10 FEB 2011 by ideonexus
Latinos Less Likely to Be Online Than Whites
While about two-thirds of Latino (65%) and black (66%) adults went online in 2010, more than three-fourths (77%) of white adults did so. In terms of broadband use at home, there is a large gap between Latinos (45%) and whites (65%), and the rate among blacks (52%) is somewhat higher than that of Latinos. Fully 85% of whites owned a cell phone in 2010, compared with 76% of Latinos and 79% of blacks.
Hispanics, on average, have lower levels of education and earn less than whites. Controlling f...
1 Hispanics are less likely to use the Internet, but if you control for socioeconomic disparities, this difference becomes much less.
13 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
How Novel is the Internet?
Before the Web we were already used to sitting in front of electronic boxes for hour upon hour. The boxes have now changed, but they are still boxes. Of course the things we do on the Internet are different from those we did (and do) in front of the TV. But it’s important to remember that they are only different; they are not new. Think for a moment about what you do on the Internet. Not what you could do, but what you actually do. You email people you know. In an effort to broaden your hor... 1 
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notesMarshal T. Poe makes a persuasive argument that, despite the tremendous possibilities it puts before us, we end up using the Internet to do the same old stuff we were doing before the Internet, only more conveniently.
01 JAN 2010 by ideonexus
The Importance of Knowing What Runs the Internet
Why do we choose to approach the most cutting-edge computer technologies of our brave new world using the language and concepts of cavemen? We talk of loading data "up" to somewhere--but where do we mean? Heaven? We transfer data via ethernet cables as if data were "ethereal." Developers of tomorrow's computers talk excitedly about "cloud" computing. We don't marvel at a Ford factory and think the finished cars are the result of magical processes. bit when we conceptualize the Internet we bec... 1 notes
notesWhen we forget that the Internet is run on masses of logic circuits performing binary algebra in refrigerated server farms all over the world, we fall prey to magical metaphors about it. This quote comes from a picture set of server farms in the magazine.
