Cassette Tapes through the lens of the diffusion theory

 

Diffusion Theory is a model which shows how trends and technology are adopted by the general population. In this blog post I will be describing how cassette tapes fit into this model.

 Pioneers - The first groups that pushed through and made tapes exist are Franz Pfleumer and the Phillips Company. Both of these parties innovated to create easily portable and accessible audio recordings, the Phillips Company being the ones to begin producing and selling this technology on a commercial level to lead in to the next level of the diffusion theory.

Early Adopters - It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the first cassette tape was, but the top two contenders are "Love For Sale" by Eartha Kitt, and Nina Simone's "Wild is the Wind" and at this point most tape players were just found at home as companies hadn't quite elevated the technology yet.

Early Majority- This group had options like the Sony Walkman to make the purchase more worthwhile. While the Early adopters were keen to adopt the format due to how much more music they could store in one place, the portability made more and more people accept the idea of losing quality for accessibility.

Late Majority- At this point, tapes became the standard. Most car models had a built in tape deck and even innovated an auto-rewind feature for some players. However the decline of this late majority was incredibly steep as CDs came out and were objectively better. Higher quality and more storage, they became the default, leaving tapes in the dust after a little over a decade on the shelves.

Laggard- At this point the only people still using tapes were people using it for nostalgia or using it as the cheap option. There wasn't much allure save for affordability.

Long Tail- Going till this day, the only people hopping on the tape wagon are the people interested in the novelty or nostalgia of it. With streaming and digital music portability is no issue, and if people want a physical or vintage feel they can go the route of vinyl and CDs. Personally, I'm a big fan of tapes, but I feel a bit overburdened by how difficult it is to find players that are affordable and high quality. (The gap goes from $20 crappy players to THIS)

and that's tapes through the lens of Diffusion Theory.

EOTO: What I learnt.

    

    

    Something I learnt that I actually didn't know until watching my groupmates was the history and functionality of Bluetooth. I didn't know that the name originated from a king who was known for uniting or "connecting" kingdoms, but it makes a lot of sense. Tech people have always liked their clever names and it has transformed the ancient nickname into a modern phrase that the original king may have called witchcraft. Another thing I didn't know about until the presentation, was the idea that Bluetooth underwent upgrades through the years. I suppose I had always assumed that the modules would eventually become outdated, btu I didn't know it was in the form of a universal upgrade. it is a very fascinating technology and I was grateful to know more about the technology I use every day!

The Age of AI

 AI or artificial intelligence is both incredible and terrifying. As displayed in the video entire grocery stores can be run off of AI and Robots running on code that allows them to stock and load carts with just the push of a button. This means groceries can be cheaper for consumers as well as more efficient, however, it is economically catastrophic. The only businesses that can afford to utilize this new tech would be the large corporations further driving out local businesses because of the price gap. The lack of entry level jobs in retail will also lead to a deficit in how many people are able to pay for goods, leading to the price further going up and the economy crashing down around us.

    A benefit to AI though is in doing jobs that would otherwise be dangerous to people or make living difficult for people. An example is the truck driver featured in the video as AI could allow drivers to spend more time at home and with family as well as reducing potential for human error and making the deliveries more and more efficient. More details on the situation can be found here.

    There are a lot of ups and downs to AI, it is up to the consumer and the government to regulate and ensure it is used in a positive and constructive manner.

Privacy

  

    These issues affect me and my friends because they allow us to be constantly surveilled and sometimes unjustly rejected by potential jobs because of the way we conduct ourselves in a personal setting. I've seen many instances of people who get turned down from jobs because they posted some pictures of them just at a party cutting loose. (Despite this issue being illegal) It can cause issues for my family because we have an Alexa and I had no idea that it simply strips us of our privacy and allows us to become products for advertising companies. Its the sneaky practices that make using any new technology difficult.

    The government should be catering less to companies and more to protecting its citizens. it needs to force the companies to make the lack of privacy more blatant and obvious. It should honestly be illegal to spy on people within their homes, but in this day and age there is no possibility that this will happen.

    We can reduce the amount of time we spend on screens, we can use VPNs to encrypt browsing and focus on utilizing peer to peer encryption for messaging. Reducing the amount of posting and browsing on social media sites also helps, and consistently cleaning out cookies that are accepted from websites. (A list of the top VPNs of 2024 can be found here.)

8 Values of Free Speech

https://inclo.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Defending-Dissent-Executive-Summary.pdf

 Based on the blog post from Prof Smith's blog

The eight values of free speech is an important list of arguments supporting the validity of providing free speech to the people and removing any government interference. It struck a chord with me because there were multiple values within the list which I have found first-hand benefits from. Out of the eight what stuck out to me the most was the argument that freedom of speech increases tolerance.

I grew up in a place where most people I met shared similar political views to my parents, meaning I had no reason to question what I was brought up learning. Everything I thought I knew was just repeated back to me and constantly supported over and over again. This made it difficult to truly see and appreciate anything new or different, as I most often wrote it off as bad. Not to say that the ideas I grew up with were wrong, but the lack of any other ideas almost villainized anything that didn’t align with what I was used to. As I grew up, I was able to use social media more and this opened up avenues for me to grow and learn far more about the world and people with different views and experiences to me. I learnt about struggles that I had never considered and heard from people who knew all about things I’d never even heard of. The freedom of speech that is allowed with social media made me significantly more tolerant because of this new insight. So I relate the most to the tolerance value as it is the one I have felt take the most drastic change on my life. It is vital to hear from different people even if you don’t agree with them.

I no longer think these values can be quantified as much as people would like them to be

Another value of free speech that I found important is the value to self govern. Going back to how rigid my worldview was previously I had no idea the majority of differing political views or truly the full breadth of what each political party entailed. When I was younger I could have confidently told you which political party I was closely affiliated with because I didn’t have the most informed opinion on either party. Now I don’t associate with either party, I simply vote for whichever candidate I agree with the most. There are just too many factors to treat any one party as the one I agree wholly with and it baffles me when people wholeheartedly support one party without question simply because they agree with a select few points the party supports.

These two are the most important in my personal opinion because of how much I have felt the impact of them in my life. I also think many others, including protecting dissent (because of the role it plays in keeping the government in check https://inclo.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Defending-Dissent-Executive-Summary.pdf ) and the importance of self fulfillment (because of how important it is that the individual can discover their own identity). The only one I don’t agree with fully is the discovery of truth. I find this one harder to believe because there is so much misinformation out there spread by hateful rhetoric and people will choose to believe whatever they need to in order to unite against an enemy or to feel like they are part of a cause. The truth may come out, but it isn’t always heeded. This article provides more context as to where I’m coming from. https://www.apa.org/topics/journalism-facts/how-why-misinformation-spreads

Overall I greatly appreciate free speech for the role it has played in my life and I am so grateful to have such a valued right in the country I call home.

The Supreme Court

•  Something I learnt that I didn't know was the concept of Certiorari
• I had assumed that the supreme court would only take on the topic of lower court rulings if the judge residing over the initial case was unsure of how to proceed, not simply a right given to any American citizen to attempt to persuade the supreme court to reconsider the case. I find that a very humanizing aspect of the supreme court and keeps it from feeling as high and mighty as I once thought it was. Clicking this link even gives step by step instructions on how to submit a writ of certiorari, and it was the first thing that popped up, so it's not even difficult to find or fill out.

• The most important takeaway I had about the supreme court is that they are not infallible.
• The court itself condemns its previous ruling regarding slavery in the states. This to me shows that even if the supreme court decides something it doesn't have to be the end all be all and there is still hope for justice in the face of an unjust ruling.

• The most surprising thing I learnt was how long justices are in office for and how they choose to stand on their own merit outside of the president that appointed them.
• I always assumed that justices would have short stints and would always continue backing and supporting whichever president appointed them, but I am surprised to see such conviction for the individual belief systems that each member has.

The video showed me a level of humanity and resolve that I hadn't anticipated coming from the supreme court. I no longer see a stone wall of judges that have final say over federal issues, but instead a group of individual people trying to do the best and most honest job they can to preserve their values within the country.