Smallist

Engadget brings to our attention this sweet folding guitar, which can remain in tune after a folding. A spool at the base reels the strings down as it collapses, keeping them out of the way when you jam it into your backpack. But at $3,370 you might not be so cavalier with it anyway, favoring to buy it a separate plane ticket. Sometimes small can be expensive, I guess.

If you’re sane and want a small guitar, there are other options, like the Baby Taylor, or the Larrivee Parlor guitar, which has even been to space. If you can use an amp wherever you’re going, a soloette might do the trick too. And oddly, it’s also been to space. The Brunner Outdoor guitar even comes apart at the neck, though it doesn’t claim to stay in tune. Video available here.

If you’re looking for a very portable tune, the little lady harmonica’s the best buy of the lot. It’s a single octave, but that’s enough for some simple songs, and unlike an alpenhorn, it will fit on a keychain. They’re cheapest option by far at under eight bucks.

After learning about modern refrigerators’ Sabbath option, I was interested to see how far you could take the notion of electricity-free cooling. Turns out the Amish have been using this clay water cooler for years.

The Amish are a bit more tech savvy than we might imagine: cellphone use among businessmen, for instance, is pretty common. This essay details some of the decisions the Amish have made about specific technologies. Kitchen appliances, for instance, are often modified to run on compressed air, and computers are sometimes modified to run on car batteries. And those buggies they ride used to be wood (obviously), but are now made of fiberglass.

But back to that water cooler: In Africa, a similar technology is used to refrigerate all foods: the Zeer pot, which won its owner a Rolex award, keeps food cool through two locally produced ceramic pots, the larger lined with sand and water. As the sand evaporates, the inner pot enjoys passive cooling. I’d guess this won’t work if you live in a humid climate, though.

If you’d like a refresher before the final episodes, here’s the Sopranos condensed to seven minutes. Via Metafilter.

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: as long as you think you’ll be waiting more than 10 seconds. It’s true that in the days of carburetors, it took lots of gas to start an engine. But with fuel injection, it’s a mere drip. In fact, in some Swiss cities, it’s the law to turn off the car at stoplights.

This info is from Celsias, a blog about global warming. (they’re against it.) After getting vague answers from the EPA and even Click and Clack, Mounties from the Canadian Office of Energy Efficiency finally gave a the benchmark number. Apparently they’re into it. So now, there’s a “homemade hybrid” anti-idling movement afoot. Cool!

AOL has this little quiz about the calories in restaurant fare. I’m a bit calorie neurotic in my day-to-day existence, but I usually let it all go when I’m out on the town. Granted, having the bloomin’ onion at Outback might not be “out on the town”, but the lesson applies just as well to any restaurant food: size matters. (thanks Carrie!)

I’m sick of blogging about cars, but I suppose the Naro deserves a mention. Sorry to be an mpg snob, but is 100 really that great for a scooter with fenders? Still, their other promises sound appealing: A two-passenger 100 mpg version, and a delivery van. I’d love to see their taxi rendering come to fruition on the streets of NYC.

And the cornering is the nifty thing about these. On a sharp turn, it looks like the whole chassis leans into the curve. More about the design at their website.

These tiny spider-like creatures just stopped a 10 billion dollar mining project in Western Australia this week. Blind as a bat and 4mm long, the nasty little critters are a type of “troglobite,” a term just meaning cave dweller. Like vampires or gremlins, the light of the sun will kill them.

I’m not sure why the article is calling them spider-like. Since troglobite is a general term, these would seem to be troglobite spiders. But I think the photo is from elsewhere, and may not represent whatever they found.

Chevy wants to compete with Daimler Chrysler’s Smart cars, set to debut in the states in 2008. So they’re testing the waters with a trio of minicar designs, starting with the Trax. There will be two other designs, and to cheese things up a bit more, they’re going to have the young people vote for their favorite model… wait for it… online! GM is getting down with Generation Y! It’s like American Idol meets MySpace or something!

Still, I eagerly await the other two contestants. I want Chevy to make a great small car. The US needs small cars, and they need a hit. But this just seems hopelessly half-assed, like those commercials with Ronald McDonald snowboarding. Chevy, change comes from within. You don’t need a PR campaign, you need an 80’s movie montage.

The Smart car (above) is much cuter, and gives me the sort of product lust normally associated with Apple stuff. At 40mpg, the fuel economy is still a little ho-hum. But perhaps their focus on the product life cycle makes up for it, in the grand scheme of things.

Matt’s comment in the previous post spurred me to look up how a Sabbath feature works on a fridge. GE has a nice explanation here:

• The defrost cycle is not controlled by door openings. The defrost cycle runs on fixed clock time.
• Ice and water cannot be retrieved from the dispenser
• The main temperature control and Quick Chill™/ Express Chill™ displays will not illuminate.
• Quick Chill and temperature settings will remain at temperatures set before Sabbath Mode
• Touchpad sensor will not tone
• Door alarms will not operate
• The icemaker is automatically disabled (bottom freezer models only; icemakers in side-by-side models will continue to operate unless the icemaker power switch is set to off)
• Interior lights and dispenser lights will not operate
• Current fan state will continue as current regardless of door opening

So unless the skinny fridge interprets the scriptures differently, Metropolis Magazine is wrong: the fridge does use power; it just doesn’t do anything that involves user intervention.

(And speaking of orthodoxy, GE’s not using very good html habits. It’s all BR tags and bullet symbols in there.)

Metropolis magazine is featuring 14 small-apartment helpers. Being Metropolis Magazine, they’re probably obscenely expensive. However, Sheer’s compact kitchen-in-an-egg (above) is a beautiful piece of design. And the slim fridge by Bosch actually looks usable, although I’m not sure I understand the “sabbath” option which turns off power for 24 hours. How do the bacteria swimming around in your deviled eggs know not to reproduce on Sunday?