18.07.08

Friday Fun - Economic Models explained with Cows

Posted in General at 9:16 am by Colin McNulty

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.

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15.07.08

European Space Agency Astronaut Example Test Questions

Posted in General at 9:00 pm by Colin McNulty

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?”

  1. hasn’t
  2. isn’t
  3. didn’t
  4. doesn’t

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?

  1. Sphere
  2. Cylinder
  3. Dice
  4. Octahedron

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! :D

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?  ;)

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13.07.08

Crossfit Update

Posted in Crossfit, General at 9:40 am by Colin McNulty

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):

Crossfit Girl Deadlift

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?

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11.07.08

Friday Fun - Movies in a Minute

Posted in General at 7:44 am by Colin McNulty

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

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08.07.08

Solution to Wordpress Blank Screen of Death

Posted in General at 8:14 am by Colin McNulty

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.:

  1. After writing a comment and clicking Submit.
  2. Accessing any of the main blog screens.
  3. Accessing any of the administrator screens.
  4. After *doing* something in the administrator screens.

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:

  • A partially complete upgrade - Solution: Re-upload the upgrade files.
  • FTP Client making a mess of the upgrade - Solution: Get a better FTP client and re-upload the upgrade files.
  • Something failed running /wp-admin/upgrade.php upgrade script - Solution: Find out what failed (check logs), fix it and re-upgrade.
  • Incompatible Plugin Enabled - Solution: Disable all plugins, then add them back one at a time to see which one causes the problem.
  • Adding the new define(’SECRET_KEY’,… parameter into wp-config.php - Solution: Don’t put it at the end of your file, put it before the line that says /* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

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:

  • Accessed my webserver admin screens, cPanel in this case.
  • Accessed the phpMyAdmin MySQL user interface.
  • Browse the wp_options table.
  • Find the field called: active_plugins.
  • If you just want to look without the risk of cocking it up, here’s the SQL you need:
    • SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = ‘active_plugins’ LIMIT 1;
  • First things first before you go fiddling: BACK UP THE VALUE OF THIS FIELD by copying to a text file on your PC.
  • Then either us phpMyAdmin to blank the value of the active_plugins field, or use this SQL:
    • UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = ” WHERE option_name = ‘active_plugins’;
  • Just to be clear here, if you don’t know what you’re doing, then don’t do it! I’m not responsible for you messing up your blog even more. You should have regular backups and have proven to yourself that they work and you are competent enough to restore from those backups.

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.

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06.07.08

Nancy Kicked my Butt

Posted in Crossfit, General at 9:46 am by Colin McNulty

The gym on Saturday was horrendous. It was the named Crossfit Workout Nancy, which with 5 rounds of 400m running was always going to be a bad one for me.  Especially with the over head squats mixed in, it meant there was no rest for the legs.

Depressingly I was unable to make all the runs, the 3rd and 4th run resulted in a few walks.  I’m sure I’m physically capable, it’s just a mind over matter thing.  When you’re struggling for breath, the legs are killing you and the mind is (none too quietly) whispering in your ear: “You can’t go on… You only have to stop running and the pain will disappear….” but then I guess that’s why they call it Mental Toughness. ;)

You’ll notice I didn’t say I walked on that last run.  I would say that was out of choice, but no.  Matt / Fozzie, a long time member at Crossfit Manchester and a Taekwondo instructor, having just finished his Nancy, decided to run another block of the Mill just to keep me company.  As much as I didn’t want him to, it kept me honest and I made the run, thanks Matt.

It certainly goes some way to demonstrating the close bond between members of Crossfit Manchester, which is in part of course due to the 2 great coaches we have in Mark and Karl, but also to the camaraderie that Crossfit engenders amongst its members.  Whilst every workout is scaled to each persons individual abilities, there’s something special about everyone doing the same workout on the same day and in the gym, at the same time.  Crossfit builds a team spirit and sense of unity that you don’t get at your normal gym, where everyone is lost in their own iPod world, doing there own thing.

The scaling also meant that I was soundly beaten by Derrick, who has just turned 60 and for much of the (for me) 22 minute workout was neck and neck with Lawraine, who has said she doesn’t mind me saying that she is 59 (I think, Lawraine, correct me if I’m wrong!).  It was Lawraine lifting first in the Crossfit Girls Olympic Weightlifting Video I posted last week.

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05.07.08

What a Dire Week that was

Posted in General at 4:45 am by Colin McNulty

A diary of a terrible week and an explanation of why there was no Friday Fun post this week (as promised):

  • At the beginning of the week my daughter got sick, full on vomiting, the works. She nearly missed a birthday party because of it, which when you’re 7, would have been a world ending disaster.
  • I’ve finally had to come to a decision I didn’t want to make about work, and it’s not a good one. Won’t bore you with the details but I’m going to have to make a slight change of direction.
  • As per my last post, my Wordpress Blog was hacked, necessitating the best part of a day to upgrade it and get everything re-setup (plugins etc).
  • The wife is finding it harder than she thought finding a contract as a jobbing programmer.
  • A world ending event did happen to my daughter: she dropped the top off the (very rare) ice-cream I bought her, on the floor! We had floods of uncontrollable tears for about 20 minutes. Still it’s a consolation to know that she’ll remember that day for the rest of her life. I still have vivid memories of dropping the top of an ice cream with my Grandma when I was 6! One of only a handful at that age.
  • The wife got sick, what the daughter had, lots of throwing up, it was pretty bad.
  • I got sick! Woke up at 3am hurling my guts up. Now I know I’m a fella and there’s Man Flu and all that, but I can honestly say, it was the worst illness I’ve had for as long as I can remember. For 24-36 hours I could barely move, certainly couldn’t eat. Thankfully I’m all right now and 2 pounds lighter! Must get back on the fish oil (I’ve been lax recently.)
  • I discovered that after upgrading my blog, I was locked out! Every time I logged in, I just got the Wordpress Blank Screen of Death. Which is exactly what it sounds like, a completely blank screen with nothing on it. Nothing I seemed to do could get me in. Obviously the fact that I’m writing this post (at 5am on a Saturday *sigh*) means that I fixed it, but it took all Friday afternoon to work it out. I’ll do a full post on it later, as it appears to be a common problem.
  • Now that I’m better I’m back to my normal ways: waking up far too early. Why *DO* I wake up at 5am most days when I have no reason to get out of bed??

So there you have it, an appalling week by any standards. How was yours?

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30.06.08

This Blog Was Hacked

Posted in General, Search Engine Optimization at 3:04 pm by Colin McNulty

I’ve been having some problems these last few weeks with excessive bandwidth usage and had been unable to work out why the average bandwidth used per visitor had increased five fold!

Basically I’d hit my upper bandwidth limit twice in the last week (you may had noticed) despite not loading the site with much more material than normal. Further, the webserver statistics showed that 93% of the bandwidth was being used consumed just downloading raw html files, not images or videos or anything. I was flummoxed as to what the problem was.

Then this morning I saved the home page to my PC, to see if it really was as big a file as the stats seemed to be suggesting… sure enough it was: a 900kb .html file! Why was it so big? Checking the raw html source code I was shocked to discover literally thousands of hidden links out to other sites, for all sorts of nefarious links, I’m sure your imagination can work it out.

My blog had been hacked and had all these links inserted without anyone noticing. They were hidden with a style that stopped them being displayed by your browser, but they were still there.

It only took a few minutes to delete them all, but it’s taken me all morning to upgrade the wordpress version from 2.1 to 2.5.1 I hate upgrading, it’s a pain in the butt, not least of which because of incompatibilities between the new version and all the plug-ins I have installed. This is why I’d been sitting on such an old version for so long.

The irony of the situation is this though: if the hackers hadn’t been greedy and uploaded such a huge number of links (a pointless exercise from an SEO perspective to be honest) I would never had noticed. If they’d just restrained themselves to 2-3 links, or hell, even 50, I probably would never have suspected a thing. But 800kb of hidden links is hard to miss. Just to be clear, that’s about 2000 lines of extra links.

If you don’t understand why someone would do such a thing, it’s all to do with how the search engines rank pages in their results. Basically links to your sites are like votes, the more votes you get, the more important Google thinks your site is and the higher up it lists your website when people search for stuff. It’s rather more complicated than that, as I’m sure you realise, but that’s the essence of it.

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27.06.08

Friday Fun - 8413 ESA Astronaunt Applicants

Posted in General at 3:40 am by Colin McNulty

Being busy making all the Olympic weightlifting videos meant that I am a bit late posting about the developments with week with NASA and ESA. So I thought I’d roll it into a Friday Fun post too. So here’s a nice spot the difference competition, courtesy of NASA.

Whilst looking innocuous, this is one of the most monumental photographs in the history of man kinds space program. It’s the picture of the Phoenix space craft on Mars, digging in the dirt and finding ice just beneath the surface. This discovery is what is going to make a Martian Base possible.

It’s also a great spot the difference picture. Can you see the rocks of ice that have evaporated in the 2nd pic?

In other astronauty news, ESA has revealed that far from the 50,000 suspected applicants only 8,413 people from across the whole of Europe submitted an ESA Astronaut Application. The list includes just 822 people from the UK, 697 men and 167 women.

The quick amongst you will have spotted that 697 + 167 does not = 822! That’s because included in the break down figures are 42 people who indicated this country as their 2nd citizenship.

Either way, that’s a lot of application forms for them to trawl through. The applicants successfully making the next stage get to attend psychological testing, defined as:

Those tests aim to identify the psychological and technical skills of the applicants, who will be tested in different fields including visual memory and psychomotor aptitude.

Sounds like fun! :)

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25.06.08

Last Weightlifting Video - Chris from Crossfit Manchester

Posted in Crossfit, General at 6:43 pm by Colin McNulty

I’ve saved the best video till last. This is Chris, a fellow member of Crossfit Manchester, also in his first Olympic Weight lifting competition. I had the most fun putting this video together. :) It was great lifting with you Chris.

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