Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with simple

Vegetarian cookbook recommendations sought!

Phire — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:22:19 -0800

Give me your favourite vegetarian cookbook that has illustrations of simple but delicious meals, and offers the nutritional information for each meal. I'm starting to cook by recipe, rather than throwing anything I have in the kitchen into a pot and improvising. At the same time, I'm trying to decrease on the amount of meat I have on my diet. Though there are lots of awesome websites with an abundance of information on cooking veggies, I find the wealth of information makes it hard to find one starting point. So I'm asking for your recommendations for a vegetarian cookbook with the following criteria:

Simple meals: I really like the concept of the Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourment, which restricts each meal to 5 ingredients or less. I'm not terribly fussy about an absolute limitation on number of ingredients, but simple to make would be good - I'm pretty pressed for time. Michael Smith's Best of Chef at Home is a good standard for how simple I'd like the instructions and prep to be.

Nutritional information: Rather than laboriously looking up every ingredient online myself and then calculating the portions, I would prefer if the book listed these for me. This is totally essential.

Illustrations: These are more or less optional, but pretty pictures totally motivate me to cook.

Optional: This is totally nitpicky, but if that book only focused on cooking actual meals rather than desserts/drinks, that'd be great, too. I drink water and eat fruit, and having a book that spends 1/5 of its real estate on smoothies and cakes that I won't be making seems like a bit of a waste.

Does my dream cookbook exist? Thanks in advance for any help!

Simple bed frame or alternative to frame altogether?

bradly — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:17:43 -0800

I'm looking for a minimalist/possibly nontraditional bed frame that won't throw off the zen of my bedroom. What options do I have? So I just redesigned my room, and the bed frame is the final battle to be fought.

I'm looking for something simple that draws as little attention as possible while raising the mattress off of the ground.

I can buy materials, or even a manufactured bed frame (If so, budget is preferably <$100).

More details: The bed is twin sized and the mattress is of questionable quality (read: the 'frame' doesn't need to promote long term mattress health). Paint is light blue and I am male.

Thanks!

Who Will Sing Me to Sleep?

Holly — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:33:32 -0800

Aural Joy Filter: which songs, performed live and on YouTube, combine simplicity, beauty and quietness into a haunting, moving whole that will make you cry when the mood is right? There are such lists on Ask MeFi, but often without links.I'm thinking of things like this by Kate Rusby, which is just the most gorgeously sad thing.

Which simple machine is a winch?

slappy_pinchbottom — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:19:15 -0800

SimpleMachinesFilter: which is a winch? Given the categorization of simple machines into these 6 types:

• lever
• inclined plane
• wedge

• screw
• pulley
• wheel and axis

would you classify a winch as a pulley or a wheel and axis type of simple machine? Or is it a combination of simple machines?

Also, would it be correct to say that the difference between the first three types of simple machines and the second three is that the second three multiply torque?

(If there's something screwy [so to speak] about the classification system in the first place, please sound off about that as well.)

Thanks in advance!

What's a good simple and cheap media or file server setup?

wastelands — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:15:38 -0800

Advice for a server newb who needs help getting started with a simple media/backup/torrent server? I've got a 438 GB movie collection an on external 500 GB USB hard drive right now, so I need to upgrade. I was thinking of buying two 1 TB external drives and using rsync for a poor man's RAID 1 setup. But for good drives plus shipping, that's nearly $250, and I thought, why not just setup a real file server? And maybe get a Bit Torrent thingy going too, so I could turn off my main computer at night and keep transfers going? Heck, I'd probably come up with other useful things for the server to do too.

But I don't know where to start. For hardware, looking at, say, a Dell Inspiron 530 ($379), it's too powerful and too expensive for what I'd use it for.

And for the OS... Windows Home Server? Ubuntu? I don't know what'd be easiest.

Ideas? Thanks!

Beautiful, simple iPhone games

fiercecupcake — Mon, 04 May 2009 10:48:29 -0800

I love Ferry Halim's Orisinal games. What are some games for the iPhone with a similar beautiful aesthetic and simple gameplay? Bonus points, as always, for free or cheap.

Houses that favour simplicity of construction

phoeniciansailor — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:41:52 -0800

Where can I find info on house construction that favours simplicity over clever extras? Think "LEGO". I often think about the idea of a modern, long-lasting, reasonably-efficient and simple house. Something unlike anything I've seen here in the U.S. My hope is that somewhere out there is a school of thought that describes what I'm looking for, but I haven't found anything yet.

When I say I'm looking for a simple house, I mean that in a few ways. One way is in the sense of "modular", where the more LEGO-like the better. I'd love to see some system where one section of the structure -- such as a section of roof, wall or floor -- could be non-destructively decoupled from the rest, and possibly re-used later on.

Simple also means each element serving its purpose in a straightforward, non-overloaded fashion. So for example, the walls would be solid, without any of this crazy idea of hiding water-wires-pipes inside them. The walls should keep the roof up and the wind out, and that's pretty much it. Getting clever and tucking all this other stuff into the walls just makes things complicated down the line.

The house should also be "mend-able" by an average person. So if I damage the floor by dropping a toaster oven, or crash my moped into the front door, the damage shouldn't extend to other systems that then have to be opened up and also repaired. In a sense, the simplicity and modularity of the structure would isolate the pieces from each other.

I also mean "simple" in the sense of preferring to use no small/fragile/"band-aid"-type parts. For example, I'd like to find some way for the design of the house itself to almost entirely keep the rain and wind out (and the comfortable temperatures in). I'd gladly take a smaller house built with thick concrete walls and enormous eaves, if it meant that the house wasn't relying on goofy things like caulk and expanding foam and rubber-backed-siding to keep the elements out.

I understand that in some ways I'm almost describing primitive buildings like castles, tepees, igloos, etc., but I'm looking for something much more modern and efficient than those. I'd still like all the things you'd expect in a house (a nice kitchen, comfortable living room, etc.). I'd just prefer to trade many of the normal "extravagances" (like drywall or hidden water pipes) for something simpler, cleaner and more logical.

If you've ever seen or heard of any buildings or schools of thought like this, please contribute. Thank you very much.

Who is 14F1? What is device 2720?

carsonb — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 01:26:51 -0800

My PCI Simple Communications Controller has bitten the dust. When I start up my crusty eMachines T2682 classic desktop computer these days I get the good ol' WinXP Found New Hardware Wizard prompting me to install drivers for my "PCI Simple Communications Controller". Sadly it cannot locate said drivers, and it turns out that "PCI Simple Communications Controller" is Device Manager-speak for "WTF is this?"

As this computer has failed bit by bit I've become more adept at reading tech forums, and as usual they've dealt me a cryptic clue to this puzzle. I learned that Device Manager deals out very little info about "PCI Simple Communications Controller", but what little it gives can be used to find drivers to reactivate the ? device. The Device Instance Id is
PCI\VEN_14F1&DEV_2720&SUBSYS_200014F1&REV_00\4&29817089&0&10F0
which, I believe, details the device vendor as "14F1" and the device itself as "2720".

Vendor 14F1 is listed as Conexant Systems Inc., a modem chipset manufacturer. However, for the life of me I cannot find their device 2720. None of the pci id lists that I've read match that device with vendor 14F1.

What am I missing? What is this mysterious device?

Maybe relevant: During video playback the audio snaps in and out, at random. I have not reinstalled Windows lately. I upgraded to SP3 a few weeks ago, then immediately reverted to a restore point. One of my RAM sockets has gone bad, the computer freezes occasionally, and I think the whole mobo might be dying. Is this some extension of that growing problem, or is there a local solution?

I ask this last because, while I know I need a new computer and will be purchasing one when the wallet is ripe, I'd like to use this opportunity to learn some about how computer guts work and what to do get them to work when they don't. Percussive maintenance only goes so far.

Wanted: Car stereo with simple aesthetics and aux input

wildblueyonder — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:30:35 -0800

Car Stereo Recommendations: must have an aux input. Must have zen-like interface simplicity, and mostly pushbutton operation except for the few things for which knobs really make sense. A manual should be all but redundant for operation of this device. Would be nice if it has bluetooth built-in. Satellite radio is a plus. What am I looking for? Here's an example that I don't think is good: the Eclipse Cd7200 MkII. The buttons are small and the labels are small and probably difficult to see. The most prominent control is a knob which is great for volume but I'll be the designers use it for other stuff for which it was never intended. 7 band EQ and gold-plated connectors and Das Blinkenlights are also overkill and really not preferred. And stuff with neon accent lighting is way way to common.

I almost think what I'm looking for will have the aesthetic of a basic built-in factory stereo -- big buttons, simple controls, radio + a few other things. I think I've seen stuff like this in high-end rental cars (Chrysler Sebring). Hell, even this random honda unit gets at the simplicity, even if it's really not all that great looking.

But I'm starting to think that every aftermarket car stereo is designed by 12 year old boys (God bless 'em). Hope me, Metafilter.

Simple French-language booklets for Kenyan French teacher of elementary students?

vanoakenfold — Fri, 23 May 2008 04:00:38 -0800

On a recent trip to Kenya, we visited a school who is in need of simple French language instruction booklets for elementary-age children. Most all of the language guides I've found are texts along the dense hardback or college variety, or come on DVD which wouldn't be at all feasible. Any ideas? They already know English. Just some simple, basic French core grammar structuring and lessons. They've recently been loaded up with young refugees fleeing from nearby French-speaking countries and are hoping to teach some to English-speaking kids. The teachers are very intelligent and college-educated but lack the resources I've got.

arrgh the demon eyes.

zengargoyle — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:28:56 -0800

Excruciatingly simple redeye removal on Windows?

I don't have a Windows machine to test for myself.

Going home tomorrow and want to find something.

Think Grandparents, (ok it's mom, but I'm like 40-ish), so at least think older non-computer people.

Tired of getting pictures of little ones in the family that always have Demon Eyes.

Photography tips probably won't help. I'm looking for the simplest batch style, maybe draw a rectangle around the eyes and click "Fix" and "Save" type of program.

Simple Minds are hard to find

ostranenie — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 14:26:47 -0800

Where on the internets can I find a clip of Simple Minds performing "Alive and Kicking" on Saturday Night Live?

How can I broadcast video to my parents?

Xazeru — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:57:08 -0800

What's a simple way to broadcast video of my new baby to my parents? My wife is due to have a baby girl in a few days. I'd like to let my parents see the new baby via webcam soon after the birth since they can't visit for a while. I just need to broadcast video to them - we can do audio over the phone.

The problem is that my parents are not very good with computers. Ideally, I'd like to give them a link to some kind of browser based webcam client. Does such a thing exist?

Any other ideas for a one way video broadcast that might work here?

Thanks!

hard to identify Simple minds ripoff

Baud — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:39:02 -0800

what's that song ? Who ripped off "new gold dream" keyboard line ? At the pub quizz the other week, we were asked to identify some songs. One of them had an intro that sounded very much like Simple Minds' "New Gold Dream" but it wasn't the eighties band (Jim Kerr and Co).

Over the general brouhaha all I could gather about the correct answer was "open your eyes". I guess it's the title of the song and not the artist but I can't be 100% affirmative.

Is there someone who heard that song, noticed the similarity with "New Gold Dreams" and can tell me who did than soundalike ?

Basic web development?

LordSludge — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:11:11 -0800

Basic web development for a non-technical user? I have a friend with a very small business who's been asking me to create a website for him, and I just don't have time -- especially for the ongoing maintenance and changes. I can do the first steps to get the site up and running, but I want to set him up with something he can update himself.

The challenge is that he's pretty non-technical. He's okay with MS Office and basic computer functions, but he would be utterly lost if he had to deal with HTML, CSS, javascript, PHP, mysql, etc. (My preferred web-dev tool is a text editor -- write all the code by hand -- but then he would be utterly dependent on me to make changes in the future.) Dreamweaver and similar complex web-dev tools are right out. He'd love an online store, but I'd have to maintain that myself, so that's not going to happen. So we're really just talking a few decent looking pages of basic text, pictures, links, and such. I have an web hosting account on Dreamhost that I'm planning to host his site on, but that's not set in stone.

Something like MySpace (but without banner ads or the MySpace stigma) would actually be okay. Is there a site that offers business-oriented pre-fab web hosting? Free is best, but a small fee may be okay. My other option, that I'm leaning towards, is to set him up a basic site using *cough* Microsoft Word, walk him through how to update the site, etc. I know Word is lousy, but he kinda knows Word, and he's comfortable with it... Unless there's a far simpler/better GUI tool out there?

Suggestions? Remember, I'm considering using MS Word. It doesn't have to be "good"; it has to be simple.

Recommend a simple monochrome mobile phone that can sync with Mac / PC?

tkbarbarian — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 12:01:43 -0800

I want a simple mobile phone with a monochrome screen and a fast interface that can sync contacts with my Mac or PC via a cable or IR. Something like the Nokia 1110 but with the ability to sync! I usually have 2 phones. One is a blackberry curve for work and I just got a Nokia 1110i for my personal phone. I like it because of it's size, sharp and clear screen, the incredible battery life, great sound quality and super-responsive, simple interface.

The ONLY missing link is the ability to easily sync/copy contacts to the phone. I can get the contacts into whatever data format is required, just give me somewhere to fire them. Nokia preferred.

I'm open to older models of phone that might be purchased on ebay. The irony is that the phones I've had in years gone by would probably fit this description without a problem.

All the current Nokia phones running the colour symbian interface I've tried are slow (laggy interface), harder to use, crash and eat battery like it's going out of fashion. I want to avoid these!

Simple realistic art

tabulem — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 09:07:55 -0800

Which artists have depicted simple, realistic scenes of humans performing activities of daily life? I'm looking for artwork which you can take one look at, and know what's going on. Nothing abstract. And the subject matter should be people doing things that people do, e.g. having a picnic, sitting around watching TV, relaxing at the beach, etc.

How can I make Starbucks shaken ice tea lemonade at home?

heavenstobetsy — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 18:51:30 -0800

I love Starbucks shaken ice tea lemonade with passion fruit tea. How can I attempt to replicate this at home? I've googled around to no avail. I have passion fruit tea and I have lemonade. Either I have the wrong brands or I'm missing an ingredient, because it just doesn't taste the same. Am I missing something? Is this even possible?

What simple blog software should I use?

sunimplodes — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 23:21:07 -0800

Help me choose a very simple blogging software! Okay. I'm designing a website for my girlfriend, who is a working artist. I've got everything done, but I want her to be able to update 2 pages through a password-protected form. Those pages would be the main/news page, and the shows/exhibits page.

I've used wordpress before, which would allow me to do this, except I find it overly complicated, especially for a very simple task like this. What I want is something like what Greymatter does, which is allows me to use my existing HTML as a template, and then insert {tags} into it where I want the blog content to be, like {title}, {body}, etc, rather than rewrite the whole bloody thing into an all-php wordpress template.

Any ideas?

Do black earrings exist?

yoga — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 10:59:16 -0800

In search of simple black earrings (pierced). They can be small hoops, studs or wires. Not necessarily onyx or obsidian - could be rubber, for all I care, but definitely not pearls. I'd like something kind of like just the hoop part on these. If combined with metal, preferred color is silver.

simple machines for complex problems

zem — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 12:15:28 -0800

Help me help a friend lift heavy things using pulleys and a ramp. A friend owns an old garage/shop that features a 30 degree ramp the goes from one level to another. He would like to lift heavy things up said ramp using pulleys. While we're both familiar with the idea of pulleys, the actual practical application eludes us. For example, does pulley diameter matter? Will the rope used need to be able to hold the total weight of the object or some fraction of the weight depending on the number of pulleys? Is there a website or other resource that a physics novice could use to work out different pulley/weight scenarios?

While I've found lots of elementary school experiment-type information, I'm really looking for something more practical.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

How do I share files and folders over a home network?

mr_silver — Thu, 03 May 2007 04:26:47 -0800

I have a small network consisting of a couple of PC's and a router/firewall/ADSL modem. On one PC, files that are placed in a folder which is shared with everyone else aren't accessible by everyone else. What am I doing wrong? I have a Netgear DG834G v3 router/firewall/ADSL modem which has three computers connected to it. Two of them wirelessly with dynamic IP addresses and one laptop which is connected directly into the box and assigned a fixed IP. All three machines are part of a workgroup called "Home". All three run Windows XP SP2 and all the latest patches.

The one with the fixed IP we shall call "server". It runs uTorrent. uTorrent downloads content and places it into a folder called "Completed Downloads" which is shared using Simple file sharing to be accessible to all.

The torrents that are downloaded tend to come as a folder, with other files in them. The other two machines on the network can see those folders in the top level. However when they go into any of these folders to get at the actual content, then they get permission denied.

So I turned off simple file sharing on the server and set up permissions so that "Everyone" had full control to the folder. I also made sure that "Inherit from parent" was selected.

Now the other two can see the folder and see the contents of the folder, but when they try to move (or even copy) the contents to their own hard-drive, then they get a permission denied message.

So I then went into the permissions on the folder again and selected "replace permission entries on child objects" and lo and behold, it worked and the other two machines were able to copy and move the files from the laptop! However this only lasted for the content currently there - as soon as new items were placed into that folder they could not be copied or moved.

My goal is simple, I want content to be downloaded on the server to this folder and anyone else on the network to be able to take that content from there and put it on their own machine.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do?

What easy, small, cheap instrument should I learn?

marginaliana — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 07:55:24 -0800

Please help me find a musical instrument to learn that fits all these qualifications (in order of importance): super easy to learn, small, cheap. I'm looking to learn an instrument as a hobby, but I know myself well enough to know I don't have the patience to learn something that requires a lot of practicing just to get mediocre. I'd ideally like to pick up something that I can be okay at fairly quickly. I'd also like it to be portable and inexpensive so I can stick it in my pocket and take it wherever and practice when I feel the urge. I can go larger than pocket sized but not as big as, say, a guitar. Something funky and unusual would be cool, also. I don't particularly want to learn the harmonica (although if you really want to make a case for it, I'll listen).

I've checked out this thread which has some great portable instruments but not much commentary on their ease of use, and this thread which talks about ease but in relation to things like violin and piano, which are above both my size and price range.

In terms of what type of music I'd like to play, I'm pretty flexible, except I'd rather not go for something that's going to sound country-esque (ie, not the spoons or the washboard or something like that).

A topic for a simple, observation-based research project on Chinese celebrities?

gttommy — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 03:07:09 -0800

A topic for a simple, observation-based research project on Chinese celebrities? I'm working on a small research project based on my observations of Chinese celebrities and fame.

The only thing I can come up is: "In Chinese media, there is an obsession with European physical appearances", which won't be too hard because visual information is easily observed - just have to look at commercials, billboards and magazines.

I have 3 questions, but you don't have to answer all of them but if you can... Great! :)

Question 1: what do you think of this as a topic?

Question 2: what sort of things should I keep in mind while I carry out my observations or where are good places to look?

Question 3: Any other simple observation topics you can suggest for me? Below are other things that interest me but unable to come up with a simple observational topic for any of them...

How celebrities are consumed, what type of physical features or personality are revered, what are the demands for new faces in movies, tv, music, politics, etc and the demographics driving it.

Thanks in advance for a speedy reply - time is running low!

Btw, I currently reside in Hangzhou, China.

Slideshows for beginners. Absolute beginners.

LGCNo6 — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 13:19:04 -0800

Creating a podcast with synchronized images that will pop up at irregular intervals during the podcast. I'll also be showing some very unsophisticated users how to do this in a few months. Which tool is best for the job... Both for Mac and Windows, by the way. I know for Mac, iPhoto or Garage Band will let me do this pretty easily. That's fine. For Windows, I could go with Microsoft Photo Story or even Movie Maker. But what's simplest?

But I know there must be even easier (and that's the key here--simple to use, simple to teach) solutions-- the target demographic is people who require SERIOUSLY easy instructions.

Is it possible to even do this in PowerPoint? I thought it was, but I can't figure out how to create a persistent audio player that will remain onscreen and playing the podcast throughout the duration of the slideshow. When I try embedding one, the audio stops the second the slide switches.