Saturday, November 30, 2019

Joseph McCarthy Essays - Communism In The United States,

Joseph McCarthy Throughout the early 1950s, the nation was deeply engrossed in fears of a Communist takeover. At a time when Americas fears were at their very height, Joseph McCarthy, a Republican Senator from Wisconsin pushed Americas fears to an extreme. As a ploy to get himself re-elected, and to make America hate Communism as much as he did, the Senator devised a devious scheme. McCarthy, while giving a speech, held up a piece of paper and exclaimed, I have here a list of 57 known Communists who are currently employed by the U.S. State Department (Fried, 89). A few days later, McCarthy raised the number of people on the list from 57 to 205. The reaction to McCarthys announcement was absolute panic. Until that time, the nation had a sense of security. Now all peace of mind was lost, and America wanted these people that were on McCarthys so called Blacklist (Fried, 65). So began a long-term search by Congress to seek these individuals. One group that was extensively looked at was Hollywood. By Jos eph McCarthy abusing his powers, he not only destroyed many peoples lives, but he also wronged the American public. To begin with, the type of person that Joe McCarthy was must be considered. McCarthy was a hard-line Republican who played along strict party lines. By all considerations, he was an extremist or a reactionary. By holding a piece of paper, and saying that the enemy who everyone feared was so close, McCarthy diminished all thoughts that America was truly safe. The actual piece of paper was blank; McCarthy had no writing on the paper at all. He knew that by telling the people of the U.S. that the enemy was so close, he could finally see a war erected against Communism. He simply used the peoples ambitions and fears to make a mountain out of a molehill. Communism in America before McCarthys debacle was simply a buzzword. Everyone knew about it, but no one ever talked about it. The first knowledge many Americans had of Communism came from Winston Churchills Iron Curtain Speech (Matusow, 45). Churchill basically said in his speech that the Soviet Union was pushing forward a global Communis t takeover. And Churchill also said that he believed, We should not let such a force loose on the planet (Matusow, 46). That was the first time many American eyes were opened to Communism, and McCarthy made sure it was not the last. The entire chaos that Senator McCarthy caused had become collectively known as The Red Scare (Feuerlicht, 34). McCarthy used this entire Red Scare idea to boost his hopes for re-election. But an elected official is supposed to be a representative of the people. All McCarthy did was abuse his power and pull the wool over the peoples eyes. McCarthy did not work for the benefit of the people. He only worked for the benefit of himself. Next, the people whose lives McCarthy destroyed must be looked at. In the immediate aftermath of McCarthys speech came many accusations. America wanted the people that McCarthy said were on his list. But when asked for the list, McCarthy said he lost it, and he could not remember which individuals were on the list. But he said he did see some key Hollywood figures on it. That was when the focus shifted to all of Hollywood. If anyone thought that an actor or actress seemed suspicious, they would simply start gossip about them. Eventually, the special Congressional committee appointed to investigate the issue would hear of it. And when they did, they would bring the individual in question before Congress, and they would basically tear them apart. They would ask them about their lifestyles, their fellow employees, and their friends. And then they would determine if the individual in question were guilty or innocent. But it really made no difference if they were innocent or not. Once the y were brought before Congress, their careers were basically ruined. Movie companies refused to hire them. They were afraid that the people would boycott any movies they made, if they hired Communist sympathizers (Matusow, 88). And when the accused did get jobs, the people did not want to go see Dirty Communist bastards

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

The History and Archaeology of the Silk Road

The History and Archaeology of the Silk Road The Silk Road (or Silk Route) is one of the oldest routes of international trade in the world. First called the Silk Road in the 19th century, the 4,500-kilometer (2,800 miles) route is actually a web of caravan tracks which actively funneled trade goods between Changan (now the present-day city of Xian), China in the East and Rome, Italy in the West at least between the 2nd century BC up until the 15th century AD. The Silk Road is first reported to have been used during the  Han Dynasty  (206 BC-220 AD) in China, but recent archaeological evidence including the domestication history of a series of animals and plants, such as barley, indicates that trade managed by the ancient steppe societies across the central Asian deserts began at least 5,000-6,000 years ago. Using a series of  way stations  and  oases, the Silk Road spanned the 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) of the Gobi Desert of Mongolia and the mountainous  Pamirs  (the Roof of the World) of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Important stops on the Silk Road included Kashgar,  Turfan, Samarkand,  Dunhuang, and the  Merv Oasis. Routes of the Silk Road The Silk Road contained three major routes leading westward from Changan, with perhaps hundreds of smaller ways and byways. The northern route ran westward from China to the Black Sea; the central to Persia and the Mediterranean Sea; and the southern to the regions which now include Afghanistan, Iran, and India. Its fabled travelers included Marco Polo, Genghis Khan, and Kublai Khan. The Great Wall of China was built (in part) to protect its route from bandits. Historical tradition reports that the trade routes began in the 2nd century BC as the result of the efforts of Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty. Wudi commissioned Chinese military commander Zhang Qian to seek a military alliance with his Persian neighbors to the west. He found his way to Rome, called Li-Jian in documents of the time. One extremely important trade item was silk, manufactured in China and treasured in Rome. The process by which silk is made, which involves silkworm caterpillars fed on mulberry leaves, was kept secret from the west until the 6th century AD when a Christian monk smuggled caterpillar eggs out of China. Trade Goods of the Silk Road While important to keeping the trade connection open, silk was only one of many items passing across the Silk Roads network. Precious ivory and gold, food items such as pomegranates, safflowers, and carrots went east out of Rome to the west; from the east came jade, furs, ceramics, and manufactured objects of bronze, iron, and lacquer. Animals such as horses, sheep, elephants, peacocks, and camels made the trip, and, perhaps most importantly, agricultural and metallurgical technologies, information, and religion were brought with the travelers. Archaeology and the Silk Road Recent studies have been conducted at key locations along the Silk Route at the Han Dynasty sites of Changan, Yingpan, and Loulan, where imported goods indicate that these were important cosmopolitan cities. A cemetery in Loulan, dated to the first century AD, contained burials of individuals from Siberia, India, Afghanistan, and the Mediterranean Sea. Investigations at the Xuanquan Station Site of Gansu Province in China suggest that there was a postal service along the Silk Road during the Han Dynasty. A growing mass of archaeological evidence suggests that the Silk Road may have been in use long before Zhang Qians diplomatic journey. Silk has been found in the mummies of Egypt around 1000 BC, German graves dated to 700 BC, and 5th century Greek tombs. European, Persian and Central Asian goods have been found in the Japanese capital city of Nara. Whether these hints ultimately prove to be solid evidence of early international trading or not, the web of tracks called the Silk Road will remain a symbol of the lengths to which people will go to stay in touch. Sources Christian D. 2000. Silk roads or steppe roads? The Silk Roads in world history. Journal of World History 11(1):1-26.Dani AH. 2002. Significance of Silk Road to human civilization: Its cultural dimension. Journal of Asian Civilizations 25(1):72-79.Fang J-N, Yu B-S, Chen C-H, Wang DT-Y, and Tan L-P. 2011. Sino-Kharosthi and Sino-Brahmi coins from the silk road of western China identified with stylistic and mineralogical evidence. Geoarchaeology 26(2):245-268.Hashemi S, Talebian MH, and Taleqni EM. 2012. Determining the Position of Ahovan Caravansary in Silk Road Route. Journal of Basic and Applied Scientific Research 2(2):1479-1489.Liu S, Li QH, Gan F, Zhang P, and Lankton JW. 2012. Silk Road glass in Xinjiang, China: chemical compositional analysis and interpretation using a high-resolution portable XRF spectrometer. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(7):2128-2142.Toniolo L, DAmato A, Saccenti R, Gulotta D, and Righetti PG. 2012. The Silk Road, Marco Polo, a bible and its proteome: A detective story. Journal of Proteomics 75(11):3365-3373. Wang S, and Zhao X. 2013. Re-evaluating the Silk Roads Qinghai Route using dendrochronology. Dendrochronologia 31(1):34-40.

Friday, November 22, 2019

The Best Place To Put Social Media Buttons On Your Blog

The Best Place To Put Social Media Buttons On Your Blog Have you ever wondered  where the best place to put social media buttons on your blog is? If so, youre not alone. Back when we first added  social sharing analytics  to over a year ago,  I wondered  the same thing.  There are so many small tweaks that you can make to your blog layout thatll  improve conversions and reader experience.  Surely, I thought, there has to be a set of best practices for social media buttons as well. I set out to find all the data on which best influences social sharing on our blog.  What I found may actually surprise you.  Are you ready to see how you can improve social media sharing on your on blog? If so, read on! Im going to improve my #socialmedia button placement to get more social sharing. #blogging Why Worry About Social Media Buttons? This is a common question, and the answer is a bit more complicated than it might seem at first. In 2016, social media is as important as ever.  However, there is still some debate whether or not social media buttons drive clicks. Part of the reason for that discussion likely derives from how many blogs and sites implement social media buttons ineffectively. It's not entirely fair to judge a design decision that isn't set up for success, but we also don't want to make decisions that can't be supported by accurate data. That's why it's important to make sure you get the design and placement of your buttons correct. It's not enough that your buttons simply look good, or that they are just present somewhere on your pages. They need to be placed where they're going to catch your readers attention and make it easy to share your awesome content with their followers. So Many Options, So Many Opinions By now, you've probably gathered that there's  a lot of chatter about this topic. A quick Google search reveals  this discussion at Stack Exchange, which considers whether social media buttons should be placed at the beginning or end of a blog post. Despite all of the discussion, there is little evidence to back those ideas up. Even this conversation over at Moz.com fails to provide solid evidence on the subject. It seems like we may be just guessing. Can't we do better than that? To start digging, I looked  at what some of the most common options are. I started with the question, "Where do some of the biggest sites on the web place their social media buttons?" The answer? Everywhere! Popular Placement Options For  Social Media Buttons: Top of post  - Do users share before they actually read the article? This is one of the most common placement options frequently used by sites like TechCrunch and Mashable. Left of post -  Placing social buttons to the left of the blog post makes a lot of sense, as readers follow text left to right. This is the placement that we use here at . Right of post  - This one surprised me, but it is out there. Social Media Examiner is a good example of a site with this placement. Bottom of post  - Placing social media buttons at the bottom of the post was very common, and the only place you will find social buttons on Seth Godin's blog. Is he missing out on possible shares because of this placement? In-line of post  - A growing trend is to actually   place shareable content inline with the rest of your content. We do this regularly on our blog using our   plugin. No social buttons at all  - This is a surprising and growing trend heralded by sites like the Signal v. Noise blog by Basecamp. Are they hurting their chances for viral success? We'll look into this in a minute, but for now, that's the playing field. The question still lingers- where do these sharing buttons perform the best? The answer is, admittedly, a bit hard to find (which may be why so many sites place them so seemingly haphazardly) but there are certainly some big data points that we can examine to reach a conclusion. Data Point #1: Prominence Matters More Than Placement Popular social sharing tool AddThis provides some excellent insight on this topic.   Their advice to users is as follows: Pick a prominent position: The more visible the button is the more people will bookmark and share your content, which will lead more traffic back to your site. Keep your button near the top of the page: Avoid making your readers scroll to find your sharing button. It is okay to have the button at the top and bottom of the page, but users will find it easier at the top. Place the button in close proximity to the content being shared: This helps readers understand what they are sharing. Watch out for navigation:  Be careful about placing the button too close to navigation, so users don't interact with it by accident. From these tips, we can easily conclude that prominence matters more than placement when it comes to social media buttons. With the wrong placement, readers can easily mistake social buttons as ads or other navigation. This will likely result in lower usage for the buttons. Reading through the lines, we can also see that AddThis advocates  keeping social media buttons near the top-left side of the  page- a conclusion  that  is  supported by other sources. Data Point  #2:  Users Interact With The Top Left Side The Most According to usability icon Jacob Nielson and a study that he conducted in 2006,  eyetracking visualizations show that users often read Web pages in an F-shaped pattern: two horizontal stripes followed by a vertical stripe. Readers view your page in an F-style pattern. Keep this in mind when placing social media buttons. The  top left portion is the most-viewed part of the web page.  Ã‚  More eyes go there than anywhere else. This supports the idea that left and top are best choices for social share buttons, as indicated by AddThis. Readers view your page in an F-style pattern. Keep this in mind when placing #socialmedia buttons....Data Point #3:  Too Many Social Buttons Will Make Things Worse Doug Antkowiak  makes a great point about social media buttons on the Search Engine Journal blog. He points out that too many social buttons may negatively impact  the speed of your website. This is a big red flag, as site speed has been clearly linked to better readership and SEO performance. The most valuable conclusion that we can draw from this is that we should  limit the number of social media buttons that we display to as few as possible. The risks of slowing down our site just isn't worth it. Social media buttons provide one of those situations where more is not necessarily better. The data here continues: After polling 50 of the most popular websites in the world, Webaholic.co.in  found that Facebook and Twitter were easily the most-used social media buttons on the web with Linkedin and Google+ also showing strong results. They concluded that the utility of each of those networks fluctuated quite a bit depending on the audience type for each site. This evidence is backed up by  TrackMaven's  more polarizing  conclusion  after  examining nearly 2 billion social shares. Their data concluded that the vast majority of social shares take place on the top two social networks (Twitter and Facebook). Clearly, we don't need to include all networks to make a good use of social media buttons. In this report, TrackMaven reveals that 38.6% of social shares were on Twitter. Facebook â€Å"likes† and  Ã¢â‚¬Å"shares†Ã‚  accommodated  for another 60.3%. Data Point #4:  Under-Used Social Buttons Provide Negative Social Proof Social proof  is a psychological phenomenon where people use the actions of others to guide their own behavior. In essence, it's the  psychological term for "monkey see monkey do." As one of our own writers, Julie once pointed out: â€Å"Social proof is a shortcut in the thought process. We don’t have to think. The others already did (we assume).† The reality is that social proof plays a big role in social sharing and can make a big impact on the success of social media buttons. Negative social proof diminishes the value of the social sharing button. In a now classic A/B test,  Taloon.com   (a Finland-based hardware eCommerce store) found that social media buttons were actually hurting their conversion rates. When they removed the social media buttons from their page, they recorded an 11.9% increase in CTA clickthroughs as compared to the original page. If the results surprise you, you can read more here, but social proof gives us a clear answer for this result. Because very few people actually  Ã¢â‚¬Å"like† product pages, the near zero results on social media buttons were actually providing negative social proof- preventing users from purchasing what they were perceiving as an unpopular product. As Chris Coyer points out on his CSS-Tricks blog, "low numbers can look embarrassing." Near zero results on #socialmediabuttons may actually be providing near-negative social proof....Data Point #5: Social Sharing Buttons Can Bring Traffic In one of the more complete (but not scientific) studies on the value of social sharing buttons, blogger  Joshua Benton concludes that many news organizations receive 20% of their Twitter traffic from Tweet buttons available on their page. That's actually a pretty big deal! For example, 16.3 percent of tweets to the New York Times in his tests actually came from a Twitter social media button on the site itself. For the  Wall Street Journal, the share rate was more like  20.2 percent. Not bad, huh?  Social media buttons can help traffic after all. 20.2%  of tweets to the #WallStreetJournal actually came from their Twitter share button.One point to keep in mind, however, is that Twitter recently  removed the ability for social sharing buttons to display their sharing stats  for that platform. So, while the presence of a button to tweet an article may help boost shares, publishers have lost the benefit of positive social proof that comes from having a stat counter. That makes it tougher to see how many times your posts are getting tweeted, but  if you have some technical skills, Google has a partial solution using Google Analytics. It won't let you display within your social sharing widget how may times a post was shared on Twitter, but it can at least help you know for yourself if readers are clicking your Twitter button. Data Point #6: Negative  Sentiment Against Social Sharing Buttons Is Gaining Momentum, But Why? Despite the results from the New York Times and The  Wall Street Journal, not all publications have seen the same success. UK blog  Inside GOV.UK  reported a paltry 0.2% increase in shares after adding social media buttons to their site. While buttons being placed at the bottom of the page couldn't have helped, their results are in line with conclusions developed by Luke Wroblewski, who felt that only 0.25% of Tweets were actually attributable to a social media button after analyzing more than 18 million page views. Others, like Signal v. Noise just prefer the way their site looks and loads without them and believes that if someone wants to share their content, they will find a way. To each their own, of course, but there is definitely some truth in the matter. Just a quick survey around the office concludes that  most social sharing takes place outside of the article itself, and can be attributed to a  variety  of other tools. A few  examples of this include: Buffer Chrome Extensions Other Social Browser Extensions Feedly, FlipBook, and Other RSS/Content Readers Mobile browsers Pocket And more than we can list Conclusion: Where Is The Best Place To Put Social Media Buttons On My Blog? The opinions about social sharing buttons are wide, but often not particularly deep. Reality is, that it just depends on your own blog and audience type. But, being the adventurous sort that I am, I think that we can easily answer this question (at least to find what's true in most cases). And the winner is...

Thursday, November 21, 2019

'Future of Multimedia' Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

'Future of Multimedia' - Essay Example The pursuit has resulted in comfort and color in life. The technological era introduced advanced machines and other tools that laid a foundation for what we have today. The industrial age gave rise to the field of science and technology and efforts started on laboratory level for the benefit and well being of mankind. Amongst those efforts was the approach towards the media, communication and technology. While communication routes can be traced back to early years 20th century when Wright brothers (Heppenheimer, 2003) successfully launched an aero plane which was more of a glider. This was first of few steps towards the transition that was bound to become part of the human life. It was soon followed by communication in terms of wireless systems and later wired mode of transmissions in later years of the century. The middle decades of 20th century saw introduction of television and other modes of communication which were the sign of events to come. Multimedia according to Tay Vaughan is defined as set of mediums that are grouped together to make up one large entity that fulfils the requirements in number of ways. It mainly includes graphical, textual format of content (Green & Brown,page 2, 2002). Like every other system, the entity of multimedia has gone through various stages and has reached the point where we see it today, where depiction of nearly everything is possible through multi media. What we see today is a reformed shape of multimedia that has gone through many phases of improvements and transitions. Since multimedia is in various forms around us each of them has undergone transition in its own way. Multimedia in a way has replaced the old means of communication, while newspapers were heavily relied on for information and keeping in touch with the outside world, multimedia sources have made it possible to watch the news life as it happens without the need of waiting for next morning to receive the newspaper. Post mails would take days to reach the des ired persons; electronic mails have replaced them that enable instantaneous contact. With digital graphics all around, multimedia finds its applications in the field of advertising. Every channel is dependent on the advertisements for managing the finances and expenses, attractive multimedia techniques are naturally bound to attract customers towards themselves, therefore they are thickly used for the advertising campaigns. The usage of multimedia is not just limited to marketing, rather in the educational institutes and corporate enterprises, projectors and presentations are in daily use for presentations. In the field of engineering, besides the signal processing techniques, large number of softwares are implemented that are used in building constructions, bridges and dams constructions, all courtesy the multimedia and invention of computers. A secret behind the massive invasion of multimedia over our society is the feature of creativity. Ability of making all those things which w ere only limited to imagination and fantasies. While flying was once only dreamed of, it has become possible. Similarly communication without wires was only an imagination; today it has become a fact. Creativity can be seen in form of the presentation and graphical colors all

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Statistical Problem Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Statistical Problem - Essay Example However since it is an online poll, it is difficult to know about the demographical state of those who participated in the poll exactly. Moreover since the poll was conducted during the week end itself it would be rather obvious that all people who were on vacation or at a military cemetery would not be in front of their PC in order to participate in the poll. Hence such a poll would seem very unsuitable, unless if it were carried before the weekend. Simple random sampling is the basic sampling technique where we select a group of subjects (a sample) for study from a larger group (a population). Each individual is chosen entirely by chance and each member of the population has an equal chance of being included in the sample. Every possible sample of a given size has the same chance of selection. c. Based on the above, if we consider the stratified sample of 25 high schools, the number of schools which would be selected with a percent free lunch value between 30 and 40 would be 8% of 25 which equals to 0.08 X 25 =

Saturday, November 16, 2019

Costing Methods Pape Essay Example for Free

Costing Methods Pape Essay Write a paper of no more than 700 words addressing the following questions:  · What strategies did the management of Super Bakery, Inc. use?  · Why did Super Bakery’s management think it was necessary to install an ABC system? Do you agree with their reasoning? If you disagree, identify your recommended costing system, including your rationale, to management.  · Would a job order cost system or a process order cost system work for Super Bakery. Why or why not? Format your paper consistent with APA guidelines. College is too important not to give it your all, no matter what you face throughout your collegiate career. Hopefully, this article has given you some very useful advice that will help make college life easier for you and getting to that all important graduation day with confidence a little less challenging. In this document ACC 561 Assignment Week 4 Costing Methods Paper there is a review of the following parts: Strategy ABC Installation Cost System Conclusion Business Accounting Resource: Accounting Read BYP17-5, titled Communication Activity, in the Ch. 17 â€Å"Broadening Your Perspective† section of Accounting . Write a paper of no more than 700 words addressing the following questions:  · What strategies did the management of Super Bakery, Inc. use?  · Why did Super Bakery’s management think it was necessary to install an ABC system? Do you agree with their reasoning? If you disagree, identify your recommended costing system, including your rationale, to management. To get more course tutorials visit https://bitly.com/12Binkm College is something that you want to make sure that youre ready for as much as possible. While you have to live into much of it, there are many things you have to do ahead of time in order to make sure youre successful. Make sure you continue reading in order to find out the information you need. Business Accounting

Thursday, November 14, 2019

The Perfect World in The Island Of Doctor Moreau :: Island Of Doctor Moreau Essays

The Perfect World in The Island Of Doctor Moreau For thousands of years man has dreamed of finding or creating a better world. Better worlds are even quoted in the bible, 'Moses led the Jews into the chosen land' and also Heaven. For a long time man has realised that nothing is perfect, even at the inner depths of his/her psyche, images created cannot be perfect. The Island Of Doctor Moreau, written by HG Wells, is a book based on many themes, one of them 'Creating a Perfect World,' is a theme that keeps coming back to the reader. It could be said that perfect is the literacy term for infinity, something that you can get close to, but, is really unachievable. Throughout the book each character tries to perfect some of their own problems. The prominent of these characters is Prendick, the protagonist, he is from upper class England and is considered a Gentlemen. When Prendick is on the island, he faces a world entirely different to his own. He quoted how the island brought back many of his youthful horrors, like the boogieman. Prendick desperately tries to go Doctor Moreau to change his ways but feels that the whole world is against him. It is summed up in this quote, "I must confess I lost faith in the sanity of the world when I saw it suffering the painful disorder of this island. A blind fate, a vast pitiless mechanism, seemed to cut and shape the fabric of existence, and I, Moreau (by passion of research), Montgomery (by passion of drink) and the Best People, all with their instincts and mental restrictions, were torn and crushed, ruthlessly, inevitably, amid the infinite complexity of its incessant wheels." Through out the ordeal Prendick is mentally tested, as mentioned in the quote above. As a result of this had to lower his moral codes and guidelines, thus had trouble controlling his emotions. At time he was accepting, passionate, sympathetic, angry, scared, murderous and confused. Through these display of emotions Prendick found it hard to better the people around him when he was not even sure of himself. Another character is Doctor Moreau, who also tries to perfect his 'world.