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This account draws on correspondence, official notices and many press cuttings in our archives. (RB 89) We hope it will attract comments and additions from those who were billeted here and returned home, and from those who settled in Harpenden after the War or who were members of hosting families.
The Government's Evacuation Scheme
On 6 January 1939 the Ministry of Health published the text of a broadcast by Mr Walter Elliott on "The Transfer of Population in Time of War", with plans to ensure the safety of children, including the one million children in London.
"To organise this, it is clear we have to look for homes for the children mainly in houses where people already are. Empty houses and camps will be used as far as possible. …..Schools will be moved as units with their teachers who will continue with their education. These school children will need both board and lodging. …. We have to see not only that the houses for instance are suitable for the children, but that the children are suitable for the homes. We want this to be a matter of real human relationship – a willing host and a willing guest."
Local authorities were asked to make a survey of housing accommodation by the end of February. The appeal concluded with: "… one of the foundations of any nation is that it has thought of danger, faced danger, and decided on action, so that in danger it may be secure."
Planning for Harpenden – January to August 1939
The first step was for the Women's Voluntary Services for Civil Defence for Hertfordshire to write to all local authorities offering the service of a WVS Evacuation representative in their area to assist with the survey. For Harpenden this was Mrs Joan Fryer who liaised with the Clerk of Harpenden Urban District Council, Mr Frederick A Harris. Letters were sent to householders by the Chairman of the Council Ronald G Taylor and the Clerk alerting them to the house-to-house survey. A Public Meeting was held in the Public Hall on 20 February.
Mrs Fryer reported in March that since January the WVS had enrolled 365 women to ARP services, Transport, Hospital Services and Supplies and Evacuation Services. Concerning Evacuation she reported: "A card index has been made of all billeters. These have been grouped in roads and on each billeter's card it is stated what type of child or grown up … boy or girl, the age preferred, mother or teacher. … a list of all those requiring blankets and mattresses has been made … lists of volunteers willing to help with the reception of children, canteen and clerical helpers have been given to the Evacuation Officer, (Mrs H J Raban). A list of cars available to take children and bedding to billets has also been compiled. … Our next job is to make lists of all those households who need help or communal feeding."
The WVS, who soon became known as the 'Women in Green', had an office in a small room at the Harpenden Hall and on 25 February they asked for a telephone to be installed and to have a permanent typewriter instead of a borrowed one – but the Clerk to the Council replied that the Committee "do not feel they can recommend the Council to fix a telephone extension in your office" because it was not known if the WVS would be permanently established in each district. .
Plans ready to receive 2,100 evacuees
By 14 April, plans were being made for a total number of 2,100 evacuees arriving over three days, 700 at a time arriving by train from St Pancras. Buses would meet the evacuees at Harpenden Station to take them to their billets –
- 20% to Batford,
- 10% to The Harrow, Kinsbourne Green,
- 20% to South Harpenden;
- 20% to the (railway) Arch, Luton Road
- and 30% would walk.
One adult would be in charge of ten children who would be carrying a change of clothes if possible and also their own gas masks. There would be no blankets: these would arrive later (in mid July) and would be stored in the Pump House at the Waterworks in Shakespeare Road. Medical examinations were to be arranged if possible, but due to the large numbers, this was not considered feasible in the short time between each day's arrivals.
In June there was a follow up letter to 250 households who had said they could not billet owing to ill-health etc., pointing out that a doctor's certificate was needed for exemption to be registered. And there were occasional letters to the local press implying that some well-to-do householders might be evading their share of responsibility (Harpenden Gleanings, 20 October 1939).
Final plans and instructions
The Minutes of the meeting of Billeters held on 4 July 1939 in the old Public Hall (now Park Hall), chaired by Mrs Raban, provide final details for the plans for meeting the evacuees, together with instructions to the Billeters about issuing the forms enabling householders to draw the government's allowances for those they host.
"Under Form B the householders can draw 5/- per head per week for mothers and adults, to cover shelter and water supply only, but not food; and 3/- per head per week for children under school age. Under Form A the householders can draw 10/6 per week for one unaccompanied child and 8/6 if more than one is taken; this is to cover food, washing etc. and shelter, but not clothing or medical expenses, arrangements for which have been made, and the responsibility will not fall upon the householder. A Tribunal would be set up in Harpenden to deal with any complaints on the part of the householders or the evacuees."
The WVS would assist the Billeters in any way. At the end of the meeting the Billeters divided up according to their sectors to discuss which roads they would be responsible for – see schedule of ARP Sectors, Districts and Volunteers. ((p61-62)
Plans turned into Action – September 1939
The Evacuees started arriving by train on Friday, 1 September 1939 and again on the Saturday. The train was cancelled on Sunday, 3 September, when war was declared at 11am, but some 1,300 women and children arrived by double-decker bus from Enfield, giving a total of 2,400 over the weekend. Fifty-three billets were offered for expectant mothers arriving on Sunday, 3 September.
There was a plan to send 1,800 blind people to Hertfordshire, but after protest at the lack of warning and provision for them this was revised down to 200 and again down to 100. In the end, Harpenden had 5 out of the 100 instead of the 200 originally due to come. Mr Catton of "The Ridge", Luton Road, took 20 handicapped children along with two or three adult helpers. Empty property was taken over for evacuees, as at 18 Clarence Road, in September 1939.
Evacuee Hostels and Clinics
An Evacuees Boys Hostel was set up at 20 Hollybush Lane: this was also known as the Welfare Centre. Another hostel for families was set up at 2 Arden Grove in August 1940. At first there was a lady from Enfield with two children, and another with ten children. At times the running of this hostel gave cause for concern, and there were several changes of staff to try to put matters right. It was closed for a while and reopened in March 1941, eventually closing on 4 February 1945.
For younger children the Harpenden Montessori House Ltd in Sun Lane, by St George's School, had closed on 2nd August 1940 and reopened on 3rd October as The Edmonton Day Nursery. It was closed in July 1943 and reopened with its former owners on 7th September 1943. Miss E Stephenson was the Matron in 1941.
The Rector's Room on Church Green and the Methodist Church Hall had been taken over on 12 August 1939 for educational purposes. However on 8 December 1942 the Methodist Hall became a War-Time Nursery. Opening in October 1939, 13 Salisbury Avenue housed St Martin's Lodge Sick Bay for Evacuated Children. The hostel was managed by Mrs Falkner on behalf of the County Council. The WVS helped by providing volunteers to do elementary nursing and general care of the children, reading stories and taking them for walks. In January 1943 Mrs Mardall, the WVS leader, was appealing for help at the hostel, which finally closed on 31 May 1945.
In July 1943 Harpenden Urban District Council presented badges, awarded by the Ministry of Health, for good service to Wardens of local hostels for evacuees. Recipients were:
- Mr and Mrs G H Bouncey of 20 Hollybush Lane
- The Misses Leah and Webb of 2 Arden Grove (NB check names in Kelly's)
- And Mrs Lewis of Bramble Corner, Devonshire Road.
Bowers Parade shops had been built in 1936, but several remained empty in 1939. No. 5 was taken over by the Council and an Evacuee Clinic was set up as from 1 September. It was staffed by helpers from the Red Cross and dealt with cuts and minor injuries. In July 1940 wire netting was fitted to the windows as blast protection. In February 1943 there was some debate as to whether this was still needed, but it was retained due to the worsening situation in Europe, which might lead to another influx of evacuees. However it finally closed on 11 December 1943.
The nurse responsible for the evacuated schools was recalled to London in March 1943, leaving the District Nurses in Harpenden with even more to do. They were not able to visit the schools as often as desired, but were hoping to arrange a central clinic, possibly at Manland School.
Mr Nelson Davis led a team of volunteers running the Hospital Car Service, taking evacuees between hostels and medical services, for which they claimed petrol expenses, and were usually paid in food tokens – (Scan of Mabel Farmer's letter of 16 Oct 1939 p.58)
The pupils and staff of three London County Council schools – Hugh Myddleton from Clerkenwell, Crondall Street from Shoreditch, and Medburn School from Somerstown – all transferred to Harpenden. But there was soon confusion, as a directive was issued that all schools were to close until reasonable protection against air raids could be given.
There was also some local dissatisfaction about sharing school premises with local children according to a Free Press report on 3 November 1939: "Parents are 'up in arms' because of the order recently issued at the County Hall in Hertford introducing an alternate week system at the Harpenden Manland Schools, whereby the local children change and change about with the evacuees and, every other week, have to go so school on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning." It was reported that Mr C F Putterill, Chairman of the Local Education Committee was taking this up with the Director of Education Committee to discuss a new plan. (p.65) A system was evolved making use of all available church halls, and the old Victoria Road School – then empty, having been condemned as unfit for use! (The pupils had moved from there to Manland Junior and Senior Schools just before the outbreak of war).
The Crondall Street School was billeted in North Harpenden and used the Church Hall at Kinsbourne Green along with the local children – later merged into St Mary's School. Meanwhile, Manland Senior School took in the Hugh Myddleton children and staff. Enough Medburn Street children stayed throughout the war to enable Victoria Road School to stay open until June 1945. There is also indication that the Coldharbour Lane Mission Church Hall was also used as a school from 10 June 1940.
It was expected that the bombing of London would start right from the beginning of the War, but this did not happen, with the result that many children returned to London, either to see family, or to go home to stay. In December 1939 there were 836 children at school and in January 1940 it was noticed that numbers were dropping and by 10 February numbers were down to 719. A notice in the Free Press gave warning that some re-billeting would be needed. A Government minister was later heard to say of the evacuation, that if it were ever to be done again, they would transfer people much further away, as it was easy to return to London when they were only a short distance away.
250 children came from Hastings in July 1940 and were divided between St Nicholas Church School and High Street Methodist Church Hall, working as separate units, but by mid 1942 their numbers had dropped to 25 and they merged with St Nicholas School. This influx of children gave the headmaster of St Nicholas School problems with feeding so many that he asked for a canteen to be set up. There was some delay, but he did get one, called the Dinner Club, which was opened on 23 January 1941. It served meals to 125 children – 57 local and 68 evacuees.
Town v. countryside
The two different lifestyles of the children from Harpenden and those from London clashed at times, both sides being unsure of the other. In a letter to the Free Press on 17 May 1940 Mr Robert Beckwith of Marquis Lane explained to the children how they should behave while in the countryside:
"There is a large amount of bird-nest rifling going on – I actually saw some boys take a thrush's nest away, complete with three eggs. … Then there is the wanton picking and destruction of wild flowers: cannot children be told that it is harmful, besides being wretchedly selfish, to pick bunches of flowers far beyond their needs …. What is perhaps sadly needed is some organised walking parties in charge of some person who understands the countryside, the farmer's point of view and the nature and usefulness of much of the wild life and flowers which abound in Harpenden." (RB.Evacuees, p.67)
Writing in his memoirs, The Land Called Me (p.261), the Director of Rothamsted, Sir John Russell, wrote: "A flood of refugees came to Harpenden and we took into our house a woman from North-East London and her two children. But they could not stand the quietness, the lack of fried fish shops and similar amenities, and went back as soon as they thought it safe. Then, too, Harpenden people learnt with amazement how utterly ignorant many of the children were of the most elementary notions of religion, conduct and manners, and how completely they lacked house training, so that we wondered what London school teachers had been doing all those years."
Visits from parents
The parents of the children would visit them on Sundays and in some cases expected the host family to feed them as well as their children – this becoming a sore point with some people. To overcome this, Mr Jesse Catton gave the use of two empty shop units in Broadway Hall (the site of Sainsbury's since 1970) in the High Street, where a Sunday Café was provided from October 1939 to overcome the problems.
Harpenden Gleanings (20 October 1939) reported that the first Harpenden Rover Scouts under the leadership of Mr D.E. Sanders were responsible for the arrangements, providing hospitality for the Sunday trippers – "Several spoke very appreciatively of the arrangements. One man said: 'We did not expect to get nice stuff like this at reasonable prices, in fact we expected to be rooked in Harpenden!" However this canteen was short-lived as Broadway Hall was later taken over by the Council on behalf of the War Department at the end of September 1940.
Writing from his billet at 35 Ox Lane on 5 September 1939, William S Brown, Headmaster of Hugh Myddleton Central School wrote to the Officer-in-charge of Evacuation:
"Dear Sir, I am taking the first opportunity at this busy time, to send to you and all your staff of helpers, our heartfelt appreciation and our sincerest thanks for the splendid way in which our detachment from the Hugh Myddleton Central School was received and billeted on Saturday last. The warmth of our welcome, and especially the kind forethought which was evident in all the arrangements for the comfort of the children was almost overwhelming. The splendid organisation we knew of. It was the kindly human element which touched us profoundly, and I do wish to express our thanks, mine and those of the whole staff, to all your workers, down to the last boy scout. We shall never forget our reception, and I trust that the school will show its appreciation by its manner of life in its new home. We shall all work untiringly to this end, and we hope you will count on us and call on us." (or scan – p.53)
By January 1940 it was the fourth time that eight schoolboy evacuees from Enfield were in court. On arrival in Harpenden they had formed a gang known as "The Crooning Gang" and were said to be involved in ten cases of theft from Harpenden shops. The one who stole the most would be the leader. It was said that the "brains" of the gang had slipped through the hands of the Police. The leader and his second in command were said to be backward in their educational attainment and were being kept at a remedial home for examination at a psychiatric clinic. The Probation Officer, Mr W Broadfield, presented medical reports concerning both boys and the Justices decided to send them to an approved school. The remaining six boys were placed on probation.
On 10 January 1941 six evacuee children were in Court for petty theft. All six were placed on probation. They stole articles from a bicycle shop, a lamp from a cycle at the Railway Station, cigarettes from the Austral Cinema in Luton Road and leggings and a cape from a cycle left in the cinema car park. It was said they had money to buy what they wanted, but preferred to steal. The people they were billeted with spoke well of them.
A ten-year-old boy, again from London, was before St Albans Juvenile Court in July 1941 for stealing a bicycle from outside the Methodist Sunday School. It was returned after ten days when he was seen riding it in Crabtree Lane. The Chairman of the Court, Mr M G Dashwood, said: "We understand that there has been a great deal of this sort of thing going on in Harpenden and around generally. It has got to be stopped, and if it cannot be stopped by the way we are dealing with this boy, we shall have to take more stringent steps with anybody else caught doing this." He was placed on probation for two years, the Probation Officer being Miss Rayham. The boys' teacher said the people whom he was billeted with had not acted right.
To provide entertainment the Harpenden Drama League put on "Toad of Toad Hall" for a week in January 1940. So many people wanted to attend that over 200 children could not get tickets. To solve the problem an extra special Matinee was put on at 10 am on Saturday, 13 January to accommodate them all.
In August 1941, the St Nicholas branch of the Mother's Union invited fourteen mothers from Limehouse to a meeting in Harpenden. They visited the Common, attended a short service in the Parish Church and were entertained to tea and refreshment at the Rectory. They enjoyed games and competitions, for which prizes were awarded, in the Rectory gardens.
The Free Press announced in November 1941 that Victoria Road School would open over the Christmas holiday as a Play Centre. It was proposed that three rooms would be open for games, reading and writing, for both evacuated and local children, and could take about 100 at a time. Mr Watts, the County Organiser for play centres said there would be adult supervision. For a month after the holiday the centre would be open on Saturday mornings and evenings, and from the middle of February for two other evenings as well.
A mysterious fire
The Free Press on 7 May 1943 reported a mysterious outbreak of fire which occurred at Victoria Road School the previous Tuesday evening and caused damage estimated to be in the region of £40. A member of the Home Guard discovered it, gave the alarm and firemen under Company Officer J Hyden attended. The fire was quickly brought under control. It was stated to have originated in a cupboard containing school books, the property of the LCC (London County Council), the school having been in use by evacuated children. The cupboard was burnt out, and the contents destroyed. Much damage was caused to the classroom by heat.
End of the War
A report in the Herts Advertiser of 29 June 1945 gives a short history of the evacuees in Harpenden and ends by saying that trains stopped at Harpenden on Saturday and picked up about 40 children going back to London after six years. The children from Hastings had returned home some months earlier.
About 50 children remained in Harpenden, some with their parents who had moved here, or with foster parents, either because they had no home, or their fathers were still in the forces and they had no other relatives.


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Sketchnoting: Finding a balance of details and diagrams, and calibrating your writing to time
Posted: - Modified: | drawingCheryl Lowry wrote about something many sketchnoters struggle with: running out of sketchnoting room during a talk. It got me thinking about the style I lean towards in my notes, and how I deal with too much or too little content.
My sketchnoting style is more information-dense and more linear/column-based than many other sketchnote styles I've seen. You can compare my recent sketchnotes with the ones on Sketchnote Army or the Flickr Sketchnotes pool to get a sense of how they're different. I take information-dense sketchnotes because I want to remember and I don't trust my memory. If I want to create a summary later on, I can do that from my sketchnotes, but it's difficult to go the other way around. I've learned not to trust that events will have video, that I'll have the patience to sit through a recording, or that slides will make sense after a quick flip-through. My notes are all I can rely on if I want to make sure that the time I spend listening to a talk doesn't just evaporate into forgetfulness. =) So even if my hand cramps a little after sketchnoting a full-day conference with few breaks (hooray for quick finger exercises and stretches), it's worth it because I come away with much more and I can remember a lot.
I paraphrase a lot because I want to make ideas more concise, particularly when it comes to Q&A sessions where people haven't rehearsed what they want to say.
I've thought about writing less and drawing more, but I'm actually pretty happy with where I am. Summarization comes afterwards, when I know what's important to me. Most presentations do very little sign-posting of what they're going to cover and how important each part is, and even the ones that do can sometimes go on interesting tangens. When I'm sketchnoting a presentation, I don't want to prematurely lock into the structure or metaphor I think the speaker has (even if they say they're going to talk about 7 things, for example). That takes me out of the moment and makes me second-guess myself when the speaker says something interesting that doesn't fit into the pattern I want to draw. A column-based layout may feel less creative, but it frees me up to listen.
I might go back and move things around a little during the gaps in the talk, but I generally don't go back and reorganize everything. I want to publish things as quickly as possible. My target is to publish the sketchnotes within 10 minutes after the talk ends, and I usually do. It's a great way to delight people over social media.
I write simple letters on a plain white background. My images and text tend to be separated by whitespace so that I can move things around as needed. I draw uncomplicated figures. I generally use one or two accent colours and maybe a lighter shade for highlighting or depth. Again, I'm optimizing for speed and attention. I've thought about going back and revising some of my sketchnotes to be more visually engaging, but then there's so much new material that would be interesting to draw instead. Besides, I don't want to give people the impression that that kind of detail or layout is what they'll get from me when live sketchnoting. I really like being done with a sketchnote shortly after a talk. This also means I don't have to worry too much about following up and I don't have to juggle multiple ongoing projects. I do occasionally revise sketches and help people turn them into proper illustrations for reuse, but that would definitely be a paid gig. =)
I draw over a light dot grid, and that helps me fill a page at a more consistent rate. I know that if there's an hour-long talk, I can draw letters at my normal size. If it's a short non-interactive talk like an Ignite presentation or a TED talk, I might put several talks on one page, or I might increase the size and be a little looser with the layout. As I listen, I adjust my writing depending on the rate that people are speaking. If they speak slowly or they repeat themselves a lot, I'll draw more images. If they speak quickly, I'll try to capture as much as I can, and then go back and add highlights and some icons afterwards. Because I work digitally, I can remove the grid before publishing the image. (See How I set up Autodesk Sketchbook Pro for sketchnoting)
Working digitally makes it easy for me to compensate for different talk densities. If a speaker ended up saying less than I expected, I can rearrange the text and images around to look more balanced or I can crop the image at the appropriate point. If a speaker says more, it's easy to add another layer and save a separate image. Autodesk Sketchbook Pro isn't a vector program, so enlarging things doesn't work particularly well, but I can move around or reduce parts of my image if I need to squeeze in some more information.
Other sketchnoters have great tips, too. Some people write down just the first few letters of a word or phrase, and then go back and fill the rest when there's time. The Bikablo books encourage you to practise drawing key icons the same way each time, so that you can quickly sketch the first couple of strokes to remind you of what to draw. The Sketchnote Handbook talks about using your audio memory to hold on to thoughts as you draw. These tips work for me, too, and I'm getting the hang of using them. Hope they work for you too!
One of the interesting things about sketchnoting is that now I have a better sense of how much space there is in most presentations and conversations. It's like seeing key words light up and thinking, "Oh, I want to capture that," and also seeing the gaps where you can write or draw. You develop a sense of how much you can squeeze into each gap. If you find that you're picking up more keywords than you have the time to capture, you can increase your thresholds for interestingness or reduce the complexity of your capture.
You can develop this sense of timing by practising with talks of specific lengths. For example, if you go to a lot of 1-hour talks, you'll get a sense of how much people typically cover in an hour. Every so often, it's good to practise with something that's really information-dense: a well-written nonfiction book, an intermediate- or advanced-level talk. Like the way you can improve your speed-reading performance by occasionally reading at a rate faster than you can comprehend, it's good to scramble in sketchnoting from time to time.
Hope that helps!

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Savant once had petty prejudices against A Bridge Too Far, which I remember being a favorite of the war-movie specialists who worked on 1941. Although lavishly mounted, I had complaints about the film's tone, which at the time seemed too insistent on maudlin, heart-tugging effects. I've almost completely reversed my opinion, in that the story told in A Bridge Too Far now seems so ambitious compared to movies made in the last twenty years or so. The film is a daring attempt to make the anti - The Longest Day (from the same author), and is definitely not a feel-good movie about war. This time around the ending is not a glorious victory celebration. No studio would have dared touch such a risky project. Big films made in peacetime about catastrophic military defeats -- Tora! Tora! Tora! and Zulu Dawn -- tended not to become blockbusters. Producer Joseph E. Levine was the last of the high-rolling independent wildcats like Samuel Bronston and Sam Spiegel and took a lot of the risk himself, yet was so masterful at pre-sales that he landed in profit before the movie opened. This Collector's Edition DVD has been delayed in region 2 for over three years (see the Savant review for Battle of Britain for Savant's explanation of why) but was worth the wait, as the added extras will be a treat for any war movie fan or battle buff seeking to re-wage the disastrous campaign. With ace scenarist William Goldman at the typewriter and a dozen top stars enlisted to play main roles, Joseph E. Levine's mega-bucks war picture was as risky as a real wartime operation. To direct he found a reliable man in ex-actor Richard Attenborough, the maker of one fascinating but floppo pacifist musical about WW1 (Oh, What a Lovely War!) and an adventure-biography of Winston Churchill (Young Winston) that did almost as badly. As great art A Bridge Too Far probably doesn't make the mark, as at least 80% of the picture is elaborate second unit work, all high in production value but sometimes less than inspired -- some of the battles are so lovingly photographed that they undermine the stated mission of making an anti-war picture. But Attenborough is great with his actors, who almost overcome the stigma of being movie stars in cameo roles. No matter how bad the odds, we subconsciously wonder why Sean Connery's paratroop commander doesn't lead his men to success. Connery is fine but other actors make even better impressions. Leading the pack is Anthony Hopkins' sober and thoughtful commander, an unassuming fellow who shows superhuman resilience in a near-hopeless situation. Other British actors give unforgettable first-impression performances. Edward Fox is perfect as the 'jolly good' tank commander that delivers the morale boosting speech that launches the ground assault, and Michael Caine is dependable as the Irish tank corps commander stuck on a stalled juggernaut that refuses to budge. The Americans are chosen for star-power and are a little more hit and miss. Robert Redford was the deal-making big name for Levine's project, and he's solid as a composite Major given the worst possible suicide mission. James Caan is also in the Sgt. Rock class as a Sergeant who keeps a promise to guarantee an officer's survival. Elliott Gould is amusing and colorful as a cigar chomping engineer. Ryan O'Neal tries to be a hard-bitten tough guy, but comes across as wooden. Sweetening the deal are Laurence Olivier and Liv Ullmann as Dutch nationals coping with the utter destruction of Arnhem and the mounting casualties. All the best German actors who ever played generals are here (speaking their proper language): Maximillian Schell, Hardy Kruger and Savant favorite Wolfgang Preiss. About 90% of the complicated story comes across as clear as a bell. We're apprised of the monumental logistical challenges and how poorly some of them were addressed. Communications problems were not taken into account, and optimism tantamount to negligence led to the campaign being launched without contingency plans should things go wrong. Unless one is obsessed with winning, watching Market-Garden crumble into a shambles is a fascinating experience. Only when the battle winds down does the movie seem to drop the ball. We've just watched 170 minutes of agonizing sacrifice, and to see four glum commanders declare the plan a failure and give up just a mile from their goal is horribly frustrating. Perhaps Savant has been asleep at the switch for five viewings over twenty years, but I never exactly get what stopped the Allied advance ... when last we looked, they'd passed the last bridge and only had to put forth one final effort to rescue the thousands of men who trusted them --- and achieve their objective as well. One commander even says as much. That's not how history turned out, but A Bridge Too Far succeeds in doing everything but letting us in on the Why. It should be noted that the Dirk Bogarde character is set up to take all the flak from other generals and behave as if he alone were responsible for ignoring the danger signals before the attack was launched, whereas the architect of the campaign, Field Marshall Montgomery, isn't even represented except in some opening newsfilm. I suspect the entire truth is just not being told to avoid 'irrelevant' controversy. 2 A half-baked history buff like Savant thinks in emotional terms --- as if Market-Garden could have liberated Anne Frank, who had actually been siezed from hiding in Amsterdam a month earlier. A Bridge Too Far also swings heavily into a pacifist agenda in its second half, making and re-making the point that all the death and suffering we see is appallingly useless. Liv Ullmann's house becomes a makeshift triage center and Attenborough's camera goes in for frequent 'telling' details that highlight the futility. Mawkish visuals show up that remind us of the shallow-focus red roses of death in Oh, What a Lovely War!. The camera roams around the wounded in Ullman's living room, practically telling us to reach for our hankies. The grim truth of a Dutch resistance fighter placing his dead son's body on a barricade is undercut by a visually lame telephoto focus-pull to the machine gun on an advancing German tank. Wounded soldiers on a hospital lawn play music and 'linger' photogenically. All these episodes are true, but Attenborough's heavy hand makes us resent them. The worst bit is an extended scene in which a brave soldier makes a dash for an airdrop cannister lying under the sights of German guns. He doesn't make it, even though his buddies are cheering him on. The situation seems absurd because Attenborough's choice of angles makes it look as if the German guns should be able to cut down the cheering section as well. Sony's Collector's Edition DVD of A Bridge Too Far has the same stunning, clean, enhanced transfer that appeared on the earlier disc. The extras are a war-movie buff's dream. An elaborate cable docu comparing the movie to the real battle spells out the campaign in even clearer terms, and provides an excellent account of producer Levine's quest to make one final giant show before retiring for good. Another lengthy featurette has extensive interviews with veterans of the campaign and will be of interest to armchair generals seeking vivid first-hand details from personal memories. A special interview with director Attenborough is a good idea that lets him go on a bit too long on several subjects and tends to be redundant. He makes a general anti-war plea at the end that's clearly aware of modern tensions at the Millennium, disapproving of the eagerness to start wars as if they were a positive option. There is an extensive behind-the-scenes photo gallery, but Savant's favorite extras are on disc one with the feature. William Goldman's commentary (with an assist from crew members and guest experts) is good, but the Trivia Track feature is sensational. I fell in love with this text-balloon concept several years ago on Mad Max and think it's a great way to impart tons of details and tangential information, even better than a commentary might do. Let's face it, if you're a fan of you've probably seen this picture several times, and the Trivia Track makes it easy to sit through it again to take in all the cool bits of knowledge, offered as they become relevant to the action on screen. The detail on the battle and the real officers represented onscreen are as good as one might find in an authoritative book, and far more accessible. This track pays special attention to deviations from the absoute truth of history and ends up demonstrating just how incredibly accurate the film is. A highly, highly recommended feature.
On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
A Bridge Too Far Collector's Edition rates:
1. This is sort of a Sony-MGM joint venture disc, but as all MGM Home Video Operations are presently overseen by Sony and disclaimers on the discs no longer mention MGM, I'm going to just start calling them Sony discs and drop the pretense.
2. One extra that could not be included is a United Artists - produced making of TV show done when the film was new. It showed all four of the key British generals, including the oft-blamed General Horrocks as guests of the filming, drinking tea and enjoying the re-creation of a mass parachute drop. At the end of A Bridge Too Far we really want these bozos to be put up against a wall and shot, and here they are thirty years later talking about the worst fiasco of the war as if it was a bad patch in a lwinning Rugby season. The fact is that battles like Market-Garden are forever being re-fought and basic facts and the blame are always in dispute. Perhaps the conclusion seems so fuzzy because of a reticence to choose a point of view and start pointing fingers. Can someone more knowledgeable than Savant clear some of this up?
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The countdown to summer has officially begun and we all want to look and feel our best, especially during these months. However, exercising, and maintaining a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle can be daunting, but with the right tools it can be as easy as picking up a spoon! This spring, Keri Glassman and Dannon Oikos are encouraging you to "Grab a Spoon 'til June" with rich and creamy 0% fat Dannon Oikos® Greek nonfat yogurt to help you stay on track towards your goals while at the same time adding spice to your normal routine!
Here are some of tips from Keri to help you get started – be sure to visit OikosYogurt.com for more tips, messages, advice, recipes and more – and when it's snack time, don't forget to Grab a Spoon!
- Every Meal Is A "Monday Morning". Focus on eating better, one meal at a time. Otherwise it can be easy to get discouraged – forget the worry! Your only mission: Make the next meal you eat nutritious, balanced and satisfying.
- Don't Eat Around A Craving. Honor your craving with a conscious indulgence – take a few deep breaths and find a healthy alternative! Try satisfying your sweet tooth with Dannon Oikos® Greek nonfat yogurt, it is nutritious but still has an incredible taste.
- No-Excuses Exercise. Sometimes the biggest barrier to working out is just getting there so a good option can be to make it as easy as possible—throw in a workout DVD or even going for a walk takes away excuses and gets you moving!
- Satisfying Proteins. A moderate-protein balanced diet with a reasonable amount of fiber, carbohydrates and the appropriate amount of healthy fats is the best way to maintain a healthy weight. Dairy is a great source of protein, try a creamy Greek nonfat yogurt like Dannon Oikos®–it has twice the protein of regular lowfat yogurt*.
*Oikos Greek Nonfat yogurt: 12 -14g Protein (24%DV), Regular lowfat yogurt: 5g protein (10%DV) per 5.3oz.


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(ARA) - Are you considering going back to school? Many adults are doing just that. The National Center for Education (NCES) reports an increase in college enrollment for the last decade, with …
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(ARA) - Are you considering going back to school? Many adults are doing just that. The National Center for Education (NCES) reports an increase in college enrollment for the last decade, with students who are 25 and older enrolling at a higher rate than younger ones. Through 2019, the NCES expects a rise of 23 percent of older students enrolling in college, and an increase of just 9 percent for younger students. For those considering a different career, a criminal justice degree can offer more avenues to employment than you may think. A two-year associate degree can equip you to apply for a variety of entry-level positions in the field. A four-year bachelor degree can open even more options. Peterson's, a comprehensive guide to colleges, cites criminal justice as one of the most popular majors in the country. "The field is wide open in terms of what you can do," says Christie Bergman, chair of the criminal justice department at Brown Mackie College - Tulsa. "Graduates can search for employment in law enforcement, corrections, and private or criminal investigations. While there is overlap in the fields that graduates with two-year and four-year degrees can enter, various positions require a bachelor's degree. For instance, state and federal agencies typically require a bachelor's degree." The associate degree offers generalized knowledge in terms of how the criminal justice system works. "Students learn how the system as a whole should operate, from the Supreme Court to state-level criminal and local courts," Bergman says. Understanding the functions and processes is a necessary skill for employment. The bachelor's degree delves into the intricacies of how the system functions. "Students in the four-year degree program study the foundation of constitutional law and how it applies to the criminal justice system," Bergman says. "Either degree opens doors to multiple career paths." Two-year associate degree options Security is one growing sector in the criminal justice field. "Security is a big one for us here in Oklahoma," says Bergman. "Geographically, we have Indian reservations with casinos that employ security guards, gaming surveillance guards and security for tribal towns." Oklahoma Indian reservations include a network of individual townships, each with its own security force. The Native American Communications Office recognizes Indian tribes and villages well beyond Oklahoma that may offer opportunities. Nationally, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports an expected increase of 18 percent in security positions through 2020. "There is a whole host of other investigative type jobs," Bergman says. These include fraud, computer forensics, loss prevention personnel for department stores, and corporate security, to name a few. Even greater opportunities for employment can be found for detectives and investigators. Companies that hire investigators range from law offices to hotels and insurance companies. Other job prospects can be found within the court system. Here, bailiffs maintain order in the courtroom, and correctional officers oversee people awaiting trial or sentencing. Courthouse security is another option to explore. Four-year bachelor's degree options Law enforcement has traditionally been a common goal for criminal justice students. The state-level court system and law enforcement agencies offer more options for those with a four-year degree. Like the FBI at the federal level, states have specialized law enforcement units. "Every state agency that has penalties associated with breaking rules will have investigators, including the state attorney's office," says Bergman. Graduates may also find employment at correctional institutions. Think of all the local, city, and county jails, as well as state prisons. "It takes a lot of people to run these facilities. They serve as administrators, detention officers and guards," Bergman says. Probation and parole positions, too, can be sought in any department of corrections. Employment direction expands under the umbrella of criminal justice when you consider the separate systems for juveniles and adults. "The juvenile justice system has different offices, its own case workers and its own social services-based careers," she says. "The emphasis here is on treatment rather than investigation." With the myriad of career directions one can take with a degree in criminal justice, it is no wonder this is a popular program. Those already employed can broaden their prospect for advancement with additional education, and those wishing to change career direction can choose a specific area to enter with a criminal justice degree. A criminal justice degree provides many career opportunities


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Think beyond the conventional glute exercises everyone's been doing. If you're serious about building a strong backside, add these to your training.
I wrote an article called Glutes Gone Wild in which I shared a bunch of exercises to help you build a butt you can be proud of without beating up your lower back and knees in the process.
This article picks up right where that one left off, giving you eight more variations to bolster your booty-building arsenal. Think of it as one article for each cheek.
1. Rack Romanian Deadlifts
Properly performed Romanian deadlifts (RDLs) are one of my all-time favorite exercises for developing the glutes and hamstrings. Trouble is, far too often they're butchered worse than a Christmas ham.
As a small tangent, let me first make it clear that a RDL is not a "stiff-legged deadlift."
In a stiff-legged deadlift, you keep the knees locked out and bend forward like you're trying to touch your toes. However, if you do the exercise in this fashion – especially under heavy load – you're asking for trouble.
Maybe it's because I've gone through so many serious back problems, but I cringe every time I see someone doing stiff-legged deadlifts and wish they'd be ditched in favor of the RDL – which is far safer for the lower back, not to mention a superior glute exercise.
The RDL is a hip hinge where you maintain a slight bend in your knees while pushing your butt back as far as you can.
Lower down only as far as you can go and still maintain a flat back. Go too low and you risk hurting your lower back. By the same token, it's easy to let your ego get the best of you as the weight gets heavier and you start cutting more and more reps, which you also don't want.
With that in mind, I've found it can be extremely helpful to do your RDLs in the power rack with the pins set at the proper depth. This way you know just how low to go and don't have to worry about it throughout your set. Think of it like using a box for a depth gauge with squats.
Set the pins at a level that allows you to keep good spinal positioning. When in doubt, or if you're in between pins, err on the side of the higher setting. You can always lower it as your flexibility improves.
Another thing I like about doing them in the rack is that it forces you to control the eccentric portion of the rep to avoid bouncing the bar off the pins. Place it down gently, pause for a second, and come back up.
With regular RDLs, it's easy to let your form deteriorate as the set goes on and start relying on momentum to help move the weight, but starting each rep from a dead stop reflexively teaches you to stay tight throughout, which protects the lower back.
You should initially reduce the weight as you adjust to the new technique, but it shouldn't take long before you're back up to using just as much weight as you could with regular RDLs – only now you'll be feeling them in all the right places, keeping yourself healthy, and using a full range of motion on every rep.
2. Landmine Single-Leg Rdls
I've been a bit slow to come around to single-leg RDLs, which is odd because it seems like an exercise that'd be right up my alley given that I love RDLs, single-leg work, and virtually anything geared towards building up the caboose.
For some reason though, I've always struggled with the balancing aspect to the point that I don't feel like I'm working my glutes and hamstrings to their full capacity. It's gotten significantly better with practice, but I'm still not entirely comfortable with them.
If you find yourself in a similar boat, landmine single-leg RDLs may be the answer. Stand on your left leg facing the landmine unit with the bar in your right hand about an inch in front of your right thigh. Keeping a flat back, hinge at the hips as you reach your right leg straight back behind you while lowering your right arm towards the floor.
It should look like this:
When loading with dumbbells or a barbell, there's a strong tendency to reach your arms too far out in front of you as you lower down, which pitches you forward and makes it tricky to keep your weight back on the heel of the working leg where you want it, thereby putting more strain on the lower back.
You don't have to worry about that issue with the landmine because the bar travels on a fixed arc, so it automatically puts you in the correct position every rep and lets you get in a good rhythm.
It also allows you to reap the benefits of offset contralateral loading with far greater loading potential than holding a single heavy dumbbell. I do like holding a dumbbell in the opposite hand of the leg being worked, but I find that once I get over 50-60 pounds, it becomes very awkward to stabilize. With the landmine, I'm able to load it up as heavy as I can handle without any issues.
You can also set up perpendicular to the landmine that – due to the arc of the barbell – creates a "cross-body" reaching effect. Set up with the bar directly in front of "the goods," just to the side of the working leg so that when you reach the floor, it's directly in front of the foot.
Confused? This video should help clarify.
In the first version, the motion occurs almost entirely in the sagittal plane (although admittedly it requires stabilization in the frontal and transverse planes), but here you're adding in a transverse plane component, which increases glute recruitment by forcing the hip external rotators to fire harder.
I find this version even easier to balance than the one where you're facing the landmine, but I don't like the idea of loading it up heavy once you introduce the rotational component. I'd probably recommend using this variation with lighter loads to familiarize yourself with the movement and then transition to the other way when you're ready to start crushing some weight.
Play around with both ways and see what feels best to you.
Another bonus to using the landmine is that since you're holding onto the fat end of the barbell, it's great for building grip strength. The downside to that though is that as you start get stronger, you may find that your grip becomes the limiting factor. If that's the case, just use straps.
Lastly, if you don't have a specific landmine unit to secure the barbell, place it in a corner with a towel over the tip (so you don't scuff up the walls and draw the ire of the gym staff) and place a heavy dumbbell on top to keep it from shifting around. Problem solved.
3. Offset Single-Leg Glute Bridge
I like single-leg barbell glute bridges more than bilateral barbell glute bridges because despite the load being significantly lighter, I feel an even bigger contraction in my glutes when I do them.
Moreover, because the load is a lot lighter, it's also much more comfortable on the neck and hips, and there's a lot less of a tendency to slide back on the floor like there is with heavy bilateral glute bridges. Plus, you don't have to bother with loading and unloading a heavy-ass barbell at the end of your workout.
To make the single leg version even more intense, try offsetting the load by adding slightly more weight on the ipsilateral side (i.e. the side of the working leg) like so:
It won't take much weight at all to notice a huge difference. As a point of reference, if you're doing anywhere under 135 pounds of total load, a 10 pound differential will be about all you can handle. Anything over that and a 20-25 pound differential will be more than enough. Trust me, the contraction from these is insane.
To counteract the additional loading, you'll need to position yourself a few inches closer to the more heavily weighted side to stabilize the bar on your hips. It might seem that the bar shifting and offset loading would counteract each other, but give it a try. It just feels different and the glutes fire harder.
Start the set by bridging up on both legs and getting yourself situated before removing the other foot from the picture, as that seems to help the set go more smoothly than just starting the set on one leg.
The downside to this one is after you finish one side, you have to physically get out from underneath the bar and face the other direction before doing the other side. Boo hoo. As mildly annoying as that might seem (suck it up), I think you'll find that after a hard set your glutes will need the break anyway.
I also experimented with offsetting the load on the contralateral side and played around with offset loading for bilateral glute bridges as well as bilateral and unilateral hip thrusts, but I didn't have as much luck with any of those. They sounded good in theory but didn't pan out in reality.
4. Single-Leg Hip Thrusts
Single-leg hip thrusts are quickly becoming one of my favorite glute exercises. I actually like the bodyweight version and for many people, that'll be sufficient for quite a while. Eventually though, bodyweight will no longer be challenging and you'll need to add some load.
At first, the best way to add weight seems to be draping chains or weighted vests on your lap, but this can become cumbersome after about 40-50 pounds, so you'll probably find that you'll need to use a barbell.
It's tough to balance the barbell at first though, so start by bridging up on two legs and lowering down on one. Keep the eccentrics on the slow side, and make sure you're really controlling the weight.
Once you feel stable with that, you can then try the full single-leg version. Again, it's useful to use slow eccentrics in the beginning to make sure you're controlling the weight, and it also helps with learning how to stabilize the hips and pelvis so the bar doesn't tip. Remember, using slower eccentrics will require you to use substantially less weight than you think you might be ready for, so plan accordingly.
The last step would be to do the exercise normally – still under control, but just not so slowly.
As with any bridging or thrusting variation, a good rule is that you should always be able to squeeze and hold the contraction at the top for a one-second pause. If you can't, the weight is too heavy. Pausing the reps at the top also helps to ensure that you're using your glutes and not just hyperextending from the lumbar spine.
That's an important point to note. If you're feeling this exercise in your back, you're not doing it right and you probably need to lighten the load or slow down the movement (or both) and focus on doing it correctly. I find that for me, the unilateral version is more back-friendly than the bilateral version (probably just because of the lighter loads), but the point still applies.
Happy thrusting my friends.
5. Single-Leg Hip Thrust/Leg Curl Combo
I got the idea for this one from one of my readers, Matt, after writing Leg Curls 2.0. Matt wrote to me suggesting that I try a hip thrust combined with a Valslide leg curl.
So basically, it'd be a hip thrust where you start with your legs extended and slide them in as you thrust up. It seemed like a great idea, so I dropped what I was doing, got out my Valslides, and tried them leaning against my couch. While it's a cool idea, I found it very awkward to perform a simultaneous hip thrust and leg curl without dipping the hips, and it just didn't quite feel right.
Of course, maybe it was just too hard for me.
That being said, it got my wheels turning and I kept playing around with it and found that combining a single-leg hip thrust with an eccentric leg curl works really well. As in, it absolutely smokes the glutes and hamstrings.
Perform a single-leg hip thrust until your torso is parallel to the floor and you have a straight line going from your knee to your shoulder (the tibia will be about perpendicular to the floor). From there, maintain that line (which means you have to keep the glutes contracted) while you slide your leg out to full extension. Tap your butt down, return your foot to the starting position, and repeat. The key is to control the eccentric.
Here's what it looks like in action.
I also tried it bilaterally, and while it's okay, I like the unilateral version much better. You can also put a light chain across your waist to increase the difficulty if need be.
Beyond just the exercise though, this is a great example of respectful dialogue leading to something good. I appreciate that Matt sent me a message, and I ended up learning something useful from it, and now you will, too. I appreciate all your comments (well, most of them anyway) and please never hesitate to give me feedback as I'm always down to learn something new.
And I'm Out
That's probably a good place to end. By now you've got more than enough artillery to build a praiseworthy posterior, but before you can build up your butt, you've got to get off your butt and get into the gym. I can't do that part for you.


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OAKLAND, Calif. – James Harden had 27 points and seven rebounds on a nagging left knee, Chandler Parsons added 21 points and nine assists and the Houston Rockets beat the slumping Golden State Warriors 116-107 on Tuesday night.
Jeremy Lin finished with 14 points and 10 assists to help the Rockets past his former team for the second time in eight days.
A week after Houston tied the NBA record with 23 made 3-pointers in a testy 140-109 rout of the Warriors, the Bay Area rematch took a little longer to decide.
Stephen Curry had 27 points and six assists and Jarrett Jack scored 22 points after missing the past three games with a right shoulder injury for the Warriors, who head into the All-Star break on a season-long five-game losing streak. The first four losses for Golden State had come on the road.


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Notice: this Wiki will be going read only early in 2024 and edits will no longer be possible. Please see: https://gitlab.eclipse.org/eclipsefdn/helpdesk/-/wikis/Wiki-shutdown-plan for the plan.
JGit/User Guide
Getting Started
If you're new to Git or distributed version control systems generally, then you might want to read Git for Eclipse Users first. If you need more details and background read the book Pro Git. Find details about each release in the new and noteworthy and the release notes.
Taking JGit for a Spin
Although you are probably interested in JGit because you want to integrate it into an existing application or create a tool, JGit is more than simply a Java library for working with git repository. So before diving into the different aspects of the library let's take JGit for a spin.
You are probably familiar with the git command line interface (CLI) that can be used from the shell or in scripts. JGit comes with its own small CLI, which, although not as feature-full as the git CLI, is a good way to showcase what JGIt can do. Furthermore, the programs serve as an excellent source of inspiration for how to accomplish different tasks.
Building the JGit CLI
Assuming that you have the EGit git repository cloned and ready, build the jgit binary by running the jgit maven build (see the Contributor Guide):
~/src/jgit$ mvn clean install
Find the jgit binary here (path relative to root of working tree of your clone of the jgit repository):
Check your build by running the "version" command:
prompt$ ./jgit version jgit version 0.10.0-SNAPSHOT
If you want to use jgit frequently you may consider to ease running it via a symbolic link (usually goes under /usr/local/bin)
sudo ln -s /path/to/jgit /usr/local/bin/jgit
Running the JGit CLI
When given the -h flag, commands provide a helpful message listing what flags they support.
prompt$ ./jgit version -h jgit version [--help (-h)] --help (-h) : display this help text
Running jgit with no arguments lists the most commonly used commands.
prompt$ ./jgit jgit --git-dir GIT_DIR --help (-h) --show-stack-trace command [ARG ...] The most commonly used commands are: branch List, create, or delete branches clone Clone a repository into a new directory commit Record changes to the repository daemon Export repositories over git:// diff Show diffs fetch Update remote refs from another repository init Create an empty git repository log View commit history push Update remote repository from local refs rm Stop tracking a file tag Create a tag version Display the version of jgit
The commands are modeled after their corresponding command in the git CLI. We will not cover all the commands here, but simply give some examples.
jgit also provides a number of debug and test commands, to list all the available commands run
prompt$ ./jgit debug-show-commands
Inspecting the Repository
Before inspecting the most recent commits, you probably want to know which branches the repository contains and what branch is currently checked out. Using the branch commands -v flag, you get a small summary of branches, their revision, and the first line of the revision's commit message.
prompt$ ./jgit branch -v master 4d4adfb Git Project import: don't hide but gray out existing projects * traceHistory 6b9fe04 [historyView] Add trace instrumentation
The log command, like git-log(1), shows the commit log. For example,
prompt$ ./jgit log --author Matthias --grep tycho master commit 482442b599abf75b63b397680aaff09c4e48c0ed Author: Matthias Sohn <firstname.lastname@example.com> Date: Fri Oct 08 10:58:52 2010 +0200 Update build to use tycho 0.10.0 ...
will show you all commits in the "master" branch, where the author name matches "Matthias" and the commit messages contains the word tycho. More search criteria to filter the commit log, such as committer name, can be given.
Graphical History View
Finally, to show some of the graphical capabilities of JGit, we will end this small tour by launching the graphical log tool.
prompt$ ./jgit glog
This should give you a window with the revision graph plotted to the left and three columns containing the first line of the message, the author name, and the commit date.
A Repository holds all objects and refs used for managing source code.
To build a repository, you invoke flavors of RepositoryBuilder.
FileRepositoryBuilder builder = new FileRepositoryBuilder(); Repository repository = builder.setGitDir(new File("/my/git/directory")) .readEnvironment() // scan environment GIT_* variables .findGitDir() // scan up the file system tree .build();
Git Objects
All objects are represented by a SHA-1 id in the Git object model. In JGit, this is represented by the AnyObjectId and ObjectId classes.
There are four types of objects in the Git object model:
- blob
- is used to store file data
- tree
- can be thought of as a directory; it references other trees and blobs
- commit
- a commit points to a single tree
- tag
- marks a commit as special; generally used to mark specific releases
To resolve an object from a repository, simply pass in the right revision string.
ObjectId head = repository.resolve("HEAD");
A ref is a variable that holds a single object identifier. The object identifier can be any valid Git object (blob, tree, commit, tag).
For example, to query for the reference to head, you can simply call
Ref HEAD = repository.getRef("refs/heads/master");
A RevWalk walks a commit graph and produces the matching commits in order.
RevWalk walk = new RevWalk(repository);
TODO talk about filters
A RevCommit represents a commit in the Git object model.
To parse a commit, simply use a RevWalk instance:
RevWalk walk = new RevWalk(repository); RevCommit commit = walk.parseCommit(objectIdOfCommit);
A RevTag represents a tag in the Git object model.
To parse a tag, simply use a RevWalk instance:
RevWalk walk = new RevWalk(repository); RevTag tag = walk.parseTag(objectIdOfTag);
A RevTree represents a tree in the Git object model.
To parse a tree, simply use a RevWalk instance:
RevWalk walk = new RevWalk(repository); RevTree tree = walk.parseTree(objectIdOfTree);
Porcelain API
While JGit contains a lot of low level code to work with Git repositories, it also contains a higher level API that mimics some of the Git porcelain commands in the org.eclipse.jgit.api package.
Most users of JGit should start here.
AddCommand (git-add)
AddCommand allows you to add files to the index and has options available via its setter methods.
- addFilepattern()
Here's a quick example of how to add a set of files to the index using the porcelain API.
Git git = new Git(db); AddCommand add = git.add(); add.addFilepattern("someDirectory").call();
CommitCommand (git-commit)
CommitCommand allows you to perform commits and has options available via its setter methods.
- setAuthor()
- setCommitter()
- setAll()
Here's a quick example of how to commit using the porcelain API.
Git git = new Git(db); CommitCommand commit = git.commit(); commit.setMessage("initial commit").call();
TagCommand (git-tag)
TagCommand supports a variety of tagging options through its setter methods.
- setName()
- setMessage()
- setTagger()
- setObjectId()
- setForceUpdate()
- setSigned() - not supported yet, will throw exception
Here's a quick example of how to tag a commit using the porcelain API.
Git git = new Git(db); RevCommit commit = git.commit().setMessage("initial commit").call(); RevTag tag = git.tag().setName("tag").call();
LogCommand (git-log)
LogCommand allows you to easily walk a commit graph.
- add(AnyObjectId start)
- addRange(AnyObjectId since, AnyObjectId until)
Here's a quick example of how get some log messages.
Git git = new Git(db); Iterable<RevCommit> log = git.log().call();
MergeCommand (git-merge)
Ant Tasks
JGit has Ant tasks for some common tasks contained in the org.eclipse.jgit.ant bundle.
To use these tasks:
<taskdef resource="org/eclipse/jgit/ant/ant-tasks.properties"> <classpath> <pathelement location="path/to/org.eclipse.jgit.ant-VERSION.jar"/> <pathelement location="path/to/org.eclipse.jgit-VERSION.jar"/> <pathelement location="path/to/jsch-0.1.44-1.jar"/> </classpath> </taskdef>
This would then provide git-clone, git-init and git-checkout tasks.
<git-clone uri="http://egit.eclipse.org/jgit.git" />
The following attributes are required:
- uri: the uri to clone from
The following attributes are optional:
- dest: the destination to clone to (defaults to use a human readable directory name based on the last path component of the uri)
- bare: true/false/yes/no to indicate if the cloned repository should be bare or not (defaults to false)
- branch: the initial branch to check out when cloning the repository (defaults to HEAD)
<git-init />
The following attributes are optional:
- dest: the path where a git repository is initialized (defaults $GIT_DIR or the current directory)
- bare: true/false/yes/no to indicate if the repository should be bare or not (defaults to false)
<git-checkout src="path/to/repo" branch="origin/experimental" />
The following attributes are required:
- src: the path to the git repository
- branch: the initial branch to checkout
The following attributes are optional:
- createbranch: true/false/yes/no to indicate whether the branch should be created if it does not already exist (defaults to false)
- force: true/false/yes/no: if true/yes and the branch with the given name already exists, the start-point of an existing branch will be set to a new start-point; if false, the existing branch will not be changed (defaults to false)
Finding children of a commit
PlotWalk revWalk = new PlotWalk(repo()); ObjectId rootId = (branch==null)?repo().resolve(HEAD):branch.getObjectId(); RevCommit root = revWalk.parseCommit(rootId); revWalk.markStart(root); PlotCommitList<PlotLane> plotCommitList = new PlotCommitList<PlotLane>(); plotCommitList.source(revWalk); plotCommitList.fillTo(Integer.MAX_VALUE); return revWalk;
Snippet Collection
There is a collection of ready-to-run JGit code snippets available at https://github.com/centic9/jgit-cookbook
Advanced Topics
Reducing memory usage with RevWalk
The revision walk interface and the RevWalk and RevCommit classes are designed to be light-weight. However, when used with any repository of considerable size they may still require a lot of memory. This section provides hints on what you can do to reduce memory when walking the revision graph.
Restrict the walked revision graph
Try to walk only the amount of the graph you actually need to walk. That is, if you are looking for the commits in refs/heads/master not yet in refs/remotes/origin/master, make sure you markStart() for refs/heads/master and markUninteresting() refs/remotes/origin/master. The RevWalk traversal will only parse the commits necessary for it to answer you, and will try to avoid looking back further in history. That reduces the size of the internal object map, and thus reduces overall memory usage.
RevWalk walk = new RevWalk(repository); ObjectId from = repository.resolve("refs/heads/master"); ObjectId to = repository.resolve("refs/remotes/origin/master"); walk.markStart(walk.parseCommit(from)); walk.markUninteresting(walk.parseCommit(to)); // ...
Discard the body of a commit
There is a setRetainBody(false) method you can use to discard the body of a commit if you don't need the author, committer or message information during the traversal. Examples of when you don't need this data is when you are only using the RevWalk to compute the merge base between branches, or to perform a task you would have used `git rev-list` with its default formatting for.
RevWalk walk = new RevWalk(repository); walk.setRetainBody(false); // ...
If you do need the body, consider extracting the data you need and then calling dispose() on the RevCommit, assuming you only need the data once and can then discard it. If you need to hang onto the data, you may find that JGit's internal representation uses less overall memory than if you held onto it yourself, especially if you want the full message. This is because JGit uses a byte[] internally to store the message in UTF-8. Java String storage would be bigger using UTF-16, assuming the message is mostly US-ASCII data.
RevWalk walk = new RevWalk(repository); // more setup Set<String> authorEmails = new HashSet<String>(); for (RevCommit commit : walk) { // extract the commit fields you need, for example: authorEmails.add(commit.getAuthorIdent().getEmailAddress()); commit.dispose(); }
Subclassing RevWalk and RevCommit
If you need to attach additional data to a commit, consider subclassing both RevWalk and RevCommit, and using the createCommit() method in RevWalk to consruct an instance of your RevCommit subclass. Put the additional data as fields in your RevCommit subclass, so that you don't need to use an auxiliary HashMap to translate from RevCommit or ObjectId to your additional data fields.
public class ReviewedRevision extends RevCommit { private final Date reviewDate; private ReviewedRevision(AnyObjectId id, Date reviewDate) { super(id); this.reviewDate = reviewDate; } public List<String> getReviewedBy() { return getFooterLines("Reviewed-by"); } public Date getReviewDate() { return reviewDate; } public static class Walk extends RevWalk { public Walk(Repository repo) { super(repo); } @Override protected RevCommit createCommit(AnyObjectId id) { return new ReviewedRevision(id, getReviewDate(id)); } private Date getReviewDate(AnyObjectId id) { // ... } } }
Cleaning up after a revision walk
A RevWalk cannot shrink its internal object map. If you have just done a huge traversal of say all history of the repository, that will load everything into the object map, and it cannot be released. If you don't need this data in the near future, it may be a good idea to throw away the RevWalk and allocate a new one for your next traversal. That will let the GC reclaim everything and make it available for another use. On the other hand, reusing an existing object map is much faster than building a new one from scratch. So you need to balance the reclaiming of memory against the user's desire to perform fast updates of an existing repository view.
RevWalk walk = new RevWalk(repository); // ... for (RevCommit commit : walk) { // ... } walk.dispose();


text:
Magic School Bus: Expedition Down Under
Written by Rebecca Carmi
Illustrated by John Speirs
Reviewed by Hunter L. (age 9)
I read the book Expedition Down Under. It was about kids with a teacher named Miss Frizzle who has a magic, wacky school bus. They take a lot of field trips.
In this book they go to Australia. When they were there, they had a tour guide named Tiki. They see a lot of wild animals like kangaroos, wombats, a Tasmanian devil, a platypus, a sugar glider, a koala, and a crocodile. A lesson to be learned in this book is to never try to outrun a dingo.
In this book a girl named Wanda took a pogo stick from the bus and bounced away with a mob of kangaroos. All of the other kids thought that she would get hurt. They tried to keep up with the mob of kangaroos in the Magic School Bus.
I liked this book because I like pogo sticks, kangaroos, and magic. I also like when they chase after Wanda. I like that the Magic School Bus can transform into different things. In this book, the bus turns into a jet.
My favorite part was when Tiki wrestled the kangaroo because I like wrestling. My other favorite part was when the Magic School Bus was chasing the mob of kangaroos and Wanda. I like chases.
My favorite character was Tiki because she wrestled a kangaroo. I also like Carlos who is also in Miss Frizzle's class. I like Carlos because he is brave.
I would recommend this book to first to sixth graders because this is a pretty easy and fun book. Kids who like fiction stories would like this book.


text:
If you're headed to the ballet this season, chances are to hear something like the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from "The Nutcracker," this season's dance blockbuster as usual. But dance doesn't always sound this sweet. Sometimes it sounds more like this.
FLATOW: I'm sure you won't recognize that music. That's the sounds of dancers running at top speed and then slamming into a Plexiglas wall. They're members of the STREB Extreme Action Company, a dance company founded by the choreographer and MacArthur Genius Elizabeth Streb. You won't see any tutus here. In Streb's new show "Forces," dancers fall or - actually, they try to fly from 35 feet. They run into walls. They run up walls. They slide down inclined planes face first. They swing a 200-pound steel I-beam and then duck at out the way before it can smash them to bits.
Remember those experiments you did in high school physics class to learn about force? Slide a heavy box down an incline plane, see how far it travels. Cut the weight off a pendulum, see where it flies. Streb dancers are doing these experiments with their bodies, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the woman behind the moves is a bit of a physics geek. Elizabeth Streb is a choreographer and an action architect and founder of the STREB Extreme Action Company here in New York. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.
ELIZABETH STREB: Thank you. Thank you. I'm honored to be here.
FLATOW: Let's talk about this idea that your actors or dancers are actually flying through the air and dropping three stories.
STREB: Yes, yes. They're going, probably when they hit, about 35 miles an hour, 32 miles an hour.
FLATOW: And why aren't they hurt when they do this?
STREB: Well, oddly enough, it's a technique that we've formed over the last 30 years gradually, gradually. Only, we leave the residue of many injuries behind us. And if you're perfectly flat like a piece of plywood, you spread out the impact. And actually, it makes you stronger.
FLATOW: And what is the idea behind "Forces" and behind this idea of flying and landing like that?
STREB: Well, you know, in short, Ira, I really believe that humans can fly. So it was a young, very naive idea I had when I watched a fly in a Mason jar turn corners without smacking into something. And so I attempted - I realized that humans wouldn't fly like as brilliantly as birds or as brilliantly as insects, but we could hang in the air for a few seconds. However, my decision to not camouflage gravity, I think, and to take the hit and to experience and to demonstrate the failure of flight, I think, is what perhaps upsets some people in the dance world, which is where my reputation resides still.
FLATOW: I've seen the show. It's terrific.
STREB: Thank you so much.
FLATOW: You are obsessed with gravity, aren't you?
STREB: I am. Although, you know, you I'm aware, in the most naive way, that it's the weakest force. But I think it's the only one I can actually harness myself and my mind and my body's and my company too, and show a few dramatic action.
FLATOW: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR.
Now let's talk about some of the extreme forces you've dealt with. You've jumped through glass. They don't jump through glass in this presentation, but you actually have - what's the technique there, and what's the reason for that?
STREB: Well, the formal reason like - oddly enough, this all comes from a formal set of questions. But for diving through the glass, which was called breakthrough, simply, I wanted to demonstrate the effect of action on substance because showing force abstractly is very difficult. So I thought if you saw the glass fly into the audience, you'd know how hard I had to punch it to get through it.
FLATOW: But you had to study something about the physics of glass and everything before you did that.
STREB: Well, no, not really. I mean...
STREB: I hate to say it, but we are trial and error all the way. Like, those equations actually don't necessarily tell you that much.
FLATOW: So you don't really know how something is going to turn out when you first experiment with it.
STREB: Even the show you saw, "Forces," going on right now, I actually sit there with my - pardon my throat - I don't know quite how everything is going to turn out even. I don't think action allows you to know perfectly what will occur.
FLATOW: Mm-hmm. So if you can't predict the effects beforehand, you just try it out; a new move, that sort of thing.
STREB: Yeah, yeah. Well, like, how far can you fall from?
FLATOW: Right.
STREB: You know, we did this piece called "Human Fountain" in the Delacorte in September, and one of my dancers climbed up to 45 feet and fell. And that's higher than we've ever fallen - free fallen.
FLATOW: And survived to tell the story.
STREB: He did. But he did mention that - his name is Felix Hess, and he did mention that his organs hurt. There's a point at which the mat won't depress quickly enough to actually absorb the hit, and our query is, well, how high could we go?
FLATOW: Right. Now, you also have in the show a giant steel I-beam, which must weigh what, a couple hundred pounds, something like that?
STREB: You're right. Yeah, yeah.
FLATOW: The dancers, again, spinning around very quickly in a circle, and then they go up and down and you - it misses them by a micro hair there.
STREB: I'd say we've gotten that close, yeah.
FLATOW: Yes. And the point of that being what?
STREB: Well, for me, again, formerly, I'm trying to excise the drama of action without having to put a love story on top of it. Or "The Nutcracker" on top of it, those types of stories. And so to me, the I-beam is a visceral way to measure time and space exactly, not to fiddle around, to say that's all the time I have. Here, it comes. That's all the space I'm in. I'm out. And I think there's something very profound about seeing the human body out there with an I-beam in terms of temporal issues and spatial issues.
FLATOW: You're dance space is called the Lab, and I heard one of your dancers refer to you as a mad scientist.
FLATOW: Is that - do you think that's fitting?
STREB: Maybe a little more elegant. It's a more elegant title than - I sort of wonder about things and mix up magic, accidents, even dumb luck, and come up with moments that I find rhythmically moving. To me, the content of action might be in the rhythm.
FLATOW: Mm-hmm. And, of course, you're not a trained scientist.
STREB: Of course not, no. No.
FLATOW: No. But you do the sort of the scientific method of experimentation and then observation to see what...
STREB: Precisely, yeah.
FLATOW: See if what you're talking about is real.
STREB: Yes, precisely. And I force myself on scientists and try and ask some odd questions about quantum physics and particle physics and what would happen if you morphed up those extra six dimensions from superstring theory and put them on the body, what would the body look like? Or - I mean, what does it mean to go in the fifth direction, the sixth direction, the seventh direction.
FLATOW: We have to take a break. And when we come back, more on dance physics and big machinery with choreographer Elizabeth Streb.
FLATOW: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR.
FLATOW: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow.
We're talking this hour about dancing, falling and flying with choreographer Elizabeth Streb. Her new show is called "Forces." A lot of machinery involved onstage there.
STREB: Yeah. Yeah. Very much like an orchestra has instruments, I think.
FLATOW: You have a circular spinning platform that can go in two different directions at once?
I know. Isn't that sad? Only two.
FLATOW: No, but you...
STREB: I don't know why.
FLATOW: You covered the third with something called the gizmo, right? You have a third thing.
STREB: Yes, I did. I have a third. I have a third.
FLATOW: Yeah. And describe - how would you describe that?
STREB: Oh, my gosh. I guess I'd describe it as a giant snow cone where - and it turns, it runs, and it accesses on its circumference.
FLATOW: It's something you'd see in the amusement park, sort of.
STREB: Yeah.
FLATOW: It looks like it's spinning like, you know, a ride that you would get on.
STREB: Sort of, but you probably wouldn't want to get on it if you didn't practice.
FLATOW: We have all these on our website at sciencefriday.com, all these gizmos and stuff and excerpts from the program. I'm going to play a clip from the show that you're telling a story about the Wright Brothers. Let's play that clip, and we'll talk about what's inspiring to you about that story.
STREB: Look at the Wright Brothers, you know? They were laughed at out of Dayton. They went to Kitty Hawk so they wouldn't be made fun of by their neighbors. Yeah. You know, after their second summer there, they - everything they did to fly this thing didn't work, and they were baffled. So they went back to Dayton for the winter and worked on some of these designs. And one of them came up with the notion that possibly the Smeaton coefficient of air pressure was incorrect, this equation that had been used - this ratio rather that have been used for 150 years. Went back the next summer and they flew.
FLATOW: And what inspiration did you take away from that story? Why do you tell that story in the show?
STREB: Well, I think that the notion that they realized the Wright Brothers isolated the problem as one of equilibrium, and they had done all the math. They were bicycle mechanics in Dayton. And there's no reason it didn't work. And the fact that they would've question an equation - or this was a coefficient - how could they have questioned something that I guess that had been in use for many years, 150 years? They were scientists. They threw out every other thing, factor that could have prevented them from flying. You know, in the end, I just thought you have to be rigorous about your questions and rigorous about what kind of results you are hoping for. And mine, I guess, is theatrical. So it's a little flimsier than manned flight, woman flight.
FLATOW: I want to bring on another guest into the conversation. Lisa Randall who is famous physicist, professor of science at Harvard. She's a theoretical physicist who works exploring the possibilities of extra dimension. Everybody knows her from this program. Her most recent book is "Higgs Discovery." She's also a Streb dance fan, and you know Lisa, right?
STREB: I do know. Hey, Lisa.
LISA RANDALL: Hi. Good to talk to you.
STREB: Yeah. Same here.
FLATOW: Well, Lisa, what - how do you view this, what Elizabeth is doing?
RANDALL: I guess from the point of view of thinking scientifically at some level, I mean, you're pushing boundaries. You're trying to find out what's actually possible. You know, you asked earlier, could she calculate certain things? And some things are just very hard to calculate because it's not just the physics of glass breaking, for example. It's also the effect on the human body. So these are really difficult problems. And the way they're going to find out the answer is by experimenting. I also just have to say I just really like watching it. It's just exciting. It's really great.
FLATOW: You know, and your work looks at why gravity is such a weak force.
STREB: Love that.
FLATOW: It doesn't look weak from this dance.
RANDALL: That's right. That's correct, and that is the thing that seems paradoxical. But, of course, you have to keep in mind the entire Earth is acting on these dancers and you and me.
FLATOW: Elizabeth, you've known Lisa. What kinds of questions would you like to ask her? And what - you're sitting all down over a beer. What would you discuss?
STREB: Oh, I'd - I'd always love to. I just trample on her anytime I see her, like stalked her to begin with. I already have her first book and I said, could I just ask you a question? And she was, like, oh, what? And I said, well, if you took the extra dimensions that exist in particle physics and you, you know, scaled them up to just attach to the human body, you know, what would happen to the body? I want to understand which direction I could go in to really shock the minds of my audiences. She said, you don't understand. It's a billionth, a billionth, a billionth, a billionth the size of a human nucleus. Didn't you say that, Lisa?
RANDALL: I think I was saying what the real effect would be, yeah. I think the other thing that was really interesting to discuss was sort of the role of technology and advancing science and advancing what she's doing. I think we had a lot of interesting conversations about that as well.
FLATOW: Explain that a little bit more. What do you mean, the role of technology? Yeah.
RANDALL: You know, I think, especially these days where theoretical physics become so abstract-seeming, we sort of forget about that. I think that's been changed a little bit by hearing about the results from the Large Hadron Collider, the discovery of the Higgs boson, which I'm sure your listeners have heard about. And that was possible because this big collider, you know, 17 kilometers in circumference that's accelerating protons together to the highest energies possible, was made.
Now, in this particular case, we actually predicted the particle in advance. But the hope is that there will be particles that emerged that we are not predicting. You need tools. I mean, that's not to say you can't make advances by thinking. But you have to really then go ahead and see what works and what are you leaving out and what's happening. And there's a way which, I think, Elizabeth is doing that in a very different setting
I mean, we think at STREB that hardware is a harbinger of the invention of new moves because the biomechanical body is simply not sufficient to express everything that action can express. So how do you add force to a body? You add a few motors. You get some momentum. The bigger my dancers are, the better. There's more mass.
FLATOW: Well, you're doing the same experiment. You're using body-slamming things.
STREB: It's so much grosser though than the way they do.
STREB: I mean, I want that Hadron Collider.
RANDALL: (Unintelligible) an important consideration here.
STREB: OK. But Lisa, what would happen if I put one of my dancers in the Hadron Collider, would they go that fast?
RANDALL: In the Hadron?
STREB: Hadron.
RANDALL: No.
STREB: Oh, they wouldn't go almost the speed of light? And then would we...
RANDALL: First of all, they'd die from radiation, so we probably wouldn't want to do that.
FLATOW: I hate it when that happens, yeah, yeah.
RANDALL: Yeah. So...
FLATOW: But the similarity, I'm saying, is that you're both - you've said, Elizabeth, that what you want to do is smash into things and see what happens.
STREB: I want to...
FLATOW: But that she's doing - you're doing it in a certain area.
STREB: Yeah. But when those protons...
RANDALL: I think the fair way of saying it is we want to know what's happens at the edge of what we understand.
STREB: Oh, that's so...
RANDALL: One way of getting at that is by slamming things together, but there are other ways you can look at (unintelligible). I'm also interested in what telescopes are finding, what satellites will find. The reason we're smashing together - I mean, it sounds very dramatic, but that is the only way to explore short distances and high energy. That's the only way we know about, using the beauty of E equals MC squared. That energy can be converted to mass. By going to these high energies, you can make particles that you'd never see otherwise.
STREB: That's - I mean, that's like the faster you go, the harder you hit, you know. We keep thinking if we run fast enough and close enough, we can actually go through each other rather than having to go around each other, which is so time-consuming.
RANDALL: That could be a messy process.
STREB: I know. I know. I know. It's probably...
FLATOW: Is that something you think about trying?
STREB: I really do. And on the piece, "Crash" piece, where people are going towards each other, I'm trying to split that difference so it looks like they went through each other, by cheating seconds and cheating space.
RANDALL: But Ira, one thing we should keep in mind, though, is that, you know, we really are operating on extraordinarily different scales, like the scale of subatomic particles. The laws of physics are looking different than they are at the scales that people operate...
STREB: But I'm so jealous about that.
RANDALL: ...and the beauty of physics is that that can all be absorbed, that it's the same physical laws that underlie things. But you can be applying different ways of thinking about things. You're applying more classical physical laws, you're putting them at the limits. But what she's doing is using classical laws, Newtonian physics.
STREB: Yeah.
RANDALL: But what we're doing is really looking for underlying physical laws that would have negligible effects at her distance of speeds but still underlie what's going on.
FLATOW: Where did you first think you wanted to get into this?
STREB: Well, again, I was late to the field itself. I started training as a dancer when I was 17, when I decided to major in it in college at SUNY Brockport. I did downhill skiing, like curiostically(ph) all by myself, on the slopes from a very young age. And I also bought a motorcycle the second I could. And so I experimented with how fast you had to go...
FLATOW: Forces, you were interested...
STREB: Forces.
FLATOW: ...in forces from day one.
STREB: Day one, impact velocity. And I was also a varsity basketball, baseball player...
FLATOW: Wow.
STREB: ...in Our Lady of Mercy High School in Rochester. So - and I was an artist. So I thought I'd put them all together and here we are.
FLATOW: Interaction of art and the laws of nature...
STREB: Exactly.
FLATOW: Forces.
STREB: Yeah.
FLATOW: Like I said at the beginning, instead of doing those experiments in college where you roll those things down - they're boring, they just like make your hair hurt.
FLATOW: And I love physics. It made my hair hurt. Yeah.
STREB: It made your hair hurt.
FLATOW: It made my hair - but you do that with your dancers instead.
STREB: I do. I do. I try to do that and say - I ask a question. I ask a question. I observe their solutions, which many of the solutions come from them.
FLATOW: But, Lisa, isn't that what science is about, getting an idea and then trying to collect the data to see if it's correct?
RANDALL: You know, and I said that (unintelligible). In some ways she does approach it like a scientist. In some ways, some of the ideas might be a little bit different. But the idea that, you know, you think about a general phenomena and you tried to think, what could be possible? And some of it is experiment and some of it is theoretical, and that's the way we - what we do as scientists.
But the other really interesting thing, like I said earlier, is come and get it from a different perspective. That's sometimes where the real breakthroughs happen.
FLATOW: And, in fact, you have been on one of Streb company's machines, the gizmo, right?
RANDALL: I was.
FLATOW: How did you like that ride?
RANDALL: It was fantastic. It's fantastic. And it's fun, too, because it's a little bit counterintuitive, how you have to - I mean, you basically have to do exactly what she tells you to do: go faster at certain points, go slower at certain points, and it works. And it's really exciting to be up there, doing these things that you thought you'd never be doing. I also had the opportunity to use the trapeze briefly. And, you know - and even the trapeze, I mean you were literally taking a leap of faith to catch that trapeze. And it's a really amazing thing to get to try these things.
FLATOW: Mm-hmm. I want to play another short clip from "Forces." Elizabeth, this is one of your voiceovers called if I could invent my own force.
STREB: If I could invent my own force, I would like a force that allowed a body just magically to change direction every third of a second in an absolute accelerated way, not that old-fashion, boring stop, reaccelerate, reach speed, but just like a jagged, like a jagged line, like this. That a body could move like that, like a scribble.
FLATOW: Hasn't been invented yet.
STREB: It hasn't been invented. But I have these fantasy dances that I make, and I put them on paper. And I plan to do them sometimes - I haven't done this one. It's called ricochet. And it's a glass, bullet-proof box, and I'm inside. And there's a gun pointed at a certain angle of incidence to the corners. And the idea would be - it's about philosophy, so I would have to three times move so fast to avoid the bullet. And on the fourth time, if it hit me, it would have lost all its force. It would demonstrate velocity in a way that I want to switch directions and often.
RANDALL: You know, people all want to do that. I mean, that's what people do, you know, when they've owned cars and things like that.
STREB: Avoid a bullet.
RANDALL: Not - but they don't do it - they do it machines. And the idea that you're doing it in a more visceral way, you know, by yourself, is where it gets scary and different.
STREB: Yeah.
FLATOW: I'm Ira Flatow, and this is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR.
Elizabeth, is there a move you've always wanted to do, but you just haven't figured out yet how to do it?
STREB: Well, there is one. But again, I try not to say that our moves - when you come to our show, they entice every audience member. It's the anthropology of human action. It's labor. It's circus. It's crazy, freaks trying to do nutty things. It's me. And so I try and excise, like, what move will be profound if witnessed? And so falling completely vertically but upside down, head towards the floor, but stopping an inch from the floor, because you can't land head first. That's the one thing we cannot do. It's not OK. And I haven't figured out a way to even simulate that yet, that you're watching a body fall head first and - but it lands an inch from the floor.
FLATOW: You need an actor or one of your dancers to do that?
STREB: I don't want anyone to ever do it, but I try to figure out if there's a way. There was a stunt guy once who invented a hydraulic cable machine that you could fall from 120 feet, but you land in an airbag. Or it stops you but absorbs the friction the way a mat or an airbag would, this particular thing. But in short distances, I think it would be extremely difficult to calculate. You can't calculate for an inch with a machine like that.
FLATOW: And why would you want to do this?
STREB: I just have a - it's envisioned in my mind, like everything wrong about what happens with humans in the world, wrong because people are afraid of it. I'd like to present that and to take the mystery away, to take the impossibility away, you know, to - I mean, some of our things scare people, but I think it's the surprise and the unpredictability of the semblance of action and humanness that makes people actually, I think, sometimes be moved by what we do, not always just fearful.
FLATOW: Lisa, I'm sure you're not volunteering for this one, so...
RANDALL: I am not going to volunteer for that one. But you know, it's interesting, though, because some of the things - you can see why the dancer would want to do it, I mean because you are exploring emotions that you wouldn't do otherwise. Some of us are a little more scared.
STREB: Yeah. I don't even think my dancers know about that one. I keep it private.
FLATOW: But they're not afraid to do anything.
STREB: They're not afraid to do anything. They're not afraid - no, they are afraid. They experience an inordinate amount of fear. But we figure out how to unravel that slowly and incrementally so that when the moment comes, they can repeat themselves.
FLATOW: And how long is "Forces" running?
STREB: It'll run until December 22.
FLATOW: And then maybe tour around the country?
STREB: Yeah. Yeah. Then we're going to take all 30 tons, put it in a 53-foot truck and take off to the south and the west, not the edges of the country but mostly the middle.
FLATOW: I hope all of you, if you're listening out there, that you get a chance, if not in New York, to see this on the road. And it's playing in - where's the company?
STREB: The company is at SLAMS, STREB Lab for Action Mechanics. And you can check everything out on www.streb.org.
FLATOW: It's a fun, fantastic show. I enjoyed it, and I hope everybody gets to see it. And if not, catch your act and your acrobats and dancers on the road. Good luck to you. Thank you for coming in.
STREB: So welcome. Thank you.
FLATOW: Elizabeth Streb is a choreographer and founder of the STREB Extreme Action Company. "Forces" will be running through most of December. Lisa Randall, thank you for taking the time.
RANDALL: Thank you. It's always a pleasure to talk to both of you.
FLATOW: You're welcome.
STREB: Thanks, Lisa.
FLATOW: Lisa is a physicist and professor of science at Harvard University, and her latest book is "Higgs' Discovery." And you can see the video - well, we have a lot of the videos. You want to see what Elizabeth has been talking about? We've got - I took these videos myself...
FLATOW: ...from watching this, front row...
STREB: Great. Cool. Cool.
FLATOW: ...videos myself. And in between - oh, my goodness - reactions.
FLATOW: That's why the videos are jiggling a little.
STREB: Even better.
FLATOW: Yup. Plus, we also have a gallery of Elizabeth Streb's dance sketches. These are up now at our sciencefriday.com/streb. That's S-T-R-E-B. Thank you both again for taking time to be with us today.
STREB: My pleasure. Thank you, Ira.
RANDALL: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.