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 10/01/06 @ 11:42 pm

As a pheonix rising from the ashes...

so comes the New Year. Let's hope it can live up to the expectations of it's predecessor. After all, 2005 was certainly a year to remember! What with finishing my degree with a bang, spending the summer in Princeton, then moving up here to Edinburgh, it's been hectic to say the least. I'm expecting this year to be a bit more settled, but who knows what will happen. As my mother always says, life is like a stochastic process; you never know when it might bifurcate! In other words, you can model your clothes, but you can't model yourself!

Let's take a look back at the events of last few festive weeks!

Countdown to Christmas

After recovering some sleep on wednesday evening, the excitement of Edinburgh soon carried forward into downtown Bridlington as I began my two week stay at home. Unsurprisingly, this began with a family outing to Scarborough, excluding Chris, who had yet to arrive home for the festive period. I didn't realise at first that this trip, a mere three days before Christmas, was an important shopping trip for father, who was counting on picking up a few choice purchases for my mum, whilst he still could. Unfortunately, the items specifically requested were no longer on sale in Marks & Spencer, and so I spent the next half hour dragging my dad round every shop imaginable to look for ideas. A word of advice to all you out there - never go Christmas shopping with your dad, unless you feel like experiencing a whole new meaning of the word 'infuriating'. In the end, all he bought were some socks - not to worry though, as he already had bought my mum's main present of... an electric shaver!?!?

When we returned to Bridlington, we went round to see my grandparents. My grandma was asleep when we arrived, which led to her rather amusingly awakening to find me sitting opposite her! I'd last seen them in November, when I came back during bonfire night weekend, so it was nice to see them again. In the evening, having been to Scarborough once already, I met up with Alex and we went through again! This time, to drop Alex's mum and her boyfriend David off, but we also made the most of the opportunity to visit a great little restaurant called the Red Dragon. This was an all-you-can-eat Chinese place, and once again we stuffed ourselves to the limit. I believe that Alex is on a mission to bring the cry of "I'm so full" to the citizens of every major (and not so major) settlement. She's doing a good job so far ;-). After eating, we drove back to Alex's where (after grappling with her DVD player), we watched a few episodes of Father of the Pride.

The next day, not put off by last night's feasting, Alex came round and dragged me off to Hornsea. Why go to Hornsea? For the Chocolate Shop of course! We had some tasty tortilla wraps for lunch, followed by a serving each of the famous 'pain au chocolate', before the cry of "I'm so full" rang out once again. When you're peacefully asleep in bed at night, listen closely, and you can still hear the echo... Anyway, we went back to my place, and watched some episodes of Fruits Basket, before Alex (aka Santa) said goodbye and went her way.

With Saturday came Christmas Eve and the highlight of the festive preparations. At lunch time, in the usual tradition, the whole family set off to Filey for our annual fish-and-chip lunch! The town itself is unchanging as ever, and the tacky old Lions van was still there, but this time without even the seasonal emission of outdated Christmas songs. We sat on the usual benches overlooking the sea, and enjoyed a short interval of serenity... that is until Ali stopped eating, and resumed his incessant banter.

On returning home, I undertook the vitally important duty of mince pie baking. After my successful endeavour in Edinburgh, I'd say it was a trifle - but of course it wasn't, it was a mince pie. I was even coaxed into making some jam tarts, and little Chris couldn't keep his sticky fingers off them! Alex and Carl popped round for an hour, whilst I was finishing the baking, and enjoyed some of the results (well, Carl did, but Alex was "sooo full"). After this, things settled down for a while, and in the evening my parents and Ali went out to Skipsea, to see their 'nativity procession' (which had been recommended by a colleague of my mum's). Whilst they were out, Alex came back round, and we watched a few more episodes of Fruits Basket while I force-fed her mince pies. We started watching Miracle on 34th Street, and soon I began to get worried after it reached an hour and a half after my parents were due to arrive back. Eventually they did return, and it turned out that they had simply stayed a little longer - although Ali did have a near-death experience when he was hit in the head by the star of Bethlehem (which happened to be a firework).

The family reunited, we had dinner, and then prepared to head out for midnight mass at the Priory. As usual, Chris stayed at home to do Santa's job of bringing all the presents downstairs (one of our family traditions). The service was fairly standard, as to be expected, with the usual ups and downs - the music and carols were great, but one just has to grit one's teeth and bear through the pious worship and cannibalistic ritual. We were finished by half past midnight, and set off back home to pop open the champagne and drink to the Christmas spirit!

Christmas Day arrives!

The only bad thing about Christmas Day is that we have to get up early (well, not that early, but it's early when you're on holiday), because my grandparents get overexcited. My granddad had to play the organ at his church this year, so only my grandma arrived at first. In any case, we all gathered in the lounge, to see the pile of gifts awaiting everybody!

Lots of opening ensued, and the gifts were all a great success. Even the electric shaver didn't come off too badly, but having in the past been given a toilet brush, mother was well prepared for such eventualities. Granddad soon arrived, and had some catching up to do, but he made a good job of it. It was good to have the whole family together!

Christmas lunch soon followed, and Stephen turned up once again. The meal was fantastic as usual, with turkey, sprouts, roast potatoes, yorkshire pudding, sausages, carrots, swede, stuffing, and lashings of gravy - compliments to the chef! Unsurprisingly, the cracker jokes were worse than ever, but surprising, granddad didn't get the girly hairpiece, which is what usually happens - maybe it's an omen; we'd better watch out! The meal was topped off with a specially made Christmas pudding, which was excellent.

After tidying up, the afternoon followed in a relaxed state, having a few drinks and admiring the many wonderous gifts we had acquired. Including the four-way singing Christmas characters that my dad had bought for my mum. The game I bought for dad gave Stephen a bit of a shock, but I think he got over it.

We watched a few episodes of Happy Tree Friends, which Chris had given me, and then later on in the evening Alex popped round for a few drinks. Dinner was a nice turkey sandwich and a bowl of home-made trifle, and we spent the rest of the evening in that comatose state you only get at Christmas!

Death of the old year

On Boxing Day, we followed the usual tradition of going to my grandparents for lunch. Like last year, we had a buffet affair, with cold turkey, sausage rolls, quiche, and all the usual stuff. We even played a few rounds of catch phrase, but this confused grandma a little as she took the pictures too literally. Before long, we had exhausted the entertainment value of the game, and we returned home mid-afternoon. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, though of course the evening meal of bubble and squeak, with cold turkey and pickles, was fantastic - it just wouldn't be Boxing Day without it!

On monday, we had a visit from Christine and Steve, along with Jo and Evy, and the dogs. They were round at my grandparents, so we popped by in the afternoon to see them. It's amazing how much Evy has grown - she's now two and running around like the best of them, but she was only a new born baby last time I saw her! The rest of the day, and the next, was quiet, until Alex showed up on tuesday evening, and once again dragged me to unhealthy eating places. This time it was a Chinese takeaway, complete with seaweed (although most of mine mysteriously disappeared... hmmm...). We took it back to Alex's, and watched a few more episodes of Fruits Basket, plus an episode of Kodocha that I forced on Alex. Not trusting her DVD player this time, I wired Alex's monitor up downstairs.

Wednesday was another relaxing day, with me finishing off watching Kodocha (yes, I've now watched all 102 episodes!). In the evening, I went with my parents and Ali over to Karen and Neil's, friends of my mum. They put on a good meal, and egged on by more than a few bottles of wine, we moved from playing articulate, to a 70s/80s intro quiz. Rather rowdy to say the least, and my mum surprised us all with her incredible knowledge of Gary Glitter songs! It was after 1am when we left, and we walked back through the light covering of snow to get home.

Thursday was uneventful, except that I started looking semi-seriously at some Japanese resources on the Internet, and even began to learn the hiragana (one of the three writing systems they use). Such a state of affairs continued into Friday, and in the evening I had yet another Chinese takeaway, this time at home with my parents. Alex, who was possibly going to join us, turned up later on, and was absolutely ravenous having had nothing to eat. In any case, we headed out to Tesco, to shop for the New Year's Eve buffet, and then back to mine. In the end, I put on some duck spring rolls to douse Alex's hunger, and thanks to that and the bag of prawn crackers that she devoured, she was saved from starvation ;-).

On New Year's Eve, Alex picked me up in the afternoon, so that I could help her prepare the buffet - or so she told me. We went to morrisons first, for some last minute items, but once we got back to Alex's, I was shoved in the other room to read my newly acquired Japanese books, so that I wouldn't be 'under her feet'. Not that I cared; I was in the warm living room by the fire! Anyway, at about 5.30 we headed out to pick up Carl, and stopped by mine to collect my camera - an essential item! When we got back, we enjoyed some Pimms and lemonade cocktail, and admired the buffet, while we waited for Amanda and Andrew to arrive.

Once they arrived, the celebrations began, and the buffet went down a treat! Of course, I was in charge of the hot stuff, while our hostess put up her feet. We did worry that the Pimms had been spiked, as Alex was somewhat giddier than usual - and believe me, that's very giddy ;-). Andrew went quickly onto the hard stuff, supping a glass of some WKD shot stuff, among other things. He then unsuccessfuly tried to persuade us to turn on some smutty sex programme... Much fun was had with Alex's hamster wheel, once we managed to inflate the thing - Carl's pumping action was particularly good!

When midnight came around, we popped open the Champagne, and drank our toast to the New Year whilst enjoying the London fireworks on TV.

Alex got a little too excited over the party poppers.

At about half past midnight, Amanda and Andrew left to go home, and after we tidied up and had a few more drinks, Alex soon decided to retire. So Carl and I found an Eddie Izard video to amuse us. By the time we'd watched this, it was 3am, so I called for a taxi (Carl was staying over), and reluctantly forked out �12 to get home. All in all, a good night!

Enter 2006 - banzai!

No surprises that New Year's Day was a late awakening, and so I pottered around a bit before Alex picked me up in the evening, and we headed over to Amanda and Andrew's. This was the first time I'd been in their new house (they moved during the summer), and it's very nice. They'd laid on a great buffet for us, and we had a fun evening with plenty of food and drink. Ash was as bouncy as ever! Monday was another quiet day, and I finished learning the hiragana - not to the level that the pronunciation jumps off the page at you, but so that I could work through each word one character at a time. Alex managed to persuade me to have yet another Chinese takeaway, and we went round to her's to study - me my Japanese, and Alex her Advanced CeMap, the exam being on friday.

On Tuesday evening, Alex came round again, and we went to pick up Amanda and Andrew, having planned to go to the Indian (notably not the Spice of Bengal), and to meet Carl there. We ended up having a few drinks first, which meant that we met up with Carl somewhat later than we intended. In any case, the meal was good, and as Alex dropped me off, we said our goodbyes once again. It won't be for long though, as I'm planning on going down to York in February; probably the weekend after Carl's birthday.

Wednesday was my last day in Bridlington, so I spent the morning getting packed for my journey that evening. In the afternoon, I went to see my grandparents, and to say my farewells. At about 5.30 once my parents were both home and ready, we set off in the car to York, where I arrived at the station in plenty of time to get my train. It was a fairly quiet journey, and I arrived back at the flat in Edinburgh before 10pm.

Thursday and Friday were back at work, and it was nice to see people again, even though it's always a little disappointing for a holiday to end. I'm well rested for it though, and I'm getting back into the swing of things. On Saturday, I went over to the language centre to sign up for a Japanese course, which begins this thursday evening! I've also started going to the maths course on stochastic processes, although the TPG courses don't start again for a few weeks. As for teaching, so far I'm tutoring for the third year 'computation and intractability' course.

So, here I am, settled in for the winter (which is going to be pretty harsh up here... brrrr). This weekend I'm heading down to Cambridge to see Andrew, John et al, and John has arranged to come up to visit at the end of the month. It already looks like things will be pretty busy! I may not know what the New Year will bring, but it had better be good, or I want my money back!!