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Washington DC is Most Wired Region in the U.S.
There it is, at the very top of the front page of my Sunday Washington Post: a story claiming that almost 60% of all adults here in the D.C. metro area have and use Internet connections. You can read it online here. The story itself is interesting - it gives up-to-date connection stats for the whole country, by region - but what I found most fascinating about it was that a year ago this article probaby would have been buried back in the business or sci/tech sections, but now the Internet is hot-hot "general interest" news.
I rarely give a "so what/who cares" attitude but this will be an exception.
For some people, getting on the internet means that you are technologically competent and up-to-date. We all know what getting-wired says but most people misinterpret what it means. Getting on the internet has nothing to do with reaching a new level of technological competence. It is, perhaps, a level higher than getting another TV.
I am pretty sure us slashdot people actually use technology to it's most. But most people I know still use the internet for chat and porn. If this is what the internet is for, then how is "getting wired" a good thing.
Chat and porn are two things I stay away from. They are addicting things that doesn't do much more than eat brain cells. Is this what the information age provides?
Come on people. Most of us have access to vast amounts of information, more information than anyone had in our past. Don't waste it.
So don't misinterpet what "getting wired" means. Only for people who exercise self-restraint, getting a connection to the internet would be an improvement. Everyone else is wasting an incredible resource.
(Sorry for ranting)
***Beginning*of*Signiture***
Linux? That's GNU/Linux to you mister!
Of course it's on the front page of the newspaper of the region rated number 1.
Think about that a moment, it IS general interest to the area in which the newspaper covers. It's not suprising, just like Comdex being in town being on the front page of the Las Vegas Review Journal isn't suprising, but rather general interest.
So what? The reason they're probably the most wired is because that's where all my taxes go at the end of the year!!!
I think my basement is more wired than 90% of the slashdot readership - but I'm not going to go out of my way to highlight this fact. The main reason being if anybody ever came downstairs, they'd instantly notice I probably have more old chinese containers, wrappers, empty pop cans, and cardboard pizza thingies than most of the slashdot readership! Washington DC may be the most wired, but I wouldn't want to live there for atleast two reasons - a) ever look BEHIND the whitehouse? An expansive ghetto stretching for miles and miles. It was a stagnant cesspool some 200 years ago and very little has changed. The second reason is there's nobody to have a good conversation with down there. I mean with all those politicians, all you'd get when you asked them what they did was "National security, can't tell you." or "Well, I believe in the American Way and blah blah blah... blah blah.. next question!"
Sigh. Give me good 'ol Minneapolis any day.
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(In a related story, retail porno shops are noticing a 60% drop in sales. Just kidding.)
Seriously, does anyone know what the literacy rate for the same area is?
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2B1ASK1
This is sort of a question for "Ask Slashdot" but when do you guys think that we'll have near 100% of people in industrialized countries will be online? The Internet is getting so pervasive that this is inevitable, it's just a matter of time.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
The DC area *does* have plenty of connectivity (thanks to the Federal Gov't's needs) and especially in Northern Virginia, there are many big "dot com" firms, ISPs, and co-lo facilities. Local streets are in a constant state of disrepair as more fiber is laid.
But the *net attitude* of the area is still mired in political-style thinking and addressing issues as policy matters rather than real action. Virginia's governor is making a big deal about our status as a hub of the internet. I wish he'd pay as much attention to our roads and mass transit mess! (At least he doesn't claim he invented the Internet!)
The contrast betrween, Silicon Valley and the DC area is striking. It will be a long time until the "go for it" thinking I see in the valley is prevelant here.
-br77-
You'd think that with so many people concentrated in one are with a Net-centric attitude that you'd see less crap coming out of the area with regard to regulating said attitude.
*sigh*
Put a million monkeys in front of million computers, and you still just get a lot of dumb looking monkeys.
I'm not really surprised to see that Austin comes in third. Having ubiquitous connectedness makes my job easier, because I can just assume that 1) almost all my students have access to a computer at home and 2) more than half have internet access (probably closer to 75% with the demographic that takes my class).
Thus I can provide DJGPP for my students to download so they can work on projects at home and therefore I get to see higher quality work. Also I keep all my assignments and notes, etc. on a web page rather than using photocopied handouts or having to write quite so much on the chalkboard. And I know that a plurality of students could get to it from home if they are absent, whatever.
The URL to my class web page is linked from my personal home page, in case anyone wants a flashback to high school computer science.
Graham "Teach" Mitchell, computer science teacher, Leander HS
No nightlife? Ever heard of the 9:30 Club perchance? Not to mention many other clubs in that area. What would you do in an area with a nightlife, other than sit on Slashdot all day?
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
Having 100% people on the internet should never be the goal. Contrary to what you might think, there are many many people who should never use the internet. They don't need it. It is kind of like drivers in metropolises. How many of these people could use public transportation instead of yet another vehicle on the streets. But too many people use somethinng because everyone says they should and they end up using it for no good reason.
Push the internet into homes and get more chatters and porn surfers. Push private transportation and we get accidents.
I say that technology belongs in the hands of those that need it. Everyone else are fine without it.
***Beginning*of*Signiture***
Linux? That's GNU/Linux to you mister!
In contrast, Silicon Valley is full of intellectuals. (I personally find it hard to believe that there are more wired people in DC than SV!) I personally find it probable that the report is including the type of person that has a computer and checks their email with it once or twice a day, and looks for sports, etc as a 'wired individual'.
If this is the standard for a wired individual, I'm fairly nonplused.
The difference is, in SV, most individuals actually know what they're doing on a computer, they know how to use how to use it to benifit their minds. In DC, people are most likely using the 'Net due to the fact that it is culterally hip to 'logon'. People in SV do it for the mere sake of knowledge - and in turn, make it hip.
I personally see the reason for the use of the internet as directly proportional to the mindset of the people. Do because it's cool, or do because it can benifit your mind.
And in no way am I saying the net isn't cool. It is. I just love it to death due to the massive amount of information available.
I wonder if I could download 2GB in pi calculation from anywhere? :)
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Well, let's say 20% live above-ground, and are basically normal ppl that watch football instead of reading slashdot.
I have a theory that the other 20% aren't wired to the internet because it would violate the strictest security protocols, and that they live underground and do weird, weird shat!
-S
I live in Maryland, DC metro area. BellAtlantic ADSL is widely available everywhere around here, and if BellAtlantic does not offer service in your area, there is always Flashcom and CAIS Internet.
I had mine since May. I have yet to see a friend who could not get a DSL connection even though he tried to. And BellAtlantic offers good service, I have a 640K link and am quite happy with it. Now this is the scene with Maryland, I know downtown Dc and Virginia are even better wired with many more connectivity options. Business grade DSL is available almost everywhere in the DC metro area, and the area is home to DIGEX, so no connectivity problems here.
Looks like you're really misinformed about the area. DC area is a great place to live in, when it comes to Net connectivity. No cable modem service yet(at least where I live), but DSL wins hands down since it is very convenient to have a single bill for phone and Net.
Zigbee Central: A Zigbee weblog
Try Flashcom, they somehow manage to give DSL service in places Bell Atlantic can not. This is strange, one would expect Germantown to have DSL since it is home to lots of NIST employees.
I live in Beltsville, and am 2700 ft. away from a Bell Atlantic central office. My phone line can support a 7.1Mbps DSL connection, the highest rate available from Bell Atlantic.
Zigbee Central: A Zigbee weblog
The article quotes a study done by Scarborough Research of New York whos research markets include 64 major media markets from Albany, to Wichita ... this research apears to be pretty solid.
I can remember the first time seeing a URL in a print Add. The first time a URL was on the radio. Now, this year, the majority of the add money being spent on the Super Bowl will be done by internet related companies. It's good to see our little web all grown up. :)
but I wouldn't want to live in Minneapolis. Washington's got:
a) A better theater scene. Half a dozen repertory troupes, plus a pile of others. We have our own french theater, our own Shakespeare theater, etc etc etc.
b) A better classical music scene. Leonard Slatkin and the NSO. 'Nuff said. (and you can go to free concerts year round)
c) A better music scene in general. Does Minneapolis have the 9:30 Club? I think not. How many bands actually tour through there anyhow?
d) More interesting people to talk to. Washington is an extremely well educated city and is very diverse.
e) A better location. I can get anywhere on the east coast relatively quickly. Minneapolis can't say that, and you're not even in California to make up for it!
f) Better weather. Sure, the summers are too hot. But everyplace is airconditioned, and the winters aren't 40 below!
I don't claim Washington is perfect. The traffic bites (officially worse than LA! woohoo!). And the city itself is a miserable place to live, due to years of mismanagement. Only 500,000 of 5e6 area residents live in the city -- you guessed it, the poorest 500,000 for the most part. The suburbs are very nice. Fortunately, the city does seem to be slowly turning around. But for all that, it's a beautiful city to visit, and the public parts (the Mall, pretty much all of NW) is very nice.
Of course, what do I know, I'm stuck in Pittsburgh.
I wonder how the DMA size (Designated Market Area) affects these figures. They mention that Pennsylvania is included, and I know a few neighborhoods that have people who commute to Philly and people who commute to DC.
If these areas are included in the DC DMA, then there's probably a lot of people who work in Philly included in the figures. Same thing for Baltimore.
Is it really fair to include these 'mixed' neighborhoods in any one DMA? Especially if a large percentage consider themselves to be 'residents-in-self-imposed-exile' of another area?
This article, while seeming pretty well put together on numbers, fails to deliver on causes. The best they have to offer:
Observers suggest several explanations for why Washingtonians, whether at home or at work, are the most wired. One is the close to 3,000 technology companies, whose approximately 250,000 workers not only are online but, consciously or not, proselytize their friends and families to get online, too.
seems weak at best. Other areas in the US have huge concentrations of IT workers, chief among them San Francisco. If they talk to all their friends and their friends' friends and get everybody onto the net, why doesn't the Bay area have the lead for most wired? A better reason could be money: Metropolitan DC has the highest average income in the nation. So money correlates more closely to net connectivity than frequency of IT workers. Which means the best way to get your region better connected is to bring in more dollars, not necessarily bring in more tech companies.