the dissident frogman

3 years and one Month ago

At the worst of times, the masked mime returns

Conquest, War, Famine, Death, and Dissident Frogman. A previously unreleased edition of Revelations 6:1-8.

the dissident frogman

Necrothreading much?

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After all these years where next to nothing happened on the site, I suppose you didn’t expect that. Not ever, and certainly not now.

Even I didn’t, at times, as it took so long to get the site redone.

Yet, as the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse—the one who fell off his horse and had to finish on foot thus arriving late to the End of Times—here I am.

Again.

For how long? Well, there’s enough bad news going around already, so let’s leave that for later. I will have a post explaining the hurdle in which my site will, very likely, find itself in soon, as it is a (partially unexpected) consequence of the current push from the various control freaks vying for the takeover of our formerly liberal democracies, and a cautionary tale of what’s coming for us as the corporate and political worlds align to usher in the age of total surveillance.

But for now, let’s just jump with joy for a bit. This is the reopening announcement. It’s supposed to be happy and joyful. Like a Grand Apocalypse, when nothing else matters anymore because the die is cast and you’re either going to Christ or to Hell—and it’s too late to do anything about it, if you find yourself in the later case.

What’s done

The site was entirely rebuilt. Its CMS (content management system) was already old when Joe Biden was last coherent (over the course of at least one conversation), and the amount of work required to simply perform an upgrade was such that starting from scratch was the sensible option.

I’ve added a secondary channel—In addition to barely edited, garrulous blog posts like this one—pretentiously named “Flashposts” where I get to utter short and stupid things in rapid succession. It’s just “micro-blogging” like the twitter, yes, but without all the celebrities and other morons. Also, you cannot “follow” me, and I don’t include these in the email notifications (praise the Lord).

DF new menu, Screenshot of the new site menu
This is top of the line IT craftsmanship, this is. I spared no expense: you get luscious colors, like dark gray and not quite so dark, nor gray, even...

In addition to a cubic ton of technical stuff that nobody sane should ever care about, this redesign should hopefully make the site at least readable on a wider range of displays and devices—as, alas, I must reckon there is no keeping an ever growing number of people from those stupid, invasive, tracking slave collars shaped as phones1.

And I’m not one to stand between a crackhead and his pipe—because they just go an get another pipe.

Still, it isn’t all about catering to the needs of the techno-zombies—far from it.

In addition to the CMS upgrade, I guess there’s no need to point out that the whole design of the site is new. Unless it’s been so long since you last visited here that you don’t remember how the old one was. In which case, I’ve just pointed that out. So there.

Here’s more cold product description stuff for you:

Done, not done

There are many options to consider when building a “modern” web site, and, as in any project in any line of work, you have to weight them carefully based not just on convenience and costs. For this site, there are things that from the start, several years ago I deliberately rejected for ethical reasons.

This was part of my “product brief” for this redesign:

No third-party data harvesting/people tracking engine disguised as comment system (Disqus, etc). Comments are managed in house and on location, they’re part of my site publishing software.

DF new member menu, Screenshot of the new member menu
... Menus of cutting-edge Internet links, complete with lush iconography, that open other parts of the website...
DF new editor, Screenshot of the new editor
... Buttons that react in various—and even expected ways sometimes—when clicked or touched appropriately...

No third-party data harvesting/people tracking engine disguised as membership management (those “social login” or “single sign-on” schemes, whether corporate or “open source” ). Member accounts are managed and stored in house.

Anybody who’d rather let Twitter, Facebook, Amazon and the rest of the technofascists know where they are all the time rather than take five minutes to create an account at my site is welcome to remain a nameless, faceless guest til the end of times.

No third-party data harvesting/people tracking engine disguised as antispam service (Akismet et al). Spam is assessed and eradicated in house.

No third-party data harvesting/people tracking engine disguised as mailing list/newsletter management (MailChimp and others). Email from my site to you is managed and sent in house, and your address is never shared with anybody else.

No ads, no referral programs, no marketing scheme. Google’s (and other’s) massive tracking and advertising network will not follow you on my site.

No remote scripts (notably none of those “social media” follow-me-like-me tiny button-trackers), no content delivery network, no third-party statistics, no tracking images/pixels.

All of that made it in the final product.2

And that was easy, as I’ve been loathing that trend in IT towards outsourcing and centralizing content and services for a very, very long time.

With Big Tech fully dropping the mask since the electoral coup on November the 3rd in the US, I feel that all the time I’ve invested in growing up from very paranoid to extremely paranoid wasn’t lost.

Oh, and…

If you’re still reading through this boring laundry list of what I’ve gone and done and done not done, perhaps I could bore you a little more before you finally give up and start clicking on everything to see what will break.

DF new titles, Screenshot of the new titles
... and huge, assertive titles in bold typeface that look quite expensive indeed. Because no expense was spared.

A few things on membership, if you please:

Sign-in credentials have changed.

These used to be username + password, they are now email address + password

Why?

Well, it’s been a long time since anybody logged in, and—as most usability studies show—a username is easier to forget than an email address.

As the site is now served over SSL, all the data transmission between you and the site is encrypted, making it a secure option to use such sensitive data as your email address to log-in.

What doesn’t change is that no email address is ever shared or published on the site—nor elsewhere.

If you already have an account, and think you’ve forgotten the email address as well, it’s quite easy: the address you use to login is the one on which you receive the notifications. Just dig up your old emails—or look up the one I’ve just sent, announcing this return.

Registrations are open again

Closed for a long time, registration is open again—and still free of course. You can bring friends and family, and their dogs. Dogs are always OK with me. Dogs are the only people I intuitively trust.

To throw spammers off course, the registration page lives at an ephemeral address, so I can’t provide the link here as it becomes quickly obsolete. Just send friends and family to the site, there’s a big “Register” link at the top right of every page. Dogs don’t care though. They don’t bother with computers and are way smarter than any smartphone’s human appendage. Bless them.

One last thing: there’s now a member ranking system. While it may sound at first like some social media popularity contest (blue) bird guano, it really isn’t. I explain everything here, and also touch briefly on why registrations were closed a while ago. In case you care about it.

Off you go

You’ve made it to the end of the post. Now is the time for you to start clicking or tapping all around, and discover just how much of it makes you go either “Oooh!” or “Eeew!”.

Or just “Meh”.

If you have any problem or questions, do not hesitate to contact me.

If you have a generic question regarding the new site, consider asking it in the comments below. I’ll answer there, as it may help fellow readers.
If you are new around here—or simply forgetful—and wonder what’s the story with the masked mime thing: keep scrolling, friend.
  1. Advertised as “smart” and sold to the naive and the fools by makers with dubious intentions. Don’t ask me who is smart in that equation.
  2. Funny, but when you think of it, this new site was designed exactly like we used to do them in the old days. Before the Silicon Marxists takeover.
Like a suppository, only a bit stronger

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About

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the dissident frogman

I own, built and run this place. In a previous life I was not French but sadly, I died.

Contact

To reveal my email address, find the 3rd  number in the code and enter it in the challenge field below.

31660

The Wise knows that Cities are but demonic Soul-tearing pits that shall not be entered.

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For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Ephesians 6:12

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The Wise knows that Cities are but demonic Soul-tearing pits that shall not be entered.

Comments thread (26)

5154 - Lambert

Comment author avatar

Bienvenue à nouveau, monsieur. C’est un plaisir de revoir votre blog.

5156 - Moishe3rd

Comment author avatar

Don’t care (about all your technical weirdness).
Looking through my spam file and got your spam notice and I thought…. hmmmm…. I remember that name… I think he was oddly interesting.

That was back when forums were the thing; and Newsgroups…

I looked at my "profile" (and WTF - why not let me upload an avatar? A nice bunny or me with a cute baby?) and see that I last commented in 2012.
The olden days indeed.

Meanwhile, if you don’t - Listen/Watch Bill Whittle and Andrew Klavan.
If you do, good on you.

Post something interesting and provocative for me to contemplate.

Be well.

5158 - the dissident frogman

Comment author avatar
  • the dissident frogman France

Moishe3rd:

why not let me upload an avatar?

Once signed-in (as you clearly could):

  1. the "Profile" button at the top right of the page opens the member menu,
  2. click the little wrench icon under the default avatar in that menu,
  3. upload your avatar.

In this thread alone, both new and existing members managed to do just that. If it doesn't work for you, then I'm afraid we'll have to wade through a bit of (more) technical weirdness. Or not care.

I'll help if needed, but it's your call.

Note that you can also access the avatar management page from the site menu (top left button) when you are on any of the member management pages (email preferences, name & password, etc)

Time to take sides

5159 - TooTall

Comment author avatar

Lazarus returns from the dead. Welcome back but what took you so long?

5160 - the dissident frogman

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  • the dissident frogman France

Long story, that is neither interesting nor entertaining.

Time to take sides

5170 - Icho

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👍🏻 What a surprise to see and email from you. Glad that you back at it.