website.net.nz

The Dimes Project provides several excellent data sets that describe the structure of the Internet. Using their most recent city edges data (Feb 2007), someone has created a set of visualizations that display how cities across the globe are interconnected (by router configuration and not physical backbone). In total, there are 89,344 connections. There’s more of these at City-to-City Connections

That is the kaupapa behind the Amnesty irrepressible campaign.

It’s a campaign for freedom on the internet and freedom itself. People are imprisoned for simply posting and sharing information. The Internet is a new frontier in the struggle for human rights. Governments – with the help of some of the biggest IT companies in the world – are cracking down on freedom of expression. Amnesty International, with the support of The Observer UK newspaper, is campaigning to show that online or offline the human voice and human rights are impossible to repress.

I’m down with that.

I just got this email from Amnesty International…

Dear Irrepressible supporter,

It’s now a year since the launch of our global campaign against internet repression, and we’ve come a long way in putting issues of web censorship high on the agenda for organisations and governments worldwide.

But we need to do more.

Join Amnesty International and The Observer online for a unique, interactive global event.

When: Wednesday 6 June
18:30 (UK), 19:30 (Europe), 13:30 (EST), 10:30 (PST)
Where: Online at www.amnesty.org.uk/webcast

On 6 June we will use the internet to link activists from around the world to discuss the struggle against internet repression, and to celebrate the irrepressible human desire for freedom of expression.

We will also launch a news hub, that will enable you to link news stories about internet repression to the Irrepressible website.

The event will be chaired by BBC journalist, Clark Boyd.

* Listen to a preview (Quicktime or RealPlayer required).
* Find out more about other participants, including Jimmy Wales from Wikipedia and Sami Ben Gharbia, a Tunisian cyber-dissident.

Wherever you are, you can watch the debate live by webcast, ask questions, and make comments.

We hope you will be able to join us in cyberspace.

Best wishes

Nick Dearden
Business and Human Rights Team

Ever thought it would be nice to have your own free personal internet radio station where you program the playlist? Something you can sit back and listen to an uninterrupted stream of good music. With no ads and no stupid commentator talking over the music.

And why stop there? How about throwing in an intelligent engine that analyses your music taste to suggest other music that you’ll probably like …and then learns according to your feedback?

Sounds to good to be true but that is exactly what Pandora does. Pandora is the result of the Music Genome Project and it is very very cool.

From their website:

Pandora™ is the doorway to this vast trove of musical information. With Pandora you can explore to your heart’s content. Just drop the name of one of your favorite songs or artists into Pandora and let the Genome Project go. It will quickly scan its entire world of analyzed music, almost a century of popular recordings - new and old, well known and completely obscure - to find songs with interesting musical similarities to your choice. Then sit back and enjoy as it creates a listening experience full of current and soon-to-be favorite songs for you.

You can create as many “stations” as you want. And you can even refine them. If it’s not quite right you can tell it more and it will get better for you.