Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Aaron is an international speaker, open source advocate, and self-described outgoing introvert. He’s been a regular contributor to WordPress for more than a decade, and is currently Director of Product at A2 Hosting.
His long-standing enthusiasm for WordPress stems from its role as a necessary counterbalance to closed web solutions, providing a vital open-source alternative that fosters accountability among digital platforms. Aaron’s vision of WordPress’s importance has fuelled his sustained commitment and excitement for the platform, matching his initial zeal from years ago. Today we talk about a…
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Block theme vs Classic theme
The WordPress content management system has undergone a significant architectural evolution with the Gutenberg project and Full Site Editing (FSE). This shift marks a transition from traditional “Classic Themes” to modern “Block Themes.” This evolution presents WordPress developers, agencies, and site administrators with a crucial choice: stick with the proven reliability of Classic Themes or…
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After gutenberg, are shortcodes still relevant in WordPress?
The WordPress landscape shifted dramatically with the introduction of the Gutenberg block editor. It promised a more visual, intuitive way to build posts and pages. But this left many users wondering: What about shortcodes? Are they obsolete now? If you’ve relied on those handy [bracketed_codes] to add forms, galleries, or other special features, you might…
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The Decade-Long Journey of WordPress Ticket #30465 Finally Coming to Fruition in 2025
It all started with a simple concern back in November 2014. WordPress developer Sergej Mueller raised what seemed like an obvious issue: users had absolutely no way of knowing if a plugin they relied on had been removed from the official repository—even when removed for serious security concerns. His ticket, officially labeled #30465, was initially…
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WordPress Security Alert: Rogue Admin Creation Vulnerability Threatens 100,000+ Sites
A dangerous security hole in the SureTriggers WordPress plugin puts over 100,000 websites at serious risk of complete takeover through unauthorized administrator account creation. The newly discovered vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-3102, carries a concerning CVSS rating of 8.1 (High) and affects all plugin versions through 1.0.78. The Perfect Storm: Missing API Keys and Authentication Bypass…
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The useRootPaddingAwareAlignment option in theme.json
The useRootPaddingAwareAlignment option in theme.json is related to alignment behavior in WordPress themes. Specifically, it’s part of the block editor’s functionality to allow more flexible and consistent alignment for blocks within the layout, particularly in relation to the root container’s padding. What It Does: When set to true, this setting allows blocks to align with…
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🧱 Why Block Markup Doesn’t Work Inside WP_Query — And What To Do Instead
Published: April 2025 If you’ve ever tried to embed raw block markup like <!– wp:post-title /–> directly inside a WP_Query loop and scratched your head wondering why it only renders the same title repeatedly—or throws validation errors—you’re not alone. Let’s clear up the confusion, understand why this happens, and look at how to do it…
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🧼 Deleting all Orphaned posts of certain Post Types in WordPress
If you’ve ever uninstalled a plugin or removed a custom post type in WordPress and started seeing odd PHP notices, you’re not alone. Recently, I ran into a warning that popped up on every page load in the admin dashboard: PHP Notice: map_meta_cap was called incorrectly. The post type eventhub is not registered… Sound familiar?…
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Why Reviving Old Blog Posts Increased My Traffic by Over 200%
When I first started my blogging journey four years ago, I was obsessed with churning out new content. Fresh posts, fresh ideas—that was my mantra. Little did I know that the goldmine was sitting right under my nose in my archives. After years of trial and error with countless traffic-boosting strategies, I stumbled upon something…
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When Robots Write Our Code: Is AI Helping or Hurting WordPress?
AI is churning out code at breakneck speed, and everyone’s jumping on the bandwagon. But what happens when we let the machines do the typing? As someone deep in the trenches of web development, I’ve been watching this unfold with equal parts fascination and concern. I’ve witnessed the WordPress ecosystem transform almost overnight as developers…
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