text:
Handling Maintenance
Mandatory Maintenance
Nothing lasts without proper care. Cars need routine oil changes, computers need periodic updates and homes need regular maintenance.
Set up a regular schedule for the following home maintenance tasks:
- Air filter: Every 1-6 months
- Test smoke/carbon monoxide/security alarms: Monthly
- Remove debris from gutters: Every 6 months
- Test water quality: Every 6 months
- Prune trees and replace mulch: Every spring
- Clean dryer ducts: Annually
Optional Improvements
Regular maintenance keeps your home in working order and is in the best interest of all homeowners. Depending on the property and other factors, somewhere further down the priority list may be a batch of optional improvement projects like room remodels or cosmetic updates, including:
- Bathroom remodel
- Finishing a basement
- Updating kitchen cabinets
- Replacing floors
- Adding decorative features
These elective endeavors can enhance both the value and character of your home. And while these projects can seem urgent, the typical budget won't allow for a whole-house remodel within a short period of time.
So before embarking on a rash of cosmetic changes, carefully estimate both the cost and value of your updates. Will marble flooring pay off at resale? Are new cabinets urgently needed, or would a fresh coat of paint suffice?
Weigh cost against value, and when in doubt, give your real estate agent a call. Agents can steer you toward projects that will produce a good return at resale.
Simple DIY Projects
Maintenance issues will pop up from time to time. You typically have a choice of how to handle these problems. Will you rely on your DIY skills or hire a professional to help?
Here's some advice that can help you make that decision: With a good Internet connection, you can learn how to do nearly any type of home repair. Do-it-yourself videos abound online. But that doesn't mean that you should tackle every problem yourself.
If a project requires the purchase of thousand-dollar tools, it's probably not a good DIY job. On the other hand, if you have most of the equipment to do the job and the risk of serious damage or injury is low, you might take a shot.
Here's a list of DIY projects that are typically simple and inexpensive:
- Installing new faucets or fixtures
- Painting
- Replacing outlet covers or light switches
- Installing window coverings
- Fixing a leaky faucet
- Patching drywall holes
Everyone has different levels of home improvement experience. For some homeowners, even simple DIY projects might be better off in the hands of a professional contractor.
How to Find a Contractor
Home improvement projects can be tough. Many kinds of repairs require specialized tools and expertise that the average homeowner doesn't possess.
It's usually a good idea to let a professional tackle these types of projects:
- Roofing
- Major landscaping projects
- Major plumbing projects
- Electrical upgrades
- HVAC (Heating, ventilation and air conditioning)
- Foundation or structural repair
Within any service profession, there are great and not-so-great options, contractors included.
When searching out the best contractor for your project, consider the following resources:
- Get recommendations. Don't stop with recommendations from your family and friends. Talk to people within the construction trade. Have a great plumber? Ask him to recommend an electrician. Professional reputations are quickly made, and the best way to investigate those reputations is to check with others in the industry.
- Check with professional organizations. Membership in an industry organization isn't a requirement for skilled contractors, but it's not a bad sign. The National Association of the Remodeling Industry has its own certification process for contractors and can make referrals to homeowners.
- Licensure is a good sign. Some states require contractors to be bonded and licensed. Check with your state's Division of Labor to find applicable requirements and make sure your contractor is up to par.
- Get estimates from at least three contractors. Costs can vary widely across professionals, so make sure you get at least three different quotes. By talking to several contractors, you'll figure out the professional qualities you prefer. Is it more important to have the job done quickly or at the lowest cost? Would you prefer a contractor who works alone or with several other employees? Hash out your priorities by chatting with several different contractors.
Questions to Ask a Contractor
Before hiring a contractor, make sure you've found the right person for the job. Use the following questions to gather information and flesh out any potential problems:
- What is your estimate for this project?
- How much could that estimate change before the project is finished?
- When can you start on our project?
- How long will it take you to get finished?
- What hours will you be working in my home?
Having the freedom to modify a home can be extremely liberating. The possibilities are endless for a creative homeowner.
But on your way to home perfection, don't lose sight of an important distinction: mandatory maintenance v. optional improvements.


text: =========================================================================Ubuntu Security Notice USN-1833-1 May 24, 2013 linux vulnerabilities ========================================================================= A security issue affects these releases of Ubuntu and its derivatives: - Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Summary: Several security issues were fixed in the kernel. Software Description: - linux: Linux kernel Details: Andy Lutomirski discover an error in the Linux kernel's credential handling on unix sockets. A local user could exploit this flaw to gain administrative privileges. (CVE-2013-1979) A buffer overflow vulnerability was discovered in the Broadcom tg3 ethernet driver for the Linux kernel. A local user could exploit this flaw to cause a denial of service (crash the system) or potentially escalate privileges on the system. (CVE-2013-1929) A flaw was discovered in the Linux kernel's ftrace subsystem interface. A local user could exploit this flaw to cause a denial of service (system crash). (CVE-2013-3301) Update instructions: The problem can be corrected by updating your system to the following package versions: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS: linux-image-3.2.0-44-generic 3.2.0-44.69 linux-image-3.2.0-44-generic-pae 3.2.0-44.69 linux-image-3.2.0-44-highbank 3.2.0-44.69 linux-image-3.2.0-44-omap 3.2.0-44.69 linux-image-3.2.0-44-powerpc-smp 3.2.0-44.69 linux-image-3.2.0-44-powerpc64-smp 3.2.0-44.69 linux-image-3.2.0-44-virtual 3.2.0-44.69 After a standard system update you need to reboot your computer to make all the necessary changes. ATTENTION: Due to an unavoidable ABI change the kernel updates have been given a new version number, which requires you to recompile and reinstall all third party kernel modules you might have installed. If you use linux-restricted-modules, you have to update that package as well to get modules which work with the new kernel version. Unless you manually uninstalled the standard kernel metapackages (e.g. linux-generic, linux-server, linux-powerpc), a standard system upgrade will automatically perform this as well. References: https://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-1833-1 CVE-2013-1929, CVE-2013-1979, CVE-2013-3301 Package Information: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/3.2.0-44.69

subset: commoncrawl


text:
pdnsd − dns proxy daemon
pdnsd [−h] [−V] [−s] [−d] [−g] [−t] [−p file] [−vn] [−mxx] [−c file] [−4] [−6] [−a]
This man page is an extract of the documentation of pdnsd. For complete, current documentation, refer to the HTML (or plain text) documentation (which you can find in the doc/ subdirectory of the source or in a standard documentation directory, typically /usr/share/doc/pdnsd/ if you are using a binary package).
pdnsd is a IPv6 capable proxy domain name server (DNS) which saves the contents of its DNS cache to the disk on exit.
enables IPv4 support. IPv6 support is automatically disabled (should it be available). On by default.
enables IPv6 support. IPv4 support is automatically disabled (should it be available). Off by default.
With this option, pdnsd will try to detect automatically if the system supports IPv6, and fall back to IPv4 otherwise.
−V or −−version
Print version information and exit.
−c FILE or −−config−file=FILE
specifies that configuration is to be read from FILE. Default is /etc/pdnsd.conf.
−d or −−daemon
Start pdnsd in daemon mode (as a background process).
−g or −−debug
Print some debug messages on the console or to the file pdnsd.debug in your cache directory (in daemon mode).
−h or −−help
Print an option summary and exit.
−i PREFIX or −−ipv4_6_prefix=PREFIX
specifies the prefix pdnsd uses (when running in IPv6 mode) to map IPv4 addresses in the configuration file to IPv6 addresses. Must be a valid IPv6 address. Default is ::ffff:0.0.0.0
−p FILE
writes the pid the server runs as to the specified filename. Works only in daemon mode.
Print the user pdnsd will run as and exit.
−s or −−status
enables the status control socket. Either this option should be passed to the command line or status_ctl=on; should be specified in the config file if you want to use pdnsd−ctl(8) to control pdnsd at runtime.
−t or −−tcp
enables the TCP server thread. pdnsd will then serve TCP and UDP queries.
sets the verbosity of pdnsd. n is a numeric argument between 0 (normal operation) to 3 (many messages for debugging).
sets the query method pdnsd uses. Possible values for xx are:
to − pdnsd will use TCP only. TCP queries usually take more time than UDP queries, but are more secure against certain attacks, where an attacker tries to guess your query id and to send forged answers. TCP queries are not supported by some name servers.
tu − pdnsd will try to use TCP, and will fall back to UDP if its connection is refused or times out.
uo − pdnsd will use UDP only. This is the fastest method, and should be supported by all name servers on the Internet.
Additionally, "no" can be prepended to the −−status, −−daemon, −−debug and −−tcp options (e.g. −−notcp) to reverse their effect.
pdnsd is usually run from a startup script. For pdnsd to work, You need to:-
1. Tell your system to use pdnsd as the primary DNS server by modifying /etc/resolv.conf.
2. Tell pdnsd to use an authentic source for DNS records, by including the IP addresses of one or more DNS servers, usually your ISP's DNS servers, in /etc/pdnsd.conf.
For this, put the following line in your /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 127.0.0.X
where X can be
any number. (I use 3). Comment out all other entries. You
should put the same value in the server_ip= line in
global section of /etc/pdnsd.conf.
If you want to use pdnsd as the DNS server for a small local network, you should use the IP address or name of the interface connected to this network instead of 127.0.0.X.
To tell pdnsd where to get DNS information from, add the following lines in /etc/pdnsd.conf:-
server {
label= "myisp";
Note the opening and closing braces. Add more such server sections for each set of DNS servers you want pdnsd to query. Of course the configuration options shown here are just examples. More examples can be found in /etc/pdnsd.conf.sample or the pdnsd.conf in the documentation directory. See the pdnsd.conf(5) man page for all the possible options and their exact meaning.
If you use a dial up connection, remember that ppp scripts usually replace /etc/resolv.conf when connection with the ISP is established. You need to configure ppp (or whatever you use to establish a connection) so that /etc/resolv.conf is not replaced every time a connection is established. Read the documentation for the scripts run when your network comes up.
If you use pppconfig, specify 'none' in the 'nameservers' option in the 'advanced' tab. If you use multiple ISPs, you should do this for each connection/account.
If you use multiple ISPs, you should tell pdnsd which DNS servers have become available by calling pdnsd−ctl, the pdnsd control utility, in a script (e.g. /etc/ppp/ip−up when you use pppd) that is run when the connection is established. If the addresses of the DNS servers are obtained through some type of dynamic configuration protocol (e.g. pppd with the usepeerdns option or a DHCP client), you can pass the DNS server addresses as an extra argument to pdnsd−ctl to configure pdnsd at run time. See the pdnsd−ctl(8) man page for details.
/etc/pdnsd.conf is the pdnsd configuration file. The file format and configuration options are described in the pdnsd.conf(5) man page. You can find examples of almost all options in /etc/pdnsd.conf.sample.
/var/cache/pdnsd/pdnsd.status is the status control socket, which must be enabled before you can use pdnsd−ctl.
/etc/init.d/pdnsd (the name and location of the start-up script may be different depending on your distribution.)
/etc/defaults/pdnsd contains additional parameters or options which may be passed to pdnsd at boot time. This saves the hassle of fiddling with initscripts (not available on all distributions).
The verbosity
option -vn presently does not seem to have
much effect on the amount of debug output.
Report any remaining bugs to the authors.
pdnsd should comply with RFCs 1034 and 1035. As of version 1.0.0, RFC compliance has been improved and pdnsd is now believed (or hoped?) to be fully RFC compatible. It completely follows RFC 2181 (except for one minor issue in the FreeBSD port, see the documentation).
It does NOT support the following features, of which most are marked optional, experimental or obsolete in these RFCs:
• Inverse queries
• Status queries
• Completion queries
• Namespaces other than IN (Internet)
• AXFR and IXFR queries (whole zone transfers); since pdnsd does not maintain zones, that should not violate the standard
The following record types, that are extensions to the original DNS standard, are supported if given as options at compile time. (if you do not need them, you do not need to compile support for them into pdnsd and save cache and executable space):
• RP (responsible person, RFC 1183)
• AFSDB (AFS database location, RFC 1183)
• X25 (X25 address, RFC 1183)
• ISDN (ISDN number/address, RFC 1183)
• RT (route through, RFC 1183)
• NSAP (Network Service Access Protocol address , RFC 1348)
• PX (X.400/RFC822 mapping information, RFC 1995)
• GPOS (geographic position, deprecated)
• AAAA (IPv6 address, RFC 1886)
• LOC (location, RFC 1876)
• EID (Nimrod EID)
• NIMLOC (Nimrod locator)
• SRV (service record, RFC 2052)
• ATMA (ATM address)
• NAPTR (URI mapping, RFC 2168)
• KX (key exchange, RFC 2230)
pdnsd−ctl(8), pdnsd.conf(5), pppconfig(8), resolv.conf(5)
More documentation is available in the doc/ subdirectory of the source, or in /usr/share/doc/pdnsd/ if you are using a binary package.
pdnsd was originally written by Thomas Moestl, <tmoestl [AT] gmx.net>, and was extensively revised by Paul Rombouts <p.a.rombouts [AT] home.nl> (for versions 1.1.8b1−par and later).
Several others have contributed to pdnsd; see files in the source or /usr/share/doc/pdnsd/ directory.
This man page was written by Mahesh T. Pai <paivakil [AT] yahoo.in> using the documents in /usr/share/docs/pdnsd/ directory for Debian, but can be used on other distributions too.
Last revised: 30 Jun 2005 by Paul Rombouts.
This man page is a part of the pdnsd package, and may be distributed in original or modified form under terms of the GNU General Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version.
You can find a copy of the GNU GPL in the file COPYING in the source or the /usr/share/common−licenses/ directory if you are using a Debian system.


text:
While I've shared quite a bit about my great aunt Bà Sáu (left) on the site [See: here, here, and here], I've yet to mention my awesome aunt Loan (right). She is Bà Sáu's youngest daughter and has an encyclopedic knowledge of anything and everything worth eating in Saigon. From street food to fancy dining rooms, she's my go-to source for local haunts worth seeking out.
On my trip to Vietnam this past September, she pointed me to her favorite spots for bánh mì, xôi gà (chicken sticky rice), and chuối nếp nướng (glutinous bananas). All three were smashingly good.
For the choicest banh mi in Saigon, my aunt sent me to Bánh Mì Huynh Hoa in District 1. The fluorescent lit storefront does brisk takeout business from four in the afternoon until late into the night.
According to my friend Lien, the establishment is run by a family of transgendered individuals, but truth be told, I hardly noticed when I stopped in. All I could focus on was making my way through the crowds and snagging a sandwich as soon as possible.
Every banh mi dac biet is made on a fresh and crisp baguette with a heady smear of pork pate and mayonnaise, slices of head cheese and ham, a tangle of pork floss, pickled vegetables, and deadly hot chilies. When taken all together, the flavors and textures meld, enhance one another, and seduce.
Another hoppin' hangout that my aunt led me to was Xoi Che Bui Thi Xuan, a shop specializing in xoi (sticky rice) and che (Vietnamese sweets) on Bui Thi Xuan Street. The Vietnamese have a knack for naming restaurants, I tell you! The restaurant is modern as heck, but I get the feeling that things weren't this shiny when it first opened back in 1977.
Be prepared to sit thigh to thigh with Vietnamese teens because this place is crazy popular. The dish to order here is the xoi dui ga, which is comprised of a meaty drumstick atop a bed of sticky rice with plenty of fried shallots. Whole hunks of meat still aren't very common in Vietnam, so this was a tremendous treat to dig into.
The final gem that my aunt introduced me to was a corner spot in District 3 specializing in banana based desserts. Similar to Bánh Mì Huynh Hoa, this nameless establishment only opens for business in the early evening and sells late into the night. Is it just me or are late night street food shacks the best?
Here, ripe baby bananas are packed in glutinous rice and grilled slow and low over a flame. The result is a crisp and golden exterior with a slightly chewy interior and a pleasantly warm and sweet filling. To serve, the bananas are snipped into bite sized pieces and doused in sweetened coconut milk. I visited this stall every chance I got because it's just that good. And it was located around the corner from our hotel.
With family by my side, fabulous food finds taste even better.
For more Vietnamese food adventures from our summer 2011 trip, check out these posts:
- Saigon Classic: Bún Bò Huế Yên Đỗ
- Saigon Classic: Flaming Roadside Bánh Xèo
- Saigon Dinner Crawl: Squeaky Meatballs, Sesame Sludge, Spicy Duck Tongues, and More
- District 4, Saigon: Our Home Away From Home
- Saigon Classics: Goat Three Ways, Coconut Ice Cream, and Vietnamese Fried Chicken
- Vietnamese Steak and Eggs at Quán Lệ Hồng
- Life After Bourdain: Reuniting with the Lunch Lady
- Phở Hòa Pasteur: Phenomenally Phamous Phở
Bánh Mì Huynh Hoa
26Lê Thị Riêng
District 1, Ho Chi Minh City
Xoi Che Bui Thi Xuan
111 Bui Thi Xuan
District 1, Ho Chi Minh City
Chuoi Nep Nuong
376 Vo Van Tan
District 3, Ho Chi Minh City


text: BMC offers a number of clinical trials specifically for breast cancer patients. Promising new techniques in the diagnosis, treatment and care of patients with cancer are tested in these studies. The number and types of clinical trials available are constantly changing. View an up-to-date list of ongoing trials here. Those interested in participating in any clinical trials at BMC should talk with their physician.


text:
KDE 3.3.2 Release Announcement
Wednesday, 8 December 2004
KDE Project Ships Second Translation and Service Release for Leading Open Source Desktop
KDE Project Ships Second Translation and Service Release of the 3.3 Generation GNU/Linux - UNIX Desktop, Offering Enterprises and Governments a Compelling Free and Open Desktop Solution
The KDE Project today announced the immediate availability of KDE 3.3.2, a maintenance release for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop for GNU/Linux and other UNIXes. KDE 3.3.2 ships with a basic desktop and eighteen other packages (PIM, administration, network, edutainment, utilities, multimedia, games, artwork, web development and more). KDE's award-winning tools and applications are available in 52 languages (Now including Afrikaans and Galician).
KDE, including all its libraries and its applications, is available for free under Open Source licenses. KDE can be obtained in source and numerous binary formats from download.kde.org and can also be obtained on CD-ROM or with any of the major GNU/Linux - UNIX systems shipping today.
KDE 3.3.2 is a maintenance release which provides corrections of problems reported using the KDE bug tracking system and greatly enhanced support for existing translations and new translations.
For a more detailed list of improvements since the KDE 3.3.1 release in October, please refer to the KDE 3.3.2 Changelog.
Additional information about the enhancements of the KDE 3.3.x release series is available in the KDE 3.3 Announcement.
Installing KDE 3.3.2 Binary Packages
Packaging Policies. Some Linux/UNIX OS vendors have kindly provided binary packages of KDE 3.3.2 for some versions of their distribution, and in other cases community volunteers have done so. Some of these binary packages are available for free download from KDE's download.kde.org. Additional binary packages, as well as updates to the packages now available, may become available over the coming weeks.
Package Locations. For a current list of available binary packages of which the KDE Project has been informed, please visit the KDE 3.3.2 Info Page.
Compiling KDE 3.3.2
Source Code. The complete source code for KDE 3.3.2 may be freely downloaded. Instructions on compiling and installing KDE 3.3.2 are available from the KDE 3.3.2 Info Page.
KDE Sponsorship
Besides the superb and invaluable efforts by the KDE developers themselves, significant support for KDE development has been provided by MandrakeSoft, TrollTech and SuSE. In addition, the members of the KDE League provide significant support for KDE promotion, IBM has donated significant hardware to the KDE Project, and the University of Tübingen and the University of Kaiserslautern provide most of the Internet bandwidth for the KDE project. Thanks!
About KDE
KDE is an independent project of hundreds of developers, translators, artists and other professionals worldwide collaborating over the Internet to create and freely distribute a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop and office environment employing a flexible, component-based, network-transparent architecture and offering an outstanding development platform. KDE provides a stable, mature desktop, a full, component-based office suite (KOffice), a large set of networking and administration tools and utilities, and an efficient, intuitive development environment featuring the excellent IDE KDevelop. KDE is working proof that the Open Source "Bazaar-style" software development model can yield first-rate technologies on par with and superior to even the most complex commercial software.
Trademark Notices.
KDE and K Desktop Environment are trademarks of KDE e.V. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and
other countries. All other trademarks and copyrights referred to in this announcement are
the property of their respective owners.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries.
All other trademarks and copyrights referred to in this announcement are the property of their respective owners.
Press Contacts
Sirtaj S. Kang
C-324 Defence Colony
New Delhi
India 110024
Phone: +91-981807-8372
Matthias Kalle Dalheimer
S-683 92 Hagfors
Phone: +46-563-540023
Fax: +46-563-540028
|North America
George Staikos
889 Bay St. #205
Toronto, ON, M5S 3K5
Phone: (416)-925-4030
Hamish Rodda
11 Eucalyptus Road
Eltham VIC 3095
Phone: (+61)402 346684
|South America
Helio Chissini de Castro
R. José de Alencar 120, apto 1906
Curitiba, PR 80050-240
Phone: +55(41)262-0782 / +55(41)360-2670


text:
As The Holiday Season Ends And Crowds Disperse, Five Shows Close On Broadway With Dwindling Ticket Sales Approaching Traditionally Slow Months
Broadway Shows Close After Holiday Season Ends
Several Broadway shows end their runs today. After taking advantage of the holiday crowds over Christmas and New Year's, these Broadway shows determined that it wouldn't be worth it to continue running through the traditionally slow months of January and February.
Of the five, Elf was the only holiday-specific show and had no reason to run any longer, though it may return to Broadway again next Christmas. Dead Accounts and Grace were the only two straight plays among today's Broadway closures. Despite boasting film stars (Katie Holmes in Dead Accounts and Paul Rudd in Grace) in their casts, both shows struggled to sell more than a middling number of tickets throughout late autumn and early winter.
Ticket Sales Drop Across The Board
A play with music, War Horse was a popular and highly acclaimed show that enjoyed a healthy run but decided to close once ticket sales were starting to run out of steam. Chaplin, on the other hand, one of the first musicals to open this season, had a difficult time during its entire run. Leading man Rob McClure enjoyed a great deal of positive buzz for his performance, but it wasn't quite enough to create the great reviews and sensational word-of-mouth that a new musical typically needs to succeed.


text:
An organizational meeting is held prior to the hearing.
The Board shall have the authority to meet for the following purposes: Hearing petitions relating to assessments filed pursuant to Section 194.011(3), Fla. Stat. Hearing complaints relating to homestead exemptions as provided for under Section 196.151, Fla. Stat. Hearing appeals from exemptions denied, or disputes arising from exemptions granted, upon the filing of exemption applications under Section 196.011, Fla. Stat. Hearing appeals concerning ad valorem tax deferrals, classifications. Hearing good cause hearings pursuant to the provisions of the Florida Administrative Code 12D-10.003(8). Ex Parte Contacts. For those actions of the Board which are quasi-judicial in nature, to ensure that the Board review process shall occur in an atmosphere free of bias or pressure, contacts by anyone outside of a Board meeting to members of the Board are prohibited. In the event that a Board member shall receive any written, oral, graphic, or communication of any kind or nature which may directly or indirectly influence the disposition of a quasi-judicial proceeding of the Board, such ex parte communication shall be forwarded to the Clerk of the Board to be included in the record of the Board proceedings.
There is a Value Adjustment Board created for each county which shall consist of two members of the governing body of the county as elected from the membership of the board of said governing body, one of whom shall be elected chairperson, and one member of the school board as elected from the membership of the school board, and two citizen members, one of whom shall be appointed by the governing body of the county and must own homestead property within the county and one of whom must be appointed by the school board and must own a business occupying commercial space located within the school district. A citizen member must NOT be a member or an employee of any taxing authority, and may NOT be a person who represents property owners in any administrative or judicial review of property taxes. Any three members shall constitute a quorum of the Board except that each quorum must include at least one member of said governing board, at least one member of the school board, and at least one citizen member, and no meeting of the Board shall take place unless a quorum is present.
Citizen's terms are for the duration of each year's Value Adjustment Board. The Board of County Commissioners and their alternates are selected at their organizational meeting each November.


text: Local Speed Dating is a free Austria speed dating website that helps you meet local men and women in just minutes without ever having to leave your home. Local Speed Dating is a 100% free dating website for finding speed dates in your area, registration takes just 30 seconds. Click a province/state within Austria from the list below or scroll to the left to find speed dating directly.


text:
For the weekend of Jun 7th 2009, I'm Jon Masters with a summary of the day's LKML traffic.
Apologies for the slight delay, your author was reading Knuth at the beach over the weekend, in between looking at patches, and writing a ZNC plugin IRC->SMS/email/Twitter gateway that uses Greg K-H's 'bti' tool.
In today's issue: Mild ext4 filesystem corruption, private anonymous mmaps, performance overhead, introducing the initdev patchset, IDE fixes, Performance Counters, Introducing this_cpu_xx operations, converting ftrace syscalls to TRACE_EVENT, the IEEE 802.15.4 stack, DebugFS documentation, CPU hard limits, CONFIG_VFAT_NO_CREATE_WITH_LONGNAMES, and benchmarking the Per-bdi writeback flusher threads patchset.
Mild ext4 filesystem corruption. Alan Jenkins rediscovered an existing bug in ext4 that had not received a large amount of on-list attention. On shutdown, he noticed that a file generated by locale-gen was being corrupted. On a subsequent reboot, the MD5 would no longer be correct. He (Alan) proved this by modifying his Debian shutdown scripts to capture various state, and by setting the file to root read-only and immutable. Others suggested trying to drop caches, perform various syncing, and other ideas. Ted T'so later followed up, noting that this seemed to be a previously-reported bug that is only triggered when a filesystem is unmounted and remounted. Apparently, someone at Google is currently looking into this.
Private anonymous mmap. Julian Phillips recently asked about a change in kernel behavior. He (Julian) had a program that creates a reasonably large private anonymous map and was finding that, previously, memory would only be allocated on write (as one might expect). But in kernel 220.127.116.11 he noticed that memory would also be allocated on read from untouched pages. Quoting Julian, "Basically I seem to be seeing copy-on-read instead of copy-on-write type behavior". He subsequently confirmed that Robert Hancock was correct in attributing this to a previous git commit affecting ZERO_PAGE assignment. This wasn't the only obscure VM issue to be discussed. Hugh Dickins, in NACKing a patch from Mincham Kim discussed the overloading of page_table_lock in anon_vma_prepare, explaining how two different threads might be working simultaneously on different anonymous VMAs and thus require the lock.
Performance overhead. Listeners may recall a dialog between Rusty Russell, and Ingo Molnar last week, in which Rusty responded to Ingo's ascertain that CONFIG_PARAVIRT_OPS had a very high overhead to users, with a series of benchmarks showing the impact of other configuration options that vendors (and other users) enable in their kernels also. In the most recent discussion, Dave McCracken followed up to comments from Linus and others saying that he saw Rusty's benchmarks as more of an example of the impact of vendor kernel configurations vs. optimizing a kernel configuration for a specific target. Quoting Rusty, 'Well, Ingo was ranting because (paraphase) "no other config option when *used* has as much impact as CONFIG_PARAVIRT!!!!!!". That was the point of my mail; facts show it's simply untrue.'
Introducing the initdev patchset. Stepping into the early (root) device initialization frey, David VomLehn announced the release of a new patchset aimed at replacing the "rootwait" kernel parameter. With the new patches applied, boot-time users of devices specified in the kernel command line can apparently cause the kernel to wait until their attached devices have been discovered. Currently, both USB and SCSI buses are supported. Stefan Richter looked over the patch series, and found a large number of issues with the current implementation. Quoting Stefan, "Hence the whole thing, as currently implemented is quite useless: The user/admin has to guess what a safe rootdelay value is, and then the kernel will always be delayed for >= rootdelay".
IDE Fixes. Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz requested that a number of IDE "fixes" be pulled from his git tree into the pending 2.6.30 release. These seemed, on their face to be fairly innocuous, but included a change in feature support to HPA - "Host Protected Area" on hard disks that a number of people took objection to - not the least of which included James Bottomley and Linus Torvalds. Although these changes might seem minor nobody was even remotely interested in pulling in modifications to partition handling on disks after rc8. Quoting Linus in his entirity, for context: "The thing is, I had planned on doing a final release yesterday, even before your pull came in. I decided to hold off, let it be, just to test the _current_ state a bit more. No way am I then adding some effectively totally untested new code-path. And if you start messing in partitions.c and adding whole new callback functions to generic block_device_operations, then that's a new code-path. The IDE subsystem has _no_ business adding random new callbacks in the very last days of a release. It sure as hell is not just a bugfix, it's a new feature. The feature may be _needed_ for some specific bug report, but that is totally irrelevant. We don't do things like that. It's also almost certainly not a regression, is it? So by no measure does it work as a "late in the -rc sequence" patch.
Performance Counters. Ingo Molnar announced version 8 of his performance counters ptchset, which he has been working on combination with Peter Zizlstra, and others, for some time. The new subsystem adds a new system call (sys_per_counter_open()) and it provides the new 'perf' tool that makes use of these new kernel capabilities. The patchset includes a large amount of documentation, a very complete tool (it's atypical for such tools to be shipped inside the kernel source - especially a tool which claims to integrate "all things performance analysis under one roof"), and represents a very polished effort to add support for these modern CPU counters. Performance counters have been included in all recent AMD and Intel chips and allow users to capture information on a specified subset of the CPU's operation, for example pipeline stalls, cache hits, and even SMI total counts. They rely upon a limited number of CPU registers to expose this information - although that count has rapidly increased on recent CPUs (from 2 on the Pentium III to 18 on the Pentium 4 chip, according to the wikipedia article on the subject).
Introducing this_cpu_xx operations. Christoph Lameter announced a new set of kernel operations allowing efficient access to per-cpu variables for the current processor. Quoting Christoph, "Currently there is no way in the core to calculate the address of the instance of a per-cpu variable without a table lookup through [per_cpu_ptr]". One caveat is that the current patchset does not yet work with System 390, although that support will be forthcoming as it is pending another patch from Tejun Heo.
Converting Ftrace syscalls to TRACE_EVENT. Jason Baron posted a followup patchset, implementing his previous RFC discussion on the topic of converting ftrace syscall tracing to TRACE_EVENT. With the new patchset, one can toggle on/off individual syscalls using the DebugFS interface - which now includes a new "trace_syscalls" entry.
IEEE 802.15.4. Dmitry Eremin-Solenikov posted version 2 of an implementation of the IEEE 802.15.4 protocol for Linux. This stack implements the LR-WPAN or "Low-rate wireleess personal area networks" standard and is the basis for specifications including ZigBee. It is this author's recollection that these are supposed to be lower power, more easily implemented alternatives to heavyweight stacks, such as Bluetooth.
DebugFS documentation. True to his word, Jonathan Corbet (of Linux Weekly News - http://www.lwn.net/) followed up to his previous comments with a revised version of his debugfs API documentation. The previous document (written for LWN) was very complete back in the day, but the implementation has varied considerably since then and was no longer accurate. The new document is fairly complete and is being merged into Jonathan's documentation tree.
CPU hard limits. Bharata B Rao and Avi Kivity had a protracted dialog concerning the nature of CPU limits, and guarantees. The basic object of discussion was an apparent need for certain users to assign guaranteed CPU resources (and hard limits) to certain tasks - for example in order to provide a customer with a guaranteed 10% of the CPU. The debate centered around whether it is truly possible to make certain guarantees to users in terms of CPU availability, how this should be done, and how one should do this optimally so as to avoid the CPU not being at full utilization.
CONFIG_VFAT_NO_CREATE_WITH_LONGNAMES. While it may seem like all has been quiet on the VFAT front recently, this is apparently not true. Vimal Singh asked whether Tridge's previous patch (which disables creation of long filenames on mounted VFAT filesystems - but not the reading of existing long filenames that might already be there) was still acceptable, to which Tridge replied that it was although, quoting Tridge, "as several people pointed out it lacked a public explanation of why it is needed. We are working on fixing that." He apparently is also currently working on a slightly enhaced version, since the existing one "loses more functionality than is strictly necessary".
Per-bdi writeback flusher threads. Frederic Weisbecker published the results of another round of testing of Jens Axboe's per-BDI writeback flusher threads patchset. This second set was produced "only with bdi-writeback" this time and is available from Frederic's kernel.org people page.
In today's announcements: Atheros 802.11n USB firmware source code released. Luis R. Rodriguez announced that firmware source for the Atheros 802.11n USB Otus/at9170 device was released under the GPL.
The latest kernel release is 2.6.30-rc8, which was released by Linus last week. A final 2.6.30 release is imminent now.
The latest release of the 2.4 series kernel is now 18.104.22.168, which was released by Willy Tarreau on Sunday afternoon. The new release fixes a regression brought in by 22.214.171.124 in which the CAP_KILL fix caused modprobe to leave zombies on auto-loading, and includes a SCTP overflow fix as documented in CVE-2009-0065 that had been too late for the previous cycle.
Stephen Rothwell posted a linux-next tree for June 5th. Since the previous day a total of 4 trees have gained conflicts and the powerpc tree continues to fail to build in an allyesconfig build configuration.
Andrew Morton posted an mm-of-the-moment for 2009-06-05-16-19.
Rafael J. Wysocki posted a list of reported regressions between 2.6.29 and the automatically generated 2.6.30-rc8-git4 tree. The total number of regressions currently stands at 37, of which 36 are pending and 28 are unresolved. This number is fairly congruent with the previous update.
That's a summary of today's LKML traffic. For further information visit kernel.org. I'm Jon Masters.


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In the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
Quran Inspector
All praise is due to God alone. We are happy to introduce our new version of Quran Inspector - the next generation software from Submission.org for reading, searching, and verifying Quran.
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Spring is turning to summer here in the high desert and the restless energies of the changing seasons are moving through me.
I've been cleaning out my office little-by-little lately, going through old mail and the like. The idea of shredding documents impacted me surprisingly deeply this time.
When I've worked as an internal consultant, shredding doesn't bother me. In fact,I usually don't give it a second thought. I just put the unsolicited mail in the blue shred bin and away it goes.
I would imagine the same happens with people who work in large organizations. Those organizations make deals with vendors who have big trucks and huge shredding machines. The shredding company picks the stuff up and shreds it securely. It's costly, but economies of scale kick in and organizations with tons of excess paper value the benefit of secure shredding.
In my home office where I'm leading a start-up company, I conserve everywhere I can and won't pay someone to shred documents for me. No way.
So this time, shredding all the old files and mail was mind- and soul-numbing work. After eight full hours of shredding, I was overwhelmed and only half done. I was amazed not only by the quantity of paper and its high quality gloss, but also by the nature of the paper I was grinding into tiny strips in the small machine that chugged to a stop every 20 minutes or so.
Unwanted advertisements were pushing me to do something—buy a product, open a credit card, join an organization, read a newsletter, donate money, travel somewhere. As I shredded mailer after mailer, the dollar signs began clicking in my mind. Millions of dollars in advertisements—people paid to write them, printers paid to print them, photographers paid to take photos, mailing costs to send them.Then the sound of trees falling crashed in my head. So much waste. Uncountable millions of dollars of waste were represented in these unsolicited, unwanted ads. Each piece of mail reached out hungry fingers searching for some sucker to respond.
I wondered what our society would be like if those millions of dollars spent on advertisements were spent on something more useful, like education, health care, eradicating poverty, jobs, or housing? The list of societal needs grows pretty long in no time at all.
Ads are a hungry-ghost realm. Hungry ghosts have huge stomachs and little bitty mouths. They are never satisfied and endlessly strive to feel full. Advertisers have a huge hunger for new customers who will spend their money on their particular product. Their small mouths, represented by each piece of mail, seek consumers to leach off while consuming resources without thinking. The mailed ads are tossed aside, shredded, recycled or piled in the landfills. If we respond to one of these ads, we receive more ads, more letters, special invitations, catalogs, or newsletters.
It seems we're stuck in this realm. This is how advertising works. It is an unceasing search for sales; an unending push for increasing consumer demand. What a waste.
Read other posts by Bernice Moore
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• opulent •
ah-pyê-lênt • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: 1. Sumptuous, luxurious, exhibiting great wealth and richness, having plush, luxurious appointments. 2. Great in size or numbers, thick or dense with.
Notes: The fact that English has more words referring to wealthy lifestyles than to poverty reflects less the economic status of the English-speaking world than its aspirations: plush, luxurious, posh, sumptuous, and today's Good Word are used more often to refer to luxurious hair, plush upholstery, sumptuous greenery and opulent dogwoods than monetary richness. Today's word may be used adverbially with the appropriate suffix (opulently) and the noun is formed by replacing the final T with CE: opulence.
In Play: Opulence first and foremost describes luxurious surroundings: "Jason Rainbows lives in an opulent yacht docked where he can make a quick getaway should investigators discover how he paid for it." Figuratively, however, it refers to any sort of superabundance: "Tiffany Lampe was known more for her opulent candlelight dinners than the opulence of her generosity."
Word History: Today's Good Word made its way to us from Latin opulentus "rich, wealthy". This word is based on the noun opus "work", which we use in English as a stand-alone word and also as a root in words like opera and operate. The adjective comes from a suffixed form op-en-ent-, which became opulent- by way of 'dissimilation', one of the linguistic means of avoiding sound repetition in a word. Latin didn't like the en-en syllable combination in openentus and replaced the first N with L.
P.S. - Register for the Daily Good Word E-Mail! - You can get our daily Good Word sent directly to you via e-mail in either HTML or Text format. Go to our Registration Page to sign up today!
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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — With self-assembly guiding the steps and synchronization providing the rhythm, a new class of materials forms dynamic, moving structures in an intricate dance.
WATCH VIDEO: Multiple particles in a magnetic field. Although the particlesrotate with the same frequency, they all face different directions; the particles are not syncrhonized.
Researchers from the University of Illinois and Northwestern University have demonstrated tiny spheres that synchronize their movements as they self-assemble into a spinning microtube. Such in-motion structures, a blending of mathematics and materials science, could open a new class of technologies with applications in medicine, chemistry and engineering. The results will be published in the Nov. 22 edition of the journal Nature.
"The world's concept of self-assembly has been to think of static structures – something you would see in a still image," said Steve Granick , the Founder Professor of Engineering at the U. of I. and a co-leader of the study. "We want
shape-shifting structures. Structures where a photograph doesn't tell you what matters. It's like the difference between a photograph and a movie."
The researchers used tiny particles called Janus spheres, named after the Roman god with two faces, which Granick's group developed and previously demonstrated for self-assembly of static structures. In this study, one half of each sphere is coated with a magnetic metal. When dispersed in solution and exposed to a rotating magnetic field, each sphere spins in a gyroscopic motion. They spin at the same frequency but all face a different direction, like a group of dancers in a ballroom dancing to the same beat but performing their own steps.
As two particles approach one another, they synchronize their motions and begin spinning around a shared center, facing opposite directions, similar to the way a couple dancing together falls in step looking at one another.
"They are both magnetized, which causes them to attract each other, but because they're moving, they have to move in sync," said Erik Luijten, a professor of materials science and engineering and of applied mathematics at Northwestern University who co-led the research with Granick.
Soon, the pairs and clusters of dancing spheres assemble themselves into a microtube – a long, hollow structure. The entire tube spins, even as each individual sphere continues its motion as well, like dancers in a line dance completing their individual steps as the line moves.
"It's spontaneous. We don't force it to form," said U. of I. graduate student Jing Yan, the first author of the paper. "We saw that during the self-assembly process, the synchronization also happens. If you look at the spheres, every one is doing a different thing. Only when they come in close contact will they do something cooperatively. The two concepts are intricately related in this system."
Now that the researchers have detailed the delicate choreography of synchronization and self-assembly, they hope to explore applications for this new class of moving structures. One potential application of a dynamic, self-assembled microtube is to transport and release cargo. A particle or collection of molecules could be encapsulated in the tube and transported to a different location. Then, the tube can be disintegrated, releasing the cargo at a target point.
"We're looking for the new applications that people haven't dreamt up yet because they didn't have the capability," said Granick, a professor of materials science and engineering.
Next, the researchers are working to further understand the properties governing synchronized self-assembly and ways to guide it for functionality, such as manipulating the structures with an electrical or magnetic field. They also plan to explore directing the Janus spheres to synchronized self-assembly of other shapes and structures, allowing even more applications.
"Traditionally in self-assembly, you make a specific building block that will organize into a specific structure," Luijten said. "If you want a different structure you have to make a different building block. Here now, with one building block, we can control the structure by exploiting the synchronization effect."
The U.S. Army Research Office, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation supported this work. U. of I. research scientist Sung Chul Bae and Northwestern University graduate student Moses Bloom were co-authors of the paper. Granick also is affiliated with the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory and with the departments of chemistry, physics, biophysics, and chemical and biomolecular engineering at Illinois. Luijten also is associated with the department of engineering sciences at Northwestern University.


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Reverse Osmosis Replacement Filters
Part One, RO System Overview Part Two, RO System Overview
Double-click on the videos above to watch an Overview of Reverse Osmosis Systems
Reverse Osmosis Water Filter SystemsThere are a range of water filtration systems available to today's consumer to meet the different challenges of raising water quality. Often, a simple activated carbon filter does the trick, but many people have more complicated water problems, and find that they need more complex water filtration systems because of this. A reverse osmosis water filtration system will, in many cases, solve these more advanced problems.
Reverse osmosis (RO) water filtration is a multi-step water filtering process which works slowly but is extremely effective. Reverse osmosis systems are generally used to treat cooking and drinking water supplies. It's often used in industry but works very well in the home. Reverse osmosis uses the principles of osmosis (in which material passes slowly through a membrane and is concentrated and purified in the process) to produce very clean water.
The first step is that a simple sediment filter is installed and all water to be used passes through it; the filter catches large particles of materials such as rust or calcium carbonate (a compound which is not at all harmful but which isn't desirable in your drinking and cooking water - it's commonly used as an antacid). Sometimes a second filter of a similar design, but more fine, is used after the initial filtering. An activated carbon filter traps organic chemicals, and then the RO filter, which is a very fine membrane, is used. It may be helpful to think of all these filters as being similar to sieves with differently-sized holes. Basically, the process of reverse osmosis water filtration would be akin to draining cooked food through a series of increasingly-fine sieves, rather than just emptying the pot into a basic perforated colander. Reverse osmosis water filtration systems, being more complex and increasingly sensitive, can trap far more contaminants than just one simple carbon filter. Some RO systems will, even after the water has passed through the RO membrane, use yet another carbon filter or, alternatively, an ultra-violet lamp, to purify the water even further. The result of all of this filtering is extremely high quality water.
Reverse osmosis is not the most efficient of all water filtration systems, and some have expressed concern about the fact that it takes approximately four gallons of processed water to result in one gallon of clear water. However, its effectiveness makes it a preferred water filtration method for many and is worth the health benefits achieved from pure water. Some describe it as "ultrafiltration," which gives a sense of how powerful RO is. RO results in very pure water. The Water Quality Association says that RO filter systems produce water purity levels as high as 95 percent, which is extraordinary.
The fact remains that reverse osmosis water purification systems remove an astounding range of contaminants from your water. Arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium (hexavalent), chromium (trivalent), copper, lead, nitrate, nitrite, radium 226/228, selenium, iron and TDS are all types of contaminants that reverse osmosis systems can remove from your water.
A reverse osmosis water filtering system is obviously more complicated than a simple carbon-filter water pitcher, but the benefits of its complex design are also obvious. For those who are concerned not merely with the aesthetics of their water - taste - but have more concrete problems with water quality, an RO water filter may be the best solution to your problem.
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1. Springfield, The Simpsons
The most memorable television settings, be they a police precinct, a hospital, the neighborhood bar, or the house down the block, all feel like real places, with architecture, geography, and inhabitants that could be legitimately ported to the real world. It's an altogether different challenge to spread that feeling across the expanses of an entire town or city, and the best, most richly realized TV municipalities typically do so by letting the citizens inform the location—and vice versa. The prototypical "television town as supporting character" is The Simpsons' suburban idyll of Springfield, a picturesque Anytown, USA with a population that never met a problem it couldn't solve by banding together into an angry mob. Twenty-three seasons (with a 24th on the way) have shaped the boundaries and appearance of Springfield, but the town is still best defined by the characters who call it home: A well-meaning, colorful populace nonetheless susceptible to the song-and-dance routines of every smiling shyster with a monorail.
2. Dillon, Friday Night Lights
In the West Texas town of Dillon, football is king, a state championship is the Holy Grail, and the high-schoolers who secure that object of desire are consecrated heroes. Come fall, that singular devotion dictates the town's entire calendar: The rest of the week is merely a preamble to Friday night, when businesses close, roads clear, homes empty, and life comes to a standstill in order for the citizens of Dillon to cheer on their beloved Panthers (and in later seasons, their crosstown rivals the East Dillon Lions). For a Dillon transplant like Tami Taylor, that fanaticism can be unsettling, and Friday Night Lights never shies away from showing its darker side: Crime reports are altered to shield star Panthers, and the reopening of East Dillon High School leads to some shady dealings to ensure a strong Panthers lineup stays intact. The series prefers to show how teams like the Panthers and Lions can act like glue for a community, however, best exemplified by this bit of first-season praise for Coach Eric Taylor, after he leads the Panthers to the ultimate victory: "He took a team that was battered, and a town that was ailing, and he did more than put a Band-Aid on things." The team is mentioned first, but there's no doubt that the win means more to the people of Dillon.
3. Mayberry, The Andy Griffith Show
It's a testament to how fully realized Mayberry was that it's hard to imagine the town as being anywhere but North Carolina, even though The Andy Griffith Show was shot in California. Though Griffith didn't create the show, the writers and producers would pick the North Carolinian's brain about life in Southern small towns, so while most of the episodes took place on only a handful of sets, the way the characters would talk about Mayberry life helped flesh out the location. Mayberry had its share of eccentrics—whooping mountain men and babbling barbers and the like—but it was also a place where farmers would come to shop and traveling businessmen would pass through on their way to the city, and where the church, the diner, the drugstore, and the gas station shaped the course of the day. Following Griffith's death, there's been debate about what it means when people say they wish we they could go "back to Mayberry," and whether that yearning is somehow reactionary. But really, the appeal of Mayberry is its sense of community, and the idea that everybody has a place to go and be, even if they're in no hurry to get there.
4. Hooterville, Green Acres/Petticoat Junction
Though never specifically situated in any state or region, Hooterville represented "farm country" on TV for the better part of the '60s, on the cornpone sitcom Petticoat Junction and its surreal spin-off Green Acres. Hooterville is an ever-shifting cartoon landscape of barns, general stores, railroad depots, and dusty hotels. It's a place where a traveling peddler has exactly what the neighbors need (though at a steep price), and a place where the local bureaucrats draft rules that make sense on paper but in reality turn an already strange place into a freak show. Petticoat Junction was the show for people who enjoyed spending time with quirky folks in the country; Green Acres was more for those who occasionally find themselves passing through a hick burg and searching for someone to acknowledge that something's not right. Both featured the same phony-looking sets and backdrops, but just a slight twist in tone could turn the bucolic Kafkaesque.
5. Twin Peaks, Twin Peaks
With residents like The Log Lady, Sheriff Harry S. Truman, and the late Laura Palmer, the general population of Twin Peaks, Washington was a memorably eccentric bunch; but the importance of the town itself is established in the opening credits of Twin Peaks' pilot, which features shots of the small logging community scored by Angelo Badalamenti's haunting theme song, "Falling." Local haunts like the Double R Diner, the Packard Saw Mill, and the Great Northern Hotel ultimately proved as crucial to the effectiveness of Twin Peaks as any character. Alas, any chance of the world at large using Twin Peaks as its point of reference to the state of Washington was drowned in a sea of flannel and grunge within two years of the series' première, but with tours of the set locations still happening more than 20 years later, the personality of Twin Peaks certainly made an impact.
6. Eerie, Eerie, Indiana
Though it only lasted 19 episodes in its initial run on NBC, the horror-comedy series Eerie, Indiana spawned a short-lived spin-off in Fox's Saturday morning lineup and a series of young-adult paperbacks. Credit the weird pull of Eerie itself, a heartland small town that looks like it was transported whole from a '60s sitcom, only with monsters, cultists, aliens, and mad scientists behind every door. The premise of the show has new Eerie resident Marshall Teller trying to convince his skeptical parents that they'd moved to The Twilight Zone, as he and his best friend Simon solve the town's many mysteries. Eerie, Indiana appealed to kids everywhere who felt like the "normal" streets and houses of their neighborhoods were hiding terrible secrets. The town itself seemed to be whispering truths that only the young could hear.
7. Wellsville, The Adventures Of Pete And Pete
In line with the goal of co-creators Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi to restore a sense of mystery to childhood, The Adventures Of Pete And Pete takes place in a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, and sealed within a Blue Tornado Bar wrapper. Eternally autumnal and frequently dreamlike, Wellsville is a surrealist's vision of suburbia, peopled by psychotic bus drivers, personal superheroes, and school faculty seemingly drafted from the producers' record and home-video collections. The anonymity of its neighborhoods and vinyl-sided houses presents a paradox: a sterile environment that would promote adolescent inventiveness, were the kids of Wellsville not constantly bombarded by fantastical entities like life-altering bowling balls and magical frozen beverages named after Biblical figures. The mythos of Wellsville runs deep, perfectly encapsulating the great unknown that exists beyond the edges of the front lawn.
8. Pawnee, Parks And Recreation
The home of Leslie Knope, Ron Swanson, and television's other favorite civil servants can be characterized by any of its past town slogans—including "The Akron of Southwest Indiana," "The Factory Fire Capital of America," and "Welcome German Soldiers"—or claims to fame like being the fourth-fattest city in the United States. But slogans and statistics obscure reality like so many cumbersome prospective Leslie Knope newspaper headlines: The citizens of Pawnee are the most skittish body politic on television this side of Springfield. Ossified by unhealthy doses of Sweetums brand high-fructose corn syrup, the average Pawneean exhibits a resistance to change; but like that syrup, there is a sweetness within, demonstrated by an unyielding love for miniature horse Li'l Sebastian or the positive electoral response to Leslie's fourth-season run for city council. And it's not like they don't embrace change every few decades: That aforementioned World War II-era slogan has a pair of companions in "Welcome Vietnamese Soldiers" and "Welcome Taliban Soldiers."
9. Fairview, Desperate Housewives
A garden spot in the fictional "Eagle State," Fairview has the amenities of a big city—vices included—and the charm of a small town, with funky little restaurants and businesses for the ladies of Desperate Housewives to kill time in between their illicit sexual affairs and shadowy murder plots. But most of the action in Fairview (and on the show) centers on Wisteria Lane, a seemingly quiet cul-de-sac flanked by impeccably maintained lawns and Colonial-style homes. In the real world, Desperate Housewives was filmed on the Universal Studios lot in what's long been known as "Colonial Street," the home to productions as varied as Leave It To Beaver, The Munsters, Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, and Murder, She Wrote. Throughout Desperate Housewives' eight seasons, creator Marc Cherry exploited Wisteria Lane's backlot quality, recognizing it as the kind of space where sex, murder, and family values could co-exist. And he accomplished the almost impossible task of making Wisteria Lane so real that fans could map it in their minds, citing the history of each house and the residents that came and went.
10. Stars Hollow, Gilmore Girls
The homebase for the beloved dramedy Gilmore Girls also has a long Hollywood history: Warner Bros. Studio's "Midwest Street" served as River City, Iowa in the big-screen adaptation of The Music Man, and for seven seasons in the '70s, it was annexed by Hazzard County, Georgia. By way of further geographic trickery, the two Lorelai Gilmores turned Midwest Street into a Connecticut retreat with a little help from their friends, a rich backstory (during the Revolutionary War, 12 militiamen protected the town from British soldiers who never showed), and creator Amy Sherman-Palladino's inspiring trip to The Nutmeg State. Lost amid a world of pumpkin patches and bustling diners, Sherman-Palladino sought to bring this seemingly out-of-time setting to The WB, building a universe where everyone in town turns out for the annual dance marathon and the diner owner and grocer air their many grievances with each other at well-attended town meetings. There's a sense that the eccentrics are drawn to Stars Hollow, not that Stars Hollow draws the eccentricity out of someone: Witness the string of kooks (and indie-rock luminaries like Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, and Yo La Tengo) drawn to the hamlet when the position of town troubadour is vacated. Midwest Street can be any place in the United States, and Sherman-Palladino can rework that intoxicating small-town vibe on Bunheads, but it takes a population that tolerates the mere notion of a town troubadour to make it Stars Hollow.
11. Sunnydale, Buffy The Vampire Slayer
When Joss Whedon's TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer launched, the main characters were all still in high school and didn't get out of town much, so the week-to-week battles with vampires, demons, and other threats demanded a supernaturally charged, target-rich environment. Whedon's story style mandated that the protagonists should be isolated, dealing with all these threats with little help from adult agencies like police or the government. And the series' sense of humor suggested that all this potential heaviness should be balanced with a dose of levity. The result of these narrative demands was Sunnydale, California, an incongruously upbeat community built over a hellmouth, a demonic portal that periodically spawns or attracts evil forces. The particulars of Sunnydale heavily affected the tone of the show: It's a place where people die horrifically all the time, but none of the weird murders ever make the news, or linger in witnesses' memories. It's a place where murderous monsters and hordes of hapless, cheerful victims eternally exist side by side, with those victims focused on petty day-to-day concerns like making the eponymous heroine attend classes, pass tests, and pay rent while still perpetually trying to keep more than 30,000 people safe from the impending armageddon of the week. In other words, it's Hell with a chipper California outlook and a "Have a nice day!" attitude that does as much to shape Buffy as the rat-a-tat dialogue and nonstop surprise reveals.
12. Mystic Falls, The Vampire Diaries
Like Sunnydale, The Vampire Diaries' Mystic Falls is defined by its supernatural association—specifically its status as the site where vampires were created over a millennium ago, and continue to congregate, along with werewolves and witches, to this day. But the town wouldn't become Mystic Falls until its founding in the mid-19th century, an event that defines the town as much as its tendency to attract well-muscled, oft-shirtless supernatural beings. The Founding Families responsible for the town's establishment kicked off a generation-spanning dynasty that is outwardly concerned with protecting the town's heritage through seemingly weekly municipal events—Founder's Party, Founder's Day, the Miss Mystic Falls Pageant, and so on—but is actually a secret organization dedicated to protecting Mystic Falls from the vampires who can't seem to resist settling there. This generation-spanning divide is the source of most of The Vampire Diaries' conflict, especially when the line between the two factions gets blurred, as it frequently does. (Almost every major supernatural character on the show is either from or associated with a Founding Family.) With just about every character, conflict, and plot machination somehow tied to the town and its history, Mystic Falls is the beating heart—or vampire venom—that powers The Vampire Diaries.
13. Neptune, Veronica Mars
Produced between the burst of the dot-com bubble and the buildup to the subprime mortgage crisis, Veronica Mars went further toward portraying economic realities in the United States than the average teen-sleuth series. Residing in the gap that grew between the haves and have-nots during that period of time is Neptune, California, an unincorporated slice of the Pacific Coast that's home to tech tycoons and movie stars, as well as a rowdy biker gang and an organized-crime outfit operating out of the back of an Irish pub. Neptune's split personality feeds into the majority of the cases brought to the offices of Mars Investigations, and it also accounts for the identity of the series' lead character: Once a member of the wealthy (and thus popular and powerful) zip-code based "09er" clique, Veronica had already developed personal reasons for aiding Neptune's disenfranchised before the series began. In some respects, Veronica Mars is a tale of two cities—but not even a revolt could unseat the ruling class. Then again, we never got to see the results of the sheriff's election that concludes the series' third season.
14. Cicely, Northern Exposure
Northern Exposure was conceived as a "fish out of water" series, and in its early episodes, Cicely, a small Alaska town in a remote area full of oddball natives and quaint local celebrations, was designed to drive the urban sophisticate at the show's center up the wall. But as the show matured, it built on the joke that the place seemed to have everything a sane person would love about New York, with all the abrasive stuff filtered out. Most of the main characters seemed to have come from someplace else, dragging their esoteric cultural interests with them. Visitors who'd had their fill of nature could drag themselves over to the Brick and have their choice of scintillating conversational partners to go with their beer and mooseburger, with a soundtrack of hot platters, comparative religion, and quantum physics provided Chris Stevens at nearby KBHR. It had always been thus; the third-season finale revealed that Cicely was founded in 1908 by a free-thinking lesbian couple, Cicely and Roslyn, who transformed it into "the Paris of the North," and the site of Franz Kafka's happiest days.
15. South Park, South Park
Nestled in the Rocky Mountains, South Park, Colorado is a small, peaceful community—except for those occasions when various outsiders (extraterrestrial invaders, Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Tom Cruise) temporarily move in to cause trouble. At other times, a natural cataclysm, such as the eruption of a local volcano, has threatened to rain fiery death on the town and all its inhabitants. Despite these not-infrequent apocalyptic occurrences, the townspeople persist in regarding the town as a natural bulwark, a real nice place to raise your kids, safe from the corruptions of city life and the larger world. This is a testament to either their shared optimism and can-do spirit, or the general feeling that, as Nelson Muntz once put it, "Some of us prefer illusion to despair." Whatever the hazards of living there, it remains a great place to visit, except in the summer, when the snow all melts and there isn't a thing to do.
16. Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob Squarepants
Bikini Bottom lies at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, beneath Bikini Atoll, site of numerous nuclear-bomb detonation tests in the '40s and '50s, which may or may not account for the nautical nonsense of SpongeBob Squarepants. An underwater community with its own police force and navy, Bikini Bottom appears to have either a shifting form of government or a multi-tiered one that allows for a president and a mayor to co-exist with different branches of monarchy. The main road, Conch Street, connects the homes of the town's model citizens—porous man-child SpongeBob Squarepants, his best friend Patrick Star, and local grump Squidward Tentacles—to SpongeBob and Squid's workplace, the Krusty Krab restaurant. The principals are representatives of an easily excitable but basically plucky people, who have successfully come back again and again after the total annihilation of their community. Housing varies wildly from elaborate architectural feats to makeshift dwellings made from refuge and large shells. However, all buildings, monuments, and transportation vehicles tend to be aquatic-themed, because Bikini Bottom is under water, and its inhabitants aren't ironists.
17. Arlen, King Of The Hill
During the course of its 13 seasons, King Of The Hill defined itself as one TV most realistic sitcoms, in spite of being animated. Its setting, the imagined Arlen, Texas, lends the show a good deal of its credibility. In keeping with a community-wide obsession with the Dallas Cowboys, kids in Arlen graduate from Roger Staubach Elementary to Tom Landry Middle School. King Of The Hill co-creator (and Texas native) Mike Judge proved with Office Space that a joke isn't necessary when saying the words "pizza shooters" or "extreme fajitas" will suffice; similarly, Arlen hotspots like Mega-Lo Mart and Bazooms are funny not because they satirize real-world counterparts (Wal-Mart and Hooters, respectively), but because they gently underline the inherent silliness of such places. Like much on King Of The Hill, Arlen's more a tender caricature of suburban America than an out-and-out cartoon.


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I was at the mall this weekend [GAH] and saw a window display that said "It is never too late to pick up a new spring look!" I DISAGREE!! We're just now getting some truly cold temps, and we're ALL really excited about it. We're a winter loving office, I have to say. We're sharing our favorite teas and casting on last minute winter knits and I thought it would be fun to share a few of my personal winter favorites.
1. New designs from Amy Christoffers! Last week we featured Amy in a table that showed off all the great designs that have been released in our yarns recently. Today, Amy launched another winner! It's called Larch and I LARVE it! Sorry. She knit it in Tupelo, and amazing new shade of yellow Ultra Alpaca Light. Fun fact, Amy can knit and hula hoop at the same time. Awesome!!
2. Hot Toddies! To keep warm and relax, I've been concocting all sorts of delicious warm treats. If you need some recipes (and some amazing knitting inspiration) check out my friend Lee Meredith's Bundle Up! post (scroll to the bottom for recipes). My personal variation is Good Earth Original Tea with a glug of Kraken Black Spiced Rum. Bonus points for gorgeous packaging:
3. My new Nook! After seeing our pattern writer swatch and read at the same time, I knew I had to have an e-reader. I'd been a little wary about them, I tend to be opposed to the increasing number of gadgets we humans tote around, and I really love the experience of reading a book, taking in the cover, the typeface, the paper, everything. That said, I end up watching a LOT of stuff while I knit, and I know my brain is getting mushy because of it. So I picked up a Nook and a fancy cover, downloaded 100 classics for a whopping 6 bucks and I haven't looked back! I'm tempted to knit a Baobab while I wait for my Jack Spade cover to arrive…
4. Winter movies! My favorites are It's a Wonderful Life, Elf, the Charlie Brown special and a new one, Rare Exports. This is bizarre movie from Finland that I absolutely loved. It was a taut and twisted little fairy tale, not for everyone but right up my alley. A bonus? There was some great knitwear on view (of course)!
5. Go-to recipes. This is a time of year when I do a lot of cooking and baking but I do have a few go-to favorites: Martha Stewart's Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies and something my hairdresser told me about called BRICKLE. The Brickle is ridiculously addictive and easy to make, a total win-win.
Well, it is time for a tea break here. Maybe something with ginger…


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A year after the European Union's top court gave Europeans a right to be forgotten by search engines, it is most likely that Google will still remember you after you filed a request to disappear from its search listings.
In fact, chances are that the search result you want to have removed when someone Googles your name will stay visible. That happens in almost 60 percent of cases, the company's online transparency tool showed.
On May 13, 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) granted people the right to request removal of search results for queries including their names if the results are inadequate or irrelevant.
So far, Google, which has over a 90 percent share of the search market in many European countries, has received over 253,000 removal requests covering over 920,000 links. Google removed a little over 40 percent of those links, about 380,000.
Since May 29, when Google launched its request process, most requests have come from the EU's biggest countries.
Even adjusting for population size, the French and Germans were the most concerned by search results about them. Google received about 780 requests per million inhabitants from France, 530 per million from Germany, 500 per million from the U.K., 490 per million from Spain and 310 per million from Italy.
It turns out, though, that the French and Germans were right to be concerned: Google accepted nearly half of the link removal requests from France and Germany, although the acceptance rate was lower elsewhere, ranging from 37.5 percent in the U.K. to 27.6 percent in Italy.
Social media sites are among the most affected by the ruling. Facebook tops the list with 6772 URLs removed from Google's search results, closely followed by New Zealand social network search engine profileengine.com (6035) and the Google Groups forum (4000). The top ten most affected sites also includes Google Plus, YouTube, Twitter, German people search engine Yasni, Facebook event list service whereevent.com, people search engine 192.com and dating site Badoo.
Those top ten sites account for 8 percent of removed links, according to Google.
Google is not the only company though that tracks the impact of removal requests on its search results. French online reputation management company Reputation VIP opened a portal last year to assist people in filing removal requests with Google and with Microsoft's Bing search engine. Since the end of June last year, the company has sent over 61,000 URLs to Google, it said in a blog post.
According to Reputation VIP, Google has become faster in processing requests.
Requests sent in June last year took 56 days to process, by March, this time had been cut to 16 days, statistics showed.
Over time, Google apparently also became more critical. The refusal rate of delisting requests sent through Forget.me has gradually stabilized at around 70 percent, a figure that has been steady since January. That is a sharp increase, as Google only rejected 43 percent of requests filed in June, Reputation VIP noted.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the changes. The company said in November that it employed a big team of lawyers, engineers and paralegals to evaluate every URL requested to be delisted.
According to the company's statistics, Google is most likely to remove links when they invade someone's privacy by for example revealing a private address or religious or political opinions against someone's will. Google also appears to be particularly reticent when a URL is related to a persons professional activity. The press, that have sometimes called the right to be forgotten a censorship tool, seems to be largely unaffected as requests covering media represent only 3.3 percent of total requests while Wikipedia only accounts for 0.2 percent of requests, it said.
Invasion of privacy is also the vast majority of reasons to request Bing to remove search listings, according to Reputation VIP. Though people seem far less interested in having a link removed from Microsoft's search engine as only a little over 4,300 URLs were sent to Bing through Forget.me, it said, adding that as there is a steady stream of requests the right to be forgotten addresses a genuine need.
In its present form, though, it doesn't help people forget. Google only removes search results from its European sites, including google.co.uk and google.fr. EU data protection authorities, though, want Google to extend the service to its main site at google.com, which still returns the disputed links in its search results.


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John Gill's Website
A Climbing Memoir: 1953 - 2008
|Revised on August 26, 2017
|Most Recent Additions/Revisions
link to an interview in 2001
Gill exercises at age 80+
|Climbing Magazine (September 2003) Quick Click recommendation of this site
The Origins of
"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." - The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley
Early British Boulderers
B2. Oscar Eckenstein
B3. Archer Thomson, A. Crowley, O. G. Jones
B3.1 Aleister Crowley's 1898 Bouldering Guide
B3.2 Gash Rock First Ascent - O. G. Jones
B4. More Early British Bouldering
B5. Joe Brown Conversation
B5.1 Early Scottish Bouldering
B6. Allain/Fontainebleau, Early Australian Bouldering
B6.1 Early German and Dolomite Bouldering
B7. Early American Bouldering 1
B8. American Bouldering 2
B9. American Bouldering 3
Historical Images
Pioneer Rock Climbers
"The great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past . . . Only the adventurous can understand the greatness of the past."
- Alfred North Whitehead
& Elbsandsteingebirge, the Dolomites
H1. Saxony, Oliver Perry Smith
H2. O. Perry-Smith, R. Fehrmann Technique, Difficulty, Ethics
H2.1 Early Barbarine Postcard
H3. Perry-Smith. Fehrmann. Difficulty & Risk
H3.1 Perry-Smith Continued
H4. Kreuzturm, Falkenstein, Paul Illmer
H4.1 Mönchstein, Teufelsturm
H5. Wehlturm, Ernst-Schulze-Stein, Schrammtorwächter
H5.1 Vodere Gans, Kleiner Wehlturm, Friction climbing
H5.1a Elbridge Herron Photos
H5.2 1904 Club, Mystery Climber, Dr. Mabuse, Snake Charmer
H5.3 Misc. Images from Elbsandstein/Leipzig - Felix Simon
H5.4 Felix Simon in Action
H5.5 The Dolomites - Early Years
British Isles:
H6. Lake Dist. Abraham Bros. H. Smith, Napes Needle
H6.1 Wasdale Head 1893, Pen-Y-Gwyrd 1897, Sepulchre 1920s
H7. Stanage Edge, Brassington, Lliwedd, Barn Door Traverse
H8. Bhasteir Tooth, Raeburn, Scafell, S. Herford, M. Dalton
H8.1 Claude E. Benson - Words and Photos
H8.2 Reverend James Jackson: Patriarch of the Pillarites
H9. British Ladies: Pat Kelly, Dorothy Pilley
Early Alpine
"Up to that time my experience with guides had not been fortunate" -
Edward Whymper ca 1860
|A1. Mont
Blanc 1786 - 1827
A2. Hugi on the Jungfrau 1820s
A2.1 Mer de Glace 1870
A2.2 Glacier Parties 1860s
A3. Whymper's Matterhorn1865
A4. Shelters, 1870s
"Fundamental progress has to do with the reinterpretation of basic ideas."
- Alfred North Whitehead
G2. Climbing in Early Gymnastics. GutsMuths/Jahn
G3. Jahn's Apparatus: Einbaum, Zweibaum, Vierbaum
G4. Hasenheide Turnplatz. Basel Turnplatz
G5. Ladders : 1700s to 2004 and Beyond
G6. Masts, Poles, Ropes. Dynamics.
G7. 19th Century Turnplatz Illustrations
G8. 19th Century Military Gymnastics Illustrations
G9. Early Climbing Wall. Acrobats of the Early 1800s
G10. Late Victorians. Gymnastik fur Bergsteiger.
G11. The Rope Climb
G12. Still Rings: History, Ratings, Personal Involvement
G13. Rock Climbers who were Gymnasts
|Competitive Rope Climbing
"The history of art is the history of revivals"
- Samuel Butler
Antecedents of the Sport
R2. Description of the Former Event
R3. History of Competitions Prior to 1963
R4. Resurrection / Personal Involvement
R5. The Rope Climb in the Czech Rep.
R6. 2005 Contests in the Czech Republic
Historical Performances
Chin-ups, Pull-ups, Levers, and Crosses
"I think I'll call it 'climber's elbow'"- the author, suffering the injury in 1969
HP. Historical Performances . . .
A survey of a number of climbing - related, historical
suspended bodyweight feats, beginning in the mid 1800s.
One-arm chin-ups and pull-ups, one-finger chin-ups, etc.
"A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Getting started.
Gymnastics/Chalk.Stone Mountain
C1.1 Alternatives to Climbing: Gymnastics.
C2. A Golden Age. Bouldering Ratings.
C3. Bouldering, Kinesthetics Dynamics First V8 & V9
C3.1 Ethereal Bouldering No-Hands Problems
C4. Bouldering Photos.Bouldering companions
C5. Early Attitudes. Buildering Slacklining
C6. Occasional Hard Problem. Traditional Roots
C7. Soloing. Thimble. Injuries & Old Age.
C8. Interviews & Profiles. Writings. Links.
C9. Academic Career
|Mathematicae Varietas
"A mathematician is a machine for converting caffeine into theorems"
Paul Erdos or Alfréd Rényi
|M1. Veil
of Spirits.
M2. Complex Dynamics: exp(z), cos(z), z^2+i, z+1/z
M3. Infinitesimals. Dirac Delta Function
M4. Diagonal Paradox, Short line of infinite length
M5. Power Series Graphics
M6. Continued Fractions Graphics - analytics 1
M7. Continued Fractions Graphics - analytics 2
M8. JL's Hilbert Space
|Gill's Imaginarium
Elementary Mathematical Research Notes
Gill Mathematics Notes
Click on the photo above to see the author bouldering at age 45
This photo was taken in 2007.
To watch the old man exercising
at the age of 75,
Filmed in September, 2012
Click on this photo
2013 : Exercising at age 76
Click Here
Click on the image above to see the latest video of John Gill doing a few exercises at age 80+.
by David Lloyd 2001Interview & Exercises at age 64
A 1992 Ascent of the Thimble
Click on Photo
To avoid rating systems confusion, I shall use the American Decimal System (5.0 - 5.15?) to describe the difficulty of both boulder problems and longer climbs. It will be assumed the rating of a move or sequence of moves are the same if they are 10 feet off the ground or 1,000 feet. I will also use Sherman's V-rating when appropriate. Widely-spread historical benchmarks are easier to compare with the use of only one or two systems.
I would like to thank Kerwin Klein of UC-Berkeley and Colin Wells for information about the history of European bouldering, John Sherman for historical information from his excellent book Stone Crusade , Bob & Bonnie Kamps, Ted Cais, Curt Shannon, and Simon Panton for photos, Michael Fain , John Stannard, Pat Ament ,Phil Gleason, and Ted Cais for contributed articles, Randy Burks for assistance in translation, Karsten Kurz for assistance regarding Saxony climbing, Jiří Tlamsa for an article on rope climbing in the Czech Republic, Predrag Miletic for comments about chinning, Sylvain Jouty for historical information.
Thanks, in addition, to Bridget Burke, ex-Director of the Henry S. Hall, Jr. American Alpine Club Library and to Gary Landeck, current Director, and to Yvonne Sibbald of the Alpine Club Library.
The following are links to recent internet interviews:
theshortspan.com palatinum.info
Flash Interview
The author's biography is: John Gill: Master of Rock by Pat Ament
1st ed.(1977)
2nd ed.(1991)
3rd ed.(1998)
Japanese ed.
Italian ed.
Stone Crusade by John Sherman contains additional biographical material.
|Art by Pamela Gill
|Books by William R. Bell
Average number of hits of site files / month: 150,000


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CONCORD, N.H. — Thirty years after the Concord High School class of '86 watched social studies teacher Christa McAuliffe and six astronauts perish when the space shuttle Challenger broke apart on live TV, a number of them have gone into teaching — and some wonder if, indirectly, the tragedy affected them enough that they wanted to make a difference, as she did.
One of them, Tammy Hickey, didn't like social studies at all, but she enjoyed McAuliffe's law class.
McAuliffe took Hickey and fellow students to courtrooms and conducted mock trials in class. Hickey remembers how personable she was, and how she shared her enthusiasm and experiences when she was in the running to be the first teacher in space. Hickey, now a junior high physical education teacher in Bradenton, Florida, just knew McAuliffe would be picked from more than 11,000 applicants.
"As a teacher now, I know that I want to show respect and show my students that I care," Hickey says. "I can say to emulate how she was, would be a service to these kids for sure."
Hickey joins a number of members of the class of '86 in Concord who became teachers and guidance counselors in the 30 years since they and other students of all ages nationwide watched with disbelief and horror as the shuttle broke apart 73 seconds after liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986, becoming a generational touchstone.
"I try to be very mindful," says Joanne Walton, who teaches grades four through six in Fairfax, Virginia. She says she sometimes goes through a "What would Christa do?" mantra in her teaching.
"She knew that teaching was way more than just imparting information and that it was really important to know students," Walton says.
Holly Merrow, a math teacher for students in fifth through eighth grades in Camden, Maine, had McAuliffe for American Women in History, a class that McAuliffe created and is still taught at Concord High. She worries people will forget her and her motto: "I touch the future. I teach."
"I hear people use it, and I wonder if they know that it came from her," she says.
Members of the class of '86 have petitioned the Obama administration to have a national holiday named for McAuliffe and the Challenger crew, "to honor Christa and the other astronauts for their ultimate sacrifice." The hope was to reach 100,000 signatures by Friday, but it has fewer than 200 so far.
Concord, a city of about 42,000, built and named a planetarium for McAuliffe, 37 when she died, then later changed it to the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, recognizing native son Alan Shepard, the first American in space. Just a few years ago, it named an elementary school for her.
The city has been low-key on marking Challenger anniversaries as her family stayed in Concord and her young children, Scott and Caroline, grew up. Today, both are educators with children of their own. Caroline declined to be interviewed, and Scott did not respond to an email.
"The passage of 30 years since the Challenger accident is not of great personal significance to our family," their father and Christa's widower, Steven McAuliffe, said in a statement. "For us, Challenger will always be an event that occurred just recently. Our thoughts and memories of Christa will always be fresh and comforting."
McAuliffe, a federal judge, added, "We are happy to know that Christa's goals have been largely accomplished in that she has inspired generations of classroom teachers and students, and has focused public attention on the critical importance of teachers to our nation's well-being."
Also Thursday, students at Concord High will hold a moment of silence, writing about their dreams as part of a "Reach for the Stars" assignment and listening to discussions about McAuliffe. They are gathering old yearbook photos and combing through the planetarium archives to put together a permanent display.
Scott Reynolds, a 1987 alumnus who teaches science at the elite St. Paul's School in Concord, conducts a field trip to a local cemetery with his students for one course. The students, from all over the world, get demographic data from the gravesites and make a spreadsheet linking people's deaths to wars and diseases.
When they're done, they drive by Christa McAuliffe's gravestone, and he asks if they know who she was.
"There's always one kid who knows," he says. "I can't say I'm depressed. It's 30 years. It's completely understandable that they don't remember this. I'm more enlightened by the fact that there's always somebody who knows who she was."
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For The Eighth Season In A Row, Dexter® Breaks Viewership Records With Best Ever Premiere
The momentum and growth of SHOWTIME® original series continued last night with the record breaking premiere of RAY DONOVAN, starring Emmy® and Golden Globe® Award nominee Liev Schreiber. And, with the eighth and final season premiere of Dexter at 9 p.m.
RAY DONOVAN delivered the network's highest-rated original series premiere ever with 1.35 million viewers at 10 p.m., besting all other SHOWTIME freshman comedy and drama series including Homeland's blockbuster premiere in 2011 by 25 percent (vs. 1.08 million). The series delivered 2.22 million viewers for the night, the highest-rated freshman series night of any SHOWTIME series to-date, up a staggering 61 percent versus the season one premiere night for Homeland (with 1.38 million viewers).
RAY DONOVAN was sampled across multiple platforms in the two weeks leading up to its premiere last night. Within that period, an additional 816,000 SHOWTIME subscribers sampled the series on SHOWTIME ON DEMAND® and SHOWTIME ANYTIME®, bringing the RAY DONOVAN series premiere total to 3.04 million viewers. Additional online sampling data will be available in the upcoming weeks.
The eighth and final season premiere of Dexter continued to break records, ranking as the series' highest-rated premiere ever, a record which the show continues to break season after season. Dexter's debut last night delivered 2.5 million viewers at 9 p.m., up four percent vs. its season seven premiere (2.4 million). The series delivered 3.2 million viewers for the night, up five percent versus season seven (3.04 million). In seasons past, 64 percent of viewers tuned in to Dexter after its Sunday 9 p.m. episode – watching replays, via DVR, On Demand and authenticated viewing.


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'Minions' Trailer: Doesn't It Feel So Good to Be Bad?
A 'Minions' movie shouldn't work. They were undoubtedly the best part of the 'Despicable Me' movies, and a very large part of why those films were successful. But, could they actually support their own movie? That would be like giving Kramer his own 'Seinfeld' spinoff. Yet, watching this new 'Minions' trailer has us totally hooked. This could actually work.