PHP + SQL Server = Bah!

OK, so, I tried installing PHP (since everyone is so fond of it).  This is for those who might want to repeat this feat.

Honestly, I suspect that all of my troubles come from the fact that I tried to deploy into C:\Program Files\PHP rather than C:\PHP.

So failed installation attempts:

ISAPI into C:\Program Files\PHP + Getting a driver for SQL Server from Microsoft here.  Ended up with:

IIS 7.0 Detailed Error – 500.0 – Internal Server Error"

Then tried installing FastCGI by hand (also into Program Files).  Ended up with:

HTTP Error 502.2 – Bad Gateway PHP

Then, downloaded the installation and installed as:

FastCGI into C:\PHP + driver was already installed

So my guess is it was all because of C:\PHP.  Actually, I would try to verify that right now, but, with MSFT, it seems that if it works, don’t touch it ;)  i feel stoopit.

Nikita’s LJ Tags: PHP

Students paid to learn – it works.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stuhl15-2008oct15,0,5060228.story

Very cool concept that’s working…

Training memory

Memory – how would you train it? I would do the following:

• Establish metrics

Target:

• Short
• Mid
• Long-term

Modalities:

• Sight
• Concept
• Word
• Sound
• Touch
• Smell
• Etc.

Structure:

• Entity blocks – photographic memory
• Temporal Stream – time-based recall
• Auto-Memory Stream – poetry and recitation until automatic recall
• Associative memory – recall by association
  • One to many -> category to contents
  • One-to-one/limited -> pairing: language translation

The structure can be also in two modes:

• Detached
• Integrated into existing solid frameworks

So, ideally, I think we should attempt to improve on all permutations of above, but the most valuable is one-limited conceptual recall.

I think we should be aware whether it is possible to rehash memory given that there are physical limitations (limited short-term buffer). It might make sense to explicitly develop the shifting of memory between short<->mid<->long-term buffers.

So I say we set a target and make an exercise to match.

"Yellow", the movie, stole our photo!!!

So a while back I was helping Lu and I hooked a buddy of mine Alexei and her for a photo shoot.  So, 2 years later, Lu shoots me an email.  Paraphrasing:

Lu: Check this out!

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808746932/info

http://www.afpbb.com/article/entertainment/movie/2242537/1709698

Me: Wow, that’s familiar.  But must be a different girl – doesn’t look like you.

Lu: <shrug>

Me: Let me ask Alexei.  Alexei, check it out!

Alexei: Yup, definitely stolen.

And then he showed me this:

alexeilebedev.com/yellow

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!  Click on image to see the animated GIF that Alexei put together or go to his site…  NICE!!!

So it was stolen after all.  So I think we’ll go after them.

Barefoot Running – Five Fingers…

Holy crap!  How awesome is this!!!

http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/

So had a chat with my roommate Sara V today – who is serious about running.  What I didn’t know is that, apparently, Nike and such are generally low quality shoes.  Most running stores don’t even carry then and usually have someone who, matching you run on a treadmill, can tell you what sort of show you should get…

I think I want to get me a pair of those shoes…

Update: Got em.  Love em.

Letter to Gov. Palin and Sen. McCain

OK, watching politics, I really don’t like what I am seeing.  Just wrote this email to Palin/McCain:

Dear Governor Palin, Senator McCain and Friends,

I would like to make a suggestion and offer help in preparing for the upcoming election and changing the way politics is done. I myself is a co-founder of Journal of Visualized Experiments (www.jove.com) and am interested in propagation of information in online mediums. Right now we are witnessing a depressing trend: people with little knowledge and a political agenda destroy political discussion (digg, newsvine, etc.) while present-day politics is reduced to sound-bites.

What I would like to suggest is using 21st century tools to help push politics towards reasonable, responsible discussion.

For example, one thing I like about Sarah Palin is that, from the sound-bites, from her stumbling at some questions, it becomes clear that she clearly not a politician, but a human being – one with both strong beliefs and reasonable perception and willingness to discuss along with the desire to change things for the better. And I hope it will stay this way. At the same time, most people don’t see that Gov. Palin is interested in promoting reason. A simple step that I would recommend is that Gov. Palin begins to blog about issues explaining her decisions. Nothing verbose, not politically chiseled, but direct and concise. I.e. none of the "If I am so honored as to become the VP" crap. An honest, transparent, trust-building content that would enable Gov. Palin to say after an interview: "Ouch, why didn’t I look into other controversial decisions by the Supreme Court? This was a mistake… since then I’ve looked into it, and here is what I think." followed by a reasonable analysis. This would enable you to take the ground out from the critics who prey on unflattering sound-bites and disinformation.

To take it a step further, I am interested in building an online discussion forum that would provide a far better method of discussion than temporally-dependent forums available now. By temporally dependent, I mean that at the present time, the forums have lots of noise that drowns out good information because good information quickly becomes invisible due to being old (anything over a week old is often too old to be relevant in active present-day online forums). The solution is to create an online debate system allowing people who only have 1 piece of information to contribute: a distributed social-analysis system. I would like to see Gov. Palin set up these debates and invite top specialists. For example, Palin could hold an open debate with everyone who wishes to participate inviting people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Jeffrey Sachs and Newt Gingrich and any human being irrespective of citizenship about issues like healthcare, like Zimbabwe, like Sudan, like Iraq, etc. – on a local, national, and global levels. The beauty of the system that I am planning on building is specifically its ability to manage a lot of information allowing for these discussions to take place without the system turning into a place ruled by a screaming and unreasonable mob with a political agenda.

Please feel free to get in touch with me directly at [contact info]. I would be happy to discuss collaborating on the system I seek to build as well as offer my advice and possibly help you with pushing your online presence towards creating smart, substance-driven discussion online.

Best of luck to you all,

Nikita

P.S. One thing that I find very unpleasant is that Governor’s positions are not clearly outlined and the BS coming from the left activism groups goes un-answered. Or at least it’s difficult to find this information. I would really love to see deployment and marketing of a resource for people like me who, when confronted with "Well, Palin supported that victims pay for their own rape kits" are able to quickly understand what happened and why and answer in such a discussion. Lower the energy required of people to understand these issues.

Not to give my political preference, really.  Just for the record, I am pro-choice.  I am also anti-BS with a strong emphasis on foreign policy.  Lori told me about Zimbabwe and hyperinflation…  this is why I think that some leaders should face serious consequences for gross mismanagement of their country…  So sad…

Nikita’s LJ Tags: politics