Smallist

This little thing is making the rounds today. Very cute, Sony. But when you say something like this:

Micro Vault Virtual Expander will compress your data to virtually store about 3 times** as much data!

David A. Huffman* rolls over in his grave. Kids, remember: your mp3’s won’t compress. They’re already compressed. So are your jpegs. This will only help if you’re carrying around the complete works of William Shakespeare in text files. So when you go to your cool friend’s house and try to open your elite filez to show off, and you find out he has a Mac, all is lost.

Still though, cool drive. And it comes in four colors.

Sigh. I suppose I must mention Wired’s “Snack Attack” issue, since it seems on-topic for a block about Smallist. My reluctance stems from Wired’s editorial tone, which has been like a fifteen year crack-fueled manifesto entitled Everything is Awesome. Manifestos exhaust me.

Be that as it may, they do get some decent talent to write for them, and there’s a few great little pieces here:

• The art of the TV recap, which have gained in complexity since the days of the occasional two-part Golden Girls. Art loves constraints! (More on this in a later post)
• A chart of the 23 ways — and 403 separate SKU’s — to market a single album.
• My brother swears by these Target clinics. They’re cheap and effective.

Mill Ends Park’s designation as such is pretty dubious if you ask me. See, Portland, back east we’d call that a “planter.” At least Salem’s Waldo Park has a tree, and you can walk around in it. If it weren’t for the pachysandra.

On the other hand, Mill Ends does have a nice backstory involving leprechauns, and made the news a few days ago, when it was moved back to its original location. Here’s some pics of the occasion.

And it seems to be the Madonna of parks, changing its flora with the fashions. Sometimes it has a cactus, sometimes it’s a bit more bonsai-ish, sometimes it’s more like a failed Chia pet.

Treehugger reports today that ZAP has doubled its available dealers. This is the first time I’ve heard of the company, and I have to say: these are some cute, small cars.

Their styling is a bit scattershot though. They really need to get their headlights in a row and get these things together into one look. The pickup’s front is gorgeous retro, while the Obvio’s face looks like Joan Rivers:

And another thing: 29 mpg? That’s kind of ho-hum for a vehicle with two seats, isn’t it?

Whatever, the 3 wheeled electrics are adorable.

In Britain, the Cheshire police force is downsizing its gear to recruit more policewomen. Specifically, they’re going from a Glock to a Sig-Sauer. Lighter motorcycles will be considered too, although it wasn’t clear what models. From the article:

Liz Owsley, of the British Association for Women in Policing, said: “To introduce smaller guns and motorcycles takes a chief constable with gumption and wherewithal.

“There is no reason why police forces can’t have weapons with smaller handles and smaller motorcycles.

“Not all male officers are 6ft 6in hulks, some are small and they would benefit, too.”

Which raises the question, why would you want anything bigger than the minimum size and weight possible? Are you going to catch more bad guys with a heavier motorcycle? And don’t guns pretty much, as Homer said, kill whatever you point them at? All things being equal, you’d want whatever allows for greater mobility and dexterity. Here are the two guns in comparison:

Of course, if you really want to go small, there’s always the Lady Derringer. (warning: site contains lingerie images of the owner)

Norwich, England is going to start charging for parking by car length. (Of course, the law of unforseen consequences could lead to an upsurge in double decker coupes.) Via freakonomics.

Getting 30 MPG in an SUV, 59 MPG in an Accord, or 117 MPG in a hybrid, is possible through the art of hypermiling. (that rhymes with “smiling”, not “billing”) MotherJones has an article on the phenomenon.

It’s a series of techniques which will help you maximize every last drop of gasoline. It will also estrange you from your spouse and fellow drivers, since you have to a) close all your windows and leave the AC off, and b) coast to a stop at traffic lights, occasionally c) tailgating a truck.

(more…)

Not much here but a press-release, but at least one Austin area T.G.I. Fridays will start selling smaller-portioned meals at a lower price.