The answer to your question lies here. Please comment on what you read.
Will actors one day be replaced completely by computers I wonder? Looking at these 3 videos you might think that time isn’t very far away!
This is incredibly detailed.
Ahhhhh, a warm fuzzy feeling one.
This year I came across people advocating the drinking of raw milk for health reasons. Just to be clear this is milk that is unpasturised (or unpasturized if you’re American). The argument is that pasturisation (heating the milk to 71.6ºC for 15 seconds) damages the milk and destroys some nutrients and fatty acids etc and so raw unpasturized milk is better for you.
Having been mulling this over for a couple of months but had not really reached a decision, rather lazily after a brief search of the web I’d come to the conclusion that finding a reliable source would likely be the major limiting factor, so let that make the decision for me.
Today however, being the last Sunday of the month, I went to Ashton Farmers Market, where amongst the usual purchases of wild venison, rabbit (or Hare as it was today), assorted organic meats and a large bag of salamis, I also found myself at the Cheshire Cheese stall of HS Bourne. This was nothing out of the ordinary until he mentioned that some of the cheeses were from unpasturized milk and before I knew what I was saying, I asked if he sold unpasturised milk?
Imagine my surprise when he told me that he was in the process of getting approval and license to do just that and he would probably be able to sell it within a few weeks. There ensued some evangelising about raw milk and how healthy it was and how his whole family had grown up on it etc, but the real effect was that is spurred me on to do some proper research.
So a lazy Sunday afternoon with my mate Google later, and I am now as informed as I think I’m ever going to be on the subject. I had intended on reading the research papers myself but soon discovered that pretty much all serious research isn’t fully published on the net and you’re looking at about £30 to buy a research paper. However I did find what I suspect is the most comprehensive post on the net on the subject of unpasturised milk, indeed it took me about an hour to read it end to end.
Bill Marler summarises every major piece of research I’d come across and many more that I hadn’t, giving succinct bullet points on the germaine factors of each one, including not only their key findings but also what (if any) conclusions they draw. For example, I was particularly interested in reading a 2007 study entitled “Unpasteurized milk: health or hazard?” by M R Perkin, a 630 page research paper. Bill however summerises it thus:
• This is an editorial in the same issue with the Waser article below
• Reviews epidemiological evidence of the protective effect of raw milk for allergic disorders in children
• He concludes that the Waser paper “adds to the weight of evidence that a protective effect is associated with unpasteurized milk consumption….The key issue now is to determine what underlies this protective effect and whether it is possible to separate the protective effect from the hazardous [pathogens] substances.”
As you can surmise from that extract, the general opinion on the subject goes like this: There is most definitely a statistically signifacant relationship between raw milk consumption and reduced incidents of asthma and allergies (although some studies don’t necessarily distinguish between unpasturized milk and the more general benefits of living on a farm, aka the “hygiene hypothesis” which argues that exposure to a more biologically dirty environment as a kid, builds an improved immune system later in life).
However that increased health benefit comes with an increased risk of disease (e.g. salmonela, Cryptosporidium species, Campylobacter species and E. coli O157), further the damage done to the milk by pasturization is debated as a matter of science and the exact cause of the increased health benefit is not known. Therefore the general “official” opinion is that the benefits are not worth the risks.
I however am not convinced. I know lots of people with asthma (me and the Missus to a mild degree) and lots of people with allergies / excema. However I am only aware of knowing one person who had Salmonella and that was not due to raw milk or even eggs, it was an improperly cooked burger. In terms of statistics these are quoted in a legal case in America against Alta-Dena, a producer of Certified Raw Milk (CRM):
Dannemeyer traced the history of opposition to Alta-Dena and CRM from 1966 and said that the public has lost respect for public health authorities in California in regard to this issue. He claimed that health department records show that 3.6 million human cases of salmonellosis were reported between 1971 and 1982 in California, and that almost half of them were attributed to food service establishments, most of the remainder to meat and poultry, and only 103 to certified raw milk.
I had to read that 3 times before it sunk in: in 12 years there were 103 cases of salmonela attributed to raw milk, but that was out of 3.6 million other cases. 103 our of 3.6 million, that’s a tiny 0.003 percentage of cases! However the stats are confusing, as the previous quote was from an advocate of the raw milk trade, this next quote was from an antogonist:
Dr. Bolton exhibited a chart which analyzed the 123 cases of S. dublin reported in California in 1983. It showed 51 patients who used raw milk, including 44 who used it from Alta-Dena. Only 10 of the 51 had been exposed to such other possible sources of S. dublin infection as raw eggs or raw or rare meat.
Whis is a little odd, how was there 3.6 million cases in the 12 years to 1982, how come there was only 123 cases in 1983? To be honest I’m inclinded to believe the second statistic, it seems a more plausible number. Either way, it’s still a very small number and less than half are attributable to raw milk. Also bare in mind that none of these studies has reported any deaths as a result of unpasturised milk.
So in conclusion, I find that on the balance of probabilities, asthma, allergies and eczema are far more serious and massively more prevelant, 500 asthma related deaths each year for example in the under 65’s, with 74,000 emergency hospital admissions each year. Compare that to a handful of salmonela cases… it seems ludicous to me to compare the two.
It strikes me that it is fear that makes the establishment advise against raw milk. Fear of the unknown in that they can’t say what it is that bestows the health benefits; and fear of saying something is safe that they can’t explain, especially in this litigious society. It’s a shame, but there you have it. I’m going to look forward to my first batch of unpasturised milk, I wonder if it really tastes as good as people say?
I got sent this great video of a cat murdering a printer:
Which made me think about checking out some of the best cat collection videos, here’s a couple:
Saved the best one till last:
ESA hate me:
Dear Mr McNulty,
On behalf of the European Space Agency, I wish to thank you for your application and interest in joining the European Astronaut Corps.
I regret to inform you that after very careful consideration, it has been decided not to retain your application for the post of Astronaut. However, should you not object, we would like to keep your file on record for other career opportunities at ESA and contact you if a post which matches your profile should emerge.
I would also like direct your attention to ‘Careers at ESA’ website in which we advertise all current external vacancies. You may also be interested in subscribing to our recently introduced job alert feature. In order to receive the regular updates on vacant positions at ESA, please click
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Careers_at_ESA/index.html
and follow the link ‘Subscribe to ESA vacancy notices’.
On behalf of the European Space Agency, I wish you all the best for your further career.
Yours sincerely,
F.C. Danesy
Head, ESOC Human Resources Division
And just for those sore losers out there, it ended:
This is a no-reply email address. Please do not respond to this email.
I was always going to have only a very outside chance, but it was worth it for the fun of applying. There’s not many people who can say that they even tried to become an astronaut and I’ve already had my monies worth in conversations it’s brought up with friends and relatives (like the look on my parents faces when I told them! 
).
Good luck to those who got through, I shall be watching with interest to see if any English people make the final cut. And now, if you’ll forgive the self congratulatory tone of a job application, here are my (obviously WRONG) answers to the big questions on my astronaut application form (actually these are my initial long versions before I realised that the word count limit was actually a character count limit! I had to cut these down to fit the application form):
Why do you want to become an astronaut?
Arthur C Clarke said: “Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.” The universe is very, VERY big and if we are alone, there are unimaginable wonders out there that will never be witnessed by anyone except us. If we are not alone, then one day mankind will discover that there are bigger issues at stake than those confined to our small world. In either case, the most momentous events in human history are yet to happen to our species and they are inextricably linked to our manned space program.
We have the technology and the opportunity to reach out and explore our solar. History will look back at the 20th and 21st century as the pioneering age of space and record how it laid the foundation for the future of human space travel. If what humble skills I have can be put to good use furthering the development of our manned space programme, then it would be a privilege to devote the rest my working life to the greatest adventure known to man.
In your opinion, what are the main tasks that should be performed by an astronaut?
Put simply, the promotion of human space flight to the public. We have the technology, the ability and the imagination to achieve phenomenal progress. What is lacking, particularly in Europe, is the political will. In the 1960’s it was the Cold War that drove the US space program and the moon landings, since then the world has moved forward in co-operation with the ISS. It’s is ironic then that it’s exactly that spirit of co-operation and lack of an “Us vs Them” conflict that has seen the contribution of public funding reduce in recent decades, to the detriment of the space program. It is a credit then to the current US administration that they have recommitted to the manned exploration of space, something that needs to be replicated in Europe.
It is the duty of members of the European space community then, to promote space travel in order to influence political agenda and funding decisions. What better ambassador for the space program is there than an astronaut, truly the fairytale hero of every school boy and girl. It’s exactly these children that grow up to be the voters, the policy makers and world leaders of the future. By promoting and sharing the dream of manned space travel, we can galvanise public opinion and secure long term future funding for our manned spaceflight programme.
Write a candid description of yourself as a person.
Colin is a calm, thoughtful person and a sublime generalist, excelling at any task undertaken. His organised and structured mind is able to quickly grasp the core issues in complex situations, reacting with composure in the face of pressure. Whilst showing a high level of personal initiative, Colin’s affable nature sees him work very well in close nit teams. For the last 15 years Colin has worked in and successfully lead, multi-functional teams comprising 3 to 30 people, from a variety of countries and cultures. Cross cultural man management skills have been well used working on time critical projects with budgets up to EUR 30 million, where Colin typically takes on the roles of technical consultant and general trouble shooter.
Other
A broad engineering background enables Colin to grasp technical concepts quickly, which coupled with an empathetic comprehension of the layman’s level of knowledge, has enabled Colin to spend a decade bridging the gap between the deeply technical and the ordinary man on the street. Whether that be tutoring school children, being the face of technical projects to users, running workshops or giving training courses, Colin is able to explain complicated concepts in engaging ways that anyone can understand. This confidence born from experience, gives Colin the comfortable self-assurance to give presentations to wide ranging audiences, from blue collar worker up to a board of Directors.
I would never say I’m the most cultured person in the world, but occasionally it’s nice to soak up the cultural offerings that living near a city like Manchester has to offer. I’d say once a year I thing about doing something for cultures sake alone. As this whole week is Manchester Jazz Festival I went with the nipper and some friends to St Ann’s Square to watch a free performance of a Spanish Jazz Band called 12twelve (the fact that there were only 4 of them perhaps should have been my first warning of things to come).
It was a dicey affair as the typical British July summer had heavy rain showers all morning, but we were lucky that it dried up just in time for our arrival in Manc. After a nice cheap lunch at the relatively new Wasabi Sushi Bar in China Town (like Yo Sushi, but half the price):
With the Jazz performance starting at 3:30pm we arrived promptly at 3:15 full of sashimi, just in time to get 5 seats together. The band were on stage milling about and setting up and I happily awaited my annual cultural injection.
Sadly we had to wait a looooong time. The band came and went and came and stomped about and tried a few instruments and went and came and tinkered a bit more and cellotaped stuff down and fiddled with settings and generally wasted a whole heap of time, for about an hour while a few hundred people sat in typical stoically English fashion, not complaining about their tardy start. Well maybe except for yours truly who was getting rather bored myself, not least of which with how to keep a 7 year old entertained out in the cold, with the threat of rain and no toy related props.
As my mate Mark said, to expect a Spanish Jazz band to care what time they should be starting, was possibly being rather over optimistic.
To say the crowd was pleased when they finally started was an understatement, although we first had to endure a rather silly and overly long opening speech that was given in Spanish and then translated into English by one of the Manchester Festival organisers. I was beginning to wonder if the price of this “free performance” was one that was too steep to pay? As I said, to much relief the crowd (well me) was finally happy when the band started playing.
That didn’t last long!
In hindsight I should have listened to the downloadable audio snippets before going because, to put it bluntly, they were rubbish! The “combining features of contemporary music, psychedelia and electronic music” was it seemed an excellent excuse to take all that is good about Jazz and rip the heart out of it. In fact I would say that the only reason they called themselves a Jazz band at all was because one of them played the Saxophone.
Now I’m quite prepared to accept that I know nothing about Jazz and I’m talking rubbish, however my opinion was backed up by at least 10% of the audience, who all rose and left immediately after the first song. (It of course wouldn’t be very English to walk out mid performance, oh no, that would be a rude step too far.)
I should I suppose point out that the 10% that left were the oldest segment of the crowd, which only goes to prove that I’m an old fuddy duddy at heart, which is fine. Though I should also point out that that oldest segment probably had more experience of being “influenced by the ‘free jazz’ of the late 1960s and early 1970s” that 12twelve were meant to have taken as inspiration, than the band clearly had.
Fortunately there were 2 ancillary forms of spontaneous entertainment the first in form of a clearly insane dancing chap (I’ve seen this fella and his troupe of dancers before once in Exchange Square, they’re actually pretty good). My kid wanted to go dance with him (she didn’t like the band either!) but was too nervous until she found another girl who was also too nervous to go on her own. Strength in numbers won the day and the dancing bloke seemed pleased as punch with his 2 new acolytes.
The second ancillary entertainment was a pair of (probably student) hippies from the Free Hugs movement (website is currently hacked, actually worse than my website was hacked a few weeks ago) so you can see an old cache of the site here: Free Hugs Archive.
I actually like the free hugs movement, it’s one of those warm fluffy aspects of the human community that the world is generally sorely missing. So for fun, me and the nipper joined in for 10 minutes and became honourary Free Hugs members, which brought a smile to our and others faces. Good harmless fun.
Sadly the tardy Spanish meant that we were later than planed at our backup cultural offering of some Chinese festival thingy that was going on in Exchange Square. We arrived just as a major spectacle was ending, and all that was left was a group of martial artists. Whilst impressive, they were not enough to keep us there as the first drops of rain of the late afternoon started to fall.
So there you have it, abortive culture maybe, but I’ll take the afternoon in preference to sitting at home watching Road Wars on tele.
SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.
COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.
FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.
NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.
BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away…
TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.
SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons
AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.
ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public then buys your bull.
A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.
A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called ‘Cowkimon’ and market it worldwide.
A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.
AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.
A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.
A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.
A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.
AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.
A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.
AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of Democracy….
AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.
A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.
ESA have published a set of example psychological tests to familiarise people with the 2nd phase of the Astronaut applications. Apart from it being interesting doing astronaut testing, it’s actually a lot of fun too. I even had my 7 year old daughter doing “astronaut maths” with me!
The English questions are pretty straight forward for a native English speaker, typical questions involve picking the correct word to complete a sentence e.g.
“Peter has gone to the station, ….. he?”
Having said that I was a little surprised to only get 61 out of 64 correct. There was one question that I failed to answer in the allotted time (yes it’s a timed test) but the quiz doesn’t give you the answers or tell you which questions you got wrong, so 2 were a mystery.
The maths test was right up my street however and really enjoyable. One thing that wasn’t clear was whether a calculator or paper and pad were allowed, as I assumed they were not. Typical questions were things like:
All points within an area have the same distance to a straight line. Which shape results?
Tee hee, I loved that one. Other questions:
A fast train takes 9 hours at a speed of 72 km/h. How long would the train take if it went 8 km/h faster?
This is a pretty simple fractions question, made slightly more complicated because the fraction is the wrong way round, if that makes any sense?
At Frankfurt airport a passenger wants to get from Terminal A to Terminal B. On foot it would take him 3 minutes, on the conveyor belt 2 minutes. How long would it take him if he walks on the conveyor belt?
Hoho this question really had me going. I know it’s another simple fractions question but for some reason the shapes in my head didn’t quite fit together so I had to resort to doing it the long hand way. I assumed an arbitrary distance and simply did the maths.
A student takes 15 seconds for a 100m sprint. How long does he take if he runs 2 km/h faster due to a following wind?
This was the toughest question to do in my head by far. It took a while to crunch the numbers, but it’s doable.
My result: 20 out of 20 correct, sweet! 
The concentration test was fun too. Basically you’re shown a load of triangles with a variety of orientations, colours and dots. E.g a red triangle, pointing up, with 3 dots. You are then given a couple of rules to follow and then shown 2 triangle sequentially in turn and asked which of the 2 rules apply (or none). The trick is that you not only have to memorise the rules, but also the triangle seen on the previous screen. I guess it sounds more complicated that it is, try it, it’s fun. And I got them all right, which is always nice.
The memory test is a lot tougher though. You are shown a series of shapes and associated 2 digit numbers in pairs. E.g a red circle and the number 34. Then you are shown the shape and asked to remember the number, simple right? No.
First you are shown 8 pairs, so 16 pieces of information in total, before being shown the first shape to remember the number for. Then for each question, you are given 2 more shape / number pairs to remember. This is all timed.
Note the human mind is normally only able to remember 5-8 items of information in its short term memory, so this is an exceptionally tough test, well I think so anyway. That’s probably reflected in my less than glowing score, which I won’t embarrass myself by sharing. Needless to say, this area needs some work.
The perception test was the easiest by far. You are shown 9 dials with numbers from 1 to 8. Each is either black or white, and round or square. You are told to concentrate on only 1 kind of dial and remember the numbers. The trick comes from the fact you only have about 2 seconds to correctly identify the dials and remember the numbers, in the right order of course. I got 40 out of 40 of course.
The last test is a Technics test which basically means a mix of simple engineering type questions, e.g. electrical circuits and mechanics. One question for example is:
What is a lightning conductor usually made of?
Slightly frustratingly I only managed 75% (15 out of 20) which is rather annoying really as I consider general engineering knowledge to be a forte of mine. Either way, all the tests were a load of fun and if this is what I’ve got to look forward to for a possible 2nd round, it’s going to be a blast. Come on ESA, where’s my invite?
Thought it was time I did a Crossfit Workout update, now that I’ve been back at the gym for about 6 weeks.
Basically I’m still on my way back to full form. The elbow is holding up nicely and each week I’m able to lift more without pain. When it does hurt a bit, it’s always fine the next day. It’s still lifting stuff over my head type exercises that cause the biggest problem e.g. Shoulder Press and Push Press but it’s getting better.
For example, 5 weeks ago I tried some shoulder presses and stopped at a very modest 30kg due to elbow pain. However this week I did a complex of: 1 Shoulder Press, then 2 Push Presses, then 3 Push Jerks (done together as a single exercise without putting the bar down) at 40kg, which I did 3 times. Yes I felt the elbow, but not enough to stop me doing 1/2 Crossfit Angie Workout (1/2 means 50 reps of each not 100) and by the evening I had no pain at all. Next time I’ll work up to 45kg.
I’m still getting my strength and conditioning back. For example Back Squats last week were done up to 120kg for 3 reps, which is 10kg off my PB. Deadlifts this week were done at 130kg for 3 reps which is 15kg off my PB.
Yesterday we also did the most infamous Crossfit Named Workout: Fran, which has a special reputation for being the fastest Crossfit workout (typically 5-7 minutes, 3 minutes is possible!) but also one of the most punishing. It’s amazing how you can still feel the effects of a 5 minute workout 2 days later! I was disappointed with my time of 7:00 minutes exactly, especially as my PB is 5:31 but I guess that shows the effects of 5 months off.
Oh and while I’m here, there’s a great photo on the main crossfit.com site at the moment from the Crossfit Games 2008 which nicely illustrates an interesting point. It’s a common misconception amongst women that weight lifting makes you big and muscley (aka ugly). I assume when saying this, they are thinking about Eastern Block female olympic athletes and that’s fair enough. But bare in mind, if it was that easy to build muscle mass, body builders wouldn’t go to the massive lengths they do to build their muscle size. It’s actually not that easy at all. Anyway, to the point, take a look at this photo (click to enlarge):
This girl is lifting what looks like 175lbs / 80kg which is way over her own body weight. She’s hardly big and muscley to the point of ugliness, I would imagine that she has the body that most women would aspire to, what do you think?
Watching Spiderman 2 on UKTV Gold this week, there was a 60 second animated movie spoof in the adverts that had me laughing. Searching for it, I found several, here are 3 of the better ones
Movie In A Minute - Action Movie
Movie In A Minute - Sci Fi Alien Invasion Movie
Movie In A Minute - Superhero Movie
As I posted last week, getting my blog hacked forced a wordpress upgrade to v2.5.1 however it also caused a problem I had previously been unaware of, the Wordpress Blank Screen of Death. This is basically where under some circumstances, you get a blank plain white screen instead of the page you were looking for. In my case, I was completely locked out of the admin screens and could do nothing with the blog apart from post comments!
This post is going to take you on a journey, one that starts with following standard debugging techniques that I’ve learned from years of experience in the IT industry and ends in a discovery so surprising, it’s made me question the fundamental quality of the whole blogging phenomena that is Wordpress (Wordpress is the blogging software this blog uses and is arguably one of the most popular). I started off as anyone should when faced with a new and unfamiliar problem, by doing some research:
What I found was that this appears to be a common Wordpress problem suffered by many bloggers and can arise in many possible situations e.g.:
During the upgrade, I noticed I was suffering from (4) above. I could access the admin pages no problem, but whenever I tried to do anything adminy I’d get the Blank Screen of Death e.g. change a plugin setting or write a post or change anything. The action I was performing worked ok, but I’d have to hit the back button and do an F5 Refresh to see the results of it. At the time I figured I’d deal with it later.
It was made worse because there were no error messages: No errors on the wordpress white screen of course; nothing in the main wordpress error.log; nothing in the plugin error log; and nothing in the webserver apache error log. And in the absence of any information it’s a tough problem to debug. However, with my advanced level Google Foo, I was pretty confident of finding the answer. I did in the end, but it took me hours!
Here are all the causes and working solutions I found on the net that others have specified:
Working down this list posed a problem: How could I disable the plugins without access to the admin screens?!? In the end I had to manually hack the MySQL database directly via the back end. In short, here’s what I did:
Anyway, that will disable all your plugins… great. Just one problem: it didn’t fix my Blank Screen problem!
I’ll cut a long story short, as it did take me another hour or 2 to finally find the solution. Now what I’m about to say is a complete shocker to me. As an experienced IT person, someone who has been messing around with and programming computers and working on IT projects in every possible role up to IT Director for over a decade, I am completely dumb founded by what I’m about to describe, because how the human race has got to 2008 with all the technologically related advances we have made, and yet still introduce a hugely powerful and popular program like WordPress, that is brought to it’s knees by the most innocuous of things… it’s just completely beyond me.
Anyway here is the answer: it lies in the wp-config.php file, this is the file where you set your database password etc (so you’ll forgive me for not using my own real one. ). This is the example file that comes with the installation:
— File Starts —
<?php
// ** MySQL settings ** //
define(’DB_NAME’, ‘putyourdbnamehere’); // The name of the database
define(’DB_USER’, ‘usernamehere’); // Your MySQL username
define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ‘yourpasswordhere’); // …and password
define(’DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value
define(’DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8′);
define(’DB_COLLATE’, ”);// Change SECRET_KEY to a unique phrase. You won’t have to remember it later,
// so make it long and complicated. You can visit http://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.0/
// to get a secret key generated for you, or just make something up.
define(’SECRET_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’); // Change this to a unique phrase.// You can have multiple installations in one database if you give each a unique prefix
$table_prefix = ‘wp_’; // Only numbers, letters, and underscores please!// Change this to localize WordPress. A corresponding MO file for the
// chosen language must be installed to wp-content/languages.
// For example, install de.mo to wp-content/languages and set WPLANG to ‘de’
// to enable German language support.
define (’WPLANG’, ”);/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */
define(’ABSPATH’, dirname(__FILE__).’/');
require_once(ABSPATH.’wp-settings.php’);
?>
— File Ends —
That is a perfectly fine, normal and working wp-config.php. Now I’m going to show you a broken one. One so terribly horrendously broken, that it causes you to be locked out of your workdpress blog for half a week and lose 1/2 a day trying to solve it. See if you can spot the difference:
— File Starts —
<?php
// ** MySQL settings ** //
define(’DB_NAME’, ‘putyourdbnamehere’); // The name of the database
define(’DB_USER’, ‘usernamehere’); // Your MySQL username
define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ‘yourpasswordhere’); // …and password
define(’DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value
define(’DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8′);
define(’DB_COLLATE’, ”);// Change SECRET_KEY to a unique phrase. You won’t have to remember it later,
// so make it long and complicated. You can visit http://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.0/
// to get a secret key generated for you, or just make something up.
define(’SECRET_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’); // Change this to a unique phrase.// You can have multiple installations in one database if you give each a unique prefix
$table_prefix = ‘wp_’; // Only numbers, letters, and underscores please!// Change this to localize WordPress. A corresponding MO file for the
// chosen language must be installed to wp-content/languages.
// For example, install de.mo to wp-content/languages and set WPLANG to ‘de’
// to enable German language support.
define (’WPLANG’, ”);/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */
define(’ABSPATH’, dirname(__FILE__).’/');
require_once(ABSPATH.’wp-settings.php’);
?>— File Ends —
What do you think, can you see it the mistake that breaks the whole blog? No? Go back and look closely…
Still no? Ok ok, I’ll give it to you, here’s the problem:
What? You can’t see that either? Let me show it to you again, look carefully this time:
You getting it yet? Yep, it’s an empty line. That’s all it is. 1 single solitary NewLine at the bottom off the file, right after that ?> a Carriage Return & Line Feed in programmers speak. That’s it. You hit the Enter key in one wrong place and the whole pack of cards comes tumbling down! Shocking, just shocking. Let me be crystal clear, it’s this bit here:
?>
— File Ends —
Now of course, the Analyst in me wants to know how this happened and I’ll tell you. The issue was the the new define(’SECRET_KEY’… entry I mentioned before. That should have been my warning, because when I was following the upgrade instructions, they don’t tell you where to put it, so naturally I first put it at the end of the file…. yep you guessed it: AFTER the ?> . I realise now of course that was stupid and it didn’t work. What was the symptom of it not working? You guessed it: the Wordpress Blank Screen of Death.
But when I moved it to the correct place, I was still sporadically getting problems, then I commented the line out and basically with all the changes I made I seemed to have got myself into the situation where I was getting the problem, but only half the time. I reckon the currently open admin session I had going was probably masking half of the issue from me. But in putting it at the end of the wp-config file and then moving it, I must have left behind an empty line. How silly of me! So just make sure you have no extraneous characters after the ?> I’d recommend checking for those evil and nefarious spaces too.
Anyway, that’s the fix and probably the most comprehensive study of getting wordpress blank screens anywhere on the net. Do me favour, if you find this post useful, I’d appreciate a pingback or comment.
Cheers.