So I've decided that my ego's just big enough to coin a Computing Law of my own. So I hereby present "Black's Law of Clustering:"

Clustering is always an order of magnitude more complex than you think it is.

(BJ is a former ASU, Mesa CC and Mission College student that finally graduated from SJSU in 2008. These notes are based on his experience collecting ~180 units to finally eke out a normally-130-unit BS degree.)

Having been graduated for almost a year now, and having recently discussed challenges with transferring from a 2-year college with a friend, I realize that I should probably write an overview of the gotchas associated with the process. My opus begins after the break (click "read more" to continue)...

http://www.threesquirrels.com/?p=670

Posting this here to bring up its awareness. The default /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp that comes with the Xen packages on Debian has only dummy networking turned on. Edit the file to be more like:

#(network-script network-dummy)
(network-script network-bridge)

(i.e. comment out the dummy entry and add the network-bridge one)

Restart xend and networking will work like the default in e.g. CentOS. Thanks to this post that showed me the light (after I'd already taken out my network with a bad brctl line :-( ).

This is a bit of a silly project, but I have a machine that has:

• 2 SATA disks of equal size
• A USB memory stick plugged into a USB header on the motherboard(!)
• A ton of RAM and CPU

So the plan is to carve this server into a bunch of smaller ones using Xen. I want to boot that from flash but load immediately into a RAM disk to avoid the write-wear problem and provide a method to safeguard against too much silliness (plus I really like running a system from ramdisk). The steps for accomplishing this with Debian Lenny follow (NOT for the faint of heart--I assume a LOT of Linux expertise here):

Want to install Debian Lenny from USB? Here's how! (Note that this ERASES any data on the USB stick)

Really, /. ?

Quote from the Wikipedia Entry on AMD Bulldozer (emphasis mine):

The Bulldozer cores will also implement a new iteration of Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) with 170 new instructions, named SSE5.

Note that the late-70s-era Z-80 only had 158 instructions total, and it was ridiculously non-RISCish...

So there are lots of recipes for pumpkin pie filling out there, some with milk and egg and some missing one of those. Here's my favorite general-purpose pie filling (makes 1.5c, multiply the ingredients for more):

• 1c pumpkin puree (I make according to these instructions using a steamer rig).
• 1/4c refined cane sugar (though I suppose dark brown or even a small amount of molasses would be wonderful, too)
• 1 egg
• Pumpkin pie spice (or 2:1:1 cinnamon:nutmeg:ground cloves) to taste

Whisk to combine. You can also add up to 1/3c sweetened condensed milk for extra creaminess (though it makes the filling too thin to be used for some applications--like empanadas). Fresh pumpkin puree makes all the difference!