This summer I decided to visit Kalinindrad from Saint-Petersburg on 4-6 November, bought fly tickets on 10:55AM-13:00PM and everything went well. But Yandex decided to set half-final exactly at 12:00AM on 4th November :( Fortunately I participate at backend track (I'm just magenta in algorithm and I believe at least yellow in backend) and contest lasts for 5 hours. I decided to take my laptop and take part from Kaliningrad
When I came to home airport, I saw "delayed until 12:55". Badumtss! On one hand, it's better that I can read all problems before flight and solve them during flight. On the other hand, it's worse that I'd have less time after landing
Anyway, 12:00, I opened contest, opened all problems, screenshoted them (to be sure that occasional reload won't kill problems) and saved all needed resourced locally
I rushed solving B (yes, this contest has problems B-F and description/instructions in A) while sitting in airport next to gate. Unfortunately this problem needed careful implementation so I failed to implement until boarding was announced at 12:15. Teletrap? No, just wait for bus :( In bus I opened problems from my phone and started reading and thinking about another ones
Boarding. I have almost last raw: fortunatelly it's A319 and it's relatevaly small so boarding was pretty fast. I'm still reading problems from phone as it's bad idea to use laptop during takeoff. Solved C in mind, skipped D as "goolge required" started thinking about E
Hack yeah, takeoff! Where is my laptop? OK, sheet of paper, just binary search and one formula: done. Let's check if it's correct, it's super easy in this task with python one-liner generator. OK. But I'm flying, I can't submit. OK, going to C. It's classical problem, I've implemented and debugged it I think in about half an hour. Still flying
OK, let's implement E. I'm not sure if this solution pass all tests, but contest uses points per test, so even partial solution matters. Implemented it in another half an hour. Still flying
OK, let's start F. What the ..... problem? It has some strange statement, it's hard to understand what you need to impelement. Though, unlike qualification round I don't have any objective dislikes for problems, only subjective and it's matter of taste. Started implementing F. "Dear passengers, our plane is ready to land". F... I'm impelemnting F. Closed laptop. Landed. Opened laptop. Hotspot. Submit B. Submit C. Submit E. 100. 100. 100. I was sure on 100 for B and C, but pretty surprised on 100 for E. Nice. It's 2:38/5:00. Bad, really bad timing. Good enogth score for such conditions. Closed laptop
Yeah, teletrap! Couple of minutes and I'm at airport! Oh no, we landed more than 30 minutes before schedule and bus from airport to the city is in 40 minutes. Where is some chair to sit? Ah, here. Where is my problem F? Let's continue implementing and testing. Almost done before bus. Let's submit. 0. 0!!! 0 :( Yes, I got 0. Bus. Bus in 5 minutes. Let's go. Queue. Yet another 10 minutes spent without participation
Where is my F? Or maybe goolge some points for D? Googled for some possible bugs in F, fixed. Submit. 20. It's a bit better, than 0
My stop, I came to city. I need to call about renting flat I booked this summer. OK, it's fast, but I still need to go from bus stop, take keys, 9th floor, open doors... Done, I'm in rented flat. It's 16:15, so 45 minutes left. Where is power socket? I have only 20% battery left. Found. Finally nobody disturbs me. Made some fixes for F, got 10
Googled good enough partial solution for D. 0. Yes, One more 0. Ah, I'm dumb. I need to unwrap NULL. Let's google how to unwrap. It's really hard to merge. Finally done. Testing locally. WA on second test. Ah, I make select in wrong order. Oh no, I don't know sql at all. Google. Please help. 16:54. 6 minutes left. Partial solution is also solution, submit. 75(!!!). Let's go back to F. Maybe changing this helps. Tested locally. 16:59. Submit. 0
I finished 23th with 395/500. I don't know what's wrong with my F: please, can anybody share your solution for F? And I know what's wrong with my D, but also want to know correct solution
Yes, I finished 23th. Only 20 goes to finals...
2 hours till football match I'm going. And I haven't eaten anything from about 8:30AM. Cafe. Eat. Footbal. Only 50-60 fans from SPb. Zenit won 2:0. Eat. Flat. And now it's 1:00AM and I'm writing these lines. Good night!
Good luck everybody in finals but not for me!