tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786333285568106173.post8275756742858785911..comments2024-01-25T01:05:59.968-05:00Comments on WebDiarios de Motocicleta: Informatics Olympiads (IV): Besides the IOIMihaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11599372864611039927noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786333285568106173.post-28354950818537912582008-07-28T12:08:00.000-04:002008-07-28T12:08:00.000-04:00Cool! It's nice to hear about the new Asia-Pacific...Cool! It's nice to hear about the new Asia-Pacific olympiad. <BR/><BR/>Seems right now the Chinese team dominates it strongly, but a local olympiad tends to make every country better, so the result may get more mixed in a few years...Mihaihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11599372864611039927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786333285568106173.post-89001546494585558282008-07-28T11:28:00.000-04:002008-07-28T11:28:00.000-04:00If people from Asia or South America know other re...<I>If people from Asia or South America know other regional olympiads, please post a comment.</I><BR/><BR/>I realise this is an old post (by blogging standards), but I'd just like to mention that we have a (recently started) <A HREF="http://www.apio.olympiad.org/" REL="nofollow">Asia-Pacific Informatics Olympiad</A>.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786333285568106173.post-51303464087310582592007-08-19T22:11:00.000-04:002007-08-19T22:11:00.000-04:00To Anon [Sun Aug 19, 02:09:00 PM]: The reason most...To Anon [Sun Aug 19, 02:09:00 PM]: The reason most people I mentioned are doing theory@mit is that those are primarily the people I know :) Check out the comments section of my post II, which includes other people (non-MIT), that folks reminded me about.<BR/><BR/>If you really want to know how many people ended up doing AI, systems, just programming etc., check out the link I had in post II to the list of Romanians. That is a rather large sample, and it should give you some idea. Of course, there's no way to get a hold of <I>everyone</I> who went to IOI and ask them what they're doing.Mihaihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11599372864611039927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786333285568106173.post-15050824962583666922007-08-19T17:07:00.000-04:002007-08-19T17:07:00.000-04:00Hi anonymous, My critique of advisors was only ha...Hi anonymous,<BR/><BR/> My critique of advisors was only half serious - I personally hope that they are at least somewhat useful creatures ;) However, in places "where most tenured faculty haven't heard the word research", one does not have much choice in this matter. In this case, the "do-it-yourself" approach to research might be a pretty reasonable option.<BR/><BR/>As far as the open problem lists go. Obviously, if a prize for solving a problem is $1M, one should think twice about attacking it. And even the "free" problems can be pretty hard. Then again, one does not have to solve all of them, one is good enough. And in any case, the experience gained while wrestling with the problems can be very valuable later in life.<BR/><BR/>PiotrAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786333285568106173.post-51654572950596293312007-08-19T14:29:00.000-04:002007-08-19T14:29:00.000-04:00I don't agree with Piotr that the advisors are unn...I don't agree with Piotr that the advisors are unnecessary (though he also backed off a little). Yes, there're a few lists of open problems (just take Clay's Institute 1 million dollars problems 8-), but what is really hard is to find open problems which are doable, problems that fit student's skills and background. Most of papers and most of good students' works don't solve open problems listed anywhere in the web.<BR/>Of course Piotr is right that one should study lists of open problems, but I don't think one should assume that this will replace a good advisor. It can be an excellent addition though.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786333285568106173.post-33525279207992848832007-08-19T14:09:00.000-04:002007-08-19T14:09:00.000-04:00Good post.The list of successful participants you ...Good post.<BR/><BR/>The list of successful participants you gave included only MIT students, and all of them are/were doing theory@mit; what happens to the other participants? How many of them ended up studying/working in theory/algorithms? (your text suggests that IOI are mostly algorithmic) Or perhaps most of them are doing systems or just programming? Any thoughts/opinions?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786333285568106173.post-87029738089826994542007-08-19T06:21:00.000-04:002007-08-19T06:21:00.000-04:00I have no experience with Olympiads and everybody ...I have no experience with Olympiads and everybody says that the problems there are less about coding and more about getting a good idea than the TopCoder problems. Personally I think that coding is hard and tests the ability to handle multiple cases <I>and</I> to reduce the number of cases. Both are important skills. Coding is not only about writing code, but also about figuring the best way to teach the computer your idea. It's a translation task, in a way.<BR/><BR/>Also, I think that the `hard' TopCoder problems are getting more and more interesting, especially since they tend to be written by former IOI contestants. For these my problem certainly isn't implementation speed, but thinking speed. (The following might look interesting to this community: PostfixRLE, RepeatingFreeStrings, SkipList)<BR/><BR/>Some people <A HREF="http://www.claymath.org/Popular_Lectures/Andrew_Wiles/" REL="nofollow">claim that being persistent is more important than being quick</A>. I tend to agree. At least, I think that constant factors in thinking speed are not too important :)rgrighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02991214367108471744noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786333285568106173.post-68819085601505504782007-08-18T12:32:00.000-04:002007-08-18T12:32:00.000-04:00Hi Mihai!>> In Eastern Europe, where most tenured ...Hi Mihai!<BR/><BR/>>> In Eastern Europe, where most tenured faculty haven't heard the word research <BR/>>> and attending classes is outright depressing, these competitions may be the only<BR/>>> opportunity for students to not let their university years go to waste.<BR/><BR/>That is true; however, I think there is yet another alternative. Thanks to the web, students around the world have access to a great deal of information about research. This, in particular, includes various sources of open problems. <A HREF="http://kam.mff.cuni.cz/~matousek/metrop.ps" REL="nofollow">Here</A> <A HREF="http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/sganguly/data-stream-probs.pdf" REL="nofollow">are</A> <A HREF="http://maven.smith.edu/~orourke/TOPP/" REL="nofollow">some</A> open problem lists that I am aware of, I am sure there are many others. So, one can pick a problem or two, and try to crack them. Smart people + lots of free time + interesting questions can yield very interesting research. And, at least in principle, one can learn writing papers from examples.<BR/><BR/>So I guess what I advocating is moving from doing studies to doing research without the unnecessary step of getting an advisor. Boy, I really hope my students are not reading this blog...<BR/><BR/>Well, just in case they are: obviously, there are still advantages of having an advisor. Among other things: some open problems are really hard, other ones are unclear or even do not make sense, some could have been solved recently, etc. Some of this issues can be solved by reading recent surveys, some cannot. And learning with queries tends to be easier than learning from examples only. <BR/><BR/>Still, wrestling with open problems can be a great and useful experience for undergrads, even though frustrating at times. And it beats attending boring lectures for sure...<BR/><BR/>PiotrAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786333285568106173.post-33294274945932449152007-08-17T08:03:00.000-04:002007-08-17T08:03:00.000-04:00Hi Leo,Blogger supports comment feeds now:http://i...Hi Leo,<BR/><BR/>Blogger supports comment feeds now:<BR/><A HREF="http://infoweekly.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default" REL="nofollow">http://infoweekly.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default</A><BR/>and hope it helps.<BR/><BR/>Another faithful reader of "Abs Reg" :-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786333285568106173.post-54289437554405136472007-08-17T04:37:00.000-04:002007-08-17T04:37:00.000-04:00Since Dave will not volunteer the information, he ...Since Dave will not volunteer the information, he is among the IOI-turned-theorists that I forgot [<B>gold</B> 2000, <B>silver</B> 1999, <B>silver</B> 1998].Mihaihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11599372864611039927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786333285568106173.post-77625110996299919912007-08-17T02:57:00.000-04:002007-08-17T02:57:00.000-04:00Apparently you can also compete online from home t...Apparently you can also compete online from home this year: <BR/>http://ioi2007.hsin.hr/index.php?page=online_contest<BR/><BR/>It starts... in 34 minutes!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786333285568106173.post-67926048228394597692007-08-16T19:30:00.000-04:002007-08-16T19:30:00.000-04:00Mihai .. great series of posts. I should go and lo...Mihai .. great series of posts. I should go and look up the problems on IOI and try solving them instead of my boring day job ;)<BR/><BR/>I was a part of the Math olympiads though never made it to IMO. But the IOI is definitely very challenging.<BR/><BR/>I hope it helps sharpen my algorithmic skills!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-786333285568106173.post-35636462564164493722007-08-16T19:08:00.000-04:002007-08-16T19:08:00.000-04:00Here's a "programming" question from a hopelessly ...Here's a "programming" question from a hopelessly confused mathematician: how do you get that "recent comments" thing to work in blogspot? Many thanks in advance. (NB I don't know html. Anything more complex than "copy this code and paste it into there" won't help me...)Aryehhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14913393383227385317noreply@blogger.com