Search found 862 matches

by Sir Thopas
Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:51 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals at Brown University (2/23/13)
Replies: 30
Views: 21578

Re: ACF Regionals at Brown University (2/23/13)

If you're sticking around Saturday night, you should definitely come to the ACF Regionals afterparty! Hosted by Dan Klein and Allison Smith with special guest Jerry Vinokurov.
by Sir Thopas
Mon Nov 12, 2012 7:42 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: QUARK @ Brown (12/1/12)
Replies: 10
Views: 4976

Re: QUARK @ Brown (12/1/12)

RyuAqua wrote:(Just to make sure I'm reading right: Does "[email protected]", no last name, redirect to your email too?)
Yes. Isn't it awesome?
by Sir Thopas
Mon Nov 12, 2012 6:46 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Eyes That Do Not See IV @ Minnesota Open 2012
Replies: 22
Views: 11396

Re: Eyes That Do Not See IV @ Minnesota Open 2012

gyre and gimble wrote:These just straight-up are, by far, my favorite events every year. Speaking of which, I'd like to mirror it at the next New England tournament, which may or may not be QUARK on Dec. 1.
Yeah, I'd love for us to be able to do this.
by Sir Thopas
Mon Nov 12, 2012 6:28 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: QUARK @ Brown (12/1/12)
Replies: 10
Views: 4976

QUARK @ Brown (12/1/12)

Brown will be hosting a delayed mirror of U Mich's QUARK tournament on Saturday, December 1, 2012. The tournament will be held in J. Walter Wilson (NOT Wilson Hall). Registration will begin at 8:30, and we'll aim to start the tournament around 9:15. To register, please email me: my first name at bro...
by Sir Thopas
Fri Jul 27, 2012 10:37 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: How far can a blitz/creator-creation answer go?
Replies: 6
Views: 2513

Re: How far can a blitz/creator-creation answer go?

As long as all that information's correct, I see no problem with that.
by Sir Thopas
Sun Jul 08, 2012 4:50 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Is QuizBowl an inherent "con" of knowledge?
Replies: 26
Views: 18471

Re: Is QuizBowl an inherent "con" of knowledge?

On the other hand, if you spend an hour writing an excellent, well-research, pyramidal tossup by consulting several sources, then not only will you know the clues that you use, you will also know stuff about the wider context of why the thing in question is worth asking. You don't have to /get/ the...
by Sir Thopas
Sun Jul 08, 2012 4:35 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Is QuizBowl an inherent "con" of knowledge?
Replies: 26
Views: 18471

Re: Is QuizBowl an inherent "con" of knowledge?

On the other hand, if you spend an hour writing an excellent, well-research, pyramidal tossup by consulting several sources, then not only will you know the clues that you use, you will also know stuff about the wider context of why the thing in question is worth asking. You don't have to /get/ the...
by Sir Thopas
Sun Jul 08, 2012 12:47 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Is QuizBowl an inherent "con" of knowledge?
Replies: 26
Views: 18471

Re: Is QuizBowl an inherent "con" of knowledge?

You'll learn stuff for quizbowl and you'll follow your own deep intellectual pursuits. You'll soon realize that each isn't all that helpful for the other. Also: people who have deep knowledge of things can tell when they're speaking to people who have shallow knowledge of things. Don't sweat it.
by Sir Thopas
Tue Apr 10, 2012 6:00 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Free Disney Vanity Packet
Replies: 4
Views: 2985

Re: Free Disney Vanity Packet

Whoa, I had no idea That Darn Cat! was a remake.
by Sir Thopas
Tue Mar 06, 2012 3:44 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Quizbowl internship for summer 2012
Replies: 33
Views: 10462

Re: Quizbowl internship for summer 2012

grapesmoker wrote:
Sir Thopas wrote:May 14th?!
Does this date hold some special significance I'm not aware of?
No, just who the hell is out of school by May 14th?
by Sir Thopas
Tue Mar 06, 2012 3:36 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Quizbowl internship for summer 2012
Replies: 33
Views: 10462

Re: Quizbowl internship for summer 2012

May 14th?!
by Sir Thopas
Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:35 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Peaceful Resolution Discussion
Replies: 210
Views: 72522

Re: Peaceful Resolution Discussion

Act of Union - I don't know a ton about this, but I was not anywhere close until the giveaway. I'd have to see the tossup to offer more precise criticism. There was a clue in the middle about how it was partially caused by the failure of the Darién Scheme, which I thought was a good clue (in its ow...
by Sir Thopas
Sun Mar 04, 2012 3:53 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Beyond the canon...
Replies: 96
Views: 17907

Re: Beyond the canon...

Ulster Clay Pigeon Shooting Association wrote:But Byzantine history is something that I doubt anyone has a burning desire to learn more about anyways.
Speak for yourself!
by Sir Thopas
Sun Feb 26, 2012 3:45 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Peaceful Resolution Mirror at Harvard (3/3/2012)
Replies: 19
Views: 7367

Re: Peaceful Resolution Mirror at Harvard (3/3/2012)

Brown will probably send a team to this.
by Sir Thopas
Fri Feb 24, 2012 2:44 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion
Replies: 119
Views: 45844

Re: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion

aaaaaaaagh, please stop using "wom{a,e}n" as an adjective The construction "women NOUNs" appears 1484 times in the British National Corpus, about 5% of all uses of the word "women". It's perfectly cromulent. Yes, but that doesn't make it not awkward-sounding, or not a ...
by Sir Thopas
Fri Feb 24, 2012 1:51 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion
Replies: 119
Views: 45844

Re: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion

aaaaaaaagh, please stop using "wom{a,e}n" as an adjective The construction "women NOUNs" appears 1484 times in the British National Corpus, about 5% of all uses of the word "women". It's perfectly cromulent. Yes, but that doesn't make it not awkward-sounding, or not a ...
by Sir Thopas
Fri Feb 24, 2012 1:42 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion
Replies: 119
Views: 45844

Re: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion

Ukonvasara wrote:aaaaaaaagh, please stop using "wom{a,e}n" as an adjective
The construction "women NOUNs" appears 1484 times in the British National Corpus, about 5% of all uses of the word "women". It's perfectly cromulent.
by Sir Thopas
Thu Feb 23, 2012 11:51 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion
Replies: 119
Views: 45844

Re: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion

Okay, this is admittedly way better than what I originally submitted (in my defense, it was like the 10th question I'd written ever), but the lead-in seems to me to be a little transparent/fraudable. (I didn't write that clue, I wrote most of the stuff from "this body" on). If you know a ...
by Sir Thopas
Mon Feb 20, 2012 4:04 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion
Replies: 119
Views: 45844

Re: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion

I got the strange impression while playing this tournament that there was a significant excess of tossups on people in categories like philosophy/SS than there were on works or concepts; I'd be happy to be proven wrong, though. In the same vein, there seemed to be a very reduced number of common-li...
by Sir Thopas
Mon Feb 20, 2012 12:55 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Repeated Toss-Up Answer Lines in a Set
Replies: 14
Views: 5205

Re: Repeated Toss-Up Answer Lines in a Set

Ah--so the Alexander questions were of different categories (like one was, what--art? Or literature?). I didn't see that specified in the ACF Regionals thread. However, a quick re-scan shows that one of the Alex questions was a bonus part, so I already have no beef. Again, I was just curious that i...
by Sir Thopas
Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:25 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion
Replies: 119
Views: 45844

Re: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion

Because it's an expectation that exists in the field? Like, maybe we should just do more to disabuse people of that assumption, but we shouldn't just say "FUCK THEM IF THEY DON'T KNOW HOW ACF WORKS," because that's not a strategy that will get a lot of new teams coming back. Not that I'm ...
by Sir Thopas
Mon Feb 20, 2012 1:22 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion
Replies: 119
Views: 45844

Re: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion

What is it like to be a Batman? wrote:But having two questions on the Macedonian ruler and military leader Alexander in the same set seems like it might confuse people with an expectation that things are going to be asked about once.
Again, I don't see why that's an assumption that needs catering to.
by Sir Thopas
Sun Feb 19, 2012 10:21 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion
Replies: 119
Views: 45844

Re: ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion

There were weird things that came about due to the head editor not removing duplicate answer lines, like two tossups on "time" in consecutive rounds (one in computer science and one in philosophy), plus another physics TU on "time reversal" later. I see absolutely nothing wrong ...
by Sir Thopas
Mon Feb 06, 2012 12:46 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2012 SCT individual question discussion
Replies: 114
Views: 24026

Re: talk about individual questions here

At ASU, we only played the first 9 packets. Three tossups stick out in my mind from the SCT set: 1) "Indo-European" (language family) really screwed with the minds of both ASU teams, we were all sitting there thinking "it can't be that easy? surely at this level 'language family' *do...
by Sir Thopas
Mon Feb 06, 2012 12:16 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2012 SCT individual question discussion
Replies: 114
Views: 24026

Re: talk about individual questions here

At ASU, we only played the first 9 packets. Three tossups stick out in my mind from the SCT set: 1) "Indo-European" (language family) really screwed with the minds of both ASU teams, we were all sitting there thinking "it can't be that easy? surely at this level 'language family' *do...
by Sir Thopas
Sun Feb 05, 2012 2:06 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2012 SCT individual question discussion
Replies: 114
Views: 24026

Re: talk about individual questions here

The Indo-European question would probably benefit from some kind of prompt/anti-prompt, as well as one of those little explanations you sometimes get in answer lines. The first answer given in my room was either "Slavic" or "Balto-Slavic"; I forget which. I hesitated because I t...
by Sir Thopas
Wed Aug 24, 2011 2:42 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: World Literature and Time-Subdistribution
Replies: 20
Views: 7917

Re: World Literature and Time-Subdistribution

Other lists of neglected books that I found interesting are critic James Wood's list of the best books since 1945 (http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar/2009/02/james-woods-best-books-since-1945-circa-1994.html) and the New York Review of Books' Classics (http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classic...
by Sir Thopas
Thu Aug 11, 2011 11:58 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Preseason Predictions Thread
Replies: 29
Views: 7044

Re: Preseason Predictions Thread

Cheynem wrote:I was ranking Harvard on the low end mainly because I didn't take into account incoming freshmen in many cases. I was probably overestimating Brown as well (I thought Dan Klein was still there also).
Dan will still be there, although the loss of Aaron will certainly hit us hard.
by Sir Thopas
Sat Aug 06, 2011 7:53 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Chicago Open 2011 Discussion Thread
Replies: 32
Views: 7205

Re: Chicago Open 2011 Discussion Thread

I'm just wondering, since it seems that linguistics is the category that whooshes over players' heads the most, if there are simpler concepts from the field that could usher in knowledge of important things like optimality theory? In other words, does that theory inform some larger concept that cou...
by Sir Thopas
Sat Aug 06, 2011 6:38 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Chicago Open 2011 Discussion Thread
Replies: 32
Views: 7205

Re: Chicago Open 2011 Discussion Thread

women, fire and dangerous things wrote:Thanks, Guy Tabachnick (presumably), for that tossup on OT constraints!
No problem. I don't think anyone actually got it, sadly, but It's Important! (TM)
by Sir Thopas
Tue Aug 02, 2011 10:06 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Stop using so many goddamn clues about Finnish composers
Replies: 17
Views: 5876

Re: Stop using so many goddamn clues about Finnish composers

Blanford's Fringe-fingered Lizard wrote:Oddly enough, I've encountered Salonen outside of quizbowl before, since NPR seems to love plsying him.
That's not odd at all; he's Important in the real world!
by Sir Thopas
Thu Jul 28, 2011 11:57 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: transportation tomorrow
Replies: 1
Views: 1223

Re: transportation tomorrow

If I may piggyback on this: I'll be staying in Streeterville, and I'd greatly appreciate it if I could get a ride back at night (and possibly even in the morning, although this is less of a concern) if it's not too far out of the way for someone. I would gladly trade such service for, say, lunch on ...
by Sir Thopas
Fri Jul 15, 2011 11:16 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: CO Matchmaking
Replies: 54
Views: 13579

Re: CO Matchmaking

Not sure if this is a good thread for this, but I'm looking for a trash team to join or assemble.
by Sir Thopas
Wed Jun 08, 2011 7:02 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2011 HSNCT discussion
Replies: 214
Views: 50294

Re: 2011 HSNCT discussion

Much of this nation's southern border lies along the Panj River. Khorugh, the capital of its autonomous province of Gorno-Badakhshan, lies on the (*) Pamir Highway, and the Anzob Tunnel connects its second-most populous city, Khujand, with its capital. The western end of the Ferghana Valley lies in...
by Sir Thopas
Mon Jun 06, 2011 9:35 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2011 NSC: Tournament Logistic Discussion (not the set)
Replies: 62
Views: 23248

Re: 2011 NSC: Tournament Logistic Discussion (not the set)

other people in PACE are insisting, crazily enough, that everything went fine and that the tournament only ran twelve minutes late Dude, nobody said this. However, what will really keep teams from returning to this tournament in the future is the crazy lack of seriousness demonstrated by things lik...
by Sir Thopas
Mon Jun 06, 2011 9:33 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2011 NSC Question Set Discussion
Replies: 82
Views: 18238

Re: 2011 NSC Question Set Discussion

I edited (and wrote a fair amount of) the arts for this tournament, based on the following distribution: PAINTING 6/6 before 1550 6/6 1550—1750 5/5 1750—1900 3/3 after 1900 5/5 leeway MUSIC 3/3 before 1750 7/7 1750—1880 7/7 1880—1940 3/3 after 1940 5/5 leeway OTHER ARTS 7/7 opera 2/2 jazz 2/2 dance ...
by Sir Thopas
Mon Jun 06, 2011 12:32 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2011 PACE NSC Tournament Format
Replies: 96
Views: 22433

Re: 2011 PACE NSC Tournament Format

Given that we sat in a room for like 45 minutes waiting for our game to start, after the tournament had already started round 1 incredibly late, and given that our prelim bracket basically got a whole round behind off the bat in round 1, leading the ridiculously long lunchbreak and tiebreaker to go...
by Sir Thopas
Sun Jun 05, 2011 10:09 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2011 PACE NSC Tournament Format
Replies: 96
Views: 22433

Re: 2011 PACE NSC Tournament Format

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is going to result in a disaster. Assuming as it seems that the preliminary stage is ten groups of six, with top 2 plus 4 wildcards moving on to the top tier, you have the not-at-all-unlikely possibility of a team playing two minigames to determine their p...
by Sir Thopas
Mon May 23, 2011 8:41 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Imaginary Landscape no. 1 at HSNCT
Replies: 69
Views: 20610

Re: Imaginary Landscape no. 1 at HSNCT

Here's a quick field update: 1) Charlie Dees 2) Saul Hankin 3) Adil Khan 4) Max Schindler 5) Zev Kane 6) Haohang Xu. I know more people want to play this, so let me know if you do by emailing me or posting in this thread. If you would like to moderate, please also email me or post here. Also, since...
by Sir Thopas
Wed Apr 20, 2011 9:58 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: American History Packet
Replies: 41
Views: 10453

Re: American History Packet

Sure, I'll take it, thanks.
by Sir Thopas
Mon Apr 18, 2011 1:06 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Nationals 2011 thanks and discussion
Replies: 88
Views: 34633

Re: ACF Nationals 2011 thanks and discussion

I'd appreciate any feedback on the linguistics, which I wrote/edited. Might as well jump into the arcana nobody cares about. I thought the linguistics was spread out nicely among various subfields (not counting the unused pragmatics tossup I wrote, I can think of one phonology, one syntax, one hist...
by Sir Thopas
Thu Apr 14, 2011 8:05 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion
Replies: 150
Views: 30396

Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

We didn't hear the other linguistics tossup (bilingualism), but if we had I might have negged it with diglossia on the first clue. Fishman is known for his writings on diglossia, which he indeed characterizes in terms of domains. Not possible; this tossup had an "accept diglossia early" c...
by Sir Thopas
Mon Apr 11, 2011 8:34 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: comment on my work
Replies: 27
Views: 6776

Re: comment on my work

I think there are much better clues for Cauchy than your choice for the second clue. I've never heard of Cours d'Analyse , I don't think it's mentioned much if at all in a standard mathematics curriculum. That book's super-duper important, I've read it was a standard textbook for like a century and...
by Sir Thopas
Tue Apr 05, 2011 3:34 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: MUT Mirror 4/2 @ NGCSU
Replies: 165
Views: 67048

Re: MUT Mirror 4/2 @ NGCSU

DarkMatter wrote: The teams may have known about the tiebreaker in advance though
This would surprise me somewhat.
by Sir Thopas
Sat Apr 02, 2011 11:25 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: MUT Mirror 4/2 @ NGCSU
Replies: 165
Views: 67048

Re: MUT Mirror 4/2 @ NGCSU

I really do wish to see how our stat is made-up nonsense. Since it's a round robin, every team plays all the same opponents, excepting itself. Should a team be rewarded for playing an opponent who played better than they normally did? I don't see why. Should a team be rewarded for playing worse tha...
by Sir Thopas
Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:09 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Illinois Open Discussion
Replies: 79
Views: 23796

Re: Illinois Open Discussion

minusfive wrote:Also, my understanding is that Hungarian names are surname first, which does not appear to have been done.
You're correct, of course, but it shouldn't matter because names in either order should always be accepted no matter the culture.
by Sir Thopas
Tue Mar 22, 2011 10:52 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: More variety in tournaments?
Replies: 6
Views: 1705

Re: More variety in tournaments?

Why can't we write on good new things that people know instead of bad new things that people don't know?
by Sir Thopas
Tue Mar 22, 2011 12:41 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Illinois Open Discussion
Replies: 79
Views: 23796

Re: Illinois Open Discussion

Ferenc Deak's first name is concealed to prevent linguistic fraud, which is ok, but the problem is that I'm almost certain that every moderator read that as "Deek" and not "Dee-ak" so now I'm trying to come up with some dude named Deek who only has one name? Yeah. A side note: t...
by Sir Thopas
Sun Feb 27, 2011 10:18 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: A Quizbowl Style Guide
Replies: 23
Views: 4720

Re: A Quizbowl Style Guide

Hey let's spend infinity time arguing about pointless bullshit which is how these threads always progress because apparently people can't live with someone using one synonym rather than another synonym. Here's a piece of metacritique: stop passing off your preferences as objective fact. You like th...
by Sir Thopas
Sun Feb 27, 2011 9:12 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: A Quizbowl Style Guide
Replies: 23
Views: 4720

Re: A Quizbowl Style Guide

I really have no idea what advantages there are to using "identify" over "name." Jerry mentions that it gives players an extra beat, but you're almost always using it the form "For 10 points, name/identify this [category of person or thing] that [giveaway clue]." The w...