Colorify

colorify.zsh

function colorify() {
  #number=$(bc <<< "$(echo ${1} | od -An -vtu1 -w100000000 | tr -d ' ') % 28 + 1")
  #number=$(bc <<< "ibase=16; $(echo ${1} | md5sum | awk '{print $1}'|tr '[[:lower:]]' '[[:upper:]]')" 2> /dev/null)

  # md5sum is acceptable here because we don't need a strong hashing algo at all
  # we just want the property of hashing algos that a given input always means the same output
  hex=$(echo ${1} | md5sum | awk '{print $1}'|tr '[[:lower:]]' '[[:upper:]]')
  # removing characters is done because zsh complains about the size of the number
  # even though we do this, there's still more than enough 'randomness'
  # doing this also ensures the value is positive which is cool
  # you could remove this (:0:-20) in bash, just make the value absolute
  number=$(bc <<< "$((16#${hex:0:-20})) % 28 + 1")

  # acceptable ranges:
  # 31-37
  # 41-47
  # 90-97
  # 100-107
  if [[ ${number} -gt 21 ]]; then let number=number+79-76; fi
  if [[ ${number} -gt 14 ]]; then let number=number+76-34; fi
  if [[ ${number} -gt 7 ]]; then let number=number+34-31; fi
  if [[ ${number} -gt 0 ]]; then let number=number+30; fi

  # these colors look bad
  if [[ ${number} -eq 34 ]] || [[ ${number} -eq 47 ]] || [[ ${number} -eq 102 ]] || [[ ${number} -eq 106 ]]; then let number=number-1; fi
  if [[ ${number} -eq 103 ]]; then let number=number+1; fi

  #echo "number: ${number}"
  echo -e "\e[${number}m${1}\e[0m"
}

Bash color reference