Paul Butler wondered what he would see if he tried to visualize how geography and political borders affected people's friendships, which he could do as a intern with access to Facebook's social network data representing the connections of some 500 million people. The image below is his result:
And since we suspect Santa sees much the same thing when he travels the world on Christmas Eve, we'll wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year - we'll return in 2011!