I stumbled across a great article describing web site color schemes used in a couple industries (real estate and health care).

Each article lists down the page a link to a major website within the given category and two color blocks representing the palette/layout of each unique page in the site referenced:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/category/color/

In Flash 8, I had a movieclip "artwork" that I wanted to mask with another movieclip "mcdots" from actionscript. The typical syntax is:

mcMaskee.setMask(mcMask);
// or in my case:
artwork.setMask(mcdots);

The trouble is when I dynamically load the movie "maskdots," something weird happens, and the mask won't work:

maskdots.loadMovie("dots.swf");
artwork.setMask(mcdots);

The movie loads as expected, but the dots simply overlay rather than mask.

The solution was to delay or separate the process of loading the mask and applying it. To avoid a messy load checkstate routine, I simply used a basic enclosure called from a setTimeout (years of javascript taught me that):

This morning on Public Radio's Performance Today, I heard about Mozart going back and forth with [another composer] with colorful sketches, markings, and quips within his original manuscripts like a couple 4th graders would.  I was inspired and intrigued to find out more and see for myself.

Turns out you can peruse a digital archive of Mozart's and LOADS of other artists' original manuscripts and artwork on-line!  By default, you are led to a crafty Shockwave viewer that lets you zoom, pan, and flip pages, but there is also an accessible version that might be easier to digest (and faster to dive into!).

So the Arts Council of Brazos Valley recently launched their new website. While more interactive and apparently easier to update than the previous version, it is somewhat cluttered and limited.

The previous run of the website was static html. There were some really nice design touches to it: the look was artsy but still clean and professional; there was some really nice flash work in there to make certain features pop. The downside was that it was not dynamic: all modifications and updates had to be performed by a web professional. Further, the old calendar of events was a horrific but usable copy/paste from Excel. Finally, the thing just wouldn't render well in my cell phone-- when I'm on the road, I like to know what events are happening on the go!

Recently, while driving North on Highway 6 (East Bypass), just before the entrance from University Drive, I saw a mysterious circled "S" in the fill-tar in the pavement:

I suspected it was a creative road crew joking around or adding his/her mark, so to speak.

Here's a non-story you could sink your teeth into:

My coworker's car got jacked at about 12:30pm today (a work day! from a government parking lot!).. Craziness. It's an old Taurus, nothing special about it (other than a jacked transmission and some unevenly worn tires now, I bet). Click the image to get a zoom-- the department is a abuzz looking for witnesses from the windowed offices upstairs.

Today, I finished archiving a bunch of our old digital photos and video to DVD.

This is the stack of data DVDs with digital photos from the past two years. 10 discs x ~4.1G = ~41Gigs of photos and video snippets. That means that our last two years can be summarized in 40gigs, and there's a lot of repetition in there due to my photo-happy self.

So it was time to install another round of cabinet child-safety latches so Dominic wouldn't go through everything he shouldn't be in.  Kids.. 

Here is a photo progression of how I installed them on a drawer.  There's also a photo of one of the cabinets-- those are a bit easier, but in all, it's a pretty simple system to master in the first place. I hope Dominic doesn't think so.  ;)

Check out:
http://www.cio.com/archive/110106/tl_rome.html
talking about this story on cell phone data used in real-time mapping to learn about how overlay maps like:

were created in real-time using anonymous cell phone and gps data. Cool stuff!