š Raw enjoyments, State of Mathematical Optimization 2025, Scheduling the NFL
Local Optimum: short, imperfect-yet-useful ideas - Edition #10
Welcome to a new edition of Local Optimum: a short, imperfect-yet-useful collection of ideas related to optimization, decision-making, and applied Operations Research.
Letās dive in! šŖ
1) š« Raw enjoyments
An algorithm.
A mathematical model.
A forecast to feed your optimization problem.
Everything you createā¦ If it doesnāt serve the business, itās just entertainment.
And itās good. I mean, if you want to have some joy with your code, experiment with algorithms, try new tools, do it! But donāt lie to yourself: a solution that is not in production might feel satisfying, but the business impact is still zero until itās live.
Pick some orphan code living in your repo or hard drive, and ask yourself: what would have to be true for this to ship next quarter?
If nothing comes to mind, then throw it away, as if it never existed before.
That will give you clarity. Clarity will give you speed.
2) š¢ State of Mathematical Optimization 2025
I just received an email from Gurobi and thought itād be a great opportunity for our community to weigh in.
Everyoneās perspective matters. It took me 8 minutes to fill the survey.
3) š Scheduling the NFL
We tend to think that creating a schedule for a sport league like the NFL is an easy task.
Itās not.
You need to take into account flights, dates, international competitions, specific conditionsā¦
Each new dimension adds complexity to an already complex problem.
It becomes so complex that they need 4000 machines and 3 months of time:
Are you addressing large-scale optimization problems?
Next Monday, Iāll share some ideas on how to reduce the complexity of optimization problems with different techniques.
Iāll cover:
šŖļø What large-scale problems are
š” Ideas to help solving them
š£ First steps to take
If you tackle this kind of problems, this will be useful. See you Monday!
And thatās it for today!
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Have a nice day ahead āļø
Borja.
