Wordpress users, beware! Upgrading to the latest version (2.6) may break your admin login. It happened to me.

In the past, I have had no problems updating WP. You upload the files, update the database when prompted, and bingo! you’re up and running. Not this time. I did everything by the book (except forgetting to logout first and deactivate plugins), got the login screen, typed in my username and password, and … came right back to the login screen.

Shades of php-nuke!

Since I use Firefox, it was easy to clear cookies and authenticated sessions, the usual culprits in situations like this one, but to no avail. I changed my password, both by using the official WP method and by changing directly in the database. No go.

I checked the WP support forums, tried a different browser, checked error logs, uploaded all the files again (twice!). Same situation.

So I downloaded version 2.5 PC3, uploaded it to my server space, updated the database, and woof! I’m back in business again.

So, if you’re considering updating your site to 2.6, wait until the WP gurus fix this little problem. Not being able to administer your site is a bit of a handicap.

July 21st, 2008 | Tags: 2.6, login, problem, upgrade, wordpress | Category: General stuff | Leave a comment

Four Superbowls ago, singer Janet Jackson had a “wardrobe malfunction” that exposed one breast for a microsecond on national TV. The FCC, responding to an Internet-fed viral protest, levied a huge fine — the largest ever — on CBS to punish it for degrading the morals of American society.

An appellate court today reversed the $550,000 fine, effectively telling the FCC to cool its jets.

The Philadelphia court based its decision on two factors, apparently.

First, it ruled that Jackson and fellow performer Justin Timberlake (who had grabbed the part of her costume that “malfunctioned”) were “independent contractors” and not CBS employees. Thus, the court ruled, CBS could not be held responsible for their actions.

Second, it sided with CBS’ opinion that the number of actual viewers protesting the boob flash could not be accurately determined. The FCC said in its brief that there had a record-setting 542,000 protests against the halftime (strip)show. But CBS in its brief noted that 85% of the protests were actually copies of a form letter prepared by single-interest groups.

Or to put it more simply, most of those 542,000 protesters probably weren’t even watching the Superbowl, so Janet’s split-second exposure could not possibly have scarred their tender sensibilities.

Unlike cable and satellite TV outlets, broadcasters like CBS that use the airwaves have to follow strict FCC programming guidelines. The rationale is that cable and sat-TV subscribers choose their programming by paying for it, but broadcast viewers have little control over what they see or hear on the TV.

July 21st, 2008 | Tags: cbs, fcc, fine, janet jackson, superbowl | Category: Commentary, Media | Leave a comment

On the recommendations of other science bloggers, I ordered the book, The Devil in Dover: An Insider’s Story of Dogma v. Darwin in Small-Town America, by Lauri Lebo. It arrived Tuesday, and wantonly setting aside more pressing tasks, I put some jazz on and starting reading the book.

Since I already had some familiarity with the court case it narrates, the 224 pages went by quickly, and I finished it in an afternoon. [Yes, I do read fast. It's how I survived four years at Princeton.] For a readable account of the Kitzmiller v. Dover case of 2005, I can recommend none better. Only the PBS Nova episode on the same case matches it for clarity and, yes, drama.

Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al., was a watershed lawsuit involving the teaching of intelligent design in the ninth grade biology classes of the Dover, Penn., Area School District. A conservative, religiously biased school board sought to weaken the teaching of evolution in the schools by requiring teachers (all of whom refused, as it turned out) to read a four-paragraph cautionary statement about the theory of evolution, specifically mentioning Intelligent Design as another explanation for the origin of life.

Lebo’s narrative clearly lays out the religious motivations of the board members, who before hammering out the four paragraphs, had discussed in open meeting the need to bring creationism into the science curriculum. (Those same members later stated, under oath, that they had never used the creationism and accused the two reporters covering the board meetings of fabricating the statements. During the trial, however, it became clear the reporters were in fact correct.)

July 10th, 2008 | Tags: Devil in Dover, intelligent design, kitzmiller, Lauri Lebo | Category: Civil liberties, Commentary, Schools, Science, evolution, religion | Comments (1)

The snippet lasted only a few seconds, and I’ll bet most viewers didn’t even notice the mistake.

It was during a CNN Special Investigation Report on food safety. The camera supposedly was trained on the Sun as it rises above the horizon. Diagonally. Toward the top left of the screen. In California.

Well, it cannot have possibly happened, not in the Northern Hemisphere anyway. Clearly the cinematographer was just running a sunset backwards to create a “sunrise,” a geographically wrong sunrise. Here’s why.

The Sun always rises in the east and sets in the west, no matter where you live, because the entire Earth rotates in the same direction. The path of the Sun across the sky, however, depends on your latitude, because the Earth is round.

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, facing east, you will see the Sun rise over the horizon and follow a diagonal path toward the upper right (also known as the southern sky). At sunset, facing west, the Sun will slowly dive toward the horizon from the upper left (still the southern sky). The angle of that path relative to the horizon matches your latitude. (Where I live, that angle is about 38 degrees.) As you head north, that angle gets closer and closer to zero. So, during the Arctic summer the Sun cruises above the horizon, never setting.

Heading the other way, toward the equator, the angle of the Sun’s path increases to 90 degrees. At sunrise or sunset, the Sun drives straight up or down from the horizon.

July 5th, 2008 | Tags: Astronomy, cnn, latitude, sunrise, sunset | Category: Astronomy, Media | Leave a comment

OK, so I’m a little behind the times, but I just watched “Meet the Robinsons” on TV last night. Those of you more up-to-date with movies probably remember the motto of Cornelius Robinson, “Keep Moving Forward,” drawn from a quote from Walt Disney.

And so I got to wonder, what if we did not keep moving forward, as some members of our society would prefer? Where would be today?

The concept is the stuff of a myriad of science fiction novels, but let’s focus on just a few possibilities.

Nicolaus Copernicus, a Catholic cleric, on his own poked his nose into the organizations of the solar system. At the time, the prevailing belief (and church dogma) was that the Earth stood at the center of everything — Moon, Sun, planets, stars. This paradigm (there, I used Thomas Kuhn’s terminology) dictated that astrologers/astronomers had to undertake a frightening number of calculations to predict the locations of celestial objects in the sky.

By Copernicus’ time, those calculations were not all that accurate. Copernicus painstakingly measured the positions of celestial objects, and undertook to recalculate their motions. In the process, he apparently realized that life would be so much easier if the Sun was at the center, and not the Earth. While it did not make the calculations easier, at least it made them less exhausting.

July 5th, 2008 | Tags: keep moving forward, progress | Category: Commentary, Media | Leave a comment