A long time acquaintance, Wade Arnold, has stepped up to replace me as lead of amfphp. I have full confidence in Wade, who is very knowledgeable of the engine and has a large team of in-house developers to back him up. He has already worked on enhancements to the 1.9 version, which are going to be included in the 2.0; you will be able to know that authentication is back, in particular. I will post a new message as soon as there’s a new release, or a development blog pops up. If you want to help him out, or show your support, your best bet is to contact him on the amfphp general list.

As for myself, I am starting a M.Sc. in neuroscience in January at McGill; I will be working at the Christopher Pack lab at the Montreal Neurological Institute. Needless to say, I had an awesome time working there over the summer. One of the highlights was meeting David Hubel, Nobel Prize in Physiology 1981, who visited from Boston (Chris went to Harvard, where Hubel works). Hubel (and Wiesel, his colleague) discovered all the basics of the visual cortex of mammals; they were the first to even record from an electrode there. As an aspiring researcher, meeting Hubel was like, I don’t know, meeting Jordan, Gretzky, Zidane or Beckham for a sports fan… ie, fuggawesome. Research is where it’s at for me… I’m working with some really motivated, really smart people. The MNI is such an incredibly cool place to be, such rich history in research. Anyways, add together the time it takes to do research, plus the decent stipend I’m going to get, plus the fact that Flash is a bit of a bore compared to, say, Matlab: I don’t have either the time, the need, nor the motivation to do Flash anymore. I don’t want amfphp to die, however, and with Wade in command, I am certain this won’t happen. Long live amfphp!