A question I always wanted to ask, and has never seen a plausible answer:

Why is ICPC not sponsored by ACM since 2019?

Anyone has some ideas or information?

According to the Bill's answer Here:

Where and when will the ICPC World Finals 2021 take place?

So, there is 15 months left to the WF...... Not sure what I will be doing 15 months later.

Hello Codeforces:

Many users on codeforces are uploading screencasts to youtube. During my past years as a participant, I never watched much screencast, and I think the same is true for many of my friends. Screencast just isn't popular or widespread among Chinese OI or ICPC participants.

So, though I found that these are truly valuable videos for improving performance, I still don't fell sure about how I should watch them. How are screencasts supposed to work? Should I watch one from begin to end for 2+ hours? What are the benefits and how can I get the most out of screencasts?

Thanks!

1262A - Math Problem

Writer: RDDCCD

1262B - Box

Writer: RDDCCD

1261A - Messy

Writer: RDDCCD

1261B1 - Optimal Subsequences (Easy Version)

Writer: MikeMirzayanov

1261B2 - Optimal Subsequences (Hard Version)

Writer: MikeMirzayanov

1261C - Arson In Berland Forest

Writers: BledDest, adedalic

1261D1 - Wrong Answer on test 233 (Easy Version)

Writer: RDDCCD

1261D2 - Wrong Answer on test 233 (Hard Version)

Writer: RDDCCD

1261E - Not Same

Writers: nocriz, RDDCCD

1261F - Xor-Set

Writer: nocriz

Hello, Codeforces!

A few days ago, the blog about the book "Looking for a challenge 2" was posted on Codeforces, I read a quarter of the book and found that the quality was really good. I talked with a few friends about the book and we decided to buy the popular book "Looking for a challenge 1", which should be good as well. At first we considered buying a paperback version, but it was quite expensive and I'm afraid that some problems may occur during the shipment from Poland to China.

After a few days I found the book "Looking for a challenge" was available as a e-book (pdf) on the website "http://ibuk.pl" for 66,50 zł, the cheapest I can find on the internet. Although I can't read Polish, I used Google translate to buy the book. After I purchased the book with a master card, I was able to download the pdf version of the book. With the excitement, I started to download the book. The internet speed was about 100 Kbyte per second, and the book was about 60MB. I thought that my Internet was too slow, so I changed the network connection a few times and refreshed. After that, I found that I reached the download limit, and was not able to download anymore.

So, the situation is that I spent 66,50 zł (about 17.5 US Dollars) for nothing, since I can't download anymore and I never finished downloading even once. I was really depressed since it is quite a large sum of money for me, and that I still don't have the book. I tried to e-mail the website (using google translate, of course). I figured that there may be Polish participants on Codeforces who knows about the website ibuk.pl or similar situations, so I posted this blog to ask for help. What should I do? Is it likely that the website will let me download again or send me the book? Who else can I contact in this situation?

I'm grateful for any of your help! Thank you!

UPD : I received the reply three days later and got the PDF now! Thanks everyone.

TopCoder has been a famous competitive programming platform and I've heard of TopCoder for years. I've never participated in TopCoder rounds though. Like many of my friends, I started to really participate in online rounds since 2018, and Topcoder's fame already seemed to fade.

Last year, I did attempt to participate in a SRM, but I met various difficulties. Possibly I'm not clever enough but participating in SRM is indeed much complicated than participating a Codeforces Round.

• The java applet was confusing.
• I didn't know where to find the time of the next SRM. Although I saw posts of SRM announcements on Codeforces, it is usually the day after the round.
• The TopCoder website didn't seem like a competitive programming website.

In the end, I didn't success in participating in any SRM. A few days ago, I finally find the current Topcoder Competitive Programming Page with the future contest time, solution, problem archive etc. The Link. (Last year, all I found was the arena. That was indeed confusing to me, I never imagined that there is a separate page.) It is finally possible for me to start participating in TopCoder, but I found that on TopCoder, SRM participants in 2019 are typically ~300, while a few years ago there were ~2000 people in a single round.

I'm a bit worried that TopCoder is dying and start participating on a new platform is probably not a good idea for me, and that I will encounter more difficulties or that there will be even less or none participant in the future. However, I heard that the problems were good, Is it true? What are your suggestions for someone that wants to participate in TopCoder Contests in late 2019 to make it easier?