Link-O-Rama (3/30/09)

• Mind blowing wall-painted animation:
• 
  MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
• Everyones childhood classic is being translated to the big screen. Where the Wild Things Are. It looks like a lot of fun! I'm intrigued by how the universal themes of Hope, Fear, and Adventure are highlighted. Arcade Fire ("Wake Up") in the trailer is a really good fit too. I'm noticing more and more that the music track used in movie trailers is a big deal for me (For example, I mentioned it recently in regard to Slumdog and Terminator).
• NYT did an article on "The End of Excess: Is This Crisis Good for America?". For similar reasons I have been embracing the oncoming economic woes (Peak Oil, before the global recession) for years. The Despair will challenge our world views and spark innovation.
• A perfect example of this innovation (which is so simple it seems like it should have been embraced at least a century ago) is the EcoDrain heat exchanger. In a nutshell: Hot water going down the drain pre-warms cold water going into the hot water heater. Seems like a no brainer huh?
• I never expected this song to be used in a mainstream advertisement:
• I'm a loyal Google evangelist, mainly because of the fact that they provide every major resource I utilize online free of charge (email, maps, collaborative documents, calendar, RSS aggregator etc). Consequently, when Googles lead designer resigns it catches my eye. He blames engineer driven data-centrism, which he believes paralyzes the company. Interesting...