Acetio | Blogma

Each year Pantone names a color to be the "color of the year" of sorts, anticipating trends in clothing and home decorating.

The color they have selected for 2010 is "Turquoise", nearly identical to the 2005 selection, "Blue Turquoise"

15-5519

HEX: #1A9A94

In 2009 the shade was called "Mimosa", although it looked more like mustard

14-0848

HEX: #EEC050

And in 2008 the color was "Blue Iris"

18-3943

HEX: #2B167B

I don't recall seeing any more blue in the world in 2008 or any more yellow in 2009. Maybe I'm not sensitive enough to have noticed anything but the broadest patterns, but the only color trends I've ever noticed in this country were the early 1990s when mauve seemed to be everywhere, and the past five years when colors in the range of chartreuse/wasabi/avocado became popular.

In Japan, nearly ten years ago, I noticed an inordinate number of women dressed like neopolitan ice cream: tan, white, and pink. I was sure we would see that style in the US, but it hasn't happened.

Whoever came up with 'Roy G. Biv' as a memory aid for remembering color names had to scratch for vowels.

Red, Green, and Blue are necessary, of course as those are the three colors our eyes are 'tuned' to perceive, with all other colors being combinations of these primaries.

Yellow is a good addition, since although it isn't a true primary, it is the brightest color we perceive since both red- and green-sensitive retina in our eyes are stimulated by it, making it appear nearly twice as bright as red or green alone.

For eons, people have enjoyed mapping the musical scale to the color spectrum.

Despite knowing that music is waves in air and light is waves in electromagnetic fields, I decided to do a little research and math.

The color spectrum ranges from 384 to 769THz (terahertz)


By repeatedly doubling a note (say A, at 440Hz) we can find where it would actually fall in the electromagnetic spectrum.

I've been doing a lot of experimenting with animation compression, looking for the best format to deliver photo-quality moving images while minimizing both the download time and the need for the user to have to bother with external players.