The Big Reveal

Okay, so, it’s the day after April Fool’s, so naturally the jig is up. My custom style from yesterday is not, in fact, a preview of the new theme, but rather a Pony-fication of our current. I am assured that our new theme is coming soon, and when it does, my custom CSS will very likely break. So, for posterity, here’s a screenshot of what the front page (and all subsequent pages in fact!) would have looked like if you weren’t one of the 97 that were brave enough to try it.

Screenshot of the Pony-fied theme - sorry, visually impaired folks, I have no idea how to prank you with ponies as well.

I have it installed myself, and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to change it for a while yet.

I had also changed my Gravatar to a pony made with General Zoi’s My Little Pony Creator (I have a news item I’d like to post about her a little later in fact!). I didn’t, however, post it to the blog then the way Dana did, but I did manage to inculcate some pony-on-pony warfare in the comments on my other prank post. Anyway, here’s the pony I built. Probably the most over-encumbered member of its species ever built.

Of course, ponies weren’t the only prank that happened around these parts yesterday — the biggest prank, the one that attracted the most of our bloggers, involved casting aspersions and recriminations about one another in one gigantic circular firing squad. Which was also fun.

So, what’d you think?

The Big Reveal
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Sneak preview of FtB’s new theme. Yes, really.

So, this is an unfortunate day to pick to finally drop the hammer and make things happen around these parts, but what can you do. I suppose you could consider this a kind of reverse April Fool’s prank, since you’re not the one being pranked here.

The tech ghetto of the Freethought Blogs participants, including webmaster Matt and the guy Ed hired to build our new theme, have been tossing around ideas and CSS code on our back channel over the past two months. They’ve been quibbling over minor details and the whole blog has been through four separate and distinct redesigns, including several that were built off our present theme.

Things were getting a bit heated, and the process has stalled out completely, so I have taken it upon myself to take the most recent revision, convert it to a Stylish script and let you folks preview it without having to alter the server-side itself. The Stylish plugin allows you to override specific websites’ default behaviour, making them look or act differently.

It’s still a work in progress, and I strongly suspect I might even irritate some of the tech folks over this stunt. But hey, they’re the ones getting pranked!

Below the fold are detailed instructions for Firefox and Chrome users, and instructions for IE and Safari users that involve downloading Firefox or Chrome. Yeah, sorry.
Continue reading “Sneak preview of FtB’s new theme. Yes, really.”

Sneak preview of FtB’s new theme. Yes, really.

Backstabbing and well-poisoning are Assassins’ games

About a month ago, I had a few conversations with Dylan Biery (Assassin Actual) over email, and considering what just happened over at his blog, I think it’s probably time to poison the well a little.

I’ll be perfectly blunt — I wouldn’t trust basically anything on his blog as being on the up and up, pretty much since this post, because there are some interceding events that I really hoped would sort themselves out without interference, but evidently haven’t.
Continue reading “Backstabbing and well-poisoning are Assassins’ games”

Backstabbing and well-poisoning are Assassins’ games