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____________________________________________________________________ [13:. - [ Diffusion of Technological Innovations ] [fcf] :. ] [fcf@dephocus.com] :. ] ____________________________________________________________________ There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new order of things . . . Whenever his enemies have the ability to attack the innovator they do so with the passion of partisans, while the others defend him sluggishly, so that the innovator and his party alike are vulnerable... -- Niccol� Machiavelli, The Prince. Ladies and gentlemen; I don't believe that anyone in this chamber would move to disagree with the idea that BoW is an annihilation of mind, committed from the very depths of the darkest parts of the stupor sole. For them, there is no line between what is good and what is lacking quality. Their life is a circus; nothing more than an immaculate cerebral blockage towards a life in reality. Brotherhood of Warez has changed their way from superiority to exposed identity. The modern desiccated swamp, b0g, has always been my preferred e-zine. Although I have written for b0g previously, I felt responsible to write again. At first, I thought of writing an article about BoW, but decided to write about the diffusion of technological innovations in its place. Hitherto, there isn't enough interesting about BoW to write an article about. I don't know if this article is of any interest for the b0g readers, and if any flames ought to occur, mail me at fcf@dephocus.com. Enjoy anyways... and, congrats to k-rad-bob & whoever in b0g!#@! ... ( as of writing for a modern e-zine, I've chosen to focus on the innovation of technology... if there is any interest toward me writing about social innovations, let me know. most below is theoretical ... ) What is Diffusion? ... Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system. It is a special type of communication, in that the message are concerned with new ideas. Communication is a process in which participants create and share information with one another in order to reach a mutual understanding. This definition implies that communication is a process of convergence (or divergence) as two or more individuals exchange information in order to move toward each other (or apart) in the meanings that they give to certain events. We think of communication as a two-way process of convergence, rather than as a one-way, linear act in which one individual seeks to transfer a message to another in order to achieve certain effects. A linear conception of human communication may accurately describe certain communication acts or events involved in diffusion, such as when a change agent seeks to persuade a client to adopt an innovation. But when we look at what came before such an event, and at what follows, we often realise that the event is only one part of a total process in which information is exchanged between the two individuals. For example, the client may come to the change agent with a problem, and the innovation is recommended as a possible solution to this need. The change agent-client interaction may continue through several cycles, as a process of information exchange. So diffusion is a special type of communication, in which the messages are about a new idea. This newness of the idea in the message content gives diffusion its special character. The newness means that some degree of uncertainty is involved in diffusion. Uncertainty is the degree to which a number of alternatives are perceived with respect to the occurrence of an event and the relative probability of these alternatives. Uncertainty implies a lack of predictability, of structure, of information. In fact, information is a means of reducing uncertainty. Information is a difference in matter-energy that affects uncertainty in a situation where a choice exists among a set of alternatives. By differences in matter-energy we mean inked letters on paper, sound waves travelling through the air, or an electrical current in a copper wire. Information can thus take many forms, as matter or energy. A technological innovation embodies information and thus reduces uncertainty about cause-effect relationships in problem-solving. For instance, adoption of residential solar panels for water heating reduces uncertainty about future increases in the cost of fuel. Diffusion is a kind of social change, defined as the process by which alternation occurs in the structure and function of a social system. When new ideas are invented, diffused, and are adopted or rejected, leading to certain consequences, social change occurs. Of course such change can happen in other ways, too, for example, through a political revolution, through a natural event like a drought or an earthquake, or by means of a government regulation. Some authors restrict the term "diffusion" to the spontaneous, unplanned spread of new ideas, and use the concept of "dissemination" for diffusion that is directed and managed. I'll use "diffusion" to include both the planned and spontaneous spread of new ideas. Technology Innovations ... A technology is a design for instrumental action that reduces the uncertainty in the cause-effect relationships involved in achieving a desired outcome.* A technology usually has two components: (1) a hardware aspect, consisting of the tool that embodies the technology as a material or physical object, and (2) a software aspect, consisting of the information base for the tool. For example, we often speak of (1) "computer hardware" consisting of semiconductors, transistors, electrical connections, and the metal frame to protect these electronic components, and (2) "computer software" consisting of the coded commands, instructions, and other information aspects of this tool that allow us to use it to extend human capabilities in solving certain problems. Here we see an illustration of the close relationship between a tool and the way it is used. The social embedding of the hardware aspects of a technology is usually less visible than its machinery or equipment, and so we often think of technology mainly in hardware terms. Indeed, sometimes the hardware side of a technology is dominant. But in other cases, a technology may be almost entirely composed of information; examples are a political philosophy like Marxism, a religious idea, a news event, a rumour, assembly-line production, and quality circles. The diffusion of such software innovations has been investigated, although a methodological problem in such studies is that their adoption cannot be so easily traced or observed in a physical sense. A number of new products involved a hardware component and a software component, with the hardware purchased first so that the software component can then be utilized. Examples are VCRs and videotapes, cameras and film, and compact disc players and CDs. Often a company will sell the hardware product at a relative high price in order to recover profits. An example is the Nintendo gameplayer, which was once sold at a fairly low price (about $100), but with each Nintendo video game sold at a relative high price (about $60). This is sometimes called a shaver-and-blades strategy. Some innovations only have a software component, which means they have a relatively lower degree of observability and thus a slower rate of innovation. Such idea-only innovations have seldom been studied by diffusion scholars, perhaps because their spread is relatively difficult to trace. Even though the software component of a technology is often not so easy to observe, we should not forget that technology almost always represents a mixture of hardware and software aspects. According to our definition, technology is a means of uncertainty reduction that is made possible by information about the cause-effect relationships on which the technology is based. This information often results from scientific R&D activities when the technology is being developed. A technological innovation usually has at least some degree of benefit for its potential adopters. This advantage is not always very clear-cut, at least not to the intended adopters. They are seldom certain that an innovation represents a superior alternative to the previous practice that it might replace. So a technological innovation creates one kind of uncertainty (about its expected consequences) in the mind of potential adopters, as well as representing an opportunity for reduced uncertainty in another sense (reduced by the information base of the technology). The latter type of potential uncertainty reduction (from the information embodied in the technological innovation itself) represents the possible efficacy of the innovation in solving an individual's perceived problem; the advantage provides the motivation that impels an individual to exert effort in order to learn about the innovation. Once such information-seeking activities have reduced the uncertainty about the innovation's expected consequences to a tolerable level for the individual, a decision concerning adoption or rejection will be made. If a new idea is used by an individual, further evaluate information about its effects is obtained. Thus, the innovation- decision process is essentially an information-seeking and information- processing activity in which the individual is motivated to reduce uncertainty about the advantages and disadvantages of the innovation. We distinguish two kinds of information in respect to the technological innovation. 1. Software information, which is embodied in a technology and serves to reduce uncertainty about the cause-effect relationships in achieving a desired outcome. 2. Innovation-evaluation information, which is the reduction in uncertainty about an innovation's expected consequences. Technology Clusters ... An important conceptual and methodological issue is to determine the boundaries around a technological innovation. The practical problem is how to determine where one innovation stops and another begins. If an innovation is an idea that is perceived as new, this boundary between innovations ought to be determined by the potential adopters who do the perceiving. In fact, this approach is used by diffusion scholars and by market researchers in positioning studies. For example, a California study of the diffusion of recycling found that households that recycled paper were also likely to recycle bottles and cans, although many families only recycled paper; presumably the two recycling behaviours represented two innovations that were part of an interrelated cluster of recycling ideas. A technology cluster consists of one or more distinguishable elements of technology that are perceived as being closely interrelated. Some change agencies promote a package of innovations because they find that the innovations are thus adopted more rapidly. An example of a technology cluster was the package of rice- or wheat-growing innovations that led to the Green Revolution in the Third World countries of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In addition to the so-called miracle varieties of rice and wheat, the cluster included chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and thicker planting of the seeds. Past diffusion research has generally investigated each innovation as if it were independent from other innovations. This is a dubious assumption, in that an adopter's experience with one innovation obviously influences that individual's perception of the next innovation to diffuse through the individual's system. In reality, a set of innovations diffusing at about the same time in a system are interdependent. It is much simpler for diffusion scholars to investigate the spread of each innovation as an independent event, but this is a distortion of reality... * This definition of technology as information is based upon Thompson (1967) and Eveland (1986), who stress the uncertainty-reduction aspect of technology, and thus the important role of information, a view of technology that has not been widely recognised. Technology is information and transfer is a communication process, and so technology transfer is the communication of information (Eveland). b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@! b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@! Odin�s rap i'm as bad as lang when i eat the marhsmellows out of the lucky charms box lang be singin shit that he thinks that rocks little does he know there's a new thug in town this brotha's white, he ain't brown yo my name is hoss, the motha fucking boss aka odin but you know how it goes with either handle i'm getting the hos woman come runnin to me like i was the king thats when i show them girls my funky spring AND FUCK THEM WITH IT FUCKERS FUCK YOUR FRESH RHYMES woomen i mean fuc k u i could rap *** sharkbyte has quit IRC (Ping timeout: 180 seconds)ryano's databases are reaching their armageddon i wanna watch them splode like ryano splodes sockets and nodes candy rocks, logbox, fried chicken and watermelon *** langdonx has joined #lost cotton balls, cotton swabs. pick the cotton, it's my job i'm a slave rose from the grave come back to finish my duty, little did langdon know i wasn't through wit him this nigga risin from his grave is gonna bust his skull into a cave with my farming tools langdon will be skewled ill beat the fucker to a pulp and stuff him up, no joke *** logbox sets mode: +o langdonx *** langdonx changes topic to '*** Added *!*hostez@pool- 63.50.212.159.phnx.grid.net to ignore list' u needed ops to do that buuuuur[ u [hear my rhumes asshoel dick weed? ill put you in the dirt like a motha fuckin seed that came from my fat sack of weed then ill let you rot, smoke you up there's a lesson to be taught dont fuck with this nigga im a mad grave digga putting fools like you in the dirt since 98 i dont hesistate you aint nothin but my bait ill take off your head and lay it on my bed make you give me 4 hours of love and my dick is red you know b0g issues are pretty funny except that you talk too much about "masturbation" and when half of the articles are about "masturbation" it's not so funny anymore masturbation is life hackers need to get they masturbation on so, you think of some different content that everyone can do easily. just like i gotta make anotha song pac cuz im a nigga rappin fool old school rhymin is my tool, i'll use it on you so you best watch out cuz when i rhyme you're going down no doubt either with my axe, knife, maybe my gun any way is fun, watch a nigger go down dont smile or frown, sport a straight face you're a disgrace to my race and that's why i've made you into paste *SPLISH SPLASH I WAS TAKIN A BATH* or maybe a soup, either way will do but who cares nigga, YOU aRE THROUGH tress sup homez we cool dont fear my gear is packed away it's safe to come my way but don't go astray cuz you wont last to long becuz by the end of this song you won't be around for long im unpackin my gear as we speak gonna bust a cap in your chest and watch you leak mad ounces of blood watch you suffer b0g scares me ;/ we psychotic motha fuckas you dont be messin with us til we gain yo trust hey joe sieve what be goin down so for now sit back and watch what we say cuz when we say shit we say it the ghetto way yea.... allo day every day hell 24/7. none of us go to hell, we all go to heaven right. flyin high in the sky when the guy with cocaine comes by we hope in his car and go for a ride do b0g guys do any stuff together in real life? like meet and do cool shit together?? seekin out niggas who be destroyin us little did they know we got their address and we gonna break down their door, call they mommy's a whore odinoakie calm the fuck down you be dissin my raps? nigga wont be dealin wit yo crap for much longer anyway * odinoakie starts diggin anotha grave you are "nigga"? w.t.f. yeah that's right, imma full of anger and full of fright gonna place yo body in my half-ass grave watch your body decay while i blast away my day high on cocaine, niggas gone insane *** Maddy_awa has quit IRC (0wn3d) raping the neighborhood dogs and killing the little kid's pet frogs then i come here and i read b0g listen to little bitches like you whine about their new gateway and look what he turned into. while i'm sitting here watching time go by gotta be at work by 5 so i gotta fly b0g will be back like the terminator yo its understandable that i nigga cant always be aroun d my hos know that and so should you thats why you provide me with logs so i can read that shit when i get back home and the ho is starving for my bone *** console` has joined #b0g :( there goes my career as da rappa b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@! b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!b0g!#@!