Nostalgia for blue and green

December 18, 2009 5:45 PM

What happened to the Mefi blue and the green on my Acer Aspire one netbook? All I see is white.

I usually read Metafilter on a 2006 MacBook. On the netbook I find that Metafilter, AskMe and MetaTalk are all black text on white. The backgrounds of other sites are not loading properly either. Is there something I can do to fix this, or is it a consequence of the small size of the netbook display and not fixable? I am using an Acer Aspire one netbook (D250-1905) and Windows XP and Firefox 3.5.6.

posted by bad grammar to Bugs at 5:45 PM (34 comments total)

First thing, check your preference and see if you have the plain theme selected somehow. If not, try blowin gout your cookies and logging in again, see if it persists.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:47 PM on December 18, 2009

blowin' gout seems terribly painful.
posted by nadawi at 6:04 PM on December 18, 2009 [4 favorites]

Further to what cortex said, you may have elevated levels of uric acid.
posted by tellurian at 6:07 PM on December 18, 2009

It's because your account has been elevated to Metafilter Pro. You're much more appealing and marketable now.
posted by ardgedee at 6:27 PM on December 18, 2009

Did you recently become employed? Perhaps the computer has sensed your new degree of professionalism and adjusted itself accordingly.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 6:52 PM on December 18, 2009 [6 favorites]

I predict at least two 'it's more professional' jokes above me and a few dozen below.
posted by flatluigi at 6:59 PM on December 18, 2009

a few dozen
posted by gman at 7:09 PM on December 18, 2009 [23 favorites]

The backgrounds of other sites are not loading properly either...Windows XP and Firefox 3.5.6

Check your display settings in Tools > Options > Content > Colors, paying special attention to the checkboxes.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:14 PM on December 18, 2009

(Or maybe your computer simply wants you to Aspire for something more professional.)
posted by Sys Rq at 7:16 PM on December 18, 2009

It's a deliberate feature built in to all Acer computers. As a Taiwanese manufacturer they have to be very careful to preserve the appearance of political neutrality and can't be seen to favour either the Pan-Green or Pan-Blue camps.
posted by Abiezer at 7:47 PM on December 18, 2009

Have you tried formatting your harddrive or reseating your RAM? If that fails just upgrade your video card. That should do it.
posted by special-k at 7:59 PM on December 18, 2009

have you tried turning it off and back on again?
posted by dubold at 8:19 PM on December 18, 2009

ardgedee: "It's because your account has been elevated to Metafilter Pro. You're much more appealing and marketable now"

I thought it was Ultra Fa ****CARRIER LOST****

Okay so it's been YEARS since I actually visited Fark.
posted by IndigoRain at 9:21 PM on December 18, 2009 [1 favorite]

Did you clean the display with a chlorine-based disinfectant? That tends to bleach websites.

Also, it's a good idea to access sites with lighter or darker backgrounds in different computers, otherwise the colors may run out from the darker ones and stain the lighter ones.
posted by qvantamon at 9:23 PM on December 18, 2009

Maybe Xkcd can help.
posted by dnesan at 9:23 PM on December 18, 2009 [3 favorites]

I haven't seen blue or green in years, except when I am not logged in. ;)
posted by caddis at 10:05 PM on December 18, 2009

This is because your Acer laptop uses an inexpensive type of display that uses color fluid. You can usually get some more at Best Buy.
posted by dunkadunc at 10:58 PM on December 18, 2009 [1 favorite]

If bad grammar had posted this in AskMe, would there have been real answers? Every day is April 1 in MeTa.
posted by Cranberry at 11:03 PM on December 18, 2009

Okay, I guess a serious answer couldn't hurt. If it's not the plain theme setting, it sounds like maybe you're not loading the stylesheet. Check View->Page Style and make sure it's not set to "No Style". If it's not that, disable your Extensions and see if that helps. Stylish or even an ad blocker could interfere with loading the stylesheet.
posted by team lowkey at 11:38 PM on December 18, 2009

If good grammar had posted this in MetaTalk, would there have been real answers?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 4:11 AM on December 19, 2009

Acer is a racist company. All white is alright.
posted by fourcheesemac at 6:36 AM on December 19, 2009

If Woody had gone straight to the police, this would never have happened.
posted by mintcake! at 7:38 AM on December 19, 2009 [1 favorite]

IndigoRain writes "I thought it was Ultra Fa ****CARRIER LOST****"

Do youngin's even know what a carrier is anymore?
posted by Mitheral at 9:20 AM on December 19, 2009

bad grammar, is this still happening?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:03 AM on December 19, 2009

Bad grammar be persistent.
posted by box at 10:23 AM on December 19, 2009 [1 favorite]

>:
If bad grammar had posted this in AskMe, would there have been real answers? Every day is April 1 in MeTa.

I think it's because it's probably not really a bug, but instead a preference setting that got turned on by mistake. cortex came in with the (probable) solution right away and we never heard back from bad grammar.
posted by dunkadunc at 12:32 PM on December 19, 2009

I did try checking Preferences where the default is already selected, and I went through the settings in my browser, such as Page Style, to make sure that No Style was not selected by mistake. It is not just a problem with Metafilter as other websites are also missing their normal background.
posted by bad grammar at 1:32 PM on December 19, 2009

Mitheral: "IndigoRain writes "I thought it was Ultra Fa ****CARRIER LOST****"

Do youngin's even know what a carrier is anymore"

I dunno but I had a migraine and was stoned on Vicodin when I wrote that and now I regret making Fark jokes on Mefi.
posted by IndigoRain at 1:58 PM on December 19, 2009

It is not just a problem with Metafilter as other websites are also missing their normal background.

Not to play NOT IT but this might make a decent question for AskMe, in that case.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 2:14 PM on December 19, 2009

Let's talk about me! I'm the one,who's blowin gout. I'm the one, who's blowing gout.
posted by cashman at 5:05 PM on December 19, 2009

I haven't seen blue or green in years, except when I am not logged in. ;)

Is this something that I'd need a computer to be able to understand?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:45 AM on December 20, 2009

Bad grammar be persistent.

And all up in yo bizness
posted by Sparx at 2:47 PM on December 20, 2009

Look in your Windows Accessibility Control Panel - the Display tab (Start -> Control Panel -> Accessibility -> Display). Had a friend with the same problem that I puzzled over for ages since the answer wasn't in the usual places. Drove me nuts until I found it.
posted by idb at 8:13 PM on December 20, 2009

thanks, idb. that did it. I had tried to enlarge text in the Accessibility > Display panel and other places, and I set the display back to Windows Classic. Now Metafilter blue, green and gray, Google, and other sites such as Hotmail all have their regular backgrounds.
posted by bad grammar at 3:52 PM on December 21, 2009