Smallist

Dyson goes on a diet with this slim version of its popular and ridiculously expensive vacuum. Has anyone tried these things? Are they really that good? Or is the sci-fi, vaguely lego-like design a way to trick men into vacuuming?

Via notmartha, which reminded me that I saw it on uncrate first.

Tiny cars are not a new invention. Microcars, or “Bubble cars,” were all the rage in post-war Europe.

The trend started when the Italian refrigerator manufacturer ISO spA decided that small cars were in greater demand than new fridges, due to the fact that everyone had to get somewhere and no one had food. With a bulbous design based on Mussolini’s forehead*, the Isetta microcar became an immediate hit. It was manufactured by auto companies throughout Europe, leading to a series of local flavors. For instance, BMW moved the headlights to the fenders. The Isetta was also Steve Urkel’s car in Family Matters.

Around the same time, the boys at Messerschmitt had nothing to do, the Luftwaffe being on hiatus after finishing a 10,000 hour History Channel documentary. So they designed the KR-175, which would look really funny with a German helmet spike on the top. Later, a KR-175 was used in the cult classic Brazil.

There’s a smörgåsbord of these cars at the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum. And if you want to buy one, there’s still models for sale at Ebay motors. Of course, they’re not cheap, and most have two-stroke engines, so they’re about as environmentally friendly as a lawnmower. But if you can find one, and have the means, go for it. At the very least, you can drive it in the parade and make the Shriners green with envy.

* I made this up.

Extreme nerds will tout this as the arrival of Mithral armor. However, this nano-chain-mail’s real strength will be its changing conductivity at different levels of stretch. From TFA:

“The first layer of fabric could consist of silicon islands with embedded circuits or sensors,” said Liu, who also is affiliated with the university’s Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the Institute for Genomic Biology, and the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory.
“The resulting fabric could generate electricity, detect movement or damage, or serve some other active role,” Liu said.

And finally you can dress up your toy knights in something functional! More at physorg.

According to the telegraph, the British Food Standards Agency is requesting that manufacturers make smaller portions more widely available. Specifically, it sounds like they want to see items like 100 calorie-packs labeled for individual sale, taking the place of typically larger vending machine products.

Sounds good. I know for a fact that “fun size” purchases by-the-bag are my caloric undoing. The problem is that the entire bag is a much funner fun-size. My solution, to date, has been to hide them in a high pantry where there’s a greater barrier to entry. But putting them in a vending machine would work too. That way I’d never get one — it’d get stuck on the spiral. And the collected money could go to the gym membership I’m not using.

It’s not you, it’s me. Or really, it’s Dreamhost. Smallist has been having server issues since last night. I’ll cook up a few stories while we’re down, and hopefully years from now we’ll be able to laugh about this whole thing.

If you’re under 25, avert your eyes, for here there be mortgage talk.

As the proud renter of a 500-square-foot studio, I’ve been watching the housing market’s impending bubble burst with keen interest. The lending community has become quite creative with new products, designed to let people own things they can’t afford. For instance, you can now get a 50-year mortgage, or even an interest-only mortgage. These can make sense in certain circumstances, for tax reasons, since mortgage interest is tax deductible - you could take an all interest loan, invest the difference elsewhere, and pay taxes on the principal at the lower capital gains rate. But for most people, that’s not gonna happen.

So I was thinking, if the 30-year fixed rate mortgage is the gold standard, what happens if you pay off a little quicker? Here’s the monthly payments and total costs of a 400,000 mortgage at 6%, for 15, 25, 30, and for a laugh, the 50:

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This is the future. Samsung’s solid state hard drive has no moving parts (naturally), draws half a watt while operating and .1 watts while idle. As opposed to 1.5 watts operating in a hard drive. Also 4 times as fast as a hard drive, and with a reliability an order of magnitude higher. It’ll probably cost an arm and a leg, but that’ll come down. By next year it’ll just be a toe.

For more info, here’s Tom’s Hardware on the 32 GB model, previewed in September. And here’s the Slashdot article about the 64.

I need my SUV for hauling, says Joe Q. McMansion — Yeah, right. Try a tiny pickup instead!

The Australians call a car with a flatbed a “ute”, short for coupe utility. My favorite, by far, is the Mini Pickup, seen here next to a Hummer stretch:

That pretty much sums up Smallist, there. Anyway, 58,000 Mini Pickups were produced from 1961 to 1982.They’re still around if you know where to look, and with a little talent and elbow grease you can customize them. This guy dropped a Honda vtec into one that previously looked like a planter.

Other utes of note include the Suzuki Mighty Boy, too ugly to picture here. And the Holden Ute, also too ugly to picture here. And of course, the El Camino, definitely too ugly to picture here.

Volkswagen also made some pickups worth noting. Jalopnik reports that they still make one in South Africa, where small pickups are called “bakkies”. Not the prettiest things in the world, though. The older Volkswagen pickups — like the depicted 1963 Transporter — are much more attractive, and air-cooled to boot.

But the smallest pickup has to be the three wheeled Bajaj. Based on the scooter, this thing will haul 1,052 lbs. And it meets California emissions. And, in rickshaw form, it was in Octopussy. I sense a running gag.

And by the way, if you want to see some strange cars, check out haxadecimal.com. They scour ebay motors for the strangest contraptions, and boy do they find them.

If you needed a movie projector in your cellphone, Texas Instruments has your product. Or at least they will. They’ve managed to get a DLP projector and power supply down to 1.5 inches, and they’ve now encased it in a vaporware phonelike enclosure. Some day that could mean having a nice big screen whereever you are, and a flashlight to boot. As long as you don’t mind having a blocky phone.

I’d think a more reasonable use would be a laptop. Need a bigger screen? Hinge the display like a tablet and shoot a 20″ widescreen onto the cubicle wall. On the other hand, imagine being subjected to Powerpoint everywhere. The survivors would envy the dead.

Remember how I mentioned a press release a few weeks ago, about TGI Fridays serving smaller portioned meals? Well the NY Times has a great article on the subject of restaurant and fast food portions which covers this point. It also covers the short cappuccino. All of which makes me think maybe I’m onto something here. There’s also a little on the Big Gulp:

Then, in the mid-1970s, a Coke representative tried to sell 7-Eleven on the idea of a 32-ounce cup for its struggling fountain-drink business. Dennis Potts, a midlevel manager at 7-Eleven at the time, said he thought the cups were “absolutely insane” because they were so big, but he accepted two free cases and gave them to a store to try.

The next Monday, the franchisee called, asking for more cups. The Big Gulp was born. The 32-ounce drink cost the same as a 16-ounce bottle of soda, then about 40 cents.

A great read. And the article references a book I’ll have to get for myself, Fat Land. I swore to myself I’d stop buying books with “How” in the title, but I’ll make an exception for this. Thanks, Kottke, for reading the paper today!