I have seen the first problem in using [NPACI Rocks 4.2][]. The symptom is I was unable to submit just a basic job to [SGE][] because of following error in standard error file.

MANTYPE: Undefined variable

In fact, I don't have Nintendo DS aka NDS but my friend has one. It looks very impressive when playing game. Not only playing game, NDS is capable to play movie too. The secret weapon is Moonshell DS and its DPG tools. If I'm not wrong, you need 2 files: Moonshell DS 1.1 and Moonshell 1.1 DPG Tools. So, as I expect, I have to convert movie files into .DPG to play in NDS. I have heard about dpgenc which seemed to bundle with the DPG tools but I do want to know how it works. Actually, I would like to use my linux box at night. And I found BatchDPG which is an open source DPG conversion tool relying on Avisynth and mencoder. Eventually, I know what is DPG actually.

As of today, there are so many benchmark to measure performance of any computers into a number for later comparison against other models. I will not talk about that it totally depends on what you want to do exactly. Generally, the performance of a computer directly depends on speeding of floating point operation so it is possible to calculate the upper bound of its performance, Theoretical Peak Performance, by an easy equation.

Rpeak = [CPUs] x [CPU Clock rate (GHz)] x [CPU floating point issue rate]

where

CPUs = [the number of processor] x [the number of cores per processors]

Everyone knows what or is. Most of them might use to waste a period of time in this kind of service. I'm one of them. I also wonder how it works. Technically, upload video service like YouTube and Google Video is very similar in underlying technology. In particular, all uploaded videos are automatically converted to Flash Video or FLV. The FLVs are stored in the file server. However, the FLVs is nevered shown directly on your browser. Instead, the FLVs are played inside Flash Video Player written in Flash itself. As a result, you can view a video immediately after getting only some part of the full-length video. In other words, Flash Video Player and FLV are the best couple for on-demand video streaming.

If you think it is too complex and too difficult to implement XXXTube by yourself, I will summarize everything you need to know and to have.

1. You need a Flash Video Player,
2. Uploading system,
3. Video conversion system,
4. Big storage and
5. Bandwidth

Once in a life time, you might want to have big, big, big storage such that no more remove operations are required. I don't know other but I really want to have one. Cluster is a good approach to make my dream come true. There are so many solution out there. I will not talk about commercial product since I don't have enough money support to buy one so this post only focuses on open source solutions.

As of today, Linux Kernel 2.6.x has been hacked for lots of local root exploits. Anyway, it doesn't matter how many they are but it does matter that most of that exploits valid on most Linux stations. One serious case is that they also valid on even cluster distribution like NPACI Rocks. In other words, the whole servers in a cluster maybe exploited for cracking bigger goal, e.g., password decryption. Ones may argue that it is not that dangerous because they are local root exploits, not remote root exploits. Yes, they are. But you have to imagine the power of grid computing where you can run a job seemlessly on remote clusters with automatic executable staging. That's enough. One may exploit the whole grid instantly.