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

Sunday 19/06/05 @ 11:15 pm

New York, New York!

Yesterday, John, Dave and myself headed through to New York for an action-filled all-American adventure of a lifetime. Or some close approximation to that. The day started off with us meeting in the lab at about 9.45, after having watched copious Look Around You and Death Race 2000 the previous night. Incedentally, the latter appears to have knackered the sound on my (work) laptop, but personally, I blame it on the French.

At about 10, we set off to the train station, hoping to catch the Princeton 'Dinky' - a little one-carriage train (ah, reminds me of Yorkshire) that takes us to 'Princeton Junction' the main station on the line between New York and Philadelphia. Walking there, we went past the delightful Princeton University site, including the 'doghnut of death'.

Unfortunately, when we got there, the cupboard was bare, so to speak (metaphorically), as the Dinky left just as we were waiting for our tickets to be printed. So to kill the hour we had just aquired, we went and had a coffee at Small World.

Luckily, when we returned to the station, we were just in time to get on the Dinky, and so we were happy - John in particular, as you can see below:

The rest of the train journey was entirely uneventful, and we arrived in New York a little after 12.30, just in time for a hearty New York lunch. We found a little place to eat, and enjoyed the initial experience of setting foot in the city, complete with lots and lots of cabs!

After lunch, we decided to do the obligatory thing, and go up the Empire State building. It's rather an impressive site, although the queues inside were more than a little annoying.

At the top, I was luckily able to buy some more batteries, after previously buying some from a dodgy dealer that lasted a mere half hour or so. The views were very impressive, a sample of which you can see below:

We were in the building for a couple of hours, due to the massive wait, but once we got out, or next item on the agenda was to see the hole in the ground. We took the metro/subway to get there (or rather to the nearest stop we could), and had a jolly time walking around the entire site. We managed to find quite a good view at one point.

We then walked downtown, to Battery Park (the bottom bit of Manhattan), and found a fitting tribute to John along the way:

Once we got there, we decided to get on a 'New York Taxi Boat', which took us close to Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty, and gave some good views of the Manhattan skyline.

By this point, it was rapidly approaching dinner time, so we walked up through the financial district (Wall Street, the New York stock exchange, and other flashy buildings) to get to Little Italy and Chinatown.

Little Italy was incredibly lively (considering how dead the financial district was), with restaurants opening onto the streets, and throngs of people milling around:

In the end though, we went to a nice little restaurant in Chinatown for dinner.

After dinner, it was getting late, so we decided to get the Metro up to Times Square, and then walk down to the train station from there. Unfortunately, once we found the correct tube station, a helpful American kindly advised us that we were on the wrong platform. So we changed over, hopped on the train, then found that we were heading in the wrong direction. The upshot, was that we had to jump out, change platforms, then wait a while for the next train. In the end, we did arrive at Times Square, and it was worth it - puts Picadilly Circus to shame!

So, at the end of a long day, we got the train back to Princeton, and arrived home at about 1am - in time for a quick shot of the 'blue stuff' before going to bed. All in all, a fantastic day!

Today has been a pretty low key affair by comparison - especially since I only got up at around 1pm. Other than coming into the lab to use the facilities, and a trip to CVS, I haven't really done anything. It's back to work tomorrow, so hopefully it should be another fun week!

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