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My MySQL Database is Corrupted… What Do I Do Now?

This week we hacked a theme park instead of a city, with a frankly intimidating 275 comments full of tips on visiting Disney World. (Would have loved some tips for living at Disney World; maybe next time.) Here are some of the best.

Each Monday on Hack Your City, we ask readers for your best tips on a city: driving tips, restaurant recs, things to do, and any other advice for visitors and locals. Then on Thursday, we present the best comments. We’re working our way around the U.S. and around the globe.

Save money

• “Bring your own food and drinks. Disney allows coolers and bags up to a certain size into the park (it will be checked at the gate for any contraband) but you are free to bring food and drinks into the park (no glass and no alcohol). Also, anywhere you can get fountain soft drinks will give you free cups of water.”—gatorbait28
• “If you have an Amazon Prime Pantry account, we have items like snacks and water shipped directly to the room. We usually get items that we can make quickly and eat while waiting for transportation like instant oatmeal or doughnuts.”—Ron Jones
• “When you get a burger, order a double burger and an extra bun. Conversely, some places will let you order just the entree without the sides (chicken nuggets without fries). This will save you about $2.”—echo125488
• You can buy plenty of Disney souvenirs cheaper at other stores, which might seem weird, but as gatorbait points out, you can get a cheaper autograph book for the costumed characters to sign.
• Characters also trade pins with guests. Mel buys about 50 pins on eBay before going to the park, so they and their son have plenty of pins to trade in for new ones. “My son always asks them for trivia questions. If you get the question right, they’ll show you what their mystery pins are prior to a trade.”
• “If you’re going for more than 10 days over a 1 year period, the annual pass is the best deal. Annual passholders receive free parking at the parks. You also receive a discount at some dining locations and on some merchandise.”—PurpleWaterBottle

Use the meal plan

• The meal plan isn’t for saving money; it could actually cost more. It’s for guaranteeing spots at the best restaurants, and saving yourself the time and decision-making process once you get into the park.
• “I am a huge fan of the deluxe meal plan. The best way to use it is to have a big breakfast/brunch at one of the buffets, use your snacks throughout the day if you get hungry, and then use two meal credits for dinner at the nicest places in the resort. It sounds like a waste to use two meals at once (especially considering the price), but a lot of them are really worth it. Our best memory from our last trip was watching the fireworks from the California Grill at the Contemporary.”—jodathejoda
• “If you get a package deal and get a meal plan, you can also make use of it at Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney) at a number of their restaurants.”—Texas Native
• “It is way cheaper to just pay for meals out of pocket. Even if it is offered free, do not get it as taking the free meal plan means that you do not qualify for room discounts, which have a higher value.”—Jamie McKillop
• “The Dining Plan is cheaper than buying the same foods al a carte. I think for 5 nights it’s about $1200 for 4 people (one child). That’s $60/day/person. Yes, you *can* eat more cheaply, but I really appreciate sitting down in a real restaurant a few times as a break from the heat and crowds. The quick service places are usually a nightmare.”—NotYeezus

Plan ahead

• “Make sure to book your 3 fast passes before going to the park. If you are staying at a resort on property, you can book fast passes up to 60 days in advance. If you are not staying on property, you can book fast passes up to 30 days in advance.”—gatorbait28
• “Once you decide to go on a trip, if you have a Target Red card, start buying Disney gift cards. You will get 5% off the face value (or 10-15% if they are having a gift card promotion). You can use the gift cards for anything in the parks, including food. We think of the cards as the Disney ‘savings’ account.”—Ron Jones
• On certain days, resort guests can enter the park before anyone else for “magic hours,” say bnceo and Taipans. Check Disney’s calendar when planning your trip.

Use these resources

• Get Disney’s official app. “I cannot emphasize downloading the app and bringing spare battery chargers enough,” says Zoom. “Downloading the app lets you maximize your FastPass usage because it tells you the current wait times. It also lets you plan your route around the park more efficiently.”
• Undercover Tourist’s crowd calendar predicts crowd sizes for each park on any given day. Some commenters disagree on how well these third-party guides really work, but at least most of them are cheap or free.
• For $15, you can plan your trip on the Touring Plans app, which helps you optimize which rides to take in what order. “They keep tons of data for every ride, every day and can predict within ~30 seconds how long every ride wait will be,” says Ridley90.
• AllenaTapia recommends looking up all the suggestions of “Tour Guide Mike,” a.k.a. Michael’s VIPs. Five years ago Allena used Mike’s strategies and “never waited in line more than 30 minutes, high season.”
• “Use a Disney Travel Agent,” says jodathejoda. “They are free, and they help a ton in getting everything scheduled and making reservations.”
• WinglessVictory has a tip from The Unofficial Guide to Disney World. “For rides that aren’t continuously loading (like Dumbo, and the tea cup ride) they recommend the Bubba Relay. Dad gets in line with the kids and Mom counts back however many people the ride will hold and gets in line. By the time Dad gets off with the kids, Mom will be toward the front of the line and she can take the kids on again.”

Time it right

• Disney World is never quite out of season, but its crowds do ebb and flow. “Generally,” says WoodenRobot, “Orlando is least crowded after Labor Day weekend and before fall break.” Gatorbait28 also recommends January and February. But avoid marathon week in January, says dakpluto.
• Show up early, 30-60 minutes before the morning “rope drop.” “You’ll have the run of the park for a few hours,” says MarkK. “My family has gotten there early enough that our bodies were brushing up against the chain they drop to let people in. We got on all the popular, slow-loading rides in the first two hours,” says HGHyouworksogood.
• Nap in the afternoon! Many many commenters recommend this, especially if you’ve gotten to the park early. Get indoors, chill at your resort or hotel, then go back for the evening.

Prep your kids

• Commenters agreed that strollers will save you. “If your kids are small enough to fit into a stroller, stuff them in one,” says HGHyouworksogood. “I did for my 5- and 3-year-old. It gets you around the park faster, saves their legs from walking fatigue and keeps them from wandering off.”
• Or (and of course this depends on the kid) wait until your kids are older. “It may sound kinda harsh, but DO NOT go to Disney with kids under 5 years old. The simple fact is that they can’t endure it, don’t comprehend it and won’t remember it. Conversely, kids in the 8, 9, 10 range are enthralled by the experience, have much more physical and emotional stamina and will remember it forever.”—andrewb812

Get in position

• For a good view of the Magic Kingdom parade, Brad Kuhn recommends standing near the very end of the route in the Main Street square. There’s a store next to the doors that the parade exits through; if you stand by the doors of the store, says Brad, you’ll see everyone straight on, then from the side. “Everyone keeps up their act until they’re way beyond the doors and out of sight so you don’t even see them break character watching them out the exit.”
• “Proceed to the BACK of the park first. People tend to queue up for the first things they see,” says dakpluto. Read their comment for specific things to hit first in each park.
• “It’s easy to miss, but there’s a Coca-Cola attraction in Epcot called Club Cool where you can try free Coke products from around the world. Some are great, like Kinley, a lemon-flavored soda from Israel.”—WoodenRobot
• “Animal Kingdom is notorious for having rare characters standing outside of their park entrance. We always make sure to pay attention to the right side when entering or leaving the park because you never know who you’ll see.”—Mel
• “At Magic Kingdom, one great way to pass up the time when it’s crowded is to do the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom card game. It’s fun for kids and adults alike and you get some souvenir cards for free. You can get a pack of cards per person per day.”—echo125488
• “If you are at Epcot and want to watch Illuminations, the restaurant (the rose and crown) in UK is the best seat in the house. While the entire show is intended to be watched from any country, they actually load the fireworks frm directly across England.”—Shannon
• “There are a ton of incredibly designed and themed resorts that are a treat just to explore. You can spend a whole day hopping from one resort to the next. If they ask why you’re there, tell them you’re eating at their full service restaurant. You can take buses either from the parks or Disney Springs. The best resorts are on the monorail in front of Magic Kingdom: The Grand Floridian, the Polynesian, and the Contemporary.”—mouseclicker (read their comment for more resort suggestions)
• “MK has a barber shop right near the front which has reasonably priced haircuts ($15-20 from what I remember). They also offer first hair cuts for kids. This can be a relatively cheap, memorable experience for parents. The staff there are great and make the experience easy and fun for the kids.”—gatorbait28

Tell the staff what you’re celebrating

• Whatever makes you or your trip special, tell someone on staff. “My wife and I honeymooned at the park, we mentioned that’s why we were there,” says Peter M. Smith. “A couple of pins were handed to us, we stuck them on our bags, and for the rest of the week we’d get random free things. An extra appetizer, glass of wine, etc…”
• Really, “anything can be a cause for celebration,” says tweak45. “I talked to a woman on the shuttle who was there to celebrate successfully losing 100lbs. She got a celebration pin from her resort and everyone congratulated her the whole time, which I’m sure provided a hell of a lot of warm fuzzies.” Tweak45 and their partner got special pins on an anniversary trip, and the staff consistently congratulated them.
• “When we’re celebrating birthdays, the birthday boy or girl will often get a free cupcake,” says PurpleWaterBottle. “Get one of the ‘First Time Visitor’ pins, and smile a lot,” says whiskeytango.

There are so many more tips that we don’t have time to list here. Go read the original thread, where we’ve starred over 50 tips under the “Staff” tab. Leave your own tips in the comments right here, and come back next week when we go to the second-happiest place on earth: Australia.

via Lifehacker
The Best Disney World Travel Tips From Our Readers

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Watch: Tomahawks as Weapons

Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert, advice columnist and author of the New York Times bestselling book, My Boyfriend Barfed In My Handbag … And Other Things You Can’t Ask Martha. Her flagship column, “Ask a Clean Person,” debuted in 2011. Here on Offspring, we’ve launched a new iteration of it, focusing on parenting and all the messes it brings. 

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Have you ever covered how to clean your trampoline? What if you are like me and have not touched the trampoline all winter and now it is covered in sap and bird poo and other caked-on disgustingness? What should I do?

I have actually never been asked how to clean a trampoline, making this a unicorn of a question! Well done, it’s actually a feat to find a topic I’ve not only not covered but that I’ve never even been asked about before—but if you have the question, someone else does too, so let’s do this thing.

Cleaning a trampoline is a simple endeavor—soap and water is really all you need!—but there are some important safety considerations to take into account that make them different from how other backyard equipment can be cleaned.

Before you introduce water and detergent to the trampoline, sweep the mat off using a broom or a dustpan and brush. You may be tempted to skip this considering that you’re just going to (spoiler alert!) turn a hose on the thing, but don’t: It will make the rest of the job easier if you take a minute or so to sweep away loose dirt, twigs, leaves, etc. before the wet cleaning begins.

This is also the time to do a preliminary check for damage, and clearing leaves and such away will better allow you to look to see if there are holes, tears or snags in the jumping mat. If the jump pad is damaged, it should be replaced. It’s also important to use the right tools and cleaning agents on the pad, to avoid causing damage during the cleaning process, which is actually very straightforward and definitely a job the kids can get involved in.

Hose down the mat until it’s soaking wet

Start by really soaking the mat; trying to scrub it while it’s dry can lead to tears, but the water will provide a lubrication of sorts that will allow you to scrub it without causing damage.

Soapy water and a soft scrub brush or rags are all you need 

Because the jumping pad can be easily torn or abraded in a way that will make it unsafe to use, it’s important to stick with either a soft nylon brush or rags when cleaning it. Stay away from steel wool or scrubbing sponges, or even heavy duty scrub brushes, unless they’re specifically soft-bristled ones. Make sure to scrub not only the mat, but the springs and pads too.

It’s also important to stay away from cleaning agents that are any stronger than regular old dish soap; the chemicals used in other household cleaners can degrade the mat, making it unsafe to use.

Hose it off until the water runs clear

After scrubbing the mat well, there should be some satisfyingly gross brown suds that show you how much dirt and grime you cleaned off. Now it’s time to rinse the mat, and you’ll want to do that really, really well to ensure no soap residue is left behind. So: Hose the mat down until the runoff is entirely clear.

Dry with towels and sunshine

Do an initial pass of wiping the mat and frame dry with towels, and then let the trampoline dry entirely before using it. A wet mat is unsafe for jumping. This is also the time to do a second pass to check for damage to the mat that may have been revealed during the cleaning process.

This is definitely a job the kids can help with, but it’s important to note that the mat will become quite slick when covered in soapy water; make sure no one climbs or walks on it to avoid slips and injuries. The slickness issue is also why it’s so important to rinse the mat very well, and to not go hog wild with the use of soap—using too much soap will make the rinsing interminable.

Once your trampoline is clean and thoroughly dry, get back on that baby and jump! And also maybe buy a trampoline cover to protect it from twigs and leaves and bird poop when it’s not in use.

via Lifehacker
How to Clean a Backyard Trampoline

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Deploying Cloud Databases with ClusterControl 1.6

The AR-15 as a platform is upgradeable to an extreme degree.

It seems like every part can be upgraded to be a little better. But that can often mean costing you an arm and a leg!

One of the smallest and easiest upgrades you can make to your AR-15 is swapping the charging handle.

Like every other AR-15 part in the world, the charging handle has dozens and dozens of different options.

Navigating AR charging handles can be a real challenge, especially when it comes to finding the right one for you. So we want to help you a bit.

If you’re in a rush, here is our quick break down table:

Charging Handle	Role	Note
Strike Industries ARCH	General Purpose	Best Mil-Spec
Strike Industries Extended Latch	General Purpose	Best Budget Option
Strike Industries Latchless	General Purpose	Best Latchless
Radian Raptor – LT	Lightweight	Best Lightweight Build
Radian Raptor	General Purpose	The Original Raptor
Radian Raptor – SD	Suppressed ARs	Best Suppressed Build
Aero Precision Ambidextrous	General Purpose	Best For Scoped ARs
BCM Gunfighter Mod 4	General Purpose
BCM Gunfighter Mod 4B	General Purpose	Best for Keeping it Simple
BCM Gunfighter Mod 4×4	General Purpose

We’ve gathered together charging handles from companies far and wide, and through testing and evaluation we’ve narrowed it down to our top 10.

1. Strike Industries ARCH – Best Mil-Spec

An upgraded charging handle doesn’t mean an extended charging handle, or a latch-less charging handle, or really anything crazy at all.

Even the most basic Mil-Spec style charging handle can be well made and can stand above other Mil-Spec options (Improving on Mil-Spec is easy when it isn’t being made by the lowest bidder).

If you want an affordable, and Mil-Spec option, then Strike Industries has you covered.

On the outside, this is a pretty standard looking charging handle, but upon closer inspection, you can tell Strike put some work into this simple charging handle.

The SI ARCH is hard anodized and is exceptionally smooth.

This smooth finish allows it to glide rearwards with ease. The most significant difference you’ll see is near the rear of the charging handle.

It’s rounded off at the back but features a sharp straight angle on the inside of the charging handle.

The inside is also textured for a better grip, and the latch is only as large as it needs to be. While the differences are subtle, once you start running the charging handle, they are significant.

A textured grip is excellent for clearing jams when your hands are sweaty or if you are wearing gloves.

The smoother finish makes the charging handle glide backward, it reduces the effort needed to charge the weapon, clear jams, and more.

Plus it just feels nice, really lovely. The SI ARCH isn’t necessarily sexy, or fancy, but it functions and does so well.

2. Strike Industries ARCH With Extended Latch – Best Budget Option

Budget is relative to what you are getting for the money. So yes, cheaper charging handles exist, but they don’t deliver as much value as the SI ARCH with the extended latch.

For right around 30 bucks you get an excellent charging handle that takes the best features of the Standard ARCH and makes it a little quicker and easier to grasp.

The extended latch sticks out about an extra half inch that gives the user a little more space to grip the charging handle.

This additional purchase gives you the ability to quickly charge the weapon and clear malfunctions. It also gives you more room to grab the charging handle if you are rocking a variable power optic.

The Strike Industries ARCH is already an outstanding charging handle, we just covered it above, and all the same features there are present here.

One detraction from this design is that the extended portion of the handle is only on the left-hand part of the charging handle. This charging feature is somewhat useless for left-handed shooters.

The Strike Industries ARCH charging handle is a great option and comes in at a low price. It’s a lot like Starbucks, basic, but not bad.

3. Strike Industries Latchless Charging Handle – Best Latchless

Strike Industries likes to experiment and does so quite well. The latchless charging handle is one such experiment.

The lack of a latch is an interesting idea as it reduces the movements needed to release the latch and manipulate the weapon.

I could charge the weapon with a compromised grip. Compromised means rushed, crappy, and in a hurry.

The lack of a latch allowed to load the gun from either side with ease. If my left arm is out of the fight, I can still find a way to manipulate the charging handle.

This latch-less system uses a cool hidden spring mechanism in the center of the charging handle to make sure it stays put when not in use.

That spring holds it in place entirely, but you don’t even feel it when you charge the weapon.

Like the Strike ARCH, this is 7075 T6 aluminum charging handle and the finish is slick.

The Latchless charging handle can be extended via a simple add-on to the left or right side that makes the handle a little bigger.

If you wanted to, you could purchase two extended handles and have one on the right and the left side. They install quickly and are like ten bucks.

The charging handle also features side gas venting, which is great for my 7.5-inch barrel AR pistol. It tends to be a gassy girl.

4. The Radian Raptor LT – Best for a Lightweight Build

AR-15s are getting smaller and lighter. Guns come in at well under 6 pounds these days, and some builders are taking that to the extreme. My friend Rex Nanorum over at the Loadout Room has built his lightweight AR that comes in under 6 pounds when it’s outfitted with a suppressor and optic.

From talking with him I’ve learned that guys taking on these projects are looking to trim ounces, and even half ounces as much as possible.

If you are chasing this kind of build and still looking for a lightweight, but functional charging handle then the Radian LT is an excellent choice.

Coming in at only 1.2 ounces the Radian LT is a functional choice.

It’s got two massive wings on the sides that make the charging handle easy to grip and rip regardless of the situation. This is especially true when it comes to using the charging handle with an optic.

The Radian Raptor LT is made from 7075 aluminum and is hard anodized with a Mil-Spec Type 3 finish.

It is also reinforced with high strength reinforced polymer for saving weight, but maintaining strength.

The Radian Raptor LT is a lightweight, well made, and priced well. It’s a great option for your lightweight build or just a standard build that needs a great charging handle that’s priced affordably.

5. The Original Radian Raptor

If we are going to name the lighter weight choice we can’t leave out the classic Radian Raptor. The Radian Raptor was one of the OG modern, extended charging handles.

An ambidextrous design features two extended handles for lots of space to grip.

The extended charging handles are big enough to allow a blading technique for those of us with tough hands. Blading is when you are catching the charging handle with your palm and rapidly pull it rearward.

You need a nice, large charging handle to do this efficiently and quickly. The Radian Raptor allows that to be possible.

It also sports two different independent levers that will enable quick and easy charging and weapon’s manipulation.

The Radian Raptor is made from 7075 aluminum and comes in a multitude of colors.

The different colors make it charming and sexy, and I appreciate a splash of color here and there. As you can see, we went with the FDE Radian Raptor.

The Raptor is a classic extended charging handle that still keeps up with the young ones.

6. The Radian Raptor SD – Best For Suppressed Guns

The third and final Radian Raptor is one specifically designed for suppressed guns. The Radian Raptor SD is the same old Raptor grip we know and love but vented explicitly for suppressed ARs.

AR-15s have quite a bit of gas blowback when they are suppressed. This gas blowback hits the shooter in the face and occasionally carries carbon to the shooter’s face.

This gas can be a mild inconvenience that gets worse and worse the more rounds you put downrange.

The Radian Raptor SD is vented extensively down the sides to decrease gas blowback by venting it out the sides. This makes shooting your suppressed AR a much lovelier experience. If you are shooting suppressed, you can stop reading now; this is the charging handle you need.

Aero Precision

7. Aero Precision Ambidextrous – Best For an Optic Equipped AR – (Writer’s Choice)

If you want a massive charging handle, then Aero Precision has you covered. The Aero Precision Ambidextrous charging handle is quite likely one of the most significant charging handles on the market.

This makes it perfect for optic’s equipped AR-15s. Especially when it comes to large variable optics. These handles will clear the eyepiece of any modern scope and is my go to on my budget Recce rifle.

This ambi charging handle sports two massive latches, and it’s simple to blade the weapon, even with an optic on the gun. The Aero Precision charging handle is one of my favorite all around charging handles ever. I like it on any rifle, and its large size works with my massive hands pretty well.

The 7075-T6 aluminum design makes it a rugged and capable charging handle for your build. I love how it glides backward when pulled, and the extra size means extra leverage. This makes blading pretty easy, and not too painful on the hands.

The Aero Precision charging handle is my personal favorite, and it functions as an absolute champ.

8. BCM Gunfighter MOD 4

BCM redesigned the traditional charging handle to take the force off the roll pin and placing it to the rear of the charging handle.

The GFH MOD 4 features the medium latch on the left-hand side for right-handed shooters. This particular extended model is a little shorter than an inch past the main body of the charging handle.

The BCM GFH MOD 4 is primarily designed to be used with the blading technique and is designed so that the pressure applied via this technique won’t damage the charging handle or latch. 

It’s not often that you see a firearms technique incorporated into the design of a part, this is the kind of extra-level of effort that I’ve come to expect from BCM.

It catches the hand perfectly and is perfect if you are new to this technique. The Gunfighter is a thoroughly modern option for your next AR-15 build and Bravo company has an outstanding reputation for producing high-quality AR components and even full rifles.

9. BCM Gunfighter MOD 4B – Best KISS

If you want to keep things simple, the BCM Gunfighter MOD 4B is the option for you. It’s a compact and small charging handle that meets the standard Mil-Spec dimensions. This charging handle is designed for shooters used to the standard manual of arms associated with military training.

While it functions as a standard charging handle, it’s made to last.

It’s made from 7075-T6 aluminum so its strong as hell and outfitted with a type 3 hard anodized finish for long lasting durability. The MOD 4B is available in both a mil-spec design and an ambidextrous model.

This particular model is the mil-spec model, and it excels for those of us who’ve spent a little time in the armed forces. It’s also a great low profile option for those of you who don’t need or want an extended latch system. The MOD 4B is textured for a more comfortable grip and outfitted with BCM’s load eliminating design. This reduces wear on the pivot pin and paces it midline of the rifle.

10. BCM Gunfighter MOD 4×4

The 4X4 from BCM is an ambidextrous option for Bravo Company. It’s mil-spec size and dimensions makes it nice and compact, at least compared to the other charging handles on this list. Each side features a latch that releases the charging handle with ease.

The GFH 4X4 is a great option for lefties seeking a mil-spec sized charging handle. It’s straightforward to use and is made from 7075-T6 aluminum.

I’m a right-handed shooter, so maybe I can’t get the full effect of this charging handle, but I get the concept.

Even though it feels unnatural for me to charge the rifle with my right hand, I find it surprisingly easy to do with this charging handle. The MOD 4X4 is a great little charging handle, and it’s priced affordably for a premium grade charging handle.

Charged Up

I’ve gone through a lot of charging handles; I mean a lot of them. So much so that when testing these designs I got a nice case of tennis elbow and a bruised palm. Maybe it’s charging handle elbow?

Whatever you want to call it I got it. I did, however, learn a ton about charging handles, and there is more to learn than I expected. The best thing I learned was I have a ton of options when it comes to AR-15 builds of all kinds.

Interested in more AR-15 upgrades?  Check out Best AR-15 Upgrades for everything from triggers to handguards and more.

This is our Top 10 list, but we want to know if you think we missed any? If so let us know what we missed and why it deserves a place on the list!

The post 10 Best AR-15 Charging Handles [Hands-On] appeared first on Pew Pew Tactical.

via Pew Pew Tactical
10 Best AR-15 Charging Handles [Hands-On]

via Dilbert Daily Strip
Comic for May 09, 2018

There’s one thing we humans can’t go very long without, and that’s water. Whether the government has forced you to connect to a municipal water supply or you’re concerned that a lack of electrical power might prevent you from pumping water from your existing deep well, it’s certainly worthwhile to know how to create your own shallow well, should you ever need to.

I’m from Florida, where wells are not that complicated and many people have their own wells to supply water to their homes. In many, but not all, areas of Florida, groundwater can be found fairly close to the surface. This would be a great source of hand-pumped H2O in a pinch.

I recently ran across an article at Mother Earth News, in which Al Adams describes his experience designing and building “a do-it-myself shallow well.”

To begin the project, I dug a three-foot-square hole at a point where a natural spring (“seep” might be a more accurate term) was located. I was careful to position my pit back from, and a bit above, a nearby marshy area. (Ideally, a well hole should be dug in late summer, when the water table is at its lowest. At that season you’ll need to bail less while digging and can be reasonably sure of an adequate flow of water during the wetter parts of the year.) I was relieved to hit bedrock at a depth of 5 1/2 feet, since I would have had difficulty excavating deeper with hand tools.

Once the pick-and-shovel work was behind me, I obtained two 55-gallon drums (they had formerly held glue) with locking ring-sealed removable lids. A friend kindly volunteered the use of his oxyacetylene torch, and before long the bottoms of the two barrels were removed and I’d brazed the cylinders together end to end …producing a sturdy steel tube about two feet in diameter and six feet long.

He used a campfire to burn off the old glue and paint from the steel drums, and experienced something that would have ruined his day if he hadn’t been lucky during the torch-cutting process: intense burnoff of the glue residue.

Much to my surprise, a column of yellow flame was soon shooting some 15 feet into the air, accompanied by the earthquake—like rumble of a very violent draft. Within an hour the paint had been vaporized by the intense heat and—after waiting for the metal to cool—I wire-brushed the remaining residue from the metal and rolled the assembly down to the hole.

He next describes how he shoveled in some gravel to filter the water and made a mount for a hand-operated pitcher pump. After pumping out a bunch of mud, he chlorinated the well with bleach.

I also decided to chlorinate the water, to kill any bacteria that might have been introduced during the construction process. To do so, I mixed one quart of household bleach with an equal amount of water, making a solution capable of purifying 100 gallons of drinking liquid. The mixture was then dumped into the well and the system resealed with its locking ring and silicone caulk. I pumped until a strong smell of chlorine was evident at the hose outlet, then let the purifying chemical do its work overnight. On the following morning, I pumped the well out a few more times to remove all detectable traces of bleach. After that my low-cost shallow well was ready for use!

Here’s an addendum from the editors of that site:

Anyone duplicating Mr. Adams’s well might want to consider using only barrels — of heavy plastic or otherwise — that are approved for food storage. The author reports that his metal drums did eventually introduce some rust into the water, which forced him to install a filter. In addition, it’s best to have any new supply of water tested for purity if it’s to be used by humans, and to install a locking assembly on the lid to prevent curious children from opening the well and, perhaps, falling in.

This sounds like a reasonable way to approach the process of creating a shallow well. What do you think?

The post Drill Your Own Shallow Well appeared first on AllOutdoor.com.

via All Outdoor
Drill Your Own Shallow Well

In this blog, I will show you how to install PMM on Linode as a low-cost database monitoring solution.

Many of my friends use Linode to run their personal sites, as well as small projects. While Linode is no match for Big Cloud providers in features, it is really wonderful when it comes to cost and simplicity: a Linode “nanode” instance offers 1GB of memory, 1 core, 20GB of storage and 1TB of traffic for just $5 a month.

A single Linode instance is powerful enough to use with Percona Monitoring and Management (PMM) to monitor several systems, so I use Linode a lot when I want to demonstrate PMM deployment through Docker, rather than Amazon Marketplace.

Here are step-by-step instructions to get you started with Percona Monitoring and Management (PMM) on Linode in five minutes (or less):

Step 1:  Pick the Linode Type, Location and launch it.

Step 2: Name your Linode

This step is optional and is not PMM-related, but you may want to give your Linode an easy-to-remember name instead of something like “linode7796908”. Click on Linode Name and then on “Settings” and enter a name in “Linode Label”.

Step 3:  Deploy the Image

Click on Linode Name and then on “Deploy an Image”.

I suggest choosing the latest Ubuntu LTS version and allocating 512MB for the swap file, especially on a Linode with a small amount of memory. Remember to set a strong root password, as Linode allows root password login by default from any IP.

Step 4: Boot Linode

Now prepare the image you need to boot your Linode. Click on the Boot button for that:

Step 5: Login to the system and install Docker

Use your favorite SSH client to login to the Linode you created using “root” user and password you set at Step 3, and install Docker:

apt install docker.io

Step 6: Run PMM Server

Here are detailed instructions to install the PMM Server on Docker. Below are the commands to do basic installation:

docker pull percona/pmm-server:latest
docker create
  -v /opt/prometheus/data
  -v /opt/consul-data
  -v /var/lib/mysql
  -v /var/lib/grafana
  --name pmm-data
  percona/pmm-server:latest /bin/true
docker run -d
  -p 80:80
  --volumes-from pmm-data
  --name pmm-server
  --restart always
  percona/pmm-server:latest

Note: This deploys PMM Server without authentication. For anything but test usage, you should set a password by following instructions on this page.

You’re done!

You’ve now installed PMM Server and you can see it monitoring itself by going to the server IP with a browser.

Now you can go ahead and install the PMM Client on the nodes you want to monitor!

The post Deploying PMM on Linode: Your $5-Per-Month Monitoring Solution appeared first on Percona Database Performance Blog.

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Deploying PMM on Linode: Your $5-Per-Month Monitoring Solution

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