The color of the sky changes through the day and into the night and there are subtle differences every day with clouds, pollution, etc. Mike Bodge use this idea in N SKY C, a project with a simple concept. Take a picture with a webcam of the New York City sky every five minutes, take the average color, and post it to the site. N SKY C is the result. Roll over grids to see the picture that was taken.

I think someone did this a while back, but the project and artist names escape me. He or she used a smaller grid so that you could see more at once. I think I'd like that format better for this project, too, but still kinda fun.

There's a cyan-colored section around the middle. Either the webcam was having color adjustment issues or NYC went into dreamscape mode. Not sure which.

[N SKY C | Thanks, Doug]

Terrance Chang shows us flight patterns at San Francisco International Airport using long-exposure photography so that over time, you can see where airplanes take off from and land.

It's true. Anything that moves at night and emits light is bound to be interesting via long-duration shutter speed (e.g. a Roomba, fireflies, and WiFi networks).

Catch the full set of photos here, which are also available as prints.

Gold star if you can think of other interesting paths or phenomena that'd look amazing via long-exposure.

[Airport via @dpatil]

Love 'em or hate 'em, tag clouds, or the more recent incarnation, Wordles, are everywhere (especially in slide presentations). Well, Wordle wasn't enough. I mean, you can't even make shapes with it. Gees. That's where Tagxedo comes in. It works pretty much just like Wordle, except you have one more option. You can select from a variety of shapes to arrange your words into. Score.

[Tagxedo | Thanks, Tom]

The Very Large Telescope (VLT) in an array of four telescopes operated by European Southern Observatory, and together the array "can achieve an angular resolution of around 1 milliarcsecond, meaning it could distinguish the gap between the headlights of a car located on the Moon." I don't know much about telescopes or lenses, but I think that's good. Watch the array at work, exploring galaxies far, far away and boldly going where no man has gone before in this breath-taking time-lapse.

[Video link via @wohlford]

As we all know, the iPad has changed how many people interact with online content as well as provided interaction designers with a new vehicle to mess around in. Your hands aren't glued to mouse and keyboard anymore. They're all over the place, depending on what application you're using or game you're playing. George Kokkinidis, of Design Language News, has a brief look at these differences through his fingerprints:

My method involved cleaning the iPad’s surface with a microfiber cloth, using an app for a short amount of time, then turning the screen off. Next, I photographed the iPad, positioning a light source and some black matte board to limit distracting reflections. I then brought the photographs into Adobe Illustrator, and created vectors of the iPad and the fingerprints to emphasize the data.

The method is so simple but super effective. I'm sure just about everyone recognizes that pattern on the bottom left.

[Design Language News via Waxy]

Related

• New iPad battery size is huge
• Every baseball game and play since 1951 on your iPad
• The Like Log Study: Buzzwords and engagement

Nancy Duarte of Duarte Design has a look at Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream Speech" and why it was so good:

MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech is not only literarily brilliant, its structure follows the presentation form perfectly, by traversing back and forth between what is and what could be, and ending by describing what the new bliss of equality looks like. In addition, MLK carefully chooses phrases and metaphors that resonate deeply with his audience.

The transcript is placed on a timeline that follows the "presentation form" and color coded by use of metaphor, repetition, and political and scripture references.

[Video Link via Waxy]

Because you can never get enough videos to remind you how tiny you are compared to the rest of the world. Catch the video below. And a good MLK day to you.

[Video link via Chart Porn]

When you slow down your car, energy dissipates into the air as heat. What if your car could instead make use of that energy? Your car could run that much more efficiently and get more miles per gallon. GE explains such a system called dynamic braking (video below).

Energy: you can't destroy it, but you can certainly waste it. That's what most motorized vehicles do, including trains. Usually, the energy generated when you stop a moving vehicle is dissipated as heat, and is lost to the atmosphere. With GE's ecomagination we've discovered that you can capture and store that energy, then reuse it - that's how our hybrid systems work. Watch the video to see a simple illustration of the physics behind dynamic braking. Keep in mind an object's force is measured in Newtons, using the equation "force = mass * acceleration."

Objects are dropped on a blob-like substance at first. Energy is absorbed. Then objects are dropped without absorption with different results. Update: I suspect the creators behind the video didn't have a complete understanding behind the math and mechanics, unfortunately, so it's best to ignore the numbers and just watch stuff fall.

Is it bad that all I could think about was Andy Samberg throwing it on the ground?

[Dynamic Braking | Thanks, Jeff]

Related

• Dynamic run paintings with Nike+
• Dynamic face substitution
• Dynamic sculpture brings weather into airport

CNNMoney audiolizes the stock market in 2010 with the Dow Piano. Each day's closing level determines the pitch played, and trading volume determines how loudly a note is played. Welcome to Dow Jones the musical.

[CNNMoney | Thanks, Dominique]

Related

• Sculptural Data Visualization – Stock Market and GDP
• Stock market predictions with Twitter
• Timescapes to Compare Chopin Recordings

Booking flights became so much easier when it all shifted online, but it hasn't changed in years. You put in your preferred dates and times and you get a long list of options. Oftentimes those listings can be a pain as you browse through all of your options. Oh the burden of choice. Hipmunk tries to make flight search easier with a visual interface.

As usual, you enter your origin and destination but instead of plain HTML tables, you get something like the above, and you can sort the options from least to greatest amount of agony. Rectangle lengths represent flight times and are color-coded by airline. Flights with the same take off and arrival times, but priced higher are hidden to help you narrow down quicker.

Hipmunk is still in the early stages, but a quick search shows a lot of promise.

[Hipmunk via Matt]