Welcome to lanther.co.uk

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 06/05/05 @ 06:51 pm

Cambridge goes yellow!!

So yesterday was really quite a hectic day in all. Shall we start from the top? I think we shall.

I managed to get to the first lecture of the day, and also to sign up for distributed systems supervisions (actually with the lecturer, Jean Bacon) - the intent was then to get the bus to the station. But I needed to go and pick up my dissertation from Alan first, and of course this resulted in rather a long chat, over coffee, and 45 minutes later I looked at the clock and realised I'd better skedaddle! So I jumped on the bus, and trundled on down to the station, where I managed to catch the 12.45 train to King's Cross. By the time this arrived in London, and I got the tube to the US Embassy, it was about 2pm.

My appointment was at quarter past, which had me rather worried as there was a big queue to get in, which didn't seem to be moving. But then it turned out that everyone else was also waiting for the same-time appointment, and indeed, when the time came, they let us in. Of course, 'letting us in' meant scanning our bags and belongings, then walking around the blocked-off perimeter enclosure with armed soldiers pointing guns at our noggins! Having said that, there was an explosion at the British embassy in New York, so it could easily have been the other way around.

Anyway, I got in, then had to grab a ticket, and wait until it was called. I then went to a window, rather like the bullet-proof ones in banks, and passed all my documents through to a consular officer, who gave me another ticked. So, I waited again for my number to be called, and went for my actual 'interview', where they basically asked a few questions about the placement, my PhD, and other such banter, and approved my application. Woohoo! Except that I had to pay ten quid to get it sent back to me. Oh well, you know what it's like with Americans and making money.

Overall, the process took about two hours, which was better than I expected. I caught the train back, and arrived in Cambridge again at about 6, so there was plenty of time for me to visit a polling station on my way back to college. Having thought about who to vote for, the decision in the end was quite simple - the Liberal Democrats simply had the better policies, as far as I'm concerned. So I voted yellow - cross my box and hope to die, and all that.

In the evening, after having a nice meal of trout with lemon sauce, and new potatoes and spinach, I went down to the bar with David and Ruth for a bit, then stayed up with David to watch the results come in. In the end, I was up until around 3, when I was too exhausted to stay awake any longer. So what do I think? Yeah, it's a bit grotty that Labour get to serve a third term, but their majority is greatly reduced, and the Lib Dems are doing much better. I was really pleased with the Cambridge result - it was a swing from an 8000 Labour majority last year, to a 4000 Lib Dem majority this year! Nice to see my vote in action :-)

Go Lib Dems!

Anyway, it's our long awaited CompSci formal tonight (this is the first we've had in the entire time I've been here), so I'd better start getting ready fairly soon.

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