Archive for icefield

from Les Houches to Venezia, privately

Posted in pictures, Travel, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 28, 2026 by xi'an

The third ERC Synergy OCEAN privacy workshop took place in Venice rather than Les Houches, as a more convenient location for most participants and a definitely more academic and peaceful environment than the Rocky Pop psychedelic hotel! (It also helped that I was invited by the Department of Economics for that period.) Most of participants were old-timers and this helped in launching working groups and discussions from early on. Hence allowing to make more progress in exploring new directions to improve estimation efficiency under privacy (and vice-versa). In particular, our recent decision-theoretic developments proved of interest to several groups and hopefully extensions will come out, none too much in the future. And no-one fell in a canal, or in a crevasse, or ended up in the hospital this time… Grazie mille a tutti!

Houcheanographerc almost making the local news!

Posted in Statistics with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 9, 2025 by xi'an

a faint memory of ice

Posted in Books, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 17, 2018 by xi'an

 

During the past week of vacations in Chamonix, I spent some days down-hill skiing (which I find increasingly boring!), X-country skiing (way better), swimming (indoors!) and running, but the highlight (and the number one reason for going there!) was an ice cascade climb with a local guide, Sylvain (from the mythical Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix). There were very options due to the avalanche high risk and Sylvain picked a route called Déferlante at the top of Les Grands Montets cabin stop and next to the end of a small icefield, Glacier d’Argentière. We went there quite early to catch the first cabin up, along a whole horde of badasss skiers and snowboarders, and reached the top of the route by foot first, a wee bit after 9 pm. A second guide and a client appeared before we were ready to abseil down, and two more groups would appear later. On touring skis. Continue reading →

over Greenland [#2]

Posted in Mountains, pictures, Wines with tags , , , , , , on August 5, 2015 by xi'an

Greenland2

over Greenland

Posted in Mountains, pictures, Travel with tags , , , on August 4, 2015 by xi'an

Greenland