Smallist

By 2040, according to a study I just pulled from my ass, 95% of the web will be tips or lists, or lists of tips. So here’s my condensed top ten list of tips.

1. Exercise.
2. Eat five portions of vegetables a day.
3. Wait 30 minutes after the five portions of vegetables before exercising.
4. Save 10% of your income.
5. When posing for photos, put one leg in front of the other. It makes you look thinner.
6. Imagine the audience in their underwear.
7. Think about baseball. Or England, depending on your problem.
8. Don’t cross the streams.
9. Never get in a land war with Asia.
10. Be excellent to each other.

That should cover just about it. Am I missing anything?

In my online futzing, I came across this nifty bike-driven generator. It generates 150 to 200 watts at 12 to 20 volts DC. So once I saw that, I looked at the electronic bill for the Smallcave and calculated that I’d need three of ‘em running all day to power this place. Barring an influx of very cheap labor, that’s not going to happen. However, I figured it’d be interesting to see how long that would run various appliances. We’re assuming 150 watts/hour here:

What amazes me about this list is a) that anything got done before electricity, b) how traditionally lousy battery power has made for incredibly efficient portable devices, and c) how efficient it makes solar look. A 3 kilowatt system at the latitude and cloud cover of New York will tend to generate 11-12 kwh per day on average. That system would take up about 360 square feet. So putting panels on your roof is like hiring 3 bikers to go 24 hours a day, but without the backtalk. Or, considering that a horsepower is 746 watts, it’s like having Secretariat on a treadmill all day, and without the poop. More incredibly, consider that at peak sunlight, a single panel like this can generate 150 watts. Point that thing into the sun and save a bike ride. Or take a look at this map, which shows how much land you’d need to generate the world’s power needs with solar:

Bonus: Here’s video of a guy running a 32 inch TV with a bike. And here’s a hand-cranked ipod shuffle.

Remember the Reva? We discussed its UK version, the G-Wiz, a while ago. Turns out it’s extremely bad in a crash. As in, hit a wall at 40 and you’re dead. In Europe, the little vehicles are classed as “quadracycles”, not cars, which means they’re not subject to the more stringent car regulations. The poor results of the Reva — and the likelihood of more quadracycles on the road — might just scare the EU to change things.

Via AutoBlogGreen.

Unlike Johnny 5, this little Israeli military robot has no compunction about disassembling targets with a miniature Uzi. And launching grendades on a 4-foot long arm. It can also disarm bombs with a jet of water. Not the cutest thing, but at 9 inches and 25 pounds, this would make the perfect compliment to the ruggedized mini a few posts back.

Would you cross the Atlantic on this thing? I dunno, it seems to lack bathrooms. But Sun21 has just completed an Atlantic crossing on pure solar power. And not that tawdry second-hand “wind” stuff, they did it with good old fashioned pv panels. Looks like they ran at about 4 knots throughout the trip. That’s not quite enough to jet ski, but it’s a pretty decent clip, on par with a sailboat.

We’ve discussed another, similar cruiser before, the form of the DSe Hybrid, pictured below. But the DSe hasn’t been built yet — it’s currently in scale model form only.

Victor Systems has built this ruggedized Mac Mini for clumsy users. It’s guaranteed to keep that beautiful white finish scratch free. And it’s an attractive sand color with nice big heat sinks on the side. I hope they come out with an iPod case!

The NYT covers electric bikes. At 20 miles per hour without pedaling, light pedaling to increase range and speed, and a few hours to charge, this could be a great way to get around. The Times article starts with the high-end “Optibike“, which costs around $7,000. For those of us with realistic budgets, the eZee bikes seem like a good buy — the folding model might even fit in the smallcave!

Also visit Suitable Transport, a site detailing a Melbourne to Sydney electric bicycle trip. Their bike of choice is the Schwinn World GSE.

Thanks to the continuing shrinkage of PC components, it’s now possible to get the whole thing into a GameBoy shell. This little guy uses a 4GB compact flash card and an EPIA PX10000G motherboard. That’s Pico-ITX, for anyone keeping track — it can take a 1 GHz processor. Cleverly, the flash card goes into the cartridge shell and the former A and B buttons are now activity and power lights.

Via Engadget.

Tiny sumo matches are all the rage, in a place called Raglan Shire. (is that wash and wear, or dry clean only?) Also in the news, Second Life has newscasts.

The adorable PaPeRo mini will ???? and ??? your ???? while you’re ???ing. Or, if you use Google translation, “the Adorable This Each Time actualizes the loading audio conversational function to various equipment.” Okay, I have little idea what this press release actually says. But the PaPeRo Mini is a 25 cm tall version of the PaPeRo, a small cutebot which can blog what it sees over the course of the day, sports speech and facial recognition, and dances. No specifics on what the mini can do, but the press release seems to suggest that at least the audio recognition will be there.

And if you think you’re immune to droid-love, consider the strange connection that develops between soldier and robot. We may need a new “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Via Communist Robot and Slashdot.