data protection [not from Les Houches]

While running a “kitchen” workshop on Bayesian privacy in Les Houches, Le Monde published on π day a recap of a recent report on AI commanded by the French Government. Among other things, it contains recommendations on alleviating the administrative blocks in accessing personal data, based on a model for data protection created decades earlier around the CNIL structure. The final paragraph wishes for the creation of a “laboratory” that would test collaborative, altruistic, efficient models towards sharing data for learning, which is one of the main goals of OCEAN. Without mentioning any technical aspect, like an adoption of some privacy measure at a national or European level.

max spacing between mass shootings [data graphics]

Pisa leans even further

the suicidal consequences of the immigration law on research and higher education

another round of mostly useless road death statistics [and a terrible graph]

Another terrible report on (French) road accidents and deaths Le Monde pointed to. The entire analysis does not consider once the number of people on the roads or the death per kilometer ratio. Which makes the absolute figures as those represented in this ugly graph hard to comment. For instance, the number of persons cycling to work has increased more than the number of bike deaths. (And, contrary to a urban myth, cycling in Paris should not be considered as a extreme sport: only one  [too many] cyclist died there in 2022.) I also find surprising the (a)symmetry in the age distributions of (overall) road deaths,

since the percentages of evolution between 2019 and 2022 almost exactly compensate for one to the next across the age groups. Any significance in these figures? The statistics that makes the most sense in the report is the comparison of counties where the 90km/h speed limit was reinstated and those where it stayed at 80km/h: an increase of 1% versus a decrease of 2%… As signaled by Le Monde car doors are bike killers: when getting off a car, use your right hand to open the driver’s door (except in Australia, Britain, Japan and 72 other left-hand driving countries!!).