And I think I can¹. Nature (in both the natural and man-made sense) regularly provides us with patterns. However, it's up to us to recognize and inject meaning (if any at all) into these patterns. I wonder if that's why people believe in creationism/nonsense? It's hard to believe that patterns occur naturally out of complex systems, but as they do it everyday, we should cease to be surprised by it. Still, I do not practice what I preach, no pun intended². I enjoy these things as much as anyone. Some guys examined FAA flight data and mapped it along the 4th dimension - a fancy way of saying "over time". They produced a map of sorts with this data. Take a look below. Notice especially that as it gets late at night, flight pattern sort of withers away, while as the day progresses, it picks up again, starting on the East Coast and progressing westward along with the sun.



On an entirely unrelated note, bacterial colonies can be beautiful. Staph infections, not so much. I found these photos on the interwebs. I suspect the first one has been engineered somehow.







^1. I so stole that joke from David Letterman
^2. "No pun intended" means, "Hey, look at me, I made a pun!"