h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

every now and then our company really pulls out the stops and does something nice for us*.

Today is the start of lunar new year. The year of the blue horse** and as is traditional we just had our first quarter company meeting and traditional Korean rice cakes (and sekt - of which I drank to much to do any really productive work this afternoon)

Since I have been at the company they have also occasionally given us presents. Once it was a rather spiffy smartphone just before smartphones really took off. But in the 14 years I've been there the most regular thing has been some kind of tracksuit. The first was a washed-out olive thing in a thing which really didn't suit a Western complexion. (only the trousers survive, I use them for gardening)

The next was a tracksuit (black trousers, white zip-top) with a t-shirt (with pink flashes for the women) and knee-length trouser-things. That wasn't too bad and apart from the zip-top I have worn them in the gym.

The next was an Adidas thing, black with gold stripes. I gave the top to one of the Gruesome twosome and wear the trousers to the gym. If worn together the suit makes me look as though I'm off to the 'hood to deal some crack.

Today we received a Nike outfit. Dark grey for the men, with a t-shirt. With the exception of my good self and the other least girly woman in the company they were black with white flashes. We got dark grey with the top consisting of a lower half in grey and the upper half in magenta. With a hood. All the women were also given a sport bag, which is good because I need a new one.

But: Magenta! ( actually wear a fair amount of pink-ish or purple because it goes well with my northern European complexion. But MAGENTA!!


* Actually, despite my near-constant moaning the company itself isn't bad, it's pretty good in so many respects so I really ought to bear that in mind a bit more often.

** as i have said elsewhere: i am patiently waiting for the year of the rainbow coloured unicorn

Ask them next time to buy you some fabric dye too

Call it puce.

Nah. Doesn't help.

Puce lis a colour that should be pronounced with a hard "c"...

I always thought puce meant "flea coloured" which would make it sort of browny-purple. But I often see it used for magenta so I checked at dictionary.com

puce [pyoos] Show IPA
adjective
1.
of a dark or brownish purple.
noun
2.
a dark or brownish purple.
Origin:
1780–90; < French: literally, flea < Latin pūlic-, stem of pūlex

How odd... I also thought it ment more of a browny colour, and not at all purpley

On the bright side you'll barely notice stains on magenta

I have never in my life uttered the word "puce".

And when it comes to describing colors, I'm more likely use RGB values; no arguments.

Colours should be like moovies (where everyone knows there are only two types of moovies; those about horses, and those not about horses), So, for colour... there is black and then there is not black... surely

There's black and chestnut and bay and palomino and grey and piebald and skewbald and dun and roan, surely...

Dark or brownish purple is maroon in my book.

In the (old-fashioned children's) books I read (currently reviewing the entire Chalet school series on Goodreads), characters reasonably regularly go 'puce with indignation'. So I always thought it meant scarlet. You live and learn.

Mol

Well, I suppose "turning puce with indignation" is more poetic than "turning RGB: 204, 136, 153 with indignation" but it's not as precise.


TIL that puce comes in various shades from light to dark. The darker ones are indeed very similar if not indistinguishable from maroon.

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puce

BTW... Test your color acuity. http://www.xrite.com/online-color-test-challenge

I'm a bit disappointed to see that mine has decreased over the last decade or so. I did this test with a physical test kit with about sample caps set on rows of pegs about 15 years ago and only missed about 2. On this online X-Rite 100 test, I just got an 8.

I got 42. Rather appropriate, considering

Who said 50 shades of puke? I know I didn't

I got a 3 in this test.
You have to remember that your result also depends on your screen/screen settings.

I got 0

But what does this mean: "Highest score for your gender and age range: 1520"

I got 11, but I am on the laptop

I've got no excuses. I'm using a color calibrated monitor. Granted it isn't a CRT though.

Also, I work in imaging so between this and my it's not looking good.

I had a lovely monitor at one company, and part of my job was to actually calibrate the designers monitors every morning

Had a lovely pantone printer there too, which had to be calibrated every week