MIASMA

content/posts/miasma.md

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+---
+title: "Miasma"
+date: 2024-01-20T00:36:47-05:00
+description: "Nope, I'm not telling you Ben Qi's secret"
+type: "post"
+tags: ["shaggy-dog-story", "story", "fiction", "fun", "humor"]
+---
+
+
+*This is a sequel to [Ennui](/posts/ennui)*
+
+Winning the IOI only requires a dash of creativity and problem solving. Baking the world's largest Oreo and shattering the Guinness World Record on the other hand, requires perseverance, humiliation, wait no, I meant humility, and filling out a lot of government paperwork so that the FBI doesn't come knocking on your door asking if you're scheming to use your two thousand pounds of baking soda to build a life-sized volcano to terrorize people with a really impressive science fair project.
+
+Anyways, Ennui and Ben Qi knew that the only thing left in life for them to accomplish was, obviously, to fulfill their childhood destinies and bake an outrageously obese Oreo. After all, they had both subsisted entirely on ramen and Oreos during IOI training.
+
+Problem 1: Money. Ennui and Ben have an array A of length N (1 <= N <= 10^5) where the GCD of any subarray is guaranteed to be 1. Please compute the maximum amount of money they can earn if they sell their blingy IOI gold medals on eBay while claiming that the medals are pure gold.
+
+Problem 2: No, no, no, no, no. This is not the IOI! This is the baking of a gravitationally challenged Oreo! No more IOI problems!
+
+One day, while waiting for the FBI to return their confiscated two thousand pounds of baking soda, Ennui happened to mention her younger sister Miasma. Ennui envied Miasma's enthusiasm, Miasma's superpower, but most of all, Miasma's name. Hey, Miasma never had to endure the humiliation of having her name be a Wordle answer!
+
+"Wait, superpower?" Ben interrupted, intrigued.
+
+"Oh, it's nothing."
+
+"Come on, I told you my deep secret so tell me about this superpower."
+
+"OK, fine, but don't blame be if it bores you to death! So Miasma, right, she's the embodiment of perfect health and never, ever gets sick, as if she bathes in a pool of kale smoothies every morning or something."
+
+"Whoa, I wish I had that superpower. Diarrhea at the IOI sucks."
+
+"That's not her superpower! Her actual area of expertise is her uncanny ability to make everyone around her absolutely sick. Her mere presence is enough to induce headaches, inflammation, fainting, hearing loss, sleep deprivation, loss of brain tissue, and even losing your appetite for Oreos! My parents have taken her to see many medical professionals, and none of them could decipher her."
+
+From that day on, Ben could no longer sleep easily at night. What if Miasma stops by some day to see our under-construction Oreo? Ben knew he had an underlying condition, his perpetually bad hair, which put him at higher risk for serious symptoms from Miasma exposure. He started devouring research paper after paper about infectious diseases hoping to find some insight into Miasma's superpower. Was her body naturally producing harmful bacteria? Viruses? Bad breath? It must be some weird virus or something. Ben discovered that Miasma's constant presence in his mind meant he could now only solve competitive programming problems using the DNA programming language. He even began wearing a ventilator and washing his hands every two minutes. Gotta stay safe from the Miasma virus, you know.
+
+Finally, Ennui and Ben finished baking the Oreo and suddenly found themselves surrounded by reporters, college students looking for free food, and sure enough, Ennui's sister Miasma.
+
+"Hey Ben," Ennui said, dragging over Miasma clutching phone, "This is Miasma, my sister that I told you all about. She's more boring in person."
+
+"OH MY GOSHI, OH MY GOSH, IS THIS BENQ THE IOI GOD IN HUMAN FORM??!?! EEEEEEEEEE!!!!" Miasma squealed, pointing her phone at Ben, "ORZ ORZ ORZ ORZ! EVERYONE, LOOKI HERE, LOOK AT THIS!! I'M WITNESSING BENQ IN FRONT OF THE WORLD'S!!! LARGEST!!! OREO!!! OH EM GEEEEEEEEEEEE IT'S SO INSANE *drops phone* DON'T FORGET TO SMASH THAT UWU LIKE BUTTON AND SUBSCRIBE!!!"
+
+Ben faints, because how else are you even supposed to react to that?
+
+"EEEEEEEEEE THE WORLD'S GREATEST COMPETITIVE PROGRAMMER JUST COLLAPSED FROM MY KAWAIINESS!!! UWU UWU ORZ *drops phone on foot* OOOWWW ORZ!!"
+
+Ben furiously unfaints, his head pounding with a headache and missing half its cells, while his ears start bleeding.
+
+"Ben!" Ennui yelps and shakes him, "Ben, are you OK? How are you feeling?"
+
+"I feel viral."