Q: Who are you?
A: Just a bachelor with keen interest in some disconnected fields of STEM. I am fond of computers in particular.
Q: What are your interests?
A: My primary interest is computational neuroscience. I aspire to build biologically plausible mathematical models of cognition. My biggest dream is to build a universal framework that models the behavior of individual neurons that underlie the emergent phenomena of robust learning/planning/generalization. I am also interested in machine-learning/deep-learning, primarily because of the huge overlap with computational neuroscience. I also like to work with computers, I have taught myself programming in my teens and have been programming as a hobby ever since. My other minor interests (in no particular order) are electronics (especially analog circuits), cryptography, zero-knowledge proofs, physiology, pharmacology, physics, organic chemistry.
Q: What is your academic background?
A: I am a medical school graduate. But I haven't practiced medicine after my graduation.
Q: You've graduated from medical school but haven't practiced medicine?! Why?
A: I've studied medicine because I was interested in neuroscience and overall inner workings of human body. I wasn't really interested in applying that knowledge to diagnose and treat patients. There was a short period in medical school when I was enrolled in joint MD-PhD programme, studying neurological sciences. But I've realized I was more interested in computational neuroscience, and compounding mental health issues forced me to abandon it.
Q: If you like computational neuroscience, why not do a PhD on that field?
A: That's what I am trying to do : ). Unfortunately application cycles haven't been that kind to me.
Q: What are you doing if not doing a PhD right now?
A: I am doing some programming related odd jobs for a living. Even though I am not a huge fan of doing computer work for others, it's my only marketable skill right now.
Q: What programming languages do you work with?
A: Primarily C/C++. That's the language I've spent the most time with. However I have toyed with a wide array of programming languages, including and not necessarily limited to, Python, C#, Rust, x86 Assembly, JS/TS, CSS/HTML, Lean, R, GLSL, Java. Those are the ones that come to my mind right now.
Q: What languages do you speak?
A: Turkish, which is my native language, and English. There are some other languages I dabble in but my knowledge of them are so rudimentary, I wouldn't consider myself being able speak them. Those are German, Japanese, Italian, Russian, Hungarian and Finnish.
Q: Are there any projects you can show to me?
A: Unfortunately, all the projects I've worked on were essentially left unfinished. This is why I've set up this blog, to document stuff I am personally working on and push me to finish them.
Q: What are your thoughts on LLMs (AI assistants, Chatbots etc.)?
A: I personally don't use them at all. Google's AI summaries when you search for a subject are pretty useful but anything beyond that hurts my workflow rather than help me. I think shoving LLMs into every application is an anti-pattern. Also based upon my observation, current transformer based models have essentially hit a ceiling and we won't see any major improvement until a whole new approach has been discovered.
Q: How can I reach you?
A: E-mail me@mmgenc.com.
Q: You are cool. How can I support you?
A: See the donation page.
Q: What? No, you are not cool! >:( Stop putting words in my mouth!
A: :c