SCENIC TOUR Consolation Awards

* The coveted "BEST ENTRY NAME" to Dennis Peter for "bEEr_Run"
	As Dennis explains it:
        "It's called bEEr_Run because it's like a walk to the bar.  You
        want to get there quickly, but on the way home you're
        stumbling drunk and zigzagging all over the place. A very
        familiar story! :)"

* MOST SUBTLE STRATEGY goes to Bernard Hatt for "wander":
	Bernard described his stratdgy, and then added:
	"I've decided to leave in this simple algorithm in the 
	hope that a *very* tricky grid eliminates all the 
	other competitors."

* The LONG WAY HOME award to Michael Connelly for "potmluck"
	potmluck managed to find very long return paths for both
	"a2b" and "graffiti" but apparently was forced to sacrifice
	the best short path to do so.  Honorable mention to
	Alexei Garianov for "spider" and Edmond Bernardy for
	"Ups+Downs" in this category.

* The SHORT PATH award is a three-way tie.  All three of these entries
	found the shortest path on all three problems:
	Dang Quang Linh for "DVKha_DHTH_VN"
	Guillermo Sais for "Walking_with_my_dog"
	Michael Strauch for "Everest"

	Apparently, the "shortest" forward paths were as follows:
	a2b: 568        graffiti: 151      hand:349

	The eventual winner, indiana_dijones, did not use these
	shortest paths on two of the three final problems!  Many
	other entries found the shortest path on "hand" and there
	were a few that found the a2b short path as well.

* The ONE WORLD award to Denis Konovalchik for reminding me that we
	all share a common interest even though our worlds may
	be very different.  Denis wrote:

	"Hallo, POTM master!
	I'm Denis Konovalchik AKA Pepper, a 23 y.o. programmer 
	from Magnitogorsk, Russia.  My job is WebMaster. Beyond 
	that I like to solve different programming problems.
	Now I'm a coach of the programming team of the Steel and 
	Mining academy.  I'm very interested in your pretty contest. 
	That is cool for me! Could you add me to your mailing list?"

	Apparently a Russian Programming magazine mentioned the
	POTM a month or so ago - I have quite a number of new
	participants from the area!  

An article in Russian from CompuTerra Magazine.

* The BETTER-LATE-THAN-NEVER award to Cerberus Lechiens for "cosmic_string"
	Received on the last day for the first time!  Compiled and
	executed without problem and actually completed all the
	final problems without timing out or dumping core!

* The WORST RATIO award to Dennis Peter for "bEEr_Run"
	On graffiti, bEEr_Run's "shortest path" was 4889 and his
	"longest path" was 647 for a ratio of 0.13.  Dennis' solutions
	on the other problems appeared to be >1 so I think we're
	talking about a genuinely bad algorithm rather than a mere
	programming mistake ... no offense???   8*)

* The BANG-FOR-THE-BUCK award to Keith Jones for "ThinAIr"
	ThinAir finished in ninth place but used significantly less
	time than the higher finishers - finishing a2b in 33 seconds,
	hand in 26 seconds, and graffiti in 254 seconds.

* The "I'VE GOTTA LEARN A REAL LANUAGE" award to Cynthia Thomas for
	"Bozo5_TM_Tour_De_chance" ... our only entry written entirely
	in "sed" for this POTM (or any other POTM).  "Bozo" was one
	of the 22 programs that actually solved all three final
	problems, and while Bozo's solutions were less than elegant,
	they DID conform to the rules for legal solutions (unlike
	more elegant solutions like Zamboni_Racer) ... 8*)


* Best References (from a variety of responses - thanks to all!):

	Dijkstra's Algorithm appears in a number of places on the web.  
	There is actually one place that has a Java version that 
	displays the algorithm's results in real-time with comments 
	as to what is currently happening.  I couldn't find
	anything for the maximal path except for a book on approximation 
	algorithms by Rajeev Motwani 
	http://theory.stanford.edu/people/motwani/books.html 
	that would probably help if I put enough effort into reading 
	his work.  I think there's an ongoing theme of a lack of 
	effort here.

	http://www.research.att.com/~mgcr/papers.html 

	http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/gameprog.html#Paths

* WORST REFERENCE from Kevin Williams
	I always look forward to Beckett's Hockey Card Monthly and 
	their annual Alphabetical Price Guide.

* MOST BLATANT APPEAL FOR A JOB to Chad Hurrwitz, our winner who
	lists his company as "You hiring?" Hey ... don't call the 
	POTM-MASTER for references ... perhaps the Steel and Mining
	Academy can use you???

* The AT LEAST I FINISHED IN THE TOP TEN ON THE SYSTEM TEST AWARDs:

            ENTRY    MOVES   LONG/SHORT   TIME   LANG  Programmer
    ---------------- -----  -----------  ------  ----  -------------------
       DVKha_DHTH_VN  130    28.291866   540.01   gc   Dang Quang Linh
              spider  130    28.222749     6.50    c   Alexei Garianov
     Colorado_Dragon  130    28.196172   590.11   gc   Vuong Phan_Tuan
           Ups+Downs  130    28.167464   595.04   gc   Edmond Bernardy
          Cool_proga  130    27.880383   445.91    C   Pavel Zaletskiy
        crazy_walker  130    27.736842    23.55    C   Georgios Papoutsis
            potmluck  130    27.113744    55.10    c   Michael Connelly
 Walking_with_my_dog  130    27.095694    75.98   gC   Guillermo Sais
     Hey_take_a_hike  130    26.770335   598.01    c   Grant Davis
     Quantum_Rambler  130    26.767442    20.33    c   Joshua Huntington

* The HOW TO COMMERCIALIZE THE POTM award goes to Kathy Kenny of
	Contract Professional Magazine.  She wants to offer a prize
	for the best entry from among POTM-participants who sign up at 
	their website ... stay tuned for the next POTM after the summer!