The patterns we make as we get on with our lives reveal a lot about us, often inadvertently. This was certainly true for the AOL users whose search histories were made public recently.

Occasionally, if we look at these patterns from the right angle, a kind of beauty emerges alongside (or maybe deep within) the information.

One of the most striking examples I’ve seen of this recently is a work by Aaron Koblin, an MFA graduate of the Department of Design|Media Arts at UCLA, called Flight Patterns. It’s a hypnotically gorgeous visualization of air traffic over the U.S., based on data from the FAA.

To see it in action, click on the image below.