Saturday, September 30, 2023

How Not to Stare at the Sun

If you have ever traveled by bus then you have probably experienced the frustration of discovering that your seat is in the direct glare of the sun and that you will now have to spend the majority of the journey squinting and attempting to shade your eyes from the sun's blinding rays.

If you are a normal person you could avoid this problem simply by checking the sun's position in the sky and noting your direction of travel. If you are Amith V Purushothaman however you will program an interactive map to calculate your route, the position of the sun for the period of your journey, and the percentage of time that each side of the bus will spend in direct sunlight. 

Amith's Sit in the Shade is a super interactive map which you can use to calculate the 'best seat to minimize sun exposure while traveling' by bus or car. Just enter your starting location, your destination and the time of your departure and you can view a map of your route colored to show when either the left or right side of the bus will be in the sun. Sit in the Shade will show you the total percent of the time that each side of the bus will be in the sun and then recommend on which side of the bus you should therefore sit if you prefer to sit in the shade.

Honestly I can't ever imagine needing Sit in the Shade but I fully understand the mental challenge of solving this problem and can still appreciate Amith's wonderfully intuitive and beautifully realized map.

Via: Webcurios

3 comments:

amith v purushothaman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
amith v purushothaman said...

thanks for featuring my web app, One correction it is not designed to train. Normal bus/car route

Keir Clarke said...

Thanks Amit, I've corrected the post to refer to buses rather than trains.