I was using a smaller image, and want to run a conversion of my own (it saves an extra HTTP connection, making it easier on both the client’s browser and the server). A quick trip to Google turned up an online conversion tool that worked great.

Wikipedia also provides sample code for doing conversions with PHP: (Please notice there is no error handling!)
<?php
header('Content-type: text/css');
function data_uri($file, $mime) {
$contents = file_get_contents($file);
$base64 = base64_encode($contents);
return ('data:' . $mime . ';base64,' . $base64);
}
?>
body {
background-image:url('<?php echo data_uri('elephant.png', 'image/png'); ?>');
}

I use TextMate for coding, and wasn’t thinking about the CSS bundle item that brings up OS X’s default color picker (Command-Shift-C; the TextMate bundle automatically copies in the color using hex notation), I was pleased by a tip from macosxhints.com showing how to write a one-line Applescript app that shows the color picker.

1. Open “AppleScript Editor.app” (in the Applications folder)
2. Enter the following:choose color
3. Save it. Change the file format to “Application” in the save dialog.

I added an icon I grabbed from iconfactory.com. (Download the icon set you want to use. Right-click on the new application, and pick “Get Info”, and drag-and-drop your desired icon over the application’s icon.)

Even more turbo-charging the Color Picker

I also found two free plug-ins for the color picker. The first was “Hex Color Picker” from Waffle Software, which outputs the hex version of a color suitable for CSS (although I’m using the RGB values more and more). The second was a plugin called Mondrianum which utilizes Adobe’s Kuler palette service. To top it off, I learned you can create your own palettes in the color picker (it’s the third tab).

Awesomeness all around.

The trouble with talking about government budgets, even ones as small as a city or local school district, is that big numbers rapidly lose meaning to people. It’s more visceral to talk about a dozen people (or dollars or “things”) than to discuss a million of then. Big numbers are hard to visualize.

Take dictionaries for example. Without peeking, is 10,000 words a good dictionary? What about 20,000? How many words are there in a typical collegiate dictionary? Take a guess before looking at the answer.

You’ve heard the politicians say it (and it’s true): “A million here, a million there and pretty soon we’re talking real money.” One of the ways I try to make the number a bit more “real” is to estimate how many people could be employed at a particular job for that amount. Try it. How many professional workers (between $50,000–60,000 annual salary) can be employed in government jobs for $1M? (My answer.)

John Gruber linked to a blog called Information is Beautiful, highlighting an impressive infographic comparing budget numbers in the billions. (The same link that starts this post. Once there, click the graphic to see how the data was sourced, along with viewer comments.) Go see it!

How would government change if budget committees published these numbers visually instead of numerically?