Made by Melouca
February 26th, 2010Melissa this past week started an awesome blog and an Etsy shop. You should totally check them out, subscribe to her updates, buy nifty knit stuff, and generally support her quest to out-nerd me.
Melissa this past week started an awesome blog and an Etsy shop. You should totally check them out, subscribe to her updates, buy nifty knit stuff, and generally support her quest to out-nerd me.
So, this happened today:

Since the announcement a few hours ago:

I’m amazed at what people find in my work, and I don’t like to limit what you see with a title. For me titles are very difficult, and I don’t usually even think in terms of a theme when I’m creating a sculpture. Once it’s finished I’ll come up with a title, but one person might see flowers, another something from the sea or something from a dream. Bellagio was inspired by the hotel on Lake Como, and I wanted to use the lake in the title – it’s so romantic. I used the word fiori (flowers), but everybody sees something different.
While working on a project for the State Hermitage Museum last year, I had to implement some image watermarking. The basic requirement was that for a certain type of uploaded image, its largest thumbnail should have the museum’s logo tiled across it. I was using attachment_fu to handle the image upload, and ImageMagick/RMagick to process the thumbnails.
After some cursory Googling, I found the ImageMagick Annotating guide, which had this sample watermark command:
$ convert overlay.png -fill grey50 -colorize 40 miff:- |\ composite -dissolve 15 -tile - original.jpg watermarked_image.jpg
The dissection of the command:
overlay.png: The source image to overlay
-fill grey50 -colorize 40: Alter the colors of the watermark file
composite: command to overlay the watermark
-dissolve 15 -tile: “dissolve” the overlay at 15%, for good transparency, and tile (repeat) the watermark over the source image.
That’s simple enough, and with these source files:
and dearest Rufus:
$ convert overlay.png -fill grey50 -colorize 40 miff:- |\ composite -dissolve 15 -tile - rufus.jpg result-15.jpg
Produces:
convert overlay.png -fill grey50 -colorize 40 miff:- |\ composite -dissolve 50 -tile - rufus.jpg result-50.jpg
Unfortunately, RMagick’s watermark method doesn’t support tiling. To work around, I had to call the composite_tiled! method on a colorized image. This code is in my Thumbnail model, which includes attachment_fu:
class Thumbnail < ActiveRecord::Base has_attachment :content_type => :image, # some settings omitted :watermark_overlay => File.join(RAILS_ROOT, '/public/images/watermark-overlay-image.png'), :watermarkable_size => "1500>" after_attachment_saved do |record| if record.respond_to?(:parent_id) and record.parent_id.nil? # the original image, not the smaller thumbnails with_image record.full_filename do |img| img.composite_tiled!( Magick::ImageList.new(attachment_options[:watermark_overlay]).first.colorize(0.4, 0.4, 0.4, 'grey'), # process and colorize image Magick::SoftLightCompositeOp) img.write record.full_filename # save image end end end end
Now every Thumbnail record will automatically have a watermarked large image.

This is Gordie, the Gansen family pet bird. He’s been around since 1997, making him 12 years old. Words cannot express how much I love this little guy.
He loves nothing more than to run around and chase pieces of paper. If you tap on the paper, the following will happen:
And sometimes he gets a bit overstimulated and decides to bite everyone, then it’s time to hang out in the cage:

Oh, Gordie. happy new year to you.
This junk email wiggled its way through Google’s filtering, much to my delight. After reading it, I felt genuinely touched, as if Deborah was really worried for me, worried that I wouldn’t claim my money.
Oh, Deborah, if I ever make it over to Benin to collect my fifteen thousand United States dollars, I’ll give you a hug.
Email in full:
Fund Beneficiary,
Welcome to ECO BANK Money Gram money transfer Cotonou Benin Plc,
Beneficiary! This is to notify you that we have concluded your payment through Money Gram.Here is your 3payment MTCN of USD$15,000.00 united state dollars $5,000.00 each, First payment, MTCN 212-314-53 (2) 805-217-78 (3) 968-584-30 and we will give you the sender name to pick up this money immediately you send the activation remittance permit fee which is $188.00 dollars to the name below.
Receiver Name == Augustine Okolo
Address: …. Benin / City Continuo
Test Q…………What?
Ans ……………..Payment.
Amount $188.00Kindly send the activated remittance permit fee with the given infor…and call for sender name on +22 998 377 738 Urgent,
The grace given to you, is a previledge, not a right, therefore it must not be abused. When i imagine the magnitude of your compensation funds left in our possession,it pains me to see that you are yet to get your transfered.You should count yourself extremely luck for the fortune that has come your way today . It is one in a life time fortune and you should concentrate on finalizing this transaction rather than responding to negative thoughts.
As a friend, i will not like you to loose this chance which has come up today because not every body in this life has this great chance that has come your way including me.Act fast in remitting the fee and let us finalize this transaction which has already stayed longer than expected. I await your swift response, comply and details
Sir. M. Deborah Utecht
FORIGN OPERATION MANAGER
MONEY GRAM OFFICE BENIN REPUBLIC )