(The websafe palette is a set of 216 colors which are meant to look the same on PCs and Macs, thus ensuring cross-platform compatibility in Web design. It's something of a holdover from the days of 8-bit [256-color] monitors, as 24-bit displays are now standard. Also standard is the form of the English sonnet: three quatrains followed by a couplet, rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The following differs slightly, with its scheme of AAAA BBBB CCCC DD. Alert readers will also note the acrostic formed by the first letters of each line.)
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Ode to the Websafe Palette
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Websafe palette! Heroes two-sixteen!
Entrance the multitudes with shining green!
By cathode ray, by liquid crystal's sheen
Stream forth thy avatars, on each machine!

At odds may operating systems be,
Full sore their battles rage, diversity
Estrange a billion desktop shrines -- too free,
Perhaps, this enterprise? this Babel tree?

Ah, no! the mighty palette's bridge will span
Laptops, handhelds, browsers obscure; no man
Enisled need be, though antiquarian
Tenacious, so audacious is thy plan!

Then hail! o lingua franca of Web sight!
Electronic Esperanto! Hail thy light!

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Copyright 2003 websafestudio