Sunday, December 13, 2009

ESCO 2010 conference

An interesting conference 2nd European Seminar on Coupled Problems (ESCO) will be held on June 28 — July 2, 2010 in Pilsen, Czech Republic.
Among the topics are solving PDEs and applications and using Python for scientific computing. In particular, Gaël Varoquaux is the keynote speaker.

Unfortunately, it was later announced that the SciPy 2010 conference is going to be at the same time, which is really unfortunate. But here are some reasons why you should consider going to ESCO 2010 instead:
  • If you like numerical calculations (finite elements, differences, volumes, ...) and solving partial differential equations and other problems and also programming in Python, together with C/C++ or Fortran, you will have a chance to meet some of the top people in the field. SciPy conference usually has people who solve PDEs (e.g. SciPy 09 had about 6), but ESCO 2010 will have about 60. So ESCO wins.

  • Robert Cimrman, who you probably know from the scipy and numpy mailinglists, also the author of the sfepy FEM package in Python, lives in Pilsen, so he'll gladly show you some good Pilsen pubs. SciPy 2010 is going to be in Austin and while Austin has cool pubs too, I must be fair and I liked that (I was there at the Sage 08 days), but it's just not comparable, the beer is better in Pilsen, it's a historic city and there are more pubs.

  • Pilsen is close to Prague, so you will have the chance to visit it. You should walk in the old town, have couple beers etc. Here you can see some photos that Gaël took when we met in Prauge. Again, this is incomparable with Austin.

  • It is held in the Pilsner Urquell Brewery. When Pavel Šolín announced that at the SciPy 09 conference, Jarrod asked "Ah, in a beer pub?". So let me be clear. The word pilsner (type of the beer) is coming from the Czech city Pilsen (Plzeň in Czech). Pilsner Urquell is not some beer pub (e.g. even Reno where I live now has a beer pub), it's The Brewery. Austin is a cool place (and Texas steaks are really good), but as you can see now, it absolutely cannot compete with Pilsen.


If you have time, I can fully recommend to go to ESCO 2010.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Thems fightin words! We have a number of breweries that consistently put out exceptional beer. Pilsen beer may have history, but ours has flavor (and more alcohol).

Next time you're in Austin, I'll make sure you get your fill of some of our better beer.

Unknown said...

Do they serve a good ale in Pilsen? (trying to be ignorant).

Unknown said...

Absolutely, when I am in Austin, we should have a steak and a beer. I think it boils down to what you are used to drinking as a beer. I've been in Reno for a year now and I am trying to get accustomed to the beers here, but I just got back from Prague (was there for Christmas) and the beer there just tastes very differently (better for me). But maybe if you are used to the beer here, you would not like the Czech beer.

As to ales, we don't have that in the Czech Republic at all (as far as I know). For me, the beer always means a lager.

Andy R. Terrel said...

So I think I have been roped into going and giving a FEniCS Tutorial. The conversation with my advisor went something like:

Me: There's a conference in Pilsen that looks neat.
Matt: Great! The beer is wonderful. Submit now.
Me: Who pays to go?
Matt: I will if we get to drink!

And then of course Pavel asked me to give the tutorial. Are you going? If not maybe I will see you in Austin. I'm moving there at the beginning of April.