2022 QuIPS Prize

Posted Monday, April 4, 2022.

The 2022 QuIPS Prize is a monetary prize to encourage playful innovation in the exploration of quines and other self-replicating programs, especially in the context of relational programming.

(Please direct your close attention to the bolded words in the sentence above--an ideal entry should combine all three elements!)

I (William E. Byrd) announced the QuIPS Prize--and the associated Mant Prize--at the end of my 2021 Strange Loop keynote, Strange Dreams of Stranger Loops.

The QuIPS Prize is $1,000 USD, to be paid in a manner convenient and/or hilarious for both me and the recipient. I will announce the winner at the 2022 Strange Loop conference, which will be held Sept 22--Sept 24, 2022.

The deadline for entries is August 22nd, 2022, exactly one month before Strange Loop 2022.

Please email your entry to me at webyrd@gmail.com with the subject heading QuIPS Prize. You may submit a link to a public code repository, a public video, a public website or interactive tutorial, etc. However, whatever you submit (1) must be public and (2) must not have been publicly shared before. No recycling old blog posts, talks, or published papers! (After all, the point of the prize is to encourage playful innovation!)

Anyone may enter. I will gracefully refrain from entering myself, however. If you win and happen to be a 5-year-old Cat living in another Country/Planet/Galaxy/Universe who wants to remain anonymous, or whatever, getting the prize money to you may prove difficult. I'll do my best to work out something, though. Of course, it would be more fun to hand you the prize in person at Strange Loop 2022, modulo pandemics. We'll try to work that out as well.

The winner will be decided solely by me! If none of the entries Spark Joy in me, shock me, give me Nerd Chills or a sense of playful delight, or produce some other Visceral Reaction, or if all of the entries are Boring or Mundane or of the 'Yet Another Quine Relay' variety, no prize will be rewarded, and I will instead blow the money on unbelievably delicious Japanese candy to console myself! However, I put a premium on experiencing Nerd Chills, and would much prefer to give away the prize, so please submit an entry of Face-Melting awesomeness and fun.

As I described in my Strange Loop keynote, I am especially interested in how relational programming, relational interpreters, and program synthesis can be used to constructively explore quines, self-reps, Von Neumann-style self-reproducing automata, and other code capable of replication (with or without a host).

Here are a few related resources that you might find helpful in understanding what the QuIPS Prize is about, and might also stimulate your brain: