I found:

A package of baby bella mushrooms
some cloves of garlic
1/4 cup chopped red onion
16 oz chick peas

I threw the red onion in a dry pan, turned up the heat.
roughly chopped the garlic, added to pan
drained chick peas, added to the mix
added roughly chopped mushrooms and a little olive oil

mixed up some vegetable stock from bouillon

I let that simmer a bit, added some kosher salt, pepper
It was a bit thin so I added a bit of flour to thicken

grabbed some parsley from my herb garden chopped, added last.

It’s quite yummy.

Feel free to use these for whatever you will. I haven’t cropped them for common desktop resolutions this time, I will leave that to you.

These are full 8 megapixel jpg’s with some light processing done. Thumbnails and links after the jump.
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It’s nothing fancy graphically, but the intricacies of the motion make it gorgeous. I’ve never seen a screen saver that was more interesting to me.

In real life, these collisions do occur. They aren’t a quick dance like on the screen. When you factor in the incredible distances involved and the scope of the masses interacting the cosmic fender benders take millions if not billions of years to play out.

The beauty becomes decidedly darker when you think of the implications. I’m one that doesn’t doubt the existence of life on worlds other than our own. Imagine for a moment just a single stray star going along it’s merry way through the universe, shot off on a path that brushes close to our own star. The interplay of gravity on that level has the potential to rip planets out of orbit. At best, that would completely change what life could exist and how it gets by on a world. It is much more likely it would just sterilize the world completely either through freezing, collision, or melting. A slight change in orbit makes a drastic difference in climate.

Now think of that on a galactic scale. Millions of stars being shifted about, never mind all the planets, asteroids, comets, etc. How many species erased in one event? How much potential?

In perspective it’s really not that dark, considering the timescales involved, species could rise and fall many times in the process. And of course, the newly shifted systems that exist after the collision may now harbor life that was not possible before.

I was reminded of all these thoughts this morning by a post on Bad Astronomy Blog. Check out Bad Astronomy’s write up of some great Hubble shots of galactic collisions and interactions. As you’re looking at the pretty pictures, think of all that’s actually going on, and all that implies to make this eye candy.

A couple examples:

In the case of tabular data Veerle Pieters has a couple of excellent tutorials on her methods.

Smashing Magazine just posted a nice showcase of gorgeous web forms. The focus here was contact forms, and I think the examples they picked were mostly terrific executions. Contact forms are easy though. You just have a handful of fields to deal with, so you have a lot of room to work with. You can use a lot of whitespace to add beauty and readability in this case, but what do you do when you have a more complicated form?

While I’ve built dozens of websites and web applications, I still find myself struggling when the data that needs to be presented or input is more than a few fields. My general attack on an information dense page is to try and distill it down to what is most important. That doesn’t always work. Sometimes the client wants more information than seems possible viewable at the same time. Sometimes that’s what the end user wants.

So where does that leave me? Generally unsatisfied. I’ll present as much information as makes sense in tables that are well styled. I’ll rethink the flow of an application to minimize the input you need in each step. That itself is a dangerous tightrope to walk, because if you disassemble something too far, you’re just creating another kind of complexity. I know I’m not the only one who struggles with this. I think it may bother me more than most.

Here are some examples of interfaces that really bother me. I find them difficult to use, but I don’t know the solution for cramming all the information they cover in either.

The Bad

my.ebay.com

There’s a lot of information you can access here. The main area isn’t terrible, but generally presents things I will never care about knowing. There is a good deal more info buried in the left hand menu with descriptions that don’t actually tell me what I am looking for.

myspace.com

Ok, this one everyone knows. I won’t even bother going into detail or posting a screen. Myspace has a truly horrible archaic interface, even the new beta revisions. I don’t even have an account any longer because it’s such a pain.

The Good

Facebook.com

While it’s getting cluttered, and the advent of facebook apps has made the site a lot less desirable, it’s still pretty easy to use and read. It’s not gorgeous, but it’s not ugly.

Blinksale.com

This is an invoicing service. Very straightforward functionality, very easy to use, and very easy on the eyes. I’ve been using them well over a year now, and I’m still very pleased.

So I’m calling for more examples from readers of both the good and the bad of information dense web design. Better yet, do you have any ideas on methods of dealing with it in your own designs? If I get enough responses I’ll do a follow up post and I’d be happy to showcase your work.

I love the sound of this one. It gives my fingers a good workout, and I move around the fretboard pretty well. I didn’t play it as written, the last few bars I did a little embellishment on the rhythm so that it comes to an end more gradually and naturally. The original just has me play the beginning chords in the same rhythm and then strum an A minor. I like my version better.

[See post to listen to audio]

Recorded in two parts, one just the guitar, straight into my trusty macbook. Then I came back and sang over it. I still haven’t mastered the singing and playing at the same time, invariably I’ll forget what I’m doing on one of the two.

[See post to listen to audio]

The question today is what is the meaning of your life. That’s close to the ultimate question everyone seems to be asking, what is the meaning of life, which is unanswerable. Luckily, this slight variation to that question is very answerable (and no, not with 42.) I will try to be concise and not prattle on about my morals, but it’s difficult since the concepts are tied together. The answer is really very simple:

I am.

My life is it’s own meaning. I need no further justification. All the good things in my life follow from that simple two word statement. Because I am, because I will, I create the world in which I want to live. Some of you reading this will not understand the depth of meaning in that simple concept, or perhaps you’ll even balk at it. That’s ok, I’ll try to explain further.

I love to understand. I live to experience life.

Life has a lot to offer. It’s got a lot of pleasure, a lot of pain, really it seems a mess at times. It is a very complex place, this universe we live in. It can be horribly confusing. From the moment we’re born we’re bombarded with inputs from our senses. I’m sure those first few years are nothing but a cacophony of sensation while we start to learn how to filter and interpret what we’re experiencing. But learn we do!

It’s a never ending process, learning how to deal with and understand our experiences. We are exposed to new ideas, and those like me integrate what we learn with our own understanding.

This web page has a bookmark/favourites icon. You can see it up in the location bar of your browser to the left of the URL. It’s a japanese kanji Ri (pronounced ree.) It is the root concept for reason, logic, order, justice. It is one of the most important concepts we humans have come up with yet, even though we often times don’t use, or even understand it. It’s one of my highest ideals. It’s not the core of my being; it’s my most important tool.

Reason is my absolute

It’s the only absolute we really have access to. It is from reason which we build our understanding of our lives. We have our senses to use to experience the world around us, but it is reason that lets us pull those inputs together to uncover–and create–meaning. Our values stem from reason, our morals, our purpose, even our emotions. Realizing this, and utilizing it is one of the most important breakthroughs a person can make.

Through understanding I can create, build, and produce.

Whether a man is to live alone, or as part of society, he must create. There is no escaping it. You are not fully alive if you are not producing value. It doesn’t have to be anything monumental, but all life creates. It doesn’t matter where you stand philosophically or politically, creation is required for continuance of life. Simple things like planting seed are acts of creation. We all do it. Sometimes I feel I’m addicted to it. I have a huge range of hobbies. I’m always trying to build or improve something.

I live to experience life.
Through reason I turn that experience into understanding.
From that understanding I create value.

It sounds a bit broad and vague because it is. I’m a photographer, a musician, a designer, a software developer, a gardener, a mechanic, and the list will just continue to grow. All of that stems from the above.

Posted a review on newegg where I bought it - immediate response! Just not in any way to me, it was a response to the negative review suggesting I contact them for support…

They list no phone number on their micronet site (I called the sales number for fantomdrives,) there are several reviews now on newegg with similar circumstances, and complaints of them not fulfilling their rebate offers.

It’s one thing to have quality control problems, it’s entirely different to not offer any support or communication channels to your customers. I accept hardware failure, it happens. I don’t except offering warranties you will not honor.

Alex’s magic stick is glowing towards me. (she calls my iPhone a magic stick)

I’m drunk, I may steal too many.

Fresh Thyme
Kosher Salt

Heat pan, oil
Chop your onions into rings, caramelize. Really, I mean it.
Chop garlic while those are cooking down. you want the garlic to be chunky, so cut into 1/4ths or 1/8ths depending on your cloves.
Toss in your beans and the garlic, toss with the onions, reduce heat.

I let it steam at this point, but I was using frozen beans. If fresh you’ll just want to sautee them on low until they are soft.

At this points your onions won’t really be looking much like onions any more. that’s ok.

Once the beans have softened remove from heat, sprinkle with your choice of cheese. Cover the top, bake long enough so the cheese begins to brown just slightly. Optionally sprinkle breadcrumbs with the cheese.