Search found 210 matches

by yoda4554
Sat Aug 16, 2014 10:30 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Imaginary Landscape no. 2 Discussion
Replies: 5
Views: 5257

Re: Imaginary Landscape no. 2 Discussion

I was very glad that you constructed film composer tossups instead of just tossups on popular films. These were excellent and featured numerous strong clues. Thanks--Jonathan did Herrmann and Zimmer, and I did Goldsmith, Bernstein, and Rosza. This was a fun tournament to come out of retirement from...
by yoda4554
Mon Aug 22, 2011 6:53 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: World Literature and Time-Subdistribution
Replies: 20
Views: 7917

Re: World Literature and Time-Subdistribution

Those are interesting statistics. I gather that the list isn't exhaustive--you picked various quizbowl-prominent authors, not the top x authors in each category? Is it possible to give us a sense of whom quizbowl misses, even if it's not exhaustive? Yes, this is simply a smattering of names that ca...
by yoda4554
Mon Aug 22, 2011 1:19 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: World Literature and Time-Subdistribution
Replies: 20
Views: 7917

Re: World Literature and Time-Subdistribution

I stumbled across this while doing one of my periodic perusals of the board. I've had the same thought at times, particularly when writing lit. singles tournaments. Here's some data, for whatever interest it may provide--the following is a list of hit totals for peer-reviewed articles/books on a num...
by yoda4554
Tue Jun 14, 2011 2:07 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Imaginary Landscape no. 1 Discussion
Replies: 16
Views: 8319

Re: Imaginary Landscape no. 1 Discussion

I'm glad everyone seemed to enjoy the tournament. Hopefully, the questions will be uploaded somewhere soon. As a note, we used Audacity, a freeware sound-editing program, which works pretty well and is easy to use. (For anyone's future reference--amp the volume, a lot.) Incidentally, given that most...
by yoda4554
Tue May 24, 2011 10:15 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Imaginary Landscape no. 1 at HSNCT
Replies: 69
Views: 20610

Re: Imaginary Landscape no. 1 at HSNCT

I just want to say to everyone who might have some interest in this--this is probably the last major thing I'm going to work on quiz-bowl-wise. I think it's probably also the best, from a standpoint of originality and ambition--without exaggeration, I think this is going to be epoch-making. If you'r...
by yoda4554
Wed Feb 09, 2011 10:14 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: talk about individual questions here
Replies: 124
Views: 23962

Re: talk about individual questions here

There was a Greensleeves tossup (in DII) that said that the song was used in the Intermezzo of St. Paul's Suite, which is incorrect as it's actually in the Dargason fourth movement. I buzzed in on that clue and got confused, leading to a neg. I was trying to figure out how this happened--as it turn...
by yoda4554
Fri Oct 23, 2009 1:45 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: A Reasonable Theory of Bonus Consistency
Replies: 23
Views: 7407

Re: A Reasonable Theory of Bonus Consistency

I think something that's been missing from discussions of bonus difficulty is that, given that people often do not learn information in a linear progression from things quizbowl considers "easy" to "difficult" and that all knowledge is not distributed into three homogeneous categ...
by yoda4554
Wed Sep 02, 2009 1:46 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: The Tournament as a Work of Art
Replies: 30
Views: 4597

Re: The Tournament as a Work of Art

No Rules Westbrook wrote:Noone is a visionary because they can perform Twinkle Twinkle Little Star super competently.
Counter-example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71f2fahFhDE
by yoda4554
Tue Aug 11, 2009 11:56 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: CO Lit Discussion
Replies: 49
Views: 11557

Re: CO Lit Discussion

I have a couple more comments. I was very pleased by the lack of silly common link answers in this set, and also liked the modern drama questions on works such as Also, I think there is a bad trend of using unimportant non-poem leadin clues for poet tossups. The tossups on Gerard Manley Hopkins and...
by yoda4554
Wed Jul 29, 2009 5:48 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: CO Lit Discussion
Replies: 49
Views: 11557

Re: CO Lit Discussion

I'm glad people seemed to like this tournament--though I suspect, from reactions, that a lot of that may have just been because it was much more reasonable in answer space than either the CO preceding or either of the two most recent lit tournaments (MO and Slothrop), and not because it was necessar...
by yoda4554
Wed Jul 29, 2009 11:18 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: CO Lit Discussion
Replies: 49
Views: 11557

Re: CO Lit Discussion

This was a pretty enjoyable tournament, with enough of the wacky American lit I like coming up. I don't have the set in front of me right now, but I did feel like specific characters did not appear a lot, for better or for worse. Here's what I see in terms of characters: Frederic Henry, Kristin Lav...
by yoda4554
Tue Jul 28, 2009 4:07 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: CO Lit Discussion
Replies: 49
Views: 11557

Re: CO Lit Discussion

Actually, could someone who has this set (Katy? Matt?) post it? I'm interested in seeing what it finally looked like...
by yoda4554
Tue Jul 28, 2009 9:08 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: CO Lit Discussion
Replies: 49
Views: 11557

CO Lit Discussion

Since the other discussion threads are up, I suppose this should have one too. I think I may make comments later, but I'm curious to know how this finally played out.
by yoda4554
Thu Jul 23, 2009 5:28 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: CO Lit announcement
Replies: 80
Views: 29887

Re: CO Lit announcement

I suppose this post is going to have two functions. As I'm sure will disappoint, but probably not surprise, that many people, this tournament is not done and has quite a ways yet to go. It has a shot at getting done in the next two days if a couple people who are not intending to play get in touch w...
by yoda4554
Mon Jun 01, 2009 7:36 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: NSC 09 question discussion
Replies: 132
Views: 24568

Re: NSC 09 question discussion

Musician questions in the format of __________s by ___________ are very common to the college quizbowl circuit. Is the lack of these in high school what threw people off on that Smetana question? In power, it contained clues about Brandenburgers in Bohemia , The Devil's Wall , and Dalibor , as well...
by yoda4554
Thu Apr 30, 2009 2:31 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: MUT 2009 Discussion
Replies: 51
Views: 7995

Re: MUT 2009 Discussion

There are definitely lots of famous poets who are closely identified with being from New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, to name three off the top of my head; and I'm speaking as a Yankee, so I'm sure a bunch of other people will be able to rattle off a bunch of poets strongly associated with s...
by yoda4554
Mon Apr 20, 2009 12:01 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT: Gaddis Experiment II
Replies: 98
Views: 56342

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: Gaddis Experiment II

I'm probably in for this too.
by yoda4554
Thu Apr 09, 2009 5:39 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2009 ICT discussion
Replies: 173
Views: 28924

Re: 2009 ICT discussion

Thanks to Jeff for posting this tossup. I'd like to contrast this question with a Hegel tossup that I wrote for T-party earlier in this academic year. Augusto Vera worked to popularize this man in France in the 19th century, while an Italian school devoted to him was led by Bertrando Spaventa. Duri...
by yoda4554
Mon Mar 23, 2009 10:20 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: TRASHionals Free Agents
Replies: 3
Views: 1450

Re: TRASHionals Free Agents

EDIT: Decided to get Mets tickets instead, no longer available for this.
by yoda4554
Mon Mar 02, 2009 10:38 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Penn Bowl Discussion
Replies: 41
Views: 8607

Re: Penn Bowl Discussion

Apologies in advance for resurrecting a thread over a month after discussion seems to have died down, but I was recently reminded of a question from the set that puzzled me: the tossup on "golden apples." The part that puzzled me was the second sentence, which reads "Three of these w...
by yoda4554
Mon Mar 02, 2009 12:28 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals Discussion Thread
Replies: 121
Views: 21278

Re: ACF Regionals Discussion Thread

I understand that it doesn't come up frequently in Quizbowl, but I think this is a case where its Quizbowl commonality is at odds with its academic importance, and I believe that in such cases we should try to bring the two closer together. Perhaps tossing it up at Regionals isn't the best way to d...
by yoda4554
Mon Feb 16, 2009 9:35 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Science Non-Strosity: Discussion (mid-Atlantic: STAY AWAY)
Replies: 16
Views: 3329

Re: Science Non-Strosity: Discussion (mid-Atlantic: STAY AWAY)

the other was on that paper that Alan Sokal sent to Social Text that was basically a bunch of garbage about cultural relativism in physics or something, where I figured that there was no way in hell that people were going to pull the name of the paper but it didn't seem right to keep using "th...
by yoda4554
Sun Feb 08, 2009 9:23 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: SCT Private Discussion Forum
Replies: 129
Views: 22681

Re: SCT Private Discussion Forum

I'm there.
by yoda4554
Sun Feb 08, 2009 2:38 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement
Replies: 47
Views: 12083

Re: TRASHionals XII: Preliminary Field Announcement

For any attending teams--I'm going to declare myself an available free agent for this, so if you have an extra spot, I'm happy to go. Email is my first name dot my last name at gmail.
by yoda4554
Fri Feb 06, 2009 2:29 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Cancelled: SNAPPLE LEMON ICED TEA - Princeton University
Replies: 19
Views: 6476

Re: SNAPPLE LEMON ICED TEA - Princeton University - 3/29/09

Hey, I'm tentatively interested in this, if anyone wants a free agent or something.
by yoda4554
Wed Jan 21, 2009 11:22 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: leaving tournaments early part II: the revenge
Replies: 64
Views: 11509

Re: leaving tournaments early part II: the revenge

I'm going to second Mike, and I think he's being conservative--in my recent experience, 14 rounds tends to take the tournament past 8:00. I don't think I'm alone in saying that my enjoyment of a regular quiz bowl tournament starts dropping pretty quickly after 6:00, and turns into active displeasure...
by yoda4554
Mon Jan 19, 2009 1:30 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Announcement: Penn Bowl 2009 (1/24/2009), Phila., PA
Replies: 46
Views: 19392

Re: Announcement: Penn Bowl 2009 (1/24/2009), Phila., PA

Might I ask what the projected schedule is for the main site? Are two house teams going to be created so that we do two 13-team brackets for a prelim round-robin then break up for further playoff rounds (eek), or is there going to be some scheduling wizardry whereby we have, like, 4 brackets of 6 pl...
by yoda4554
Tue Dec 23, 2008 7:57 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Penn Bowl Trash?
Replies: 18
Views: 4611

Re: Penn Bowl Trash?

So Brice Russ and I, it seems, are going to be playing as a team at this. Anyone else want in as our other two?
by yoda4554
Fri Dec 19, 2008 5:17 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Penn Bowl Trash?
Replies: 18
Views: 4611

Re: Penn Bowl Trash?

I would like to play at this tournament, and I'm pretty sure that all of my teammates from the previous day do not want to join me. Thus, I declare myself a free agent for this and will accept any offer to join an existing team or to play with whatever other free agents might exist for this. Email m...
by yoda4554
Wed Dec 17, 2008 1:37 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: IS Sets, A Sets, and Timers
Replies: 27
Views: 5837

Re: IS Sets, A Sets, and Timers

I have found that, in the typical twelve-ish round college tournament, timed tournaments tend to finish, on average, about two-four hours faster than untimed. Every SCT I have attended in recent years has gotten out well before 5:00, and just every mACF has ended well after 6:00, frequently after 7...
by yoda4554
Wed Dec 17, 2008 10:03 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: IS Sets, A Sets, and Timers
Replies: 27
Views: 5837

Re: IS Sets, A Sets, and Timers

Why are few tournaments timed? We've only been to two (TJ Fall and RM last May) and i LOVED them... it's so efficient and fast-paced and for me personally way more fun to read as well. Other than a lack of timers, i don't know why more tournaments aren't timed rounds. Well, timed tournaments may no...
by yoda4554
Wed Dec 17, 2008 9:57 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Should teams be required to use this board for their events?
Replies: 10
Views: 2502

Re: Should teams be required to use this board for their events?

When I asked TDs to post announcements here for Fall, no one was resistant. Some people are behind the times in their understanding of how quizbowl announces itself on the internet (Yahoo!, anyone?), but for the most part, I think that programs that neglect to post here do so out of a lack of infor...
by yoda4554
Mon Dec 15, 2008 10:54 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Improving Bonus Conversion
Replies: 25
Views: 4182

Re: Improving Bonus Conversion

For what it's worth, I think Akutagawa's probably askable. The whole Rashomon-movie based not on Rashomon-short-story but rather In a Grove is getting to be well known enough that it'll come up. I could be wrong. Well, the movie's based on both short stories. "Rashomon" provides the frame...
by yoda4554
Thu Dec 11, 2008 11:19 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: HSAPQ Fall 2008 ACF Set #2 Discussion
Replies: 44
Views: 8766

Re: HSAPQ Fall 2008 Sample Packet Discussion

I have a few objections about the Messiah tossup. First of all, it includes a lot of trivial information (libretto by, conducted by) and very few actual names. Also, "Comfort ye, my people" and "Ev'ry valley shall be exalted" are in fact the first two works after the overture bu...
by yoda4554
Wed Dec 10, 2008 8:02 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Penn Bowl Trash?
Replies: 18
Views: 4611

Re: Penn Bowl Trash?

Is this ever going to be officially announced? I would like to play if it happens, but I'd have to assemble a team and all to do so, and would like to start looking into that.
by yoda4554
Wed Dec 10, 2008 11:31 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: MO Lit packets and discussion
Replies: 52
Views: 9200

Re: MO Lit packets and discussion

Questions like the prefaces of Henry James won't make good questions and probably lead to confused buzzer races as it did in my room. The leadin mentioned the second to last of these essays...and what really is a shame about a tossup on this is that even if you have read that particular essay, (dou...
by yoda4554
Tue Dec 09, 2008 11:34 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Harvard T-Party Discussion
Replies: 61
Views: 10124

Re: Harvard T-Party Discussion

Perhaps my perspective is thirty years out of date (it almost inevitably is, since my mom got her masters nearly thirty years ago, and most of my opinion about literature are influenced by her), but I still believe in close reading, the principle that a text should exist independent of its author, ...
by yoda4554
Tue Dec 09, 2008 11:17 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: MO Lit packets and discussion
Replies: 52
Views: 9200

Re: MO Lit packets and discussion

Even with what you had, there were some tossups that I think could have used better giveaways - the Don Juan tossup really sticks about because as I remember it, it ended with a clue about him going to hell, but nothing else in the question really screamed "Don Juan" (say, the Byron poem ...
by yoda4554
Fri Nov 28, 2008 1:16 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Bad Negs Again
Replies: 494
Views: 113915

Re: Bad Negs Again

Oh, I just thought it was a dumb mistake on my part It was a misstep, but one that's nevertheless clearly a correct response. TAKE THAT, NAQT. I believe that standard ACF (don't recall NAQT) rules say that if you answer in English for a title that is originally in a foreign language, you have to us...
by yoda4554
Fri Nov 14, 2008 11:12 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Penn Bowl Trash?
Replies: 18
Views: 4611

Re: Penn Bowl Trash?

I would be at the Penn Bowl site, and I am interested in playing.
by yoda4554
Sun Nov 09, 2008 11:22 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Fall discussion
Replies: 133
Views: 22664

Re: ACF Fall discussion (don't read, players at U Wash. site)

HKirsch wrote:Obviously, I wasn't playing, but I thought these were good, well-edited questions. I did note an error in one question (Sethe does not drown Beloved, she cuts her throat, I think), but it didn't really affect the bonus it was part of.
IIRC, she beats her to death against a post in the shed, no?
by yoda4554
Sat Nov 01, 2008 10:12 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Non-question-specific criticisms of IS-80A
Replies: 253
Views: 35841

Re: Non-question-specific criticisms of IS-80A

Well, maybe, but that is in fact the entire crux of the novel from my understanding of its plot. No it's not, really, so let's let this whole thing end with us not writing Stendhal tossups for ninth-graders touching the buzzer for the first time and, if we do write on Stendhal for high-schoolers, h...
by yoda4554
Fri Oct 31, 2008 8:34 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: On Writing for NAQT
Replies: 9
Views: 2540

On Writing for NAQT

Over the past few years, there have been a number of people who have spoken ill of writing for NAQT, ranging from very inexperienced players who do not write much at all, much less for NAQT, to people who have decided to write for other companies, to people who have written thousands of questions fo...
by yoda4554
Fri Oct 31, 2008 6:54 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Non-question-specific criticisms of IS-80A
Replies: 253
Views: 35841

Re: Non-question-specific criticisms of IS-80A

Even though I used the word outbuzzed, my intention is more about the fact of knowledge in itself. I'm no Schopenhauer fanatic, but I'm willing to wager "four objects of knowledge" is more obscure than On the Basis of Morality. And on another note as illustrated earlier: this is a questio...
by yoda4554
Fri Oct 24, 2008 10:49 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Interest in Feb tourney @ Columbia?
Replies: 23
Views: 3270

Re: Interest in Feb tourney @ Columbia?

I'll probably show up to play or moderate, depending.
by yoda4554
Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:17 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Pilatus Discussion
Replies: 15
Views: 2832

Pilatus Discussion

So, while Colin recovers from his weekend, I figured I'd start a thread for the discussion of this, while it's fresh in everyone's minds. While Colin did all the editing, I'm responsible for the originals of a large amount of the pre-1990 film (and a fair chunk of the pre-1990 in many categories, I ...
by yoda4554
Mon Oct 20, 2008 12:51 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: MO Trash: The Rob Pilatus Memorial Tournament - 10.19.08
Replies: 80
Views: 17734

Re: MO Trash: The Rob Pilatus Memorial Tournament - 10.19.08

So what actually ended up happening here?
by yoda4554
Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:08 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: PrelimAnnouncement: MIT Mirror of Minnesota Open (10/18/08)
Replies: 45
Views: 17542

Re: PrelimAnnouncement: MIT Mirror of Minnesota Open (10/18/08)

Not to be repetitive, but I'm interested in how the lit. singles went here, as well, particularly as I'd thought about coming up for it.
by yoda4554
Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:57 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Annct: 10/18 MO Saturday Night Lit Tournament: An Encounter
Replies: 65
Views: 21118

Re: Annct: 10/18 MO Saturday Night Lit Tournament: An Encounter

I'm curious what happened with this and how it turned out...