Full Net Census Takes a Hint From xkcd

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday October 9, 2007 @06:01AM from the you-say-hilbert-i-say-dilbert dept.

netbuzz writes "The University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute says it's the first full census of the 'visible Internet' since David Smallberg canvassed a piddling 315 allocated addresses in 1982. They're talking about 3 billion pings directed toward 2.8 million addresses over the course of 62 days. Oh, and they credit the comic strip xkcd for sparking the idea of presenting the data using a Hilbert curve." The main page for the census project has links to versions of the census at various scales.

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Why has nobody commented on the Hilbert Curve? by Spy+der+Mann · 2007-10-09 06:51 · Score: 5, Interesting

I knew the Hilbert curve could fill the space by replacing each segment with a copy of itself (a basic concept in fractal theory, self similarity). But I didn't know that the curve had this interesting property: Similar addresses had nearby locations in two-dimensional space. The XKCD guy is a genius.

Anyway, here's more info on the Hilbert Curve. Enjoy.