Author: Mike Byrne
Date: 13:00:43 12/06/03
Go up one level in this thread
On December 04, 2003 at 09:58:18, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On December 04, 2003 at 00:25:34, Johan de Koning wrote: > >>On December 02, 2003 at 10:13:36, Robert Hyatt wrote: >> >>>On December 02, 2003 at 01:10:24, Johan de Koning wrote: >> >>>>I know you know the I in ICGA and the W in WCCC. >>> >>>Yes. "I" somehow equates to "European".. >>> >>>This organization is _really_ the ECGA, not the ICGA. And the WCCC is really >>>the ECCC. World events are held all over the world. Continental events are >>>held on a specific continent. >>> >>>>And I hope you know that 98% of this world's population does not care about >>>>TG-day, nor about I-day, nor about Halloween, nor about UAb classes. >>> >>>This isn't about "UAB classes". It is about taking off for 1.5 weeks from >>>_any_ job, spending a lot of money to trave, for room and food, and doing >>>it _every_ year/ every 3 years, since these events are _never_ held outside >>>Europe. There are other continents on this planet. But my stand here is well >>>known and won't change anything, except that something will come along to >>>replace ECGA with something containing a real I.. even if I means Internet. >> >>So you can't/wantn't invest the time, the energy, and the money. >>That's understandable, but it applies to everyone around the globe. >>(Particularly to those with real jobs. :-) > >I daresay mine is just as "real" as any other. I'm in my office at 8am >M-F. I often leave by 7pm. :) > > >> >>Since North America is a big continent, it also applies to anyone >>living there at one end and playing at the other end. In that regard >>there's little difference between for example Boston, LA, Vancouver >>and Tokyo, Sydney, Johannesburg. > >You miss my main point. The following are the reasons I can not attend >a WCCC/WMCCC event. > >1. Time. The things take over a week. Old ACM and WCCC events thru the >early 1990's took a weekend + 2-3 weekdays. That's a big difference from >1.5 weeks. > >2. Cost. (1) makes (2) quite high. 3-4 nights in a NYC hotel is not cheap. >8-9 nights is a lot more "not cheap". Factor in food. I can fly from the east >coast of the US to the west coast for $100-$200 if I plan well. Multiply by >10 to travel to Europe. > >3. The other points are just annoying. IE I would _never_ attend an >event over Christmas or Thanksgiving. Most any other holiday I would work >around. But the priority of holidays (IE July 4 in the current discussion) >is _tiny_ compared to (1), and eventually (2). > >(1) _could_ be fixed. Why we need 11 rounds with 16 participants is beyond >my reasoning. And if we really do, why the first 4-5 couldn't be done before >the event, on ICC, is also beyond my reasoning. It could cut 1.5 weeks to 3-4 >days easily. But apparently there is some interest in keeping these things >"long". What that is is beyond me.. > I think that having 11 rounds with 16 paripants is ill conceived. Does anyone really care today that in 1995 , Fritz won the 8th WCCC in 5 rounds with a 1 game playoff. The 1995 field had 24 particpants. 5 rounds is appropriate with a field of 24. 11 rounds with 16 particpants is ludicrous in a swiss style tournament. You might as limit the field to 12 with perhaps a qualifying tournament played over the net and have a round robin with 12 particpants. Alternatively , go to 5 rounds and we might have 24 or 32 partipants since it could be handled in "one week". One of the drawbacks with so many rounds in such a small field, all the top eengines have played each other in the earlier rounds - making the later rounds anti-climatic. > > >> >>There are of course cultural problems. Some people in some places >>do not fluently speak your native language. Not to mention different >>foods, different holidays, different ethics on recrational chemicals, >>recreational weapons, and recreational driving (a panic break on "die >>Autobahn" cost me to tyres). But again, these problems apply to everyone >>around the globe. >> > > >I've driven on the Autobahn. I don't consider that an issue, other than >most maniacs seem to collect there. :) I don't have any cultural issues >that prevent me from traveling. I've been to many places. Japan, China, >former USSR, London, Paris, Stockholm, Berlin, Amsterdam, and probably a >few places I missed (totally ignoring North America / South America of >course). > > > > >>The bottom line is that you have to choose your excuses carefully. >>An interesting optimization problem is to pick more then one excuse >>without offending the rest of the world. > > >My primary reason has _always_ been "time". 1.5 weeks is simply not managable. >Would you like to sign up for a course in (say) computer architecture or >operating systems or parallel programming or assembly language programming, >and discover that your instructor disappears for two straight weeks? It just >isn't reasonable. It never was reasonable. If you look at early ACM/WCCC >events, they were 4-5 rounds. The reason was to keep the event short so that >people could actually attend without wrecking their jobs... > >Cost is certainly a second-level issue. > >Holidays is mostly "noise". I have some constraints I personally impose. IE >no travel on Thanksgiving or Christmas. I've traveled on other holidays with >no real problem. > >So don't lock on to the "holiday" as "the deal breaker". The length of the >event (for me) is the deal breaker. Combined with the cost, and it is just >untenable. > > > > > >> >>... Johan
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