What does the internet look like? It's a question with no real answer, but that doesn't stop people from creating metaphors, whether they're uninformed like Ted Stevens or drawing on actual data like the above map from Chris Harrison, which shows city-to-city connections across the globe.
Harrison's maps are an outgrowth of the the Dimes Project, which is a SETI@Home-like project that is trying to map and describe the structure and evolution process of the internet. For more info, see the Dimes Project site.
There are several other interesting visualizations on Harrison's page including, the relative densities of internet connectivity across the globe and continent specific city-to-city connections. All the images are available as hi-res PNG or JPG files on either black, as above, or inverted with a white background.
It's not quite as fun as the “internet subway” map we mentioned a few months ago, but the images in Harrison's visualizations provide a glimpse of what the octopus we call the internet looks like on a grand scale.
[via Slashdot]
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