Search found 139 matches

by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Sat Sep 24, 2022 9:51 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Winter Closed @ Maryland (9/24/22)
Replies: 3
Views: 1690

Re: Winter Closed @ Maryland (9/24/22)

Congrats to Penn A for defeating Rutgers A in the first game of an advantaged final to take the tournament! Full stats are now available here https://hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/7672/ . Feel free to message me with any individual stats corrections you might have. Huge thank you to all the staffers...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Fri Apr 15, 2022 9:15 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: 2021-22 Collegiate Player Poll
Replies: 37
Views: 17952

Re: 2021-22 Collegiate Player Poll

Caleb should be very, very high on your ballot. He led the Nats top bracket team with the least scoring support by a decent margin and dragged us to a top 5 finish through sheer force of will, going 66/4 in the top bracket and beating Stanford en route to our finish. He’s the best philosophy player ...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Wed Apr 13, 2022 11:02 pm
Forum: Collegiate Discussion
Topic: ACF Nationals 2022 Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 30
Views: 11975

Re: ACF Nationals 2022 Thanks and General Discussion

I thought this set was fantastic; probably the best I’ve played in my time in college. I especially liked the CS; it covered a lot of different topics well and rewarded classroom knowledge (I really loved the GMM vs K-means clustering clue even though I blanked at game speed.) As Vincent mentioned, ...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Sun Oct 24, 2021 7:05 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Announcement: Penn Bowl 2021
Replies: 15
Views: 7907

Re: Announcement: Penn Bowl 2021

Re:seeding, Virginia was the first seed, but we seeded 1 & 3 in one bracket and 2 & 4 in the other (as opposed to 1-4 and 2-3). This may not be the right system for seeding, but it was what we decided to go with. The choice to tiebreak by PPB was, admittedly, the wrong choice. I was under t...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Sun Oct 17, 2021 12:21 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 ACF Fall at UMD (10/16/2021)
Replies: 4
Views: 2339

Re: 2021 ACF Fall at UMD (10/16/2021)

Congratulations to Penn A, who defeated George Washington A in a one-game final to unify the D2, UG and overall titles! Full stats can be found here . I also want to extend a huge thanks to all the external staffers who volunteered to made this tournament possible: Matt Bollinger, Alex Echikson, Has...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Wed Oct 13, 2021 1:43 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Why Doesn't Quizbowl Use Citations?
Replies: 11
Views: 4428

Re: Why Doesn't Quizbowl Use Citations?

1. Citations make it a lot easier for editors to check clues. If writers include where they found their clue info when they write the question, this gets rid of the step of the editor having to ask the writer for their source or try to backtrack the source itself. This could also make it easy for a...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Sun Oct 03, 2021 1:23 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 ACF Fall at UMD (10/16/2021)
Replies: 4
Views: 2339

Re: 2021 ACF Fall at UMD (10/16/2021)

Hi, my university is new to the quiz bowl community, and we are interested in participating in this tournament. Just one question: does the new quiz bowl school discount apply per team or just once? E. g. will two teams from a new school get a $160 discount total or just $80? Yep, you'd be eligible...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Sun Sep 19, 2021 8:55 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: How do you write and edit quizbowl creatively?
Replies: 7
Views: 4302

Re: How do you write and edit quizbowl creatively?

The video game analogy is the best piece of aesthetic quizbowl writing theory I've ever read. seconded ^^ one of the ways I've been trying to approach questions recently when I have more time is "how might this information benefit someone in life outside of quizbowl points (or encourage engage...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:47 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 ACF Fall at UMD (10/16/2021)
Replies: 4
Views: 2339

2021 ACF Fall at UMD (10/16/2021)

I am pleased to announce that the Upper Mid-Atlantic site of 2021 ACF Fall will be held at the University of Maryland on Saturday, October 16, 2021. The tournament will take place at Jimenez Hall. The opening meeting will begin at 8:45 AM and gameplay will begin at 9:00. I, Vishwa Shanmugam, will be...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Fri Aug 27, 2021 8:54 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 Chicago Open: Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 14
Views: 1300

Re: Thanks and General Discussion

I do want to push back a bit on the notion that phil was less than 1/1 of the set however. I've already staked my claim that non-western philosophy, history of philosophy, and continental philosophy have an equal claim to being in the phil distribution as contemporary analytic content. Beyond that,...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Thu Aug 26, 2021 11:27 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 Chicago Open: Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 19
Views: 1367

Re: Specific Question Discussion

I thought the "minimum viable product" bonus was really hard to figure out from how little context there is - being given an (imo) not-so-straightforward definition was really disorienting and we ended up missing this part despite knowing about mvps (maybe grounding it more in software dev...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Thu Aug 26, 2021 11:09 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 Chicago Open: Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 14
Views: 1300

Re: Thanks and General Discussion

I enjoyed the set a fair amount (especially the CS, math and engineering content, which I thought was fantastic throughout - I'm not super qualified to comment on the rest of the osci but it all sounded interesting and well done.) I liked the art a ton as well. Maybe the tournament could have stood ...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Fri Aug 20, 2021 9:46 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: WE KNOW WHERE WE ARE GOING: 2021 CO Travel thread
Replies: 47
Views: 18505

Re: WE KNOW WHERE WE ARE GOING: 2021 CO Travel thread

My flight left almost an hour late and arrived 10 minutes earlier than the original arrival time, saving me some travel headaches and firmly cementing me as the protagonist of reality
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Tue Aug 10, 2021 6:37 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 ACF Nationals: Thank Yous and Discussion
Replies: 26
Views: 9683

Re: 2021 ACF Nationals: Thank Yous and Discussion

I had fun at the tournament; the categories I pay most attention to felt interesting and well written. It felt like there was a lot of CS at this tournament which I appreciated, and a lot of it was cool (though I do think the middle parts were too easy across the board, between null in the Sql bonus...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Mon Aug 09, 2021 3:03 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NASAT Open Online (8/14/2021)
Replies: 1
Views: 1501

Re: NASAT Open Online (8/14/2021)

Reminder that this is in a week - please form teams and email me to finalize your registration soon! At the moment it looks like we'll have a 6 team tournament, so I'd also appreciate one or two more staff signups.
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Fri Jul 30, 2021 1:50 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NASAT Open Online (8/14/2021)
Replies: 1
Views: 1501

NASAT Open Online (8/14/2021)

This is the announcement thread for the online open mirror of NASAT to be held on Saturday, August 14th 2021. The tournament will cost $15/player to play. Feel free to sign up as a free agent and form teams here , but note that registration isn't complete until you email me at 18vshanmugam.stem AT g...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Sun Jul 11, 2021 3:23 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NASAT 2021 DMV Mirror (7/10 - Likely UMD)
Replies: 12
Views: 4348

Re: NASAT 2021 DMV Mirror (7/10 - Likely UMD)

Thanks to everyone who played, I had a blast staffing first in person tournament in forever! If you'd like to join the discussion forum for this set, you can go to your profile and join the "NASAT 2021" usergroup.
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Thu Jun 24, 2021 7:04 pm
Forum: National Tournaments
Topic: 2021 IQBT NASAT - Congratulations Illinois Blue!
Replies: 47
Views: 33266

Re: 2021 IQBT NASAT - Congratulations Illinois Blue!

There is now a discussion forum for this set - you can join by going to your profile and joining the "NASAT 2021" usergroup.
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Sat Jun 12, 2021 12:36 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NASAT Playtesting
Replies: 1
Views: 2588

Re: NASAT Playtesting

Please message me by the end of today if you're interested in this so I can get your opinion on scheduling - thank you!
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Tue Jun 08, 2021 7:05 pm
Forum: National Tournaments
Topic: 2021 IQBT NASAT - Congratulations Illinois Blue!
Replies: 47
Views: 33266

Re: 2021 IQBT NASAT - June 19-20, Online

Could we get confirmation on the distribution of the set? Yep! Notable changes from previous iterations include the reduction of chemistry and math in favor of more biochemistry and a more robust other science distribution, and the increase in world literature (and corresponding reduction in Americ...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Sun Jun 06, 2021 4:27 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NASAT Playtesting
Replies: 1
Views: 2588

NASAT Playtesting

Playtesting for NASAT will take place from Sunday, June 13th to Thursday, June 17th. Only players who have graduated from high school are eligible, and playtesting will make players ineligible to play NASAT mirrors. I’ll send out more details about the exact playtesting schedule closer to the week o...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Fri Apr 30, 2021 11:34 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NASAT 2021 - Looking for a Religion Editor [Filled]
Replies: 1
Views: 1581

NASAT 2021 - Looking for a Religion Editor [Filled]

Hey all, I’m searching for a religion editor for NASAT 2021 (due mid-June) after our previous editor stepped down. This will be a 1/1 commitment. Applicants must be at least 18 years old, graduated from college, and can't be from California. If you’re interested please either dm me (here, messenger ...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Fri Apr 09, 2021 1:10 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 ACF Nationals Qualifier Discussion Thread
Replies: 5
Views: 3795

Re: 2021 ACF Nationals Qualifier Discussion Thread

To Will's point, I thought the variance at this tournament probably actually had some effects on the results just because of how pronounced the cross category variance was, even if everyone played the same set. Looking at the bonus where supersonic flow is the easy with no reasonably easy clues foll...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Tue Feb 16, 2021 10:29 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 ACF Nationals Qualifier
Replies: 19
Views: 11268

Re: 2021 ACF Nationals Qualifier

Will there be Pop Culture questions at this tournament? And if so, who will be editing them (and/or the CE and geography)?
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Tue Feb 02, 2021 7:00 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2021 ACF Regionals - General Discussion & Thanks
Replies: 8
Views: 4230

Re: 2021 ACF Regionals - General Discussion & Thanks

I think this tournament did a great job of hitting a really reasonable difficulty for the regionals difficulty slot, and I hope future regs level tournaments trend towards this difficulty. There were a lot of fun ideas that you can't pull off at easier difficulties, while not being punishing at all ...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Tue Dec 01, 2020 6:00 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 FLopen - Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 55
Views: 19265

Re: Specific Question Discussion

Oh, I was referring to the line "Algorithms that step down Gaussian pyramids, applying the Lucas–Kanade (“kah-NAH-dey”) algorithm at each step, can estimate this process at large scales." - I see now its referring to something about optical flow, but the stepping down Gaussian pyramids an...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Tue Dec 01, 2020 4:47 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 FLopen - Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 55
Views: 19265

Re: Specific Question Discussion

Can I the computer science tu on motion? I remember buzzing on what I think is a clue about sift and not knowing what to say, then negging with feature transforms (which I think should be promptable?) Note to moderators: please read the answer line carefully before reading the question. 4. Descript...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Tue Dec 01, 2020 3:58 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 FLopen - Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 55
Views: 19265

Re: Specific Question Discussion

Can I the computer science tu on motion? I remember buzzing on what I think is a clue about sift and not knowing what to say, then negging with feature transforms (which I think should be promptable?)
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Mon Nov 09, 2020 1:26 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 ACF Winter - General Discussion and Thanks
Replies: 38
Views: 11719

Re: 2020 ACF Winter - General Discussion and Thanks

My main concern with the set involved its answerlines, many of which were long and complex but did not address answers that a knowledgeable player might reasonably give. Often the answerline listed a lot of synonyms & related terms to the main answer, but didn't take the important step of consi...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Sun Nov 08, 2020 2:29 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 ACF Winter at UMD (11/7/2020)
Replies: 4
Views: 3645

Re: 2020 ACF Winter at UMD (11/7/2020)

Congratulations to UNC A, who took home both the overall title and the UG title at this tournament, as well as Virginia A, who won the DII title! The top individual scorers were: Ashish Subramanian (DII) - 67.14 Mark Bailey (DII) - 58.57 Nathan Nguyen (UG) - 52.86 Vincent Du (UG) - 50.00 Nitin Rao (...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Thu Nov 05, 2020 6:22 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 ACF Winter at UMD (11/7/2020)
Replies: 4
Views: 3645

Re: 2020 ACF Winter at UMD (11/7/2020)

All teams should be receiving a logistics email shortly - if you don't have one, please contact me and let me know!
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:24 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 ACF Winter at UMD (11/7/2020)
Replies: 4
Views: 3645

Re: 2020 ACF Winter at UMD (11/7/2020)

Two questions: (1) who do we make our check out to? (2) what address do we use to mail the check? If you're planning on paying with check ahead of time, please send me an email; the checks will probably have to go to my personal address, which I don't want to give out publically on the forums. Othe...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Mon Oct 19, 2020 7:16 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 ACF Winter at UMD (11/7/2020)
Replies: 4
Views: 3645

2020 ACF Winter at UMD (11/7/2020)

I am pleased to announce that the Lower Midatlantic site of 2020 ACF Winter will be held at UMD on Saturday, November 7, 2020. The tournament will take place virtually on Discord. The opening meeting will begin at 9:30 and gameplay will begin at 10. I, Vishwa Shanmugam, will be the tournament direct...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Tue Sep 08, 2020 2:29 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Longhorn Invitational Tournament Individual Questions
Replies: 54
Views: 10359

Re: Longhorn Invitational Tournament Individual Questions

-The earthquakes tossup being after the physics tu in its round narrowed the answerspace of the tu dramatically (assuming it was trying to camoflauge itself somewhat as physics; once it was clear it was osci it got a lot easier). Switching the placement of those two questions would help with that I ...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Sun Sep 06, 2020 4:05 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: LIT Mid-Atlantic Mirror @ Discord (9/5/20)
Replies: 55
Views: 22822

Re: LIT Mid-Atlantic Mirror @ Discord (9/5/20)

This tournament really drove home several problems with holding tournaments online. During the tournament, Chase Chiang of Princeton was caught cheating (I have no idea why the final stats don't contain some indication that this occurred). From what I've heard, addressing the cheating situation was...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Sun May 10, 2020 11:14 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: It's Time To D-D-D-D....Duel! (Challenge: Columbia vs. Chicago)
Replies: 49
Views: 17292

Re: It's Time To D-D-D-D....Duel! (Challenge: Columbia vs. Chicago)

well here I thought the Battle City analogy went: Chicago A - Kaiba (obvious analogy: big, intimidating, rich, doesn't need a millennium item to win tournaments because who needs millennium items when you've been playing for a long time and have lots of money to throw at things) Illinois A - Yugi (...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Fri Apr 17, 2020 4:32 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: This Time, A Stern Warning
Replies: 179
Views: 146958

Re: This Time, A Stern Warning

If we are to treat cheating at online tournaments as an existential threat to the quizbowl community, it's really not acceptable to refer to it by a cutesy euphemism. I think in this case "biking" is useful because it refers to a very specific form of cheating, and in this case one that i...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Fri Apr 03, 2020 4:17 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: This Time, A Stern Warning
Replies: 179
Views: 146958

Re: This Time, A Stern Warning

Regarding what Boyd and French are saying: As I mentioned on the Discord, three parties DM'd me after I made this post saying they found the parties in question suspicious. This, along with the other parties who talked to me, suggests A LOT of rumormongering, backchannel accusations, were already b...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Fri Apr 03, 2020 1:47 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: This Time, A Stern Warning
Replies: 179
Views: 146958

Re: This Time, A Stern Warning

(to be clear, this is not posted on behalf of the TO editors or anything - these are just my views) One of the parties involved is suspected of having a long history of cheating on Internet packets, and it’s an “open secret” they’re a Googler for Internet packets. I'm very confused as to how this is...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Wed Mar 25, 2020 1:38 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: The MONTHS TOURNAMENT: "modern reform" play-in round
Replies: 9
Views: 1094

Re: The MONTHS TOURNAMENT: "modern reform" play-in round

I voted for what the first post in the thread told me to
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Mon Mar 23, 2020 2:04 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: A brief, and now concluded, discussion about saving unused sets
Replies: 6
Views: 4127

Re: Nationals Alternatives?

Frankly I think you'd get very, very few sign ups for anything resembling this idea, including from my team. The whole point of nationals is to play against other people in real time. Your suggested format would allow for none of that. Also with regards to national organizations saving their sets f...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Fri Mar 13, 2020 2:58 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: College Nationals and Its Problems
Replies: 132
Views: 54059

Re: College Nationals and Its Problems

Let's not forget that high school nationals (PACE NSC and HSNCT) are able to distinguish between top teams while still allowing the best teams to regularly score above 20 ppb. It's ludicrous to suggest that college nationals cannot have a difficulty that allows for just as many top college teams to...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Thu Mar 05, 2020 5:44 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 Terrapin Open: Packets
Replies: 6
Views: 1636

Re: 2020 Terrapin Open: Packets

Mike Bentley wrote: Thu Mar 05, 2020 4:55 pm Thanks! Did I just miss where the advanced stats link is, or have those not been made public yet?
We've been making use of the detailed stats internally for now. We'll inform you if they become available!
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Mon Mar 02, 2020 10:37 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 Terrapin Open: Packets
Replies: 6
Views: 1636

2020 Terrapin Open: Packets

Sorry for the delay! You can access the first 11 packets (as they were played on 2/22) here: http://minkowski.space/quizbowl/tournaments/2020-02-22-terrapin-open-11-packets.zip The most up-to-date copy (as they were played on 2/29) is here: http://minkowski.space/quizbowl/tournaments/2020-02-29-terr...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Sun Mar 01, 2020 3:24 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 Terrapin Open: Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 43
Views: 8054

Re: 2020 Terrapin Open: Thanks and General Discussion

On that note, why do tournaments of this difficulty produce so many packets? I don't think I've played past packet 11 at any recent open tournament that was not CO. Seems like a waste of effort to me. I believe that, had there been a tie at X-3 at Brown yesterday, 13 would have been available for u...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Sun Mar 01, 2020 12:50 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 Terrapin Open: Thanks and General Discussion
Replies: 43
Views: 8054

Re: 2020 Terrapin Open: Thanks and General Discussion

Beyond the extremely modern skew, the visual arts was very lacking in "meat and potatoes" content - not a lot of deep cuts on easier artists, aside from maybe the silk screen tossup, and a distinct lack of stuff from the Renaissance and Early Modern periods. This, plus the extremely small...
by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island
Wed Feb 26, 2020 3:08 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2020 Terrapin Open: Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 50
Views: 8399

Re: 2020 Terrapin Open: Specific Question Discussion

The Helen tossup in round 1 seems to have been classified as Classical lit, even though all the clues seemed to be American. It was classed as "misc" originally, when it clued from a wider range of things, but eventually all the clues got whittled down to just American and the tag never g...