My initial response to the column below: WHAT?!!?
Here is the entirety of the piece on The Province’s website:
A cutting-edge battery that can be spray-painted on just about any surface was unveiled Thursday by a research team.
The design could revolutionize the design of lithium-ion batteries that power laptops, cellphones and electric cars – leading to slimmer, lighter devices with built-in power supplies.
Using liquid versions of the same components found in conventional lithium-ion batteries, the team airbrushed their invention, in several layers, onto a glass slide, a stainless steel sheet, glazed ceramic tiles and the curved surface of a mug.
Forget spending all that money replacing your bulky charger. Just buy a can and when the light goes red, give it a spray!
It is called the Ladderlimb and a Scottish (New Luce) farmer called Alistair Taylor thought up the concept after dropping a can of paint across the kitchen floor. From a piece in The Galloway Gazette:
After clearing up the paint at Balneil Farm, Alistair thought long and hard about how to get round the problem of only two hands available to juggle paint cans, brushes etc., while remaining attached to the ladder. He soon came up with the ‘Ladderlimb’.
This tool that allows you to secure a paint pot or tool to the side of any ladder has caused such a stir since it came on the market that Alistair recently had an approach from a American business tycoon who was interested in buying the business for an undisclosed sum.
We say it around here often but it rings true: necessity is the mother of invention. In this case another phrase comes to mind: there’s no use crying over spilt paint.