BimPressioNs [BNP11]
While my participation to BNP 11 has so far been more at the janitor level [although not gaining George Casella’s reputation on NPR!] than at the scientific one, since we had decided in favour of the least expensive and unstaffed option for coffee breaks, to keep the registration fees at a minimum [although I would have gladly gone all the way to removing all coffee breaks!, if only because such breaks produce much garbage], I had fairly good chats at the second poster session, in particular around empirical likelihoods and HMC for discrete parameters, the first one based on the general Cressie-Read formulation and the second around the recently arXived paper of Nishimura et al., which I wanted to read. Plus many other good chats full stop, around terrific cheese platters!
This morning, the coffee breaks were much more under control and I managed to enjoy [and chair] the entire session on empirical likelihood, with absolutely fantastic talks from Nils Hjort and Art Owen (the third speaker having gone AWOL, possibly a direct consequence of Trump’s travel ban).
Xi'an's Og 
July 12, 2017 at 12:50 am
You nailed it. The third speaker’s absence was indeed a direct consequence of the travel ban.
July 14, 2017 at 4:59 pm
Bummer…
June 29, 2017 at 9:51 pm
I would love to see your comment on Nishimura et al.! An HMC that can handle discrete variable is a very attractive idea.
June 29, 2017 at 3:19 am
A sad, unintended consequence of starting a new job on Monday is that I’ve had to tap out of this summer’s conference season. That cheese plate makes me genuinely sad about this (as well as the company and the science. But my main regret is missing the cheese)
June 29, 2017 at 3:20 am
Come to think of it, I missed the previous BNP as well because I was changing jobs. You guys need to stop running these meetings – I’m sick of moving!
June 29, 2017 at 8:23 am
Maybe you have to stop changing jobs! Next round will be in Oxford, that should help. And I can then bring some French cheese to make you feel better.