Saturday, October 28, 2006
Another one of those work related stuff
I was a bit late so I was not with them when they got to the spot. Fortunately, I managed to get there within the five minutes when they told me that they were to enter the building whether or not I was there.
The exam reminds me of the UPCAT, pretty funny actually. It is like the UPCAT minus the physics and chemistry part and plus the computer science parts. In addition to that, it is only to be taken for two and a half hours. The questions are also easier, but there are many of them. So under time pressure, answering them is like the ACM. I’m glad that I have just been subjected to that kind of pressure earlier. I suppose my team mates, who also came with me to take the exam, thought the same thing.
I liked the exam. It was a pleasure taking it, not like the exam that I took last month.
If I pass, cool. Otherwise, it’s okay. Lolz.
Friday, October 27, 2006
2006 ACM - ICPC Asia - Manila


The contest proper started at around 12:00pm in the afternoon. Our team started solving the "easy" or "five-minute" problems first since that would most probably give us a great chance at solving anything at all.
We solved the Gaussian Primes problem within the first hour. The crappiest thing is that we did not pass our solution, and skipped that problem because we thought that the solution was wrong. Very dumb indeed. I suppose this is the bring down factor that affected out perfomance throughout the competition. We proceeded to another problem called AGTC, which was basically a longest common subsequence problem. The best part of that is that the code for the LCS in our notebook was very buggy. So I ended up using a lot of our time copying the code but not being able to utilize it. Damn. XD We tried another problem, I forgot the name, but it was, again, basically a minimum cost spanning tree. The code in out notebook, again, was not very friendly. Those are the moments when memorization or, at the very least, familiarization of codes or concepts, is essential. It was about 4:30pm when I finally decided to have our team focus on a single problem, which was the Gaussian Primes problem. We successfully solved and passed it, but too late. We also tried solving the Nuevo Romano problem, which is basically a parsing problem made because the computer is too dumb to recognize, and add roman numerals. XD
I was the main programmer and "captain" of our team. I guess my unwise judgment and the team's lack of experience made us get, if I remember correctly, the rank 39 out of 82 teams. XD
Anyhow, we did have that one hundred percent factor, since the only solution that we submitted was correct. XD
We also enjoyed most of everything regarding the competition. The preparation, the travelling, the food, the places, the problems, the contest, the slack times, etc.
The contest is finished. It took a good two-week part in my life. Great experience.
More pics here
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
I'm off
It's going to be three days of mind churning. Tomorrow and the day after will be the Manila ACM ICPC. Me and my team mates prepared for a single week. And yes, we expect to get to the top 10. XD
After that, a work related exam and interview. I hate these kinds of things...
When all these are over, I'll slack, yet again.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Movie: Dead or Alive
Whatever great there is in the movie is swept away by its flaws. It is not a very good movie.
no trash bins
Another thing, which we noticed here in
Although it's very inconvenient to have no trash bins around, where anyone can just throw trash, an advantage of this scheme is that people usually take home their trash. That is, with exception to some people who just throw around their trash anywhere, without care. It seems that people in
When I remember the garbage bins in
mobile babes
sembreak?
After that programming competition, I'm going to take another non-academic exam for a job.
After that exam, I'm going to focus on my flash time dilation project because it's due on November 21. It's supposed to be a nine month project. XD Anyhow, I've already got the idea on how to implement it so I'm hoping that I'd finish it nicely.
Technically, no sembreak. Maybe it's justice. I don't really know. XD
Monday, October 09, 2006
mr/ms conductor
Another unusual thing is that the conductor does not usually announce that the bus is still not loaded when there are few passengers in that bus. Reverse psych ni conductor.