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

Tuesday 04/01/05 @ 01:12 am

Happy New Year!

Welcome one and all to 2005! Hold on to your hats, 'cause this one's going to be one heck of a ride, or so I hope ;-). We got the year off to a flying start with a groovy New Year's Eve party, which started off with a few pub visits, followed by Carl, Alex and myself retiring to the relative safety of Andrew and Amanda's to see in the new year. I was quite fortunate in managing to procure a bottle of champagne, given how late I left it (think 15 minutes before this particular off-licence closed!). In any case, I drank rather a lot, and subsequently regretted it, though in hindsight it was worthwhile and can be excused given the occasion! If you can't be a bit extravagant when heralding the coming of another year, then when can you?

And so it was that everyone had a jolly good time, and drank lashings and lashings of... well let's just say it was stronger than the old ginger beer! Even Alex had a tipple, and forfeited her capacity to drive. Ash, Amanda's husky, also had a good time, until he got a little spooked by the party poppers! All in all it was a rare occasion. At least it was less eventful than the previous two years - last year, I had to endure a shouting match and extreme fallout on the streets of Bridlington, which put a dampener on things. The year before, I didn't even see the new year, after a certain person (let's call them Carl X; no, Y Wardill) who threw up down the front of a certain bar, and was escorted out by the bouncers. Worried for his health, I followed, only to be unable to find him (he had taken a taxi home), and so I went home! Oh the excitement I have!

Anyway, I'm now suitably recovered from said events, and am knuckling down to a bit of work over the next two weeks before I go back for the new term. There's no rest for the wicked. Oh well.