Archive for Rocky Pop Hôtel

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!

Percheron [a nag, indeed!]

Posted in pictures, Travel, Wines with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on April 20, 2025 by xi'an

a journal of the conquest, war, [snow] famine, and death year

Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 24, 2024 by xi'an

Read yet another novelette by Aliette de Bodard, The citadel of weeping pearls, set in the same universe of a Viêt Nam inspired galactic civilisation, which proved somewhat equal to the previous ones,  with the plus of digging into mother-daughter and sibling relations and the slight minus of involving time travel [which, surprisingly, rarely fails to annoy me]. Right level for filling the nightly wake-ups I encountered while in Les Houches, despite a reasonable amount of physical activities since I totalled 79km of running that week and a few thousand meters of positive climb.

Made very little cooking while in Les Houches, obviously!, although we brought back a nice collection of very local cheeses, or the obvious reason of having evening meals at the workshop hotel together with the other participants. Nothing spectacular to report on that front, except for a limited vegetarian offer, incl. failed risotto and dhal, and more than substantial portions presumably calibrated for ravenous skiers (rather than regular runners!)… But had a lunch stop on the [high]way back home at [Ratatouille’s inspiration] Bernard Loiseau‘s bistro, Loiseau des Sens (and not the Michelin Côte d’Or**!). While the dishes were made from unsophisticated ingredients, their perfect preparation really proved worth the détour (and light enough to avoid falling asleep on the remainder of the drive home!!!)

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Watched House of Shinobi (忍びの家) on Netflix, following the paradoxes of a family of ninjas facing the modern Japan but somewhat unwillingly keeping their duties and honour code, which proved predictably cartoonesque but involved comic relief, as well as including the actors Eguchi Yōsuke (playing a similar role in the series of Kinshin films) and Miyamoto Nobuko (who played in the excellent 1980’s Tampopo). And Happiness (해피니스), yet another Korean zombie series, lengthy and easily forgotten.