Archive for Vanoise
refuge de la Dent Parrachée [souvenir]
Posted in Books, Mountains, Running with tags Aussois, avalanche, Dent Parrachée, Le Monde, O'Bayes03, refuge, ski touring, Vanoise on August 23, 2026 by xi'an
Nature on mirror conferences
Posted in Books, Statistics, University life with tags Aussois, BayesComp 2025, BayesComp 2027, Bayesian computation, Copenhagen, EU, EurIPS 2025, French Alps, ISBA, ISBA 2026, ISBA 2028, Mexico City, mirror workshop, multihub conferences, NeurIPS 2025, satellite meetings, statistical machine learning, Texas, Texas A&M University, Trump administration, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, US politics, Vanoise, visa revocation on January 28, 2026 by xi'an
“…the artificial-intelligence conference NeurIPS hosted not only its main meeting in San Diego, California, but also its first-ever alternative location, in Mexico City, with the goal of alleviating travel challenges (…) in response to “skyrocketing attendance and difficulties in obtaining travel visas some attendees have experienced in the past few years when only one location was available” [while] a group of AI researchers in Europe organized an independent spin-off conference, dubbed EurIPS, in Copenhagen (…) owing to concerns including climate change [and people expressing] a desire for a less hostile environment”
With a limited number of 500 participants attending in Mexico. And a massive number in Copenhagen, over 2,000! With a final quote from Emtiyaz Khan (a plenary speaker at ISBA 2026):
“[I] chose to travel to EurIPS rather than NeurIPS because of the difficulties many others faced in getting into the United States. The smaller nature of EurIPS made it much easier to meet and interact with other scientists. I absolutely loved it and I would love to see it happen again.”
This state of affairs is not going to vanish with Trump adding more countries to the banned country list, 75 at this stage!, and this is a call to arms for ISBA and IMS conference organisers towards planning for multi-hub configurations, since such international organisations cannot exclude a third of the countries in the World from attending their conferences. Which makes our current ISBA survey all the more relevant! I am currently building a mirror meeting for BayesComp 2027 in Aussois, French Alps. For those who cannot or do not wish to travel to Texas for the main conference.
last light in Maurienne [jatp]
Posted in Mountains, pictures, Travel with tags Aussois, Bonneval-sur-Arc, French Alps, jatp, Maurienne, Pointe du Châtelard, Savoie, sunset, Vanoise on December 7, 2025 by xi'an
Back to Aussois, back to Vanoise!
Posted in Mountains, pictures, Running with tags 13 April 2013, Aussois, avalanche, CAES, CNRS, Dent Parrachée, Grande Aiguille Rousse, guided climb, John Muir, Le Dauphiné Libéré, Maurienne, Modane, O'Bayes03, Savoie, ski accident, ski touring, Vanoise on December 3, 2025 by xi'an
So wonderful to be back in Aussois, 20 years later! Same place, same reason, namely a meeting with young statisticians. (Plus the call of the mountains!) And same guide, Baptiste Damevin, as well! Who in the meanwhile got into a mountain accident the very same day I had my climbing accident, albeit a much more serious one since he was swept by an avalanche on the Dent Parrachée—Éric and I climbed with him in 2003—while ski touring, falling down more than 500m and surviving multiple fractures! Five other alpine touring skiers got caught as well, three of whom died. Baptiste did recover from injuries that should have left him permanently incapacitated and resumed his guiding and mountaineering activities. Kudos!!
Fortunately, he was available for a day hike and he took us (Julyan, Guillaume and I) to the Grand Aiguille Rousse (3482m) on a favourable (sunny and decently cold) day. While the hike was reasonably easy, with mostly hard snow, I was still tired from my earlier marathonian efforts and decided to turn back at 3000m before the steepest bits, in order to let the others get to and enjoy the summit. And return back to the car before dark.
off to [ML@]Aussois
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, Running, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags adversarial examples, Aussois, CNRS, conformal prediction, Dent Parrachée, Fall school, Gaussian processes, generative modelling, ML, O'Bayes03, optimization, Paul Langevin, privacy, Savoie, SNCF, train strike, transport, Université Paris Dauphine, Vanoise on November 14, 2025 by xi'an
