Photo by ep jhu

Why hello there, Washington. Today the Washington Post offers up the post-mortem on Digital Capital Week. Stephen Overly’s findings sound a lot like what you hear after many geek tech conferences: These “iPhone-wielding innovators want to use their skills for social good,” he writes — as if, for the first time, web geeks decided they would no longer kowtow to entrenched, anonymous corporate Beltway interests. But when has it ever been the case that the Internet has assembled to muster new ways to deepen K Street pockets? From Snow Crash to The Matrix, the central narrative of the myth of the hero-developer is that he strives to secure data for good, not evil.

Overly writes of “Washington’s public service ‘flavor'” in contradistinction to other hubs: “In any other city, co-locating government agencies with tech start-ups might seem like an unnatural fit.” That’s in part because web services like Ushahidi evolved to track government activity (specifically, post-election violence in Kenya). But governments are looking increasingly to new mobile and web technology as a workaround to the infrastructure gap between the developed and developing world. It’s just not the case that the science parties over the last week were distinguished by programmers talking about solving public problems.

Virginia Puts on the Red Light (Cameras): The Post reports that four new red-light cameras were installed in Arlington. You will want to watch your driving at these intersections: Lee Highway and North Lynn Street, Fort Myer Drive and Lee Highway, Lee Highway at Washington Boulevard, and Glebe Road at Fairfax Drive.

Riot at Laurel Youth Detention Facility: WUSA9 says that a shift supervisor at the New Beginnings Youth Development Center in Laurel, Maryland, suffered a fractured jaw after some or all of the 70 youths housed there rioted. Metro police were able to quell the insurgency, but union officials say there are still some security kinks to work out in the humane-detention facility, which opened in May 2009. Overcrowding and the open design of the facility were named as problems that contributed to the problem.

Two Firefighters Injured This Morning: Two firefighters suffered minor fire-related injuries at separate fires early this morning — one, a porch fire on the 2200 block of S Street Northeast, the other a bedroom fire on the 4600 block of Central Avenue — reports WUSA9.

Briefly Noted: Ten injured in Fairfax deck collapse . . . Father of First Lady of Virginia dies . . . Delays on I-66, I-495 . . . D.C. triathlon sees 2,000 participants.