So this is where I would usually post my post match analysis … (and given the contest only started 50minutes ago, this post is way too soon…)
Topcoder servers have ‘crashed’ multiple times. I managed to solve the first problem, but not before the system became so unresponsive that I couldn’t submit it…
I did however discover a cool new feature in google as a result. Since the topcoder website was down I thought I would try a google search to see if someone had posted something which was already indexed… and it appears that google now indexes twitter in real time. You get a section in the search results which updates dynamically pushing new twitter posts which correspond to your search times. This is how I discovered that everyone else was also suffering from the crashing issue which was affecting me…
Maybe they will reschedule, otherwise qualifying round 2 is my only chance to qualify – qualifying round 3 is during work hours.
Edit: Well they finally got the servers going, and I managed to submit my answer. Currently pending system tests, but assuming I pass those I am in the 600 who theoretically advance if they don’t declare the entire event invalid…
Edit2: Systests complete, I’m 385th of 474 people who got a > 0 score (out of ~1200 contestants) – still no word on whether the event is being marked invalid.
Edit3: Apparently just before they got the servers running again they posted a broadcast which I didn’t get because I was crashed, which declared the event invalid. It is going to be rescheduled at some time to be announced in the future – I’ll probably write up an analysis of the problems tomorrow anyway…