I saw Wall·E last night, no joke, if you go and see one movie this year, see Wall·E. A. O. Scott’s review sums up Wall·E the best:

The first 40 minutes or so of “Wall-E” — in which barely any dialogue is spoken, and almost no human figures appear on screen — is a cinematic poem of such wit and beauty that its darker implications may take a while to sink in. The scene is an intricately rendered city, bristling with skyscrapers but bereft of any inhabitants apart from a battered, industrious robot and his loyal cockroach sidekick. Hazy, dust-filtered sunlight illuminates a landscape of eerie, post-apocalyptic silence. This is a world without people, you might say without animation, though it teems with evidence of past life.

London tube map traffic, originally uploaded by rodcorp

Interesting idea. I wonder how many layers of bureaucracy it would take to secure the data necessary to complete this visualization.

Olafur Eliasson East River Waterfall, originally uploaded by shelby elizabeth

‘Waterfalls’ Display Opens on Harbor:

“New York City Waterfalls,” Olafur Eliasson’s $15.5 million quartet of temporary cascades dotting the New York Harbor, formally opened on Thursday morning with a ceremony at South Street Seaport and a publicity blitz by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who criss-crossed four morning television programs to tout the installation, billed as the city’s grandest public art commission since Christo and Jeanne-Claude flooded Central Park with saffron-colored fabric panels for “The Gates” in 2005.

I am hoping that I will be able to take some photos of the installation during my flyby of Manhattan en route to LGA.

Whataburger, Austin, originally uploaded by Blazenhoff

I stumbled upon a quirky fast-food restaurant, Whataburger, in Dallas today. Whataburger, which has over 500 locations in 11 states, occupies the market niche between the major fast-food joints such as McDonald’s and the authentically local establishments such as New Haven’s Louis’ Lunch. Whataburger, analogous to the highly rated In-And-Out Burger, offers burgers, fries and shakes made to order. The verdict on the hamburger: not good. (Ed note: a friend writes in that I should have given Whataburger another chance since his experience in Florida was nearly as good as In-And-Out Burger.) But the packaging, colors and the design of the old A-frame restaurants is well worth your review: Whataburger Flickr Tag.

Posting might be light in the next few days.

Zaha Hadid, originally uploaded by Kosmograd

Check out the drawings of Starchitects drawn by Kathryn Rathke found in the Summer 08 issue of Intelligent Life magazine from The Economist.

Tower of Pisa, originally uploaded by Bert#