Smallist

LG Philips has announced the first paper-thin, flexible color LCD. Not much detail on the technology, but they do claim it only requires power to change state (like eInk), which means it must require natural light for backlighting the pixels, if it’s really LCD in the conventional sense.

Via Trendhunter.

Scientists can now create a micro-tornado — half the width of a human hair — within a small ice dome. The process is the same as that which creates the real thing, rapidly rising heated air. Liquid at the surface, laced with polystyrene nanospheres for some reason, evaporates and meets the cool air from the igloo roof. Presto, after 191 hours of observation, an eensy weensy twister.

No word on whether they can kill miniature witches. Ha!

We’re all going to hell.

MetaEfficient covers a new invention, Micro-Wind Turbines. It’s an modular design whereby the fans can be linked to each other by a set of gearteeth on the outside of each unit. Unfortunately, the current models are not designed to plug into the grid.

The company also performs workout machine conversions which allow the equipment to power about 50% of the gym’s needs. Video here.

After seeing this funny and engaging TED lecture on suburban sprawl, and being in the nascent phases of a potential relocation, I decided to look up livable, walkable small towns in America. This list by ePodunk is promising, although their methodology is certainly eliminating well-designed bedroom communities near larger cities. They basically looked at whether people walked to work or not. Here’s the data rejiggered with Google Maps.

Incidentally, ePodunk is also a great place to find vintage postcards of small towns.

From birdwatching to trainspotting, Britons do fuddy-duddy hobbies incredibly well. The UK 1:6th Collector’s club is a remarkable example of that tradition. This German train scene is really stunning. But unlike the History Channel, they don’t just do World War II. Here’s a recent post of Joan of Arc.

Via Trendhunter.

Yehuda has perfected the digg-bait top ten list with his blog entry, “Top Ten Smallest Integers“. I won’t spoil the whole surprise, but number 3 is “3″.

While it might sound like it has to do with adolescent-onset blindness, Stokemonkey is an electric bike conversion for a Xtracycle. Backing up a bit, an Xtracycle is a bike extension designed for hauling cargo. It’ll give you 30 miles per hour on level ground, and about 20 uphill. While the range can vary significantly, normal use provides about 50 miles between charges.

Extra kudos to the site for providing neat wattage information. For instance: a normal biker going 14 miles per hour uses about 100 watts of power. (That suggests the bike generator people are really sweatin’ it to get 200 watts.) Meanwhile, Lance Armstrong can provide about 500 watts for a burst of 20 minutes.

Via Metaefficient. Other electrics were previously discussed here.

Coolhunting has a nice portable and tabletop grill roundup. I really like the flower-box grill, called Bruce.

The A-Z of Popular Scooters & Microcars looks like a fun read! The printing and typesetting look a bit cheap judging by the sample chapter [pdf] and cover, so it might not be coffee table material, but it seems to be pretty comprehensive. So if you’re into bubblespotting, this is your book.

Via AutoBlogGreen. Previous post on bubble cars.