I discovered Blipfoto in March 2014 thanks to Shandonner and, since I prefer images to sounds or words, and appreciate its one-a-day discipline, Blipfoto is very much the best form of social media for me. I posted spasmodically until Christmas 2014, and then posted daily for 400 days until Read more...

I discovered Blipfoto in March 2014 thanks to Shandonner and, since I prefer images to sounds or words, and appreciate its one-a-day discipline, Blipfoto is very much the best form of social media for me. I posted spasmodically until Christmas 2014, and then posted daily for 400 days until the end of March 2016. By then, thanks partly to Blip getting me out rather more on days when I might not, I found that I'd recovered my feeling of general contentment and optimism which I'd lost for a few years. For a while after that I only posted spasmodically, but now it's most days.

The son of Biologist (who died in January 2023) I'm married to A, we have daughters L and K, and live in Midlothian, (Scotland) with Kermit and Django.

I've run on and off for 40 years but don't race much, preferring my excursions from home, mainly into the Pentland Hills. I used to orienteer and still delude myself that I'm a mountaineer. I support Manchester United and follow Celtic and Hibernian. Fine architecture attracts me. Professionally, I'm a mathematician.

I used to take a lot of photos, but declined over the years until Blipfoto got me going again. I realised that my phone wasn't good enough so started carrying my Panasonic TZ20 around with me after Christmas 2014. Since then I upgraded to a TZ60 when I lost the TZ20 which, happily, turned up after a few months! Since November 2019 I've taken my photos with a Pixel 3a phone, finally admitting that the software advantage makes up for having a "toy" lens. In September 2023 its battery finally died, and I moved up to a Pixel 7 Pro, which gives even better results!

And why "Sparserunner"? Much of my work involves computational techniques for sparse matrices and, at a workshop celebrating a great researcher in the field who is similarly tall and lithe, he came up to me and said "You're as sparse as I am!", and the idea was born. I'm also Sparserunner on Instagram and Twitter. If you Google "SparseRunner", you soon find out who I really am!

Over the past few years, the software project that I've been developing with my Bulgarian (former) PhD student И has gradually taken over my working life, so HiGHS is mentioned frequently. 

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