SecondThread's blog

It's Happening! Meta Hacker Cup 2023 Schedule
By SecondThread, history, 8 months ago, In English

Meta Hacker Cup 2023 Schedule

Meta Hacker Cup is back! We’re excited to announce our schedule for our 2023 season, kicking off on September 22nd!

*While optional, we recommend you participate in the Practice Round to familiarize yourself with our submission system before Round 1, when time will be at a premium.

To compete, you can register at Meta Coding Competitions at any time between now and September 25th.

You can expect familiar prizes including T-Shirts, Elite T-Shirts, and cash prizes for finalists. We’ll announce more prize details closer to Round 2.

We look forward to seeing you on the Practice Round’s scoreboard!

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8 months ago, # |
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We heard the community's feedback about how having multiple essentially untimed rounds felt a little bit like mandatory homework, so for this season, we decided to make things a bit faster paced. Round 1 is now 3 hours instead of 24, happening at the same time of day as Rounds 2 and 3. Also, the practice round is now optional, meaning you can theoretically participate in Round 1 as your first round.

Especially for newcomers, I'd strongly recommend participating in the practice round though, because in Hacker Cup, you download the full input data unlike many other coding contests and run your code locally, which is something you may not be used to, so practicing it can help get any worries with that out of the way.

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    8 months ago, # ^ |
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    I thought this time after having multiple feedbacks on the mode of submission, we will be having an editor where we will submit our code and not the output data :(

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      8 months ago, # ^ |
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      We're looking into that for next year, but building your own code execution service in a non-exploitable way is trickier than you'd imagine. There's just not quite enough time left this year to make sure it's in solid shape if we want to avoid potential timing conflicts with ICPC World Finals.

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        8 months ago, # ^ |
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        Meta-question (pun intended): are people upvoting this comment because they prefer submitting code instead of running it locally, or are they upvoting it because the comment implies Hacker Cup will also happen next year?

        (Also, assuming that Hacker Cup is moving to a world where you submit code instead of an output file, I'll ask the obvious first question: Will Rust be supported?)

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        8 months ago, # ^ |
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        My upvotes for the term "next year". I am soo happy!!

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        8 months ago, # ^ |
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        It would be great if somehow we could face most kinds of common problems (mentioned by contestants previously) in the practice round, like setting a problem that will require you to increase local stack size, etc.

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        8 months ago, # ^ |
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        Just sharing my personal opinion: I think that this way of submission kinda makes the competition more unique than the others. Also, it allows to use the person's own system's resources as and how they like. You may consider holding an official vote/poll for keeping/removing this system of submissions.

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      8 months ago, # ^ |
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      I remember those feedbacks, and I remember them being mixed, to say the least.

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    8 months ago, # ^ |
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    We'll have $$$6$$$ minutes to run locally and submit, right?

    Make it at least $$$10$$$ or $$$15$$$ minutes, in my opinion. Many people are facing local stack size errors or network problems. It can be challenging to finish it in $$$6$$$ minutes sometimes.

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    7 months ago, # ^ |
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    upload a video ..how to upload code at meta site .

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8 months ago, # |
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hell yeah!!!

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    7 months ago, # ^ |
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    Is the practice round qualification needed for round 1?

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8 months ago, # |
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Will the finals be online? There are only 5 weeks between Round 3 and the Finals.

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    8 months ago, # ^ |
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    Finals: December 9th 2023 (Online)

    As it clearly says in the post, yes.

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8 months ago, # |
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Excited to see you explaining solutions on Youtube once again!

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8 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +16 Vote: I do not like it

In the FAQ section, the structure of the contest is from last year. Can you please update that.

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8 months ago, # |
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Wow, I'm so happy that it's back!! Thank you SecondThread, MHC team and Meta for not sending Hacker Cup to graveyard!

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8 months ago, # |
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I hope I get good enough till 7 October so that I at least qualify Round 1. any suggestions senpai?

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8 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +94 Vote: I do not like it

OMG YES Long live hackercup!

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8 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +50 Vote: I do not like it

Round 1 date in the timeanddate.com link is incorrect (it is Oct 21 there)

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8 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +35 Vote: I do not like it

Another chance for a T-shirt!

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8 months ago, # |
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SecondThread Round 1 timeanddate link says Oct 21st instead of 7th.

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8 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +33 Vote: I do not like it

Thanks for your efforts to make this happen, SecondThread. OP!!

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8 months ago, # |
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Finally, Its happening!

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8 months ago, # |
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Yes Yes Yes !!!

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8 months ago, # |
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As a high schooler in the US, I have to take the SAT which clashes with round 1 time...

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8 months ago, # |
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..

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    8 months ago, # ^ |
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    this mindset is why you're still gray, gitgud lol

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      8 months ago, # ^ |
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      so what ? ....i love coding ...thats it

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8 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +58 Vote: I do not like it

Cool!

Will you please either a) introduce a heavy-output problem in the practice round or b) not include such problems in the problemsets at all? Last year there were related issues

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8 months ago, # |
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Huge shout-out to SecondThread and everyone else involved in making the contest happen--I'm guessing that getting approval to hold the competition might not have been easy given the cancellations of e.g. TCO and GCJ, but I'm glad at least a few of the major yearly open contests (AtCoder WTF, MHC, maybe others I've forgotten about) will stick around.

I like the updated format! A few thoughts on other improvements that could be made (probably not for this year since the current format has already been announced):

  • I'm worried that if new participants don't compete in the practice round, there will be a lot of complaints in R1 after people fail to submit their solutions due to stack size issues/other problems related to large inputs. It might be good to (a) require first-time participants to solve a problem in the practice round and (b) fill the practice round with several easy problems that have large inputs so that people can have multiple chances to fix their setup in advance of R1.
  • I'd support changing the rules of R1 so that the top N participants advance to R2 for some N, rather than having a score cutoff--this way there's a stronger incentive to solve all the problems you can rather than to just get a certain score and then leave. (N = 5000 seems reasonable given that there were 5000 participants in R2 last year and it's reasonably in line with the number of qualifiers to GCJ R2 in the past, but I don't have a strong opinion on the exact numbers.)
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8 months ago, # |
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Imagine the final round being held in metaverse.

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8 months ago, # |
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Non-zero score in HackerCup 2022

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8 months ago, # |
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round 2 will coincide with the icpc latin american regionals :(

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8 months ago, # |
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Here we go!!! Thanks SecondThread for the announcement.Long live Hacker Cup!

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8 months ago, # |
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Thank you Meta and everybody in Meta who pushed for it. A strong message for the coders community after the questionable decisions of Google and Topcoder leadership.

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8 months ago, # |
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Wow, CP is saved, nice <3

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8 months ago, # |
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i am a newbie, hope so meta will continue this tournament for the upcoming years.

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8 months ago, # |
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I've never given hackercup where can I get assimilated with the way it is conducted and submissions are made?

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8 months ago, # |
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thanks for saving fb hacker cup

small comment, i think these contests would be nicer as a grand prix. put a sample contest up for a month where people can test. then run 4 rounds in a grand prix style to choose the finalists based on points

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7 months ago, # |
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as an expert , do I have chance to qualify for third round?If not what is the minimum rank so that we can say that yes he is capable enough to qualify for third round

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    7 months ago, # ^ |
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    Rank 500 on codeforces is 2460 rating.

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      7 months ago, # ^ |
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      I did analysis and found out Experts-CMs also made it to top 500 , obvious reason is that not 100% of top 500 contestants participated

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7 months ago, # |
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Last year I missed the Tshirt for the wrong file submission. If possible, Please, do something to check validation :'(

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7 months ago, # |
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Excited to participate for the first time

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7 months ago, # |
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Quick suggestion--is there any chance the contest could allow registration until, say, the start of Round 1 (rather than until the end of the Practice Round), or do technical constraints prevent this setup? I'd worry that contestants who are familiar with the contest system and who thus decide to skip the practice round may not realize that they have to register before the round is complete, rather than registering before the first round in which they intend to compete.

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    7 months ago, # ^ |
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    Contestants are technically able to (and we won't stop them from registering until the last second of Round 1 actually), but we'd really like people to do the practice round so they don't run into issues with compiling locally et cetera when they're short on time.

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7 months ago, # |
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Is anyone able to download full input for 2022 Round 1?

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    7 months ago, # ^ |
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    For which problem, are you referring to the full input? And what is the issue that you're facing?

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7 months ago, # |
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I recently deleted the email originally associated with my Facebook account from my profile (as it was a college email address I can no longer access). I still have a personal email address associated with the account, but the "Private Contact Info" section doesn't seem to recognize it:

How can I fix this? (The link sends me to a page to download my FB data, which doesn't seem relevant--I think this page hasn't been updated since the new Accounts Center was released by Meta.) In a previous year I did not receive a shirt I won due to issues with my email not being linked to my account, so I'm hoping to resolve this problem in advance this year.

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    7 months ago, # ^ |
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    I have the same problem with missing email address. Let me know if you find how to fix it.

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      6 months ago, # ^ |
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      Did you fix it, if yes how?

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7 months ago, # |
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when the size of the input text is big , my computer cannot run the code . Any solution for this problem?

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    7 months ago, # ^ |
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    • This may happen because u use a brute-force algorithm which takes a very long time to run large test cases
    • But if u mean that copying the test cases from the downloaded file can't be done, this is because of the huge text. Avoid copying the entire test case, instead download the input file, take it, and put it in the project files
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      7 months ago, # ^ |
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      how can i handle large input in meta hacker cup as my system got hanged to large input files. i am using vscode language c++ i am just coping the text input and paste it on the Competitive programming helper extension what should i do ? now to read large input file reply asap....

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        7 months ago, # ^ |
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        avoid copying the text, instead put the file in the project files

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7 months ago, # |
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I can't access the scoreboard it gives me this error why?

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7 months ago, # |
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Why i am getting presentation error on submitting code

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    7 months ago, # ^ |
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    you need upload the text file of generated output

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      7 months ago, # ^ |
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      i am uploading that only output.txt

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        7 months ago, # ^ |
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        with this conent Case #1: YES Case #2: NO Case #3: YES Case #4: YES Case #5: YES Case #6: YES Case #7: NO

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          7 months ago, # ^ |
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          then try to refresh the site and check it again

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            7 months ago, # ^ |
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            it worked ,thanks

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              7 months ago, # ^ |
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              which language u used for code and how you generate output for large input in problem C i am facing the large input issue how to generate the output from the large input did you know?

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7 months ago, # |
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Okay so now that the practice round is over, How to C, A2 and D?

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7 months ago, # |
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Do I understand correctly that Round 3 will be one hour earlier than the other two rounds for countries that use daylight savings?

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    7 months ago, # ^ |
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    Oh wow that’s a really good catch. Yeah, I think that’s correct.

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7 months ago, # |
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I haven't registered and participated in the practice round. Can I participate in round 1??

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7 months ago, # |
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Can somebody give the solution ideas in brief.

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7 months ago, # |
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Please provide medium sized input for problems involving recursive functions. casual systems running on windows can't run such inputs. I failed to submit my code for problem D because I wasn't able to run it for such large inputs in my local laptop ( My code ). I thought it ran into a RTE, but actual solution also didn't run on my pc. If someone knows any online compiler where we can run large inputs please provide link to it.

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    7 months ago, # ^ |
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    This issue has been addressed in the FAQ. You need to increase your stack size.

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      7 months ago, # ^ |
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      Thankyou so much, I wasn't aware about stacksize manipulation at runtime.

      Here is how to do it for windows, run the file in cmd using the commands below:

      $ g++ -Wl,--stack,SIZE filename.cpp -o filename.exe

      then run,

      filename.exe

      SIZE is given in bytes, for 256 MB: SIZE = 256 * 1024 * 1024 = 268435456

      filename is the name of the file

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7 months ago, # |
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System is so bad ngl, I'm trying to validate first problem and is giving me "ERROR PERFORMING THIS QUERY"

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7 months ago, # |
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Just take it again

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    7 months ago, # ^ |
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    Tried it 1 million times same thing.

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7 months ago, # |
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hahaha

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7 months ago, # |
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Hey, I don't know how achievable this is, but I think it would be nice for the 2nd round to be able to look at a solve count for each problem, to inform my contest strategy. The scoreboard is already public-facing, so I don't think this dilutes the contest experience or anything. Is this possible?

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6 months ago, # |
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How many T-shirt will be provided in Round 2 ? TOP-2000 in Round-2 like previous year?

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6 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -37 Vote: I do not like it

"Striving for Freedom: The Palestinian Quest for Self-Determination"

The Palestinian struggle for self-determination has been a defining feature of the modern Middle East, a quest marked by a complex historical backdrop and ongoing geopolitical tensions. For decades, the Palestinian people have been at the center of a protracted and deeply emotive conflict, seeking to secure their rights to nationhood and sovereignty in their homeland. "Striving for Freedom: The Palestinian Quest for Self-Determination" encapsulates this enduring journey toward political autonomy and the numerous challenges that have defined it.

The roots of the Palestinian quest for self-determination can be traced back to the early 20th century when the region was under Ottoman rule. The fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the subsequent British Mandate in Palestine laid the foundation for the eventual conflict. Over the years, the Arab and Palestinian demands for national sovereignty grew stronger, but the British Mandate and the Balfour Declaration, which promised a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, further complicated the situation.

The mid-20th century saw a dramatic escalation of tensions. The 1947 UN Partition Plan aimed to divide Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, which was met with resistance from the Arab world and the Palestinian population. This led to the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, known as the Nakba, or "catastrophe," which resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. The conflict, marked by territorial disputes, violence, and competing nationalisms, continued to evolve.

The Six-Day War of 1967 further deepened the Palestinian predicament, as Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), led by figures like Yasser Arafat, emerged as a prominent actor in the quest for self-determination. Through armed struggle and diplomacy, the PLO sought international recognition and a resolution to the Palestinian predicament.

The Oslo Accords of the 1990s represented a turning point in the conflict, as Israel and the PLO formally recognized each other and agreed to a process that would lead to Palestinian self-governance. However, despite hopes for a two-state solution, the path to self-determination remained fraught with obstacles. Ongoing Israeli settlement expansion, security concerns, and political divisions among the Palestinians have hindered progress.

Today, the Palestinian quest for self-determination persists. It is marked by the struggles of Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and those living in the diaspora, who continue to assert their right to statehood and the return of refugees. International support for a two-state solution remains a point of contention, and regional dynamics in the Middle East continue to influence the course of this enduring conflict.

"Striving for Freedom: The Palestinian Quest for Self-Determination" encapsulates not only the historical narrative but the hopes, aspirations, and complexities of a deeply rooted and ongoing struggle. The desire for self-determination and statehood remains a central issue in the broader context of peace and stability in the Middle East, making it a topic of global significance and ongoing dialogue.

free
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6 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -17 Vote: I do not like it

In solidarity with the Palestinian people, and because Meta policies and practices to mute our voices ... I'm not going to participate in Round 2 and any future Meta sponsored competitions

If anyone doesn't know what I'm talking about. Please check out Twitter and see what happening in #Gaza and the West Bank.

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6 months ago, # |
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How many T-shirts?

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5 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -8 Vote: I do not like it

SecondThread Any rumors about somebody resigning so that the 26th place competitor may qualify into finals xD?

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2 months ago, # |
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Why there was no warning that the T-shirt distribution method changed? And I am looking through communications now and can't find any mention of this.

I was waiting to receive T-shirt a few months after competition as it happened in previous years, and only a week ago decided to check more thoroughly and — wow — I found that there was a code which I needed to use to get t-shirt and I needed to do it by 15th of December.

That sucks, very evil on your part.

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    6 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    The thing with the code was also in the previous year afair. What got me was, I've been waiting for an email (as the last years) and since no email came I just checked in my profile and also was quite a bit disappointed, that the date already passed a long time ago.

    Can somebody confirm whether she/he got a T-Shirt Notification Email from Hacker Cup 2023? Or confirm getting no Email?

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