la finale

A very pleasant stroll through central Paris this afternoon, during “la” finale, when France was playing Croatia. Bars were all overflowing onto the pavements and sometimes the streets, each action was echoed throughout town, and we certainly did not miss any goal, even from the heart of the Luxembourg gardens! Which were deserted except for the occasional tourist, just as the main thoroughfares, except for police cars and emergency vehicles. Since the game ended, horns have been honking almost nonstop, even in the quietest suburbs.

yes, another potential satellite to ISBA 2018!

On July 2-4, 2018, there will be an ISBA sponsored workshop on Bayesian non-parametrics for signal and image processing, in Bordeaux, France. This is a wee bit further than Warwick (BAYsm) or Rennes (MCqMC), but still manageable from Edinburgh with direct flights (if on Ryanair). Deadline for free (yes, free!) registration is May 31.

Sceaux snapshot [jatp]

Masterclass in Bayesian Statistics in Marseilles next Fall

This post is to announce a second occurrence of the exciting “masterclass in Bayesian Statistics” that we organised in 2016, near Marseilles. It will take place on 22-26 October 2018 once more at CIRM (Centre International de Recherches Mathématiques, Luminy, Marseilles, France). The targeted audience includes all scientists interested in learning how Bayesian inference may be used to tackle the practical problems they face in their own research. In particular PhD students and post-docs should benefit most directly from this masterclass. Among the invited speakers, Kerrie Mengersen from QUT, Brisbane, visiting Marseilles this Fall, will deliver a series of lectures on the interface between Bayesian statistics and applied modelling, Havard Rue from KAUST will talk on computing with INLA, and Aki Vehtari from Aalto U, Helsinki, will give a course on Bayesian model assessment and model choice. There will be two tutorials on R and on Stan.

All interested participants in this masterclass should pre-register as early as possible, given that the total attendance is limited to roughly 90 participants. Some specific funding for local expenses (i.e., food + accommodation on-siteat CIRM) is available (thanks to CIRM, and potentially to Fondation Jacques Hadamard, to be confirmed); this funding will be attributed by the scientific committee, with high priority to PhD students and post-docs.

Vélib’surdity!

On January 1, 2018, the official purveyor of short term rental bikes in Paris, the Vélib‘, changed, due to Smovengo winning the official bid for the renovation of the 2007 structure, against the contender JCDecaux. I almost never use these bikes as I travel with mine(s), except when stuck in a broken train or sudden industrial action! But I find amazing that the bid comparison did not consider the ecological cost of switching operators, as every single slot of every Vélib’ station had to be changed to accommodate the new bicycles. Some of which are electric bikes, requiring electricity plugs on every slot, two other ecological fallacies. And this is not even accounting for the disposal of tens of thousands of the older bikes (which were already suffering from a very high failure rate). Given the slow pace of the switch, free floating bike services like Ofo, Gobee, and OBike tried to take a share of the market, but they suffered so many degradations that they are gone or about to go. Another mountain of used bikes to dispose off…

Chamonix snapshot #3 [jatp]

St. Augustine [jatp]