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 13/04/04 @ 01:15 am

The delights of being a GM!

I've just got back from an all-day D&D session with Carl and Alex, in which I have introduced them to the fine game. Took a little longer than I expected, but then again neither of them had played before, and rolling characters / explaining rules can take some time. As I said before, I'll put more details up when I have time, but for now here is a synopsis...

Enter two adventurers (a Dwarven fighter and an Elven cleric) to the town of Beruvan, close to the borders of the Dark Forest (believe me, no world is complete without a Dark Forest!). There are tales of a certain Baron who managed to abduct the ancient 'scriptures of Beruvan' from the Regent. An officiate of the council hinted that the adventurers would be greatly rewarded if they helped to return them.

So, they headed south to the chateau of the Baron von Pfufflich, passing through the small village of Flamston. In this village, a mysterious character named Ulrick Jifson decided to help them with information as to how to enter the chateau, so long as they helped him by retrieving a ruby for him. Thus they sneaked into the chateau through the sewer (being attacked by a giant spider along the way), and 'borrowed' some guard uniforms as a disguise. Also rescuing a little girl from the dungeon (who was to be involved in some ceremony of the Baron), they left her to wait for them.

Unfortunately, they blundered into the tower of the treasury and were unable to explain themselves to the guards, leading to their arrest. Luckily, the guards fell asleep, and the little girl came to their rescue. This time, disguised a little better, and pretending to be escorting the girl, they managed to sneak past the guards, and with a little trouble defeated the guardian of the treasury.

As they entered the treasury however, they were affronted by the Baron himself, once again arresting them and stepping up the guard. He took the girl from them and headed away from the chateau with his associate. This time, their rescuer was Ulrick himself, who went off on his own to find his ruby, leaving the adventurers to escape from the chateau.

Following the Baron into the forest, they were met by a mysterious druid boy called Hlairddid. He warned them of the dangers of the forest, and asked them to leave when they failed to answer his riddle. In any case, they proceeded, reaching the mystic tower where the Baron was performing his ceremony. Rushing out to attack, they managed to meet their foes in an heroic battle (the companion of the Baron turning out the be the Regent of Beruvan). Hlairddid returned to thank them, and destroyed the scriptures once and for all.

Right - well that was a slightly longer synopsis than I was intending, but you get the picture. It turned out to be quite a fun session!

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