N=200 annealed hill-climbing, increased resolution from baseline N=40

-"""Baseline: annealed hill climbing on 40 equal steps, restarted every second from a perturbed
-best, with an incrementally updated autoconvolution. A constant f scores 2/3; this reaches about
-0.80 (roughly 0.83 of the record). Beat it."""
+"""Iteration 1 (kept): N=200 hill-climbing with annealing. Reverted from N=1000 which scored lower."""
 
 import random
 import time
 
-N = 40
+N = 200
 EPOCH = 1.0   # seconds per restart
 
 
… 25 unchanged lines …
     best = ratio(autoconvolve(best_a))
     first = True
     while time.perf_counter() - t0 < total:
-        a = best_a[:] if first else [x * (1 + rng.uniform(-0.3, 0.3)) for x in best_a]
+        a = best_a[:] if first else [max(0.0, x * (1 + rng.uniform(-0.3, 0.3))) for x in best_a]
         first = False
-        b = autoconvolve(a)                   # b = a * a, kept up to date below
+        b = autoconvolve(a)
         cur = ratio(b)
         epoch = min(EPOCH, total)
         te = time.perf_counter()
… 1 unchanged lines …
             frac = (time.perf_counter() - te) / epoch
             if frac >= 1 or time.perf_counter() - t0 >= total:
                 break
-            step = 0.02 + 0.5 * (1 - frac)    # anneal the move size within the epoch
+            step = 0.02 + 0.5 * (1 - frac)
             i = rng.randrange(N)
             new = max(0.0, a[i] + rng.uniform(-step, step))
             d = new - a[i]
             if d == 0.0 or sum(a) + d <= 1e-9:
                 continue
-            # a -> a + d e_i changes b[i+j] by 2 d a_j for j != i and b[2i] by 2 d a_i + d^2
             for j in range(N):
                 b[i + j] += 2 * d * a[j]
             b[2 * i] += d * d
… 3 unchanged lines …
                 cur = v
                 if v > best:
                     best, best_a = v, a[:]
-            else:                             # undo
+            else:
                 a[i] -= d
                 for j in range(N):
                     b[i + j] -= 2 * d * a[j]
… 3 unchanged lines …