3/28    Comment on the ACM programming contest.  Do we advertise this
        competition in the math department?  All the problems involve
        algorithms or it's heavily math oriented.  I'm wondering if we're
        sending too many *nix coding monkeys and not people with deep
        understanding of the algorithms.
        \_ I remember having to explain to a math graduate student (who shall
           remain nameless) how to reverse a linked list. -- ilyas
        \_ If our team was run by Hilfinger, which it was and he had
           anything to do with picking the team, then our team must
           have been pretty talented.   I just don't understand why
           we didn't do better.
        \_ you wants lots of mconsts, ian goldbergs, nikita borisovs,
           and ben rudiak-golds
        \_ It's pathetic no matter how you look at it.  Also, how come
           the Indian Institute of Technologies are not well represented?
           Those are pretty good schools.
        \_ Sigh ... The PRC universities got all the top spots, while
           Taiwan's bests are way down at the honorable mentions, with
           Berkeley of course.
        \_ uhhh, what the (@*&($ is JiaoTong University, Tsinghua Univ,
           Fudan Univ, etc? And why the (@#*&$* is Stanford 5th and Berkeley
           below 30th? What happened?
           \_ Those are all famous universities in Mainland China.  The math
              dept. in Fudan is pretty famous, I think.
           \_ Universities by the same name exist in Taiwan, too.
        \_ I think the quality of Berkeley has gone down:
           2001 Berkeley HM, Stanford 5th
           2000 Berkeley none, Stanford 15th
           1999 Berkeley 7th, Stanford HM
           1998 Berkeley 11th, Stanford 24th
           1997 Berkeley none, Stanford 16th
           1996 Berkeley 1st, Stanford none
           1995 Berkeley 5th, Stanford 19th
           1994 Berkeley 6th, Stanford none
           1993 Berkeley 4th, Stanford 2nd
           1992 Berkeley none, Stanford 3rd
           1991 Berkeley none, Stanford 3rd
           \_ What's "HM"?
              \_ Honorable Mention.
           \_ You know why we were 1st in 1996, cuz I was on the team.
              \_ and you are?