fengwick3

Subsequent versions contain more algorithms and details. Some subtler optimizations are also mentioned in later books.

A lot of people here seem to misunderstand the nature of the hacks that these laws are targetting. The intention here is to punish those who abuse these hacks to gain a competitive edge when playing against others, which can be extremely sizable especially for FPSes. Professional teams also rely on the in game competitive rankings to scout for new talent, so this abuse can have further ramifications apart from brusing egos.

One assumption not explicitly explained is that the prisoners can identify the boxes by their order, since they are arranged in a line. So, the prisoners first agree among themselves that box number x should correspond to which prisoner, and vice versa. So now, each box contains a name, which points to another box at a certain position, which contains another name, ad infinitum, until the prisoner finds his name. It is guaranteed that he will, because of the relationship between permutations and cycles.

It is interesting that this question is regarded as the most math intensive. I myself was spoiled the solution a few years ago, but I have the impression that the challenge is in observing the correct algorithm rather than calculating the probability. Maybe the author felt that one needs mathematical insights in order to see the solution out of the blue.

I beg to differ. Math olympiad problems are typically short and concise, and mathematical phrasing, even when expressed in English, typically has clear bijections to equivalent terms in other languages.

Hmm I wonder if this will drastically affect his spatial reasoning abilities.

Well, the motivations to attend hackathons don't seem to be about winning. Many of us students attend hackathons knowing that the chances of winning something is marginal at best, yet we still regularly attend for the singular reason of fun. It's not every day that you can just spend two days of your life, cut off from the rest of the world, working with your buddies on something you all love. Even for professionals, attending hackathons could be a means to break away from the monotony of normal work.

Interesting points, but minor correction here. Typing Chinese efficiently has to do with the input method. Using pinyin as you suggest is actually hopelessly slow as you would have to first recall the precise pronunciation of the word (the -n vs -ng for example), type the pinyin, then scroll through the (normally) massive list of words. Of course, things like fuzzy pinyin and context aware suggestions help, but adopting an input method based on the character radical composition or handwriting recognition is much faster.

> Science is all about reproducibility

Can this really be said in all fairness? What of the flashes of brilliance, the striking insights into understanding seemingly inexplicable phenomena? The discovery of the structure of benzene, the creation of the periodic table comes to mind.