Hacker News Reader

It's a Christmas theme - check out the numbers on the items as well. When you have enough karma you can set the top-color for yourself, and that over-rides the default. I hadn't noticed the color change because it doesn't show up for me.

The alternation between red and green numbers on the front page would seem to suggest an xmax theme

It is red because corporations need to sell their stuff in winter. Red is a commonly used color in marketting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus#20th_century

For this, they abused the memory of Saint Nicholas, who was a bishop, therefore usually represented in red costume http://tinyurl.com/odppxql and who is celebrated on December 6th.

They paganified him, renaming him Santa Claus, or Père Noël, etc; and moved his feat on the night of 24/25 december in order to further disparage Christianity.

HN: come for the erudite discussion, stay for the Christmas spirit!

If you think corporations give a fuck about disparaging Christianity you're delusional.

Ask HN: Why the red bar in HN?