The Quizbowl Resource Center

Muriel Axon

At the Minnesota site, I was given buzzes on "Opus Dei" and "sectors" which were actually Sam's.

Thank you for making these available!

Muriel Axon

As a person who has been playing since approximately the Hadean, I've seen real change happen and hope it continues to happen. As someone who's only been around since the late Proterozoic -- and hasn't been as active -- I would like to hear more from older players about what kinds of changes you al...

Muriel Axon

I think we all agree that a lead-in can have multiple functions: (1) Including clues that players very knowledgeable about the answer line can plausibly buzz on; (2) giving context for later clues and ruling out particular classes of answers; and (3) introducing knowledge that fascinates listeners a...

Muriel Axon

Hey Ya!

Muriel Axon

The second clue in the monad tossup isn't a unique identifier and I think is confusable with something like "mind and body". Wikipedia says that pre-established harmony "is best known as a solution to the mind-body problem of how mind can interact with the body" and SEP largely ...

Muriel Axon

vinteuil wrote:Paper Planes (should've been Galang)
Hey Ya (definitely should've been BOB)

I endorse all of this

Muriel Axon

Hot take: the Paper Planes love in this bracket is almost entirely nostalgia. As someone who lived under a rock for most of the 00s, it's good, but it's not that good. It don't really get this take. What is it supposed to make people nostalgic for? The Bush administration? Or are there thousands of...

Muriel Axon

I don't have any more specific comments to make without having the set in front of me, but I thought the philosophy and social science were very good. The social science, in particular, seemed to do an exemplary job of asking about things that modern scholars care about without overreaching on diffi...

Muriel Axon

Mr. Brightside by The Killers vs. Toxic by Britney Spears Paper Planes by M.I.A. vs. Chicago by Sufjan Stevens -- these are both very good songs, and it breaks my heart to be on the same side as the (very, very wrong) Sufjan-haters Hey Ya! by Outkast vs. Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand American Boy b...

Muriel Axon

1901 by Phoenix vs. Hurt by Johnny Cash - Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt is a decent, well-put-together song, but I think lacks something of the vulnerability expressed by the original (which is magnified by how much it contrasts with the rest of NIN's big songs) This may be premature of me to say, bu...

Muriel Axon

Crazy by Gnarls Barkley vs. Mr. Brightside by The Killers Little to say about these. I like Mr. Brightside. Jesus Walks by Kanye West vs. Toxic by Britney Spears There are a lot of things I admire about Jesus Walks, but I never felt like Kanye was at his strongest in his more serious songs. Toxic's ...

Muriel Axon

Hey Ya! by Outkast vs. Time to Pretend by MGMT (very easy choice) One More Time by Daft Punk vs. Bad Romance by Lady Gaga Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand vs. Dog Days Are Over by Florence + The Machine (this choice would appall undergrad me, who was rather snobbish towards Florence + The Machine fan...

Muriel Axon

Crazy by Gnarls Barkley vs. Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day Mr. Brightside by The Killers vs. Since U Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson Jesus Walks by Kanye West vs. Wake Up by Arcade Fire (sorry Kanye) Toxic by Britney Spears vs. Get Ur Freak On by Missy Elliott 99 Problems by Jay-z vs. Hips...

Muriel Axon

While I don't know why any teams actually want to do this, it only causes problems when rosters aren't used/carefully scrutinized or whatnot and it leads to improper seeding. The solution is to require rosters if you're going to be creating brackets. Not denying that rosters are a good thing to hav...

Muriel Axon

In the Minnesota circuit, ACF Fall and (DII) SCT are the two tournaments that bring a lot of teams that wouldn't come to other tournaments. (More than twice as many teams attended as at NAQT Novice, EFT, or Penn Bowl.) As such, I really quite like the easier approach taken by the editing team this y...

Muriel Axon

I don't know how much weird white supremacist stuff is coming from within classics, but classicists are certainly having to put up with some nonsense (where by "nonsense" I mean "death threats") from the white supremacist general public these days; see the reaction to Sarah Bond...

Muriel Axon

More minor issues: The guy who co-wrote the book on voting was Donald Green, not David Green. The Tugwell book clue in the Grover Cleveland TU should say "Honesty and Integrity," not "Integrity and Integrity." The Strauss Sr. / Sousa / Gladiator March bonus has a screwed up intro...

Muriel Axon

In the country music world, I really like Jade Jackson's new album Gilded. Her voice reminds me of Frances Quinlan of Hop Along, who's one of my favorite singers.

Muriel Axon

15. With Sasaki and Ubeda, this scientist proposed the idea of “pacemaker islands” that restore genetic diversity in models of host-parasite evolution. Okay, the rest of this question clues good and important things, and of course seeing Hamilton-Zuk clued gave me great joy, as Penn Bowl is unwitti...

Muriel Axon

Some random other comments: Could I see the question on W. D. Hamilton? I recall enjoying it -- Hamilton was extremely influential and made many contributions beyond the few that regularly come up, so it was a good idea and the clues seemed to be well thought-out. I just want to see what the first c...

Muriel Axon

This tournament was won by a team going by the name "Malbork." Stats will come when they come, in the longstanding tradition of Upper Midwest quizbowl.

Muriel Axon

This tournament ended up having seven teams and was won by Minnesota A. Stats will come when they come, in the longstanding tradition of Upper Midwest quizbowl.

Muriel Axon

WARNING: moderately frivolous post Two or three times as a quizbowl writer, I've written clues where it was conceivable that: 1. A player might buzz in and give the correct answer, and 2. The player arrived at that answer through a train of thought that seems reasonable and justified, but 3. Their b...

Muriel Axon

I agree with much of this post. Hentzel-run NAQT tournaments in Minnesota have often had a wide selection of books to choose from, including lots of non-fiction -- and while many of those are not the sorts of books I would choose, I've been trying to follow that spirit by bringing books on philosoph...

Muriel Axon

I wouldn't otherwise comment on an individual bonus's difficulty, but since Christopher brought it up -- I think you (Jason) are, in fact, overestimating how hard "translating hieroglyphics" is. Ok, I believe that. Would it be better if I had _Champollion_ as the hard part? That would cer...

Muriel Axon

I wouldn't otherwise comment on an individual bonus's difficulty, but since Christopher brought it up -- I think you (Jason) are, in fact, overestimating how hard "translating hieroglyphics" is. Could I see the religion tossups on powder and water? They may have been fine, but for some rea...

Muriel Axon

Did the bonus part on Celibidache really describe him as Roman, or was that a reader / player problem?

Muriel Axon

Thanks for the comments; I think I was just overly ambitious in using those clues. For now I will replace R* with a late-middle clue. Any comment on rewording the Grime clue is appreciated too. I'm sorry if this swung any games or otherwise gave you a worse experience. I was reading, so no worries!...

Muriel Axon

Bonus 4 in Packet 7 mentions economic anthropologist "Doug Graeber." Oof! 3. J. P. Grime noted that this process occurs at a very high level for the species labeled “C” and “R” in the CSR triangle of plant strategies. David Tilman described how this process depends on a quantity labeled R*...

Muriel Axon

Marshall Steinbaum and myself are major proponents of the game "Power Grid", in which players compete to build the most efficient power distribution system in Germany. Power Grid remains the only German-style board game I've ever played, so it's got my endorsement! I don't think anyone wh...

Muriel Axon

I'm curious about the motivation behind answer lines like "photography books by Robert Frank" and "essays by George Orwell" -- especially the latter, since Robert Frank hasn't really done much else, as far as I know. Why not just "Robert Frank" or "George Orwell&qu...

Muriel Axon

I agree with what's turned out to be the emerging consensus -- that this was a fun, exciting set that was also punishingly hard at times. It's not bad for a set to be that hard, but I don't think we were set up to expect it -- unlike, say, Arrabal. I like playing tournaments like this for two reason...

Muriel Axon

I've tried showing quiz bowl psychology questions to my friends in the field and the consistent objection that comes up to the all too frequently written tossups on Freud and Jung is that "This isn't about psychology." I can't speak for other fields of social science, but in Psychology, t...

Muriel Axon

Meanwhile, Americans will be conducting the "most stereotypically British-sounding name" poll, in which Oliver Sweetenham is an early favorite.

Muriel Axon

setophaga wrote:I will attest that birding has secured me at least one power on almost every quizbowl set I've played.

Nice username!

Muriel Axon

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask about this, but is there any word on the reasoning behind the apparent decision to accept "Secret Chronicle" for the tossup on the "[Mongol] Secret History" protest?

Muriel Axon

I think I can do this.
-- Shan Kothari, Class of 2010

Muriel Axon

Questions on the Catholic Church should accept "the true Holy Mother _Church_."

--Shan(tanu Jha)

Muriel Axon

I'd be interested in seeing the question on Aristotle's Physics . In past question-writing, I'd struggled to distinguish the Physics from the Metaphysics , and true to form, I negged with Metaphysics yesterday. Yeah, I'd believe that the end of this question might have this effect—I included "...

Muriel Axon

I'd be interested in seeing the question on Aristotle's Physics. In past question-writing, I'd struggled to distinguish the Physics from the Metaphysics, and true to form, I negged with Metaphysics yesterday.

Muriel Axon

The tossup on sausage, which I assume was Geography or Other, did not accept or prompt on "bologna" despite including a clue on Lebanon bologna. The answerline actually said to accept specific types of sausage, so that's down to moderator error. As a very enlightened vegetarian, I did not...

Muriel Axon

For what it's worth, many of the past MUT writers had an interest in writing this year -- it's just that the amount that we'd be able to write, given our other commitments, adds up to far less than a full tournament. If someone is really driven to wrangle together a full below-regular tournament, yo...

Muriel Axon

cruzeiro wrote:
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote: Spring: MUT?
Minnesotans, is there any word one way or another on if MUT will happen this year?

Doesn't look like it. We're all a bit over-committed, either in quiz bowl or other endeavors.

Muriel Axon

I think all of Mike's advice is good -- as a student in the sciences, some of it I might emphasize more or less than he does, but it's all pretty much true. The main thing that comes to my mind is to make sure you're the kind of person who can get things done. This means, among other things: Having ...

Muriel Axon

I found Hail, Caesar! annoying. I enjoyed Love & Friendship . It was a very superficial movie -- not in a negative way, but in the literal sense that it's really all about the one-liners and slapstick, not anything deeper. Gorgeous costumes, too. Whit Stillman came to the Twin Cities for a scree...

Muriel Axon

I likely will play this. I will almost certainly get some stuff based on my adequate skills in low level generalism. Nobody can out-moderately underachieve my underwhelming knowledge base...except me of course (BWAHAHAHA). As far as my aforementioned "achievements" go, I was in the top fo...

Muriel Axon

I have like 70+ tossups from the last 2.5 years that have variously been spoiled my own self, are too hard, are really bad, are repeats with other things I've written (most questions I write have parallel siblings on the same or a related topic that I write at the same time and then never use), and...

Muriel Axon

Ike's Coetzee link wrote:the renowned German stylostatistician Wilhelm Fucks

Muriel Axon

The University of Minnesota Quiz Bowl Team will be hosting summer practices in 340 Lind Hall, East Bank on Tuesdays from 6-9 PM. Anyone may come. At the same time, Erik Nelson is hosting practices for high school students across the hall in 320 Lind. Feel free to message me if interested; I can put ...

Muriel Axon

Perhaps Jake Sundberg is Richard Strauss, for writing 'the most sickening packet in all quizbowl.'

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