall Oxford was 10th, up from 17th in 2010. In the teaching group of five indicators Oxford is in 28th place. For specific indicators in that group the best performance was teaching reputation (6th) and the worst academic staff per bachelor degrees (203rd). In Research it was 20th. Places ranged from 6th for research reputation to 206th for doctoral degrees per admitted PhD. It was 5th for International Diversity and 12th for Financial Sustainability The Shanghai ARWUrankings have Oxford in 7th place and Webometrics in 10th (9th for Google Scholar Citations). THE is said to be trusted by the great and the good of the academic world. The latest example is the Norwegian government including performance in the THE WUR as a criterion for overseas study grants. That trust seems largely misplaced. When the vice-chancellor of Oxford University is thrilled by a ranking that puts the university on a par for research impact with Anglia Ruskin then one really wonders about the quality of university leadership. To conclude my latest exercise in malice and cynicism, (thank you ROARS) here is a game to amuse international academics . Ask your friends which university in their country is the leader for research impact and then tell them who THE thinks it is. Here are THE's research champions, according to the citations indicator: Argentina: National University of the South Australia: Charles Darwin University Brazil: Universidade Federal do ABC (ABC refers to its location, not the courses offered) Canada: University of British Columbia China: University of Science and Technology of China France: Paris Diderot Univerity: Paris 7 Germany: Ulm University Ireland: Royal College of Surgeons Japan: Toyota Technological Institute Italy: Free University of Bozen-Bolzano Russia: ITMO University Turkey: Atilim University United Kingdom: St George's, University of London.
