Nope! As far as I know it's Adamantium! :)

Right here, in the comments :)

I don't watch football ;_;

Since I learnt about it in my... I think it was 8th grade, so should be around 2011? Roughly one year before I registered on Codeforces. I was mostly solving problem on e-olymp, informatics and some local archive before I made it to all-Ukrainian Olympiads in informatics. Only there I learnt about Codeforces, and well, here I am now :)

No, as far as I know, it is not :)

You know, it's really hard to say something universal, because all journeys are unique, and different people might need different advice throughout theirs. What would be a nice advice for one, might be quite harmful for another.

Besides that, I'm not even sure I'm in the right to give such an advice, as my journey was quite full of failures and inconsistencies. If I could tell something useful to myself in my early years, it'd be something along the following lines:

• Don't be picky. Focus on improving in problems that you struggle with, not on ones you're already good at.
• If you know a particular way to solve a problem, it is a bad excuse not to learn other ways to do the same.
• Don't be cocky. Others progress very quickly, and you will fall behind as soon as you allow yourself some slack.

But this is all, of course, advice for the case when you really want to improve in competitive programming, get some awards from it, achieve some goals, etc. And there's one more important advice regarding this.

• If you were enjoying what and how you did, don't regret it. The journey is more important than destination.

dp khtm kr phele

Nope. I'm out of ideas for now after my ICPC-style contest for this winter's Osijek camp and my and jeroenodb's round this year. :c

I once attended CodeChef SnackDown finals. My teammate couldn't join, so I had to go alone. I was somewhat lonely, and at that time I was generally very anxious about interacting with other people, but I met Reyna and SaSa there, and spent a lot of time with them, so it wasn't as lonely as it could be.

The time zone difference was quite significant, so I ended up sleeping for the most of the actual contest and ranking last in the scoreboard :'D. Another "interesting" moment about my participation in that contest is that I (for the first and so far only time in my life) missed my flight back from Bengaluru, and had to book a new flight and depart the next day. It was very upsetting at that time, but is quite funny remembering it now. Because of that, the next day I went to the airport few hours in advance and spent some time with zscoder there.

One especially memorable moment was that they organised an excursion at 5am or so to view sunrise on top of some local hills. There were a lot of folks there, and at some time we had to switch for tuctucs to reach the top of the hill. It was very memorable and unique experience for me. Oh, and did I tell that SnackDown orgs printed personal cups with participant's photos on each? That was awesome!

Oh, and here's some very memorable photo of me from the event:

I think, Reyna is in the background :)

Not really. I know the rules, but I don't enjoy the game. I once won a chess game that was otherwise losing for me via back-rank checkmate. It was in IOI selection camp, and I think that's like my only ever victory against other person :)

I've no idea, probably never :)

1. Usually just the stuff I think or learn about on my own. For my recent blogs, a lot of them are inspired by some problems from projecteuler or Library Checker that I solved or wanted to know how to solve for quite some time, but didn't get to it. Sometimes it's also just some cool stuff that I stumbled upon.
2. I don't have a very particular target audience in mind. Well, or rather... I actually have myself in mind for that most of the time. I typically try to write it the way that I personally would prefer to read it. That is, I often try to make it concise, well-structured in terms of how it is typeset (it's very important for me), focused more on "abstract nonsense" (e.g. proper definitions and formulations) than concrete applications, because abstract nonsense if often of more interest to me. I also try to make it simple and relatable if you already have some context, or at least very superficial knowledge about the topic. I also try to act on feedback when I get one, to make the blogs more accessible to broader audience, but it doesn't seem that I'm very successful at it.
3. It depends from blog to blog. I usually don't do much research, with some exceptions, and try to write as much as possible from what I derive myself. I have a particular taste to how the narrative in a blog should look like, and it often easier to just reinvent the wheel the way I like it, than to find a resource with particular exposition. I also perceive it as a mental exercise, as your understanding of the topic is usually much deeper when you thought about it on your own, rather than tried to follow and repeat someone else's thoughts. It's not always possible, though, and I often read existing blogs or comments, or published articles or textbooks before writing about something (as happened with representation theory blogs).

I just like it and find it beautiful.

Let's see... I would probably highlight the following ones:

• 104234D - Triterminant, because it attracted attention of Terry Tao on MathOverflow.
• Timus 1897 — Alice and Bob and a string, as a pinnacle of what you can do with compacted suffix automaton.
• 102129B - Associativity Degree, because it has such a simple statement, yet so difficult to solve.
• 104234L - Directed Vertex Cacti, for a very simple answer to seemingly very complex problem.

I have no idea, honestly. Last time I had rating below 1900 is in 2015, and it's very unlikely to be relevant to what's going on with competitive programming now. I think when I was at that level, I was somewhat active in solving Timus in order of increasing problem difficulty. So, I guess, the main advice stays the same: Solve a lot of problems, preferably a bit above your level, and learn new stuff when you need to.

1. I don't know. I was pretty much stuck between master and international master since 2021. It might be that I just lucked out to get red again recently, but I started aggressively solving projecteuler problems few weeks before that, so maybe that's related? I often feel like my "brain cogs" are rusted and decline to think properly whenever I work on a problem, and the only thing to prevent that from happening is to constantly keep them in use.
2. No.

Trying to be a better version of myself from one day to another.

It depends from one blog to another. I think a lot when I write about something, and I often try to derive things on my own, or "reinvent the wheel". Things that I write are usually not novel results per se, but sometimes they might offer a new unexpected perspective on some phenomena that is not covered in much detail in other publications. So, my inspirations quite often come from simply trying to understand some novel idea that I stumbled upon, and trying to think on how to best fit it into some internal structure of knowledge, so that it's better connected with other things.

As for my background, I'm a bachelor of applied physics and mathematics. That's mostly it, I think.

1. How Elegia's mind works. The things you find in Elegia's blogs (e.g. what I mentioned here) are otherworldly.
2. Cayley-Dickson construction. Quaternions and complex numbers are awesome, and they deserve prominence.
3. Umbral calculus, esp. with connection to linear recurrences.
4. Representation theory of finite groups (e.g. Fourier transform on groups).
5. Combinatorial species and genfunc theory that follows from them.

CP-Algorithms? I'm one of the core maintainers, btw :)

I really learned a lot from e-maxx, which cp-algorithms translates. Also individual CF blogs are sometimes good.

I very rarely participate in AtCoder contests, so that would be very hard for me :)

But AGC058D looked good to me :D

Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. I had somewhat decent courses on higher algebra, linear algebra, theory of formal languages and algorithms, but they were really mostly introductory. There was also an extra course on generating functions that I really liked, but overall a lot of stuff that I know comes from reading Wikipedia, or somewhat random online articles.

Sure, thanks for pointing out :)

First of all, if you struggle with a particular section, you should always feel free to skip it and return to it later. Maybe it will make more sense when you grasp more context down the road? If you see a particular term that seems crucial for understanding, you might look it up on Google to find more context about it. If it still doesn't help, it's really hard to provide specific advice without knowing specific issues that you stumbled upon while reading the text.

There is a comment section, you should feel free to ask clarifying questions there, or reach out to the author (well, in case of my blogs it's me) if approaches suggested above did not work. Generally, it's unlikely that you'll learn all the context you need to understand technical texts from reading some particular textbook. As unfortunate as it might sound, sometimes you will skim through the text, and only really get some percentage of it, be it 50% or 10%. And that's okay! We've all been there!

Understanding technical texts is hard. But it gets easier over time, recalling some scene from BoJack Horseman:

Sorry, I don't know any good English resources, and most of my knowledge of it comes from university courses, Wikipedia and e-maxx.

Concerning the mathematical part of graph theory, there is an excellent book "Graph Theory", by R. Diestel. Generally, it is a graduate textbook, but that is because it goes deep in some parts, therefore reading it thoroughly from cover to cover is not the best idea, but reading it layer by layer gives a lot of satisfaction.

Yes.

This one, cause it's silly :)

Night owl.

Thanks!

See here.

I don't know? :)

Most of them arise for me somewhat naturally when I learn something new, and then think on how I could bend it a bit, apply in a bit more general setting, to a bit different problem, etc. Also it's not that much anyway, I'm just in it for a long time and it accumulated :)

I still have no idea how to prove segment tree beats ;_;

I'd take a break from competing for some time, and focus on the stuff I like. At the moment, I'm pretty active at solving Project Euler and Library Checker problems. I don't think I'll ever reach LGM, as I don't practice that much, and don't really have much time for it. Besides I'm pretty old for this. But who knows :)

I'm sorry, but what exactly do you mean by "practice the numerical"? I recommended Seminumerical Algorithms below for number theory, but generally if you want to be better at competitive programming, the best thing you could do at your current level is most likely to solve more problems, rather than learn advanced stuff.

Idk, I rarely read whole books. It's mostly individual articles on Wikipedia and all over the internet.

But I feel like generatingfunctionology and A=B should be a good read for combinatorics.

For number theory, maybe The Art of computer programming, Vol. 2: Seminumerical Algorithms will do?

I feel like Project Euler problems, on average, are more approachable and require a bit less of multi-step insights compared to problems from mathematical olympiads.

For projecteuler, I'd recommend to always try to write brute force to confirm that you understood the problem and to try noticing some patterns on small values, and looking for the sequences on OEIS. Quite often, when I had totally no ideas how to proceed, staring at small numbers was a great deal of help.

I don't have any specific advice for solving Timus, just do it and you'll get there :)

I have no idea who that is :)

Oh, that's the guy who suggested people to write "come on barbie let's go party" under my blogs. 10.

No, I don't think so.

In my teen years, I spent a lot of time roller skating. I mean, not only casually, but also learning to do advanced stuff like slalom, slides, jumps. I miss it very much and would love to get back to it again some day.

I also spend a lot of my free time practicing artistic whistling. I enjoy whistling pretty much, and often try to whistle my favorite songs. People even recognize them sometimes :)

Funny how 100 questions about math and advice are rated higher that this

I have no idea :)

Since I started, it changed quite a lot, and especially in Codeforces there was a great focus shift away from problems, in which the difficulty comes mostly from the complexity of implementation or from using some advanced techniques. To be honest, I don't think this change is good, but there seem to be a consensus that it is, so I'm not really in the place to complain. Maybe something else will get in the trends, and something will get outdated, who knows?

At least it doesn't look like it will go extinct any time soon, and that's good :)

Sure, I like. As of lately, I most often listen to music from anime (mostly openings/endings) and covers on them. I typically do not listen to music during contests, and when I tried, I feel like it rather distracted me than helped to focus.

I'm just doing what I like. Also, whenever I'm learning something new, writing it down in my own words and approaches helps me a lot with understanding and remembering it. I have not written a book, and I'm uncertain whether it would be a worthwhile endeavor. I don't have plans on writing a book as of now.

For generating functions, I got introduction from this course, but it is in Russian. Besides that, I read a lot about it on Wikipedia, and... That's mostly it? You can read my blog on combinatorial species, if you feel like it :)

For something more advanced, you can read my blogs about Polya enumeration theorem, generating functions for digraphs and Dirichlet series. There is also a nice publication about asymmetric structures.

Nah, getting beaten to a pulp is not worth it :)

Yes

No idea, I don't really use JS.

1. Read the problem statement.
2. Think a lot about the problem.
3. Solve.

Sorry, I can't provide any more specific advice here. As for fear and anxiety, you can try participating virtually until you're confident enough in what you can. Or you can purposefully push yourself to do what you're afraid of, until you notice that it doesn't matter that much anymore. Of course, it's easier said than done, but it's a psychological block, so you need to take effort and struggle to overcome it.

No, I wouldn't say so.

1. Solve more problems.
2. Both are important. You need to solve Div2C quickly, so you have enough spare time to solve Div2D slowly ;)

Luogu + Google Translate ezpz

It depends on where you're going to problemset? Probably the easiest way to get into it is to reach out to a friend who's already into it, so that they can show you some basics and refer you. I think that's how I started when oversolver referred me to Hackerrank. It might be that I tested some problems for a while before proposing my own, I can't remember for sure. There are some relevant resources here and there:

• Problemsetter guidelines on CodeChef
• Testlib section on Codeforces
• Codeforces Polygon tutorial
• Problemsetter guidelines on Polygon

See below.

2400+ looks pretty achievable. Didn't test much further yet.

When I was a really young kid, I saw a jewelry store named this way. Then I used this name for my overpowered almighty imaginary character. Then I used this as a nickname for myself, because... Why not?

By the way, when this nickname is taken, I sometimes use "melfice" instead, after a character from one of my favorite games Grandia 2. It's shameful to admit, but I even used melfice to cheat in my earliest Codeforces rounds ;_;

I don't really know what that is (despite suggesting people to follow set theory axioms from there here), so I don't have enough context to tell whether it would be of interest to me in the future.

I can't really, I rarely participate in contests with such problems. But the advice here is still pretty generic: Solve more problems, and learn how to solve the sub-tasks of the existing ones. Try to see the patterns. You'll get it eventually.

Well now, what do we count as for the first time... Younger folks might not know it, but 2400 was not always the threshold for being red, as evident from this blog from Nov. 2011. So, from Nov. 2011 to Oct. 2015 the threshold was on 2200, and I actually reached red for the first time in April 2015. After that, only in March 2019 I reached the new bar of 2400+. So, the excitement fades away a bit when you get it several times, and then fail to secure it.

Speaking of what changed, I have much less free time and mental resources to practice and improve now, but at least it's nice to know that I'm still able to keep some bar, especially given that getting red today is arguably harder than it was back then, or at the very least requires different skill set and abilities.

It is not madoka magica. I have a bit outdated anime list here. I think, Angel Beats is still my favorite.

I work as a Software Engineer in ChromeOS Commercial Third-Party Ops, the team that focuses on providing authentication for third-party identity users. I also work on CP-Algorithms as my 20% project within Google. I would prefer not to disclose further details, but besides 20% project, my work at Google does not entail as much of (or any at all) "abstract nonsense" as I'd like it to have.

Not really. Keep on practice and solve more problems :)

I wasn't ever high on weed, or any substance for the matter.

Uhh, I hope I won't get too much hate me for writing this :)

1. Allow fully text based CF EDU. I still haven't released my EDU course there mostly because filming is hard ;_;
2. More functional and transparent APIs for third-party apps and scripts.
3. Option to undo upvote/downvote.
4. Rated educational rounds.

Infinity. Basically, I don't have any published research papers.

1. Apparently he's a strong ping pong player :)
2. I applied on careers website, and passed a total of 7 interviews or so. See here for more details.
3. I talked to Um_nik in person. I once stood next to a person talking to tourist, but it probably doesn't count.

Solve more problems.

"Ask Me Away" or "Ask Me Anything"

https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=What+does+AMA+stand+for%3F

I'm 27 now. I started around the time I was 14.

"To those who can hear me, I say — do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed — the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish…" — Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator.