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

Monday 13/06/05 @ 12:40 pm

Fun fun fun, in the sun, sun, sun!

So, this weekend has been great, but absolutely hectic! Alex arrived on Friday, and after a morning of rushing around town (and umbrella exploding chaos), I met her at the plodge at around half one. Alex, Matt, Ruth and myself, then headed into town for a slap-up lunch at Charlie Chan's!

After an exciting trip to the post office, and to Moss to rent Matt a dinner suit for the May Ball, Alex insisted we go straight to River Bar, for much drinking and cocktails. However, being only 4.30 in the afternoon, River Bar was closed, so we had a walk through Jesus green

and ended up at Clowns. There, we had a nice coffee, and a slice of some rather delicious cake, which had mysteriously disappeared during the time I took a photo of Alex with it...

We then headed to River Bar at last, and enjoyed many fine drinks. Matt had to leave us, but Alex and I waited around a loooong time for Nick to show up, and we ate there - lovely!

After the meal, we waddled back to college, via Threshers to pick up some champagne (originally 1 bottle, but since it was buy 2 get 1 free...;-). Nick braved the journey with his bad back; a sure sign of old age! When we got back to Matt's, we found that he had been baking tiramisu, so we enjoyed it over a glass of champagne.

The night was then whiled away playing frisbee - outside, in the dark, at half past midnight ;-). Oh what fun!

The next day, Alex and I arose at the not-so-early hour of 11.30, and went into town for a late lunch (by the time we were ready) at Bankok City. To illustrate, here is a picture of before, and after:

Matt then joined us for another coffee at clowns.

College-bound, Alex and I headed back via the scenic route, where we met up with Nick for a bit.

Matt arrived, and we had strawberries and cream and champagne, then Nick had to leave. A little later, David and Ruth popped round, and we had much sword-fighting silliness.

That evening, Alex and I decided just to stay in and watch a film (Kiki's Delivery Service) and call for a pizza. So we had a quiet end to the day.

Sunday required us to get up reasonably early, as the plan was to have a picnic lunch at the botanic gardens. Due to various people being late getting up and such, David, Alex, Ruth and I eventually left college at about 10.30, and went to Sainsburys to get (much too much) food for the picnic. We walked from town to the gardens, and met up with (other) David there. Matt joined us a little while later, and we had a nice champagne toast to the future.

After the picnic, we had a nice wander round the gardens, including the delights of the scented garden.

All too soon, it was time for Alex to head to the station, so we made our farewells, and set off. Promptly afterwards, I had to rush back to college to begin paking in time for my parents arriving. Luckily, with some much needed help from David and Ruth, we managed to pack everything up in reasonable time. In the evening, I went with David and Ruth to the bar for a bit, but then had to get laundry done, which was incredibly enthralling as usual.

So, here I am today, and have my flight to Princeton tomorrow morning. The plan today, is just to get a few things done, and also go swimming and bowling and stuff with David and Ruth, so should be fun!

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