Posted on 10/11/2013 6:07:13 AM PDT by Kip Russell
The Internet we each see every day is an infinitesimally tiny sliver of the whole—the parts we have curated for ourselves, the parts our network of friends and family sends to us, and the sites that we have made parts of our routines.
But beyond this micro-level editing, there are also macro forces at work: The Internet largely exists for and is created by the people who are on it. The map above gives a rough idea of who those people are—or, at least, where they are.
The map, created as part of the Information Geographies project at the Oxford Internet Institute, has two layers of information: the absolute size of the online population by country (rendered in geographical space) and the percent of the overall population that represents (rendered by color). Thus, Canada, with a relatively small number of people takes up little space, but is colored dark red, because more than 80 percent of people are online. China, by contrast, is huge, with more than half a billion people online, but relatively lightly shaded, since more than half the population is not online. Lightly colored countries that have large populations, such as China, India, and Indonesia, are where the Internet will grow the most in the years ahead. (The data come from the World Bank's 2011 report, which defines Internet users as "people with access to the worldwide network.")
Another map, from Nature (in 2006, so slightly outdated), provides a good point of comparison. This map shows countries by their population size, visually portraying the data that the shading in the first map is based on:
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
I see that Nigeria is doing pretty well ;-)
Russia's small size was also unexpected.
Don't forget that while Russia is enormous, their population is less than half that of the United States.
While I read through the article rather quickly, I did not see how they obtained their data. In western countries, the majority traffic is probably from individual internet connections, where as in third world countries, they are from internet cafes. How do they calculate the number of people involved? It seems to me, one would need a count of Email addresses to get a reasonable count. I never knew an internet user that did not have an email address.
Funny trend seems to be... the colder the country is, the more people are on the internet. Gotta do something while you are holed up for the winter :)
Scrolled past the maps without looking, hazarding a guess that India, China, Malaysia and Indonesia are practically unpopulated. Now going for a look.
Yeah, Nigeria is oversized for that reason. But Greenland is completely missing. I know there are only around 50K people on the entire huge island, but I figured they would at least be internet addicts to help them get through those long winter nights.
Uh oh, this guy won't be happy about that....
“Russia’s small size was also unexpected. “
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One can not look at overall population. The internet came on like a bang, and some populations took to it faster then others, with age of users a big factor.
When I started online chatting with foreign countries, some were quite common, Romania being one, as they had many internet cafes, as with the Philippines.
While I had Russian chats, they were far behind smaller, and poorer countries.
The vast, if not all of my contacts, originated on IRC, one of the earliest functions of the internet.
Don’t worry. If Obama gets his way, the US will shrink.
It would look like the NSA diagram.
This information is grossly in-correct.
If the map were correct, the Cayman Islands would appear and be 4 x the size of The Netherlands.
It’s no surprise, that the World Bank does not want that.
Neither does Greenland~
Thanks Kip Russell.
When *was* the last time I played “Risk”?
Not many of the folks over 80 around here give a damn!
Sort of like dumbing down of America comes to mind. :( Sad.
My gaming group occasionally plays a variant called "Risk: 2210 AD". It's in interesting version that adds a lot of depth, and one cool feature is that it only lasts 5 turns (each turn does take quite a bit longer than in the in the original game, so a typical game is 2 to 3 hours).
The most recent version we played was "Risk Legacy":
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/105134/risk-legacy
Risk Legacy represents what is if not a new, at least a rare concept to boardgaming: campaigning. At its core, the game, particularly at first, plays much like regular Risk with a few changes. Players control countries or regions on a map of the world, and through simple combat (with players rolling dice to determine who loses units in each battle) they try to eliminate all opponents from the game board or control a certain number of "red stars", otherwise known as victory points (VPs).
What's different is that Risk Legacy' changes over time based on the outcome of each game and the various choices made by players. In each game, players choose one of five factions; each faction has uniquely shaped pieces, and more importantly, different rules. At the start of the first game, each of these factions gains the ability to break one minor rule, such as the ability to move troops at any time during your turn, as opposed to only at the end.
What makes this game unique is that when powers are chosen, players must choose one of their faction's two powers, affix that power's sticker to their faction card, then destroy the card that has the other rule on it – and by destroy, the rules mean what they say: "If a card is DESTROYED, it is removed from the game permanently. Rip it up. Throw it in the trash." This key concept permeates through the game. Some things you do in a game will affect it temporarily, while others will affect it permanently. These changes may include boosting the resources of a country (for recruiting troops in lieu of the older "match three symbols" style of recruiting), adding bonuses or penalties to defending die rolls to countries, or adding permanent continent troop bonuses that may affect all players.
Brilliant marketing concept! Once you finish a 15 game campaign, the only way to play the game again is to purchase an entirely new copy at $59.99 a pop.
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