Marius Myburg's Weblog

I am sitting in my cubicle at work, writing this post.  Something interresting has just happened to me.  I just saw a ghost.  Yep.  I was sitting here, working on our Point of Service software, when I saw a guy walk from the office next to our Quality Control lab, past my manager’s office and out of the ’subsection’ of the building where I sit.  The ghost I saw was a man, wearing a white shirt (in fact, it was so vivid, I know it was a sport shirt – a runner or tennis player would wear a shirt like that).  I did not expect anyone to be in the office (it is Sunday – only freaks and nutcases would be at work on a Sunday) so I was a bit startled to see the guy walk past from the corner of my eye.  I looked up and BEHOLD….  nothing.  It was very vivid though, so much so that I could not just sit there and continue working – what if someone (or SOMETHING!!!! Muhahaha) was walking around in the office?  That is how vivid it was.  So I got up and inspected each office. I was hoping to find a ghost and not a person (I am more afraid of intruders than of ghosts) but I found nothing. I did find some Lay’s chips in the canteen – so I took a plate full of that and made myself a delicious cup of coffee.

For those who do not know me very well – I must just say that I do not believe in ghosts AT ALL.  I have definately seen something, but it was not something ‘out there’ in the world – it was simply a mistake made by my visual system.  I very much want to see a ghost or a demon or a miracle but until I do, I am extremely sceptical of its existence.

In fact for a large part of my life I have been asking, then later challenging ghosts to appear to me.  To no avail.  To ‘THE OPD GUY IN WHITE’ – my fellow freak who works on a Sunday – I challenge you to come to me now!  Come to me jungle friend!!!

Wait…. what is that…. I hear a creak…  Something is moving…

I am working overtime again today, to get more Point-of-Service tasks finished.In all of my overtime days, I have discovered that I definately work best when I am working alone in the office. I don’t know why yet, I will still have to think about it. But yes, now again I find that I have already made more progress than I did the whole day – and I have been working only 1.5 hours overtime. Perhaps I must come in to the office and work at night! Everybody can just send me emails with work they want me to do, and I will do it while they are sleeping

A colleague asked me, why does it matter that I can implement the Hodgkin-Huxley neuron model in my Extensive Connectivity system?

It matters because the HH model is the de-facto mathematical model of neural action potential generation and propagation.  All remotely accurate neural models are based on the actual physics behind ion pumps etc that makes biological neurons work.  The HH equations was one of the first rigorous investigations into the mathematics behind the dynamics of neural signalling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hodgkin-Huxley_model

So what?  So… every even remotely powerful neural network modelling system must be able to model Hodgkin-Huxley neural dynamics.  All I am saying is – Extensive Connectivity does it, and does it beautifully.

I have implemented continuous-value (System.Double) signals in Extensive Connectivity, just to rip the competition into schreds  It is working beautifully.  I will write a Hodgkin-Huxley neuron simulation to show it off.

Thank you for a nice party Friday, Michael.  I am really glad I managed to be there.

You asked me about my GTalk status message, “Such Is Life”, but I didn’t really elaborate.  The reason for that status message is that I miss my girlfriend very much!  She lives in another country, but I am even worse off than some others who are in similar situations – I have met her quite a while ago already but I had not had the opportunity to go to her yet, to personally meet her and be with her. This while I do believe that she is the most amazing person I have ever met.

So – such is life.  Knowing that there is such a spectacular person out there – so near and yet so far.

My software company is almost live on the internet!  It can soon be accessed at www.complexcomputation.com.  The launch versions of some of the software packages that I will offer is almost done, and, may I say, looking good.

Please wish me luck with this venture.  And please visit my website, try out the software, and send me your criticisms and opinions!

It has been almost exactly one year since I have challenged a religious friend, Danie Joubert, who strongly believes in miracles and faith healings, to prove to me that it exists.  You can read about my challenge at James Randi’s site here: http://www.randi.org/joom/swift/swift-october-26-2007-2.html

Well, like I said it has been just about a year now.  Danie originally told me “evidence for faith healing is EVERYWHERE, Marius – it is not at all hard to find evidence.  You scientific type just choose to ignore it.”  Um…  I guess the point I am trying to make is, you lose Danie.  Not you or any of your religious friends have brought me any evidence.  You brought me only one X-ray which you yourself said “proves nothing”.  I appreciate that honesty.  In fact for that very reason – that I think you are a good person – I want to help you.

What I am really concerned about Danie, for you as a friend, is not really what you believe per se.  What I am concerned about is if this failure to find any evidence whatsoever will make you question the things you believe in at all – or not.

You have accepted and lost the challenge.  My question now is; have you lost some of that blind faith?  If NOT – are you totally immune to logic and intelligence?  Why?

In software development, the amount of code one writes is not important – the quality of code is.  Nevertheless, more functionality requires more code, so source lines count can be an indication of software complexity and functionality.

At the time of this writing (internal revision 23), my Farve artificial intelligence base consists of 28552 lines of C# source code (excluding comments).  That’s about 800 pages of source.

Today I welcome a friend to my company!  Welcome to UCSSM, Floorie!  You are going to like it here.  This is the best company ever!  And your expertise will help us very much.