Le Chemin [featuring Randal Douc]

My friend and co-author Randal Douc is one of the main actors in the film Le Chemin that came out last week in French cinemas. Taking place in Cambodia and directed by Jeanne Labrune. I have not yet seen the film but will next week as it is scheduled in a nearby cinema (and only six in Paris!)… (Randal was also a main actor in Rithy Panh’s Un barrage contre le Pacifique, as well as the off-voice in the Oscar nominated Rithy Panh’s L’image manquante.) In connection with this new movie, Randal was interviewed in Allociné, the major French website on current movies. With questions about his future film and theatre projects, but none about his on-going maths research!!!

zurück nach Wien

Today, I am travelling to Vienna for a few days, primarily for assessing a grant renewal for a research consortium federating most Austrian research groups on a topic for which Austria is a world-leader. (Sorry for being cryptic but I am unsure how much I can disclose about this assessment!) And taking advantage on being in Vienna, for a two-day editing session with Sylvia Früwirth-Schnatter and Gilles Celeux on our Handbook of mixtures analysis project. Which started a few years ago with another meeting in Vienna. And taking further advantage on being in Vienna, for an evening at the Volksoper, conveniently playing Die Zauberflöte!

bye, Cassini!

positions in North-East America

Today I received emails about openings in both Université de Montréal, Canada, and Harvard University, USA:

• Professor in Statistics, Biostatistics or Data Science at U de M, deadline October 30th, 2017, a requirement being proficiency in the French language;
• Tenure-Track Professorship in Statistics at Harvard University, Department of Statistics, details there.

Texan black swan

“Un événement improbable aux conséquences d’autant plus désastreuses que l’on ne s’y est pas préparé.”

This weekend, there was a short article in Le Monde about the Harvey storm as a Texan illustration of Taleb’s black swan. An analysis that would imply every extreme event like this “once-in-a-thousand year” event (?) can be called a black swan… “An improbable event with catastrophic consequences, the more because it had not been provisioned”, as the above quote translates. Ironically, there is another article in the same journal, about the catastrophe being “ordinary” and “not unexpected”! While such massive floods are indeed impacting a huge number of people and companies, because the storm happened to pour an unusual amount of rain right on top of Houston, they indeed remain within the predictable and not so improbable in terms of the amount of water deposited in the area and in terms of damages, given the amount and style of construction over flood plains. For instance, Houston is less than 50 feet above sea level, has fairly old drainage and pipe systems, and lacks a zoning code. With mostly one or two-story high buildings rather than higher rises. (Incidentally, I appreciated the juxtaposition of the article with the add for Le Monde des Religions and its picture of a devilesque black goat!)

 

Sunset on the Keys [happier times]

wanton and furious cycling

A cyclist was convicted of “wanton or furious driving” last week in London after hitting a pedestrian crossing the street, leading to her death a few days later. The main legal argument for the conviction was that the cyclist was riding a “fixie”,  a bike with no front brake and fixed-gear, as used in track cycling. Which is illegal in Britain and, I just found out, in France too. (He was actually facing manslaughter, for which he got acquitted.) This is a most tragic accident, alas leading to a loss of a human life, and I did not look at the specifics, but I do not get the argument about the brakes and the furious driving: if the rider was going at about 28 km/h, which seems a reasonable speed in low density areas [and is just above my average speed in suburban Paris], and if the pedestrian stepped in his path six meters ahead, he had less than a second to react. Front brake or not, I am certainly unable to react and stop in this interval. And braking hard with the front brake will invariably lead to going over the bars: happens to me every time I have to stop for a car with my road bike. And would if I had to stop for a pedestrian.

Incidentally [or accidentally], here is the item of British Law from 1861 on which prosecution was based:

“Whosoever, having the charge of any carriage or vehicle, shall by wanton or furious driving or racing, or other wilful misconduct, or by wilful neglect, do or cause to be done any bodily harm to any person whatsoever, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and being convicted thereof shall be liable, at the discretion of the court, to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years.”

And here are the most reasonable views of the former Olympian Chris Boardman on this affair and the hysteria it created…