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Welcome to my website. Please feel free to browse at your will, using the menu on your left. The main page below is home to my (long neglected) weblog for those of you that are bored enough to take an interest in what's going on in my life :-). I'm currently a Principal Scientist at Adobe, working on the architecture for asset management and collaboration in Creative Cloud. Prior to this, I was the lead developer for Creative Cloud Libraries - a revolutionary new way of sharing creative content between different applications, devices, and people. I previously helped to develop Adobe Scout, which was a visual profiler for Flash and AIR applications. Prior to this, I was a researcher in the Language Based Technology group at the Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen. I was part of the MT-LAB project, which is a collaboration between DTU, Aalborg University, and ITU, investigating formal verification techniques for advanced software systems. My particular research was concerned with probabilistic and stochastic analysis of distributed systems. I did my PhD in the Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh, supervised by Professor Jane Hillston. Previously, I studied at Robinson College, Cambridge. I originate from Bridlington, a little sea-side town on the Yorkshire coast. In the summer of 2005, I was a Senior Technical Associate at Fraser Research, in Princeton, New Jersey. Non-academically, I've been studying Japanese since January 2006, and I have been playing the fascinating game of Go since September 2006. I was previously the president of the Edinburgh University Go Club, and was a member of the Japan-UK 150 sub-committee for Scotland. My current grade is around 3kyu. Other than that, there's not much else to say. Feel free to enjoy the site! 楽しんでください！ Michael Smith

Friday 27/10/06 @ 10:50 pm

Firbush 2006

"What are the most important problems in your field of research? Now, what problems are you working on? If these don't match up, then you need to seriously ask yourself, why?"

These words were recently spoken by a certain professor of theoretical Computer Science, to an audience of Computer Science researchers. So this may lead you to ask, what is the most important problem in Computer Science? P = NP? Fixing the Internet? Concurrent programming? Hell no! We have the same problem as any other group of geeks; socially outcast, living on the edges of normality, frowned upon by the mainstream population... Ok, you can see by now where this is going:

To investigate this most important of problems, we relocated a sample of Informatics PhD students (aka computer geeks) to a remote outpost in the Scottish highlands...

...with no wireless Internet access!

Enter Firbush 2006!

Our journey began last Wednesday, when we congregated on the corner of Buccleuch Place (drawing many a stare from passers-by) until the bus rolled up. A few of the more studious amongst us decided to utilise the journey in search of a game theoretic solution to the time-passing problem. Needless to say, time did pass, and we soon arrived at our destination.

Before starting the afternoon's activities, we enjoyed a hearty lunch, overlooking the magnificent scenery.

We were offered a choice of many different activities, ranging from windsurfing and sailing, to mountain biking and hill walking. A group of seven of us (Jaro, Matija, Gaya, Salman, Matthew, Jeff and yours truly) decided that climbing a hill would be much more fun than getting wet, and so we set off on an epic journey that would take us... well... back to where we started. After all, we couldn't miss dinner.

To begin with we kept on overtaking the mountain-bikers, until they decided to turn off in some downhill direction (lazy bunch), whilst we continued our leisurely climb.

A quick glance across the loch showed our target for the next day. If we'd have known, we'd have made the most of being able to see it while we could, but more on that later.

Our stroll continued until we arrived at the shores of Lochan Breclaich, which in my humble attempt to pronounce, scared away most of the ambient wildlife.

By this point, the sun was starting to set, and the lighting was... well, a sort of orangy yellow.

Jaro and Matija went charging off ahead; so much so in fact, that when we reached the point where our trail left the beaten track, they were nowhere to be seen. Luckily, a geek is never far from his mobile phone, so we were able to make contact. After a tearful reunion, we continued on up to the top of the hill.

After a stop for peanuts and coffee, and the admiration of our 600-odd meter vantage point, we returned to civilisation in the true 'Sound of Music' style - skipping down the mountain, hand in hand... ok, maybe not. In any case, no walk is complete without a couple of stiles and a barbed-wire fence, and we were not disappointed.

After a hungrily received dinner, we moved downstairs for an evening session of talks. Any psychologists may like to note that preventing Computer Scientists from talking about computers is like preventing one of those annoying poodle things from barking... only several orders of magnitude harder. Seriously though, all the talks were very interesting, and it was great to get to hear about research in other institutes that we normally have no contact with. Of course, things ought to change when we move to the new building, but still, these interdisciplinary events are really good for broadening your knowledge of current research topics/interests.

After the talks finished, and the bar closed, a few of us (namely Matija, Jaro, Salman and myself) were still in a studious mood, so we continued our game theoretic experimentation. The Slovenian Tarok continued until the early hours of the morning (1am), when it was decided to retire. I can't remember the score, but in all likelihood, dumbo here lost!

The next morning, we awoke at the early hour of 8am, to have a Scottish feast of a breakfast - porridge, more porridge, toast, bacon, eggs, coffee, more coffee, even more coffee... you get the picture. Unlike the previous day's fantastic weather, we were greeted with a covering of mist across the hills, and a chill in the air.

The sane people amongst us decided to do more watersports, most probably on the assumption that they'd be getting wet anyway, so why not do it properly. Once they had departed, that left the crazy people (plus Matija, who decided he would spend the day "pondering"), who wanted to do more hill walking. Note that said hill (Ben Lawers, at 1214m) was covered in mist, and the weather was generally wet, windy and downright miserable. So the crew of eight (Jaro, Andrew, Jeff, Partha, Saowalak, Matthew, Bob and me) naturally left the field center in high spirits. One of the handymen gave us a lift around to the Ben Lawers visitor center (at around 400m), so we had a bit of a head start, but visibility was, well, something that had to be seen to be believed.

Although the weather was dreadful, we kept on at a steady pace, and it wasn't long before we reached the top. Not that the top looked much different from anywhere else on the mountain, but there was at least the trig point to admire in all its pointed glory.

It's certainly true that, whatever the weather might bring, and however cold and wet and miserable you are, there's something entirely magical about sitting in the rain on top of a hill, eating a soggy sandwich. Harry Potter eat your heart out! Unfortunately, all too soon we had to give up our comfortable picnic spot, and begin the descent. We took a different route on the way down, going via the smaller peak of Beinn Ghlas. Eventually, the mist started to lift a little.

Luckily, we were able to get some mobile reception, so we called the field center and had somebody come to pick us up. In total, we were walking for about 4.5 hours, and were absolutely soaked to the bone. But I bet we had more fun than any of the windsurfers (they may think they had more fun, but that's called being delusional). Once again, we were back in plenty of time for dinner, and enjoyed another fine evening of talks, including an outline of the new building by our illustrious leader, followed by more tarocks.

The next day was our final morning at Firbush, and we rose bright and early for breakfast, and a morning session of talks. The weather was not much better than the previous day, but this time we all managed to remain dry.

Once the talks were completed, and we had been subjected to the obligatory group photo, we were just in time for the bus back to Edinburgh, and civilisation. So, what can be learnt from this experience. Is it possible for computer geeks to survive without access to the Internet? Well, the answer, it seems, is yes - so long as you provide enough distractions. However, whatever was done, it would be impossible to escape the haunting screams that arose, one by one, into the Edinburgh afternoon, as said researchers opened up their forsaken inboxes, and saw the bedlam within. Now imagine if it had been more than two days... ;-)

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