A mesmerizing look at the programming that’s gone into creating Twitter.

Twitter Code Swarm from Ben Sandofsky on Vimeo.

Republicans want Hawaiians to know that their 40 years of government-run health care will not work.

Iceland aims to become an offshore haven for journalists and leakers

On Tuesday, the Icelandic parliament is expected to introduce a measure aimed at making the country an international center for investigative journalism publishing, by passing the strongest combination of source protection, freedom of speech, and libel-tourism prevention laws in the world.

Supporters of the proposal say the move would make Iceland an “offshore publishing center” for free speech, analogous to the offshore financial havens that allow corporations to hide capital from authorities. Could global news organizations with a home office in Reykjavík soon be as common as Delaware corporations or Cayman Islands assets?

“This is a legislative package to create a haven for freedom of expression,” Icelandic member of parliament Birgitta Jónsdóttir confirmed to me, saying that a proposal for comprehensive media law reform will be filed in parliament on Tuesday, and that whistle-blowing specialists Wikileaks has been involved in drafting it. There have been persistent hints of an Icelandic media move in recent weeks, including tweets from Wikileaks and a cryptic message from the newly created @icelandmedia Twitter account.

In a demo that drew gasps at TED2010, Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos new augmented-reality mapping technology from Microsoft.

The Robin Hood Tax

It’s Friday and I LOVE this song!

A mashup of Stevie Wonder’s hit Uptight and R.E.M.’s Religion

via Miss Cellania

Try your hand at this addictive and fun geography game which donates 10 cups of water to poverty stricken people for every right answer. In the same vein as freerice.com (previously). Play @ freepoverty.com.

FreePoverty.com allows everyone to contribute in donating water to people from all over the world who live in extreme poverty. By letting users locate places on the map, their accuracy will determine how many cups of water will be donated on their behalf. Therefore, FreePoverty aims to:

- Provide clean drinking water to those in need
- Make users realize that they can make a difference
- Let users learn something about geography that they may have not known before

Please take a few minutes of your time to do this, because not only will it expand your knowledge but you will be providing water to people in need as well.

A window of opportunity is opening for solar power in the Midwest. The Environmental Law & Policy Center is working to ensure that we seize this opportunity promote solar power development that creates new jobs, spurs economic growth and helps to solve our global warming pollution problems.

Why the time is right to ramp up solar power in the Midwest