Glass rain
The piece that almost didn’t survive its first evening, and became the front page.
it’s possible the rain is just a bad idea but give it a go anyway
Sep 29, 20:43
The first rain dropped flat parcels straight down onto the light roads, and it was, in a word, lame. The second try tipped the camera toward the horizon and dropped 3D blocks of glass, each as tall as its tallest building. Our own verdict that night was honest: the turn earned its place, and the rain mostly didn’t. The falling blocks read as confetti against the sky.
It went live anyway, at /rain, as Glass rain, with hover on the block you actually see, drag to orbit, and a way back into the tour.
Faster, and turning
The next morning it was too slow. The loop went from 73 seconds to 48, and the rain started at 0:19 instead of 0:37. The camera was redrawn by hand: fill downtown’s roads, pull out to the county, lean back high over the south-southwest, then “slowly begin to rotate around to the other side … say, illinois, but still way up above.”
beautiful, btw.
Sep 30, 09:42
What changed hands
When a block landed it threw a soft white ring, an accident nobody had asked for: “idk what that is, but i like it.” It became the start of the year’s sales. About 1,750 parcels changed hands between the two snapshots. They fall in the order their deeds were dated, with the month in the caption, and each one splashes as it lands:
- green if it sold for more than its previous sale;
- red if it sold for less;
- white if the price barely moved, within 2%;
- gold if there’s no earlier sale to compare.
On top of the ring came a flash, a crown, a beam you can read from far away, and an afterglow. Green crowns grow and red ones shrink, so the motion carries the meaning even if the colour doesn’t.
The river
The Ohio and the mouth of the Tennessee are mapped as five huge river parcels, about 9,800 acres. “If you could not rain the unowned large river parcels that would probably be good. maybe they even go a tasteful blue.” They never rain now. They’re the only dark, reflective surface in the piece, and along each bank about 24 miles of blue light flows downstream, “like the ohio does.”
One evening the banks drew straight lines across the whole county. The data was fine. A graphics driver was closing the lines into loops, so every bank, road and outline is now drawn as separate short segments, with nothing left to close.
Every effect gets a switch
Splits glow and crack, new parcels burst, and the one retired parcel evaporates. The layer for combined parcels showed artifacts and was parked as its own idea for later. The rule from that morning still holds: “do not remove any effects, just add the toggle for me to decide.”
Prices, and the running total
we don’t care if it leaks price, it’s public data.
Sep 30, 16:44
Once sale prices were ruled public record, the caption could count. As the glass falls, it shows the running net change in sale price across the year’s comparable resales, and last month’s own figure beside it, so a bad month shows for a moment while the total keeps climbing. It ends on Net change in sale price · +$34.5M. The total money that changed hands, about $238.9 million, is a different number, and the caption says which one it is. “i do not mind if the numbers are fuzzy as long as they’re reliably fuzzy with documentation,” so the method and its caveats are written down.
A Money control colours the glass by where the money went: in from outside the county, out of it, within it, or through it. It reads only the five-digit ZIP.
Tuned by hand
“The raining parcels don’t indicate enough red/green.” A tweak lab followed: sliders for every colour, the splash, the flash and its fade, the afterglow, the tint and the heartbeat. Its Copy values button handed back numbers, and those numbers are the look that shipped: green and red at 2.15, white at 0.6, the heartbeat at 7.5. The tweak panel is still on the landing, behind Show UI config.
A playbook came with it, so the rain can be pointed at the next delivery from the county, including what to do if the next update is dull.
- “kinda lame ngl.” The rain is split off.
- The 3D rain: the turn earns its place.
- Live at /rain as Glass rain.
- 73 seconds to 48, and the camera redrawn.
- This year’s sales in green, red and white.
- The river as water, its banks flowing.
- Prices are public. The running total.
- The look that shipped, from the tweak lab.