Smallist

If you’re not quite ready to be a Samurai, or one of those eighties guys who reads Sun Tzu, here’s some lighter reading. The Way of the Thumb details the fine art of thumb wrestling, including the pregame psyops. (”keep your thumb ramrod straight, but do make it sizzle a little, like a live wire waiting for a wet foot to step on it.”)

Via Uncrate.

Ah, the dilemma of the klutzy smallist. The smaller your gadget, typically the more frail. I wait in excitement for the Apple iPhone, yet somewhere deep down, I know it will snap like a twig in my jeans pocket.

Not so with the GoBook MR-1, a ruggedized UMPC capable of government levels of klutziness (MIL-STD 810F and IP-54 ratings, the military upper limit of “why we can’t have nice things”). It also has some nifty features like a 16-32GB solid-state drive, fingerprint reader, and something called “stealth-mode keyboard.”

Alas, it costs $4,450. So you might be better off gluing a bicycle helmet to the bottom of your iBook.

There’s been some debate as to whether the iPhone got smaller since its announcement. I guess the lesson is, constrain proportions when you scale images.

It’s been a good week for folding chairs. First, there’s these swank inward-folding chairs, via Treehugger, plus a 4-way folding table, complete with video on how the folding works.

But that’s nothing. The ISIS chair (via) folds down to three, count-em three centimeters. That’s less than an inch a little more than an inch, folks. And pretty easy on the eyes too.

Freshome brings us this flat Grandfather clock, termed a Grandpa clock. 79 dollars gets you a fully functional clock as long as you don’t mind not having a third dimension.

The Register covers Via’s new “Mobile ITX” motherboard, and a laptop based on it. The CPU draws 3.5 watts while working, and .25 idle, and the rest of the mobo pulling another 3.5. The NanoBook will cost about $699 and it’s pretty much a tiny laptop, which seems a bit more versatile than the other UMPC’s out there. It also has a strange usb snapin area next to the laptop screen, so you can plug in a portable gadget like a cellphone.

More info at Laptop Logic.

Your house’s on/off switch. Cute! Wire anything non-essential (ie, not the fridge or tivo) to this circuit, then when you’re leaving the house, your job is done. I think the devil’s in the details with something like this: For instance, would it have the unintended consequence of more lights on when you’re home, since you’re prompted to use the simplicity of the one switch? But the design is nice. Get rid of the two ugly screws and you’ve got near-ipod simplicity.

Via Treehugger.

In case you don’t want to check your boat at the airport, this inflatable catamaran will fit in a bag, weighs under 90 pounds, and seats two. And it looks quite seaworthy. Via Trendhunter.

SMS Australia has just introduced the M500 Mobile Phone Watch, a GSM phone with pretty decent talk and standby time (200 minutes / 80 hours). More info here. It looks a little hard to dial on, but the availability of bluetooth means you won’t have to talk into it like David Hasslehoff, as long as you don’t mind looking like middle management. It’s a tough call. Also, it texting might be a real pain in the ass on this. The things Dick Tracy didn’t think of.

If you’re really tight on space but want a VERY small garden, try these pet plants, complete with lanyard. They come in five varieties and need water every few weeks. Each has a little passive-voice mumbo-jumbo associated with it (It is believed that the goodness of looking after nature will be passed to the grower and their family), but I’d recommend ignoring this and just loving vegetation for vegetation’s sake. Some will require trimming, and some require more sunlight than the average pocket will allow, so be sure to let ‘em breathe every once in a while. And please, no “is that a cactus in your pocket” jokes.

Thanks, Michael!