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

Saturday 28/05/05 @ 04:12 pm

Haiku Time!

See if you can guess what the theme is ;-)

Friday 27/05/05 @ 10:17 pm

In the beginning Tarski created the monotonic function...

And the function was without limit, and unhappy; and darkness was upon the face of the powersets. And the Spirit of Tarski moved upon the universe of functions. And Tarski said, Let there be fixed points: and there were fixed points. And Tarski saw the minimum fixed point, that it was good: and Tarski intersected the prefixed points of the function from the darkness.

The truth of the matter is, as John and I have determined, Tarski's fixed-point theorem is the basis of all computer science, and more generally, the basis of the entire universe! In fact, we're not studying for degrees in Computer Science, but rather Tarski's Fixed-Point Studies with a minor in Computer Science. And so, in avoidance of revision, I offer this tribute to the man himself.

This is all rather an impressive claim, I here you ask. Well, let me provide some examples of how Tarski's theorem affects our everyday lives:

1. Making a sculpture is a maximum fixed-point of the chisel function - you chip away until you get a finished sculpture.
2. Making a painting is a minimum fixed-point of the paint-on-canvas function - you shove more paint on until you get a finished painting.
3. Revision is a least fixed-point of the memory function - you continue to fill your brain with crap, until you can't fit any more in.
4. Exams are a maximum fixed-point of the ability-to-answer function - you eliminate all the ones that elicit wtf-responses, to leave the set of questions you answer.
5. Getting drunk is a least fixed-point of the stomach-and-liver function - you continue to drink until you reach a fixed-point of inebriaty, otherwise you throw up and pass out.
6. Having a shower is a maximum fixed-point of the wash function - you scrub all the dirt away until you're just left with your own skin.

So you see, wherever you go, and whatever you do, you can't escape fixed-points!!

Sunday 22/05/05 @ 11:35 pm

Mmmmm, coffee

This is a sight I'm seeing all too often at the moment ;-) All worship coffee, the giver of life!

Saturday 21/05/05 @ 09:40 pm

May the force be with you...

Some of you will no doubt criticise me for my sudden lapse in updates. Don't worry, I've not completely forgotten to update, but remember that there are only two and a half weeks before my finals - scary! Importantly though, what's happened in the last two weeks? Let's begin with the week before last.

On Thursday (the 12th) it was Nick's birthday, so on Wednesday afternoon, Matt and I headed into town to look for birthday presents. I found a wonderful card, featuring a picture of an assortment of sweets - perfect for the gummi-bear-loving Austrian! We celebrated his quarter-century with style, having a barbecue, and then watching The Incredibles.

So, last weekend, I set to work and finished the final draft of my dissertation. Along with revision and the odd supervision, this is all I've been doing this last week. Up until Thursday that is, when I got the dissertation back from the printers, and handed it in. Woohoo! That's a big thing out of the way at least; I just need to start making a bigger dent in this pile of revision before the exams come around. I've never much enjoyed revision - it's much more fun learning new things, rather than memorising lots of specific details, that I would look up anyway, if I needed to know them. Oh well - it's the last year of all this, at least!

As you can probably guess from the title of this post, I've just recently seen Star Wars Episode III. On Thursday evening, rather spontaneously, David and I met up and had a nice meal at Prezzo, before heading to the cinema for the late showing of the film - I managed to grab tickets earlier that afternoon, much to my surprise. In any case, it was a bit of a disappointment - there were some nice bits, but it was lacking as a whole, and there were too many cliches and cheesy moments all round.

Without spoiling it for those that haven't yet seen Episode III, I'll refrain from specific comments, other than that I'll never be able to look at the Darth Vader again without thinking "noooooooo"!

Changing topic, Andrew has asked me show you all this picture:

The first person to guess who it is will win an all-expenses-paid dinner at Charlie Chan's, paid for by Andrew himself! He obviously has little confidence in your abilities, so prove him wrong, and grab that grub!

I'm watching EuroVision at the moment, whilst doing some revision. We've nearly finished seeing all the entries, and so far my vote has to go to Moldova with Grandma Beats The Drum. Go Grandma! It remains to be seen what the outcome will be, but we can be certain it won't be in any way driven by politics... hold on while I fend off the flying pigs.

Finally, let me leave you with this newly acquired knowledge - I found today, when I brushed my teeth immediately after drinking German blend coffee, that it left an aftertaste of pork sausages. There's no answer to that.

Monday 09/05/05 @ 06:06 pm

Strange visitations

After the excitement of yesterday's VE day celebrations, Naomi has just set off home following her flying visit. It was great to see her again, and we had a nice chat last night, and also this afternoon, after I returned from my morning of lectures. I managed to get a photo of the three of us (Matt, Naomi and me, from left to right), before she left:

I feel obligated to repeat what I've been saying to everyone for the last week or so - get a LiveJournal! It's a great way for us all to keep in touch, plus if you do, I can link the picture of you on the people page to your journal. Saira will probably call me a hypocrite, for only getting an account myself recently, but I've been running this blog (admittedly somewhat sporadically at times) for over a year now, so :-P.

Oh, and in case any of you are being observant, I've redone the layout of the site properly, so that it should now display correctly in all browsers (previously, the fonts were a bit dodgy in Mozilla).

Sunday 08/05/05 @ 05:51 pm

Naomi celebrates VE day with style

So, I was looking through the archives of nostalgia today, and found this wonderful tribute to our brave soldiers. Naomi, always one to display national pride, salutes the troops on this, the sixtieth anniversary of victory in Europe.

In other news, last night, Matt, Nick and I headed into town for a delightful dinner at Bangkok City; the curry was pretty nice, despite giving me hiccups, but the mango sorbet tasted like penicillin, or so I am told. Today, we were supposed to meet Nick and Lizi for coffee at 12, but got a text from Nick at 4.30am asking to postpone. So Matt and I, braved the hail stones, to head into town anyway. I managed to take a snap of the erratic weather from my window:

In town, we had lunch at Clowns, then wandered around a bit, stopping off at HMV, where I left my umbrella at the till, in usual forgetfulness. Other than that, we've just had coffee and cake, and I've produced a new people page, containing little photos of people - if you're not on it, it's because I don't have a photo of you, so send me one if you yearn for inclusion.

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.

Wednesday 04/05/05 @ 10:23 am

Deobfuscation

I finished writing the second draft of my dissertation last night, which is now within a hair's breadth of the word limit. The main problem before, was that I'd just used too many words, with stupid phrases like "in order to facilitate". It's funny, but you don't notice you're doing this (or at least I don't) when I'm writing - only afterwards when you read through it again. Anyway, it reads a lot better now, so I feel at least that I'm converging on the finished thing.

Yesterday, Sarah came for a flying visit, in her short time away from Paris. It was great to see her again, though only makes me realise how long it is until the end of the summer, when I'll see her and Andrew and Naomi and Sergio and goodness knows who else again. I got back from lectures shortly after 1, and headed into town with Matt and Sarah for a bite to eat at Eat. We then headed back to college - or rather, Sarah to her supervision, and Matt and I to college, with a detour to the History faculty library, for Matt to get a book out. I even bumped into the somewhat bemused Katharine, exclaiming "Michael! What are you doing in the history faculty??" Maybe that should be my new purpose in life, to bewilder people - I could do with some of Llewellyn's conspiracies!

Anyway, Sarah got back from her supervision, and we headed back into town with Matt, to the Anchor, for a drink, before Sarah had to get a taxi to the station. So we said our farewells, and went our separate ways, and that, I suppose, is that.

That's about the most excitement for the time being, though tomorrow is likely to be pretty hectic. I need to go get a visa photo taken today - annoyingly, they require it to be about half an inch wider than the normal passport photo. So looks like I'll be paying an arm and a leg for a bit more shoulder. Metaphorically of course.

Well it's off to lectures for me now, so I shall leave you with this parting wisdom. Never appoint Papa Lazarou as lead developer.

"My wife was right, there is a bug in your program, but um... I fixed it now."

Sunday 01/05/05 @ 02:43 pm

Raccoons...

So, the last few days have been pretty uneventful. Lectures began on thursday, and I had a meeting with Dave and John over lunch on Friday - of course, I still need to get my visa, and I have an appointment at the US embassy in London on thursday, which I just realised coincides with voting day! I got some feedback from Alan about my dissertation, and I'm now working on refactoring stuff to make it read better, as well as losing about 2000 words worth of stuff. It's all hectic at the moment; that, and all the revision to do...

On friday evening, I met up with David and Katharine, and we went to Pizza Express for dinner. For want of anything else to do, we went back to mine, and I introduced Katharine to the delights of Little Mouse and Look Around You. David and I then watched Kiki's Delivery Service, which remains one of my favourite little films - the sort of thing that's bound to cheer you up!

Anyway, you may be wondering what the title of this post has to do with any of this. Well, I stumbled across a fantastic little site dedicated to that 80's cartoon we all know and love - The Raccoons. As well as having all the songs, and a complete episode list, you can download and watch all the specials. Cyril Sneer, eat your heart out!

Of course, not everyone seems to agree about the magnificence of this programme, and indeed I found a rather amusing site proclaiming Ralph Raccoon to be Stalin! Typical of some people to try to ruin a nice little cartoon, by calling it communist propaganda; just because it has an environmentalist theme and a red t-shirt! I mean, how could anybody confuse these two with evil dictators??

Anyway, looks like it's back to work for me. I don't know about anyone else, but sometimes the thought of just getting away from it all to go live in a tree sounds quite appealing. Oh well.